The Road Home Read online

  “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “Pharmacy,” said Lydia. “The nearest will be in Waterloo Station.”

  She began almost to run. “I only pray it’s open,” she said. “We must walk very fast. Come on.” The scurrying clack-clack of her shoes was an anxious sound.

  “What’s wrong with the maestro?” said Lev as he hurried to keep up with Lydia.

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Lydia. “Luckily, I know the quickest way.”

  Lev looked at his watch. The concert was due to begin in thirty-five minutes. His image of Pyotor Greszler, slumped in his chair, sipping the white medicine, remained vivid in his mind.

  Lydia’s pace was such that soon both she and Lev were out of breath. Lev could feel his smoke-addicted lungs begin to complain, but Lydia kept hurrying on. “God!” she exclaimed, as they rushed onto the station concourse. “The human body. So sublime and yet so weak.”

  They raced toward the chemist’s shop, with Lydia already tearing money from her purse. She instructed Lev to wait by the door while she went in.

  Now Lev was waiting for Lydia again, back at the same unadorned bar table where they’d started the evening. After the dash to Waterloo Station and back again, he was glad to be sitting down. In the foyer, a bell was chiming repetitively. There were now three minutes left before the start of the concert. Lev watched the audience all around him finish their drinks and start moving up toward the auditorium. He wondered whether there would be any music, after all, or whether some grave managerial person (of the kind who used to work with Marina at the Office of Public Works) would come onto the platform and announce the cancellation of the whole evening.

  With the third or fourth chiming of the bell, Lev found himself alone in the bar seats, and the echoing foyer was deserted except for a few people, far off, ambling round some photographic exhibits.

  In the silence that had fallen, he thought, not without wonderment, how the next few moments of musical history might depend upon Lydia.

  And now he saw her running toward him. Lev noted with tenderness that, after all the dashing through the damp night streets, her former elegance had been compromised. On her brow there was a film of sweat and her nicely styled hair had become willfully curly. “Lev,” she panted, “I’m so sorry. To put you through all this. Let me catch my breath and then we can go in.”

  Lydia sat down. She wiped the sweat from her face with a tissue. She combed her hair. She asked Lev to get her some water from the bar. She said the performance was going to begin late, so there would be plenty of time in which to drink it.

  Lev brought the water and sat down again.

  Lydia gulped it. “My God,” she said. “My God. I hope he will be all right. I never thought I would have to go on such an errand.”

  “What’s the matter with him?” asked Lev.

  “Well . . .” said Lydia, in a whisper, “I will tell you now. Maestro Greszler told me he couldn’t conduct the Elgar cello concerto with so many poisons in him. He had been trying to evacuate the poisons, but he wasn’t able to succeed. He said he absolutely had to be purged before he could go onstage. I had to get suppositories for him, to bring about an evacuation. He was embarrassed to ask any English person. He feels that we, as a people, are a mystery to them: a mystery and a terror. But all I hope, now, is that the suppositories have worked!”

  Lev smiled. He took Lydia’s hand and held it for a moment. He thought her valiant and suddenly found himself wishing—for her sake as much as his—that she was prettier than she was.

  With her hand in his, Lydia let her large eyes come to rest on his face. Then she looked down. “What I said is true,” she said. “That is a very nice tie, Lev.”

  Inside the auditorium, Lev stared with awe at the big, breathless space and the orchestra tuning up on the brightly lit stage. Lydia hurried them to their seats, and he could smell on her the odor of their coach journey, of perfume or deodorant mixed with sweat, and he thought how incredible it was that they were now sitting side by side in this famous concert hall.

  Minutes kept passing. The orchestra waited. The audience went silent. Individual bouts of coughing came and went in different parts of the hall. Lydia’s breathing was still slightly labored. On her green blouse was a tiny stain of tomato juice Lev hadn’t noticed before. He could feel her deep anxiety.

  To try to calm her, to help her pass this bit of agonizing time, he said quietly, “Tell me something more about Elgar.”

  “Well,” began Lydia, “what can I tell you? You will hear, in this concerto, a big nostalgia, a big longing for some time or place that is gone, or perhaps it’s a longing to find some perfect place that cannot ever be found. I think I read somewhere that he said he only loved one thing in the world and that was a river somewhere in the west of England. Probably the river where he was when he was a child, where he ‘fixed sound.’ I don’t know.”

  “Do you have ‘nostalgia’ for our country, Lydia?”

  “What? Do you mean am I homesick?”

  “I mean, do you think you made the right decision to come here?”

  “Yes,” she said emphatically. “There was nothing left for me in Yarbl. Only my parents, set in their old ways. Here, I am starting again. I’m determined to have a life.”

  Now, at last, there was movement on the left-hand side of the stage, and here he came, Pyotor Greszler, the most famous person their country had produced in the last fifty years, upright and smart in his tailcoat, making his way through the orchestra, with his hair neatly brushed and, on his formerly melancholy features, the beginnings of a smile. He walked with a firm step, almost bounced onto the podium, and raised his hands to acknowledge the applause that greeted him. Lydia began to clap violently. She turned and smiled at Lev and said, “His color’s better. I think the suppositories worked. I’m so happy.”

  Maestro Greszler now looked over to the door from which he’d entered. He raised his hands again in a gesture of welcome as Rostropovich made his slow and careful way to the soloist’s chair.

  The applause grew in passionate intensity. One or two people stood up. The elderly Rostropovich inclined his head. The lights gleamed and flickered on his spectacles. Next to him Lev could feel Lydia’s rapture. Now, in moments, the beautiful music was going to begin.

  Gradually, the audience fell silent. Rostropovich settled himself around his instrument. Greszler waited, baton in his hand. The musicians were still, but poised on their chairs, watching Greszler. No silence that Lev had witnessed had ever been so choked with expectation. And it endured. The great cellist was very old now: he needed to take his time. On the podium, Greszler held his elbows out, waiting, still, for the moment when his baton would take flight.

  It was in this rapt silence that Lev suddenly became aware of an unexpected but somehow familiar sound. It seemed to be very near him. And he was conscious of people turning and staring at him and the man next to him giving his arm a violent nudge. Then he realized: his mobile phone was ringing! The latest ring tone Lev had selected was called “Carousel” and he’d chosen it for its touching resemblance to the fairground music at Baryn, and now, in this fatal moment before the Elgar cello concerto began, it was playing merrily along.

  Lydia put a hand over her mouth, as though this gesture might stop the phone’s insistent ring. “Turn it off!” she hissed.

  Lev fumbled to find it. His jacket had many pockets. The “Carousel” ring tone was programmed to increase in intensity after the third ring. Lev’s hands searched uselessly. On the platform Greszler had turned angrily toward the audience. He made a gesture of despair. “Mobile phones off!” he yelled. “Please, please! No barbarians in here!” And the hundred outraged faces of the orchestra looked in Lev’s direction. Lev thrust his hands into this pocket and that. He found money, keys, comb, cigarettes, but no mobile. Sweat began to pour down his back. Lydia kept growling his name in despair: “Lev, Lev, Lev!”

  The phone wasn’t in Lev’s jacket. The merry “C
arousel” played blithely on. Lev bent down, his face burning, and fumbled under his seat. Even as he told himself that he wouldn’t find the mobile there, that it couldn’t have jumped out of his pocket, the ringing stopped. Slowly he straightened up. He was trembling. He saw Greszler still glaring out at the audience. He knew that the profound spell cast over the hall just seconds before was irretrievably broken—and he had broken it. Worse, he still hadn’t found his phone. It might ring again. And at any moment it would certainly send the loud beep-beep “missed-call” signal.

  In a daze of mortification, Lev stood up. Without glancing at Lydia, he pushed past fourteen or fifteen furious concertgoers, ran down the steps and out of the auditorium. He kept running. He found the nearest exit and went out into the night.

  7

  The Lizard Tattoo

  CHRISTY SLANE WAS doing the ironing when Lev got home to Belisha Road. He was drinking Coke. He’d had no alcohol for a week, in preparation for his appearance in court, which was coming up soon. The silent flat smelled of scorched fabric, like toast.

  “Shame you missed the music,” Christy said, folding a faded giraffe pillowcase.

  Lev had made himself a ham sandwich. He ate this slowly and thoughtfully. Guilt at his desertion of Lydia had now turned to anger. “I don’t belong in those places,” he said. “Muswell Hill. Festival Hall. That is not my world. I work in kitchen! I should have told Lydia, that is wrong, that is shit.”

  “Ah well,” said Christy. “From the sound of it, shit’s the default word for the whole dee-backle! But I often say that human society is ninety percent muck that won’t disperse to the appropriate location. That’s why I chose the profession of plumber. Someone has to be on hand to get it all washed away to the sea.”

  Lev had found his mobile in an inside pocket of his leather jacket he didn’t remember encountering before. Now he placed the phone on the table and looked crossly at it. He knew that soon it was going to ring, and it was going to be Lydia.

  “I can tell her you’re ill,” offered Christy. “I can say you’ve got food poisoning.”

  “Yes?”

  “Sure I can. I can say you ate a lethal prawn baguette on the way to the hall—that’s why you had to rush out.”

  “Okay,” said Lev. “You tell her that. Then, in some days, I will call her.”

  “Fine,” said Christy. “But more to the question is: Who was calling you, Lev?”

  “Calling me?”

  “At the critical moment—when you heard those lovely little ‘Carousel’ tones?”

  “Oh,” said Lev. “I don’t know.”

  Christy put down the iron and picked up Lev’s phone. He showed Lev the number listed as a missed call. “Whose is it?”

  Lev stared at it. It wasn’t Damian’s or Rudi’s.

  “Could be somebody in Bangladesh trying to sell you double glazing,” said Christy. “Or could it be old G.K. himself, inviting you over for a spot of Sunday-night bubble-and-squeak? But I expect I’m being farfetched. Why don’t you call it and see?”

  Lev lit a cigarette. He noted that the time was nine-forty. He imagined Lydia coming out of the Festival Hall into the cold night and walking away toward Waterloo Station.

  “Shall I call?” he said to Christy.

  “Yes,” said Christy, “call.”

  Lev pressed the “call” key and waited. The phone rang six times, then a voice cut in and said:

  Hi. You’ve reached Sophie’s phone. I’m either at work or out getting plastered. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I’m next capable of doing so.

  On Monday evening, GK Ashe was what Damian called “clientele lite.” By tenforty-five, the service was done and the customers had paid and left, and G. K. Ashe announced to his staff that he was making tomato-and-dolcelatte crostini “for a late-night feast.”

  Lev’s work was far from finished when Jeb laid the familiar table at the back of the restaurant, so he kept at his scouring and rinsing when the others went to sit down. He watched Ashe hurl his crostini under a salamander, and the smell of the bubbling cheese woke in him a beautiful hunger, like the innocent hunger of a child.

  G.K. carried through the dish of crostini, and Lev could see Mario opening beers. The combination of hot cheese and cold beer suggested itself to Lev’s mind, at this moment, as the most delicious one the human mind was capable of inventing. He saw the others begin to eat. They, too, seemed to have the hunger of children. He heard their teeth crunch into the crisp, oil-soaked bread.

  “Nice night,” he heard Ashe say. “Lite but good. Everything lovely and organized. No cockups. Wicked salsa with the sea bream, Pierre.”

  “Thank you, Chef.”

  “Brown-bread ice cream with the cinnamon pears is a winner, Waldo.”

  “Good. Glad you think so, Chef.”

  “This is how it should be every night, though. Even when we’re chocka. It should purr like that. Well, cheers, everyone. Where’s Nurse?”

  They looked over to where Lev stood at his sinks. “Come on, Nurse!” called Ashe. “Come and get your crostini before Miss Sophie Greedy-Guts eats it!”

  Lev wiped his hands on a clean towel. He unwound the bandana from his head and dabbed his face with it. As he sat down, a beer was put into his hands. “Cheers!” said Ashe again.

  Lev drank and ate. Though the familiar ache was in his back, he understood, at this moment, that he was fortunate. If he could hold down this job, rewards like these would be his. He would tell Ina in his next letter that he was working for a good establishment. He would compare the beautiful food he was given here to the crude starch-laden stuff he and Stefan used to eat at the Baryn lumber yard.

  He looked over to Sophie, whose curly hair had recently been dyed a shade of robin red. She’d taken off her whites and Lev noted that her arms were plump and still brown from the summer heat wave and that near her shoulder there was a tattoo in the shape of a lizard. He wondered whether he was going to ask her why she’d tried to contact him. He tried to imagine telling her about the embarrassment of the ringing phone in the Festival Hall, but felt that he wouldn’t find the right words. And perhaps, anyway, her call had been an error. Perhaps she’d wanted Mario’s mobile number, or Jeb’s, and Damian had given her Lev’s by mistake.

  “English girls,” Christy had commented. “There’s only one trouble with them: they’re racist. They don’t see themselves like that; they’d hate it if you accused them of it, but they are—or a lot of them are. And you and me, we’re foreigners, both. All Angela could say to me when things started to go wrong was ‘I shouldn’t have married a fucking foreigner.’ That’s what she called me. I speak the same language. I’ve lived in London fifteen years, but there you are, I’m still a ‘foreigner’ to her. That’s English girls for you, I’m telling you. Or, rather, I’m warning you. Don’t get involved with an English girl.”

  “I will not involve with anyone,” Lev had said.

  “Well, that’s okay, then. But if you do, don’t choose Miss United Kingdom.”

  Lev looked away from Sophie. He felt G. K. Ashe’s hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing all right, Nurse,” he said. “No mice. No cockroaches. Not even a silverfish. Not yet. Keep up the standard, though. Don’t let things drop. Eh?”

  Ashe went home at half past twelve, and one by one, everybody left and Lev was alone, mopping the floor. But he didn’t mind. His head felt light from the beer. He mopped in time to an old folk song he sang in his mind. Optimism seemed to have caught him unawares.

  Then he heard the outside door open and Sophie was there, wearing a ragged sheepskin coat and a yellow football scarf.

  “Came back to help you,” she said. “I suddenly just didn’t like it that we all left you.”

  Lev straightened up and looked at her. He thought, I like her clothes.

  She began unwinding the football scarf. “What can I do?” she asked. “Take the bins out?”

  Lev smiled at her. Underneath her shaggy coat she
wore a red sweater the approximate color of her hair and a beige leather skirt.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “This is my job.”

  “I know it’s your job,” said Sophie, “but I’ll bag up the rubbish and get it out for you, right?”

  “You don’t need —”

  “I know I don’t. Stop saying that. I’d like to do it. Then you can get home.”

  Lev watched her lifting out the black bags and tying them and piling them up by the door. As she worked, she suddenly said, “I called you the other night. Damian told me you live in Tufnell Park. I go to a pub there sometimes with my friend Samantha: Sam Diaz-Morant. She works in fashion. We thought it would be a laugh to buy you a drink.”

  “Yes?” said Lev.

  “You wouldn’t have come, though, would you?”

  “I don’t know . . .” said Lev.

  “You just keep yourself to yourself. And, actually, I admire that. Most men are such fucking prostitutes.”

  Lev didn’t understand this. He shrugged. Then he said, “I know you called. I was at Festival Hall.”

  “Yeah? You were? What were you doing there?”

  “Well. Elgar. You know him?”

  “Yeah. ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’ All that stuff.”

  “Yes? I didn’t know him. You know he began very poor, with his father in small poor shop, selling music?”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes. Very poor.”

  “Yeah. Well, good on him. Now he’s on the twenty-pound note!”

  “That’s Elgar?”

  “Yup.”

  “It’s some businessman. No?”

  Sophie rummaged in her coat pocket and brought out a cheap plastic purse. She produced a twenty-pound note, took it over to Lev, and pointed out the name, Sir Edward Elgar 1857–1934.

  He recognized the face he’d examined on the coach, with the set expression of a banker and multiple lines of radiance shining down on him. He began to smile. Leaning on his mop, he told Sophie how he’d studied the face of Elgar on his journey to England and then almost heard his great cello concerto but had been prevented at the last minute.