‘I don’t think that was quite it,’ said Beverley, after a lengthy pause. ‘Really, I’ve told you before that you should be taking notes when I talk. This is an invaluable education that I’m giving you. But what about you anyway? You’ve never told me, do your people have much?’
‘We do fine,’ said the ghost.
‘Oh good,’ replied Beverley cheerfully. ‘One must never want too much from life. Want is what makes us unhappy. It’s better to know one’s station and remain there. I had a friend once, married a poor man because she loved him, and was she happy?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the ghost. ‘Was she?’
‘Well, she claimed she was, but who’s to know? I expect he drank. And beat her. So many of the poor do, of course. Read your D. H. Lawrence. It’s in the blood. It will take generations to breed out. Oh look, there’s a spot.’
They had arrived at the veterinary clinic and, to their good fortune, a car was pulling out directly across from the front door. Beverley swept in and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said. ‘I feel quite done in. Shall we find a little wine bar somewhere and have a drink? I could do with a pick-me-up.’
‘It’s not even lunchtime,’ said the ghost. ‘And we’re supposed to be taking Ustym Karmaliuk to the vet, remember?’
‘Oh yes!’ cried Beverley, bursting out laughing. ‘I’d almost forgotten. See what the roads do to one? Never again, I promise you that. Never again!’
THE PEDICURE
Elizabeth was at the spa when Wilkes texted her.
Wilkes Maguire
Hey, where are you?
Since her arrival a couple of hours earlier, she’d drunk a half-litre of a colon-cleansing blend of mango, broccoli and goat’s urine, completed twenty minutes of Jivamukti yoga, meditated while a triangle sounded quietly behind her head, barked like a dog to clear the toxins from her spirit animal, which, according to the on-site shaman, was suffering a trauma from a previous life when it had been caught in a bear trap, and wept like a baby while an elderly Chinese lady screamed in her face, telling her what a worthless human being she was, in order to release the impurities from her chakras. Afterwards, she’d indulged in a Swedish massage, a hydro-facial and was now in the middle of a pedicure. She waited for a few minutes before replying, irritated that he was killing her buzz.
Elizabeth Cleverley
At the British Library, reading about leprosy. It’s really horrible, isn’t it?
She set the phone aside and looked down at Hernán, the young Brazilian boy who was using a pumice stone to clear the hard skin from her heels. He attacked her feet as one might pursue a fly that was hovering around one’s face, brushing it away in strange, spasmodic movements.
‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ she asked, looking down and feeling an urge to run her fingers through his thick black hair. He was about twenty-one, the same age as her, and rather short and undersized, but what he lacked in build he more than made up for in enthusiasm, having greeted her in the reception area like a sister he had not seen for many years, going so far as to kiss her cheeks multiple times and comment on how sexy she was, an intimacy that she allowed, since he clearly offered no sexual threat.
‘You’re right, you clever bitch,’ he replied, just about getting away with the phrase, due to his flamboyant nature. She got the impression that he called everyone ‘bitch’, ‘sister’, or ‘Queen’. ‘Today is only Hernán’s third day. And yours are only his second feet. His first, they make him vomit.’
‘They make who vomit?’
‘Hernán.’
‘Aren’t you Hernán?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, you talk about yourself in the third person. That’s not annoying in the slightest.’
‘He learns English this way. It’s easier. First feet are horrible. Disgusting old man. Six toes.’
‘What happened to the other four?’
Hernán frowned. ‘Six toes on one foot,’ he clarified. ‘Five on the other. One too many toes for Hernán.’
‘Did he give you ten per cent extra?’ she asked. ‘To compensate for the extra work?’
Hernán threw his head back and burst into laughter. ‘You nasty,’ he said. ‘Hernán like that. He like the nasty sluts.’
Elizabeth giggled. Normally, she wouldn’t have accepted this kind of abuse from anyone, but there was something about this boy that endeared him to her.
‘Well, I’m glad mine are more aesthetically pleasing,’ she said, glancing across the room towards an occasional table, on top of which some incense sticks were burning. In general, Elizabeth didn’t like getting pedicures, but maintenance of her extremities was something to which she was fully committed, knowing that if she didn’t come here twice a month, her feet would end up looking as if they’d been stitched together by someone who didn’t have even the slightest understanding of his craft, like Brooklyn Beckham with his photography book.
‘Hernán is happy to work with the pretty feet,’ said Hernán. ‘But not the ugly ones.’ He pulled a vomit face.
‘You remind me of an old lover of mine,’ said Elizabeth. ‘A dancer. His English was also a little … idiosyncratic.’
‘What is this?’ asked Hernán, looking up. ‘What is this idiosyncratic?’
‘Unique,’ she explained. ‘Distinctive.’
Hernán shrugged and began clipping her nails.
‘Is nice,’ he said, apropos of nothing.
‘All right.’
‘Tell me of this lover,’ he continued. ‘He is big man or small man?’
‘Big man. Big man all over. Ukrainian.’
‘I know of this place. In Russia.’
‘Well, near it, I think.’
‘You do the bad-girl shit with him?’
‘A lot of the bad-girl shit.’
He exploded in laughter again and slapped her ankle lightly. ‘You filthy whore!’ he declared. ‘Hernán likes this!’
‘Well,’ she said, a little taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘He is boyfriend of you?’
‘Oh God, no. It was, like, a year ago. I barely even think of him any more. And how about you? Do you have a boyfriend?’
‘Hernán has nine boyfriends,’ he replied proudly.
‘That’s impressive.’
‘He has only been in London six weeks,’ he said apologetically. ‘He hopes for many more yet.’
‘And why not? Fill your boots, as they say.’
He looked up, not understanding, but she didn’t bother to explain.
‘Have you always enjoyed feet?’ she asked. ‘It’s a strange part of the anatomy to work with, don’t you think?’
‘Since he was small boy in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro,’ he told her, as if he was narrating the opening chapter of an audiobook, ‘Hernán would take all his friends to his bedroom and tell them to take their shoes and socks off. They had the horrible feet, smelly with the nasty nails, but he would soak them tenderly in the salted water, like the women who wash the feet of Jesus, before clearing all their fungus away. Then he would try to sex them.’