by Maeve Haran
‘I’d love to.’
‘Excellent. Despite all appearances to the contrary, the food here is very good indeed.’
They both stood up and Sal was suddenly conscious that Lou was one of those rare people who radiated so much charisma you could almost warm your hands by him.
‘Follow me,’ Lou grinned. ‘I don’t think we’ll have to book. In fact, we’ll probably be the only people there.’
Lou couldn’t have been more right. They were the sole occupants of the entire restaurant. There were also so few staff apparently on duty that they found themselves being served by the tattooed receptionist.
Sal studied the short menu and instantly opted for Eggs Benedict.
‘I like a woman who knows her own mind. Benedict is the only option. That crap they call Eggs Florentine is a travesty. But you have to have a Bloody Mary with it. They make them here nearly as good as home.’
Sal just laughed. What the hell.
Lou ordered a very rare steak sandwich which he then doused in mustard and ketchup and accompanied it with a Brooklyn Lager. ‘Glad you guys have finally discovered the taste of proper beer instead of that piss you call bitter. No wonder you lost the colonies.’
‘So what exactly is your interest in New Grey?’ Sal asked, emboldened by the vodka in the devastatingly strong Bloody Mary. ‘Are you really going to invest in us?’
‘I might indeed. Having reached the fine age I have attained I find myself fascinated by ways of living life to the full.’
‘Rose told me that. “Lou loves life,” she said.’ Sitting opposite the man, Sal could see how true this obviously was.
‘I do indeed. Let me tell you about another of my investments. You see this little guy.’ He took out his wallet and she thought he was going to show her a family photograph, a grandson maybe, and was stunned when the photograph was actually of a robot.
He handed it over and she studied the white manikin with his big wide eyes and curiously attractive demeanour.
‘Meet Hiro – that means tolerant in Japanese. Which is a good word because these little guys are specifically designed for old people, to help them out in the home. He may look cute but Hiro’s not your average robot. His inventor spent months downloading his own and his wife’s emotional responses, plus their memories, into Hiro. He’s a real labour of love, one of the most advanced uses of artificial intelligence you could find.’
‘But he looks just like any other robot. You can even buy them on Amazon,’ protested Sal.
‘That’s deliberate. His inventor didn’t want him to be scary like those lifelike robots you see in movies. Thought it’d freak out the old folks.’
Sal looked again. There was a definite human quality about him.
‘He’s rather sweet.’
‘Not just sweet. Smart. I find Japan fascinating. We forget they really started the electronics boom. And they happen to have an awful lot of old people with no one to look after them, so they’ve been developing these little guys. Hiro’s upstairs in my closet if you want to meet him.’
Laughing, Sal looked at her watch. Oh God, it was almost 3 p.m. She couldn’t believe how the time with Lou Maynard had flashed past. ‘Lou, I’m sorry, I’ll have to meet him another time.’ She started to get up, realizing she was talking about Hiro as if he were a real person, but then only today she’d heard two items on Radio Four about robots. Even Jeremy Corbyn was always talking about them taking jobs.
‘I’m going to have to run as it is. Thank you so much for brunch.’
‘My pleasure. Let’s do it again. I’m here for a while longer now I’m a grandfather again.’
‘That would be lovely.’ Sal realized she meant it. Lou Maynard was wonderful company. He’d even made her forget about her cancer and feel like a normal human being.
She rushed out of the hotel onto Portobello Road, grateful to catch a passing black cab.
Safely tucked into the back, a thought struck her. If she met Lou again, would she want it to be for business or pleasure?
Laura took deep breaths as she walked along to her meeting with Helena Butler, trying to regain the feeling of calm happiness she’d felt when her son Sam brought her a cup of tea in bed. Before Simon had called and yelled at her.
This was only a very informal interview, she knew, and might lead to nothing at all, but she’d still prepared for it carefully. Ella and Sal had told her to take a CV with her and had helped her to write it.
CVs had changed a lot, they insisted, since Laura had last written one. Instead of putting all your experience, from school and university to jobs you’d held, chronologically at the top, the modern way was to start with a personal statement.
You didn’t have to give your age any more, to her relief – the law against age discrimination had changed all that – but you still had to de-age your CV. So Laura had had to take out all her O levels and change them to GCSEs so no one would guess how incredibly ancient she was!
Next she was supposed to match her skills to the exact requirements of the job but she could hardly do that as she didn’t really know what the job consisted of.
She would just have to pretend to be confident and busk it.
Helena Butler’s offices were on the eighteenth floor of a rather faceless modern building in a scruffy part of Victoria, saved by the amazing views right across the city to the London Eye and Houses of Parliament.
‘Hello, Laura.’ Helena had the corner desk in a large open-plan office. ‘Can I get you a coffee?’
When Laura said she’d love one, Helena disappeared off to the coffee machine. It was all so different from when Laura had last worked in an office where there were secretaries and assistants who would – albeit moaning under their breath – be asked to do jobs like this. And in those days people even had offices of their own. Nowadays only the biggest bosses had individual offices.
Helena was back with the coffee and began to explain why she had thought Laura might be useful to them.
‘The thing is, FoodCo franchises about three hundred small shops all over the UK, and because of their locations they often can’t get reliable staff. I think your employer at LateExpress has probably explained how pleasantly surprised he was to find you. Most of the staff come and go. They aren’t often the kind of people who want to take responsibility. So what we need is someone to go round and talk to them, give them some on-the-spot training. Do you think that’s something you might consider? It would probably have to be as a consultant, at least initially.’
Laura found herself panicking. When the divorce from Simon came through she would get a lump sum, according to her lawyer, and she was entitled to half of whatever they got for the house. She wouldn’t be destitute, even if she was forced to have a very different lifestyle from previously. She had imagined Helena was offering a London-based role, near to Sam and Bella and her new grandchild. Did she really want to travel up and down the country advising people?
Helena, understandably, was waiting for her reply.
‘The thing is, Helena, I’m going through a rather difficult divorce and I feel I really need to be around for my children, so I’m not sure the timing of this works for me.’
‘I see.’ Helena’s tone had become frosty. She obviously felt Laura had been wasting her precious time. ‘Well, thank you for coming in. I’d better let you get back to work.’ She used the word ‘work’ in a tone of noticeable irony that made Laura bristle.
Laura shook her hand and almost scuttled to the door, feeling like an idiot. She knew she was lucky to get an interview like this at her age. Should she have at least tried it?
No, Laura told herself, willing herself to feel stronger. Why should she have to rush round the country staying in bad hotels or driving herself hundreds of miles because Simon had left her?
She’d rather work for LateExpress. At least they were local and they valued her. And if it embarrassed Simon that she was doing a menial job just round the corner from his office, too bloody bad.
She parked in her usual spot round the back and went in through the kitchen.
The first thing that struck her was how untidy the house was, and worse, how grubby. The kitchen surfaces, usually gleaming from the proud ministrations of Dorothy, the cleaning lady who was almost as old as they were but had always seemed remarkably energetic, were splattered with fat.
Of her parents there was no sign. She could at least hear the faint reassuring tones of Radio Four coming from her father’s shed tucked away in the back garden.
‘Hello, Dad,’ she greeted her beloved father Len as she pushed open the shed door. ‘Hiding in here as usual? What on earth’s going on in the kitchen? Is Dorothy ill or something?’
Her father was sitting in his wing chair, a packet of Benson & Hedges and an ashtray on one side of him and a gin and tonic on the other. Her father’s capacity to drink G&T without ice had always amazed Claudia, who liked her wine so cold it frosted the outside of the glass. She suspected it might be a habit born of necessity since creeping inside to fill an ice bucket would attract her mother’s attention. A warm G&T was probably a small price to pay for freedom.
She noticed that he had almost finished the Times crossword and she smiled lovingly. Nothing wrong with her father’s brain.
The same couldn’t be said of his body. He would need another hip operation and possibly a knee replacement as well. Looking on the bright side, they were lucky to live in an age where such things were easily accessible even though he was over ninety. The main problem, of course, was the recovery time when he could only hobble about and was rendered more or less helpless.
‘Hello, Claudia love. Your mother’s fired Dorothy.’
‘She can’t have. Dorothy’s been with you for thirty years. She’ll come back in a week and no one will mention it.’
‘Not this time,’ her father replied gloomily. ‘Olivia told her she was an interfering old busybody and wasn’t welcome.’
‘What had Dorothy been doing? Trying to make sure Mum took her pills?’
Claudia’s mother Olivia had been diagnosed as bipolar but often hid her medicines. Claudia remembered guiltily how she had sometimes enlisted Dorothy’s help in finding them. Fortunately she seemed much better these days.
‘Oh dear, maybe I’d better go and see her.’
‘I’d leave it if I were you.’
‘But you can’t live in a filthy house!’
‘There’s something else. Claudie, come and sit here.’ He moved the ashtray and patted the stool next to him. ‘Claudie, you won’t really let her put me in a care home, will you?’
Claudia couldn’t bear hearing her lovely big, strong, reassuring dad sound like a frightened child.
‘Of course not.’ She took his hand and began to stroke it.
‘Your mother says she will. She says she can’t cope with me. I fell over the other day and she had to get the neighbours in.’
Claudia wondered for a moment if sacking the cleaning lady was also part of her mother’s campaign to prove she couldn’t cope with looking after Len. In one of her manic phases it wouldn’t be beyond her. ‘No one’s going to put you in a care home, Dad.’
‘They’re awful places. I visited my friend Max in one. People sitting round all day dribbling and smelling of piss.’
‘Look, I’ve brought you a pork pie and some chutney. You eat this and I’ll take Ma out to lunch. Have a little talk with her.’
‘Would you?’ he asked eagerly, grabbing her hand. ‘I’m scared, Claudie. You know what your mother can be like.’
‘I’ll sort it out, Dad.’
‘I’m glad you came to live near, Claudie. You don’t miss London and your friends?’
She shook her head, even though she was missing them a lot at this very moment.
‘No, no, Dad. I still see them quite often. And I’m nearer Gaby and Douglas here.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Bye, Dad.’
Her father made a pathetic attempt to get up, revealing a brown stain on the seat of the chair.
Oh, bloody hell.
Feeling she needed cheering up after experiencing Helena Butler’s obvious disappointment in her, Laura decided to drop in at LateExpress, the supermarket where she’d been working since she’d split with Simon. She needed to see her employer’s smiling face, and speak to someone who unconditionally approved of her.
It was a good time to pop in, after the morning stream of people on their way to work and before the lunchtime sandwich rush. Mr A, as he was universally known, beamed at Laura and, abandoning his post behind the counter to a bored-looking seventeen-year-old, rushed towards her with his hand extended. ‘Mrs Minchin, what brings you into my humble establishment? You are not due in till tomorrow!’
‘I just popped in for a sandwich,’ Laura lied. ‘I’ve had a meeting in town.’
‘Ah.’ Mr A looked crestfallen on her behalf. ‘With the vulture lawyers, as Mrs A describes them?’
Mrs A always had a colourful way with words. She had branded Suki Morrison, the younger woman her husband Simon had run off with, as a jezebel and floozy and very publicly banned her from the shop.
‘No, as a matter of fact.’ She didn’t want to admit that she had been for a job interview, although he would immediately and generously congratulate her for taking a quite understandable step up the social ladder. He had never quite been able to accept why such a ladylike personage as Laura had deigned to work for him and she had not felt it appropriate to explain that she was feeling so fragile and unconfident as her life fell apart around her that she actually preferred a job without much responsibility.
And she had found good friends in the gentle Mr A and his fierce and disapproving wife who had loyally taken Laura’s side in her marital dispute.
Laura glanced round. Mrs A, bedecked in her familiar pink quilted dressing gown, usually appeared at this time of the morning, as imposing as the Queen of Sheba, despite her odd attire, to check if her husband was misbehaving in any way. As Mr A was firmly under her be-ringed thumb, she was usually doomed to disappointment.
‘You are wondering what has happened to my lady wife,’ Mr A announced mournfully. ‘She has taken to her bed.’ Laura couldn’t imagine the proprietress, who was usually glowing with health, her skin polished by expensive products she ordered from the internet, knowing a day’s ill health. ‘Mrs Minchin, we have a thundercloud coming in our direction.’
‘Oh,’ Laura teased gently, ‘the weather looked quite nice to me.’
‘I speak only in metaphor. It is coming from India.’
‘Ah.’ Laura felt none the wiser.
‘Mrs A’s mother. Have you heard of Kali, who some call the goddess of revenge who is often depicted dancing on top of her husband?’
Laura shook her head.
‘Nothing to Mrs A’s mother. She has fallen out with her husband and announced that she is coming to live with us.’
Laura tried to recall the layout of the flat where Mr and Mrs A lived above the shop. It didn’t seem adequate to house a goddess who danced on top of her husband.
‘Can’t you tell her there isn’t room?’
‘Too late, Mrs Minchin, too late. She has booked her passage.’
‘By ship?’ Laura tried to remember novels like A Passage to India. Weren’t voyages from the East so long the acronym POSH had started then? Because the rich people booked Port Out Starboard Home to avoid the glare of the sun in their cabin. Maybe it would take weeks. Months even.
‘It is with Air India.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Oh dear indeed
, Mrs Minchin.’
Ella walked slowly back to her new house, clutching the flowers Bill had presented to her. The way she was feeling would seem ridiculous to her friends. She was the only one of her friends who had the slightest interest in growing things. They would just say she could stick some flowers and the odd fruit bush in her new garden. But it wasn’t only about producing beans and peas. The allotment had kept her in tune with the seasons; each task – digging, hoeing, sowing seeds – all had their right moment. She remembered a quotation from Genesis which, though she wasn’t religious, had always stuck in her mind. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. That was what she’d felt at the allotment. The diurnal round, as the poet Donne would put it. Even better than watching Countryfile on the telly, though Ella loved that too. It had been a protected little world right under the Heathrow flightpath, only moments from traffic and crowded office blocks, where everyone helped each other out, a bit like the community Claudia was suggesting they create for themselves.
God, Ella – she shook her head at her own fancifulness – I’m not sure Bill, Stevie and Les would see the Grand Union allotments as the Garden of Eden. But maybe they would, although of course they’d never put it quite like that.
She’d miss them too. Where else would Ella have got to know a gnarled old Greek Cypriot like Mr Barzani, who gave her a recipe for aubergines baked slowly in olive oil, apparently named after a priest who’d died of pleasure eating them?
She was saved from any more mournful reflections by the unexpected sight of her grandson, Harry, leaning on the wall outside her new house.
‘I’m learning to drive, Gran,’ he greeted her, ‘and Mum’s always too busy to take me out. So I thought about my racy gran and wondered if maybe you would?’
Ella laughed out loud. The reason she was called racy at her mature age was because of her car. In a moment of madness, feeling flush with cash after selling the house, Ella, who rarely splashed out on herself, had seen a Mini Convertible in the window of a car showroom and had gone straight in and bought it because it reminded her of her youth.