Nomance

by T J Price

  How did two, lovely sun-filled weeks in glorious Cyprus sound?

  Against her instinct, to be honest, Carla said they sounded pretty fantastic.

  ‘Great! In that case, Carla, I’ll make the arrangements. Leave everything to me.’

  Carla was surprised when they got out there to find that Sharon had booked separate rooms. But two days later she was thanking her lucky stars about that. Sharon had met a Cypriot man and they were spending an awful lot of time in her room together. Carla was only glad she could maintain her privacy.

  On the other hand, Carla did begin to feel she was having a holiday on her own.

  For this reason, Carla couldn’t help resenting Yogi – as Sharon’s new man friend seemed to be called. So when Sharon invited her out to a restaurant with Yogi, Carla took the opportunity, during the meal, to fire off some petty sarcasms at him. Sad to say, she found her ammunition was wasted. Her petty sarcasms got lost in translation, even when she underlined each riposte with a stab at her calamari like it was still alive. She saw then that trying to understand English was a dreadful strain for Yogi. And he looked dreadfully tired anyway. Carla had to wonder why he didn’t just run his bar himself. Why wear himself to the bone trying to get a foreign woman to marry him and run it instead? She even began to feel a little sorry for him by the time they said goodnight and he went arm-in-arm with Sharon into her room.

  By his grim expression, you could see his work had yet to begin.

  But when Carla went to her own room and lay down to sleep, little did she realise that for once she was not quite alone. In the early hours, the calamari she had stabbed to underline her sarcastic remarks to Yogi woke her up with its own sarcastic reply – the fun-filled med-holiday tummy-bug.

  Now, if she had learned anything on her previous fun-filled med holidays, it was that prompt treatment was essential. And so, she left her room and padded down to the reception desk.

  Here, an unblemished young man, fashioned according to the dictates of Golden Apollo, sat watching basketball on satellite television. He looked at her from across the faux mahogany counter and smiled with the unthinking affability of youth. The stare which Carla returned had nothing affable about it. Med men – even the deluxe versions – had become objects of keen resentment. She described her symptoms like they were the boy’s fault. In return, he paid close attention to every word, and then, knotting his brows, he performed what seemed to be a long-division sum in his head.

  He was translating.

  All of a sudden, he sat bolt upright in his chair.

  ‘Are you bad?’

  But this was not so much a question as an exclamation of blind panic. A stomach upset is as economically damaging for the med hotelier as foot-and-mouth disease is for the Brit farmer. The damage is caused not so much by the human suffering itself – people die all the time – rather it was the sound of suffering. The hoteliers didn’t need the wisdom of Socrates to understand that if their guests heard someone wringing their guts out in the next room then they wouldn’t be back next year. And this Carla here, she was big and strong and would make one hell of a racket before she died.

  With that alacrity of mind which distinguished the population of the area – three thousand years ago, the lad figured out a way to get the woman off his back and ring-fence the plague all at a single stroke.

  He explained to Carla now, in cursive English, that a Brit doctor was also a guest at the hotel and he might be able to help.

  Carla was not impressed. She might be in keen physical pain and at the mercy of a handsome cretin, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to sue Cyprus for every last damned penny if she died out here.

  Her voice was rising.

  The lad leapt to his feet and made soothing sounds, or at least soothing in Demotic Greek, and slipped from round the counter before disappearing down a corridor.

  Less than a minute later he was back.

  ‘Doctor says great. Just great! Follow me, please.’

  Carla followed the boy to another hotel room, where they found a man in his early thirties, with a pleasant but inexpressive face, waiting for them while slouched in a whicker chair. He wore a white tee shirt and shorts, and held a glass of orange juice in one hand.

  ‘Good evening,’ he gave them a smile and the boy smiled back before he waved and left.

  ‘Carla, isn’t it? I’m Gerald. Take a seat.’ He motioned at the bed while he took a chair. ‘Now I expect George did not explain the situation in full, but the Hotel nurse is not available this week, she’s off sick.’ The doctor spoke in a smooth, supple voice that slithered through the air and Carla’s brain, without leaving a trace behind. ‘However, I am a doctor and although I’m on holiday I have a personal stock of medicine for the usual ailments. If you tell me what the problem is I’ll treat you, if I am able. Or at least I’ll try to make you more comfortable.’

  ‘What?’ Carla asked, in too much discomfort to concentrate.

  Gerald took a measured sip of orange juice. ‘Just tell me how it hurts.’

  Carla did so and Gerald listened with an eerie lack of expression. He continued to stare at her for a moment after she had finished speaking. Then he roused himself and went to the bathroom where he put a couple of tablets in a tumbler and added some bottled water. He came back and handed her the cloudy mixture.

  ‘Drink this, please. And I’d like you to sit here awhile. You should remain upright for at least fifteen minutes. A little chat will take your mind off things. The upset may have been exacerbated by nervous tension.’

  Carla felt Gerald was straying a bit far from her upset stomach by talking about her nerves. But on second thoughts, if by nerves he meant the mental distress caused to her by being abandoned on holiday, then that was spot on, wasn’t it?

  ‘Thank you, I will then.’

  Gerald took another sip of his juice and gave her a pleasant smile.

  ‘So, you’re a doctor?’ Carla asked. That she already knew the answer made asking the question easier.

  ‘I’m a specialist. I run a small private clinic.’

  ‘You’re on holiday?’ Another easy question.

  ‘Definitely. And truth be told, I shouldn’t mind an extra fortnight off. I need it.’

  ‘Well, we could all say that, couldn’t we?’

  ‘Oh, for sure. Except I might lose some of my patients if I did.’

  ‘Me though,’ she countered bitterly, ‘I couldn’t stay an extra fortnight without going bankrupt. See, I run a florist shop and plants need constant attention, or they die. Like your patients, I suppose . . . but then, I bet you still get paid if your patients die, don’t you? Me, I don’t get a penny. I’m on a knife’s edge. And do you know why I’m on a knife’s edge?’

  Gerald shook his head.

  ‘Because the sodding Inland Revenue taxes me up to the eyeballs, that’s why.’

  He gave her a long, thoughtful look. ‘You know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You should consider the benefit of having a baby.’

  The room went very quiet. Even Carla’s intestines held their breath. Far off in the night a med man honked his horn. ‘Eh?’

  ‘A baby,’ Gerald said with an urbane smile. ‘Having a baby with me could solve all these problems – ’

  Carla’s head span. Well, alright, she didn’t think much of his overture – gauche to put it mildly – but on the other hand, he was a doctor, and that made jigging with him a golden opportunity to get more even with Sharon than she could have ever dared hope.

  ‘The woman in question,’ Gerald was saying, Carla had missed a bit, ‘was paid ten thousand pounds for bearing the couple’s child. You can believe me when I say she didn’t pay a penny of tax on the amount. And what I say is, why should she? To me, the services of a surrogate mother can never be gauged merely in terms of a financial transaction. That ten thousand pounds was less a payment, more a gift, given in gratitude for something which will bring pleasure and happiness for years a
nd years to come. Like a tree or a hardy shrub from your shop might.’

  Several seconds later Carla said, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Gerald jumped to his feet, opened the built-in wardrobe, in which his jacket hung, and pulled something from the breast pocket. He handed it to her.

  Carla had been half expecting medicine of some sort, but it was his business card.

  ‘If I understood you correctly,’ Gerald went on, ‘your shop is on a knife edge and in need of a cash injection.’ He sat down again. ‘You see, I’m always on the lookout for a good birth surrogate and I’d like to invite you for a preliminary examination. If you are interested, all you have to do is give me a call. And remember what I told you.’

  She searched his face closely. ‘What was that?’

  ‘You get ten thousand pounds, on average. And remember, there’s no tax.’ Gerald smiled. ‘On top of which, there is all the wonder and mystery of conceiving a child. As a doctor I can assure you it’s an emotional and educational experience rolled into one.’

  Carla shook her head. ‘Am I dreaming?’

  Gerald seemed to like this idea. ‘Well, you are on Cyprus, the birthplace of Golden Aphrodite.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Goddess of Love.’

  Poetic allusion was just the thing to give Carla the willies. ‘I think I’ll get back to my room now.’

  ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Your stomach?’

  She scowled. ‘Oh yes, that’s better.’

  ‘It’s just the tax now, eh?’ They stood up. ‘Well, like I say, just remember I’m a doctor and I’m here to help.’

  Eight months later, sitting in her large, cold kitchen and staring at the shop’s accounts, Carla heaved her heavy sigh once more. A remortgage was out of the question and she was already paying off an extortionate business loan (sodding banks!). If she wanted to keep Romance viable then artificial insemination seemed almost inevitable. The notion appalled her – almost as much as it amazed her.

  But what else could she do when lobelia, geraniums and lilies added up to such a heap of heart ache?

  Three: The Vultures of Romance

  Monday morning.

  Carla moved restlessly behind the foliage of Romance. The waiting around was the hardest. She longed to start opening at midday, but there was a tiny contingent of mad bats who only dropped by at the crack of dawn. In terms of profitability she could afford to lose them. The trouble was, she sensed they exerted a hidden but powerful influence throughout the affluent streets all around. If she thwarted them, she might find her other customers slipping away without apparent explanation.

  And here was one of her other customers, right now.

  ‘Oh Carla, the blossom!’

  It was Serena – the princess of bitty shoppers and the human equivalent of a pointed stick with which life poked at the ulcer of Carla’s resentment.

  Every year, the same exquisite torture!

  By now Carla almost admired Serena’s dogged persistence in believing that the seasonal changes of the natural world held any interest for her, just because she happened to run a florist’s shop. That said, the way in which Serena used the same weary stock phrases, delivered in a creaky pitch of delight (one which hadn’t altered a jot over the past decade) suggested that Serena’s interest in the blossom was even feebler than her own.

  Unlike the blossom, Serena’s true enthusiasms surrounded her at all times of the year – outrageously expensive clothes.

  Carla was very, very careful to avoid the whole subject of clothing. She refrained from openly noticing that Serena never seemed to wear the same garment twice, and that what she did wear wasn’t on sale in any of the shops she went to. But to give Serena her due, she didn’t need to be told that fashion was a complete nonstarter for Carla, and she was considerate enough to return the favour of not openly noticing what her favourite florist wore.

  It was supremely ironic therefore, considering how much more she had to lose by breaking their tacit agreement not to learn anything personal about each other, that it was Carla and not Serena who went and spoiled it all by opening her big fat mouth.

  Thus one unforgettable day, in a fit of temporary insanity, Carla had once casually mentioned that she was going to the hair dressers.

  Straight away this throwaway little remark blew up in her face when Serena said she wished she could go to a hair dressers just like that, but her hair was so difficult that she was obliged to visit a special woman. In fact, she had seen her just last week.

  This information came as a huge surprise to Carla, not least because Serena’s hair hadn’t changed one iota in the last ten years – fringe at front, shoulder length everywhere else.

  In fact, she had always assumed it was a wig.

  ‘Well, I never.’

  Carla was confident that this note of mild wonder would be enough to draw a line under the whole topic. But wait! Serena hadn’t finished the story of her hair. Having agreed with whatever it was Carla was talking about, she went on to add how lucky she was to have her special woman, because not only did her special woman understand her hair as no one else ever would, but she also did it on the cheap. To wit – fifty quid per trim.

  Fifty quid!

  Carla reeled. She always felt ripped off paying a tenner. And that was for a perm that took ages and really hurt. Carla’s hairdresser didn’t ponce about like Serena’s. She made damn sure that Carla, and everybody else too, knew that her hair had been done, and done proper too.

  The blossom, the clothes, and now the hair, the more Carla knew about Serena the more she ached afterwards.

  Not that Serena stopped at making Carla ache at what she knew. She also made her ache at what she didn’t. For there was a niggling riddle about Serena. An enigma born of a contradiction. First up, the facts were these:

  One, Serena was a freelance designer.

  Two, her clothes were from Paris.

  Three, she spent fifty nicker on her hair.

  Now, could they come more rarefied than that? No, of course not. Everything about Serena screamed posy.

  So then, the big question was, Why the hell didn’t she buy more flowers?

  By rights she should have been ordering them in by the cartload. Well okay . . . it was just possible she was too rarefied even for flowers. However, Carla could not bring herself to believe such a level of snobbery was possible, not even in Kew. And in any case, this mystery ran far deeper than a poseur not buying flowers. Oh no, there was so much more to Serena than a designer lifestyle, clothes from Paris and an eternal fringe. Even if between them they did absorb more money than Carla saw in a month of Sundays.

  Oh no, above and beyond all these ingredients there was . . . the nose.

  Serena had this giant hooter. A whopping monster of gristle and bone with well buttressed and capacious nostrils that looked like they could suspend a bowling ball by vacuum suction alone. Carla had almost dropped to her knees in gratitude the first time Serena had stepped into Romance, a decade or so ago.

  But it was a joy all too soon to be supplanted by bitter disappointment.

  Her new customer had quickly failed to realise any of her vast potential. Serena might run her eyes appreciatively over the wide selection of blooms for sale at Romance, but her purchases never went further than a packet of slug pellets and a can of fly spray. Furthermore, not once had she ever referred to the fragrances that filled the shop. She was even reluctant to keep up her end of the conversation when Carla apologised for the reek of the new fertiliser. In her darker moments, Carla sometimes believed the solution to the mystery was the precise one which offered Romance least hope for the future – that the biggest nose on the block was a dud.

  ‘Oh Carla, the blossom!’

  In reply, Carla smiled ever so faintly. It was best to humour them. Like any other customer, Serena could get right under your skin if you let her and Carla had learned the lesson of the fifty-pound-fr
inge-trim well. It stood to reason she was never going to actually ask Serena why she didn’t buy any flowers. Carla would just as rather assume the nose was stuffed on a permanent basis. Anything was better than hearing that the nose wasn’t a dud after all, and that in fact Serena spent thousands of pounds a week at a florist’s on the Champs Elysees.

  Yes by God, Carla was certainly grateful to Serena for never volunteering information like that. Other customers who, like Serena, floated more often than they walked, were far too free and easy with the sparkling details of their scintillating lives. Indeed, they were so expert at making Carla feel dowdy and dull that even the reverses and disappointments they complained about were more textured and vibrant than all of Carla’s birthdays and Christmases rolled into one. What had never occurred to Carla, as yet, was that if these uppity women had to make some pathetic little florist feel bad in order to make themselves feel better, then they must hate their own lives even more than Carla hated hers . . .

  . . . Serena was gone.

  She had bought a can of flyspray. Apart from the rare pack of slug pellets, she only ever bought flyspray – the cheap Pine Fresh variety.

  Oh, if it were up to Serena and her likes, Carla would be dead on her feet here.

  However, as luck would have it, Romance was just about kept afloat by customers who were themselves pretty well dead on their feet. I.e. the really, really old ones.

  There were about eight or nine of them at any one time and, unlike Serena’s, their every visit was a delight and a joy – in that they were always a little bit more frail and decrepit than before. Carla was amazed at just how frail and decrepit old people could get before they popped off. They had her dangling on tenterhooks for months on end. After all, a funeral for her and Romance could spell the difference between survival and bankruptcy. That’s why Carla was forever on the lookout for new ways to support the elderly. She did great discounts for pensioners and always made sure they got the special price list, the one with the fancy black border and the discreet little advertisement for Rupert Nodes: Undertakers since 1884.