East End Jubilee (35 page)

‘Come in child, come in,’ Len invited when he found her on the doorstep. Rose hadn’t expected such a welcome. On a beautiful sunny morning like this she had
expected to find him seated outside in his chair. And since no one that she knew had ever been inside the old man’s house since Lena Silverman’s death, she was surprised at his offer.
Did he still feel guilty, she wondered, over the television business?

‘I would wish you a Happy Easter, Len,’ she murmured as she entered the darkened hall, ‘but you don’t celebrate it, do you?’

‘After the death of my wife, it’s years since I celebrated even a birthday, Rose,’ he said humorously. Then as he caught her eye, he added mildly, ‘But now is the time of
the Passover, a commemoration of freedom from our slavery in Egypt.’

‘Do you do anything special, then?’ Rose asked politely as she slowly followed him towards the front room. The house smelt of spices and herbs that somehow blended in with a not
unpleasant odour of mustiness.

‘Yes, it’s called
seder
.’

‘I don’t know what that is,’ Rose said apologetically.

‘
Seder
means order,’ he explained as he opened a loudly creaking door. ‘We read the Passover story in a special order from the
Haggadah
. This is a reminder to us
that we are a free people.’ He paused, turning to her. ‘The name Passover comes from the moment when the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Jews. Some spilt lamb’s blood
on their doors in order to save their firstborn.’

Rose nodded. ‘Yes, I know the story from the Bible.’

He smiled again. ‘So you like your Bible stories eh, Rose?’

‘Yes, although I’m not religious or anything.’

He turned his palms towards the ceiling. ‘What is religion, Rose? You look into your heart to find God. And you are a good wife and mother. That is all that matters.’

Rose felt slightly embarrassed. In all the years she had known this old man, they had never done more than pass the time of day or spoken about the children, which he was always pleased to do. A
childless couple, Len and Lena had doted on one another. After her death he showered his affection on the local kids, spending hours in that old chair of his watching them play. Rose recalled she
had been in her early teens when Lena died. A plump, dark-eyed woman, she had been a friendly soul who attended the synagogue regularly.

‘Come and sit down.’ Len showed her into the sitting room. Dressed in his usual crumpled collarless shirt and a pair of baggy trousers and braces with his thick grey hair as yet
uncombed, Rose thought he might have just tumbled out of bed to answer her knock. But then she realized the house was a mirror reflection, an extension of its owner. Each nook and cranny was
stuffed with ornaments and books, all set at odd angles and managing extraordinary balancing acts.

There wasn’t an inch of wallpaper showing as far as she could see. Hiding the surface of one wall was a magnificent walnut sideboard, the shiny brown wood just managing to peep out from
the cluttered china and books that filled its surfaces. The rest of the room was covered with pictures and photographs of Jewish men wearing beards and homburgs and women dressed in austere black
clothing. Some were encased in ornate gold frames, others in simple wooden ones.

‘Sit, won’t you?’ Len invited as he bent to push away the books and papers scattered the length of another unusual item of furniture. Rose had never seen a couch quite like it
before.

‘This is Lena’s basha,’ Len said proudly as Rose squeezed on to the heavily cushioned wooden bench adorned with an intricately embroidered cover.

As the basha almost filled the rest of the room, the remaining chair, that Rose realized must be Len’s favourite, was squeezed tightly by the fireplace.

Rose stared at the hearth, the centrepiece of every Eastender’s house. Instead of the regulation fireside set and coal scuttle, it was filled with an enormous army of china figurines all
dressed in colourful regalia. Obviously the fire hadn’t been alight for some time, Rose thought. The old man must freeze in winter!

‘I put them away when it is cold,’ he told her as if reading her mind, though somehow she was hard-pressed to believe him. There were so many. ‘Lena loved her little darlings.
She would dust them every day and remember her family in Turkey.’

‘Your wife was from Turkey?’ Rose asked in surprise.

‘Lena’s grandparents were Turkish, my dear. This
tzaki
went out of style long ago with their generation, but Lena liked to honour them in such a way.’ He sighed as he
sank down into the big fireside chair. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled, his bushy grey eyebrows lifting to show piercing dark eyes. ‘After fifty years of married life to one woman, it is too
late to change.’

‘I don’t see why you would want to,’ Rose said kindly, although she was already beginning to feel a little suffocated in the thick, cloying atmosphere. ‘It’s a very
interesting room,’ she said tactfully.

‘My Lena created it,’ he shrugged. ‘This was her universe. Unfortunately she was not impressed with my world.’

‘Yes, of course, you were a jeweller,’ Rose nodded.

‘Indeed. And I loved my work. Always it was for others though, the big shops in the city. I was never enterprising enough to run my own business.’ He smiled at her, folding his hands
across his lap and knitting his fingers together. Rose saw how long and slender they still were, a young man’s hands almost.

She knew he was politely waiting for her to explain her visit. ‘Dr Cox just called on me,’ she began. ‘Olga died in the early hours of this morning.’

The elderly Jew sat very still and closed his eyes. He murmured a few strange words that Rose didn’t understand and his cracked lips and lined face suddenly looked very drawn. ‘My
heart grieves,’ he said eventually.

‘I haven’t told anyone. I wanted to speak to you first.’

‘To me?’

‘Yes. You see, I don’t think Olga has anyone left to speak for her. Well, to make funeral arrangements and all that.’

Len frowned. ‘Her husband is not at home?’

‘I’m sure Olga won’t mind me confiding in you that he wasn’t her husband. They just lived together. And he left her when she told him about her past, which is really what
I’ve come about.’

The dark eyes stared curiously at her. ‘Rose, I am confused. What have I to do with our neighbour’s past? The present was difficult enough, I am sad to say.’

‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Rose agreed. ‘Everyone knows that I fell out with Olga on Coronation Day but I’ve always felt bad about it, even though I tried to make
friends.’

‘And now she is dead and there is nothing you can do,’ he added solemnly.

‘Well, I’m hoping there is,’ Rose said persuasively. ‘In actual fact Olga wasn’t Polish but German. She was also Jewish. Her family was taken away to a labour camp
in Germany during the war and she never saw them again.’

‘Oiy vey! Such a thing!’

‘Yes, I know,’ Rose continued, relieved to see the concerned expression spread over his face. ‘It’s a tragic story.’

Len looked genuinely surprised. ‘You believed her, Rose?’

‘Why would she make it up?’

He shook his head. ‘I cannot think of a reason.’

‘The thing that sticks out in my mind,’ Rose sighed, ‘is her last words to me. She only wanted to belong somewhere. That isn’t much to ask for is it? Don’t all of
us want that? But she never belonged anywhere and now, if Leslie doesn’t take responsibility, she won’t belong anywhere in death.’

He nodded slowly, gazing at the figurines in the hearth, then his old eyes travelled slowly around the room as if he were seeing it all for the first time. ‘My Lena would have understood.
Ah yes, she would have understood perfectly.’

Rose wished Lena was here now. ‘I don’t know anything about Jewish traditions, Len. I was hoping you could help.’

‘How?’

‘Could she be buried in the Jewish cemetery?’

Len shrugged again. ‘I will ask the Rabbi, although we haven’t spoken in some time.’ He frowned. ‘You had better tell me all you know about her.’

Rose began slowly, trying to recall as accurately as she could everything Olga had said.

The following Friday Rose was sitting in Anita’s front room wondering why she was going to all the bother of persuading everyone that Olga should have a proper burial.
She didn’t much fancy knocking on doors, but she and Len had agreed it was the only way to persuade people to contribute. And by the looks of Benny, who had just got home from work and no
doubt wanted his meal, Olga Parker was probably the last person he wanted to discuss.

Rose bit her lip anxiously. Anita was making a second pot of tea and taking her time in doing so. Em was sitting on the edge of her seat looking as though she had been dragged in here by
force.

‘Right you are!’ Anita exclaimed as she at last walked back in carrying a teapot swamped by a huge, thick-knit cosy. Rose watched her neighbour pour the tea into four of her best
china cups with meticulous care. ‘Drink up, it’s a nice brown brew.’

‘Ta, Neet.’ Rose took her cup, relieved that Matthew at least was silent. He’d finally fallen asleep in the pram parked in Anita’s hall. The kids were amusing themselves
outside in the backyard; Alan and David were showing Will how to erect the tent. She had better get on with what she had to say before one or all of them came screaming in. But before her lips
touched the cup, Anita sat down and looked her straight in the eye.

‘You don’t plan to knock on every front door in Ruby Street, do you?’ she asked without batting an eyelid.

‘Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,’ Rose nodded. ‘Len says he can get everything arranged including a plot for twenty pounds, from someone the Rabbi knows up Golders Green who
doesn’t want the ground any more.’

‘Cremation would be simpler, wouldn’t it?’ Benny queried.

‘Yes, I suppose so. But Len told me Jews regard cremation as desecration to the body. They also believe that burial should take place the same day as the death, but in Olga’s case
there had to be an autopsy. That was how they found out she took an overdose.’

‘What about a service?’ Anita asked.

‘Len is going to take care of that.’

‘And all this for someone who wouldn’t give you the time of day!’

Rose straightened her back. ‘I think all that matters is she’s given a decent send-off, isn’t it? She lived on the street for three-and-a-half years and we knew her as well as
anyone did.’

‘Yeah,’ Anita nodded, ‘precisely. You know, one thing bothers me. Why did she tell you, Rose?’

‘She’d swallowed a bottle of aspirin that’s why,’ Benny said with a frown at his wife. ‘It could have been anyone.’

‘Yes,’ Anita nodded, ‘but she was still savvy enough to lumber Rose with her troubles knowing there wasn’t a bloody thing Rose could do to help. She didn’t tell me,
did she? Or the Dixons, or even Len Silverman, who is Jewish just like her. Strikes me as she saw meeting Rose in the park as an opportunity to get her own back before she—’

‘I’m not daft, Neet,’ Rose interrupted. ‘I’m well aware Olga couldn’t forgive me and Eddie for the telly business. But I’m acting according to me own
conscience now, not hers.’

‘Well, it’s up to you,’ Anita sighed. ‘But I won’t vouch for the reaction you’ll get from Ruby Street. Asking everyone to contribute towards her funeral when
no one’s seen the woman in a month of Sundays is a bit hopeful.’

‘Anyway, why isn’t her old man here to help out?’ Benny asked, bewildered.

‘Dr Cox told me that when the police tracked down Leslie he disowned her completely,’ Rose explained. She’d gone over all this before. But everyone seemed to think Olga was
someone else’s responsibility not theirs. ‘He insisted, apparently, that he was just a lodger and Olga was out of order when she called herself Mrs Parker.’

‘The lying bugger.’ Anita poured them all another cup of tea, spilling some into the saucers as her hand shook with anger. Then she quickly disappeared into the kitchen with the
empty teapot.

Benny frowned up from where he sat on the fireside chair. His elbows were wedged on his knees, his shirt sleeves rolled up and his working trousers were still stuffed down his boots.
‘She’s on your side, love,’ he told Rose in a hushed voice, ‘but she’s angry you’ve got lumbered again.’

‘I thought the same, Benny,’ Em nodded primly, glancing at Rose. ‘Olga isn’t our responsibility.’

‘Then whose responsibility is she?’ Rose stared expectantly at her sister and then at Benny. None of them replied and there was an awkward silence until Anita returned bearing a
fresh pot of tea. She lowered it to the table, then turned and pushed something into Rose’s palm.

‘What’s this?’ Rose asked in surprise as she looked down.

‘Two quid to start the ball rolling,’ Anita said a little grudgingly. ‘You’d better remember to write every donation down and thank everyone at the wake or they’ll
be fighting over who gave what.’

‘Wake?’ Rose repeated, overwhelmed by Anita’s generous offering but mostly that she’d come around to her way of thinking.

‘Yeah. Well, you can’t have a funeral without a wake, can you? I reckon between us we can throw a good spread, though we ain’t Jews, and neither is anyone else ’cept Len,
so he’ll have to bring his own kosher grub with him.’

‘Thanks, Neet,’ Rose said gratefully. ‘But I hope this isn’t the Butlin’s money?’

‘Oh, that disappeared long ago,’ she managed to laugh as she met her husband’s questioning gaze. ‘The lorry needed two new tyres more than we needed a holiday. And
anyway, the boys have decided to go camping instead in Alan’s new tent.’ She threw back her head and laughed raucously, then sat down on the couch with a sigh. ‘Right now, how
long have we got to get the money together?’

‘You’re not hocking Mum’s pearls, are you?’ Em stared at Rose, disbelief written all over her face as they stood in the hall on Saturday afternoon. Rose
had just completed her collection from the odd numbers of Ruby Street, ending up with a disappointing five pounds and ninepence. Anita had already given her the seven pounds and sixpence she had
collected from the even numbers, including a donation from Benny’s parents and Alan and David. Most people complained Olga was a stranger in their midst and Rose found herself repeating
Olga’s story to win their support until even she felt quite sick of listening to it.