Kraven Images (24 page)

Kraven, who had been holding the phone at a distance from his ear for the last several minutes, decided to hang up. At that moment, Stella emerged naked from the bathroom.
She
glowed, all signs of tiredness gone. Kraven marvelled.

‘Straighten things out at the college?’

Kraven smiled a smile he would himself have been hard put to explain. ‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that I am absolutely free.’

AS THEY WALKED
towards the Inn on the Park, Stella spoke of what she hoped to accomplish. There was a little village in the Swiss Alps, Villars, not far from Vevey, where she and Robert had stayed years before, quiet, semi-rustic. She had phoned ahead. ‘He needs rest and love. Above all, love.’

Kraven was bitterly disappointed that she had even conceived such a plan, but since he was quite sure she would be unable to pull it off, he simply asked, ‘And how much time do you propose to devote to his convalescence?’

‘Who can say?’

‘He probably can use the rest, poor old sod, but love? What the hell d’you think he’s been up to all this while?’

She tossed her head in anger. ‘What do you know about love? You think it’s just a function of your prick.’

She made a visible effort to control herself. ‘Try to understand Robert. You don’t know him. He’s so sensitive, so easily hurt.’ She took his hand. ‘Finding out about us crushed him. Even so, he thought first about me and my happiness.
That’s
why he wrote the letter, don’t you see? He wanted to give me an easy out, he thought I wanted it that way.’

‘And
don’t
you?’

‘That’s beside the point. We’re talking about
him
now and
his
needs.’

‘My God, Stella! He’s running around with a stripper. A burlesque queen. He’s even got her sisters along. For someone who wants to fade out quietly, he’s leaving with a most remarkable bang.’

She dropped his hand. ‘Go ahead, make jokes. I tell you he’s bruised.’

‘His balls are perhaps.’

‘Ssh, Nicholas!’ Stella glanced from side to side. She placed a forefinger to her lips. It was an old fashioned, melodramatic, and utterly enchanting gesture.

It was true that he had been raising his voice. They had paused before the entrance to the hotel. There were people in evidence, people arriving, people waiting for taxis.

‘Obviously you’re going to have to see for yourself. You seem to think he’s walking around in some kind of a trance. I tell you, he’s
involved
, he’s got
plans
, and they don’t include being coddled in Switzerland. Look, he’s going to put on some kind of a Shakespearean strip show for them. That’s where the monastery endowment is going. Probably he hopes to make a bundle out of it; maybe he will.’ Kraven felt that Stella was slipping from him. Couldn’t she see what Poore-Moody was up to? Wasn’t his hypocrisy plain? ‘Did you ever stop to consider this: maybe he doesn’t
want
to be saved? maybe he
likes
things the way they are?’

‘That’s enough, Nicholas, not another word. He’s
sick
, he doesn’t know what he wants. He needs his ego rebuilt. We destroyed that, you and I. How can I abandon him now? His letter was right about one thing: he’s getting old. Who knows how much longer he’s got? He’s a human being. He needs love and understanding.’

‘What about me? I’m a human being too. You think
I
don’t need love?’ He glanced despairingly about him. ‘What about
us?
’

‘
Us?
’ she hissed. ‘We’re here today because of
us
. Now we must see what we can do about
him
.’

She swept past him and into the lobby. He could only follow.

* * *

THEY EMERGED FROM THE LIFT on the twelfth floor.

‘What if he’s not alone right now?’ said Kraven. ‘Don’t you think the decent thing would’ve been to ring up from downstairs first?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Nicholas. You choose the oddest times to exercise your sense of decency. I’m his wife, remember?’

She knocked on the door. Silence. She knocked again. Aha, the sound of stirring. She knocked a third time. Someone was there, on the other side of the door.

‘Yes, what can it be you want? Please to go away.’ It was a woman’s voice, hinting at hysteria.

Stella gasped. Kraven caught her arm. He raised his voice. ‘Floor porter ’ere mod’m. Shampine and flars, complimongs of the management.’

‘A moment, please.’ A brief conference in indistinguishable vocables went on behind the door. ‘Yes, yes, very nice.’

The door opened slightly. Stella gave it a violent push and marched in. Diotima von Hoden, knocked off balance, fell into a fortuitously placed chair. She sat rubbing her forehead where the door had struck it. She was wearing a man’s striped silk robe tied loosely over her rotundity. Her grey hair frizzed wildly in all directions.

In the tousled bed, cross-legged, his back straight, sat Robert Poore-Moody. A lighted cigar drooped from his lips. His rounded torso was a forest of tangled black and white fur, through which two flabby hairless breasts, their nipples a delicate pink, protruded. Disordered sheets covered him to the waist. With his arms dropped, the palms of his hands outwards, he resembled an oriental idol.

‘Robert,’ said Stella, ‘I don’t know who or what this revolting creature is, but please ask her to leave.’

Her words had an immediate effect on Poore-Moody. With a groan he pulled the sheet from his waist and threw it over his head. Almost at once a small circle of discoloration appeared at head level. It grew brown, black, and then, out of a lazy spiral of smoke, the glowing tip of Poore-Moody’s cigar broke its way. Stella rushed to the bedside and taking up a pitcher of water from the night table inverted it over her husband’s head. He yelped but remained in place, bolt upright, the damp ghost of a Buddha.

Kraven watched from the open doorway, reluctant to enter.

‘Just one moment, miss.’ Diotima sprang nimbly from the chair and bounded between Stella and the shivering Poore-Moody. ‘Just one bleeding minute, I say. By what right you are bursting in here? There are no laws in England? I think so, miss. By what right you are disturbing our peace? In London there are no bobbies? Beware, I say.’

‘Robert!’ Stella’s tone was grim.

Diotima’s face was now bright red. ‘This is the bleeding limit! I ask you, where is your badge of authority? Who are you? Only answer me that!’

‘His wife. I’m
Mrs
Poore-Moody.’

Diotima’s elbows stopped in mid-motion. ‘Robby,’ she wailed, ‘Robby, my dear tasty little sausage, is this true, this terrible thing she is saying?’

The head beneath the sheet nodded. The wilted cigar rose and fell.

‘So.’ Diotima dropped her arms to her sides, instantly calm. The mad look left her eyes, the heightened colour her cheeks. ‘I go quietly, it’s a fair cop.’ She went briskly to the closet and gathered together her clothes. ‘A moment to dress, please.’ She made for the bathroom.

A groan issued from beneath the sheet.

‘Robert, come out from under there. And you, Nicholas, for God’s sake come in and close the door.’

They both did as they were told. This was a Stella new to Kraven, one perhaps known only too well to Poore-Moody. There was a brisk, no-nonsense determination to her, an attitude that would brook no disagreement, an assertiveness that turned grown men into small boys.

Meanwhile, Kraven was delighted to observe that Poore-Moody looked vile. Diotima must have been working him hard. A heavy stubble accentuated his pallor; his eyes were bloodshot. He glanced at Stella sideways and up. There was a boyish bashfulness to his voice. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Don’t say anything for the moment. Just shake hands with Nicholas here. As soon as that witch of a woman has gone, the three of us are going to have a long talk. Above all, don’t worry. There’s nothing to be ashamed of; everything’s going to be straightened out. But first, shake hands.’

Poore-Moody obediently held up a hand towards Kraven, who ignored it.

The door to the bathroom opened. Diotima emerged composed, every inch the sober academic.

‘First,’ she began, looking around calmly, ‘I would like to say – ‘But then for the first time she noticed Kraven. Her expression underwent an immediate transformation. ‘Swine!’ she shrieked, leaping nimbly across the room. Before he could prevent her, she struck the startled Kraven a stinging blow across the cheek. ‘Swine! Whoever you are!’ She assumed a boxing stance. Her eyes stormed. ‘Swine!’

‘She seems to know you,’ said Stella.

‘Never seen her before in my life.’

‘A-
ha
! a-
ha
! Not know me? A-
ha
! Not know the Koh-i-Noor? Not know the Gaiety? What next? A-
ha
!’ Diotima was prancing around making fisted feints at Kraven’s jaw.

‘She’s mad then,’ said Stella. ‘Robert, can you do anything with her?’

‘Now, now, Didi,’ said Poore-Moody uselessly.

Kraven, at the centre of Diotima’s circling, felt at once a trifle nervous and more than a trifle foolish.

But the fight went out of Diotima as swiftly as it had come. She shook her head as if clearing it and released a sigh. Her pose was now that of a gymnast come to rest after a complicated sequence of exercises, legs together, arms at her sides, head slightly bowed. Only her bosom betrayed her recent exertions. She had a word for each of them: ‘Remember me, dear Robby.’ ‘Your claim on him is running out, madam.’ ‘Swine, one fine day we will be bleeding evens-stevens.’ She left.

‘Really, Robert, I understand in principle. I mean, I’m aware of your needs, your physiological and your psychological needs. But how could you? With such a creature?’

‘Sit down, my dear,’ said Poore-Moody courteously, patting the bed beside him. Stella acceded. There was something about them, it occurred to Kraven, of Victoria and her beloved Albert. No one need doubt who occupied the throne. The Prince Consort turned to the Queen’s gillie: ‘And you, sir – Mr Kraven, isn’t it? There are chairs a-plenty.’ He waved vaguely about him.

Kraven leaned back, half squatting, against a low sideboard. His studied nonchalance dislodged a thick pink satin scroll. It began slowly, slowly to unfurl. They all watched it, fascinated. It was an old fashioned whalebone corset, replete with laces, a
Panzer
, a tank, as Opa had once dubbed the variety. In her haste Diotima had forgotten a fundamental item of her costume.

‘You ask me for an explanation, Stella.
You
ask
me
. You and your… your Nicholas here’ – Poore-Moody gestured dismissively in Kraven’s direction – ‘the two of you follow me to England, no doubt making love all the way, and
you
ask
me
for an explanation. My sweet, you never fail to delight and surprise. Where, one wonders, did you learn so much
about
the art of defence?’ He was absentmindedly playing with his stomach hair, curling it around his finger, releasing it, curling it once more, releasing it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was cruel of me and insulting to you. You deserve better.’

Kraven, transforming discomfort into a gesture of scorn, shifted from cheek to cheek. The lamp on the sideboard teetered.

‘Nicholas, either sit in a chair or stand up. You’ll have the lamp on the floor next.’ Stella was peremptory.

Kraven stood up and folded his arms across his chest. Stella nodded her approval and returned her attention to her husband.

‘How could I? you ask.’ Poore-Moody considered the question. His expression suggested considerable puzzlement. ‘I don’t honestly know. She came to my room a couple of nights ago. There was some kind of a mix-up. She had the right name and room number but the wrong person. Anyway, we got to talking. She’s something of a scientist, you know, an erotologist. That’s what she called herself. Her name’s Diotima von Hoden. She’s had fascinating adventures all over the globe. You wouldn’t believe half the things she’s done. She claims to have discovered a powerful aphrodisiac, Didi’s Potion. She had a vial of it with her, quite by chance, and she offered me some. You know how these things go. In a spirit of fun I agreed to have a sip. That’s really all I remember. I guess I blacked out.’

Poore-Moody eyed them with a look of childish innocence. ‘No, I’m not speaking figuratively at all. The fact is, I
did
black out. And each time I came to – three times, I think, in all – Diotima poured some more of the stuff down my throat. She was just about to give me another dose when you arrived.’

‘Thank God we did.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. But you know, Stella, it’s marvellous stuff just the same. Diotima explained that after the body builds up a level of tolerance one can enjoy
all
the physical benefits
plus
the special fillip of full consciousness.’

‘What’s it supposed to do?’

‘It’s an aphrodisiac, Stella. What d’you suppose it’s supposed to do?’

‘But if you were unconscious, how can you possibly know it works?’

‘Oh, I know it works.’ Poore-Moody smiled mysteriously.

Kraven walked over to the windows and examined the view from the twelfth floor. Across the street a few of the magnificent houses built by the Regency nobility still remained. But down at the corner others had been razed to make way for yet another high-rise hotel, aesthetically meretricious, graceless, like the one from which he now contemplated the city of his birth. When he had left for New York there had been no Inn on the Park.

Behind his back Kraven felt Poore-Moody’s nod in his direction, felt Stella’s eyes on his back, felt the excluding privacy and complicity of husband and wife. He turned to face them.

‘Aren’t we forgetting something? Aren’t we forgetting the saintly letter he sent you in New York? The ageing eyes piously fixed on the next world? The monastery endowment? Dolly, Sugar, and Candy? The Scheherezade number in Westchester? I could go on. Your husband is not exactly an innocent victim. Let’s not shed too many tears.’

‘Nicholas, how can you be so cruel, so crude?’

There was something these people knew that he would never understand, certain unwritten rules of behaviour inaccessible to him, refinements of social intercourse to which he was blind. Had he misrepresented Poore-Moody? He had not. Was not Stella this man’s wife? Had he not known that Kraven and Stella had been lovers? He had. One did not
hand
out blame, of course. But one need not accept it either. Poore-Moody would have been screwing wherever opportunity presented itself whether Kraven and Stella had met or not. More power to him. Kraven hoped that at Poore-Moody’s age he would have the necessary strength. But why did Stella feel that she and Kraven were somehow at fault? And why were they treating Poore-Moody as one convalescing from an embarrassing disease? Surely the old fellow’s healthy relish for a little of what he fancied should ease her residual guilt feelings. One touch of nature made the whole world kin. Or so one would have thought but for the invisible lines that these wealthy alien presences drew.