Beverley looked away, trying not to feel too wounded, but felt comforted when he reached across to take her hand in his own. She glanced down, observing the contrast between his impossibly smooth, tanned skin and her own, which was pale and paper thin, and shuddered a little. She was still a beautiful woman, there was no question about that, and she prided herself on the fact that she had never once injected any foreign bodies into her face. But in her youth, she’d been an absolute knock-out. Back then, she couldn’t walk into a room without feeling the eyes of every man present turning to look at her. Now, she sometimes felt as if she was invisible. The last time she’d found everyone turning in her direction was a couple of months earlier, when she’d strolled into the bar at Claridge’s after an afternoon’s makeover and everyone, men and women alike, had stopped talking and stared in her direction. For a moment, she felt as if she was reclaiming the power she’d wielded in her twenties, but the sensation did not last for long, for she quickly realized that they were actually looking at Judi Dench, who’d wandered in behind her and was searching the room for Maggie Smith, who was seated at a corner table with a bottle of champagne and a bowl of dry roasted peanuts, being acerbic to anyone who dared approach her.
‘You will miss me, yes?’ he asked, smiling at her now. ‘You will miss my big Ukrainian dick?’
‘Well, quite,’ she replied, laughing a little. A woman at the next table, also in her late fifties but with a lot more upholstery and a lot less refurbishment, glanced across with a disgusted expression on her face. Beverley noticed that the woman was reading her most recent novel, The Surgeon’s Broken Heart. ‘You do have a very nice dick,’ she agreed, slightly louder now, for she enjoyed scandalizing women of her own age. ‘I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel withdrawal symptoms.’
‘My body will be in Odessa,’ replied Pylyp, ‘but my dick will remain here in London. With you.’
‘What an odd thing to say,’ said Beverley, considering these words for a moment before deciding that they hadn’t come out quite as romantically as he had intended them. Still, she told herself, it was the thought that counted.
Beverley and Pylyp had originally met the previous year when she took part in the television series Strictly Come Dancing, where he was one of the professional dancers and, to her delight, was assigned as her partner. His lean body, impressive pectoral muscles and shoulder-length brown hair had overwhelmed her and, although she had never betrayed George before, it seemed to her that her husband barely noticed her these days and so the attentions of a handsome twenty-four-year-old had ultimately become too much to ignore. She hated thinking of herself as a cheat, however. It diminished a marriage that had, for so long, been rather wonderful and proved the bedrock of her existence.
Dancing was a skill that came quite naturally to Beverley and, while she could never have been a professional, she was certainly a gifted amateur, and survived quite far in a show that, over the years, had gone from being a bit of light entertainment froth to something that captivated the British public in ways not seen since the heyday of Opportunity Knocks. Desperate C-list celebrities made it known that they wanted to take part, evicted twenty-somethings from freakishly sexual reality shows told interviewers that they longed to perform the Viennese waltz in front of millions of viewers, while the dimwit and frankly unemployable children of superstar footballers made it known that they’d be open to an offer from Auntie. It would, after all, increase their social media following by hundreds of thousands. Before the cameras, the contestants gave off an air of devil-may-care frivolity, but behind the scenes there were more knives on display than at a convention of Michelin chefs.
Pylyp glanced at his watch now, saying it was time he made his way through security, and she glanced mournfully towards the large cardboard box he had brought with him to the airport and that she had, in a moment of weakness, reluctantly agreed to take care of during his absence. He lifted the lid and reached down to kiss Ustym Karmaliuk on the head. When she saw the tears in his eyes, she had the good grace to feel a little embarrassed that she was so attached to this boy.
‘Remember,’ he said, growing serious now. ‘Only must be the plant-based foods. Leafy greens, vegetables, the things for the skinny people who hate the red meat. And crickets. Ustym Karmaliuk is the crazy tortoise for the crickets. A half-dozen every day at least.’
‘I’ll speak to my cricket man,’ replied Beverley. ‘And I’ll let Harrods know that there’s a new guest at the table. Anything else that his palate might appreciate? Smoked salmon, perhaps? Lobster thermidor? Beluga caviar?’
‘No, the freeze-dried fish food is only fish food that he likes.’
‘Well, naturally. He’s a tortoise of taste. He’s been well raised.’
‘And the worms. You must wake up early, when the grass is still wet.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You must go outside when you are still the sleepy-eyes.’
‘I will. I promise.’
‘Because the worms is everything to Ustym Karmaliuk. They are like the breast milk to the newborn baby.’
‘It’s a good job you’re so handsome,’ said Beverley, offering a deep sigh. ‘That’s all I’ll say.’
They stood up now and made their way to the security gate, where Beverley showed her Fast Track card and the security officer declined to let her lover through the VIP lane, since the name on the card was Beverley Cleverley and the name on the boarding pass was Pylyp Tataryn.
‘Oh, don’t be such a jobsworth,’ she said, employing the stare she had perfected over many years of dealing with the lower orders. ‘What difference does it make to you?’
‘Rules is rules,’ replied the officer, who reminded her a little of Engelbert Humperdinck in appearance. Jowly. Sideburny. Sexy, if he had been forty years younger.
‘And that’s who you are, is it?’ asked Beverley. ‘A rules man? No independent thought? Just doing what the bosses say?’
‘They’re the ones who pay my wages,’ said the man. ‘I’m afraid your son will have to use the regular line like everyone else.’
Beverley took a step back, rather impressed by the man’s subtle insult.
‘Touché,’ she said, before turning back to Pylyp and throwing herself upon him, like Elizabeth Taylor launching herself on Montgomery Clift when he agrees not to give her a frontal lobotomy in Suddenly, Last Summer. She would have liked to kiss him on the lips, but photographers were usually lurking around Heathrow in search of minor celebrities, not to mention members of the public with their smartphones, and she couldn’t take the risk. ‘Well, stay in touch,’ she said. ‘Call me every day. And enjoy the funeral. No, that’s not quite right, is it? One doesn’t enjoy a funeral. What should I say? Experience the funeral? Try not to let it upset you too much?’
Pylyp smiled and ran his fingers along her cheek, causing her to purr like a cat. ‘One week,’ he said. ‘Then I will be back. And I will bring my big Ukrainian dick with me.’
‘I thought you were leaving that behind in London?’ she asked, regretting the remark immediately, for he looked utterly confused. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Bad joke. I’ve got the tortoise. I suppose he’ll have to do for now.’