Gucci Gucci Coo (5 page)

Phil answered the door. She kissed him hello and hung her coat on the end of the banister. Whenever she came home she never failed to notice how much the house had changed in the last few years. Since Phil had started to earn decent money, it was barely recognizable. OK, the place was still full of clutter, the familiar smell of turpentine hung in the air and it was clear that cleaning still wasn’t a top priority chez Silverman, but now there was a posh kitchen, newly laid wooden floors, fresh blinds and trendy furniture. The house had never really felt comfortable when she was growing up. Now it did.

Her dad had changed, too. There was a lightness about him, which she had rarely seen when she was younger. Now that money wasn’t tight, he was able to relax. He’d started exercising and watching his weight. For years, worry had caused him to comfort-eat confectionary and fatty foods. Ruby often wondered if watching her father eating unhealthily had kick-started her love of junk food. These days, though, he was a good thirty pounds lighter than a decade ago. His hair, now almost entirely gray, was cut into a fashionable crop. The absence of middle-aged spread, along with the edgy specs and well-cut jeans, didn’t make him look younger than his fifty-five years, just a well-preserved fifty-five.

“What’s that?” Ruby said, noticing a small clear plastic ball lying on the hall table.

Phil’s eyes lit up. “It’s the most fantastic toy. One of your mother’s girlfriends came over with her grandson and he left it here. Now I can’t stop playing with it.” Phil loved toys and gadgets. When Ruby was a toddler, he had bought her a clockwork train set for her birthday. Years later when she challenged him about it, he said he had done it because he was a male feminist who believed buying little girls dolls severely restricted their view of the world. Ruby was certain he had bought the train set for himself.

He picked the ball up off the table. “There’s a computer inside and it plays twenty questions with you. Go on, think of an object. Hard as you like. I guarantee it’ll get it.”

“Hang on, before I do that, I need to talk to you about Mum. It’s driving me mad. What’s this big secret she’s been keeping?”

His huge grin left Ruby in no doubt that he was bursting to tell her.

“Grandma Esther didn’t end up leaving you a fortune in her will, did she?”

“I wish,” he chuckled.

“So, what is it?”

“I think we should wait for your mum. She’s upstairs in her studio. I’m sure she won’t be long.”

“But you know what it is, right?”

“Oh, yes,” he chuckled, rolling his eyes. “I know.”

“And it’s good news. Nothing bad has happened.”

“Let’s just say it’s taken a bit of getting used to. OK, no more digging. Now then, you have to think of an object.”

She thought. “Really hard, you say?”

“Yep. Hard as you like.”

“OK. Capybara.”

“Capy-what?”

“Capybara. It’s a semiaquatic South American rodent. There was this mad girl at my school who was obsessed with them. Her bedroom was covered in pictures of capybaras.”

“Oh, come on, be fair. How’s it going to get capybara?”

“You said it could get anything.”

“Yes, but not some weird rodent nobody’s ever heard of.” He seemed to decide the time had come to change the subject. “Tell you what, why don’t you go upstairs and let your mum know you’re here?”

Ruby started to climb the stairs, leaving her father to see if by any chance the twenty questions gadget could guess capybara.

A few years ago her parents had converted the loft into a workspace for Ronnie. The two giant windows meant it was flooded with light all day.

Ronnie was wearing her trademark workman’s overalls, covered in paint. Her long red hair was pulled back and held in place by a large tortoiseshell claw clip. A few loose strands hung around her face, making her look girly and coquettish. Ruby could hardly believe her mother was fifty. Of course she dyed her hair now and she had a few fine lines at the corners of her eyes, but nothing deep enough to be called crow’s feet. And although she had put on a bit of weight around her middle in the last few months—which most women seemed to as they approached menopause—she was still leggy and slim. But it wasn’t just her physical appearance that made Ronnie seem so young. It was her vibrancy, her facial expressions, that indefinable something behind her eyes.

All of Ruby’s friends’ mothers were in their sixties. Some were even older. They tended to be thick-waisted and heavy of hip, with bosoms that in recent years had become singular rather than plural. People were always shocked the first time they met Ronnie. For her part, Ronnie rather enjoyed the flattery and being told she didn’t look remotely old enough to have a daughter who was in her thirties.

The reason Ruby’s friends’ mothers were older than Ronnie was that they hadn’t got pregnant at eighteen and eloped with their art student boyfriends.

R
UBY LEANED AGAINST
the doorframe and looked around the studio. As her eyes wandered, she breathed in the familiar smell of oil paint and turpentine. There were canvasses everywhere, mostly propped up against the walls. Surfaces were strewn with old sketches, ends of charcoal and long discarded paper palettes dotted with tiny cracked peaks of oil paint.

In the middle of the room her mother was standing in front of a canvas dibbing and dabbing at her latest painting. Ruby was so proud of what her mother had achieved. Unlike Phil, who had been in his final year at art school when Ronnie got pregnant, she had been forced to abandon her degree after the first year. She then chose to stay at home—in their grotty rented flat—to look after her baby. She did her bit to make ends meet by stenciling kitchen units and nursery walls in posh Hampstead homes. Despite that, Ronnie never lost sight of her ambition. As soon as Ruby started school, she applied for and got a grant, which enabled her to go back and finish her degree. Her paintings may not have earned her a great deal of money, but in so many ways, Ronnie had been and still was Ruby’s role model and inspiration.

As usual, this painting was an abstract consisting of great swathes and gashes of color. Ruby liked it. She liked nearly all of her mother’s paintings. They were so full of energy and spirit. It was hard to tell, but to Ruby’s eye the painting looked pretty much finished. The canvas was big—six feet by eight, maybe. Since it was too big for an easel, it was up against the wall like all the others. All Ronnie’s paintings were large. Some were even larger than this. She said small canvasses made her feel hemmed in and restricted.

Ruby remembered being about eight when she first asked her mother what her paintings were about and what the bizarre patterns and shapes meant.

Ronnie had put her on her knee and the two of them had sat for what seemed like ages, talking about the painting she was working on. “Tell me how you feel when you look at it,” Ronnie had said. Ruby replied that she liked the bright colors and that they made her feel happy. “That’s it. Then you’ve got it. If art makes you feel something—anything at all, then it’s succeeded. We live in a world obsessed with meaning and explanation. As you go through life, Rubes, you’ll realize that not everything has a meaning and sometimes that can be hard to understand.”

“You mean like people getting killed in earthquakes?” Ruby said. “And Hilary Newsham in my class getting appendicitis and nearly dying?”

Ronnie smiled and kissed her—presumably for being so perceptive at only eight. “Yes, things like that.”

R
UBY STOOD RECALLING
that conversation and watching Ronnie as she stepped back to consider her latest work. The dominating color was hot pink with explosions of blue, yellow and emerald green.

“So, does it have a title?” Ruby said, walking into the studio.

Ronnie spun round, hand clamped to her chest. “God, you made me jump,” she cried. “No, haven’t got one yet. I’m still thinking.” As she spoke she shoved the pointy end of her paintbrush through her hair, Geisha style, and wiped her hands on a piece of old rag. Then she kissed Ruby hello. “I’m so glad you could make it, but I feel really guilty about asking you to cancel on Laura and Jack. Are you very angry with me? You have to tell me if you are. It’s so unhealthy to bottle stuff up.”

How long had it taken Ronnie to lapse into therapy mode? A minute? Along with dabbling in Buddhism, she’d been seeing a shrink on and off for fifteen years. It was Phil who had begged her to go—although he now admitted that he was living to regret it. Back then he had found it impossible to keep up with Ronnie’s constant optimism and gung-ho—“the universe will provide”—attitude to life. He said it was like living with “the sodding Dalai Lama.” He told Ruby he felt desperately guilty getting frustrated with somebody who was permanently happy, but he couldn’t help it. Nor could he help the fact that his problem with Ronnie was partly related to his own despondency about money.

Early on—with the help of Clive, her therapist, who she was still seeing—Ronnie had discovered that her constant optimism was connected to her father—whom she adored—walking out and going to live with another woman. She rarely saw him after that because the new woman in his life resented his relationship with Ronnie. The trauma and hurt of losing him explained why she ran off and got married at eighteen. It also explained why she steadfastly refused to allow any more pain in her life and had remained irrationally positive and upbeat when she and Phil were hard up.

These days, she found it much easier to admit when things weren’t going well. The irony was that neither she nor Phil had very much to worry about. Their finances had improved beyond recognition, they had a strong marriage and a daughter who thought the world of them, and they were both healthy. Although her father had died a few years ago, just as she and Sylvia were trying to build a new relationship with him, Ronnie’s mother had found new love late in life and was now married to a retired dentist and living in Marbella.

The downside to Ronnie’s therapy was that she had become addicted not only to self-analysis but to analyzing everybody else as well.

“So, are you OK with coming here for dinner?” Ronnie said again, trying at the same time to rub a stubborn patch of red paint off her middle finger. “You sure you’re not bottling up a whole load of angry feelings?”

“Mum, I’m not angry. Promise. Oh, and before you ask, yes, the shop is still doing fine and no, I don’t feel guilty about what I’ve achieved and yes, I do believe that everybody is entitled to succeed.”

“Now you’re making fun of me,” Ronnie said, making a sad clown mouth.

“I know, but I need you to understand that it comes from a truly good place,” Ruby said, smiling and still teasing.

“And what about the Matt thing. Is it getting any easier? Does it feel like you’re ready to move on?”

Ruby had become aware lately that the moving on bit was code for “isn’t it about time you found a serious boyfriend slash husband and settled down.” Ronnie would have been hurt and angry if anybody had dared to suggest she was a typical Jewish mother. After all, she had never been the type to sit at home breast-feeding her daughter matzo balls. She wasn’t needy or demanding. When Ruby was at school she always encouraged her efforts rather than put pressure on her to be the best. To this day Ronnie had never made a single negative comment about her daughter’s appearance or weight. The upshot was that Ruby had grown up with her self-esteem in pretty good shape.

Until now Ronnie had also never interfered in Ruby’s romantic life—although she always made it clear she was happy to talk about it if Ruby wanted to. Then, when Ruby split up with Matt, a change seemed to come over Ronnie. Ruby had detected a panic descending on her mother. It was clearly something she was aware of and battled against—hence the tangential sideways comments, rather than head-on references to Ruby’s lack of a man. Her remarks tended to be along the lines of, “Darling, are you OK? I mean
really
OK? You know I really worry about you being on your own.” Or, “So and so’s daughter has just moved in with her boyfriend/got married/had a baby and she must be two or three years younger than you.”

Ruby had told her mother a few times that she felt she was putting her under pressure to find a man. Since Ronnie had been in therapy for so long and was used to “getting feedback,” she knew she wouldn’t see it as an attack.

“You know, you’re right,” Ronnie had said. “I have been putting pressure on you. This is definitely something I need to look at in my sessions with Clive. I think I’m starting to panic that you may never find a man and settle down. But my need to see you in a relationship is my problem, not yours. I’m transferring my anxiety onto you. Why would I do that? What’s stopping me from giving you permission to live your life however you choose? I’m wondering if there’s something in my past that makes it impossible for me to own my anxiety.”

And so it went on. Ronnie and Clive were still working on Ronnie’s anxiety transference issues, but it didn’t seem to be doing much good. Hardly a phone call with her mother went by without her mother making some oblique but nevertheless pointed reference to Ruby’s single status. Sometimes Ronnie would catch herself doing it and apologize. When she didn’t, Ruby simply took a deep, calming breath and let the comments go.

R
ONNIE SWITCHED OFF
the bright studio light and the two women headed toward the stairs.

“So, come on, Mum,” Ruby said. “What’s going on? What’s the big secret? Dad’s refusing to say anything and I’m dying to know.”

Just then the doorbell rang. Ronnie’s eyebrows knitted. “Who can that be?” she said as they listened to Phil opening the front door. Ronnie leaned over the banister to see. “It’s your Aunty Sylvia,” she said to Ruby. “I wasn’t expecting her. This is going to make things a bit awkward. Your dad and I really wanted you to ourselves tonight.”

When they got downstairs, Aunty Sylvia was handing her coat to Phil.

“Thought I’d just pop in and say a quick arrivederci before you went off to Rome.” She kissed Ronnie and then stood wiping the lipstick smudge off her sister’s cheek.