‘You mama very much worrying about break-up of post-war sensors. She say it make her sick in heart to think they take away her apartment and put you into street. This tax is work of Satan, she say. Mister Indunky Smeet. You know this devil-man?’
‘Not personally.’
I’d heard of course of something called a bedroom tax, which Mother described variously as an affront to human decency, the final death-blow to the post-war consensus, and a pretext for squeezing more money out of poor people who happened to have a spare bedroom. But it never occurred to me that it might apply to me, so I hadn’t taken much notice. I did recall Mum and Flossie swearing at some minister on the television news recently; though, to be fair, this was not an uncommon occurrence. I sympathised with her righteous anger, of course, but I had my own problems to contend with, and you can’t just live in a permanent stew of rage, can you?
‘But I tell her no worry, Lily, this under-bed tax for lazies scrounging in bed all day. You hard-working decent, Mister Bertie?’ She eyed me sideways.
‘Oh yes. Absolutely.’
‘What work you working, Mister Bertie?’
‘Actually, I’m an actor.’
I always dread this question. It raises such expectations.
‘Aha! Like George Clooney!’ Inna cooed. ‘You mekking film?’
‘I’m mainly a stage actor. Best known for my Shakespearean roles. And some television.’ If you can count a stint as a proud football dad in a washing-powder advert back in 1999. ‘But I’m not working at present.’
The old woman was still impressed. ‘I never met actor before. I would like met wit George Clooney. He got nice eyes. Nice smile. Nice teeth. Everything nice.’ She pursed her lips and discharged some more green phlegm. I looked away.
Bloody George Clooney. If he and I didn’t happen to share a common birthday, I probably wouldn’t care; in fact I probably wouldn’t even notice him. As it was, I couldn’t help comparing his success with mine (lack of). Of course someone who has dedicated his life to Art, as I have, cannot expect to wallow in the excesses of materialism. We have our spiritual consolations. But still, it would be nice to have more than an occasional latte at Luigi’s to look forward to.
Take the case in point: it was George bloody Clooney with his affected smile and clean-cut chin that this old crone lusted after; yet it was I, Sidebottom, who sat here at her wretched bedside watching her phlegm-bowl fill to overflowing. How could that be fair?
The beautiful nurse was still making busy sounds behind Mum’s curtain. It seemed to have been going on a very long time.
Inna’s hands fiddled with the sheet. She gave me a sly look. ‘You got good apartment. Your mother tell me about her.’
‘Yes, it’s a nice flat. Top floor.’
‘Aha! Top floor, good flat, bad lift. She say lift always broken, nobody repair her because she got hysterity.’
‘Hysterity?’ It’s true the lift was getting cranky but I personally would have described it as unreliable rather than hysterical.
‘She say banks made creases we give money. Now banks got all our money we get hysterity.’
‘Ah, you mean austerity! There’s a lot of it around nowadays.’
‘Yes. Hysterity. You mama explain to me. Very clever lady. Almost like Soviet economist.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go so far —’
‘She love this flat, you mama. It is so beautiful, she say, she got it from arshitek boyfriend.’
Why was she going on about the flat? What had Mother been saying? Suddenly she crossed herself and fell silent, listening. I listened too. Behind the curtains around Mother’s bed a machine had been beeping constantly. Now in the silence I became aware that the sound was becoming intermittent. There was a flurry of scurrying and scuffling and low voices talking in urgent whispers.
Suddenly the nurse drew back the curtains, and murmured, ‘Mr Lukashenko, your mother has taken a turn for the worse.’
I leaned over her and peered into her dear old face, so familiar yet so mysterious, already sealed behind the glass wall of the departure lounge, checked in for the one-way journey to the undiscovered country.
‘Mum. Mum, it’s me, Bertie. I’m with you.’ I took her hand.
Mum let out a long rattling sigh. A single blue butterfly fluttered on the withered garden of her face. Pulling herself up in bed with immense effort, she gripped my arm and drew me down towards her, to whisper into my ear, ‘Don’t let them get the flat, Berthold!’ Then she fell back on the pillows with a groan.
Violet: Mary Atiemo
Violet doesn’t plan on staying in the flat for long. When she’s saved up some money from her amazing salary, she’ll find something better — not a council flat. This place is convenient for work, and she was lucky to get it at short notice, but she viewed it in a hurry and didn’t notice how tatty the decor was and how rough the neighbourhood. On the day she arrived she watched someone being carried out on a stretcher. And there are those strange alarming shrieks from the flat next door, which sound like someone possessed by a shetani. Besides, it’s too big for one person. The smooth-talking estate agent had persuaded her it would be easy to find some room-mates, but now she isn’t sure she’s ready for another flat share after her last disastrous experience.
When she first came to London, she’d done casual office work and waitressing to fund her internship with an NGO and shared a zero-housework flat in Hammersmith with a girl from Singapore and two boys from uni, one of whom was her boyfriend, Nick. The Singaporean girl, who used to borrow her clothes, eventually borrowed Nick too. She came home early one day to find them having a shower together.
Her friend Jessie, who had just moved into a flat in Croydon with her boyfriend, let her sleep on the sofa in the sitting room. But a month on a sofa is a long time.
The agency that found her this flat in Madeley Court specialises in student lettings, and it is furnished with seven narrow beds, seven desks, seven wooden chairs, seven small chests of drawers, and a small round table in the kitchen. How did seven people squeeze into here? Maybe they were dwarves? She smiles, remembering the movie she saw with Jessie, when they were both at primary school in Bakewell.
When she got the flat, Jessie lent her a spare duvet, pillows, a set of yellow crockery and a frying pan. She texts Jessie a ‘Thank You’, with a picture of yellow crockery on the kitchen shelf.
She opens another door off the sitting room/bedroom, and finds it leads out on to a balcony with a view — she hadn’t expected that. Leaning on the parapet, looking down on the flowering tops of the cherry trees and the splashes of yellow from the daffodils in the verges, she breathes deeply and closes her eyes. The sunlight on her skin touches her memory with the view from her grandmother’s veranda in Langata, Nairobi, the Nandi Flame trees and the dazzling blood lilies. It’s been a long while since she remembered that time in her childhood. A man with a bald head is pushing his bicycle across the green. Looks like the same old guy she saw in Luigi’s. Maybe he lives nearby.
She’s only been in her new job for a month — thinking of it still makes her stomach flip with excitement. Tonight she’s meeting up with her friends at the Lazy Lounge to celebrate her birthday. So now is her only chance to sort out her flat and explore her new neighbourhood. She puts on her trainers and decides to go out for a run while the weather holds.
It’s a mixed sort of area, where old-fashioned terraces rub shoulders with scruffy council estates, little artsy shops, galleries and studios tucked up the side streets, and further away a lively street market. She passes several building sites bristling with cranes where modern offices and apartments are shooting up, and from time to time she catches the dark gleam of a river or canal threading its way between the streets.