The Lubetkin Legacy (26 page)

It's funny, sometimes you make the big decisions in life, and sometimes they just make themselves for you. The NGO interview was at nine o'clock, but by seven o'clock she was already up, and trying on different outfits. Something told her the lilac and dove grey that fitted in at GRM would look out of place here. She chose a straight skirt and black tights. At the last minute, she swapped the high heels for a pair of flat pumps.

The three interviewers in the tiny meeting room of the Action for Women in Africa headquarters in Bloomsbury conferred for a moment.

‘Would you accept the job if we offered it to you?' asked Maria Allinda, the youngest of the three.

‘For sure,' said Violet. ‘I like a challenge.'

And the die was cast.

After the interview she leans against the railings of the Georgian terraced building and feels the world spin beneath her feet like a roulette wheel. All that is familiar about London will become unfamiliar with time, and she will grow in a new direction like a plant exposed to a different sunlight.

Before the job starts she'll have to say goodbye to her friends, return the duvet and kitchenware to Jessie and spend some time with her parents in Bakewell.

Pidgie is waiting for her back on her balcony, coo-cooing his heart out, not knowing that tomorrow she won't be here. She watches him hop across to the balcony next door to forage for
stray seeds from the parrot's cage. ‘Goodbye, Pidgie.' He'll miss the toast but he won't miss her.

Taking down the pictures from her wall she stows them one by one in her life-sized suitcase, and unpins the night-blue sari which she wraps around the yellow mugs. She's excited, of course, and her mind has already started racing ahead to the dusty streets of Nairobi; but she feels a prick of sadness too. This funny flat has been the first home of her own; she did some growing up here. There are people she must say goodbye to.

Her next-door neighbours, Berthold and Inna, are both out when she rings on their doorbell. She hopes she will get a chance to say goodbye to them before she goes. Mrs Cracey makes her a brew of strong tea, and shoos a scrawny white cat off the sofa to make a space for her to sit. He lopes away on black-socked paws, throwing a glare of resentment over his shoulder.

‘Africa, did you say, poppet? Never mind. The late Pastor Cracey always used to say a prayer for the little black babies, you know.'

Violet smiles, remembering how her Grandma Njoki would always add a prayer for all the white people who had strayed from the Lord's path.

‘Did you hear about poor Len? He collapsed yesterday. I had to call the ambulance.'

‘Oh no!' She feels a stab of bad conscience. If she hadn't been in such a hurry for her meeting with Gillian Chalmers, she should have taken him to the doctor. She wonders how Mary Atiemo has got on with Arthur and Greg.

When she rings on the door of their flat, half an hour later, it's Mary who answers, wearing a pinafore over a baggy T-shirt and a pair of leggings which emphasise the thinness of her legs. ‘Come on in, ma'am!' Her smile is still wide, but already
she has taken on a slightly smug, proprietorial air that reminds Violet of the stray cat on Mrs Cracey's sofa. ‘Arthur just got back from school. I'm making him some toast. Will you have some?'

‘No, thanks. I can't stay long. I just came to say goodbye. I'm leaving soon.'

The flat already looks cleaner and tidier than before, and there's a delicious smell of something spicy cooking. Arthur is sitting at one of the desks, his head bowed over a page that reads:
She dwelt among untrodden ways.
Homework, no doubt.

‘Hey, Violet, Warrior Queen.' He looks up. ‘Good to see you. Everything okay?'

‘Fine. I just got a job in Nairobi. I came to say goodbye.'

‘Oh. Goodbye, then.' He looks dejected. ‘Dad's not back yet, but I'll tell him you came. Hey, did you hear about Len?'

‘Mrs Cracey just told me. What happened?'

‘I reckon it's the Curse of Rameses?' The kid looks grave. ‘Len told me about it. It's this ancient mummy that emerges from the tomb every time Arsenal scores?'

‘Really?' This seems implausible. ‘Well, when you see him, will you say goodbye from me?'

‘Yeah, course I will. But we're moving too, in a few days? Our house is ready, only the swimming pool had to be filled in? The council surveyor said it was undermining the foundations of the next-door house? Dad says that's utter crap and he's going to sue them.'

‘Mmm.' She remembers Mr Rowland and his flexible attitude to developers. ‘Won't you be sorry to leave your flat?'

‘Nah, it's a dump. Dad usually rents it out? It's part of his portfolio? He owns yours, too? Thanks, Mary.' Mary sets down the plate of toast beside him, and a cup of tea. ‘Mary's coming with us when we move, aren't you?'

Mary shrugs and glances over her skinny shoulder as if she's
afraid her good fortune will escape. ‘If God grants it.' Then she looks up and meets Violet's eyes. Her eyes are shiny and brown like coffee beans. A cheeky smile tweaks the edges of her lips. ‘You see, ma'am, I am already standing on my own legs.'

‘Be careful. One day you may need them for running away.'

Darius was just unlocking the office as I arrived at seven o'clock, and he handed me my Bertie Bean costume.

‘Sorry it's a bit short in the leg. It's the only one we had left.'

The best thing to be said about the outfit was that it provided total anonymity. Rather like a pointy burqa made of brown shiny material, and gathered at the ankles, it covered me from head to toe, with round eyeholes, a breathing hole somewhere between my mouth and my nose, and two hand holes. Well, not quite head to toe. The costume was about six inches too short, revealing my socks and trainers.

Darius eyed me critically. ‘You're wearing odd socks.'

‘Am I? One must have got lost in the wash.' I smiled disarmingly. ‘Heaven must be full of angels wearing odd socks.'

He failed to be disarmed. ‘Wear black socks this afternoon. And black shoes, right?'

‘Sure.' A random memory from my childhood snuck up on me. I started to sing. ‘Black socks, they never get dirty, the longer you wear them …'

‘Cool,' said Darius coolly. ‘But now you need to memorise the Bertie Bean script.'

‘… the blacker they get. Sometimes …'

‘It's very simple. You approach the punters with a smile.'

‘… I think I should change them, but …'

‘Well, you don't need to smile, because it's actually painted on the costume. But you'll find …'

‘… something keeps telling me …'

‘… smiling actually makes your voice sound friendlier. So what you say is …'

‘… don't wash them yet.'

Mother had taught me the song in the stuttering days. We sang it together as a round.

‘… Hi! I'm Bertie Bean, and I want to introduce you to a totally new coffee experience …'

‘Hi! I'm B-B-Bertie B-B-Bean.' It was no good – my cortisol levels were all over the place. So I started to sing. The words didn't fit the tune, but I got them out anyway. Darius looked impressed.

‘Cool! Awesome! You can sing it!' He thrust a basket of samples into my hands, and pushed me towards the stairs. ‘Take care.'

The bottom of the costume was gathered tight at the hem, so getting down the stairs was tricky, and even on the pavement I could only walk in small mincing steps. I suppose women get used to walking like this, but for a bloke it's disempowering. There was no mirror in the office, so it wasn't until I saw my reflection in a plate-glass window that I realised how absurd I looked. I tried to distance myself, Berthold Sidebottom, the distinguished Shakespearean actor, from the weird figure scuttling like an upright cockroach among the busy commuters. It's a tribute to the broad-mindedness of Londoners that no one gave me a second glance.

The morning was bright with a hint of warmth as I positioned myself on the wide, newly renovated forecourt of the station where people converged from all directions and I could eye up my quarry from a few feet away, estimate their trajectory, and intercept.

‘Hi! I'm Bertie Bean …!'

When I was a kid Mother had taken me out leafleting, so I was not surprised by the responses. What surprised me
was how long it took to give away my basket of beans. You would have thought I was handing out narcotics. Most passers-by were in a hurry and dodged out of my way; some who couldn't dodge grabbed the free samples and put them into the nearest bin or dropped them on the ground; a few listened to the whole script, then politely said, ‘No, thank you.' Those were the nice ones, but they were few. After an hour of this, I was filled with loathing for my fellow humans. After two hours, I was filled with self-loathing, an outcast from humanity metamorphosed into a despised sub-species, an insect on legs – a bare, forked animal. After three hours, I was beyond thinking, sweating inside my costume and desperate for a drink.

At the other end of the precinct four young people wearing red T-shirts with the logo of an animal charity were trying to sign up punters to a direct debit. As the morning wore on, I saw their expressions and gestures gradually stiffen like puppets. At 10 a.m., the hour of my liberation, I went up and persuaded them to take the remaining eight bags of beans in my basket.

‘Yeah, mate, sure. Can we sign you up for a donation to save rhinos?'

‘I haven't got any money,' I said. ‘Else I wouldn't be doing this, would I?'

Darius was on the phone when I got back to the Smøk & Miras office. Still talking, he watched me as I disengaged myself from my costume and put on my jacket, which I'd hung on the back of the door.

Just as I was about to leave, he put the phone down. ‘What took you so long?'

‘I thought you said ten o'clock.'

‘Yeah, but you should've been back for at least another
basket in that time. How long can it take to give away a quality product like ours?'

‘Longer than you'd think.'

‘You must have got the wrong technique.' He scratched the arse of a grinning demon tattooed on his scalp. ‘Let's see how you get on this afternoon when they're on the home straight. Call back here just before four o'clock.'

The six hours I had to kill in the middle of the day dwindled quickly. The journey itself took almost an hour.

Inna was out when I got back. I stuck my head around the door of her room but there was no sign of her. A haze of L'Heure Bleue greeted my nostrils, and the familiar thick brown envelope, now rather dog-eared, was propped up against the mirror of the dressing table. I felt an immense urge to open it, but held back out of decency.

Instead, I had a chat with Flossie, scoffed the kobsabki that Inna had prepared for me, checked my email, had a shower and changed my shirt, which was damp with sweat.

Then it was time to run for the bus again.

When I arrived at Smøk & Miras just before four o'clock, Darius was on the phone again.

‘… Cool. Cool. No worries. Leave it to me.' He put the phone down as I was getting into my costume.

‘You forgot to change your socks.'

I glanced down at my feet, feigning surprise. ‘So I did.'

‘Have you any idea how ridiculous you look?' There was a nasty edge to his voice.

‘As a matter of fact, I do.'

The sun had gone behind the clouds, and a cool wind was blowing empty crisp packets and discarded copies of
Metro
across the dismal granite expanse of the precinct. The rhino chuggers had been replaced by four cancer chuggers; despite the gravity of their cause their expressions were still fresh and hopeful. They each took a little bag of my coffee beans with enthusiasm, and informed me how high my chances were of contracting cancer.

‘Sure,' I said. ‘That's the least of my worries.'

The travellers streaming across the forecourt now were fewer and less frenetic than in the morning rush hour. I went back to my previous spot in front of a granite bench, and started singing my introduction, not so much because of the stutter, more as a way of distancing the ridiculous Bertie Bean from me, the human hiding inside the bean. As I sang Bertie's words, he became no longer me but a character in a pantomime. The churning sense of humiliation I had felt that morning had given way to a dull ache of acceptance; these were not people but punters crawling across the station forecourt, just a different species of insect. On the whole, the women were pleasanter than the men, but there was not much in it.

The young woman pulling an oversized suitcase in the direction of St Pancras Station didn't at first glance look any different from the hundreds of other punters who had crossed my path that day. It was her way of walking that caught my attention, an extra bouncy lightness in her step despite the weight of her case, as though she was skipping from cloud to cloud, the way angels do. It wasn't just an average case that you take for a weekend away; it was the sort of giant case in which you pack up your life before moving on.

‘Violet!' I stepped out in front of her. ‘Where are you going with that enormous bag?'

‘I'm sorry?' Her eyes flickered over me without recognition. I guessed she hadn't heard me say her name. She glanced down
at the samples in my hand and smiled briefly. ‘I'm so sorry, I'm in a rush!' She dodged around me and hurried on.

I could have introduced myself, I could have offered to help with her bag, I could have persuaded her to stop for a coffee; but I didn't do any of those things. I stepped aside and let her go on her angelic way, following her with my eyes as she crossed the road and headed towards St Pancras without pausing at the traffic lights, without looking left and right. It was the spring in her step that bewitched me, releasing a memory that came crashing in on me without warning; it was the same carefree step with which Meredith had skipped out across the road that day, not waiting for the green man, not seeing the white van speeding up out of nowhere.

After she had disappeared into the underground I stood still for a long while, gazing out through the eyeholes of my disguise, letting the litter swirl around my feet as though I had become a part of the grey granite forecourt, as though my soul had turned to granite.

In the end one of the cancer chuggers came up to me. ‘Are you all right, bruv?'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘Thanks. Just need to get home. Here, have these. Grind them up.' I gave him the rest of my beans. My hands were numb with cold.

I glanced at the clock. It was about a quarter to seven. I was not due back until seven, but when I got to the Smøk & Miras office the door was locked. There was no sign of life. I took off my Bertie Bean outfit, left it folded outside the door with the empty basket, and went back down into the street, thinking I would just kill ten minutes by mooching around the shops.

But it was cold in the street without my jacket, and a couple of raindrops splatted on my head so I went back inside, sat down at the top of the stairs, and waited. By a quarter past seven, nobody had come back. By half past seven, I realised
that nobody was going to come back. Behind the door was my jacket and my twenty-quid day's wages. I could see the outline of the jacket through the frosted glass. As I watched the second hand ticking around on my wristwatch, humiliation and rage boiled up in my heart. I pulled myself up on to my feet, pounded on the door with my fists, and kicked the frame again and again.

‘Darius, you fucking little devil-headed creep, just give me my money and my coat and let me go!'

On the fourth time, I yelled, ‘Darius, you rotten thieving bastard, just give me my fucking coat and let me go!' I knew it was pointless, but it made me feel better.

When my voice was hoarse, and my fist sore from hammering, I shattered the glass panel, using the empty bean basket to shield my hand, and smashed away the glass. What I saw was that the office was completely empty. The computer and desk were gone. Darius's swivelling chair and the low black canvas chair I had sat in were gone. A few spilled bags of beans were scattered on the floor, and some unopened letters. A faint smell of coffee and aftershave still hung in the air.

As I reached in to take my jacket down off the hook, I caught my wrist on a shard of jagged glass and a trickle of blood seeped into the pale grey fabric of the lapel. Okay, so it wasn't the world's most expensive jacket, but it was the best one I had, with patch pockets and two buttons, a bit like the one Clooney wears for the photo call of
Burn After Reading
. I supposed I would have to get it dry-cleaned now. When I put the jacket on, a bloodstain appeared on the cuff as well.

By now it was almost eight o'clock and outside a few more heavy raindrops presaged a thunderstorm. I wrapped Bertie Bean hood-like over my head, and went in search of a real coffee and a bus home. Wanting to avoid the station, the scene of my humiliation, I turned the other way and found myself in a
maze of anonymous streets, with no coffee shops, nor indeed shops of any kind, just a warren of council blocks. The rain had started to fall steadily, greying out the sky, and a rumble of thunder rolled out somewhere to the south. I pulled Bertie Bean over my head and trudged on.

At an intersection I stopped and looked around to get my bearings. Behind me was the roar of traffic climbing the Pentonville Road towards Islington. In front of me was … I stared. It looked like home; lights were already on in some windows. A flash of lightning revealed a handsome, clean-lined block of brick and concrete, that pleasing chequer pattern of windows and inset balconies set back behind a landscaped garden with trees, shrubs and a recreation area, dignified yet playful. Lubetkin? Nothing too good for ordinary people?

Unaccommodated man – the bare, forked animal that I was – crossed the road and pressed my wet face against the railings. A young mother was opening the gate into the garden, with a small boy who tugged at her hand.

‘C-c-can we go on the swings, Mummy?' his voice shrilled.

‘Look, it's raining, love. Let's go home and have supper. We'll go on the swings tomorrow.'