‘She comes in and out,’ says Michael. ‘Don’t let it worry you. Next time you come, she’ll remember everything, most likely.’
Collette puts a hand on her mother’s. Wrinkled, spotted, big blue veins standing out on the back. When did she get like this? She’s only sixty-seven, for God’s sake. It can’t have all happened since I went away, surely? Was she getting like this and I just didn’t notice?
‘And Lisa’s pretty,’ says Janine, snatching the hand away.
Collette finds that she is trembling. She busies herself by looking down at her bag and searching out her packages. ‘I brought you some stuff, look. I thought you’d like them. See?’
She holds up her gifts, like prizes. ‘Those chocolates you like. And some nice smelly stuff. Chanel, look. You always liked Chanel.’
‘Ooh,’ says Janine, all sunny smiles again. She snatches the box of Ferrero Rocher from Collette’s hand, delves within with the fervour of someone who’s eaten nothing but mash and pudding cups for months. ‘Mmmmm-mmmmm,’ she says, mumbling them between blue gums and gasping for breath between smacks. She’s grown a moustache. Thick hairs like wires, blacker by far than the hairs on her head. She holds up the bottle of Chanel Nº5, always her aspiration scent, the one she longed for, the one Collette would save and save for from her Saturday jobs, to buy her for Christmas. Wrinkles her nose and drops it on the patterned carpet as though it were an empty box.
‘So what was it you wanted?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t got any money, if that’s what you’re after.’
Collette perches gingerly on the pink candlewick bedspread on Janine’s bed. ‘No,’ she says, gently. ‘I just wanted to know how you are.’
‘It’s my daughter who’s got the money,’ says Janine. ‘Not that she can be bothered to come and see me. D’you want a chocolate? They’re nice, these.’
‘Yes,’ says Collette, ‘that would be nice. Thank you.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘These are lovely,’ says Vesta, and helps herself to another. ‘What did you say they were called again?’
‘Shirini Khoshk.’ Hossein hovers a finger over the white card presentation box, selects a heart-shaped sandwich covered with shreds of something green and pops it whole into his mouth.
‘I’m never going to remember that,’ says Vesta. ‘You know what they remind me of? Biscuits.’
‘Yes,’ says Hossein, solemnly. ‘That’s right. They are like biscuits.’
‘Well, I never knew Persians ate biscuits.’
Hossein smiles. ‘What did you think we eat?’
Vesta sits back in her lawn chair, dunks a pastry in her PG Tips. ‘Oh, I dunno. Babies and that, I suppose.’
‘Only on Eid,’ he says. ‘They are very expensive.’
They lapse into contented silence and gaze up at the azure sky. The garden is prepared for Vesta’s party: blankets from her airing cupboard and her mother’s full tea service laid out on a side-table Hossein has carried out, and water bubbling on a primus stove left over from the Three-Day Week. The others are due any minute, but she doesn’t really mind too much if they don’t show up.
This is nice just as it is, she thinks. To be honest, I could do without having to make polite conversation with people I hardly know, though of course that’s the way they become people you do know. I bet him from Flat One doesn’t bother to show. Didn’t answer his invite. Not that I’m bothered if he doesn’t. All sandy hair and pale lips and not meeting your eye in the hall. Not a party animal, Gerard Bright. No great loss to one, either.
Who would have thought, thinks Vesta, glancing across at Hossein, that at nearly seventy my best friend would be an Iranian asylum seeker half my age? Not Mum and Dad, that’s for sure. They thought the Pelcsinskis at number seventeen were suspiciously foreign, with their weird cabbage-based food. What on earth would they make of the world now? We hadn’t even heard of Iranians before the 1980s, and now they’re all over the place. Like Somalis. Haven’t had many of them down here, though. They seem to be more of a north London thing.
‘Ooh, I saw your article in the Guardian, by the way,’ she says. ‘Very interesting.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Thanks, Vesta. I didn’t think anyone I knew would see it.’
‘Oh, you know. I like to go through the papers in the library. If there’s one thing you have a lot of when you’re retired, it’s time. So tell me something.’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought you weren’t allowed to work?’
‘I’m not. They don’t pay me. They make a donation to the Medical Council for the Victims of Torture.’
‘Oh. I see. That makes sense, I suppose.’
‘It does. They were good to me. They deserve something back.’
‘Still. Seems like a pretty pointless rule. All these people moaning about scroungers and they won’t let you work.’
Hossein shrugs. ‘It keeps my hand in.’
‘True.’
‘And it’ll make it easier to get a job when I get my papers.’
‘That’s true too.’
She starts to reach down to take the cling film off the food, but Hossein puts out a hand, pushes her back by the arm. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘I’m not ninety, Hossein.’
He tuts and gets down on his knees. Looks up as Cher comes round from the side-return, with a tall, fair-haired woman in tow. Vesta gets to her feet to greet them, like an old-fashioned hostess at a cocktail party. ‘You must be Collette,’ she says. ‘I’m Vesta.’
Collette blushes slightly, and shakes her hand. ‘This is very nice of you.’
‘Oh,’ Vesta waves a breezy hand over her bounty, ‘it’s nothing. A pleasure. Always a pleasure to get to know your neighbours.’
‘Hello, again,’ says Hossein, and she stutters a greeting, the colour on her pale cheeks deepening, but only meets his eye for a split second. My my, thinks Vesta, our new lady’s got a thing for the handsome lodger, and it’s only been a split second since she moved in. How cute. He could do with a nice lady friend. I’ve not seen him with a woman since he got here. ‘How are you settling in?’ he asks.
Her eyes are tinged slightly pink. Crying, or hay fever? ‘Okay,’ she says, and looks up at the sky.
‘Here,’ says Vesta, ‘sit down, do. Have the chair.’
‘Oh, no, I couldn’t. Someone else must…’
‘You’re the guest of honour,’ says Cher. ‘Just take it.’
Collette lowers herself selfconsciously into the spare deckchair. The beautiful man has his back turned to her now, uncovering a collection of old-fashioned teatime foods laid out on elegant antique plates. The old lady has a stack of matching cups and saucers and one of those big brown earthenware teapots at her side, on a spindly table. She studies her as she pours: she’s the only neighbour she’s not seen in the flesh before. She’s a surprising-looking woman. Tall and dignified, with nut-brown skin and steel grey hair, and the sort of profile that wouldn’t go amiss on a Cherokee brave. Not what you think of when someone says ‘the old lady downstairs’. Somehow that always conjures up pictures of walking sticks and buns full of Kirby grips. This woman looks like she’d be running an intensive care ward, if you let her.
Cher has sprawled herself on the edge of a blanket, platform soles like orange boxes on the ends of her skinny legs. The man keeps his eyes studiously away from the bare flesh, concentrates on the task at hand. What am I doing here? Collette wonders. I don’t want to make friends. All I want to do is go and lie down and think about Janine.