‘Bertie!’ Inna called from the next room. ‘Come drink vodka, it slatki. I make it special for you!’
Actually, I have developed quite a taste for slatkis, which is a generic term for small delicious pastries with honey, almonds, pistachio or other nuts, and an unspeakable calorie count, best consumed with vodka, though mint tea is an acceptable substitute. Unfortunately, these sweet delights don’t always seem to agree with me. Once or twice, I had noticed a feeling of nausea after eating them, which I put down to the accompanying vodka or just unaccustomed overindulgence, but now there was something about Inna’s beady-eyed insistence that sent a shiver through me. I suddenly remembered. Almonds. Prussic acid. The murderer’s poison of choice. In my first year at drama school we’d done an improvisation on an Agatha Christie novel in which the victim was murdered by small regular doses of prussic acid, whose distinguishing characteristic was the odour of almonds. As a nurse, she must know about poisons.
I stared at the pastries in horror. I knew of course that Inna liked our flat, but would she go so far as to kill for it?
‘Ittit!’ Inna insisted. She popped one into her mouth and washed it down with a good slug of vodka.
That convinced me I was being paranoid. A murderess would not deliberately take poison herself. Even in low doses. Would she? I ate a couple more, letting them melt on my tongue with a sip of vodka, which I had come to prefer over Mother’s sweet sherry.
‘Delicious, Inna!’ My heart thudded weirdly.
‘Aha, Mister Bertie! My good husband always used to said way to men heart is veeya stomach.’
I paused for thought as I savoured another mouthful, trying to remember how she said her husband had died. Then I observed that all the slatkis had little halves of glacé cherry on top of them. Except the one she had eaten. I started to feel an unpleasant tightness in my throat. My pulse began to race. What was Inna’s motive to poison me? A moral objection to my supposed gay lifestyle? Or was her real purpose to gain possession of Mother’s flat? Then she popped another slatki in her mouth — this one definitely had a glacé cherry on top. I relaxed.
‘It! It!’ she urged. ‘I make sweet special for you because you lady-man like it everything sweety.’
I resisted the temptation to slap her, for her words kicked off a new train of thought in me. Femininity and sweetness often go together. Women have a weakness for pastries and chocolate. I had stumbled on the perfect way to woo my delectable next-door neighbour. Then I had a moment of pure inspiration which I felt in my loins would be life-transforming. Call it the Gold Blend Gambit. Call it the Clooney Clemency. Call it the Berthold Breakfast Breakthrough. It would be an opportunity to put Inna through her acting paces, and at the same time to get my delightful neighbour hooked on these honey-loaded morsels.
‘Inna,’ I said. ‘There is a new neighbour next door. Is it not customary in your part of the world to call round with a welcoming gift?’
‘I seen it,’ grumped Inna. ‘Is blackie.’
‘Now, Inna …’ I remembered the firm but kind way my mother had squashed a similarly unacceptable outburst in the hospital. ‘It’s wrong to be racist. Black people can be very … nice.’
It hadn’t come out quite as forcefully as I intended, but she backed down at once.
‘Aha! You are right, Mister Bertie. Your mama told me is bad to think such thoughts. In my country everybody whitey, everybody normal, we not meet another type of person. She say we must be good to everybody. Same like Lenin say all nationalities equal. Same like Jesus say everybody is negbur.’ She clasped her hands together in an attitude of prayer. ‘She was like saint in heaven, your mama.’
Funnily enough, I think she meant it.
Violet: Cherry Blossom
Violet posts a card to Laura congratulating her and thanking her for putting in a good word for her. She feels like a small ship buoyed on a high tide of hope embarking on the journey of her life. Of which the first port of call was landing the job at GRM. Now she is set to travel deeper into the mysterious channel of Wealth Preservation, the domain of handsome and enigmatic Marc Bonnier.
But — first things first — what should she wear for the voyage? Gillian’s remark about looking businesslike has stuck in her mind; she wants to look the part. But Gillian’s style of severe suits and high heels doesn’t appeal — if she had her way, she’d spend her life in jeans and trainers. Her cousin Lucy, who works at a gallery in Bond Street, suggests Fenwick’s, so they agree to meet there for lunch on Saturday. Two hours later and £600 poorer, she comes away with a tailored dress in a dove grey with a matching jacket, a suit in a soft lilac colour like one she’s seen Amal Clooney photographed in, and a pair of high-heeled suede shoes that she can wear with either. See it as an investment, she tells herself, as she hands over her credit card. She also splashes out on a little baby suit in sea green from the baby section that would suit a girl or a boy, and goes to visit Laura in hospital.
Laura is sitting up in bed looking dreamy and blissful, surrounded by flowers. The baby — it is a boy — is fast asleep in a cradle at the foot of the bed, a tiny mite with dark wisps of hair like Laura’s and a red squashed face.
‘Oh, Laura, he’s gorgeous!’ she exclaims, though she suspects that newborns only look gorgeous to their mothers.
Laura laughs. ‘He’s not exactly George Clooney. But I hope he will be one day!’
The baby opens one bright eye, sucks his thumb, and falls asleep again.
‘Talking about gorgeous, Violet, did you hear anything from Wealth Preservation?’
‘Yes. Thanks for putting in a good word for me. They’ve seconded me to the WPU while you’re away.’
‘Be careful with Marc Bonnier. He’s got a reputation.’
A reputation. What exactly does that mean? Her stomach flutters with anticipation.
On Sunday morning she wakes early again and lies in bed, watching the daylight filter through the flimsy sari curtain, listening to African music on her iPod, as she waits for the tap-tap of the one-legged pigeon on her window. He’s late. Maybe he’s at church, ha ha. She remembers Sunday mornings in Kenya when her grandmother took all the cousins to church while their parents had a lie-in. They all stood together in a pew and sang at the tops of their voices — Fight the good fight with all thy might! — while an old man in a blue smock thumped at the piano.
At last the pigeon arrives and they eat their toast together on the balcony, the pigeon cooing in a chatty sort of way and trying to strut, which isn’t easy with one leg. After he’s flown off to his cherry tree, she stands for a while gazing down at the garden. She watches the woman in the purple coat emerge from the garden shed, still wearing her shower cap, as the wheelchair man passes on the footpath. They stop to talk. The woman starts waving a carrier bag, tossing chunks of something on the ground. A grey shadow emerges from the bushes like a kivuli, grabs one of the chunks in its jaws, and disappears. Other shadowy creatures creep up like giant rats. The wheelchair man waves his crutches at them, but they dart around and under his wheelchair, sneaking out between the wheels. He tries to grab the bag. Then he tries to bat away the white stuff with his crutches. The woman takes a swing at him with the carrier bag and knocks his baseball cap off his head.