Ruth Rendell - Portobello

But leaving the house with all the money he possessed in his pocket, just under four pounds, he met on the doorstep the woman next door on hers. Knowing her slightly – she was the one who had complained about the rats – he couldn't resist giving speech to his feelings. 'This place is a fucking disgrace, a shithole. It wants pulling down. Destroying is what it wants till there's fucking nothing left.'

Probably not knowing what answer to give, the woman said, 'Oh, dear.'

Shaking his head, Lance went out into Aclam Road and made his way through the second-hand clothes stalls down to the Portobello to buy the cheapest breakfast he could find.

'Summer suns are glowing over land and sea,' sang the Children of Zebulun. 'Happy light is flowing, bountiful and free.'

It had been raining ever since they left Clacton and for some time, sporadically, before that. Uncle Gib hadn't enjoyed himself. But he had known he wouldn't. He didn't like being away from home, he had had too much of it in the past and had gone only because it was his duty as an Elder. The food was the trouble, for one thing. Fish and chips in a café and he had always hated fish. At least he'd been able to have a fag out on the pavement.

Dodging the showers, they had walked along the front. More or less recovered from what the doctors had told him was an ITA or Transient Ischaemic Attack, Reuben Perkins stumbled along, talking monotonously about the crime that had come to the Essex coast, something called 'gang culture', binge drinking and crystal meth, whatever that might be, for sale on every street corner. There was no evidence of any of that during the daylight hours. The only people about were very old, sitting in shelters with sticks and Zimmer frames beside them, and very young girls wearing clothes that showed everything they'd got, tripping along arm-in-arm and falling over their high heels. One or two of the old people waved their hands, fanning the air, when his cigarette smoke wafted over to them. Uncle Gib fixed them with his steely eye and they turned away, defeated.

Tea was baked beans, more chips and green leaves that looked like the weeds growing in the flower beds at Portobello Green. Uncle Gib asked for a fried egg but they said they'd no eggs. That was the sort of dump it was. Now, returning, all but he singing lustily, they were coming into Ilford and he was longing to be home. He'd get the coach to drop him at the corner shop where Golborne Road turned out of the Portobello and buy himself half a dozen eggs and some slices of Polish salami. And then he'd smoke all the way on the walk home. The rain had stopped and the evening was clear, cool and damp.

Lance was sitting in the kitchen when he came in, watching Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day on the television. He hadn't expected Uncle Gib so early. Only just gone eight. Lance's idea of a day out was one that started about three in the afternoon and came to an end around two the following morning. Uncle Gib put a carrier bag full of food down on the table.

Lance asked hopefully if he could have an egg.

'I left one for you on a plate. And a bit of pudding.'

'It was cracked, that egg, and it was off. A horrible pong it made. A person could get fucking salmonella from that.'

'Don't you use that language here,' Uncle Gib said, but absently. He was watching James Bond and lighting what was only his tenth cigarette of the day.

Lance went upstairs. He had counted on spending the evening in front of the television but that was out of the question with all that smoke and Uncle Gib doing a running commentary on things he disapproved of like sex and dirty words and girls' figures. He was very hungry and he began to wonder if the old woman would have left any food behind in her house when she went away. Tins maybe and something in the freezer, which he could defrost in the microwave. No chocolate cake this time, though. Even thinking of it brought the saliva into Lance's mouth.

He checked on his equipment, taking everything he had put in there out of his backpack to make sure. A see-through black stocking he'd found in the Scope clothes bank – it had a ladder in it – to put over his head in case anyone saw him, the glass cutter, a pair of black cotton gloves nicked off a stall in the Portobello and a torch, which must be Uncle Gib's, that he'd found under the scullery sink. It actually lit up, which was a miracle. He would wear his hoodie and he'd have to wear his trainers. They were the only shoes he had.

When he had assembled everything and put it all back in the bag he lay down on the bed, preparing himself for a long wait. He must have dozed off for when he woke up it was dark and he heard Uncle Gib climbing the stairs on his way to bed. It was just after eleven. No longer hungry, the tension stifling appetite, he crept down the stairs. The hall of Uncle Gib's house was unfurnished but for a wooden chair, long ago painted pea green, on which reposed the lid of a tin once containing Auntie Ivy's favourite mint humbugs. In it, for it was in use as an ashtray, lay, still smouldering, Uncle Gib's last cigarette of the day. Lance stubbed it out, cursing under his breath.

Then he let himself out of the front door, closing it behind him as quietly as he could.

They had been to the theatre to see St Joan at the National. It ended rather late and it was after eleven when the taxi brought them home. The driver passed Elizabeth Cherry's house and Eugene, knowing she was away, glanced at its windows. 'Just to see that everything is all right,' he said to Ella.

Looking at her house wouldn't tell us, she thought. She didn't say it aloud but he guessed. 'All right,' he said, laughing. 'Burglars aren't going to hang out a sign saying "Occupied". We'll go home and then I'll just walk round there. She gave you a key, didn't she?'

'She gave her key to Susan. She always does.'

He knew very well that Ella hadn't a key. After all, Elizabeth had been away a week. He wanted ten minutes on his own so that he could eat a Chocorange. The craving had come on him just as they were leaving the theatre.

His habit made him lie to her all the time. 'It's remembering our own burglary that makes me anxious.'

'I know, darling,' she said.

It was hateful to him that she trusted him while he deceived her, but that didn't stop him picking a Chocorange out of the packet as soon as he turned the corner. Oh, the blessed relief of it after those hours of abstinence in the theatre! Lights were on in most houses, including Elizabeth Cherry's, but it went out as he approached and Susan came out of the front door. They both laughed at the small coincidence.

'Everything all right?' Eugene pushed the Chocorange behind his back teeth with his tongue.

'Everything's fine.'

'No emaciated children eating chocolate cake?'

'Nothing like that,' said Susan. 'Goodnight.'

'Goodnight, Susan.'

Back in Chepstow Villas Ella had opened a bottle of wine. She poured herself a glass and gave him one. She showed him the bill she had prepared to send to Joel.

'I've never done one before. As you know, I don't charge the other private patients.'

'No, perhaps you should. But it's excellent, darling.'

'His father will pay it but I think it would be more polite and – well, kinder, to send it to Joel, don't you?'

'Yes, of course. What does Father do?'

'He's a hedge fund manager, whatever that is. He's very rich and grand.'

It was the eve of her fortieth birthday. Ella wondered if Eugene would remember. But of course he would. He always remembered her birthdays and the anniversary of the day they had first met, as he would in the future remember the date of their engagement and then their wedding.

Passing Gemma's flats in the night time was something Lance avoided doing. It was great seeing her on her balcony in daylight hours but by night he couldn't help imagining her in there in bed with Fize and that made him jealous and angry. In the Portobello Road and Westbourne Park Road environs there were still plenty of people about, many of them drunk, most of them young, a lot of teenagers among them. It had been raining heavily in the early evening but the rain had stopped. The dark air was damp and still, the sky thickly overcast.