2009 - We Are All Made of Glue (37 page)

“I met him the other day.”

I told him an edited version of our doorstep encounter. I didn’t mention Mr Ali and the Attendents, but I told him about Damian.

“Damian Lee from Hendricks & Wilson’s. There he was, chewing on his pencil and pretending he was making a valuation.”

“Ah!” Mark Diabello caught his breath. “That explains the BMW I saw parked round the back of their offices.”

“So Damian’s job is…?”

“To persuade the son to let the social worker’s friendly builder have the house for, say, a quarter of a million, then disappear back off to Israel with the cash in his pocket.”

“Just like you tried to persuade me?”

“That was different. I wasn’t working for the buyer. Tsk. Naughty Damian.” His voice oozed disapproval. “I told you they were crooks. And it’s only a 1 Series two-door hatch.”

§

“You mean, just a starter model, really.”

I tried to picture Damian with his gelled-up hair sitting at the wheel of a secondhand BMW. The little shit!

At about five o’clock, just as I was trying to decide what to have for tea, Rip rang. I listened to his facing-unprecedented-challenges voice leaving a message on my answering machine, telling me to ring him immediately. Well, let him ring. He still thought he could boss me about. Typical. Probably he was ringing to tell me he wanted to take the kids up to Holtham at Easter with the Scarlet-mouthed Slut—“He told me it was over between you two ages ago. He told me you didn’t mind.” There was something about the tone of Rip’s voice on the answering machine that reminded me of…glue. Cyanoacrylate AXP-36C. I thought of the B&Q package stowed in the mezzanine study and smiled to myself. Peace in the world was all very well, but no way was it going to extend to Rip and me. No way. When someone hurts you like that, what you want is revenge, not peace.

I didn’t ring back. I went upstairs to my room and got out my exercise book.

GINA’S REVENGE

Early next morning, heartbroken Gina made her tearful way to the Castleford branch of B&Q. The sight of the jolly orange-clad building made her broken heart leap with smile. Inside it was vast and creepily echoing like a church, and full of weird men prowling around the aisles, eyeing lovely curvaceous Gina lustfully, and wiggling their saucy screwdrivers suggestively. She made her way to the extensive adhesives section. At last her eyes lit on a tube of glue that said in large letters: DANGER! AVOID CONTACT WITH SKIN
.

§

I stopped. I couldn’t help thinking about the picture of the little girl at the glue exhibition. Messy stuff.

§

The last phone call came just as I was getting ready for bed. I knew it was Mum—she usually rings about this time—but I was taken aback by the flatness in her voice.

“Your Dad’s been took poorly,” she said. “He’s got to have that operation on ‘is prostrate. Doctor says it could make ‘im imputent.”

I could just imagine poor Dad with that long-suffering look on his face and seedy Dr Polkinson telling him what did he expect at his age and we’ve all got to die of something. The operation date wasn’t fixed, but it would be sometime soon after Easter. My mind went into overdrive at once, trying to work out the logistics of going up to Kippax, leaving Ben with Rip, and meeting my deadline for Nathan.

“D’you want me to come up to Kippax, Mum?”

“It’s all right, duck. I know you’re busy.”

“Mum…”

I was racking my brains for some cheerful or uplifting comment, when Mum chipped in.

“Did you hear about that friend of yours, Carole Ben-thorpe?”

“She wasn’t my friend, Mum.” I shuddered as I remembered her watery reproachful eyes. “Her dad was a scab.”

Carole Benthorpe
had
been my friend once, before the miners’ strike—the short Heath strike of 1974, not the year-long Thatcher strike of 1984-1985. “Scabs take the gain without the pain,” Dad had said. “You never get a scab giving up his wage rise that were won on’t backs o’t strikers.” There were only four scabs in Kippax, and her father was one of them. After that she didn’t have any friends.

“Dad always told me not to talk to scabs.”

“Aye, and he’s right,” said Mum. “But she weren’t a scab, were she? She were only a little kid.” She sighed. All this had suddenly become too heavy. “Anyroad, all I was going to say is, she won the Jackson’s Saleswoman of the Year award. It were in t’
Express
. She got a weekend in Paris.”

“Oh, that’s so brilliant! Good for her!”

I felt an unexpected burst of joy for Carole Benthorpe, not about Jackson’s or the award, but because she’d survived what we did to her.

That cold winter in 1974—the men hanging around in knots on the streets instead of disappearing underground as they were supposed to, the women pawning their rings and chuntering about how they would make do without a wage coming in. One day after school some of the kids waylaid Carole Benthorpe on her way home. They jostled and taunted her as she walked along, then things got a bit rough and a couple of lads pushed her into the icy tadpole ponds by the back lane. Everybody cheered and laughed as they watched her flounder. Me, too—I’d stood and laughed with the others. I could still remember vividly how great it had felt to be part of that cheering, jeering gang. Carole Benthorpe crawled out covered in slime and ran home, all wet and bawling. Next day in the school toilets she carved the word SCAB into her forearm with a Stanley knife.

“If you see her, Mum, give her my love.”

“Oh, I never see ‘er. She lives up Pontefract way now.”

What I really wanted to say was more complicated, and I wasn’t sure how to put it into words—it was about guilt and shame and forgiveness, and wanting her to understand that we truly believed we were justified in doing what we did, even though we knew it was wrong.

The right glue for the materials

I
was half-heartedly trundling the vacuum cleaner around the house on Monday afternoon, worrying about Mum and Dad, when the phone rang. I thought it might be Mum with some more news of Dad’s operation, but it was Mrs Shapiro.

“Come quick, please, Georgine. Chaim is mekking trouble.”

I realised I’d been half expecting it. Apparently Mrs Shapiro and Ishmail had gone off with Mr. Ali in the red van to choose some paint at B&Q in Tottenham. Nabeel had stayed behind to start sanding down the woodwork and one of the downstairs doors had been left unlocked. They got back at about four o’clock with their five litres of matt emulsion—“Eau-de-nil—very charming colour—you will see it”—to find Nabeel and Chaim Shapiro wrestling on the carpet in the dining room.

“Fighting like the tigers. You must come, Georgine, and talk to them.”

“But what’s that got to do with me?”

“Why you are always arguing, Georgine? Please come quick.”

By the time I got there, the wrestling, if it had ever really happened, was over and there was an uneasy truce around the dining-room table. Mr Ali was sitting on one side of the table, flanked by the Uselesses, and opposite them sat Chaim Shapiro, leaning back heavily, his arms and legs splayed out as though the chair was too small for him, cracking his knuckles from time to time. Mrs Shapiro sat next to him, chainsmoking and fidgeting with her rings. Wonder Boy was sitting on a chair at the head of the table, looking very magisterial. I could hear their voices arguing as I came in through the front door, which had been left on the latch for me, but as I entered the dining room they went quiet. I sat down at the other end of the table, opposite Wonder Boy.

“Hello, everybody!” I said, looking round with a cheery smile. No one smiled back. The atmosphere was like curdled milk. Maybe we should start with Ms Baddiel’s breathing exercises, I thought, just to calm us all down.

Mrs Shapiro poured me a glass of water from a jug and introduced the newcomer to me as Chaim Shapiro, adding, “This is Georgine, my good neighbour.”

He pounced on me at once, demanding to know why I had invited these strangers into his house—I winced at the emphasis—“
my
house”—but before I could get a word out, Mrs Shapiro pounced back.

“Is not your house, Chaim. I been living here sixty year paying rets.”

“Shut up your mouth, Ella. You have no feet to stand on, letting Arabs come into your home.”

“You shut up the mouth,” Mrs Shapiro snapped. He ignored her.

“So, Miss Georgiana. Please, we are awaiting your explanation,” he rasped in a breathy voice not unlike Wonder Boy’s purr. “Speak up now or forever hold your pieces.”

I started to explain that the house needed repair and renovation and that’s why Mr Ali and his assistants had been called in. He gave a dubious sniff and rocked back in his chair. Then there was the issue of security, I told him, describing the stolen key and the turned-off water main and hinting at Mrs Goodney’s involvement. That made him sit up. The eyebrow above his glass eye started to twitch.

“That Goody with her young stick-up-the-hair-nik, they think I am made of short planks. They think I will sell them my house cheap so they can make some quick bucks out of me. But I have a different plan.”

“Is not your house, Chaim.”

“It is my father’s house. Father likes son.”

“My house.” hissed Mrs Shapiro. “When your father died, he give it me.”

“So what’s your plan, Mr Shapiro?” I interrupted, to move the conversation on.

“My plan is to undertake some major renovations here in
my
house.” There were sharp intakes of breath all around. Wonder Boy’s tail started to flick. “In fact I am something of a do-it-myself enthusiast. I have already purchased a tool kit.” He looked around the table, but nobody met his eye. I glanced across at Mr All, but his face was impassive.

“Chaim, darlink, your mother would be eating her own kishkes to hear you speaking like this. She was giving up everything to build the new Israel. Beautiful homeland for the Jews. Why you are not staying there? Why you are coming back now and putting me on to the street?” There was a wheedling note in her voice.

“Nobody is putting you on to any street Ella. You are putting yourself on to the street living with these Arabs.”

“These are my Attendents.”

“Ella, you have lost your screws. All Arabs are the same—they are only waiting for the opportunity to push Jews into the sea.”

Across the table, Mr Ali was leaning over and whispering something to Ishmail. The Attendents’ faces were sullen.

“Nobody is pushing me into the sea. The sea is a long way from here, Chaim. Sea is at Dover. I hefFbeen there mit Arti.” Her chin was sticking out defiantly.

“I know this Dover Beach. Where ignorant armies splash at night,” Chaim Shapiro tutted, taking little sips from his glass of water as if to cool himself down.

Mrs Shapiro stared at him. Then she leaned across and whispered to me, “What is he talking about, Georgine?”

“It’s a poem.”

“A poem? Is he med?”

“I am talking about terrorism, Ella. Look at my blinded eye. What I was doing? Nothing. Sitting minding my own businesses.” He was cracking his knuckles furiously as he talked, from nervousness or anger.

“We are in London now, Chaim. Not in Tel Aviv.”

“And you see they have commenced bombing here in London.”

Mr Ali leaned over and translated for Ishmail, who whispered to Nabeel. All three of them were scowling.

“We are already in the darkened plain.”

“Darlink Chaim, this is a house, not an aeroplane. Please, be a little calm. And these are my Attendents, not suicideniks. See, they are even animal lovers.”

Nabeel had reached across and was stroking Wonder Boy behind the ears, whose rhythmic purring was a soothing background to the fractious discussion. If only someone would stroke Chaim Shapiro behind the ears, I thought.

Now Mr Ali spoke, his voice splintering with anger. “Arabs, Christians, Jews been living side by side for many generations. Making businesses together. No broblem. No bogrom. No concentration camp. Even we selled you some of our land. But this is not enough. You want whole bloody lot.”

Chaim Shapiro ignored him and turning towards me explained in a teachery tone, “All Palestinians have the same story. They come along with some old key, saying this is the key to my house. You must move out immediately! But when my mother came to Israel nobody was living there. It was empty as a desert. Abandoned. All the inhabitants had scarpered.”

“Driven out with gunpoint!” Mr Ali tried to shout, but his voice was shaking and it ended in a little squeak. The last time I’d seen him so mad was when he was sitting on the wet grass at the bottom of the ladder.

“If you want to live alongside us in our land, all you must do is to stop attacking us. Is that not fair enough?” Chaim smirked and spread his hands theatrically.

In—two—three—four. Out- two—three—four
.

“Look, we’re not going to solve all the world’s problems today,” I said cheerily. “But it’s quite a big house. Especially if we convert the penthouse suite. Maybe everyone can live here together.”

They all turned towards me, and I could feel myself turning crimson under their collective gaze. In fact everybody had gone a bit beetrooty, even Mr Ali. Wonder Boy was snarling like a dog, swinging his fat tail from side to side.

“I do not want to share my house with three Arabs,” Chaim Shapiro grouched.

“Chaim,” said Mrs Shapiro appeasingly, “the Peki is not living here. He is only a visitor.”

“You do not understand the Arab mentality, Ella. They will not let us in peace. Do you think Israel would exist today if half its population was Arab, and trying to destroy it from within?”

I felt a stab of anger, remembering the twin babies, heavy as watermelons, and the soldier with the number tattooed on his arm.

“But you can’t expect people to give up their homes and land and not fight back!”

Mr Ali translated for the benefit of the Attendents, who nodded fervently in my direction. Chaim Shapiro’s face was sweating, his good eye blinking rapidly.

“Ha! Then we have the right of self defence! Every time you strike Israel we will strike back harder. You give us homemade rocket-launchers, we give you US-made helicopter gun-ships. Bam bam bam!” He aimed his hands like a gun across the table. Then, turning to me, he added, “As your immortal bard William Shakespeare said, to do great right, we have to do a small wrong! It isn’t pretty, but it is necessary, Miss Georgiana.”