Portobello Page 15

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Church of the Children of Zebulun was in a poky little mews off the Portobello Road and nearly as far north along that long serpentine street as you could get without coming up against the Great Western main line. There was a shop selling Central African artefacts in the mews and another offering natural remedies in purple glass jars and bottles. The church had once been a garage with a flat over the top of it. Its founder, now dead, had converted it into a single high-ceilinged room, attached a plasterwork gable to its front and painted the whole edifice a shade of burnt orange. A sign executed in black lettering said 'O, Come, all ye Faithful'.

  A regular attender on Sunday mornings, Uncle Gib dressed himself in his best, a black pinstriped suit that had been new when he got married some forty-six years earlier, one of the shirts picked up in a Portobello Road sale and a blue tie, also new for that distant wedding. The suit had once in its long lifetime been cleaned. That was in the days when Auntie Ivy was alive and able to take it to the dry-cleaners. Since then it had been kept in Uncle Gib's wardrobe, its pockets stuffed with mothballs. It reeked of camphor. He had been thin when he married and he was thin now. The mystery (to him) was that the trousers seemed longer than they had been, for Uncle Gib, if no heavier, had suffered one of the drawbacks of old age and shrunk an inch or two.

  He enjoyed the services of the Children of Zebulun, usually had something to say when the spirit moved him and sang the hymns lustily while Maybelle Perkins's sister played the piano. Afterwards there was tea and orange squash and Garibaldi biscuits, though Uncle Gib never ate any. He consumed no food outside his own home. But no food or drink was served this Sunday and the service was ended after only fifteen minutes. The Shepherd – the Children had no appointed priest or preacher – had no sooner moved to the lectern and uttered the opening words 'Chosen People!' when he swayed, stumbled and collapsed. His head had scarcely touched the floor before a woman in the front row was on her mobile, calling emergency services. Of that other kind of service there would be no more that day.

  Maybelle Perkins assured Uncle Gib she would 'keep him posted' as to the prognosis for the sick man, though he was more concerned at missing the hymn singing than for the Elder's fate. He set off for home, feeling disgruntled, his mood intensifying at every outrage he encountered along the way: shops open on the Portobello Road on a Sunday, pubs open on a Sunday, and those foolish enough to go into them driven out to smoke their cigarettes on the pavement. Uncle Gib lit one of his own but he didn't linger. Turning into Golborne Road, he remembered it as it had once been. Not with nostalgia, still less with longing, but with a kind of practical assessing faculty directed at estimating how much the street had 'come up'. This was something he did most days and with mounting satisfaction. Doing it now went a long way towards dispelling his bad mood.

  Continuous heavy rain had brought a rich green to the trees, sycamores and planes, which grew in the pavements. Trees were good. Their presence enhanced properties. The blocks of flats were a desirable replacement for the rows of little slum houses while those that remained, including his own, were of superior size and in most cases, excluding his own, tarted up and painted with new windows and bright front doors. Of course he wasn't going to sell, or not yet, not for a while, but it was good to know one had an investment that made a steady profit… A Sunday newspaper, much handled, which someone had left on top of a wall, he picked up and tucked under his arm. Save him buying one, though he had had no intention of wasting his money on such rubbish.

  A man was standing outside his house, looking up at the first floor. He moved off towards the corner when he saw who was coming, though not before Uncle Gib had recognised him as Feisal Smith. This was the man who had come round to his place with another thug, wanting money. Uncle Gib had forgotten why he had wanted money but he was a pal of Lance's, he was sure of that, and as such unwelcome in his vicinity.

  Uncle Gib strode after him and, when he turned, shouted, 'Godless layabout!'

  A qualified electrician with a steady job, Fize might have taken umbrage at the imputation he was idle but it was rather the adjective 'godless' that riled him. Along with the rest of the males in his family, he had been to the Kensal mosque on Friday as he always did. He might have had a white father, the blond and blue-eyed Smith, but his Assam-born mother knew her duty and had brought him up a good Moslem.

  'Fuck off, you useless old git,' he said and added the latest up-to-the-minute insult: 'Smoker!'

  Like two male cats who hiss and spit at each other while each keeping his distance, a few yards dividing them, Fize and Uncle Gib remained for a moment exchanging glares, then turned away simultaneously. Uncle Gib let himself into his own house, lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the last. The place was utterly silent. In the kitchen the envelope containing the insurance company's form and his cheque for the premium lay already stamped on the table. It was ready to be sent but he had failed to take it with him because of doubts he had as to whether it was sinful to post letters on a Sunday. He had meant to ask Reuben Perkins's advice on this matter but the collapse of the Shepherd had put an end to that.

  Lance might be upstairs. If so, he was keeping very quiet. Uncle Gib concluded that he and Feisal Smith had been out somewhere together and had parted at his gate. Out all night drinking probably. He sat down on the sofa and opened the Mail on Sunday. Foot and mouth disease dominated the pages. The floods, now largely subsided, were being blamed for carrying the virus. There was no end to the damage floods could do, Uncle Gib thought, stop trains, cut off electricity, spread disease and wreck your house. A picture on an inside page, accompanied by a scary article, showed how London might look were the floods to come here next time.

  Uncle Gib's eye fell upon the letter on the table. How could it be a sin to post it when the contents of the pillar box wouldn't be collected till tomorrow? There could be nothing wrong in a letter going out on a Monday. If it went by the first post on Monday it would get to the insurance company on Tuesday and then if the floods returned his house might be engulfed but the insurance would pay up. Better take the letter now, and then, when he got back, read about Noah and the flood in Genesis. That would be a good and appropriate way to spend the rest of Sunday morning.

  Upstairs, in Lance's bed, Lance and Gemma lay in silence, afraid to move. Because his room was in the back they had heard nothing of Uncle Gib's altercation with Fize. As far as Gemma knew, Fize was working overtime, rewiring a house in Shepherd's Bush, but they had heard Uncle Gib come in, a good hour earlier than he should have been. And twenty minutes afterwards they heard him go out again.

  'Oh, my God, Lance, that was scary,' said Gemma. 'How long d'you reckon he'll be?'

  'Don't know, do I? I don't know where he's at, coming back like that, spying on me.'

  Gemma got up, began putting her clothes on. 'I'm outta here, that I do know.'

  He crept downstairs with her, opened the front door a crack. The street was empty but for a man hosing down his car. They kissed, a short but passionate clinch. 'Give me a bell,' said Gemma and tottered off on her four-inch heels.

  She had been gone no more than two minutes when Uncle Gib was back. Lance was upstairs, listening behind his half-open bedroom door. He wouldn't have been surprised to hear Gemma screaming as Uncle Gib dragged her back into the house, bent on punishing them both, but he was evidently alone. Lance retreated into his bedroom, sat down on the rumpled bed and swallowed, straight from the bottle, the rest of the wine he and Gemma had been too frightened to drink.

  Lighting a cigarette and pouring himself a glass of grapefruit squash, Uncle Gib sat down and read Genesis, chapters seven to nine. One verse particularly caught his attention: 'And I will establish my covenant with you: neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood: neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.'

  That was all right then. Except that there were floods all the time, especially in foreign places like India. Uncle Gi
b wasn't worried about the destruction of the earth, only about his house. Genesis and Noah and all that were a mystery. He must make a point of asking Reuben to explain when he was better but meanwhile it might be just as well that he posted that letter when he did.

  Eugene and Ella were having a pre-nuptial party. Ella's sister and her husband were there, two of her friends from medical school and two of her partners in the practice. Eugene's actor friend Marcus and his civil partnership partner Lawrence had come, as well as Priscilla Hart, the painter who painted the gold, silver and bronze miniatures and whose exhibition was due, and of course Dorinda; the Sharpes and the owner of William the Bengal cat, but not Elizabeth Cherry who was away on holiday. The conversation, which instead of concentrating itself on the kind of intellectual plane Eugene would have preferred, had turned – at least among the Chepstow Villas contingent and Ella's practice partners – on Elizabeth and the interesting revelation made by Marilyn Sharpe that the friend she had gone to Budapest with was a man.

  'It makes one understand that sex is never really over, doesn't it?' said Susan Cox, the oldest person present. 'I find that very encouraging.'

  Ella's sister Hilary told a story about a woman who had come up to her husband and herself when they were entering their Edinburgh hotel and asked for a light. She had an unlit cigarette in her hand. '"I don't suppose you smoke," she said. Don't you find that amazing, someone actually saying that? I mean, you wouldn't have believed it possible even ten years ago, would you? Of course we said we didn't. Had we any matches? Or a lighter? Well, of course we hadn't. Jim said we weren't arsonists either. I don't think she knew what he meant. She went into the hotel and I could see her going up to one person after another asking for a light and no one had one. Not even at reception. I heard someone say, "Well, I wouldn't light it for you in here if I did have a match." Isn't that an amazing phenomenon? Matches will simply disappear, won't they? Book matches will vanish…'

  Eugene, who was going round with the champagne, filling people's glasses, passed on without hearing the end of her sentence. The reference – the oblique reference – to someone else's addiction brought his powerfully to mind. Not that it was ever far away. He had abstained for five days and on the sixth day he had yielded. It was hunger rather than a specific desire for a Chocorange that had broken him. He had eaten his lunch, a sandwich and a cappuccino, in one of the rooms at the back of the gallery. It was a busy day. For some reason, although it was August and the silly season, the gallery had been crowded with American tourists, one of whom told him he and his wife had come over 'because it's so cold here', a relief from Colorado summer temperatures. As he talked to visitors, explaining the provenance of certain pictures and the history of a group of figurines, Eugene was overcome with hunger pangs. The sandwich had been small and dry, the cappuccino watery. What he needed now and could have surreptitiously sucked, talking of a sore throat or some laryngeal problem, what would have staved off hunger, was one of his beloved sugar-free sweets. He could almost taste it, the sweet creaminess, the tangy orange, the blissful chocolate – but of course he couldn't taste it at all. His mouth was empty and dry. He heard himself utter a low moan and turned it quickly into a cough.

  When all the glasses were refilled and two more bottles of champagne put into the fridge, he went out into the hall, opened the cupboard and took a Chocorange from the pocket of one of his coats. He felt for it blindly inside the dark cupboard. It wouldn't have mattered which jacket; the day before, he had stocked up with the things, calling in at Superdrug, Elixir, Tesco and the shop kept by the woman in Spring Street, putting one or two into the pockets of every coat he had. In all he had bought fifteen packets. For he had given up resisting temptation. He could go on no longer in that state of deprivation. And all last evening and most of today he had sought to reassure himself. Why had he got into such a state? Instead of telling himself his habit was ridiculous and demeaning, he should have contrasted it with addictions to crystal meth or brandy or even nicotine. What harm did it do? They sold it in health food shops, for God's sake. It said on the packet it was 'tooth-friendly'. It stopped him eating real food, so helped to keep his weight off. Why, it was well known that Marcus's partner – even now happily drinking champagne in the drawing room – had been addicted to heroin for ten years. Did he castigate himself, lose sleep, agonise over his addiction? Did he, hell. Eugene savoured the Chocorange he was sucking, there in the half-dark of the hall, until Ella called out, wondering where he was.

  The one he had helped himself to would last him for a good hour. The Moët tasted even better than usual after the bland chocolatey sweetness. He would take, he decided, six packs away with him to Como. Why on earth should he care what those who scrutinised checked baggage thought of him? He wouldn't be standing by to hear them or see their faces. Six would give him three a week, more than seven a day. That was nowhere like the number he had consumed since he had taken up his habit again, but it would do. It would get him through the fortnight. It would prevent those two important weeks, the start of his marriage, from being wrecked by enforced abstinence. He smiled at Marcus and asked him about his new play for which rehearsals had just begun.

  Lance had given a lot of thought as to how he was going to get into Elizabeth Cherry's house. This time she would have failed to leave the laundry room window open. He had no hope in that direction. To cut out a pane of glass, preferably from a larger window than the one he had squeezed through before, was the plan he had decided on. To this end he had bought the requisite implement and been taking lessons in glass cutting from Gemma's brother Dwayne. This operation was a lot more difficult than Lance had supposed but once you got the knack it became quite easy and by Monday he had no doubt he could remove a pane, without cutting himself or making too much noise, in ten minutes.

  Dwayne was now on bad terms with Feisal Smith and Feisal's best mate Ian Pollitt. He fancied Fize's sister Soraya, a girl whose beauty was striking in spite of its being largely covered up in a hijab and long black gown, but Fize had taken exception to his even speaking to her and got Ian to demonstrate with the knife he carried exactly what he would do to Gemma's brother if any advances were made. Dwayne had transferred his friendship to Lance and offered to lend him the van but driving wasn't among Lance's talents and there was no chance of Dwayne's affection extending so far as to drive a getaway vehicle.

  On the morning of Tuesday 14 August Uncle Gib announced that this was the day of the Children of Zebulun's annual outing. They were going to Clacton in what he called a 'charabanc'. It would be the first time since Lance arrived in Blagrove Road that Uncle Gib had left him alone in the house for a whole day.

  'You mind your ps and qs,' Uncle Gib said. 'I don't want no drinking and no women fetched round here. You see you shut the front door when you go out. Hard, mind. Give it a push to see it's properly shut. And keep an eye on that Romanian. He's not to have a bunch of East Europeans round. Right?'

  'Right,' said Lance, not really listening.

  Uncle Gib left for the meeting point where the coach would pick him up at nine in the morning. His worst fears were justified when the driver told him there was to be no smoking on the journey. But a sing-song was permitted and they started off with a favourite hymn, 'If I were a butterfly'. When they got to the line 'If I were a kangaroo, you know I'd hop right up to you', Uncle Gib was asleep. He had passed the night worrying about going away from home for a whole day, not being able to have a cigarette and eating strange food.

  When he woke up the coach was moving sluggishly into a car park. It was raining and the place was already spotted with puddles. Putting up umbrellas or rainhoods, the Children of Zebulun made their way down towards a grey and glassy sea.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  All that Ella knew of the two carers from the agency who were looking after Joel was that they were called Linda and Noreen. She supposed that they would be middle-aged or older, so she was surprised when one of them arrived at the medical centre just as
her surgery was over, to see a small waif-like girl in her twenties. No appointment had been made. Linda had come on the 'off-chance,' as she called it, not sure that Dr Cotswold would see her.

  Ella told the receptionist that she could spare her visitor ten minutes. It was some time since she had heard from Joel and she had been thinking she must soon do something about him, if only to check that having a carer with him overnight had been beneficial.

  'He told me you were his doctor, doctor,' Linda began. 'It was no good telling the agency. It had to be you.'

  'But what's wrong?'

  'It's no good beating about the bush, is it, doctor? I'm scared. It's very scary being in that place, let alone being with him.'

  'You mean Mr Roseman?'

  'Joel, yes. I mean, no one told me he was mental. Mentally ill, I should say. But he is. And that's scary, doctor. Not to you maybe. You're used to it. But for the likes of me, caring for the disabled is one thing. I've been with people so disabled you wouldn't believe they could be alive, let alone move themselves about in a wheelchair. But this is different. It's scary. If he just said funny things I could take it. I mean, I'd ignore it. But he's got a person he talks to. Not a real person, a sort of thing he imagines, and he talks to it, he shouts sometimes.'

  'Mithras.Yes, I know,' said Ella and then wondered if she'd said too much.

  'That's the name.' For the fourth time Linda said it was scary. 'I try to let some light into the place. I mean, it's getting dark when I get there so I turn on lights. That's the first thing I do. But Joel won't have it. He gets in a state. I can have the light on in my bedroom but if there's too much of it showing under the door he knocks on the door and tells me to turn it off. I can't sleep, not with him prowling about and talking to that Mith-creature.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Ella, not knowing what else to say.

  'He's supposed to be on tablets. I know he is, I've seen them. But he doesn't take them. Well, they don't, do they, mental patients?'