I straightened up quickly: ‘‘I beg your pardon. They looked lonely.’’
She was in her late fifties probably, not exactly stout but big. She’d thickened in the body but retained the quality of ankle and wrist. She looked ill, her skin yellow under the make-up.
‘‘You’re English.’’ She smiled at me absently. ‘‘I might have known by the back of your head. Interestin’. I shouldn’t have brought them; at the bank it always takes time before I’m through. Civil of the gentleman to entertain you, darlings.’’
‘‘They entertained me.’’
‘‘I do hate performin’ dogs, don’t you. Going through hoops and balancin’. Unsuitable.’’ She looked me over.
‘‘I never go to circuses. You’re interested in mastiffs?’’ She pronounced it maystiff.
‘‘I used to have one’’
‘‘Very few do now; I suppose it’s the feeding. And they do take up room. Like grand pianos. Was yours a dog or a bitch?’’
‘‘Dog.’’
‘‘I have two at my villa. Very difficult exercisin’ them. The island’s overcrowded.’’ We talked for a minute or two, she leaning heavily on her stick while people went in and out of the bank and the puppies rolled over in a mock fight. Then she separated them with the point of her stick and turned to go. ‘‘Maybe we shall meet again, Mr.—er——’’
‘‘… Philip Norton is my name. Yes, I hope so.’’
‘‘Everybody meets everybody on this island sooner or later. It’s like a Paul Jones. A lottery that dance, I always thought. No hand-pickin’ at all. Are you staying long?’’
‘‘About a week, I suppose. I want to do a little painting.’’
‘‘Oh …’’ She looked at me again with a glimmer in her bloodshot eyes. ‘‘You’re an artist?’’
‘‘Only in my spare time now.’’
‘‘People do come and go. Irritatin’. The island’s a magnet. Do you know Langdon Williams?’’
‘‘I’ve met him.’’
‘‘He may be here later in the month. Landscapes. Cezanne and water I always think. But he’s esteemed.’’ She took another step and then stopped again. ‘‘I suppose you’re not free this evening? A few people are coming to my villa for drinks. It’ll be very dull and I’ve forgotten who’s invited, but I’d like you to meet the maystiffs.’’
I said I’d be charmed to meet the maystiffs.
‘‘Careful now, Bergdorf, you’re bitin’ too hard. A Joke’s a joke. I’ll expect you around six to six-thirty then, Mr. Norton.’’
I said: ‘‘ I’m afraid I don’t know your name or where to come.’’
‘‘Mme Weber. Villa Atrani. Just on the edge of the town. Anybody’ll tell you. It’ll be English gin, anyway.’’
Chapter Eight
At six twenty-five I put in to the Villa Atrani for the second time. In the daylight you could see that a good bit of the garden was overgrown; but the house itself was well kept, and I should think had been refurnished just before the war in modern Italian fashion, the furniture and decorations being the work of men who still knew how to use their hands. There were about a dozen people in the big white living-room when I was shown in; but I noticed at once the dark man in the reefer jacket, and that he was talking to Leonie Winter as if they knew each other well.
First I had to meet the dogs.
Mme Weber was impressed by the way Macy and Gimbel accepted me. ‘‘Usually they’re so slow to admit people to their friendship. Startlin’. Vermouth, or do you like it pink? I give up gin every year, the way one gives up the carbohydrates. Of course it’s perhaps having had one of your own. Maystiffs are such reliable watch-dogs, aren’t they. Macy and Gimbel would simply tear the throat out of anyone who broke into this house or this garden.’’
I patted Macy’s muzzle. ‘‘But one always feels they know just where to draw the line.’’
‘‘Oh, Leonie darling, let me introduce Philip Norton. This is Mrs. Winter. Looking very summery in spite of. Mr. Norton is a distinguished artist staying for a few days. Breeds dogs. Macy practically fawned. And Captain Sanbergh, a very old and dear friend.’’
I said to Sanbergh: ‘‘But of course I remember seeing you this morning in a fine motor yacht at the Piccola Marina.’’
Sanbergh was taller than he looked, with the broad shoulders and lean hips of a younger man. He’d a handsome raffish face, a capable look; eyes vigorous and alert but thickly lashed, the mouth wide and Pan-like when he smiled.
He said to Mme Weber: ‘‘You see, Charlotte, we’ve become notorious, I and my Sappho. Already I’m a marked man.’’
Mme Weber said: ‘‘It’s Charles’s new love-life, Mr. Norton. Quite awful. I christened her two weeks ago in asti spumanti. She doesn’t live up to her name; it’s the men she’s after.’’
‘‘Well, she’s been waiting for me since January.’’
‘‘I hope you’ll let me see her some time.’’
His eyes travelled over my face, incuriously but expertly; summing me up. His expression wasn’t particularly friendly. ‘‘ But of course.’’
‘‘Charles is taking some of us out tomorrow afternoon,’’ said Mme Weber. ‘‘Let’s all be sea-sick together.’’
‘‘I’d like to. If Captain Sanbergh …’’
‘‘But of course,’’ said Sanbergh again.
Leonie Winter hadn’t spoken through all this, and I hadn’t looked at her.
I said to Sanbergh in a conversational tone: ‘‘You’ve been away?’’
‘‘Away?’’
‘‘You said your yacht had been waiting for you since January.’’
‘‘Oh—yes. I ordered her last year. I’ve been out of this district for a time.’’
I was going to add something more but Mme Weber was plucking at my arm. ‘‘Do you know Mr. Norton? This is the Master of Kyle. You’re lookin’ downcast on this lovely evening, Mr. Kyle. Isn’t the Scotch, right? Berto has the bottle. I’ll get him to bring it over.’’
A bald elderly Scotsman acknowledged me with a sour, uncommunicative face. I tried to talk to him for a minute or so, and then was taken over to meet the other three who had been on the beach that morning: Jane Porringer, the American girl; Nicolo da Cossa, the man with the limp, who in close-up was less young than I thought; and an American lawyer called Hamilton White, a tall thin man getting on for fifty with white skin reddened by the sun. I didn’t like da Cossa. His club-foot was like an outward sign of something warped inside.
I neither looked at nor spoke to Leonie Winter throughout the party. Once I saw her looking at me through one of the Florentine mirrors, and much later I watched her, reflected in a picture, talking energetically to Captain Sanbergh. I looked at him and thought, what was the description? Dark with hair greying at the ears (easily dyed), a short beard (easily shaved), medium height, brown eyes rather narrow, strong aquiline nose.
‘‘Admiring my picture?’’ Mme Weber came up behind me. ‘‘Nicolo painted that. Technical achievement, I think. Fireworks. My first husband had a passion for fireworks. In real, I mean. Used to subsidise the fiestas. Nicolo’s very talented, don’t you think? Do you work in pastel, Mr. Norton?’’
I saw the picture behind the glass for the first time. A bit flamboyant as Mme Weber said, but impressive. ‘‘It’s very good indeed. No, I generally use oils.’’
‘‘For landscape work?’’
‘‘For all work. Portraits as well.’’
‘‘You should paint Leonie, Philip. May I call you Philip?’’
I said I’d like her to.
‘‘You should paint Leonie, Philip. Fairness is so often insipid. But it’s ice and fire with her.’’
‘‘I’ve noticed the ice’’
‘‘Her skin with those quite dark lashes. Nicolo wants to try.’’
I finished my fourth drink. ‘‘ If I were to paint anyone. I’ve seen so far, it would be you.’’
Charlotte Weber gave me a look. It was a sophistic
ated glance or was meant to be, but somewhere behind there was a glint of coquetry. It was like a young woman making use of an old woman’s eyes.
‘‘Dear boy, that’s quite the nicest thing … But I’m a sick woman—have been for years. D’you know that just before the war they gave me only a few months to live. It was practically melodrama. I came here to die. And I’ve been here ever since. You don’t want to paint a woman who’s been living for sixteen years with an anti-climax.’’
‘‘How do you know what I don’t want to paint?’’
She sighed and fumbled for a cigarette. I lit it for her. ‘‘ Vermeer, Van Gogh, people like that, were always paintin’ women seven months along. Must have seemed indelicate to the Victorians. My father called it paradin’ and perpetuatin’. Are all artists specially interested in women when they can’t pretend?’’
‘‘Most painters like qualities that need no pretence. Don’t you? Lines of distinction, and the marks of knowing about life and how to live it,’’ I passed her an ash-tray.
‘‘Philip, how nice you are. Leonie hasn’t been without experience, of course. I’ll tell you some time. Nicolo, we’ve been admirin’ your picture.’’
‘‘That is too kind,’’ said Nicolo. He had big sombre eyes, like dates, that made you think he’d been hurt when a boy and never got over it. But the hammer-beam nose and the sharp little teeth suggested it was probably someone else who’d got hurt most after all. ‘‘ It is of course the Faraglioni Rocks seen from near the Certosa monastery. The purple morning-glory brought me the inspiration. That is so necessary, that first impulse, as you will agree.’’
I noticed while we were talking that Charles Sanbergh’s eyes were on me. I wondered if Leonie Winter had said anything to him. They could hardly have any suspicions of me yet. But I certainly thought there was a flicker of hostility and suspicion in Sanbergh’s eyes when I saw him before I left.
As I walked home to the hotel I wondered if a half-joking arrangement between Charlotte Weber and me would really come to anything.
It was getting on for three years since I’d touched a brush. My last thing had been one of Pamela and had been a total loss. It had probably reflected something in our relationship which just then was drifting on the rocks. Perhaps it had also put a finger on the wider issue, because everything had seemed to be breaking up in me just then, the inspiration that da Cossa talked about so glibly—which anyway is always mainly perspiration—even the urge to sweat any more. The thought of buying paper, holding a pencil in my hands again, even disingenuously, gave me a bit of a fright. It would be like digging a part of myself up out of the ground.
When I got home I began on Grevil’s notes again, but although I found one or two references to Buckingham, there was nothing important in them. So after ploughing through about five pages I gave it up, and just lit a cigarette and sat there watching my own smoke.
Reading Grevil’s shorthand like this made me think of the letters I’d had from regularly when I was a kid at school—in this shorthand—joking and chatty, but with long-headed bits of good sense thrown in like currants in a cake. In many ways he had been responsible for a sort of heightened appreciation of ordinary things that was probably my chief asset when I eventually began to make the motions of expressing myself on canvas. It was he, for one thing, who bad first put me in touch with people like Traherne and Blake and Jefferies and Whitman and Rilke. He’d always shown impatience with anything that seemed to him half-hearted or lacking in guts. He, never had any room for people who didn’t know their own minds. I remember him saying to me once, quoting Ben Johnson: ‘‘I will not be a parasite to time, place or opinion’’; and in fact he’d followed that precept all his life.
Just after his twenty-fifth birthday he’d written to me telling me he was getting married the following week and that he wanted me to be the first to know about it—me at fifteen; And I remember that along with feeling gratified at the compliment I’d been surprised because I’d been home the week before and apparently nobody knew anything about it or had even met the girl. (Nor had they.)
In a friendly way he’d always been rather up against the family—and up against Arnold in particular over me and my wanting to paint There might at a later date have been a set-to about it but Hitler saved that war because by the time I was seventeen he was established in Paris and not encouraging art-students from England.
I thought of this tonight because along with Grevil the thought of painting had come up in my mind again. It’s one thing, perhaps, to be kind and encouraging to a boy you’re fond of and to take him about and get pleasure out of his pleasure, it’s another to keep up that interest in a man in his middle twenties making heavy weather of the job of coming to terms with his own ambition.
In the middle of all his own preoccupations Grevil had never wavered for a second, and almost the only row I’d ever had with him had been when I told him I was throwing it all up and taking an ordinary job. At first he’d absolutely refused to admit that there was any justification for doing that. He blamed it on the break-up with Pamela and said I’d feel differently in six months. Then when that didn’t work I remember he said: ‘‘ I could understand it if you were starving’’; and I replied: ‘‘That’s just it With this small income from the firm I haven’t even the merit of failing the hard way. Grevil, I want to earn money, live on what I make myself; it’s more overriding than any other need I’ve ever had in my life, even the need to paint. Very few people have the luck I’ve had to be able to go on so long. It’s a matter of self-respect now.’’
After that he more or less accepted it, but never with a particularly good grace.
But I’d never regretted the change.
Chapter Nine
However you might feel inside about things, there was an ‘‘atmosphere’’ here that began after a day or so to have its own effect Grevil’s death meant every bit as much to me as it had ever done, but the site of it was nine hundred miles away. The beauty of Amsterdam I had seen against a backcloth of vice and half-masked terrorism.
When I got down to the cove the following afternoon the Sappho’s two tall masts were doubling their length in the olive-green water. Every now and then a stray breeze stroked the surface and cork-screwed them out of shape; then the dinghy was lowered to bring me off, and broke the reflection up into mosaics of sunlight
Rather to my surprise I was the first aboard, and as soon as I went below I knew that the next move was on. Sanbergh’s expression hadn’t changed since yesterday except that it had got more so. If I felt suspicion of him, he felt suspicion—on some grounds—of me.
After we’d seen what there was to see—and she was a lovely yacht with all the refinements and graces that the Italians can produce—we went into the tiny cabin and he offered me a drink. We made conversation but it was formal stuff. I stared at his books; they were in Italian, English and French, and no language had a working majority over the other. It’s not exactly usual to see Karl Marx sharing a shelf with St. Thomas Aquinas or Hakluyt with Machiavelli.
I noticed Sanbergh’s beautifully manicured hands as he gave me a glass. ‘‘You are Italian, I suppose?’’
‘‘What makes you ask?’’ he said.
‘‘Oh, idle curiosity.’’
‘‘Do you think curiosity is ever idle? I’ve always doubted that.’’
‘‘It hadn’t occurred to me. You speak English almost without accent.’’
His glance flickered over me. ‘‘Perhaps I belong to no country entirely. I am my own country, and make my own laws and rule over myself. My kingdom is forty feet of deck and my frontiers are the horizon.’’
I sipped the drink. ‘‘ Do you issue your own passports?’’
Something moved in the depths of his eyes. I was being refocused. ‘‘You don’t appreciate figures of speech, Mr. Norton.’’
‘‘Oh yes, on the contrary. The idea sounds good and I was thinking of the practical obstacles.’’
‘‘Obstacl
es are made to be overcome. Buy yourself a yacht and see.’’
‘‘Find me the money and I will.’’
‘‘Ah yes, the money. But isn’t that only another obstacle? If the need is sufficient——’’
‘‘The way can be found? Does it follow?’’
‘‘Usually. One contrives. One takes special measures, however unpalatable.’’
‘‘In what way unpalatable?’’
With a cocktail stick he dabbed at the lemon peel in his glass, drowning it and then letting it surface, drowning it again. ‘‘All work is unpalatable to me, Mr. Norton, as it is to any civilised human being. Otherwise it wouldn’t be work but play. That’s the definition.’’
‘‘Most civilised human beings would agree with you. But they don’t know how to avoid it.’’
‘‘Why should they? If they did they would be miserable for lack of contrast Balance and proportion are the things that matter.’’
I didn’t know whether he was being subtle or sententious. In profile against the porthole his face looked larger than life and angular. There was no up-curving of the wide mouth today. ‘‘And what of yourself?’’ he said suddenly.
‘‘Of myself?’’
‘‘Do you find painting profitable as well as palatable? I should have thought not.’’
I said: ‘‘ You thought right.’’
‘‘Though I imagine as a hobby it can be—useful at times.’’
He seemed to have seen through the ruse before it was practised. I said: ‘‘ Everything is useful in its proper place.’’
‘‘And where is your proper place, Mr. Norton? Not on Capri.’’
‘‘Only for as long as I choose to stay.’’
‘‘And then?’’
‘‘It rather depends what happens while I’m here.’’
The Little Walls Page 9