Kensington Heights

by Leslie Thomas

  She waited for his blink. ‘My father called me after a cat in a comic. Korky the Cat.’

  ‘In the Dandy,’ he agreed solemnly.

  ‘You remember it?’

  ‘I used to read it,’ he nodded. ‘But it’s not your real name.’

  She giggled, spluttering out some biscuit crumbs. Her teeth were small and white and neat, the only visibly cared-for thing about her. ‘Korky?’ she repeated. ‘’Course not. Nobody’s called Korky, are they. No, it was my old man. It amused him, I suppose. My name’s Kathleen. I’d rather be called Korky. It’s like you being called Frank and me calling you Savage.’

  She saw he again detected the insinuation of permanence. ‘But don’t worry about it. After tomorrow we won’t know each other. Can I have a bath? That’s one thing I could do with, a good bath.’ She grimaced. ‘Smell me. I’m mildew.’

  He backed away from the invitation. ‘I need a bath,’ she repeated, her voice dropping confidingly. ‘I really do. I’ve been out in the streets. Baths are difficult to get out there.’ Abruptly she held out her arms like wings and rising from the sofa, capered around the room pretending to be an aeroplane. She landed on her knees almost in front of him. He sat motionless, speechless. She still had her arms at the horizontal. ‘I need a bath.’

  ‘The bathroom’s in there,’ he pointed almost sullenly. He started to get up. ‘I’ll run it for you.’

  ‘Don’t, don’t.’ She pushed him briskly and with surprising force back onto the sofa. ‘Don’t you dare. I know how to turn the taps even if I don’t get much of a chance doing it.’ She stood and looked quizzically towards the kitchen. ‘Maybe I could take old pongy Paddington with me,’ she suggested. She giggled and turned quickly to meet his concerned expression. ‘Don’t get manic, I won’t. The gunge that would ooze out of Paddington would block up the drains of these flats for weeks. I’ll give him a scrub soon. He likes a good scrub.’

  She went towards the bathroom and began singing thinly and apparently aimlessly, as she turned on the taps. Savage remained seated and unsure.

  ‘Talking about scrubbing,’ she called through the thickening steam. ‘I bet you think I’m a scrubber, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t at all,’ he said relieved to find something he could say.

  Her straggling hair hung around the door. ‘But I bet you think it.’ She paused impishly. ‘What are you going to do while I’m in the bath? Peep through the keyhole?’

  Solemnly Savage rose from the sofa. ‘I was just thinking of going to bed,’ he muttered. Her head and one bare shoulder reappeared. ‘Don’t,’ she said with genuine urgency. ‘Don’t go to bed yet. I’ll have to put all the lights off and stuff. I’ve only just got in here. It’s your flat.’

  Grimacing, Savage took the cups to the kitchen. ‘All right, I’ll wait,’ he called. He glanced at the cupboard, opened it and almost roughly took out the whisky bottle. He poured a short measure and added some water. Then he walked back into the room, to the curtains which he tugged open. He stood framed in the dim light gazing out at the puddled reflections on the Kensington roofs. Behind him Korky was singing tunelessly in the steam. He remained there, taking only a single sip at the whisky, until she opened the door and came back into the room. Her vague reflection was caught in the dark window before him. He could see she was standing still and observing him. ‘You look all by yourself,’ she said from the far end of the room. ‘With nobody.’

  ‘That’s how I am,’ he said still facing the night window. ‘That’s how I want to be. For now anyway. That’s why I came to live . . .’ He turned. She was wearing his blue dressing gown, slightly stooped as though under its weight; she looked white and vulnerable. ‘I borrowed this,’ she shrugged in a diminished voice. ‘Is that all right? Otherwise I’ll have to wear smelly Paddington.’

  Savage turned and sat carefully on one of the armchairs. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’ he repeated.

  ‘No, not now, thanks. Like I said I’m stuffed with chips. I could feel them coming up when I was in the bath.’ She surveyed the room as though appreciating it over again. ‘It’s a good place this,’ she decided. Once more she noted his alarm. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not staying. I wouldn’t even if you wanted me to.’

  ‘Would you like anything else to drink?’ he asked.

  She walked towards him holding the dressing gown together and sniffed over his glass while he sat rigid. ‘I got myself clean.’ He did not know what to do with her. ‘What’s in that?’ she asked.

  ‘Scotch,’ he answered stonily. ‘But you’re not having Scotch. I meant some more tea or cocoa.’

  She grinned mockingly. ‘Bedtime cocoa for a little girl.’

  ‘Do you want some?’

  ‘No, thanks. It won’t mix. Can’t I have some of that . . . that Scotch . . . to keep me warm? Only a smidgen.’

  Savage inhaled deeply. He went into the kitchen and reappeared with a second tumbler. He poured a splash of his whisky into the glass and handed it to her. She examined it minutely. ‘Shit,’ she muttered, ‘that much is not going to warm my little toe.’

  ‘That’s all you’re getting. And it’s not shit, it’s Scotch.’

  ‘Sorry I swore,’ she said airily. She sat on the sofa again, opposite him. Her bony knee came through the folds of the dressing gown and she covered it, with genuine modesty. ‘Oops,’ she chided herself. Taking her time she looked up and smiled at his expression. Her darkened hair was lank, framing the sharp colourless features. Her eyes remained lively. ‘You don’t know what to make of me, do you?’ she said.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ admitted Savage. ‘Why are you homeless anyway?’

  ‘It’s no life for a young girl,’ she said as though completing the thought for him. ‘I just cleared out. But I’m not a tart and I’m not a junkie. I couldn’t afford drugs anyway and I can’t stand the smell of glue. Yuk. I’ve been scared, I can tell you. Shitless I’ve been. I was scared for weeks after I ran away.’ Her expression cleared. ‘Mind, it was all right last summer, great in fact, great, except for the fleas. Then I went off with this bloke from a band. A real trash band. But I hung out with them, travelling about doing gigs, when the weather got colder. But then he wanted to pass me around among his mates, like sharing a joint, and I didn’t go a lot on that. So I scarpered and I haven’t had anywhere since.’

  ‘What are you doing away from home in the first place? What about your parents?’ he repeated.

  ‘My dad died when I was twelve. Accident at work. He worked in a slaughterhouse.’

  ‘That was bad luck.’

  ‘A bummer,’ she said thinking about it for a moment. ‘He was all right. Until then. We moved from London to Swindon, for the open air or something. Then Minnie, that’s my mum, turned all funny. Sexy, you know, flirting about and there’s nothing worse than someone like that getting flirty. Her age and fat legs. She ended up living with this man, and then marrying him, and then last year she just disappeared, vanished. I don’t know where she went. Didn’t leave a note or anything. And that left me with Merlin.’ Her eyes challenged him.

  ‘Merlin?’

  ‘That was his name, Merlin. Like the wizard in the stories, except he was no wizard. Ugh, he was creepy. Told me he had only married my mum because he wanted me. I had to keep out of his way, I can tell you. One night he got pissed and that was a really bad scene. He broke down the door and I had to climb out of the window. After that I made myself scarce. And I’ve been scarce ever since. What about you?’

  ‘Me?’ Savage was surprised by the enquiry. ‘Well, nothing much really. I was in the army.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘What do you mean, what for?’

  ‘What I said. Didn’t you have anywhere to go?’ She leaned forward with renewed interest, the dressing gown dividing at the top and baring her thin throat and chest. ‘Did you ever kill anybody?’

  He did not answer. Instead he said: ‘The army is for . . . well, it’s for protection, defence.’ He felt
ridiculous saying it.

  ‘Oh, for that,’ she said as if it had never occurred to her. Her eyes lit and once more she leaned towards him. ‘I bet you shot ’undreds.’

  ‘I was a soldier,’ he reiterated doggedly. ‘Then I was injured and in hospital and then I left the army and now I’m here.’

  ‘You don’t look like a soldier,’ she said studying him quizzically. ‘Not with hair like that.’

  ‘I’m not now.’

  ‘But it’s funny, you talk a bit like one. I can hear it.’

  She regarded him shrewdly and sideways. ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘How did you know I had . . . have one?’

  ‘Oh, come on. A bloke like you don’t get away with not being married, even if he is in the army and all over the place. What happened?’

  Savage shrugged. ‘When I came out we found we just couldn’t get on, so we parted. That’s it, just about.’

  For almost the first time since she had entered the apartment there was silence. She had sipped the dregs of whisky away and now she studied the clouded bottom of the glass. She inserted her finger and licked it. ‘Do you want to see my body?’ she asked casually examining her fingertip. ‘I have got one.’

  He almost choked. ‘No . . . thanks very much . . . no, thanks . . .’

  Her tone became teasing: ‘Oh, come on, soldier, ’ave a look. It’s not bad considering I’m half-bloody starved.’

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘There’s no need. I don’t want you to.’

  ‘Aw, come on,’ she said. With a mock expression of seduction, moving her hips and rolling her eyes, she began to rise from the sofa. He tried to protest again and stop her but knocked his whisky glass on to the floor. It rolled softly on the carpet. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she said still tantalising, her voice low.

  He was rooted. She was still rising as she spoke and now, stepping back with a parody of a dance, her face fixed in a wide, thin smile, her body moving skinnily, she let his outsized dressing gown drop to her waist. Savage stared at her apologetic breasts, little and pink-budded, her saucered shoulders, her narrow waist and jutting hip bones. ‘Stop it,’ he asked her softly, as he sat. ‘It’s wrong. It’s not right for a young kid . . . You don’t have to . . .’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she answered quietly but stoutly. ‘I want to.’

  She performed another mock dance movement and let the robe fall to the carpet. Then, grinning over her shoulder as she revolved, she turned her back on him displaying her white, pinched bottom and the other side of her angled hips. Then slowly she pirouetted, as though to silent music, pushing out her stomach and the postage-stamp of hair between her legs. ‘Not bad, eh?’ she suggested.

  ‘Stop it,’ he repeated hoarsely. His decency was being strained. ‘Korky, stop it.’

  ‘Watch this, then,’ she boasted brazenly. Before his astonished face she put her hands down and did a naked cartwheel across the carpet. Then she cartwheeled back again, displaying everything she had.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said angrily. ‘Now pack this in.’

  ‘You called me Korky just now,’ she said standing upright, white and thin. Her hands dropped with belated modesty across her pubis. ‘That’s the first time, the very first.’

  ‘Put that dressing gown on,’ ordered Savage. His tone lowered. ‘Please put it on.’

  ‘All right, sergeant major,’ she mimicked.

  ‘Put it on at once,’ he repeated. Her eyes remained vivid for another moment, but then the brightness drained from them and she sulkily shrugged her skeletal shoulders. ‘All right, I don’t care. I thought you’d like it, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t want you to do it,’ he said, his lips tight. ‘You’re a young kid.’

  ‘Seventeen,’ she said, then caustically: ‘Merlin used to say he liked a bit of veal.’

  Savage put his head in his hands and hid it there. When he looked up again she had her backside to him, had regained the dressing gown and was starting to pull it on. ‘You’re sure?’ she enquired looking around.

  He could hardly breathe, he felt oddly afraid. ‘Quite sure,’ he muttered. ‘Very nice, thank you.’

  Advancing carefully on him she stood in front of him as he again covered his face. She let the robe fall apart again and reaching out caught his hands and led them away from his eyes. She pushed her belly against his nose.

  ‘I’ve got to tell you something,’ he mumbled. She retreated and examined his face.

  ‘What? Don’t tell me you’re queer,’ she said. ‘Not a queer soldier.’

  ‘I’ve been mentally ill,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I don’t know properly what I’m doing. So don’t do this, please don’t do it.’

  ‘You could be dangerous?’ she said looking interested.

  ‘I hope not. But I don’t want you to do this sort of thing. I don’t need it. You don’t need to do it.’

  She could see his distress was real. ‘You poor bugger,’ said Korky. Her eyes were damp. ‘You poor man. You need somebody to look after you.’

  Seven

  When he awoke he found that she had emptied his refrigerator and gone. Her single bed was neatly made and the curtains in the second room were open. All that was left in the refrigerator was a pot of Marmite. She had left a note in neat capital letters clinging to the shelf: ‘I can’t stand Marmite. Love Korky.’

  Savage surveyed the apartment unhappily. He pulled the main curtains back revealing the misty morning fresco. It was nine o’clock. He had slept late. He returned to the smaller bedroom, studied it again and wondered what time she had left. Thoughtfully he made some coffee and toast. Sometimes he turned on the radio at this time but now he did not bother. She had been very strange.

  In his chosen solitude he sometimes forgot which day of the week it was; very often he could not remember the date. Time had rolled itself into a long, meaningless mist like that outside the window. With scant enthusiasm he walked to his typewriter. On the paper slotted in she had left another block-letter note. It said: ‘Thank you for being nice to a poor homeless girl.’ He grinned. He sat at the desk and stared from the window for several minutes, but then made himself start to type: ‘Andaman Islands. There are five main islands of the group situated in the Bay of Bengal. North, Middle and South Andaman with Baratang and Rutland Island lying across the Diligent Strait from Ritchie’s Archipelago, while on the Duncan Passage is Little Andaman . . . ’

  The doorbell rang. He tightened his lips and teeth. The summons was repeated. Irritably he strode across the room and pulled the door open. The old lady called Wilhelmina was there with a scattering of talcum powder around her and on her shoes. ‘I’ve come to warn you,’ she said.

  Savage regarded her bleakly. She appeared to notice the falling talcum for the first time. ‘Oh dear,’ she remarked in a mild way. ‘Where has that come from?’ She raised her face as it broke into a smile. ‘May I come in please?’

  As politely as he could Savage answered: ‘I’m working at the moment.’

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ she responded understandingly as though it were he interrupting her, and pushing by him with surprising robustness. She scrutinised the apartment before speaking. ‘We won’t be long about this business. But I thought I must warn you.’

  Savage had left the door half-open, an invitation for her to leave as soon as she liked. The talcum trailed faintly across the carpet. She still appeared puzzled by it but she said nothing.

  She sat on the sofa. Savage pointedly remained standing. ‘I couldn’t discuss it with you when the other residents were here present,’ she began. Again she was distracted by the room. ‘That Mr Kostelanetz,’ she remarked after her survey. ‘A shady one, don’t you think. I understand he was involved in all sorts of things. People with names like Kostelanetz quite often are, you know.’

  ‘You wanted to warn me about something.’

  ‘Indeed I did,’ she said seriously. Her wrinkled eyelids dropped and then rose like those of an ancient bird. ‘You must beware
.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘I had better remind you of my full name. Mr Maddison forgets everyone’s name. Even his wife’s, although that is understandable. I am Wilhelmina Blenkinsop. Mrs although I am widowed. My husband is buried in the basement, you know.’

  Savage remembered. ‘Oh,’ he said inadequately. ‘He is?’

  ‘And a number of others also. It was a conspiracy and it became necessary. Would you like to see the exact grave?’

  ‘Well . . . no, not right now.’

  ‘You’re busy, I know,’ she said flapping an understanding hand. ‘And I promised not to keep you. But perhaps when the weather gets better you’d like to accompany me down to the basement and I’ll show you.’

  Savage became aware that someone was standing outside the half-open door. He looked up. You never knew in this place. There was a firm knock and Tomelty entered, his face puckered. ‘Ah, I thought you might be here, Mrs Blenkinsop,’ he said.

  ‘I was just warning this gentleman,’ the lady said primly, ‘what to expect.’

  Tomelty rolled his eyes towards Savage. ‘Yes, well you said you were going to. Now you’ve done it. I think you ought to be off now and let Mr Savage get on with his work.’

  She looked disconcertingly interested. ‘Is it important work?’ she whispered.

  ‘I think so,’ answered Savage.

  ‘Of profound national importance?’

  ‘Important to Mr Savage,’ put in Tomelty firmly. He touched her withered hand as she obediently rose. She then offered the same hand to Savage who shook it gravely. ‘Be careful,’ she said after squinting quickly towards the porter. ‘Be warned.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, I will,’ promised Savage.

  Tomelty led the slow woman towards the door. She had one more piece of news. ‘Mr Belfont,’ her eyes rose like those of an inquisitor. ‘You met Mr Percy Belfont?’

  Savage agreed that he had.

  ‘He has left, you know,’ she continued. ‘He has gone to die in Antwerp.’ She continued her exit, a faint snowfall of talcum following her. Tomelty spotted it with professional eye and glanced apologetically at Savage. ‘She always leaves a trail,’ he said.