by Francis King
‘‘Yes, he has a beautiful voice.’’
‘‘Oh, shut up!’’
They all laughed, even Mrs. Bennett and the children who could not understand what had been said.
‘‘Well, let’s go,’’ Max suggested; and like a crocodile at school, the party at once formed up. Karen walked indifferently with Max, while a loquacious Rodolfo chattered beside them; Mrs. Bennett followed with Enzo, leaning her weight on his shoulder when they came to the steps and occasionally attempting to say something, either in French or English, which he could not understand; last, there were the children who, when they were not helping to push their grandmother from behind, carried on a conversation in excited whispers.
‘‘One of them smells rather,’’ said Pamela.
‘‘Yes, the Arab one. But it’s not really an unpleasant smell. Like an animal.’’
‘‘The other looks stronger. He’s the one that brought Granny’s pen back.’’
‘‘One can see he’s the nicer of the two. He was awfully embarrassed when they first came in. I smiled at him and kept smiling at him because I thought that might make him feel more comfortable. But then it struck me that he’d think I was making fun.’’
‘‘He has a hole in his trousers,’’ Pamela remarked. ‘‘They’re terribly old, they look as if they might fall to pieces at any moment. I suppose it’s unkind to notice such things.’’
‘‘One can’t help noticing things.’’
‘‘No, but to remark on them. He plays football, Daddy says.… I like the way he takes Granny’s arm—and the way Granny lets him.’’
‘‘Children, look at this lovely view,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, pressing one large hand over her heaving side, as if something were liable to burst out. Although it was night, her dark-glasses still dangled from her neck on their length of grubby twine and her other hand was fiddling with them. ‘‘Isn’t it lovely?’’ she asked.
‘‘Molto bello,’’ Enzo announced without looking at it.
‘‘It’s better at the top,’’ Colin said.
‘‘Now you’re being tactless,’’ Mrs. Bennett said with a laugh.
‘‘That’s unlike you. I asked you to admire the view because I was out of breath.’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Granny.’’
‘‘But it is beautiful,’’ Pamela said, making the discovery for the first time. She had plucked an ilex leaf on their way up and it lay between her lips as she looked down on the city. Far away the terrace of the Palazzo d’Oro floated, a cool square of light above a tramcar which at that moment passed, scattering it with grains of fire. The air was resinous and close.
A piercing whistle, which they guessed was Rodolfo’s, followed by a ‘‘Holloh’’, summoned them onwards. ‘‘I knew he’d be the sort of person who arrives at places first and then shouts to one to hurry,’’ Colin said. He turned to his sister: ‘‘That’s usually your job.’’
‘‘Come,’’ said Mrs. Bennett, the dry surface of her hand scraping on the Italian’s smooth forearm. ‘‘Let’s go on.’’ And they began to trudge onward to where they were awaited by the leaning crowds, Michelangelo’s colossus, and finally, the overture to Traviata, played by a string quartet on a shell-dilapidated terrace.
‘‘Ah, la bella musica,’’ said Rodolfo, as they arranged themselves at a table; but secretly he was wishing that they had gone to the other restaurant from which came the sounds of an Italian woman crooning an American song into a microphone which relayed it, even more horribly distorted, to the whole shadowy hillside. He was in no doubt what to order when Max asked him: ‘‘A cassata, please, and an orangeade, and some cakes.’’ He smiled impishly and put out a begging hand: ‘‘And a cigarette.’’
‘‘Well, that’s plain enough,’’ Max said in English, not sure whether to laugh or be displeased. ‘‘And you, Enzo?’’
‘‘Whatever you wish.’’ The Florentine was overawed by Karen and the splendour of the setting, shy of the children, and aware, for the first time, of the hole in his shorts. He could barely get out the three words.
‘‘Give him the same as the other boy,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, and added: ‘‘This air is suffocating. I feel I can’t breathe.’’
‘‘Perhaps the climb was too much,’’ Pamela said. She drew her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her grandmother’s forehead.
‘‘Still that filthy rag,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, smiling wryly. But she caught the girl’s forearm before she could stop, and said: ‘‘ Go on. I don’t mind a little dirt. You’re a good child.’’
‘‘Oh, this dreary music,’’ said Karen, evidently sharing Rodolfo’s opinion of the string quartet. She kept glancing around her as if she were expecting someone else to join their party, until Pamela, having watched her for several seconds, her chair tilted back, at last remarked maliciously:
‘‘You’re still waiting, Mummy.’’
‘‘Waiting? … Oh, don’t start that again, please!’’ Karen exclaimed with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. But she continued to look uneasily from table to table, her chin supported by her right arm.
After the children had gorged in a silence broken only by their occasional exclamations of pleasure and approval, Colin who had a flair for entertaining others, suggested they should play ‘‘Up Jenkins”. ‘‘Count me out,’’ Karen said, but the children insisted: ‘‘No, Mummy, you must play, it’s no fun with only a few people,’’ and Mrs. Bennett said quickly: ‘‘Yes, dear, you must play.’’ After a short period of bewilderment, the two Italians soon mastered the game, their excited shouts of ‘‘Bangs!’’ ‘‘Creeps!’’ and ‘‘Window-boxes!’’ sending the two English children into explosive shrieks of laughter. Enzo sat between Karen and Colin, and often his hand would touch hers, her flesh seeming wonderfully cool in comparison with the hot, sticky penny. At such moments of contact he would feel a strange, jolting collision within himself, as if an invisible blow had been struck upward through his whole body.
Beside Enzo’s hands, not merely Karen’s, but even Colin’s looked absurdly fragile. Usually so quiet, the English boy had lost his reserve; he kept jumping to his feet, issuing orders and then joining with his sister in yelps of derisive laughter. ‘‘ Sh! Sh!’’ Max attempted to quiet them. But the pandemonium increased. Rodolfo fell off his chair intentionally, though the others did not guess this; Pamela accused him of cheating and they began a good-humoured scuffle; the weird Italian shouts of ‘‘ Up Jenkins’’ were seriously competing with the mournful contralto who had now begun to sing with the quartet.… Guests at other tables were glancing round, some in amusement but more in disapproval; the two waiters had the look of being prepared for any emergency.
‘‘Enough!’’ Karen suddenly said, slipping the penny which Enzo had just passed her into her bag. ‘‘ You’re getting too excited, children.’’
‘‘Oh, please, Mummy,’’ Colin pleaded.
‘‘No, I think we’d better stop,’’ Max said quickly. ‘‘Let’s all have something else to drink, eh?’’
He clicked his fingers for the waiter, and as he gave the orders, did not notice that Karen was gazing with a sudden, almost frightened tension at the Piazzale, her brows drawn together and her hands, still lying on the table, clenched tightly. ‘‘Yours, darling?’’ he said.
But she had already risen to her feet: ‘‘Excuse me for a moment,’’ she murmured. ‘‘I won’t be long.’’
Max rose, too, and watched her in bewilderment as she hurried down the steps that led from the café to the Piazzale. He turned to Mrs. Bennett: ‘‘Where’s she going?’’
‘‘I haven’t an idea. She’s left her bag so she must be coming back.’’
‘‘Did we annoy her?’’ Pamela asked.
‘‘Perhaps we made too much noise,’’ Colin said, already subsiding into his usual grave manner. ‘‘Do you think that was it?’’
‘‘Oh, I don’t think it was anything to do with you all,’’ Mrs. Bennett assured them, wi
th more truth than she realized. ‘‘Perhaps she wanted to see the view. Or to be alone.’’
‘‘I hate being alone,’’ Pamela said.
The children soon forgot about Karen as they gulped cassatas and competed in blowing bubbles with their straws in tall, misty glasses of iced orangeade. ‘‘Children, your manners,’’ Mrs. Bennett reproved. ‘‘Such a bad example for the Italians.’’ But they took no notice of her. Colin put out a hand to the amulet which hung, on a fine silver chain, around Enzo’s neck: ‘‘He wears a necklace,’’ he said.
‘‘La Madonna,’’ Enzo said.
‘‘It’s the Virgin,’’ Pamela explained. ‘‘He must be a Catholic.’’
Colin twisted the chain until it bit into the flesh of the Florentine’s neck, and then released it with a laugh in which Enzo joined, glad to have provided some amusement. ‘‘I wonder if he’d take me to church with him.’’
‘‘You don’t want to go to a Catholic service,’’ Pamela said.
Colin blushed. ‘‘Yes, I do,’’ he said with a sudden sulkiness.
‘‘Granny, Colin wants to go to a Catholic service. He can’t, can he!’’
‘‘What, dear? … Oh, I don’t see why not.’’
‘‘But it’s Popish!’’
Mrs. Bennett laughed and looked towards her grandson, only to find that he had already ceased to be interested in the discussion. He was looking at Max, who sat sideways in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, as he stared at the Piazzale. His heavy, Teutonic good looks seemed to have the consistency and greyness of dough; under the thick red eyebrows the small green eyes peered out unhappily; the fingers of one hand beat an incessant tattoo on the underneath of the table.
Colin knew that his father was suffering and he guessed, though he could not be sure, that it was somehow because of Karen. He wanted to comfort Max, to touch his ceaselessly drumming hand or to say some word that would cheer him; but he could not do it, was too awkward, even feared a snub. Then his impotence in the face of the misery of someone whom he loved expressed itself in a sudden hatred of Karen. He thought of the cutting phrases he would like to use to her; she was an outsider whom Max had brought in, she didn’t belong, she was not part of them.… In this baffled mixture of love for his father and hatred for Karen, he remained staring at Max until Mrs. Bennett said: ‘‘A penny for your thoughts.’’ The boy did not answer, and Mrs. Bennett said: ‘‘Such a strange expression. You frighten me when you look like that.’’
‘‘Karen has gone,’’ Max said.
‘‘Gone?’’ Mrs. Bennett queried.
‘‘I’ve just seen her. She’s walking back to Florence.’’
‘‘Alone?’’
‘‘No. I think there was someone with her. I can’t be sure.’’
‘‘Mr. Westfield,’’ a voice said behind them. ‘‘Welcome to the Piazzale!’’ It was Lena, in a full purple skirt, a blouse of elaborate ‘‘Broderie anglaise’’ worn off the shoulders, and a pair of jet ear-rings that swung back and forth, tugging at her almost lobeless ears, whenever she spoke. This was evidently not what Mrs. Bennett would call one of her ‘‘ sensible’’ days. ‘‘Hello, children,’’ she said, having long since made friends with them. ‘‘Mr. Westfield, I wish to present——’’ She put out an arm as if she were tugging on an invisible rope in order to get her young man to come nearer—‘‘ Signor Commino.’’
They had all heard of Signor Commino, who worked at an English travel agency, collected stamps, butterflies and fossils, and wished to marry Lena. The children now stared at him with interest.… But, oh dear, he wouldn’t do, they at once decided, they knew they were going to giggle. He was short and he was almost completely spherical, with two rabbit-teeth in front, a bulging dome of a forehead, and a brief nose half-way down on which there rested an enormous pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
He was a person of extreme good-nature, but the children did not realize this, imagining that his ugliness must be stamped through and through him like the lettering on Brighton Rock.
‘‘Won’t you join us?’’ Max suggested apathetically.
‘‘Oh, no, Mr. Westfield, we do not wish to infringe the family gathering.’’ But Lena had already pulled back the chair beside Max, waiting only for him to repeat the invitation. As, of course, he did.
‘‘Well,’’ said Signor Commino in English to the two children, ‘‘and how do we like our Florence?’’
Colin and Pamela exchanged agonized glances, until choking back her giggles, Pamela said: ‘‘Very much, thank you.’’
Signor Commino took a small, enamelled box out of the pocket of his greasy brown suit and, watched by the Italians and the two English children, proceeded to take a pinch of snuff. He grunted two or three times, cleared his throat, and then, pulling out a handkerchief, began to dust the vast, uniform, outward curve of his chest and stomach as if it were a mantelpiece.
‘‘What’s that?’’ Pamela asked.
‘‘Starnutiglio. I don’t know how you say it in English. Starnutiglio, Lena,’’ he said, interrupting her in a one-sided conversation with Max.
‘‘Sneezing-powder.’’
Colin and Pamela stuffed handkerchiefs to their mouths, and catching the infection of their mood, the two Italians now also began to shake with suppressed giggles.
‘‘What have we seen of our beautiful city?’’ Signor Commino asked, unaware of the amusement he was causing. He scratched with his forefinger at the tuft of hair that divided the bald, shiny front of his head (at the back there was a luxuriant bush, which lay over his collar and scattered dandruff almost to the waist of his jacket). ‘‘Have we visited the historical Palazzo Vecchio? H’m, h’m? Or the Uffizi Galleria? Or the magnificent and stony Pitti Palace? H’m!’’ The children only continued to sway and shudder soundlessly before him, their hands to their lips. ‘‘Perhaps we are too young for such treasure.’’ He trumpeted into the handkerchief with which he had been dusting himself, and suddenly raising his left arm above his head, began to click the fingers as loudly as if they were castanets. A waiter hurried over. ‘‘What for you all?’’ Signor Commino asked.
‘‘I think they’ve had all that’s good for them,’’ Mrs. Bennett answered for the speechless children, at the same time giving them a scolding glance and kicking Enzo by mistake for Colin under the table.
When the waiter had taken the order, Signor Commino turned to Pamela: ‘‘Today I have been to Viareggio,’’ he announced. ‘‘Do you also bath?’’
It was too much for them. Like water from a geyser, their merriment hissed and scalded out. They bent double, they clutched themselves and then clutched each other, Enzo and Rodolfo joined in, the glasses rocked and rattled on the table, Mrs. Bennett expostulated, Signor Commino looked surprised and then hurt, Lena appeared to be about to burst into tears.…
But it was soon over. Mute and white-faced, as if they had just been sick, the two children sat in shame before their elders. They knew that they had set the Italian boys a bad example, annoyed their father and grandmother, and hurt poor Lena. About Signor Commino they unfortunately did not care.
‘‘After that exhibition, I think we’d better go,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, suddenly looking even more tired than Max.
‘‘Yes,’’ said Max. ‘‘They’re obviously over-excited.’’
‘‘I’m sorry,’’ Colin muttered, in genuine remorse.
When they had said good-bye and were making their way to the steps, Lena ran after them, brandishing Karen’s bag. Colin and Pamela were walking last of the procession, and she gave it to them; saying at the same time in gentle reproof: ‘‘That wasn’t amiable of you. You made Signor Commino very unhappy. No, it was not amiable. I was surprised.’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Lena,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘We didn’t mean to be rude. We just couldn’t help ourselves. We tried to stop, but that only made it worse and worse.… But, Lena,’’ she rushed on, ‘‘ you mustn’t marry him—you mustn’t, mustn’t, mustn’
t! Promise!’’
A strangely different Lena answered in a cold voice, ‘‘Please mind your own business,’’ and turned and walked away.
‘‘Pamela—what a thing to say!’’ her brother exclaimed in horror. ‘‘How could you?’’
‘‘But he’s awful. And I’m fond of Lena, and I can’t bear to think of her married to someone like that. He’s fat, and he’s ugly, and he’s old.’’
‘‘Lena told us he was only thirty-three.’’
‘‘Well, he looks old. And that awful sneezing-powder that he takes. And did you notice how his hair grew behind? Oh, he’s an ogre. Lena can’t marry him. Besides,’’ she added, ‘‘she doesn’t love him. She loves Daddy.’’
‘‘Loves Daddy!’’ Colin laughed. ‘‘ Oh, bosh!’’
‘‘No, I’m sure of it,’’ Pamela said seriously. ‘‘You remember how Miss Phillips loved him too—Mummy was always joking about it. I suppose he’s attractive to women of that sort. They want to mother him, and they’re afraid that they’re getting old and unattractive, and it may be their last chance. I feel sorry for Lena. It must be terrible for her. And having that awful mother, too, with the pain in the abdomen.’’
Mrs. Bennett, walking with Max, while Rodolfo and Enzo followed behind, suddenly gripped her son-in-law’s arm on a narrow path which wound down through a tangled mesh of bushes. ‘‘What’s that?’’ she exclaimed.
‘‘What’s what?’’
‘‘There! There’s someone walking there, on the other side. I can hear him.… Look, his face! There! There!’’ In a patch of moonlight between the branches of a tree she momentarily thought she saw the face of the old man of her walk; he was smiling, revealing the two long, decaying eye-teeth which gleamed, like the collapsed bridge of his nose, his forehead and the lenses of his glasses, through the surrounding darkness. Then he moved on. ‘‘He’s following us,’’ she said. ‘‘I knew that he was.’’
Max rushed to where she pointed, plunged into the bushes and searched up and down. ‘‘No one,’’ he said. ‘‘You must have imagined it.’’