The Biggest Female in the World and other stories
Page 25
‘Roza, I’d swear on the holy Bible that you didn’t mention plaice. And anyway the fish-shop closed down months ago. I’ve told you that enough times.’
In resentful silence, she continued to unpack the shopping, laying out each item on the counterpane. She always insisted that he bring the bags upstairs, along with the receipts, of course, so she could cast her judgemental eye on every purchase, and complain about its price. ‘On no! Vanilla yoghurt. You know I hate vanilla. I put strawberry on the list.’
‘They didn’t have the strawberry. In any case, you went berserk when I bought strawberry mousse last week.’ He was aware of his stomach rumbling audibly. In his efforts to meet Roza’s demands, there was little time to grab a bite himself.
‘Edwin, I did not! It was the peach I didn’t like. It tasted like distemper. And it cost a bomb – three times as much as Eden Vale.’
‘OK, OK, I’ll get the strawberry tomorrow, and I’ll make sure it’s Eden Vale.’
‘And what about today? There’s little enough to look forward to, without being deprived of dessert.’
‘Maybe I could make a …’ He broke off in mid-sentence as the gardener’s phrases suddenly re-echoed in his head: a menace, an invader, killing off all other species… the older it gets, the bigger it becomes…. the biggest female in the world … you just can’t keep it down … nothing seems to stop it … puts up with things that would destroy any normal plant – chemicals, contamination, burning.
How extraordinarily apt! Roza had survived all those grotesque cancer treatments, bouncing boldly back again even after they’d cut her open (twice), poisoned her with chemo, attacked her with radiotherapy, burned her, slashed her, bombarded her with drugs. And she’d had other operations; other, previous illnesses, and come through them all unscathed. She even used to smoke, for heaven’s sake – sixty a day for over twenty years, and it had done no lasting damage, just left her with a cough. Frailer souls would have withered long ago. She was indestructible.
‘Make a what?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want any more of that disgusting semolina, thank you very much.’
‘Well, how about a…?’ Yes, that chap on Gardeners’ Question Time – Bob Flowerdew, wasn’t it? – said knotweed, when first introduced, had been highly prized as an ornamental plant. And Roza, too, had been ornamental, way back in her youth – pretty and vivacious, and certainly highly prized. And although she’d been born in England, she came from foreign stock – not Japanese, of course, but definitely exotic, with a Hungarian father and Polish mother, which to him had seemed romantic in the extreme. Even her name intrigued him, with its gypsy ring and that tantalizing ‘z’. But what had really clinched it for him was the amazing shoes she wore. Most women in the village clomped about in wellingtons or brogues (and his mother lived in slippers), but Roza owned these sexy scarlet stilettos, with incredible four-inch heels. Once, when they were courting, they’d gone out for a picnic and, jumping up impetuously to brush cake crumbs from her skirt, she had accidentally trodden on his hand. As her stiletto heel jabbed deep into his palm, the thrill of that exquisite pain had made him fall to his knees and propose.
Even as he spoke, he had blushed at his temerity. She’d refuse – of course she would. The fact she had spared so much as a glance for a weedy, red-haired stripling, with a tendency to stammer, was something of a miracle. So why push his luck, for pity’s sake?
She hadn’t refused – which left him lost for words, although so thrilled at his good fortune he’d shot up a good two foot, and spent all day gazing smugly down at smaller, lesser folk. Gradually, however, his trophy had turned tyrant, blighting the land, killing off the native flora, stifling any weaker plants that shared her habitat.
‘Edwin, I wish you’d finish your sentences. What is it you’re planning to make?’
‘A … a …’ He cast about for a suitable dessert. ‘A trifle,’ he said lamely.
‘You’ve never made a trifle in your life! Besides, we’d need sponge cakes and sherry, and I don’t see either here.’ With a last poke around the shopping bags, she collapsed back against the pillows in another fit of coughing.
‘I could make c…c…custard,’ he offered, his teenage stammer suddenly returning as he watched the rampant knotweed work its way through the foundations of the house; emerge through solid concrete, push between the bricks; rampage through every room in a plethora of intransigent shoots and stems. He stood helpless, hapless, as it began colonizing the garden, overrunning his dahlias, swamping his precious marrows and courgettes. Next, it swept on up the street, covering all the village in its tenacious, tangled web, then shooting onwards and upwards as it ravaged the whole country, tunnelling under motorways, resisting any attacker, smothering all native vegetation. Nor did it stop at the British Isles, but stampeded on to Europe, then Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, until no other living, breathing thing was left in the entire universe.
‘Custard!’ she mocked, her voice a vast primeval roar, rising from the drowned and stifled planet. ‘No thank you!’
Blinded by tears, he picked his way between the tombstones, stumbling on the uneven path and all but tripping over tussocks of grass. Stopping by the newest grave (which still looked cruelly raw), he reached out his arms imploringly.
‘Roza, speak to me, I beg you!’
Silence. Only the mocking crows, cawing in derision.
He glanced behind him at the empty patch where, less than seven months ago, the thicket of knotweed had flourished in defiance. Not a stick of it was left; not so much as a scant twig or fallen leaf. Yet the gardener had insisted that nothing could defeat it; that it invariably sprang up again, surviving all destruction, outwitting even death.
Gazing at the granite headstone, he fixed his full attention on her name: ‘Roza, beloved wife of …’ If he willed her return with enough determination, might she not force her way out of the coffin (he’d bought the most expensive in the book: solid oak, with real brass fittings), push up that heavy stone, and stride out in her grave-clothes to rejoin him? She would reproach him, of course, but the sound of her complaining voice would be healing music now.
‘Fancy getting solid oak! Just think of the expense! You should have gone for a veneer and saved yourself a fortune. And that appalling wreath, on top of everything else! You know I can’t abide carnations. And why yellow ones, for pity’s sake? And as for …’
Without her, he was paralysed; the whole house at a standstill. No foodstuffs in the larder, no milk or fruit juice in the fridge, no soap in the bathroom, no toilet-rolls, no Vim. How could he go shopping when no one made the shopping lists; no one gave him orders; no one told him what to wear and when to get his hair cut? It straggled round his shoulders now, its once ardent red faded to a dingy grey. And his shirt was, frankly, filthy. He had always done the washing in obedience to her orders, switching on the machine the minute she decreed. He had washed and ironed, shopped and cooked, scrubbed and scoured – a willing, happy parasite clinging to his host-plant. But now that the host-plant was defunct, he had perished with her. For thirty-seven years she had powered him with her energy, swept him along on the tide of her convictions, set the pattern of his days by issuing commands. Without her, there was no reason to get up.
Making one last desperate effort, he crawled on hands and knees right over to the gravestone and beat with anguished fists on the unyielding, callous granite. ‘Come back,’ he entreated, ‘and save me.’
He strained his ears to listen. Not a whisper. Not a sound. Only the church bells tolling forth again – mournfully, regretfully, as they announced yet another death.
Scrambling to his feet, he blundered out of the churchyard. Those specious bells were lying. Death wasn’t final, wasn’t irreversible. Some species were so powerful, they could re-emerge from its apparent lethal grip; break through tarmac, break through concrete, break through solid oak, indeed. If he went back home, he’d find her – restored to youth as well as resurrected – his li
ttle foreign beauty, his highly prized, exotic bride, with her small, ripe, perfect breasts. And of course he’d let her trample him beneath her – she only had to ask – so long as she made sure she did it with those sexy, scarlet, sensational high heels.
By the Same Author
Absinthe for Elevenses
Cuckoo
After Purple
Born of Woman
The Stillness The Dancing
Sin City
Devils, for a Change
Fifty-Minute Hour
Bird Inside
Michael, Michael
Breaking and Entering
Coupling
Second Skin
Lying
Dreams, Demons and Desire
Tread Softly
Virgin in the Gym and Other Stories
Laughter Class and Other Stories
Copyright
© Wendy Perriam 2007
First published in Great Britain 2007
This edition 2012
ISBN978 0 7090 9957 4 (epub)
ISBN978 0 7090 9958 1 (mobi)
ISBN978 0 7090 9959 8 (pdf)
ISBN978 0 7090 8377 1 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of Wendy Perriam to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988