"Ach, so. This is a typical story. He wants to change the world but he doesn't want to change the neppies, isn't it?"

"Sort of. The children were already out of nappies." I wanted to explain that it was the same roving, inquisitive spirit that had brought him to me in the first place. "When we met, I was different to the other people he knew. He used to call me his rambling Yorkshire rose."

"Don't worry, my Georgine." She grinned merrily. "When I am mended we will go rembling again."

The drip lady had slumped into an armchair and was gazing mournfully at the fluid in her drip bag that looked like watered-down tea. Mrs Shapiro threw her a contemptuous look.

"Too many krankies in here," She sniffed. "So this husband-when he is finished mit the rembling, you think he is coming back?"

"I don't think so. I threw all his stuff in the skip,"

"Bravo!" She clapped her hands. "So what he said then?"

"He said...," (I put on a hoity-toity voice.) "...why are you being so childish, Georgie?"

She rocked back in her chair and shrieked with laughter. "This running-away husband is quite a schmuk, isn't it?" It was such a jolly, raucous laugh that I found myself laughing, too. Our laughter must have carried right down the ward, for a few minutes later the bonker lady came waltzing in to see what was going on, dancing around and lifting up the hem of her dressing gown to flaunt her new slippers. She winked at me, pulled a cigarette out of the pocket, and waved it under Mrs Shapiro's nose.

"Look what one of the porters give me. Mind, I 'ad to drop my knickers down for 'im inve lift. I says if yer give me the packet you can 'ave yer wicked way wiv me. 'E says no thanks, missis, I've seen better onve mortuary trolley."

Mrs Shapiro let out another shriek, and that set the bonker lady off, cackling and walzing around and flashing her appalling toenails, and that made me laugh some more, and even the sad drip lady managed a dribbly chuckle. We were all clutching our sides, screeching and hooting like a flock of mad geese, when the ward sister came along and ticked us off. On the bus on the way home I felt a strangely pleasant aching sensation in my chest. I realised I hadn't laughed as much as this since...since Rip had left.

15.

The Bad Eel The Bad Eel phoned me back a couple of days later. We made an appointment to meet at the house. As before, I went an hour earlier, with some cleaning things. The Phantom Pooer had been at work again; there were two fresh macaroon-shaped deposits in the hallway. I cleared them away and did a quick round with a duster and a brush, paying special attention to the bedroom and bathroom, though the latter was really a lost cause. I did what I could and sprayed the air-freshener around liberally. Although the weather was dry, I couldn't feed the cats by the back door because I didn't have the key, so I fed them in the kitchen, and counted them again. There were only five. Wonder Boy was in there, right at the front, batting the Stinker out of the way. Borodin crept in, his belly low to the ground, s.n.a.t.c.hed his food and disappeared. One of the pram babies, I noticed, had a weepy eye. Mussorgsky and Violetta were missing. Violetta appeared at the front door a few moments later, her pretty tail swaying as she walked, and behind her was a person who could only have been the Bad Eel.

The first disappointment was that she didn't look at all like an eel. In fact she was uninhibitedly exuberantly plump, with curves that bulged in soft roly-poly layers beneath a tight stretchy blancmange-pink outfit which revealed each elastic-line of her startlingly skimpy underwear. She held her hand out to me. Each finger was like a meaty little chipolata sausage.

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs Sinclair. I'm Cindy Baddiel."

She stressed the second syllable. That was the next disappointment. She wasn't a bad bad eel at all. Her honey-gold hair fell in loose curls from two large b.u.t.terfly clips above her ears. Her eyes were the colour of angelica; her skin was like peaches; she smelled of vanilla. Despite my disappointment, there was something very edible' about her. eel at all. Her honey-gold hair fell in loose curls from two large b.u.t.terfly clips above her ears. Her eyes were the colour of angelica; her skin was like peaches; she smelled of vanilla. Despite my disappointment, there was something very edible' about her.

I must have been staring rudely. Violetta broke the silence between us with a chatty miaow. We both bent to stroke her at the same time, our heads touched together, and we laughed, and after that, everything was easy. She strolled around the house. ("Lo-ovely. Pe-erfect.") She greeted the Stinker like an old flame. ("Well, h.e.l.lo-o, boy.") She did flinch for a moment in the bathroom, but her only comment was, "There's no accounting for cultural diversity."

"One thing surprises me," she remarked, as we were walking back down the stairs. "She doesn't seem to be getting support from the Jewish community. Usually they're good at looking after their elderly."

The same thought had once occurred to me, but I understood now that Mrs Shapiro was, like myself, someone who'd come unstuck.

"I suppose it's her personal choice." She'd taken a little notebook out of her bag-it had a picture of a floppy-eared Labrador puppy sitting on a cushion-and a biro with a very chewed end, and was writing something down.

At the end, when we were standing in the hall, I asked her the question that had been pressing at the back of my mind since my meeting with Mrs Goodney.

"What would happen to her house, if she had to go into a home?"

"Oh, I don't think it'll come to that."

"But if it did, would the Council take it from her?"

"Oh no, we don't do that! Where did you get that idea?" She shook her golden curls. "If someone goes into a care home, we a.s.sess their financial situation. If they have a.s.sets of more than twenty-one thousand pounds, then they have to pay the full cost of their care." She was still scribbling in her notebook as she talked. Her voice was so soothing that I found it hard to concentrate on what she was saying. "Below that, the council picks up the bill. It can be quite expensive-four or five hundred pounds a week-so we try to maintain people's independence in their own home. It's usually what they prefer, too-familiar surroundings-chosen lifestyle." She gave me a peachy smile.

"Twenty-one thousand pounds? That's not much, is it? So would their house-this house for example-would that be cla.s.sed as an a.s.set?"

"If no one else is living there, and the person is in a home, it could be sold to cover the home fees." She was still making notes, pausing ruminatively, looking around her and chewing on the end of her biro.

"But what if the person didn't want to sell?"

"Don't worry." She took my hand and squeezed it between her little chipolatas. "I can see no reason for her to go into residential care at this stage. I'm going to recommend a means-tested care package that'll support her continuing to live at home."

I held back my impulse to say I was sure she didn't need a care package. There was something about her that made me want tp take a big juicy bite, but I hugged her instead. It was irresistible, really, that soft pink bolster of flesh. Probably she was used to it, because she just stood there and smiled.

"You're very demonstrative, Mrs Sinclair," was all she said.

Mrs Shapiro, on the other hand, was disappointed in Ms Baddiel.

"Not Jewish. Too fet."

She shook her head with a grumpy face.

I'd rushed around to the hospital immediately to tell her the good news, and we were sitting in the day room again, in front of the window. The honker lady kept wandering in and out, making smoking gestures at me, trying to catch my eye, but I ignored her.

"She said you can have a care package in your own home."

"Vat is this peckedge? Vat is in it?"

She wrinkled up her nose, as though she could smell it already.

"Well, maybe a home help, to help you keep the place clean. Someone to help with your shopping and cooking."

"I don't want it. These people are all teefs."

I tried to persuade her, worried she'd lose her chance to get back home through her own stubbornness, but she looked at me with a little smile.

"You are a clever-knodel, Georgine. But I heff another news for you. I heffhed a visitor."

She produced a card from the pocket of the candlewick dressing gown, a garish orange-and-green card, with a bold black inscription across the top in mock-Gothic letters: Wolfe & Diabello Wolfe & Diabello. Beneath, in smaller letters, a name: Mr Nick Wolfe Mr Nick Wolfe.

"Quite a charming man, by the way. He has made me an offer to buy up my house."

I gasped. My breath was really taken away. These people, they don't miss a trick.

"Mr Wolfe! How much did he offer you?"

She turned the card over. On the back, written in blue biro, was the figure: 2 million million.

"Very nice-looking man, by the way. Would be a good husband for you, Georgine."

I felt suddenly out of my depth. The social workers, the nurses, I could handle them; but men who flashed around those amounts of money scared the pants off me.

"It's a lot of money. What did you say?"

"I said I will think about it."

She caught my eye and smiled impishly.

"What for I need two millions? I am too old. I already heff all what I need."

The nurse-it was the brisk young woman I'd met on my first visit-was happy with the care package, and a date was set for Mrs Shapiro to return home. I promised I'd be there to meet her, and would drop in regularly until she was settled. There was one more thing I needed to sort out before she came home. I didn't want Damian or Mr Diabello-whichever one of them had the key-barging into the house while she was there on her own. I must get that Asian handyman to change the back-door lock. I rang the number on the card and made an appointment with him for the next day.

16.

The handyman Mr All arrived on a bicycle. I'd been expecting a man in a van, so I didn't notice him at first, wobbling quietly up the lane. He was smaller and tubbier than I recalled, and he was wearing a pink-and-mauve striped woolly hat pulled right down over his ears, which was sensible, because the morning was cold. It was hard to tell how old he was; his face looked young, but his beard and moustache were heavily flecked with grey. He didn't look at all like a handyman-for one thing he didn't seem to have any tools.

He jumped off his bike, removed the cycle clips from his ankles, straightened out his trouser bottoms-they were grey flannel, with neat creases down the fronts-and greeted me with a polite nod of the head. I noticed now that there was a small leather bag-it could have been a woman's handbag-on a long strap slung across his chest, with the head of a hammer poking out at one side.

"I have come to fixitup lock," he announced.

He pushed his bicycle up the path, and propped it in the porch at the front door.

"Jews live here?"

There was something sharp in his voice that took me aback.

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Mezuzah." He pointed out something that looked like a small tin roll pinned on to the door frame. It had been painted over, and I hadn't noticed it before.

"Strange thing for me," he muttered. "Never mind. Here in London is no broblem."

He took his pink and mauve cap off-I saw now that his black hair was also threaded through with grey-and stuck it in his pocket, along with the cycle clips.

"You Jewish?"

I shook my head. "Yorkshire. It's almost a religion."

He gave me a funny look-I don't think he realised it was a joke. His dark eyes darted around, taking in the details.

"Every house speaks its history to one who knows how to listen."

So, not your typical handyman, I thought.

"Where you have this broblem lock?"

There was something cutely hamster-like, I thought, about the way he sometimes confused his 'p's and 'b's, though I have no evidence that hamsters actually do this.

I led him through to the kitchen. The back door was heavy pine, painted to look like walnut, with two panels of blue engraved gla.s.s.

"For this one you have lost the key?"

"That's right."

"Hm." He stroked his beard. "Locked up."

"Yes-that's why I called you."

"Hm. Only way to open must be with force. You want me to do this?"

"I...I don't know. I thought maybe you could unscrew something."

"This type of lock sits inside door frame, not screwed on outside."

"Oh, I see." Actually, now he pointed it out, it was totally obvious.

"But usually," he said, stroking his beard again, "usually there exists more than one key for every door." He turned the door handle up and down. "You do not have another key? You have lost it, too?" He sounded reproachful, as though I'd been unreasonably careless.

"It's not my house. I'm just feeding the cats while the owner's in hospital."

"The key that proves the ownership of the house."

I was beginning to feel annoyed. I wanted a handyman, not a philosopher.

"I think it's been stolen. Really, if you can't help, Mr Ali, I don't want to waste any more of your time."

"Certainly I can help. But better not to break down the door if we can open it by some other way. You have looked for another key?"

"Where should I look?"

I was thinking that a lad in a van might have been easier to deal with. He looked at me as though I was completely stupid.

"How can I know this? I am a handyman, not a detecteef."

He scanned the room with his hamster eyes, then he started opening cupboard doors and pulling out drawers, rifling through the mouldy tea towels and crusty cutlery.

In the built-in pine cupboard at the side of the chimney breast was a jumble of crockery, pots, tins, jars, bowls, vases, candlesticks, and other stuff which could loosely be described as bric-a-brac. Mr Ali stood up on a chair and went through it all methodically, working from the top down, taking each item from the shelf, shaking it, and replacing it. Inside an ornate silver coffee pot on the middle shelf, he found a bundle of obsolete ten-shilling notes and a bunch of keys.

"Try." He pa.s.sed them to me. One of the keys fitted the back door.