Interpreters Page 17

  Somewhere around here was the first pizzeria to come to town. My friends and I thought it was unbelievably glamorous and cosmopolitan. The waiters wore very tight black trousers and even tighter black shirts, and spoke in accents that swung wildly from south London to somewhere indeterminate south of Calais. It was there that Caroline Statham once, to my surprise, invited me for a pizza after school. Always the first – to kiss with tongues, to put her hand right inside a boy’s Y-fronts, and finally (so she coolly claimed, though none of us really believed her) to have full-blown sex with the man with the shaven head and the anchor tattoo who sold flowers outside the station – Caroline shared something of the glamour of the pizzeria.

  ‘Couldn’t you just tell Max?’ Caroline asked me, picking off pieces of mushroom and onion and kernels of sweetcorn until all that was left of her pizza was an orangey-red spongey mass.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘That I really fancy him.’

  ‘Don’t you think that would sound a bit weird, coming from me? Why don’t you tell him yourself?’

  ‘I don’t see him on the way home any more.’

  ‘He’s doing his exams. He doesn’t have to go into school very often these days. You could ring him up when you get home.’

  ‘I can’t do that. He’ll think I’m some kind of slag. And anyway, your dad’s really scary.’

  ‘He’s not scary.’

  ‘Well, he sounds pretty scary on the phone.’

  ‘He’s just tired.’

  ‘What’s he doing at home so early in the afternoon, anyway? I thought he was some kind of “famous doctor”.’ Caroline drew little inverted commas in the air with her fingers.

  ‘He’s been ill.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he be able to cure himself? If he’s such a “famous doctor”?’ she asked, her greasy fingers repeating the punctuation marks.

  I watched, hating her, as she took a bite of pizza. A long thread of pinkish cheese stuck to the side of her face and hung forlornly from her chin.

  ‘Do you think Max would go out with me?’

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t really go out with anyone.’

  ‘Well, that’s a lie. I’ve seen him out with loads of different girls.’

  ‘He doesn’t want that kind of relationship. He told me.’

  ‘What kind of relationship?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.’

  ‘Don’t just say things and then not be able to explain them. That’s pathetic. Look, I paid for your pizza.’

  ‘I know. Thanks. It was nice.’

  ‘So now you have to ask him.’

  ‘Okay, I will, but I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘And don’t tell him about Kevin-at-the-flower-stall. I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about me. We didn’t really go all the way.’

  Max smiled as I told him about the pizza outing and passed on the message.

  ‘So what shall I tell her, Max?’

  ‘That next time you’ll have the pepperoni.’

  ‘Ha bloody ha. What shall I really tell her?’

  ‘That I’ll be going away very soon, so it’s probably not the best time to start a relationship.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a relationship she wants. More like your body. God knows why.’

  ‘Oh, well, in that case just give me her number.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. I’m going to be pretty busy at the hostel from what I’ve read about it. And it’s very much men only.’

  ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I have to. I’ve accepted the job.’

  ‘You’re not even being paid.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Exactly. There’s no point. Stay here.’

  ‘I can’t. I really want to go.’

  ‘But what about me?’

  ‘You’ll be fine. You’ve got loads of friends – and anyway, you’ll be gone in a couple of years. There’ll be no stopping you.’

  ‘You can’t leave me here with Mum and Dad. I’ll die.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re being a teeny bit melodramatic?’

  ‘OK, I won’t die, but it’ll be awful. Without you.’ ‘You can come and visit me. It’s only north London. I’ll sneak you in.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘But only if you don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m not crying.’

  ‘But only if clear salty liquid doesn’t come out of the little holes next to your eyes. Come here, stupid.’

  Max came over to me and wrapped me in his arms. And even as I buried my face in his school shirt and wept at the thought of life at home without him, I felt a little flicker of victory. Caroline Statham would never, ever get to hold my brother this close.

  XVI

  I met him at a party in Bloomsbury. Or rather I saw him there.

  Andrew?

  Not Andrew, no.

  No, sorry, of course not.

  (SILENCE)

  Go on.

  I’d come back from another long day at the agency. It was all a bit awkward there since I’d turned down Andrew’s proposal. I’d had to walk as I’d spent my bus fare on a roll and a piece of cheese – and I was pretty tired and hungry. I couldn’t afford to put any more money in the gas meter, so, when the girl in the room above mine invited me to her boyfriend’s party, a hot, crowded room with free food seemed a good idea. It’s odd how clearly I remember that party. I asked the girl, ‘Who’s that little man on his own, over there by the window?’ And she said something like, ‘Oh that’s Oscar Rosenthal. He’s a doctor. Frightfully clever, John says.’ She couldn’t remember how her boyfriend knew him. She’d met him once or twice before – but he was a bit of a dark horse. She thought maybe I could get something out of him. ‘You’re the interpreter,’ she said. But by the time we’d pushed our way through the crowd, he’d left.

  And then…

  And then a few weeks after that, late one Friday afternoon, I was called in to the casualty department of the local hospital to translate for an elderly man who had been found lying on his floor at home. He was thin and confused but pretty strong for someone who hadn’t eaten for a few days, and there was no way he was going to let anyone in a uniform near him. He was sitting up in the bed and shouting at the nurses in a mixture of Yiddish and German. And I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder and told him in German, ‘It’s all right. You’re quite safe here. You’re in a hospital in London. No one is going to hurt you. They just want to put in a drip – it’s just saline. Salt water. It’ll make you feel a lot better. I’ll stay here with you and keep an eye on them while they do it.’ And he looked up at me and smiled very weakly and stretched out his arm and I noticed that he had blue numbers tattooed on it. And when the doctor came to take his arm, and put in the drip, I saw that it was the same quiet little man from the party. (SILENCE) And somehow we ended up having a cup of coffee in the doctor’s mess, the little doctor and me. I liked his stillness. And I liked the way he didn’t say very much and his lack of that very English skill of small talk. I liked the way he didn’t ask me lots of questions about myself like all the others did. And he had kind eyes. And then he looked at his watch and asked me if I’d like a glass of sherry. He had a bottle in his room that a patient had given him. And I liked the way it took him a couple of cigarettes and a glass of sherry and a couple of false starts to ask me if I’d like to go to a Prom with him the next week. He said he had a spare ticket and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. But if I didn’t want to come, it didn’t matter at all. He wasn’t even sure he wouldn’t be on call that evening. So different from Andrew with his very English confidence and his certainty that there was nothing I could possibly want to do other than spend every minute of the day with him. I liked this quiet little man’s voice, with its almost imperceptible trace of an accent. I liked the way he occupied the room but still didn’t really seem to fit in. That there was something of the foreigner
about him. Something of the outsider. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’d love to.’ We did go to the Prom and then he walked me back to my room. I could see the landlady’s curtains twitch as we stood together outside the house. He told me he had a new job beginning the following week, in Newcastle. A six-month contract and then he hoped he’d be back in London to start a job in paediatrics. If I was still here when he got back, he’d rather like to see me again. But, of course, only if I had nothing better to do. He took my landlady’s phone number. I didn’t really expect to hear from him again. And life went on very much as before. But almost exactly six months later the phone rang and it was him. I was surprised at how pleased I was to hear his voice. Once, months later, we were in Hyde Park and there were all these couples laughing and holding hands, and old men on their soapboxes ranting about the government or rationing or whatever – just saying whatever came into their heads – and I said to Oscar, ‘This could never have happened where I come from. Do you even know where that is? There’s so much we don’t know about each other – so much about the past – my past.’ And he said, ‘Why should I be interested in the past? Why should the past matter?’ And he just smiled his shy smile. And that was that. No past. Just a future. And then it was New Year’s Eve and he asked me if I’d spend it with him. He’d like to take me to Trafalgar Square. And as we stood by the fountain, as the chimes of Big Ben rang out and everyone shouted and cheered, he took my hand and asked me to marry him. And I thought, yes, why not? Maybe this is someone I could be happy with. Maybe this is someone I could make happy. Maybe this is the future.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Brading Road has somehow survived the years of relentless redevelopment. Farrer & Farrer is housed in what must have been quite a large Edwardian family villa. The name is stencilled across the windows of the ground floor. A plump woman in her thirties, wearing a paisley patterned blouse and plain navy skirt, looks up at me expectantly. Her expensively highlighted hair is scraped off her face and secured with a navy velvet Alice band.

  ‘It’s Rosenthal. Julia Rosenthal,’ I say. ‘I’ve got an appointment at four-thirty.’

  ‘Bear with me a moment.’

  She flicks through her appointment book, then glances at her watch and frowns slightly. ‘Ah, yes. With Mr Blenkinsop. I’ll see if he’s still here.’

  ‘I think the name on the letter was Turner.’

  ‘Mr Turner’s on holiday this week, I’m afraid. Mr Blenkinsop is handling his clients.’

  She presses a button on her phone.

  ‘Nigel. Your client is here now. Yes, your four-thirty. Yes, I know it is. Shall I send her through? OK, no problem.’

  She looks up at me and smiles tightly. ‘Do take a seat, Mrs Rosenthal. Mr Blenkinsop will be with you shortly.’

  ‘Thank you. Actually, it’s not Mrs Rosenthal.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Mrs Rosenthal is my mother. That’s why I’m here. It’s Dr, if you need a title.’

  The receptionist looks down at her appointment book. Her cheeks are flushed with irritation.

  The phone rings. She picks it up.

  ‘The key to which cupboard, Nigel? It’s in the safe.’ She laughs, coyly. ‘I don’t know where you’d be without me either!’

  I pick up a brochure from the table. Whoever Farrer & Farrer once were, they’ve been replaced by David Turner, Nigel Blenkinsop and Jonathan Markham, all three of whom smile up at me in their sensible dark suits and ties that have been chosen to suggest just a hint of fun. From one of Angie’s catalogues, probably. I stare at the picture of Nigel Blenkinsop. He is slightly overweight. What little is left of his hair has been cut very short. His eyes are blue. Trust me, they say. Make me the executor of your will. Let me do your conveyancing. Have this dance with me.

  And Nigel Blenkinsop takes Katie Powell’s hand and leads her, in her dark blue Laura Ashley maxi-dress with the Chinese collar, away from the table, sticky with Coke and lemonade and soggy Cheezy Footballs and Twiglets, and on to the dance floor. And as their faces flash green, red and blue, and silver slivers of light flicker across the ceiling, my heart breaks into a thousand tiny pieces.

  The phone rings again.

  ‘OK, Nigel, I’ll send Dr Rosenthal in.’

  She looks up at me, unsmiling. ‘If you’d like to go through now. Second door on the right.’

  Nigel Blenkinsop leans over his desk to shake my hand.

  ‘I think we’ve met before,’ I say.

  ‘Have we?’ He smiles, questioningly. ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘Thanks. In about 1973. Weren’t you at St Peter’s?’

  ‘I was. For my sins.’

  ‘Do you remember the discos – with the girls from the High School?’

  He grimaces. ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘I used to go to them with my best friend, Katie Powell. Actually, she wasn’t my best friend for long.’

  For one awful moment, I think he is going to say, You mean my lovely wife Katie, but he continues to look blank.

  ‘Never mind,’ I say. ‘It was a very long time ago. I wouldn’t really expect you to remember.’

  ‘I suppose I had hair then.’ He smiles, brushing his hand across his head. I notice he has a tiny hole in one earlobe. And a chunky silver ring on the wedding finger of his right hand. Clearly Farrer & Farrer’s dress code, while embracing the jaunty tie, stops short at any overt indication of homosexuality.

  ‘You did – lots of it. I think it was the Noddy Holder look you were cultivating at the time.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ He smiles again, ruefully. ‘Back to business.’

  He puts his hand on a box that is sitting on his desk. It is a little smaller than a shoebox and wrapped in brown paper. The string is sealed with hard red wax.

  ‘Your mother deposited this box with Farrer & Farrer many years ago. Around the time the firm helped her with the sale of her property. We had instructions, in the event of her death, to contact you or your brother and hand it over.’

  ‘But she’s not dead.’

  ‘So I understand from her recent correspondence with the firm. And in good health, I hope?

  ‘Very. She’s walking in Germany at the moment. She wanted to spend her birthday there.’

  ‘Well, that’s different! My mother celebrated her last birthday in that old Aberdeen Steak House at the edge of the Mall. She’s very much of the “I’m not all that keen on foreign food” generation. Luckily she doesn’t seem to have noticed that Scotland’s gone independent. So, as I was saying, David Turner received a new instruction recently, asking us to carry out her wishes now, rather than after her death.’

  ‘Do you know why she changed her mind?’

  ‘No – we rather thought you might.’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Ah, well. Families, eh? Thirty years in this business and I’ve stopped being surprised about anything very much. There’s just a bit of paperwork to sort out. I thought I had the forms here but I must have left them in David Turner’s office. I’m really sorry about that. I’ll just be a couple of minutes.’

  I try to imagine my mother getting into her car and driving to Farrer & Farrer to deposit the box. I wonder what she was wearing – what she was thinking. I wonder if it was the last thing she did before she locked up the house and left the Close for the last time.

  For about a year after my father died, she stayed in Tenterden Close. I never saw her leave the house, though I suppose she must have done from time to time. As I came and went during my year between school and university, in which I did very little, I’d sometimes catch sight of her sitting in his chair in the study, gazing out at the garden, or lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t say much during those months. Once when I came home, I saw that she had taken all her clothes out of her cupboards and was stuffing them into black dustbin liners. I stopped counting when I reached twenty-five.

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m givi
ng most of them away. Max put me in touch with an organisation that’ll take them. If you want anything, help yourself, but it’ll have to be today. The bags are being collected in the morning.’

  Then one day, she invited Max and me for supper and told us that she had sold the house and bought a small flat in central London. We would be welcome to stay there whenever we wanted to. She would put our stuff in storage and we could get it out when we had somewhere to put it. The flat would be her base too, but she didn’t think she would be there much. She would sell it as soon as we didn’t need it any more.

  ‘Where are you going?’ we asked.

  ‘I’m not sure yet – I just know that I’m going.’

  And that’s what she did. She went. Travelling everywhere by train or boat. Carrying one small suitcase. I think she was the owner of a capsule wardrobe before the term was ever invented. For the last thirty years or so she has lived in France, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and Morocco. Sometimes in large cities, sometimes in the countryside; sometimes moving on after only a few months, sometimes staying in the same place for a couple of years. Once, only once, my mother travelled by air. She flew out to Cameroon just after Susanna was born. I remember how she picked up my tiny baby and whispered in her ear, ‘You see, I kept my promise. I said I’d visit her wherever she went to live.’ I had to leave the room so that she wouldn’t see me cry.