Sleeping Beauties

by Mavis Cheek

  ‘Where’s Bernie?’ said Rita. ‘I need his help.’

  ‘Changing,’ said Caroline, so smugly that Rita banged the door.

  But he came down too soon.

  Whistling and pleased with himself because he had made love all afternoon, because he was going to become Chairman of the Photographic Society and because he had a whole new outfit of clothes, he descended the stairs.

  The only slight distraction was that his own dear, soft Caroline was looking rather – well – dangerous came to mind – but what did that matter? The two women in his life were both friendly at last, and resigned to each other’s existence. Life was good. He would be Chairman, Rita would help him, and Caroline would always be there to fill in the places between.

  He smoothed the new tie against his new shirt and whistled some more, putting his hands in the pockets of his chinos. Lovely clothes – the sort of thing he would never dare wear in the old days. Wearing them now certainly boosted his confidence. It had taken him no time at all to change.

  He stopped whistling at the foot of the stairs and smiled as he saw Caroline polishing away at the glasses. He advanced, spreading his shoulders in relaxed relief to hear his ex-wife busying herself in the kitchen.

  Indeed, he might well have quoted ‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world’ as he strolled across the room towards his lover and put his arms around her waist. He might well have felt so optimistic, despite the strange sparkle in Caroline’s eyes, and he might well have continued to feel optimistic, had not Caroline looked at her watch and then said sharply, ‘You can’t wear those clothes. Go and change at once.’

  This was very confusing. Last week she liked them. And now here she was, flapping the tea-towel, pursing her vampire lips, and telling him to Go And Change At Once as if he’d come down wearing a frock. He had never, in all his wildest dreams, aspired to actually understanding women, but he had thought in this instance he was dancing on thick ice. Apparently not.

  ‘But you like these clothes,’ he said, bewildered.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ said Caroline.

  Another odd thing to say.

  ‘You said you liked them,’ he whispered, immediately getting into humouring mode.

  Caroline seemed to implode. ‘Well – I don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ The question was one of genuine interest.

  She thought Rapidly. ‘Because the shirt doesn’t match the trousers,’ she said positively, and folded her arms, looking not unlike a slightly less confident version of Morticia Munster.

  ‘Well you said they did.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you bought them,’ he said huffily.

  Oh fuck.

  Caroline peered. She had not, in truth, noticed what he was wearing, in her desire to keep him out of the way. ‘Ah,’ she said, waiting for inspiration. And ‘Ah’ again. ‘Must be the light.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ he said with relief. He had backed away a little, for truth was this new look of Caroline’s was best viewed from a distance.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ she said positively.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You might spill food on them.’

  ‘I’ll use a serviette,’ he began, and then rebelled. Bloody cheek. ‘I don’t spill food, as you put it. I’m a very clean eater.’

  Caroline had a sudden riveting vision of Bernie taking a big mouthful of the ceviche, followed by an even more riveting vision of his spitting it out.

  ‘Not always,’ she said, and then several thousand years of deep-rooted feminine sensibility came to her rescue again. She slunk over to him, put her hand on his shoulder, gazed into his eyes, her own so disturbingly wanton with their belladonna lids, and said ‘Please.’

  So off he went, and when Rita put her little head round the door for the second time and said, ‘Where is Bernie?’ Caroline said, ‘Still changing.’

  Rita wrinkled her brow, perplexed at this new sartorial side to him. ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Caroline happily. ‘How’s the food?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Rita, with just the faintest touch of arrogance.

  ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rita. ‘You can open the bottles of red to let them breathe.’

  She should not, reflected Caroline as she tipped a tiny little dribble of TCP into each of the bottles, have sounded quite so arrogant when she said that. She began to understand why people went on bumping off victim after victim – you could get hooked on the power of it all.

  She was still digesting the whisky when Bernie came back down the stairs. He was no longer whistling and the spring had gone out of his step. He wore an old denim shirt and his jeans. He looked defiant.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Caroline, scarcely noticing.

  Rita peered round the kitchen door. ‘Where have you been?’ she said to Bernie. And looking him up and down said, too wifely for comfort, ‘Haven’t you changed yet?’

  ‘Yes I sodding well have!’ he snapped. And he gave her a look that suggested he had further to say on the matter if she did.

  Rita jumped, fluttered, blinked. But before she could get into her distressed kitten pose, the doorbell rang.

  Saved by the bell, thought Caroline, swaying just a little as she went to open the door.

  You Are What You Look. Later, putting up a remonstrative hand with nails like inky talons, Caroline said loudly and firmly to Rita, enunciating very carefully so that their guests should make no mistake, ‘You cooked the meal. You did it all. It is only fair that I should do the running around and serving of it. Sit!’

  And so firm was her intent that Rita did as she was told.

  Caroline began to serve each course.

  Taking the hidden portion of ceviche from the back of the fridge, she gave it to Bernie, who therefore ate with relish. Caroline, knowing she had to go through with this or perish on the battlefield, ate hers with gusto. Knowing what the horrible taste was helped, as, indeed, did the whisky. Rita looked at them each in turn, picking at her plate, hope in her eyes.

  She must be praying she’s got the only bad bit, thought Caroline happily.

  Bernie had spent many a lyrical moment explaining how brilliant Rita’s cookery was, and what an asset she would be to the Photographic Society. He licked his lips – the ceviche was delicious – now they would know. He paused to give Rita a grateful look, and she looked back at him with a question he did not altogether understand.

  Caroline was eating away, going ‘Yum Yum’ a little too loudly, which was slightly embarrassing, and the Current Incumbent and his wife were poking their food around on their plates as if it were infectious. Perhaps they did not like fish? He was about to enquire when Caroline said, ‘It certainly tastes of the sea,’ very gaily, and proceeded to refill their glasses with Saumur.

  She had not trifled with the white wine because Bernie drank only white. And anyway, one should not gild the lily. The amenable Current Incumbent and his amenable wife drank with relief and hoped they could fill up on the next course. Whatever that raw fish had tasted of, it was certainly not the sea ...

  Bernie expounded his views of the role of the new Chairman, were he lucky enough to be elected. With Rita firing so brilliantly on all her culinary guns he thought there was little question of that. So did the Current Incumbent, but for a very different reason. Smiling, Caroline stood up to clear away. Well, she was behaving too. Though there was a little too much rattling of cutlery and businesslike clucking.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, ‘the neighbourhood cats are in for a treat.’

  ‘You hate the neighbourhood cats,’ said Bernie, discomfited to see how much the guests had left.

  ‘I know,’ said Caroline, even more gaily, and tripped off to the kitchen. Nothing could stop her now.

  ‘Will you pour the red wine Rita?’ she called over her shoulder, ‘while I get these delicious-looking pheasants dished up?’ She gave the Current Incumbent and his wife a
broad smile, with an unmistakeable hint of sympathy. ‘Apparently,’ she said ‘this wine is from one of the top small vineyards in France. Rita’s friend gets it. Bung Ho!’

  The guests relaxed a little. Pheasant. That was more like it.

  A frowning Rita whispered, ‘I’ll come and help now. I think I’d better.’

  And Caroline hissed back, ‘No, no – you stay here and help Bernie along.’

  Which was indisputably reasonable.

  ‘Go shooting often, Bernie?’ asked the Current Incumbent politely.

  ‘No,’ said Bernie.

  ‘But he’d like to, wouldn’t you?’ said Rita.

  ‘You should come and stay with us sometime. Have a go.’

  Bernie said, ‘I’d like that very much.’

  Rita beamed. ‘Bernie always was good at things,’ she said vaguely.

  Caroline heard it all as she set down the used plates in the kitchen, and wanted to vomit. But she remembered the washing-up liquid and instantly felt better. Fairy Liquid was particularly thick and rich. Much as one might want one’s men. Only Caroline wanted Bernie, who was neither.

  She consigned the rejected ceviche to the bottom of the rubbish bin.

  Next the pheasant. The Current Incumbent went so far as to rub his hands. Bernie had promised him a veritable feast. He hoped it improved.

  His wife was asking Rita about châteaux and suppliers and Rita was expounding confidently. ‘Smell,’ Caroline heard her command.

  She would have given her eye teeth to see the woman’s face as she took a good sniff from her glass.

  Hubble, bubble, she thought, taking in the plates.

  Rita took a good dig at the stuffing piled on hers and placed some in her mouth. She immediately went bright scarlet, and nearly gagged.

  I have lived for this moment, thought Caroline. For this moment, I Have Lived.

  Conversation was now non-existent. The wine, château-bottled as it was, did not flow. Bernie noticed how little his guests and Rita had eaten. Again. Though Caroline had tucked in, bless her. He waited politely to see if they wished to finish what was on their plates. They did not. Funny people, he thought, and looked at Rita. Her eyes were very, very bright. He knew that look – teary-wearies not far away.

  ‘Well, wasn’t that just delish?’ he said bravely.

  Response to this was minimal.

  Bernie looked across at Caroline. In the candlelight she looked more and more dangerous. He did not know whether to be excited or afraid. Excited, he hoped, and picked up the bottle of red wine.

  ‘More drink,’ he said heartily. And he, who normally only drank white wine, poured some red into his own glass before Caroline could stop him. But even as he raised the poisoned chalice, she put out her hand with its dangerous dark nails and – if not exactly dashing it from his lips – she took it from him with a little tug saying, ‘No, no, Bernie. Pudding wine.’

  Which was undoctored, despite the temptation.

  The Current Incumbent’s wife said she would stick to bottled water.

  ‘Good job I bought some,’ said Caroline, giving Rita the benefit of her sumptuous smiling lips.

  ‘Bernie,’ said Rita, ‘I must talk to you.’ She gave a little jerk of her head in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Alone.’

  Too late, thought Caroline, for it was all in the bin.

  Rita opened the lid, from which wafted a pungent aroma of Forest Pine. She put her perplexed head on one side, as if thinking, and said to herself ‘Was it all right? Was it?’

  ‘I must say though,’ said Caroline, as she cut at the tart carefully, and Rita held out each plate, ‘the wine tasted a bit off.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rita miserably.

  ‘But then – it might be because it was so special and of course I am not used to special wines.’

  Rita did not look convinced. The canary, noted the vamp with glee, was definitely moulting.

  ‘At least this tart is OK,’ she said flatly.

  That’s what you think, said Caroline to herself, for she had cut a sliver of Bernie’s unadulterated portion for Rita to try.

  As she sat at the table and watched the guests toying with their dessert, and at the Current Incumbent who, having found some palatable alcohol in the muscat, was knocking it back, she thought it was the most successful dinner party she had ever not given. To hide behind a mask helped – couldn’t have done it otherwise.

  Bernie had finished his tart. Caroline managed to continue talking despite getting very little response. He rather resented her competence. Especially since little Rita – usually so vivacious – was silent, pale and definitely weepy eyed. Indeed, the teary-wearies had finally overtaken her, and she had fled to the bathroom. Caroline, looking quite nonplussed, suggested coffee.

  ‘And this time I’ll make it,’ she said, as if it were part of an ongoing text.

  The Current Incumbent’s wife said, ‘Oh good.’

  Bernie was bemused. He looked up at Caroline. Her eyes looked mysterious, dark and deep; her mouth curved, enlarged by the shiny purple (replenished frequently as advised) and he had a sudden cold clutching at his heart. She looked distinctly evil.

  ‘Coffee and then we must go,’ said their male guest firmly.

  Rita returned, damp and ruffled and pink about the eyes. Caroline gave her a look of triumph and glided into the kitchen, a smile of victory about her mouth.

  While the water heated she added the rejected almond tart to the rest of the leavings and loaded up the dishwasher. No evidence remains, she told herself as she carried the tray back in. No one will ever know. I am safe. She set the coffee upon the table and could not resist saying to the wan-faced Rita, ‘Like to taste it?’ Rita fled bathroom-wards once more.

  Bernie stared after her, feeling agonized. What was the matter? From the upstairs bathroom he could hear the faint sound of Rita’s sobbing. The others, now quite cheerful at their imminent departure, could not. He was puzzled by their guests’ behaviour – perhaps they were vegetarians? Poor Rita. So much effort, so little response. And all for him. Caroline did not seem to be sympathetic either, so where had this sisterhood thing gone?

  He excused himself from his guests and ran up the stairs two at a time. He heard what might have been a pair of little fists pounding the bathroom walls, and what might have been some kind of incantation regarding Caroline, but it probably wasn’t, because when he got to the top of the stairs and called out, it ceased.

  Gently, he knocked at the door and waited a short while. ‘Let me in darling,’ he said, mouth pressed up against the panel. She opened the door slowly, looking downwards with pink puffy eyes, little shoulders shaking, dabbing at the tip of her nose. She smelled of something sweet and flowery as she laid her hot damp cheek against his chest and put her arms around him very tightly ‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered. ‘Please don’t leave me ever again.’ And he, who thought there was something not quite right about the statement, but who was in no mood for analysis, held her to him, kissed the top of her little fair head, and said that he never would.

  Together they descended the stairs and entered the living-room, standing close to each other, framed in the doorway.

  The Current Incumbent and his wife rose from the table. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, barely touching Bernie’s fingertips, ‘for a simply delicious evening.’ His voice was even fainter than his touch.

  It should have been the crowning joy. It should have made Caroline sing as they turned at the front door to give her one final look of conspiratorial sympathy. But she stood there, in the hallway, showing no such happiness. Instead, in the sharp hall light, she looked as an actress might look coming down from the stage to face the ordinariness of life, lit only by a forty-watt bulb. There was none of the vamp left.

  Just to be sure she looked at Rita, who moved fractionally closer to Bernie, and put her head on one side, birdlike, delightful, with a little smile, not unlike Caroline’s earlier smirk of victory, lighting up her round little f
ace and playing about her shiny, newly lipsticked beak.

  25

  Gemma took a very deep breath on the steps of the brasserie and remembered the beautician’s orders. She pouted so proudly, and stuck out her chest so magnificently, that she might have been modelling the little Joseph suit instead of merely wearing it on a date. Chloe had been absolutely right. Every male head turned as she walked in, and she remembered the little trainee’s words – yes I said yes I will Yes – and never mind anything else.

  Pouting and smiling was tricky. Nevertheless she managed both, and sustained both, even when the Denim and the Levis stood up and she saw the unmistakeable glint of a medallion around his neck. What, after all, was a medallion? Didn’t have to mean he liked Match of the Day and James Last meets Richard Clayderman. Besides, when you were a woman of a certain age, broke and lonely, you could be accommodating about such things. Think Château, she thought, and she did.

  Above the gleaming disc was the well-used face – not what you’d call handsome exactly, but with a nice head of hair. Not bald at all. Better than nothing. She was quite philosophical. Frankly, with a château and an MGB he could wear a gold-plated dustbin lid around his neck and be called Wayne. He did not look much of a prat – hardly at all – and the fifty-one years were fairly approximate. Besides, she had said she was in her late thirties – it was all a matter of cautiousness as she and the beautician had agreed. She lowered her eyes quickly. He certainly must not read those.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, also finding speaking and pouting a bit of a problem. And she slid into the bench seat beside him.

  He looked appreciative. She licked her lips, made a little moue, and said she was sorry if she was the teeniest bit late. He liked that, she could tell. His chest went out a couple of inches. She could play the demure little lady if she chose, she suddenly discovered.

  Moue. Moue. Tell me all about yourself. And she sipped her aperitif as expertly as a tart giving French.

  She pouted as she listened to him, hanging on to his every word, leaning forwards to express eagerness, crossing legs to establish a few inches of thigh. ‘What else? What else?’ ran through her head as she supposedly listened. Oh yes, smile, smile a lot. Bright red gooey mouth for smiling with. She did so. Touch, touch a lot. They like that. They do. She did so, patting his arm as he made a little joke, tapping the back of his hand to agree with something he said, shifting a little nearer so that the silk rustled and inched a little further up her leg.