Kensington Heights

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘I have a typewriter,’ returned Savage seriously. ‘I have to bring it from my house.’

  ‘And you’re going to sit here by yourself and work at it,’ summed up the woman constable. She glanced at Gander. ‘That sounds peaceful enough. I wouldn’t mind a job like that.’

  ‘I’ll need to go out,’ added Savage. ‘To libraries and so forth.’

  ‘And to islands,’ she put in.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He wavered. ‘Once I’ve got myself together.’

  ‘Well,’ yawned Gander standing up as if there was nothing more to say. ‘We’ll be on our merry way.’ Jean Deepe stood up also. She picked up the tea tray, loaded it with cups and took it towards the kitchen. ‘Thanks for the tea,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ contributed Gander. ‘We’d help with the washing up . . .’ He laughed. ‘But we’re on overtime.’

  They went towards the door. As he got there Gander paused and squinted around the room again as if he wanted to be quite sure. ‘Yes,’ he said vaguely. ‘Thanks.’

  They left. Savage waited inside the door while they got into the lift, closed the metallic grille and descended. Then he walked backwards and sat in one of the armchairs, still facing the door. ‘Bloody hell,’ he muttered.

  Three

  He had no nightmares, although he woke once and lay with instinctive caution, inert and unsure. Where was he? What was he doing there? A subdued glow filtered around and through the curtains and he realised his whereabouts. Relieved, he looked at his watch on the bedside cabinet. It was four o’clock.

  He next awoke with full daytime outside and with muffled noise rising from the streets below. The half-lights of the windows were open and he could hear the sounds and shouts of dustmen collecting bins, and the movement of cars. It was the bleat of a fire engine which had wakened him. He lay back, glad that he was there.

  What was he going to do now? Be there. That was the answer, an answer he had known for a long time; all during the weeks recovering from his wounds, his ‘indents’ as they had playfully called them in the ward; then the long shaded months in the psychiatric hospital, safe but riven inside, wanting only to be away, isolated from everything. Now he was there, here, within the rented walls, high up, knowing that he was at a new start. Where would it lead? What, he wondered again, was going to happen to him? If anything.

  He got up and made tea, drank it and went to the bathroom. He still had his army washbag, the razor upright and keen. He dressed methodically. Dr Fenwick had always been keen on routine as a basis for recovery; milestones through the day he had called them; getting through that day, and the next, and the next.

  Now that the depression, the blank of memory, and some of the fears had retreated, he felt certain he could face life, preferably on his own terms. He was pleased that he had made the move from the cold armchair in his vacant house, deep in the damp countryside, to this enclosed and comfortable haven above London. He had carried through his resolve. All he needed to do now was to settle down, slowly to be himself again, although it would never be the same self. That self was gone forever.

  He had gone into the service at sixteen, to the Army Apprentices School, overlooking the Severn, where the bridge now crossed from England to Wales. When he drove across the bridge in later life he always nodded recognition at it. Drill, school lessons, more drill, range firing, military history, sports, swimming. It had been a safe, institutionalised life. When he had gone into the real army it had been the same pattern; if you conformed to its rules and its routines the army would look after you. Until you left the service. Or died.

  In that distant, vivid moment at Crooked Cross, County Antrim, three men, three men like him, good regulars serving their time, had died. Sergeant Barnard, Henry Barnard, had died later. Another fraction of an inch and he would have been the fifth. Not a bad morning for the Provos. He tried not to think of it but he remembered it every day.

  He knew that he would sometimes have to venture out of the apartment; he could not just bolt himself in there. He needed things. He would go, but when he chose. At some time he would have to return briefly to his house. He thought of the gun there. It was bloody foolish that gun, but he had it, he had stolen it, and he still, in a guilty, ashamed way, felt he needed its reassurance. Stupid soldier.

  That first day he spent moving things around the flat. There was not a great deal to rearrange but he spent time doing it. He had to buy a clock. At intervals he went to the window. It was always the same scene but different in its details and its light. As the day moved so did the tones of the Kensington roofs. When the windows were closed the noise of the traffic was diminished to near silence but you could hear the rain. It rained, then it stopped, then it rained again. The one constant was the tracking of the spaced planes towards the airport, as though someone at Heathrow were tugging them in on a string.

  He was glad to find an ironing board. It had never been used and still had the retaining plastic band around it. It was difficult to imagine Mr Kostelanetz ironing his own shirts. Savage would need to get some temporary clothes himself, enough to last until he went back to his house. Irene had bought his shirts and sweaters. Some were still unwrapped, trousers still in the Marks & Spencer bags. He broke the plastic band on the ironing board and opened it out. Now he would need an iron.

  He fried bacon and eggs for his breakfast and had chicken and beans for lunch. He watched the television news and, surprising and pleasing himself, slept for an hour. At four o’clock, when it was almost dark, he put on his overcoat and went determinedly out into the street, the neighbouring world.

  The early January hush remained over everything and he was grateful for it. Collar up, he walked down Kensington Church Street, crossing the reflections of the shop windows. The damp and cold of the afternoon were on his face; he looked directly ahead. He went into Barkers and bought all the clothes he needed and the iron, paying cash. Tomorrow he would have to open a bank account.

  He returned to Kensington Heights feeling a small triumph, taking a different route, another rising street under the bulwarks of the massive, brick town hall. A signpost pointed to the public library. There were lights in every window. Sitting on the paving in the space between the different wings of the building was a group of young people, close together, still as huddled pigeons. Two newcomers, a youth and a girl, although it was hard to tell with their layers of clothes and their pulled-down hats, joined them without saying anything. Just as silently the others moved even closer to make room. As they did so the sound of muffled music emerged. Somewhere, at the centre of the pile, a battery radio was playing. A skinny girl in a pink fun-fur coat, hanging damp on her, arrived and squatted next to the human pile. Somebody said: ‘Korky’s here.’ Savage caught a glimpse of her narrow, ashen face in the aperture of a scarf pulled around her head. He thought she looked at him for a moment. Then he moved on.

  Again it began to rain and he hurried the few yards along the adjoining side street and into the courtyard formed by the wings of Kensington Heights. He entered by the side door. Emerging from the lift was a worn-looking man, not quite elderly, wearing a dusty, old-fashioned suit and a limp, spotted bow-tie, and with spots of dandruff on his shoulders.

  ‘Ah, ha,’ he said with ponderous cheeriness. ‘You must be our new resident. In old Kostelanetz’s place.’

  Hesitantly Savage took the proffered white hand. They introduced themselves. ‘Bertie Maddison, flat two-two-two,’ said the man. ‘Do you like music? Serious stuff I mean.’

  ‘I don’t know much about it,’ admitted Savage.

  ‘We love it. All sorts. Opera to a piece for the piccolo. Anything. I’m trying to get some sort of musical interest here in Kensington Heights. I mean, the Albert Hall is only down the street.’

  ‘Well, I . . .’

  ‘It’s my wife is the trouble. People won’t go with her. She boos. She was blowing raspberries at the Festival Hall last night. Didn’t think the conductor was any cop.’ He patted Savage o
n the shoulder. ‘Anyway think about it. Hope you settle in. I’ll introduce you to some of the gang.’

  He went briskly out into the evening. Savage began to climb the stairs. At the top, on the landing in front of his door, he discovered Mrs Tomelty. She began briskly polishing his letter-box. ‘Did you sleep all right, Mr Savage?’ she enquired blandly.

  ‘Yes, fine thank you.’

  ‘I’ll come and see what you want for your freezer. Miss Bombazine didn’t disturb you then, coming in?’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  Mrs Tomelty’s eyes dropped to her polisher and to the letter-box again. ‘She’s always late. She’s an entertainer, you know.’

  Late the following afternoon, twenty minutes before they closed, he took his carrier bag full of money to the bank. The black girl behind the grille glanced at the clock. ‘I’d like to join the bank, please,’ said Savage.

  ‘You want to open an account?’

  ‘Yes, I want to do that.’ He put the plastic carrier on the counter. She regarded it suspiciously. ‘What’s that?’ she inquired.

  ‘Money. It’s the money I want to put in the bank.’

  ‘In that bag? How much is it?’

  ‘Twenty-six thousand, eight hundred and eighty pounds.’ He had counted it that afternoon.

  ‘In cash?’

  ‘Yes, it’s cash.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. You’ve robbed a bank.’

  ‘No. It’s my money.’

  She said: ‘Shit,’ under her breath and rang a bell. A pink-cheeked man in a waistcoat appeared. ‘This gentleman wants to open an account,’ said the girl.

  The man also glanced at the clock but attempted to look pleased. He turned to the girl. ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘It’s in cash,’ she told him stonily. ‘In that shopping bag. It’s twenty-six thousand . . .’

  ‘. . . Eight hundred and eighty pounds,’ finished Savage.

  ‘Shit,’ said the man also under his breath. He smiled fulsomely at Savage. ‘Will you step into the office, please.’

  The woman at the desk in the library was squat and friendly. She gave him the forms to fill and sign. She glanced at the address. ‘Kensington Heights,’ she said.

  Savage took in the lined shelves behind her. It was late and they would be closing soon. ‘Can I take some books now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Up to four. More on special request. Tell me what you want and I’ll know in which direction to point you.’

  ‘Islands,’ he said. ‘Anything dealing with islands.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said a little taken aback. ‘There’s no section devoted to islands, particularly.’ She moved from behind her desk and led him down the central aisle. She stopped and pointed down a long row. ‘Travel, Topography and Geography is around the corner,’ she said. ‘You should find something there.’

  When he walked back with four books ten minutes later she was clearing her desk. ‘Just in time,’ she said. ‘We’re closing.’ She indicated a mildly disgruntled young man standing behind a counter. ‘Harold will stamp them for you.’ She called across to Harold: ‘Won’t you, Harold.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Harold flatly. He had just started the job and he did not like it. As he stamped the books he thought they could be the last he ever did. He probably would not come in the next day. Savage walked out with the woman. They were going in the same direction. ‘What did you get?’ she asked as they paced up the easy hill.

  ‘All Pacific,’ he answered. ‘There were more about the Pacific islands, so I got those. I’ll come back regularly for the others.’

  ‘I’ll keep anything back I think might be interesting,’ she offered. ‘Is it any sort of islands?’

  ‘Yes, any islands, anywhere,’ he said. ‘I’m . . . well, I’m thinking of putting together an encyclopaedia.’

  ‘Of islands? Well, that should be new. I’ve never seen one that I can recall. You’re a writer then.’

  ‘Yes. Sort of.’

  ‘This area is a kind of island,’ she reflected as they walked. ‘It’s separated from London still, even though it’s built up on every side. Not all that many years ago it was countryside, big estates.’ She paused and he waited too. ‘Here,’ she indicated, ‘Observatory Gardens. An astronomer lived there, Sir James South. He had a telescope there.’ She laughed. ‘That was in the days when you could see the sky properly, not through a haze of smog.’

  She was taking a turn right there. He thanked her and said goodnight. A group of unkempt young people slouched silently along the pavement, keeping close, eyes ahead. The girl with the pink fun fur was with them. It clung damp and dirty about her body. ‘Going to bed,’ said the library lady. ‘If they can find one.’

  ‘I saw them lying in the space in the town hall the other day,’ Savage said. ‘You’d think kids of that age would have a home, wouldn’t you.’

  ‘You would. Perhaps they don’t want to go to it,’ she said.

  Four

  After two weeks, having twice put it off, he decided it was time to make the journey back to his house near Basingstoke. It took all his resolve but at eleven in the morning he left Kensington Heights and walked out into the street. There was a man on a ladder cleaning a bay window and a fat woman with a fat dog, both waddling away from him, but no other people. He could see the traffic in Kensington Church Street at the distant junction but, as though the driver had been seeking him out, a taxi rounded the corner and came towards him, its orange light aglow in the dingy morning.

  He asked for Waterloo Station and sat back, watching the grey-faced streets, the traffic and the hurrying people.

  ‘Going far?’ asked the driver in a bored voice. ‘From Waterloo?’

  ‘Hampshire, that’s all,’ answered Savage.

  ‘Wish I was,’ returned the driver as though he had said Tahiti. Savage got out at the side entrance to the station and went in, under the huge, high and sounding cavern of the main concourse. It was a massive space, echoing with announcements, acres of it, wide and pale, above it, like a private sky, a zigzag enclosing roof. He kept walking steadily.

  There were few people there at that time of the morning. He was relieved. A scattered group was watching the clicking departure board, every head at an upward angle as though awaiting some great, revealing truth. He bought his ticket from a window which framed an Indian booking clerk in a blue turban, and then got a newspaper and stood, half-reading, observing the departures indicator over the paper’s top edge. The Southampton train clicked up. Basingstoke was the second stop.

  Circumstances appeared to be working for him. The carriages were almost vacant. He found a corner seat by the window and concentrated on pretending to read the newspaper.

  At eleven forty-five the train gave a jolt and moved out of the station. He felt confident sitting in the corner, watching from the window. The train switched and clattered out of the station and began its trail through the older yellow brick South London streets, now diminished and pushed into blind alleys by tower blocks and glass-faced offices.

  He began to think about Irene. He ought to have stayed at the hospital for longer, as they had wanted; he should have returned to life less hurriedly. But he had feared that the place might claim him for good. Irene had been the one who stuck with him. She did not deserve it. He thought of her now, her good smile and dark hair, her patience, at last cracked, and her concern for him, what would happen to him when he was alone.

  At Woking, the train’s first stop, there were six soldiers on the platform, crop-haired recruits, wooden-faced, awkward in their stiff uniforms, slinging their packs and kitbags inexpertly as they boarded the train. They shouted to each other in raw voices. The train pulled away and the landscape opened out, grey-green, wet and sullen on the mid-winter day, the sky sulky, the horizon close but indistinct. A brown river curled like rusty wire through flat farmland, there were lights showing in houses and from the few cars on the rural roads. He wondered if he would ever need to drive again.

 
; It was fifty minutes to Basingstoke. There the young soldiers awkwardly piled out of their carriage. He stood on the platform watching, wondering if they had any idea of what could happen. A sergeant was sorting them out like children. Savage walked past and out of the station.

  There was a line of taxis in the forecourt and a military fifteen hundredweight into which the soldiers and their equipment were climbing. The sergeant banged the tailboard with his hand and trotted around to the front of the vehicle where he heaved himself in beside the driver.

  As they drove away Savage saw that the sergeant and the driver were laughing. The sergeant was shaking his head. A taxi driver leaned back and opened his rear door. Savage got in. ‘High Grenville, please,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you where.’

  ‘Those kids,’ mentioned the driver as they drove. ‘Those squaddies you was watching. They have a lovely life these days. Proper grub, lots of sport, decent pay, plenty of leave. Not like when I was in.’

  He studied Savage in his mirror. ‘You been in the cake?’ he asked.

  ‘Until last year.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do it again.’

  ‘Nor would I,’ said Savage.

  It was a fifteen-minute drive. Savage pretended to read the newspaper. They pulled up in front of the thatched house, its roof scarcely projecting over a high yew hedge. ‘Cosy,’ approved the driver. ‘Is this where you live now?’

  ‘I did,’ said Savage paying him. ‘I won’t be long. An hour at the most. Will you come back for me?’

  ‘All right,’ said the driver. ‘I’ll book it and either I’ll be back or another cab if I’ve got a job in the meantime.’

  That would be plenty of time. He would not need to stay longer nor did he want to. He turned and went through the wooden gate. Its groan gave him a jolt. She had always said that she would listen for it and know he was home again. It was a sign between them, something, at least, shared. The garden looked ragged, wet, making him wonder, but only briefly, if he should come down and try to clear it, tidy it, dig a bit here and there, before they put the place on the market.