Neurotica (24 page)

“Anna is not a shikseh. She's as Jewish as you
are .   .   . were. And we both work, so we both
cook.”

“Huh.”

Dan couldn't believe it. He'd been in his mother's company for
less than three minutes and he was already on the point of losing his
temper. They sat in silence for a few moments while Lilly continued
to inspect her son.

“Why is your suit so creased? You look like a bottom.”

“You mean bum .   .   . and this suit happens
to be the height of fashion. It's made of linen. It's meant to look
crushed.”

“By you it's crushed, by me it's demolished. Believe me, if you
sent it to Oxfam, the starving children would send it
back.   .   .   . Take it off.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Daniel. I said take it off. There's an iron and
ironing board by the window. I'll give it a quick press.”

Daniel said nothing. He sat staring at his mother in utter
disbelief.

“What's the matter? Daniel, I'm your mother. I wiped your
little tuchas. Now suddenly you're too shy to let me see you in your
underpants. Now then, do as you're told. Take it off.”

To his absolute horror and disgust Dan found himself taking off
his jacket. He then undid his trouser belt and unzipped his fly.

A few seconds later he was sitting in his shirttails and boxers
watching his mother cross the room on Ada Bracegirdle's bandy legs.
On the upright chair next to the ironing board was a pile of Anthony
Bracegirdle's grayish shirts. A couple of them had been ironed and
were hanging from the picture rail on wire coat hangers. Lilly picked
up the iron and spat onto its underside. The iron fizzed. She held
up Dan's trousers, making a center fold along one of the legs, and
laid it on the ironing board.

“So, the shikseh you call a wife can't even do your ironing.
I'm a dead woman and still I can manage to iron your
clothes.   .   .   . Still, you wouldn't expect a woman who
carries on like she's been carrying on recently to have any energy
left over for ironing.”

There was a rasp of steam as the iron glided along Dan's trouser
leg. The name Liaisons Dangereux was suddenly lit up in neon inside
Dan's head.

“What do you mean, “like she's been carrying on'?”

There was panic in his voice. There was something important
Lilly wanted to tell him. This had to be the reason she'd asked him
to make contact.

“I'm not saying another word,” she said, turning the trouser
leg over to iron the other side. “I'm no marriage wrecker,
but don't
say I didn't come from beyond the grave to warn you.”

Dan came towards his mother and stood towering above her.

“Warn me of what? Come on, you called this meeting. What is
it?”

“I just know what I know. You need to keep your wits about you,
Daniel.”

“About what?” He was becoming exceedingly frustrated.

She smiled a smug smile.

“There's nothing, is there? It's just you making fucking
mischief, isn't it? You can't resist making me miserable, can you?
You've been back from beyond the grave for five minutes and already
you've managed to pick holes in my body, my clothes and now my wife.
For fuck's sake, Mother, why is it that in my entire forty years I
have never once done anything which meets with your approval?”

She stood the iron on its end and looked up at Dan, hands
on hips.

“Tell me, what sort of son swears at his dead mother?”

“This one, you stupid, overbearing fat cow.”

Lilly let out a long sigh and clamped her hand to her chest.

“And there's no point having a heart attack, because you're
already dead.”

Dan realized he was nearly screaming. He snatched his trousers
from the ironing board. As he stood putting them on, furious words
came tumbling out of him like marbles from a tin. Lilly made her
way back to her armchair. Along the way she clutched the furniture
for support. Dan followed her, still shouting.

For the next fifteen minutes he stood in front of his mother
and, barely pausing for breath, told her precisely what he thought of
her. He called her wicked, cruel and insensitive. He reminded her in
detail of each of his childhood humiliations.

“Christ al-fucking-mighty, what sort of woman in her right mind
constantly pulls her child to pieces and refuses to give praise or
recognize his achievements? I always got brilliant marks at school,
but you were never even remotely impressed. Do you know, I don't
remember you once saying you loved me or were proud of me.”

“So,” she said, turning away from him, “this is how he
thanks the mother who, every Friday night, nibbled on a chicken wing
so that her son should have breast. This is how he treats the woman
who used to schlep home every day weighed down by six bags of
groceries and then stand on swollen ankles to cook for him. This is
the thanks I get for sewing on buttons with used dental floss for
five years so that the money I saved on cotton could be put
towards your first record player.”

“But Mum, are you proud of me?”

She turned her head towards him.

“You're an editor on a national newspaper already. Tell me,
what's not to be proud of?”

“And do you love me?”

“You're my son. What's there not to love?”

The closest Lilly had ever got to an affectionate smile flitted
across her face.

Dan looked at her. Alive or dead, he knew there was no changing
his mother. She was never going to acknowledge how she'd damaged
him while he was growing up, and that she had been responsible for
his hypochondria. He suspected that the pain of doing so would be too
much for her to bear. But suddenly it didn't seem to matter anymore.
For the first time in his life Dan had been able to get angry with
her. He had stood up to her. He had changed. The transformation which
had begun the day he ate a guilt-free bacon sandwich and ditched
his medical appliances was now complete.

As he stood watching Lilly, he realized it had been enough just
to tell her what he felt about her. He didn't need her to say sorry,
and he was more certain than ever that he didn't need her approval
anymore. He got up, put his arm round her shoulders and kissed her.
She looked up at him and grunted. Then, without saying anything,
she took his hands in both of hers. Just for a second or two, Dan
could see there were tears in her eyes.

He picked up his jacket from on top of the pile of Anthony
Bracegirdle's shirts, sat down opposite his mother and watched the
slow return of Ada Bracegirdle's small pointed nose, wrinkled skin
and bright-blue eyes.

“Remember”—Lilly's voice was hovering somewhere in the
distance now—“it was me who went without lunches for a month
in 1974 and fainted from low blood sugar, in order to save a few
pennies so that you could go to that Andy Stewart concert at the
Oval.”

“Rod Stewart, Mum.”

“Whatever.”

C H A P T E R     S I X T E E N

A
NNA WAS TEARING ROUND THE bedroom, naked except for a pair of flesh-colored knee-highs, flinging clothes into a black
leather holdall. She opened her knicker drawer and paused for a
few moments in order to work out how many pairs of panties she should
pack, bearing in mind she would only be one night in Dorset on the
hen-party feature Campbell McKee had commissioned her to write for
the
Globe on Sunday.

The logical side of her brain could see no reason to pack more
than one pair of knickers. The other side, anticipating umpteen
personal hygiene emergencies, including groinal sweating, copious
vaginal leakage and loss of bladder control, wanted to pack half
a dozen.

She compromised. She took four pairs of panties from the drawer
and stuffed them into the bag. She considered taking out a couple of
pairs of shoes to make room for a box of panty shields, but decided
against it because the shoes matched
the outfits she'd already packed.
Making room for the panty
shields would involve rethinking her entire
wardrobe for
the next twenty-four hours. Not that she imagined for
one
minute that she would wear more than one of the three
outfits she'd
packed. It was just that she liked to have a choice.

She tugged the zip across the bag and left it on the bed while
she started to dress. She was just doing up the cuff buttons on her
cream silk blouse when the doorbell and phone rang simultaneously.
Ignoring the phone Anna flew onto the landing and yelled down the
stairs to Denise.

“If that's my cab, tell him I'll be down in five minutes.” The
phone was still ringing. Anna shot back to the bedroom. She picked up
the receiver, held it under her chin and carried on doing up her
shirt buttons.

“Anna, angel .   .   . thought I'd give you a quick
bell just to check that you're all monkeyed up for tonight.”

It was Campbell in old-style Fleet Street vernacular mood,
checking she'd been assigned a photographer—a monkey—for
her assignment.

“Yeah, Campbell, it's all sorted,” she said. “The picture
desk rang me at lunchtime. I'm going with Monalisa Blake. Look,
Campbell, I'm in a tearing hurry .   .   . there's a
taxi waiting. I arranged to meet up with Monalisa at the
Globe—
we're driving down to Poole in her
car—so I can pop in and see you before we leave if you want to
chat about the piece.”

“No, angel, I'll leave it to you. I always trust you to bring
home the badger. Just do me a favor, that's all. Remind that barmy
artsy-fartsy Monalisa bint that this is not the
Independent
and I shall not be requiring any of 'er snaps of miserable lone
gits standing in the middle of bleak housing developments under
canopies of menacing black clouds. We're talking hen parties here. I
want to see gangs of pissed tarts with 'appy smiley faces and wobbly
jugs. She can shove anything else right up her aperture. You get
my drift, don't you, angel?”

Anna assured him she did.

D
an sat in the X-ray Department waiting room, planning his funeral.

He'd considered it fleetingly as he'd watched Dr. Harper slowly
remove her stethoscope earpieces from her ears and look at him
in a way that indicated he might be better off buying day returns
to the office rather than monthly seasons, but had only begun to
give it serious attention on the way over from the surgery to the
hospital.

Dr. Harper's look had coincided with a slow shake of her
head.

“I never thought I would hear myself say this, Mr.
Bloomfield,” she said, putting the stethoscope down on her desk,
“but your symptoms are giving me cause for concern. That is a
nasty little cough you've got there and I do not like the color of
your phlegm.” She picked up Dan's balsamic vinegar bottle from her
desk. The bottle was empty of balsamic vinegar, and a quarter full
of Dan's catarrh, which, in the few days since his appointment with
Ada Bracegirdle, had turned bright green and was the reason he had
changed his mind about seeing Dr. Harper.

“I think the wisest course of action,” she went on, “would
be to have your chest X-rayed—today, if possible. In fact
I think you should get yourself along to the hospital as soon as you
leave here.”

Dr. Harper began filling out the X-ray request form.

“You don't need an outpatients appointment,” she said briskly.
“Just hand this in at reception. You may have a bit of a wait, but
I'm sure they'll fit you in.”

She stood up and handed Dan the form, indicating that his
appointment with her was at an end. Dan took the piece of paper.
He noticed she'd written “Urgent please” across the top. He made
no attempt to leave his seat. He sat clutching the form.

“So,” he said, looking up at her, “you really think I could
have something serious then?” Panic was beginning to rise in his
voice. “I mean, it must be, if you think it's important I have
the X ray right away.”

Dr. Harper sat down. She reached for her spectacles, which
were on her desk. Holding them by one arm, she swung them gently.

“Mr. Bloomfield, we will know nothing until we have the
result of your chest X ray. I am not in the habit of making
diagnoses without being in full possession of the facts.”

“But you suspect this could be more than just an
infection?”

She put down her glasses and brought her hands together as if
she were at prayer. Then she rested her hands on her chin.

“It could be.   .   .   .” For a moment her tone had
become uncharacteristically gentle. “As I say, we will know more
when we have your X-ray results. Please try not to worry.”

I
t could be.   .   .   .” Walking back to the car, Dan
had repeated Dr. Harper's words out loud, over again. Each time
he managed a perfect imitation of her slow, measured delivery and
the way her voice had dipped at the end of the sentence. “It could
be” usually meant the speaker was in some doubt. There had been no
doubt in Dr. Harper's voice. The tender tone of her “It could be”
said it all. She meant “It definitely is.” Dr. Harper knew precisely
what was wrong with him, and so did Dan. He'd read enough medical
books in his time to know that a persistent irritating cough was one
of the first symptoms of lung cancer. So that was it. He was dying.
The X ray was merely a formality.

Dan felt strangely calm. He had spent years imagining what it
would feel like to be told he was terminally ill. He had spent nights
awake in bed picturing himself shaking and hysterical as he knelt
in front of some anonymous consultant, clutching his trouser leg,
begging and pleading with him to say he'd made a mistake.

Now that it had happened, or as good as, all he could think
about was what it was his death would mean to Amy and Josh. He was
going to leave them forever. They were about to lose their
daddy .   .   . the daddy who had taught them to swim
and ride their bikes, the daddy who used to read them
The Very
Hungry Caterpillar
when they were tiny and couldn't sleep.

It suddenly hit him that he wouldn't be around to check the
tires on Amy's boyfriends' cars before they took her out on dates, or
to have shouting matches with Josh about whether or not he was old
enough to go to Glastonbury. He also remembered the promise he had
made to Josh about the two of them going on a camping trip that
summer. The thought of explaining to that little boy why he was
breaking his promise was the most painful Dan had ever
experienced.

He stuck his key in the ignition, gripped the steering wheel
and wept.

The tears were still coming ten minutes later. Finally he blew
his nose loudly and started the engine. As he set off for the
hospital, he realized that his feelings towards Anna were, to say
the least, exceedingly confused. If he combined his suspicions about
her Barclaycard bill with the hints his mother had given him, they
clearly added up to her having an affair.

He could barely take in the enormity of what seemed to be
happening. Here he was, dying, probably with only weeks to live,
and his wife, whom he loved and adored, was cheating on him. But
more than anything else, he couldn't believe how all this could have
befallen him now, after he'd worked so fucking hard to kick his
hypochondria. For weeks he'd been planning the glorious moment
when he would put his arms round Anna's waist, swing her round
in the air and announce that he was cured. He'd even picked up
some holiday brochures from Thomas Cook.

As he drove, he realized that at least one positive thing would
come from his death. Anna would feel indescribably guilty for the
rest of her life. That, at least, gave him some satisfaction.

It was passing an undertaker's that made him start thinking once
more about his funeral. The thought of a traditional Jewish burial
added more misery to his despair. The no-flowers tradition made
them such bleak, colorless affairs.

The bit before the interment was the worst. The mourners stood
facing each other, women on one side of the cemetery chapel, men on
the other, watching the coffin, draped in black velvet, being wheeled
in on a battered wooden handcart. It had often occurred to Dan that
this contraption looked like something Jewish cemeteries had bought
as a job lot after the Great Plague. The chap pushing the cart was
usually some elderly, rabbinical-looking type wearing a top hat, a
long, navy gabardine raincoat and mud-caked Wellington boots.

Over the years, Dan had observed that as a consequence of having
never met the deceased, the majority of rabbis conducting funerals
operated a system of one eulogy fits all. At his mother's funeral,
the rabbi had spent the first two minutes of his tribute referring to
“our dear departed Lionel.”

S
itting waiting for his chest X ray, he was beginning to think
about his funeral tea. He was determined this should be a grand affair
with musicians and posh caterers. He imagined three long, willowy
girl cellists in black taffeta playing Handel while waitresses came
round with trays of sushi, deep-fried baby squid and fingers of
mozzarella wrapped in Parma ham. He was aware that his choice of menu
might not go down too well with some of his elderly Orthodox
relatives. It would, he decided, be necessary to provide some
traditional Jewish food. This would come in the form of the buffet
table centerpiece. He could see it now—his death mask molded
in chopped liver. The picture of his gluttonous aunts and uncles
gathered round the buffet table gouging out bits of his head and
spreading him on tea matzos made Dan feel almost lighthearted.

He was toying with the idea of having himself stuffed rather
than buried, and wondering whom he should phone to get a quote, when
he heard a young female voice call his name.

Turning his head towards the voice, he saw a nurse smiling at
him. She was holding open the door to the X-ray room. Dan stood
up and wiped his palms down the front of his hospital dressing gown.
He hesitated a moment longer and then started walking towards
her.

T
he minicab driver turned round to ask Anna if she minded him
playing a tape of northern Turkish folk music. The sound of goat
herders playing their pipes, he said, reminded him of the village
where he grew up. Hoping that this would mean he wasn't going
to make conversation, Anna said she didn't mind at all.

As the goat herders began their atonal piping, Anna folded a
stick of Wrigley's into her mouth. She found herself wishing for the
umpteenth time that afternoon that she hadn't agreed to do the
hen-party feature. She still hadn't got over the trauma of Alex's
heart attack and the last thing she needed was an overnight in some
seedy B and B with Monalisa Blake.

Monalisa was acknowledged as one of the best newspaper
photographers in the country, but the woman gave Anna the creeps. She
wore black lipstick, thirties hats with veils and white goatskin
gloves. She also talked incessantly, loudly, and usually over dinner,
about her passion for photographing human cadavers. What Monalisa
didn't know about lighting a corpse's face in order to eliminate
shadow and create a flat monotone effect wasn't worth knowing.

When Campbell had first suggested doing a three-parter on hen
nights, Anna had immediately assumed that, as a reward for all her
hard work on the Mavis de Mornay piece, she would be accompanying
the yuppie contingent, which she imagined would be heading off to
the Gritti Palace in Venice or the Royalton in New York. It turned
out that this wasn't what Campbell had in mind for her.

“Sorry, angel,” he'd said, “I've got Tiara Bulmer-Pilkington
covering the posh leg of the story. 'Er and a gang of Sloanes are
jetting off to some steak house in Tirana. Apparently cuisine chunder
is the latest fad with the uppers. They have competitions to see
who can chuck up the food first and then, totally slaughtered on the
local cognac, they go lurching through the streets singing
“Jerusalem' and taking the piss out of Albanian
haircuts. .   .   . No, angel, I thought you would
appreciate going off on something a bit more challenging, something
with a bit more—what's the word?—depth. Yeah, that's
it, depth. Angel, I can see your piece now, and believe me I'm
thinking poignant social critique here, a piercing indictment of life
as she is lived in rural England .   .   . sort of
Panorama
meets
Emmerdale.
”

It was then that Campbell outlined his plan for Anna to
accompany a butter churner from Dorset on her hen night. Apparently
the butter churner, who was called Kelly, and twenty of her mates
had booked to see the Lover Boys at the Starlight Club just outside
Poole. The Lover Boys, he explained, were the West Country's answer
to the Chippendales.