Page 80

Chapter 80

July 2021

They all sit around the two picnic benches under the plum tree at the bottom of the garden.

‘Tell me, Mr Weaver, how did you come to know Fiona?’ asks Georgia.

‘It was three years ago. She was my solicitor after Zoe died.’ He realises that more explanation is required.

‘My wife. She collapsed at work and was blue-lighted into hospital. They found she had sepsis, and she died six days later. There was no time for anything, no plans, no preparation for the girls. It was brutal. We hadn’t made wills or even talked about all the what-ifs.

That had always seemed like an old person’s thing.

It took a while to sort everything out and Fiona was the person who did it for us.

’

Tess realises that this is why Fiona has been nagging her about making a will.

‘And your family?’ Georgia continues.

‘They’re up north. My sister is in Aberdeen and my parents are in Brora, which is even further away.

I could have moved back, but the girls are in school here and it seems better to stay so they still have their friends.

My wife’s family are in France.

’

Stan reaches for the bread basket and offers it to the girls.

‘What is it you do, Benjamin?’

‘Call me Ben, please.’ He studies his hands.

‘I’m a cleaner. I used to work night shifts in a warehouse, and Zoe worked in a shop.

We never needed nurseries or childminders because we covered the girls between us and it all worked well until .

.?.’ He stops. ‘But after it all happened I couldn’t do nights any more, and it was obvious that working days and paying for childcare wasn’t going to work if I wanted to stay in Edinburgh because the rents are so high.

’

Georgia is listening intently, nodding with each painful revelation.

‘So I set up a business doing things for older people. Folk who need a bit more than just the vacuum cleaner being pushed around. They might need sheets changed, duvet covers put on, lightbulbs replaced, meters read, lemons sliced. Anything that is high up or tricky if your hands or your legs don’t work as well as they used to.

I do it in school hours and I go in at weekends as well if there’s a problem, and I take the girls with me, when it’s allowed.

’ He smiles. ‘My customers love to see them and they’ve really missed them when we haven’t been able to visit, but kids are germ magnets and it’s not worth the risk.

’

Tess takes a sip of elderflower cordial.

‘I used to do something similar, a long time ago. That’s how I met Fiona.

I would be at her flat when her supermarket deliveries came, and put all the groceries away for her, renew library books, that sort of thing.

’

‘Exactly! You’ll understand then.

’ He shrugs. ‘Unfortunately, I set the business up the year before the pandemic, and I hadn’t submitted any tax returns because they weren’t due, so I wasn’t eligible for government support.

I ended up on benefits.

’

‘Nothing wrong with that, young man,’ says Stan.

‘We pay our taxes to look after the community, not to look after ourselves.’

Tess looks across at Georgia.

‘Would you like to explain the rules?’

‘No, it’s fine, you go ahead.

Perhaps the girls would like to have another look at where they might be living?

’

He nods. ‘Off you go, you two.’ The girls don’t need to be asked twice.

‘And .?.?.’

‘We know , Daddy,’ says Joanna.

Tess waits until the children have gone back into the house.

‘Assuming you’re interested in living here .

.?.’

‘I am. I mean yes, we are.’

‘Right.’ Tess is used to doing this now, but not usually in front of Georgia.

She never knows what sort of reaction there will be.

‘There have been lodgers in this house since 1931. All sorts of people. Until now they have all been women, apart from the very first two. And Keith ended up marrying the landlady so I’m not sure he counts.

Fiona’s firm has always suggested people to the owner,’ she points at Georgia, ‘and so far, no one has ever been turned down. There have been women who were escaping their past, a couple were just out of prison, at least two were pregnant, some were running away from abuse, others were just stuck, being evicted, with nowhere to go.’ She leans forward, resting her elbows on the bench.

‘I was one of these women, ten years ago.’ She doesn’t give any clues about which category she had fitted into.

‘The deal, if you want to call it that, has always been the same. There are five things that you would have to agree to.’

‘Go on.’

She counts them off on her fingers.

‘First, you commit to staying for two years, but not longer than two years. This isn’t somewhere to stay for a few months and then move on.

There must be a feeling that it’s your home.

’

She taps the next finger.

‘Second. It’s a vegetarian house, so there is no meat or fish.

I think I’m correct in saying it’s been like that since 1911.

If you want to eat fish and chips or McDonald’s that’s fine, but it mustn’t come in the house.

And no smoking.

‘Third. If people are around, we all have lunch together on Sunday. The neighbours sometimes come, lodgers invite their friends or their families – if they have a family – and sometimes their boyfriends or girlfriends come too. We might watch the Six Nations and shout for Scotland or just drink coffee and wine and eat pizza. We obviously haven’t been doing that for the last wee while, but hopefully we can go back to it.

‘Fourth, there must be no credit agreements. Some of the lodgers have been terribly in debt and they’ve used their two years to get themselves back on an even footing.

Georgia never had to make this rule explicit until the woman who was here before me bought all sort of things on credit, didn’t make the payments and skipped off, leaving Georgia to sort out the mess.

‘And the last thing is that you must be registered to vote. Georgia takes voting very seriously. Doesn’t matter who you vote for but you must be on the electoral roll so you can do it.

‘That’s everything, I think.

’ She glances at Georgia.

‘Oh yes, I almost forgot. If it’s census year you have to fill that in.

In England it’s already been done but in Scotland we’ll do it in 2022.

And it must be done properly.

No Jedi Knights.’

Ben listens intently.

‘I’ve no problem with any of that, but you haven’t mentioned the cost of the rent.

’

Georgia takes over.

‘The rent is twenty-five per cent.’

‘Twenty-five per cent of what?’

‘Of whatever you earn. After tax, of course. You are trusted to pay the correct amount.’

He frowns and shakes his head.

‘I don’t understand.

’

Georgia continues.

‘This is number 25 Library Terrace. In the very beginning the rent was set up that way because of the house number. It covers the room, or rooms in your case, all the gas and electricity and broadband and the TV licence and insurances and that sort of thing. Food is included and there is an honesty purse and whoever is doing the shopping takes it with them. There is always money in it and you are trusted not to buy gold-leaf-covered birthday cakes or 1934 Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s done that way so we don’t end up with separate shelves in the fridge or five individual jars of identical coffee.

’

Tess can see him doing mental arithmetic.

‘It means that if you earn, or are given in benefits, a hundred pounds, twenty-five pounds comes to the house. If you clean for a billionaire who pays you ten thousand pounds a week to clean their diamond-studded bathroom taps, then the house gets two thousand five hundred pounds in that week.’

‘But—’

Georgia cuts him off.

‘It has worked like this for ninety years and I don’t see any reason to change it.

’

‘Is there a deposit? Something in case of breakages?’

‘No. It’s never been necessary.

’

The girls are making their way up the garden path.

‘We are back,’ says Lucy, stating the obvious.

‘And?’ replies Ben.

‘Twenty-two,’ replies Joanna.

‘Two and fifteen and five.’

‘Or five and fifteen and two, if you are going down,’ adds Lucy.

‘Is there any ice cream?’

‘Well done.’ He turns to Georgia.

‘They always count the stairs when they go somewhere new. It’s a family thing.

’

‘There are some in the bottom drawer of the freezer,’ says Tess, sending a mental thank you to Fiona, who had suggested it.

‘Help yourselves.’

Georgia is uncharacteristically quiet.

Stan takes over. ‘And why do you do that, Ben?’

‘It’s a bit complicated.

’

‘We have all afternoon,’ he encourages, pouring a second glass of wine.

‘Thank you. Well, it’s a long story, but my father was a firefighter before he retired, and so was his father, and my great-grandfather as well.

There are four generations of us now, because my sister is in the fire service in Aberdeen.

Counting the stairs and planning your exit whenever you go into a new building is just something we do.

I was brought up with it.

When I was a kid, if we went on holiday, we had to read the fire evacuation maps on the back of the hotel door, and not just read them quickly, but count how many paces it was to the nearest exit, and then check out the alternative exit too.

Our friends all thought we were odd because if we went on a school trip, or stayed in their houses, we counted.

Quite quickly we learned not to tell anyone so we didn’t get talked about, but we always did it, regardless.

’ He takes a sip of wine.

‘Fortunately, I’ve never needed to use the information in anger, so to speak.

’

Georgia leans forward.

‘But you’ve never been a firefighter yourself?

’

Ben shakes his head and digs in his pocket, pulling out a blue inhaler.

‘My asthma is bad enough that they wouldn’t take me.

’

‘I see.’

His tongue loosened by the wine, Ben continues.

‘So it’s in the blood really.

My sister lectures on it now, and she did her master’s degree on the two-and-a-half-minute rule and whether it’s still valid today.

’

‘The what?’ Georgia is hungry for more information.

‘She could tell you about it in a lot more detail, but the short version is that my great-grandfather was a fireman here in Edinburgh, and in 1911 there was a fire in the Empire Palace Theatre – you know, where the Festival Theatre is today, on Nicolson Street? And when the fire broke out, the audience didn’t realise it was an emergency because of some pyrotechnics that were part of the act.

The orchestra saw there was a serious problem and they started to play “God Save the King”.

The audience stood up because people did, didn’t they, when the national anthem was played?

There was a raging inferno behind the safety curtain, and the place was evacuated.

It took two and a half minutes to play the national anthem, and to get everyone out.

Three thousand people, and the orchestra as well.

It must have been quite a sight, that many folk pouring out onto Nicolson Street in two and a half minutes.

’

Georgia doesn’t take her eyes off him.

‘And the rule is still around today?’

He nods.

‘It’s used all over the world as a sort of gold standard.

If you are in a public building, you must be able to get to a place of safety in two and a half minutes.

As I said, my sister is a real expert on it and would be able to tell you about the Occupation Capacity of buildings and the importance of Door Exit Widths but I won’t attempt to explain them.

There’s a lot of debate about whether it’s still valid as a standard, but I guess if you change it, you have to have evidence for what it should be changed to , and perhaps that’s more trouble than it’s worth when the rule seems to work.

’ He laughs. ‘You can imagine Christmas dinner at my folks’ house, though.

My mum and I just go out into the kitchen and sort out the roast potatoes and leave them all to it.

’

‘We will be getting new smoke alarms here,’ said Georgia.

‘Stan put the old ones in, but that was years ago and there are new regulations coming soon.’

‘Tell me, did you want to be a firefighter?’ Stan asks.

‘When I was small, yes, of course. But once I had the asthma diagnosis, I just stopped thinking about it. There was no point. It wasn’t something I could train for.

It doesn’t matter if you can pass all the physical tests if your asthma isn’t stable.

I was a bit jealous of my sister I suppose, but I could spend a lifetime cursing nature, and what would be the point?

I have a good life and I have the girls, and I was loved very much by a marvellous woman.

You can’t regret what’s not possible in the first place.

’

Georgia sits back in her chair.

‘When I was a child, we had to do a project in school about the fire at that theatre. I was at South Morningside Primary, actually, where your girls go. I don’t suppose the place has changed much.

And Annie, my aunt, told me all about it – she was there, in fact, on the night of the fire, seeing The Great Lafayette.

He was a friend of Harry Houdini, and Houdini had given him a dog which died while he was in Edinburgh.

He was heartbroken. He somehow persuaded the owners of one of the cemeteries to let him bury the dog there.

’

‘A dog? In a cemetery for humans?’ Tess is incredulous.

‘Indeed. I have no idea how he did it. He was a very wealthy man, a millionaire in today’s money.

Piershill is a private cemetery and I think they made him promise that when he eventually died he would be buried in Edinburgh beside his dog, and he agreed.

They probably thought it would be a tourist attraction, and he probably thought it would be decades away.

But because of the fire, he died four days after the dog did.

His memorial stone is huge, right at the front near the gates.

Annie told me that the funeral was on a Sunday and half of Edinburgh turned out.

There were black horses with big plumes on their heads and it was quite a spectacle.

The whole family went and stood at the roadside to watch it.

’ Georgia took a sip of wine.

‘But she didn’t tell me she was at the theatre on the night of the fire until many years later.

I still have her bag, green suede with purple lining and a white pocket.

Suffragette colours, you know?

And inside it there are some things; some coins, and a handkerchief, and there’s a programme from the show.

She showed it to me when I was doing the project and there’s a burn mark in the middle of it.

’ She laughs. ‘Of course, I wanted to take it to school and show it to my friends but she wouldn’t let me.

I remember being rather cross about that.

’

She puts her right hand on the table and walks her first two fingers across the surface.

‘The thing is, she counted the stairs too. Not once, but every time she went up them here in the house, even when she was quite old. You could see her lips moving. I thought she was quite the most fascinating person I had ever known, and I wanted to be like her, so I counted too. Everyone here counts the stairs.’