Just My Luck(9)

For months he had not accepted they were dead and so never looked for the words to say that they were. When he did finally accept that he’d never open the door to their smiles or sulks, their laughter or their grumbles, he fell into a profound, prolonged depression. He existed in a fug of antidepressants and alcohol. The months slithered by like black slippery eels. There were warnings at work. He was reluctantly let go. Someone who knew his story and felt sorry for him found him another job. More tablets, more whisky. The same solid grief. The warnings were brusquer the second time, the letting go less reluctant. He couldn’t pay his rent. An eviction notice. Then there was a bed at the YMCA. No permanent address to write on application forms meant that there was no gainful employment to be had. Then finally there was another flat. Even worse than his home with Reveka but better than the streets. He shared a bathroom. It was a cesspit. The place was horribly overcrowded. People and mould spores jostled for somewhere to rest. One day he tried to talk to the landlord about what needed to be done. That was the end of that, out on his ear, no notice period. Throughout this time, people asked him to explain himself. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t trade Reveka and Benke’s lives and deaths for sympathy. For a bed, for an extra coin. Their names stuck in his throat, choking him, five years on.

The woman sighed heavily and admitted, ‘I googled you this morning.’

He was not offended; it was a relief. She was curious and concerned. She might be the right person. ‘Providing Toma Albu is your name—’

‘It is.’

‘—Then you are either a genius mathematician born in 1943, which seems unlikely because I’d peg you mid-to late-forties, or—’ She left it hanging for a moment. He nodded stiffly. The pain, which people thought resided in the heart, permeated throughout his body. It throbbed in his legs, his neck, his arms. Everywhere. ‘Or you are a man who tragically lost his wife and child in 2014. Carbon-monoxide poisoning, the result of a broken boiler.’

‘Yes, I am that man.’

‘I’m sorry.’

People always said they were sorry. It wasn’t their fault. What else could they say? It wasn’t enough though.

‘How sorry are you? Sorry enough to help me?’

‘Of course, I’ll help you. There are ways to get back on your feet. I can’t imagine what you’ve been though, but I do know that you are not the first person to find themselves on the street after such a monumental loss. I can make some calls to the Housing Advice Centre. I’ve seen enough cases to understand how easy it is for people who, one minute, are living fairly ordinary lives, to have a knock – not even anywhere near as profound as your loss, and then the next minute find themselves homeless. I can find you somewhere to live. I can help you find employment.’

‘I want justice.’

She looked confused. ‘I read the newspaper articles about the incident, and court records. A woman, the managing agent, was brought to trial for her negligence.’

Toma objected to her word incident. ‘They were murdered.’

The Lexi woman looked uncomfortable. Her research would have told her that Elaine Winterdale was charged with negligence and several breaches of the Gas Safety Regulations but not manslaughter and certainly not murder.

‘The sentence might have seemed inadequate to you, and for what it’s worth, I certainly thought it was but if you think about it, Toma, even if she had been given a custodial sentence, no amount of time could bring them back.’

‘It wasn’t her. She is just the monkey. I want the organ grinder. The bastard landlord that killed my beautiful Reveka and Benke but then wasn’t held accountable.’

‘The landlord was exonerated. Winterdale lied to him about the checks she was doing, and she didn’t forward on the gas-board warnings to the owner. He was ignorant of all wrongdoing.’

Toma shook his head. ‘No. I do not believe this. He has walked away and still doesn’t change his ways, all these years later.’

The woman weighed it up. On one hand, aggrieved people had bias and denied facts. On the other, mistakes were made. ‘What are you saying?’ she asked cautiously.

‘I accepted what the court said. I was too tired, too broken, to question. I thought it was this Winterdale woman. She said she was guilty herself. But later I stayed in another place. I discover same man is the landlord and I discover he is criminal. The laws, they are clear about a landlord’s responsibility, right?’

‘Right. Private-sector landlords are responsible for the safety of the tenants. The Gas Safety Regulations 1998 deal with landlords’ duties to make sure gas appliances, fittings and flues provided for tenants are safe.’ It was clear the woman quoted this law frequently. Bad landlords were not confined to the Victorian era. She probably quoted it every day.

‘But he doesn’t do this.’

She brightened. ‘We can investigate that. We can issue warnings. Have carbon-monoxide alarms fitted by the council if the landlord fails to comply. We can stop this sort of tragedy from happening in another one of his properties. That would be something, wouldn’t it?’ Toma listened to her trying to sanitise the matter. Trying to rectify without rocking the boat.

‘He still lets out slums,’ Toma insisted. His accent becoming thicker as emotion throttled him. ‘Since they died, I have suffered the pain, the grief, the loss, but I managed. Not lived, just existed. Never remarried although everyone says I should. Stayed loyal, stayed focused. Stayed here. How could I move back to Moldova to my sister and my cousins? I couldn’t bear to leave my wife and son here alone. I have no choice but to stay. Then I lose my job, move into a hostel. End up on the streets. Then last year someone takes me in. I work on a building site for a place to stay and food.’