Lunching at Laura's Read online

  ‘What did the missus say?’ Abner asked after a long pause and Viktor shifted in his chair awkwardly and looked over his shoulder. Maritza was sitting at the desk in the corner with Zolly beside her and that made him add a scowl to his obvious anxiety.

  ‘What she don’t know won’t hurt her,’ he growled and turned round again to sit with his back hunched against her.

  ‘But Poppa, she’ll find out!’ Istvan said. ‘She always does. Better to tell her now than –’

  ‘Shut up, Pishta!’ Abner said and kicked him and Istvan lifted his shoulders and subsided.

  They sat in silence for a while, the three of them, and then Istvan, who had been looking more and more impatient could contain his feelings no longer.

  ‘Poppa, what do I do?’ he burst out. ‘If you ain’t got it, and I got to have it – what do I do? Here I am with Eva driving me meshuggah with the nagging, thinks I ought to get more. I’m the only man, she says, and the girls are all married and settled and we’ve got the three kids and – I’m the only man –’

  ‘Don’t start that again,’ Viktor said. ‘It’s enough I got the same argument with her.’ And he jerked his head towards the desk in the corner, as though he were unable to say her name, he was so disgusted. ‘Haven’t I told her, over and over, haven’t I told her? You’re the only one got the name, the only Halascz we got in this family now. The girls is all settled, got husbands, haven’t I told her? But does she listen? All she can talk about is her lousy Family Trust she wants. Her and her shyster lawyer friends what give her such ideas! Family Trusts! I spit on Family Trusts –’ And he did, aiming accurately for the ashtray full of cigar butts on the table in front of him. ‘I don’t sign for no Family Trusts.’

  ‘So, why don’t you just do what you want, Poppa – it’s your business, ain’t it? Yours to decide. You’re the man, the owner. How come she can say yea or nay this way? If you want I should have money, it’s your business, ain’t it?’ Istvan leaned back in his chair and stared at the old man. He was dressed in his usual high style, even though there had been no special reason to do so this evening; it had been just a card game, a bit of supper with his father and his father’s friend, no more, but he had dressed in his natty grey chalk stripe suit with the wide lapels and the shirt with the fancy buttons and the blue spotted tie and the black and white parti-coloured shoes. His head gleamed sleek and dark with brilliantine, and the heavy gold watch and ring he always wore made his left hand and wrist glitter in the soft light of the restaurant. He looked extremely good and clearly knew it, carefully ignoring the admiring glances from the women at the tables nearby while actually making sure his profile was well displayed as he seemed to concentrate on Viktor.

  ‘Sure it’s my business,’ Viktor said, but there was uneasiness in him still. ‘Sure it is.’

  ‘Then why does Zolly Horvath get to be so busy in your business?’ Istvan said sharply and lifted his chin even higher to look at the desk in the corner where the two heads, Maritza’s and Zolly’s were so very close together. ‘So he works here, okay, but does he have to be the cock of the walk as well?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Viktor roared and Maritza’s head came up with an almost audible snap and she glared across the restaurant at him. ‘Shut up,’ he said again, more quietly. ‘I deal with my affairs in my own way. I don’t need you pushing and nagging and driving me crazy as well. Leave it to me. Go on home already. Go back and tell your Eva what she should do the way you tell me to tell my Maritza what she should do, all right? When you’re so good at stopping your own hen from crowing you can come and tell me how to do the same with mine. Right now, I got business to arrange. So go away already, and I’ll let you know what I can do. I’ll fix it, ain’t I always fixed it for you? Won’t I again? Go home, and leave it to your old Poppa. I’ll fix it –’

  Istvan stared at him for a long moment and then got to his feet. ‘All right, Poppa. All right. I see how it is. So I’ll go home. But I tell you, it’s a great chance I’ll be missing if you can’t do this for me. It’s not a lot I’m asking for, even. A measly five hundred pounds. What’s five hundred pounds to you, with a business like this? To me, it’s a future for my family, it’s important. To you, it’s chicken feed, right? You who loses seventy pounds on a lousy card game –’

  The two older men watched him weave his way through the restaurant to the desk in the corner and said nothing. He bent his head to kiss Maritza’s cheek, studiously ignoring Zolly who stood and watched him with his face quite blank of any expression, and then turned and went to the door to collect his wide shouldered camel hair coat from the stand there. Many people watched him go, as well as his relations; the women at the tables stared after him, seeming to listen to their escorts’ chatter but clearly fascinated by this good looking and elegant creature, and he managed to catch the eyes of some of them oh-so-casually, and yet so definitely, that more than one face blushed. And then he was gone, leaving the door swinging behind him.

  ‘Listen, Viktor,’ Abner said after a long pause. ‘Maybe it’s no bad thing you can’t give him the money?’

  ‘How do you mean, no bad thing?’ Viktor had been lighting another cigar, making a performance of it, circling his head with the curling smoke. ‘How can it be no bad thing a boy asks his Poppa for money, and has to be told no? The only boy I got, he is, the only one –’ And he shook his head, almost tearfully. ‘My only boy –’

  Abner coughed and leaned back in his chair, and spoke carefully, seeming to pick his words. ‘How can you say that, Viktor? There’s the girls’ husbands, don’t they count for nothing? They’re good for the girls, they are, and isn’t Zolly the best son-in-law a man could have? He works here like a mad thing. I’ve seen him, first thing in the morning, last thing at night –’

  ‘It’s all he’s fit for, the great idiot,’ Viktor said savagely and blew out a great belch of smoke so that his face almost disappeared behind it. ‘All he’s fit for, a donkey like him. Let him work like a donkey. He’s got no brains, no sairchel, nothing –’

  ‘Not true, Viktor, not true,’ Abner said mildly. ‘He’s done wonders here, give the boy his due –’

  ‘He’s done no wonders!’ Viktor flared. ‘If that’s the best you can say, do me a favour and talk about the weather. I tell you the man’s a great fool, an ox, a donkey, a pig, every lousy creature I can set my tongue to. He’s got Maritza where he wants her, she’ll do anything the bastard wants. Isn’t that enough I have to put up with without my best friend taking his side as well?’ He was beginning to sound tearful now. ‘I tell you, the man’s some sort of devil. First he gets my poor Magda, and look what he’s done to her! She looks twice her age, twice! The way he gets round my Maritza so my life’s a misery from then on with her nagging over what he wants to change here – and then you tell me I should put one like that in front of my Istvan? The only one that’s a Halascz. How can you ask such a thing?’

  Abner shook his head, and sighed. ‘All right, all right, Viktor, not another word about Zolly. So you hate him, and that’s all there is to it. But if it’s the boys you’re so worried about – the boys in the family – so there’s the three Balog lads – Zsuzske’s lovely boys. And there’s Istvan’s Steven and Daniel –’ Prudently he said nothing about Zolly’s two sons. ‘You can’t say Istvan’s the only boy you got –’

  ‘He’s the only one that’s a Halascz. The only one with my name,’ Viktor said stubbornly and sat even lower in his chair so that his shoulders came up and made him look like a bad tempered bison, with his great grey head surmounting the heavy muscles of his neck and back. ‘He’s my special one. You know he is –’

  ‘It don’t make no sense to me,’ Abner said and shook his head again. ‘But it’s your business, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Viktor said, suddenly sardonic and the other old man laughed comfortably.

  ‘All right, all right. So I’m sticking my oar in! So? Don’t I have a right, all the years we been friends, all the times we’ve sh
ared? Don’t I have the right?’

  ‘You got the right,’ Viktor said after a moment and leaned forwards and punched his friend gently on the arm. ‘Who better than you to advise me? Of course you got the right. Listen, Abner. I’ll tell you what I think I’m going to do. I’m going to get the money for Istvan, and I’m going to do what I want for a change. It’s time I went back to the old country, began to have some life of my own. Take my Maritza home, get her away from all this, get a nice farm, raise a few horses, maybe?’

  Abner stared at him and then spluttered into laughter. ‘You? On a farm? Raising horses? Are you crazy, Viktor? You’ll raise horses the way I’ll raise devils just by whistling for them! And where’re you going to get the money for such a scheme? Sell this place? And then what’ll the family do, hmm? You may hate Zolly, but Magda, her children, don’t they have any call on you? You can’t sell their work from under them.’

  Viktor waved his hand airily. ‘They’ll have more than enough when I’ve finished. More than enough, for them, for Istvan, for the farm –’

  ‘How?’

  Viktor grinned and tapped his lips with one forefinger, looking mysterious. ‘Don’t I have my ways? Hmm? Don’t I have ideas, Abner my old friend? When did you ever know me I didn’t have ideas?’

  ‘Terrible ideas,’ Abner said. ‘Crazy ideas. Listen, Viktor, not gambling again. You promised Maritza, last time, you nearly lost the place altogether and you promised her –’

  ‘Who’s gambling?’ Viktor looked pained. ‘I’m not gambling. I’m selling, that’s what I’m doing –’ He chuckled then, fatly pleased with himself. ‘I’m selling!’

  ‘You said you wouldn’t sell the place!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be! Not all of it.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Just a bit of it. At the back there, just a bit of it!’

  ‘At the back? What at the back? All you’ve got there is the kitchens – what else have you got there?’

  Again Viktor leaned forwards. ‘Listen, those kitchens – all enlarged and fancy – didn’t I say to Maritza it wasn’t necessary? For years we did all right with what we had, but this Zolly, it wasn’t good enough for him. He had to have the big cupboards, the big cold room, the cellar room for wine, yet, all sorts of crazy things. So, Maritza buys the space and he gets what he wants. Only now there’s new people in Bateman Street, behind the kitchen. New people, new ideas –’

  ‘So?’ Abner said uneasily and looked over his shoulder at Maritza. She caught his eye and smiled at him and he smiled back; a good girl Maritza. Anyone who could put up with a crazy man like Viktor had to be a good girl.

  ‘So I tell you what I’m going to do.’ Viktor had poured and drunk another glass of wine and was refilling his glass again, and as usual the fumes reached his head swiftly. He was extra rosy about the nose and cheeks now and his eyes glittered with excitement. ‘I’m going to see these new people in Bateman Street. I’m going to tell them I got this place. I can sell ’em extra space at the back, joining on to them. They’ll jump at it, jump they will –’

  ‘What sort of business have they got there?’ Abner asked. ‘Do they need extra space?’

  ‘By the time I’ve finished with them they’ll be pleading for the extra space,’ Viktor said and laughed. ‘Pleading for it, they’ll be. Listen, what difference does it make what business they got? Viktor Halascz tells ’em they need the space, they’ll agree. And they’ll pay me big money for it, and me and my Maritza’ll go to Hungary, find a nice little farm, a few horses. I’ll start to live the life of a gentleman, no more sweating over the busy restaurant business for me. I’ll see to my horses every day, meet the local gentry – I tell you, it’ll be what I was born for –’ And he slumped a little more deeply in his chair and contemplated his glorious future with misty eyes.

  ‘How much money can anyone give you for half a kitchen, Viktor?’ Abner said after a pause during which he sat and stared worriedly at the old man who had been his friend for so many years. ‘Hmm, Viktor? Not enough for a farm, let alone the horses –’

  Viktor waved one hand airily and then refilled his glass. ‘I’ll get what I ask! These people in Bateman Street’ll jump at it, jump at it they will! Just like stinking Zolly wanted more space, so will they – any business would.’

  ‘And what about this business? Hmm? What about the kitchen for this business?’

  ‘He’ll manage. Stinking Zolly’ll manage. He’ll have to. He did before, he can again.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Abner said and looked uneasily at Maritza. She was watching them; he had felt her eyes on them for some time now, ever since Zolly had disappeared back to the kitchen. She knew there was something going on she wouldn’t like. She had an instinct for it, Abner told himself. Always knew when to get involved with Viktor’s crazy ideas, always knew just how much rope to give him. And she was moving now, thinking of coming over here to the sacrosanct corner table where Viktor and his friends always sat, thinking of starting an argument with him, and to hell with what the customers thought. Not that they’d mind unduly; Abner knew how much the regulars enjoyed the cabaret act that was Viktor and his Maritza having an argument.

  Across the restaurant, then, he saw Magda and she was standing with a tray full of dirty dishes in her hands and looking at him, an expression of such anxiety on her face that it made Abner crumple his own face in sympathy. She glanced swiftly at her mother and then back at him and as clearly as though she had said it he heard her appeal. And got to his feet.

  ‘Listen, Viktor,’ he said quietly, so that Maritza and Magda couldn’t hear him. ‘I’m leaving. I don’t reckon this is a good idea, to tell you the truth, and I don’t even want to talk about it. So I’m leaving.’ And he moved away, hurrying towards the door and his coat on the stand as fast as he could.

  But not fast enough. Maritza caught him as he set his hand to the door that led out to the Yard and said sweetly, ‘So, Mr. Coplin? What’s the hurry? Why are you rushing off so fast? You usually stay till we have to throw you out. Tonight you’re leaving early? So why?’

  ‘I’m tired, Maritza,’ he said and leaned forwards to peck her cheek. ‘Hard day. Lot to do tomorrow, time I was in bed. Susan’ll be wondering where I am. Goo’night Maritza –’

  She looked over her shoulder at Viktor who was still sitting at the table. He was staring owlishly at the empty wine bottle now and seemed quite unaware of the colloquy going on behind him.

  ‘Listen, Mr. Coplin – Abner, you’re my friend as well as Viktor’s, hmm? You care about the whole family, hmm? Haven’t you always been good to us, taken care I shouldn’t make terrible mistakes in my dealings? Hmm? Wasn’t it you warned me about that terrible man, that builder that would have cheated us blind, if we’d let him do the kitchen job. Didn’t you save me all that trouble? Quite apart from all the other ways you’ve helped us.’ She looked at him earnestly, her face very close to his. ‘You remember the good things you’ve done for us. Hmm? So save me more trouble. Now, Abner. Tell me what he’s up to.’

  19

  ‘This is nice, Paul!’ Laura said and reached out and took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I see far too little of you, really. It isn’t that I mean to be remote – it’s just the way things work out.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘It’s the same for me.’ He seemed to sit easily, looking relaxed and comfortable but he didn’t feel right, Laura decided, watching him covertly over the top of her coffee cup. He’s worried about something; is that why he rang out of the blue, suggested this meeting at the flat? Probably. But she knew there was no point in pushing him to talk. Paul had always been the cat who walked by itself. As long as she could remember he had been the one who sat on the outside at all the family parties, watching Anya Zsuzske, smiling and polite when people spoke to him, but always that little bit distant and watchful. As though he expected trouble, she thought now, and again wanted to reach out and touch him. There was something so sad and vulnerab
le about him, for all his smooth good looks and his neat, well-turned-out appearance. But she controlled the impulse and went on sipping her tea.

  ‘Is Anya Zsuzske well?’ she asked after a long silence, and he lifted his chin and said, ‘Hmm?’ so that he sounded, suddenly, like herself and she laughed, and he looked puzzled.

  ‘You sounded as I do when I answer the phone,’ she said. ‘And I suspect for the same reason. Because you were thinking of something else.’

  He reddened a little. ‘I suppose I was. Anya – she’s fine.’ He made a little grimace then. ‘She frightened me after that cold snap we had. Got a cold and wheezed dreadfully – but she’s fine now. She’s so tough, bless her.’

  ‘Yes,’ Laura said, again feeling the emotion in him. He’s so scared of losing her, she thought, and that’s dreadful. To feel that close to someone that even though they’re so old and tired you grudge them the peace of dying when they’re ready to – and then she bit her lip as she felt a sudden wave of fear lift over her; suppose it were me, afraid of losing Philip? Would I be as he is? But that was a thought not to be entertained, and she pushed it away.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said gently. ‘She can’t go on for ever, of course, but every day is important, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said and now there was real expression in his voice. He sounded miserable and that made her bold.

  ‘What is is, Paul?’ she said. ‘You’re worried about something. Tell me if I can help.’

  ‘I’m not sure –’ he said, and then shook his head. ‘It’s so difficult to know where to begin. Please, could I have some more tea?’

  ‘Of course.’ She took his cup and filled it for him, watching him from beneath her lashes as she did so. He was leaning back in the armchair, staring at the dancing flames of the artificial fire she had just installed in the small fireplace. The flat looked very different now; ever since Philip had started to come here so often she had worked on it, changing curtains here and cushions there, adding a drinks trolley in the corner and new ornaments all over the place. It looked like a home now, she told herself contentedly, as she gave Paul his tea. Maybe that will help him relax, feel easier about what it is that’s worrying him.