Kensington Heights

by Leslie Thomas

  ‘Only on television,’ said Miss Weiz.

  ‘And then they don’t look real,’ said Miss Cotton.

  ‘Nor do the people being shot,’ objected Miss Weiz. ‘Except on the news.’

  ‘I saw enough guns,’ said Mr Prentice sombrely. He glanced at Savage as if for support.

  ‘So did Mr Belfont,’ put in Wilhelmina with a frown. ‘Before he went to Antwerp. To die.’ She blinked and made an effort to say something. ‘I hope Korky is still alive.’

  Savage opened his mouth to protest. Then, to his huge relief the telephone rang. They politely moved towards the main door and went out twittering farewells. Mr Prentice gave him a comradely look. He closed the door on them. Still with the gun in his grasp, he answered the telephone. ‘Please, hello,’ said an old man’s voice. ‘Is Rosamunde at home please?’

  ‘Rosamunde,’ said Savage flatly. It was not a question.

  ‘Yes, this is right? Rosamunde Von Fokker.’

  Savage sighed. ‘She has gone away,’ he answered.

  The dim-windowed shop was in a Bloomsbury alleyway where the sun marked slowly mobile triangles on the paving slabs. There was a mauve-tiled Victorian public house on one corner and a patisserie opposite. Mr Furtwangler was awaiting him. He appeared nervous but Savage thought he probably always was. He had a bookshop stoop and a swathe of speckled baldness running over his head between two tufted growths of grey springy hair which he kept attempting to push flat; he beamed apprehensively over his glasses and thrust his hands deep, as though he were hiding them, into the pockets of a collapsed cardigan. His white knuckles showed through the sagging wool.

  ‘Thank you sir, so much,’ he enthused taking the pile of books from Savage. ‘I did not know so many she had borrowed.’ He shuffled around as though hoping to put the volumes in some spare place in the chaotically piled shop but he failed to find one. Instead he lowered them to the dusty floor among other piles placed about like the footings on a building site. ‘But she was so hard studying for her degree.’

  Mr Furtwangler’s handshake was soft and warm. Once more he peered with mild impatience around the cluttered shop. There were narrow trenches between the deep shelves. ‘I must ask you to sit,’ he fussed. There was a chair, low, wide, round-backed, dusty and worn, like Mr Furtwangler himself, laden with old catalogues. The bookseller swept them to the floor with an abrupt aggression, as if he had long wanted to do it, then regarded the scattered heap shamefacedly and tried to make amends by gathering them gently together with the side of his foot. ‘Please sit,’ he invited spreading his hand towards the chair.

  ‘I could have stood,’ said Savage taking it. The old man, now himself marooned, hovered without a seat. Abandoning all restraint he flung another pile of grime-clogged papers from a second, upright chair and after testing its safety with both hands, sat down.

  ‘I hope they are not important,’ said Savage nodding at the scattered journals, their dust rising like a mild protest.

  ‘Old things only,’ said Mr Furtwangler disdainfully but treating the debris to a glance, again touched with regret, before abandoning sentiment and thrusting his pale hands once more deep down into his cardigan. He could leave the question no longer. ‘Where is Rosamunde gone?’ he asked. His bespectacled eyes moved like two fish through two bowls towards Savage. ‘Why is she gone?’

  Savage needed to proceed carefully. ‘You knew her as Rosamunde Von Fokker?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. That is her name but she maybe did not use the Von. She was a modest girl.’

  ‘You were happy with her working here?’

  ‘Oh, indeed, sir. She brought the sunbeams into this dark hole.’ He peered about him as though trying to pierce the gloom. Then he added sadly: ‘I am alone without her.’

  Savage nodded. ‘I understand. Unfortunately she has had to go away.’

  ‘Back to Germany?’

  ‘Yes, home. Her mother is ill and she has to nurse her.’

  ‘She is a saintly girl. And her English is so excellent.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  Mr Furtwangler sighed. ‘All I could find was the telephone number. You are . . . a . . .’ He studied Savage’s age. ‘A . . . friend?’

  ‘Yes. She rented a room from me.’

  ‘I did not pay her much money. I am ashamed. But she seemed to like to be here. It is not so busy and she could study for her PhD.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Savage solidly.

  ‘The Fantasy and Reality of Islands,’ recited Mr Furtwangler with a nostalgic sigh. ‘Their literature, in fact and fiction, their peoples and communications and economies and the erosion of their isolation in the twentieth century.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She is so clever. I hope her mother will be well.’

  ‘It’s going to be a long illness, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Ah, that is sad.’ He brightened a fraction. ‘But maybe she will die and then Rosamunde can come back. Your poor Prince Edward? He will miss her.’

  ‘Oh . . . will he?’ Savage attempted to gather some words. ‘Oh yes, Prince Edward. That Prince Edward. He certainly will. He probably has already.’

  ‘Well, there is nothing to be done.’ Sighing, the old man took his hands from his cardigan and folded them primly in his lap. ‘But it is unhappy for me.’ He leaned forward confidentially. ‘It is crazy, I know, to say this because I am almost eighty and I was married for forty years before my wife passed away. But I was jealous of your Prince Edward.’ His voice became a shy whisper. ‘I was a little in love with her.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Savage.

  He walked over to the window and the view as ever made him pause, his familiar but changing prospect of London. Below him now were the full, summer heads of the trees, the sky was pale and still, the sun opaque. Airliners dropped in their unending crocodile towards Heathrow. Below him he could see Tomelty in a green pullover sweeping the pavement outside the main entrance, his grey hair like a button. As Savage watched, a man walked across the street and approached him. Tomelty straightened and pointed upwards. The visitor turned and made for the side entrance. Savage waited and two minutes later his doorbell rang. Stonily he opened it. It was a youngish, strained-looking man, rimless glasses glistening. His ginger sports jacket was too small although he was slight except for a pot stomach under a pullover of mixed colours. His wrists projected inches from the sleeves. ‘Is this the address for Anna Zubber?’ he enquired. ‘It’s the flat number she left.’

  ‘Who,’ asked Savage although he already knew, ‘is Anna Zubber?’

  The young man seemed astonished. ‘The wife of Charlie Zubber,’ he said as though everyone must know Charlie Zubber. He detected that Savage did not. ‘Of Excess Energy . . . the band.’

  ‘And. . .?’

  ‘I work for Brutton’s, the publishers. It’s about the encyclopaedia she is compiling.’

  ‘You’d better come in,’ groaned Savage opening the door and stepping aside. The young man looked at him oddly and said an uncertain ‘Thank you,’ as he went into the apartment.

  ‘So this is where Anne Zubber lives,’ he said deeply when he had sat down. He blinked about as though trying to detect some trace of her. ‘When she’s in London.’

  ‘Lived,’ corrected Savage.

  ‘Oh, she’s gone away?’ said the man. Disappointment creased his face. ‘I wondered why she never turned up any more.’

  ‘What is your name?’ asked Savage attempting to get something straight. ‘Mine’s Frank Savage.’

  With a little confusion the visitor rose and his bony arm emerged, almost hydraulically from his threadbare sleeve. ‘I’m Stephen Stevens,’ he said, then with an automatic apology: ‘It really is. One with a ph, the second with a v. My father thought he was clever.’

  ‘Well, Mr Stevens, I have to tell you that if you’re looking for the young lady I think you’re looking for her name is not Anna . . . what-was-it?’

  ‘Zubber,’ provided Mr Stevens. Dis
belief now filled his spectacles. ‘It’s not?’

  ‘She’s Kathleen Wilson, otherwise known as Korky, otherwise known as Rosamunde Von Fokker . . .’

  ‘. . . Otherwise known as Anna Zubber,’ mumbled Stephen Stevens. ‘Just my luck.’

  ‘She told you she lived here?’

  Embarrassment caused hesitation. Then he said: ‘Well, quite truthfully, not actually. You see we met in a coffee bar near the British Museum, near my office. I was chatting to another chap in publishing and she . . . well . . .’

  ‘Picked you up.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t like to claim that. She joined in the conversation.’ He looked timidly at Savage but bravely enquired: ‘May I ask what your relationship to Miss . . . Wilson, wasn’t it. . .?’

  ‘I’m her uncle.’ He realised how adeptly he had taken to romancing. ‘Her mother is my sister.’

  ‘And she stayed here with you.’ Again he surveyed the apartment, dwelling a moment on the half-open doors to the bedrooms.

  ‘Temporarily. She’s gone home to Swindon.’

  ‘Swindon?’ Disillusion congested the changing face. ‘Swindon? She said she lived in New York.’

  ‘Perhaps you misheard her.’

  ‘I didn’t mishear her saying that she was Anna Zubber, wife of Charlie Zubber . . .’ His voice trailed.

  ‘Of Excess Charges,’ provided Savage.

  ‘Energy. The band is called Excess Energy,’ corrected Stevens. ‘Charlie Zubber is a pop icon.’ He looked up as if hopeful of salvaging something, anything, some small genuine item. ‘And she is not writing a thesis on islands, I take it, nor planning to publish an encyclopaedia?’ His sleeves retreated up his arms as thought backing away from the truth. ‘I even suggested a title for her thesis. The Fantasy and Reality of Islands: Their literature, in fact and fiction, their peoples and communications and economies and the erosion of their isolation in the twentieth century.’

  ‘I wondered who came up with that,’ said Savage.

  The visitor was pleased. ‘She told you about it?’

  ‘No, someone else did. But she was partly correct. She was, in fact, putting together an encyclopaedia concerned with islands. In fact, we were both working on it.’

  ‘Ah, co-authors.’

  ‘For the moment I am carrying on alone.’

  ‘I told her the firm I’m with might be interested in publishing it,’ related the young man, his eyes low but rising guardedly. ‘Which is true. We are. No one has ever done a book like that.’

  ‘I know. Well, perhaps I can send it to you when it’s ready in a few years.’

  ‘Please do,’ said Stevens only a little taken aback. ‘I do quite a lot of research at the British Museum Reading Room and I introduced Anna . . . well . . .’

  ‘Korky,’ provided Savage. ‘Or Anna if you prefer.’

  A small blush provided a dab of colour to the pallid skin. ‘Korky?’ He seemed to have to rouse himself from the resultant reverie. ‘I introduced her to the Museum Reading Room and I have to confess that I noted her address on the application form.’ The blush spread. There was moisture on the upper lip. ‘And I kept . . . stole . . . the spare copy of her application photograph.’

  Savage said nothing. Rising, Stevens felt in his pocket and took out a prim wallet. ‘This is it,’ he said. He produced a black and white picture of a straight-faced Korky. ‘That’s her,’ confirmed Savage. ‘Anna Zubber.’

  The young man remained standing, and embarrassed. ‘Well, I’d better be off,’ he said with real sadness. ‘If she’s not here, I can’t think that I shall ever see her again.’

  His hydraulic arm shot out fiercely and they shook hands. ‘She won’t be back, will she?’ he asked forlornly. ‘In London.’

  ‘I doubt it. She’s gone home to marry,’ lied Savage easily again. ‘A tax inspector.’

  He thought Stephen Stevens was going to cry. The young man sniffed so hard his nostrils squeezed. Savage could not resist patting his shoulder as he made towards the door. ‘I’ll be in touch with you at . . .’

  ‘Brutton’s,’ prompted Stevens.

  Savage let him out and followed him on to the landing. ‘The encyclopaedia should be finished in a few years. The first draft.’

  ‘Please do,’ sniffed Stevens. He ignored the lift and went to the top of the stairs. He looked down the stairwell and Savage thought he might be considering a final jump but he then rushed down out of sight around the bend in the stairs. Savage heard him trip at the bottom and pick himself up with a sob.

  Savage returned to the room. He sat on the sofa and put his head in his hands. ‘Anna Zubber,’ he murmured. ‘Where are you now?’ He allowed himself a small smile. ‘Who are you now?’

  Sixteen

  Day after day, like a willing dog, he continued with his work. Who, he asked himself increasingly, would want to read it? He had to make himself sit down before the word processor and it took a distinct effort to open it; its chimed greeting sounded tinny and the laughing automatic face became a mocking caricature. The keys fixed him with their banked blank stares, daring him to touch them with a come-and-get-us insolence; put your fingers on us if you dare, you poor solitary sap. Stone-faced, he went through the everyday geographical motions, lost for words, wondering what she was doing, who she was with.

  ‘Formosa,’ he tapped. ‘Large island off the mainland of China also known as Taiwan and as Nationalist China following the retreat there in 1949 of the Chiang Kai-shek government during the war with the Communists . . .’

  He regarded the screen with distaste. Who needed islands anyway? Perhaps the distraught Stephen Stevens would get it published in the hope that somehow it would bring Anna Zubber back to him.

  After only a few minutes Savage got up from the word processor and made coffee, the succour sought by word-bound writers. Studying its liquid swirling muddily in the mug he was tempted to reach for the Scotch and pour a measure into it. The telephone rang. It was his wife.

  ‘Frank,’ she said. ‘Good news.’

  ‘I could use some.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing that won’t right itself.’ He wished he had sounded softer. He could sense her back off. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. She said: ‘You sound lonely, Frank.’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to be, remember?’

  ‘Now you’re sorry.’ She waited, then made the offer: ‘Do you want me to come to London?’

  He knew she meant it. ‘Thanks, Irene,’ he said. ‘You’re lovely.’

  ‘I will if you like.’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t drag you here. What was the good news?’

  He sensed her hurt but she gathered herself. ‘Yesterday,’ she said. ‘I went down to our house.’ She amended it. ‘The house. I was in Southampton with Graham and I went in on the way back. Just to see if the place was all right and to pick up any letters.’

  ‘That’s . . . your fiancé.’

  ‘Yes. Fiancé sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it, second time around. But that’s him. It’s going to be more than a year, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said vaguely. ‘Yes, it will be, I suppose.’

  ‘The point was I went into Askard’s, the estate agents, and they said they thought they had a buyer. It’s a couple of chaps, Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

  Savage blinked. ‘I saw them.’

  ‘You did?’ He detected her concern. She still thought he hallucinated.

  ‘That day when you and I were both there, in January. When you had gone this pair – it has to be them – turned up and wanted me to help them change the world. I didn’t have time just then.’

  She laughed but cautiously. ‘How strange. Anyway they want the house.’ There was a silence before she said: ‘I really enjoyed our lunch, Frank. It was nice to be together again, even for a while. And what about the odd-bod girl who arrived. The one at the next table. Telling us all her troubles. Remember her?’

  ‘I’ll never forget her,’ he said.


  He thought she was going to make a comment or ask him a question but instead, after another pause, she said: ‘According to the agents they’re not quibbling about the price. They’ll pay the full ninety thousand.’ Her voice became subdued. ‘Once it’s all done and the house is sold there won’t be anything else remaining. Nothing left of us. Except a few certificates in a file somewhere.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Irene.’

  ‘So am I. It’s terrible when something just vanishes, disappears.’

  They said goodbye and he walked a few moody paces to the window and looked out on the summer day, dull and dozy. There was the regular airliner in the background sky. When he opened the window a puff of warm air came in; the summer thickness of the trees muted the traffic sounds.

  How odd that the apartment and its silence should be getting to him now. For two weeks, since Korky had gone, he had taken to walking, morning and afternoon, in between his spasms of forced work. Once he had seen a girl squatting with a small tribe of aimless youths on the grass of Holland Park, shouting bad advice to a class of amazed infants crocodiling with a teacher up the straight path. At a distance she had looked like Korky, lean, long-haired and ash-skinned, but as he neared he saw, to his relief and his disappointment, that it was not.

  Now, as he went out, he locked the apartment door with a peevish turn of the key. As he tugged it out he turned and saw Miss Bombazine coming along the corridor from her flat. For someone in a young woman’s business she waddled in a strangely old-fashioned way. ‘She’s taken off, I hear,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, her parents turned up. She’s gone home with them.’

  ‘Just like you wanted.’

  She was going to take the lift but instead they walked down the stairs together. ‘My poor hip’s been giving me murder,’ Miss Bombazine grumbled. She was in her customary black but summer-style with a flowered scarf and hat. Her hair looked as if it had been hurriedly crammed into the hat. ‘In this job an achy hip is bad news,’ she said.

  They walked out of the apartments and down Kensington Church Street. ‘Still, I’m off to an easy one now,’ she told him with a change of tone. ‘I go and see him a couple of times a month, poor old bugger. He’s eighty so it’s not physical except I have to take my clothes off. He likes me to read him children’s stories. Peter Rabbit is his favourite. He sits in bed like a little boy, me sitting there starkers. It’s a funny life.’