Jemma’s Version
I thought I would be at ease in my house, but I’m not and the reasons are clear in my mind, as if they were lit up by flashing neon lights. Number one: I’m afraid that Delphina may come up with something unpleasant. My parents are good but they’re not stupid, and their patience has a limit if put to the test. Number two: I’m equally afraid my parents may embarrass me by discussing intimate details regarding Ashford and me, given that they’re veterans of the sexual revolution and they face such topics as easily as one may talk about the weather. Number three: inexplicably, I would like to make a good impression on Ashford.
I don’t exactly understand why, but I’m trying to detect any kind of signal that could tell me what he’s thinking.
As to as the last point, I feel rather uncomfortable. Our duke, the open book I have learned to read, interpreting every nuance of hate, disgust, and irritation, has no negative reaction whatsoever tonight.
He is there, he looks around, he replies kindly to my father, he compliments my mother on her cooking – are you serious? – and he’s not teasing me or making unpleasant remarks of any kind. He looks almost at ease.
For the whole dinner, my parents told of the journeys they made in their youth, the concerts they went to, their life in communes and kibbutzim, and Ashford listened to them with interest. Then, since Delphina hardly touched any food, my mother diagnosed her with an aura vibration frequency disorder, and she took her to the terrace to show her all the Bach flower plants and make an extract for her.
Meanwhile, Ashford remained at the table, and is now eating slices of rye bread with rice cheese.
I fear that he’s pretending just because I’m here as he knows that I’d give him the roughest time of his life if he behaved unkindly. Therefore, I go to the kitchen with the excuse of rinsing the plates and I hide behind the door to listen.
I hear my father’s voice very clearly. “You know, Ashford, you’re so different from the kind of man who usually attracts Jemma.”
“I have no doubt about it.”
“She has an inclination towards unreliable guys and compulsive liars who generally disappear within a couple of weeks.”
“Do they leave because of her?”
There! I knew that his bitchiness would come out eventually.
“Could be.”
I bite my tongue to avoid storming in to make a scene. Dad! What are you saying?
“Our daughter has never been the easiest woman to deal with. Carly and I know that, because it’s partly our fault since we raised her in this way. She’s impulsive and spontaneous and when she takes a certain direction, she pursues it without looking around. She trusts people immediately and unconditionally, but her trust is often misplaced.”
“It’s not a mystery that we’re very different, and our families aren’t much alike, either,” Ashford replies, vaguely.
“There is not one person like another in the world, but our past doesn’t matter, as long as we build our future with the right person, that’s what makes a true couple. Looking back to where you came from is the best way to prevent yourself from seeing where you’re going, and you risk ending up crashing into a wall. Carly and I had no apparent future. I’m saying this heart to heart: when I met her, Carly was fed up with a life of formality and with the demands of her family, yet she didn’t know how to escape the expectations that everyone had of her since childhood. I can’t deny that we had ups and downs, and it wasn’t always a bed of roses, but, in the end, Carly made her choice. Living in the past, tied to the conventions of her family, or making her own way. I was a labourer and spent my nights playing with my band in a garage, what I could offer a Mayfair girl?”
“A good concert,” Ashford replies humorously.
“Aye. That’s what I did. I see that you understand me?”
“I’m not sure I do,” Ashford replies uncertainly.
“Maybe not now, but you will understand in a few years. If you married Jemma so quickly, it means that this kind of awareness is already inside you, you only need time to find it.”
“I hope I’ll have this privilege.”
“Let me tell you something as her dad, now: if you ever make Jemma suffer, you will pay. You see where we live, right? I know a lot of people who would beat you up for free. At best, they’d find you in a container of canned tuna. It would be quite a number of cans, if you do the maths.”
“It’s not my intention,” Ashford defends himself.
“It’s nobody’s intention, at the beginning.”
I decide that the conversation has lasted long enough and I go back to the living room. “Have you missed me?”
“You’re the woman of a lifetime, of course we’ve missed you,” Ashford replies with a dazzling smile. What a dick. If he weren’t so damn fake, one could even believe him.
“Then? Did Dad show you his record collection?” I say, trying to digress, so that they don’t realise I’ve been eavesdropping.
“Records?” Asks Ashford.
More than you can listen to in a lifetime.” My dad stands up and we follow him to the loft, where he stores several crates containing vinyl records. “Look. All the best of the music ever played on Earth.”
“There must be hundreds.” Ashford looks around in amazement.
“Three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two,” I say. “Seventy-three,” my dad corrects me. “Last week I put my hands on this bairn,” he says, showing off Bowie’s Space Oddity. “It’s the single with Wild Eyed Boy.”
Before I can take it, Ashford grabs it. “This is impossible!” He turns it in his hands, looking at it front and back. “The version with the original cover is extremely rare.”
“It still has one hell of a sound.” My dad says proudly as he rummages through the crates. “I see you like this stuff. What about this?” And he hands him one of his Holy Grails.
“Tinkerbells Fairydust.” Ashford is even more astonished. “From 1969! But it has never been officially released!”
“Aye. I had a lot of idle friends hanging out at Decca and its archives were a gold mine, back then.”
“Astounding.” And so Ashford bends over my father’s record crates.
“Dessert’s ready!” My mother calls from the living room. When we’re back to our places, she has already cut a slice of tart for everyone.
After having refused to eat every single course, Delphina decides to face the tart, the only one that looks familiar and reassuring.
After the first bite, I notice that it has a weird smell, and the texture is not really that of a tart crust.
Concerned, I put the slice back on my plate and stop Ashford with a hand before he can taste it.
“Honey, what are you doing?” He asks.
“Um, you’re on a diet… remember?” I say, elusively.
“No, I don’t, actually,” he replies, before trying to take another bite of the tart.
“You have blood tests to do, it’s better if you avoid desserts!”
My mother starts laughing. “Don’t be silly, Jemma!”
“Yeah,” Ashford replies. “Something has to kill you, right?”
“Not this tart, that’s for sure! It’s home made, and it only contains natural, organic and sustainable ingredients.”
“That’s the problem,” I hiss. “Ashford, can you come to the kitchen for a moment?”
“Of course, love of my life, whatever you want.”
As soon as he gets into the kitchen, Ashford starts growling. “What’s your problem? I’m being polite with your parents, right? The evening is going well and, strange to say, I have more stuff in common with your father than I have with you! I want to eat the tart your mother made and put an end to this farce!”
“You can’t eat the tart!”
“Why not?”
“Because she used peyote flour, that’s why! If you eat it, in fifteen minutes you’ll be on the roof singing Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds with a wreath of flowers on your head, thinking that you’re the fifth member of the Beatles!”
Ashford bursts into such loud laughter that he needs to lean against the wall to avoid falling to the ground.
“What’s so funny now?”
Ashford doesn’t answer and keeps laughing.
“You could at least thank me…” I scold him.
He pulls me by an arm towards the door, so that I take a look in the living room. “It’s too late, Jemma.”
Delphina’s plate is already empty and she’s being served another slice. “Mrs Pears, I have to congratulate you. This tart is delicious, and this prickly pear jam is sublime.”
Ashford is in tears laughing. “My mother is high on peyote!”
We go back to the table, intending to try to regain control of the situation, but perhaps I got more worried than I should have, because the evening seems to go on rather quietly.
My mother is the image of peacefulness.
“Would anyone like some digestive tea? Delphina, I would add a touch of relaxing passion flower to yours.”
“… the night I spent with Mick Jagger was no time for relaxing,” Delphina reveals.
We all turn to look at her.
Ashford stares at her, disorientated. “Mother? What does Mick Jagger have to do with herbal teas?”
“The Rolling Stones were on tour and I was in Paris for the society debut of a friend of mine. The party was at the Ritz Hotel, but, for me, it went on privately in Mick’s room,” says Delphina with a faraway look in her eyes.
We all exchange stunned looks.
“Mother, do you realise what you’re saying?”
“Of course I do! Look, when I was eighteen, I was hot. Well, I wasn’t quite eighteen yet, but does it matter? Age doesn’t matter if you’re with Mick Jagger.”
“Your mother had sex with Mick Jagger,” I remark, looking at Ashford with my eyes wide open.
“It can’t be verified,” he mutters, shocked.
“So, we have another great music fan here!” Says my father, to defuse the heavy atmosphere.
“Oh, the Rolling Stones could keep their music to themselves. What mattered was seeing them shirtless and, in my case, not just shirtless.” Delphina rolls her eyes, caught in her memories. “What a night!”
“You and Dad were not together back then, were you?” Ashford’s tone is somewhat concerned.
“No! But what if we had been? Mick Jagger was Mick Jagger, such occasions come up only once in life! And then, what happens in Paris stays in Paris!”
Ashford is in shock. “This inaugurates the Wild Paris Chronicles. Chapter One: I could have been Mick Jagger’s son.”
“Or Keith Richards’!” Adds Delphina.
Ashford loses it: “Mother, please!”
“Peyote flour,” I say, beating my forehead with one hand.
Ashford puts his mother back on her feet and escorts her towards the door. “Mr and Mrs Pears, it’s been a pleasure. We have to go, now. Jemma, shall we?”