Portobello (9 page)

Eugene considered the items for sale in the health food
shop unappetising, the fruit bruised and the vegetables
looking as if a slug might crawl out between the leaves.
As for quinoa, whatever that was, and kasha, did normal people
eat those things? But Ella, who had put her flat on the market
and more or less moved in with him, wanted ginger and garlic
and something called fenugreek for what she planned to cook
that evening and this was the only place he knew for certain
he could get them. Waiting to pay for his purchases, he was
surprised to see stacked packs of Chocorange among the other
sugar-free sweets on the counter. It was wonderful how he could
look at them so casually, so
lightly
, almost as if it were mints
or chewing gum he was seeing. Interesting, though, that here
they were on sale in a health food shop yet while he was hooked
on them he had worried a bit that the chemicals in them might
be harmful.

His mind went back to the time when he was running out of
places where Chocorange could be found. How happy he would
have been then, how overjoyed, to come upon a cache like this
in such an unexpected place. But thinking about it, he realised
that his favourites must also be used by diabetics and here he
could see chocolate and biscuits for those who had a problem
with sugar. Shop assistants in the past must have thought he
was diabetic. Strange that he wouldn't have minded that at all.
Was this because being an addict implied weakness of mind
whereas to be diabetic meant only a pancreatic deficiency beyond
one's control? It was an interesting question.

He was almost inclined to put himself to the test. Buy a packet
of Chocorange and airily suck one on the way home, knowing that
he wouldn't require another all the evening. But, no. Better not.
Not yet. He picked up a bar of diabetic chocolate instead and said
he'd have that.

'A great improvement on what they used to be, these sweets
and chocolate, aren't they?' the girl behind the counter said in a
friendly way.

Eugene agreed. He even said that the Chocorange were delicious,
as good as the 'real thing', and he marvelled at himself for
discussing his former addiction so openly. But of course what he
was discussing was his mythical diabetes. The time might even
come when he could talk freely about his habit,
laugh
ruefully
about it, the way other people did about their past alcohol or drugs
dependency.

It had been a lovely day and was going to be a fine warm
evening. Warm enough for them to eat their dinner outside? Eating
a square of diabetic chocolate, he went into the garden via the
french windows, testing the air temperature. Ella would have to
decide. In spite of their greater distribution of subcutaneous fat,
Eugene had noticed that women seemed to feel the cold more
than men. It was while he was reflecting on this anomaly that he
glanced towards the side gate and saw that it wasn't bolted. Carli
must have unbolted it to let the gardener in and out, and then
forgotten to bolt it again. But wasn't it rather absurd to keep a
gate bolted when it was already locked? His neighbours were paranoid
about the security of their homes. The couple with that crosspatch
cat, Bathsheba, had bars on all the ground-floor and
basement windows, and no fewer than three separate locks on
their front door. That sort of thing fuelled people's fear of crime
and did not, in fact, discourage burglars who only looked on fortress
mentality as a challenge.

The diabetic chocolate wasn't at all nice. It had a dry dusty
taste. He would eat no more of it.

The Bank Holiday weekend was coming up and he was taking
Ella away for two days on the Saturday to Amberley Castle
in Sussex. It would be a short but luxurious holiday. He had booked
a medieval but state-of-the-art-refurbished room with a four-poster
bed. Spoiling Ella, he had decided, was to be an ongoing feature
of his marriage and he intended to get into practice. Carless
himself, he was renting a car, and although this meant a horrible
drive through south London, Ella could sit beside him, taking her
ease and, at least for the second part of the journey, enjoying the
view.

While they were putting suitcases into the boot, he told her
about his newly formed decision to be less security-conscious.
'Prudent but not too prudent,' he said. 'For instance, I shan't be
bolting the side gate. All that would happen is that I'd forget to
unbolt it and then the gardener can't get in. I shall lock and bolt
the door into the area, of course, see all windows are shut and put
on the alarm.'

'Will you leave a couple of lights on?'

'I really think that only attracts their attention, darling. I
mean, if you were a burglar – impossible, I know, but try to
imagine – what would you think if on a bright sunny day like
this one you passed a house with
lights
on? You'd either think the
householder was mad or they'd gone away, much more likely
the latter.'

Somewhere in Sussex, after the South Downs had come into
view, he asked her if she had seen Joel Roseman again.

'He's become a patient, a private patient.'

'Is there something wrong with him, then?'

'Well, he has had an operation on his heart,' said Ella. 'Isn't the
sunshine lovely, darling? I really think this is the most beautiful
time of year, don't you?'

'You mean you mustn't talk to me about your patients' ailments,'
said Eugene, laughing. 'Darling, I entirely understand.'

Uncle Gib was as good as his word. He wasn't going to lend
Lance a thousand pounds. 'It wouldn't be a loan,' he said,
wreathed in smoke at the breakfast table. 'You pass on cash to a
bloke what's out of work and it's not a loan, it's a gift. And I don't
feel like giving you no gifts.'

Lance didn't argue. He doubted if Uncle Gib had a thousand
pounds, though this wasn't the first time they had had this conversation.
Lance fell back on it, opening the subject afresh, each time
other people refused him. He had tried his parents and they didn't
argue either. They laughed. He had to be joking. His mother already
owed eight thousand on her Visa card. He tried his grandmother,
his mother's mother, who was still several years under sixty, the
women in his family giving birth while in their teens. She had a
job, managing a launderette, and was looked on by her friends and
descendants as practically an intellectual, but if she had a thousand
pounds she wasn't lending it to Lance. Nor were her other
two daughters, Lance's aunts, or his uncle, the ex-husband of one
of them, who had won ten thousand on the lottery. But Uncle Roy
came in useful. When he had refused Lance's plea, he gave him
the name and address of a receiver of stolen goods in a street just
off the Holloway Road.

Robbing the bloke with the white hair was now Lance's last
resort and once more it seemed feasible. In spite of all his preliminary
work in Chepstow Villas, he had almost given up the idea of
actually breaking in because he had nowhere to take the stuff he
nicked. Now he had Mr Crown at 35 Poltimore Road, N7.

It was already Saturday, the day on which he had to take the
money to Fize. He had been unable to keep away from Gemma's
flat and had been back there on two occasions. This would be the
third and his plan was to offer her and Fize all his week's benefit
on account, accompanying it with the promise that the rest would
be in their hands by, say, Tuesday. At any rate, he would get to see
her, with luck actually be in the same room with her. But as he
came up to the block where she lived, he spotted Fize on her
balcony with the baby on his lap, apparently feeding him with
something out of a bowl. Fize hadn't seen him but Lance lost his
nerve, crossed the street and, putting his hood up and hunching
his shoulders, hurriedly walked on down Leamington Road and
into Denbigh Road.

Still in hoodie disguise, he saw in the distance White Hair putting
stuff into the boot of a car. Lance recognised him with no difficulty.
He had a woman with him that he had never seen before, a
woman in a trouser suit with dark curly hair. It looked as if they
were going away somewhere. More than likely, seeing it was the
Bank Holiday weekend. People like them, rich and comfortable
and worry-free, people who'd never have a problem finding a
thousand pounds, always went away at holiday weekends, while he
was stuck for ever in a dump full of smoke and rats.

He hung about on the corner, pretending to read yet another
one of those lost cat notices, the stripy one – apparently called
William – having gone off somewhere on a jaunt. If they'd been
offering a reward he might have looked for the missing cat but
they weren't. And maybe not, he thought, remembering his
scratched hand. Those two, White Hair and his woman, had disappeared
into the house. Lance walked about a bit, sat on a wall,
got off again when the person who owned the place came out,
went back to the corner where the lost cat notice was. They had
come out again. White Hair opened the car door on the passenger
side for the woman, then he got in and drove away. Lance let them
get out of sight before moving slowly towards the house they had
just left. Pity he couldn't go in there now, but it would be better
to leave it until after dark. He wasn't going back to Blagrove Road
and Uncle Gib. He'd go to his nan's in Kensal. Though she'd refused
him a loan, she'd said she never saw him these days and how about
coming round to her place, the launderette closing early on account
of it was the Bank Holiday weekend, and she'd cook him dinner or,
more likely, take him down the Good King Billy for a beer and a
Ploughman's. He might get a shower too in her nice clean bathroom.

Pity it got dark so late. Lance could tell his nan wanted rid of
him round about six but it was still broad daylight, the sun
shining as bright as at midday. She'd told him twice her boyfriend
was coming over, and they'd be going to the dogs at Walthamstow
and he should be on his way. Lance felt uncomfortable. She'd given
him fish and chips in the pub and two pints of Stella, and tea and
crisps when they got back home and he knew he was outstaying
his welcome – but where to go until it got dark? It was the story
of his life, nothing to do for most of the time and nowhere to go.
At last, when his nan had got herself up in a miniskirt and white
leather jacket and turquoise-blue shades, and Dave arrived, Lance
got up and said he'd better be off. They saw him off the premises,
all over him now he was on his way.

Though he'd come on the bus, he walked all the way back to
Chepstow Villas to save the fare, making his usual detour to pass
Gemma's flat. A light was on inside, the door opened a crack and
Gemma put her head out. Had Lance been given to that sort of
thing, when he saw her come out he might have said to himself,
Romeo-fashion though slightly paraphrasing, 'But, soft, what light
through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Gemma is the
sun.' However, she didn't appear to have seen him, for she leant
against the railing gazing up the road in the opposite direction. He
walked on, trying to think about the task ahead. Suppose those
two, White Hair and his girlfriend, had only been out for the day?
No, you don't take suitcases if you're only going to Richmond or
Maidenhead. It was still light but, though he wasn't much for
noticing what the sky was doing, he could see from the red glow
when he looked behind him that the sun had set. Back to sitting
on a wall, then. He'd walked so far he was exhausted, not to
mention getting hungry again. A bit more time was used up by his
buying a pie, a piece of fruit cake in a see-through pack and a
Mars bar, which he ate trailing along Westbourne Grove. Once,
when he looked behind him, he saw in the distance a man who
reminded him of Fize but, as far as he was concerned, one Asian
looked much like another.

At last it was dark and there was no street lamp directly
outside White Hair's house. The dense trees in the pavements
and the front gardens of Chepstow Villas helped to darken
the place. Lance was so certain White Hair would have bolted
his side gate after all this time that he was surprised when it
yielded as he turned the key. There were lights on in a garden
next door, the kind that glow green, half hidden among the
bushes, but none here. It was very dark and there was no moon.
Lance went up to the french windows and peered at the keyhole.
As he had hoped, neither White Hair nor his girlfriend had taken
the key out after they had locked the door. He could see the tip
of its shaft inside the hole. Poking it through would be a skilful
business, best taken slowly, because if it jumped out when he
pushed at it with the screwdriver he had brought with him it
might easily jump away from the door and land inches away on
the carpet. And that would be the end.

His eyes had become accustomed to the lack of light. He could
see the keyhole quite clearly and no longer regretted not bringing
a torch. Very carefully he prodded at the end of the key, felt it
move, then wobble, teeter on the edge of the keyhole and as he
just tickled it with the screwdriver's tip, drop straight down surely
no more than an inch in from the bottom of the door. Lance had
brought a strip of thin card with him in his backpack. He slipped
it under the door, which he could now see must have been a full
centimetre above the carpet edge. It was then that his difficulties
began. He told himself he must be patient. If he got into a state,
if he lost his cool, he would make a mess of it and perhaps only
push the key away, further into the room. At his fourth attempt,
he felt the card slide under the key. By tilting the card very slightly
upwards, he began to move it towards the bottom of the door. He
lost it and had to start again. Very slowly he pulled the card backwards,
praying it wouldn't catch on the base of the door and stick.
It didn't. He couldn't remember a moment he'd been so happy
since Gemma kicked him out, as he was when he saw the brass
shank of the key – to himself he called it a golden key – ease its
way out and into his waiting hand.