I didn’t know anything about people in her situation. Didn’t they have to go somewhere? Croydon, was it? Couldn’t she have gone to the police? Or some charity? My life was hard enough without this stranger tramping through it. She smelt of mildewedwashing. Imagine her dragging that awful stink into my kitchen. Cupping her filthy hands round my bone china. Smearing my white linen. Her big face with its pantomime eyebrows leeringover my son. Slumpingon to my sofa and kicking off her muddy boots as she yankedme down into her particular hell. How would I ever get rid of her?
“You know where is Tower Bridge?”
Perhaps there was something tender-hearted in my face.
When my grandma first came to England from the Caribbean she lived through days as lonely and cold as an open grave. The story she told her grandchildren was about the stranger who woke her while she was sleeping in a doorway and offered her a warm bed for the night. It was this act of benevolencethat kept my grandmother alive. She was convinced of it. Her Good Samaritan.
“Is something wrong?” the girl asked.
Now my grandmother talks with passion about scroungingrefugees; those asylum seekers who can’t even speak the language, storming the country and making it difficult for her and everyone else.
“Last week…” she began, her voice quivering, “I was in home.”
This was embarrassing. I couldn’t turn the other way, the girl was staring straight at me.
“This day, Friday,” she went on, “I cooked fish for my mother and brother.”
The whites of her eyes were becoming soft and pink; she was going to cry.
“This day Friday I am here in London,” she said. “And I worry I will not see my mother again.”
Only a savage would turn away when it was merely kindness that was needed.
I resolved to help her. I had warm bedrooms, one of them empty. I would make her dinner. Fried chicken or maybe poachedfish in wine. I would run her a bath filled with bubbles. Wrap her in thick towels heated on a rail. I would hunt out some warm clothes and after I had put my son to bed I would make her cocoa. We would sit and talk. I would let her tell me all that she had been through. Wipe her tears and assure her that she was now safe. I would phone a colleague from school and ask him for advice. Then in the morning I would take Laylor to wherever she needed to go. And before we said goodbye I would press my phone number into her hand.
All Laylor’s grandchildren would know my name.
Her nose was running with snot. She pulled down the sleeve of her jacket to drag it across her face and said, “I must find my brother.”
I didn’t have any more tissues. “I’ll get you something to wipe your nose,” I said. I got up from the table.
She watched me, frowning; the tiny hairs of her eyebrows locking together like Velcro.
I walked to the counter where serviettes were lying in a neat pile. I picked up four. Then standing straight I walked on. Not back to Laylor but up the stairs to the exit.
I pushed through the revolving doorsand threw myself into the cold.
aloof sweats from my pores I am a reserved and distanced person by nature
predicament difficult, trying situation
bleak cold, exposed, windswept
acid sour chemical substance
numb [nΛm] unable to feel anything ( usu because of the cold)
whack (inf) hard hit
coppers (pl) coins of low value, made of bronze or copper (Kupfer)
cubicle small partitioned space, here: single, lockable toilet room
Darcey Bussell (b 1969) famous English ballerina
to gape to hang open
doodle casual scribble or sketch
rough [rΛf] book notebook used for sketches and random notes
to shrug to raise one’s shoulders to express indifference or uncertainty
glum downcast, depressed
fraternisation act of being friendly towards sb previously unknown
Alan Bennett (b 1934) English actor, author, playwright and screenwriter
Germaine Greer (b 1939) Australian writer and feminist
A.S. Byatt (b 1936) English novelist and poet
to jangle to make a low ringing sound
slot machine casino or amusement arcade gambling machine ( usu with images of fruit)
to screw up one’s face (idm) to tighten the muscles of one’s face
reluctant feeling and showing hesitation and/or unwillingness
clumsy lacking skill and ease (ungeschickt)
detritus [dɪˈtraɪtəs] dirty, useless, loose material left over (here: dirt and crumbs already on the table)
curlicue [ˈkɜ:lɪkju:] (fml) spiral, curl
doggedly persistently
pleading begging vehemently
aggrieved hurt, upset
to rummage through sth to make a thorough search through sth, to examine sth minutely
chipped here: damaged, not cut straight
fringe [frɪndʒ] (BE) front section of a person’s hair (Pony)
lie (BE) here: shape
to tingle to feel a prickling, thrilling sensation
froth here: foamed milk (e.g. in a cappuccino)
to be obliged to sb to owe sth to sb, to be in sb’s debt
Croydon large suburban town to the south of London
mildewed here: damp and mouldy
bone china type of fine porcelain
to leer [ˈlɪə] to cast threatening or frightening sidelong glances at sb
to slump to slouch, to assume a comfortable position
to yank (inf) to pull hard, to drag
benevolence [bɪˈnev ələnts] kindness
Good Samaritan (from a story in the Bible) sb who shows mercy and kindness to another less fortunate person
to scrounge (inf) to actively seek money or food from any available source (and be unwilling to pay or work for it) (schnorren)
to quiver [ˈkwɪvə] to tremble, shake
poached [pəʊtʃt] cooked delicately and carefully over water (pochiert)
to frown to pull one’s eyebrows together in concentration, displeasure or mistrust
Velcro Klettverschluss
revolving doors three or four doors rotating around a vertical axis within a cylindrical space (Drehtür)
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