Berthold: Swish Swish

‘Berthold? Berthold, are you all right?’ It was Mrs Penny, placing an arm around my shoulder. I could smell her perfume through my tears as she brought her face close to my ear. ‘Do you need a lift home, pet?’

‘I’m fine. I’m just …’ The words dried up.

‘It’s okay. My car’s just around the corner. I’m going your way.’

Half leaning on her, I stumbled along the pavement until we came to the little red car. I caught sight of myself in the wing mirror, my dripping hair and teary eyes, my bloodstained jacket, the Bertie Bean hood. The way I looked, I would not have offered myself a lift.

She clicked a key and lights flashed. ‘Get in.’ She started up the engine. ‘What were you doing around Priory Green, anyway?’

‘Oh, I’d just b-been for a job near King’s Cross. Unsuccessful, I’m afraid.’ I tried to sound upbeat, but the catch in my voice must have betrayed me. ‘And you? You’re not still at work, are you?’

‘I’m just finishing off some casework. I’m going to be off for a couple of weeks. I’m afraid your tenancy transfer will have to wait until I get back.’ She sounded flustered.

‘Going somewhere nice?’

‘Not really.’ There was a silence. ‘I’m just having some time off.’

The way we were sitting, both facing forward in the front of the car, was curiously anonymous, almost like a confessional, with a lattice of politeness between us: we did not look at each other but watched the windscreen wipers flick their rhythm of blur-and-clear as we crawled bumper to bumper up the Pentonville Road.

‘Oh? Nothing bad I hope?’

‘No. Not really.’

I thought I heard a tremor in her voice but her profile was impassive. I couldn’t help noticing the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the downward droop of her mouth.

‘Actually, I’m going on a retreat. I’m going to rediscover my Inner Goddess, if you must know.’ Another silence, then a torrent of emotion. ‘You can’t imagine the stress I’m under at work. I can’t face having to turn up every day and implement policies that are so callous, that were never part of the job I signed up for. I bet you think I’m a heartless monster, don’t you?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I try to be professional, but inside I’m crying.’ She was gripping the wheel with both hands as she spoke, leaning forward towards the steamy windscreen.

‘Swish swish,’ the wipers whispered.

I felt an impulse to hug her. ‘Mm. I know the feeling.’ I loosened Bertie Bean from around my neck. ‘I’ve been crying inside all day.’

‘I used to be a kind-hearted person …’ Her voice was wobbling between bravura and embarrassment.

Swish swish. The droplets smeared across the windscreen. I thought I caught the glint of a tear in her eye but it might have been just a trick of the light.

‘You’re still … I mean, you’re wonderful as you are, Eustachia. You’re already a goddess!’

‘Do you really mean it?’

‘Of course. A goddess of mercy.’ My voice sounded more tinny and insincere than I felt.

She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. There were black streaks where the mascara had run into the wrinkles. ‘My doctor put me on benzos, you know,’ she said.

‘I was on Prozac.’

Taunting memories crowded in on me as I said the ‘p’ word. You think you’re over it, but you’re not. Just look at you. You’re a bloody mess. Swish swish.

Red tail lights smeared and blurred in front of us. She drove nervously, her foot hovering over the brake.

‘I started to put on weight. My memory started to go. The doctor wanted me to come off them, she said I was getting too dependent. She said I had to learn to control my impulses. But you see, I can’t. I’m an emotional person. Those pastry things your mother makes, for example …’

‘Mm. Slotki. By the way, how did you feel after you’d eaten them?’

‘Since you ask, I felt absolutely awful!’

Oh God! I remembered the nausea and the feeling of choking the first time I tasted them. So maybe it had not just been my paranoid imagination. Maybe this was part of Inna’s plan to get her hands on the flat.

‘Totally suicidal!’ she moaned. ‘Like all my self-control melted away in one mouthful.’

‘They made me feel strange too, but it was more physical. I think they don’t agree with me.’

‘Funny you should say that – my speech therapist had an allergy to anything with nuts in it.’

‘Mm. Your speech therapist?’ I let this sink in. Could an allergy be hereditary?

Once we were past Islington the traffic eased and the rain petered out. We were moving more quickly now, Mrs Penny biting her lower lip with concentration as she worked up and down through the gears, her left foot pressing hard on the clutch. In a few minutes we would be home.

I seized the opportunity to ask the question that had been nudging itself to the front of my mind. ‘What happened to Mr Penny, Eustachia?’

She let out a sudden moan and, uncontrolled, the car lurched forward. I grabbed the wheel to avoid a cyclist on the near side.

‘That lying, cheating, heartless bastard! He told me I’d let myself go and I wasn’t the woman he’d married. Then I discovered he was having an affair behind my back all the time with a younger woman. He didn’t want me to look different; he just wanted me out of the way.’

A tear drop glistened on her cheek momentarily. She wobbled as we passed another cyclist and I laid my hand over hers on the steering wheel, searching my repertoire of Bard wisdom.

‘Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more, men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea, and one on shore, to one thing constant never.’

‘Oh, that’s so true.’ A small smile lit her profile. She glanced at me sideways. ‘Is it poetry?’

‘Shakespeare. The best.’

‘I bet you’re not like that, are you, Berthold? Always chasing after what you can’t have?’

‘Me? No, not at all.’

After all, I had not chased after Violet. I had let her skip away with her suitcase across the station forecourt. I felt a stab of pain remembering, and also a slight twinge of relief. Whatever had possessed me to imagine that love could blossom between Violet and myself? She was young enough to be my daughter. Bertie Bean had saved me from making an utter prat of myself. I pulled him tighter around me.

‘So what did you do, Eustachia?’

‘What could I do? I went back to my speech therapist. She’d retired by then but she was like a fairy godmother to me, and I asked her advice. She told me to dump him. Best thing I ever did – dumping him.’

‘So now you live alone?’

‘Just me and Monty.’

‘Monty?’

‘Monty the Mongrel. He came from a client, an old lady I was rehousing whose husband had fought with Montgomery at El Alamein. Would you believe it? He was a war hero, and they wouldn’t let her take the dog into the new place, told her to have him put down. Heartless, the rules we have to work by. She told them she’d sooner keep the dog and live on the street. So I took him in.’

‘That was kind.’ The words sounded banal, but they came from my heart, which pulsed with revelation. I was in the car of a genuinely good person, someone who went around rescuing stray dogs, and people.

‘Best thing I ever did since dumping my ex. Only problem is the fleas. Well, here we are!’

She slammed on the brakes and pulled up the handbrake. We were outside Madeley Court. Through the leaves of the cherry trees I could see that the light in my flat was on, twinkling bright like a beacon. With any luck, globalki would be in the oven.

‘Thank you so much, Eustachia. You saved me. You really did. I’d reached rock bottom and you rescued me. Like a stray mongrel.’ I opened the car door and paused, glancing down at her ankles. The flea bites took on a new significance now; they were the stigmata of human kindness. ‘Won’t you come in for a minute? I’m sure my mother would love to see you.’

She locked the car and we walked side by side through the grove. Lights were on inside the Romanian tents – torches, or candles maybe. A sound of voices talking quietly. A baby murmuring in its sleep. I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.

We stood close together in the lift, our hands still touching in a companionable way. Her flowery perfume filled the metal cubicle, blotting out the smell of pee. As we passed along the walkway, I glanced at the next-door flat. It was in darkness. I shivered, but Eustachia was standing so close behind me I could feel the radiant warmth of her body through my jacket.

She murmured, ‘Sounds like your mum’s got a visitor.’

My ears pricked up. What was all that shrieking and yelling? At first I thought Flossie must have escaped and gone on the rampage, but as I fitted my key in the lock, I heard that there were two voices, a shrill soprano screech and a deeper baritone bellow. I couldn’t understand what they were shouting, which, I soon realised, was because they were not shouting in English but in Romanian. Or Ukrainian. Or something. I was filled with apprehension, but Eustachia bristled with professional resolve. ‘Old people are so vulnerable nowadays, even in their own homes.’

I opened the door. Inna was standing in the living room, her eyes wide, a kitchen knife in her hand. A man was facing her with his back towards me – a stocky, short-haired man with square hands and shoulders. In fact, if I had to put a name to him, I would have called him Lookerchunky. He was squeezed into a pair of too-tight, silver-grey trousers; a spare tyre bulged against the midriff of his dark grey shirt, which had darker circles of sweat under the armpits. A silver jacket to match the trousers hung over the back of a chair.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Hello, Mother!’ I rolled my eyes and flapped my hands discreetly to signal that she must act in mother-mode for the benefit of Eustachia standing behind me. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Bertie!’ Her voice was agitated. ‘This … this my husband come from Ukraina.’

The chunky man turned to face me. ‘Bertholt? Hello, old chep. Is very good seeink you again.’

He was handsome, in a brick shithouse sort of way, with ruddy cheeks, thick short hair greying at the temples, and a nose like a pork pie with two bites taken out of it. I had never seen him before. He extended his hand. I did not take it.

‘And you are …?’

‘You no remember me, Berthold? Of course you were only small little boy. I am Lukashenko. Husband from your mamma, Lilya.’ He smiled. Two gold molars glistened in his mouth. ‘I heff received your letter with sorry newses of her death. I am so heppy to see it was folks alarum.’

I didn’t know who the hell he was, but he sure as hell wasn’t the Lev Lukashenko my mum had married almost thirty years before, whose wedding I had attended. Apart from anything else, he looked at least twenty years too young.

‘You want make sex wit me?’ Inna asked him, a dark gleam in her eye.

He hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘Of course, my darlink. If you like it.’ He took a step towards her. ‘To me you are most beautiful woman in world.’

‘You speak true?’ She lowered the knife, which I noticed had fragments of cabbage on the blade, and a flirtatious smile lifted her lips.

All the while, Eustachia was hovering in the hallway, struggling to make sense of the scene she had stepped into.

I reached out my hand to her. ‘Come on in, Eustachia,’ I said. ‘Can I offer you …? What have we got, Mother?’

I half hoped Eustachia would make her excuses and leave at this point. I could see the situation had little potential for intimacy, and was rife with danger. Although I had experienced her kindness and touched her vulnerability, I still did not entirely trust her bureaucrat heart.

‘Golabki we ev. I mekkit for you.’ Inna edged towards the kitchen, keeping her eyes fixed on Lookerchunky. She was wearing her pinny, which also had fragments of cabbage on it. On the counter in the kitchen were some large sliced cabbage leaves.

‘Thank you, Mrs Lukashenko. That’s most kind. I’m absolutely ravenous.’ Eustachia turned to the stranger, who had seated himself proprietorially at the head of the table. ‘Was it you who wrote to us at the Town Hall, Mr Lukashenko? About the flat?’

‘Yes. Flat. Very nice.’ He winked at Inna, who lowered her eyes. ‘I heff lost flat in Donetsk from recent bombinks. So I decide return in London to live wit my darlink Lilya.’

‘Oh yes, I saw it on the news. It looked awful.’ Eustachia shook her head. ‘All those homeless people needing to be rehoused.’

‘Criminal fascist US-backed government bombink own citizens because they speak different language. Six thousand dead. Many children.’ Drops of perspiration appeared on his brow. ‘They wanted Europa but they got USA. Only the Putin can save us.’

‘Putin?’ Eustachia and I exclaimed in simultaneous horror, then our eyes met, and we laughed.

‘He is small man but clever.’

‘But he’s trying to take over the world!’ cried Eustachia, her cheeks prettily flushed. ‘It was on the BBC!’

‘Your BBC are incorrect, madam. Putin not take over world, he only want control in Russia. But he afraid America want take over world by criminal fascist Netto expansionism. This make him big patriotic hero in Russia. Like your great Mrs Tetcher.’

Putin like Mrs Thatcher? The man was clearly a dupe of Russian propaganda. Did Mrs Thatcher oil her muscles? Does Putin have a handbag? Enough said.

‘But hang on, Lookerchunky, Mother divorced you. You can’t just come breezing back in here because you’ve had a real-estate misadventure.’

‘What divorce? I no divorce. I love my wife.’

‘You it galubki, Lev?’ Inna called from the kitchen.

‘I am eat everythink, my darlink.’ He turned to Eustachia, and murmured in a low rumble, ‘You nice fatty lady. In my country fatty lady is very popular. Why you no come in Ukraina? I will find you nice husband.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ she replied, ‘but …’ Flustered, she flunked the excuse.

‘Look here, Lookerchunky,’ I said, ‘or whoever you are … this lady is …’ Spoken for. Those were the words I held on my tongue but couldn’t quite utter.

We eyed each other confrontationally. The cut on my wrist was throbbing and I was desperate for a drink.

Suddenly he burst out laughing. ‘You think I am Lukashenko from Belarus? You think I am madman? No! Same name but not me! I am from Kharkiv! Ha ha ha!’ He chuckled at his own non-joke, while Eustachia smiled weakly, relieved to be off the hook. ‘East West. All same Ukrainian people. Why for fight war? Better eat galubki and drink vodka. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!’

It was then that I noticed the two-litre bottle of vodka on the table.

‘You from Kharkiv?’ Inna appeared in the doorway with four dinner plates and four sets of cutlery. ‘Nice city. I been there wit my husband.’

I glanced at Eustachia, who was still smiling bemusedly and had missed Inna’s slip of the tongue. So far so good.

‘Kharkiv. Kiev. Krim. Even London. Wherever you like, darlink Lilya, we can live together.’ He gleamed his golden smile.

I remembered that Mother’s Lev Lukashenko came from the west of Ukraine and had stainless-steel crowns on his teeth. So who was this chunky-looking impostor? Did Inna know that he was not the real Lev Lukashenko, whom Lily had married? Did he know that she was not the real Lily, ex-wife of Lev Lukashenko, but an impostor too? Watching the two phoneys shadow-boxing, I crossed my fingers and hoped that Eustachia, who knew neither the real Lev nor the real Lily, would remain none the wiser. But I had not reckoned on the intervention of Flossie.

Just as Inna emerged from the kitchen with a steaming dish of globabki she squawked, ‘God is dead!’

‘My God, Lilya! Where you get this bird?’ cried Lookerchunky.

‘Don’t you remember, Lev?’ I butted in quickly. ‘You gave it to Lily when you got married. Have you forgotten?’

‘This bird? I give Lilya this bird?’

‘You even taught her to say God is dead!’

‘As I recall, there were two parrots. One dead and one alive.’ Eustachia looked from him to me with a canny smile.

‘Two bird?’

‘Yes, two, Lev,’ I said firmly, avoiding Eustachia’s eye. ‘One is dead. It’s in the box over there.’

‘My God!’ He blew his pork-pie nose on a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket.

‘God is dead!’ cried Flossie.

Eustachia gave me a slow, sexy wink.

Inna fetched four small glasses, then she spooned the galoshki on to our plates with a generous dollop of yushchenko. ‘Pliss, sit and it it.’

The impostor Lookerchunky, who had already seated himself at the head of the table, got busy with the vodka bottle and glasses, passing the first glass to Eustachia, who raised a delicate finger as she sipped.

‘It’s so nice of you to welcome me into your family reunion. It gets quite lonesome in the evenings, just me and Monty.’

When her glass was half empty, I reached for the bottle and topped it up to the brim.

‘Oh, you shouldn’t, Berthold! It doesn’t mix with the medication! And it’s absolutely chocker with calories!’

‘Sod the medication, Eustachia. Sod the calories.’ I downed my vodka in one gulp, and the room rippled like an underwater theatre. A glimmering haze of magic descended on everyone, even on Flossie, and a song from the seventies drifted into my head. ‘Love is the drug!’ As the warmth hit my vocal chords, I started to sing, ‘Mmm mm mm mmm … and I need to score!’

Lookerchunky stood up waving his empty glass like a conductor’s baton. When I finished the song, he took up in his chocolate-sweet baritone, ‘Vistoopeela na bereg Katyusha!’ The melody drifted from major to minor, haunted by yearning, heroism and lost love, as in the black and white Soviet war films that Mother and I used to watch at the Curzon. I listened, and tears sprang to my eyes. Inna was weeping too. She dabbed her eyes with her apron and joined in the chorus in a high-pitched wail. I noticed that the vodka bottle was now two-thirds empty.

‘Povee! Povee!’ Flossie wailed from her perch.

In a moment of quiet, Eustachia pitched in with a warbling soprano: ‘Keep on the sunny side! Always on the sunny side!’

‘Bravo!’ Lookerchunky clapped his hands. ‘Great philosophia! You must come in Ukraina! We heff too much of pessimism at present time.’

‘It’s what my speech therapist used to say,’ she giggled.

By now, of course, I had put two and two together, but I did not voice my suspicion that her speech therapist had been none other than my mother. There would be plenty of time for that in the future.

‘You are my sunny side, Eustachia.’