Free Wise Children by Angela Carter Page A

on it. It was a shock to see her breasts under the cruel lights – long, heavy breasts, with big dark nipples, real breasts, not like the ones she’d shown off like borrowed finery to the glamour lenses. This was flesh, you could see that it would bleed, you could see how it fed babies.
    Then Melchior did something wonderful. Who’d have thought the old man had it in him? Suddenly, Melchior is in shot, holding out a blond mink stole which he must have plucked off the very shoulders of his wife. He put his hand on her bare shoulder and said, ‘Pretty, pretty lady.’
    Perhaps it was his tone of voice attracted her attention, that of a man selling old-fashioned rich black treacle toffee. When she turned towards him, he draped the stole round her shoulders, he covered her up.
    Then My Lady Margarine stepped in, too. They’d been keeping her on the sidelines, the while, so that she could come in at the end and take charge of the cheque lest her better half did something senile with it. She’s in good nick, I must say; lots of exercise does it, and the odd nip and tuck helps. Her cheeks give the game away; they’ve got that tight, full, shiny chipmunk look that spells out: facelift. You can always tell. Nevertheless, good nick. She was a brunette at her wedding, but had gone blonde with age, evidently, and now sported a pale gold chignon. She’s crying, too, possibly for the loss of her mink stole but, be fair, more likely as a tribute to the moment. If My Lady Margarine gave up the stage for the sake of her family thirty-five years ago, she must have always regretted it in a tiny corner of her heart for when Fate offered her another chance out of the blue she grabbed it with both hands.
    ‘Oh, my dear,’ she said to Tiffany. ‘We wanted him to marry you so much. I begged him, I implored him.’
    That brought Tristram out of his daze with a start, as if this was the first he’d heard of it. But Tiffany didn’t register, didn’t seem to hear. She was still shivering, in spite of the mink, but when she stroked her cheek against the fur, that made her smile, so lovely, so touching, she smiled that good child’s birthday smile and it was as if the touch of the fur gave her some of the strength of the animal, she came back together, again. She seemed to grow stronger before our very eyes; she didn’t come back to herself, exactly, but to somebody else who was in perfect control. She called out to an unseen presence off the set in a big, ringing voice: ‘Hey! Somebody call me a cab, right? A cab! Right away!’
    Then she turned towards the camera, as she did every week. The cameraman who was in love with her zoomed in as she tossed one end of the mink stole over her shoulder in a devil-may-care way, as if anything could happen, now, and she gave the viewers the full force of her big smile, the professional one that offered a view of her hundred-octane teeth as far back as the emerging wisdoms. She raised her hand. She waved.
    ‘Goodnight, everybody!’ Signing off, as she always did: ‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite! Goodnight!’
    Then, in mid-wave, this new, strong, defiant person with Tiffany’s face covered her mouth with her hand as if she were going to be sick, her face crumpled, she bolted off the set in the mink stole and the silk knickers and there they were, the Hazards, all three, left gaping like loons.
    Tristram came to himself first, although his hands were still full of flowers. But he remembered the camera was watching him and even managed to scrape up a smile.
    ‘And goodnight, too, from me, Tristram Hazard, and my very special hundredth birthday guest, Sir Melchior Hazard –’
    The good old goodbye formula. It reassured the studio audience. One or two of them started to clap, as if by doing that they could change what they had seen into what they ought to have seen.
    ‘– and his Lady –’
    More applause.
    ‘– my very own extra special Dad and Mum –’
    Applause doubled,