Read Online The Lubetkin Legacy by Marina Lewycka - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marina Lewycka
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mother’s side, her seven cousins are thin, dark and wiry, with respectable but ill-paid office jobs and ready smiles, who shop at Jumia and never have quite enough money. She gets on with all of them; in fact she loves the feeling of sprinting like a runner along a high ridge looking down on each side into two completely different valleys. It’s exhilarating up there, but it’s scary too. There’s always the danger that she will lose her footing and slip down into the wrong valley, the poor side, the dark side.
She steps down from the chair, and stands back to admire her handiwork. At once, the place feels more like home.
From the flat next door, she can hear that weird tinny voice repeating the same incoherent phrase over and over again.
She shudders; she definitely won’t be staying here long. She goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on, then takes her mug of Kenya roast coffee out on to the balcony to survey the scene down below. At the far end of the communal garden, a taxi has drawn up, and an old lady dressed in black is getting out.
As she watches, a pigeon lands beside her on the parapet and turns its head to fix her with its round beady eye. It is a tatty-looking bird, with scruffy feathers and only one leg. What has happened to the other one? She scatters some bread crusts for it on the balcony and it hops down to devour them, throwing its head back as they work their way down its blue-green throat. Then it puffs out its feathers and starts to coo in a sweet warbling voice, its whole pathetic body vibrating with the sound. Cooo-coo. Cooo-coo.
Berthold: Luxury Modern Skyscrounger
Inna Alfandari arrived in a taxi. I’d been expecting something more formal – forms to be filled in, a home inspection visit from the shapely nurse, at least a phone call – but I looked out of the window one afternoon and there she was, a diminutive figure dressed all in black, struggling across the grove with her enormous bags, as the taxi pulled away. I ran down to help her. Thank God Mrs Crazy wasn’t watching.
‘Hello, Inna. Welcome to Madeley Court.’
‘Oy! Is council house!’ She put her bags down and clasped her hands in an attitude of despair. She didn’t seem at all pleased to see me.
‘Yes. Didn’t my mother tell you?’
‘The way she was talk talk talk about this boyfriend flat, I was expect luxury modern skyscrounger.’
‘Modernist. She probably said modernist, Inna. It’s very nice inside. Wait till you see it.’
I don’t know why I was being so apologetic. I’d expected a bit of gratitude and deference from her, but obviously she was under the impression that she was the one who was doing me a favour. I pressed the button for the lift, and while I waited a thought crossed my mind. ‘How did you know the address?’
‘Nurse told me. She got all informations from you mama file. But she never told me is council flat. Never!’
She crossed herself and stepped into the lift reluctantly. At once, her nose wrinkled up.
‘Stinking piss in here.’
What was it Mum used to say? ‘Don’t be a Moaning Minnie, Inna.’
‘Aha! Always keep on sunny side! Ha ha ha!’ She brightened up instantly. ‘You good man, Mister Bertie, good like you mama.’
It was the first time she had smiled.
When you live in a place you forget how it looks to a newcomer. The communal walkway from the lift to the flats might have been built to a sleek modernist design, but now it was cluttered with dead plants in cracked pots, threadbare mats, a three-legged chair, a discarded Christmas tree four months old, and a mystery object shrouded in black plastic that had been there ever since the seven foreign students had moved out from next door. Inna walked with her head stiff, staring in front of her like a doomed man walking to his death. Wisps of white hair were sticking out from under her scarf.
‘Here we are. Home.’
‘God is dead!’ Flossie screeched, when she heard the door open, and rattled the bars of
She steps down from the chair, and stands back to admire her handiwork. At once, the place feels more like home.
From the flat next door, she can hear that weird tinny voice repeating the same incoherent phrase over and over again.
She shudders; she definitely won’t be staying here long. She goes into the kitchen to put the kettle on, then takes her mug of Kenya roast coffee out on to the balcony to survey the scene down below. At the far end of the communal garden, a taxi has drawn up, and an old lady dressed in black is getting out.
As she watches, a pigeon lands beside her on the parapet and turns its head to fix her with its round beady eye. It is a tatty-looking bird, with scruffy feathers and only one leg. What has happened to the other one? She scatters some bread crusts for it on the balcony and it hops down to devour them, throwing its head back as they work their way down its blue-green throat. Then it puffs out its feathers and starts to coo in a sweet warbling voice, its whole pathetic body vibrating with the sound. Cooo-coo. Cooo-coo.
Berthold: Luxury Modern Skyscrounger
Inna Alfandari arrived in a taxi. I’d been expecting something more formal – forms to be filled in, a home inspection visit from the shapely nurse, at least a phone call – but I looked out of the window one afternoon and there she was, a diminutive figure dressed all in black, struggling across the grove with her enormous bags, as the taxi pulled away. I ran down to help her. Thank God Mrs Crazy wasn’t watching.
‘Hello, Inna. Welcome to Madeley Court.’
‘Oy! Is council house!’ She put her bags down and clasped her hands in an attitude of despair. She didn’t seem at all pleased to see me.
‘Yes. Didn’t my mother tell you?’
‘The way she was talk talk talk about this boyfriend flat, I was expect luxury modern skyscrounger.’
‘Modernist. She probably said modernist, Inna. It’s very nice inside. Wait till you see it.’
I don’t know why I was being so apologetic. I’d expected a bit of gratitude and deference from her, but obviously she was under the impression that she was the one who was doing me a favour. I pressed the button for the lift, and while I waited a thought crossed my mind. ‘How did you know the address?’
‘Nurse told me. She got all informations from you mama file. But she never told me is council flat. Never!’
She crossed herself and stepped into the lift reluctantly. At once, her nose wrinkled up.
‘Stinking piss in here.’
What was it Mum used to say? ‘Don’t be a Moaning Minnie, Inna.’
‘Aha! Always keep on sunny side! Ha ha ha!’ She brightened up instantly. ‘You good man, Mister Bertie, good like you mama.’
It was the first time she had smiled.
When you live in a place you forget how it looks to a newcomer. The communal walkway from the lift to the flats might have been built to a sleek modernist design, but now it was cluttered with dead plants in cracked pots, threadbare mats, a three-legged chair, a discarded Christmas tree four months old, and a mystery object shrouded in black plastic that had been there ever since the seven foreign students had moved out from next door. Inna walked with her head stiff, staring in front of her like a doomed man walking to his death. Wisps of white hair were sticking out from under her scarf.
‘Here we are. Home.’
‘God is dead!’ Flossie screeched, when she heard the door open, and rattled the bars of
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