The Restoration of Otto Laird

by Nigel Packer

  ‘And how about you, Joe?’ Chloe turned to ask. ‘What do you think about Marlowe House?’

  Beneath the tough exterior, there was a touch of vulnerability in Joe’s grey eyes, making him an oddly ambivalent presence.

  ‘I’m not much good at talking in front of the cameras.’

  ‘Try,’ said Chloe, with a smile. ‘It would be nice to know your thoughts.’

  Joe rubbed his hands together, awkwardly.

  ‘I don’t have the same connection to Marlowe House as Roz. Just four years here, for me. I’m originally from Harlow, one of the post-war New Towns. Like Roz, I grew up in a world of concrete. It’s hard, to be honest, for me to judge this place as a building, ’cos I connect it with Roz and the good feelings she brings. I wake up, most mornings, after she’s left for work … I look up at the ceiling, and even that, a plain white ceiling, brings me a sense of security.’

  Chloe sat forward in her chair. It was an unexpectedly candid response. Joe wasn’t so bad in front of the cameras after all.

  ‘It ain’t always been that way,’ he added. ‘I have a bad history with ceilings. They ain’t always been that kind to me. Ceilings of bedsits … ceilings of squats. Some of them hold bad memories.’

  The camera zoomed in closer. Joe’s head in the viewfinder grew enormous. The creases and folds of his pale and pockmarked face looked like footage from a lunar landing module.

  ‘I had a few problems, you see, in the years before I met up with Roz. She helped straighten me out.’

  Chloe nodded, willing him to continue, but Joe suddenly faltered.

  ‘I shouldn’t really talk about this…’

  Otto sensed it was time to interject. The intrusion was making him uncomfortable.

  ‘Would you miss anything about Marlowe House?’ he asked Roz. ‘If it were to be demolished?’

  A look of gratitude crossed her face.

  ‘Apart from my friends?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know … let me see. Several things, I suppose. The staircase, for a start. I’ve always liked that staircase. The way it spirals upwards as you stand at the bottom. It needs some renovation work, and it looks a lot less nice from six storeys up, when you still have another nine to climb. But even when the lifts aren’t broken, I still make the effort to walk up the first few floors, now and then.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘There’s a view of it, sometimes, when I’m walking back across the bridge after my shift. As I look up, I can see Marlowe House, diagonally, in profile, jutting out in the distance on the other side of the river. The sunlight catches the windows near the top and there’s a flash, a flare, just briefly. It looks like a great flint being struck. And it feels, to me, almost like a welcome, as though it’s sending out something personal to me. And the feeling I get then is about other things. About Joe, who’ll be waiting here, and a beer together on the balcony, and the sun slowly setting on our faces. I can feel my footsteps quicken as I walk across the bridge.’

  The smile that briefly lit her face was a boon to Otto’s heart. It reminded him, faintly, of those scenes with the residents from the newsreel in the mid 1960s. Maybe things weren’t so negative here, despite his initial impressions.

  It was Chloe who spoke to Roz now.

  ‘And would you like to see Marlowe House saved from demolition and given a listing?’

  ‘I think so, yes … certainly if it means carrying out some improvements. Otherwise, I’m not so sure. Personally, I have strong memories of this place, so for sentimental reasons I’d like to see it survive. But life moves on – we may do soon ourselves. A flat’s become available nearer work. So I’d only want the building to stay if it meant a better life for the people who remain here.’

  ‘And you, Joe?’

  He shrugged again.

  ‘I don’t really care much either way, to be honest.’

  After a pause, he decided to explain himself further. He might as well finish what he had started.

  ‘I’ve moved around a lot over the years, lived in dozens of places. I was even on the street for a while, when things got really bad. Sleeping in bus shelters, in supermarket car parks, staring at abandoned factories through sheets of rain. I remember staying in a roofless shed at the site of the old Dagenham car works. The stars that night were shining overhead. The thing is, after something like that, I’ve moved beyond feeling any connection to places. The only connection that I feel now is to Roz.’

  Joe looked questioningly at Otto.

  ‘Does that sound strange to you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Otto replied. ‘I’d say it sounds like wisdom.’

  * * *

  If Joe was largely indifferent to the fate of Marlowe House, then Ravi was a different matter. Born and bred on the eighteenth floor, he was rooted in the soil here as deeply as the concrete columns. They interviewed him that afternoon in the apartment where he lived with his mother and sister. About the same age as Chloe, with lively eyes, tousled hair and a fine-boned face, Ravi sat on the edge of his sofa in a hooded top and jeans. Unlike Joe, he was confident in front of the cameras, wanting to state his point of view while he had the opportunity.

  Throughout the interview, he asked as many questions as he answered. He wanted to know about the film they were making; about Otto, and the history of the building. He questioned them about the legal process that would be needed to halt the demolition. Otto’s knowledge, on this last point, was rather vague. Nonetheless, Ravi sensed that he had found himself an ally, and his passion for saving Marlowe House soon became clear.

  ‘This place is getting more run-down each year,’ he told them. ‘Nobody seems interested in its upkeep. Yet at the same time a lot of redevelopment work has taken place near by. Luxury flats, fancy restaurants. It don’t take much to see what’s going on. I had a feeling, some time ago, that our days here might be numbered.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Chloe. ‘I don’t quite follow.’

  ‘This ain’t a well-heeled neighbourhood, but it is well placed. Only a short journey from central London. Land in this area has become like gold dust in recent years. You telling me the sharks in suits want thousands of council tenants taking up valuable space? Not when there’s money to be made from developing this land as private apartments. They can’t wait to see the back of us.’

  ‘Do you have any evidence of this?’

  ‘No, but then how could we? It’s just a feeling. Everyone round here knows the score, the way the wind has been blowing these past few years. There’s been a lot of social engineering going on in London, clearing inner-city areas of poorer people so that richer ones can move in. And yet it’s not social engineering – that’s what we’re told. It’s all about regeneration – one of those well-meaning words. Though it’s hard to feel regenerated when your home is knocked down and you’re sent to live fifty miles away.’

  Otto, who had yet to speak, was shifting about in his seat, looking agitated, unhappy. Ravi’s words were bringing back some painful memories of past professional battles.

  ‘So what would you say to those people who think that Marlowe House should be demolished?’ Chloe asked.

  Ravi thought for a while.

  ‘People of many different nationalities live in this building: all the world is here. By and large they get on well with each other, even though life ain’t always easy for them. That’s an example to everyone, no? People make friends here, they marry each other … grow up and grow old together. I work for a local community group so I know the real picture, and it ain’t the horror story some people want you to believe. As for the idea that everyone wants it demolished? There are people who like living here and people who don’t. But the picture’s never been all one way.’

  ‘So what would you like to see done?’

  ‘I’d like them to preserve it – to show that it can work. Spend a little money, maybe, ’cos this place certainly needs it. Don’t divide people up and break communities apart;
put up a few of the residents in nice new flats, with a photo in the local papers, and then send the majority to go and live elsewhere when nobody is looking any more. I don’t really care about the architectural value of this building. No offence, but it ain’t my speciality. What I do know is that I want this community to stay together, ’cos it’s time that people like us made a stand again.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Otto said quietly, his voice thick with feeling. ‘It infuriates me to see this happen. A simple necessity, like a roof over one’s head, turned into a bargaining chip for speculators. Communities shoved around, given no say in their future.’

  Chloe remembered the rather vague old man who had spoken to her the other day on the burned-out mattress. This was an Otto she hadn’t witnessed before: fired up; indignant; re-engaged.

  Otto looked at Ravi.

  ‘I’m sorry about this – we should have acted long ago, before the fabric fell into such disrepair. Our chances of success would have been much better then. But we’ll do whatever we can to save the building. Rest assured, there are people hard at work on it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Ravi. ‘Appreciate it.’

  Once they had finished the interview, and the film crew were moving out their equipment, Ravi accompanied Otto and Chloe to the door.

  ‘It’s funny,’ he told them. ‘When I first heard there were plans to make a film here, I assumed you must be from one of those TV police dramas.’

  ‘Police dramas?’ said Otto.

  ‘Yeah, you know the ones. The Bill, or whatever. Those people are always shooting scenes round here. Once we had two film crews turn up at once! You should have seen the row that broke out between them. People see this place as a visual shorthand for crime. The concrete, the graffiti, the kids hanging round in hoodies. It’s a cliché, simplistic, but it gives you some idea of what we’re up against. You get used to it, that’s how things are, when you come from a place like Marlowe House. Life is one long battle against the preconceptions and stereotypes. Well, I ain’t giving up the fight now.’

  Otto looked rather moved as he shook Ravi’s hand at the door. His commitment to the building, to what it represented, had been reignited.

  Seventeen

  Otto rose late, showering and dressing at a more leisurely pace than previously. No filming was planned until later that day, so he had a little time to himself. Furthermore, for the first time since arriving in London, he had enjoyed a decent night’s sleep. The reaction of the residents the previous day had come as a relief to him.

  He made himself toast and coffee and opened the living-room curtains to be greeted by a fine autumn day. It was crisp and windy, with freewheeling clouds and intermittent sunshine that was all the more appealing for its hesitancy. Time, once again, for Otto to consult the virtual A to Z that lay inside his head. Even better, he would consult the three-dimensional map of London laid out beneath the balcony of his apartment.

  Settling outside on a plastic chair, he resolutely ignored the fact that the high winds were making it a far less pleasant experience than he had anticipated. Finally, when a slice of buttered toast he was about to bite into was whisked from his hand and flung over the edge of the balcony (no fatalities below – he had checked), he accepted that the sensible thing to do would be to finish his breakfast inside.

  Never really thought of that one – not much shelter from the north-easterlies. Funny the things you overlook when designing a place. There’s always something – it’s never perfect.

  Through the closed window, Otto scanned the London skyline. But he knew already where he would spend that morning. The heights of Hampstead, seen from the rooftop recently, were only faintly visible in the distance. Yet they held a prominent place on his mental horizon.

  I think it’s time to go home, he told himself.

  Dressed once more in his overcoat and homburg, and brandishing his cane before him, he left the building some half an hour later and made his way down to the tube station.

  Although his face registered no emotion as he sat on the Northern Line train, his heart beat a little faster with each stop. Once he had changed trains at Euston, he began to trace his old evening commute from the West End to Hampstead, his lips moving in time to the announcements on the tannoy. Mornington Crescent – Camden Town – Chalk Farm – Belsize Park: the order and rhythm of these names remained as familiar as those childhood recitals from the Talmud.

  Are you really prepared for this? he thought. You could always change your mind.

  On a practical level, he had little choice. The schedule for filming was tight, and he must take the opportunity to do some proper exploration. Tomorrow evening, he would fly back home – to his comfortable life with Anika in the hills above Lake Geneva. Chances were that he might never return to London again. Angelo, Otto’s last real contact here, was not often around in the city these days. His job made constant demands upon his time, and he was forever travelling overseas. As for Daniel and his family … well, who knew what would happen? Otto certainly wasn’t making any assumptions there. So this was his last opportunity, then, and he would probably never forgive himself if he failed to take it. The memories, circling incessantly around his head, had been stirred too deeply to settle. He must follow his journey through, relive everything to the full. Maybe it would bring him a sense of peace.

  The tube train began to slow for Hampstead. Otto rose from his seat a little early and stood swaying in the centre of the carriage, one hand gripping the overhead pole and the other his cane as a counterbalance. When the doors slid open and he stepped out onto the platform, he stopped momentarily to take out his handkerchief and wipe beads of perspiration from his brow. Then he continued on his way.

  As he slowly climbed the stairs from the platform to the lifts, a young man in a suit and tie nudged his shoulder as he hurried past. The young man seemed agitated; perhaps he was late for a meeting. He was clutching a briefcase closely to his chest. Turning as he ran, he sharply muttered something before disappearing from sight. Otto glanced up, irritated. There was nothing new in this rudeness. It was only when returning to London after a period of time away that one even noticed it.

  The same thing had happened to Cynthia during her illness. Some smartly dressed young woman, pushing past her in Regent Street. What was it she had said to Cyn, again? ‘Out of my way, you stupid cow’ – that was it. Quite remarkable. She must have thought that Cynthia was drunk, since her headscarf covered the scars from her surgery. And Otto was looking in a shop window at the time and like an idiot completely missed it. She almost lost her balance, too; had to cling to that lamppost to stay upright. And the anger – the anger Otto felt upon discovering. That young woman would have had no idea what she had just done – no doubt she would have forgotten the incident within a matter of seconds. But it knocked Cyn’s confidence, badly. It never quite came back to her. She had been trying not to use her wheelchair, in order to hang on to the last of her independence. After that, she starting using it all the time in public places.

  At the exit, Otto fed his day pass into the machine. In a series of rapid movements it sucked in, processed and spat out the pink ticket, which he collected from an orifice as the gate slammed shut behind him.

  Even the ticket machines in this city are bloody rude.

  Stepping outside the entrance, he blinked at the change of atmosphere. It was thirteen stops here from the Elephant and Castle, where his journey had begun, but a world away in many other respects. Whereas the streets around Marlowe House remained urban in character, Hampstead retained the air of a small country town. Its calm sense of affluence was a little disorientating after Otto’s experiences of the past few days. It was a reminder once more, if any were needed, that London remained many cities in one.

  Otto followed the high street up the hill, eventually turning off into a network of quieter backstreets. Large houses from the Edwardian period dominated the horizon. He stopped before one of them, the front lawn overgrown in the cottage-garden
style, and rested for a moment on his cane.

  * * *

  ‘For a couple of avant-garde lefties, you two have pretty traditional tastes when it comes to choosing your own home.’

  These words came from Anton, Cynthia’s brother, as he wandered around their newly bought house. It was the spring of 1966, and their professional lives were blooming. The handsome building into which they had just moved offered material confirmation of their new-found status.

  Anton was climbing up some steps to poke his nose inside the attic.

  ‘I assumed that you’d be living in some kind of rotating concrete sphere. But this is all rather nice. Very nice, indeed!’

  It was the kind of backhanded compliment Otto had come to expect from Anton. He was fond of his brother-in-law, but in the ten years they had known each other Otto had never quite established an effective method for engaging in conversation with him. Otto always felt caught off guard by Anton’s particular kind of sarcasm, affectionate but slightly barbed, and could never find the right tone with which to respond. He feared either causing offence, by being too blunt in his comeback, or giving the impression that he had himself taken offence, by being too polite. Treading the line between the two was no easy task. In time, after several failed attempts, he discovered that the best solution was to smile politely and leave all the talking to Cynthia, who seemed to know much better than he what she was doing.

  ‘Yes, well, when you’ve finished your little tour of inspection perhaps you could put all that military training of yours to good use,’ Cynthia said to Anton. ‘There’s a rats’ nest in the attic that needs terminating.’

  Anton, who had trained at Sandhurst and spent some years in the army before taking up a career in the City of London, was quite different in character to his sister. Their tastes, their interests, their ideas on culture and politics – everything seemed to run in contradistinction. There were times when Otto had the impression that Anton’s entire personality was defined on the basis of what his older sister was not; a childhood impulse for contrariness, got completely out of hand. Even their looks differed greatly. She was petite and delicate, with an auburn bob and a taste for flowing garments that grew ever more extravagant as the 1960s progressed. He was thick-set, ruddy and fair-haired, usually wearing a bespoke tailored suit, or – at weekends – a starched white shirt and pressed beige slacks. His style, it seemed, was unvarying. Whatever Anton wore, however, he always looked to Otto like an officer in civvies; someone who would never feel at home unless buttoned up in blazing red and standing to attention.