Читать книгу The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York - Peter Godwin - Страница 42

216 days to B-Day.

I flop down on our vast bed for an afternoon nap after another noisy night of meat deliveries. It is the biggest bed I have ever slept in, a Serta Perfect Sleeper with an orthopaedic California King Sized mattress, six foot six inches wide, topped with a soft quilted upper lining, to give you the best of both worlds: firm support for your back and an inch of surface softness to snuggle into. With such vast dimensions, the California King Size presents various serious engineering problems, so, for example, our box spring base is in two halves, with extra legs in the middle of the bed to keep it from sagging. Of course, none of our English linen fits.

Our new bed feels especially luxurious given that for our first few days in New York we slept on a mustard-coloured sleeping Lilo that I had acquired at The Leading Edge in Whiteleys Mall on Queensway and shipped over with us on the QE2. The sleeping Lilo, according to The Leading Edge, which specializes in the latest gadgetry, was a breakthrough in somniac science, easy to store and transport, but with its own system of internal baffles, providing all the comfort of a real bed. Best of all, by simply altering the amount you inflated it, it could simulate a soft, fluffy mattress or deliver firmer support. In reality we found that every time one of us shifted weight the other was bobbed up on a swell of air pressure – it was like trying to share a trampoline.

The Leading Edge Lilo came complete with a foot pump and hose attachment. But it also came with a slow and unlocatable leak. Before we retired for the night, I would tread-pump the Lilo to full pressure. It would then slowly deflate until about two hours later, Joanna, a lighter sleeper than me, would awaken to the ungiving pressure of the parquet floor. She would elbow me and I would get up, attach the foot pump and groggily tread it for ten minutes until the Lilo had reinflated. I would repeat this performance every two hours, getting up to feed air to our bed.

This is what I now imagine having a small baby will be like.

The pleasure of our California King Sized Serta Perfect Sleeper is only ruined by the fact that every time I flop down upon its vast quilted acreage I am reminded that we paid too much for it at Bloomingdale’s. I am taunted by the saturation advertising on TV by ‘1–800-Sleepys’, and its rival, ‘1–800-Mattress, Leave Off the Final “S” for Savings’ in their apparently cut-throat war to be purveyors of the best mattress deals to New York’s fitful sleepers. Always an ex-post-facto comparison shopper, I have tortured myself by phoning both 1–800-Sleepys and 1–800-Mattress, to discover that the California King Sized Serta Perfect Sleeper, the exact same California King Sized Serta Perfect Sleeper, can be purchased from either of them over the phone, for $500 less than we paid at Bloomingdale’s. And of course, both hyperdrive salesmen assure me, ‘We deliver free! Guaranteed within two hours! Anywhere in the five boroughs!’