Although Xantia would pop into the kitchen midmorning to grab a yogurt or a couple of Ryvitas, Otto seemed to be forever rooting through the cupboards and fridge for snacks. After a few minutes he would go back upstairs with a box of Jaffa cakes, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, or a couple of cheese and Marmite bagels and a glass of milk. An hour or so later, he would be back again with his snout in the fridge.
What Rachel found odd about Otto’s snacking—apart from the amount—was that when she went upstairs to tidy the work piazza after the Marxes finally left for the office, she could never see any empty wrappers or debris. Even odder was that although the Marxes were working on the first floor of an open-plan house where the slightest sound carried and could be picked up yards away, she never heard a peep from them. There was no chatter, no sound of them moving around; just silence. What was more, whenever she went upstairs to clean or put something away, they were never at their desks. At first she assumed one of them was in the loo and the other had popped out for a few minutes. But she never once heard the front door open, or the loo flush.
Funny, that.
* * * * *
“Now then,” Xantia said, as usual eyeing what Rachel was wearing (tight Lycra T-shirt, baggy drawstring trousers with dried-up baked bean down them) and wincing, “the reason I asked you to come early today is that we’re having guests tonight for dinner and I thought that to save me time, on top of the cleaning you could do some shopping and a bit of the food preparation. Naturally, I’ll pay you extra.”
“Great,” Rachel said happily. “I can always do with the money and I haven’t got to dash home today to do the school run.”
“Excellent. You see, I always make it a rule to cook myself. I think catered dinner parties are so impersonal, don’t you?”
“Oh absolutely,” Rachel said, nodding. Of course she didn’t have the remotest idea what she was talking about—never having been to anything catered that wasn’t a wedding or a bar mitzvah; or once, in the case of her rich uncle Sid who’d made it big in expandable document folders, a funeral.
“So,” Rachel continued, “who’s coming?”
“Oh, just the Blairs, the Prescotts and Joely . . . Richardson, that is,” Xantia said casually, sliding the feng shui coffee table book to the other side of the coffee table.
“Wow.”
“Yes, it is a bit. Security were here all day yesterday.”
“So what are you cooking?” Rachel asked.
“Well,” Xantia enthused, “I had this brilliant idea. I thought that since the Prescotts are northerners they would feel more at home if I served fish-and-chips.” She leaned over the coffee table again and moved the feng shui book a fraction to the left. “What do you think?”
“I thought it looked fine where it was to start with,” Rachel said.
“No, no,” Xantia said testily. “Not the book. My idea. What do you think?”
“Well, it’s certainly plain,” Rachel said diplomatically. “You can’t go wrong really.”
“Precisely. Now then, the fish is being delivered later on, but I thought you could pop to Waitrose and get the potatoes, gherkins and guacamole.”
“Guacamole?” Rachel said, perplexed.
“Yes, you know, the green stuff. They always serve it with fish-and-chips.”
“Xantia, that’s not guacamole, it’s mushy peas.”
“Really? Goodness. Oh well, whatever. Get those then—and some sponge cakes, a drum of Bird’s Custard and a bottle of Emva cream to make a sherry trifle. And I thought you could peel and chip the potatoes this morning and leave them in water in the fridge.”
“Fine. No problem,” Rachel said.
“Otto and I are going to work on some sketches up in the work piazza for the next couple of hours and then we’ll be off. I’ll come and see how you’re getting on before we go. . . . Oh, I’ve left some money in the kitchen.”
With that, she adjusted her shroud and disappeared upstairs.
* * * * *
Rachel got back from Waitrose at about half ten. As she lugged four bags of shopping into the kitchen she almost collided with Otto, who was coming out. He had half a baguette filled with bacon in one hand and a can of Coke in the other. He offered to help her with the shopping. She thanked him, but said she was fine and he disappeared upstairs.
She had just begun chipping the potatoes when the doorbell rang. She rinsed the starch off her hands and trotted to the door, wiping her hands down the front of her trousers as she went.
“Matt,” she said, surprised but inexplicably pleased to see him, “Xantia didn’t mention you were coming. Has the washing machine been playing up again?” She noticed he was wearing a trendy black windcheater over charcoal combats.
“No, no, the machine’s fine.” He sounded a tad nervous, she thought. “At least I’m assuming it is. I mean you’d know better than me as you work here. No . . . it’s just that it occurred to me that Xantia may have lost the instruction manual for the Wiener. As I explained to you the other day, it’s a pretty temperamental machine, the Wiener, and you need to know what you’re doing. And as luck would have it I came across a spare manual while I was sorting through some papers. So I, er, thought I’d drop it round.”
“Oh, that’s really kind,” she said, smiling and reaching out to take the booklet.
He smiled back.
She was suddenly aware that a) their eye contact was lasting fractionally longer than it should between relative strangers and b) she was wearing no makeup.
“I’ll . . . um . . . get Xantia, shall I? She’s upstairs working.”
His face fell. “What? She’s here?” he said uneasily. “It’s just that I assumed . . . I mean I thought she’d be at the office. Please don’t disturb her. It really isn’t that important. I just thought I’d bring the manual round, that’s all.”
“Look,” Rachel said after a slightly awkward pause, “I was just going to put the kettle on. Why don’t you stay for a cuppa? I’m sure Xantia wouldn’t mind after you’ve gone to so much trouble.”
He hesitated. For a moment she thought he was going to say yes.
“It’s really kind of you, but I think Xantia might mind. I don’t want her to think you’re slacking. Anyway, I’d better get going. I’m already running really late.”
Disappointment shot through her.
“But I’m sure she won’t mind,” she persisted. “Really.”
“No, honest. I should be off.”
“OK,” she said.
Just then she heard the phone ringing in the kitchen.
“Oh God, I’d better get that. Otto and Xantia have got me fielding their calls.”
“No problem,” he said.
“See you again maybe.”
“Yeah, sure,” he nodded.
She closed the front door and dashed toward the kitchen. On the way it occurred to her that Matt had only brought the washing machine manual round as an excuse to see her, and that he might possibly fancy her. She blushed and couldn’t help herself feeling mildly horny at the thought. That lopsided grin of his was very, very sexy. Then she remembered the blond woman she’d seen him with at the Anarchist Bathmat. What was she thinking? The man had a girlfriend. A beautiful blond one. He’d brought round the manual, she reasoned, simply because Xantia was a rich and famous client and it was important for him to keep her happy. That way she wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to her rich and famous friends.
She picked up the phone. It was Kermit, Xantia’s Parisian assistant at OP8 (known affectionately as Kermit the Frog).
“Look, Kermit, if it’s a real emergency,” she said, “I’ll get her to the phone. But can you just give me some vague idea what it’s about? . . . Whoa, let me see if I’ve got that, some avant-garde Austrian sculptor, yeah . . . is exhibiting his own version of Lego, at the Klagenfurt Design Fair, tomorrow, starting with a build-your-own-Auschwitz kit. Even though it’s meant to be an antifascist statement, you’d like to know if Otto and Xantia still want OP8 to have a stall there.”
She dashed up to the work piazza. As usual there was no sign of Otto or Xantia. It occurred to Rachel that maybe they’d nipped off for a quickie in the bed piazza, but there were no sounds coming from behind the screen. She checked the bathroom, ran over the bridge, climbed the stairs to the next level and then the one after that. Everywhere was silent and empty. Finally she came downstairs, checked the main living piazza and the front and back gardens. She could only assume they had gone off to work without saying good-bye. She went back to the phone intending to tell Kermit that the Marxes appeared to have left for the office. But she’d taken so long that he’d hung up.
“Rachel,” Xantia called from the hall, just as Rachel was putting the phone down, “we’re off now. See you tomorrow.”
Rachel jumped a foot in the air. Then she shot into the hall to confirm that her ears weren’t deceiving her. They weren’t. Xantia was putting on a padded purple silk coat over her sari, Otto was coming down the stairs reading some papers. She couldn’t make it out. A few minutes ago, Otto and Xantia hadn’t been in the house. She’d looked everywhere. This was verging on the surreal. Where on earth had they sprung from? She didn’t like to ask because she thought it would make her look stupid.
“Right, any messages?” Xantia said briskly, doing up the buttons on her coat. “I know about Klagenfurt—Kermit just got me on my mobile. Anything else?”
“No, nothing . . . Oh yes, Matt Clapton popped round with a spare washing machine manual. He thought you might have lost yours.”
“I think we probably have. Do you know, he is just so thoughtful. I tell you, the day he plumbed in our washing machine, some pipes burst and he stayed for two hours helping the workmen clear up the mess. I mean, it wasn’t even his fault. But nothing is ever too much for him. The man is a treasure.” She began staring wistfully into space. “And he’s so tall. And strong. There’s this funny lopsided thing he does when he smiles. And he’s got the tightest little butt . . .” She broke off, blushing, and cleared her throat. “As I said, he’s a treasure. An absolute treasure.”
* * * * *
After they’d gone, Rachel still couldn’t fathom out where Otto and Xantia had got to while she was hunting for them. In the end all she could think was that they’d popped out and returned without her noticing.
Rachel got home just after four. She hung up her jacket, put her bag and keys on the hall table and glanced at the answer machine. One message.
“Hi, Rache, it’s me, Ad. I’m at Manchester airport. Listen, I’ve asked Barry the accountant to fax you over those capital gains tax figures. I think you’ll find they make very interesting reading. He really is the most brilliant tax accountant. Did I tell you they’ve named a loophole after him? Oh yeah, and by the way, I meant to tell you that when I was at the flat yesterday, I noticed your fridge had this rather fridgey smell. I’ve just put one of those egg-shaped deodorizer things in the post. You should get it in a couple of days. Speak to you soon. Bye.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Adam, it’s a fridge,” she said out loud. “What did you expect it to smell of, tropical frangipani? Freshly baked bread? The Estée Lauder factory?”
CHAPTER 8
“. . . So Mrs. Peach, the exercises the doctor gave you still not working then? Oh I know, life would be a lot easier for us women if you could lay a new pelvic floor like a new piece of shag pile. Look, I was wondering if I could speak to Sh— . . . Soaked through? . . . Every time you cough or sneeze? Half a dozen pairs a day? Oh, I quite agree, Mrs. Peach, it’s no life. I’d go for the operation if I were you . . . no I
do
think so, really . . . a two-year waiting list? Gosh, that’s scandalous. . . . No, I’m sure they wouldn’t make Elizabeth Taylor wait that long. . . . Look, Mrs. P, is Shelley around? I’d like to have a quick word if possible. . . .”
Rachel, who was sitting at Xantia’s kitchen table, mobile in hand, heard Mrs. Peach call up the stairs.
The Flowtex commercial had been postponed and Shelley had decided to go and stay with her mother for a few days. Rachel simply wanted a natter and to see if Shelley had any thoughts about how she might zap up her sex life with Adam.
Xantia was adamant she should make no personal calls during work time, but since the Marxes’ publicity machine had swung into action overnight and they’d flown off to the Klagenfurt Design Fair (where a posse of British broadsheet journalists and a BBC film crew were waiting to record their protest against the Lego Auschwitz bloke), Rachel decided to take a break from clearing up last night’s dinner party mess and phone Shelley.
“OK, right,” Rachel said to Mrs. Peach, who had come back to the phone. “Look, when she comes out of the shower, would you ask her to ring me? I’ll be home in twenty minutes or so. Right. Bye.”
She stabbed the red button on her phone before Mrs. Peach had a chance to go pelvic again.
* * * * *
Rachel finished at Xantia’s just after one. She was double locking the front door, aware of the bitter wind lashing at her bones, when she heard her name being called from the street. She swung round to see Matt heading toward the front gate. Her face broke into a broad smile.
“Oh hi,” she called back, giving him a tiny wave. Pulling on her gloves, she started down the garden path toward him.
“Hi,” he said. He sounded nervous. Exactly as he had the day before.
There was a tricky silence, which Rachel felt the need to fill.
“So, how are you?” she said, looking up at him, the smile still on her face. How she could ever have thought he was even remotely cross-eyed, she had no idea. His gentle, dark brown eyes were two of the least crossed eyes she’d ever seen.
“Oh, fine. Fine. Bit chilly, maybe.”
“Yeah, they said it’s going to get even colder. Might even be a white Christmas.”
“Um.”
“It’s nice to see you. . . .” She wanted to ask whether he had stopped by for any particular reason, but couldn’t quite work out a way of saying it without appearing rude.
“Yeah, you too,” he said.
“So did you just happen to be passing or was there . . . ?”
“Sort of. I’ve just finished plumbing in a washer-dryer down the road.”
“Oh right.”
“Miele.”
“Ooh, posh.”
“Yeah, two thousand spin speed.”
“Right. Not quite as posh as the Wiener, then.”
“No, not quite. The Wiener can do twenty-five hundred.”
“I know,” she grinned. “I’ve been reading the manual.”
“Oh . . . good.”
She watched him take a deep breath and swallow.
“Look,” he continued, “I hope you don’t mind, but I got you something.”
She was taken aback to say the least.
“You have?” she said, giving him a bemused look. She paused. Then she started laughing. “Oh hang on . . . let me guess. You’ve discovered the Wiener manual has a second volume.”
“No,” he said with a nervous chuckle, “not exactly. I bought you this.”
From his jacket pocket, he produced a small oblong package wrapped in an old Tesco bag.
“Sorry about the carrier,” he said. “It’s all they could find in the shop.”
She opened the bag and took out an exceedingly battered and chewed paperback. She stared at the title.
Women in Comedy—from Music Hall to the Present.
“You bought this for me?” She couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so touched.
“Well, it didn’t exactly cost a lot, but I thought you’d like it. I found it in a secondhand bookshop in Muswell Hill. It came out in the eighties. It starts off with people like Marie Lloyd and ends round about Jo Brand . . . I mean if you don’t like it, you can always toss it. I won’t be offended.”
“Matt, I love it,” she said, beaming with pleasure. “Thank you. It’s a sweet, sweet thought. Of course I’ll keep it. I can’t wait to read it. I’ve always wanted to know more about the early women comics. This is so up my street. I can’t tell you.”
“You mean that?”
“Honest,” she nodded.
There was another silence.
“So, er . . .” he said eventually, “what are you doing now?”
“Oh, you know. I thought I’d go home—have a sandwich. I’ve got a meeting at my bank at half three—to discuss what my bank manager described in his letter as ‘the parlous state’ of my account.”
“Sounds nasty,” Matt said. “It’s just that . . . I mean, I was about to grab a quick bite. You wouldn’t fancy keeping me company would you?”
“I’d love to,” she found herself saying.
“Great,” he said. “I’m parked up the road.”
She explained she had her car with her, but he offered to drop her back after they’d eaten and she saw no reason not to accept.
They didn’t say much as they battled through the icy wind toward the corner. Finally Matt stopped beside a battered white Transit van with “Clapton Domestic” printed on the side in large black letters.
“This is it,” he said, taking his car keys out of his trouser pocket. “And please, no ‘born to be riled’ white van man jokes.”
“I wouldn’t have dreamed of it,” she giggled.
“I have never suffered from road rage, I never knowingly cut anybody off and I always slow down before I go through a red light.” There was the lopsided grin again.
“That’s OK, then,” she said.
“Oh, and by the way—it’s called Morrison.”
“What is?”
“The van . . . you know Van . . .”
“Yeah, I get it,” she said, grinning.
It was a daft joke, but for some reason it rather appealed to her.
* * * * *
It also rather appealed to her that Van Morrison’s dashboard was strewn with biros, beat-up map books, yellow stickies and McDonald’s debris.
“So,” she said, as she did up her seat belt, “doesn’t your girlfriend mind you buying presents for other women and then asking them out to lunch?”
“My girlfriend?” He gave her a puzzled look.
“Yes. The pretty blond woman I saw you with at the Anarchist Bathmat.”
“What, Rosie, you mean? She’s not a woman, she’s my aunt.”
Rachel raised her eyebrows.
“No, honestly,” he said. “She’s my mum’s kid sister. It’s all a bit weird, but when my mum was expecting me, she discovered her own mother was pregnant with Rosie. We’ve always been close. She lives in Edinburgh now, but I always take her out when she’s in town.”
“Oh right,” Rachel said thoughtfully.
* * * * *
They decided to go for coffee and a sandwich at Bonjour Croissant in Highgate. On the drive over Matt asked her how she got into comedy. She told him about hating Fleet Street and it having been an ambition since she was a teenager.
“So you gave up the journalism and just took a leap into the unknown. I really admire that.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “You have to take risks in life. OK, you might fail at the end of the day—but at least you can say you gave it your best shot. I reckon there’s nothing worse than waking up dead one morning, full of regrets.”
She nodded.
He went on to tell her his love of comedy had been handed down to him from his father, a retired builder who had moonlighted as a pub comic in the sixties and seventies.
“He tended to mainline on those my-wife-is-so-frigid-every-time-she-opens-her-mouth-a-light-goes-on gags. But it was definitely my dad who gave me a taste for comedy. By the time I was seventeen or eighteen I was hanging out at all the London comedy clubs.”
“Me too,” she said eagerly. “I wonder if our paths ever crossed.”
The more they chatted, the more his shyness evaporated.
“Funny,” he said as they sat down at one of the small Formica tables at Bonjour Croissant, “can you imagine a café on the Left Bank called Hello Crumpet?”
She burst out laughing.
“So where do you live?” she asked.
He told her he had a flat in Muswell Hill and that his best mate, who’d been living in New York for the last few months and got chucked out because he didn’t have a green card, was staying with him for a few weeks.
“He keeps telling me he’s looking for a job,” Matt explained, “but I can’t see much sign of it. Or of him paying any rent. All he does is sit at home all day, hatching these lunatic business schemes. None of which ever seems to work out.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, last month it was a chain of dog restaurants called The Dogs’ Diner. Then there was his idea for a biblical foods deli called Cheeses of Nazareth. Now he’s working on some idea involving breakfast cereal. He did explain it, but to be honest I wasn’t really listening.”
Rachel shook her head and smiled.
“I know he’s a lazy bugger,” Matt went on, “but he’s my oldest mate and deep down, he’s a really decent bloke. He’s also desperate for a relationship. But he’s absolutely hopeless with women. Comes on far too strong—you know, sounds like he swallowed a book of chat-up lines and then can’t work out why women don’t want to know.”
“So what’s his name, this friend of yours?”
“Tr—Dave.”
“Trdave?” she frowned. “That’s an unusual name.”
“No, it’s not Trdave,” he explained. “It’s Dave. It’s complicated. You see he’s got this nickname. . . .”
Just then the waitress came to take their order.
“Anyway, that’s enough of me going on about my problems,” he said after she’d gone. “So are you going in for the Joke for Europe contest?” He told her he’d seen the posters advertising it at the Comedy Store.
She nodded. “Assuming I get through the audition, that is.”
“Can’t see that being a problem. You were fantastic the other night. Not only will the audition be a breeze, but you are going to wipe the floor with them at the contest.”
“Oh, I dunno about that,” she said, feeling herself starting to blush.
They carried on chatting over sandwiches and several cappuccinos. Pretty soon she was telling him about Sam, her marriage to Joe and why it ended.
“Wow,” Matt said, putting down his tuna fish sandwich.
“Yes, that’s how I felt for a while. But I’m OK with it now. Sam just takes having a gay father in stride. He’s amazing. I keep worrying he’s going to get bullied at school, but so far there’s been nothing.”
They’d been sitting talking for over two hours when Rachel suddenly remembered her appointment at the bank. She looked at her watch. It was almost half three.
“Oh God. Look, Matt, I’m so sorry, but I really do have to run. I’m due at the bank in about three minutes.”
She could see the disappointment in his face.
“Right, I’ll drive you back to your car, then.”
She explained that the bank was just over the road and that she’d be fine walking back to her car afterward. She reached into her bag and offered him some money toward lunch, but he wouldn’t hear of it. She thanked him profusely.
“Look,” he said, a trace of hesitation creeping back into his voice, “if your washing machine ever breaks down, this is where I am.”
He took a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her.
* * * * *
Rachel came out of the bank, virtually punching the air with delight. Mr. Lickdish, her avuncular bank manager, had given her a long lecture about living within her means before taking pity on her and saying that although the bank wasn’t happy with the way she was managing her account, they were prepared to let her overdraft continue for the time being.
“What you have to understand, though,” Mr. Lickdish had said, leaning forward over his desk and taking off his glasses, “is that the bank isn’t a charitable institution. At some stage in the not too distant future, we will have to insist that you put your house in order.”
“I understand,” she said with what she hoped was appropriate gravity. “And thanks again.”
She almost ran out of the office, petrified he would change his mind.
“Oh, one last thing, Miss Katz,” he called out as she was halfway down the corridor.
Rachel felt the color drain from her cheeks. Mr. Lickdish trotted along the corridor until he caught up with her.
“Here’s a joke you could use in your act, and you can have it for free. I promise it won’t appear on your statement.”
“Oh right,” she said, mightily relieved. “Go on.”
“Well,” he said, “have you heard the Vatican has patented a new, low-fat communion wafer? It’s called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Jesus.”
“Wonderful,” Rachel said, forcing a smile. “Absolutely hilarious. Thank you so much.”
* * * * *
She felt like doing something to celebrate her reprieve from fiscal ruin, but she couldn’t think what. Shelley was away and most of her other friends were at work. In the end she decided to phone her parents and invite herself over for a cup of tea. It would be a chance to gently quiz her mother about Tiggy Bristol.
* * * * *
Faye answered the door, cordless clamped to her ear. “No, you’re right, Coral. I think there’s a lot to be said for regression therapy.” She beckoned Rachel in, planted a kiss on her cheek and mouthed that she wouldn’t be long.
“OK, so she hypnotized you, this woman. What then? You became an Egyptian princess and then you drowned in a bath of asses’ milk? Well, I tell you, it would certainly explain your allergy to dairy. . . . Look, Coral, I’ve got to go. Rachel’s just arrived. Love to Ivan. I’ll speak to you later. . . .”
Faye stabbed the off button. “You know, Rachel,” she said thoughtfully, as they walked down the hall toward the kitchen, “maybe I should have a go at this regression lark. How many years is it I’ve had that recurring nightmare about being with Captain Oates when he went for that final walk in the Antarctic? That could explain my phobia about shopping in freezer centers.”