by Allan Massie
“No, I suppose not. I doted on his books when I was fourteen.”
The waitress in black dress, lace apron and cap, served them. The eggs were beautifully cooked.
“Actually,” Belinda said, “I don’t suppose there are tea-rooms like this in English cathedral cities now. Everybody drinks lager, I’m told.”
“Why did you come to live in Rome, Bel?”
“It just happened. What about you?”
“I was travelling and I met Stephen and well … I guess I wanted to find myself.”
“And have you done so?”
“No. Does anyone? Maybe it’s just adolescent to be trying to do that. What do you think?”
She poured him another cup of tea.
“Oh,” she said, “me. Tell me about the girl. That’s part of your question, isn’t it? Or did you think she might be the answer? In my experience other people never are. But that’s just my experience, you understand.”
“Stephen thinks I am for him. And I’m not, though it makes me feel good being wanted. Some of the time, and then it doesn’t. He’d like to own me. Do you know what I’d like Belinda, just this minute? I’d like a drink. Rather urgently.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh sure, I know that. You forget, I spent even more years in junior Al-Anon than I have in AA itself. Because of my mother. So I know about it. But that doesn’t alter the reality which is that I want a drink now, subito.”
He smiled again, knowing chorus boy, not sunny beach-boy this time.
“No,” she said. “I think we should go home. You’ll be better off there. And if Stephen doesn’t find you at the apartment, he’ll most probably ring me.”
“OK. But do I want him to find me?”
Later in the evening, Erik began to weep. She felt first revulsion, then tenderness. She put her arms around him and held him. Having no words, she let her lips rest in his soft almond-scented hair. She rocked him in her arms and then led him, unresisting, to her bedroom. He let her undress him, all but knickers and socks. They lay together. He pressed his damp face against her. She wiped tears and licked her salty finger. He relaxed. When she was sure he slept, she traced the line of his lips, moving fingers between his mouth and hers. He moaned and, still asleep, freed a hand to let it lie against her cheek. She thought: I have paid my price to live with myself on the terms that I willed …
VIII
Mike came on Stephen at the corner of the Corso. There was a shiny bruise under his eye where Mike had hit him. He was attracting glances from passers-by who kept their distance from him. Mike clapped him on the shoulder.
“You look bad,” he said. “You can’t stand here against a lamp post. You’ll get in trouble. What you need is a beer. I’m sorry I hit you one.”
“You hit me twice, once in the belly. I’ve been sick all day.”
But he allowed Mike to guide him down the street, up the slope and into the broad piazza of the Holy Apostles.
“It’s all right, don’t need your arm,” he said. He crossed himself as they passed the church.
“The Stuarts,” he said.
“Stuarts?”
“James VIII & III, the last legitimate King born in the Palace of Whitehall’s buried there. Did you know that?”
“Course I did,” Mike said.
“Jacobite, always been a Jacobite, since I was a boy,” Stephen said. “Did you mention beer?”
“What we need. What the human frame requires.”
The birreria in the lane beyond the piazza was hot, noisy and crowded. But they found a table, safely in the corner where each could get his back to the wall. A large fat waiter, sweating hard, approached on waiter’s flat feet, shook hands with Mike and laughed.
“You see, it’s all right here, safe, they know me. Sì, due scure grandi, Gianni, e poi, siamo vecchi amici, non è vero?”
The waiter laughed again, laid a damp hand on Mike’s shoulder, briefly, and hurried off. “That’s the difference,” Stephen said. “Difference between us. I feel safe in places where they don’t know me …”
They sat in silence till Gianni, with a flourish, put two tankards on the table, spilling only a little.
“Where they don’t know me,” Stephen said again.
“Thing is,” Mike said, “necessity is, to find a place where they understand, understand the importance of a drunkard’s life. Then you’re all right. See?”
“Mike,” Stephen said, “we’re exiles from Eden. That’s why life’s a tragedy.” Mike shook his head.
“Comedy,” he said. “Tragicomedy perhaps. But comedy, of errors, much ado about nothing, the Bard knew. So do I. I’ve been married three times, you know. Drink.”
“To the Stuarts.”
“OK, the Stuarts.”
“Never been married,” Stephen said. “Belinda’s the only woman I could ever have married. But better not.”
“Much better not. You could marry her, fag-hag, you know. But better not. Keep marriage off the menu. I know, speak from experience.”
He signalled to Gianni for more beer.
“You were right to hit me. Brought me to my senses. Erik’s no good for me, see that now.”
“Little shit, told you. Must be hell being queer.”
“What gets me is the little bitch saying he’s not gay. After all I’ve done for him.”
“Hell for you. That’s life. You know Kate. She’s my sponsor. Now she says she won’t have time for me, she’s got some boy – a murderer – coming to stay. Tragicomedy, you see.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re right. We’re both right. Nothing solves anything. Went to a movie with Kate, keep me sober she thought. But I slipped out for a pee, and here we are. Gianni!”
Later, several beers later, Mike said,
“Time to move. Time for a change, grappa is indicated, I think. Yes, grappa is definitely indicated.”
“What does Kate want with a murderer?”
“Who can tell? Never been fucked by a murderer. Could be that. Andiamo. Find a low bar and drink grappa, that’s the schedule …”
IX
The telephone rang as Kate was about to leave for the airport.
“Reynard Yallett here. Your chicken’s trussed and airborne. Thought you’d like to know.”
“Thanks. Kind of you,” she said.
Unlike you, she thought.
“Only just,” he said. “He’s afraid of flying. And of being recognised. And of being on his own. If I hadn’t taken him to Heathrow, he wouldn’t have got there. As it is, he doesn’t know why he consented to your little experiment – and neither do I.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
“No need. I’m interested. I won’t insult you by saying I hope you know what you’ve taken on. The boy’s not as tough as he thinks he is, but he’s a nasty, no question. You won’t forget that, will you? Let me know how it goes. As I say, I’m interested. He has that effect. So of course do you. Might even give myself a weekend in Roma, see how it’s going.”
Kate thought: don’t know why he’s consented? For the same reason, Reynard Yallett, as you say yes to every journalist who wants to profile you, even though you know it’s scheduled to be hostile. Vanity.
In Kate’s experience almost nobody could refuse an invitation to talk about themselves, no matter what might come out.
Now the boy was beside her in the taxi, and looked away, out of the window. He was smaller (her height, five foot eight) and slighter than she remembered. His skin was pale and his fair hair cut short, not brutishly, but 1950s public-schoolboy style. He wore a thin black suit with big shoulders and a cream-coloured shirt open at the neck. No jewellery. He looked what she’d said to Belinda, a nice well brought-up boy. The little scar on his right cheek could, even might, have been the result of a sporting injury. His right forefinger picked at the skin of his left thumb. The hands were well-shaped, de
licate, not working hands.
“We’ll drop your things at the apartment, have lunch, and do the tourist stuff, just a bit.”
The boy was in the spare room only a short time.
“Live here alone, do you?”
“Most of the time.”
“I don’t get it, having me here, with what you’ve been told. Isn’t reasonable.”
“No?”
“No. I’m not a poof, you know.”
She all but said, what kind of a declaration is that? Refrained; irony was out. “Lunch,” she said, “let’s go.”
The motor-bike boys whistled as they passed.
“You didn’t ought to allow that. It’s not respectful.”
“It’s just their way, means very little.”
“You’ve got an Italian name, but you’re English, aren’t you?”
“Sort of, the way Kelly’s Irish, yes?”
In the restaurant she talked about the city. His responses were few and short. He didn’t know anything and was too proud to display his ignorance. He ate only half his plate of spaghetti.
“It’s not good to eat a lot, slows you down.”
He sipped his mineral water, looked at her directly for the first time.
“My mum was always on at me to eat more, but stuffing yourself’s disgusting, I think.”
“I liked your Mum, liked her a lot,” Kate said.
“Yeah. She said you were all right. That’s why I come. But Mr Yallett, he says to look out, says you’ll twist me in circles.”
“Do you believe him?”
“No. You might try.”
“What about your dad, Gary? He walked out on you, didn’t he? What do you feel about him?”
“Thought you said we weren’t going to start working today. That question sounds like work to me.”
“OK, we’ll leave it. You’re bright, aren’t you, Gary?”
That was the impression she’d had when she saw him in court and then on the television. It was an unschooled intelligence, though in fact he hadn’t dropped out of school completely till after GCSEs. Now, when she said, “You’re bright, aren’t you, Gary,” the beginning of the smile he’d formed when he said, “That question sounds like work to me,” was withdrawn. His face died on her. He lifted his hand to his mouth and gave a cough, that same demure little cough that had first attracted her attention, and looked beyond her to the open door.
“Coffee?” she said.
“Don’t drink coffee.”
“Don’t you? I do.”
X
Somebody once said, in her hearing, “all girls know ways to kill time, but Bel knows all the ways.” She couldn’t remember the speaker but she recognised the line as Scott Fitzgerald’s, from his notebooks; notebooks and essays were what she read, she could no longer read novels and as for biography, that was all lies, in her opinion. She never knew if the speaker saw her as a Fitzgerald girl, or if it was just something that had come into his head and been spoken, the way most things are said, insignificantly.
If only it was true, she thought, but time is the one thing never killed, time is immortal, that’s why it weighs so heavily upon us.
Erik slept beside her. He had twisted the sheet round the upper part of his body so that only the mop of hair, one temple and one eye were not hidden, but, lower, his left leg stretched out free of covering, and gleamed in the moonlight. Because of the blind there were alternating dark and light stripes across the leg.
She let the fingers of her left hand play on the boy’s flat belly. Benito, on her pillow, thrust his face into hers demanding attention.
“Stephen doesn’t like me, not really,” Erik had said as she eased off his T-shirt. “That gets me down. He wants me but he doesn’t like me, not really.”
And maybe you’re not likeable, she thought then, but now, doting, pushed away the sheet and leaned over and kissed him on the lips. He gave a little murmur and she stroked his cheek. There was just the faintest suggestion of bristle.
When they had returned to the apartment and found no message from Stephen on the answer-phone, and failed to get a reply when they rang his number, Erik said, “He’s drinking and it’s my fault.”
“He’s drinking and it’s his choice. You know that.”
“Do you think he’s engineered this situation in order to have an excuse?”
“He’s drinking because at this moment he’d rather drink than speak to you, rather drink than straighten things out. It’s easier, it’s always easier.”
She sounded harsh, even to herself. Too bad, truth was harsh. Erik was charmed by her tone. He leaned over her chair and laid his hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw a gleam in his eye, as if a light switch had been touched. She passed her arm round his waist and drew him down upon her. They kissed. His tongue sought out hers. Then she pushed him away, got to her feet, smoothed her hair.
“Yes?” she said.
“I know what I wanted to know.”
Well, perhaps, she thought now, or perhaps it was a line from a movie that felt right to him then. But whatever, they had, hours later after his tears, gone to bed and nearly made complete love. Now his hand rested between his legs which were spread out, and she slipped hers down the smooth body and pressed it. He gave a little moan. She thought of how Stephen must also, often, have heard that little moan, and of how he trusted her. “I hadn’t looked for this again,” she thought, “and it makes no sense, but …” Benito purred in her ear and there was a plop as Elvira who had been lying at her feet jumped off the bed. It was all absurd; nevertheless. Voices were raised, quarrelling, from the street below.
Much later, with the first light of the new day sliding into the apartment, she got up, disturbing neither boy nor cat, and took a shower. Then wearing a butter-coloured, towelling gown which she had never liked, she made tea.
The tumble of fax-paper, undisturbed, waited for her.
What would Erik reply if, when the sun was full up, she said, “Let’s go and get your things from Stephen’s apartment?”
She tore the paper from the fax, sat at the kitchen table, and with a pair of scissors cut the roll into manageable sheets. Then she poured another cup, lit a cigarette and began to read.
Kenneth had done a good orderly professional job, assembling the material for which she had asked. It was presented as an almost coherent narrative.
XI
When Kate introduced the word “racist”, Gary flushed.
“It’s not like the way they said it was.”
He wasn’t easy. He had been more fluent on the television. He gave his little cough.
“Watch a lot of nature films, wildlife, you know, David Attenborough, that stuff. We’re pack animals, aren’t we? You’ve got to face it …”
Then he fell silent, as if he couldn’t.
She leaned forward and switched off the recorder, but he didn’t relax.
“That’ll do for today,” she said. “We’ve made progress.”
His tongue gave a quick lick to his lips. He stayed where he was, very still.
She thought, he doesn’t know if I mean that. And if I do mean it, then he’s beginning to wonder if he’s surrendered anything of himself to me.
He had eyes that were always on the alert.
She thought: am I going to release him? No wonder Belinda tells me I must be mad.
She had seldom encountered so passive a subject. Her Belgian industrialist had loved to speak of himself, to explain his excellent reasons for acting as he had. He had wanted, after all these years, to be understood. But Gary was afraid of that, wasn’t he?
When she asked him a direct question as for instance when she had asked, earlier in the session, “Why do you think Reynard Yallett took such an interest in your case?” she got only that grey look, indifferent as a city crowd.
“All right,” she had said, “so how did he come to take your case?”
“It’s his job, isn’t it? What he does.”
“But did you t
hink he had some special interest?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“You wouldn’t be a free man if he hadn’t defended you in the way he did.”
“Nothing they could prove.”
Her nerves were frayed. She had to go to the meeting.
It came to her that the boy might defeat her; that she might extract nothing; that his moral nullity might even make sense.
“So what have you done with him?” Belinda said.
“I sent him to the cinema. Actually I stood by him till he was safely in. The Pasquino naturally. I can’t imagine he’d have stayed in an Italian-language one. Though you never know.”
“Are we going to be allowed to meet him?”
“If you like. If you like. I’m not getting anywhere yet”
“You will,” Belinda said. “You will, I’ve every confidence in you.”
“It’s a hard shell,” Kate said. “I’ve no idea what it contains.”
“Mind you, I still think it’s horrible and crazy.”
“He’s not horrible, you know, not really.”
“Oh quite. I do understand that people can do horrible things and not be horrible themselves. Who was it said, ‘We’re all existentialists now’? Maybe he was right, whoever he was.”
Tom Durward came into the bar.
“Do I have time for a coffee? I’m nervous. I wish I hadn’t agreed to tell my story.”
“We all want to hear it,” Belinda said, “dying really, speaking for myself, can’t wait …”
XII
“My name’s Tom and I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been dry for seven years and sober maybe for two. You all know the difference. Or maybe some of you don’t. And maybe I’m kidding myself that I have felt the difference. I still kid myself, the same way I thought for years I fooled other people.”
He paused to put a match to his toscano.
“I was a drunk for a long time before I was an alcoholic. I used to be quite happy being a drunk, admitting it. But not of course an alcoholic. I was lucky. I worked as a writer, mostly scripts for movies, and that’s a trade where it’s OK to be stewed as long as you deliver. And for a long time I did that, delivered. So I was fine. It wasn’t so fine for my wives. I got through a couple in ten years. It was the women’s fault that they weren’t man enough for the job. I never saw things from their side, always my own. Anyway – some of you won’t like this – I never had any difficulty finding another woman. So what the hell?