Portobello Read online

  An only child for a long time, he had had an imaginary friend from the time he was seven until he was ten. The friend was a boy of his own age he didn't just pretend-talk to or imagine he was talked back to, he actually saw him. Not as clearly as he saw his schoolfellows but enough to describe him if someone asked. No one ever did ask because he told no one, but if he had he would have said that the friend he called Jasper, because Jasper called himself that, was fair-haired with blue eyes and had an expression of great sympathy and understanding.

  No one at school was as nice as Jasper or as good a companion. Most of them ignored Joel or else mildly bullied him. Until, that is, he grew too tall for them to dare do too much to him. By that time Jasper had slowly faded away, the golden hair and blue eyes losing their colour, the features blurring, until he became a shadow falling sometimes across a patch of sunlight, then disappearing altogether. Joel had been saddened by his loss, which was not to say he was made happy by his return. Lying in his hospital bed, he closed his eyes and put his hands over them so as not to see the figure in the chair.

  The real figure in the chair later that day when the bright sunlight had faded was Ma. She hadn't been to the police. She had gone to Pembridge Crescent to see where his heart attack had happened, notably to find the bell in the gatepost her son had fallen against. When she found what she thought was the right one, she rang the bell. The people who lived there were 'absolutely charming', couldn't have been nicer. Of course she had thanked them for saving Joel's life and they were 'most anxious' to know how he got on.

  Joel asked, emerging, 'How about the money, Ma?'

  'Well, such a funny thing, dear. There was this notice on a lamp post saying someone had found it. You were quite right about the amount. That really was clever of you after all you've been through. I wrote down the number you're to phone. Would you like me to do that for you?'

  'I'll do it,' said Joel.

  'All right, if you're sure.'

  'I nearly died, you know. They said they nearly lost me.'

  'I know, dear. You told me.' It was plain she didn't believe him. 'I want to talk to you about coming out. You're going to need someone to look after you for a while. Your father won't have you in the house. He's very hard but that's the way he is. Well, you know how he is, he doesn't change. He says he'll pay for a live-in nurse. Would you like that? I can come over every day of course.'

  'You'll be in deep shit with the old bugger,' said Joel and he pulled the sheet over his head.

  Once more under the blanket, in the stuffy semi-dark, he was aware of his mother sighing and at last stealing quietly away. Would his father have been sorry if he'd died? Joel doubted it. Pa would remember to his dying day what had happened to Amy. He would never forget and never forgive. Amy had been as much Ma's child as his and if Ma hadn't forgotten she had got used to it, she had forgiven him. She knew he hadn't meant to do what he did, or, rather, left undone. Pa would never understand that and so he would pay out any amount of money to keep his son out of his sight for ever.

  * * *

  'I hope you know what you're doing, Gene,' said Ella Cotswold. 'Inviting this person into your home, I mean. Why couldn't you simply ask him to – well, name the sum, and if he got it wrong that would be the end of it, wouldn't it?'

  'And if he got it right he'd have to come here anyway. You don't suppose I'm going to send it to him by telegraphic transfer, do you?'

  'But, darling, if he gets it wrong, and he probably will, he may get angry and – well, do something nasty.'

  'Nonsense, Ella,' said Eugene robustly. 'I'm curious. I want to see this chap. He sounded a bit of a wimp.'

  'I sincerely hope he is.'

  They were going out to dinner at a newly opened restaurant in Kensington Park Road. While Ella applied lipstick and contemplated her reflection in one of his beautiful gilt-framed mirrors (he called them looking-glasses) Eugene nipped into the kitchen and took from a secret drawer two Chocorange sweets, which he slipped into his jacket pocket. The secret drawer had no handle and looked like part of the decorative frieze that ran along under the worktops. He noted that he still had three packets left, so perhaps he should take a third sweet with him to be on the safe side. No, two in his pocket and one to suck now should be enough.

  Ella had an acute sense of smell and she detected it on his breath but supposed he had helped himself to a chocolate while in the kitchen. He knew she never ate chocolates but he might have offered her one just the same. She was a small woman and slightly plump, with a very pretty face and dark-brown curly hair, proud of her full bosom and showing it off whenever she could while remaining decent. Her fortieth birthday would come before the end of the year and she looked forward to it with dread. As a busy GP with a full life, a devoted lover, a passion for opera and a great reader, she realised how foolish this was. Forty was nothing these days, forty was young. Yet those months stretched before her like a sunny plain at the end of which a sheer cliff face dropped down into an abyss.

  The abyss could be avoided and the sunshine made permanent if Eugene would ask her to marry him. She imagined walking into the medical centre and showing her engagement ring to her three partners, the medical secretary and the practice nurse. Maybe she could have a baby. That was something she wouldn't attempt without being married but if only he would ask her – the whole world would change. She had even thought of asking him. But you couldn't do that if you were an ordinary sort of doctor in a busy practice and he was a very rich man. He smiled at her and when he had helped her into her coat, gave her a chocolatey kiss on the lips. It was quite hurtful, she thought, not being offered a chocolate even though he knew she wouldn't have taken one.

  'By the way, Gene,' she said when they were in the restaurant, 'how much did you find?'

  'How much did I…? Oh, the money I found in the street? A hundred and fifteen pounds.'

  'And you've only had one response in how long?'

  'About two weeks, my darling.'

  'What will you do if this chap doesn't get it right?'

  'Take it to the police, I suppose.'

  That would be a bit awkward after so long. But there was no point in thinking about it yet. Eugene looked fondly at Ella. How pretty she was and how nice. He would miss her terribly if she weren't around, though there was no prospect of that. This evening, in this charming restaurant with its delicious food, its candle on the table and its gazanias in a silver vase, would be a good time and a good place to ask her to marry him. Maybe when they were having their dessert wine and their double espressos…

  But the time passed and he didn't ask her. Candlelight there might be and gazanias but a restaurant wasn't quite the place. It must be at home when they were quite alone. It might also be a good thing to give up this habit of his. It shouldn't be too difficult, for there was no question of its being an addiction like drink or drugs. But give it up he must, simply by the expedient of buying no more. Possibly it would take him a week or two, so there would be no proposal of marriage that evening.

  Perhaps she had expected it. He couldn't tell whether that was the case or she was just tired. Whatever it was, she said she'd like to go home to her own flat and he put her into a taxi for that rather less salubrious north-western edge of Notting Hill beyond the Portobello Road. An early night for him also, then. He would propose soon; there was no doubt he loved her. Next time they met, perhaps, or in a week's time. By then the habit he had mysteriously got into would be behind him. She would certainly say yes, they would fix a wedding date and she would move in. That was what he wanted, wasn't it?

  It was not yet quite 10.30 but he fell asleep quickly and therefore was awake at six, scarcely able to believe his ears when the phone rang at ten past. No one should phone anyone after nine in the evening was a principle of Eugene's and certainly not before nine in the morning. His 'hello' was icy.

  A man's voice, educated, not unlike his own but younger, said, 'I've only just seen your notice. Well, I didn't see it. Someone told
me about it. My mother, actually.'

  'Do you know what time it is?'

  Instead of taking this question as rhetorical, his caller said, 'No, I don't. Quite early, I should think.'

  'What is it you want?'

  'I think you've got my hundred and fifteen pounds.'

  'Ah, yes.' Eugene tried to consider. 'You did say a hundred and fifteen?'

  'Yes. It's mine.'

  He wasn't yet fully awake. Still, it was apparent this was the rightful owner of the money. What was he going to do about the other chap, he thought fuzzily, the one who was coming today? 'Perhaps you'd like to come here and collect it,' he said.

  'I can't do that.' The voice might be educated but it was odd for all that, vague somehow, in no hurry. 'I'm in hospital, had a heart operation,' it said. This perhaps accounted for the oddity. 'I'm going to be in here quite a bit longer. Could you send it?'

  'I suppose so,' Eugene said ungraciously and with a sigh. 'Who are you and where do you live – when you're not in hospital, so to speak.'

  'But I am in hospital. Look, I'm called Joel Roseman and I live in Ludlow Mansions, Moscow Road. That's West Eleven. But I don't see why you can't send it to the hospital. It's the Welbeck Nightingale Heart Hospital, only it's not in Welbeck Street, it's in Shepherd's Bush. The McCluskie Wing. Have you got that? A cheque would be safer than sending cash.'

  What a time to phone! And from a hospital bed! Surely a private clinic by the sound of it, so this Joel Roseman could hardly be in need of the money. Eugene began to feel very uncomfortable and the hot verbena-scented bath he took didn't much improve matters. He should have got the name and phone number of the man who was coming at 6.30 today so that he could put him off. How could he have failed to do that? In his blue silk dressing gown he sat up in a pink velvet armchair, thinking about it. Looking at the very nice Cotman on the opposite wall usually calmed him down but not this morning. He went downstairs, which he seldom did before he was dressed, and in the drawing room, from the fifth drawer down in a tallboy of tiny drawers, opened a fresh pack of Chocorange, put one in his mouth and another in his dressinggown pocket. 'Tooth-friendly', it said on the packet so that was all right. Still, it was the first time he had sucked one of the things before 10 a.m. Another thin end of the wedge. He would just have to go through with it, see this chap and tell him he was too late. Awkward but inevitable. And those things had better be rationed from now on, one more after lunch, two in the afternoon and maybe one before Ella arrived.

  But no, not rationed. Given up. He would buy no more.

  Suppose the nameless man, his first caller, happened by chance to fix on the right sum? It would be a remarkable coincidence, Eugene thought, but not impossible. He might, for instance, calculate that in naming eighty pounds and a hundred and sixty pounds as the lower and upper limits he, Eugene, would have avoided the sum arrived at by adding forty to the lower and subtracting forty from the upper. So why not take this figure, which was of course a hundred and twenty, and take away five from it? Put like that it seemed not impossible at all to reach this conclusion, hardly a coincidence. Anyone of moderate intelligence could reach it, choosing only between five pounds added to a hundred and twenty and five pounds subtracted from a hundred and twenty.

  The only thing to do, then, would be to send a cheque for a hundred and fifteen pounds to Joel Roseman at the Welbeck Nightingale Clinic or the Bayswater address and hand over another cheque for a hundred and fifteen pounds to the man who was coming at 6.30. He could afford it, he would hardly notice it but still he had begun to wonder why he hadn't gone to the police in the first place. Leaving Dorinda to close up the gallery, he left in a taxi for Moscow Road. There was no point in going there, Joel Roseman must still be in hospital, but he was curious about this man who had had a heart attack in the street not far from his own house. Ludlow Mansions turned out to be what he expected, Edwardian red brick with the usual turrets and cupolas protruding from its slate roof, stone steps going up to double doors and inside a gloomy hall with a porter sitting behind a desk. Eugene thought of asking him for Mr Roseman and perhaps being told that he hadn't been in hospital at all but was away on holiday or even up in his flat, but he decided against it.

  Another taxi took him to Spring Street. Eugene got there just as the woman in the sari was turning the sign on the door from 'Open' to 'Closed'. It was a sign. The fates or his guardian angel were helping him to give up. From the window he could see the packets of Chocorange and Strawpink ranked neatly alongside throat pastilles and indelicately close to condoms. He turned away. Stopping cold turkey was the only way and, though already craving a Chocorange, he congratulated himself on his strength of mind. But 'cold turkey' was an unfortunate expression, associated with hard drugs, and he wished he hadn't used it even in his thoughts.

  A taxi with its orange light on arrived just as he was back on the pavement. Sometimes he thought London taxi drivers ought to give him points for being a frequent fare like a frequent flier. By this time he would be up for a free round-the-world trip. Home now and prepare for the arrival of the nameless man.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Although the front room of Uncle Gib's house was kept 'looking nice' and therefore its door never opened, the exception was when he held a prayer meeting. In preparing for selected guests from the Church of the Children of Zebulun, he went so far as to fill twelve very small glasses (of assorted shapes and patterns) with orange squash but not so far as to clean the room. Fortunately, most of the visitors to the house in Blagrove Road spent their time on their knees, for if anyone sat down on the horsehair sofa or one of the chairs, clouds of suffocating dust puffed out of the upholstery.

  Normally calm and laid back, Uncle Gib became rather nervous on prayer meeting evenings and got through at least ten cigarettes in the preceding two or three hours. He was anxious to be rid of Lance before the first Child of Zebulun arrived. His own past was no longer of importance. Several years before, he had repented in front of the whole congregation, been named and shamed, called a lost sheep, bleating and wretched, at last been forgiven and received into the fold. Now, thanks to the infinite mercy of God, he was an Elder. Things were different for Lance, unregenerate shoplifter, mugger, mobile phone thief and batterer of the woman he had lived in sin with, taker of the Lord's name in vain and a no-good son to his parents. When you came to think of it – and Uncle Gib often did think of it – there was no commandment Lance did not regularly flout, except the one about not making a graven image. Nor, as far as Uncle Gib knew, had he yet killed anybody.

  Lance must be well out of the place before six when the prayer meeting was due to start. Earlier in the day he had announced his intention of leaving the house at 'around six' and 'going to see a bloke about a job'. Uncle Gib didn't believe in the job or in any job connected with Lance but he felt his usual satirical rejoinder might be out of place. Lance might change his mind and stay at home. At twenty to six he had his eye on the minute hand of Auntie Ivy's family grandfather clock and was already beginning a nervous pacing. Lance had been up in his bedroom, sitting on the bed thinking about the money in no very systematic way and coming to the conclusion that the sum might be ninety pounds or a hundred and fifty-five and he was just going to have to guess. Gradually, his thoughts turned, as they often did, to Gemma, the girl whose eye he had blacked and tooth he had knocked out. He missed her and not just her TV set and her microwave. The walk to Chepstow Villas would take him very near her flat in Talbot Road. There was a chance she might come out on to her balcony to hang out her washing. Or she might be parking the baby buggy or, since it was warm and sunny, just sitting in one of the chairs opposite the one he used to sit in. After a moment or two, brooding on what he had lost, he went to the top of the stairs and traipsed slowly down them.

  From there, just inside the open front-room door, he could see Uncle Gib pacing up and down, a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. This cheered him up. Even if he stopped for as much as five minutes under Gemma's windows
, it still wouldn't take him more than twenty minutes to get to Chepstow Villas. If he was late the guy would just have to wait. Better to get his own back on Uncle Gib for all those starvation-level meals and the rat in the toilet and his poxy bedroom and the smoke. He went back upstairs and watched the minute hand on the imitation Rolex he had stolen from a man he mugged for his mobile, moving sluggishly towards six o'clock.

  The grandfather clock chimed and when the sixth stroke died away Uncle Gib called out, 'Come on, you. Time you was on your way.'

  Lance winced at that 'you.' This particular usage was the way Gemma had sometimes addressed him but with a loving or sexy note in her voice: 'Come on, you' when she was in bed waiting for him, for instance. Uncle Gib just sounded nasty. 'I'm on my way,' Lance called out. 'No need to lose your cool.' As he spoke, the letter box on the front door clattered. There was no bell.

  A deep voice said, 'God bless you, Brother Gilbert,' and heavy footsteps sounded, making their way into the front room.

  Lance started laughing. He couldn't help himself. Very slowly he got up off the bed, crossed the landing and paused at the top of the stairs. Once more, the letter box clattered. Lance descended two stairs as Uncle Gib came out of the front room to answer the door and, looking up, shook his fist at him. Another Child of Zebulun was admitted, this time a very old one with a white beard. Lance would have liked to say, 'Hi, Santa, how're you doin'?' to him but didn't dare. He might come back to find the front door bolted on the inside.