The Lubetkin Legacy Read online

  ‘I see,’ she says, though she really doesn’t want to see.

  ‘Look,’ says Marc, ‘it can take a bit of getting used to. Why don’t you take the papers home with you this evening? Get things in perspective. I have an international call to take right now, but if you’re free tomorrow evening, maybe we can talk about it over dinner? Yes?’

  She can hear the phone ringing in his office. He squeezes her shoulder again, his hand lingering just a moment too long, then disappears.

  She slips her jacket on over her dress. In the lift going down, she changes out of her high heels into her trainers and runs to the bus stop.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this job, Laura.’ On the top deck of the bus, she pours out her misgivings into her phone. For some reason, her eyes are wet with tears.

  ‘I know it doesn’t seem right at first, but you’ll soon get used to it, Violet. Everybody in the City does it.’ Laura sounds tired and harassed. In the background the baby is yelling above the noise of the news on the radio. ‘I read somewhere that ninety-eight out of the hundred top London Stock Exchange companies have subsidiaries, associates, or joint ventures in tax havens. If it wasn’t GRM it would be somebody else doing it, and you’d be out of a job.’

  ‘I think I might be happier just dealing with insurance.’

  ‘How are you finding working with Marc?’

  ‘Fine. Actually, he asked me out for dinner. But now I’m not so sure …’

  Laura laughs. ‘Don’t be such a fogey, Violet. Go. Enjoy yourself! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Berthold: Wrest ’n’ Piece

  Once in every lifetime, someone comes along with a key to open up the rusty old door of your heart. My excitement over the possibilities of romance with my new neighbour had seized my imagination, and I had come up with a seductive variation on the Gold Blend Gambit: it would be me giving the dinner party, and the next-door goddess who would be the guest. A sweet old lady, i.e. Inna, would be dispatched to her door as a decoy to invite her round for a neighbourly dinner. Then on the elected evening she would ring the bell, the door would open, and there would be Berthold Sidebottom, the distinguished actor, at his most scintillating. Da dah!

  Getting to that point would take planning and preparation – a visit to the barber (one has to make the most of what one has), long-overdue laundry, maybe even a spot of shopping. Most of my clothes dated back to the time of Stephanie, who had a strong organising streak and an eye for value. Mother had always said she had the heart of a shopkeeper.

  The meal itself would be Inna’s domain, the menu both exotic and irresistibly seductive: globski, klobski, sloshki. But what if she was a vegetarian? So many women are sentimental and tender-hearted when it comes to furry animals. I would have to prime Inna to find out in advance and prepare a deliciously suitable alternative. It would be Inna’s first serious outing in her new role. These musings gave a new focus to my daily routine, pushing the pain of my recent loss into a safe warehouse in the back of my mind.

  However, before I could put the Gold Blend Gambit into operation, I received news from the hospital. Mother’s autopsy had been completed at last, she was found to have died of natural causes (what else?) and her body was now available for immediate burial or cremation. I had been so taken up with planning the Gold Blend Gambit that I had made no progress at all in planning the Burial at Sea.

  I reached for the Yellow Pages that was propping up one leg of the armchair, and telephoned the undertaker’s firm with the largest display advertisement: Wrest ’n’ Piece. You have to wonder where they get these names from. It was a man who answered my call, a mature man with a sonorous voice, excellent diction and a funereal manner.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your loss, sir … No, we don’t offer burial at sea … Cremation is often felt to be a very satisfactory and dignified ceremony for all involved. Less expensive than burial, especially if the family themselves take responsibility for disposing of the ashes, which you could always sprinkle at sea or any other location of sentimental significance. Though of course expense would not be the principal consideration for most of our clients … Yes, of course we can collect from the hospital … If you would give me your address, I can send a written estimate. Let me take some details … Berthold? … Berthold Sidebottom?’

  Through the crackle of the line, I thought I detected the faintest echo of a snigger. One becomes sensitive to that sort of thing.

  But to my surprise, the funereal voice added, ‘RADA, 1982?’

  ‘Mhm?’

  ‘Jim Knox.’

  ‘Jimmy! Jimmy the Dog!’

  Jimmy the Dog and I had been script buddies and booze buddies at RADA. I remembered him as a tall dark-haired, large-nosed type, with the air of a dejected beagle, the sort of actor that usually gets cast as a petty villain. He’d had moderate success with a number of small roles in TV crime series while I was carrying the torch for the Immortal Bard in provincial rep. In those days, before email and Facebook, it was easy to lose touch with friends.

  ‘Ha ha. Remember that night at the Dominion? When Kate Bush’s bra strap pinged?’

  ‘I’ll put him on the … mmm … list … mmm … mmmm …’ I hummed.

  Posing as roadies, we’d gatecrashed the Prince’s Trust charity concert at the Dominion on Tottenham Court Road where Madness were topping the bill. The amazing thing is we managed to pull it off for almost an hour, until the real roadies turned up so stoned that they didn’t realise what was going on; they just giggled while security tried to hustle them out. There was a big hoo-ha because of Prince Charles and Princess Di being there, though we never actually saw them. But we got to listen to most of the concert, and Jimmy claimed he’d groped Kate Bush on the stairs before eventually some dude fingered us as phoneys.

  Later that year, Madness brought out their hit single ‘Our House’, sugary with nostalgia for a vision of working-class home and community that struck a chord with Lily. She used to sing it as she pushed the Hoover around the flat, which by then was already up for grabs under the newly introduced Right to Buy. Though for Jimmy and me, stretched out on the sweaty mattresses of our student digs, it was just a great sing-along-able song.

  ‘But Jimmy, what made you – ?’

  ‘Become an undertaker? Security. Regular income. I needed a deposit for a flat. I got tired of resting. And you’d be surprised how handy the drama training is in providing a touch of solemnity at the seediest occasions. How about you – Dirty Bertie?’

  It was a long time since anyone had called me that. Dirty Bertie and Jimmy the Dog. We’d raised hell all over town. No party was cool without us, no girl awoke a virgin. That was our legend, anyway.

  ‘Mostly stage work. A bit of resting. Quite a bit, actually. And looking after my aged mother of course.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Really sorry to hear she died. I met her once, remember?’

  I vaguely remembered that Mum had been décolletée, and had tried to ply him with sherry. That was not unusual.

  ‘We’ll give her a magnificent send-off, Bertie. Let’s fix a date, and you can start contacting people.’

  Alarm bells rang. ‘I don’t think Mum would have wanted a big fuss made,’ I muttered. Though it was probably just what she would have wanted.

  ‘Are you sure? She was quite a lady, Lily. Quite a goer. I’d like to do my bit to carry the flame of her memory.’

  Oh God. Had it gone beyond décolletage and sherry? ‘Look, Jimmy …’

  ‘Don’t worry about the expense, Bert. I’ll cut you a special deal. For old times’ sake. For Kate Bush’s bra strap.’

  A wave of nostalgia rocked my voyager heart – not exactly nostalgia for Jimmy the Dog, but for friendship and that uncomplicated time when the tide of my life was at its flood, with all the currents of fortune still for the taking.

  Berthold: Jimmy the Dog

  Jimmy the Dog was a surprising source of comfort and support during this time. Although I knew he’d learned it at drama school,
the sonorous patrician voice with its perfect consonants was reassuring. He guided me through the whole post-life process, the death certificate, the probate forms. He explained the intestacy rules, for as far as I could tell Lily had died without making a will – not that there was much to inherit, apart from the tenancy of the flat.

  It was Jimmy who suggested a woodland burial. Wrest ’n’ Piece had recently acquired a piece of woodland moments away from Finsbury Park with its superb transport connections, he told me, which they were planning to develop as a natural burial site with the long-term goal of offering woodland burial alongside their other professional post-life services. Lily’s funeral would be, as it were, a dry run – and as such the fee would be a fraction of the normal cost. Jimmy would be the celebrant, I would be the chief mourner, he and I would design the service on secular socialist lines, as a celebration and a reunion for all who had loved her. My job was to assemble the story of her life, and a small select band to join in the solemnities.

  There was a dog-eared, leather-bound address book among Mother’s papers, which she kept in the cardboard box under her bed. Most of the names in it were unfamiliar to me, I had no idea whether they were current or not. Ted Madeley’s address was still there, though he was long dead. There was even an address for Berthold Lubetkin in Gloucestershire, though he had died in 1990. Her lovers Jack Blast and Jim Wrench were listed – were they still alive? Jenny and Margaret, Ted Madeley’s twin daughters, Mum’s stepdaughters, were listed under their old addresses. Should I invite them to the funeral? I wondered. According to Mother, Jenny and Margaret, who would have been about ten years old when their father remarried, had hated twenty-year-old Lily with a passion. ‘Little witches,’ she used to call them. I don’t recall meeting them until I was around nine years old and they must have been thirty. By then they’d evidently mellowed, because I have a distinct memory of them coming round to the flat on Mum’s fortieth birthday with a bunch of flowers. They made friends with Howard, my older half-brother, who had shaggy blond sideburns and the carefully cultivated mien of a ladykiller. He bragged to me that he had bedded both of them together, which I frankly didn’t believe. Why would anyone want to cuddle up with those two? Even then, they were a scary pair.

  There is a photo of me with all three of my half-siblings on Hampstead Heath. I’d no recollection of the occasion, but it must have been shortly before Howard left home. In the photo we are all grinning in that stupid ‘say cheese’ way, and I am holding an ice cream. I had hazy memories of nocturnal activities involving a rope with Howard and his friend Nige, a schoolboy tearaway who lived for a while in Madeley Court, and the beatings from my father that inevitably followed.

  Howard, I remembered, used to show me his dirty postcards and fill me in with a wink on the activities in the marital bed, which I also didn’t believe. Why would my adored mother want to do that with any man, let alone with my horrible father?

  My father’s address was in the book, even though he had died back in 1983. Poor Dad. I can feel for him now, fleeing the ossified certainties of Ossett and arriving, a widower with a small child, in huge, humming London. No wonder soft-hearted Mum with her penchant for improvement was moved to rescue them. But it hadn’t turned out well. I’m not bitter now, but the first nine years of my life were scarred by his volatile personality and his explosive temper, which Mum spent the remaining forty-three trying to heal.

  Another recollection flashed in unbidden from the dark edges of my mind: the black, still water of a canal; a cold, late afternoon of tricky crepuscular light; Howard, Nige and I walking along the towpath, each of them holding one of my hands. A rope tied around my waist. I couldn’t recall exactly what had happened next: darkness and terror were what I remembered. When I got home I was soaking wet, and Dad took his belt to me. I crawled through a thirty-minute tunnel of fear, pain and shame. According to Mother, that’s when my stammer first started. B-b-bridge.

  The address book had a new entry for my half-brother, Howard Sidebottom, in Kilburn – new in the sense that one address had been crossed out and another written in, though how long ago I have no idea. Mum had tried to keep in touch with Howard, for whom she still had hopes even after she had given up on Sid. When I lived at home, after our dad had left, he sometimes came over for dinner in the evening. I penned Howard a quick note to the address in Kilburn, thinking that in spite of everything it would be good to see him again.

  Mother’s latest ex-husband, Lev Lukashenko, only had an address listed in Lviv, Ukraine, and as far as I knew, Mother hadn’t seen or heard from him in years. I had already left home by the time she married him, and I wondered guiltily whether it was maybe my leaving home that had rushed her into this unsuitable marriage – she liked having a man about the house, and Lev liked having a woman or two in his life. But I wrote to him anyway. I wrote to them all, on the bright pink Basildon Bond notepaper that Mother favoured: this isn’t the sort of area where you can buy black-edged notelets.

  I took twelve letters to the post office and was horrified to discover the cost of postage. ‘It’s a bloody rip-off,’ I groused at the sullen woman behind the bullet-proof screen, in honour of Mother, who had never missed a chance to fulminate against the evils of our time including privatisation, Jeremy Clarkson, and pay-day loans.

  ‘Spivs and speculators poncing off the people of Britain! Of course we had plenty of that in wartime, but in them days we sent them to jail! Now they’re running the country! Poor Ted! If he was still alive he’d be spinning in his grave.’

  Flossie, not cognisant of the issues but excited by her mistress’s anger, would do her best to join in. ‘Ding dong! Ding dong!’

  ‘Ding bloody dong, Flossie!’ Mother railed.

  Maybe too much rage had taken its toll on her poor heart. The old world which had nurtured her throughout her life, the world of public provision and municipal housing created for her by men like Harold Riley and Berthold Lubetkin, had given place to a new world of offshore wealth and public austerity, of Buy to Let and bedroom taxes. The buildings still stood but their heart, like hers, had slipped away.

  Violet: La Maison Suger

  At seven o’clock Marc is waiting for her in the vast glass-and-steel atrium of the GRM building. She is wearing her dove-grey outfit and high-heeled shoes. Her trainers are in a carrier bag under her desk. As the lift doors open she sees him standing there and her heart thumps; even though she’s been working with Marc for two whole days, it still comes as a shock to realise just how attractive he is. He smiles when he sees her and strolls across the marble floor as elegantly as a cheetah, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a laptop bag.

  ‘I booked a quiet table for us at La Maison Suger. I hope you like traditional French cuisine.’

  She nods. Her stomach is performing strange side-flips. She isn’t sure she will be able to eat anything at all.

  The Maison Suger is all candlelight and white linen, behind a discreet façade. The waiter leads them through to a quiet side-room where they are the only diners and hands them glasses of champagne. Jazz is playing softly in the background.

  Marc clinks his glass against hers. ‘To your new job, Violet! To our work together!’

  Although her French was quite good at school, the menu printed on stiff cream paper is incomprehensible, with ingredients she has never heard of, or familiar tastes in new combinations. Suprême de poule faisane à la citronnelle, condiment tamarin, raviolis de foie gras, langoustines rôties au beurre d’agrumes, saveurs marron-clémentine. The words swim before her eyes with promises of delight. He interprets for her. His English is perfect, but with a French accent that purrs cosmopolitan sophistication. It’s funny, she hadn’t noticed his accent so much in the context of GRM, but here it seems more pronounced. He tells her his father was an art dealer in Paris, his mother was an English art historian; she tells him about her family in Bakewell, who seem embarrassingly ordinary by comparison.

  The waiter hands him the wine list, which
he reads with a frown of concentration. The wine he chooses is subtle and mellow. It leeches into every fibre in her body, filling her with sweet lassitude. The food is beyond delicious, flooding all her senses. Everything is as perfect as she could have imagined. So what little nagging demon possesses her to return to the topic of re-invoicing?

  ‘I’ve been wondering about those shell companies, Marc. I can’t understand the point.’

  She has an inkling by now, but she hopes she’s wrong and maybe he’ll have an innocent explanation.

  ‘It’s just the way global business works. It oils the wheels.’ He takes a slow sip of wine and leans back in his chair.

  She leans forward, her heart thudding. ‘But doesn’t it oil corruption? It seems like HN Holdings are siphoning billions of dollars out of one of the poorest countries in the world. They’re stealing from the wretched of the earth. I’ve seen –’

  She stops. She can hear her voice getting shrill. She wants to tell him about the Kibera slum, but it is a memory that predates words, a memory embedded in the sights and smells of childhood: the mud streets with their ramshackle tin huts, garbage rotting in the gutter, the ragged children with no school to go to, kicking a ball aimlessly in the dust.

  ‘The way for these developing countries to stop corruption is to tighten up their own law enforcement, Violet.’ He looks bored, as if he’s rehearsed this argument many times. ‘They have to get their own house in order. It’s too easy just to blame the West all the time.’

  ‘But shouldn’t we be helping them to stop it, instead of helping the bad guys?’

  He sighs exaggeratedly. ‘What our clients do with their money is their own business. We don’t preach. We don’t ask questions. We just smooth the progress of their investment goals.’ He reaches a hand across the table and lays it on hers. ‘It’s our business. It’s what we do. This is a good break for you at GRM. Don’t be naive, Violet.’