Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
Sophie was woken up by a most delicious smell, like baking bread. Had she left something in the oven? Then she remembered that Tamar had stayed over. She must be up and cooking. How wonderful.
Glancing at her phone, she was amazed to see it was already after 9am and she hadn’t woken up once in the night, which was rare for her now. She dressed quickly, embarrassed to be in bed so late, and rushed downstairs to see Tamar taking a tray out of the oven.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Something smells amazing.’
‘Morning,’ said Tamar. ‘I hope you don’t mind me cooking in your kitchen. I just wanted to make you some breakfast.’
‘I couldn’t be more delighted. What is it?’ She leaned down to get a closer sniff of the lozenge-shaped breads Tamar was putting on the cooling rack. The baked dough was golden and each one had an egg in the centre.
‘These are adjarian khachapuri,’ said Tamar. ‘A very traditional Georgian thing. It’s a cheese bread made with bicarb, not yeast. It’s the best breakfast.’
‘I think I’ve seen something like this on your thread.’
‘Yes, I do a few versions, but this is the classic, like my bebia used to make me. I haven’t actually put these on Insta. They’re too personal.’
‘Well, I’m all the more honoured that you’ve cooked them for me then. Would you like some Georgian tea with them?’
Tamar grinned. ‘I’d love a cortado, actually,’ she said.
When Sophie came over with the coffees, Tamar pushed a small package over to her, wrapped in a plastic carrier bag.
‘Shall I open it?’ she asked and Tamar nodded.
Unwrapping the layers, she found a small, dumpy earthenware pot with a handle and a lid. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘One of the lovely pots.’
She glanced at Tamar, remembering what she’d said about not having them any more. Turning it over in her hands, she saw it was clearly handmade, glazed with a lovely lustre to it that looked as though it had come from years of use.
‘The only one I have now,’ said Tamar.
‘That’s such a shame. They look so great in your pictures.’
Tamar nodded sadly. ‘My bebia had loads of them, but when my auntie cleared out her flat last month, she threw them all out.’
Sophie looked at her, in disbelief. ‘She threw them away?’
Tamar nodded. ‘She threw everything away except the TV and my laptop, which she kept. She got rid of all my other stuff too, except for what I have in that bag up there.’
Sophie just stared at her, letting it sink in. No wonder she had seemed so fragile.
‘Is that why you’re homeless?’ she asked, quietly.
Tamar nodded.
‘So you lived with your grandmother...’ said Sophie, sensing that Tamar might want to talk about it now.
‘I can tell you the whole thing, if you like, but from what you’ve told me about what you’ve been through recently, probably the last thing you need is to hear my sob story.’
‘Not at all,’ said Sophie. ‘I want to know.’
‘Okay, here goes,’ said Tamar, draining her coffee. ‘The dwelling that has just been emptied of everything, including me, is a council flat in Bethnal Green. Nothing special, but nice enough, two bedrooms. I moved there with my mum and my nan when I was two. When I was fifteen, my mum died of breast cancer.’
‘I’m so sorry. It’s terrible losing your mum at any age, but at such a vulnerable time for a girl... That must have been awful.’
‘It was, but I still had my nan and I was living where I’d always been and I felt secure, because my uncle – my mum’s brother, who was quite a successful businessman – bought the flat from the council, so we would have somewhere secure to live. He didn’t charge us any rent. He was lovely.’
Sophie caught the ‘was’ again and saw a sadness pass over Tamar’s face.
‘When I was twenty and at art college, my bebia died.’ She paused. ‘Are you sure you want to hear all this? It’s really not a bundle of laughs.’
‘Keep going,’ said Sophie.
‘Okay,’ said Tamar. ‘Anyway, that was horrible, but my nan was in her eighties so it wasn’t so surprising and I still had my uncle and the flat to live in, plus by then Bethnal Green had become a really cool place.
‘So, I was living at the flat with a friend who paid me some rent, doing my course, putting my recipes on Insta, taking my photos – I was studying photography at college – using my grandma’s pots for the pictures and I built a following. It was all great. Then, just as I was starting to get interest from publishers, my uncle died. He had a heart attack and that was it. He didn’t look after himself and he paid the price for it. Sadly, so did I.’
Sophie worked it out. Since the age of fifteen, Tamar had lost her mother, her grandmother and her uncle, and her father didn’t seem to be on the scene at all. Gosh. ‘That’s a lot,’ she said.
‘It gets worse,’ said Tamar, smiling wryly. ‘So my uncle died and he didn’t leave a will, so everything went to his wife, my so-called auntie. A flat in Bethnal Green, even an ex-council one, is worth a nice fat wad of money now, and she threw me out so she can sell it. Of course, I didn’t have a lease... And despite all my begging, she wouldn’t let me keep any of my grandmother’s things. Said it was all hers now, which legally it is. She sent bully boys round while I was packing, so I had to stuff whatever I could grab into that bag up there and I’ve been sleeping on friends’ sofas and trying to make my food in their kitchens ever since. Three months.’
‘How could she be so mean?’
‘She never liked any of my uncle’s “foreign” relatives, as she thought of us. My uncle was good-looking and had money, so that gave him some kind of non-foreigner pass with her, or something. But there is another reason why she particularly hates me.’
Sophie looked at her quizzically.
‘My skin is a bit dark for her taste,’ said Tamar. ‘My dad’s parents were from Jamaica. He was born in London, he’s as British as you and me, but my auntie doesn’t like black people.’
‘You are kidding me.’
‘I’m not. She’s a full-blown bigot. My uncle realised pretty quickly she was horrible, but they had kids and he wouldn’t divorce her. He just saw us on his own, kept us separate. I know he always meant to make a will to leave the flat to me, but he never got round to it, and then he died.’ She looked down and let out a wobbly sigh.
Sophie paused for a moment, taking it all in, but couldn’t think what to say. It was a timely reminder that she wasn’t the only one having a hard time.
‘Do you fancy a swim?’ she said at last.