Best Supporting Role (7 page)

This was how my mother bonded with me at age six.

When we arrived at the shop, Shirley would be standing behind the counter looking glamorous in her red nails and big blond do. (Back then I didn’t know it was a wig.) She would call down to the workroom. “Girls . . . Faye and Sahara are here. Come and say hello.”

My mum and the “girls” would exchange kisses and do the “look at you—you’ve lost so much weight” thing, after which Mum would prod me. “Sarah, come on—say hello to Aunty Sylvia and Aunty Bimla.”

I knew that Aunty Bimla in particular couldn’t be my aunty. She spoke with a strange accent and wore pajamas.

“Hi, Aunty Bimla.”

“Sarah, my poppet. My, how you’ve shot up. And look at you—so beautiful. Just like your mother. You are two peas in a pod.”

Aunty Bimla came from Pakistan. That’s why she spoke with a strange accent. Once I asked Dad where Pakistan was and he showed me on my globe that lit up. It was even farther away than Majorca—where we always went on holiday.

“Hi, Aunty Sylvia.”

“Bubbie!” She would pinch my cheek. “Isn’t she gorgeous? Couldn’t you just eat her?”

Even though Aunty Sylvia called me “Bubbie” and wanted to eat me, just like both my grandmothers, I knew that she couldn’t be my real aunty either. She never came to family teas at our house or to those big parties held in halls and hotels that my mother called
affairs
.

I remember asking Mum why I had to call Aunty Sylvia and Aunty Bimla “aunty,” when they weren’t really my aunties.

Mum said that they thought the world of me and it was a way of returning their affection. I thought about this and realized that I was rather fond of these women who called me pet names and hugged me until I could barely breathe. Plus Aunty Sylvia fed me Fox’s Glacier Mints, which she kept in the pocket of her nylon smock alongside the bra cups and underwire. With Aunty Bimla it was carrot halva, which I adored even though it was rich and made me feel sick if I ate too much. I agreed to carry on calling them Aunty.

Aunty Bimla and Aunty Sylvia had worked for Shirley for more than forty years. While Shirley ran the shop, fitting customers with ready-made bras, the aunties did alterations and created made-to-measure pieces. All week they sat at their sewing machines, in their cubbyhole of a workroom, stitching bras, basques and corsets for period stage productions or for the few individual clients who hadn’t deserted them for the upstart Montecute.

When Shirley got ill, Aunty Bimla and Aunty Sylvia took turns working upstairs in the shop.

•   •   •

“B
ut, Aunty Shirl, this house is huge,” I was saying now. “It must be worth a fortune. Surely you can leave Aunty Sylvia and Aunty Bimla some money.”

Shirley explained that on her death the house would go to her stepchildren. She had married her late husband, Harry, in her fifties. He had been a widower with grown children. After the wedding, she moved into the house that he had bought with his first wife. Shirley and Harry agreed that if he died first, she would be allowed to carry on living in the house. On her death, his children would inherit the property.

“OK, so maybe you could sell the business and give the aunties something from the proceeds.”

She laughed. “You’re joking. The business itself is worth zip. The premises I rent.”

“But surely the aunties must have family who can help them financially.”

“Actually they don’t. Sylvia’s only relative is that dotty daughter of hers. The last I heard, she’s still in LA trying to break into movies. A few years back she got a bit part in a soap on some cable channel, but it got canceled and since then she’s worked in Target. Bimla’s family are all in Pakistan. The only person she has over here is this wheeler-dealer nephew. She always refers to him as ‘my nephew the property tycoon.’ I’ve met him. Drives a flashy Italian sports car, usually got some blonde draped over him. He’s always after Bimla for money to help finance this or that new project. He’s clearly some cheap huckster, but she won’t hear a word against him.”

Shirley picked up a glass of water from the nightstand. As she
took a sip, her hand shook. “Tell me, Sahara, are you happy in your job with the police?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m happy exactly, but it pays the bills.”

“So you don’t see yourself doing it forever?”

“God no. That’s a really depressing thought. At some stage I’d like to get back into fashion and run my own business again.”

“Why not do it sooner rather than later?”

“Because I have no start-up cash and no reputation to build on. It could take years before I turned a profit.”

She nodded. “I can see how that would be a problem. . . . But I’ve had an idea. How would you feel about taking over the shop?”

She handed me the water glass and I put it back on the nightstand.

“Are you serious? Me? Running a bra shop? You just spent ten minutes telling me I know nothing about bras.”

“Maybe not, but you could learn. You trained in fashion. And remind me, you graduated where?”

“Top of my class, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Of course it does. It means you have huge potential. And you proved it. Before you married Mike, you were selling your dresses to that place in Carnaby Street. Later on you had Evie Sparrow chasing you. You’re a gifted young woman. You also need a new start.”

“But the shop is on the verge of collapse.”

“So rebuild it.”

“But how? You’ve worked yourself into the ground trying to compete with Clementine Montecute. What makes you think I could do any better?”

“Simple. You’re younger and more talented than me. And you would have the girls to help you. Not only do they know the lingerie business inside out—they are the best bra and corset makers in London. They’re in a different class from anybody that Montecute woman has working for her. I owe the girls so much. When Harry was dying and I needed to be with him, they took over the running of the shop. Without them, the business would have gone under. I can’t bear the thought of them being left high and dry after I’m gone.”

“I get that, but if I tried to rebuild it, where would I start?”

“Honestly? I don’t know, but I suspect you’re more resourceful than you give yourself credit for. After all, you’ve had experience running a business.”

“Hardly. Mine was tiny and I only ran it for a couple of years.”

“You will have learned a hell of a lot more than you think. Come on. What do you say?”

“I’m sorry . . . I have to say no.”

“But I’m a dying woman,” she said, full of mock indignation. “You can’t refuse a dying woman.”

This was so difficult. “Shirley, please try to understand. I don’t want to say no, but I have to. I’ve got my kids to think about. Mike pretty much bankrupted us because of his gambling. Now you’re asking me to take a huge gamble on the shop. I can’t do it.”

“It’s not a gamble. It’s a risk—a calculated risk.”

“Risk, gamble, whatever. I can’t do it. You’re asking too much of me.”

“I’m not sure I am. I admit that this will be the toughest challenge you’ve ever taken on, but I believe that I’m offering you an
opportunity. What you see as a millstone could turn out to be my legacy to you. At least think about it. Please, Sahara—don’t just walk away from this.”

What could I say? Like she said, she was a dying woman. I said that I would think about it—but only to placate her.

“Good girl. That’s all I wanted to hear. I’d hate to think of you turning down this chance and living to regret it. Regret is a terrible thing.”

“You have regrets?”

“Of course I do. Who doesn’t? There’s one in particular.”

“You want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “I’m too tired and it was a long time ago, but let’s just say that there were things I should have put right and I didn’t. I lost a very dear friend because of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was my own stupid fault.” Her face brightened. “Now then, how are those beautiful children of yours? I hope you brought pictures.”

I took out my phone and flicked through the latest snaps. I could see Shirley’s eyes filling with tears. I wondered, not for the first time, if she regretted not having children of her own.

“Couldn’t you just eat them?” she said.

Suddenly her eyes were looking heavy. She needed to sleep. When I said that maybe it was time for me to go, she didn’t object.

I kissed her good-bye.

“You always were my favorite niece, you know.”

“What do you mean? I’m your only niece.”

“Really? You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Shirley started laughing. “Love you, Sahara.”

“Love you, too, Aunty Shirl.”

•   •   •

I
was up all night fretting and feeling guilty about having to refuse Aunty Shirley her dying wish. There was no doubt that part of me yearned for a fresh start. I was in a job without prospects. Running my own business would give me the excitement and challenge I needed. I thought back to when I’d been making and designing dresses. I’d felt happy and fulfilled. I was always making plans and looking to the future. These days I thought about my children’s future rather than my own.

But taking over the bra shop was a no-brainer. I didn’t have the tens of thousands needed to get it back on its feet and even if I had, I knew nothing about the lingerie business, nothing about bra making. How could I even think of competing with Clementine Montecute? It was crazy. Aunty Shirley was crazy. Even so, telling her that my answer was still no would feel like the cruelest thing I’d ever done.

The next morning, as I was kissing Dan and Ella good-bye in the school playground, my cell rang.

“Sarah, it’s Dad.” I got him to hang on while I shooed the kids into school. “Have a good day, you two. See you later . . . Hey Dad. You OK? You sound a bit down.”

“Sweetie, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Aunty Shirley had died in the night.

I lowered myself onto a playground bench. “I don’t believe it.
When I saw her yesterday, she was weak, but I’d have said she had weeks or even months left in her.”

“Seems like she took an overdose of sleeping pills.”

“What? But she was in really good spirits. She was cracking jokes, demanding to see pictures of the kids. She even had this mad plan for me to take over the shop. She said I should go away and think about it and let her know my decision. Why would she end it before I got a chance to tell her?”

Dad let out a half laugh. “Maybe because she knew you’d tell her the idea was crazy and she didn’t want to hear it.”

“Maybe . . . Jeez, I feel so bad that none of us realized how depressed she was.”

“I’m not sure she was depressed. I think dying made her feel out of control.”

Dad read me Aunty Shirley’s suicide note.
“Dear God—I’m not prepared to wait around while you decide when to sack me, so I quit.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “That’s so Aunty Shirley—always in the driving seat. Part of me wants to say ‘good for her.’ . . . So, how’s Mum taken it? She must be in pieces.”

Dad said that she was actually doing OK. Better than he’d expected. I offered to come straight over, but Dad said that so long as I felt up to it, I should go to work.

“You haven’t been in this job long. You can’t start taking time off.”

“OK, but only if you’re sure. Tell Mum I’ll pop over later with the kids.”

When I got there, Mum and I fell into each other’s arms and sobbed. “Yesterday she fitted me with this amazing bra,” I said, blubbing. “Now I only have two breasts instead of six.”

Mum managed to laugh through her tears. “I can still see her shaking her finger at me. ‘Faye, God gave you two breasts for a reason. Don’t challenge his wisdom.’”

Once we were all cried out, Mum handed me an envelope with my name on it. Apparently it had been on the nightstand, next to Shirley’s suicide note.

My darling Sahara,

Re our discussion today: Your mother has a copy of my will, which, anticipating that you would agree to my proposal, I drew up months ago. The business is now yours. Be brave and have faith in the talent and ingenuity which you have in spades. I know you will rise to this challenge. I swear I’ll haunt you if you don’t.

Your devoted Aunty Shirl xx

PS . . . Check with your mother, but I’m pretty sure I have a great-niece in Ontario.

T
he Honourable Imogen Stagge, breathless and red of face, lowered herself onto the child-size school chair. “Sorry I’m late, chapesses. Bloody au pair’s got thrush.”

Tara, Charlotte and I chose not to inquire how precisely Imogen’s au pair’s yeast infection had contributed to her tardy arrival at the inaugural summer fair planning meeting.

“Hang on—where’s everybody else?” Imogen said. “I worked so hard rounding people up. Please don’t tell me it’s just going to be the four of us.”

Tara reminded her that the kids who went to Mandarin Club after school didn’t finish until six, so a lot of the mothers would be late. “I only made it because the nanny offered to stay late to pick up Cressida and Mungo.”

And I was only there because I felt so guilty about not lending a hand at last year’s bring-and-buy sale that when Imogen launched herself at me in the playground earlier that week, I promised faithfully that this time I would do my bit. Plus I needed to get out. After Aunty Shirley’s funeral, Mum sat shiva for the entire week. Dad had
tried to persuade her that since none of the family—Shirley in particular—was religious, one day of official mourning, possibly two, would suffice, but Mum put her foot down. “No. I want to do this properly. It’s the least I can do for her.”

I could see Dad was worried about her. We both were. It wasn’t just that she’d lost even more weight. Her face looked gray and drawn. “She’s exhausted,” he said to me the night after the funeral. We were in the kitchen. The kids were asleep upstairs and I was making the rest of us bedtime cocoa. “She needs a rest.” He was right. Mum had worked herself into the ground this year looking after me and the kids and Aunty Shirley.

“I feel so guilty,” I said.

“You? What on earth have you got to feel guilty about? Good Lord, it’s hardly your fault that Mike died.” Dad pulled me to him and gave me a hug. “Stop it. I won’t hear any more of this nonsense. None of this is your fault. I’ll sort your mother out. Leave it to me.”

I blinked away my tears and nodded. “Dad—there’s something else . . . about the shop. I keep going over and over Aunty Shirley’s letter. Every time I read it, I start crying. She had such faith in me. Selling the business seems so unkind and disloyal.”

“Sarah, we’ve been over this. It would be madness to even think about getting the shop up and running.”

Just then Mum appeared. She’d changed out of her black suit and into her dressing gown. “Lord—not this again. Sarah, you can’t possibly give up a decent salary to take that kind of risk—and especially not with two children to think about. Haven’t you had your fill of gambling?”

“Of course I have. But has it occurred to you that one of the
reasons Aunty Shirley wanted me to take it over was that she couldn’t bear the thought of the business dying with her? She had no children of her own, no investment in the future. I think she wanted something of her to live on after she’d gone. She was depending on me to make that happen and now I’m going to let her down.”

“And has it occurred to you—bearing in mind the state of the business—that she had no right to ask that of you?”

•   •   •

T
he shiva was held at Mum and Dad’s. As Jewish tradition demanded, Mum covered all the mirrors. This included the shaving mirror in the bathroom.

“Let me get this straight,” Dad said. “We’re in mourning for your sister, so, according to Jewish law, I am required to cut my throat shaving?”

“But the whole point is that when you’re in mourning, you turn your back on vanity and stop shaving.”

Dad said he wasn’t about to endure an itchy face for a week—even for Shirley. He uncovered the mirror.

As mourner in chief, Mum spent each day perched on a low wooden chair supplied by the synagogue. From here—pale and weary—she received visitors who came to pay their respects. First thing every morning she dispatched Dad to the Jewish baker’s to stock up on miniature cheese Danish and babka: “Get the chocolate as well as the cinnamon. People like a choice.”

I took the week off work to be with Mum and help with the catering, which went on all day. Relatives—mainly the elderly who didn’t have jobs to go to—would start arriving around eleven—just
in time for coffee. While Mum and her old aunts, uncles and cousins sat making maudlin conversation, Dad and I topped up their cups and kept the babka and Danish flowing.

At some stage a bony hand would reach out for mine. Sit down, darling. Now, tell me. How are you? A widow at your age, a person shouldn’t know of it. Such a tragedy, a young, talented man like Mike, struck down in the prime of life. What a thing. Still, these things happen and you’re young. Please God one day you’ll find somebody else.

Around three, I would nip out to collect Dan and Ella from school. I’d take them for ice cream or a soda so that we could have some “us” time and then bring them back to Mum and Dad’s. Later on, when the rabbi and mourners arrived for evening prayers, I shooed the kids upstairs to watch TV.

“So now that Aunty Shirley’s in heaven,” Ella said, “Daddy will have some company.”

“Maybe he could even marry her,” Dan piped up.

“There’s a thought,” I said.

By eight o’clock the living room would be full and Dad and I would be handing out prayer books.

Shirley’s “girls”—my “aunties”—came each night and were beside themselves, as they had been at the funeral. I hadn’t seen them for what—five years? Aunty Bimla’s hair was entirely gray now, but she still tied it in a long girlish plait that hung down her back. The chunky pink cardigan she wore over her
salwar kameez
probably wasn’t the same pink cardigan I remembered from my childhood, but it might as well have been. Sylvia appeared to have shrunk with age—both in height and substance. She’d always been tiny, but now she looked positively
birdlike. The effect was to make her frizzy hair, which she dyed red and referred to as her Jew-fro, seem bigger than ever.

Once the prayers were over, they would follow me into the kitchen and help with the tea. Before we got started, they would take it in turns to pull me to their bosoms.

“Bubbie. We should only meet at celebrations.”

“Poppet. What a fine kettle of fish. We are so down in the dumps.” I’d always loved the way Aunty Bimla spoke—like she’d swallowed the
Oxford English Dictionary of Sayings, Maxims, and Proverbs
.

“When my Gerald got ill with his prostate,” Aunty Sylvia said one night as the three of us buttered bagels and arranged slices of cake, “Shirley was on the phone every day. She was more like a friend than an employer.”

“Well, to me she was more like a sister. The day Parvez died, she dropped everything to come and be with me.”

Aunty Sylvia shook her head. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her . . . the cancer . . . that bloody Montecute woman stealing all her business.”

“It was the worst possible tragedy. Most definitely.”

I wondered if Aunty Shirley had told the aunties about her plan for me to take over the shop. I wouldn’t have put it past her, bearing in mind she’d seemed so certain that I would agree to it.

“By the way, did Shirley . . . ?”

“So, poppet, what will you do with the shop, now it is yours?”

“Ah, so she did tell you she was leaving it to me.”

“She talked about little else,” Aunty Sylvia said. “How gifted you are, what faith she had in you, how she knew that you were the one who could turn the business around.” She touched my arm. “Look,
Sarah . . . don’t take this the wrong way. . . . We don’t doubt that you are an extremely talented young woman, but the shop is on its knees. While that bloody Montecute woman remains the toast of the town, nobody can compete. You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“But if I close it down, the two of you will be out of a job.”

“We’ll be fine,” Aunty Sylvia said. “We’ve got our pensions and once Roxanne hits the big time in LA, I’ll have nothing to worry about. It won’t be long now. Yesterday, she phoned to tell me that she’s doing breakfast with this hotshot Hollywood producer who wants to make a film about a haunted refrigerator.”

“And my nephew Sanjeev is about to sign a huge deal with a man from Paraguay. Please don’t worry about us, poppet.”

Like that was going to happen.

It was only going out to do the school run and chatting to Steve on the phone each night when the kids and I finally got home that stopped me going stir-crazy. By the end of the week I was actually excited about going to the summer fair planning meeting.

•   •   •

B
ack in the classroom, Tara turned to me. “You know, Sarah, you really should encourage Dan and Ella to start Mandarin Club. Cressida and Mungo love it and, as I keep telling them, businesspeople who speak Mandarin have such an advantage when it comes to tapping into the Chinese market.”

“Actually,” Charlotte ventured—she wasn’t nearly as self-assured as Tara—“I think learning the classics is just as important. So much of the English language is based on Latin and Greek. Ottilie has a tutor who comes in on a Saturday morning to teach her Latin.”

“Really?” I said, for want of anything else to say. On the one hand I thought that women like Tara and Charlotte, who thought they could buy talent and intelligence for their children the same way they could buy a Mulberry tote, were idiots whose pushiness would come back to bite them on the ass when their kids burned out in their teenage years and developed eating disorders. On the other hand I was jealous that these wealthy women, like dozens of others in the school, could afford all these extra activities and I couldn’t.

“Well,” Imogen said, “I’m afraid Archie spends his Saturday mornings sprawled on the floor in his pj’s watching cartoons. I did all that pushy parenting stuff with his older brother. What people don’t realize is that no matter what you do, one’s progeny still grow into moody, monosyllabic teenagers who lie in bed all day smoking marijuana and masturbating.”

You couldn’t not love Imogen.

Tara and Charlotte managed thin smiles. I don’t know what horrified them more, the thought of their children doing drugs or jerking off.

“Good Lord,” Imogen was saying now. “Is it me or is it hot in here?” She reached into her bag, took out the Tommy Padstow spring catalog and began fanning herself. She was wearing the plum wrap dress featured on the front cover. The only difference being that hers was a size sixteen and dusted in dog hair.

“I think it’s you,” Tara said to Imogen. “Before you arrived, we were all saying how cold it is in here. The caretaker must have turned off the heating.”

“Must be a hot flush, then. I’m getting them all the time. If it’s not hot flushes, it’s mood swings. Not to put too fine a point on it,
but I have recently been visited by the menopause dwarves—Bitchy, Moody, Sleepy and Sweaty.”

Charlotte squirmed, as if menopause could be catching. “My mother’s about your age,” she said. “She swears by black cohosh.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Imogen replied, apparently unaware that she had been insulted. “Perhaps I’ll give it a go.” She stood up. “Right, while we’re waiting for the stragglers, I think I’ll pop to the loo. Stress incontinence—that’s another of nature’s delights you have to look forward to. Instead of buying condoms you start bulk buying adult diapers.”

With that she strode off.

Tara watched her go. “I do wish Imogen wasn’t quite so
toilety
.”

“By the way,” I said. “I just wanted to thank you both for having Dan and Ella over for so many playdates lately. I think it really is time for me to reciprocate. How are your lot fixed for next week? I thought I’d have all the kids at my place.”

I saw a look pass between Tara and Charlotte.

“That would be lovely,” Charlotte said, clearly forcing a smile. “But maybe we should wait a while . . . until it gets a bit lighter.”

Tara nodded. “Yes, I think that would be for the best.”

“Sorry. I’m not with you. How do you mean, ‘until it gets lighter’?”

They both appeared to be scrambling for the right words.

“It’s the streets. . . .”

“Yes . . . very dark . . . and you never know. . . .”

Ah. The penny dropped.

“Do you mean the streets in general or just the streets where I live?”

“Look, Tara and I don’t mean to be rude and clearly things haven’t been easy for you since Mike died and we do sympathize, but . . .”

“At the same time you don’t know if you’re going to get mugged as you walk the six feet from the curb to my house. Or maybe some hoodie will stick a petrol bomb through the letter box while the kids are having tea? It’s OK. I get it.”

“You must think we’re terrible snobs,” Tara said, running her hands through her five-hundred-quid highlights. “But we have to think about our children.”

“Meaning that I don’t think about mine?”

“No . . . of course you do. We didn’t mean that. . . .”

By now Imogen had returned, followed by a gaggle of latecomers.

“OK, chapesses, if you could all pull up a chair and make a circle, then we can get started.”

Fiona—mother of Grace, who was in Ella’s year, and Tom, who had been telling Dan how dead bodies rot—arrived a few seconds behind the other mothers. She saw me, waved and came bounding over.

“So, how are you doing?” she said, giving me a hug, followed by one of her pity looks.

I responded to the look by switching my face onto full beam. “Not too bad, actually.”

“Really?” She either didn’t believe me or chose not to. “I think you’re being ever so brave.” She took my hand in both of hers. “I was wondering—have you considered Zumba?”

“Zumba?” I said, extricating my hand.

“Yes. It helps with grief, apparently. Takes you out of yourself. I read this marvelous piece in the
Daily Mail
on learning to live again
after the death of a spouse. A couple of women interviewed spoke really highly of Zumba classes.”

“Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind. But you know it’s been over a year since Mike died and I’m doing much better.”

“Well, good for you.” Another pity look. “Take care. And remember if you ever need a shoulder, I’m here for you.”