The Lubetkin Legacy

Berthold: Priory Green

I put Flossie out on the balcony to bear witness, and withdrew into the quiet seclusion of my flat to lick my existential wounds. Mother was dead. Violet was gone. Inna was still out. Eustachia had work to do. All the women who had buoyed me up in the last few months were floating other boats, and I was on my own, my life drifting aimlessly until something or someone took command. The relentless whine of the chainsaws in the grove chorused my impotence, while a rodent of self-hatred gnawed at my guts. I had taken Mother for granted, I had behaved badly towards Inna, I had let Violet down, I had taken advantage of Eustachia’s neediness. I was the rat.

I had not fixed a definite date with Eustachia when we parted. Should I give her a ring now, or would that upset the balance of power in our relationship? Loneliness and male pride warred briefly in my chest. I picked up the phone, and found that some idiot — Inna, no doubt — had left it off the hook. How long had I been incommunicado? What if Violet had called for a last-ditch rescue? What if the police had found my bike? What if someone had been trying to contact me with a fabulous stage role?

Tutting, I dialled Eustachia’s office number and got an answering machine. ‘Would you like to see a film, Stacey?’ The message I left was studiedly neutral in tone.

Meanwhile, at a lower level, life rumbled on. Unbuckling my belt, I went and settled myself in the loo with my jeans around my ankles, pulled the Lubetkin book off the shelf, and looked in the index for Priory Green.

The Priory Green Estate, where Eustachia had found me clinging to the railings, was one of Lubetkin’s largest projects of social housing in London. To the modernist architects, the bombed cities of post-war Europe seemed like so many blank canvases on which to erect their dreams. Priory Green was conceived before the war but not completed until 1958. The plans had been drawn up to generous Tecton proportions and constructed out of top-class Ove Arup reinforced concrete; all the flats had a private balcony, habitable rooms faced south, east or west, and communal facilities included a circular laundry with a tall chimney, which I hadn’t noticed yesterday. But during the war, building work was suspended and Harold Riley, the alderman who had commissioned the work from Tecton, was ousted and disgraced following a disagreement about two deep concrete air-raid shelters he’d had built under the Town Hall in defiance of the party line.

By the time work restarted on the estate after the war, the housing need was much greater, the political climate had changed, and Harold Riley was surcharged and personally bankrupted by his political rivals. Lubetkin himself had retreated from London; he supervised the project at arm’s length from his farmhouse in Gloucestershire, a disillusioned and embittered old man.

Reading this filled me with a deep melancholy that was only partially alleviated by a particularly satisfying bowel movement. Above the noise of the water rushing into the cistern as I flushed, I heard another mournful call: Ding dong! Hoiking up my jeans, I went to answer the door.

It was the postman, with an envelope in his hand. Why hadn’t he just put it through the letter box?

‘Outstanding postage due. One pound and eleven pence. That’s eleven pence owing because the postage now costs fifty-three pence. And one pound administration charge.’

‘Blimey. Let me see the letter.’ I didn’t want to be paying out all that for junk mail. Besides, I wasn’t sure I had one pound and eleven pence. He handed it over. It was a small white envelope, handwritten to Mr Berthold Sidebottom. The postmark gave nothing away. ‘Hang on a minute.’

I could have just stepped back into the flat with it in my hand and slammed the door, but looking down I noticed a solid black chukka boot resting on the threshold. He had obviously been in this situation before. I had ten pence left over from my shopping, there were three twenty pences in the loose change jar and I found a fifty-pence coin in the pocket of Inna’s black cardigan hanging in the hall. The postman took it all, gave me change, and made me sign something.

‘Thanks, mate. By the way, your zip’s undone.’

The letter was from someone called Bronwyn at The Bridge Theatre in Poplar, asking me whether I was available immediately to take up the role of Lucky in their production of Waiting for Godot, for which I had recently auditioned. Apparently the actor who had been playing Lucky had unluckily tripped over the rope, slipped off the stage and broken his leg, and the understudy was re-sitting his finals. She apologised for writing, but said that they had tried to phone and got a ‘number out of service’ message. They didn’t have my mobile number. She added a PS on a personal note, saying that she’d been at the audition, had loved the way I delivered Lucky’s speech with a stammer, and hoped I would integrate it into my performance.

The stammer. Yes. I recalled that it was the rope that had brought on the stammer, and I had stammered helplessly all through the audition. One of the panel had had the bright idea of tethering me with Lucky’s rope while I spoke to see how I looked, and I had come out in a cold sweat. Unfortunately, Beckett’s broken lines did not work the same flowing magic as Shakespeare’s; in fact they made it worse. ‘God with white b-b-beard … since the death of b-b-Bishop b-b-Berkeley … it is estab-b-blished b-b-beyond all doubt … that man … for reasons unknown … lab-b-bours ab-b-bandoned …’

The letter was dated two days ago. I phoned straight away. Bronwyn was ecstatic. She would email over a copy of the script right away, she said. What was my email address? Could I start tonight?

‘Tonight?’

‘Would that be okay, Mr Sidebottom? You’re familiar with the play, aren’t you? Our bar manager has been standing in, but he’s been struggling, even with the text in his hands.’

‘I’m not sure I could memorise it in a couple of hours. It’s quite complicated.’

‘Just do your best. It doesn’t matter if you get the odd word wrong. In fact it might enhance the audience experience, if you see what I mean. If you could get here for six thirty, we could just walk it through.’

Bronwyn had quite a sexy voice, deep and smooth with a slight regional burr, so I replied, ‘No problem, Bronwyn. See you later.’

Ha! That would be one in the eye for Nazi McReady and his tarrgets. But how the fuck would I get to Poplar with no credit on my Oyster card? The problem was solved when Eustachia called back to say she would love to go out to see a film.

‘There’s that new George Clooney on release.’

‘I’ve got a better idea. Wouldn’t you prefer a night at the theatre?’