2009 - We Are All Made of Glue (21 page)

S
ometime in the night it started to snow. When I pulled back my curtains in the morning everything was white, and I felt a sudden burst of happiness, like I’d felt as a child waking up on a snowy day. No school; snowball fights with my brother; tobogganing on a tea tray down the slag heaps. In those days, before the invention of four-wheel drives and working online, snow meant holiday, anarchy, delight.

In the garden, even the horrible yellow-spotted laurel bush was touched with magic, the leaves and branches bowing gracefully under their overcoat of snow. I noticed a movement—it seemed like three small black creatures hopping along, then I realised they were black feet attached to a white body. Wonder Boy prowled along the edge of the garden, tiptoed across the lawn, and took up his position under the laurel tree, staring up at the house. He was reminding me, I should drop in on Mrs Shapiro today.

“Look, Ben,” I said, when he came down for breakfast. “It’s snowing. You could take the day off school.”

“It’s okay, Mum. I feel better today. I’ve got to work on my technology project. The bus’ll be running.”

How did he get to be so sensible? I hugged him.

“Take care.”

After he’d left, I sat down and tried to concentrate on an article for
Adhesives
. “The attraction between surfaces in adhesive bonding.”

“
Powerful attractive forces develop between the adhesive and the adherend which may be adsorptive, electrostatic or diffusive
.”

There was something quite romantic, I was thinking, about those gluey time-enduring forces, bonds so strong that they could outlive the materials themselves.

Mmm. My mind started to drift. It was no good.
Adhesives
would have to wait—I wanted to get outside before the snow disappeared.

I phoned Mrs Shapiro, to see whether she needed anything from the shops. There was no reply, so I pulled on my wellies and my coat and went out anyway. The sun was low but brilliant, dusting every white surface with a sparkle of gold, but the snow had already started to melt and there were mini-avalanches all around as it slipped off roofs and branches. Wonder Boy followed me down the road. I lobbed a snowball at him, but he ducked out of the way.

When I got to Canaan House, I saw that the snow had pulled an end of the gutter down, and melting snow was dripping down the porch. Maybe I would have to get Mr. Ali in again. There were footprints in the snow leading away from the house. I knocked on the door just in case but I wasn’t surprised that there was no reply. She must have gone out already. Wonder Boy trotted up the path, sat down in the porch and started to yowl.

“What’s the matter?”

I reached down to stroke him, but he hissed and went for me with his claws. I gave him a kick with my welly and went off to do my shopping. Later in the afternoon I phoned Mrs Shapiro again. Still no reply. This was odd. I began to get worried. Why had she gone out so early in the snow? Then Ben came back from school and I got on with cooking supper. I’ll ring later, I thought.

At about seven o’clock in the evening, the phone rang.

It was an old woman’s voice, hoarse and throaty.

“She’s in ‘ere.”

“Sorry?”

“Yer pal. She’s in ‘ere. But she ent got ‘er dressin’ gahn wiwer.”

“I’m sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

“Nah, I ent. She give it me. You’re ‘er what comes to ‘ospital, int yer? Wiwe posh voice? She give me yer number. That lady wiwe pink dressin’ gahn. She says she wants ‘er dressin’ gahn agin. And ‘er slippers.”

I realised in a flash that it must be the bonker lady.

“Oh, thank you for contacting me. I’ll…”

“An’ she says can yer bring some ciggies wiv yer when yer come.”

The telephone beeped a few times then went dead. She must have been calling from the hospital payphone.

I glanced at the clock. There was maybe half an hour of visiting time left. I’d given back the key to her house, so I bundled together my own slippers, a nightdress and Stella’s dressing gown.

“I’ll see you in a bit, Ben,” I called upstairs as I set off for the bus.

The snow had already melted and the air was surprisingly mild. I walked quickly, avoiding the slushy patches on the pavements. The newsagent by the bus stop was still open. Should I get some cigarettes? Or would it make me into a peddler of disease and death? Probably. But anyway, I did.

The bonker lady was hanging around in the foyer when I arrived. I saw her approach a departing visitor and cadge a cigarette off him. She was still wearing her fluffy blue mules, now more grey than blue, and her toes poking out into the cold air looked bluish-grey too, the yellow toenails crustier than ever. Feeling like a smuggler delivering contraband, I handed her the cigarettes and she pocketed them swiftly. “Tanks, sweet’eart. She’s in Eyesores.”

It took me a while to track Mrs Shapiro down to Isis ward. I could see at once that she was in a bad way. Her cheek was bruised, one eye almost closed up, and she had a dramatic bandage around her head. She reached out and gripped my arm.

“Georgine. Thenk Gott you come.” Her voice was weak and croaky.

“What happened?”

“Fell down in the snow. Everything brokken.”

“I’ve brought the things you asked for.” I took the things out of the bag and put them in her bedside cabinet. “Your friend phoned me.”

“She is not my friend. She is a bonker. All she wants is cigarettes.”

“But what happened? I telephoned earlier to see whether you needed anything.”

“Somebody telephoned to me in morning. Said my cat was in a tree stuck up in the park.”

“Who telephoned you? Was it somebody you know?”

“I don’t know who. I thought it was Wonder Boy stuck. Poor Wonder Boy is not good up the trees.”

“Was he stuck?”

“Don’t know. Never seen him. Somebody bumped me, I slipped and fallen. They put me back in the krankie house.”

Visiting time was over, and people were already making their way towards the door.

“You will feed him again, will you, Georgine? Key is in pocket, same like before. Look out for the Wonder Boy. Thenk you, Georgine. You are my angel.”

I must say, I felt rather grumpy for an angel. Neighbour-liness is all very well, but there are limits. Still, I took the key out of her astrakhan coat pocket again and joined the tide of visitors flowing towards the exit. Had it really been an accident, I wondered on the way home? Or had someone lured her out into the snow and pushed her over? What was it Mrs Goodney had said? “Wouldn’t want to be held responsible if she had another accident…?”

Ben was still up when I got back.

“Somebody phoned for you,” he said.

“Did they leave a message?”

“He said can you call him. Mr Diabello.”

“Oh yes, the estate agent.” I kept my voice absolutely expressionless. “I’m trying to get him to value Mrs Shapiro’s house.”

“Funny name.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought. It’s a bit late. I’ll call tomorrow.”

Should I or shouldn’t I? I remembered with a shiver the brazen conduct of the Shameless Woman frolicking in scarlet panties, wriggling wantonly in the grip of Velcro—was that really me?

A gummy smile

O
n Saturday, after Ben had left with Rip, I changed into my old jeans, put a torch and a screwdriver into my bag just in case, and walked over to Canaan House. This was my chance to have another good poke around. I was determined find out Mrs Shapiro’s real age and to discover the identity of the mystery woman in the photo. There were two places I hadn’t investigated yet—the front room with the boarded-up bay window and broken light, and the attics. I fed the cats and cleaned up the poo in the hall. Then I started to search systematically.

The catch on the front-room door was faulty and it hung slightly ajar. I pushed it open. The smell—feral, feline, fetid—was so overpowering I almost backed away, but I held my handkerchief over my nose and stepped inside, shining the torch around with my free hand. The beam fell on a high ornate ceiling with its defunct chandelier, a huge marble fireplace with a fall of soot spilling on to the hearth and, on the mantelpiece, an ornate gilt clock whose hands had stopped at just before midnight. There were two sofas and four armchairs, all draped in white sheets, a carved mahogany sideboard with glasses and decanters—one decanter still with a few centimetres of brown viscous liquid that smelled like paint-stripper—and over by the window a grand piano, also under a sheet. I played the torchlight around the walls; they were hung with paintings—gloomy Victorian oils of Highland scenes, storms at sea, and dying animals—quite different to the intimate clutter of personal pictures and photos that covered the walls in the other rooms.

The bay window was covered by heavy fringed brocade curtains; an ugly box-shaped pelmet, covered in the same brocade, was sagging away from the wall, and when I looked up I could see why. A huge crack ran from the ceiling above the lintel right down to the floor, with a cold draft whistling through it. At the base, where it disappeared into the ground, it must have been several centimetres wide. It must be the roots of the monkey
puzzle
tree that had caused the damage, I thought. No wonder she wanted to cut it down.

Seating myself at the grand piano, I raised the dust sheet, uncovered the keyboard—it was a Bechstein—and struck a few keys. The melancholy out-of-tune twang reverberated in the silence of the room. There were books of music in the piano stool—Beethoven, Chopin, Delius, Grieg. Not the sort of stuff they listen to in Kippax. In the front of the Grieg piano concerto a name was handwritten in copperplate script, with old-fashioned curlicues on the capitals: Hannah Wechsler. In the front of the Delius lieder was another name: Ella Wechsler. I remembered the photograph of the Wechsler family seated around the piano. Who were they? As I leafed through the music a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. I picked it up and held the torchlight to it. It was a letter.

Kefar Daniyyel near Lydda, 18
th
June 1950

 

My Dearest Artem,

 

Why you do not reply to my letters? Each day I am thinking of you, each night I am dreaming of you. All the time I am wondering if I was doing the right thing coming here and leaving you in London. But I can not undo my decision. For this will be our place of safety, my love, the place where our people gathered out of every country where we have been exiles can be living finally at peace. Here in our Promised Land our scattered nation who have been swirling round the globe for many centuries like clouds of human dust are finally come to rest. If only you would be here, with us, Artem.

 

You cannot imagine, my love, the joyful spirit of working not for wages or profits but for building a community of shared belief. We will get old and die here, but we will build a future for our children. They will grow up fearless and free in this land we are making for them—a land without barbed wires, out of which no person ever again will drive us away.

 

At last we are moving from our temporary house in Lydda into our new moshav here at Kefar Daniyyel on a west-facing hillside overlooking the town. A few hectares of barren wasteland and a trickle of water, an empty abandoned place, but it will be our garden. In the east the sun is rising over the mountains of Judea and in the west is setting above the coastal plain with its fields of wheat and citrus groves. At night we see the lights sparking in the valley like Havdalah candles.

 

In the morning before the sun is too hot we are working outside clearing stones away from the hillside and preparing terraces for autumn planting. Yitzak has obtained some seed-stones for a new type of fruit-tree called avo-kado which he believes we can establish here once the irrigation problem is solved. The men are laying a water pipe that will bring life in this empty land that previously supported only a few dozen of people and their miserable livestocks.

 

My love I have some big news I hope will persuade you to come now even if you did not want to before, for our love will have a fruit. Arti you will be a father. I am with a child. Many evenings when the air is cool I am going up to the hilltop at Tel Hadid and watching the sun setting over the sea, and thinking of you living there beyond the sea and your baby growing here inside of me. My dear love please come and be with us if you can, or if you cannot come at this time please write me here at Kefar Daniyyel and I will understand.

 

With warm kisses,

Naomi

There was a smudge at the bottom of the page, which might have been a kiss, or a tear.

The letter was written in small neat handwriting on both sides of two sheets of thin paper folded together. Had it been hidden, or lost? I read it through again. Her English had been better then, I thought. I folded it back along the creases, and put it in my bag. I could picture the poor sad girl sitting out on the hillside carrying her baby inside her, watching the sun setting over the sea, and dreaming of her lover. But the story still refused to fall into place. Did he go to her in the end? Or was it Naomi who came back? Was he married to someone else? And what happened to the baby?

Curiously I rifled through the music books to see whether any more letters would fall out. The Delius songbook fell open at a page that had an English translation beneath the German original.

I have just seen two eyes so brown In them my joy, my world I found

There was a time when Rip used to call me his brown-eyed girl, and I remembered how he would sing along to the Van Morrison tape when we were driving in the car to France, with Ben and Stella strapped in the back, and our bulky frame tent and camping gaz strapped to the roof rack. And I would squeeze his hand, and the kids would roll their eyes and snort in derision at this display of adult soppiness. What happens to love? Where does it go, when it’s not there any more? Rip’s love had all dribbled away into the Progress Project. Probably I was also to blame for letting it happen—for letting my eyes become less brown.