The Deadly Promise

1

A steady stream of Sephardi mourners wound its way through the grounds of the synagogue towards the funeral chapel. Their path through the trees was covered in a carpet of pink cherry blossom, which was kicked up in a swirl as they tramped through. The men led. They wore sombre clothing, wide-rimmed black hats and freshly polished shoes that caught the late afternoon sun. The women walked silently behind, their heads covered with a black tichel. Walking with them, the hushed children were their parents in miniature. Boys in oversized dark suits, girls in black headscarves and starched skirts that reached their ankles.

Hanging back in the car park, Zach watched them file in with an unpleasant taste in his mouth. These people – the Lombrosos, the Cardozos, the Pintos, the Obedis, all of them – they loathed Abe and everything he stood for. Why were they there? Tradition. In the community, a funeral was not to be missed. Certainly not the funeral of a son of Dov Peretz.

Fuck tradition. It has no place at Abe’s funeral.

But there it was, dominating the stage.

Zach pulled out his tobacco, yet again delaying the moment he would join these hypocrites who had come to mourn his brother’s death with a snigger behind their sorrow. Zach’s hands shook as he rolled a cigarette, still more so when he held the lighter. He’d been in shock since he received the call from Hepzibah not long after one that morning.

‘Abe’s dead,’ she’d said.

Zach’s legs gave way. Who’d look after him now? Abe had always been there for him, whatever Zach had done. He put Zach up, fed him, gave him wine to drink – though he did always frisk Zach before letting him leave, checking for stolen items and nicked cash. Their lives could not have been more different. Abe: the successful academic, professor of mediaeval history. Zach, who had lost everything. His job, his home, his daughter. And now he’d lost Abe.

Overnight, Zach had become the solitary family atheist. Zach was now alone in the battle against religious conservatism. A hard task. Sephardis tended to integrate less than the Ashkenazi, in south Manchester as well as the more renowned north. And his family were as traditional as they come.

Once, Zach tried to explain. It was a paradox. He’d turned his back on Judaism, but he hadn’t become any less Jewish. He’d lost none of the culture, the history. Being Jewish was an identity. Before anything else, he was a Jew, and if it wasn’t the first thing he told people, it was the second. But his family wouldn’t hear it. All they could see was that he wasn’t preserving the faith.

Zach knelt in front of a wing mirror in the synagogue car park. From what he could see through his thick black curls, he looked like shit. He had sunken bloodshot eyes and pupils that looked on the edge of exploding.

People were going to stare.

Fuck ‘em. Zach was what he was, and today he didn’t care who knew. He drew on the end of his fag in short drags and threw it away. Then he fished out a black tie. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

At the chapel doors he took a kippah from a basket and placed it on his head. That couldn’t be avoided, but he ignored the ceremonial kissing of the tiny Torah embedded in the doorframe. Abe would have smiled at that.

It took Zach a moment to adjust to the candlelit chapel. His father was a few feet away. Dressed in a prayer shawl, Dov Peretz sat beside a simple pine coffin, rocking back and forth, reciting psalms in a low melodic voice shot with sadness. He was performing Shemira, guarding Abe’s body until burial, and wouldn’t acknowledge anyone, not even with a glance.

The small chapel was packed with South Manchester Sephardis. They stood solemnly, communicating with no one. Their long shadows swayed like reeds across the stone floor as their weight shifted from one foot to the other. Only Dov’s low rumbling voice could be heard, along with sniffles and quiet sobs. When Zach blew his nose, the mourners stared at him in disapproval. More so when he inspected the tissue. It was dotted with red specks of mucus.

Zach met their censure with a shrug. They didn’t belong at his brother’s funeral, whereas Abe’s friends and colleagues were conspicuous by their absence. Once the rabbi had persuaded the police to release the body, Dov made it clear they would not be welcome. Hepzibah was also barred on the basis that she was now Abe’s ex, although technically they were still married.

Zach scanned the chapel for his brother and sister. He spotted Ester, sobbing noiselessly, head bowed. She held a tissue to her mouth to stifle her weeping. Nissim, by her side, called Zach over with a lift of his eyes and a jerk of the head.

Instead, breaking with tradition, Zach approached his brother’s coffin. Dov didn’t cease chanting, nor did he look up. No one shouted or ran over, but he could hear disapproving murmurs and feel eyes like daggers in his back.

Abe’s coffin was draped in a Mogen Dovid. Inside, he would be dressed in a kippah and a prayer shawl, religious paraphernalia he rejected as a young teenager. The shawl would be cut, signalling his death. Rituals. Zach wanted to see his brother, to free him. What would happen if Zach pulled the drape off and opened the casket? Would God appear and strike him down with a bolt of lightning from an outstretched fingertip?

Zach felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Nissim. His tears quickly dried. Their relationship was distant. They embraced stiffly and Nissim led him away through the crowd of mourners.

His brother was fifty-two, twenty-one years his senior, and his sister Ester was fifty. Both were old enough to be his parents. They were from a different generation, the 1970s: the era of punk rock and the Anti-Nazi League. But those times passed them by like a ship in the night as they embraced the religious, insular life Dov charted out for them. Nissim worked in the family business, while Ester’s fate lay in the home.

In contrast, Abe began to rebel not long after his Bar Mitzvah. Zach remembered one day in particular. Abe was fifteen. He stood in the middle of the living room and insisted, in English, on attending a non-religious school in preparation for life at university, where he would study anything but a business-related subject. To top it all, he announced he was socialising with goyim. Zach could still recall the stunned expression on his father’s face. Dov turned puce. He lapsed into Arabic. He swore, he cursed, but Abe stood his ground. Six-year-old Zach watched in awe as Abe faced up to both his father and his mother, then left to meet his new friends. The moment the front door shut, Dov and Malka began arguing. In Arabic, always Arabic. They blamed each other, only Dov’s voice was louder, his language more colourful. When they were finished, they lectured Zach together, in both Arabic and English, on tradition and respect for your parents.

Abe had integrity in spades, and a strength of character Zach admired, even if he found it unfathomable. Abe would stand up to anyone, but when it turned nasty he never fought back, on principle. He stood up when others wouldn’t and always got knocked down. Zach, on the other hand, had a habit of fighting back (on principle), and when violence was unavoidable, he made ssure he landed the first punch.

Nissim, the older brother Zach barely knew, brought him face to face with Ester. Beneath her weighty orthodox garb she had a figure most women would envy. Despite concealing her body in heavy clothing, hiding her hair, and occasionally wearing a wig, Ester was captivating. Tall, slim, dark-skinned. Her only unconventional feature was a prominent bridge on her nose, a family trait. In a different life, she could have mixed with Hollywood stars and had any man she wanted.

Ester stopped weeping and collected herself enough to register disapproval. It was the first time she’d seen her younger brother since a family argument a year earlier. As always, her censure was brief, but the point had to be made. He’d been very naughty, and she’d been very cross. After a moment, Ester cocked her head to one side and opened her arms. She smiled in the way people do when they share a loss: a sad sorrowful smile. They hugged.

Zach cried in Ester’s arms, not for the first time. Wrapped up like a baby, he was reminded of his childhood. She’d been his refuge then.

A deeply resonant voice rang out, singing words from the Torah. Dov ceased his lament and the rabbi entered, chanting. The congregation gathered round and Zach caught sight of his father leaning on a stick. He looked a broken man. He was more than grief-stricken; he was destroyed. His eyes, lined with black rims, were empty of life. He was burying his child. A son he had loved despite their disagreements.

Chanting the eulogy of sorrow, the rabbi approached Dov and tore his jacket above the heart. He performed the same rite with the other males in the family: Nissim, three of his children, and Zach – but on the opposite side of the jacket. It was done two-handed, with force. The blessings complete, pallbearers – members of the community Zach dimly recognised – lifted the coffin with due reverence and stepped out into the bright sunshine.

Nissim and Dov led the mourners behind the coffin, followed by Ester and Zach. The pallbearers took one step at a time, slow enough for Dov to need only his stick. He looked smaller than when Zach last saw him, a shell of the tall upright man he used to be.

The pallbearers stopped, and Zach hoped his father would turn to him. He didn’t. Six more times they paused on the way to the gravesite. Not once did Dov look round. Zach thought of reaching out but stayed his hand, sensing his father was deliberately ignoring him. Yet he remained positive. Surely today they would embrace and cry together. Zach wiped his runny nose and blew. More tiny red specks of mucus.

‘You don’t look well.’ Ester’s tone was flat, but her eyes betrayed her concern. They roamed his face looking for answers. ‘If you carry on like this, you’re going to kill yourself.’

He knew she was right, but that didn’t stop him fingering the wrap in his back pocket. Zach was addicted to cocaine. He didn’t use needles, he didn’t smoke crack, he didn’t sniff glue, and he didn’t abuse alcohol (much), but he would still end up dead. It would just take a little longer.

The procession stopped at his mother’s grave. Zach gripped the wrap and didn’t let go. The anticipation was sweet. But today it was mixed with a sadness heavy with anger. His fanatical father had hijacked the funeral and now Abe was to be buried next to his mother. What a bitter irony, and not one Abe would find amusing. Close only in birth and death.

As the rabbi chanted a eulogy to the dead, the mourners crowded round and watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. The pallbearers stepped back, allowing Dov and Nissim to shovel earth into the grave. Zach followed Ester. Her words hissed inside his head.

You’re going to kill yourself.

He knew she was right, but he still salivated at the thought of a line.

The grave filled, final prayers were recited. It was time for the family to leave for home where they would sit shiva for seven days. The mourners formed themselves into two rows and offered the traditional words of consolation as the family passed through. People Zach didn’t know told him how sorry they were in Hebrew, a language he didn’t speak. If he thought they cared, he might have been touched. But it was all appearances.

Tradition.

Zach caught up with his father at the outdoor taps. As yet, they hadn’t exchanged so much as a glance. Up close Zach could see Dov no longer fitted his black suit. It hung like a sack over his frail eighty-three-year-old body. There was a rasp in his breathing, loud enough to be heard above the sound of running water. His chronic bronchitis saw to that.

Nissim finished at the taps and suggested with a look that Zach join in the ritual washing.

The water was cold. How could his father stand it for so long?

‘Hi Dad,’ Zach said, more in hope than expectation.

Dov didn’t reply or look up. His eyes were fixed on his wrinkled bony hands. He was turning them round and round under the water. They must have been freezing. Zach had pulled his out and was now looking for something with drying properties. In the end he resorted to sandwiching his wet hands between his arms and the sides of his chest.

‘Dad,’ Zach tried again, but he was beginning to suspect his father couldn’t bring himself to look at him, never mind embrace him. He was a drug addict, a thief, a no-good bum. Dov had told him often enough.

Zach turned the tap off. Only then did he realise Dov was crying. He put an arm around his father but was pushed away, roughly, and abused in Arabic.

‘Cusumac,’ Dov hissed, impugning the integrity of Zach’s mother, his dead wife. He turned to Nissim, his eldest, and said, ‘Yalla.’

Nissim took his arm but did not lead him away. ‘Perhaps, given the circumstances, it is time for us all to be a family again.’ Nissim’s reasonable tone belied his nervousness, an anxiety they all felt challenging the patriarch. ‘Maybe Zach could come to the house.’

Dov exploded. Swearing loudly in Arabic, he pushed Nissim away, but quickly lost his balance and would have fallen had Zach not caught hold of him. Dov made sure their eyes did not meet, and he said nothing. Instead, once he had composed himself, he shoved Zach away with both hands, and said in Arabic:

‘Get me my stick, Nissim. I’ll make my own way home.’

‘There’s no need,’ his eldest said with a sigh.

Zach watched them shuffle slowly towards the cemetery gates. His father’s anger hadn’t lessened in twelve months. Indeed, it had strengthened. Zach wanted to shout, ‘Come back Dad, please!’ but instead tears rolled down his cheeks.

Ester handed him a tissue with no real sympathy. ‘You’re not surprised, surely? Not after what you did when Malka, your mother, lay there dying.’

Zach had done what he had to. He didn’t expect them to understand. But forgive? Yes. Nissim and Ester managed it. Was he surprised Dov hadn’t? Yes, because when it came to his father, Zach always lived in hope.

Ester pushed up her bundle of hair, a habit of hers. ‘You’re ruining your life, Zach. You’ve lost your job, your daughter …’

‘I haven’t lost Rachel,’ he snapped. Only he could say that.

‘So when was the last time you saw her?’

Zach kicked through the blossom, sending hundreds of tiny pink petals into the air. ‘Over three weeks ago.’ One day shy of a month, in truth.

‘You haven’t seen her in more than three weeks? Zach, she’s three years old. You should be there for her all the time.’

‘Do you think I don’t want to be?’ Zach kicked through the blossom again, this time with more anger. ‘Things are difficult between me and Beth.’

‘Of course they are. You’re a drug addict.’

Her voice was cold and flat. There was a trace of love, but he had to listen hard to hear it. Deep down, Zach knew he had to kick his habit, yet he still found her tone impossible to bear.

‘It’s either drugs or your daughter. It’s as simple as that, Zach.’

He didn’t answer. Instead, he fingered the wrap in his back pocket.

‘I’m happy to help you go to a private clinic. So is Nissim.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, smiling weakly.

‘You’ll at least go and see the doctor?’

‘Sure, soon as I get home.’ Zach shifted about uneasily, not realising he had hit a nerve.

Ester’s fuse had been lit. ‘Home? You call that place home? You live above a Laundromat.’ It was a dry cleaner’s, but he didn’t correct her, partly because the flat was no longer his, but mostly because he couldn’t be bothered. Ester flapped at her bundle of hair. ‘Ring me when you’ve seen the doctor.’

‘Sure.’

She leant forward and kissed him goodbye on the cheek.

He returned her kiss and said, ‘I haven’t got any money to get back.’ This was true. ‘I spent all I had on the train fare to get here.’ This was a lie.

Hepzibah paid. She also gave him Abe’s black suit, which he wore to his brother’s own funeral. And now it was torn.

Ester pulled at the cotton ruff around her neck, a sign she was stressed. ‘I can’t keep giving you money, Zach. You’re thirty-one years old. You should be able to get back from your brother’s funeral under your own steam.’ She raised a finger, Ester’s way of telling Zach she was being serious. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before she opened her purse. ‘This is the last time,’ she said.

Zach nodded, having heard it all before, many times. Ester brought out fifty quid, all she had. ‘That should be enough, I hope.’

‘Only just. I’ve got extra tube and bus fares.’ Zach pocketed the money and smiled in gratitude.

Ester looked at him suspiciously. ‘I’m not financing a visit to one of your druggie friends, am I?’

‘I’m going to see Heps.’

Ester fiddled with her headscarf. Her bundle of hair bobbed up and down. ‘Yes, well, it’s good you’re going.’

‘Yeah, seeing as she was banned from the funeral.’

‘What are you saying, Zach?’ Ester looked at him in amazement. ‘We couldn’t have those people here, not today. Surely you understand that.’

‘Look Es, you know my views, but no I don’t understand. Abe was one of those people.’

‘I don’t need reminding, thank you.’

‘And he wasn’t a good person?’ Zach could feel tears welling up, but he fought them back.

‘Of course Abe was a good person. I loved him dearly, as you know, but that’s not the point.’

‘Oh? So what is the point?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Bye Es.’

‘Ring me? Tomorrow?’

‘Sure,’ he said, and headed back to the synagogue.

‘Where are you going?’

Zach didn’t answer. He was soon fingering that wrap again, Ester’s warning pushed away. In some sick way having a gram of cocaine on his person helped enormously. Alone in a toilet cubicle, he prepared a big fat line. Now he could forget about his father, his mother, and even Ester, and push all his hurt, all his anger, confusion, and guilt to the back of his mind. In a moment Zach would feel on top of the world.

2

Midnight was approaching and Zach was on the upper deck of the 253, heading for Hepzibah’s. A couple of drunks eyed him aggressively across the aisle. One of them said something; Zach had no idea what. He was on planet zog, where he felt like shit. He’d come right down, too far, and his body temperature was going crazy. Right now, he was red hot. Soon he’d be ice cold.

Peering through the window, he saw they were in Stamford Hill. Not long to go. He clenched his fists and willed the bus on.

More looks.

He ignored them and stared out into the night. The Prince of Wales on Lea Bridge Road was lit up, despite the late hour. Abe’s flat wasn’t far away, yet his brother had never set foot in the place. It was more a venue for a desperate, last-roll-of-the-dice Zach. The drinking hole wasn’t dangerous, but the dealers were dodgy and the joint was frequently raided by the police.

The bus left the pub lights behind and drove through Millfields Park, the recreation ground on one side, the cricket pitch on the other. They were crossing into Lower Clapton. Almost there. Until then, Zach was trapped on the top deck with the usual late-night commuters. At the back of the bus, a group of alcohol-fuelled Arsenal supporters sang ‘Ooh to Be a Gooner,’ and swayed as they held imaginary scarves above their heads. In between verses, they belittled Spurs, their North London rivals, in less than decorative terms. Occupying the front two rows on both sides of the aisle, half a dozen giggly girls exchanged banter with a bunch of brash teenage boys sitting behind them. Then there was Zach, and the two drunks mouthing hostilities at him whenever he glanced over.

At last, he pressed the buzzer for Hackney Baths. Ignoring the glares and drunken provocations, he climbed down the stairs and stepped out into the cool spring night.

Zach’s feet had barely hit the ground before the bus was gone. He couldn’t linger, not at this time of night. The stretch of road linking Upper and Lower Clapton was called Murder Mile for a reason. The tag had almost been shaken off, but then there was another fatal shooting, a case of mistaken identity in a turf war.

Zach scoured the terrain. The raucous gang of white youths gathered outside the fast-food outlet up ahead were best avoided. He crossed over early and stepped past a homeless guy in the doorway of the chemist. There was always one. Tonight’s was almost a kid. There but for the grace of his family went Zach. He left the main road, passed a great Greek deli, and turned a bend. Here, the street became residential. He broke into a steady trot, ready to sprint if he had to. Twice now he’d been mugged on that quiet stretch late at night.

Three hundred yards on, Hepzibah’s two-storey terraced house stared back at him through its original sash windows. A nearby lamppost threw light onto the large, red-leafed acer planted in front of the bay window. Abe had been the gardener of the house. Zach could remember the day, ten years ago, when his brother planted out the small front garden – much to the approval of the elderly couple opposite. Zach walked to the doorway, which was adorned with a budding passionflower, and rang the bell.

An outside lamp flicked on and Hepzibah appeared, a shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders. Zach had always fancied her, from the moment she burst into his eighteen-year-old life as Abe’s new twenty-seven-year-old girlfriend. Growing up she’d trained in ballet and had developed the body of an acrobat, strong and supple. Her figure hadn’t changed over the years. The only suggestion Hepzibah might be forty and not twenty-five was the greying of her black hair at the temples. Tonight, her hair was pulled back in a bun, a look Zach liked. It showed off her high cheekbones.

Under the light, Hepzibah looked as tired and drawn as she had twenty-four hours earlier. Her eyes, still vacant and dark-ringed, had a glassy sheen to them. She swayed on the spot, and Zach smelt alcohol on her breath.

‘Hey Heps,’ he said, opening his arms.

Zach towered over Hepzibah, as had Abe. He frequently found himself hugging her head. Tonight, the hug he gave her was brief, not long enough to be comforting. He hopped from one foot to the other, expecting to be let in. His gaze darted this way and that. Zach was desperate for a line – he hadn’t dared have one in the train toilets. All the lids to the seats were missing. Once bitten, twice shy: never again would he place an open wrap on the toilet cistern of a moving train. Or an unopened one, for that matter.

Zach didn’t read the look in Hepzibah’s eye quickly enough. Before he had time to move, she lunged at him, raining down blows on his chest.

‘Why couldn’t it have been you, you fucking junkie? Look at you. All you can think about is your next fix.’

She was hitting him less hard now. With each thump her head dropped until her face was buried in his chest. He held