The Restoration of Otto Laird (17 page)

The smile that briefly lit her face was a boon to Otto's heart. It reminded him, faintly, of those scenes with the residents from the newsreel in the mid 1960s. Maybe things weren't so negative here, despite his initial impressions.

It was Chloe who spoke to Roz now.

‘And would you like to see Marlowe House saved from demolition and given a listing?'

‘I think so, yes … certainly if it means carrying out some improvements. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. Personally, I have strong memories of this place, so for sentimental reasons I'd like to see it survive. But life moves on – we may do soon ourselves. A flat's become available nearer work. So I'd only want the building to stay if it meant a better life for the people who remain here.'

‘And you, Joe?'

He shrugged again.

‘I don't really care much either way, to be honest.'

After a pause, he decided to explain himself further. He might as well finish what he had started.

‘I've moved around a lot over the years, lived in dozens of places. I was even on the street for a while, when things got really bad. Sleeping in bus shelters, in supermarket car parks, staring at abandoned factories through sheets of rain. I remember staying in a roofless shed at the site of the old Dagenham car works. The stars that night were shining overhead. The thing is, after something like that, I've moved beyond feeling any connection to places. The only connection that I feel now is to Roz.'

Joe looked questioningly at Otto.

‘Does that sound strange to you?' he asked.

‘No,' Otto replied. ‘I'd say it sounds like wisdom.'

*   *   *

If Joe was largely indifferent to the fate of Marlowe House, then Ravi was a different matter. Born and bred on the eighteenth floor, he was rooted in the soil here as deeply as the concrete columns. They interviewed him that afternoon in the apartment where he lived with his mother and sister. About the same age as Chloe, with lively eyes, tousled hair and a fine-boned face, Ravi sat on the edge of his sofa in a hooded top and jeans. Unlike Joe, he was confident in front of the cameras, wanting to state his point of view while he had the opportunity.

Throughout the interview, he asked as many questions as he answered. He wanted to know about the film they were making; about Otto, and the history of the building. He questioned them about the legal process that would be needed to halt the demolition. Otto's knowledge, on this last point, was rather vague. Nonetheless, Ravi sensed that he had found himself an ally, and his passion for saving Marlowe House soon became clear.

‘This place is getting more run-down each year,' he told them. ‘Nobody seems interested in its upkeep. Yet at the same time a lot of redevelopment work has taken place near by. Luxury flats, fancy restaurants. It don't take much to see what's going on. I had a feeling, some time ago, that our days here might be numbered.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Chloe. ‘I don't quite follow.'

‘This ain't a well-heeled neighbourhood, but it
is
well placed. Only a short journey from central London. Land in this area has become like gold dust in recent years. You telling me the sharks in suits want thousands of council tenants taking up valuable space? Not when there's money to be made from developing this land as private apartments. They can't wait to see the back of us.'

‘Do you have any evidence of this?'

‘No, but then how could we? It's just a feeling. Everyone round here knows the score, the way the wind has been blowing these past few years. There's been a lot of social engineering going on in London, clearing inner-city areas of poorer people so that richer ones can move in. And yet it's
not
social engineering – that's what we're told. It's all about regeneration – one of those well-meaning words. Though it's hard to feel regenerated when your home is knocked down and you're sent to live fifty miles away.'

Otto, who had yet to speak, was shifting about in his seat, looking agitated, unhappy. Ravi's words were bringing back some painful memories of past professional battles.

‘So what would you say to those people who think that Marlowe House should be demolished?' Chloe asked.

Ravi thought for a while.

‘People of many different nationalities live in this building: all the world is here. By and large they get on well with each other, even though life ain't always easy for them. That's an example to everyone, no? People make friends here, they marry each other … grow up and grow old together. I work for a local community group so I know the real picture, and it ain't the horror story some people want you to believe. As for the idea that everyone wants it demolished? There are people who like living here and people who don't. But the picture's never been all one way.'

‘So what would you like to see done?'

‘I'd like them to preserve it – to show that it can work. Spend a little money, maybe, 'cos this place certainly needs it. Don't divide people up and break communities apart; put up a few of the residents in nice new flats, with a photo in the local papers, and then send the majority to go and live elsewhere when nobody is looking any more. I don't really care about the architectural value of this building. No offence, but it ain't my speciality. What I
do
know is that I want this community to stay together, 'cos it's time that people like us made a stand again.'

‘Hear, hear,' Otto said quietly, his voice thick with feeling. ‘It infuriates me to see this happen. A simple necessity, like a roof over one's head, turned into a bargaining chip for speculators. Communities shoved around, given no say in their future.'

Chloe remembered the rather vague old man who had spoken to her the other day on the burned-out mattress. This was an Otto she hadn't witnessed before: fired up; indignant; re-engaged.

Otto looked at Ravi.

‘I'm sorry about this – we should have acted long ago, before the fabric fell into such disrepair. Our chances of success would have been much better then. But we'll do whatever we can to save the building. Rest assured, there are people hard at work on it.'

‘Thanks,' said Ravi. ‘Appreciate it.'

Once they had finished the interview, and the film crew were moving out their equipment, Ravi accompanied Otto and Chloe to the door.

‘It's funny,' he told them. ‘When I first heard there were plans to make a film here, I assumed you must be from one of those TV police dramas.'

‘Police dramas?' said Otto.

‘Yeah, you know the ones.
The Bill,
or whatever. Those people are always shooting scenes round here. Once we had two film crews turn up at once! You should have seen the row that broke out between them. People see this place as a visual shorthand for crime. The concrete, the graffiti, the kids hanging round in hoodies. It's a cliché, simplistic, but it gives you some idea of what we're up against. You get used to it, that's how things are, when you come from a place like Marlowe House. Life is one long battle against the preconceptions and stereotypes. Well, I ain't giving up the fight now.'

Otto looked rather moved as he shook Ravi's hand at the door. His commitment to the building, to what it represented, had been reignited.

Seventeen

Otto rose late, showering and dressing at a more leisurely pace than previously. No filming was planned until later that day, so he had a little time to himself. Furthermore, for the first time since arriving in London, he had enjoyed a decent night's sleep. The reaction of the residents the previous day had come as a relief to him.

He made himself toast and coffee and opened the living-room curtains to be greeted by a fine autumn day. It was crisp and windy, with freewheeling clouds and intermittent sunshine that was all the more appealing for its hesitancy. Time, once again, for Otto to consult the virtual
A to Z
that lay inside his head. Even better, he would consult the three-dimensional map of London laid out beneath the balcony of his apartment.

Settling outside on a plastic chair, he resolutely ignored the fact that the high winds were making it a far less pleasant experience than he had anticipated. Finally, when a slice of buttered toast he was about to bite into was whisked from his hand and flung over the edge of the balcony (no fatalities below – he had checked), he accepted that the sensible thing to do would be to finish his breakfast inside.

Never really thought of that one – not much shelter from the north-easterlies. Funny the things you overlook when designing a place. There's always something – it's never perfect.

Through the closed window, Otto scanned the London skyline. But he knew already where he would spend that morning. The heights of Hampstead, seen from the rooftop recently, were only faintly visible in the distance. Yet they held a prominent place on his mental horizon.

I think it's time to go home, he told himself.

Dressed once more in his overcoat and homburg, and brandishing his cane before him, he left the building some half an hour later and made his way down to the tube station.

Although his face registered no emotion as he sat on the Northern Line train, his heart beat a little faster with each stop. Once he had changed trains at Euston, he began to trace his old evening commute from the West End to Hampstead, his lips moving in time to the announcements on the tannoy. Mornington Crescent – Camden Town – Chalk Farm – Belsize Park: the order and rhythm of these names remained as familiar as those childhood recitals from the Talmud.

Are you really prepared for this? he thought. You could always change your mind.

On a practical level, he had little choice. The schedule for filming was tight, and he must take the opportunity to do some proper exploration. Tomorrow evening, he would fly back home – to his comfortable life with Anika in the hills above Lake Geneva. Chances were that he might never return to London again. Angelo, Otto's last real contact here, was not often around in the city these days. His job made constant demands upon his time, and he was forever travelling overseas. As for Daniel and his family … well, who knew what would happen? Otto certainly wasn't making any assumptions there. So this was his last opportunity, then, and he would probably never forgive himself if he failed to take it. The memories, circling incessantly around his head, had been stirred too deeply to settle. He must follow his journey through, relive everything to the full. Maybe it would bring him a sense of peace.

The tube train began to slow for Hampstead. Otto rose from his seat a little early and stood swaying in the centre of the carriage, one hand gripping the overhead pole and the other his cane as a counterbalance. When the doors slid open and he stepped out onto the platform, he stopped momentarily to take out his handkerchief and wipe beads of perspiration from his brow. Then he continued on his way.

As he slowly climbed the stairs from the platform to the lifts, a young man in a suit and tie nudged his shoulder as he hurried past. The young man seemed agitated; perhaps he was late for a meeting. He was clutching a briefcase closely to his chest. Turning as he ran, he sharply muttered something before disappearing from sight. Otto glanced up, irritated. There was nothing new in this rudeness. It was only when returning to London after a period of time away that one even noticed it.

The same thing had happened to Cynthia during her illness. Some smartly dressed young woman, pushing past her in Regent Street. What was it she had said to Cyn, again? ‘Out of my way, you stupid cow' – that was it. Quite remarkable. She must have thought that Cynthia was drunk, since her headscarf covered the scars from her surgery. And Otto was looking in a shop window at the time and like an idiot completely missed it. She almost lost her balance, too; had to cling to that lamppost to stay upright. And the anger – the anger Otto felt upon discovering. That young woman would have had no idea what she had just done – no doubt she would have forgotten the incident within a matter of seconds. But it knocked Cyn's confidence, badly. It never quite came back to her. She had been trying not to use her wheelchair, in order to hang on to the last of her independence. After that, she starting using it all the time in public places.

At the exit, Otto fed his day pass into the machine. In a series of rapid movements it sucked in, processed and spat out the pink ticket, which he collected from an orifice as the gate slammed shut behind him.

Even the ticket machines in this city are bloody rude.

Stepping outside the entrance, he blinked at the change of atmosphere. It was thirteen stops here from the Elephant and Castle, where his journey had begun, but a world away in many other respects. Whereas the streets around Marlowe House remained urban in character, Hampstead retained the air of a small country town. Its calm sense of affluence was a little disorientating after Otto's experiences of the past few days. It was a reminder once more, if any were needed, that London remained many cities in one.

Otto followed the high street up the hill, eventually turning off into a network of quieter backstreets. Large houses from the Edwardian period dominated the horizon. He stopped before one of them, the front lawn overgrown in the cottage-garden style, and rested for a moment on his cane.

*   *   *

‘For a couple of avant-garde lefties, you two have pretty traditional tastes when it comes to choosing your own home.'

These words came from Anton, Cynthia's brother, as he wandered around their newly bought house. It was the spring of 1966, and their professional lives were blooming. The handsome building into which they had just moved offered material confirmation of their new-found status.

Anton was climbing up some steps to poke his nose inside the attic.

‘I assumed that you'd be living in some kind of rotating concrete sphere. But this is all rather nice.
Very
nice, indeed!'