Kensington Heights

by Leslie Thomas

  At the junction with the High Street they met Freddie Spencer-Hughes wheeling his red racing bicycle. Savage realised he did not know Miss Bombazine’s real surname but she was accustomed to saving people embarrassment and she waved a big arm which hailed a taxi and bid them farewell in the same pole-axe movement. The taxi halted twenty yards along the road and she puffed after it.

  ‘She’s a lady of the night,’ Freddie informed him as they watched her formidable backside fill the doorway of the cab. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘She’s quiet about it,’ said Savage.

  ‘Ideal neighbour,’ observed Freddie professionally. He pushed his bicycle pensively and then his voice altered, rising to a poetic flurry. ‘The night is silent when you have gone,’ he recited.

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I did,’ responded Freddie with a pleased sadness. ‘I made it up. I do, you know.’

  Together they began to walk towards the park. ‘I’ve got a minute,’ the youth told him as he wheeled the bike. ‘I needed to get out of the office to cool down. I might just ride off into the bloody sunset. Some people treat us as if we were racketeers. I actually told one couple to . . . well, piss off.’ He glanced gingerly at Savage as though he did not expect to be believed. ‘I’m not sure they heard me,’ he admitted. ‘But I think they got the gist of it because that’s exactly what they did. I’ve become quite down-market.’

  ‘You’ve changed,’ Savage told him.

  ‘Since Korky,’ conceded Freddie. He shoved his bike testily. ‘I certainly have. I used to wring my hands and bow and scrape with the best of them. Now, I’m different. I feel like wringing their necks.’ He stopped pushing and regarded Savage. ‘Do you think she’ll ever come back?’ he asked.

  Savage shrugged but did not answer. ‘It seems she knew everybody,’ was all he said. ‘People keep turning up and asking for her. All the time I’m amazed.’

  ‘She was different. To anybody,’ said Freddie.

  ‘Different,’ agreed Savage. ‘Altogether.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve started writing verse.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Cooling-off time over,’ he sniffed. ‘I’ll have to go back to the nerds.’ They shook hands at the park gate and Freddie turned. He halted after a few paces. ‘Your six months is up soon, I think, Mr Savage,’ he called. ‘End of next month.’

  ‘That’s right,’ returned Savage. ‘I don’t think I’ll be staying.’

  Freddie was astonished. ‘You won’t? Where will you go?’

  ‘Formosa,’ Savage answered but without turning. He walked on. ‘Or somewhere.’

  He was certain that Jean had a new lover. Their times together dwindled and then stopped. She told him she was working. Dutifully he telephoned her but often he could get no reply. Once she answered but she was laughing drunk and there were voices in the room. Twice a man answered almost angrily. Savage put the phone down. According to Mr Kostelanetz her new man – perhaps the man he had seen her quarrelling with – was a solicitor, married but free most nights. Savage wondered how a married solicitor got nights off. It did not worry him. There were no regrets. It never had been right.

  Now he was as alone as he ever had been, as much as he had required to be. He worked relentlessly as the summer continued outside his window and every day he went for two long walks. He had reached: ‘Georgia (South), Antarctic Dependency of the Falkland Islands, Capital Grytviken Population: seasonal . . .’

  Grytviken, even South Georgia, could scarcely be emptier, more silent, than his lofty room. Scientists, sailors and whalers went to South Georgia; the winds blew, the snow shifted, there were months of night followed by months of day. Here everything was the same, every morning, every noonday, every night. Just as he had planned it. His island. Nowhere was more remote than Kensington Heights.

  ‘Good morning, Crusoe,’ he greeted himself caustically in the shaving mirror. ‘How is Friday today?’ But there was no Friday. He almost crept up on the word processor; sometimes when he opened it he felt he would scarcely care if it had all gone, been wiped away, vanished.

  Bertie Maddison invited him to go to the Wigmore Hall. ‘Cello recital,’ he said. He had intended to remain at the door of the apartment because he did not want to interrupt Savage’s work. ‘Interrupt all you like,’ invited Savage beckoning him in. ‘I’m desperate for interruption, believe me. Anything.’

  ‘It won’t be much good,’ forecast Bertie glumly. ‘They’re giving the tickets away. Some Chilean git who thinks he can scrape out a bit of Debussy.’ He eyed Savage with a sort of warning. ‘Mrs Maddison will be accompanying us but she will not, I hope, cause any trouble. The management have given her a last chance.’

  On the evening they went to the recital Mrs Maddison had been at the sherry and her husband eyed her warily. ‘One can only hope for the best,’ he whispered to Savage as his wife stumbled over the entrance steps.

  They sat two-thirds of the way to the back. Despite the free distribution of tickets the hall was scarcely half-full. By his downcast manner and shabby aspect the soloist appeared not to expect much more. His black, brimming eyes cowered between overhung eyebrows and sagging moustache. Furtively they searched the room as though hoping to fix on a sympathetic face. There was no introduction. He sat down and after a few coughs began to play.

  ‘I don’t know why he needs to cough,’ Mrs Maddison boomed almost as soon as the recital had commenced. ‘It’s not as if he’s sodding singing.’

  ‘Watch it,’ warned her husband leaning over Savage to whisper. Savage was seated between them, an arrangement insisted upon by both Maddisons so that he represented a frontier, which still did not preclude sudden and sharp exchanges.

  ‘Watch what?’ she responded staring belligerently around Savage’s neck as he kept his face solidly to the front.

  ‘Watch your tongue,’ whispered Maddison but not so softly as before. ‘You know what they said.’

  ‘See if I care,’ she sniffed. ‘They can stuff this place, and this bloke.’ The sniff was profound; even the soloist looked up. Stoically he played on but as if he had just arrived by air and had travelled a long distance, economy. The opening piece was acknowledged with cautious applause, but his second item, which he announced in contorted English, made the audience restive. The instrument droned on. ‘He’s nodding off,’ announced Mrs Maddison with a sort of triumph. ‘Look, he’s going to kip.’ The musician certainly appeared to be lolling over his instrument, holding on to the notes as though every movement of the bow might be his last.

  People began to shift and to mutter and, knowing what might follow, Maddison leaned behind Savage in an attempt to soothe his wife. ‘It’s bollocks,’ she complained. Unable to restrain herself, she bawled: ‘It’s bollocks!’

  Two attendants of forceful demeanour, who had been lurking, appeared on tiptoe, shifted some flustered members of the audience and bodily lifted Mrs Maddison from the seat as she bawled.

  ‘I suppose we’d better go with her,’ sighed Maddison. ‘They might drop her on her head.’

  Savage rose with him. The soloist continued to dream and drone; Maddison directed an oddly apologetic bow towards him and reprised it for the benefit of those sitting near. Savage, shuffling out, found himself bowing also. When they got to the back of the hall Mrs Maddison had already been ejected and as they were going out she was attempting to claw her way through into the foyer bellowing: ‘I’ll sue this fucking tuneless place!’

  A policeman arrived and she swung her fist at him. He retreated prudently and called for help on his radio. ‘Another night in the pokey,’ forecast Maddison gloomily.

  They went to Marylebone police station with her. Her husband privately suggested that she should be placed in a cell until she had quietened. She was. ‘It would be murder trying to get her home,’ he groaned to Savage. ‘A couple of hours and she may have run out of steam. Let’s have a drink somewhere.’

  In silence they walked to the nearest corner. ‘The Hope Abandoned,’ read
Maddison surveying the pub sign.

  ‘How often does she get like that?’ enquired Savage when they were at the bar.

  ‘Now and again,’ sighed Maddison. ‘When the sherry bottle’s full.’ He reached behind him for a stool, pulled it up and levered himself upon it. ‘I’m afraid she’s always a risk. And musically she’s very critical, as you can appreciate.’

  ‘Yes, she seems to be.’

  Maddison became pensive. ‘You see she could play once,’ he said. ‘Piano, violin, oboe. Multi-talented. Sang a bit too. But there was no money. Her father even sold her drums. Understandably she became bitter.’ He regarded Savage with curiosity. ‘I envy your peace and quiet,’ he said.

  Savage grimaced. ‘I’ve got too much of it at the moment.’

  ‘Can’t get used to the girl being gone, I expect. She was lively, there’s no doubting that. Will she come back?’

  ‘I doubt it. Even if she did I don’t think I ought to let her stay. It wasn’t right, the situation, and now she’s gone it’s better it should remain like that.’

  ‘Are you going to continue in the flat?’ asked Maddison with a hint of mansion-block intuition.

  ‘I think I’ll be moving out,’ Savage said. ‘I’ve got to go somewhere else.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘No idea. I’ll find a place.’ He laughed quietly. ‘I thought I could sit silent and safe up there on the top of Kensington Heights. I wanted isolation. But the world came in under the door.’

  ‘It’s apt to,’ nodded Maddison as if it were stating the obvious. ‘There’s no hiding place. I used to be a purser, you know, in the days when they had pursers on aeroplanes. The old propellor jobs. I had lady friends in half the countries of the world. And, what do I do? I end up with my wife.’ He glanced at the clock above the bar. ‘We’d better go and see when they’ll be ready to bail her,’ he said. He made an embarrassed grimace. ‘She’s all I’ve got.’

  Standing again at the window he saw Mr Kostelanetz crossing the street. Even from six floors up Mr Kostelanetz was readily recognisable. The word processor was still smugly whirring. He had reached Guadeloupe. He turned if off and waited. The lift coughed and rattled as it ascended. The gates scraped open and crashed closed. His doorbell rang.

  As it was June Mr Kostelanetz had replaced his powerful overcoat with a fawn jacket that was faintly luminous and gave a darker intensity to his skin. He came in and his voluminous eyes scanned the apartment as if to make sure it was the same place. ‘So you are going somewhere away,’ he said falling back bulkily on the sofa. His brow was glistening. As if acting on information he put his hand between the cushion and the arm and brought out a morsel of biscuit, balanced it on the end of his finger and appeared about to eat it. ‘That’s gerbil food,’ said Savage.

  Mr Kostelanetz did not seem incommoded but lowered the finger. ‘It is because I have been poor,’ he said, his doleful eyes clouding further at the memory. ‘A refugee. Nothing to eat. We never wasted one scrap even something like . . . where does this gerbil grow? It is like corn?’

  ‘Something like that,’ nodded Savage not inclined to correct him. ‘Would you like a drink or some coffee?’

  The large man studied the watch on his hairy wrist. It was strapped to the widest extent. ‘Too early for one, too late for the other,’ he decided. ‘But nearer to a drink, maybe.’

  Savage went into the kitchen. ‘I’ve got whisky,’ he called. ‘And some wine, red or white . . .’

  ‘Whisky is good,’ returned Kostelanetz. ‘How long is she gone now? One month?’

  ‘Five weeks,’ corrected Savage from the kitchen. He brought in the glasses. ‘I’m getting accustomed to some calm again.’

  ‘But you’re leaving; the agent boy, Freddie, tells me you want to go. End of the month.’ As if to wish him well on his journey Mr Kostelanetz raised his glass a centimetre. ‘And where is the place you are going to?’

  Savage responded with a tip of his glass. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘But anyway you will go?’

  ‘Yes. I’m grateful to you for letting me live here. It was just what I needed. It’s given me time to pull myself together.’

  ‘After your wounding,’ said Mr Kostelanetz. ‘For your country.’ Sadly he shook his head. ‘I would not like to be a soldier now. I would not like to be a spy. It is all right, fair enough, when you know why you are fighting or spying, but now everything is different. No soldier and no spy can be sure any more.’

  Savage said: ‘I think I ought to go. I feel all right now.’

  Mr Kostelanetz nodded his large head. The ends of his moustache bounced. ‘She gave you help, this Korky.’

  ‘She helped,’ admitted Savage carefully. ‘We helped each other.’

  ‘So now you will go off to see the world.’

  Savage said: ‘I’ve been writing about islands, as you know, and I think it would not be a bad idea if I went to visit some of them. Maybe I’ll go on a cruise.’

  ‘A cruise? Ah, that would be nice. Dancing with all the grey ladies, doing the bingo. No, it is the tango. And playing the bingo. And floating on the wet sea. Very nice.’ Again he nodded heavily.

  ‘It was just an idea,’ answered Savage defensively.

  ‘But you must be doing something,’ advised Mr Kostelanetz. ‘A man must. That is why I operate, Mr Savage. I am always operating on some operation, having some interest in some thing.’ He brightened. ‘You could go to Tahiti and see the girls dancing with the tits.’ To Savage’s surprise he rose from the sofa and performed a clumsy sway, cupping his hands across his chest. ‘La, la, la,’ he half-sang. ‘Like that, you know, showing all they got.’

  Savage laughed. ‘You have some good ideas, Mr Kostelanetz,’ he said. His guest had fallen, a little short of breath, back on to the sofa.

  ‘I am always big on some ideas,’ he agreed. His eyebrows, his eyes, his nose, his mousache and his chin all rose. ‘What is with your police lady?’ he asked.

  ‘Jean?’ said Savage unsurprised now by any turn of conversation. ‘She’s all right, I think. We are just friends. She helped me.’

  ‘So many women to help you,’ murmured his visitor. ‘But she is now with this wanker. He is a lawyer. He is a wanker-lawyer.’

  ‘We were only friends,’ repeated Savage.

  ‘Like with Korky.’

  ‘Not quite. But there was nothing deeply serious.’

  ‘No big love with the police lady,’ nodded Mr Kostelanetz understandingly. ‘Just some bed. And now you are getting used to your own self again. You can carry on with all your plans, writing, travelling, maybe cruising to Tahiti for the . . . you know.’ His hands cupped across his chest again. ‘All this adventure. And you don’t need somebody about.’

  ‘No. I think I’ve managed to get through. My wife and I will be divorced as soon as we can. We have sold our house to some Jehovah’s Witnesses.’

  ‘They pay,’ nodded Mr Kostelanetz sagely. ‘They are good payers.’

  ‘I’ll be completely without ties. I can take off.’

  It all seemed too much for the big man to digest. He sat thoughtfully, morosely, for a while.

  Savage collected his glass after he had refused another drink with a gruff shake of his head. Eventually he made to rise. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said extending his heavy paw to shake hands. ‘So you go.’ He held on to Savage’s hand and gave it another dip. ‘So everybody lives happy ever and ever. The police lady marries her wanker, after he is divorced. And then you are divorced. And what about the Korky? What will she do?’

  ‘She’ll live with her parents in Swindon,’ Savage told him firmly. ‘And she’ll get a good job because she is very bright and capable. And one day, when she is twenty-two or three she will meet a nice chap . . .’

  Kostelanetz broke in tetchily. ‘So she meets this nice chap at the fucken Swindon dancing and they go off holding their hands and get married and have children . . .’

  ‘More or less,’ said Savage with a
serious smile.

  Mr Kostelanetz, eyes rolling, leaned towards him. ‘I know where she is.’

  Seventeen

  ‘She’s inside there,’ said Mr Kostelanetz. He indicated the row of damaged houses. ‘Somewhere.’

  ‘In there,’ agreed Nod. He was the one who had come armed with the cricket bat into Savage’s bedroom. As they were travelling to the place he had given Savage a bashful smile. ‘Haven’t had no chance to play this season.’

  The squat was in a line of ghostly Victorian houses, dripping and grey, in Balham. At one end of the terrace a painted sign, depicting fresh green trees, happy, confident people and open windows, by far the brightest item in the street, announced that Endersby Court was about to be transformed into luxury dwellings, although the only sign of the coming rehabilitation was that the doors had been nailed up and the windows blocked with corrugated iron.

  There was indeed a tree in the street, a sorrowful plane, and the raw stump of another, recently and savagely felled.

  ‘Firewood,’ indicated Nod knowledgeably. ‘For fires.’

  Mr Kostelanetz paused on the pavement, shuffling his crocodile shoes on the grit, and surveyed the wretched scene. The wet summer’s day gave it a deeper pall. He apparently wanted to give Nod some kudos or confidence because he looped his tweedy arm around the fatty shoulder and said: ‘So you are the contact man, okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m the contact man,’ agreed Nod filling the words with importance and pleasure. ‘I contact.’

  ‘Then now begin to contact,’ urged Mr Kostelanetz less gently. He gave the bulging shoulder a push. Savage, surveying the terrace, said: ‘Where do we get in?’

  ‘They got in,’ pointed out Mr Kostelanetz. ‘So we get in.’ He regarded Nod as a field marshal might regard an unskilled scout. ‘Which place?’