Kraven Images (25 page)

‘I’m at an enormous psychological disadvantage, my dear, naked in bed like this. How can I answer him?’

‘But there’s no need to answer him. Nicholas doesn’t stand
between
us, Robert. He stands
with
us. Isn’t that right, Nicholas?’

Silence.

‘Nicholas!’ she said sharply.

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Well then, why not get dressed if it bothers you so? You must be uncomfortable under that wet sheet anyway. We’ll have our talk as soon as you’re ready.’

‘But I can’t get out of bed.’

‘Why not?’

‘Kraven, d’you mind looking out of the window for a moment?’

Kraven turned his back. Beyond the rooftops he could see the great green expanses of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, divided from one another by the curved arm of the glinting, steely Serpentine.

‘Just look at that, Stella,’ whispered Poore-Moody hoarsely.

‘Good God!’

‘I told you Diotima was for real.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

Suddenly the sun, escaping from white fluffed clouds, raced across the green and kissed the water. The serpent’s skin had glittering golden scales.

‘Er, Nicholas…’

Kraven turned even as Poore-Moody covered himself with the sheet again.

‘Perhaps we should have our talk a little later. It’s obvious Robert isn’t ready yet. He’s been through a lot. These things take time.’

‘I’d like to have a talk with Stella right now, man and wife. Say an hour? Two at most? You understand, Kraven?’ Poore-Moody grinned.

Kraven looked at Stella. She nodded. Well, they
were
still man and wife, after all. A last encounter? He would leave them to it.

Kraven walked across the room. Dignity, that was the ticket.

‘So long, Kraven,’ said Poore-Moody cheerfully. ‘See you.’

* * *

KRAVEN SAT ONCE MORE IN THE LOUNGE of the English-Speaking Union. Two hours passed very slowly. Hungry, he went out for lunch. She was not yet there when he returned. He strolled around Berkeley Square, strode purposefully down Piccadilly to the Circus, returned to Charles Street. Still no Stella. He settled himself again in the lounge, listened to the variety of accents, mostly American, blindly turned the pages, of
Punch
. At four o’clock he ordered watercress sandwiches and a pot of tea from the ancient retainer. He went out again, walked up to Oxford Street, over to Marble Arch, down Park Lane, and so back to the Union. No Stella. He sat once more, and attempted
the
puzzle in
The Times
. He checked repeatedly to see if she had returned. He set himself the task of producing a condensed version of
Paradise Lost
in twenty lines, or fewer, coming in at the wire:

Paradise:

Enter Vice,

Satan

Waitin’.

Eve falls;

Adam bawls,

Falls too.

What to do?

Stole fruit;

Ate loot.

Man bad,

God mad.

No hope?

How cope?

Christ is come,

Man’s chum;

Dies on Cross,

Pleases Boss,

Saves all:

Lucky Fall!

He went to Shepherd Market and bought a sandwich and a bottle of beer, sauntered on, returned to the Union. Again, no Stella. At eleven o’clock he was told that the lounge was about to close. He caught a taxi on Curzon Street and asked to be taken to his hotel.

* * *

KRAVEN WOKE LATE IN SPITE OF HIMSELF. He washed and dressed hurriedly and dashed out of his hotel.
In
Tottenham Court Road he hailed a cruising taxi and ordered the driver to Charles Street.

At the reception desk at the English-Speaking Union, he was told that Mrs Poore-Moody had had all her bags picked up early that morning. She was no longer in residence.

‘Did she leave a forwarding address? Where were the bags taken?’

‘Ah, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?’ The man viewed Kraven with deep suspicion. ‘May I ask your name, sir?’

‘Kraven.’

The man pulled a slip of paper from beneath the desk and perused it gravely. ‘Would that be Dr
Nicholas
Kraven, sir?’

‘It would.’

‘Ah, that’s all right then. I’ve a message for you, sir.’ He read slowly from the slip of paper, ‘“If Dr Nicholas Kraven should call, be so good as to inform him he can reach Mrs Poore-Moody at the Inn on the Park.” I think I can safely tell you now, sir, that that’s where the bags were sent.’

Depressing news indeed. Kraven turned to go.

‘Excuse me, sir. Will you actually be
seeing
the lady in the near future?’

‘I’m going round there now.’

‘When madam’s bags were packed for her this morning, a certain item was, most unfortunately, overlooked. The chambermaid found it not half an hour ago. Might I prevail upon you, sir, to convey it to the lady?’

‘My pleasure.’

The man reached under the counter once more. With a fastidious finger and thumb and an expression of sober distaste he offered Kraven a small envelope in which had been sealed a disc-shaped object, in size a little larger than a cosmetics compact. ‘Madam might have need of this.’

Kraven slipped the envelope into his pocket.

But if at the English-Speaking Union the news of Stella
boded
ill, at the Inn on the Park it proved disastrous. Mr and Mrs Poore-Moody had paid their bill and – the clerk consulted his watch – had left the premises within the hour. Where they might have gone the clerk was unable to say, but Mrs Poore-Moody had left a note for a Dr Kraven, the gentleman now before him who had so identified himself. Kraven felt an unhappy tickling in the pit of his stomach. With a rudeness the clerk’s face made manifest, he snatched the note from the polite hand, stuffed it in his pocket, and fled the hotel.

In Hyde Park, sitting woebegone on the first unoccupied bench he had found, he took out Stella’s letter and read it. It was short.

Darling Nicholas,

You still haven’t told me, dummy, where you’re staying. Sorry about yesterday. Things came up. But as you know, my first concern in all of this –
our
first concern, yours as well as mine, I hope – is Robert and his rehabilitation.

My plans are changed. Instead of Switzerland, we’re going to Germany, to Heidelberg. Surprise, surprise! Robert and I remember the town fondly from earlier visits. Do you know it at all? The hills of the Odenwald should be dotted with cherry blossoms by now. And of course it’s a university town, peaceful in a delightful medieval way. Coincidentally, it’s the home base of that ghastly woman Robert met at the hotel. He feels, dear sweet soul, that we treated her a bit shabbily. We should look her up, he says, and offer an apology.

‘But what about us?’ I hear you saying. Yes, indeed, what
about
us? Robert’s wounds will take time to heal. Heidelberg offers hope of that, and in the long run my experience there might reap rich rewards for you and me. Be patient, darling.

Yours ever,

Stella

So that was it! Kraven felt something akin to disgust. His disappointment was swamped by anger. Decrepit Robert and his mincing-virtuous wife were in hot pursuit of dewlapped Didi and her magical potion. ‘Perhaps we’ll look her up.’ He tore Stella’s letter to shreds, crumpled the fragments, and threw them into a nearby rubbish bin.

What now was he to do? His career was at an end, an ignominious, farcical end. His past, his present, his future, all gone. He had no home, no profession, no reputation. And now Stella too had gone; indeed, had never really been there. He got up from the bench and distractedly wandered the park, his misery gathering strength, seeping through him.

A DAY OF
bleak despair gave way at first to numbness, then to an itch to be doing something, anything, and finally to thoughts of Candy Peaches. He phoned the Inn on the Park and was obliged to hold on for a moment.

‘Nicholas?’ said Candy.

‘Yes. How did you know it was me, for pity’s sake?’

‘I just knew.’

He suggested they meet at the first bench to the left through the entrance to Green Park, near the underground station, and she said, ‘See ya.’

* * *

KRAVEN ARRIVED EARLY. He sat on the bench and, idly patting his pockets, discovered at his left hip an unexpected hardness. It was the envelope he had been given at the English-Speaking Union. Within was Stella’s diaphragm case. It belonged to another life, not this. He opened it. The rubber dome, drily powdered, puffed clinically upward. He sat upon the park bench and contemplated its rotundity.

‘Hey, what y’got there, Nicholas? You gonna get that bronzed?’

Candy Peaches stood before him grinning widely.

‘Found it on the bench,’ said Kraven, ‘wondered what was
in
it.’ He snapped the diaphragm case shut and tossed it with the envelope into a waiting receptacle.

They went to a coffee shop in Shepherd Market. Candy brought Kraven up to date. Bobby’s wife had arrived unexpectedly: ‘A ball of yarn walking on toothpicks, an old broad with a yecchy Kraut accent, with this face, y’know, kinda looks like Bugs Bunny?’ Candy, leaning towards him, exposed her upper teeth, drew back her jaw, and narrowed her eyes. Diotima, without question. She had left Dolly’s suitcases outside the door. ‘Poor old Bobby.’

Dolly had taken her ouster philosophically. You win a few, you lose a few. She had got in touch with her agent, who had found her an immediate booking in Paducah, Kentucky, where only two years before her Scheherezade number had won her a silver ribbon and a civic gold star from the Chamber of Commerce. Dolly and Sugar had left for the airport that morning.

‘But you stayed on?’

‘I like it here.’ The British Library had proved more fruitful than she could have imagined, the British themselves were refreshingly polite, the atmosphere was ‘conducive’. She hoped to finish out the academic year in London. Right now, she was looking for a flat or for rooms she could afford.

Kraven was reminded that he had a house in Hampstead, one which was soon to become vacant, but he said only that he might have a lead for her. Would he be able to get in touch?

Good old Bobby had paid for her room at the Inn on the Park through the end of next week.

‘How about you, Marty?’

‘Nicholas, remember?’

‘Nickleby, I bet. When are you going back to the States?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Kraven ruefully. ‘I’m not sure you have the time.’

‘It’s worth a try.’

In that instant Kraven realized that he wanted nothing more than to pour his many sorrows into the charming ears of this beautiful, willing and receptive young woman.

‘You asked for it,’ he said. ‘But not here. Let’s go outside.’

They wandered slowly hand in hand through London streets. The warm sun smiled on them. He told her how in a single week his life had fallen in ruins about him, how his expectations of the future had been reduced to smithereens. He told her everything, held nothing back. He was lucky, she said. His slate was clean. Now he could do whatever he wanted with his life, write, travel, anything at all. And Kraven, purged, began to feel growing in himself something of her optimism. Seize the day! Why not? He would move back to London. He had his savings, not inconsiderable, from a lifetime of work. Not only that, he was now, he had learned, the Blum heir.

And so he told her, hesitantly at first but soon enthusiastically, about
Tickety-Boo
. Valueless, he said, fledgling stuff, private spurts of mental masturbation, mere finger exercises. Yet he believed they revealed a talent, small perhaps, dormant still, but worth the rousing.

They were standing on the Victoria Embankment, across the sparkling Thames from the Jubilee Gardens. He caught her in his arms and kissed her exultantly. She did not object.

* * *

ONCE AUNT CICELY’S PROFESSOR OF INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS had moved out, Kraven invited Candy to look over the Hampstead house.

‘It’s a bit gloomy,’ said Candy doubtfully.

‘I’m going to throw all this stuff out,’ he said. ‘Paint the place inside and out, refurnish, remodel the kitchen, the lot. In fact, I thought you might be willing to help. Pick fabrics, that sort of thing. A woman’s touch.’

‘I’m not that sort of a woman. Haven’t you noticed?’

‘Even so…’

‘What is it you
really
have in mind?’

‘I have it in mind to woo you, win you, and wed you. But for the short term, I know you’re looking for a place to stay. Why not move in here with me?’

She frowned as if in deep thought. ‘No hanky-panky, huh? Landlord and tenant?’ She bit her lip, then smiled. ‘Okay, sure, we’ll give it a try.’

For Kraven, her smile irradiated the gloomy room. He restrained an impulse to take her into his arms. They shook hands with mock solemnity.

* * *

ONE AFTERNOON FISHBANE PHONED.

‘Perce here. Thought you might’ve forgotten me. Circumstances force me to wonder what’s become of our little agreement.’

‘Sorry?’

Fishbane dropped his voice to a horrible whisper; Aunt Cicely must have moved within earshot. ‘The hunt for Miriam Pechvogel, a course; the hunt for Percy Fishbane’s only son. How’re you going to conduct an investigation from over here, tell me that? You was supposed t’be returning to the bleeding Hew Hess of bleeding Hay.’

‘Ah, yes,
that
. Well, as you know, my life has somewhat changed direction since we spoke. I shall be living here for the foreseeable future. But I
shall
be going to New York in a couple of months, three at the outside. I’ve things to do there, an apartment to put on the market. I can begin making discreet inquiries then.’

‘Time and tide,’ whispered Fishbane. ‘Time and tide. Don’t delay more than you have to. As he told you himself, who knows how much longer Perce has got?’

‘Rely on me,’ said Kraven, meaning it.

* * *

ONCE THE LAST OF THE WORKMEN HAD LEFT and the minimal furniture and household needments were in place, life for the couple at 15 Beauchamp Close settled into a pleasing routine. Kraven had begun writing a novel and spent his weekdays at the desk in his study. Candy spent her days in the British Library or in
her
study, writing her thesis. On most evenings they sampled Hampstead’s restaurants, returning home to read and listen to music.