by Sue Margolis
“You know,” Grandma Faye chuckled, digging Cyn in the ribs, “if these two ever hit hard times, they could make a fortune giving cooing lessons to turtledoves.”
“You’re just a bitter and twisted old woman,” Barbara broke in, bringing a plate of Marks & Spencer crudités and sour cream dip to the table. “Help yourself, Flick. Don’t be shy.”
“Look,” Faye said to Barbara, “I’m a widow who hasn’t had sex in thirty-nine years and it’s starting to get to me.”
It wasn’t just Faye who thought the world of Flick; the whole family did. Cyn loved her not just because she was jolly and easygoing, but because she was one of the few people she knew who—body image aside—completely lacked any edge or agenda.
In Cyn’s opinion Flick’s only fault—and it wasn’t much of one—was that she had no sense of style. Clotheswise, she nearly always went for rugby shirts over cords. Occasionally, she would vary things with a chunky knit polo neck. She owned several, all in primary colors with a teddy bear or Bart Simpson motif on the front. She clearly felt the need to hide her plumpness behind baggy shirts and humor. Of course, Jonny, who lived in fleeces and tapered-leg Levi’s when he wasn’t at work, neither noticed nor remotely cared.
Their flat, which Flick had decorated herself, was a monument to magnolia. When Cyn tactfully suggested introducing some color, Flick had gone to Peter Jones and bought a couple of washed-out, Holiday Inn–style landscapes and some pale peach silk flowers. Hugh, who had gone to the housewarming party with Cyn, had pronounced it “more neutral than Switzerland.”
The place wasn’t entirely without a stylistic “twist,” however. Flick had decided to “go a bit mad” by introducing a cockerel theme. There were china cockerels on kitchen display shelves, stenciled cockerels on kitchen cupboard doors. There was a cockerel wallpaper border in the living room and even a painted cockerel on the loo lid. Jonny said he was completely in awe of Flick’s home-decorating skills. Cyn said she was, too.
By now Barbara had put the fish cakes in the oven to keep warm and was busy frying chips. Barbara made the best chips: crispy on the outside, exquisitely, mouthwateringly fluffy in the middle.
Gripping the table and letting out a loud “Oooph,” Faye pulled herself off her chair. As she set off to fetch cutlery to lay the table, Cyn noticed how her movements stuttered. It was a few seconds before her legs got going. Twenty years ago she had been buxom and bustling like Barbara. These days her Lycra leggings looked positively baggy. Even so, she hadn’t given up on her appearance. She was wearing green eye shadow and a purple sparkly sweater with eighties shoulder pads, and her hair was as big, blonde and stiff with Elnett extra hold as ever.
Barbara called over to Jonny and asked him to open the wine. “I left the corkscrew on the counter next to the sink.” Jonny got up from the table. “Your dad’ll be down in a minute,” Barbara went on. “He’s upstairs on eBay.” After much soul-searching, Mal had finally decided to sell all his old Beatles and John Lennon records. Since he had them on his iPod, he couldn’t see the point of hanging on to them. “He’s really excited. The bidding’s gone up to over £500.”
Cyn couldn’t help thinking it was a shame. She remembered each one of those LPs and their covers. Her mind went back to when she and Jonny were small and they would sit for hours with Mal in the shed, listening to music. Mal wore flared jeans back then and he still had hair. She remembered how proud he was of his perm. He’d wanted to dye it blonde, but Barbara put her foot down on the grounds that it would make him look like Harpo Marx. She remembered curling up on her dad’s lap while Jonny sat at Mal’s workbench painting his latest Airfix model. Every so often Mal would get up and put another John Lennon LP on the old stereo he kept in the shed. Imagine was his favorite. They all joined in at the Ooh-hoo, hoo-oo-oo bit.
“It’s £550 now, actually,” Mal corrected Barbara as he came in. He went over to the table where Jonny was pouring out the wine. Since he had been downstairs when the others arrived, it was only Cyn he kissed hello. “You look pale. You OK?”
“God, I’ve just had this from Mum. I’m fine, honestly.”
“If you say so. So, has anybody else seen that Smart Car parked outside with an ad for hemorrhoid cream on the door?” His tone was all hammy innocence. It was perfectly obvious that her father knew it was her car.
Jonny instantly reverted to twelve-year-old pest and burst out laughing. “God, your company’s making you advertise arse cream? But I thought they liked you. Talk about giving you the bum’s rush.”
“Jonny, that’s enough,” Barbara scolded. “Stop teasing your sister.”
“They do like me,” Cyn said. “There’s been a huge mix-up, that’s all, and I’m sorting it out.”
“Of course, piles are the final taboo,” Grandma Faye said. “They come to us all in the end. I think it’s wonderful that Cyn is lifting the lid on them and bringing them out into the open for everybody to see.”
“So,” Mal said to Cyn, “moving swiftly on, I read in the paper that your company just got the Sainsbury’s account. You know, you really fell on your feet when you got that job. Talk about the hot place to be.”
“I know.” Cyn smiled, wondering how on earth she would explain it when it got out that she had been sacked by PCW for impersonating Chelsea Roggenfelder.
Mal picked up a carrot stick and dipped it in the sour cream. “You’ll never guess what I just bid for on eBay and got.”
“Omigod. Not more rubbish.” It was Barbara. She was tipping chips out of the wire net onto paper towels. “Mal, we have a wedding to pay for.” Jonny butted in at this point and reminded her that he and Flick had offered to pay for the wedding. Barbara told him he was a good boy, but the cost of the wedding was all taken care of. “Apart from the money,” Barbara carried on at Mal, “you’re turning the house into a junk shop. I’ve got that bit of filthy Concorde tail fin in the spare room gathering dust, along with the chunk of Berlin Wall and two Darth Vader costumes in the living room.”
He made the point that it was all ephemera and would be worth a fortune one of these days. Barbara said she didn’t care what it was or how much it would be worth, she wanted the whole lot moved to the garage.
“So, come on, Dad,” Cyn said, “what have you bought?”
He tucked his T-shirt into his tracksuit bottoms. His sizable paunch meant the jeans were long gone. “An oxygen machine.”
“An oxygen machine,” Barbara repeated. “What? There’s not enough air in Edgware?”
Mal explained that they were all the rage in L.A. “Madonna’s got one. They super-oxygenate the brain so that you think more clearly. They cost three thousand new. This was a snip at seven-fifty.”
“But my friend Sidney Jaffe,” Faye piped up, “you know, with the emphysema—he gets an oxygen cylinder delivered every week for free. I’m sure he’d have let you have a go on it.”
“This is different . . .”
“How can it be different? Oxygen is oxygen.”
At this point Barbara brought a pile of plates to the table and Cyn and Flick went to fetch the fish cakes, chips and bowl of salad.
“OK, let’s forget the oxygen,” Barbara said, passing out plates. Now that the food was cooked, the tension was visibly retreating from her face. “Look, I don’t want to rain on Jonny and Flick’s parade, but I have an announcement to make. Your dad already knows.” Her face broke into a smile.
“Oh, God,” Jonny said in mock horror. “Me and Cyn are going to have a baby brother or sister.”
“Jonny,” Barbara said, handing him a plate, “I know I look good for my age, but I’m sixty-two.”
“I’ve got it,” Cyn laughed, “you’re leaving Dad for Russell Crowe.”
“Wrong again. The only man in my life, apart from your father, is Dr. Atkins, God rest his soul.”
“And if you don’t mind me saying,” Faye said, “I think you should ditch him.”
“Mum, I was a size eighteen last month. Now I’m a sixt
een.”
“Wonderful, so you can die from kidney failure and high cholesterol and be the thinnest woman in the cemetery.”
“Faye, give it a rest,” Mal said. “You know how Barbara struggles with her weight. She’s doing really well.”
“Well, pardon me for caring.”
“Fish cake, anyone?” Flick broke in brightly, sensing the tension and looking distinctly ill at ease. “They look really yummy. I’ll pass them around, shall I?” Flick had been brought up in one of those stiff middle-class families where friction and disapproval were rarely acknowledged and where conversation—particularly over the dinner table—was limited to anything pertaining to hitting balls with various kinds of sticks.
“Come on, it’s OK,” Jonny said, grinning and gently placing a hand on Flick’s arm. “You should know by now, this is just my family letting off steam. It’s nothing terminal.” But his reassurance didn’t stop Flick from leaping up and starting a tour of the table with the plate of fish cakes.
“Just a half of one for me, Flick darling,” Faye said. “Any more disagrees with me.” An eye roll from Barbara. Flick put the plate down on the table and started to cut a fish cake in two. “You know,” the old lady went on, “it’s meant to be healthy for people to let off steam. Cyn told me her therapist calls it ’venting.’ My family never vented. That’s why they all died early of colon disease.”
“OK,” Mal came back. “So, smoking, pollution and eating food packed with toxic chemicals had nothing to do with it. They all died of not arguing.”
“Mal, don’t start,” Barbara muttered.
“Who’s starting?”
“You are. You always have to start.” Barbara cleared her throat and took a deep breath. She was calming herself down, but probably only for Flick’s sake. “Anyway,” Barbara brightened. “Back to our news.” She paused. Then: “Dad and I are taking in a lodger. Well, not so much a lodger as a refugee.” She explained he was from Tagine, a small French-speaking island republic off the coast of West Africa. A couple of years ago there had been a violent military coup. The place was now governed by an oppressive military dictatorship and anybody who dared challenge the regime risked being tortured and shot. “Our refugee is a chap called Laurent Cinnamon. He’s a left-wing activist who was part of the guerrilla group that organized a countercoup a few months ago.”
Jonny said he remembered reading about it in the papers. “It failed and the rebels were executed, weren’t they?”
“Most of them were, but Laurent managed to escape. He arrived in London just over a month ago. He needs somewhere to stay while his asylum request is being processed. We’re expecting him in a week or so.”
“Omigod, an illegal immigrant!” Faye slapped her hand to her chest. “If the neighbors find out they’ll lynch you.”
“He’s not an illegal,” Mal pointed out, letting Flick put two fish cakes on his plate. “He’s doing everything by the book.”
“That’s right,” Barbara said. “And just try and imagine for a moment how he must be feeling. He left his family without having a chance to say good-bye and he’s got no idea when he’ll see them again.”
Jonny asked Barbara what he did for a living. “In Tagine he was a teacher. He wants to retrain here and start a new life.” She helped herself to salad. “You know, I’m really looking forward to him coming. It’s years since I helped anybody or did anything for a good cause. Your dad’s agreed to help him prepare his legal case.”
“But how do you know his story’s true?” Jonny protested. “For all you know he could be lying through his teeth and be part of some slave-trading, drug-smuggling cartel. Dad, I’m not sure you and Mum should be getting into something like this.”
“I have to admit, it does seem a teensy bit risky,” Flick added, licking fish cake batter off her fingers.
Mal explained he had a contact in the Home Office and had managed to see the paperwork relating to Laurent. “I’m satisfied he’s genuine.”
“Well, I think taking in a refugee is a great idea,” Cyn said. “Mum needs a project and it’s been ages since Dad did any legal work. Plus the country is crying out for teachers. I’m really proud of you both.”
“Listen,” Faye said, pulling a fish bone out from between her teeth, “did I ever tell you the story of how my grandfather smuggled himself out of Poland in a milk cart?”
“Yes,” they cried in unison.
Chapter 8
Barbara spent most of Sunday trying to find a suitable wedding caterer. It went like this: she would phone a company, jot down a couple of sample menus and then ring Cyn to get her reaction. It was odd, Cyn thought, that Barbara didn’t phone Flick and Jonny first, but she supposed Barbara didn’t feel as close to Flick as she did to her own daughter, and Jonny, being a bloke, wasn’t likely to have views one way or another on whether sole goujons had had their day.
After Cyn had given her opinion, Barbara would phone Flick. Depending on Flick’s reaction, the company ended up on Barbara’s no list, the maybe list or the definite maybe list.
At one point a dispute arose over salmon and dill Wellington. Barbara thought it was a sensible, safe bet and virtually presented it as a fait accompli. “Nobody ever complains about salmon,” Cyn agreed, but tentatively suggested it sounded a bit run-of-the-mill and maybe they should explore some other possibilities. Barbara then phoned Flick, who said pretty much the same. When Jonny agreed with Cyn and Flick, Barbara got all huffy and defensive and phoned Cyn again. By now Barbara was practically in tears because everybody was criticizing the salmon option without coming up with an alternative. She said she was trying desperately to do her best and felt unappreciated. Cyn was still trying to make her understand that their reservations about the salmon weren’t meant as a criticism and how much everybody loved and appreciated her, when Jonny rang Cyn’s mobile. Soon she had Barbara blubbing in one ear and Jonny in the other saying that Barbara seemed to be losing it, he and Flick were wilting under all the pressure and could Cyn try and persuade their mother to calm down. Somewhere in the middle of all this Mal rang Jonny and only half-jokingly offered him ten thousand quid if he and Flick would elope.
All Cyn had wanted to do that day was curl up on her new cream Ikea sofa and read the Sunday papers. Instead the papers lay folded and untouched on the coffee table and she spent the day with the phone clamped to her ear, trying to negotiate a peace settlement over salmon and dill Wellington. She supposed something positive had come out of all the pandemonium. At least it had taken her mind off the Chelsea Roggenfelder situation.
“But we have to move fast,” Barbara said when Cyn tried to persuade her yet again that they might regret making too hasty a decision over the menu. “Fein Platters is offering a twenty percent discount if we use them. The thing is, I have to let them know by Tuesday. They do this wonderful cocktail buffet, but I’m not sure about vol-au-vents. Are they passé or are they having a revival like rum baba and prawn cocktail? What do you think?”
“Look, Mum, why don’t we just . . .”
“You’re right. We shouldn’t risk being ironic. People might not get it. OK, scrub the vol-au-vents. Now, the curried chicken tartlets sounded a bit more like it. On the other hand they might be a bit too spicy. There’s your uncle Lou’s colostomy to consider. Maybe we’d be better off with mini chicken Kievs and veggie puffs.” And so it went on: Barbara suggesting it would be fun to have a Tony Blair impersonator handing round canapés, Jonny saying it was naff and Flick asking if Cyn had any thoughts on gospel singers.
“Gospel singers? At a Jewish wedding? You know, I’m not sure it would go down too well.”
“But we could get them to do some Jewish songs.”
“Even then,” Cyn said, trying to imagine the Willesden and District Black Gospel Singers letting rip with a rousing, hand-clapping version of “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof.
Flick said she took the point. “Look, Cyn,” she went on, “that wasn’t the real reason I phoned
. There’s something really important I’d like to ask you. I would have brought it up yesterday over lunch, but there was so much going on, what with your mother’s refugee and Grandma Faye’s gastric reflux.”
“Ask away,” Cyn said, praying that Flick wasn’t planning on the wedding guests playing giant Jenga or indoor minigolf.
“Cyn, you know I think of you as the sister I never had . . .”
Cyn immediately felt her eyes filling up. “Oh, Flick. I’m really touched. I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say yes.”
“To what?”
“I’d like you to be my maid of honor.”
Cyn was lost for words, but not in a good way. All she could manage was a less than heartfelt “Wow.” This was followed by a long pause during which she had a vision of a giant purple, hoop-skirted, puffed-sleeved meringue covered in bows and lace. Jeez, she’d have to ask Rhett Butler to be her date. “Wow . . . Your maid of honor? Wow!” She was aware that this was now her third wow.
“Please, please, please say yes,” Flick pleaded. “I can’t wait to go out and choose you a dress. It will be fab, just fab!”
No, it wouldn’t be fab. It wouldn’t be remotely fab. It would be dire. She couldn’t do it. There was no way. Not in a million years. No. No. No.
“Of course I’ll be your maid of honor! I can think of nothing I’d love more. I’m thrilled that you asked me.”
“Jonny said you would be,” Flick squealed. “Ooh, Cyn, this is fantastic. Really fantastic. Let’s speak next week and make a date to go shopping. By the way, just a thought. Instead of the gospel singers, what about a band of medieval minstrels?”