“Oh dear! Are you all right?”
“Clarissa.” I ground my teeth until I remembered the dentist had told me not to. “What do you want?”
“You know my friend from St. Petersburg?”
“Who?”
“I introduced you, don’t you remember? I promised to put her up when she had her audition at the Royal College of Music, but she just called now and she’s flying in tomorrow which is an utter pain because I’ve got that Indonesian family coming. From Singapore. You know, the sushi chef and his wife who makes shadow-puppets?”
“What’s all this got to do with me?”
Clarissa sighed, then launched into a brilliant pitch, so brilliant that I found myself wondering why the hell she wasn’t working in the film industry. “It has everything to do with you, John, we’re all connected, not separate like you think… I can’t fit them all in! Oh John, please! She’s only a tiny little Russian girl from St. Petersburg, absolutely sweet, only twenty-one. You can boss her about as much as you like, she won’t be difficult, and she’s a musical prodigy, plays the piano like she invented the bloody thing. She had a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, you know. Her family’s penniless, her father lost a leg in a knife-fight and—”
“Her father lost his leg in a knife-fight? How the hell did he manage that?”
“She’s staying for a week. Can you do it or not?”
“A week! Are you out of your mind!” I paused. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Clarissa. In your view, is Krishnamurti a philosopher or a Bengali corn-snack?”
“John! Why do you always have to be such a prick? I’m asking you a small favor here. What’s a week in the grand scheme of things?”
In the end I think it may have been the music angle that sealed it for me. I love music, it may even be the only thing I care about at all. I have an amazing piano that used to belong to my mother; I’ve been told it’s a really excellent one, made in Leipzig with a solid dye-cast frame or something. It occurred to me that I’d love to hear Chopin’s Nocturnes played on it.
When the doorbell rang the next day, I was caught off guard. I suppose I was expecting some tiny rotund Natasha in a shawl, barefoot, covered in head-lice and clutching a filthy cardboard box tied up with string.
I knew something was up as soon as I opened the door. Clarissa was standing there with her arms crossed, peering down her nose at me. The silly thing was wearing a knitted Peruvian poncho and long black button-up boots, and I had the oddest feeling—odd because I was convinced I was right—she was trying to tart herself up. But why? Clarissa was a battleship, knew she was a battleship. Even on cursory examination I saw the whelks of belly-fat spilling over the lining of her trousers. I felt sorry for her. I think there may even have been an owlish boyfriend somewhere in her life, or an ex-boyfriend secreted in some back bedroom. She certainly wasn’t dressing for my benefit, and not for his either.
Then I saw the reason. That most primitive of feminine motivations.
Behind her stood Olga, and Olga was very pretty. She had long eyelashes, bright, mischievous eyes and high cheekbones like a Mongolian nomad.
Clarissa wrung her hands. “This is Olga. We haven’t seen each other in three years. And here she is…” She turned round and waved her arms in the air, as if overwhelmed by her once-so-young protégé, who’d grown into this womanly creature all fragrant and dense with purpose, having wafted in on the Aeroflot iron bird and now standing unfurled before us.
“Hello, Olga.” I reached out and shook her hand. When I spoke, I articulated as clearly as I could. “You. Are. Very. Welcome.”
“Hello, John,” she replied. “Very kind of you to have me.” She had an attractive, fluid American accent, as if nurtured on a diet of Walt Whitman, Leo Tolstoy, and Time magazine. As I was turning round to lead them into the house I felt a wave of hostility from Clarissa catch me across the stern and almost capsize me in its towering waves. Suddenly I understood that I had been a prick for years. It had something to do with standing there opposite Clarissa in black button-up boots tight as sausage-skins around her bulging calves. Clarissa, with faint rouge brushed across her cheeks, feeling ignored and overlooked and burning with resentment, while I admired the younger woman.
I took Clarissa and Olga inside; proudly I led them across my kitchen with the newly fitted floor of hand-made Spanish terracotta tiles, the under-floor heating which had cost me the equivalent of a two-year supply of cappuccinos. Nick Cave would have a floor just like mine, I was sure of it. Anyone cool would have a floor just like that. They’d keep it mopped and clean at all times, so that early in the morning with a nice frothy cafe latte and the iBook open and the wireless running, they could cross the shining floor in bare feet or maybe a pair of havaianas and carelessly knock up a few sonnets prior to the goddess calling out from the bedroom for croissants and coconut milk.
As I stopped to let them pass in front of me into the sitting room, I noticed that Olga had an ample body without any of that unpleasant stoutness I associate with child-bearing. She was wearing black corduroys, fairly tight, with a woven belt. Her face had a beautiful light bronzed tone, and I had no trouble imagining a gold stud in her nostril and a necklace of unpolished Yemeni turquoise tucked into her generously swelling cleavage.
No doubt about it, Clarissa was out of her comfort zone. She brought her large posterior down in the sofa with a severe jolt, like a tree falling in a forest. The role of the madam was deeply irksome to her: delivering this ingénue free-of-charge to me, a person for whom she had little respect. I sensed her unsettled mind, its dark gyroscope spinning at enormous speed, trying to work its way out of this unbearable situation, whilst balancing on a pin-head above the void.
While I was in the kitchen making a pot of green tea, I heard Clarissa’s theatrical whispers from next-door. “I’m sorry about this, Olga. If you don’t like it here I can probably fit you into my box room if you’d prefer.”
Then the perfectly modulated American voice of Olga, vaguely amused but also respectful. She really did pack a punch. “No, really Clarissa, it’s fine for me. I am very happy.”
“You’re sure now? It’s no trouble. He’s not as bad as he seems.”
“He seems very nice.”
I came back in with the tea-tray, on which I had also put some sesame and honey biscuits bound to appeal to Clarissa. We sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the sound of the gas-flames from my remote-controlled imitation log-fire. When you consider my spectacular lack of success in the movie industry, it was no mean achievement, all the various signals I’d invested the room with. Apart from the obligatory ruinous electronics, I’d had a bookshelf built along the main wall filled with complicated-sounding titles, most of which I’m keeping for later, when I have more time: The Rustle of Language, The Use of Pleasure, Regarding the Pain of Others, Illness as Metaphor, The Archaeology of the Frivolous, The Ear of the Other, In Defence of Lost Causes, In Search of Wagner, and so on.
Olga tasted a biscuit, then, after chewing thoughtfully, said, “John, if you and Clarissa are hungry, I could make some lunch for us. I did some shopping earlier and I brought some things from Russia. I didn’t want to arrive empty-handed.”
Clarissa laughed and slapped her thigh playfully. “Oh you shouldn’t spoil John, he hasn’t had lunch at home for years, he just goes out and has an old cheese sandwich or something!”
“Poor guy!” said Olga and chuckled. Her voice had a crystal-clear undertone but no shrillness, like a murmuring bell from across a valley. She stood up and went to some luggage she’d left by the door. After rummaging for a while, she disappeared and we heard the sounds of chopping, frying, and stirring from the kitchen.
I looked at Clarissa and made sure I sounded as irritated as possible: “Everything all right, pet? Time of the month, is it?”
Clarissa wasn’t buying it. “Just take it easy, John. She’s twenty-one, for Christ’s sake. I thought you were a grown man!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Whatever,” she muttered. “It’s my fault. I brought her here. I shouldn’t have.”
“What do you think I’m going to do, eat her?”
“I’m sure you’d like to!”
“You’re unfair, Clarissa. I’m doing you a favor and suddenly it’s like I’m doing something wrong.”
“Your eyes are on stalks, John!”
Having nothing else to say, we strayed into the kitchen, where Olga was making a pie. She’d gutted and filleted several large mackerel and layered them with breadcrumbs and onions pre-fried in a deep slick of butter. Over the top she tossed a sheet of yellow, buttery pastry, which she expertly fixed to the sides of the oven-tray with deft, rapid finger movements.
Clarissa hiccupped when she saw all that saturated fat in the frying pan. “Wow, you like butter, don’t you? I don’t know how you keep your figure!”
For the first time Olga lost a little of her composure. She swung round. “Butter is good for you! Everyone knows that. Keeps you regular, too.”
“Who told you that?” Clarissa said. “Your mum?”
“Actually my mother’s dead.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I’m a little stressed out.” Her voice sounded brittle. She swayed a little and held on to my granite work-top. I patted her on the shoulder. “Why don’t you lay the table, Clarissa? I’ll help Olga here.”
By now, Olga was transferring the contents of one of her large hold-alls to my freezer and refrigerator. First there were countless tins of salmon caviar, jars of potted wild mushrooms, oozing parcels of smoked sausage, hard-boiled quail’s eggs. Then, clinking like loaded weapons as she unwrapped them, bottle after bottle of herb vodka wrapped in damp newspaper. That’s the sort of thing I like: a house-guest who, without a word, stuffs your freezer with vodka.
Olga’s preparations were made efficiently and calmly, her face in deep concentration as she asked where I kept candlesticks and cutlery. When I showed her, she frowned. “It’s a shame for brass candlesticks to be full of green stains like this, John. I will polish them for you.”
“You really don’t need to.”
“But I want to.” Her eyes were sober, dark and bursting with purpose.
“What about your piano practice? Do you really have time for that?”
“I have time for everything. This is nice cutlery. It’s old silver and you shouldn’t keep it all together like this. It’ll get scratched.”
Next door, Clarissa was dabbing her eyes with a tissue. I put my arm round her larded waist. “It’s okay, Clarissa, let’s have a nice lunch now and relax.” She somewhat frenetically apologized and then hyperventilated about the Indonesians coming later, how her flat was in a real mess and she hadn’t done any shopping and her overdraft at the bank had been cancelled so she didn’t have any money.
It seemed too good an opportunity to miss, in terms of getting old misery guts off my neck and laying a guilt trip on her, which might just shut her up for a while. Quickly I flashed her a generous smile and offered her a cash loan, making sure I was counting out a bunch of fifty-pound notes just as Olga peered in. When she registered I was giving Clarissa money, her smile deepened, as if she now considered me a man of substance, a kind, considerate man, which I’m not. But she also could not resist a little joke. “How much did he pay you for me?” she asked Clarissa, who burst into a shrill laugh, sounding like a banshee getting ready to slit her own throat.
There was a moment of silence resettling itself, then Olga said, in a composed and pleasant voice: “Lunch will be ready in about twenty minutes. Anyone for a drink?”
I was starting to feel rather heavenly. I leaned back in the sofa as Olga brought in a tray of savory biscuits and bowls of Lord-knows-what, sort of yogurt with cucumber and smoked fish, feta cheese with fruit or something. It tasted great with cold white Georgian wine.
Clarissa was not quite herself for the rest of the lunch. She left all tangled up in apologies, after helping us put the dirty crockery away in the dishwasher. I only just managed to resist the urge of poking my tongue at her. As soon as the door closed, Olga breathed a sigh of relief. She picked up her bags and went to her room, where for about twenty minutes I heard her opening and closing drawers, taking hangers from the wardrobe and carefully putting away her dresses. “John, do you have an iron?” she called out.
“What? An iron?” I closed my eyes, tried to remember where I’d put the damned thing, then fetched it for her.
I couldn’t help but stand there watching as she ironed a blouse with fierce attention. When she finished, she looked at me with a shy, yet also delighted, smile. “You know if I see a wrinkled blouse it sort of makes my head spin,” she said. “And now I’m going to polish your brass. I have to do something to be useful for you.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“Don’t be polite. It makes everything so silly,” she said, then spread newspapers across my kitchen table. After disappearing into her bedroom and changing into a pair of scuffed-up jeans and a T-shirt, she got on with rubbing the life out of not only my candle-sticks but also my copper-plated cooking pots and anything else she could find round the flat.
It took bloody hours. When she was finishing, she looked at me. “Do you have silver polish?”
“What?”
“Silver polish. Do you have silver polish? For your cutlery?”
“No, no, it’s fine! You don’t have to polish it, Olga!”
“I’m going to polish your silver!” Her eyes expanded, and her mouth tensed. “I can’t stand seeing beautiful things like this, not cared for.”
It was true, but who gives a damn about some old knives and forks? My grandmother had given me a box full of them. Solid, ornate silver from the early eighteen hundreds, probably valuable, should have sold them years ago. “So I’ll go and get some silver polish,” I finally said.
“Thank you.”
The supermarket was round the corner, so I was only gone for ten minutes or so, but as soon as I opened the front door I heard the piano. She was a prodigy all right. I don’t know what she was playing, but it sounded absolutely fantastic. The music saturated every molecule in my flat, the energy cleaning everything. I stood in the doorway like a speck of dust fighting a current of fresh air.