No question of interrupting her there. There are ways to suicide and ways not; and sauntering into the dissection labs with a smile for Professor Duncan and a glance around, “Hi, is Laura here, sorry but I need her, she’s the only thing that counts” — no. That numbered not. He would have peeled me in that palace of peeled flesh, she would have dismembered my joints.
Eventually he’d have to let them go, though, class dismissed and don’t forget your homework. It was coming up lunchtime, and even medics have to eat. And let them scatter where they would, left and right, upstairs and down, to the med school cafeteria or the union bars; let them flock and chatter, I knew what Laura would do. This once, at least, I could get ahead of her.
It was Friday; and Friday lunch was ritual, Friday lunch was sacred. If she was in school — if she was, if she wasn’t sleeping and sleeping — her sweet size nines (Bigfoot the other girls called her, if they were talking shoes) had a predestined path to follow.
It was Friday; and Friday was kosher day, last chance before Shabbat and not to be missed. Five minutes from campus, in an alley off a side street, area steps led down to a plain cream-and-green eatery, bench seats and communal formica-topped tables and an ugly white counter, no food in sight and no style at all. One sign on the wall outside, Morry’s Deli, otherwise you might have thought yourself in Orwell territory, 1984 a decade on.
And oh, how wrong you would have been.
Morry Green and his family — and it was, it was all family again, another family business: from the accountant to the washer-uppers, everyone was blood — they served their God and their community, devout hearts and a strong sense of duty. Just so happened they also served the best classic Jewish food north of Primrose Hill.
They didn’t give a toss for the décor, and quite right too. Mostly they catered for us, the student body in its separate hungry cells; we’d squash up happily, six to a bench and tuck your elbows in, for good cheap food and plenty of it. Keeping the place ugly kept the prices down and it kept the business community out, which suited Morry and it suited us.
Four days a week, Morry’s was open early till late. But they closed at three on a Friday, to be at home and bathed and properly ready by sunset; and of course they didn’t open again until Monday, so everything had to be used up or thrown away, and they really didn’t like throwing anything away.
Fridays in town, we wouldn’t have lunch anywhere else.
o0o
It was Friday, and it was early yet, good children were still in school. If Laura was being good today, a medic she and no sweetly slumbrous girl, I had maybe an hour to kill.
Not a problem. I’d wasted more, far more time than that in places where I was far less likely to find Laura.
So I went inside. The place was near enough empty, just a few scattered skivers like myself sipping coffee and waiting to be hungry, no one serving. I swung the door to and fro a few times before I closed it, making the bell jangle, letting them know there was another customer in. Old habit, Morry appreciated it.
I claimed a table and a bench, settled myself nice and comfy against the wall and closed my eyes, hoping not to open them again till a mocking chuckle and a light-fingered touch told me that Laura had arrived.
Not a chuckle, though, next thing I heard; and not a dreamgirl’s hand, next thing to touch me.
o0o
Actually what I heard was a rattle, as of cup in saucer in earthquake, or at any rate in palsy-stricken hand. Behind that I could hear someone breathing, hard and fast and frightened.
That was all so unlikely that I opened my eyes regardless. The service at Morry’s might be rough, might even be slapdash if you were a friend and they were busy, but it didn’t generate those sorts of noises.
So I looked, and saw Warren. And on one level that was exactly right, exactly what I expected to see this time of day, what I’d been banking on; and on another level it was all very peculiar indeed, because he looked pale and his hands were trembling, and he wasn’t at all pleased to see me.
Warren was a fixture, or possibly a fitting: at any rate he belonged there, as much as Morry himself belonged. He was family, naturally, some species of cousin, though no one seemed to know how close. Or more likely they did know, they surely must have known, it was only that they didn’t want to say. Shame on them, we all thought, where maybe we should have been applauding the fact that they acknowledged him at all, let alone gave him a job out front where he could brandish the relationship as he brandished so much else.
He must have been late forties when we knew him, lean of build with greying, thinning hair close-cropped and a nose to make Corporal Klinger blush; and he was cheerfully and screamingly camp, was Warren. He’d have been a burden to any decent family, let alone a religious one. It needed a liberal despot like Morry to make a place for him; a weaker paterfamilias or a more bigoted would have allowed the slow tides of contempt and disgust and what-will-the-rabbi-think? to force Warren out, to drive him into an exile that he would never have chosen, that he didn’t have the strength to survive.
I knew all about exile, and survival. I knew what it took, and I had a pretty good idea of what Warren had, and that wasn’t enough.
We all knew Warren. He loved us students, loved his job because the customer base was ninety per cent student and he could be a happy man all day, running around at our beck and call and doing more than any man should to please us.
Sometimes, maybe often, a student would make him a happy man all night also. I wasn’t sure how many times I’d met him on a Sunday morning (but never on a Saturday, never on Shabbat, he owed that to his family) in someone’s flat or someone else’s house, making breakfast in a borrowed bathrobe: still willing, still serving, totally content. These were only ever one-night stands or brief affairs, nothing serious, nothing for long. The boys used to say they did it for his experience, for his openness, for the laugh: “Well, come on, give us a break, Ben, it’s not going to be for his mind, is it? I mean, is it? We’re not talking intellectual giant here. We’re not talking anything giant, it’s just a laugh, that’s all.”
How much of a laugh it really was for Warren, I was never certain. But he went on smiling, went on serving, was always happy to see us and the more the merrier.
But not today. Today he wasn’t happy at all, and he certainly wasn’t happy to see me.
o0o
His hand shook, and the saucer shook in his hand, the cup rattled in the saucer and the coffee slopped. Warren loved to anticipate; he always brought us coffee first thing, we didn’t need to order it. Today was no different, except that today it looked like the last thing he wanted to be doing. I’d never seen a man that frightened, never dreamt of seeing anyone that frightened of me.
“Warren? What’s up?”
Actually, it was perfectly clear what was up: I was here, and he was having to serve me coffee, and he was trembling with terror as he did it. The true question was why?, but I couldn’t ask that directly. Warren, why are you scared of me suddenly, what have I done? — no, I couldn’t do that. Not fair to either one of us. He just might be scared enough to answer me, and I really, really didn’t want to know.
He got the cup and saucer down finally, dropping rather than putting it on the table and an awkward stretch away from me, with more coffee in the saucer than the cup.
“Not to worry,” I said, trying a smile to see if it helped. “I can slurp it.”
Didn’t help at all, that smile. He seemed to read a threat in it, where there was truly nothing but a promise, don’t panic, Warren, I won’t bite, honest. He scurried back, all but ran through into the kitchen and out of my sight.
I sighed, shrugged for any curious observers — just Warren, that’s all, nothing to get worked up about— and went over to the counter for a wad of serviettes, not to drip coffee down my shirtfront.
Too early still to hope for Laura, but I did that anyway, watching the door and listening for footsteps; and was still doing it when spitting fury c
ame at me from the other direction, came from the kitchen, scorching down Warren’s wake.
Not Laura’s hand that touched me, and not light-fingered as Laura was: this was a man’s grip on my shoulder, digging deep, digging to the bones and hurting.
I startled, gasped, tried to pull away and couldn’t.
Looked round, and there was Morry. Short and heavy in his whites, shadow on his jowls and dark wiry hair curling even on the backs of his fingers, where they were clamped on me.
Absolute rage in him, making him also tremble even as he held me, this always-courteous man, this friend of mine.
“Out,” he said, lifting me one-handed from the bench, finding that so much easier than talking, his usual fluency down to monosyllables now and those making no sense to me. “You,” he said thickly, “out. Now.”
And pushed me towards the door, force enough to send me staggering into it, hard enough to bruise.
“Morry, what the hell...?” Angry in my turn, I twisted round to face him and never mind the audience now and never mind the dangers of too much truth, this was too much to let by. “What’s going on here, what have I done?”
He reached for me again, and that was all his answer; but I lifted a hand to resist him, and saw how he flinched back suddenly, this great squat bull of a man. That was all the answer that I needed.
A family affair, this was: my family and his, and I’d walked into the middle of something, where I clearly wasn’t welcome.
Oh, my priceless, Christless family. They could screw my life up without thinking, without realising, even; though if they realised they’d do it all the same. Probably do it with a little more relish, knowing what they did.
Understanding at last, I had nothing to offer Morry, no restitution in my gift. And I was still angry at him for manhandling me in front of witnesses: too angry to explain, even if he’d been calm enough to listen.
So I nodded abruptly, to let him know I had at least caught up with the action here; and then I opened the door and walked out, and thought, That’s another pleasure, another freedom gone. Terrific privilege, being a Macallan...
And I climbed the steps and stood irresolute on the pavement, bewildered and bereft; and that’s where Laura found me when she came, when she finally did come. Still there, still dithering, going a little this way and a little that and utterly unmindful of her.
Four: Bella, Horrida Bella
“Uh-huh,” she said, standing too far off and only her eyes touching me, not enough. “What’s with this, then?”
“What?”
“This tribal war-dance, this soft-shoe shuffle, whatever you want to call it. This jigging around on the pavement.”
“It’s Friday,” I said helplessly.
“It’s Friday, right. I know it’s Friday.” A long-suffering smile, a patient pace forward to pat me on the shoulder, and, “Think about it, Ben. Think about bagels, think about smoked salmon and fresh cream cheese. Think about latkes, think about blinis and fake caviar and sour cream. Lashings and lashings of sour cream, think about that. Then tell me why you’re jigging about on the pavement; but tell me inside,” taking my arm, steering me, positively pushing me towards the steps when she found me recalcitrant, “don’t ask me to jig along with you, right? Morry doesn’t serve out here. What was it, were you waiting for me, is that it? Or somebody else, Vanessa and that crowd, anyone?”
“I can’t,” I said.
“Can’t wait? Me neither.”
“Can’t come in. I’ve been thrown out, Laura. Morry threw me out.”
“Christ on a bicycle.” She gazed at me, horrified, giving due respect to the gravity of the situation. “What on earth did you do? Stupid?”
“I didn’t do anything. It’s who I am, is enough. And don’t ask why, I don’t know. Just the Macallans up to something, and he won’t have me in the place.”
“Oh, Jesus.” All teasing fled now, she held my arm in both of hers, what comfort she could give; and said, “I’ll find out, shall I? If he’ll talk to me?”
“Please. I’d like to know.”
Laura nodded and ran light-footed down the steps, left me with nothing but a touch-memory of where her hands had been. Better than nothing, I supposed. I reminded myself.
And I waited, I did my solo dance on the pavement as before, and was hailed by Dermot and Vanessa coming for lunch, for friendship and conversation and not at all for this. I explained again, I had to; and they waited with me, of course, and wanted to talk, to wonder, to guess; and all I wanted was to wait, to jig, to change my name and my bad, bad blood.
o0o
When Laura came back she came slowly, dragging a heavy weight with her up those steep steps. Barely a nod of greeting she had for our friends, and only a whisper of voice for me.
“You got a, a cousin Marty, Ben?”
“Yeah, sure.” And then, remembering, I had a cousin Marty, “Why, what’s he got to do with this?” Coming out sharper than I meant, perhaps, because even Laura flinched; but the true question, what I wanted answered actually went the other way, What’s this got to do with him?
“They said, they said you were kin to him. And he’s done them so much damage...”
There’d been damage done, that much was certain. I’d seen it, scabbed black on Marty’s skin. I might have forgotten it temporarily, I might have tried to scratch myself out of that picture altogether, family business, no business of mine, but that probably wouldn’t have worked in any case; and here were people, my friends, drawing me firmly back in again. So okay, they wanted me there, I’d be there. Consequences would be on their heads, not on mine.
“What,” I said, and my voice sounded harsh even to myself, was surely harsher far than Laura had ever heard it, “are you talking about, for God’s sake? Damage, what damage?”
“I think you’d better come and see,” she said. “It’ll be all right, Morry said so...”
“Oh, he did, did he? What did he say? Exactly?”
“Exactly?” She didn’t like this, from me; she was getting nasty herself now. “He said, exactly, ‘You can tell that little bastard I won’t hurt him. He’s not really a part of it, I know that. He hasn’t got the guts.’ Okay?”
Yeah, fine. Pretty good judge of character, our Morry. Only the one thing he had wrong: it wasn’t lack of guts that kept me from participating in the family business. I did lack guts, that was sure, that was evident every time I met my sister; but there were other chickenhearts among us, and they found a role for themselves. What had always sidelined me wasn’t my cowardice, it wasn’t even my deep disgust. That was subsequent, maybe consequent. No, what had put me and kept me on the other side of the fence was my total lack of talent.
The family couldn’t use me: which was the only reason they had let me go even so far out of their orbit.
But if I couldn’t work as my kin did, all open and upfront, maybe I could spy for them on my own account. Never mind that they frightened and disgusted me. Marty had had some kind of face-off with Morry Green, and now Marty was dead; and that was important, that mattered. Whoever it was took Marty’s life had taken some part of my own also, and I was feeling the loss of it badly.
And Laura didn’t know. Remembering that, I took some kind of grip on my turbulent soul. I’d been wrenched too far to manage my usual neutral, the masque I kept for Laura; but I nodded slowly, found half a smile from somewhere, and said, “Come down with me?”
She stiffened. “I don’t want to do that,” she said, and it had nothing to do with me. That much was clear.
“Please?”
“We’ll come,” from Dermot, behind me.
“Laura?” I said. “Please?”
She hesitated, then nodded in her turn. “All right. Just the two of us, though,” over my shoulder, “this isn’t a circus turn. You guys wait here, okay? I don’t, I don’t think we’ll be long...”
We’ll go somewhere else for lunch, she was saying. If any of us wants to eat.
We wouldn’t w
ant to stay, she was saying, even if we were wanted, and we won’t be.
And she took my hand and held it all the way down the steps, which was meant for comfort but only underlined how all things were turned perverse: that what I had dreamed about so often should come to me with such very bad timing, Laura’s hand in mine when my head was all with Marty and with Morry, all questions, hungry for explanation and wanting nothing from, having nothing to offer to her.
o0o
Went back down, down and down, it had never felt so far; down and in, to where Morry waited behind the counter.
Not exactly welcoming, Morry. He stood there staring, and his broad hands twitched on the white melamine like they wanted to twitch on my flesh again, to close and grind and pulp, get themselves coated with my dirty Macallan blood.
But, “I want you to see this,” he said. “I want you to see what your filthy family has done to us. Come with me.”
And he swung back the hatch in the counter-top and let it bang flat, to make a passage through for us. Difficult to hold hands, going single file through that narrow gap; but Laura managed it somehow, she kept a precarious hold on my fingers.
Through the kitchens: bright lights and white walls, smells of frying. Warren watching uneasily from the sink, rubber gloves on his hands and I’m not serving, I’m not going out there again on his face, and who could blame him? He might meet more Macallans.
Through a door and then through another, and into a different world: from tiles and lino to wallpapers and carpets, pictures on the walls and the dust-smell of recent hoovering, a staircase going up.
Up we went too, following Morry’s broad back. Not too close, his shoulders said, don’t get too close to me. And I was being careful, I was alert and obedient to unspoken messages; I was getting them from Laura too, feeling the reluctance in her, how heavy her body had become and how weak her legs, help me, Ben. I’m only here to help you.
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