“Even in winter?”
“Come on, takes more than a drop of rain to scare off a hardy Welshman. The Docklands Light Railway’s not that far away and you can always walk to Canary Wharf if you’re in the mood, so it’s not exactly cut off from the rest of the world.”
Beth had been sympathetic to his decision to give up his job. Truth to tell, she was also secretly quite pleased because it showed he was finally and wholeheartedly committed to the cause, after all his initial reservations. He had not asked the question that was obviously on his lips, nor had she sought to answer it for him. It seemed increasingly likely that she too would have to take the plunge and leave her job but she wasn’t quite ready to do that just yet. And living in London? She was no further on over that course of action either, even though it meant she would be able to see more of her sister Fran. What about the rest of her family? When Friday was over… . That thought invaded her every waking moment. What if Theeth died? What if Gareth… . ? No, stop it, woman. That’s not going to happen. She looked up at Gareth and smiled sweetly at him. Don’t let him see you’re worried. Be strong!
“We’ll get a taxi”, Gareth said. “Saves messing about and it’s not exactly the weather for wandering around the streets.”
They finished their meal, making desultory conversation in the process. The fact of the matter was that neither was really in the mood to talk. They drained their coffee and reached for their coats, made their way downstairs and out into the wintry street. Gareth hailed a black cab and they headed for Limehouse.
Gareth’s flat was in a converted warehouse overlooking the part of the river Thames known as Limehouse Reach, with Shadwell to the north, Millwall to the south and Rotherhithe on the opposite bank. The view from the huge lounge window was panoramic although a lot of the buildings round about were derelict now. There was no longer any of the frantic sea-faring activity that would have been taking place in the busy docks a hundred years previously. But there was a splendid view of the barges and other river traffic that made their way up down the famous old stretch of river. Gareth could, and often did, spend hours watching the various craft going about their nautical business.
“Wolenger would like it here,” he said. Beth got the little owl out of her bag and placed him in the middle of the none-too-clean window-sill. “Could do with a good clean in here,” she noted, as the wooden creature started sending out his green message to the world.
“Steady on. I haven’t been here for three months,” Gareth retorted defensively. “There’s a mop and bucket in the kitchen cupboard if you’re feeling keen.”
“Hey, I didn’t come here to act as unpaid cleaner. Just saying, that’s all.”
The flat itself was the entire top floor of the old building in which it had been converted. Most of the space was taken up with a vast lounge with windows to match. Today the weather was dank and dismal but Beth could imagine the sun pouring in during the summer months and creating a fantastic light atmosphere. She was surprised at what little effort Gareth had made to stamp his personality on the place. There were a couple of old, mismatched sofas and one or two tatty armchairs dotted around the lounge. The floor was adorned, if that’s the right word, with two elderly and somewhat threadbare rugs, obviously picked up in the local flea market. There were no pictures or posters on the walls and, as far as Beth could see, only three photographs. One was of Gareth with an old man, his resemblance to whom was obvious. Yes, even the frown was there! The second was of a beautiful, frail-looking young woman, proudly clutching a tiny scrap of a baby. No need to ask who that was—probably the only photo of the two of them together, Beth thought. The third photo was of a young girl aged about six or seven in school uniform—Gareth’s god-daughter Kate, Beth later discovered. This room could have so much potential—Beth’s brain was whirring. Some decent furniture, floorboards polished up, a couple of quality Persian rugs, pictures, flowers, it could look really nice… . Whoa, steady, girl, steady. Now is not the time to be going down that road!
A decrepit bookcase was stuffed with volumes of various sorts. Legal tomes occupied the bottom three shelves, vast encyclopaedias and reference books with suitably musty titles. Beth moved on hurriedly. The next shelf appeared to contain biographies, mainly of the sporting variety, some yellowback editions of Wisden and a pile of Arsenal programmes. “Whoops! Almost something personal,” Beth thought to herself. The top two shelves were paperback fiction, all thrillers, as Gareth had told her. McLean and Easterman, with Colin Forbes, Jack Higgins and several others. There was also a complete Shakespeare, tattered and heavily notated, bearing all the hallmarks of having been bought in a jumble sale. “Still, at least he’s got a copy,” she mused, “Even if he never reads it.”
On top of the bookcase, she found some old Prom concert programmes, the most recent of which was dated 21st August 2007. “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra! I saw them live on telly. Don’t tell me you were there!”
“Certainly was !” came the reply. “I’ll tell you one thing, Beth. That was the most fabulous concert I’ve ever been to. I’ve been lucky enough to see Haitink conduct Bruckner, Davis conduct Berlioz, Brendel play Mozart, the wonderful and recently-deceased Pavarotti sing Puccini. But this was something else again. For those young South Americans from a totally different culture to give such feeling to a heavily European composer like Shostakovich was amazing, unbelievable. And when they played their own music and revealed their Venezuelan colours, literally, I don’t think the dear old Albert Hall has ever seen anything like it!”
“I suppose you were up in the circle with the nobs?”
“Definitely not. I was right at the front of the Promenaders. In fact, you probably saw me on the telly-box without realising it. If they come to the Proms again, we’ll go together, I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that!”
Beth moved on to another cabinet. Ah, CDs. There would surely be something there of interest. Gareth proved to have very narrow tastes. Virtually his whole repertoire consisted of nineteenth and early twentieth-century orchestral giants. Beethoven led the way of course, then all the other symphonic greats were there up to Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and Shostakovich. There were also some concertos and a complete set of Beethoven piano sonatas, Beth was relieved to note, plus her beloved Schubert and some Chopin. But you’d be hard pressed to find any Mozart or Haydn, and there was no Baroque at all. Beth could not believe such an intelligent man as Gareth seemed to have no liking for Bach or Handel. Very little opera, no Jazz, no easy or pop music at all—a couple of Beatles albums, Queen greatest hits and the Rolling Stones’ Rolled Gold, and that was it. This was a man who knew what he liked and had no desire to venture outside those confines. All quality recordings, too, Beth noted—Deutsche Grammophon, EMI and Decca, none of your Naxos £5 a time jobs. Beth thought of her own much more catholic tastes—a lot of piano music of course and plenty of other classical works but she also loved and appreciated the great Jazz bands, Ellington, Basie, Herman and, for obvious reasons, Oscar Peterson. But then again, she also loved the blues, especially the older stuff, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf. “Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!” was as great a classic in its own field as the Moonlight Sonata. Like Gareth, she had no great love for pop music, not for any snobbish reasons (as she suspected might be the case with Gareth)—no, she just happened not to like it, although even she probably had Take That’s greatest hits tucked away somewhere!
Gareth had busied himself picking up and sorting the large amount of (mainly junk) mail that had accumulated on the floor behind the front door—in fact they had had to resort to a bit of a shove to get in.
“Put some music on, if you like,” he said over his shoulder, as he tore open various envelopes. He nodded towards the music centre, which stood on a low table by the window. Here, at least, money had been spent. This was not your cheap hi-fi picked up in Argos or
Asda. This was top-of-the-range Bang and Olufson. Beth realised she would have to handle it with care. What to play? Something involving the piano would be nice, but also something suitably magisterial. She thumbed through the shelf containing the piano concertos. She was not surprised to see that they were carefully arranged in alphabetical and numerical order with almost anally retentive fastidiousness. See, he was fussy about some things. Beethoven? No, not today. “Make sure that goes back in the right place,” she thought, as she alighted on and withdrew the CD she was looking for—Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, possibly the mightiest concerto in the repertoire. No dramatic start, like Schumann, Grieg or Tchaikovsky. No, much more gentle—not a call to arms like Beethoven’s fourth, where the maverick genius had actually dared to start with the piano! Not even Wolfgang Amadeus, that most gifted of musical prodigies, had thought of that one. This was a much more gentle roll out of bed on a Sunday morning call, a melodious summons from the horn, followed by indolently ambling notes from the piano, which gave little indication of the titanic struggle to follow. Gareth smiled and nodded in appreciation when he heard what was being played.
“Put the kettle on—have a look round,” he said quietly. “I’ve got to sort through this lot.” He carried on destroying junk mail.
Beth wandered into the open kitchen at one end of the flat—smart and well-appointed as you would expect, with all mod cons. The far wall was dwarfed by an American-style fridge-freezer complete with ice-maker. She filled the kettle, plugged it in and thought fondly of a nice cup of tea. There was a very flash espresso machine with a lot of chrome and interesting buttons, no way was she touching that, she thought. Gareth would have instant and like it. Somewhat to her surprise, she did manage to find a jar of Nescafe and a box of PG Tips. No milk, of course, but she drank her tea black as often as not anyway. While waiting for the kettle to boil, she peeped into the room next to the kitchen. This was obviously what an estate agent would have described as a second bedroom, although there was barely room to swing a cat in it let alone a bed. Gareth evidently had no need of this space as sleeping accommodation, as he had transformed it into a study—at least, there was a table and chair against the wall with a computer and also various documents strewn around.
She wandered back through the lounge to the two rooms at the other end, noting, as she passed that the television set was of reasonable proportions, not one of those huge macho—I’m—a—Manchester United—fan plasma efforts that some people allowed to dominate their entire living quarters.
“You’ve got Sky, I see.”
“Yep. I’ve got the full package, but I only use it for the cricket and the football. Nothing else much on, really, in spite of all the hundreds of channels available.”
“Yes, I know. Most of them are repeats, anyway. Still, there’s so much cultural life in London, you needn’t stay in at all, if you’ve a mind not to.” Beth couldn’t help wondering how many glamorous young ladies Gareth had escorted to first nights at the Old Vic or Saddlers Wells. She would have been pleasantly surprised if she had known the answer.
The smaller of the two back rooms was a bathroom, complete with power shower, heated towel rail and waterproof radio. It was a place of cleansing not of languishing amongst scented candles and aromatic ointments. There was a bath, of course, but again, Beth would have had it replaced with one of those deep stand-alone ones… .
The second room was, by process of elimination, the bedroom. Again, Beth was surprised at how impersonal it all was. No ornaments, no knick-knacks, just a king-size pine bed with a plain duvet carelessly thrown across, built-in wardrobes and a bedside table with a lamp, a clock and a radio ensconced on it. A quick peek inside the wardrobes revealed a number of dark suits and pastel-coloured shirts, a row of mainly sober-hued ties, a couple of pairs of jeans and a few T-shirts, an England cricket shirt and an Arsenal top which had seen better days. Nothing outlandish or controversial. Shoes and trainers indicated similar plain tastes. There was no dressing-table, no mirror, no chairs, no sign of a woman’s touch, indeed of a woman ever having been there. Beth thought back to her own bedroom, where they had spent such a lovely night—was it really only three days ago? Although the house in Crosby belonged to Beth now, it was very much a family dwelling still. Her sisters and her mother were able to call it home, there was plenty of room if any of her brothers came to stay with their families. Her own room was scattered with teddy bears and cuddly toys, photos, pictures and posters, mainly of Hendrix, Cobain, Morrison and other members of the 27 Club. Beth would be twenty-seven herself next year. It was not like her to have morbid thoughts but she did wonder why she was so fascinated with these doomed geniuses.
They had made love, of course, and at no time had Beth felt that she was marking her territory or establishing any ground rules. Here it was different. She knew that Gareth would not want to have sex in this room, in this bed, not now. It would be like a caveman dragging his woman to his fireside and establishing his right of ownership. She in turn would not initiate any sexual activity, lest it were seen as an attempt to get her feet under the table (amongst other places!) and to make him think she was ready to move in there and then. She wasn’t.
“Kettle’s boiled”, she heard Gareth call, so she wandered back to the kitchen and busied herself preparing the beverages. She found a couple of mugs, one of which said Arsenal FC The Gunners FA Cup Winners 2005. The other, black, bore the proud legend Sansom McNab Winterburn. Gareth’s taste in mugs was obviously as unimaginative as his taste in furniture. Still, they looked sturdy and reasonably clean and as such would serve their purpose. She poured the drinks, meandered back into the lounge with them and then ambled over to stand by the window so she could look out over the river. A young woman was walking along the path in front of the building, pushing a push-chair and with a little girl of about five in tow. The little girl, dressed all in pink, looked up, perhaps attracted by the green light glowing in the window, and saw Beth looking down at them. She smiled an enormous smile up at her, dazzling white teeth glowing brightly against coal-black skin. Beth felt immediately uplifted and grinned cheerfully in return, with an accompanying wave of acknowledgement. The little girl waved shyly back and then skipped out of sight, clutching happily at her mother’s hand. “Such happiness,” Beth thought. “Such innocence. How can anything possibly go wrong when there is such joy in the world?”
Brahms was squaring up to the demands of the second movement as she went towards the settee where Gareth had sprawled out his correspondence and sat down next to him. She smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Anything interesting?”
“No, ’fraid not. What isn’t junk mail is mainly bills and bits and pieces from work. Shan’t be needing them any more.” He tore several documents in half and deposited them into a shredder by his feet. This had filled up rapidly and he emptied the contents into a black plastic binbag. “That’s about it. I’ll get rid of this lot on the way down. What do you think of it?” He waved an airy hand around. “Like it?”
“Mm, it’s lovely. Beautiful location. It’s certainly got… . potential.” Beth chose her words carefully.
“Okay, I’ve not made the most of the interior decor, but who cares with a view like that. I know you’ve been making mental notes of what changes you’d make and what you’d have where if it was up to you.”
Beth had the decency to blush. “No, well, it could do with improving, you must admit. Couple of decent rugs and a few flowers would work wonders. I… . sorry, I was getting carried away.”
“Maybe it will be up to you one day. What do you think?” He took both her hands and gazed steadily into her mesmerising eyes.
“I can’t think about that now, Gareth. I can’t think of anything until Friday is over and done with. We will be all right, won’t we? I mean, suppose something happens… .”
He grasped her hands even more firmly. “Nothing is going to go wrong, my love,�
� he said in a cheerful, confident tone that belied his inner doubts. “We’ll sort out those louts and put PP in his place forever. The picture is genuine, we both know that, even if Theeth doesn’t think so. It’s our trump card and we’ll make sure we use it to good effect.”
“I hope you’re right. Theeth seems to be expecting the worst, almost as though he feels his time is up. We’re getting near Christmas, this is supposed to be a happy time… . isn’t it?”
“Well yes, but you wouldn’t think so if you lived in my family! We’ll change all that. You are allowed to celebrate Christmas, are you, you being half-Jewish and all?”
“Lord, yes. You try telling seven kids they can’t celebrate Christmas! I told you, my Mum’s family disowned us. No presents from them at Yuletide. I think my grandparents may have given my mother some money at that time of year, but it would have been on the strict understanding that it was to be spent on Kosher stuff, proper food and the like. Not that anyone came round to check!”
“After Friday, we can concentrate on all that. We’ll give ourselves a Christmas to remember!”
“After Friday. The day after tomorrow. So near and yet so far… .”
36
Carols
Ding dong merrily on high
In Anytown bells are ringing
And high up into the sky
The sound of drunken singing.
It’s Christmas Eve and the pubs are full.
Darren downs a final beer.
Makes his way home through deep-set snow
To Pearl, Tyrone, Jade and good cheer,
He hopes.
They’re not his kids—they’re black
And he’s white for a start.
Their father’s doing time
So Darren’s doing his missus
While he’s away paying for his crime.
GBH, as it happens.
The Anagram Page 19
