6
JAKE HAD ONLY BEEN GONE AN HOUR WHEN THE PHONE rang. “Yes,” Mrs. Hersh said, “she’s here. Who shall I say is calling, please?” But before the man on the other end of the line could identify himself –
“Is it for me?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hersh agreed, proffering the phone.
Nancy took it, yielding the baby to her mother-in-law. “Could you take him into the kitchen, please? You can give him some mashed banana, if you like.”
Suddenly, without a struggle, Fort Knox surrenders its gold. Suddenly I’m not too unhygienic to feed my own grandson.
“Yes, certainly,” she heard Nancy say, “as long as I’m back by five. He phones as soon as court adjourns …”
“You’re going out?” Mrs. Hersh demanded, appalled.
“So it seems,” Nancy agreed icily.
“What shall I say if the lawyer phones at noon?”
Say I’ve gone to Forest Mere Hydro for a colonic irrigation. “I must get a breath of air, Mrs. Hersh. I need it.”
Nancy retrieved the baby, nursed him, and sang him to sleep. Mrs. Hersh kept Molly occupied in the kitchen, helping her to make a Lego building, until Nancy reappeared, no longer in slacks, but dressed to kill, wearing her Schmucci-Pucci, if you don’t mind, and smelling like a perfumery. Yankel’s Princess. She bestowed a smile on Mrs. Hersh. A small smile. “Now please don’t worry about a thing. Molly will play in the garden, like a good girl. Ben’s next feeding is at four. I’ll be back long before and he should sleep through anyway.”
Alone in the house, Mrs. Hersh did not sift through Nancy’s wall-to-wall, cedar-lined cupboard this time, for its extravagant contents, out of Dior and Simonetta, Saint Laurent and Lanvin, had already been revealed to her. Neither did she bother with the umpteen drawers of lingerie, which were no longer a mystery to her either. For Yankel’s Princess, silk panties yet. If she ever got a splinter in her ass, that one, only rosewood would do.
Mrs. Hersh hugged Molly, sent her out into the garden with the promise of a present after lunch, and climbed into Jake’s attic aerie, where he did not keep a photograph of his mother. His father, the prize idiot, yes. Nancy, naturally. Why, there was even sufficient room on the walls for photographs, plucked from German magazines, of the Von Papen family, Mrs. Goering out shopping, and an S.S. general, as well as an absurd painting of Field Marshal Montgomery. But little me? No.
One cupboard was almost bare. For the riding habit and saddle he usually kept there were both being held at the Old Bailey. Exhibits for the prosecution. But in the other cupboard she was astonished to discover stacks and stacks of tinned food. Shelf upon shelf of cans. A regular supermarket. Soup-size tins, pilchard-type cans, sardine tins. What was so baffling was there was not one tin with a label on it. The labels had been peeled from every single tin. Mrs. Hersh took a can that seemed to be salmon or tuna, either would do, and descended to the kitchen, which she knew from sour experience would be stuffed with dreck. In the fridge, bacon and sausages from Harrod’s, some smoked eel maybe, and a larder crammed with tins of crab and lobster, mussels, snail shells, pork beans and other traifes, but no gefilte fish or kosher salami. Her Highness had forgotten to phone Selfridge’s, dialing with a pencil, heaven forbid she should break a nail, they’re a foot long. Anyhow there was bound to be tomato and lettuce, and salmon would be nice. But when Mrs. Hersh opened the unlabeled tin she was amazed to come upon a gooey, stewlike substance with a decidedly nasty smell.
It must be pork, she thought, shoving it aside hastily.