The End of the Alphabet (9 page)

 

L.

The sun began to rise as Ambrose Zephyr sat on his front step. It was, still, his best time of the day.

He watched number twelve with his tiny dog. The elderly man frowned: he had forgotten his hat. Number eighteen, naked this morning and trusting that no one was awake at such an hour, gathered the morning paper from her doorstep. The neighbourhood stray, ignored, eyed the birds in the park across the way.

The night fog burned off. For Zipper Ashkenazi, standing at her front window wearing one of her husband's new shirts, it looked to be a rare morning. A fine one, for the time of year.

Ambrose sipped his coffee, certain his wife was catching just five minutes more. He waved to number eighteen and sheepishly smiled an apology for having seen more than he should have. The elderly man went home to get his hat.

 

Zipper waited until the sun came through the front window, then made a cup of tea. She joined her husband on the front step.

I need to deal with the office, Ambrose said.

Zipper watched the neighbourhood stray.

Loose ends, that sort of thing.

Zipper examined the dregs in her cup.

I should have called, she said.

 

Near Leicester Square stood the offices of Dravot, Carnehan. A few streets away stood the offices of the third most-read fashion magazine in the country. Zipper and Ambrose had managed to work in the same part of the city, but neither one could remember when they had managed lunch
together. Or ridden the underground as a couple off to work. Isn't it funny, thought Zipper, to be doing that now. They decided D&C would be first and best dealt with.

Few heads turned as Ambrose and Zipper walked through the creative department to his office. Everyone is too fresh, thought Zipper. Too busy. Too young.

Greta sat in Ambrose's chair, looking out the windows and fidgeting with his collection of type blocks. Without turning around she said how odd it all felt. D&C had gotten the account.

I'll just clear up a few things, said Ambrose.

More annoying than odd, actually, said Greta.

I won't be long.

Big meeting next week. Strategy.

Most of it you can toss.

Tactics. New staff.

The plants are fake. They'll last.

Global campaign. Much work to do.

Just a few things.

The billing will be huge…

Greta's voice trailed out through the window.

Ambrose picked over his desk. A photograph of himself at a location shoot: longer hair, horrid
bellbottomed trousers, a red-haired actress nearby. A newspaper style manual. A pocket atlas, leather-bound with ribbon marker. A few travel brochures from the sixties:
Ski Zermatt This Year, Beautiful St. Moritz, Now Is the Time for Geneva.
A moody black-and-white photograph of Zipper. Taken in a rough country in a younger time.

You can keep the type, said Ambrose. My gift.

Greta turned away from the window. Tears flowed down her cheeks and dripped from her chin.

Bloody annoying, she said.

Yes it is, said Ambrose.

I hate this. I want to go home.

I hear Berlin is lovely this time of year.

Ambrose smiled and kissed Greta warmly on both cheeks. He pocketed the photograph of Zipper and left.

 

Pru was yelling at Milan or Paris or New York or her assistant when Zipper appeared at her door. Pru threw her earpiece across the room, glanced at Ambrose as if he wasn't there and began yelling at Zipper.

I quit, said Zipper. Her life had unravelled. It
didn't need Pru picking at the threads. She wished
quit
had come out sounding angrier.

YOU WILL NEVER WRITE AGAIN, Pru said as quietly as her disposition could manage. I WILL SEE TO IT.

Perhaps you will, said Zipper.

 

MNOPQRSTU.

It took most of the day for Ambrose and Zipper to reach Hyde Park. Here and there Ambrose's gait had slowed to the shuffle of an old man. Crowded pavements and clogged traffic had taken their own toll.

Through Kensington Gardens the pace improved. In other times, on better strolls, Ambrose would say he could see the King out for his morning ride: mounted on a dapple grey, overdressed in lace and buckles, the court blundering behind him like a bad comedy sketch.

They stopped to rest at the edge of the Round Pond. Canvas deckchairs had been put out for the season. Ambrose looked across the water and the swans and into nothing.

What would you have done, Zipper asked.

 

I would have sat on a beach in Mumbai, said Ambrose, and had my hair cut. For extra rupees the barber would have told my fortune.
Sahib will be leading a surprising life.
You would have worn a sari the colour of aubergine.

New York. I'd been there once. On business? No. You were there. For the spring shows. Did you take me along? Or was it business? Funny how I can't recall. It was much farther away than I remembered.

O. O…is Osaka. I bow to the department store hostesses, they cover their smiles when they hear my Japanese. You and I are at the theatre.
Bunraku
I think they call it here. A tragic tale. Montagues and Capulets, judging by the acting. You cry during the final act. P. Pago Pago. Paddington. Perth? I learn a new language, Queensland gone walkabout. We waltzed, didn't we? The beach…

There was an odd half-smile on Ambrose's face. He looked away.

Keep going, said Zipper. Please keep going.

What?

R. You were about to say R.

 

…Rio…the beach. Ipanema. They have professional foot washers imagine that I can see Africa from the beach and you are not so young or tall but very tanned and quite lovely and there's Shanghai sea of tai chi women scowling at me a tiny string ensemble of five-year-olds playing something in a minor Barber's
Adagio
sad for such little hands…

 

Don't stop, said Zipper.

I can't.

T?

Can't remember. Timbuktu?

Don't worry. U then.

Ambrose looked at his wife as if he didn't know her. The King, he said, is not much of a horseman.

Oh God.

 

Ambrose and Zipper did not move until dark. The panic was slow to ease.

The moon rose above the treetops and they walked the rest of the way home. As they turned into their road, Ambrose said he remembered.

 

V.

 

We were staying in a
pensione
near the Piazza San Marco. I woke up too early. It was difficult putting on the linen number in the dark, but I didn't want to wake you. I borrowed a blanket from the hotel and walked across the piazza.

Everything was mist and fog. It was raining, softly, off and on. The air felt cold for the time of year. It was too early for the cafés to open.

I found a chair and pulled it to a better spot near the lagoon. The gondolas were still tied to
their posts, bobbing like toy boats. I wrapped myself in the blanket and soaked in the hazy view across the lagoon. In all the years we talked about Venice and pictured Venice and dreamed of Venice, did we ever once imagine it might smell?

I was sleeping when you found me. You said you had worried. I'm fine, I said. How could I not be? I've kept a promise.

You smiled and said yes, finally, I had.

The waiters were unstacking chairs, wiping tables, opening umbrellas. The piazza began filling with tourists bundled against the chill, griping about the weather, trying to fit the Campanile in the viewfinder.

You and I left the edge of the lagoon and went off in search of breakfast. We found the Bridge of Sighs, lost our way to the Erberia, and decided we weren't hungry anyway. We were wet and cold and our clothes reeked of dead fish and it couldn't have mattered less.

 

Zipper said that was how she remembered it as well.

 

Z.

I'll be along in a minute, Ambrose said. Zipper went upstairs and crawled on top of the duvet. She stared at the ceiling.

What felt like hours later Ambrose appeared at the bedroom door. Zipper helped him into bed, wrapped him in an extra blanket to stop the shivering, curled herself around him. She was drifting in and out of sleep when the air in the Victorian terrace turned suddenly thick. The silence startled her awake.

Zipper cried quietly for a long while before ringing Kitts and Freddie. They would know what to do, whom to call.

She kissed her husband's eyes and went downstairs.

 

On the kitchen table she found her well-thumbed edition of
Wuthering Heights
, a ragged slip of paper tucked in the first few pages.
Chapter One. 1801—I have just returned from a visit…

On the paper, Zanzibar had been scribbled over. In the margin was written
Zipper
. With the proper amount of swoosh to the Z, and in a remarkably steady hand.

 

A few evenings later, Zipper Ashkenazi sat on her doorstep under a threatening sky. She wore a borrowed linen jacket, too large across the shoulders, but warm enough against a stiff spring breeze. Beside her stood the leather suitcase from under the bed.

She watched number twelve carry his tiny dog around the park. Number eighteen hurried along the pavement, a few minutes behind her time. The neighbourhood stray strolled towards the birds.

When the elderly man passed by, he paused. He put down the dog and turning smartly towards Zipper, took off his hat and bowed. The dog stood unsettled at his master's feet, trying to ignore the neighbourhood stray. The man replaced his hat, collected his dog and walked slowly home.

Number eighteen kept walking past her waiting children and stopped a step or two below Zipper. The woman's smile was shy. After a moment she found something to say. She told Zipper that she had always enjoyed her column in the fashion magazine. It was the first thing she read every month. You always have an interesting story to tell, she said.

There was another pause. Yes, well, the woman said finally. Tea, she suggested, might be nice. Perhaps…sometime…when you're ready then.

Zipper thanked the woman for her kindness. Tea would be brilliant. Soon. The woman's children waved their art, and off she went.

Zipper sat for a while longer, watching the empty park. It began to rain. She opened the journal that had come from the bookshop in Amsterdam. With slow and gentle care, Zipper emptied the contents of the envelope into
Ambrose's suitcase. From a pocket of her jacket she pulled a type block. Boldface, sans serif. She paused, then put the worn wooden cube back where it belonged.

She turned to the journal's first page, wiped her hand down its blank face, thought for a moment, and began to write.

This story is unlikely.

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For gracious friendship, confederacy, and editorial wisdom nonpareil: Martha Kanya-Forstner.

For representation in the face of all reason: Suzanne Brandreth, Dean Cooke. In London: Will Francis. In Zurich: Sebastien Ritscher. In Milan: Marco Vigevani, Claire Sabatie Garat.

My Doubleday family: Maya Mavjee, Kristin Cochrane, Scott Sellers, Martha Leonard, Amy Black, Lara Hinchberger, Nicholas Massey-Garrison. The sales and marketing cousins: fearless, generous, and able bodies all. And new and wise American friends: Christine Pride, Bill Thomas.

For extraordinary craft in the making of books: Kelly Hill, Carla Kean, Christine Innes, Stephanie Fysh, Shaun Oakey.

For patience, enthusiasm, and Ambrose's suitcase: Hannah Richardson, Sanger Richardson.

 

And for saying yes: Rebecca Richardson, without whom the above would have never read a word.

 

CSR
, 10.06