Then, as the afternoon wore on, I realised what was bothering me. The phone. It was silent. Eustachia hadn’t rung.
I stared at it malevolently. Why didn’t she phone? It was her turn, for godssake. I had phoned her last time. If it became a habit, she would start to take me for granted, to give me the runaround. As Jimmy the Dog used to say, ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen.’ But surely, a woman couldn’t do that? I mean, objectively speaking, Eustachia was nice, but nothing special. Like Flossie, I could probably do better, if I put my mind to it. Now that Mother had given me the green light. Now that I’d landed a rather recherché stage role, surely my sexual capital would be boosted. Maybe Violet would come back. Maybe Bronwyn wasn’t a lesbian. My mind was hopping around like a one-legged pigeon.
Suddenly the phone rang. I leaped up.
‘Stacey, is that you …?’ (Yes, I’ve come to terms with the name.)
A woman’s voice replied, something I didn’t quite catch, ‘… in connection with your recent accident …’ The tone was rather tinny, which I put down to a bad line.
‘No, Stacey, I’m absolutely fine. I mean, I stubbed my toe running for the bus, but apart from that I’m just fine. When …?’
‘Please press five to speak to a representative …’ the voice continued.
‘Stacey? Is that you …?’ Overcome with emotion, I uttered the ‘d’ word, ‘… darling?’
‘… or nine to opt out.’
‘Nine …? What did you say? Aaaargh!’ Fury possessed me. ‘Piss off! You shameless phone whore, you ambulance ghoul!’ I hurled the phone across the room, where it bounced against the wall and fell apart. The cover flipped off and two batteries rolled out under the sofa.
Oh hell! I got down on my hands and knees to hunt for them.
It’s amazing what you can find under a sofa that hasn’t been moved for a while: a packet of Polo mints, half empty; a single loose Polo mint, partly sucked and covered in ancient fluff; a blue biro, leaking; a whisky miniature, empty; an old-style shilling and a new pound coin; a packet of Players No. 6, three ciggies still in it; a crumpled flyer for Shazaad’s takeaway. I found one of the batteries, but the other was elusive. With my fingertips I searched right back as far as I could reach; they encountered the second battery beside one of the legs, and something stiff and papery pressed up against the wall. I pulled it out. It was a large brown envelope.
Inside was a folded sheet of tracing paper about a metre square. I opened it out curiously. It seemed to be some kind of plan — an architect’s drawing, in fact, meticulously sketched in black ink with some details and notes added in pencil. It was a drawing of Madeley Court. I tried to match up the pencilled notes to the place I knew, which had become so familiar I hardly noticed its features. A tenants meeting room which would double up as a kindergarten. A communal laundry room at the back of the block, a large roof terrace for drying laundry. These details were in the plan but, to my knowledge, they had not been built. Maybe post-war austerity had put paid to those dreams. But other elements of the plan were still in place. A wide floating roof canopy above the main entrance. Ornamental tiles in glazed terracotta. A communal landscaped garden with trees, seating and a play area. Walkways and landings to enhance human intercourse, diagonally placed windows and internal glazing to catch and relay the light. A wide internal staircase lit from above by a skylight. The lifts, I guessed, must have been added later.
Inside this large drawing was folded a smaller one. A flat: three larger rooms and one small one; a kitchen, a balcony, a bathroom. Generous proportions. A skylight in the hall. And in the bottom right-hand corner, a handwritten note, scribbled in the same black ink: For dear Lily, a home for life for you and your children, Yours forever, BL.
I studied the ink outline of the familiar configuration of rooms which had been her home for more than half a century, then folded it back into the envelope. The skylight, though, had never been made.
In the end, I reinserted the batteries into the phone and dialled Stacey’s number. I imagined it ringing in that crowded fire-damaged office, with her fellow bureaucrats eavesdropping jealously.
Maybe that accounted for the coolness in her voice as she answered, ‘Hello? Oh, hello, Bertie, how nice to hear from you. Is everything okay?’
She said she was busy every day next week. She wouldn’t say with what, and I was left with the irritating suspicion that she was giving me the runaround on purpose, to keep me keen. On Saturday I had the matinee as well as the evening show of Godot, so I was genuinely unavailable. Besides, I didn’t want her to think that I was so besotted she could just have me at her beck and call. So it wasn’t until the following Sunday that we agreed to meet up again.
As I replaced the phone on its cradle, I noticed the corner of a brown crumpled piece of paper sticking out underneath the telephone directory — not just any old piece of paper. It was a ten-pound note, with a yellow Post-it note stuck on: Лен, it said. Inna must have forgotten it there. Well, he wouldn’t be needing it where he was gone. I trousered it grimly and strode out through the tree mortuary that had once been a cherry grove.
‘Boss! Where you been?’ Luigi greeted me with open arms. ‘You become big celebrity!’
‘Oh, yeah?’ I perched on a high stool at the bar while he got busy with the coffee scooper. Then he reached under the counter for a dog-eared copy of the Daily Mail, and sure enough on page eleven there was a grainy photo of me with a rope around my neck on the stage at The Bridge, under the headline: UNKNOWN ACTOR WOWS THE HOUSE IN LUCKY ROLE.
Unknown! Still, I read the review: … called Bart Side played this challenging role with a stammer that added brilliantly to the pathos of Beckett’s obscure masterpiece …
This seemed odd for the Daily Mail, but the paper obviously has moments of insight. Come to think of it, lesbian Bronwyn had mentioned something to the same effect, which I had put down to gender confusion. Either that or I had been teetering on the brink of love and was oblivious to everything else.
‘Hm. Thanks, Luigi. This coffee’s good.’ Though after weeks of Lidl own-brand instant, my palate may have been jaded.
‘Kenya AA, boss. The best. Special for you. That little black girl that come in here tell me to get it.’
Violet: Kenya AA
One thing you can say about Kenya, it’s always possible to get a good cup of coffee here. Kenya AA is without a doubt the finest coffee in the world. Violet’s office is just around the corner from the Bulbul Coffee Bar on Kenyatta Avenue, and she sometimes goes there with colleagues from work to enjoy the pastries as well as the coffee — the NGO employs four local staff — or sometimes she meets up with one of her cousins for a pizza. Having longed for Kenyan food during her time in England, she now finds herself missing the varied tastes of London.
Her new job is challenging, especially as she is left almost entirely to her own devices. The woman who interviewed her in London, Maria Allinda, she soon realises knows much less about Africa than she does and is happy to let her take decisions on a day-to-day basis about where the NGO’s resources should be focused. She spends her first month visiting enterprises in and around Nairobi, familiarising herself with the work that is already being done.