Original Cyn (10 page)

“And what about you? What do you want?”

“I just want to get married—don’t really care where. Having said that, I have totally put my foot down about the Hawaiian theme. I’ve told Flick that I will agree to love, honor and cherish her, but nobody, not even her, is going to get me in a church, synagogue or wherever, wearing a garland of flowers and a sodding grass skirt.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Cyn giggled. “I think with your full hips, you could carry it off.”

“You really think so?” Jonny said, starting to walk down the hall wiggling his bum.

“Hey, J . . .”

He turned to face her. She reached out and put her arms round him. “God,” she said, feeling her eyes filling up, “suddenly my little brother’s all grown up.”

“Yeah, so grown up I’m thinning on top and going gray.” He ran his hand across the top of his head. “I think it gives me a certain gravitas, though, don’t you?”

She assured him it did. Jonny was only thirty and yet physically and emotionally he was careering into middle age. Unlike Harmony, who would probably still be slapping Clairol on her pubes at ninety, Jonny appeared to be embracing getting older. He seemed perfectly content, now that their father had retired, to be running the high street law firm Mal had set up thirty years ago. It didn’t seem to bother him that the work involved nothing more thrilling or challenging than conveyancing, drawing up divorce petitions and helping rich, vindictive old ladies add codicils to their wills. He made no secret of the fact that he couldn’t wait to settle down, buy a nice house in a nice suburban neighborhood where he and Flick would raise three nice kids and an Old English sheepdog named Prince.

Flick’s take on life was much the same as Jonny’s—conservative and intensely practical. That of course was her attraction—along with her being Catholic, a bit posh and in possession of a well-developed stiff upper lip. In other words, the antithesis of the intense, arty, constantly emoting Jewish girls he’d been out with in the past.

It wasn’t that either of them was dull or lacked humor. Flick in particular was an immensely game, jolly soul, but neither of them was a risk-taker. Jonny was a firm believer in letting the rest of the world take wild gambles and chances. He would keep his bank account in the black and carry on paying into his pension plan, thank you very much.

The difference between Cyn and Jonny was, of course, that Cyn had come to see how emotionally and spiritually confining playing it safe could be. She had never actually challenged Jonny on the subject because she thought it would sound like she was judging him, but she’d sort of skirted around it. A couple of times she’d asked him about his ambitions and whether there were any dreams he wanted to fulfill.

“Haven’t you ever gotten the urge to jack it all in and do something wild like going round the world on a Harley?”

“What? To get taken hostage and shot in Colombia? No, thanks. A villa in Tuscany’s more my style. You know, I think Mum’s illness made me realize early on that the only things that matter in life are to be healthy, in a loving relationship and financially secure. So far I’ve scored three out of three. And do you know what, Cyn, I’m the happiest bugger I know.” Maybe he was. Or maybe he just convinced himself he was. It often occurred to her that deep down, he had doubts about the way he lived his life the same way she had doubts about hers.

Cyn followed Jonny down the hall, him telling her that it would be her turn to tie the knot next and her making the point that in order for it to be her turn, she would need to find a man prepared to marry her.

“What about Neil Applebaum from school? Apparently his Tourette’s is really under control. Maybe you should give him a ring.”

“Hah, hah.”

“Just a thought,” he laughed.

In the kitchen, Barbara was standing next to the stove, molding fish cakes with yellow-rubber-gloved hands. “Hi, darling,” she said to Cyn. “Jonny told you his wonderful news?” She gently placed a couple of fish cakes in the frying pan and took a step back as the oil hissed and spattered. Then, holding out her rubber-gloved hands in front of her like a surgeon breaking off in midoperation to have his brow mopped, she presented a cheek for Cyn to kiss.

“It’s fantastic.” She kissed her mother, who smelled of Body Shop White Musk and minced fish. Cyn could feel Barbara examining her face. “You OK, darling? You look a bit peaky. Everything all right at work?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit tired, that’s all.”

“I knew it. Those people you work for are pushing you too hard. I’ve a good mind to pick up the phone and . . .”

“Mum! Don’t you dare. I’m thirty-two, not five. What would you do, demand they let me have an afternoon nap?”

Barbara shrugged as if to say, “Look, I worry, that’s all.” Cyn gave her another kiss that said, “Sorry, I know you do.”

“Cyn, you’re a clever girl,” Grandma Faye called out from the table in the Alpine breakfast nook. “What rhymes with
tumor
?”

“Come again?” Cyn said, baffled. Jonny explained that one of Faye’s best friends had died a few days ago, aged 104, and since the woman had no close family still alive, Faye had been requisitioned into writing a rhyming obituary for the deaths column in the local newspaper.

“I dunno, Grandma,” Cyn replied, going over to kiss her. “What about
humor
?”

“Let me see if that scans.” Faye lifted her glasses to her forehead, brought the writing pad close to her eyes and squinted. “ ‘You never heard a moan from Estelle Silverstone / She bore her tumor with great humor.’ Great. That works for me.”

“Brill,” Cyn said, stifling a giggle. She and Jonny exchanged a look as they sat down at the orange pine table.

“So, Mum,” Barbara called out, “what did Estelle die of?”

“Childbirth . . . She was a hundred and four. What do you think she died of?”

It was as much as Cyn and Jonny could do to keep straight faces. Barbara said, “Well, pardon me. I was only asking.”

Cyn asked Grandma Faye how she was. Faye shrugged. “Oh, you know,
comme ci, comme ça
. My blood pressure’s up, I’ve started getting shooting pains in my back, my stomach’s a bit iffy—I get this terrible acid. And my circulation’s not what it was. But you know me, I’m not one to complain.”

Cyn looked at Barbara, who was looking heavenward and clearly beseeching the Almighty to speed up central heating work at Faye’s flat.

“You know,” Grandma Faye whispered, moving in toward Cyn, “it would be nice if you found a young man by the time Jonny gets married. All your cousins are married or engaged. You’re the last. Sometimes I think you’re too fussy. Who was that nice boy down the road who used to go to your school? Had a bit of a twitch.”

“Neil Applebaum,” Jonny said, grinning. “I already suggested him, but Cyn’s not interested.” Cyn kicked Jonny’s shin under the table, making him wince with pain.

“Shame,” Faye sighed. “You’re such a beautiful girl, Cyn. I don’t know why somebody hasn’t snapped you up. You know, if you found somebody, you’d be making your mother so happy.”

Faye was right, it would make Barbara happy if she found a man. It was hard to believe that Barbara had been a bit of a feminist in her day and that when Cyn was a teenager, her frequently repeated mantra was “Little girls made of sugar and spice grow up to be cheesecakes.”

In her midforties, most likely spurred on by having beaten cancer, Cyn thought, Barbara enrolled in a women’s studies course at the local adult education college. Cyn still remembered overhearing her mother telling Grandma Faye that she and some of her fellow students had gone along to this women’s group where everybody stood around in a circle using their makeup mirrors to “make friends with their vulvas” and Grandma Faye replying, “Wouldn’t it be better to take it to a car mechanic?”

These days, with Cyn not married, the “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” poster that had been stuck to the fridge door for years was long gone. Barbara had given in. After years of fighting her off, she freely admitted that she had—horror of horrors—“turned into my mother!” and gotten in touch with her yenta within.

“You know . . .” It was Barbara from across the kitchen. Cyn wrinkled her face. She was sure her mother was about to remind her of yet another article she’d read in the
Daily Mail
about women’s fertility declining after the age of thirty-five. When it turned out to be more of her thoughts about the wedding reception, Cyn’s face relaxed. “I’m not sure,” Barbara went on, “about having all these balls on the dinner menu. Maybe it would be better to go for the melon balls, but drop the matzo balls and the fish balls.”

“Funny, I didn’t know fish balls dropped,” Grandma Faye said, winking. She may have been eighty-four, diabetic and getting a bit frail, but her wit was as robust as ever.

Just then Flick came in. She’d been out on an errand for Grandma Faye and her cheeks were flushed with the cold. Flick was what Faye described as a “hardy English rose.” She was blonde and pretty with perfect cream skin, sturdy thighs and a whopping great bum. (Jonny had a thing for women with big behinds.)

“Hi, Cyn,” she said brightly, kissing her on both cheeks. “Wow, fab skirt.” It was a dusky pink and black Marc Jacobs rip-off she’d bought at Topshop for thirty quid. “God, I’d give anything to have your figure. I’m just so huge and galumphing.”

Flick was forever running herself down like this, which made Cyn feel awkward and guilty at the same time. She felt guilty for having been blessed with a good figure and awkward because there were only so many times she could trot out the same white lie about Flick not being remotely huge or galumphing. The unfortunate truth was that Flick did have something of the hockey-playing fairy elephant about her. Today Cyn decided to change tack. “Come on, Flick, I’d give my right arm and a certain amount of offal to have skin like yours.”

“Clarins Beauty Flash Balm,” she said, waving away the compliment. “Nothing to do with me.”

“I keep telling her she’s beautiful.” Jonny shrugged, looking at Cyn. “But she just doesn’t seem to get it.”

Flick bent down and kissed him. “You are just biased, Pooh Bear.”

At this point Grandma Faye broke in: “So, Felicity, did they have some indigestion tablets up at the shop?” Flick passed her a tube of Tums. It seemed that since Flick’s suggestion that she and Jonny get married in a church hadn’t quite caused Faye to have a stroke, the old lady was now playing the gastric reflux card.

“You can chew a couple of these after meals,” Flick said kindly, “but don’t overdo it. These chalky medicines aren’t good for your kidneys.”

“Thank you, my darling. You are an angel. I think maybe I’ll take one now.” Grandma Faye started to grapple with the foil on the Tums packet. Cyn couldn’t help thinking how her stiff, gnarled finger joints clashed with her perfectly manicured scarlet nails. Suggestions of church weddings aside, Faye adored Flick. It was partly because she was sweet and thoughtful. It was also because she was a nurse. At last Grandma Faye had somebody permanently on hand to offer advice and counsel about her ever-increasing list of ailments. “Felicity, darling,” Faye said, starting to chew the Tum, “maybe you could take my blood pressure again after lunch. I brought my sphygmomanometer. Oh, and my urine tester kit is in my handbag. I think my sugar might be up again. If I go to the bathroom after lunch, would you take a look?” Flick assured her it wouldn’t be a problem. Cyn watched Jonny give Flick’s hand a quick squeeze as if to say: “Look, I know she’s a pain, but thanks for being so patient.” Flick returned the squeeze with a kiss on his forehead.

“You know,” Grandma Faye chuckled, digging Cyn in the ribs, “if these two ever hit hard times, they could make a fortune giving cooing lessons to turtledoves.”

“You’re just a bitter and twisted old woman,” Barbara broke in, bringing a plate of Marks & Spencer crudités and sour cream dip to the table. “Help yourself, Flick. Don’t be shy.”

“Look,” Faye said to Barbara, “I’m a widow who hasn’t had sex in thirty-nine years and it’s starting to get to me.”

It wasn’t just Faye who thought the world of Flick; the whole family did. Cyn loved her not just because she was jolly and easygoing, but because she was one of the few people she knew who—body image aside—completely lacked any edge or agenda.

In Cyn’s opinion Flick’s only fault—and it wasn’t much of one—was that she had no sense of style. Clotheswise, she nearly always went for rugby shirts over cords. Occasionally, she would vary things with a chunky knit polo neck. She owned several, all in primary colors with a teddy bear or Bart Simpson motif on the front. She clearly felt the need to hide her plumpness behind baggy shirts and humor. Of course, Jonny, who lived in fleeces and tapered-leg Levi’s when he wasn’t at work, neither noticed nor remotely cared.

Their flat, which Flick had decorated herself, was a monument to magnolia. When Cyn tactfully suggested introducing some color, Flick had gone to Peter Jones and bought a couple of washed-out, Holiday Inn–style landscapes and some pale peach silk flowers. Hugh, who had gone to the housewarming party with Cyn, had pronounced it “more neutral than Switzerland.”

The place wasn’t entirely without a stylistic “twist,” however. Flick had decided to “go a bit mad” by introducing a cockerel theme. There were china cockerels on kitchen display shelves, stenciled cockerels on kitchen cupboard doors. There was a cockerel wallpaper border in the living room and even a painted cockerel on the loo lid. Jonny said he was completely in awe of Flick’s home-decorating skills. Cyn said she was, too.

By now Barbara had put the fish cakes in the oven to keep warm and was busy frying chips. Barbara made the best chips: crispy on the outside, exquisitely, mouthwateringly fluffy in the middle.

Gripping the table and letting out a loud “Oooph,” Faye pulled herself off her chair. As she set off to fetch cutlery to lay the table, Cyn noticed how her movements stuttered. It was a few seconds before her legs got going. Twenty years ago she had been buxom and bustling like Barbara. These days her Lycra leggings looked positively baggy. Even so, she hadn’t given up on her appearance. She was wearing green eye shadow and a purple sparkly sweater with eighties shoulder pads, and her hair was as big, blonde and stiff with Elnett extra hold as ever.