The Lubetkin Legacy (31 page)

I bowed my head, remembering his relentless optimism and his occasional bullshit. ‘Poor Len. Didn't anybody help him?'

‘I give him injection but insulin kaput.'

Alas, poor Len. A black cloudbank loomed on my mind's horizon. Legless Len, Mrs Crazy, the cherry grove, even Inna Alfandari – now that Mother was gone, those were the last living links that connected a secure past to an uncertain future.
It wasn't just the bricks and concrete that made this place home, it was the web of human spirit, that funny old-fashioned word embroidered by Gobby Gladys: FELLOWSHIP.

‘Coo-coo-coo,' Flossie cooed from the balcony. She fluffed out her feathers and hopped up and down on her perch, turning towards the one-legged pigeon as it flapped away in the direction of the next-door balcony. Oh yes, I'd forgotten Flossie – she was still here.

‘What's up wit devil-bird?' asked Inna. ‘She turning into pigeon?'

‘I think she's fallen in love.'

With what was left of my first-night Lucky stipend, I booked a cab for Inna to Hampstead, where it turned out she still had her old flat, which she had been subletting to friends of friends. I felt quite peeved that she hadn't told me before, but relieved that she had somewhere to go.

These friends of friends were now visiting family in Zaporizhia, and until they came back Inna would be able to stay there with Lookerchunky aka Lev. When they returned, their rent would be paid into Inna's bank account and would augment her tiny widow's pension back in Ukraine. The more I learned of this set-up the less I liked it, but she had it all worked out, and as she gabbled her explanation her eyes slid from side to side in a shifty way that made me suspect that I hadn't yet got to the bottom of it.

‘Bye bye, Bertie.' She stood on tiptoes and gave me a peck on the cheek, then she was gone in a high-speed hobble, leaving only the trace of her distinctive spicy smell with a hint of L'Heure Bleue lingering in the hallway.

Watching through the window as she tottered across the decimated cherry grove with her bags to where the cab was waiting, a lump rose in my throat. I would miss her potty conversation and dreadful singing. I would miss the globalki, kosabki and slutki.

Then I heard:
Ding dong. Ding dong!

‘Who the f—?'

A man and a woman were standing at the door, seedy nondescript types with flat lace-up shoes, briefcases and blank
unsmiling faces like the Undead. I moved to close the door, but the man was resting one brown shoe on the threshold.

‘We're looking for Mrs Inna Alfandari,' he said. His voice was flat, brown and slightly nasal.

‘She's not here,' I said. Who the hell were they? Mormons? Jehovah's Witnesses?

‘Can you tell us where she is?' asked the woman. Her voice was also flat, brown and slightly nasal. She did not smile.

I hesitated. If they were police, they would have shown their ID. ‘Can you tell me who you are?'

‘Does Mrs Alfandari live here?' he pursued.

‘Look, I've no idea who you are. Why should I tell you anything?'

The woman flicked back the lapel of her jacket to show an ID tag dangling on her low-rise bosom. It had a bronze company logo on top –
i4F
– and her name:
Miss Anthea Crossbow, Fraud Investigator
. Blimey.

‘Can we come in?'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘I think you've got the wrong p-p-person.'

‘We've been watching these premises,' said the man. ‘We have reason to suspect she's been living here.'

‘There's no-b-body of that name living here. There's just me and my m-mother. Lily Lukashenko.'

They exchanged quick glances.

‘There must have b-b-been some mix-up.'

‘We're investigating benefit fraud.' The man handed me a business card, with the same
i4F
logo and the name
Mr Alec Prang. Senior Fraud Investigator.
‘We believe Mrs Alfandari has wrongly been claiming Housing Benefit for a flat she no longer occupies.'

‘Oh, how a-p-p-palling!'

So that's what she'd been up to – the old scamp! Not poison but fraud. When you think of it, we were two of a kind and
maybe that's what drew us together. Did they know that she had also been renting out the same flat, pocketing both the rent and the Housing Benefit? No wonder she could afford to be generous with the vodka. Should I tell them? No. A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!

‘B-but there must b-be a mistake, Mr P-p-prang? She definitely doesn't live here.'

‘Maybe we'd better recheck the Hampstead address,' murmured Miss Crossbow to Mr Prang.

‘That would seem like a good idea.' I smiled to myself. By the time they got there, Inna would have arrived in her taxi to confound their suspicions.

‘Would you please contact us if you discover any information about the whereabouts of this individual?' Mr Prang bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile, and I assented with equal insincerity.

‘Thank you for your time, Mr … er?' Miss Crossbow was fishing for my name.

‘It's been a pleasure.' I closed the door.

I heard the clunk of the lift and waited by the window for them to emerge in the grove, but they did not appear. Where could they have got to? Panic struck me as I reflected on their visit. Were they keeping me under surveillance too? While investigating Inna, had they twigged my own irregular situation and my mother's demise? I stepped out on to the rear walkway just in time to see an unmarked white van with two figures hunched in the front seats, pulling away at speed from behind the bins. Presumably they had been staking out the back of the flats. Still, I smiled to myself, if they went back to Hampstead now, they would be just in time to realise their mistake.

Though I was miffed that Inna had pulled the wool over my eyes, I felt a sneaking admiration for her too. She had fooled
everybody – even me, even Mother, who would never have guessed her friend's duplicity and might have been horrified. On the other hand, Mother was generally tolerant of human weakness, especially when accompanied with a glass of booze.

Inna had left Mother's room in quite a mess so, putting on the radio to drown out the silence in the flat, I busied myself with clearing up the debris. Here was the pink corset, which I put in a carrier bag for Inna to collect, and some tattered black stockings which I binned, along with crumpled packaging, an empty bottle of black hair dye, a hairbrush matted with long black hair, a still-unopened pack of Players No. 6, which Mother must have hidden somewhere, several plastic cups containing what seemed to be green phlegm, and a stack of women's magazines in Cyrillic script featuring plump blonde dark-eyed models and recipes that looked suspiciously like variants on kobaski, golabki and slatki.

Once tidy, the room was more than bare – it had a desolate look. From the box under the boiler I replaced Mother's photos, covering the faded squares in the wallpaper: dashing Ted Madeley, dreamy Berthold Lubetkin, Granny Gladys with her flowerpot hat and Grandad Bob with his dog-head walking stick, and the photo of me with Howard and the twins on Hampstead Heath. They settled back on to their old hooks with a comfortable sigh. I stepped back to survey my handiwork. Even the bottle of L'Heure Bleue was on the dressing table, though it was now empty.

Out on the balcony, Flossie was flirting with her scrawny new boyfriend. Frankly, I felt she could have done better for herself – an intelligent exotic bird like that – but apparently that's often the way with mature females. I put on the kettle – there was an almost-full jar of Lidl own-brand in the cupboard – and regretted the generous impulse that had led
me to offer Inna my remaining fiver for a taxi fare rather than saving it up for Luigi. I was in a fretful mood, my ankles were itching, the cloudbank of depression hovered on the edge of my consciousness, and for a man who has just shagged a very nice woman, I felt irritable and on edge.

Then, as the afternoon wore on, I realised what was bothering me. The phone. It was silent. Eustachia hadn't rung.

I stared at it malevolently. Why didn't she phone? It was her turn, for godssake. I had phoned her last time. If it became a habit, she would start to take me for granted, to give me the runaround. As Jimmy the Dog used to say, ‘Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.' But surely, a woman couldn't do that? I mean, objectively speaking, Eustachia was nice, but nothing special. Like Flossie, I could probably do better, if I put my mind to it. Now that Mother had given me the green light. Now that I'd landed a rather recherché stage role, surely my sexual capital would be boosted. Maybe Violet would come back. Maybe Bronwyn wasn't a lesbian. My mind was hopping around like a one-legged pigeon.

Suddenly the phone rang. I leaped up.

‘Stacey, is that you …?' (Yes, I've come to terms with the name.)

A woman's voice replied, something I didn't quite catch, ‘… in connection with your recent accident …' The tone was rather tinny, which I put down to a bad line.

‘No, Stacey, I'm absolutely fine. I mean, I stubbed my toe running for the bus, but apart from that I'm just fine. When …?'

‘Please press five to speak to a representative …' the voice continued.

‘Stacey? Is that you …?' Overcome with emotion, I uttered the ‘d' word, ‘… darling?'

‘… or nine to opt out.'

‘Nine …? What did you say? Aaaargh!' Fury possessed me. ‘Piss off! You shameless phone whore, you ambulance ghoul!' I hurled the phone across the room, where it bounced against the wall and fell apart. The cover flipped off and two batteries rolled out under the sofa.

Oh hell! I got down on my hands and knees to hunt for them.

It's amazing what you can find under a sofa that hasn't been moved for a while: a packet of Polo mints, half empty; a single loose Polo mint, partly sucked and covered in ancient fluff; a blue biro, leaking; a whisky miniature, empty; an old-style shilling and a new pound coin; a packet of Players No. 6, three ciggies still in it; a crumpled flyer for Shazaad's takeaway. I found one of the batteries, but the other was elusive. With my fingertips I searched right back as far as I could reach; they encountered the second battery beside one of the legs, and something stiff and papery pressed up against the wall. I pulled it out. It was a large brown envelope.

Inside was a folded sheet of tracing paper about a metre square. I opened it out curiously. It seemed to be some kind of plan – an architect's drawing, in fact, meticulously sketched in black ink with some details and notes added in pencil. It was a drawing of Madeley Court. I tried to match up the pencilled notes to the place I knew, which had become so familiar I hardly noticed its features. A tenants meeting room which would double up as a kindergarten. A communal laundry room at the back of the block, a large roof terrace for drying laundry. These details were in the plan but, to my knowledge, they had not been built. Maybe post-war austerity had put paid to those dreams. But other elements of the plan were still in place. A wide floating roof canopy above the main entrance. Ornamental tiles in glazed terracotta. A communal
landscaped garden with trees, seating and a play area. Walkways and landings to enhance human intercourse, diagonally placed windows and internal glazing to catch and relay the light. A wide internal staircase lit from above by a skylight. The lifts, I guessed, must have been added later.

Inside this large drawing was folded a smaller one. A flat: three larger rooms and one small one; a kitchen, a balcony, a bathroom. Generous proportions. A skylight in the hall. And in the bottom right-hand corner, a handwritten note, scribbled in the same black ink:
For dear Lily, a home for life for you and your children, Yours forever, BL
.

I studied the ink outline of the familiar configuration of rooms which had been her home for more than half a century, then folded it back into the envelope. The skylight, though, had never been made.

In the end, I reinserted the batteries into the phone and dialled Stacey's number. I imagined it ringing in that crowded fire-damaged office, with her fellow bureaucrats eavesdropping jealously.

Maybe that accounted for the coolness in her voice as she answered, ‘Hello? Oh, hello, Bertie, how nice to hear from you. Is everything okay?'

She said she was busy every day next week. She wouldn't say with what, and I was left with the irritating suspicion that she was giving me the runaround on purpose, to keep me keen. On Saturday I had the matinee as well as the evening show of
Godot
, so I was genuinely unavailable. Besides, I didn't want her to think that I was so besotted she could just have me at her beck and call. So it wasn't until the following Sunday that we agreed to meet up again.

As I replaced the phone on its cradle, I noticed the corner of a brown crumpled piece of paper sticking out underneath the
telephone directory – not just any old piece of paper. It was a ten-pound note, with a yellow Post-it note stuck on: Лен, it said. Inna must have forgotten it there. Well, he wouldn't be needing it where he was gone. I trousered it grimly and strode out through the tree mortuary that had once been a cherry grove.

‘Boss! Where you been?' Luigi greeted me with open arms. ‘You become big celebrity!'

‘Oh, yeah?' I perched on a high stool at the bar while he got busy with the coffee scooper. Then he reached under the counter for a dog-eared copy of the
Daily Mail
, and sure enough on page eleven there was a grainy photo of me with a rope around my neck on the stage at The Bridge, under the headline:
UNKNOWN ACTOR WOWS THE HOUSE IN LUCKY ROLE
.

Unknown! Still, I read the review: …
called Bart Side played this challenging role with a stammer that added brilliantly to the pathos of Beckett's obscure masterpiece
…