Various Pets Alive and Dead

by Lewycka, Marina

  She wonders who will cook the rhubarb for him tonight. ‘I didn’t like rhubarb when I was a kid. Too sharp. Now I cook it with honey and ginger. It’s delicious. Oolie – my daughter – loves it. You met her, d’you remember?’

  ‘At the school. How’s she doing?’

  ‘Fine. She’s working at Edenthorpe’s.’

  ‘Everybody has a contribution to make.’

  There’s something in the Yorkshire flatness of his voice that sounds authentic, unpretentious and kind, not the type to be in league with developers and crooks. She finds herself confiding, ‘It means a lot to me – to us – having this place to come to together. We’ve had so much happiness here on this allotment.’

  ‘You’ve still not persuaded me,’ he says in a voice that sends a shiver through her.

  They stand like that for a moment, listening to the birdsong, feeling the coolness of late afternoon settle on their skin. She completely forgets to ask about the timescale or the tendering arrangements for the proposed development.

  SERGE: Why apologise?

  Asian stock markets have plunged on the news of Monday’s bailout failure. Bank shares are in meltdown. People with cash have started buying gold. But the quants huddled in the glass-walled office on Wednesday are mulling over events closer to home. Without Tim the Finn to keep them in line, they spend more time in here, gossiping, exchanging information. The Hamburger has brought in a box of Mozartkugeln to cheer them up. Maroushka has gone up to the cafeteria for some coffees. It’s getting quite pally.

  ‘I’ve completely forgotten. What did I say?’ asks Lucian Barton nervously.

  ‘You called him a sad little prole,’ says Toby O’Toole.

  ‘Crikey!’ A look of agony flits over his freckled features.

  ‘Maybe you can apologise to the barman,’ says the Hamburger, passing around the chocolates.

  ‘Apologise?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Toby solemnly. ‘We’ll all go with you and hear you apologise. It would be the decent thing to do, Lucie.’

  Apologise? Decent? What’s going on? Serge wonders. Nobody here thinks that way.

  ‘Crikey!’ Lucian looks around the circle of deadpan faces, as if he’s hoping they’ll suddenly break into a grin.

  ‘What d’you think, Maroushka? Should he apologise?’ Toby turns to her as she comes in with a tray of coffees.

  ‘What for apologise?’

  She sets the tray down and hands around sugar sachets and spoons.

  ‘For calling the barman a prole.’

  ‘But is true, no? He is proletarian.’

  ‘I know, but it’s rude to say it.’

  ‘Why is rude to be proletarian?’ Maroushka has that mildly exasperated look which Serge finds so irresistibly sexy. ‘If someone is proletarian he must work hard to improve his situation.’

  Toby sniggers openly. ‘Like Lucie said, all this fucking wealth, we made it, we earned it!’

  ‘Crikey!’

  ‘Why apologise for truth? Is normal that clever persons get more money than average persons. I am studying five year in prestigious Zhytomyr State Technological University, I have been first in my class. I am earn billions of hrivny for these bloodsucking oligarchs. I too should be rich!’ Maroushka swivels round on the swivel chair which used to belong to Timo. ‘What you think, Sergei?’

  ‘I think … er …’ he hesitates, noting Maroushka’s fiery eyes and crimson cheeks. ‘I think he should apologise. Because however clever you are, it doesn’t give you the right to abuse other people.’ And seeing her lips pucker poutily, he adds, ‘As you so rightly said, Maroushka.’

  The barman, who it turns out is called Jonas, has to be summoned from the back kitchen. He comes in sheepishly wiping his hands on his apron. Despite his exotic appearance he has a quiet South London accent.

  ‘What am I supposed to apologise for?’

  Serge catches the barman’s eye as he stares at them. He clearly doesn’t remember them at all.

  ‘No, he’s come to apologise to you.’ Toby gives Lucian a little shove between the shoulder blades.

  He stumbles forward. ‘Yeah, sorry, man. I was well out of order.’

  ‘No problem. Water under the bridge. I’d forgotten.’ Jonas backs away in the direction of the kitchen, but Toby won’t let it rest.

  ‘He called you a sad little prole. Remember? He ordered you to pour the drinks?’

  Serge is beginning to feel uncomfortable. There must be some age-old rivalry playing out here. The Hamburger and Frenchies are keeping their heads down, studying the wine list.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Jonas blinks. ‘It’s all right. It’s cool. We all get pissed sometimes.’

  ‘It was my birthday. I was away with the fairies,’ burbles Lucian, relieved that the barman isn’t pushing for a confrontation. ‘I mean, we do get decent compensation, but …’ He smiles wetly.

  ‘Tell him, Lucie,’ Toby interrupts. Some weird mood has come over him. ‘Tell him what you earn. Tell him about your bonus.’

  Jonas’s eyes flick from Lucian to Toby, trying to work out what’s going on between them.

  ‘It’s all right, man. No stress.’ Jonas looks over his shoulder towards the kitchen.

  ‘Some people think we’re overpaid,’ Toby persists. ‘I bet you do. Know what? You could be right. But no one’ll stop it, because they’re all fucking scared we’ll fly away to Singapore. And all these bars, shops, the City – the whole bloody country – it’ll all close down.’

  His arms sweep outwards to embrace the long mirrored bar with its ranks of bottles and glasses. Jonas, who seems an okay kind of guy, shuffles backwards.

  ‘Yeah, I get that. It’s just … I mean, what do you guys do, to earn all that money?’

  ‘We design algorithms for trading derivatives?’ Lucie’s voice takes on that ingratiating upwards lilt.

  ‘Derivatives?’

  ‘Things that derive their value indirectly, from underlying assets? Like mortgages, securities, futures?’ he gabbles. ‘For example, futures options on bananas – they give you the chance to buy tomorrow’s bananas at today’s prices? Or wheat? Or coffee? You gamble the price’ll go up?’

  ‘Or you can force it up,’ adds Tootie. ‘And you can trade options, just like bananas. But with no weather problems, no storage or transport costs, no strikes.’

  ‘So it’s … kind of gambling?’

  ‘Not gambling! Because new mathematic eliminates risk.’ Maroushka’s cheeks are flushed. ‘Very soon all trading algorithmic high-frequency computerise non-stop profit.’

  Jonas stares, like he’s astonished a creature of such loveliness can speak. Serge catches his eye and shakes his head, but the poor sap is still grinning hopefully. He really thinks he stands a chance.

  ‘Banks perform vital functions in the economy, arousing capital for businesses and housebuyers,’ the Hamburger interjects in a mild tone. ‘But I think the society with excessive unequality is sometimes breaking apart.’

  The Frenchies, who haven’t taken much notice up till now, look up sneerily.

  ‘Breaking down,’ one of them corrects.

  ‘Breaking up,’ says the other.

  Maroushka’s exasperation has stepped up a notch.

  ‘No, no! This is all Communist propaganda! Free market is superior form of economic organisation. I have experienced life in planned economy. Bad food. Bad clothe. Bad house. Everything stink of cabbages!’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘Lazy and stupid persons rewarded for sitting on bottom all day. What you thinking about, Sergei?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he sighs, thinking about the smell of boiled cabbage, stale joss sticks, the damp mousey whiff of Solidarity Hall; baggy dungarees, saggy cheesecloth skirts; the clack-clack of knitting needles; Doro and Marcus laughing as they argue over some principle around the painted yellow table cluttered with overflowing ashtrays, and bottles and glasses that glisten in the candlelight, because the electricity has been cut off again. And Doro suddenly hugging him tight and whispering,
‘We’re going to create a better world for you, Serge.’

  DORO: Saggy grey

  Doro spoons herself around the curve of Marcus’s sleeping back, nuzzling the grey curls which smell faintly of cigarette smoke, herbal shampoo and dreams. He stirs, pulling her towards him, murmuring a cadence of words and snuffles which could be a declaration of love or an analysis of Volume II of Das Kapital or some dreamtime combination of the two. She presses her face into his warm nape and covers his shoulder with small kisses, which already taste of betrayal. In the back of her mind she’s wondering how to respond to the email which came this afternoon, a week after her walk around the allotment with the councillor.

  Can we meet at the allotment next week? Malcolm Loxley

  In fact, she’s decided how to respond; what she’s wondering is what to wear. She hasn’t replied yet – she’ll leave it until tomorrow, for decency’s sake – but she’s inspected her underwear drawer, sighed over the assortment of washed-out baggy knickers and grey over-stretched bras, and concluded that she must go shopping. If many-splendoured love should strike, or even just lust, she doesn’t want to be caught out in saggy grey.

  The last time she was unfaithful to Marcus was more than twenty years ago, during the miners’ strike, and she wonders, when was he last unfaithful to her? In those days of course unfaithfulness had no meaning, because jealousy and possessiveness were relegated to the dustbin of history, along with private property and the nuclear family. If the green-eyed monster ever showed his claws, you smiled bravely and carried on, because admitting you were jealous meant you were mired in atavistic bourgeois ideology, which was even worse than being two-timed. Because she truly loved Marcus, even though she wasn’t always faithful to him, she spared him that indignity by keeping her infidelities to herself, and doubtless he did the same for her. (Unlike Moira, who always wanted everyone to know what a great time she was having, and with whom.)

  Anyway, the main thing about communal living wasn’t sex – though that’s mainly what people remember – but creating a new type of human being: liberated, unselfish, unmaterialistic, committed to the common good. Okay, so it wasn’t as easy as they’d thought. It didn’t stop lovers feeling jealous, nor comrades hoarding chocolate, nor parents favouring their own kids. But their motives were honourable. And their wonderful children – Clara, Serge, Otto and Star, Toussaint and Kollontai (though they were only part of the commune for a short time) and especially Oolie – are a credit to them.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispers into Marcus’s sleeping ear, and snuggles closer, stroking his loose belly, the flaccid skin of his shoulders and arms. Their bodies have grown old together, baggy and comfortable like their underwear, and if they no longer achieve the passionate heights of their experimental years, and their lovemaking is now less frequent than it was, it is still tender and affectionate.

  So why this unexpected itch of desire, this snag in the cosy fabric of their lives?

  Malcolm Loxley isn’t even her type – no, it’s not him, it’s her. It’s her sixty-year-old body trying to kid her she’s thirty again. Just one more time.

  CLARA: Sweeteners

  When Clara drops by at Hardwick Avenue on her way home from school on Thursday, the first thing she notices is a musty odour of stale cooking, wax polish and unventilated corridors. It reminds her of … what? She sifts through her smell-memory. Yes, her grandparents’ house in Norwich used to smell like that when she visited as a child. It’s the smell of old people, faint but unmistakeable. In the sink is a heap of unwashed dishes, and a bundle of dirty washing has been left beside the washing machine, in which another load is waiting to be taken out and hung. Things are definitely going downhill around here. She puts the kettle on and hunts unsuccessfully for a packet of biscuits.

  Doro is out at an allotment meeting, and Marcus is upstairs on his computer, so she and Oolie end up having a cup of tea together in the kitchen. Oolie heaps two spoonfuls of sugar into her tea, then stirs in half a dozen sweetener tablets.

  ‘Are you sure you need all those sweeteners, Oolie?’

  ‘Mum says I gotter ’ave ’em to keep me weight down.’

  ‘It’s cutting out the sugar that keeps your weight down, not adding sweeteners.’

  ‘Mum says I’m turning tubby.’

  ‘But you’re supposed to have them instead of sugar, not as well as, Oolie. Isn’t it too sweet?’

  Oolie stirs determinedly. ‘Mum says I’ve gotter ’ave sweeteners.’ She slurps and sucks in air to cool a scalded tongue. ‘Ooh, that’s ’ot!’

  Clara shrugs.

  ‘That’s me, innit, when I wor a babbie?’ Oolie points at the framed photograph on the wall below the clock, of the Solidarity Hall commune, taken sometime in the 1980s. ‘I wor right tubby then, worrent I? Mum says I’m getting tubby again.’

  Clara looks at the picture, which she must have looked at dozens of times, without really noticing. There’s Oolie, a cute tubby toddler, holding Megan’s hand. Megan is frowning, staring at the camera. Despite the different hair and younger features, Clara recognises at once the woman at the school gate. The shock of recognition is so intense that it takes her a moment to register that Oolie is still pointing at the picture and saying something.

  ‘Mum thinks it were me what started it but it worrent.’

  ‘Started what?’

  ‘You know. It.’

  ‘I don’t know who you mean.’

  Oolie wanders through into the sitting room, picks up the remote control of the television and starts to play with the buttons.

  Too late, Clara realises what Oolie’s talking about. ‘Who was it? Who started it?’

  But Oolie has started flicking through the channels.

  ‘It worrent me, it were them lads.’

  ‘Which lads? Tell me, Oolie. Tell me.’

  Oolie flicks faster, muttering something to herself.

  ‘You can talk to me, you know. I’m your best sister. I won’t tell Doro and Marcus, if you don’t want me to. Oolie?’

  Oolie shakes her head in that infuriatingly stubborn way.

  ‘I wanna see if Russell Brand’s on TV.’

  The A6182 is scattered with spinning leaves and fallen branches from the autumn gales as Clara drives home. She drives carefully, replaying her conversation with Oolie in her mind. As soon as she gets back to Sheffield, she tries Serge again.

  No reply.

  Furious and curious, she sends him a text and an email. Then she invites Ida over for a reheated risotto and a glass of wine, which they eat in front of the TV.

  Before bed, she checks online for new messages. Her heart thumps a spare beat. There’s nothing at all from Serge, but there’s one from Barbara on Facebook.

  You can tell that fart-faced brother of yours that next time I come to London I’ll break into the bank where he works and I’ll wrench his balls off with my bare hands and fry them in olive oil with garlic and thinly sliced Dactylorhiza purpurella.

  DORO: Undies

  Doro isn’t sure from his email whether Malcolm Loxley’s invitation to meet at the allotment had a sexual overtone. It could just be that he wants to top up on his greens and beans. But just in case, she heads into town on Saturday afternoon, pausing for a moment to wonder what’s going on as she pushes past the queue outside the branch of a building society, before making for Marks & Spencer.

  It’s quiet in here – everybody’s out in the street, enjoying the breezy autumn sunshine and buzzing with the crowd. Inside the cool fluorescent-lit shop, she riffles through the undies, letting the satin and lace slide through her hands, wondering what’s got into her. Her body feels strangely alive and buoyant, as though all the saggy and lumpy bits can be held in place by optimism alone. Yes, it’s optimism that makes her pick out the creamy satin underwired push-up bra with matching lace-panel camiknickers, and try it on in front of the mirror – 36B, that’s still her size. The wanton luxury of the satin makes her skin tingle like a caress. She puts two in her baske
t – one cream and one black. Should she be doing this?

  Yes. Because she knows that soon enough there will be Velcro fastenings and incontinence pads and hearing aids; there will be crumbling teeth, and aching joints, and hair that falls out in clumps, and pain and disease, and huge chasms in her memory which swallow up months and years of her life. But just now it’s summer, and her body is still more or less functioning – in fact, in some areas it seems to be going into overdrive – and there’s a man with gimlet eyes waiting for her, and nothing else really matters.

  She slips her credit card into the reader and punches in the code: Serge’s birthday. One day, she will forget even that.

  The girl smiles and hands her the bag with her purchases. ‘Have a nice day.’

  ‘I intend to,’ says Doro.

  SERGE: Angels

  Autumn arrives in the City with a rattle of wind, knocking branches off trees, flicking slates off roofs, and bringing another set of shocks to the markets. The Irish economy is blown away. Icelandic banks, riddled with toxic debt, fall like so much rotten wood. Even with the ban on shorting, stocks worldwide continue to twirl downwards like lost leaves across the sky. Already some of the big-name banks have started shedding staff: 5,000 at Lehman Brothers, and about the same at Merrill Lynch. Credit Suisse, UBS, Barclays and Nomura are laying off hundreds, and mighty Citigroup has warned of 1,500 cuts. Even mega-mighty Goldman Sachs are threatening to sack one in ten of their London workforce. Fear infects the trading floors of the City, and the quants are not immune – though at FATCA all is calm, no one quite knows why. Serge keeps his head down and concentrates on riding the currents; he has enough other things going on to keep his anxiety levels high.

  His searches for property in Brazil have become more purposeful. He has identified a location, a stretch of coast, a minimum number of bedrooms (two) and a maximum price ($500,000). He adds in air conditioning and a pool as requirements. But will that be enough to tempt her? One night, out of curiosity, he tries Googling that town she says she comes from. He has to experiment a bit to get the right spelling – Zhytomyr. It definitely looks like a place to avoid. No wonder she wants to hop over to the West. No busy brightly lit streets with bars and boutiques, but big shabby concrete buildings, grim squares with sad people in shapeless clothes, and dreary statues of guys no one has heard of – some geek who claims to have invented space travel (ha ha) and some bloke with a bad suit and a goatee beard, who looks vaguely familiar. He enlarges the view, and an image straight out of his childhood hits him in the eye. Hey! It’s Lennie the Leader! What’s he doing there?