Nomance (8 page)

Carla had shut
Romance
early that day, unable to face any of her
customers.

It seemed like they all
knew something she didn’t. Like she had been experimented on and
presented a danger to their health.

But what about
her
health? She was supposed to pick up another batch of the
tablets that Gerald had prescribed for her. However, when she had
taken the last one at dinner time, (after too many jars of
comforting chilly pickle) she had noticed it had a strange
aftertaste. Somehow this fact had become fixed in her mind and, as
the afternoon wore on, she had come to realise that Gerald was a
mad doctor and he was using her as a guineapig in a grotesque
medical trial.

Carla had never felt so
alone. Gerald was mad, Gwynne had left home, her customers were all
against her, and Sharon was running a bar in Cyprus.

Who else could she turn
to?

It was nine in the
evening before Carla found Juliet and Philip’s house.

She closed her umbrella
and let it drop beside the steps, which led up to a large, stuccoed
terraced villa, typical of those lining the squares off Ladbroke
Grove. But having thus safely disposed of her umbrella, she seemed
to run out of ideas. All she could do was stand and stare at the
door.

It swept open and two
men appeared. They gave an immediate impression of youth that did
not, however, stand up to closer inspection. They looked back at
her with amused and contemptuous interest. She was trying to
differentiate between them. It was quite amazing – they were almost
identical. Both sported glossy tans and had close-cropped, bleached
hair and a pampered, manicured look. They grinned at her now,
producing shocking wrinkles around the eyes, and then they stood
aside, bowed and flourished in unison. ‘Greetings.’

Carla walked in.

‘Thank you.’

She turned to ask them
where Juliet and Philip were, but they were already walking away,
voices raised in merry excitement as they headed off into the
night.

Carla turned back,
climbed the steep staircase and suddenly found she had stumbled
into a crowded room. She tried to flee, but the door had abruptly
disappeared and she wove hopelessly though the dense flock of
bodies for a while. Then she had to stop. Her head was
spinning.

A tall, slim man, not
youthfully dressed, although he looked younger than the fairies she
had met outside, handed her a glass of wine and asked, ‘Aren’t you
Lynne’s sister?’

‘No, I’m Gwynne’s
sister.’

‘Gwynne?’ The man
exclaimed, delighted to hear the name. ‘I haven’t seen the old
reprobate in two years.’ He gave Carla a fond smile. ‘I never knew
he had a baby sister.’ Carla stared at him and did not reply. His
smile faltered a little, then, as in a dream, she heard him say,
‘Anyway, two years, eh? A long time. But of course, it’s so easy to
lose touch with these jet-setting foreign correspondents. And
stepping on that land mine hasn’t slowed him down one bit, has it?
By the way, where is he now?’

Carla responded in a
slow, even voice, ‘Who? Gwynne?’

‘Hmm, Gwynne.’

‘As far as I know he’s
still working at the
EasyHomes DIY Superstore
. But he’s
living with that Charmaine, so I wouldn’t know for sure.’

‘
The EasyHomes
Superstone
?’ The man said, his smile faltering once again. ‘Is
he covering consumer issues now, or something?’

‘No, he’s an assistant
in the
Timber and Gardening Department
. Unless his new
band’s been signed up for a recording contract. I expect he’d have
to leave if he started making albums.’

Carla couldn’t help
noticing how this simple statement stunned the guy. It was then she
began to wonder how the hell this bloke in Ladbroke Grove happened
to know Gwynne. Her brother’s social horizons seemed to have
expanded even beyond Hammersmith. Perhaps he was a pop star now,
after all.

That settled it, she
was never going to turn the radio on again.

‘Strange, I brought a
box of screws and some shelving only last week,’ the man said at
last.

Carla stared at him.
‘That’s interesting.’

He winced. ‘Well, what
I meant is, I went to the
EasyHomes DIY
place recently and,
er, I didn’t see him there.’

‘You wouldn’t though,
would you? Like I say, he works in
Timber and Gardening
, not
Shelving and Screws
.’

‘Ah, that explains it
then.
Timber and Gardening
.’ He was looking unhappy now.
‘Trouble is, we don’t have a garden as such.’

Carla was unable to
conceal her disgust. ‘The oldest excuse in the book.’

‘But we do go to the
odd concert occasionally,’ he added, by way of an apology. ‘You say
Gwynne’s in a band? So then, there’s a chance we may bump into each
other after all. That would be nice.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I
believe he used to be in a band before.’

‘He was in a band
before, yes.’

‘Is this a new one, or
a revival of the original?’

‘No. This lot work in
the warehouse too.’

‘Do they? Crikey. A new
band then . . . what kind of music do they play? ’Eighties classics
I expect.’

‘No. I think it’s
called Psycho House.’

The man gaped at Carla.
He kept on doing that, didn’t he? Just what was the matter with
this drip? She might be disorientated by drugs, but that wouldn’t
stop her getting aggravated by a drip.

She snapped at him,
‘It’s just a racket though! No one will ever buy it, even though
they’re called
The Dead Dianas
. I told him, a great name on
its own isn’t enough.’

‘No, I daresay it
isn’t.’ The fellow murmured, just as if (of all things!) he was
sorry that Gwynne would continue to be a miserable failure. That
was bad enough, but what he did now was try and talk up the swine!
‘You know though, Carla, thinking about it, playing in a Psycho
House band at his age, and with only one leg . . . well, it’s an
example to us all. Gwynne was always young at heart, triple bypass
or no.’

‘Only one leg?’ Carla
was affronted. ‘He’s got more than that!’

The man was
sympathetic. ‘No, he hasn’t, dear. It was in all the papers.’

‘I don’t read the
papers,’ Carla assured him, like her life depended on it. However,
she was already wondering how long it would be before Gwynne was on
the telly too. Might there be no escape?

‘Well, I did hear he
was in denial. Which, in a way, is quite an achievement in itself,’
the man reflected. ‘Still, lets forget I mentioned it. In any case,
he’s in a Psycho House band now, so it sounds like it hasn’t
stopped him living life to the full. And did you say he’s settled
down with someone? That’s just brilliant. At long last, eh?
Charmaine you say? You know, I’ve never thought of that as a boy’s
name.’

Carla finally lost
patience with these imbecilities. ‘Are you on drugs too?’

It was a simple enough
question and yet the guy didn’t seem to have an answer. That’s how
far gone he was. Carla gave him a dirty look and knocked her wine
back in one. She needed it.

When she looked again,
the weird, jumpy geezer was gone.

She turned a full
circle, but there was no sight of him. Troubled, she examined her
surroundings again and began to wonder whether she had come to the
right address. It was a strange place for anyone to live in. Bare
wooden boards and odd furnishings, many in buffed steel, made it in
some ways reminiscent of Gerald Lytton’s fancy clinic.

The thought of the
clinic gave Carla a queasy sensation. She shut her eyes for a
moment and waited for her stomach to settle down. When she opened
them again, she found a small, frail woman with huge glistening
eyes standing in front of her.

Carla looked the greasy
pixie up and down, but without comprehension.

It spoke, ‘Hi, I’m
Tamsin. Feeling alright, dear?’

Carla handed Tamsin the
empty wine glass. ‘Just so tired, really. I can’t seem to sleep
nights. I’d like to complain, but I’m scared he’ll get angry and,
you know, do stuff.’

Tamsin gave her a
“knowing woman of the world” look. Carla knew this look well. It
was affected by many of her customers in Kew. ‘It’s your neighbours
is it?’ Tamsin commiserated. ‘They can be such noisy bastards,
can’t they?’

Carla frowned. ‘I have
fabulous neighbours. Golden, they are. They’ve both got Alzheimer’s
and I never hear a peep out of them. No, it’s the doctor we have to
worry about. He has to be stopped and stopped soon, before he ruins
more lives.’

‘The
doctor
? My
God, what did he do?’

‘Artificially
inseminated me.’

At that, Tamsin’s
“knowing woman of the world” hit a brick wall.

Smiling with grim
satisfaction, Carla went on, ‘I wouldn’t worry so much if it was my
baby I’m carrying, but it’s somebody else’s and the real parents
don’t know what’s going on. That’s why I came here, to warn them.
See, they can formally adopt it straight away, before he aborts it
and chops it up for stem-cell research . . . you aren’t the real
mother, are you?’

Tamsin, having given
this some deliberation, it seemed, said, ‘No, I can’t be the
mother. Twisted tubes, you see.’

‘Twisted tubes? You
don’t know how lucky you are.’

Tamsin’s eyes grew
wide. Then they grew narrow. She looked down into the empty glass
in her hand and then giving Carla an elvish smile, she asked,
‘Would you like more wine, dear?’

Carla nodded and Tamsin
fluttered off.

But instead of wine,
she returned with a great lanky beast, almost as big as the ugly
geezer with the bongos. Carla stared up into the ghoul’s cold, but
marvelling eyes, and felt her insides undulating – always the first
sign of an agonising stomachache. Either that, or it was the onset
of labour.

‘Sweetheart, I hear you
want to find parents for the child you’re carrying.’ This
apparition, huge and threatening, with its ravaged and hectic face,
had a beautifully pure and crystalline voice.

‘Well, not any old
parents,’ Carla said, trying to sound calm. ‘They have to be the
right ones.’

‘Of course. But isn’t
it a bit soon to put it up for adoption?’

Carla considered this.
‘Depends how much other people are willing to offer. You don’t want
a baby, do you?’

‘A baby? Me?’ The bogey
looked flummoxed for a moment. ‘No thanks. I’m blessed with a
complete absence of maternal instinct, dear.’

‘Fair enough. But if
you change your mind in the years to come, I can give you a piece
of advice – don’t ever go to Doctor Gerald Lytton.’

‘Doctor Lytton? Who’s
that?’

‘Phoebe, dear,’ Tamsin
said, ‘I think that’s the guy who assaulted her.’

‘He didn’t assault me,’
Carla interjected, ever a stickler for detail. ‘He explained what
he wanted to do from the very beginning, when we met in
Cyprus.’

‘Ah, a holiday fling,’
Phoebe said, adding with impressive authority, ‘a lot of bad shit
can go down on holiday.’

‘Sure, I was there on
holiday,’ Carla snapped, ‘but that’s beside the point. I’m a
working girl and there was no question of my doing it for
free.’

Phoebe’s manner became
righteous. ‘A working girl? Well, that’s great, dear. I really mean
that. You know, I totally support full legalisation for working
women. Like all our sisters, I think working women get a raw
deal.’

‘I got a raw deal, all
right. Five thousand pounds – not a penny more. He was
adamant.’

‘
Five thousand?
’
Phoebe’s face dropped. She sounded less righteous and more jealous.
‘Well, if he insisted on unprotected penetration,’ she allowed,
‘there’s a chance of AIDS, isn’t there? So – fair enough.’

‘Unprotected?’ Carla
said, disgusted. ‘Do you think I’d have stood for that? He wore
rubber gloves.’

Phoebe leaned back.
‘But as I understand it, he made you pregnant.’

‘Getting pregnant was
part of the deal.’

‘What?’ Phoebe was
outraged. ‘Some men have the most bizarre fantasies . . . ’

Tamsin shook her head
vigorously. ‘No, no, Phoebe, you don’t understand. She’s talking
about artificial insemination
and
a mad doctor.’

Carla scowled in
disgust. ‘What the fuck else did you think I was talking about?’
But her annoyance petered out. She had begun to feel dizzy. Her
stomach was churning.

Tamsin looked
concerned, ‘Are you alright, dearie?’

‘No, I don’t think I
am.’

Phoebe got excited.
‘When is your baby due, darling? Not now?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Carla
snapped. ‘It’s not my baby – it belongs to Juliet Westhrop.’

‘Who?’ Phoebe
hooted.

‘Juliet Westhrop.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh Christ, is this the
nut house or something?’

‘Never mind that,’
Phoebe said with diabolic avidity. ‘Just tell me one more time
whose baby it is and then I promise we shan’t ever refer to it
again.’

Carla answered in a
cold voice. ‘You tell me something first. Who lives here?’

Tamsin’s eyes grew wide
and fearful, and she put her hand on Phoebe’s arm as if to restrain
her.

‘Juliet Westhrop,’
Phoebe said in a hushed tone of expectancy.

‘There’s your answer,
then. It’s her baby.’

At this Phoebe quivered
like a huge coiled spring. Tamsin withdrew her hand in trepidation
as the fiend scanned the crowd. She soon spotted her target.

‘Juliet, darling,’ she
hollered across the room with boundless mirth, ‘come over and meet
Carla. Guess what? She’s having your baby!’

A deathly silence
descended upon the room.

Finally, Carla was able
to set eyes on Juliet Westhrop. She was the one whose face, one of
a refined, metropolitan beauty, sagged now and went grey, like an
old pair of Y fronts.