To the Devil - a Diva! (20 page)

But in the meantime we had breakfast.

Magda ground coffee beans. Cleavis hefted down a great big, blackened skillet and fried up bacon and sausages and eggs. Distractedly I watched them frazzle in the spitting, soupy fat. When they were done, I quietly asked him to place the pan back onto the heat.

‘Still hungry, old man?' he chuckled.

I shrugged. Then I took out the parcel I hadn't been able to put down all night, since the apparition had vanished. I opened the square of altar fabric quickly and dumped the slimy contents into the hissing hot lard.

‘Oh, Jesus,' said Cleavis.

I ignored his qualms, and my own.

We stared at the pulpy, wormy mass as it fried in the bacon fat and slowly started to brown. The smell was rather rich, and good.

‘I am going to come into my inheritance,' I told Cleavis and Magda determinedly. ‘I am going to inherit and I am going into the future.'

They were staring at me. I turned to set out a fresh plate and a knife and a fork for myself.

I was actually starting to feel very hungry.

This is where the tale of the first part of my life ends. Thank you for listening to an old, old man.

Good night, my dears. Good night!

It seemed that Effie had a new friend. That hadn't happened for a long time. She had kept the same store of familiar faces and eked them out, supposing that she wouldn't really need to add new ones. She thought that you got to a certain age and you don't go needing to know new people. There's nothing they can bring you now.

She was, she thought, old enough and ugly enough to regard the whole thing with a certain amount of suspicion. But, when Karla rang her home on Saturday morning she was flattered. She was suspicious and cautious and thinking Karla was mad, but she was flattered as well. She had been picked out as a likely-looking friend. And, from what Karla had said last night in the bar of the Prince Albert, it looked like she was needing new friends in Manchester.

Effie wasn't used to being picked out as friendly.

And, Saturday mornings, she wasn't used to the phone ringing. It made a strange, shrill noise in her living room. She hovered in her housecoat and slippers and stared at it. She wavered over picking it up. Probably it was someone from one of those call centres. Wanting to harass her. They'd got hold of her name and number somehow. She knew these people were often situated on the subcontinent
and it seemed bizarre to her, that people all that distance away cared a jot what kind of insurance she took out, or whether she wanted her windows replacing. And, often their English was atrocious. She would try to get rid of them as swiftly as possible, even though she knew it wasn't her bill they were rocketing up by ringing from India. But these people lingered and lingered and they kept you hanging on.

She hesitated, sighed, and plucked up the receiver.

‘Darling Effie,' came the half-familiar voice, and she was both offended by the familiarity and jolted with a weird excitement.

‘Who is it, please?'

‘It's me. Karla. We met yesterday evening. In the bar.'

Effie could feel herself colouring. This woman was making it sound as if she spent her every Friday night loitering around such places.

‘Oh, yes,' said Effie and started wondering how Karla had got hold of her number. During the conversation last night Effie hadn't actually said very much. She had kept out of it. She had stood to one side and then sat quietly, when the three of them repaired to a table by the picture window. Effie hadn't liked to interfere. Sally and Karla were apparently acquaintances from way back and they had a lot to say to each other. Effie had done her usual thing, nursing her gin and lime, listening, and trying to blend into the wallpaper.

‘… And perhaps you would like to help me out?' Karla was saying now. Effie had let her attention drift.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘I was just asking whether you'd like to keep me company
today, dear. I have a shopping expedition in mind. Kendals, Selfridges, and so on. I've hardly got anything with me and I need a whole lot of stuff.'

Effie listened, biting her lip. She wasn't used to shopping trips like this. Sometimes on a Saturday she and Sally would have an amble up Market Street and a take a look at Debenhams, and Sally was very fond of bargain hunting in TK Maxx. They weren't exactly enjoyable, those afternoons, but they made you feel as if you were in the swing of things. Everyone headed into town on Saturday afternoon. It was just what you did. It got a bit busy and you could get shoved around, but it filled up a few hours.

Effie had looked before at those rather grander, more expensive ladies who went to the more exclusive shops. She had noted their carrierbags as they had loaded them into taxis on Deansgate. Just last weekend she had heard two of them going on as they went by Kendals. One of them had been saying she was keeping an eye out for some particular shoes. ‘Something in stone …' she had said. Effie tried to picture that exact colour. Then she tried to imagine being a woman who could fill her afternoons worrying that she'd never find just the right shoe.

Still, those two women had been very smart people. Effie had liked the way they were bustling on down the street with a mission in mind.

So here was Karla – a woman who had made an appearance on the Six o'clock News last night – and she was inviting her, Effie, to become just that type of lady.

‘Is Sally coming along as well?' Effie had to ask. She made herself sound uncommitted. She hoped she sounded like she had no end of ideas for filling up her Saturday.

Karla sighed. Such a weary sigh. Impatience, Effie thought. She's spitting into that receiver. ‘She says she's spending time with her grandson today.'

Oh, Effie thought. So she phoned Sally first. Of course. That's her real friend here. And Sally's busy with her precious Colin. I'm next best, of course.

‘I don't know anything about her grandson,' Karla went on. ‘Do you know him?'

‘Sally's just about brought him up,' Effie said. ‘His parents were killed in a house fire. He's been with her since he was a kiddie, really. She's very fond.'

‘Oh.' Karla drifted off for a moment or two. ‘Well, what about it, Effie?' she said, rather brusquely.

‘Well,' Effie stammered. ‘I'm not really …'

‘It'll be fun,' Karla urged. ‘We'll have a lovely lunch together and you can tell me all about your life, and I can tell you all about my ridiculous life. Come on, Effie. I need someone … sensible like you around. To stop me from blowing all my first six months' salary on my first weekend here.'

People might recognise Karla out and about. She'd been on the news after all. And Effie would blush and feel more self-conscious than ever. It could, it would probably be, quite horrible.

But it was something different, wasn't it? Better than watching sport on the telly, in her housecoat all afternoon. She didn't even like sport. Maybe athletics. She liked the cleanness of the springy plastic mats. And the one-piece outfits the chunky, streamlined men wore. The way they put chalk dust on their hands before attempting anything. It seemed a very civilised kind of sport to her. She frowned
into the mouthpiece. ‘All right,' she said, cautiously. ‘Shall I meet you in …'

‘I'll send a car,' Karla told her briskly. ‘At eleven.'

So then they were out in town and, Effie had to admit, she was having her eyes opened.

Somehow I never understood the point, she thought. All of this is about enjoying yourself. All these things are here for you to enjoy. This plethora. She rolled the word around on her tongue as Karla tugged her arm, easing her through the commotion.

On this particular Saturday afternoon I am taking my time. Karla is making me stop and stand and take my time. To do things and enjoy things I never would have before. Usually I hurry on, I know. I think they're looking at me. I think they're going to make me buy something that I don't want. They're going to press something on me and I'll get confused and I shall end up wasting all of my money. And I will hate myself for it.

On the cool, spacious ground floor of Kendals department store Karla made Effie pay attention to the woman at a swanky make-up counter. She made her sit on a high metal stool and stare at her own reflection. Effie had to examine little pots and tubes of unguents and cream. Then she had to listen to them all talk about her face. And she became content to let them rub this stuff into her skin and swipe it off again with balls of cotton wool. Then they talked about what lovely skin she had, actually, and what marvellous bones. And Effie realised that she was having a nice time.

Karla was fussing around her as well, giving her own
expert tips on skin-care. On what Effie might do with her hair. She knew what would match Effie's striking complexion.

Very respectable and smart today, was Karla. Effie looked on her approvingly. None of that vampish black and fishnet. But, of course, that was just her acting persona. Her celebrity uniform. Naturally Karla didn't dress and behave like that on her days off. This was her mufti, as it were. Karla was in a russet trouser suit, cut very flatteringly. A cream silk blouse. Effie thought the whole ensemble did very well on a top-heavy lady like her. She had already complimented her new friend on her very discreet jewellery.

Part of Effie had worried, as she'd been driven into town by Karla's chauffeur, that her shopping companion would doll herself up and be all showy, to attract attention to herself. But instead, Effie had been pleased. It turned out that Karla dressed herself very much like Effie would, had she the resources.

They looked at clothes together, slowly ascending the levels of the store on smooth-running escalators. Effie felt fresh and strange and stiff with all this new stuff on her face. She could feel the expense of it: it felt cool on her skin.

They made comments to each other as they compared fabrics and prices and the cut of things; what might wash well and what would last. They found that many of their opinions exactly chimed in. Who would have thought it? Effie chuckled to herself as she waited while Karla tried on a number of garments. Who ever would have thought they'd have anything in common at all?

Not Sally. Never in a million years. She'd have kept us far apart. Far apart. Sally hadn't been at all pleased to see
Karla last night in the bar of the Prince Albert. Not really. No matter how she fussed and went on all jaunty. She looked at Karla like something she'd never wanted to clap eyes on again. Which was cruel really. What with Karla trying so hard. And that was why Sally had made excuses today. Sally was determined not to be friends. Well. It would be her missing out. No one else.

I don't believe, Effie thought, in cutting off my own nose to spite my face.

Then she thought: but yes I do. That's what I've always done.

And then she was confused. They went to look at shoes.

Karla praised Effie's small, rather elegant feet, with their high arches. Said her own were diabolical. Effie perched on a little leather stool with one foot stuck out, angling it about. ‘Oh, I don't know …' she laughed, as if Karla was being ridiculous, paying her the compliment. Though really, she had always known her feet were one of her more special features.

Karla seemed pleased to see Effie laughing. She urged her to try on different pairs. Some of them had heels Effie would never consider braving. She wondered how she would look, strutting about. Karla was very good though. Whenever she suggested that Effie slip into something more stylish than she was used to, she never made it seem like criticism. It never felt as if Karla disapproved of how Effie looked now. Even trying to walk across the thick carpet in a pair of heels that would pay a year's Council Tax, Effie still never felt old womanish and silly in Karla's eyes.

That was the very last thing she wanted to feel.

Sally was impossible to shop with. When she went digging through the scraps and mismatched rails in TK Maxx she didn't have an ounce of dignity. She'd be elbowing people aside and having a good rummage. Effie always stood on the sidelines, pretending she wasn't there. ‘It's all good stuff,' Sally had told her severely, on a number of occasions. ‘These are all designer tops, you know. Knocked down.'

‘Hm,' Effie would reply. She never did say much when they were out and about. She'd be thinking: have I locked the front door properly? Did I leave the gas on? Was that iron still plugged in? These were the kinds of thoughts she had when she was with Sally.

The two of them never went anywhere like this for lunch, either. In the basement of the new Selfridges there was what Karla called a sushi bar. More high stools to sit on and there was a conveyor belt going round in front of your nose like a miniature railway. All these dollies' dishes, brightly coloured, sliding by, like things Effie had never seen before in her life.

‘This is an adventure,' she said, not knowing where to start.

‘You might not like it,' said Karla thoughtfully. ‘We should have gone somewhere else, really.' She peeped over at the small dishes. To Effie, everything looked as if it was very tightly rolled or wrapped up in parcels, or dyed unlikely colours to seem like something else. ‘I just wanted to try it in here,' said Karla. ‘They never used to have places like this in Manchester. Not in the old days.'

Effie perked up at the mention of the old days. ‘Oh, we used to have all sorts,' she said. ‘There was always everything here, if you looked for it. Even sushi, I bet.'

Karla laughed – a lovely, deep warble of a laugh.

‘It's not different,' added Effie. ‘It's just dressed up a bit smarter.'

That stopped Karla chuckling and Effie regretted sounding a little sharp then. But now she needed help, sorting out which utensils to eat with, and how to hook the dishes off the shunting conveyor belt. Karla helped out, trying to work out the system for her. It was delightful, really – all this fiddly, picky food. There was even a tap in front of them and when you held one of the tiny cups underneath, it would rush hot green tea into it for you. It was that pungent, oriental-type tea that you could only sip at.

As they picked and fiddled Effie decided that she had to brave it.

She looked at Karla's famous face beside her (odd how no one had recognised her in her respectable garb today) and she asked outright: ‘When was it, then, the last time you saw Sally? Years ago, I suppose?'

Karla glanced at her and started messing about with the slivers of pink stem ginger that they had both found rather overpowering. She was trying to take the tiniest piece possible, jabbing at it with a toothpick. ‘What has she told you?' Karla asked.

‘Nothing much,' Effie shrugged lightly. ‘Not a lot. She's quite deep, really, our Sally. Doesn't give much away. All she's told me is that you two knew each other as kids …'

Karla smiled. Really, when she smiled, she looked so much younger. And at these close quarters you could see how marvellous her skin was. There was an almost unnaturally healthy sheen to the woman.