Passacaglia (Chapter 9)

Chapter 9

Mamma, quel vino è generoso

We pull up in front of Clementine and the taxi driver gives me a bewildered look from the rear-view mirror, like it’s my fault Katia doesn’t do public transport. She produces the platinum card automatically, but she’s not really here. She’s been on the phone since we hailed the damn car. I climb out and light a cigarette. She juggles her Gucci clutch, a dozen bags of assorted couture, with the phone firmly fixed between shoulder and ear, and still manages to climb out of the car with poise. I tip the cabbie handsomely for the drivel he endured whilst we were stuck in traffic – the woman went over every niggling clause of Lilian Rempis’ prenup.

“Darling, I’ve told her to leave the silly fool a hundred times. A man who can’t provide for his family’s as good as none. Oh, I know.”

Katia’s indefatigable once she’s sunk her teeth into a good story. She’ll talk, listen, repeat, talk, listen, repeat for an hour. Then she’ll get thirsty, pop open a bottle of something sparkling, which ultimately makes her forget the facile points she only just made, and this vicious cycle may well continue into the wee hours of the night.

I find a spot to sit beneath the umbrellas outside. I step on one cigarette and light another. The bored waitress recites the specials, in an accent I can’t quite place: pesto-crusted salmon fillet, a white truffle tagliatelle, or a gorgonzola pizza with pine nuts and medjoul dates. Since it’s unlikely that either of us will actually eat, I flick through the wine list, order a bottle of Rosé Impérial, and tell her to be quick about it. She rolls her eyes at me and trudges back inside, humming an insipid Minaj-esque tune.

Katia clip-clops to my side in her swanlike Manolos and scowls. “Must we sit out here with the plebeians?” she hisses, motioning with her head to the table on our right.

Three middle-aged women share a bowl of chips and a pitcher of lager. Their faces are unmade-up, they’re clad in wash-and-wear, flip-flops and plastic jewellery. Normal mothers. One smokes, one’s telling a joke, and the third tops up her glass. Natural women. Their wrinkles are intact, their breasts sag, and it all speaks of childbirth, of family and hard work. Here they are, enjoying the autumn sun with their chips and their beer and their childbearing hips. Plebeians, indeed.

“If I’m going to spend the next hour with you, Mother,” I say, and push her chair out with my foot.

She sighs, then takes off her silk scarf and drapes it on the seat of the wicker chair. Now that it’s safe from common cooties, she deposits her precious posterior, crosses her legs and resumes gasbagging. The massive sunglasses stay on, all the better to glare at plebeians with, of course.

Of my mother’s beauty there is no doubt. She’s all painstaking symmetry, the up-do, the nostrils, the collar bones, the burgundy pencil dress, even the ankles, the woman’s a living, breathing geometry exercise, for goodness’ sake. But I can’t help wondering how the wide-eyed ballet student from Perm became the vapid, bottled-blond socialite that sits before me, wrangling her fricatives lest she be branded a FOB.

“Only Serge, darling. Yes” –she points at me and mouths I like that shirt– “What was I saying? Oh yes, the amount we pay to keep the place in shape, I mean honestly. No, no help. We’ve the gardener and poor old Patrizia with her carpal tunnel whatsit. Help’s too expensive nowadays, he says… Maurice? Well, you know Maurice. He’s either at work, or dining for work, or drinking for work. Oh yes… The poor darling, I know...”

The waitress pours the rosé and Katia, without even bothering to acknowledge the girl’s presence, points at something on the menu. I drain my glass and begin pouring the next. She sips daintily, glances around, and when she’s sure no one’s looking, has a hearty quaff.

“Val? Are you there? Dozy cow’s probably gone in the lift,” she says to herself.

She puts the phone down, but the incessant tapping of her French-manicured fingernails on the screen gets under my skin and I can’t resist blurting, “Are you sure? Call her back and check.”

“You’re right I…” She stops and smiles. “Oh, I see. Very droll, Soggy.”

“You don’t even like Val.”

“What on Earth gave you that idea?”

“Didn’t you call her a sticky-fingered Irish cattle thief?”

“What, that? That was a misunderstanding, darling. The Faberge in Lilian’s powder room had gone missing after Val went in, you see, and us girls thought she must’ve come down with the kleptomania and stolen it. Funniest thing, turns out Lilian’s hot flashes-”

“Pudgy old pug-face?”

“Well, that was for a good cause, darling. It pushed her to trade it in for something with a bridge. She was constantly breathing through her mouth. Can you imagine the snoring? Her poor husband-”

“I’m surprised she hasn’t gone Virginia Tech on your silicone arses.”

“Don’t be snide, darling, it doesn’t suit you.” She raises the shades to squint at me. “And while we’re on the subject, neither does that haircut. Who’s styling you these days?”

“How is that any of your concern?”

“Do stop being difficult,” she moans, refilling her glass.

“You’re the one-”

“Serge.”

“Rico, it’s Rico.” I light another cigarette.

“Fat Rico or Little Rico?”

“Fat Rico.”

“Still fat, then?”

“He’s got the diabetes.”

“No?”

“Yes.”

“Poor creature.”

“Quite.”

“I’ll have Patrizia send over a flower arrangement and a get well card.”

“I really don’t think that’s appropriate.”

“No, you’re right. What about one of those edible, fruit arrangement thingies instead? You know, really drive home the point: Eat your five-a-day, Fat Rico.”

“Mother, that’s even worse.”

“Well, of course I’m not going to write Fat on the card.”

“No, I mean the fruit, he can’t-”

“Why are we still talking about this? I never liked him anyway.”

“Of course not.”

“My point is you’ve got such gorgeous hair, darling, just like mine. Let it grow. Your father shaved it off half his life and now it’s gone, he regrets it. He spends the better part of an hour combing that awful toupee into place every morning.”

“A toupee?”

“Ooh yes, darling, claims it’s real hair too,” she says, raising the glass to her lips.

“I read somewhere that it’s just as likely to be goat hair.”

“What?” She’s piqued. Her eyes widen with mischief and she puts down the glass. “Goat hair?”

“Oh yes, there’s not enough human hair to meet global demand apparently, so the Chinamen cut the stuff with goat hair. But in some cases, it’s just pure goat hair.”

“Hah! Oh, that is good. Silly bugger, strutting around that office like he’s cock of the walk. With a goat hanging off his head. Hah.” she chuckles. “You always know how to make me smile, darling.”

I refill my glass, Katia’s doesn’t leave her lips until she’s ready for another too. She’s staring somewhere behind me, but with the Chanels perched on her nose, I can’t tell where exactly.

“How’s Franco?” she asks after a while, swirling her wine, and sniffing as though it would give her pause whether it smells of strawberries or sulphur. “You haven’t been giving him trouble at the shop again, have you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“He’s a good boy, that Franco.”

“Heart of gold.”

“Unfortunate face, though. Just like your grandfather’s, he had no neck either. I’d say a Hail Mary every night if I were you, because that could’ve been you, had your father caved in to Grandma Genevieve.” She smiles and takes another sip. “Says a great deal about your father’s family though, doesn’t it?”

“Does it?”

“One decent soul in the lot and he’s a sodomite,” she snorts into the glass.

I’m tipsy too, owing to the fact I skipped breakfast. I nod at Katia and light a cigarette, revelling in the short-lived light-headedness of the nicotine buzz.

She covers her nose and waves at the smoke. “I wish you wouldn’t,” she complains, “Such a filthy habit, darling.”

I roll my eyes and blow the smoke upwards, fully aware that the overhead umbrella will bounce it back in her direction anyway.

“It’s these uncouth friends of yours, darling, the influence they exert on you is a cancer, I swear. All this smoking and drinking, it will kill you, just look at your father, hacking away like a cement mixer every morning. Disgusting.”

“Will you stop comparing me” –I catch myself shouting– “to him? I am nothing like that sorry excuse for a man.”

She takes off the sunglasses. Her expression would appear more pained had Dr. Gauk not stretched and injected away every crease.

“Darling. Be serious, will you?”

How can I? As her face stands now, she just looks puzzled, but it does help me regain my good humour.

“I am, Mother, as cancer. Might as well die young and beautiful, n’est pas?”

“And leave your poor mother in shambles?” she whimpers.

“Oh hush, you’d still have Achille. Granted, he’s a pale imitation on the Almighty’s part, but flesh of your flesh, all the same.”

“Don’t use His name in vain.”

I cross myself and smile, “We’re agreed on the pale imitation front though?”

“Stop it, Serge,” she snarls, her head darting left and right, “You’re being monstrous.”

“Oh, shut up and drink your medicine.” I push the glass towards her and take the advice while I’m at it.

“What happened to my ickle Soggy? Hopping about to Swan Lake and trying to stand en pointe, remember?” Her eyes fill with joy, as they so often do when she speaks of the golden past which exists solely in wine-soaked dreams. “But then when Rothbart appeared, you’d run and hide under Babushka’s skirt. Remember, darling, remember?” she throws her head back and laughs. “Oh, how quickly you grew up.”

“…And caught a whiff of the bullshit.” I say, instantly regretting the adolescent pig-headedness of my words, but there it is, spilt milk.

“Serge. Show some respect for your mother. You are not to call me by my Christian name. Honestly, at what street corner do you pick these habits up? I have had it, had it, I tell you.” She shakes the empty bottle into her glass, then shrieks, “And where’s that fucking capicola?”

Her eyes widen and her cheeks redden when she realises she’s just dropped the F-bomb. She turns to the table next to us, and one of the women raises her glass. Katia and I share a brief drunken hoot, but conversation pretty much goes the way of the dodo after that. The waitress arrives with the plate, apologising for the lateness. Katia pokes at the meat with her fork and wrinkles her nose. I take up my phone and text Jimjam the usual order. She gives up on the food and dials a number, probably Val again, so I order another bottle of rosé. Soon we’re both bursting for a wazz, but she refuses to use the restaurant’s toilets, so I go. When I return she whips out her purse, tells me to use the other card this time, and while she’s retouching her makeup, I swipe a fifty and stuff it in my pocket.

Kiss, kiss, buh-bye, darling.