Marina Lewycka - The Lubetkin Legacy

The two men speak together in their own language. She catches the word ofisi — office — and the name Waga. Their talk is interrupted by the sound of a mobile phone ringing — ping-ping-ping, ping-ping-ping — she listens to it for a few moments before she recognises the ringtone as her own. They must have got the phone from her bag. She hears them muttering as they fumble to switch it off behind her back; the ringing stops, and her grandmother’s voice, faint from a few metres away but still distinct on speakerphone, says, ‘ Mpenzi , where you got to? When you coming for your lunch?’

The men listen but neither of them speaks.

‘Who is it?’ asks the older one in a whisper.

Without answering him, she heaves herself forward, dragging the chair on the ground in the direction of the phone and screams, ‘It’s Violet! Help! Help! Help!’

Thwack! Her head jolts back as it takes the blow, and darkness falls.

I wished I could stay with Stacey all the time, but her flat was too small for both of us, and it was impossible for her to move in with me because of Monty. As the gloomy autumn days drew in, I resigned myself to shuttling backwards and forwards on my bike. Even happiness has its downside.

One day I got back home to find the message light on my telephone blinking away. I had received recorded messages before, offering me free cruises, computer upgrades, compensation for deafness and suchlike, in hopeful voices that reminded me of Len and his dreams of self-employment. In his memory, instead of shouting abuse, I flicked on the hands-free while I went to fix myself a sandwich. Through the crackles I heard a woman’s voice that somehow combined bleating with menace.

‘Hello, Bertie, is that you? This is your beloved sister Margaret. We’ve seen your show is a hit success and you must be raking it in, but I can’t sleep for thinking about our pet bunny who is buried in the garden at Madeley Court. Don’t you have any conscience …?’ The message ended in a choked sob.

I bit into the sandwich, crunching the lettuce between my teeth. Even celebrity, I mused as I erased the message, cannot protect one from the attentions of lunatics — another experience that I could now share with George.

Another happier consequence of fame was that I had started to get offers of parts and invitations to auditions, mainly for characters experiencing some kind of trauma. I tried for Hamlet at the Barbican, but lost out to Benedict Cumberbatch. Maybe I overdid the stammer. ‘To b-b-be …’ However, I was delighted to be asked to audition for the part of Lear’s Fool in a new production at the National. It was always a favourite of mine, and it brought back memories of the hours I had spent coaching Inna in this role. I wondered what had become of her now.

As if by serendipity, a letter arrived the same day, asking for my help. She wrote in her execrable English that the subtenants of her flat in Hampstead — she gave the address — had stopped paying the rent, and had not responded to letters and phone calls. She asked if I could go round and investigate, adding on a PS that the key was under the blue flowerpot and she had dispatched Lev to sort them out, who would arrive in a few days. I replied that I was now working and too busy to help, but I forwarded her a cutting of a review of Godot in Metro , and the contact details of a couple of property agents in Hampstead.

Then I had a mischievous idea. Inspired in part by the sinister machinations of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whose fate presages the bloodbath in the last scene of Hamlet , I wrote a note to Jenny and Margaret, suggesting that we could meet up on Friday morning at a lovely flat in Hampstead that Lily had also inherited from Ted, which had just become vacant, that might suit their needs better. For good measure, I left a voicemail message on the i4F number for Miss Crossbow and Mr Prang, the fraud investigators, alerting them to suspicious activities at the flat in Hampstead where two individuals, both impersonating Mrs Alfandari, had taken up residence and, I had reason to believe, would be there on Friday morning.

I spent the rest of the day calmly studying Lear , and honing my interpretation of the Fool in preparation for the audition. Some directors give the part to a boy actor, and maintain that in Shakespeare’s time the same boy might also have played Cordelia, but I saw him as a mature man, in his fifties, maybe, no stranger to sorrow.

All the hand flapping and eye rolling that I had drummed into Inna now seemed a bit OTT, and I decided to give him a solemn demeanour and just a little stress stammer on the ‘b’: If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’d have thee b-beaten for b-being old b-before thy time.

Late on Thursday evening, I received a frantic phone call from Stacey.

‘Monty’s dog walker has had an accident. Can you look after him tomorrow, Berthold?’

‘Look, I’m sorry, Stacey, I’m too … b-busy …’

‘No problem. I’ll drop him off just before nine on my way to work. He won’t be any trouble.’

‘But dogs aren’t allowed —’

‘I’ll hide him under my coat. Nobody will know.’

At ten to nine the next morning, Stacey rang the bell, kissed me on the lips, and handed over the little dog hiding under her raincoat.

‘Don’t forget to take him out for his walk.’ She gave me his lead.

‘I might take him up to Hampstead Heath.’

‘Lovely. You’re a darling. Byee!’

Scarcely had she closed the door than the little beast went and deposited a turd in the kitchen.

‘Now, Monty,’ I said as I cleaned it up, ‘we’re going out. Try to behave.’

‘Yah! Yah!’

It was one of those dreary autumnal days when the sky is damp with un-fallen rain. Not a perfect day for the Heath, but I thought it might brighten up in time for Monty’s walk. Inna’s flat was on one of the roads skirting the Heath in the basement of a grand red-brick house that now had seven doorbells. I rang the one that said Garden Flat , and waited. No one answered. There was a blue flowerpot with a dead geranium by the door, but no key underneath. I tried the door. To my amazement it opened. Maybe Lookerchunky had already got here.

‘Lev?’ I called. My voice was swallowed up in musty silence.

There was a pile of unopened mail inside the door. Amid the bumpf of banks, bills and pizza delivery, a brightly coloured flyer caught my eye. Funerals by Orthodox rite. P. Gatsnug and Co. , and on the reverse side the text in Russian. I smiled. He had taken my advice. A resourceful man, and a kind one.

The flat smelled damp, unlived in, with an undertone of mould and stale cigarette smoke. Monty ran around sniffing excitedly. In the kitchen, unwashed crusty plates and pots were piled in the sink. The sitting room was a wasteland of books, bags, discarded clothing and shoes, random household items and cigarette butts, as though Inna’s tenants had upped and fled, leaving their scattered possessions. A growl from Monty startled me. I looked up to see two old ladies tottering down the basement steps.

‘Cooee, Bertie! Is that you? We’ve come to see the flat!’

One of the twins — Jenny, I suppose — advanced into the flat. Margaret, more frail and stooped, followed, leaning on a stick, clutching a grey rag against her chest.

Jenny sniffed the air and looked around. ‘Dad never told us about this. It needs cleaning up, but it would suit us down to the ground. Wouldn’t it, Margaret?’

‘Down under the ground!’ wailed Margaret, stroking the grey rag, which on closer inspection looked like a much-laundered cloth rabbit.