It was Mourad’s flambé coming to fruition. He was tossing it while it sizzled then added more Armagnac.
Julian returned his attention to Sabrina. She was saying something to him. He looked up with his head perched at a silly angle and nodded to her. He pretended he understood just to be polite. She took his hands and raised them, then carefully lifted off the python and gently placed it around his neck with the overlapping ends in the crook of his arms.
Julian sagged a little with the weight but thought it was huge fun. He was surprised by the dry skin and warm body. He remembered he’d done this before somewhere. But it didn’t come to him.
Mourad was pushing his trolley to the table. The snake’s head slowly maneuvered itself across the front of Julian’s chest and over his shoulder to wrap a loose coil around his neck. He looked as though he was wearing a large scarf. Sabrina had moved to the front of him and was shimmying her belly as the ornamental ribbons on her wrists rippled through the air gathering speed as she swished her arms to the music.
Nadya had picked up the tempo and was playing feverishly to a well-known Moroccan dance. The python couldn’t see its master, so flicking the tongue, it made its way over Julian’s other shoulder. Sabrina reached out and patted the snakes head then danced out of sight again around behind Julian. The snake followed her, repeating its journey across his chest and over the shoulder. It could see its master again and was contented.
Julian was feeling hot and uncomfortable with the weight of the coils around him. He wanted to dab his forehead but the snake had pinned his arms. His throat was dry. The smell of the flambé had become overpowering. Julian could hear the contents sizzling in the copper pan. As Mourad tossed, smoke belched up in appreciation.
Without him noticing, a fresh martini had been poured. Veronica raised her glass to him. She mimed salut and waited for him to pick up. It looked gorgeous in the frosted glass. Julian grabbed at it. He lifted the drink and leaned forwards. But there was no way he could get it to his lips. The curled hulk around his neck put paid to that. He motioned to Veronica with a wince, but she simply grinned back and sipped hers.
And then the music stopped. Nadya and Sabrina bowed. Veronica clapped and shouted to them,
‘Bravo - bravo.’ Out of her handbag she pulled some paper money, then tossed it on the floor in the traditional way. They nodded gratuitously as they stooped to pick up the ten-pound and twenty-pound notes. Sabrina turned to Julian and held out her hand as a thank you, to signal applause in appreciation for him being such a good sport. With the sagging weight he looked up with difficulty and winced as the four of them clapped and praised him.
Mourad positioned the food trolley near Julian and took out the warm desert plates. As he placed them on the table, he interrupted, ‘Ladiees and a gentlemeen, If you are a ready for your desert? I present to you, Armagnac banana flambé à la Mourad.’ With a match, he lit the long taper and then gingerly held the flame over the sizzling pan with the brandy fumes.
Veronica had moved from her seat to take a photo.
All at once, a large fireball rose up just as the camera on her iPhone flashed. All four of them cheered. Mourad cried out, ‘Walla,’ as he leaned away and tossed the bananas.
The snake constricted in shock. Torn between the flames and the flash, it reared with a loud hiss at Veronica who was nearest. She flinched back with a scream dropping her phone.
‘No, Medusa,’ Sabrina cried out.
A hoarse shout shattered the festivities and all eyes turned on Julian. He was choking. The snake was now hissing at Mourad. The chef backed off and looked at the others in shock.
Julian was gasping,
‘Get it off, fuck sake, I can’t breathe.’
Sabrina approached shouting,
‘Medusa.’
The snake reared and hissed at her, then tightened even more around Julian’s neck. Julian’s fingers dug into the python’s body but it was useless. He was trying to stand up. He was gurgling something incomprehensible. He grabbed at a fork on the table. It was his only chance even though he didn’t have a lot of leverage with his arms. He stabbed at the body and drew blood. The snake whipped round, bit his hand and held on.
Julian was crying in a hoarse-pitched whine. He crashed to the floor. Veronica was screaming out of control. Sabrina picked up the fork shouting,
‘Medusa - Medusa, stop it!.’ She lunged at the snake and stabbed it. It let go of Julian’s hand and went for her again. Sabrina stepped back shouting at it. Julian’s face was turning blue. Blood was coming from his nose and ears. His body was shaking in a fit. Nadya swung her violin against the snake’s coils, but it was useless. As she smacked and smacked, the instrument broke up. All that remained in her hand was the arm with the other half dangling.
Veronica moved closer. She picked up Mourad’s pan and hit out at the snake’s head with the contents of the Armagnac banana flambé spilling over Julian. She caught it heavy, twice. It flinched and hissed. Then, with a third blow, the python collapsed back onto Julian and lay still.
Mourad hadn’t moved. He had stood there rooted to the spot with his mouth open.
Veronica knelt over Julian and felt his wrist for a pulse. She didn’t have to. The face said it all. The staring eyes with the tongue hanging out. She fell to her knees sobbing,
‘Oh, God. What have I done? It’s all my fault.’
Mourad, embarrassed he hadn’t helped, patted her convulsing shoulders in sympathy.
‘I’m a sorry, Meesis Bentley, but I ’ate a snakes,’ he said. ‘They a terrify me.’ Mourad shook his head at the sight before him. He put his fist to his mouth in fear.
Sabrina stooped and touched her snake. But she could see it was dead. She said something softly in Arabic and raised herself up.
Veronica sobbed,
‘God, what are we going to do?’
Mourad, a bit more composed, asserted himself.
‘We ’ave a got to…we ’ave a got to ring the polizia, yes?’ He looked at them for confirmation.
‘Where ’ave you a phone, Meesis Bentley?’
Veronica dabbed her eyes. She picked up her iPhone but the front face was cracked. She swallowed and said shakily,
‘It’s in the hall, Mourad.’
*
‘I’m a so glad you a like my Kefta Mkaouara, Meesis Bentley. I ’ave prepared it special with Mourad’s special sauce, yes?’
The others laughed. Veronica said,
‘Luke, I reckon you do the best meatballs in South London.’
Stacey raised her glass of white, ‘
I’ll second that, they’re delicious. How do you make them?’
‘Ah, they are a Mourad’s secret recipe. I take a simple Burmese dish then a change it slightly to make it more Moroccan.’ He beamed a smile and bowed in his whites and large floppy chef’s hat.
‘So where’s the gold tooth then?’ Said Veronica.
‘Ah, that was care of the joke shop as well as the eyebrows and nose and the incredible hulk outfit underneath,’ he laughed. Luke drew up a chair and sat down with the three of them. ‘What do think of my new business cards?’ He took out a handful and offered them around. ‘No more cleaning boilers for Parsons Limited or running a Moroccan cooking class in that shitty little bedsit of ours for extra money.’ He looked at Jean and smiled. ‘This is the real thing now.’
‘Very swanky, Luke. I like the colour,’ said Stacey.
'You’re still going to call it Mourad’s, then?’ Veronica seemed surprised.
‘Why not,’ Luke replied. ‘The previous owner retired to Tangiers, so I might as well adopt it as my chef name. It’ll keep my costs down as well and save me from having to change the sign outside as well as all the menus, cards and paper. And let’s face it, all the regulars know it as Mourad’s.’
‘Don’t tamper if it works OK,’ Jean said. ‘I was thinking of changing Sabrina back to Delilah some time back. Thought Sabrina was
too westernised. Then I went through the artists listings and found loads of belly dancers called Delilah.’ Jean loaded some more couscous onto her fork. ‘Lost amongst a whole bunch of Delilahs, could’ve been the kiss of death finding work while Luke was inside.’
‘Well, I’ve always been a Stacey. Although that Nadya I chose did have a ring to it. Still, I can’t see me sitting in the BBC Light Orchestra wearing a pink-layered skirt, black-laced corset with matching bandana and those Gypsy earrings. The Conductor would have a fit. He scowls at everyone as it is.’
Monday afternoon was quiet after the lunch time rush. They were sitting in a corner of Mourad’s Moroccan Restaurant, just off Putney High Street. Its stucco brown walls displayed Berber rugs while ornate metal lanterns dangled from the wooden latticed ceiling. Smells of Moroccan bread and mint tea mingled with incense sticks while Chaabi folk music drifted from two speakers.
It was their first meeting after Julian’s terrible accident three months ago. The plan was to keep a low profile until everything had cooled down and was out of the news. Apart from themselves and an elderly couple that were five tables away, the place was empty.
‘So, come on then, Stacye, Luke and I have bought a restaurant,’ said Jean. ‘What are you going to do with your share?’
Julian’s life insurance payout had worked out to two million pounds. Veronica had kept her promise. A quarter of a million each if the plan held up, and it had.
‘A nice holiday first, probably buy myself a pad, but,’ Stacey looked at them seriously. ‘I won’t be investing in hedge funds.’
All four of them laughed, which brought a glance from the elderly couple over in the corner.
‘When you think, that bastard would have probably got rid of me in some way if I hadn’t signed up for that cookery class with you, Luke.’ Veronica took another sip of her wine. ‘What are the odds of having cooking lessons with someone who’s lost all their money in my husband’s hedge fund.’
‘Our savings as well,’ Stacey butted in.
‘Your savings as well,’ Veronica agreed. She looked at Luke. ‘If I hadn’t answered your advert in that cooking magazine, I’d have been none the wiser about my savings either.’
‘You could have knocked me over when I walked in for that boiler service and saw your photo on the kitchen dresser. I was gob smacked.’ They all chuckled. ‘Then your husband accuses me of having an affair with you, and then fits me up with a bribe in front of those security cameras. And within a space of an hour has me involved in a plan to kill you. Do you know, I wasn’t sure whether I was coming or going?’ They all chuckled again.
‘The only one I feel sorry about is your snake,’ Stacey sympathized. ‘Did all the work for us in front of the cameras. Gave us the perfect alibi. Then got its brains bashed out.’
‘Ah, Medusa, I was going to sell her; this just saved me the trouble. Not a lot of love lost there. Never a week went by without getting a nip from her.’
‘Glad you didn’t sell her,’ said Veronica.
‘She was a bit feisty,’ Jean added, ‘especially at flash photography. You could warn the audience, but there was always one prat who wanted a photo.’
They all looked at Veronica and burst out laughing, which brought a glance from the elderly couple again.
‘Well, it did give me the idea,’ Veronica added with a grin, ‘and it worked.’ She took another bite of her meatball. ‘These are so scrummy. Mind you,’ she said looking serious. ‘For a moment there, Jean, I thought you were going down.’
‘Well, the old beak did put paid to my snake dancing,’ Jean replied. ‘With a two-year suspended sentence for reckless manslaughter and banned from using Boa constrictors, I can’t see many snake gigs coming my way. Just the belly dancing now in our restaurant. Still,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I’ll be crying all the way to the bank.’
‘We will, too.’ Luke squeezed Jean’s hand and pecked her cheek.
Lowering her voice, Veronica said, ‘I still can’t understand why anybody would steal a dead snake, especially one that size?’
‘Could be for the skin,’ Jean quickly added. ‘There is a market for that sort of thing. Handbags, shoes, even the meat is a delicacy you know. They freeze and package it in Burma then it goes to fancy hotels and restaurants in Japan.’
‘The police said they’d send a vet round to dispose of it.’ Veronica paused to take a sip of her wine. ‘When I got up the next morning it was gone. Thought it was still alive and crawled away somewhere. I was terrified. There was no sign of a break in.’
‘Oh, that reminds me, Veronica, I completely forgot,’ Luke said sheepishly. He handed over her front door key. ‘I had it all this time and didn’t realize.’
At that moment, on their way out, the elderly couple approached. The wife smiled and asked,
‘Are you, Mourad, the chef?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘We had the Kefta Mkaouara and we’d just like to say the meatballs were delicious. It’s funny, because...we holidayed in Japan last month and had a snake dish that was something similar.’
Veronica looked at Luke, then her lunch.,
‘Oh…My...God!’
The White Room
From the window, Charlotte waved her husband Greg off to work. He waved back. The security bars they’d had put in were a nuisance. Greg didn’t mind, but she thought they blocked some vision. The salesman had assured her they complied with the buildings insurance regulations and were intended more as a deterrent than for their cosmetic value. Everyone in the apartment block was having them fitted, the nice man had said. She had been sure he was flirting with her. Even at 38 years old with her slim, tallish figure and (as an old boyfriend had once complimented her,) Audrey Hepburn looks, she knew she looked attractive.
They’d just had the lounge redecorated. She had wanted powder blue but Greg had twisted her arm and convinced her white would look much better. So, as usual, she had gone along with him.
Charlotte checked her watch,
‘Come on, you two, breakfast is ready!’ she shouted. ‘Hurry up or you’ll be late for school.’
In a blink, they were sitting in front of her. She dished out the toast and cereal.
‘Mark, sit up straight and take your elbows off the table.’ She pushed his arms and Mark gave her one of his stares. Charlotte ignored it. She looked over to her daughter, ‘Lucy, stop slurping your milk, and have you done your homework?’
Lucy nodded with a slice of toast wedged in her mouth.
‘You’ve got your eleven-plus exams next year and I want you both doing well and going to a Grammar School. Not one of those Secondary Modern Schools full of council house kids and left-wing teachers.’
They looked at her glassy-eyed, not quite understanding.
‘Mark, I’ve cleaned your football boots and your kit is washed and ironed, so don’t forget to take it with you.’
Mark wasn’t taking a blind bit of notice and had his eyes focused on the television.
‘Hello, can anybody hear me, it’s your mother talking; do I exist?’ She looked at them both. ‘Obviously not.’
Charlotte heard the sound of the school bus pulling up outside. She yanked them up,
‘Come on, you two, off to school now.’ She helped them into their school blazers and ushered them to the door. The big yellow bus was patiently chugging. Charlotte kissed them both on the head, and then they were gone. She shouted after them,
‘Walk, don’t run,’ then closed the door.
She started putting the plastic cups and plates into the sink. They were always used when she’d forgotten to switch on the dishwasher; that was her excuse anyway.
Charlotte turned to the sound of the telephone. It was her mother as usual, on the dot every morning at 8:40 a.m.
‘Hello, Mother, I knew it was you.’
‘Of course, it’s me. Who else would it be? Unless you was ringing that boyfriend of yours? Gonna sleep
belly to belly with him, was you? Oh! The boys - the boys, she’s discovered boys. The boys come next, like dogs sniffing out a bitch on heat. Like sniffing and slobbering. Trying to find out where that smell is. That smell… Now you pray, my child, bow your head. Ask forgiveness for your sins, or you’ll get the closet again.'
Charlotte dropped to her knees still holding the receiver. Vera, her mother, started chanting down the phone, ‘O Lord, help this sinning girl beside me see the sin of her days and ways. Show her that if she had remained sinless, the curse of blood every month would never have come on her.’
More than once, as well as phoning, Vera had visited Charlotte’s apartment. Always the other side of the street door; waiting, listening, ready to chastise.
In her mind, she was back in the closet. Charlotte whimpered, ‘Let me out, Mama. Oh Mama, I’ve found the way. Jesus came to me, Mama, while I was in here.’
‘You stay in there, girl, till your father comes home, then you’ll get the strap.’
‘Please, Mama, I’ll be good, open the door.’
Charlotte pressed her ear against the receiver and whined, ‘Please, Mama, let me out.’
Expecting, hoping, but nothing. Vera had gone leaving just the dull monotonous purr tone in her head.
She got up from her knees and replaced the receiver. The telephone wire ended abruptly before it reached the wall socket. It wasn’t connected.
Charlotte composed herself and went into Lucy’s room to tidy up. She picked up the stuffed Dalmatian puppy. As she looked through the security bars of Lucy’s bedroom window, she hugged the cuddly toy affectionately.
*
It was nearly 5:30 p.m. Charlotte had made tea for Mark and Lucy. ‘Daddy will be home soon, you two. Finish your homework and you can stay up and play with him for a while.’
They ignored her and stared transfixed at the television. Neighbours was on - their favourite.
From A Poison Pen: A collection of macabre short stories Page 4