2009 - We Are All Made of Glue (34 page)

“Georgine! Darlink!” She swivelled round and patted the empty space at the end of the sofa. “Come and drink a coffee mit us.”

“Maybe later,” I said. “We have to get ready. The social worker’s coming.”

“What for I need the social work?” Mrs Shapiro sniffed. “I heff my young men.”

“But they’re going home now, Mrs Shapiro. They have to…”

On the screen, the hound started roaring terrifyingly.

Wonder Boy pricked up his ears and started swinging his tail. Mrs Shapiro gripped my hand.

“This dog is a monster. Same like the matron in the Nightmare House. Grrah! I will not go back to this place. Never.”

“No, definitely not. But
this
social worker is nice. She’ll help you to stay at home. It’s Ms Baddiel. You met her before. Remember?”

“I remember. Not Jewish. Too fet.”

She’d lost interest in our conversation, and was watching the fearsome hound racing over the darkening moors.

Ishmail thrust a cup of coffee into my hands. It was thick, black and bitter. He handed me the sugar bowl and though I don’t usually take sugar I helped myself to a couple of heaped spoonfuls. I declined the cigarette he offered me, but Mrs Shapiro took it and lit it from the end of the one that was still smouldering in the ashtray at her feet.

“What is this brown boots?” she asked, coughing a little.

As I was trying to explain the significance of the black and brown boots in the plot, the doorbell rang.

The other three were completely gripped by the drama so I got up to answer it. Ms Baddiel was standing there. She was wearing a floaty silk aquamarine coat, and her honey-gold hair was twisted up in a loose braid. Behind her on the porch stood Nathan, with a large attache case under his arm, and Nathan’s Tati looking very spruce in a collar and tie. They had obviously introduced themselves already.

“Nathan’s come along to advise us about adhesives,” I said. “In case there are any urgent repairs that need doing.”

“Perr-fect.” She followed me through to the study, sniffing the air and looking around her, taking in all the improvements. “Lovely.”

Mrs Shapiro hardly looked up as we came into the room, her eyes were fixed on dashing Basil Rathbone on the screen, but Ishmail, with impeccable politeness, jumped up and offered Ms Baddiel his corner of the sofa.

“Hello, Mrs Shapiro.” She leaned forward towards the old lady. “How are you doing? I understand you’ve had some adventures.”

“Ssh!” Mrs Shapiro held her finger to her lips. “The hund is killing.”

Half an hour or so later, as the final credits rolled, she turned to us and said in a croaky voice, “I heff seen this film once before. Mit Arti. When we were still in loff. Before the sickness snetched him away. So long ago. What has heppened to all the years?”

There were tears in the corners of her eyes. Ms Baddiel leaned forward and hugged her in her plump arms. Then she reached in her bag for a vanilla-scented tissue.

“It’s all right now. You can let it all out. Take a deep breath. Hold. Breathe out with a sigh. There. Perfect.”

Violetta stretched her paws and rubbed her head against Mrs Shapiro’s thigh. Tati put a piece of wood—it looked worryingly like an antique chair leg—on the fire and reached down to stroke Wonder Boy, who rolled on his back, legs thrown apart abandonedly, and started to purr. Nathan and I exchanged smiles. Nabeel went and made another pot of coffee. Ishmail offered round a packet of Camel cigarettes.

“Are you her carer?” Ms Baddiel asked.

“Hello. Yes. Please.” He flashed his lovely teeth at her.

She took out her Labrador-puppy notebook and wrote something down. Then Nabeel came back from the kitchen with a steaming coffee pot and two fresh cups.

“And you? You’re a carer, too?”

“Hello. Yes. Welcome!”

“Well, you may be entitled to claim the Carer’s Allowance,” she said. “One of you. The Carer’s Allowance is payable if you spend at least thirty-five hours a week looking after someone who is in receipt of Attendance Allowance. Are you claiming Attendance Allowance, Mrs Shapiro?”

“What for I need attendents?” said Mrs Shapiro. She was still sniffling a bit.

“Well, you know,” Ms Baddiel offered her a tissue, “after what you’ve been through, Mrs Shapiro, I think you deserve a bit of help. Of course it’s up to you, entirely.”

A skinny tabby cat jumped up into her lap. She ran her plump chipolatas over its fur making it purr so much it started to dribble and she had to get another tissue out. Nathan’s Tati was sitting watching all this with such a solemn look on his face I thought she’d have to hand him a tissue, too.

Then the doorbell rang again. Ishmail was already on his feet so he went to answer it. I heard him talking animatedly, and another quieter voice replying. A moment later, Mr Ali joined us in the study. He and Ishmail were still arguing in Arabic, and now Nabeel joined in. Mr Ali turned to Mrs Shapiro.

“They are saying they want to stay here. They are saying they can baint all house and fixitup and help you make it clean. I will supervise of course. You pay only for materials.”

I saw a quick flicker pass through Mrs Shapiro’s eyes. She said nothing.

“You know in our culture we have great respect for old people,” Mr Ali pressed on. “But I think mebbe you do not like to have young men into your house, Mrs Naomi?”

Everyone’s gaze was now focused on Mrs Shapiro. She looked around cannily. Her eyes were still moist but her cheeks were flushed with excitement, or maybe with too much strong coffee, and I could see her mouth twitch as she weighed up her options.

“I donnow. I donnow.” She put one hand dramatically to her brow, and ran the other through Wonder Boy’s shaggy belly-fur. “Wonder Boy, what you think?” Wonder Boy purred ecstatically. “Okay. We try it.”

There was a general exhalation of breath.

Mr Ali led us on a guided tour around the house to show us the improvements he’d made. The dingy hall looked much brighter under its coat of white paint, and the loose floor tiles had been fixed or replaced with shiny white bathroom tiles. I noticed with dismay as we climbed the stairs that the grand old mahogany banisters and handrail had been painted with yellow gloss to match the front door, but Mrs Shapiro didn’t seem to mind.

However, the most spectacular change was in the bathroom. The original chipped and cracked white tiles had been retained, but beneath them an entire new bathroom suite had been installed. Well, it wasn’t exactly new—it looked as if it dated back to the sixties and had been taken out of a house undergoing renovation—two houses, in fact. There was a wide rose-pink washbasin and matching lavatory complete with pink plastic seat cover, and under the window an avocado-green bath with curved chrome handrails. The rotten floorboards under the lavatory had been patched up, and a piece of lino in blue-and-white mosaic covered the whole floor. If you were colour blind, it would have been lovely.

As my eyes scanned the room, they fell on a white porcelain toothbrush holder fixed on to the wall above the basin. I bent closer to take a surreptitious look while everyone was oohing and aahing over the bath. Yes, it was definitely the same one. There was even a small chip on one side—must be from where I’d tossed it into the skip. It was quite stylish—clean lines, Scandinavian-style. But really, at the end of the day, it was just a toothbrush holder. To imagine I’d once got so worked up over it!

Then Mr Ali turned the taps on and off to demonstrate that they all worked. As he flushed the lavatory, steam rose as the clean water from the cistern swirled about.

“Er—isn’t it hot, the water?” Nathan observed.

Mr Ali stared into the toilet pan with a puzzled frown.

“Some small mistake. Maybe wrong beep. Soon fixitup.”

“But the hot water is much better!” cried Mrs Shapiro. “You are a very clever-knodel, Mr Ali.”

He beamed at her. “Colours you like?”

“The pink is nice colour,” she said. “Better than the green.”

“Lovely,” I said.

“Lovely,” said Ms Baddiel, who had seen—and smelled—the original.

“They’ve developed a new kind of flexible non-crack tile adhesive based on a thixotropic gel,” said Nathan, producing a tub of something from his demonstration pack. “Should you be thinking of replacing the tiles.”

Nathan’s Tati cleared his throat and sang a verse of the ‘Toreador Song’ from
Carmen
that resonated in the small space.

“Good acoustics!” he said. Everyone applauded apart from Nathan.

The bedroom the Uselesses were sharing was the one with the white UPVC window. It had been replastered over the breeze block and actually, from inside, it didn’t look so bad. The walls were freshly painted white, and the beds neatly made with the burgundy velour curtains for bedcovers. Their shoes, folded clothes and carrier bags were lined up tidily against one wall. I caught Nathan’s eye.

“Admirably spic and span,” was all he said.

Mrs Shapiro’s bedroom was untouched, the wallpaper a faded-out colourless fawn with small nondescript flowers picked out in muddy taupe.

“We will baint it up next. What colour you like it?” asked MrAli.

She pressed her fingers against her brow as she tried to envision a new room.

“What about the penthouse?” I whispered to Mr Ali. “Have you started up there?”

“Not yet. Still clearing rubbish. Boys burning it. But slow.”

“They’re burning all the papers?” I had an image of priceless historical records going up in smoke. “Mrs Shapiro? Aren’t some of your belongings up there?”

“Is all the rubbish belonging previous inhebitants,” she said dismissively. “Was some type of religious persons living here before. Orsodox or Kessolik I don’t know. They heff left behind all their rubbish and run away.”

“They ran away?”

“In the bombing. They ran and left it all behind. Yes, eau de nil.”

“But who…?”

“Eau de nil is the most charming colour for the bedroom, isn’t it?”

“An admirable choice,” murmured Nathan’s Tati sonorously into Mrs Shapiro’s ear, brushing her cheek with the tips of his whiskers.

As we came back down the stairs, he held out his arm for Mrs Shapiro, and she rested her weight on it lightly. She seemed to be blushing more than usual under all the rouge. My plan was working!

The last room we went into was the large drawing room downstairs at the front—the one with the grand piano. The stench in there made us recoil as we stepped inside, and now it was obvious why the room had been out of use for so long. Mr Ali had removed the boards from the window, and in the daylight we could see the sagging ceiling and a great crack in the bay, so wide that you could see daylight on the other side and the green of the monkey
puzzle
tree. A trail of muddy paw prints led from the base of the crack across the carpet towards the door with its broken latch. So this explained the mystery of how the Phantom Pooer got in and out—even though I still didn’t know which one was the culprit. In fact that was the least of our problems.

Nathan, Nathan’s Tati and Mr Ali went over to examine the crack, rubbing their chins solemnly and pacing up and down with lowered eyes, the way men do in B&Q.

“There are new types of heavy-duty fast-setting foam fillers, called structural methacrylates, suitable for construction work…” Nathan began hesitantly.

“But this does not fixitup the problem,” Mr Ali scratched his head. “First we must find out what causes. Maybe this tree…”

They were looking into the break in the floorboards below the ruptured skirting board. “We could cut the tree down, dig the roots out, then pump the gap full of methacrylate foam,” suggested Nathan.

“Concrete may be better,” said Mr Ali. “But pity to cut up such a fine tree.”

“Mind the gap,” Nathan’s Tati murmured to Mrs Shapiro, who had come over to have a look, placing his hand on her shoulder and letting it linger there.

“What do you think, Mrs Shapiro? Should we cut the tree down?” asked Ms Baddiel.

Mrs Shapiro looked shifty. “No. Yes. Maybe.”

I remembered her correspondence with the Council’s tree department.

“It may have a preservation order on it,” I said. “Shall I contact the Council and find out?”

Everyone seemed pleased with this suggestion. As we stood staring into the crack, a skinny feline head poked up between the floorboards and the Stinker eased himself into the drawing room. Crouching low, he looked around the semi-circle of human legs, found a suitable gap, and made a dash for the door.

“Raus! Little pisske! Raus!” cried Mrs Shapiro, waving him on, but you could see she didn’t mean it. A cheerful almost skittish mood had come over her; she was revelling in the presence of so many visitors—or maybe of one visitor in particular. She moved over to the piano, lifted the cover and tinkled a few notes. Even those out-of-tune keys seemed to come alive under her touch. To my amazement, without any music to read, she started to play the Toreador Song’, embellishing it with broken chords and little trills, and Nathan’s Tati, standing behind her, gave us a full baritone rendition—he was more in tune than the piano. Nathan joined in the choruses. At the end, Mrs Shapiro sat back, placing her gnarled ring-encrusted hands together with a sigh.

“Hends no good, isn’t it?”

“Nonsense, Naomi,” said Tati, taking her hands and holding them in his.

Then we all made our way back towards the entrance hall to say our goodbyes. Nabeel had to intervene to halt a hissing and scratching match between Mussorgsky and Wonder Boy—despite his initial aversion to cat poo, he had turned out to be quite a cat lover. Mr Ali talked to his nephew softly in Arabic and embraced him in a hamstery hug. Mrs Shapiro sidled up to me nodding her head towards Nathan, and whispered, “He is your new boyfriend, Georgine?”

“Not my boyfriend. Just a friend.”

“Good thing,” she whispered. “He is too petite for you. But quite intelligent. The father also is charming. Pity he is too old for me.”

After they’d all gone, Mrs Shapiro and her attendants went back to sit by the fire leaving me alone in the hall for a moment, and that’s when I noticed that the framed photograph of Lydda which used to hang above the hall table had disappeared. There was nothing but a nail sticking out of the wall to show it had been there. Who had moved it? I was still puzzling over it when suddenly I heard the distinct clack of the front gate. I thought it must be one of the others coming back for something they’d forgotten so I opened the door. Coming down the path towards the house was Mrs Goodney in her lizard-green quilted jacket and her pointy shoes, with an important-looking black briefcase under her arm. Behind her came a dark thickset man I’d never seen before, middle-aged, wearing a crumpled brown suit. Neither of them was smiling. There was something odd about the way the man was looking at us: his eyes seemed asymmetrical.