2009 - We Are All Made of Glue (12 page)

“You mean you just marched up and stuck a For Sale sign in someone’s front garden without their permission?”

“It’s a bit cut-throat round here,” he murmured apologetically. “Hendricks & Wilson—I don’t like to say this about another estate agent, but they aren’t the most reputable in the business. Underhand tactics. Stealing our customers. You’ll never believe this, but sometimes they even go round and pull our sale boards out. What valuation did he give you, by the way?”

I looked him in the eye.

“He said she should be able to get a million for her house. At least a million. Maybe more.”

He didn’t bat an eyelid.

“I’m sure we could match that for you, Mrs Sinclair. And we could agree a special rate on the commission.” His handsome nostrils flared tantalisingly. A hint of a smile played at the corners of his sensual mouth. “If your aunty decides to sell before Christmas.”

I could have swooned into his rugged manly arms at that point, but then I remembered my second issue.

“The key. You stole the key.”

“Pardon me?”

“The back-door key. To the kitchen. It was in the door.”

His eyes seemed to widen a fraction.

“I think you’ve made a mistake.”

“No, I haven’t. You took it. It must have been you.”

His brooding brow furrowed.

“Mrs Sinclair, it wasn’t me, I assure you. Have you considered the other possibility?”

“What other possibility?”

His mouth tightened. His head twitched.

“Them.” His head twitched again, a sort of reflex jerk to the left. “Hendricks.”

“It couldn’t have been them.”

Then I thought back. I was in the kitchen feeding the cats. Mr Diabello was wandering around scribbling on the back of his receipt. I was feeding the cats in the kitchen because it was raining. I didn’t open the back door. Was it locked? Was the key in the lock? I couldn’t remember. When was the last time I was sure I’d seen the key? Was it when I was showing Mrs Goodney around? I realised I was totally confused.

“I’ll look into it.” Maybe I’d misjudged him after all. “If I’ve made a mistake I apologise,” I said stiffly.

Anyway, all I need to do, I thought to myself, is change the lock. Where do you get a new lock? My mind went blank.

Then I remembered a commercial I’d seen on TV. B&Q. For some reason, the thought was pleasantly appealing. The nearest branch to me was in Tottenham.

§

It wasn’t till next day, as I made my way in through the sliding glass doors past the displays of Christmas baubles and end-of-line kitchen units, that I realised what it was that drew me to B&Q: it was the men. Yes, although Rip was both handsome and brainy, he was definitely deficient in the DIY department. There’s something deeply attractive about a man with a screwdriver in his hand, I was thinking. If you wanted to be Freudian about it, you could say it was a father-fixation, for Dad was always fixing things about the house, while Mum brought him cups of tea and Keir and I got under his feet. These B&Q types reminded me of the men in Kippax—not destiny-shaping men; not even craggily handsome splatter-your-heart-type men; but nice ordinary blokes wearing jeans and pullovers with comfortable shoes, their pockets bulging with tape measures and hand-drawn diagrams on bits of paper; sometimes a bit paunchy; even a tattoo here and there. Who cares? So long as they weren’t always dashing off somewhere to change the world. Maybe if I hung around, one of them would come along to measure me up, would compliment my tasteful decor, be stunned by my period features.

I should come here more often, I resolved, as I made my way through the mysterious aisles. There, on my left, was a whole section of rawplugs. I glanced at them quickly—they seemed alien, frightening things, with their poky plastic shells, their complicated colours and numbers—the sheer
rawness
of them. But the worst thing is, that you have to make the hole in the wall with an electric drill, then you have to hammer the right-sized rawplug into the right-sized hole, and you can’t just use any old screw—you have to know the right size and type. I held my breath and hurried past.

At last I found my way to the section that displayed locks—there were dozens of them. I picked up one or two at random, trying to remember what the one on Mrs Shapiro’s door had looked like. It was definitely not a Yale type of lock; it was the other type—the type with a big key. Yes, a mortise. The trouble was, there were so many different models and sizes.

A man was browsing among the hinges and doorknobs at the end of the aisle—a small tubby Asian man. I caught his eye and smiled a sweet damsel-in-distress smile. He came over at once.

“You need help?”

His eyes sparkled darkly. With his neat moustache and beard, he looked like a well-groomed hamster.

“I’m looking for a lock. Mortise. With a big key. Only I’ve lost the key.”

“You know what type? Union? Chupp?”

I shook my head.

“You don’t know this? You must know. Otherwise impossible to replace it.”

“It’s for a back door.”

“What it looks like? Can you describe?”

“I can’t remember exactly. I think it’s a bit like this one. Or that one.”

I pointed randomly.

“In my country we have a saying, knowledge is the key. But you have no knowledge and no key.” He sighed, fished in his trouser pocket, and handed me a small dog-eared business card—the sort you can get printed at the railway station.

HANDIMAN

Mr Al Ali

Telefon 07711733106

No job too small

Reindeer meat and dried fish

T
he phone was ringing when I got home. I could hear it through the door as I fumbled with my key, but by the time I picked it up, they’d rung off. There was a message on the answering machine.

“Hello Mrs Sinclair. This is Cindy Bad Eel from Social Services, returning your call.”

I rang back immediately, but I just got another answering machine. I left a message asking her to ring as soon as she got back.

Next day, she still hadn’t rung, so I tried Social Services again.

“Elder-lee!”

“Could I speak to Mrs Bad Eel please.”

“It’s Muz. Not Missis.”

“Well, can I speak to her anyway?”

“Hold on a minute. (‘Eileen, where’s Muz Bad Eel?’ ‘She’s just ‘ere. ‘old on. Who is it?’)

“May I ask who’s speaking please?”

“It’s Georgie Sinclair. I rang about the old lady going into a home.”

(‘It’s that woman about t’ old woman.’ ‘She says she’ll ring back in a minute.’)

“She’s just in a meeting. She’ll ring you as soon as she gets out.”

“No—please tell her it’s urgent. I need to speak to her now.”

There was a lot of muttering and crackling in the background, then a new voice came on to the line—a low, smooth, sultry voice with a slight drawl in the vowels.

“Hello-o. This is Cindy Bad Eel.”

“Oh, hello Mrs Bad Eel. Muz. I really need your help—I mean, a friend of mine needs your help.” I was gabbling, fearful that she would hang up. “Mrs Naomi Shapiro. She’s in hospital. She broke her wrist. Now they won’t let her go home. They want to put her in a home.”

“Slo-ow down, please. Who am I speaking to?”

“My name is Georgie Sinclair. I left a message for you.”

“So you did, Ms Sinclair. Slow down. Take a deep breath. Now, count one, two, three, four. Hold. Breathe out. One, two, three, four. Rela-ax! That’s better. Now—would you describe yourself as her carer—an informal carer?”

“Yes—yes, a carer. Informal. That’s definitely what I am.”

Waves of calm engulfed me. I suddenly felt very caring.

“How old is the lady?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know exactly. She’s quite elderly, but she was getting along fine.”

“But you say she had an accident?”

“The accident was in the street, not in her house. She slipped on the ice. It could have happened to anyone.”

“And you say she had a home circumstances assessment visit?”

“It was someone from the hospital. Mrs Goodney. The house was a bit untidy, but it wasn’t
that
bad.”

There was a long silence. I started to anticipate her response, her stock of excuses for doing nothing. Her phone-answering track record had not been impressive. Then she spoke again, slowly.

“It isn’t for us to judge another person’s lifestyle choices. I will visit the house, but I need her permission. Which hospital is she in?”

As soon as I’d put the phone down, I ran into my bedroom and stuffed a few things into a carrier bag—Stella’s old dressing gown, a spare pair of slippers, a hairbrush, a nightie—and set off for the hospital. I wanted to forewarn Mrs Shapiro, and make sure she said the right things. I didn’t want her to blow this chance on another bout of cussedness.

§

The rain had stopped, but there were still puddles in the road as I raced to the bus stop, and big damp clouds were hanging just above the rooftops like billowing grey washing. I was the only person on the top deck of the Number 4 bus as it lurched and swayed along the now familiar roads, brushing against the dripping trees, so close to the houses I could see right into people’s bedrooms. I recalled my lonely afternoons wandering the streets peering enviously into other people’s lives. What had all that been about? It seemed an age ago. Now Mrs Shapiro and Canaan House were keeping me so fully occupied I hardly had time to think of anything else.

In the bus shelter outside the entrance to the hospital there was the usual little knot of people huddled over their cigarettes. I’d passed them before without really noticing, but this time, a voice called out to me.

“Hey! Georgine!”

I had to look twice before I recognised Mrs Shapiro. She was enveloped in a pink candlewick dressing gown several sizes too big for her, and so long that it trailed on the ground. Beneath it, just peeping out in front, was a pair of outsize slippers—the sort that children wear, with animal faces on the front. I think they were
Lion Kings
. Ben has a similar pair. Her companion was the bonker lady with whom she’d been arguing last time. Now they seemed to be getting on like a house on fire. They were sharing a cigarette, passing it between them, taking deep drags.

“Mrs Shapiro—I didn’t recognise you. That’s a nice dressing gown.”

“Belongs to old woman next to me. Dead, isn’t it?” She grabbed the cigarette from the bonker lady, who’d had more than her fair share of puffs. “Cigarettes was in the pocket.”

“Nice slippers, too.”

“Nurse give them to me.”

“She give me these,” said the bonker lady, lifting up the hem of her dressing gown to show off a pair of fluffy powder-blue wedgie-heel mules. Her toes were protruding out of the ends, with the most horrible thick crusty yellow toenails I’d ever seen.

“Them should heff been for me,” said Mrs Shapiro sulkily.

We left the bonker lady to finish the cigarette and made our way back to the ward, where I handed over my carrier bag of things; she took only the hairbrush, and gave the rest back to me.

“I have better night doth-es in my house. Real silk. Not like this shmata. You will bring one for me, next time, Georgine? And Wonder Boy. Why you didn’t bring the Wonder Boy?”

“I don’t think they’d let him in. He’s not very…”

“They heff too many idiotic prejudices. But you are not prejudiced, are you, my Georgine?” she wheedled. “You are so clever mit everything. I am sure you will find a way.”

“Well, of course, I’ll try my best,” I lied.

The ward was busy with visitors, so I pulled two chairs by the window in the day room. It was a square featureless room near the entrance to the ward, with green upholstered chairs dotted randomly around, a television fixed too high on the wall, and a window that looked out on to a yard. It smelled of disinfectant and unhappiness.

“Mrs Shapiro, I’ve asked for another assessment from Social Services. Someone’s going to come and visit you. She’s called Ms Bad Eel.”

“This is good. Bed Eel is a good Jewish name.”

This surprised me, but what did I know? We didn’t have any Jewish people in Kippax.

“Tell her I’ve got the key and I’ll meet her there to show her around. She has my phone number but I’ll write it down for you again.” I wrote my number on a scrap of paper, and she stuffed it into the pocket of the candlewick dressing gown. “If anyone says anything to you about going into a residential home, just tell them you’re having another assessment. That should keep them quiet.”

She leaned across and clasped my hand.

“Georgine, my darlink. How can I thenk you?”

“There is one problem. She’s certain to ask how old you are.”

She looked at me—a clear, canny look. She knew I knew she wasn’t ninety-six.

“What I should say?”

“Mrs Shapiro, I’ll help you if I can. But you have to tell me the truth.”

She hesitated, then leaned up and whispered close to my ear, “I am only eighty-one.”

I didn’t say anything. I waited. After a moment she added, “I told them I am more older.”

“Why did you tell them that?”

“Why? I don’t know why.” She shook her head with a stubborn little flick. “I heff never met anybody asking so much questions, Georgine.”

“I’m sorry—it’s because I come from Yorkshire. Everybody’s nosy up there.”

I tried to recall the picture of the two women in front of the house.
Highbury 1948
. I did a quick calculation She would have been about twenty-three when it was taken.

“So do you know your date of birth?” I probed. “She’s bound to ask you that.”

“Eight October nineteen hundert twenty-five.” A quick, precise answer. But was it the truth?

I wanted to question her more, but I didn’t want to confess that I’d already searched beyond the bureau in the study and that I’d found the photos in the Harlech Castle tin hidden in the workshop. I had questions to ask about Lydda. Who was she? When did Artern marry her? What had happened to her? And I was aching to know who’d hidden the tin, and from whom.

We were the only ones in the day room, but the television was blaring away in the corner. I looked for a remote control to turn the volume down, but I couldn’t find it, so I switched it off and settled myself into an armchair in listening mode.