Portobello

though not Uncle Gib, smoked marijuana – but for years now the smoking ban operated there, as was lamentably true of every cinema in the United Kingdom and Europe too, for all he knew. But never mind. He could smoke at home, as he was beginning to refer to Maybelle's house. She had even taken up cigarettes herself, a move he saw as a tribute to her guest as a man of discernment.

His invitation was accepted but only after a sign of doubt. 'You don't think it's too soon after Reuben's passing, do you, Gilbert?'

'I wouldn't encourage you to do anything what was wrong, now would I?'

'No, that's true.' Maybelle struggled with her cigarette, trying to learn the art of inhaling.

'The only thing that bothers me is us living here together under the same roof. A single man and a single woman, I mean. If someone was to write to me at The Zebulun that they was doing that I'd have to advise against it. Maybe I should think of moving out.'

'Oh, don't do that, Gilbert,' said Maybelle, coughing.

He said no more. The seed had been planted.

There was nothing to be done about it. Lance Platt must take his chance. Those were Ella's first thoughts. Besides, if she called Eugene, what was to stop him putting the phone down as soon as he knew who it was? She couldn't call him. So her pride was to get in the way of doing what she could to give a man back his freedom? It wasn't so simple. Eugene might have forgotten, he might have made himself forget. He might refuse to do anything about it. She could write to him. This seemed to present insurmountable difficulties. She asked herself how she would begin the letter and how end it, how to refer to the past without letting love creep in or resentment or recriminations, and what she would do if he didn't reply. Surely the chances were that he wouldn't reply. He would tear up the letter and throw away the pieces.

She went home to her depleted and no longer comfortable flat, took a ready meal out of the freezer and poured herself a glass of wine. Every time she did this it reminded her of having wine with Eugene in the study and any enjoyment she might have had was lost. How about a broken heart as a cure for alcoholism? Not that she was in danger of either condition, she told herself firmly.

Gemma's anxiety had been at the back of her mind all day. She hardly needed reminding of it but an item on the BBC six o'clock news brought it back into the forefront. A man had appeared in court that day, charged with the murder of Feisal Smith, twentyeight, of Notting Hill, west London. The accused was Ian Pollitt, twenty-seven, of Harlesden, west London, and he was committed for trial and remanded in custody. It had nothing to do with the detention of Lance Platt, she was sure, but it reminded her of Gemma.

Ella switched off the television. She poured her wine down the sink. She knew what she had to do and it was best done without thinking about it. Hadn't someone in history or a play said that there was nothing good or bad but thinking made it so? She would walk. Even after only half a glass of wine she never drove. It was a mild damp evening, dark as midnight but bright lights polishing every surface. Although Guy Fawkes Day was past, fireworks were still going off and would go off somewhere every evening for weeks to come. Rockets made their high-pitched whine as they mounted into the dark-grey starless sky, bursting into a cascade of red and green sparks.

Most people would have advised her not to walk alone after dark through this part of London but she knew it well and the streets were full of people, dozens of them spilling out of the Fat Badger on to the pavement, drinking and laughing. I would like to drink and laugh, she thought, and not be alone.

No woman had ever held Gilbert Gibson's hand. There had never been the occasion to do so. In his day a man and woman walked arm in arm or separate from each other. Shaking hands with his friends was something he and his friends never did. But they had been sitting in the Electric cinema for no more than half an hour when he felt Maybelle's hand slipped into his. It was warm and soft and rather plump. His own had been lying on the seat arm between them and when hers locked into it, quite tightly at first, he moved the two joined hands to rest, not on his thigh or knee, but on the edge of the plush seat.

He could never have said he had been touched or moved by this gesture of Maybelle's. It was a sign, that was all. The film seemed to be holding her interest entirely. She gazed at the colourful activities of Elizabeth's court with rapt attention, her mouth slightly open. It was possibly many years, Uncle Gib thought, since Reuben Perkins had taken her to the pictures. Most likely he, Gilbert Gibson, would never take her again once they were married.

The film held no attractions for him. Films hadn't in the days when he was courting Ivy. Reality was the thing, as far as he was concerned, and the rest of the world could keep their stories, their fantasies and their dreams. All he really wanted was a cigarette but lighting one would lead to an argument, a row and eventually his forcible removal. His mind moved purposefully on to a practicable future, free of speculation and baseless hopes. When his house in Blagrove Road was finished he would let it out in flats. It would make three fine apartments. Uncle Gib grew almost dizzy at the prospect of the money he could make in rents and when he let out a sort of gasp Maybelle thought it signified his enjoyment of Cate Blanchett's performance and she squeezed his hand.

The fireworks reminded Eugene of his own childhood when you had been able to buy rockets and Catherine Wheels and Prince of Wales Feathers without age restriction and no one tried to stop seven-year-olds setting them off themselves. He had bought his off a stall in the Portobello Road between Cambridge Gardens and Chesterton Road a long way up from his father's shop. It was from somewhere up there that these seemed to be coming, red and dazzling white sparks falling in showers over those streets, Talbot Road, Golborne Road and Powis Square which, in his youth, his mother told him to keep away from. They were infested (her word) with hippies and flower people and immigrants from good- ness knows where. Now the hippies had grown old or died and the immigrants' children were respectable executives who owned smart houses in those same streets with fuchsia and taupe front doors and window boxes full of petunias.

He watched the fireworks from his bedroom window, wondering at himself for doing something so unlikely. But now almost everything he did was out of character from this harking back to the past to staying in every evening, mooning dismally about what might have been. He turned away. The pyrotechnics were over. Whoever had produced this display had run out of rockets. Eugene went downstairs wondering what nasty ready meal to take out of the freezer or if just not to eat at all might be the better option. It was strange, all of it, inexplicable, because when Ella had been here with him it was mostly he who did the cooking. In his drinking days he would have got through a bottle of wine instead and in the Chocorange era consumed a packetful. He was standing in the kitchen thinking how pointless it was to eat if you were not hungry when the doorbell rang.

On Hallowe'en, he had answered the door to three teenagers who, when he refused them money and told them to go away, threatened to break his windows. Far from being intimidated, he had said he was calling the police and picked up his mobile. They had fled, he pursuing them to the gate. Since then he had made it a rule never to answer the door after dark unless he expected a caller, and the dark came very early now. But there had been no callers. He went up to the drawing room window from which he could see the front path, though not the porch and doorstep. The bell rang again.

He waited. Whoever it was had given up. Down the dark path a woman was walking away. She turned her head to look back and he saw it was Ella. He ran to the door and flung it open.

In a manner quite unlike him he shouted, 'Ella!'

'Gene,' she said and she took a few steps towards him.

He gasped, 'Come in. Please do come in. Don't go away.'

'All right. I won't.'

They confronted each other in the hall and Eugene closed the door. Ella looked back at the door as if things were moving faster than she wanted.

'Take your coat off, please. Please let me take your coat.'

'I didn't mean to stay.'

'Oh, Ella, Ella,' he said, his voice full of longing.

'I came to ask you to go to the police.'

'To do what? Don't stand there, not here, come in. Please come in.'

She walked ahead of him into the drawing room but hesitantly as if she had never been there before. At a loss for words, he simply gazed at her. Like him, she had lost weight and, like him, she looked distraught, disorientated, shattered. He closed the door, opened it again and ran out into the hall where he bolted the front door, came back, his hands spread in a despairing gesture.

'What are you doing?'

'I don't know. Shutting you in, I think. Making you my prisoner.'