Lunching at Laura's

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Who is it you want me to – oh, this is it, is it? Out!’ he said firmly and moved across the room towards Davriosh. He had been standing panting a little as Angie had turned to talk to Laura, and now he shrank back, clearly alarmed, and she grinned even in the middle of this unpleasant scene. Joel did look formidable, for his bare arms were well muscled and the open collar of his shirt showed clearly that he was no weed.

  ‘Just a minute,’ Angie growled. ‘Mizz Horvy, you got to listen to me. No, leave the bugger alone, will you!’ He glared at Joel who had put a hand on Davriosh’s shoulder. ‘Listen first! He knows about Hersh, Mizz Horvy.’

  Laura frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s not why he came, he said. He wants to talk to you about Mucky. But he said he could be of help to us over Hersh – the Environmental man – and the kitchen. Says it’s all right, that Hersh has been playing some business or other –’ He shook his head. ‘You’d better talk to him, Mizz Horvy. It don’t make no sense to let him go till we know why he came, eh?’

  After a moment she nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right, though – oh, well.’ And she turned to Davriosh with a look of distaste on her face. ‘Well?’

  He took a deep and shaky breath. ‘I need a bit of strength,’ he said complainingly and reached for a chair and pulled it out from the table and sat down heavily. ‘You gave me a nasty fright there, you know, Laura – you didn’t have to go and –’

  ‘Miss Horvath to you,’ Angie growled at the same moment that Joel opened his mouth to say the same thing, and he shrank back in his chair, holding up both hands defensively. ‘All right, all right! Miss Horvath, then. Listen, a little brandy is what I need. A mouthful’ll help, believe me. I feel very strange, very strange indeed.’ And it was true that his face was sweating and his skin had a waxy yellowness about it.

  ‘He doesn’t need it –’ Angie said disgustedly and Joel looked at him with approval. ‘I agree,’ he said. ‘He’s just trying it on –’ But Laura looked at the man and shook her head.

  ‘I can spare it,’ she said shortly and fetched a glass and gave it to Davriosh and they watched him drink it down in one gulp and then take a deep breath.

  ‘Well, now, that’s better,’ he said with an attempt to be perky and Joel said sharply, ‘Out with it, now. What’s this about Hersh?’

  ‘He came and told you you had to pull the kitchen apart?’ Davriosh said. ‘Eh? Because of cracks you can’t see what might let in bugs and mice you don’t know are there?’

  ‘So?’ Angie said pugnaciously. ‘What’s that got to do with you?’

  ‘It was a put-up job,’ Davriosh said and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘That brandy helped a bit. I could do with a drop more and that’s the truth.’ But they ignored that.

  ‘Well?’ Angie said and reached out and shook the other’s shoulder and again Davriosh shrank away from him. Angie might be an old man, but he was a formidable one.

  ‘All right, all right!’ he said and looked at Laura. ‘The thing is, Lau – Miss Horvath – this property has been attracting some attention.’

  ‘I had noticed,’ Laura said dryly.

  ‘Chap called Statler, developer. A hard man. Very hard man.’ He shook his head, sadly, as though grieving over the hardness of the world in general as well as Statler in particular. ‘He’d screw anyone for tuppence and kill his own Mum for pleasure. Drummed out of the bloody Waffen S.S. for cruelty, that one – and got a history.’ His eyes sharpened then. ‘I’m going to get a bit more into that. His history. Cord can’t be the only one who can play both ends against the middle –’

  ‘What did you say?’ Joel said sharply.

  ‘Cord,’ Davriosh said. ‘Bloke who’s been working with Statler and – well, there’s been a few people involved. He came in when he found out we were after this place as well as over the Yard. Said he was family, sort of, and had a bit of clout.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Laura said dully and bent her head. She had thought she was over the worst of it, that it didn’t hurt as much as it had to remember how he had used her, how little feeling there had been in him when there had been so much in her, had thought she could start over again and forget him. But it hurt as sharply now to hear his name as it had the first day she had discovered how he had abused her trust. And her love.

  Joel said nothing and didn’t look at her, but he moved closer to her and she seemed to find comfort in that, for after a moment she looked up and glanced at him briefly and then back at Davriosh.

  ‘Well,’ she said harshly. ‘What about Cord?’

  ‘He said he could get you out quicker if you had to spend money on work on the place. That you might be able to fight him off when he set out to buy your freehold, which he was after, for me so we could sell it to Statler –’ He stopped and then said carefully, ‘I mean, what we was trying to buy for Statler. He said if the kitchen had to be pulled apart you’d have no money left for anything else.’

  ‘He was right there,’ Angie said bitterly. ‘Do you know what we’ve got to do out there? It’d break your heart even more. All those tiles to take out, all the fittings to be pulled apart – tomorrow they start, and I tell you, it makes me sick that –’

  Davriosh shook his head. ‘They don’t have to start tomorrow. I don’t reckon they’ll ever have to start. Statler’s calling him off. He don’t want this place no more –’

  There was a little silence as Angie tried to digest what the man had said and then Joel pulled out another chair and sat down with a bump and stared at Davriosh.

  ‘I want this spelled out,’ he said. ‘Right from the beginning. Let me have it. And no messing about. I want every fact and I want it clear.’

  It Was, Laura decided, like the best sort of television programme, the sort that started when you were sitting with the set on, but not really watching and which drew you in until you realised you were sitting on the edge of your chair, enthralled. And it was Joel who made it that way. He questioned the man with all the skill of long experience, dragging him back to the point whenever he strayed off it, probing and pushing and nagging until it all came out, every bit of it, and she stood there, holding her arms folded against her in a sort of hug to stop them from shaking with the excitement of it all, and listened. And even when the talking stopped couldn’t believe all she’d heard.

  ‘Then we don’t have to pull the kitchen down?’ Angie said, and his voice was awed. ‘You’re sure of that? You aren’t telling some bloody lie –’

  ‘Why should I lie to you?’ Davriosh said wearily. ‘It wouldn’t do no good. Not lying about your bloody kitchen, for God’s sake. Forget it. There won’t be no trouble.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Laura said and closed her eyes. ‘After all that worry about the money and – oh, my God.’

  Joel was on his feet then and went to put an arm across her shoulders.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said and it seemed to her that his voice had receded far away and then she realised she was sitting with her head down on her knees and his hand was hard on the back of her neck. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said again and tried to sit up.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Angie, brandy. A little –’ And then she was sipping it and the heat came back into her face.

  ‘I didn’t imagine it, did I?’ she said and looked up at Joel. ‘I didn’t, did I?’

  ‘You didn’t,’ he said grimly. ‘Christ, when I think what you’ve been through because of this bastard –’

  ‘Not me!’ Davriosh protested. ‘Not me. It was him, Statler. I was only acting as his agent –’

  ‘That was what the Gestapo said about what they did. It was all Hitler’s idea,’ Angie said and moved closer to the man, his fists clenched. ‘Christ, but I could make aschenblatt out of you. I could put you through my mincer, and grind you to garbage, only it’d pollute my mincer. You stinking, lousy, rotten –’

  ‘It’s all right, Angie,’ Laura said and smiled shakily at him. ‘The important thing is he’s telling us no
w. He didn’t have to, after all –’

  ‘That is a point,’ Joel said and perched on the edge of the table beside which Laura’s chair was set, his arm still across her shoulders as though he’d forgotten it was there. ‘Why are you telling us? Decided to be a born again Christian or something?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have me,’ Davriosh said with a spark of his old perkiness. ‘Listen, I got a problem, is why. Statler –’ He moved uneasily in his chair. ‘Statler wants to get out of the deal, like I said. And I got to pay him back the money it cost him to get this far. Did I tell you why he wants out?’

  Laura shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. It’s as much as I can do to understand that I’m not going to be overrun by builders tomorrow. Oh, Angie –’ She looked round, but he had moved away and was already standing by her desk, talking softly into the phone and he looked up and made a gesture at her and she smiled. Trust Angie to know what had to be done about the builders.

  ‘He can’t develop here. There’s a Grade Two listing on the buildings. Something to do with some panelling you got?’

  She frowned and stared at him and then looked at Joel. ‘Listing? The panelling? Good God, yes. I’d forgotten about that. When I had all that work done a while ago, afterwards they came to see it to re-rate – they never miss a chance to do that – and they told me then they’d put on a listing – but what it meant was that I had to get planning permission to do anything here in the future. And since I’d already spent so much I knew I wouldn’t be likely to be interested in doing anything else till God knows when, so I never gave it another thought.’

  ‘Laura, my dear girl, didn’t you remember when that fuss about the kitchen came up? Didn’t you realise then that maybe you wouldn’t have to do it, that the listing meant you couldn’t get builders in without permission?’

  ‘But it was the man from the Council who said I had to do the work, Joel!’ she said. ‘I’m not stupid! Why should it occur to me that I had to check up on him? He’s been inspecting my kitchens for years. I had no reason to doubt him!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have realised. Forgive me.’ And after a moment she nodded. But she looked ruffled all the same. It was maddening to have him, indeed to have anyone, pointing out to her facts about her own beloved restaurant that she had forgotten, and he looked at her and felt her annoyance. But he didn’t take his arm from her shoulders and after a while the tension eased out of them and he smiled at her and she managed to smile back.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’re right. I should have thought of it –’

  ‘The thing is, it makes the place over the Yard useless too. After all the trouble we went to get it, we’re lumbered with it –’ Davriosh said and her head snapped round and she stared at him.

  ‘That was your doing too? You got Mucky out?’

  He looked uneasy. ‘Well, you could say, in a manner of speaking – it was his nephew really. He was the one who did it. It’s him you ought to get mad at –’

  Joel’s arm tightened across her shoulders. ‘Not much point going over that,’ he said quietly. ‘In the end he seemed happy enough, Mucky. And he’s there in Monaco – and well, let it be, Laura. Not much you can do. Too late now.’

  ‘But the shop –’ she said. ‘It’s been there so long –’

  ‘It can still be there.’ Davriosh brightened. ‘That’s why I’m here, ain’t it? I want to sell it to you. You take it, freehold and all – and you can do what you like with it.’

  She stared at him. ‘Me? Take over Mucky’s shop?’

  ‘Why not? Then you get the freehold for the whole patch and no one can try to cut it on you again, the way Statler did. It’d make you really safe, wouldn’t it?’ Davriosh said and his eyes were bright now. He looked much better, much more his old chipper self. ‘It’d be the best thing you could do. I’d get my money back and could settle with that bugger Statler, you’d get the place and be safe – and you’ve got the money, now you don’t have to spend it on the kitchen. Or some of it, I imagine –’

  ‘Never you mind how much Mizz Horvy’s got,’ Angie had come back from the phone. ‘None of your bloody never mind. It’s all right, Mizz Horvy. He’s not best pleased, seeing he fancied the job, but it’s off.’ He lifted his chin exultantly. ‘Listen, tomorrow at the market – I’ll get a suckling pig maybe as well as geese? Got it in me to cook my bleedin’ head off, I have!’

  ‘Anything you say, Angie,’ Laura said absently. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Davriosh. ‘Anything you say.’

  ‘Laura?’ Joel said and then gently pulled her to her feet. ‘Come out into the Yard. Let Angie stay here with this chap – I want to talk to you.’ And after a moment she nodded and got to her feet.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course.’ She was still half dazed by it all and it was easier to obey him than argue, and together they went out into Vinegar Yard to stand and look across at the boarded front of Mucky’s shop, while Davriosh sat in his chair and Angie stood and glared at him like a dog watching over a bone.

  ‘Now, Laura,’ Joel said firmly. ‘What I suggest is this. And hear me out before you tell me I’m mad.’

  38

  ‘But I’m a restaurateur, not a shop keeper,’ she said.

  ‘And I’m a television director, but what’s that got to do with anything? It doesn’t mean I can’t try other things as well.’

  They were sitting perched on the window ledge, their backs to the glass, and she had heard him out with ever increasing surprise and doubt and now once again shook her head firmly.

  ‘What I want to do with my money is get the whole of the property here into my own control.’ And she patted the wooden ledge beside her as though it were a living thing that could respond to her feelings for it with a matching emotion. ‘It never mattered before, sharing it with Paul and Ilona and the aunts, but now –’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had so bad a time in all my life as these past few weeks.’

  ‘I know,’ he said gently. ‘I know.’ And they sat in companionable silence for a long time as she looked back over the fear that had so encompassed her. She had nearly lost her restaurant. Now that the danger was past and she was safe again the fear seemed even more powerful, absurd though that was, and she felt it tight in her chest and belly so that it made her breathless.

  He seemed to sense what she was thinking and set one hand warmly over hers, there on the ledge of the window and she was grateful. And then frightened again, and she pulled her hand away. Allowing a man to be kind to her had started all the trouble; never again, she murmured deep inside her mind. Never again. I think –

  ‘I could perhaps raise enough money to buy it myself,’ he ventured after a while. ‘I’m not rich, and these properties are clearly valuable. But Davriosh there is over the proverbial barrel and it’s my guess he’ll settle for the price he can get. But if I’m too tough on money obviously he’ll try to sell elsewhere, and he’s right, you know. You’d be safer if you owned the shop there as well as the restaurant. Then the whole of Little Vinegar Yard would be yours. And then you could do all sorts of things.’

  He leaned back against the glass and looked around dreamily. It was close to noon now and the sun was filling the Yard with warmth; the broad paving stones shimmered with a heat haze, and there was even a small cabbage butterfly moving with jerky drunkenness around the plants in the trough beside them.

  ‘Imagine it,’ he said softly. ‘You could have the bricks painted white, and troughs of plants over there, by Mucky’s shop, as well as over there on each side of the archways, and put tables out here. Those white painted iron ones you know, like French cafès? It could be a really delightful setting for lunch. Even prettier in the evenings. Candles in those special glass holders that prevent them being blown out, you know? And maybe you could have music, too. A couple of chaps and a girl in costume playing Hungarian gypsy music –’

  ‘Painted bricks would get shabby,’ she said. ‘Better to
have them scrubbed so that they’re a really rich red again. White tables and chairs still, of course, but definitely red bricks.’

  He laughed softly. ‘Then you do like the idea.’

  She reddened. ‘Oh, damn you. You’re confusing me.’

  ‘No, I’m not. You’re confusing yourself. You’ve got an opportunity staring you in the face and you’re scared of it. That’s why you’re in a state. Not because of me.’

  ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘You’ve got expectations, remember? And if Mucky was told you wanted to take the shop over – well, maybe he’d decide to arrange his affairs so that you could buy it outright, now. I dare say there are ways it can be arranged with maximum tax efficiency. Talk to Mrs. Rose’s grandson!’

  ‘I’ve always run Hallash’s the way it is. Here, and only here. This place, the way my father had it and my grandfather and –’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to run the shop. I told you. I would.’

  ‘But what do you know about shops? You’re –’

  ‘A television director. I know. But I grew up in a shop. My family were shopkeepers. I should have grown up in a shop here in Soho, but there it was – they went to Toronto and ran a shop there. But wherever it was done, shop-keeping’s in my blood. I could run Mucky’s and still be a freelance at my own trade.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks,’ she said and laughed. ‘You make it sound as though people are born knowing what their parents learned. If it was as easy as that –’ She shook her head. ‘What takes so much time is having to learn for yourself everything the people before you already knew.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that running a restaurant isn’t in your blood? That you didn’t inherit an aptitude for it?’

  ‘I never knew anything else,’ she said defensively. ‘That’s what matters – not what you inherit but what you learn when you’re growing up –’

  ‘And that was when I learned shopkeeping,’ he said triumphantly. ‘So I could run that shop without making too much of a hash of it. Give me the chance? You buy the property and I’ll rent it from you. Get a mortgage and I’ll see to it I earn enough to pay you a rent that’ll pay that mortgage. Can’t say fairer than that.’