by Francis King
Chapter Eleven
‘‘HEAVENS!’’ Pamela exclaimed when she came into her brother’s room and found him unpacking. ‘‘All that tissue-paper! You didn’t do it yourself, did you?’’ She was carrying a hair-brush and at once began to brush her hair with long, competent strokes, as ‘‘ Did you?’’ she repeated, ‘‘did you?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Colin admitted, continuing to place his clothes in cupboards and chests-of-drawers.
‘‘I thought only school-matrons packed like that. You are funny, Colin. Sometimes I find it difficult to believe that you’re just a boy. Do you like clothes?’’
‘‘If one spends money on them, one might as well look after them.’’
‘‘I think you do like them,’’ Pamela declared. ‘‘I suppose it must give one a feeling of superiority to be well dressed,’’ she added, without intentional malice.
‘‘One feels there’s less to be criticized,’’ Colin admitted frankly. He had always been afraid of criticism; and because he knew that, in his inmost being, he deviated so far from what he had been taught to regard as the normal schoolboy, in all external details he was careful to conform with resolute fidelity.
‘‘I’m afraid there must be a lot to criticize in my appearance,’’ Pamela confessed, without apparently wishing it were otherwise. ‘‘At school Miss Preston asked me who chose my clothes and when I said I chose them myself, of course she was surprised. She thought Mummy should choose them for me.’’ She sighed: ‘‘I wish she did! She does dress well, doesn’t she?’’
‘‘Carelessly, but well,’’ Colin agreed.
‘‘As she does most things.… Oh, I’m tired of brushing my hair! Everyone at school tells me I’ve got beautiful hair; but that’s just a nice way of saying it’s the only presentable thing about me.’’ She flung down the brush and, jumping off the bed, picked up a neatly wrapped bundle and began to unwind it, exclaiming as she did so: ‘‘What is it? What is it?.… Oh, it’s a bottle of eau-de-Cologne! You don’t use it, do you?’’ She had unscrewed the cap and now she took a sip. ‘‘ One of the girls in the dormitory got drunk on eau-de-Cologne.… Oh, it burns!’’ she cried out; and she hurried over to the wash-basin and began to gulp water.
‘‘Serve you right,’’ Colin said.
‘‘What’s it for?’’ his sister asked again.
‘‘For after shaving.’’
‘‘Shaving! But you don’t shave.’’
‘‘Of course I do. Don’t be silly.’’
‘‘Well, it must be a new idea. I’m sure you don’t have to. You’ve got less hair than I have—at least I’ve a small moustache! Let me feel.’’ She attempted to touch his cheek, but he at once pulled away from her, and a struggle began.
As usual, Pamela was victorious. ‘‘You only shave because it seems grown-up,’’ she taunted. ‘‘Your face is quite smooth. I knew it was.… Now don’t be cross,’’ she added, seeing how he was scowling as he emptied an armful of rolled socks into a drawer.
‘‘We should be in bed,’’ Colin said.
‘‘I know we should. And asleep, after that long journey. But I feel too excited.’’ She stretched out her plumply pink arms to the open window: ‘‘Lovely, lovely Florence!’’
‘‘You’ve hardly seen it,’’ Colin remarked drily.
‘‘I know, but what I have seen … And Miss Preston says it’s the most beautiful place in Europe.’’ She let herself topple head first into an arm-chair, while Colin exclaimed: ‘‘ Oh, do mind those shirts! You’ll crush them, you fool.’’
‘‘Sorry. Yes, I have, crushed this collar.’’ With clumsy fingers she attempted to press the rucked edge smooth once again. ‘‘ Colin, do you think I was awfully rude to Mummy?’’
‘‘She deserved it. It was wrong of her not to be at the station. Not because of us, but because of Nicko.’’
‘‘She cares for him,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘ She cares for him a lot. That’s what I can’t understand. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been just us, because we know we’re not really important to her, but Nicko being there made it different. I was furious and I just had to show it, I couldn’t help myself. I haven’t your control.’’
‘‘It’s not control, only cowardice,’’ he said with the honesty they always showed each other. ‘‘I wanted to say the same things.’’
‘‘Oh, I’m glad of that, Colin. Because I thought that perhaps I’d been unfair to her. And I don’t want to be unfair. After all she’s really been quite decent to us, hasn’t she? I mean, she’s never been unkind in any way, as stepmothers so often are.’’
‘‘Sometimes I wish she had,’’ Colin said, drawing a silk tie through his fingers so that it made a gentle swish. ‘‘It’s not very pleasant not to be cared about, one way or the other.’’
‘‘Oh, I think this is better than being disliked,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘ I’m sure it’s better.’’ She went out on to the balcony and leant over, the night breeze filling the legs of her pyjamas as if they were sails. ‘‘Come out here,’’ she called. ‘‘Oh come on! Be a sport!’’
Side by side they stood, the thin, compact boy holding himself stiffly beside the relaxed and sprawling body of his sister, until Pamela gathered the saliva in her mouth, and with a muttered ‘‘Look!’’ spat down on to the gleaming semi-circle of light before the swing-doors. ‘‘ Good shot!’’ she applauded herself, and as a white-haired man, accompanied by a young woman, emerged from the doors, she spat once again. ‘‘You try,’’ she said. ‘‘I’ve no more spit left.… Oh, feeble!’’ She could not help laughing at Colin as he leant gingerly over the balustrade, pursed his lips and, with the utmost deliberation, let fall a thin thread of spittle which the breeze tugged, broke and at last wholly disintegrated. ‘‘ You spit as you throw a cricket-ball,’’ she said, insensitive, as she so often was, to the shame her brother felt at his own incapacity. ‘‘It’s funny you can’t throw over-arm. You ought to learn. But you’re not really interested, are you?’’
‘‘No,’’ he agreed shortly. But that was not true. Secretly it worried him that he was so obviously the physical inferior of the other boys at school, being gauche when they were graceful and weak when they were strong. He envied them their ability, and was ashamed for his own lack. But he would never admit this, except to himself, and his pose was not to care for games and to despise those that did.
‘‘Children! What are you doing? … After your bath, too, Pamela.’’ Mrs. Bennett had come into the room, and was calling to them in a high-pitched, scolding voice; but she did not really wish to scold them, as the children well knew.
‘‘Come here, Granny,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘Do come here.’’
‘‘No, you come here.’’ But Mrs. Bennett had already gone across to them. ‘‘ You’ll catch a fearful cold, there’s the mist off the river.… What are you doing, child?’’
‘‘Spitting.’’
‘‘Spitting! … What a disgusting idea!’’
‘‘Look, I’ve just hit that man.’’
‘‘Come here, at once!’’ Mrs. Bennett went over to the balustrade and grabbed Pamela’s arm. ‘‘Which man?’’ she asked, suddenly peering down.
‘‘That one.’’
‘‘That’s Mr. Maskell.’’ Mrs. Bennett exclaimed with a mingling of horror and delight, and the two children at once burst into giggles. ‘‘No, it’s not funny, not in the least funny. It’s a disgusting, insanitary game. Come in at once. You don’t want to get the reputation of being street children, do you? Come in, Pamela! Pamela! … No, it’s not nice, that sort of thing,’’ Mrs. Bennett repeated more quickly as the children at last obeyed her. Then, as if she had completely forgotten about their misbehaviour, she went on: ‘‘I’d have been in earlier to tuck you both up, but Nicko was crying. He wouldn’t stop.’’
‘‘Whom did he want!’’ Pamela asked.
‘‘I think he was overtired,’’ Mrs. Bennett answered evasively.
‘‘Didn’t he
want Mummy?’’
‘‘Little children always call for their mothers when they feel miserable,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, as if she had to defend Karen’s absence.
‘‘Mummy might have stayed in tonight, she might have guessed that he would want her.’’
‘‘He was asleep when she went in to see him.’’
‘‘I think she’s selfish,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘Don’t you, Colin?’’
‘‘I suppose you’re talking about me,’’ a voice said behind them. ‘‘It must have been an absorbing topic to have kept you up so late.… You look tired, Mother, you really should go to bed.’’
‘‘Granny has had to sit up with Nicko,’’ Colin said coldly.
‘‘Has she? What’s the matter?’’ Either Karen wished to ignore the oblique accusation or else she had not felt it. ‘‘ I expect he’s overtired,’’ she answered her own question, in the way that was most satisfactory to her conscience. ‘‘It was a long journey. And you, too, have had a long journey,’’ she continued to the children. ‘‘I think you should turn in.’’
‘‘Yes, bed,’’ said Max, who had been leaning silently in the doorway, his whole weight on one flexed arm.
‘‘I hadn’t noticed you, Daddy,’’ Pamela said in surprise.
‘‘Am I as small as that?’’ Max asked with an awkward attempt at humour. ‘‘Am I?’’
Karen had wandered out on to the balcony and was standing there, gazing at the river. She beat a small tattoo with the palms of her hands on the stone parapet, and gave a deep sigh; then she walked up and down the balcony two or three times, her arms crossed over her breast. The wind blew her fair hair across her face, and her flesh gleamed, blue-white, like snow in the moonlight.
When she returned to the room, Pamela asked: ‘‘Why are you so restless, Mummy?’’
Karen gave a laugh: ‘‘I’m not restless.’’
‘‘You looked as if you were waiting for someone.’’
‘‘I wish I was?’’
‘‘You’re restless,’’ Pamela repeated.
‘‘Now back to your room, Pamela,’’ Max put in. ‘‘It’s past eleven o’clock.… Pamela—do what I say!’’
‘‘This bed is hard,’’ Colin said, bouncing up and down.
‘‘Be thankful you have a bed,’’ his father retorted. ‘‘When we came through the Uffizi we saw one of those two boys asleep on a stone bench. How would you like that?’’
‘‘Which two boys?’’
‘‘Oh, you haven’t met them. I forgot.’’
‘‘Which two boys?’’
‘‘It wouldn’t interest you. They were two boys we met. I’ll tell you about it some other time.… Good night, old chap.’’
Max stooped clumsily and kissed his son on the forehead, and then watched while Mrs. Bennett also said good night. He noticed how, with her, there was none of the same stiffening on the boy’s part, as if for an irksome duty, and in the comparison a swift mingling of grief and anger swept through his being.
Chapter Twelve
‘‘WHAT a strange thing to do, Mother,’’ Karen said.
‘‘Is it strange? Yes, I suppose it is, but it never really struck me. I saw them in the Signoria, and I stopped to have a word with them, because they’re nice children. And then I remembered that tonight we were going to the Piazzale Michelangelo, and I thought they might like to come too. The music,’’ she explained. ‘‘I expect they’ll like the music. But whether they’ll come or not is another matter. I spoke to the Tunisian in French, but perhaps he didn’t understand me.’’
‘‘Frankly, I rather hope he didn’t,’’ Karen said. ‘‘I don’t much fancy going up there with two boys off the streets.’’
‘‘They’re nice children,’’ Mrs. Bennett repeated.
‘‘One of them stole your pen,’’ Max reminded her.
‘‘And the other returned it.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ Max said. ‘‘That’s true enough.’’
‘‘Be careful of confidence-tricks,’’ Mrs. Maskell put in. They were all seated in a circle in the lounge, but whereas the other chairs were at some distance from each other, hers was so near von Arbach’s that whenever she leant forward to pick up her drink, her knee could touch his. ‘‘ They all play confidence-tricks. The Marchesa was telling us about one of them when we had tea with her. It’s all to do with a bale of cloth, and a Greek merchant who has to catch a plane, and you’ve to lend him some money on the security of the cloth—and an Italian friend will pay you back. Isn’t that how it goes, Tiny? But, of course, the cloth is practically valueless and the friend doesn’t exist. They’re such crooks,’’ she said. ‘‘I wouldn’t trust them an inch.… Have my cherry,’’ she continued to von Arbach, fishing the Maraschino out of her drink on the end of its wooden stick ‘‘ You know that you adore them.’’
Von Arbach looked embarrassed, his long white eyelashes fluttering over his oblique eyes and his cheeks reddening at this attention; but he docilely accepted the proffered gift, opening his mouth for Mrs. Maskell to push the cherry in.
Tiny, who had obviously been thinking for some time, now announced, biting on his pipe: ‘‘Look at it this way. Taking those two lads up to that swagger place at the Piazzale is the equivalent of taking two barrow-boys into the Ritz. Well, isn’t it?’’
‘‘As bad as that!’’ Mrs. Bennett asked in a dismay which was not without its hidden irony.
The comparison seemed to please Karen: ‘‘Then it may be more fun than I had expected.’’
‘‘Perhaps I’ve made a mistake,’’ Mrs. Bennett sighed. ‘‘ Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked them.’’
But, at any rate, Colin and Pamela were delighted with the prospect of meeting the two Italians. At this moment they were seated in the entrance hall, one on either side of the vast central pillar, purple and veined like horse-meat, and were scrutinizing everyone who entered. When, at last, two boys in shorts thrust themselves round the doors and then looked about them, as if dazed by an excessive brightness, before lumbering across to the desk, the American children leapt to their feet and rushed into the lounge. ‘‘ They’ve come,’’ they announced. ‘‘They’re asking at the desk.’’
‘‘I’d better go and see,’’ Max said.
‘‘Are you joining us?’’ Karen asked Mrs. Maskell.
‘‘To the Piazzale? Oh, I don’t think so,’’ the other woman returned, smiling agreeably and yet managing to indicate by no more than an inflexion that really she couldn’t be expected to take part in this kind of social prank. ‘‘No, as a matter of fact, we’re thinking of going dancing again tonight. Béngt took us to a wonderful place, on a roof near the station, with a floor-show and an American band and simply marvellous food, and we thought we’d pay another visit. You ought to come some night.’’
‘‘My God, they fleece you!’’ Tiny said unexpectedly.
Chris looked at him for a moment with intense distaste; then she laughed. ‘‘That’s so like Tiny, always counting his pennies; I don’t see what’s the point of coming on a holiday if one doesn’t want to spend money on the things one enjoys.’’
‘‘I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy the place,’’ Tiny retorted. ‘‘ I merely said it was expensive.’’
‘‘Oh, it’s so vulgar always to discuss things in terms of expense,’’ Chris said.
‘‘Well, one’s got to be vulgar with an allowance of only fifty pounds.’’
‘‘Thank you, Béngt,’’ Chris said, turning to beam at him, as he extricated her greying Dauphin bob from under the collar of the musquash coat she had just dragged on. ‘‘Béngt has such lovely manners,’’ she boasted as a mother might of her child. ‘‘Have you noticed his family crest?’’ And she at once caught his little finger and showed it to the company. But before they could all see, Max’s arrival with Rodolfo and Enzo made her hurry away her men-folk. ‘‘Ta-ta for now,’’ she called. ‘‘Ta-ta!’’
Colin and Pamela stood with legs apart and fin
gers clasped behind their backs, like awkward soldiers at ease, waiting to be presented; nerves made them both want to giggle. Hands were shaken all round, even by Karen who, looking down, was amused to see that the muscles in Enzo’s bare knees were unmistakably twitching with panic. Although she was naturally unobservant, for such things her eye never failed her. When she glanced at his face, his gaze swerved away, as if they were two cars coming into collision. ‘‘I heard that one singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ the other night,’’ she said; and Rodolfo, understanding at least the word ‘‘singing’’, took it up with his unfailing desire to please by announcing, in Italian: ‘‘Si, si, Enzo sings beautifully.’’
‘‘No, I don’t. Don’t be such a fool.’’ The other boy dragged one toe of his plimsoll across the parquet floor so that it made a long grey smear, and then lowering his head, began to blush.