by Mavis Cheek
‘I see Adrian’s been at you again. Very artistic. Talking of which ...’ She heaves a heavy parcel onto Celia’s lap. ‘Here’s your present.’
Celia looks down at the weighty article which is wrapped rather haphazardly in Snoopy paper. Well, she thinks, I suppose I always will be Little Sister. She begins opening the card while Alex gives Isabel and Dave their drinks.
Over the popping bubbles Alex says to Dave, ‘I know you’d prefer something more proletarian. But there is beer later.’
Inwardly Celia winces but her brother-in-law is not at all put out.
‘I might even stick to this,’ he says easily. ‘When in Rome ...’ He helps himself to a tortilla chip. ‘Posh crisps too,’ he says, smiling at Alex.
So begins their little game.
The card says, ‘With love to Celia from Izzie, Dave and the boys. Hope this will help you in your quest!’
Puzzled and interested by the cryptic nature of the message, Celia opens the parcel. But when she looks upon its contents she is still puzzled, for there, nestling among the peculiarly inappropriate Snoopy images, is the new two-volume definitive guide to twentieth-century British painting. No coffee-table books these. It is a publication long awaited by art historians and scholars. But not, so far as she is aware, by Celia.
‘Remember?’ says Isabel. ‘You said it was coming out and that you’d like to have a look at it ...’
Celia does remember – just. She had said it rather as one might say it of the new Who’s Who or the addenda to the Oxford dictionary. She also remembers when she was ten or eleven, standing at a wintry bus stop with Isabel as the rain bucketed down and saying that she could do with an umbrella. She got one the following June, for her birthday, when the sun was shining. ‘With love from your big sister,’ that one was tagged.
‘Oh,’ she says, fingering the pages, flicking at them so that they fall through names like Bacon, Bomberg, Freud. ‘How clever of you to remember.’ She stands up awkwardly, releasing the heavy volume on to her chair seat. Its weight has creased her skirt, she notices. ‘But you shouldn’t have ...’
‘You’re only forty once,’ says Isabel, happily. And she winks at her.
‘It must have cost a fortune,’ says Celia, kissing her sister.
‘Put it this way,’ says Dave. ‘It cost the same as an old-age pensioner gets to live on for a week – or even two –’ he winks at Celia too. ‘But we couldn’t have principles where your birthday was concerned.’
She smiles back at him. She likes Dave.
‘More champagne anybody?’ says Alex slightly too loudly. ‘There’s plenty more where this came from.’ He also winks at Celia.
Celia is beginning to feel like a music-hall turn.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘you two are very, very kind – and I shall treasure it. What a surprise. You don’t tend to get many surprises when you’re as grown-up as I am.’ Determined to jolly everyone along she continues, ‘I love surprises. They are the best kind of presents – by far the best kind. Oh, yes!’ she chirrups. ‘Surprises are fun!’
Instantly she regrets being quite so positive about this as she sees a frosty flicker on Alex’s face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says coolly, ‘that I had to ask you in advance about your present – but I was spending just a little more than that ...’ He slops champagne into his glass and holds it up, watching the bubbles subside. ‘Shall we say enough to keep a hundred old-age pensioners for a week? At least.’
It is on the tip of her tongue to say, ‘Don’t be so silly and childish, Alex,’ but instead she smiles at him and says, ‘You know I was thrilled – I couldn’t have asked for anything more –’ Exciting? She thinks. No. Not exciting. But what then? ‘Useful,’ she adds quickly.
‘And what did this enterprising husband get you?’ asks her sister.
‘I’ll show you,’ says Celia and, relieved to escape, she beckons Isabel to follow her.
Passing through the kitchen she feels instantly restored at the sight of her own organised domesticscape. Here at least she is quite secure. They pass the mirror in the hall, two sisters, five years between them but it looks more like ten. Celia takes a quick peep at herself and feels pleased with the image. Her tetchy conversation with Alex is forgotten. She likes looking frivolous. Isabel, in her tie-necked white blouse and her navy linen suit, makes the contrast between them even more marked.
‘I like your outfit,’ says Celia.
‘Thanks,’ says Isabel, pleased. ‘It’s British Home Stores – why pay more, I say.’
‘Well – quite,’ says Celia.
‘I’ve seen the same in Jaeger for three times the price. You’d never know, would you?’
‘No,’ says Celia, thinking yes. She also thinks how like their mother Isabel looks. And how Raynes Park that smugness about lack of style is. And how she is glad, glad, glad not to be a part of all that any more.
‘It’s very you,’ she says, with wicked irony, which is all right because this is her sister she is talking to and the family bond is deeper than any slight tampering of duplicity can damage.
They look at each other out of the mirror.
‘Well – you look suitably dressed up for your birthday, Cee –’ Her tone implies that this is an allowable piece of silliness but for one night only. ‘Have you still got your cleaner?’
This non-sequitur throws Celia for a moment.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s no wonder then.’
Celia understands. Isabel means that Mrs Green provides her with enough free time to indulge herself in getting partyfied. She doesn’t bother to deny it.
‘But you really ought to be thinking of using that time creatively ...’ (Have you seen the food? Celia thinks.) ‘Now you’re forty you should be getting to grips with your future – you’ll want a job soon, you know.’
Celia holds open the front door on to the pretty front garden, the white railings and the tree-lined street. ‘How’s the deputy-headship?’ she asks, as Isabel steps out.
‘Hard work and very rewarding,’ says her sister. ‘Now what have you brought me out here to see?’
There is the sparkling white Mini-Metro, with this year’s registration, nestling up to Alex’s Volvo. As yet it has not taken on the patina of age in the form of crisp packets, toys and the smears of a thousand sticky little fingers.
‘Well, well,’ says Isabel. ‘How wonderful. You must be doing well.’
‘Alex is,’ says Celia, without thinking.
‘You’re a kept woman all right.’ Her sister laughs at the witticism. ‘Very well kept. You don’t look forty, you know.’
‘I sometimes feel it,’ Celia says, thinking that right at this minute she feels about twelve.
‘Well – at least you’ve got a new car to rest your ageing body in ... think of my old banger.’
‘Which one? The car or the body?’ Celia laughs. So does Isabel.
As they go in, Isabel smacks Celia on the botton.
‘Now, now,’ she says. ‘Get along with you.’
It is the second time she has been so chastised tonight and, if anything, Isabel’s attack was the more intimate of the two. Odd, thinks Celia, very odd.
Back in the conservatory Isabel says to Alex, ‘What a sensible present.’ And Alex looks pleased.
Celia thinks that, on the whole, she is disappointed with the car. As she relies on one so much it was rather like receiving a new washing machine or refrigerator for her birthday. Years ago, when they had very little money, she was given a new iron. They chose it together – with the aid of Which? – and Alex put it away until the day. He then presented it to her in bed that morning, gaudily wrapped in blue paper with lots of silly ribbons and a tag card in the shape of a heart. She rolled on to her stomach to open it while he fucked her from behind. She must have been the first woman ever to have an orgasm over a Morphy Richards steam iron. And tucked into the guarantee card was a pair of earrings, tiny forget-me-nots, very cheap, very pretty – a to
tal surprise and still somewhere in her dressing-table drawer. She had hunted through the interior of the new Metro for something similar but there had been nothing.
To counter the memory she goes up to Alex and kisses his cheek. Their eyes meet fleetingly. He looks affectionate again. She feels better. He nuzzles her hair fleetingly and says that she is beautiful. She squeezes his hand and then moves on to kiss Dave.
‘Thanks for the books,’ she says. ‘I shall have to find time to read them ...’
‘A pleasure,’ he says.
‘You must make time,’ says Isabel.
‘That’s easy to say,’ says Celia.
‘You’ve got as much as you want,’ says Alex.
The doorbell saves any further brushes with recrimination.
As he goes to answer it, Celia wonders what is wrong with her husband – something is. He is not usually so abrasive. Even her sister cocks an enquiring eyebrow first at his departing back and then back at her. Celia shrugs.
‘Needs a holiday,’ she says, aware as she says it that this is the universal Bedford Park panacea. ‘Some woman gave him a hard time over this new case of his.’
‘Ah ha!’ says Dave with a mock leer. ‘Cherchez le femme ...’
‘La,’ says Celia. ‘Femme is female.’
‘Pardon me,’ he says, unabashed. ‘I hadn’t realised that.’
Laughter echoes down the hallway. Tom and Susannah have arrived. Any residual atmosphere is immediately dispelled by Tom who enters bearing a huge bouquet of flowers that eclipses any of the blooms growing in the conservatory.
‘Oh, oh, oh,’ gasps Celia. ‘How wonderful. Are they for me?’
‘Give us a kiss first,’ says the bearer. ‘Hallo, you two.’ He nods amid the profusion of pink carnations, white roses and sprigs of freesia towards Isabel and Dave before advancing, with puckered lips, in Celia’s direction. She kisses him lightly, judging the embrace so that it is neither too short to offend Tom, nor too long to arouse anyone’s suspicions that there is anything other than friendliness between them. Then Susannah puts her hand on Celia’s shoulder and kisses her cheek. Both actions are light as gossamer, as if her friend were not really doing it at all. Which is quite, Celia smiles to herself, in character.
‘Now I must go and put these in a vase,’ she says, extricating herself from them both and gazing at the lovely flowers.
‘Open this first,’ says Susannah, handing her an exquisitely wrapped box.
‘I can’t,’ laughs Celia.
Isabel comes to her aid and takes the bouquet so that her hands are free. She begins opening the paper carefully, taking the ribbon off just so, undoing the folds so that the wrapping is scarcely torn. Then she pauses to read the tag which says, in Susannah’s stylish hand, ‘With love from Susie and Tom. May it and the next forty years always be full.’
‘I wonder what it can be.’
‘Come on,’ says Alex. ‘Hurry up and open it. You’ll know then.’
‘That’s my sister for you,’ says Isabel. ‘Taking her time. I don’t think I ever remember Celia ripping the paper off anything – she always took hours. Buck up, Cee, we all want to know what’s inside – not what’s wrapped round it. Here ...’ with her free hand she takes a corner of the deftly opened wrapping and tears it with a flourish. ‘Off ye lendings,’ she says in triumph. How can Celia tell her that she finds unwrapping presents a sensual process, like her cookery?
‘Thanks,’ she says automatically and holds up the now denuded box.
‘Careful with it. It’s breakable. Don’t let those children of yours anywhere near it.’
Again Celia is forced to rely on noises, for she sees that the box is marked with the name Asprey. ‘Oh, oh, oh,’ she repeats.
‘Oh, do come on,’ says Isabel.
There is barely time for Celia to run her fingers over the gold lettering of the name before, out of fear that her sister will wrench the present from her, she opens the lid. There, beneath white tissue and winking with a thousand hues of pink, blue, yellow, is a crystal vase; its intricacies apparently cut out of fire – very, very expensive fire.
‘Oh Christ!’ she says. ‘You really shouldn’t have.’
‘We got you a really solid one,’ says Susie, ’so that it’d be safe from everything that goes on here. Except a direct hit, of course,’ she adds drily.
Celia holds it up. It is truly an object of beauty and would dispel any dissenter’s claim that cut glass is cut glass. It sits there, heavy and rich in her hands – and all hers. Just for a moment tears brim up – not unnaturally (three glasses of champagne nearly, and all the emotional upheaval) – and Tom is instantly at her side, kneeling on the floor and wiping under her eyes with a hankie. She shakes him off, not only because the act is too tender and intimate, though that is part of it, but because despite the kindness of the gesture he keeps poking her in the eye and, with all that extra mascara she has on, she is likely to end up looking like a prize-fighter. Tom takes the shaking-off as disdain and leaps to his feet.
‘Susie wins the bet,’ he says.
‘What bet?’ asks Isabel.
‘Well I said we should get her something more personal. A piece of jewellery or something—’
‘Earrings,’ says Susie. ‘He thought earrings. I said that from what I knew of Celia she scarcely wears jewellery – unless it’s that punky stuff – do you, Cee?’
What can she say? The proof of Susie’s remark is hanging in outrageous splendour from her ears.
‘Ah yes,’ says Tom. He touches one lightly so that it swings, and then tickles her ear lobe as if pollenating a flower. Then he pinches it – and none too gently either. ‘Not the likes of diamonds for our little mother here – too wicked by half.’
‘And they might come from South Africa,’ says Alex, ‘which would be worse.’
‘Not at all,’ says Celia, rising with dignity and ignoring her husband’s well-received witticism. ‘As a matter of fact I like little earrings very much – the wickeder the better.’ She looks across at Alex who looks back at her quite nicely but also quite blankly. The forget-me-nots have clearly been forgotten.
‘Drinks!’ says Alex. ‘Ready for a beer yet, Dave?’
Isabel is squeezing the flowers far too tightly. Celia grabs them and says lightly. ‘I must go and put these lovely things into water in this lovely thing. That is –’ she laughs ‘unless you two have brought me a special pint of that as well?’ She gives her head a little shake so that the outrageous enamels tinkle about, puts the flowers down carefully and well out of Isabel’s way, and goes off to the kitchen with the vase. Behind her she hears Dave say, ‘You can get a taste for this sort of thing, Alex. But then – I expect you have.’
She watches the water sloosh into the beautiful object and wonders why, as she watches, she feels sad. There is an odd encroaching sense of doom in her tonight. Forty, of course. That is what it is, she thinks, and quite understandable too. ‘Aprés-moi la ménopause,’ she mutters. If Rebecca were not such a light sleeper she would nip up and give her a cuddle, two women together: what comfort that simple thing called mother-love can be. As she turns off the tap and puts both hands around the neck of the vase to lift its heaviness, so she feels two hands go simultaneously around her own waist, and squeeze her gently so that she gets goosepimples from their warmth.
‘Oh, Alex,’ she breathes, ‘isn’t it a lovely present?’
‘Right comment, wrong person.’ It is Tom’s voice, a hot exhalation in her ear. She tenses, but only because not to tense would be to give in to the gooseflesh, which is lovely. He feels it – and drops his hands from her waist.
‘Goody-goody,’ he says. The remark is an accusation, not a celebration. She feels his body pressing against her and – Oh God – her sense of touch is hallucinating, for she can feel a hard protuberance from him to her somewhere in the region of her buttocks. Tom has an erection. She nearly drops the Asprey marvel back into the sink.
‘Tom,’ she says in her
best Joyce Grenfell manner, ‘don’t do that.’
Still he remains pressing up against her, the hard bit very hard indeed. It surprises her with its hardness, she finds herself dwelling on the rock-like aspect of it. Truth to tell (which she would not do – not even to Hazel) she is flattered by its permanence. Guiltily she swivels round to face him and the hard bit is now biting into her left hip. Were she not holding a hundred pounds’ worth of crystal in her hands she might well pass out with the erotic counterpoint.
‘Please – Tom.’ She drops her eyes to where the hard bit digs in, quite unable to focus on anything but that.
‘Typical,’ he says. ‘I come out here bearing gifts—’
Not lifting her eyes she sees his hand move towards the offensive area and she thinks, Oh My God – he’s going to take it out – here – and me with my hands full of Asprey vase. She is stuck, motionless. And there is no doubt that of all the emotions running through her, fear and excitement are twinned.
Oh God, no! she thinks. And anyway – what am I supposed to do with it when he does? I’ve got my hands full enough as it is. Am I supposed to go Ooh, Aah, what a lovely one? Nevertheless her eyes are riveted to his hand which moves ever-stealthily towards the bump. He looks nervously over his shoulder. The hand moves stealthily on. It does not, however, engage his flies at all, but passes them by and digs down into his jacket pocket from which, surreptitious as a watch-seller in a pub, he removes a rectangular box, gift-wrapped. About the size and shape of a large pen and pencil set.
‘For you,’ he says sweetly, sotto voce. ‘To be opened when there is no one else around. It is a special gift, from me to you.’
She looks up at him. His face is rather flushed and one of his eyes is twitching dangerously.
‘Oh Tom,’ she says, thrilled and thankful but a mite disappointed. ‘You shouldn’t have.’
‘Where shall I hide it?’ he asks peremptorily.
She stares about the kitchen, caught up in the pleasure of the deceit, and extremely glad that he is not a mind-reader. It must be jewellery, she thinks. Now here was a game. A whole series of them – from pass the parcel and guess the object, to hunt the thimble ... where would such a thing be safe?
