The Lubetkin Legacy (28 page)

‘He is small man but clever.'

‘But he's trying to take over the world!' cried Eustachia, her cheeks prettily flushed. ‘It was on the BBC!'

‘Your BBC are incorrect, madam. Putin not take over world, he only want control in Russia. But he afraid America want take over world by criminal fascist Netto expansionism. This make him big patriotic hero in Russia. Like your great Mrs Tetcher.'

Putin like Mrs Thatcher? The man was clearly a dupe of Russian propaganda. Did Mrs Thatcher oil her muscles? Does Putin have a handbag? Enough said.

‘But hang on, Lookerchunky, Mother divorced you. You can't just come breezing back in here because you've had a real-estate misadventure.'

‘What divorce? I no divorce. I love my wife.'

‘You it galubki, Lev?' Inna called from the kitchen.

‘I am eat everythink, my darlink.' He turned to Eustachia, and murmured in a low rumble, ‘You nice fatty lady. In my country fatty lady is very popular. Why you no come in Ukraina? I will find you nice husband.'

‘That's very kind of you,' she replied, ‘but …' Flustered, she flunked the excuse.

‘Look here, Lookerchunky,' I said, ‘or whoever you are … this lady is …' Spoken for. Those were the words I held on my tongue but couldn't quite utter.

We eyed each other confrontationally. The cut on my wrist was throbbing and I was desperate for a drink.

Suddenly he burst out laughing. ‘You think I am Lukashenko from Belarus? You think I am madman? No! Same name but not me! I am from Kharkiv! Ha ha ha!' He chuckled at his own non-joke, while Eustachia smiled weakly, relieved to be off the hook. ‘East West. All same Ukrainian people. Why for fight war? Better eat galubki and drink vodka. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!'

It was then that I noticed the two-litre bottle of vodka on the table.

‘You from Kharkiv?' Inna appeared in the doorway with four dinner plates and four sets of cutlery. ‘Nice city. I been there wit my husband.'

I glanced at Eustachia, who was still smiling bemusedly and had missed Inna's slip of the tongue. So far so good.

‘Kharkiv. Kiev. Krim. Even London. Wherever you like,
darlink Lilya, we can live together.' He gleamed his golden smile.

I remembered that Mother's Lev Lukashenko came from the west of Ukraine and had stainless-steel crowns on his teeth. So who was this chunky-looking impostor? Did Inna know that he was not the real Lev Lukashenko, whom Lily had married? Did he know that she was not the real Lily, ex-wife of Lev Lukashenko, but an impostor too? Watching the two phoneys shadow-boxing, I crossed my fingers and hoped that Eustachia, who knew neither the real Lev nor the real Lily, would remain none the wiser. But I had not reckoned on the intervention of Flossie.

Just as Inna emerged from the kitchen with a steaming dish of globabki she squawked, ‘God is dead!'

‘My God, Lilya! Where you get this bird?' cried Lookerchunky.

‘Don't you remember, Lev?' I butted in quickly. ‘You gave it to Lily when you got married. Have you forgotten?'

‘This bird? I give Lilya this bird?'

‘You even taught her to say God is dead!'

‘As I recall, there were two parrots. One dead and one alive.' Eustachia looked from him to me with a canny smile.

‘Two bird?'

‘Yes, two, Lev,' I said firmly, avoiding Eustachia's eye. ‘One is dead. It's in the box over there.'

‘My God!' He blew his pork-pie nose on a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket.

‘God is dead!' cried Flossie.

Eustachia gave me a slow, sexy wink.

Inna fetched four small glasses, then she spooned the galoshki on to our plates with a generous dollop of yushchenko. ‘Pliss, sit and it it.'

The impostor Lookerchunky, who had already seated
himself at the head of the table, got busy with the vodka bottle and glasses, passing the first glass to Eustachia, who raised a delicate finger as she sipped.

‘It's so nice of you to welcome me into your family reunion. It gets quite lonesome in the evenings, just me and Monty.'

When her glass was half empty, I reached for the bottle and topped it up to the brim.

‘Oh, you shouldn't, Berthold! It doesn't mix with the medication! And it's absolutely chocker with calories!'

‘Sod the medication, Eustachia. Sod the calories.' I downed my vodka in one gulp, and the room rippled like an underwater theatre. A glimmering haze of magic descended on everyone, even on Flossie, and a song from the seventies drifted into my head. ‘Love is the drug!' As the warmth hit my vocal chords, I started to sing, ‘Mmm mm mm mmm … and I need to score!'

Lookerchunky stood up waving his empty glass like a conductor's baton. When I finished the song, he took up in his chocolate-sweet baritone, ‘
Vistoopeela na bereg Katyusha!
' The melody drifted from major to minor, haunted by yearning, heroism and lost love, as in the black and white Soviet war films that Mother and I used to watch at the Curzon. I listened, and tears sprang to my eyes. Inna was weeping too. She dabbed her eyes with her apron and joined in the chorus in a high-pitched wail. I noticed that the vodka bottle was now two-thirds empty.

‘
Povee! Povee!
' Flossie wailed from her perch.

In a moment of quiet, Eustachia pitched in with a warbling soprano: ‘Keep on the sunny side! Always on the sunny side!'

‘Bravo!' Lookerchunky clapped his hands. ‘Great philosophia! You must come in Ukraina! We heff too much of pessimism at present time.'

‘It's what my speech therapist used to say,' she giggled.

By now, of course, I had put two and two together, but I did not voice my suspicion that her speech therapist had been none other than my mother. There would be plenty of time for that in the future.

‘You are my sunny side, Eustachia.'

The night was sweet with human warmth, ample with dimpling flesh, moist with body fluids, and punctuated by trips to the bathroom. I woke late, with a jumble of songs running through my head. Occupying most of the bed, and hogging all of the duvet, Eustachia was snoring lightly. I kissed her on the nose and went in search of coffee.

In the kitchen, Lookerchunky, stark naked, was doing the same. I took a discreet look at his beast, which dangled raw-red and uncircumcised beside the cutlery drawer. It did not seem any bigger than mine.

‘Berthold, old chep, we heff to talk.'

‘Yes, but not now.' I was desperate for coffee. There were barely two spoonfuls left in the Lidl own-brand jar. I commandeered them both into two cups, one for Eustachia and one for me. He could go hang himself, for all I cared.

‘You mother, Lilya, she very pessionette lady.'

‘Mhm.' I poured in hot water.

‘We heff make loff all night.'

‘Mhm. I heard you.'

I opened the fridge door. As I bent down, the dull ache in my head became a sharp pain. There wasn't much milk left, either. Really, it was too bad. Inna was supposed to take care of these things.

‘She want we liff together.'

‘Mhm.' I stirred the beige liquid. ‘Where? Where do you propose to do that?'

‘She propose me liff wit her in flet. This flet.'

‘Oh no. No no no. You don't get it, Lookerchunky.'

‘I understend how you feelink, Bertie old chep. But you grown-up men now. You too old for livink wit Mamma.'

‘Look, there's something you need to know.' A pulse in my head was beating like a hammer on a dustbin lid. ‘She's not really my mother.'

‘Not mother? How is possible?'

‘My mother Lily is dead.'

‘God is dead! Ding dong! God is dead!' No one had remembered to cover Flossie's cage for the night. She was lounging on her perch with a morbid look in her eye.

Startled by the noise, Eustachia called from the bedroom, ‘Can I do anything?'

‘It's all right, Stacey. I'm just coming. Do you take sugar?'

Stacey! What a ghastly name! I supposed I would get used to it.

‘I'm sweet enough as I am!'

We sipped our coffee-flavoured water sitting up side by side in bed, the duvet pulled up over our nakedness, her hair loosed from its ponytail and snaking in coppery coils over her splendid breasts. Through the wall, we heard the sounds of a shrill soprano and a mellow baritone yelling at each other. Fortunately, Lubetkin's walls were thick enough that we couldn't make out what they were saying.

Eustachia left early in a whirl of polyester, perfume and hastily applied lipstick. I took my time, knowing there was no coffee to look forward to and not even any money to go out and get some, until Inna surfaced.

I checked my emails, nothing much there – who the hell falls for these ridiculous Ukrainian bride ads anyway? – then I put on my paisley pyjamas to pad to the bathroom, turning the radio on to blot out the sound of Inna and Lookerchunky, who were still arguing. Sticking my razor-ready chin out in front of the bathroom mirror, I brooded over a new complexion imperfection – does Clooney have these red spider veins yet? – and the ghastliness of growing old. Then I heard the front door slam. I put my head out to see what was going on.

Inna was standing in her nightdress in the hall, gazing at the back of the closed door with a look of utter desolation on her face. ‘Why you do this to me, Bertie?'

‘Do what, Inna? The man is a scoundrel. A rogue. An impostor. We don't know
who
he is. I've probably saved you from a fate worse than death.'

Though judging from what I had heard last night, she had already experienced a fate worse than death, and rather enjoyed it.

‘I say everything you tell me – mother, sister, friend, crazy – all I pretend it like you tell me. But you – why you not pretend some little thing for me, Bertie?'

‘Look, Inna, we need to get one thing clear. That man is not moving in here. No way.'

She said nothing, her mouth set in a sullen pout.

‘And another thing – why are we out of coffee? You know I need coffee in the morning if I am to function at all. It's not too much to ask, is it? Look, I'm sorry …'

Her eyes were filling up with tears. Was I being too harsh?

‘… but I thought we had an agreement, Inna.'

‘I make agreement wit Lily, you mother. I make promise to Lily. I leave my lovely flat in Hempstead for livink in stinking council flat wit you! Oy!'

‘Mother wanted you to move in here?' I had half suspected this.

‘She say to me, Inna, look after my son. He good man but useless. Witout me he will be starving of hunger. When I die he will be put out on street from under-bed tax.'

‘Mother said that to you?' It's nice to know that one's parents have such confidence in one.

‘Lily good Soviet woman, like saint in heaven.' Tears were coursing down the runnel-grooves in her cheeks. ‘She tell me you homosexy. I understand. You no marry. You need woman in house.'

‘Mother told you I was homosexual?' Could this be true? I edged back to the kitchen, where the kettle was hissing and screaming for attention.

She followed, shuffling in her slippers, berating me in a mournful shriek that echoed the cadences of the kettle.

‘But I see you like lady. You chase first after black one, then after fatty one. What I can do? I think soon you will marry and I will be out.'

‘Ssh, Inna! There's no need to shriek. Can't we have a rational discussion?'

But she was having none of it.

‘I like nice man, nice flat, nice life. I write letters in Ukraina
newspaper.' She began to wail again. ‘Oy, I understand! You think I too old, you think Lev too young for me!'

‘The thought had crossed my mind.'

‘Young, old – love got no barricade for age! Look George Clooney! He forty-year-old man marry beautiful young wife.'

‘Actually, Inna, George Clooney is fifty-three.'

My correction was lost on her. ‘I more younger than Lily,' she moaned.

Something dawned on me.

I said, ‘But Inna, this man, this Lookerchunky, he's not the man my mother married. He wasn't her husband. For all we know, he might be married to someone else.'

‘Not husband? Oy!' Inna crossed herself fervently, as if I'd accused her of adultery. ‘So who he is?'

‘I've no idea. Maybe a relation or an acquaintance. Maybe just someone who read a story about a nice flat in London and a woman on her own, and decided to take a chance. The world is full of chancers like that. You can't be too careful, Inna.'

She reached down two cups, filled them both with boiling water, and placed a tea bag in one of them, musing out loud, ‘All night he make love like big man-horse of Queen Ekaterina.'

‘Yes. All night. I heard. Look, Inna. That's all well and good. But it still doesn't give him the right to come and live in this flat.'

‘When morning come he sing beautiful song from my country.
Mmm m mmm m!
' She broke into her wailing ditty. ‘You know this song, Mister Bertie? Soldier depart for great patriotic war, and his beloved Katyusha walk beside riverbank sing it to him.' She flipped the single tea bag into the other cup and began wailing again. ‘
Veestoopila na bereg Katyusha.
'

‘Yes, it's lovely. But we've run out of coffee. And milk.'

‘You see, Ukrainian people now living in London, they very
nice people but all from West Ukraine. Different religion. Different history. They take down statue from Lenin and put up statue for Nazi.' She loaded two spoonfuls of sugar into her tea and sipped carefully, sucking in air to cool her mouth. ‘In my country is twenty million dead from fight against Nazi in great patriotic war.
Mmm na visokiy na krutoy
… My father lost one leg. My Dovik lost all family.'

‘Yes. Splendid. You can tell me the story later. But have you got a fiver I can borrow?'

I pulled on my jeans and T-shirt and stumbled out into the grove clutching Inna's fiver, thinking it would be imprudent to blow it all in one splendid triple-shot at Luigi's, though the temptation was there. A fine rain wetted my hair. In my befuddled state, I noticed that something had changed in the grove, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. One of the feral moggies, a damp scrap of ginger, ran beside me, tail in the air, and rubbed herself against my legs. I bent to stroke her but she shied away then vanished into the shrubbery.

On my way back with my bulging carrier bag – it's amazing what you can get in Lidl for a fiver – I noticed among the cherry trees there was a litter of discarded food packaging, nappies, a black bin bag of unknown contents, a peed-on foam mattress, and a large finely executed turd. Canine? Human? I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

Then I realised what had changed – the tents had gone. They must have left in the night so silently that I hadn't heard them. Then again, we were making quite a racket ourselves.

Inna was out when I got back. Oh dear. Had she run off in tears to search for the impostor Lookerchunky? Sipping my first proper coffee of the day – it was almost ten o'clock, for
godssake – my mood mellowed, and I began to wonder whether I had been unduly hard on Inna, who certainly deserved a mild rebuke for dereliction of coffee duty, but had, to her credit, come up with the necessary fiver. When she came back, I would apologise.

I gazed out of the window. The familiar view was tinted with the sepia of melancholy, to which the flavour of Lidl own-brand may have contributed. Yes, I had behaved badly. I'd been a jerk. I yearned for a glimpse of a forgiving angel skipping along the path between the trees. Where had she been going with that enormous suitcase yesterday? With surprising fondness I also anticipated the stately progress of a Genuinely Good Person, a saver of strays, flea-bitten in the line of duty, coming with a file folder under her arm to rescue me. Or be rescued by me. It came down to the same thing.

Suddenly a commotion at the bottom of the grove caught my eye. A white van had pulled up by the kerb – two white vans, in fact – and men were getting out with heavy-duty tools. Then one of those fork-lift trucks with a platform on the front trundled up, I think they call them cherry pickers. Or cherry cutters in this case. Within minutes, I heard the ghastly high-pitched whine of an electric saw, which was not unlike Inna's earlier singing. Should I rush down and chain myself to a tree? Without Violet to witness my heroism, the whole scenario seemed a lot less appealing.

The same tree I had been chained to was now under attack, amid a crash of branches and a flurry of pigeon's wings. Did I owe it to Violet to continue the struggle which she had started, even though she was no longer here? Or was that merely quixotic? While heroism and inertia battled it out in my brain, a wiry figure in a purple coat had no such doubts. Mrs Crazy appeared in the cherry grove with her two umbrellas, and started beating the hapless tree cutters about head and
shoulders. One of them went down with a crash. The other got on his mobile phone.

Moments later a police car pulled up behind the white vans. Two coppers strolled down the path towards the scene of tree carnage, and had words with Mrs Crazy. I couldn't hear what they said, but I could guess. Mrs Crazy listened, started to argue back, then took a swing with her umbrella. In a flash, one of them got her in an armlock. The other whipped out a pair of handcuffs, and between them they bundled her into the back of their car. The whole scene had lasted no more than ten minutes.

Then the chainsaws whined on.