Neurotica (31 page)

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y-T H R E E

G
LORIA, WHO KNEW NOTHING OF HER daughter's present anguish, had spent the evening trying to get a decent shine on Harry's nuts.
Harry was due back from Israel on Monday and she thought he
would appreciate coming home to a clean and tidy tool chest.

In common with most Jewish men, a combination of snobbery
and utter incompetence caused him to shun virtually all aspects of
DIY. Whereas his non-Jewish friends were frequently overcome by
the impulse to grout, or the desire to own a cordless drill, Harry
had never experienced such impulses or desires. Nor had he ever
experienced the delights of a Sunday afternoon spent wandering
round local DIY superstores in search of that elusive set of
premetric Allen keys. For years Harry thought Texas Homecare was
some kind of American neighborhood watch scheme.

This lack of interest in manual labor was reflected in the
pristine condition of Harry's thirty-year-old tool box. It was also
reflected in its contents, most of which were next to useless. As
well as the nuts and a few unopened packets of screws and picture
hooks, it contained a fifteen-year-old tube of Araldite, a pair of
needle-nose pliers which were meant exclusively for fine electrical
work, a ball peen hammer with a loose head and a hand drill with no
masonry bit.

Gloria had tipped all the screws, nuts and nails into a pair
of pantyhose which were brand-new but had turned out to be the wrong
shade of oyster, and put them in the dishwasher cutlery container.
When she discovered that not even the hottest cycle could make them
gleam, she decided to get a duster and some metal polish and buff
the lot up by hand.

By nine o'clock her wrists were aching and her hands were caked
in a mixture of black metal oxide and dried polish. She decided to
have a break. She would take a cup of tea into the living room, sit
herself down and read the deaths column in the local paper. The
ridiculous “Mum, we are miffed now you are a stiff” rhymes always
creased her up.

She took a clean cup from the dishwasher. While she rinsed it
in boiling water to remove any residual germs, Gloria found her
mind wandering back to the night Gerald Brownstein broke in
through the downstairs loo window. An icy shiver ran down her
back. She thanked God that after telling Julian, who ran her
obsessive-compulsives group, what had happened, he had finally
been convinced that Gerald was seriously unhinged. Julian had
gone to see Gerald's daughter and persuaded her to put him in
an old people's home.

He was now living quite happily in the Sadie and Manny Lever
Home in Hendon, and was allowed out only if a member of staff
went with him.

Gloria had been to see him once, but hadn't stayed long. This
was because she'd made the mistake of arriving at teatime and one of
the residents, a toothless woman called Hettie who could only chew
soft food, and who believed she could see into the future, kept
coming over to where Gloria and Gerald were sitting and insisting
on reading Gerald's fortune in her Alphabetti spaghetti.

Gloria went into the living room and put her cup and saucer
on top of the nest of tables next to the armchair. Having shoved a
cushion into the small of her back, she put her feet up on her pink
velvet footstool and began turning the pages of the newspaper. Her
journey towards the births, marriages and deaths was interrupted
by an article highlighting a debate between a handful of Stanmore
residents and the council over the fate of six sycamore trees. The
huge trees grew in a park which backed onto the residents'
gardens. They had no objection to the trees, only to their roots,
which they maintained were about to undermine the foundations of
their houses. For months, the residents had been asking the council
to take some kind of remedial action to prevent the roots spreading
any farther, or to cut down the trees. The council were refusing
to do either.

Normally, Gloria would have ignored such an article. At best
she would have given it a casual glance. The reason she not only
read it, but took in every word, was that she was one of the Stanmore
residents. One of the eighty-foot-high sycamores directly overlooked
her back garden. Only a week ago she had added her name to yet
another letter from the residents' committee, demanding the council
act immediately to protect their homes.

The article ended by saying that the residents' committee had
consulted a prominent tree surgeon named Tilda Hasselquist, who
said that in her opinion there was no doubt that the sycamore roots
were damaging the houses and that the council would be “courting
financial disaster if they didn't cut down the trees at once.”

Gloria smiled. The council would be mad not to give in. She
was about to turn the page and resume her journey towards the
births, marriages and deaths when she realized that something about
the photograph of the sycamores had disturbed her. She folded back
the newspaper, heaved herself out of the armchair and held the
article under the standard lamp.

The sycamore which featured most prominently in the photograph
was the one backing onto her garden. Gloria was in no doubt about
this, because underneath the tree she could clearly see a couple of
her Rigby and Peller bras pegged to a rotary washing line. What she
couldn't quite make out was who, or what, was crouching in the tree
about halfway up, clutching the trunk. It was far too big for a cat.
She pushed her glasses onto her head and brought the photograph
up close to her eyes, but it made no difference. She couldn't begin
to see what the thing could be.

Gloria put the newspaper down on the chair and went into the
kitchen, where she had left Harry's tool chest. Among all his bits
and pieces there was a Swiss Army knife which she knew had a
magnifying glass attachment.

Resuming her position under the standard lamp, she held the
magnifying glass over the photograph. Her heart nearly stopped.
There was one part of the crouching figure which was slightly less
out of focus than the rest. She would recognize that hooter, that
grin, those spectacles anywhere.

Gloria was in no doubt. Gerald Brownstein had tunneled out of
the Sadie and Manny Lever Home. Not only was he on the run, but
he was still stalking her. He had become a tree stalker.

Gloria ran into the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialed
999.

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y-F O U R

A
NNA'S ALARM WENT OFF JUST after six. For several seconds she lay rigid with terror while her brain struggled, and failed,
to work out who and where she was. When, after another second or
two, her memory returned, the misery which had become part of her
since Dan left let itself in and made itself at home in her stomach.
She wanted to be sick.

She sat up in bed and took a few deep breaths. Her wake-up
routine had been the same every day since Dan left. She knew
that after a couple of minutes the nausea would pass and that in
its place would come anger, desperation and longing. These would
be her companions for the rest of the day.

The only vaguely bright spot in Anna's life was that she
had made her peace with Brenda. The moment she had got home having
run out on Ed, she'd phoned Brenda to tell her about it and to
apologize for her behavior when she came to pick up the kids. Brenda
had also said sorry for getting on her high horse. It was then
that Anna had begged Brenda to go and see Dan
to try and persuade
him to come home. Brenda, who thought
the pair of them needed their
heads bashing together and that
she should be the one to do the
bashing, hadn't taken any
persuading. She had driven round to
Beany Levine's flat early
yesterday evening. The moment she got
home, she'd phoned Anna.

“Well, the good news is, he got the result of 'is chest
X ray and it was clear. According to Dan the doctor now thinks
the cough was nothing more than a stress thing.”

“Thank God.” Anna almost wept with relief.

“Nevertheless,” Brenda went on, “he's still one severely
depressed bloke. He's not eating, he hasn't been to work and he
doesn't look like 'e's washed for days. I also think he may be
hitting the booze big-time. Mind you, that flat doesn't help
matters. Talk about a flophouse. Apparently Beany gave up
barristering just after his divorce and is trying to make a name
for himself doing stand-up comedy. So naturally, he's broke and
can't afford a decent place to live—”

“Yes, yes, I know, but what did Dan say?” Anna sounded
almost frantic. “Did you tell him that I still love him—that
I want him back?”

Brenda went silent.

“Yeah, I told him,” she said flatly.

“And?”

“And he says he wants more time on his own. Says he can't
bring himself to see a solicitor yet because he still loves you.
But he's not sure if he'll ever be able to forgive you.”

“And that's it? That's all he said?”

“Pretty much. To be honest, I couldn't get much out of him.
I think he'd been drinking all afternoon. He looked half asleep
most of the time.”

“But didn't he say anything about getting in touch, about
seeing the kids?”

“Anna, he really is in a bad way. I blasted in there ready
to read 'im the riot act, a bit like I did with you the other night,
but he's out of it. He barely knows what time of day it is. I'd
only been there twenty minutes and he took himself off to bed. I
spent the rest of the evening nattering to Beany.
Funny   .   .   .”—her tone lightened
suddenly—“I always imagined someone with a name like Beany
Levine would be skinny and bald.   .   .   .”

Brenda's voice trailed off. She sounded like she had something
important to tell Anna, but had decided this wasn't the right
time.

“Anna,” she said, getting her thoughts back on track, “I
think you've got no option but to do as he asks. You have to back
off and give him time to sort his 'ead out. He'll come back. I
know it.”

As Anna lay in bed, those last words kept echoing inside
her brain. She supposed she had to live in hope.

Having allowed her ten minutes' snooze time, the alarm clock
went off again. Anna tensed momentarily with surprise, and then
reached out to switch it off. She had nearly two hours before
she was due at the Channel 6 studio in Hammersmith.

As she had hoped, Bryoney Keen had barely been able to contain
her excitement when she'd phoned her and suggested confronting
Rachel Stern on live television. The only problem had been Alex.
He had immediately agreed to take part, but his heart specialist
had decided the strain of doing an interview in the TV studio might
be too much for him. It was agreed instead that he would still tell
his story live, but from home, rather than in the studio.

Anna stood up and put on her dressing gown. As she tied the
belt, it occurred to her that between them, she and Alex could be
about to destroy Rachel Stern's career. Sex aside, Anna was the
closest she'd been in ages to experiencing a warm glow.

W
hile a makeup girl called Cinders smeared foundation over Anna's face with a tiny damp sponge, Brenda came in carrying a tray
of tea. She'd insisted on coming with Anna to the studio to hold
her hand.

“Christ,” she said, addressing Anna's reflection in the
brightly lit mirror, “you want to see it out there. They're all
running round like tits in a trance. Seems like Stern is stuck
in traffic and you're due on in ten minutes.”

“She'll be here,” Anna said calmly. She refused to be
panicked, or to countenance for one minute that her plan to destroy
Rachel Stern was about to be scuppered.

Brenda made a space in the clutter of eyeshadow palettes on
the melamine ledge under the mirror and put down Anna's cup. Cinders,
who wasn't best pleased about her palettes being interfered with,
gave Brenda a filthy look. Brenda matched it.

At that moment a very flustered Bryoney Keen appeared. She
spoke through a haze of cigarette smoke and coffee breath.

“Thought I'd pop in and explain the running order. Just
before half eight we've got the chef doing a gooseberry cobbler.
That's followed by a heavyweight interview with a couple of
scientists from Imperial College who have isolated the gene which
makes women pick their feet in front of the telly and then pile up
the dead skin on the arm of the chair, and then it's you. I'll
send somebody to fetch you when we're ready. I've just spoken to
Rachel Stern on her mobile. She shouldn't be more than a couple
of minutes.”

Then Bryoney was out of the door. Brenda, who wanted someone
to show her where to find the loo, chased after her.

Cinders began taking out the huge heated rollers she'd put
in Anna's hair “to give you a bit of volume” and continued with
the “less is more” lecture she had been giving before Brenda
came in with the tray of tea. This had been precipitated by Anna
turning up to the studio wearing her favorite bright-red lipstick,
which she thought made her look dynamic as well as sexy. Cinders
had tut-tutted as she rubbed at it with cleanser and cotton wool.
“Mature women,” she had said with twenty-two-year-old cockiness,
making it perfectly clear she was referring to Anna, “need to
remember that softer, paler colors are more flattering on an aging
skin.”

As Cinders rabbited on and began back-combing, Anna found
herself thinking about Ed and how relieved and grateful she was
that he had been able to forgive her for running out on him. When
she'd got home after her lunch with Alison, she'd found a huge
bouquet of flowers waiting for her on the doorstep. The note
with them was very brief. It simply said that he understood that
she wasn't ready to start a serious relationship, and that his
life had taken a sudden and highly unexpected turn for the better.
Tilda, his ex, had been invited to join a team of scientists in
a biosphere in Arizona. Her brief was to spend two years creating
her own rain forest. She had accepted and now, having undergone
a complete change of heart, wanted Ed to have the children. Anna
had read the last line so often, she knew it off by heart. “Please
don't worry about me, I'm happier than I've been in months. I'll
miss you and I will always love you. Ed.”

Anna dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex and prayed that the
mascara Cinders had used was waterproof.

“Right, that's you done,” Cinders said, giving Anna's hair
a final spray.

When Anna had finished choking, she took a good look at herself
in the mirror. The whole effect was hideous. Her face looked pale
and washed-out, and instead of hair, she appeared to be wearing
an enormous candy floss hat.

She was about to insist that Cinders redo her face and hair
when a young lad in a Channel 6 T-shirt came in to take her onto
the set. Ripping off her pink nylon gown, she followed him into
the long corridor which led to the studio.

A
nna stood just inside the studio door, watching Heather and
Tim finish their interview with the scientists from Imperial College.
The set, which Bryoney had explained had been designed to look
ordinary and unthreatening and to make viewers feel as if they
were sitting in their own living room in Croydon, consisted of two
sofas with backs shaped like asymmetrical parabolas. One was deep
purple, the other lime green. Between these was a vermilion coffee
table shaped like a pair of lips. On the floor were two or three
huge vases which looked like old-fashioned metal buckets. Each
contained two bright-orange bird-of-paradise flowers and a single
green leaf.

Heather and Tim, on the other hand, looked genuinely ordinary
and unthreatening. Tim, in his M&S slacks and pale-yellow
V-necked sweater, gave the impression of being a harmless,
avuncular chap who played a lot of golf. Heather, who was wearing
calf-length pleats and turquoise jacket, was plump and
mumsy-looking.

Heather and Tim shook hands with the scientists and Heather
announced a commercial break. While the scientists were having
their microphone packs removed, Rachel Stern was brought onto
the set. The idea was that Heather and Tim would spend a couple of
minutes interviewing Stern about her book and then Anna would be
invited to join the discussion. Stern looked stunning in a
rust-colored trouser suit which matched her hair. Heather and Tim
stood up to greet her. Anna grimaced as she watched Stern give them
a haughty stare, flick back her mass of curls and ignore their
outstretched hands. Instead she turned towards another lad in a
headset and demanded iced Perrier. “And I want it in a glass,”
she bellowed, “not one of your frigging paper cups.” Then, her
expression about as warm as Anchorage in December, she wiped over
her end of the sofa with a handkerchief and sat down. She was
clearly ready to do battle.

Suddenly, Anna was shaking visibly.

“I think these might make you feel better.” Anna jumped and
swung round. She'd thought Brenda was still in the loo. “I went
back into makeup and took them out of your bag.” She handed
Anna her Denman hairbrush and bright-red lipstick.

A
s soon as the ads came on, Dan got up and made himself
another mug of tea. He'd been awake since four. By six he'd realized
he wasn't going to get back to sleep. Wrapped in his duvet, he'd
shuffled into the living room and switched on the telly. He had
followed this pattern every morning since moving in with Beany. He
would begin the day with
At the Crack
with a pair of
gut-churningly chirpy morons called Tim and Heather. When that
finished at ten, he would pour himself his first glass of Red Label.
He would then take the bottle and the remote back to Beany's
filthy, stinking sofa and spend the rest of the day surfing the
satellite sport and movie channels. The only time he got up was
to go to the can.

Dan needed the whiskey because it took the edge off his pain.
Receiving the news from Dr. Harper that he wasn't dying hadn't
eased his misery in the slightest. In a perverse, twisted way, Dan
almost wished he had cancer. The knowledge that he didn't only
put pressure on him to cheer up.

Nothing, not even whiskey, could control the anger he felt
towards Anna. There were moments when he would imagine she was in
the room with him. Then he would shout and swear and scream the
place down. Afterwards he would look round for something to smash.
Even in his misery, he decided, smashing crockery was a
cliché. Besides, Beany only possessed two dinner plates and
a couple of cereal bowls. Without these, they would have to eat
straight from the frying pan. Instead, when Dan felt himself overcome
with rage, he would take it out on Beany's telephone directories.
Last night he had ripped the pages of the L-to-Z book from
their spine. For some reason he had then taken the last few pages and
ripped them to shreds. Beany had come home to find Dan fast asleep,
buried in Zweigbergs, Zussmans and Zwebners.

He came back into the living room and put his feet up on
what passed as a coffee table. He sipped his tea. Through his
hangover, he was vaguely aware of Heather and Tim interviewing some
strident and deeply unpleasant American feminist about her latest
book. He decided he could either cope with her bellowing voice or his
headache, but not both. He picked up the remote and pointed it at the
screen. It was then that he noticed Heather was holding up
a copy of that morning's
Daily Mercury.
He took his
feet off the table and leaned forward. Anna's huge byline almost
leaped out at him from the television screen.

“Now, those of you who have read this morning's
Mercury,
” Heather was saying, “will be aware of an
article which appears across several pages, and which is deeply
critical of the ideas put forward in
The Clitoris-Centered
Woman.
The article was written by the journalist Anna Shapiro
and she joins us this morning. Anna, welcome.   .   .   .”

Dan could hardly believe what was happening. Hadn't it been
enough for Anna to humiliate him in private? Now she was about to
inflict even more pain on him by letting the whole world know about
her affairs. He sat with his finger hovering over the off button
on the remote control. The debate between Anna and the feminist, who
he now realized was Rachel Stern, had started to get quite
heated.