Portobello (17 page)

The blonde in a rather too short beige jersey dress introduced
herself as Joel's mother – 'Call me Wendy'. The dress was very
plain but decorated with a good deal of gold jewellery, diamonds
on her fingers and on her ear lobes. She was very polite to Ella
and very pleasant. It was hard to tell whose side she was on in the
family quarrel. She spoke of it as if a father refusing to see his son
for years on end but paying for him to live in comfort was quite
normal behaviour. Joel, she said, must pull himself together. There
was no reason why he should remain in his flat. If he wanted
company and attention he could go into a hotel for a while. His
father would be content with that. As for her, she couldn't possibly
move in with her son. 'No, doctor, it's out of the question. I can't
leave
my husband because my son needs a servant.'

Wendy Stemmer had come to the medical centre. Ella had
expected her to refuse her request to come and had been surprised
at her acquiescence, reluctant though it was. She looked wonderingly
at her surroundings as if she were in some far country she
was surprised to be visiting, then said, 'I lived in Notting Hill as
a girl but not around here of course.'

Ella could think of no answer to that. 'I could find a carer for
Joel,' she said.

'Yes, that seems a good idea. I don't know how much these
people charge but you could have the bills sent to my husband.'

'Is there a possibility of him coming to see me?'

'Oh, goodness, no. He's at the office.'

Ella had long ago learnt that women of Wendy Stemmer's kind,
when speaking of a husband's absence at work, always say he is
at the office. As if, she thought, there were only one office in the
world or only one of importance.

'I see. Leave it with me. I'll see what I can do and get back to
you.'

Later, she phoned an agency. It called itself Caregivers Inc. in
the American way, could offer Ella Noreen or Linda, both thoroughly
reliable kindly women. Whichever one came would stay in
the flat from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. The cost staggered Ella but she
wasn't paying. Joel's father was and he never seemed to mind what
things cost so long as he was paying for his son's absence from his
life. She phoned Mrs Stemmer and then Joel, and told him, half
expecting him to say he didn't want anyone staying overnight so
that she would have to cancel the whole thing and think again,
but he agreed to the presence of Noreen or Linda, his tone limp
and indifferent.

'I won't have to make up beds or anything like that, will I, Ella?'

'She'll do that.'

'I wish it was you coming,' he said.

It was her afternoon off, no calls to make, no evening surgery.
She went to Knightsbridge, clothes shopping for Como, telling
herself that she was walking there because at last after all the rain
it was a fine sunny day, not to help her lose weight. Too many of
her patients moaned continually about the pounds they had put
on and their increasing waist measurement. If she really meant to
reduce her ten stone to nine she should have done something
about it months ago, not when her wedding dress was half made.
The sun made her feel cheerful. Eugene liked her the way she
was and that was what mattered. She bought a long dress in darkblue
lace to wear in the warm Italian evenings.

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 Gib 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.