Portobello (22 page)

In the kitchen, she looked through the freezer for a packet of
strawberry ice cream. No sign of it. She supposed she was getting
forgetful and had eaten it herself. The toaster was full of crumbs.
She was sure she hadn't left it that way. Elizabeth went back
upstairs to scrutinise the jewel box. The difficulty was that she
couldn't now remember what had been in the box when first she
opened it half an hour before and what she had added to it from
the contents of her carry-on case. Still, there could be no doubt
about what was missing: a diamond ring and and diamond eternity
ring, both of which had been her mother's, a gold chain and
a gold bracelet. Elizabeth phoned the police.

The policeman who came was sympathetic and pleasant. He
was happy to tell her where she could find a glazier to mend
the window. There would be no fingerprints, he was sure of that,
but an officer would come and check. No doubt the jewellery
was insured? Elizabeth nodded. The house was, the contents
were and the jewellery. They asked her to describe what was
missing. By the time she was halfway through the list, both of
them could see that her description fitted thousands of pieces
of jewellery.

'I wouldn't be doing you any favours', the policeman said, 'if I
told you there was much chance of our finding the villain. In fact,
the chances are practically nil.'

It was only after he had gone that she missed the credit card,
the euros and the transatlantic dollars.

Lew Crown would be back from his holidays by now, as the old
woman in Pembridge Villas must also be. When another day
went by and another and no police officers presented themselves
at his parents' door, Lance began to feel a little more secure. She
was old, her brain would be going and she hadn't noticed anyone
had been in there. She must have seen the window, though. Lance
refused to let himself worry about that. He'd got enough on his
plate. That package must be fetched from his nan's place and taken
over to Holloway.

Lance forgot he was out on bail on a charge of murder and
arson, and began dreaming of the untold wealth that would accrue
to him from the sale of the jewellery. Perhaps he'd get enough, not
to buy a place – even he wasn't so naive as that – but to rent
somewhere nice enough to make Gemma leave Fize and come to
live with him. He tore the old woman's chequebook in two and
cut her credit card in half.

It was just midday and the last patient was leaving her morning
surgery. Mrs Khan had brought one of the twins with her this
time, her seven-year-old son Hakim. Ella told her it was wrong
to keep her child away from school now the autumn term had
begun and the boy translated. Or may be didn't translate but told
his mother whatever suited him. How was she to know? Mrs Khan
got her usual prescription for tranquillisers, Ella having refused
the sleeping pills she was asked for. Hakim was reading the prescription
with an important air, nodding his head precociously, when
Ella's phone rang. The practice receptionist said, 'He says he's
called Joel, Ella.'

Ella sighed. She had been hoping to go home for a quiet
lunchtime and afternoon with Eugene. 'Joel? What can I do for
you?'

His voice, cracked, weak, gasping, was almost unrecognisable.
'Can you come? Now?'

'What's wrong?'

'I haven't taken too much. Should be all right. I only – want to
– get – to . . .'

The last words were inaudible.

She ran, leaving Mrs Khan and Hakim staring. At the office door
she called out Joel's address and told the receptionist to call 999.
Within two minutes she was in her car. Miraculously, there wasn't
much traffic and she was there before the ambulance. She hammered
on Joel's door, yelled his name into the darkness through the letter
box. She was downstairs again, begging a porter to break the door
down when the paramedics came in, two tall men carrying their first
aid bags. Between them they kicked the heavy door in.

'Why's it so dark?' one of them asked her.

'He likes it that way.'

They switched lights on, the feeble bulbs of low wattage, which
were all Joel had, and one of them flung back the curtains. Joel
was lying on the brown velvet sofa, sprawled on his back, dressed
as he always was in jeans and old faded T-shirt, his long shaggy
hair spread across his forehead and eyes as if he had pulled it
down to hide his face. A dribble of frothy saliva trickled out of
parted lips. On the low table were two containers half full of pills,
a half-bottle of vodka and a pop-psychology book about
schizophrenia.

Ella said, 'Help me get him on his feet.'

'We'll do that,' one of them said.

They began to walk him up and down, half dragging him. Ella
raised the blind and opened windows. She read the labels on the
pill containers, both made out to other people. Joel shuddered and
twitched. His eyes stayed closed. She thought of his heart and the
operation from which he wasn't yet fully recovered, and dared not
give him adrenalin. She took hold of one of his arms and the paramedic
stepped back. 'Joel, Joel, can you hear me? Speak to me,
Joel.' She turned to the waiting man, 'Make coffee, would you?'

He was very quick. The coffee was too hot and they added cold
water. Ella held it to Joel's lips. He shuddered and the cup rattled
against his teeth but he sipped some of it, choked and moaned.
His body sagged and without their support he would have fallen.

'You must drink it. Come on now. You must.'

This time he swallowed a mouthful and then another. His pale
face took on a greenish tinge and at last a voice came out of his
mouth, a voice that barely sounded human, 'Going to be sick.'

The older paramedic fetched a basin from the kitchen sink but
he was too late. Joel threw up on the reddish brown Turkey carpet,
his vomit much the same colour. Still kept on his feet, he began
shaking and trembling, but he drank the water she brought him
and at last uttered a long sigh.

'Shall we move him out of here now, doctor?'

'I'll come with him,' she said.

Dave and Lance's nan Kath had been sitting out on her balcony,
sharing a bottle of wine and contemplating the traffic in the
Harrow Road, which dawdled sluggishly below them. It was a fine
warm evening, sunny and pleasant but for the foul air, foggy with
pollution. Dave got up when the doorbell rang and let Lance in.
Lance kissed his nan and looked longingly at the wine bottle.

'Oh, give him a glass, Dave, and open another bottle, why don't
you.'

Sitting out there with a glass of Chardonnay in his hand reminded
Lance painfully of such evenings spent with Gemma on her balcony.
Would he ever see her again? He took a swig of his wine.

'I've got a bone to pick with you, my lad,' his nan said. 'That
bag of stuff you left with me, it's made me nervous. What with
you setting fire to old Gib's house and that East European getting
killed, though I'll be the first to say that was no fault of yours, but
all that's made me think maybe you're one of them terrorists. And
what's in that bag is what I want to know?'

Lance said it wasn't true, he'd never set fire to Uncle Gib's
house.

'Never mind that. You tell me what's in that bag. No, you
show me.'

Dave came back with another bottle of Chardonnay, which he
opened with a corkscrew that looked to Lance more like a Black
and Decker.

'I've said it twice and I'll say it again. I want to know what's in
that bag. And what's more, it's not going out of here till you've
opened it and let me see. Isn't that right, Dave?'

'It is, Kath.'

Lance was starting to wish he hadn't come. But he had to retrieve
the bag to take it to Mr Crown.

'You've got no choice,' said Dave. 'You open it or else your nan'll
put it out with the trash. Or drop it in the canal, more like. She
will, you know,' he went on admiringly, giving her a fond look. 'You
know what she is, a real Iron Lady.'

'Where is it?' said Lance.

The package was produced. Lance took off the elastic bands
and lifted out the pieces of jewellery, two diamond rings, two
gold bracelets and a gold chain. Neither Kath nor Dave made a
sound.

'It's mine,' said Lance, knowing he wouldn't be believed.

'Pull the other one,' said his nan, recovering her voice. 'Where
d'you get it?'

'Posh place in Notting Hill.'

'Breaking and entering,' said Dave in a conversational tone. 'Was
it after dark?'

'What if it was?'

'Then it's burglary.'

His nan reached for the bottle. 'Let's have another drink.' Two
silent minutes were taken up with refilling the glasses. 'Traffic's
easing off a bit,' she said.

'Till it starts again in the morning,' said Dave.

'You can look after that stuff for him, can't you?'

'Well, I
can.
'

'I was going to take it to a bloke in Holloway.'

'You don't want to do that,' Dave said quickly. 'You never know
who you can trust in this game. Let me handle it. You won't be
the loser.'

'OK, if you say so.' Lance was feeling quite relieved.

'Getting a bit chilly out here,' said his nan. 'The nights are
drawing in. What say we all go down the Good King Billy for a
quick one?'

'Or a slow one,' said Dave, suddenly in a cheerful mood.

* * *

What Ella called simply 'an emergency', phoning him in the
late afternoon, threatened to deprive Eugene of her company
until late. He sat watching television and eating sweets, something
he hadn't done since he was a child, and he found that he was
enjoying himself. Was it true, then, that he was happier
without
Ella than with her? He tried telling himself that he had been single
too long, an ageing bachelor with the occasional girlfriend. It was
simply that living with a woman was a state he wasn't yet really
used to. But underlying these feelings all the time was the habit
that had taken over his life. Even thinking about it brought him
to reach for the pack – in Ella's absence it lay openly and open
on the table in front of him – and help himself to a sweet. Giving
up, phasing out, was now a distant memory.

It was September already and he was getting married in
October. A few weeks of freedom to indulge himself in more or
less unlimited amounts of Chocorange remained. He switched
off the television, castigating himself for watching a mindless
game show, and picked up with great care a small bowl of Sung
Celadon porcelain that stood on the table beside the Chocorange
pack. Once, he thought, he would have talked to himself of the
Chocorange being beside the Sung bowl, not the other way about.
He palpated the bowl delicately in his hands while he sucked
the last sliver of his sweet.

If Ella were here he would even now be making excuses to her.
He had to go upstairs to fetch something, he would make a phone
call in his study so as not to disturb her, he must go outside and
check that the tiresome Bathsheba wasn't once more using his rose
bed as a feline convenience. Those few minutes away from her
would give him the opportunity to suck a sweet. Though he knew
it sounded like insanity, he had actually timed himself doing this
and found that eating one lasted four minutes at most. When he
came back to her he always craved another. Consuming one set
off the longing again. No more than half an hour ever went by
before he gave in to desire, made another excuse to escape and
almost ran out to find one of his secret hoards.

She was beginning to notice. His sensitivity and percipience
hadn't been blunted by his addiction. Once or twice lately she had
asked him if he wasn't feeling well and when he said he was fine,
asked if he was worried about something. Of course he was worried,
perpetually troubled by this craving, and seeing no way – he had
tried – to change. ''Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, another
thing to fall,' says Angelo. He and Ella had seen
Measure for Measure
in the summer and that line remained with him. But what if you
tried desperately to resist and failed?

If you still fell, over and over? Angelo, of course, was principally
referring to sexual indulgence. If he were honest, Eugene said to
himself, alone in his house among his
objets d'art
, he was afraid
of reaching a point where he preferred eating a sugar-free orangeflavoured
chocolate sweet to making love.

That confession frightened him. He had never put it into words
before, had never in fact been aware of it for very long. Perhaps
it was new. It must mean that his habit was gaining increased
power over him. But he was getting married in a few weeks' time.
He was getting married so that he might live for the rest of his
life with the woman he loved and so that he might make love to
her as often as he and she chose. He looked at the pale-green
bowl he held in his hands, looked into its depths as if, crystal-balllike,
it could foretell his future. When he set it down, his now free
left hand reached out to pick up the brown-and-orange pack, his
now free right-hand finger and thumb picked out a sweet and put
it into his mouth.

What he had realised ought to be the jolt that shocked him out
of this, shocked him into throwing all those packs away and beginning
on the course of abstinence. Other people resisted temptation.
They stopped smoking simply by ceasing to buy cigarettes. But they
had nicotine patches, he thought. If only there were a Chocorange
patch! The idea made him smile, then laugh. It was easy to laugh
when he was sucking one of those delicious sweets.

He couldn't give up cold turkey, he knew he couldn't. He had
tried. What would happen was an enforced deprivation, starting
with the last days of their honeymoon when, sneaking into the
bathroom in Como or going off for a solitary walk while Ella shopped
somewhere, he finished up all the sweets he had brought with
him. No more would be available in Italy. He would have to exist
without them until they got home and then, even if he bought
more – and he knew he would – because Ella would be living with
him, not simply staying here four nights out of seven, the number
he ate must necessarily be restricted. And gradually that number
would grow less and less until the day came when it hardly seemed
worth buying more. He must try to look on his marriage as the
sure and certain cure for his habit. His marriage was his lifeline.

They were keeping Joel in overnight. He was weak and utterly
enervated but consciousness had returned fully. She had sat
with him for most of the afternoon and was there when he tried
to sit up. Without asking him she had phoned his mother and told
her what had happened, not saying it was a suicide attempt, which
was what she suspected, but that her son had mistakely taken an
overdose. Wendy Stemmer had arrived at five o'clock, anxious and
exasperated, hair newly done, dressed in white broderie anglaise,
and it was then that Ella had left the room and phoned Eugene.

Returning, she found Joel with his eyes tightly shut and his
mother holding one of his long white hands.

'What will he do next?' Mrs Stemmer asked her in a despairing
tone.

Ella felt like saying that the remarkable thing about Joel was
that he did almost nothing, but she only smiled.

'Is he going to be all right? He won't tell me anything.'

'I'm sure he is. But you must ask the doctor who is looking after
him here.'

Wendy Stemmer tottered off in narrow-strap stilt-heeled sandals
to do that and Ella took her place but without holding Joel's hand.
He opened his eyes and said, 'Has she gone?'

'She's coming back. She's very anxious about you, Joel.'

'I know you think I meant to kill myself but I didn't.'

'All right. If you didn't I'm very glad.'

'I want to tell you what I was really doing.'

'That's fine but here's your mother coming back. Do you want
to tell her?'

'No!' If he had been stronger it would have been a shout. As
things were, it came out as a strangled gasp.

His mother had been told he ought not to be left alone in his
flat. Not even during the day. Ella went to speak to the doctor.
Discreetly, he refused to say what he evidently thought, that this
was a failed suicide attempt, and when she told him about the
midday phone call, that rescuing Joel hadn't been due to any great
intuition or acuity on her part, he agreed with obvious relief that
his brush with death had probably been an accident.