Kraven Images (27 page)

He walked down Montpellier Parade glancing in at the windows of the elegant emporicula. Hadn’t there once been a toyshop along the Parade? Yes, next door but one or two to the Imperial. His father had taken him there, and Opa, and Onkel Ferri. The toyshop was gone. But the Imperial still sold cakes and pastries and served teas, albeit now under the management of Betty’s, once a rather less exalted establishment across the Square: the hobnail boots had climbed another stair.

He crossed the Floral Roundabout to Cold Bath Road. Up the hill was his school and the classroom that Miss Hudson had ruled as her demesne – ‘Miz’oodzn,’ as her terrified pupils had called her, Nicko among them, she of the parrot nose, the acerbic tongue, and the threatening battledore. The school was still there, a grim dark Gradgrind of a monster, its dead eyes catching the blessed sun and throwing back to heaven a blind and bilious yellow glare.
Not
a sight or a sound of a child today. He shuddered and hurried on.

Not far beyond the school began Valley Drive, and the Drive, as it curved and plunged towards the Pump Room, was magnificent yet: house after house in unbroken contiguity, grey-stone Victorian façades, a paean to that earlier and stouter, somehow more solid and certainly nobler age. Most now were broken into flats, or called themselves hotels, or took in boarders. But the houses still stood, outwardly unchanged, and that was something. A pair of elderly ladies, genteely poor, mere wraiths in antique black, fluttered past him hand in hand, talking in German. Refugees, he supposed, who had beached like driftwood here, perhaps during his own years, and who had held out here, weathering on an alien shore.

Crossing the road at the foot of the Drive, he turned into the Valley Gardens. Here old people sat warming sluggish blood in the April sunshine, here mothers and nursemaids pushed their prams, here idlers idled and layabouts lay about. In the Gardens springtime had blossomed extravagantly but, however vivid and abundant the flowers, with decorous and ordered restraint, a casebook demonstration of nature methodized. Kraven strolled, enchanted. He passed a local shepherdess and her swain, arm in arm, hip sliding agreeably against hip, and heard something of their bucolic raptures:

‘It was a Thursday, remember? And we did it in the park?’

‘Yes.’

‘Remember?’

‘Yes.’

Their eyebeams, twisted, had thread their eyes upon one double string. Kraven found himself aching, not for Candy, but for what of love she had represented.

He left the Gardens and made for the Old Swan Hotel, where a double whisky encouraged him to persevere.
But
in what? And whither? Except for the Crag and one or two odd corners, he had already done Harrogate. Swan Road would only take him back to Ripon, Ripon to the Barrow, and the Barrow at last to Duchy Road and the house. Yes, yes, the town was beautiful, but so what?

Thirty years before, he had sat with the other children in the cinema on a Saturday morning, had followed the bouncing ball, had screamed lustily with the rest: ‘A lit-tle bit of heav-en fell out the sky woon day, and set-tied down in York-shire and said, “I’m go-ing t’stay,” and when the an-gels saw it, it luked so neat and “raight,” they joost sprin-kled it with star-doost and named it HAR-RO-GATE.’ But for him there had been no more significance in the action of the angels than in Mummy’s sprinkling of salt into the pot of farfel.

Where
was
that cinema? The Odeon, wasn’t it? Ah yes, it lay beyond the station. One had to cross Station Bridge. Nicko had never spent much time in the area, a relatively new part of town, sensible houses built in the late ’20s and early ’30s for the upwardly immobile lower middle classes, a place in those years unaccountably hostile to Jewish refugees. But the station itself, now modernized, held memories. It was to the station that he had fled, empty suitcase in hand, when determined to run away from home. London had been his goal, London and his father. He had been found on the platform by Onkel Koko, arriving himself for a weekend in the country, who had approved of his plan but suggested that he return home first for dinner, such undertakings as Nicko’s being laudable in themselves but unwisely begun on an empty stomach. Koko had also pointed out that a threepenny-bit would not take Nicko far, perhaps no more than a half a mile. As they had made their way across Harrogate towards Duchy Road, devoting an appropriate allocation of their consideration to the relative merits of Lancasters and Flying Fortresses, Koko had suggested that
it
was perhaps a trifle ignoble – not at all the Kraven thing – to abandon a lady, namely Mummy, in her time of need, a time when her first line of defence, namely Daddy, was necessarily detained in the nation’s capital. Koko had admitted that he was himself unsure what it was best to do, but he had no doubt that Opa would be able to advise Nicko on the best possible course.

* * *

ONE DAY NOT LONG AFTER THEIR REMOVAL to Harrogate Nicko rushed from the garden he was still exploring, the garden in which he was still seeking out his Secret Place, to the back door of the house, the so-called Tradesmen’s Entrance, where his mother was talking to Wipers Willie, the gardener. He and Willie got on extremely well together, but he had no time for his friend now. He had just remembered it was Friday.

‘Is Daddy coming up today?’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘May I –’

‘Nicko, darling, don’t be so rude. You’re interrupting.’ She turned back to Willie, leaving the boy to stamp his foot impatiently. ‘Now, where were we? Eighteen-and-ninepence, is it then?’

‘Ay, moom, and then there’s the booket of horse doong for them roses, that’s eightpence, and woon-and-tuppence-ha’p’ny for the new nozzles on the hose. That cooms ter, let me see…’

‘One pound, seven-pence ha’penny,’ said Nicko.

‘Smart lad, that,’ said Willie.

‘Here you are, then, Willie. And you’ll be back tomorrow?’

‘After m’noovers and a little soomthing t’wet m’whistle. Drilling’s hot work.’

‘Mummy, may I go?’

‘Go where?’

‘To the
station
, of course. To meet
Daddy
.’

‘Whatever next! That’s
much
too far. All those streets to cross, and the traffic near the station! Perhaps when you’re a little older.’

‘But I know the way, and I’d cross at the belishas, and I’d promise to be careful!’

‘I’ll teck th’lad toot station,’ said Willie, ‘in me bike.’ The bicycle had a small front wheel surmounted by a large basket, the near upper bar of which served as handlebars.

‘We wouldn’t dream of troubling you, Willie.’

‘No trooble a tall, moom. Th’lad can sit int basket, coomfy as can be.’

‘Oh please,
please
let me go!’

‘All right,’ said Mrs Kraven doubtfully. ‘But you must sit quite still and not be a bother. Thank you so much, Willie. If you could just let him off at the main entrance. He knows the platform.’

‘Coom on then, lad. Don’t stand about gormless, ‘op in.’

And off they went, wobbly at first, along Duchy Road, and then smoothly as they turned into Ripon. What a grand way to travel! Nicko, in the gun turret of a Lancaster, scanned the skies for the Luftwaffe. Once past the Barrow Hotel the road dipped sharply. Harrogate spread out beneath them. Down they zoomed, the air whistling past their ears, down towards the Kursaal and the Royal Baths.

But from here it was all uphill to the centre of town, hard going. Willie got off the bicycle and pushed it up Parliament Street. ‘Yer a heavy little booger,’ he said. He was sweating and before long he had to pause for breath. With trembling fingers the old man took a Woodbine from behind his ear and lighted it. ‘Half a tick, then,’ he said.

‘Will you show me your wound again, the one from Wipers?’

Willie rolled up his sleeve and showed Nicko his scar. It was at least four inches long, a deep rift on the white pitted surface of his forearm. No hair grew there.

‘May I feel it, Willie?’

‘There it is, then.’

Nicko ran his finger along its length. It was unexpectedly cold and damp, and something ticked away beneath it. It made Nicko’s tummy squiggle delightfully.

‘Does it still hurt dreadfully?’

‘Only when I laff,’ said Willie grinning. He carefully stubbed out his Woodbine on the heel of his boot and settled the remnant behind his ear. ‘Off we go, then.’

Willie pushed the bicycle to the top of Parliament Street, turned left before the War Memorial, and once past Betty’s Tea Shop remounted. For a second or two they wobbled wonderfully. At last they were at the station. At the main entrance Willie lifted Nicko out of the basket.

‘Shall I wait with’ee, lad, joost till th’dad cooms?’

‘I’ll be right as rain. Thanks awfully for the lift, Willie.’

Nicko ran into the station. The train from Leeds was already in. He saw his father coming through the wicket. He had someone with him, a WREN officer. Why, she looked just like Deanna Durbin! She was holding on to Daddy’s arm, and they were laughing and talking together. Perhaps she was to spend the weekend with them. Nicko certainly hoped so.

The boy hid behind a kiosk. His idea was to trail them out of the station and then, when the time was ripe, to pounce and surprise them both. He hugged himself to restrain his excitement. What fun!

But his father was helping the lady into a taxi at the stand. She let down the window and put her face out, smiling. His father kissed her warmly. Well, apparently she was not to stay with them. If Nicko was to pounce, he had better pounce now.

‘Daddy! Daddy!’

‘Nicko!’ Felix Kraven looked surprised indeed. ‘Is Mummy with you?’

‘She’s at home. I came all by myself, with Willie. He brought me on his bicycle, Daddy. He let me feel his wound, the one from Wipers. We’re best friends.’

Felix Kraven looked far from pleased. The lady, too, had lost her smile.

‘Is that
your
little boy?’ She looked from father to son with a
very
odd expression. Perhaps, thought Nicko, she doesn’t like surprises.

‘Yes, Angelica.’ Felix Kraven sighed. ‘That’s Nicholas.’

‘How d’you do, Nicholas.’

‘How d’you do.’

Why was she blushing so? She must be very shy.

‘Well, that’s that, I suppose,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Crawford, truly sorry. I would have told you. There wasn’t time.’

‘There’s not much point in it now, is there? Goodbye, Mr Kraven.’ She turned away, then turned back. ‘And goodbye to you too, young man. Take Daddy home to Mummy, there’s a good fellow.’ The taxi window snapped up abruptly. Felix Kraven shrugged.

Had Nicko understood at the time the significance of this incident at the station? Whatever he had understood, he knew better than to say anything about it to his father. And even though the lady was the spitting image of Deanna Durbin, one of Victoria’s favourite actresses, he said nothing about it to his mother either.

Felix had been grumpy all the way home, responding only with grunts to his son’s chatter. Supper that night was a gloomy affair, with Felix complaining about the blackout and the shortages and the bombings and how exhausting it was to travel up to Yorkshire and back down to London every few days. Victoria tried in vain to cheer him up. Opa told
for
the umpteenth time the story of his first sight of Sarah Bernhardt, but to no avail. Nicko kept quiet. He was sent to bed early.

Saturday wasn’t much better. Daddy wouldn’t play with Nicko in the garden, he wouldn’t take him for a walk, he didn’t care about Willie and Wipers. He just sat sulking in his chair in the morning room reading his rotten old papers, grumbling to Opa about this and that, muttering that the war was going badly, that Hitler was virtually on their doorstep, that maybe he and Koko should have sent the children to America. ‘Sarah Bernhardt had a great success in America,’ said Opa. Saturday was completely ruined. It was best to stay out of Daddy’s way.

Happily, by Sunday morning Felix was more his old self. Nicko knew that everything would be all right when Daddy tried to tap open his soft-boiled egg and discovered it to be an empty inverted shell. He showed great surprise and complimented Nicko on his clever trick. This was an old trick of Nicko’s, but it caught Daddy every time. Opa pinched Nicko’s cheek.

After breakfast Daddy took Nicko out for a long walk, all the way to the Crag, and this time they took the mountaineers’ way down, not the sissies’ path to the side. Daddy knew all about mountains. He had scaled the Alps and the Andes. And one day he and Nicko would climb to the peak of Everest, the highest mountain of all. That would take some doing, and today they were putting in a little practice. Since they would be the first to the top, King George himself would pin medals on them and grant them knighthoods. ‘What do you think of that, Sir Nicholas?’ said Daddy in his careful English. But they would have to wait for war’s end, of course, and for Nicko to grow up a bit.

They got back in time for Sunday dinner, a magnificent meal, in spite of wartime rationing, one of Nicko’s favourites: mashed potatoes and bangers and fried cabbage-and-onions,
absolutely
scrumptious, and for afters Mummy’s world-famous utility cake. What could be better? Mummy cleared the table and carried the dishes into the kitchen while Daddy and Nicko talked of cricket and Opa nodded in his seat. Sunday was Gladys’s day off and she had gone to the Pine Woods with her soldier sweetheart. She said she loved the smell of pine.

After a bit Daddy and Nicko followed Mummy into the kitchen. Daddy gave a gentle slap to Mummy’s bottom and kissed her on the back of the neck. He had an announcement to make, he said.

‘Nicko and I are very, very sleepy after our exertions of the morning. No lady can possibly understand the effort expended in climbing not only down but also up the mountaineers’ path at the Crag. It is a task for heroes. And so, we are tired, it goes without saying. But we understand that you are tired too. Accordingly, today we will
all
enjoy a nap, not just Opa.’

Mummy blushed and giggled. Nicko groaned. He had been looking forward to playing the hunter’s game this afternoon, with Daddy in his usual role as the Frightful Beast.