Territorial Rights

by Muriel Spark

  ‘Whatever is that?’ said Grace.

  Another scream, a bang, a man’s voice protesting, trying to placate. Violet precipitated herself out to the landing, in time to see the little lift descending and, through its glass windows, Lina with her head thrown back dramatically and, her hands clutching her head, giving out frightful animalistic noises. Two of Violet’s tenants from the floors above one, a small elderly lady who had always been considered up to this moment to be totally deaf, and the other, a white-haired professor of musicology looked over the banisters of the staircase proclaiming their amazement and enquiring the cause of the rumpus as the howling lift descended before their eyes.

  The lift passed the upper floor of Violet’s apartment and reached the ground floor of the building. Violet, followed by Curran, had run down the flight of stairs to meet the descending lift, while Grace, outside Violet’s landing, joined the banister audience.

  Lina flew out of the lift, still yelling wildly, barefoot, dressed in a huge yellow flannel nightdress and throwing her arms around in a way which was quite alarming to watch. Violet caught hold of her, and Curran, too, tried to hold her, both joining the exclaiming chorus of the people above in the tall, echoing palazzo. ‘What’s the matter?… Lina, whatever’s the matter?…You’ll catch your death. … Stop. … Wait! …’

  But Lina had struggled free in a flash and had opened the front door. She ran out on to the landing-stage. She turned with her back to the water for just a moment in order to cry out ‘Leo is the son of a Jew—I have slept with a Jew—God, oh God!—I must cleanse myself! I die for shame!’ And with a further shriek the girl half-turned and dropped into the canal.

  Leo had appeared by this time, having evidently run down all the stairs after her. He was naked except for his great head of hair and his beard, and he grinned continuously while he jumped into the canal after Lina, fetched her a blow on the head so that she stopped howling; he fished her out with the aid of Curran’s outstretched hand. Curran then brushed the water off his trousers. An old-fashioned gondola passed by, empty. The gondolier shouted joyfully to Leo, ‘Bravo, nudo!’ and barge-poled ahead up the canal, rather precariously, for his head was turned back to Violet’s well-lit landing-stage and the engaging spectacle thereon.

  While Lina was being carted indoors, choking and dripping, Leo, usually so silent, went to the edge of the canal, cupped his hands and called over the water to the receding gondolier, ‘Una neurotica!’

  At which the gondolier waved, shouted back something encouraging, and turned away about his business.

  Chapter Twelve

  “IS THAT YOU, ANTHEA? This is Grace.’

  Anthea had that morning received a letter headed GESS of Coventry in red letters, with a signature that looked like a large scrawled number 56 or, maybe, 85, but nothing else.

  Dear Mrs Leaver,

  Re your esteemed enquiry, after conducting in-depth investigations, we have to report that nothing of importance has emerged with regard to same.

  Assuring you of our best attention at all times.

  Yours faithfully,

  [squiggle]

  Global-Equip Security Services

  Enclosed with the letter was a folded brochure. She glanced inside contemptuously in the desperate pre-knowledge that there was nothing else, no private message, absolutely nothing for her, after all her deliberations and summoning of courage to consult the people. The brochure was the same that Anthea had read at the offices of GESS while waiting for her interview with Mr B.

  Missing persons

  Backgrounds checked

  Polygraph (Lie Detector) Examinations

  Complete Crime. …

  She threw it on the table beside the letter. It was eleven on the Tuesday morning of the third week of Arnold’s absence. ‘In-depth investigations,’ Anthea muttered, and went to put on the kettle for her mid-morning instant coffee and, this being Tuesday, to clean out the goldfish bowl.

  She had just finished the goldfish and was about to make the coffee when the telephone rang.

  ‘I waited all Sunday night, I waited last night, and you didn’t call. What’s going on?’

  ‘Well, Anthea, everything here … it’s unbelievable.’

  ‘I can quite believe that.’

  ‘Anything wrong, Anthea?’

  ‘Oh, no, nothing wrong. Only my husband’s in Venice with another woman and everybody’s enjoying themselves stepping ashore from the gondolas like the Queen of Sheba except me.’

  ‘Anthea, I want to talk to you about Arnold—’

  ‘We’re talking at the expensive rate. I can’t undertake to reimburse you for calls made outside the cheap rate. I waited Sunday and I waited—’

  ‘Let me tell you for your own good, Anthea, that there’s nothing wrong with Arnold and there’s nothing really the matter with Mary Tiller. What you have to realise is that our generation has to stick together, no matter our differences, Anthea.

  ‘What generations?’ Anthea said. ‘You could give me fifteen years.’

  ‘I mean, Anthea, people who you could give twenty-five years to.’

  ‘Oh, that generation. … I don’t know what you’re talking about. The young are perfectly sweet. Take my son, for example. Robert and I have a perfect relationship.’

  ‘Anthea, have you heard from Robert?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. The last I heard he was in Venice with you.’

  ‘Well, he isn’t in Venice with us, Anthea, any more. He’s walked out on everyone including his kind friend Curran, Anthea. He’s left his belongings in his hotel room and gone off into the blue, Anthea. Curran paid up his hotel bill, Anthea.’

  ‘Why do you “Anthea” me like that?’ said Anthea. ‘What’s going on? My son must have gone somewhere. Where—?’

  ‘He said he didn’t want anyone to know, Anthea, and I just wondered if you’d heard from him. He doesn’t want anyone to look for him. I suppose that means you. Well, what I want to say mainly is that Mary Tiller is a very nice—’

  ‘It all sounds very far-fetched,’ said Anthea.

  ‘It may seem far-fetched to you, Anthea, but here everything is stark realism. This is Italy.’

  ‘Yes, and the phone bill … I’ve got the kettle on the gas. I’d better—’

  ‘Would you believe it,’ Grace said, ‘that at the Pensione Sofia they haven’t one single clue as to how to make tea? I said, “You take the teapot to the kettle, not the kettle to the teapot.” But of course they use those bags. Then they were surprised at me having my lay-down after lunch under the table. I said, “It’s good for your back. I’ve always done it all my life and as a girl I was a dancer on tour.” I said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve travelled,” I said, “and it won’t be the last. I always have my forty winks underneath the table.” So they let it go at that. Young Leo went off with Robert’s girl, but of course she’s into her thirties so what can you expect? She’s a foreigner, too. I mean, even for here, where everyone’s a foreigner she’s a foreigner. Some kind of Russian refugee but she may well be a spy because, to tell you the truth, she’s not one of those persons you read about who go into exile for their convictions. Mary Tiller likes her and Curran you know who Curran is, don’t you? The rich—’

  ‘I’ll turn off the kettle,’ said Anthea. ‘Don’t hang up.’

  When she got back, Grace said, ‘I’d better run along, Anthea, because the bill will be running up. I just wanted you to know that Arnold’s in good hands when you think of all the worse things that could happen in this life. Leo and Lina, that’s the Bolshy girl, fell out last night. Mary Tiller gave me a recipe for a special mutton stew, if you can find the mutton these days, and it’s a big If. What a pity you spent all that money going to those private detectives, Anthea—’

  ‘I spent nothing,’ Anthea shouted. ‘And I want to know exactly what you’re driving at. Where’s Robert?’

  ‘I’m doing all this in your own best interests, Anthea,’ Grace said. ‘How should I
know where Robert is? You can’t hold on to him for ever, can you? He’s gone away and he doesn’t want to say where he’s gone. And if he’s turned out to be a bad lot, well, it’s nothing new. I always said—’

  ‘Where is Robert? Where is that man Curran?’ Anthea yelled.

  ‘Calm down, Anthea. Robert’s gone off as I say. Nobody knows where he is and for my part—’

  The line broke down at this point and refused to be connected in spite of Anthea’s frantic beating on the receiver-rest. Forty minutes later she got through to the Pensione Sofia and asked to speak to Grace Gregory. She was told that Mrs Gregory had gone out. On demanding to know if Mr Robert Leaver was there, the woman at the other end, in bad English, told her abruptly that they had never heard of such a person, and hung up.

  The brochure from GESS lay on a little table beside the telephone, its fold half-open, positively looking at Anthea. She opened it fully, once more.

  Missing persons

  Backgrounds checked

  Polygraph (Lie Detector) …

  Complete Crime Laboratory….

  Missing persons. Anthea made up her mind. Mr B. had seemed to understand her when she had gone to his office. Then it seemed from his letter that he did not understand her. She felt sure that, with the disappearance of Robert, she could make herself understood. She made her morning coffee and drank it reflectively.

  That afternoon she stepped out with the courage of her wild convictions and the dissatisfaction that has no name.

  ‘This Mrs Gregory that I’m telling you about was a very good friend but the trip to Italy has gone to her head. She rings me up in a patronizing voice, and tells me that my son has disappeared to nowhere and my husband’s lover is a very nice woman. She takes up the attitude that I’m a back number who doesn’t know life. As if we don’t have goings-on here in England, sex changes, drugs and orgies. Don’t we?’

  Mr B. of GESS nodded.

  ‘But Grace,’ said Anthea, ‘makes out that right is wrong, and I don’t know what. She went to Venice to fetch my husband home. Now she tells me that Mary Tiller’s a nice sort of woman and that Arnold’s in good hands and that my son, Robert, has gone off all on his own, nobody knows where. She makes out all this is normal.’

  Mr B. glanced at his watch. He had agreed to see her, very reluctantly, without an appointment.

  ‘My dear Mrs Leaver,’ he said. ‘We have fully investigated the case as we said in our letter.’

  ‘Well, I want to find my son Robert. Please start a new investigation.’

  ‘We have no territorial rights in that area,’ said Mr B.

  ‘Well,’ said Anthea, ‘the gentleman with whom Robert resided in Paris might help you there. He has the entrée to many foreign places, in fact the geography of the world, you might say.’

  ‘Then surely,’ said Mr B. with his smile that was a no-smile, ‘he is capable of locating your son himself. You have no need of us.’

  That Anthea was anxious not to be dismissed was evidently as apparent to him as it was that he was probably dealing, a second time, with a proposition that was beneath the dignity and profit-potential of GESS.

  Anthea was thinking, now, of nothing beyond a need for hypnotic Mr B. to take her under his wing once more, as he had seemed to do on their first meeting. It didn’t help that in other circumstances her common sense would have restrained her, for these were not other circumstances. She knew instinctively what to say in order that Mr B. should continue to give her his attention and look after her, so to speak. ‘My son’s friend, Mr Curran, is an elderly playboy. I doubt very much that he would trouble to look round the world for my Robert.’

  Mr B. did respond. ‘Curran?’ he said. ‘Curran, the American art-collector?’

  ‘That’s right’ said Anthea. ‘A multi-millionaire. He took a real interest in Robert. My husband would never have understood that fact if he had known.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Mr B., opening a side-drawer in his desk, ‘give me any details of your son, Robert.’ He brought out a number of little folded blank cards and placed the homely little regatta on his desk. Then he pressed a button and spoke into a flat instrument beside his blotter, ‘Please bring me archived cards Leaver.’

  When the old cards had been brought in, and arranged in a fashion that made Anthea feel almost happy, he took one of the new cards and wrote on it ‘Robert Leaver.’

  ‘Robert Leaver …’ he said as he wrote. ‘Now, Mrs Leaver, why did you not want to tell me about your son in the first place?’ He lifted one of the old cards and, looking at it, shook his smiling head. He observed, ‘You were singularly reluctant to talk about your son.’

  ‘Mr B., I’m a mother.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He has something to hide. You have something to hide on his behalf. You see, Mrs Leaver, you should tell me everything. If you had told me everything it is probable your son would not have gone away without leaving an address.’

  ‘I only thought of my husband and the rich widow. I only wanted to know—’

  ‘Rich widow,’ Mr B. said, ‘Mrs Tiller is not, in any appreciable terms. Certainly, she is a woman of substance but I hardly think money is a great factor in her relationship with your husband, apart, of course, from the possibility that she has provided the wherewithal, shall we say, for the little escapade at Venice. Your husband just wanted a little change, you know; we all need a change. If I may say so you are a very wise woman, very sage, might I say, in turning your attention to your son, Robert. The fact that he goes off on a journey is not in the least unusual, nor is it uncommon for a young man to go away, leaving his belongings in the hotel and omitting to pay the bill. Especially if he knows perfectly well and here we come to the crux of the matter that the belongings will be collected and his bill paid by some good friend. And that good friend, if I may hazard a guess, is the American millionaire, Curran. Now, I see Mrs Leaver, that your real concern is not that your son has gone away, but it is the relationship he has with the man, Curran. Am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Anthea said. ‘Perhaps we should leave it for a while. I don’t want to interfere with my son’s friendships. He wouldn’t like that. I only wanted to find out where he is, and your brochure has got “Missing persons” on it.’

  ‘How long has your boy been friends with Mr Curran?’

  ‘About two years. He has a room in the gentleman’s flat in Paris.’

  ‘And you haven’t wondered why?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Anthea. ‘I haven’t wondered at all. There’s no need to go into all that.’ She had lost her courage and looked really frightened. ‘I’ll have to sleep on it,’ she said. ‘Excuse me for the trouble. But as you say it’s very, very normal for a young man to go off by himself. He might return quite soon, all the better for it. You see, he can’t go far because he has no money.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Mr B.

  ‘I don’t know. The young people don’t need money very much these days, do they?’

  ‘Don’t they?’ said Mr B. ‘Have you ever wondered where Robert got things, like for example his Cartier gold watch?’

  ‘How do you know about the watch?’

  ‘This establishment is GESS,’ said Mr B. with a smile overtaking his built-in one. ‘So you see I made a guess. Now, Mrs Leaver, if you don’t want us to proceed to find your son, what did you come here for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anthea. ‘Perhaps I made a mistake. I’ll think it over.’

  ‘If you’re afraid that you might get Robert into difficulties, or may I say awkwardness, please be assured. We are discreet, professional. I think I can help you in this case. I really think I can. So think it over well.’

  ‘My husband and Robert don’t get on well together,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not unusual.’

  ‘Oh, I know it’s a very normal situation. You make it sound all so normal I really don’t know why I troubled you.’ Anthea stood up, looking from Mr B.’s face to the door, then back again, and
again to the door, as if uncertain whether she longed to stay and talk it all over or whether she longed to go.

  ‘Sleep on it, Mrs Leaver. That, too, is normal,’ said Mr B. ‘Where was it you said Mr Curran is staying in Venice?’

  She knew she hadn’t told him, but she told him now. The Lord Byron Hotel. The same as where my husband is staying with the woman.’

  ‘It must be quite an hotel, the Lord Byron,’ said Mr B. ‘You know, of course, that Byron stayed in Venice where he exercised, if I may say, his human rights.’ He took Anthea’s hand in one of his, and folded his other hand over it. ‘If you decide to depend on me, Mrs Leaver,’ he said, ‘be sure that you can depend on me.’

  At nine o’clock that night after trying the Pensione Sofia on the telephone and failing to get Grace, Anthea went about finding the telephone number of the Hotel Lord Byron. She wanted and did not want to talk to Arnold, whoring as he was after strange gods at the Lord Byron, Venice, lush as the Kings of Midian and the chains about their camels’ necks. … In the heat of his lusts, thought Anthea, I will bust through to his room on the telephone. And so, in process of time he will repent, he will. …

  When she actually got through to the Lord Byron, she suddenly funked asking for Arnold when she pictured Mary Tiller answering the telephone in the bedroom (which, in Anthea’s imagination, was draped in shell-pink satin). After the space of three palpitations, she asked for Curran. To her astonishment she was put through to him right away. ‘Excuse me, Mr Curran’ she said timidly, ‘you don’t know me and I only know you by hearsay as a friend of my son, Robert. I’m Mrs Leaver.’

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Leaver, where are you calling from?’

  ‘I’m speaking from Birmingham where our home is.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Curran.

  ‘Do you,’ said Anthea, ‘have the faintest idea where Robert is?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t,’ Curran said. ‘He was here in Venice for a few days but he appears to have left.’