"A bit." I couldn't admit how little that bit was. "Wasn't it about part.i.tioning the Middle East at the end of the First World War?"

I'd seen Lawrence of Arabia once, with Peter O'Toole. He was great. Those eyes. But I'd never understood who betrayed whom over what. I remembered the bit where he fell off the motorbike. That was sad.

"Balfour said to meet Jewish aspirations without prejudicing rights of Palestinians."

There was something about those words that reminded me vaguely of the Progress Project. He took a gulp of pond water, and continued.

"But Palestinian people still are sitting in refugee camps. They have lost their lands, fields, orchards. They have no work, no hope. So they sit in refugee camps and dream of revenge." His eyes were glittering with unusual ferocity. "They have no weapons, so they make their children into weapons."

I put the kettle on again, wondering about Ben. How had he blundered into this th.o.r.n.y Biblical world?

"Isn't there a prophecy, Mr Ali? Don't the Jews have to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, where the Messiah will come back? The third Temple?"

"Their book says they must rebuild the Temple. But it is not possible at this time, because on this site now stands our mosque-Al-Aqsa Mosque. Next to the Dome of the Rock. One of our most holy places."

"But is it true that Muslims, too, are waiting for the Last Imam? The Imam Al-Mahdi. Do you believe that, Mr Ali?"

He hadn't struck me as a man of extreme beliefs-beyond an extreme misplaced belief in white UPVC.

"I will answer your question. Mostly Shia believe in the return of Al-Mahdi. I am Sunni." He gave me a curious look. "You learned about this in school?"

"No. On the internet."

I saw now that the hard glitter in his eyes was a trick of the light, and when he turned towards me his face was gentle and sad. I took a deep breath.

"Actually it was my son who told me. He found all this stuff on the internet. Weird sites about the end of time. Antichrist. Armageddon. Great armies and battles. The Abomination, whatever that is. He's so preoccupied with it...I was worried, that's all. I wanted to understand what it was about."

The kettle whistled, and I made us another round of krautertee. Mr Ali spooned three more sugars into his cup and stirred, looking at me gravely.

"Mrs George, the young are ready to believe anything that will lead them into Heaven. Even to die for it. And there are always some whisperers who will say to them that death is the gateway to life."

"You mean...?"

I shivered as though a cold draught had touched my neck. I had a sudden image of Ben-my lovely curly-haired Ben-his eyes radiant with conversion, his boyish body strapped up to that deadly payload, attempting a little smile or a joke as he said goodbye. The thought made me feel sick.

Upstairs I could hear the young men-they'd managed to set up the CD player and bursts of wild jangling music were swirling downstairs. They were thudding about as though they were dancing, though probably they were just walking around. Ben, who's quite slim, always thuds like an elephant when he walks.

"Do not worry about your son, Mrs George. He will grow up before too long. Ishmail and Nabeel used to talk also about these things when they lived under occupation. Now they talk about football."

The thudding upstairs turned into thundering on the stairs, and a few moments later the Uselesses appeared in the hall. They said something in Arabic to Mr Ali, and he translated for me.

"They want to say thank you. This is a very good place."

His eyes were twinkling again.

"There's something else they have to do," I said. "They must feed the cats."

I showed them the cupboard in the kitchen where the cat food was kept. They nodded enthusiastically.

"And they have to clear up the mess."

I led them back into the hall and pointed out a small deposit the Phantom Pooer had left in the usual place. I'd spotted it earlier but not got around to cleaning it up. The taller one-1 think he was Mr Ali's nephew, Ishmail-shuddered and put his hand over his nose and mouth. I shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile, but I was thinking, that's nothing-you wait till you find one of the big fresh ones. The other one, Nabeel, said something loud and urgent in Arabic. Mr Ali said something loud and urgent back. They argued like that, back and forth, for a few minutes. Then Ishmail went and got a piece of kitchen roll and started to wipe it up, but somehow just managed to spread it around even more. Mr Ali shook his head.

"Completely useless."

Anyway, in the end, the cat poo was wiped up, and it was time for me to go, and I took the keys I'd had cut out of my pocket.

"If anyone comes to the house, anyone you don't know, you mustn't let them in."

Mr Ali translated it into Arabic, and they nodded emphatically.

"No in. No in."

They made waving 'keep out' gestures with their hands. I gave them the keys. And I must admit I felt a pang of extreme apprehension. The least bad thing that could happen would be that the repairs would be done less or more uselessly, and the house would be bedecked with white PVC. The worst case didn't bear thinking about. Who were these young men? I didn't know anything about them. They could be illegal immigrants. They could be terrorists. Mr Ali could be the leader of a terrorist cell. A terrorist disguised as a hamster. He smiled.

"Don't worry, Mrs George. All will be fixitup good for you. I will subervise."

33.

Avocados and strawberries The following Sat.u.r.day afternoon I made my way down to Sainsbury's at Islington for my big weekly shop. Although there's a closer Sainsbury's at Dalston, this one is on a direct bus route. At the top of the end aisle, I spotted a crowd milling around-it was the sticker lady doing her reductions-and out of habit I made my way to join them. Without Mrs Shapiro there, it was all much more refined, just a bit of genteel basket-barging when something exciting turned up. One woman was helping the sticker lady by gathering up the past-sell-by-dates from the counters and pa.s.sing them to her for re-stickering, standing over her to make sure she got first pick. What a cheek. Even Mum didn't do that. Still, I managed to get some good bargains on cheeses, and a plastic box with three avocados reduced to 79p, perfect apart from a dent in the lid. I remembered the letter I'd found in the music stool at Canaan House-avo-kado she'd called them. They must have been newly discovered at the time. Mum called them advocados. Given her aversion to anything exotic, I'd been surprised to find she'd quite taken to them. She served them with defrosted shrimps doused in salad cream. Even Dad ate them.

There were some bargains on the fresh produce aisles, too. Bananas, slightly spotted-tastier that way-reduced to 29p; nets of oranges on buy-one-get-one-free; plastic-box strawberries flown in from somewhere or other, pretty but flavourless. I remembered the strawberries Dad used to grow on the allotment at Kippax-the fresh, intense flavour, the kiss of summer on your tongue, the occasional slug to keep you on your toes. Keir and I would go down after school and fill a bowl up for tea, then fight over them all the way home.

No, even at half price, these strawberries weren't worth it. Where can you get strawberries so early in March, I was wondering, as I made my way out of the store. A young woman was handing out leaflets near the entrance-I must have missed her on the way in. I took one from her hand absent-mindedly and was about to stick it in with my shopping when the words jumped off the page at me: BOYCOTT ISRAELI GOODS.

Seeing my interest, she pushed a sheet of paper towards me on a clipboard.

"Will you sign our pet.i.tion?"

"What's it about?"

"We want the government to make a commitment to stop serving Israeli-sourced products in the Houses of Parliament. Until Israel accepts UN Resolution 242."

"Isn't that a bit...?" I stopped myself. The word that had come into my mind was 'pointless'. She looked so solemn, her pale eyes fixed on me as she talked.

"It's all grown on stolen land. Watered with stolen water," she said.

"I know, but..." But what? But I didn't want to think about it-I wanted to get home with my shopping. "But, I mean, it all happened so long ago. It was terrible, I know. The Nabka. (Or was it Nakba?) But isn't it just-what they had to do?"

"That's c.r.a.p!" Then she checked herself. "Sorry, I shouldn't get so worked up." I realised she was very young-hardly older than Ben. Her hair was cut short and teased up into little spikes on top of her head. "But it's not just something that happened long ago. It's still happening. Every day. They're stealing Palestinian land. Bulldozing Palestinian houses. Bringing in Jewish settlers. From Moscow and New York and Manchester." She spoke very fast, gabbling as though frightened of losing my attention.

"That can't be true." Surely if it was true, I thought, somebody would put a stop to it.

"It is is true. The International Court of Justice says it's illegal. But America supports them. And Britain." true. The International Court of Justice says it's illegal. But America supports them. And Britain."

"Why would anyone want to leave New York to go and live in the middle of a desert?"

"They believe G.o.d gave them the land. To make an Israeli state. The people who were there before, the Palestinians, they've cleared them off. Those that are left, they've walled them in. Given them a few poxy reservations. Like the American Indians. The Australian aborigines. They think if they make life hard enough, they'll just vanish away. Inconvenient people. Who just happen to be in the way. Of somebody else's dream."

"But you can't wind back the clock, can you?"

"Why not? You'd only need to go back to 1967. Before the Six Day War. You know, the Green Line. Gaza and the West Bank."

This was all getting a bit too geographical for me. What Green Line? But there was something very disarming about her earnestness. I ran my eyes down the leaflet. On one side was a crude map, showing a thin straight line between Israel and Palestine, and another line, drawn in green, some way to the right, showing the Palestinian land that had been occupied after the six-day war. There was a gap between the two lines. And there was a third line, hatched in grey, a contorted snaking line on the right-hand side of the green line. Right is east: left is west, I reminded myself. The key said: Line of separation wall. I forced myself to study it, remembering the map Mr Ali had drawn and wondering why maps had suddenly taken on such importance. The more I stared, the less sense it seemed to make.

I turned the leaflet over. On the other side were pictures of Israeli produce. Avocados. Lemons. Oranges. Strawberries. Well, at least I hadn't bought the strawberries.

"But surely if they're past the sell-by date? If they're reduced...?"

She fixed me with a solemn look. "Have you any idea how much water it takes to grow strawberries in the desert? Where do you think it all comes from?"

Suddenly her head swivelled around, and following her gaze I saw a police car draw up and two officers get out-a man and a woman. They made their way towards us. They looked very young, too.

"Would you mind moving on now?" said the man. "You're causing an obstruction."

"No, we're not," I said, though I could see he was really addressing the girl. She was shuffling her leaflets and her clipboard into a bag.

"We've had a complaint," said the woman officer, almost apologetically.

"We're just chatting," I said. "About avocados. Surely we're allowed to stand on the pavement and chat?"

The policewoman smiled and said nothing. I looked round to the girl, but she'd disappeared.

I was still wondering about the contents of my carrier bags as I made my way back towards the bus stop at Islington Green. After all, it was just the supermarket clearing excess stock. It would be wasteful to throw it all away. Wouldn't it? What would Mum have done? I remembered an incident during the last strike. It was the winter of 1984, bitterly cold. Firewood was in short supply. I'd brought home a bag of coal that I'd bought at a petrol station. Dad had refused to have it in the house.

"We're not burning no scab coal," he'd said. "I'd sooner freeze."

He'd taken it outside, and tipped it into the dustbin. Next morning, though, when I went to put the rubbish out, it was gone. Mum didn't say anything, but I always wondered whether it was she who'd scooped it out of the bin in the night. Waste not want not.

There was quite a queue at the bus stop. The sun had gone, a cold wind had sprung up, and I was beginning to feel hungry. I hunted around in my shameful shopping bags and broke off a ripe banana-at least they were okay to eat-weren't they? I noticed a couple standing with their backs to me looking into a shop window. The man was tall, fair, solidly built, there was something oddly familiar about him. His head was slightly out of proportion to his body. I realised with a shock of recognition that it was Rip. I hadn't noticed before how big his head was. Gorgeous, but too big. Like Michelangelo's David. The woman was small, even in her high heels, with a sleek dark bob and scarlet lipstick. I stared. It was Ottoline Walker. What was going on? Where was Pectoral Pete? She was wearing a tightly b.u.t.toned coat that showed off her curves. I could see her reflection in the shop window. They were holding hands, looking into the shop window. She was laughing at something, looking up at him. The little b.i.t.c.h! He bent down and kissed her.

Something inside me snapped. A sound rose in my chest, swelled up and forced its way out-aaah! yaaah!-a high-pitched wail, rasping at my throat. They turned. Everybody turned. I lurched across the pavement. Wait! In-two-three Wait! In-two-three ...Oh, sod that! The banana pitched forward and mushed into a soft slippery paste in her face. She struggled, but the banana in my hand-it just kept going round and round. It forced its way up into her nostrils. It smeared the s.l.u.t-scarlet lipstick all around her mouth. It made soft feathery streaks in her eyebrows. Rip's mouth opened wide-that round trouty look-O! Then he grabbed my arm.

"Georgie! Stop! Have you gone mad?"

What a stupid question.

"Aaah! Yaaah!"

Next she turns on me, sputtering.

"What have I done to deserve this?"

That voice-her parents must have spent a fortune teaching her to talk like that. Spoiled brat. You can tell from her voice she's used to getting everything she wants.

"You just thought you could have him, didn't you? You didn't stop to think of me. Me and Ben and Stella. He belongs to us, not you."

"What d'you mean?"

There's a bit of banana hanging down from her nose like a big creamy bogey. It makes me laugh.

"We were just inconvenient people, getting in the way of your lovely dream."

I'm laughing like mad now, splitting my sides at the sheer symmetry of everything.

Then-this is good-the Scarlet-mouthed s.l.u.t sc.r.a.pes the mush off her face with her hands and starts to smear it over Rip, over his clothes and his hair. And he says, "Ottie! Stop! What's the matter with you?"

And she says, "What's the matter with you? you? You told me it was okay. You told me she didn't mind. You lied to me." She's wailing, too. "You told me she'd gone off with another man! In a Jaguar!" You told me it was okay. You told me she didn't mind. You lied to me." She's wailing, too. "You told me she'd gone off with another man! In a Jaguar!"

"She did. She is." He backs away. "You're both b.l.o.o.d.y mad. Both of you!" He backs away and breaks into a run. She runs after him, stumbling on her b.i.t.c.h-stilettos. And I run, too. I'm wearing my batty-woman trainers, so I can almost keep up. I run after him up the street dodging through the startled pedestrians.

"Aaah! Yaaah!"

But he's fast, Rip, fast and fit, ducking and weaving through the Sat.u.r.day crowd. He shakes us both off.

In the end, I have to give up. I've lost sight of him. I'm panting for breath, my chest heaving, my throat raw from screaming. My head is spinning. Everything's spinning. I stop and catch my breath, leaning forwards on to my knees. Then I straighten up and turn around. I've lost sight of her, too. She's disappeared somewhere, into her b.i.t.c.h-lair. Still panting, I make my way back down Upper Street towards The Green. About halfway down, on the pavement, I stumble across a discarded black suede stiletto shoe. I kick it into the road, and a Number 19 squashes it flat.

The crowd at the bus stop has thinned out. I look for my shopping bags where I left them on the pavement. But they've disappeared. Someone has picked them up and taken them. The settler avocados. The blood-soaked oranges. All gone.

Actually, it was worth it, I thought to myself, as I sat in the kitchen and poured a gla.s.s of wine. Okay, I'd made a fool of myself and I'd lost my week's shopping. But it was worth it just to see that cream banana bogey hanging from her nostril. It was worth it to see his trout-mouth-O! To see him run.

I couldn't face going back into Islington, so I just went out and got a bit of shopping at Highbury Barn. When I got back I saw that the answering machine was blinking. There was a message from Ms Baddiel. She was sorry she hadn't been in touch before. She'd been on a course (not a case!) It seemed odd that she'd phoned on a Sat.u.r.day, but maybe she'd left the message before and I just hadn't noticed. I rang her back straightaway but she wasn't there. The second message was from Nathan. He wanted to know if I'd like to go to the Adhesives Trade Fair in Peterborough tomorrow with him and his father. I pressed Delete. I know I'm sad, but I'm not that that sad. I poured myself another gla.s.s of wine and settled down in front of the television. sad. I poured myself another gla.s.s of wine and settled down in front of the television. Casualty Casualty would be on soon. would be on soon.

As my euphoria wore off, I realised that there was only one more gla.s.s left in the bottle, and that if I finished it off then there would be nothing to stop me drinking a whole bottle again tomorrow night. And the night after. And then I'd be well on the road to becoming an Unfit Mother. Casualty Casualty was not satisfying-too much shouting and argy-bargy. What had happened to the heroic drama of life and death? What had happened to that dishy Kwame Kwei-Armah? I recalled my spree of shouting and bad behaviour earlier that afternoon with a p.r.i.c.k of shame. Really, people don't want to watch that sort of thing. It's not gentile, as Mum would say. was not satisfying-too much shouting and argy-bargy. What had happened to the heroic drama of life and death? What had happened to that dishy Kwame Kwei-Armah? I recalled my spree of shouting and bad behaviour earlier that afternoon with a p.r.i.c.k of shame. Really, people don't want to watch that sort of thing. It's not gentile, as Mum would say.

Then the reality of three Ben-less days loomed, and I started to think that maybe a trade fair in Peterborough was what I needed after all. Maybe Nathan's father would be okay when sober. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that short men can be incredibly s.e.xy. I dialled Nathan's number. As he picked up the phone at the other end ("Nathan Stein speaking") I heard in the background the familiar theme as the trailer credits rolled away-he'd been watching Casualty Casualty, too.

34.

The glue exhibition Nathan picked me up next day at ten o'clock. I'd been trying to imagine what kind of car he would turn up in, but the last thing I'd expected was an open-top sports car, a Morgan, pale blue. He greeted me with a hug. I dropped my knees a bit so our cheeks were just at the same height.

"Sorry, my father couldn't make it."

"So it's just you and me?" My heart skipped.