“Who will kill you?”
“These thugs. These betsemer.”
“No-one is going to kill you. But I need to get you into your flat.”
“First they beat me. My body is blue and black. Blue and black. Now they will kill me.”
Gently, she lifted her uncle’s head from its rest on his arms. Then she grabbed his wrists, tried to pull him up and across the threshold.
“Come on, uncle. Help me. Please help me.”
He finally began to move, raising himself with much effort and groaning on to his knees. But that was as far as he was able or willing to go. So with her pulling his outstretched arms and the slow movement of his knees, she was able to get him to crawl into his own hallway before he collapsed in a heap again. She closed his front door, locked it, sat down on one of the hard-backed chairs, until she had regained her breath. The hallway was dark but she couldn’t be bothered getting up to put on a light. Her uncle had fallen asleep anyway, she could hear his light snoring like a cat’s gentle purr. She must have drifted off herself because she woke with a jolt to some loud banging on the front door.
Thud, thud, thud.
She almost jumped off her chair with each blow, grateful at least for the door having wooden panels rather than the stained-glass of the flats on the ground floor. Thankful also she’d locked the door, refrained from turning on the light.
“Moses Cohen, Moses Cohen,” a voice teased. “Open up. We know you’re in there.”
It had been years since she had heard it but she recognised the whiny, weasely sound of the young, ginger-haired lad who’d come round the first time to collect her uncle’s debts. Hard to forget a voice like that, so mean and menacing in its delivery.
“Moses Cohen,” the lad continued. “Your piss is all over the hallway. You been wetting yourself again?” Thud, thud, thud. Then the sound of the empty whisky bottle being kicked away.
“Open the fuck up!” Another voice this time, must have been the other man, the one with the cream slash across his cheek, the hat kept low on his brow.
Uncle Mendel stirred on the floor but the snoring continued. She wrapped her arms around herself to stop the shaking. The handle rattled on the door, the voices dipped to a murmur. A harder thud this time, one of them must have been taking a run then a shoulder to the wood, the whole door shuddering to the blow. She heard a few curse words after that and a sense the men had moved off but she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps they had gone to fetch a sledge-hammer or an axe. She waited in the darkness, her body held stiff, her breathing slow, letting the clock in the hallway tick away fifteen minutes, twenty minutes. After half an hour, she got up, slinked into the kitchen, tip-toed across the room to the window, slid her head out slowly from behind a curtain from where she could see down to the entrance of the close. No-one there. She moved back into the hallway, knelt down in front of the doorway, checked the slither of light from the outside landing for the shadow of legs and feet. Uncle Mendel groaned and her heart lurched. Very slowly she turned the key in the lock, eased open the door. She half-expected it to be slammed back in her face. She peered out into the landing. No-one there. She raced down the stairway and out into the street.
She ran and ran, her pinny flapping, her legs all over the place. She headed for Florence Street. It wasn’t far, just to the end of her own road, then along two blocks. A couple of men unloading coal from their wagon, whistled, called after her: “Whit’s yer hurry, lass?” She kept on running, looking out for the tenement of her destination, not sure which one, only that the outside window on the second floor had been pointed out to her once before. But she had a good memory for these things, a picture in her mind, she could even remember the curtains, a yellow floral pattern. And there they were, the same flowery print, hadn’t been changed in the few years since she’d been shown the place. And why should they have been? It wasn’t the kind of flat that demanded a high standard of decoration. She found the close entrance, ran up to the second floor landing, her chest sore from the lack of breath, she just stood there outside the door with hardly the strength to lift the brass knocker. She saw also that there was a bell, a dirty white button which she pressed. The ring was clear though, like upper octave notes on the piano quickly trilled. She rang again. Her hand against the door jamb as she gulped in the air, hoping it wouldn’t be Lucky Mo but his son who answered it. A slot in the door at about eye-level slid open. She hadn’t noticed that before.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me. Celia. Please let me in.”
It seemed to take forever as locks were undone, chains removed. The door opened.
“Oh Solly, thank God it’s you.”
It was just a one room flat, thick with smoke. Bedroom and kitchen all rolled into one, the toilet communal between the landings. Solly took up position in a battered-leather swivel chair behind a large desk on which stood four shiny-black candlestick telephones, wires and cords all in a tangle, a couple of ashtrays stacked high with twisted butts, and a scatter of paper slips, some skewered on one of these thin wire contraptions meant to keep the office desk neat and tidy. The walls were pinned with newspapers displaying the day’s race meetings. The window behind his head was so dirty there was hardly a need for curtains to be drawn to stop the light coming in. He was down to his shirtsleeves and braces, hands behind his head, sweat-stains under his arms. He nodded for Celia to sit in a rickety wooden chair in front of his desk.
“Still seeing that Jonny Levy?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“That night at The Marlborough. I brought you flowers, escorted you to the ball. And what did you do? You hardly talked to me all night. And I haven’t heard from you since.”
“I’m sorry, Solly. I had too much to drink that night. I don’t remember much of what happened.”
“I’ll tell you what happened. You used me.”
“Solly, I didn’t come here to argue.”
He went silent. What with the grey light coming at her from behind the window, it was hard to make out his face. She looked around the rest of the room. A rusty sink, a giant safe taking up one whole corner, a couple of mattresses on the floor.
“You sleep here as well?” she asked.
“No,” he said, his voice calmer now. “We just take this place during the day. A family lives here at night. Keeps the polis off our tracks.” He brought his fingertips together in a bridge. “So what brings you here for the first time in your life?”
“I…”
One of the phones rang. He leaned across, lifted the receiver a fraction, then replaced it. “Go on.”
“It’s Uncle Mendel. He’s in trouble.”
Solly gave a little swivel in his chair. “So I heard.”
“You know about this? About these men trying to kill him?”
“I don’t know if they will actually kill him. What would be the point? Maim him, perhaps. Break a few bones. He owes some bad people some serious money. You just can’t do that, you know. Drink and gamble. One vice at a time is what I say. You’ve got to keep a clear head in this game.”
“What can we do to help him?”
“We? It’s not my problem. I helped him out the last time he was in trouble. As a favour to you. He’s not my responsibility.”
“Solly. What’s got into you? This is Celia. I’ve known you all my life. Help me. Please.”
Again Solly swivelled in his chair, side to side, giving a little creak each time. Another telephone rang, the tring, tring, tring tearing at her nerves. He raised the receiver, slammed it back down. Then he turned his chair sideways to her so he was staring at the wall, at the safe, his fingertips back touching again in a bridge. She noticed how clean and trim his nails were and she imagined this was a usual pose for him, the way he considered matters of business, rocking back and forth, gazing at dark corners. “Avram,” he said, his voice coming out all scratchy. He cleared his throat. “Avram. Avram is the key.”
“Avram? How can he help? He’s a c
redit draper in the Highlands. He’s got no money to pay Uncle Mendel’s debts.”
“That is true. But he’s also playing for a non-League side in a cup-tie against Celtic. Mendel might be able to help me out there.”
“What do you mean?”
Solly laughed. “What do you know about football?”
“Nothing.”
“And the intricacies of betting on football matches?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why should I waste my time explaining. Just let me say that Mendel’s plight, Avram’s footballing talent being unknown to the usual Glasgow punter, and the clever mind of one Solly Green might make all parties concerned very happy.”
“You can do that?”
“On one condition.”
“And what is that?”
He turned his chair to face her. “Come here.” He beckoned her with a solitary finger. “And take off that stupid pinny.”
She sat where she was. Some noises outside the window. It must have been the lamp-lighter for an orange glow started to spread across the filthy window pane, slowly turning to yellow. She wondered when the night-time occupants returned.
“They won’t be here for another couple of hours,” Solly said, reading her thoughts. “Plenty of time.” He patted his thighs. “Now, come here.”
“Don’t do this, Solly. We’re friends.”
“Only when it suits you.”
Again she didn’t move.
“Come over here.” His voice harsher now.
She rose from her chair, taking off her pinny as she moved round the desk.
“That’s a good girl,” he said.
She didn’t recognise his voice anymore. She didn’t recognise herself either. As if it were just her body here in this room while she was off somewhere else. Sitting by a river, watching the salmon leaping, feasting on chicken sandwiches, the white meat so delicious in her mouth. She reached the other side of the desk, turned her back on him, he pulled her down on his lap. She felt the chair give slightly, thought their weight might be too heavy. She could hear his breathing, the touch of his fingers as they brushed her ear, stroked her neck.
“You’re cold,” he said. And she wasn’t sure if he meant her skin or she was cold as a person. She was trembling too.
He placed a hand on her belly, the two of them rocking back and forward on the chair, the street lamp casting a garish glow across his skin, reflecting off his watch. His other hand moved round to her breast, the palm cupping her, she could feel the heat of it through her blouse, her own skin icy cold, his breathing hoarser now. Then suddenly, he arched his body with the forward motion of the chair, and she was pushed off him onto the floor.
“I’m sorry, Celia. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He kept wiping his hand across his brow as if to erase the memory. “I don’t know what I was thinking. What was I thinking?”
She lifted herself up from the floor, picked up the pinny that was lying there, tied it back round her waist.
“I was so happy you were coming with me that night,” he said, his voice not directed at her but towards the dirt-stained window. “I even bought a new suit. New shoes to dance you around the floor. And then you just ignored me. As if I were worthless.”
She looked down at him. There were tears in his eyes. Two grown men sobbing in one day. What was the world coming too?
“Let’s forget this ever happened,” she said.
“Yes, yes, yes, Celia. Let’s forget it. We shall wipe the slate clean. Start again, yes? I’ll try to sort out this mess with Mendel. I can’t promise anything but I’ll do my best. This football match with Avram could be the solution.” A phone rang. And this time he answered it.
Eighteen
THE SWEEPS WERE JUST FINISHING UP, father and son they were, the elder up on the roof with his brush and wooden ball attached, his son down below with his soot bag stretched out in the grate, the sacking sealed round about. These two shouted ‘hey, hey’ to each other up and down the flue in a signal, but Celia had heard some call ‘oi, oi’ or ‘down below’ and other slang of the trade. But whatever their call and however well she supervised them, laid out newspapers in preparation, got them to wash up afterwards, they always left a black film in their wake that inevitably ended up in her hair and on her skin. So these four times a year when the sweeps were in, she made it a point to have herself a bath in the evening, otherwise she wasn’t far off looking as smudge-skinned as these very tradesmen themselves.
It was on this afternoon before her evening bathing that Jonny Levy decided to turn up. Just like that. She hadn’t seen him for weeks, not since their trip to Blairgowrie and suddenly there he was, coming round completely unannounced with one of his army pals. It was just as well her mother had answered the bell, keeping the door on a chain until she had time to escape into the main bedroom before the unexpected guests were ushered into the kitchen. Madame Kahn then brought her in a basin and a towel to wash off the soot, along with a change of clothes.
“It is good he calls like this,” her mother said as she dabbed at her cheek with a damp cloth. “It shows he feels comfortable with our family.”
“I think it’s very rude, if you ask me. Who is his friend?”
“Robert? Or perhaps it was Robin. Or Roger. You know how I am with names. When I am introduced, my head goes into a spin. Now I must go prepare some tea.”
By the time Celia appeared in the kitchen, Jonny and his pal were seated around the table, sipping tea and eating digestive biscuits off her mother’s best china brought over from Germany. Made in Dresden. Only used on the Sabbath. Or if the King and his counsellors were ever to drop by for a visit. Jonny rose at her entrance.
“I’m sorry to just pop in like this,” he said.
“It is a surprise.”
“A welcome one I hope.” He indicated his companion with a stretch of his hand. “I’d like you to meet Robert. Robbie.”
Robbie made a vague attempt to rise from his chair, then sat back down again. She noticed his suit too tight and short on him, his skinny arms poking out of his sleeves. “Pleased to meet,” he said, then cracked his biscuit in half on her mother’s best plate, popped a piece into his mouth, chomped away.
“It’s just a flying visit,” Jonny went on.
Flying visit? She’d never heard that expression before. Must have been something he’d picked up in the war. Like all those other phrases imported from the army. ‘A-1’, ‘cushy’, ‘muck about’, ‘over the top’.
“We’ve just had the sweeps in,” she said, not knowing why this should be of interest to anyone. “It always feels a bit dusty after they’ve left.”
“You wouldn’t notice,” Jonny said. Robbie meantime ran his finger across the table-top just to check.
“Doctor Levy was telling me,” her mother said. “It is Doctor Levy now, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. I graduated last week.”
Her mother smiled as if the Messiah Himself had just arrived in the kitchen. “Doctor Levy was just saying there is a concert at the bandstand this afternoon. Perhaps you would like to go.”
“Will the West End Zionists be coming this time as well?” Celia asked.
“Just Robbie and I.”
“Well, West End Zionists or not,” Madame Kahn said, pouring herself another cup of tea. “I think you should go, Celia. It is such a lovely day. I can manage the ironing and the cleaning. And preparing the dinner. Off you go with these fine young men. You don’t need an old woman like me for company.”
Jonny made some flattering remark to her mother which made her tuck in her chins in a sort of girlish embarrassment. Then she shooed them all out into the street. Robbie, with never any intention to go listen to a bandstand concert hung back in a doorway to light up a cigarette while Jonny led her gently by the elbow down the street. It was Flora Harris’ young daughter, she with the one eye from the careless use of a knitting needle some years back, who called after them: “Celia’s got a boyfriend, Celia’s got a bo
yfriend.”
She walked with him in silence for a while without any firm direction although she knew they were generally heading for Queens Park where outdoor concerts were held. A pillar box narrowed their passage along the pavement, forcing him in closer to her. She felt something pressed into her hand, then his fingers in a wrap around her own. She looked down. She was holding an orange.
“Where did you get that?”
“It’s from Seville. I’ve kept it in an ice-box for months.”
She took the orange, smelt its skin, the faint tangy flavour, a souvenir of some distant sunshine, slipped it into her coat pocket, kept on walking. He went quiet on her after that, acting a bit twitchy, fidgeting away with his hands, putting her on edge too. She wouldn’t have minded one of Robbie’s cigarettes, something to calm her nerves.
“I’ve booked my passage,” he said. “Now that I’ve graduated.”
“You’re going to Palestine,” she said, the words coming out flat, not even inflected into a question, more as a statement to herself.
“Yes. Palestine.”
“When are you leaving?”
“In about six weeks.”
She walked on, thrust her hands in her pockets, felt the orange there, surprised the warm-coloured skin should feel so cold. “What’s on the programme?”
“Programme? What programme?”
“The bandstand programme. Or isn’t there any concert?”
He pulled her to a halt. “Come with me,” he said.
“To the park?”
“No. To Palestine.”
She laughed although she hadn’t really meant to. This was a serious matter. “Why would I do that?”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“That’s the point, Jonny. I don’t know what you’re asking.”
She realised they had come to a stop outside her father’s tailoring shop. In the window, a mannequin in a dinner suit, the cloth bleached in places by sunlight, a dead rose in the lapel, the display had been there for as long as she could remember. Beyond the glass, she could see her father working at a jacket on his long work bench. She could see the glint of the pinheads from a wrap across his forearm. She turned to look at Jonny. She noticed the skin on his cheeks and chin blue-black shiny from the lack of a shave, his eyes wide and questioning.
The Liberation of Celia Kahn Page 15