An Unsuitable Attachment

by Barbara Pym

  The conversation about Rupert petered out; perhaps the thought of a crowd of anthropologists was somehow unfruitful and put a stop to the wanderings of the imagination. It seemed easier to discuss the encounter in Babbington's.

  'Do you think we'll be seeing much of Father Branche?' Penelope asked.

  'Basil Branche,' Ianthe murmured, a smile playing about her lips. 'I can hardly remember him, really. He stayed such a short time.'

  'Did his health break down?'

  'Yes, I believe it did. He was said not to be very strong. Of course the work in my father's parish wasn't particularly exhausting.'

  Ianthe moved over to the balcony and stood looking out into the noisy Roman night. She could not concentrate on Basil Branche when John was so much in her mind. For one whose thoughts were normally disciplined it was disconcerting and humiliating to find how much he was creeping into them. Perhaps 'creep' was hardly the word, though there was something appropriate about its insidiousness. Still, she had promised to send him a postcard and the wording of that would need careful consideration.

  'Look,' she called to Penelope, 'such a strange illuminated sign — BANCO DI SANTO SPIRITO,' she spelled out.

  'Bank of the Holy Spirit?' said Penelope. 'Is it a real bank or something to do with the Vatican? It reminds one of those great red signs you sometimes see in London — TAKE COURAGE — have you ever noticed them?'

  'Yes,' said Ianthe. 'I believe it's a kind of beer — but how many people must have been strengthened and comforted by seeing that message shining out into the night.'

  15

  Both Daisy and Sister Dew woke early the next morning. My hospital training, Sister Dew said to herself complacently, confident that she would be the first up. She felt cheated when she saw that Daisy was already standing on the balcony in a shapeless white winceyette nightdress, looking as if she were performing some kind of ritual sun or nature worship.

  Sister Dew lay in bed, uncertain whether to get up or to pretend that she was not yet awake. She turned over to look at her watch on the table between the two beds. Twenty past seven. Daisy was taking up more than her share of the table with a guide book, a Bible, two novels, and a large bottle of Kitzymes, which Sister Dew happened to know were yeast tablets for cats. Surely she didn't take them herself? Perhaps she had forgotten to take them to the lady she'd been to see last night. Quite late coming in she'd been, so that Sister Dew was already in bed and there had been no embarrassment about washing or getting undressed. Oh well, no doubt they'd come to some arrangement to suit them both. Live and let live sort of thing, thought Sister Dew, a little confused.

  'Good morning, Miss Pettigrew,' she said. 'I see you're one for early rising like I am. Best part of the day, I always think.'

  'Yes, lovely morning,' said Daisy rather gruffly. 'Mind if I wash first?'

  'No — you do. I won't look,' said Sister Dew coyly.

  'Oh, I don't mind. After all we're all made alike.'

  'Well, not quite, Miss Pettigrew.'

  'No — male and female created He them, more or less, or as near as makes no matter,' said Daisy. 'But you and I are both too old to have any false modesty.' And with this she stripped off her nightdress, and flung it on the bed and advanced to the wash basin.

  Sister Dew was so surprised that she forgot to look the other way.

  'I ordered breakfast for a quarter to eight,' said Daisy, putting on various garments. 'Of course we have it in our rooms here.'

  'Oh, a continental breakfast, I suppose.' Sister Dew paused, as if considering the implications of her statement. The continental breakfast, like the continental Sunday, was something she had heard about and when some time later there was a violent knocking on the door, it seemed suitable that the tray should be borne in shoulder-high, by a very good looking young waiter.

  'Well,' she said, turning to Daisy half shocked and half delighted, 'fancy that.''

  'I should have it in bed if I were you,' Daisy suggested, seeing that Sister Dew was not yet dressed.

  'Breakfast in bed! Well I never —if people could see me now,' she said, removing an old-fashioned metal curler from her front hair. 'I'd better smarten myself up in case anyone comes in, hadn't I. You never know!'

  ***

  It had been decided that the morning should be spent visiting St Peter's and the Vatican, for whatever one did not see one must see that. Ruins were more easily glossed over, one church or one fountain could be confused with another, but St Peter's was not to be so easily disposed of.

  Sophia had visited the basilica several times before and, as one might say, thought nothing of it, but Mark was always impressed and overawed. It did not give him the same comfortable feeling as seeing the hurrying priests at the airport had done. He tried to think of Canterbury Cathedral, as being perhaps the nearest Anglican equivalent, but all that came into his mind was the irrelevant picture — vignette almost — of a tall thin English lady he and Sophia had once seen arranging long-stalked thornless red roses on the high altar one Saturday morning. He experienced a sudden wave of homesickness, yet no sermon suggested itself to him. He slipped away to a side altar to say his prayers.

  Edwin Pettigrew looked around him perfunctorily, yet impressed by the sheer size of everything. He was not a believer, though he sometimes went to church out of politeness to Mark and Sophia. He had to keep reminding himself that this was a holiday which his sister had persuaded him to take because he needed it. Therefore he should be deriving benefit from it and the sight of so much gilt and marble must be doing him good. Yet his thoughts kept returning to the Aberdeen terrier he and Daisy had seen the evening before in the Via Botteghe Oscure. Such an unexpected sight, an Aberdeen terrier in Rome, and with an interesting condition of the tail glands which he had spotted immediately, though professional etiquette prevented him from drawing the owner's attention to it.

  Those confessionals, Daisy thought. Confessions in all languages. And there was somebody actually making use of one, with all those crowds of sightseers shuffling past. Not a black-shawled Italian peasant woman or a Spanish donna with a lace mantilla thrown over her head, but an Irish lady in tweeds and a felt hat. Or so she looked to be. What must it feel like to confess one's sins? Mark was always urging them to do so and Daisy had listened, tight-lipped and disapproving, to many such sermons. This will give him an opening, she thought — yet who could blame him for wasting such a golden opportunity.

  Penelope hadn't really wanted to come to St Peter's though she felt she 'ought' to see it. She kept thinking of Rupert Stonebird's dinner party and the Fairfaxes who would have given her an introduction to the man who had so inconsiderately dropped down dead by the obelisk in the square. When they saw St Peter's foot, worn away by the devotion of countless pilgrims, she had a superstitious desire to kiss it, as if doing so could bring her good luck, but when the moment came she couldn't do it. She became fiercely hygienic and Protestant and held back.

  'How can they,' she whispered to Ianthe, then realized that a young Italian was pressing too close to her and sprang away in horror, both at this episode and the whole idea of kissing the foot.

  Ianthe's feelings were as mixed as those of the rest of the party. She had dutifully 'read up' something about St Peter's, but a guide book springs to life in unexpected ways and now she found herself wondering what John's comments would have been. Would it be possible to go round sightseeing with him and expect him to say the sort of things appropriate to the occasion? But perhaps if they were to have any kind of life together, none of it — or very little — would be spent looking at churches and picture galleries, so it wouldn't matter. Plenty of people did without that sort of thing and were perfectly happy . . . Ianthe stopped short at the boldness of her thoughts, wondering what she could have meant, and then she felt Penelope clutch her arm, as if in need of her protection.

  'Really,' she whispered fiercely, 'that man — even in church. You'd think, wouldn't you, that even an Italian . . .'

  Ianthe kep
t hold of Penelope's arm, for she felt in need of protection too, or perhaps not protection so much as the comfort and advice of a woman friend. Perhaps she could tell Penelope about John — for she longed to tell somebody — though Sophia would really be a more suitable confidante.

  'I suppose you'd say that the Pope was the vicar of St Peter's in a manner of speaking,' declared Sister Dew, bringing everybody's thoughts back to the matter in hand. 'I wonder what the lady workers here use to keep all that marble clean?'

  'One doesn't somehow think of ladies working here,' said Sophia, daunted by the idea. 'Our little brass-cleaning party would be quite lost in all this. Shall we go and have something to eat? I know a restaurant here where we can get a good cheap osso buco.'

  They walked for some time until they came to a modest-looking restaurant. Just as they were about to go in Daisy saw a chicken's head lying on the dusty pavement.

  'A severed head,' said Penelope facetiously. 'It seems appropriate to find one here.'

  'I don't think I shall want to patronize this restaurant,' said Daisy firmly. 'It looks as if there has been something not quite as it should be in the way that chicken was killed.'

  'Oh come now, Daisy,' said her brother. 'You needn't eat chicken — you can have spaghetti or something like that.'

  'Of course you wouldn't see that sort of thing in France,' Daisy went on. 'They waste nothing there.'

  'No, I suppose the head would have gone into the stock-pot,' Sophia agreed, feeling that Daisy was being somewhat illogical. 'Well, are we going in? I think we're all hungry.'

  Spaghetti was ordered for Daisy and osso buco for the others.

  'A sort of savoury rice with a bone in the middle,' said Sister Dew, when she was served. 'Osso means a bone, doesn't it.'

  'And wine?' said Mark. 'What do you think?' he turned to Edwin for his opinion.

  'Oh, something of the country,' said Edwin easily, for he hardly noticed what he ate or drank.

  'The wines that do not travel,' said Sophia, her eyes filling with tears.

  'You mean Frascati,' said Mark doubtfully. 'I should have thought perhaps with osso buco . . . what would you like?' he asked, turning to Ianthe.

  'I don't know,' she said in confusion. 'I don't know anything about wine.' She was a little shocked that Sophia appeared to, unless it had been just a sentimental fancy that had prompted her remark.

  'I don't usually take wine in the middle of the day,' said Daisy.

  'My dear, you hardly ever take it at any time,' said her brother.

  'Not in England, but it seems ungrateful not to in a foreign and wine-producing country,' said Daisy surprisingly. 'The fruits of the earth are given to us so that in due time we may enjoy them.'

  Mark looked a little self-conscious, as if Daisy's remark was one he ought to have made himself, but then he applied himself to his Chianti, feeling that — with all due respect — her reason for drinking was dutiful rather than joyous.

  Sister Dew also drank Chianti, saying that she 'quite' liked it and found it 'something similar to Wincarnis'.

  Sophia and Ianthe had Frascati — Sophia thinking of the little hill town in the autumn, Ianthe of the old Frascati's restaurant in Holborn where she had once been taken to lunch as a schoolgirl by her uncle and aunt.

  Afterwards they all felt tired and went back to the pensione to rest. It was not really hot enough to have a siesta, but as they were on holiday and abroad, no excuse was needed for an afternoon sleep.

  'I think I shall write a few postcards,' said Ianthe. 'It seems a good opportunity to send them now.' She ran over in her mind the people to whom she would send them. The Spanish Steps and the flowers to Miss Grimes — as Ianthe still thought of her — in her room off the Finchley Road; the Colosseum to her uncle and aunt; St Peter's to Mervyn Cantrell; and the Trevi fountain to John. It was all quite simple, really; one need not write very much — remarks about the weather and what they had seen and done would be enough. It was only when she came to John's card that she hesitated for a moment. Sitting at the little table in the window, she looked out over the rooftops, her hand on her brow and her pen pressed to her right temple.

  Penelope, watching her from her bed where she lay pretending to be asleep, thought, now perhaps she is wondering what to say to Rupert Stonebird, sending him a card to Perugia. Of course he would have given her his address. Penelope remembered her that evening coming out of his dining room with tulip leaves in her hands, and there was that other occasion — more difficult to visualize — when she had brought him a portion of ox tail in a basin.

  At last Ianthe wrote something on the postcard, but it seemed to be very little as far as Penelope could judge.

  'Hope to see this fountain tonight and make a wish,' was what she had written to John — the kind of message that might seem disastrous when remembered after posting. Emotion, or the too careful lack of emotion, recollected in tranquillity. A woman is apt to worry, perhaps unnecessarily, about such things, for a man will interpret what she writes in his own way and it is almost certain to be not the way she intended. John might think that she meant to wish that he was in Rome with her, when she hardly knew whether she wished it or not, but it was certain that by choosing that particular card and having to think so carefully what to write she was in some way irrevocably committing herself to him.

  When she had written it she put her pen away, took off her shoes, and lay down on her bed. But it was a self-conscious kind of resting, sleepless and unrelaxed, and she was glad when Penelope, who also seemed not to have slept, suggested that they should go out by themselves for a cup of tea or coffee. As they threaded their way along the narrow pavements Ianthe felt again the desire to confide in Penelope, but it was difficult, impossible really, to know how to bring up the subject. Her experience as a canon's daughter of having to make conversation in sticky social situations had not included anything like this, and the occasion passed off with small talk that was unsatisfying to both of them.

  ***

  It was dark by the time the party arrived at the Trevi fountain after dinner. The evening sky was a bright electric blue and against it the fountain reared itself monumentally like scenery in an opera. Yet nothing dramatic was to be expected of this cast, Sophia thought, and there was no sign of Father Branche.

  'Perhaps we shouldn't wait for him to throw in our coins,' said Mark, rather as if he were organizing the children on a parish outing, it's rather cold standing about.'

  'I know what I'm going to wish for,' said Sister Dew, advancing dangerously near to the water, as if about to fling herself in among the straining, rearing horses.

  Mark explained that strictly speaking the legend was that if you threw a coin into the fountain you would ensure your return to Rome.

  'I feel that should be enough without any other wish,' said Sophia; but privately she added a kind of prayer that Faustina might be safe and happy.

  Mark also threw a coin because he did not want to seem superior by refusing to make a fool of himself, and Edwin did the same, to humour the women. Daisy frowned as she threw hers, as if she hardly wished to return to a country where animals were not treated as they should be.

  'Now you mustn't tell anyone what you wish,' said Sister Dew to Ianthe and Penelope, for obviously the two younger unmarried women would have the most interesting and secret wishes. She herself wanted nothing in the romantic line, just that one of her numbers should come up on Ernie — Premium Bonds, that is, she added in case the spirit of the fountain didn't know what she meant.

  'You go next,' said Penelope to Ianthe, for she had a childish feeling that it would be lucky to be last.

  'Oh, all right.' Ianthe laughed but inwardly she felt quite serious. That I may return to Rome with the man I love, she said to herself, and quickly threw her coin into the water.

  Penelope barely had time to frame her wish when there was a commotion among the rest of the party and she realized that Father Branche had arrived.

  'Perhaps we might go to
a café,' he suggested, 'if you've all thrown your coins in. Would you find that agreeable?'

  'Agreeable,' Sister Dew giggled. 'It would be nice to sit down.'

  'What a typically English reaction,' said Penelope scornfully. 'And does he really mean everybody to tag along?' She had decided that if possible she would go off by herself with him. It was a rather desperate plan and she did not know what was likely to come of it, or indeed what she wished to come of it, but anything would be better than the parish party.

  'I don't know really,' said Sophia vaguely. 'Some of us walk rather slowly, you know, and it's quite easy to get lost in Rome.' Her sister would be quite safe with a clergyman, she thought.

  They were walking rather a long way, it seemed, and in a direction Sophia did not know. At one point they had to cross the road by a subway. As they walked down the steps eyes glowed at them in the dark and grey shapes slunk past them, so that Sister Dew let out a cry and clung on to Sophia.

  'Look, so many of them,' said Daisy, 'and I've brought nothing with me. Still, we can find this place again. I shall come back in the morning.'

  'Somebody seems to be feeding them,' said Ianthe.

  A kind-hearted Italian lady with a basket was crouching down by the cats, encouraging them with gentle murmurings, and setting out food in little dishes.

  'Left-overs, I suppose,' said Sister Dew thoughtfully, for what would Roman left-overs be? A bit of that osso buco, perhaps, or spaghetti — fancy a cat eating spaghetti. 'I shouldn't think your pussy would fancy that,' she said to Mark.

  'Would Faustina like spaghetti, do you think?' he asked Sophia.

  'I don't know, we must try her with some when we get back. She might like the sauce.' Basil, she thought, that was what gave it the Italian flavour.