The Lubetkin Legacy

Berthold: Gravity

As soon as the credits rolled, people started shuffling towards the exit of the cinema, dragging their feet on the worn carpet. Stacey and I waited and topped up our glasses with the wine we had bought at the bar (‘Oh, go on then, just a drop!’). Science fiction is not my favourite genre, and I found the storyline was over-complicated and the helmets obscured George Clooney and Sandra Bullock’s faces. I was more captivated by Stacey’s profile as she sat beside me in the dark, the curve of her cheek and chin, the nape of her neck where the fine coppery hairs curled, her sweet perfume, and beneath the perfume the faint nutty scent of her skin. She was wearing the same tight-fitting green Oxfam dress, which no longer seemed too tight but made her look sensual and shapely like a leafy Venus. My hand had strayed down in between the top buttons and she let it rest there.

‘That ending was so beautiful, didn’t you think?’ Sniffle sniffle. ‘I didn’t know whether it was real or whether it was a dream.’

She leaned closer to me, hunting in her bag for a tissue. A teardrop hung on her cheek, gleaming in the darkness like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.

‘Mm,’ I replied. It had been my idea, from a perverse mixture of motives, to see this film, but the special effects had made me feel queasy in a way that brought to mind slatki with vodka.

‘But I think I prefer the theatre,’ she sniffed. ‘It’s much more real. I used to be quite a George Clooney fan because we were both born in 1961, but recently I’ve been noticing how old he looks.’

‘Old? He’s only …’

‘Don’t you think he’s a bit overrated?’

‘Actually, Stacey …’ I took a sip of wine and paused to savour my moment of triumph, ‘I think, in fact, George Clooney’s quite a good actor.’

As the house lights rose and the real world came into focus around us, we stayed in our seats and drained the last few drops of lukewarm Sauvignon Blanc into our glasses. Suddenly Stacey started weeping again as though a floodgate of emotion had been opened.

‘It reminds me of how I felt when Monty died. I kept hoping he wasn’t really dead.’

Was there a note of accusation in her voice?

‘It wasn’t my fault, you know, Stacey. I tried to grab his lead, but he just dashed across the road. The van appeared out of nowhere.’ I put my arm around her. ‘White van of destiny meets cute little dog.’

‘You took his body to the pub and got drunk.’

‘We had to give him a proper send-off.’

‘I’m not blaming you, Bertie. I’m just telling you how I feel.’ Something in her voice told me she was blaming me. ‘He was the cutest dog in the world.’ She dabbed her eyes. ‘Do you think there’s an alternative universe somewhere, where he’s alive?’

‘I’m sure there is.’ I held her hand.

I didn’t tell her that thirteen years ago the same thing had happened to a cute little girl I was looking after. Was it my fault? I had tormented myself with this question ever since. Sometimes, even now, I would catch a glimpse of a girl or a young woman that took me off guard and spun me over into an alternative life, the life that might have been mine if Meredith had still been alive, if Stephanie and I had still been together.

Stephanie had never forgiven me, and I had never forgiven myself. Our relationship eventually collapsed under the weight of her accusations: ‘You were supposed to be responsible, Bertie. How could you have let go of her hand? You’re a typical mummy’s boy, irresponsible, careless, self-obsessed!’

Was I? Or was I, in fact, as Stacey suggested kindly through a sniffle, just terminally unlucky?

However, this particular cloud had a silver lining. Monty’s demise opened up the way for Stacey to move into my flat. I even let her bring the teddies, which she arranged on Mother’s dressing table beside the bottle of L’Heure Bleue left by Mother and finished off by Inna. It felt strange and sinful at first to make love in Mother’s bed, so full of ghosts, but after a while even that became wonderfully ordinary.

Stacey took over the chair of the Tenants Association vacated by Mrs Cracey, and helped to mount a lively campaign against the proposed fourteen-storey building in the garden, insisting, as Lubetkin would have done, that it should fit harmoniously with its environment and should provide affordable homes for low-income families. When Len’s ground-floor flat became available, she helped me arrange for Margaret and Jenny to get the tenancy, aided by the fact that Margaret was now in a wheelchair. So as one chapter closed, a new chapter opened in the life of Lubetkin’s Mad Yurt.

From time to time the old mood would come over me, and I would launch into a morose soliloquy on canine and human mortality, the wanton destruction of urban trees, the housing crisis, the unravelling of the post-war consensus, George Clooney’s love life and other evils and inequities of our time.

Stacey would watch me with a small smile. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Bertie,’ she would say.