The Lubetkin Legacy

Berthold: Silk

I’d seldom been inside Mother’s bedroom for more than a few minutes at a time while she was alive. It had seemed an exotic secret place, a private shrine with long-dead faces transfixed in sepia, crystal glasses with sticky residues, strewn jewellery, spilled powder, dried-out nail varnish, faded silk, intimate odours, mothballs and stale perfume. As a child I had found it both repellent and fascinating. Sometimes at night it had echoed with strange and fearsome cries which, despite the pillow over my head, had leeched into my nightmares. Now it was time to empty it out and to prepare it for another resident.

Like a trespasser I picked my way through the scattered clothing, paperback romances and crumpled lingerie with a bundle of carrier bags in my hands, steeling myself to start disposing of her belongings. I threw open the window and set to work, grabbing the creased peach-coloured silk and stuffing it roughly inside the plastic bags.

I thought I was coping well by keeping myself busy but I’d barely filled two bags when a tidal wave of grief crashed over me, knocking me totally off balance. I slumped down on the bed, feeling my head and my limbs suddenly adrift like seaweed, and I let myself weep, my shoulders heaving helplessly with the rhythm of my sobs, snot dribbling into my mouth, my eyes blinded with salt.

The weeping must have exhausted me, or perhaps the sudden overwhelming fatigue was a symptom of the crushing depression that dogged me ever since … no. Stop. Don’t go there. Not now. Always on the sunny side. I slammed my mind shut to memories and tried to focus on the moment, keeping the taste of salt at the front of my consciousness. I must have fallen asleep like that on Mother’s bed, because when I opened my eyes again the sun had disappeared and a strange mottled twilight was pouring in through the window. In the far distance, I could see the sinister glint of the Shard, and in the next room Flossie was rattling the bars of her cage, calling, ‘God is dead! Ding dong! God is dead!’

She had been jumpy and unsettled ever since Mother had been stretchered out of the flat.

‘Hold on, old girl!’

I hunted in the kitchen cupboards for the bird food. The packet of seed was almost empty. Where the fuck did Mum buy it? I seemed to recall that hemp seed is mildly hallucinogenic. Maybe I should try some. I crunched one or two between my teeth then spat them out. While Flossie pecked busily, the silence in the flat flooded over me once more. I realised how utterly alone I was: alone to the bone. No one would come and put an arm around my shoulder, and say, ‘Sorry about your mum.’ No one at all. The thought was so chilling that it seemed to freeze up my tear ducts. If I let myself cry again, who would ever tell me to stop?

Keep a grip, Bertie. Food. That’s what you need. I peered into the fridge. Lettuce. Milk. Sliced bread. No butter. No tuna.

A takeaway from Shazaad’s was my only hope.

‘Curry sauce or balti, mate? Did you see Ramsey’s goal? Incredible.’

‘Curry, please, Shaz. No chillies, thanks.’

It was those few sentences of banal conversation that I was hungry for, I realised.

Apart from Flossie, I hadn’t spoken to another soul all day.

On my way back to my flat, I encountered Legless Len down in the grove. He was in a jubilant mood, wearing his Arsenal cap and spinning around in his wheelchair with a bottle of beer in his hand.

‘Did you see Ramsey’s goal?’ he whooped. ‘I wonder who’ll kick the bucket this time?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Don’t you know? Every time Aaron Ramsey scores a goal, somebody famous dies. Obama bin Laden. Colonel Gaddafti. Robin Williams. That Apple Jobsy bloke. You name it. The Grim Reaper, he’s called. Heh heh.’ He chuckled grimly.

‘That sounds like a load of bollocks, Len, if I may say so. I mean, statistically, the chances of somebody famous dying once a week are pretty high.’

One of the problems with Len is that he is drawn towards the irrational. That’s how he ended up with a UKIP poster in his window at the last election, much to Mum’s chagrin. ‘Len, you are supporting the forces of reaction. Stick to budgies,’ she said.

‘You just see, Bert, some celeb’ll die by tomorrow, for sure.’

‘Actually, Len, my mum just died.’ I hadn’t meant to embarrass him; it just slithered out, and ended on a sniffle.

‘Lily? Oh God, I’m sorry, mate. I didn’t mean nothing. About Ramsey’s curse and all that. It’s just a joke, an Arsenal superstition. I’m really sorry. She was a lovely lady, your mum, one of the greatest. Never mind her bolshie politics, she always meant well to everybody, like she radiated sunshine wherever she went.’ He was beside himself with apologies.

‘It’s all right, Len. You weren’t to know. Just don’t spread it about.’

I was worried that the whiff of gossip would reach the council offices. One of the problems with the traditional East End communities that architects like Lubetkin had rebuilt as ‘streets in the sky’ is that everyone knows everybody’s business.

‘Listen, Bert, she would have liked this.’ He spun around in his wheelchair once more, brandishing a crumpled brown envelope like a magician who has produced a rabbit out of a hat. ‘I just got a letter from the DSS saying I’m going to have my claim for disability allowance reassessed.’

‘Reassessed? That doesn’t sound good. I don’t know why you say Mum would have liked it. She was all for the welfare state.’

‘Lily was all for welfare, God bless her, but she couldn’t stand no scroungers.’

‘But you’re not a scrounger, are you, Len?’

‘Nah, that’s what I mean. They’re going to help me find employment, so I won’t be a drain on the economy. Anyway, I’m sick of being on the dole. They want to rescue me from the scrap heap of existence. Give me pride in myself. Why are you always so negative, Bert? They’re trying to do some good.’

This did indeed sound very positive, but once again the cynic in me would out.

‘Look, I’m sorry, Len, but you’re not exactly going to grow new legs, are you?’

‘Legs ain’t everything they’re cracked up to be. Ramsey managed without a leg for six months.’

‘Good luck with it, pal.’

He trundled away, leaving me with a guilty aftertaste. Had I been a bit blunt?

The lift was out of order so I climbed the stairs — see, Len, legs can come in handy at these moments? — and sat down in front of the TV to tackle my meal: rubbery chunks of reconstituted chicken floating like styrofoam in a fluorescent orange sea. I ate it straight from the box, staring at the television that was playing some pulpy sitcom punctuated by bursts of synthetic laughter. But my mind was already engaged elsewhere: I was planning Mother’s funeral.

Because she’d died in hospital of an unknown cause, I’d been told Mother would have to undergo an autopsy. This would give me time to make suitable funeral arrangements. I thought about giving her a grand East End-style send-off: a big funeral procession with a jazz band, dancing, former lovers and husbands meeting at her graveside to exchange tearful embraces and anecdotes. She’d have liked that. But I found myself lacking in energy, too exhausted even to clear her room. Besides, I reckoned if I was going to keep up the pretence that Inna Alfandari was, in fact, my mother, then the fewer people who knew about the real Lily’s demise the better. I logged on and googled ‘burial rituals’.

I wasn’t sure what religion Mother had embraced at the end, if any. She’d certainly been through a few changes. Born into a radical East End family in 1932, she related with pride that her father, Grandad Robert, was a religious pacifist: ‘Religion was like opium to him. He was addicted to it.’ Her mother, my Granny Gladys, aka Gobby Gladys, had been a strident supporter of George Lansbury, the Labour Party leader in the 1930s, and his mild vision of Christian socialism. Ted Madeley, Mother’s first husband, had been a Methodist lay preacher, but apparently none of the sobriety and self-restraint associated with Methodism had rubbed off on her — or even on him, as it turned out. For a while, when I was young, she’d championed High Church of England like my dad, Wicked Sid Sidebottom, a lapsed Anglican. In her later years, she turned to the Catholic faith like her last husband, the Ukrainian Lev ‘Lucky’ Lukashenko, who had swept her off her unsteady feet in a blaze of candlelit romance; but after their bitter divorce, she was drawn to the peaceful Buddhism of the Dalai Lama.

Maybe she would have liked a Buddhist sky burial. That would be discreet enough, since our flat is on the top floor and Tecton had installed a communal drying area on the roof, which is now unused. I glanced out of the window. The sky above Hackney was overcast. A couple of grubby pigeons flapped by, but alas no vultures. Cremation or burial seemed rather run of the mill for Mother, and would be easily discoverable, but burial at sea left few traces. Brighton Pier would be a good location — Brighton was the scene of her honeymoon with Ted Madeley, her first real love, and maybe her last. These thoughts brought on a new bout of melancholia, and I cheered myself up by googling the protocols involved.

Next day, fortified with a breakfast of two Shredded Wheats, I cycled over to Islington to drop off my bulging carrier bags full of Mother’s stuff at the Oxfam shop. It was a Saturday and the shop was heaving. I pushed my way through towards the back door where you leave donations. On the left was the changing cubicle, beneath the drawn curtains of which a woman’s bare feet were visible. The toenails were painted mauve, the ankles were swollen with matching mauve-coloured scabs that looked like flea bites. Oh horror! Suddenly the curtain was yanked aside, and a plump woman in a baggy sweater and too-tight black leggings emerged. It was Mrs Penny.

I wasn’t quick enough to look away. We couldn’t pretend we hadn’t seen each other.

‘Hello,’ I said.

She looked utterly mortified to be discovered in such a downmarket setting.

‘Fancy seeing you here, Mr L … L …’

Then with a self-conscious gesture she held up the bright green dress, under her chin, in front of the mirror and asked with a giggle, ‘Does this colour suit me, d’you think?’

‘It’s too … green.’ It looked way too small; she would never get into it.

‘You think so?’

Our eyes met in the mirror. She blushed. Then she glanced down at the two carrier bags in my hand as I deposited them by the donations door.

‘Having a clear-out?’

‘Yes, just …’

As I let go of the handles the bulging bags opened up. A peachy silk lace-trimmed camisole slid out on to the floor. I picked it up quickly and stuffed it back in the bag. She was watching curiously.

‘… freeing up a bit of space.’

‘Oh, you have to, don’t you? When you live in a small flat?’ I thought I detected a touch of malice in her voice. She turned her back for a moment to hang the green dress back on the rail and I made a dash for the door.

‘Bye-ee!’ Her voice trilled after me. I responded with a quick backward wave as I exited on to the street, to find my bicycle had been stolen.