4
It had snowed the night before, and Silversmith Road was gleaming with ice, so when Leah left her house on Thursday morning and saw Old Skinny Guy lying face-down on the pavement, his arms and legs spread out as if he were making angels in the snow, her immediate assumption was that he’d slipped and fallen.
Leah saw Old Skinny Guy leave his house most mornings. He had a very set routine. At eight o’clock he started to leave the house. It took him approximately three minutes to make his way down the front steps, leaning heavily on a gnarled mahogany cane as he went. At the bottom of the steps he would stop for a while, his hand resting on the head of a plaster lion. He would then remove from the pocket of his grey tweed overcoat (worn through all four seasons) a voluminous white handkerchief and rub it vigorously back and forth across the end of his nose. No matter the weather or the time of year, the old man always had a streaming nose. He would then fold the enormous handkerchief back into a triangle, tuck it into his overcoat pocket and begin his ritual inspection of the pavement outside his house. Any stray sheets of newspaper or cigarette butts were dispatched into the gutter with a firm thwack of his walking stick, then he would be on his way.
‘Hello,’ she made her way tentatively across the slushy road. ‘Hello. Are you OK?’
Old Skinny Guy failed to respond in any way. Leah leaned down and shouted into his ear. ‘Are you OK? Do you need any help?’ The man lay motionless and Leah began to suspect that there might be something seriously wrong. She picked up his hand and felt around the ribs and nodules of his wrist for a pulse. Something juddered beneath the tips of her fingers like a truck going over a speed bump. Leah couldn’t tell if it was the clunk of the old man’s blood or some kind of subcutaneous carbuncle. She let his hand drop and glanced at the front door of the old man’s house.
She clambered up from her knees. ‘I’m going to get someone,’ she shouted. ‘I won’t be long.’
She hurried towards the Peacock House and banged loudly against the front door. A figure appeared through the mottled stained glass of the front door and then he was there, in front of her, Young Skinny Guy, all sideburns and hair and enquiring, slightly panicky facial expressions.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘Er, the old man,’ she began, ‘he’s there,’ she pointed behind her. ‘I think he might be dead.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’ He peered over his shoulder at the prone figure on the pavement. ‘Oh, shit. Let me … God. I need shoes.’ He glanced down at a pair of unfeasibly long and bony feet. ‘Hang on. Just a sec. Hold on.’ He turned to go, but then spun round again. ‘Have you called an ambulance?’
‘Right. Maybe that’s the thing to do. I reckon. Right. Shoes. Back in a tick.’
She was in the middle of trying to explain exactly what was wrong with the old man to a woman with a northern accent who’d answered the phone quickly enough to restore Leah’s faith in the emergency services, when Young Skinny Guy lolloped back down the hallway wearing a pair of gumboots. He followed her down the front steps and out onto the pavement. ‘He’s just sort of flat on his face,’ Leah said to the operator. ‘I’m not sure if he’s breathing or not.’ She glanced at the skinny guy who was crouched over the old man with his ear to his mouth. He shrugged.
‘No,’ continued Leah, ‘we’re not sure. He’s very old.’
‘Ninety-seven,’ said the skinny guy, picking up the old man’s wrist and feeling around for a pulse. ‘He’s ninety-seven.’
‘Jesus,’ she said to the operator, ‘he’s ninety-seven.’
Gus Veldtman was pronounced dead half an hour later and taken away to Barnet General Hospital, where it would later be ascertained that he had died of a massive heart attack. Leah and the skinny guy stood together on the pavement and watched the ambulance as it pulled away. There was something stultifyingly tragic about the silence as the ambulance headed slowly towards the High Road without sirens or flashing lights. There was no hurry. Being dead wasn’t an emergency.
‘Well,’ said Leah, looking at her watch, ‘I guess I’d better get on.’
‘Off to work?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘I run a shop, up on the Broadway.’
‘Oh, really,’ he said, ‘what sort of shop?’
‘It’s a gift shop,’ she smiled, ‘a very pink gift shop.’
‘I see,’ he nodded, ‘I see.’
‘So. Is there anything else I can do?’ she said hopelessly.
‘No.’ He ran the palm of his hand across his face. ‘No. That’s it now, really, isn’t it? I’ll call his relatives. They’ll sort out the rest of it, I suppose. Just got to sort of get on with things, I guess.’ He shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets. ‘But thanks … sorry, what is your name?’
‘Leah.’
‘Leah.’ He nodded. ‘I’m Toby, by the way.’ He offered her a hand the size of a baseball mitt to shake.
‘Toby,’ she repeated, thinking that of all the possible names she’d ever considered for Young Skinny Guy, Toby was absolutely not one of them. ‘Funny,’ she said, ‘I’ve been living across the road from you for nearly three years and I finally get to talk to you because someone dies.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s London for you, I guess.’
Toby nodded his agreement.
‘So, who was he? Gus? I always thought maybe he was your grandfather.’
Toby laughed, nervously. ‘You did?’
‘Yes. But I’m assuming from your reaction to …’ – she gestured at the spot on the pavement where he’d died – ‘that I was wrong.’
‘No. Gus wasn’t my grandfather. Gus was my sitting tenant.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I see. So it’s your house?’
‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘It is.’
‘And the other people who live here – they’re …?’
‘My non-sitting tenants.’ Toby was starting to look somewhat strained by the conversation.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Leah. ‘The last thing you need right now is me asking you loads of questions. It’s just – I’m such a nosy person and I’ve been wondering about your house for years, wondering who you all were and how you all knew each other and … well, anyway. I’ll let you get on. And if there’s anything you need, you know where I live. Please – just ask.’
Toby smiled. ‘Thank you. I will. And Leah?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you, so much.’
‘What for?’
‘For being here. Thank you.’
He turned then and ascended the steps to his big, peculiar house. Leah turned, too, heading towards the bus stop. Looking back at the cold patch of pavement where old Gus had taken his final breaths, she caught a brief glimpse through the front door of the Peacock House. She saw someone glide from one room to another, like a ghost. The door slammed shut and she snapped out of her reverie. It was time to go to work.