by Patrick Gale
‘First tell me about you,’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’
‘Have you forgotten the date?’
‘August the eighth. What about it?’
‘Jacoby … eh? … remember your poor father, uh?’
‘Oh God, how awful! I’d completely forgotten.’ Every year Isobella had made sure she was in the country for the anniversary of Jacoby’s coronary so that she could clean his tombstone and honour it with flowers. For the past three years she had been in the country already, so that no issue had been made of the thing. Domina winced from the shame. ‘But you should have reminded me,’ she complained. ‘It’s not fair to me to test me like that. You know how absent-minded I can be. And it’s not fair to you. Where are you staying? Are you in an hotel?’
‘I have an enchanting room in Claridges. This afternoon we’ll drive over to Sussex to pay our respects, tonight you’re coming to Covent Garden with me – Te Kanawa and Pavarotti, cara – then tomorrow you come shopping with me and we fly home on the three o’clock flight.’
‘I’ll come to the Opera with you, and of course I’ll come to Sussex, but I’m not going home.’
‘But Domina, I fail to understand you. Randolph has thrown you out; it would be a disgrace to be found skulking here like some sentimental hussy.’
‘Randy hasn’t thrown me out, Mamma.’
‘He hasn’t?’ The disappointment on Isobella’s face fairly sang.
‘How did you find out where I was?’
‘Well, I arrived in Heathrow yesterday. I looked around. No one to meet me but I think, “That doesn’t matter, they’re both busy young people.” So I went to a telefono and rang your Clifton number. That Randolph answered and he said … he said …’ Isobella’s face burst into a crinkling laugh. ‘He said that you had gone to be with your poor dear mother who was oh so very sick, if not dying in Tuscany. So I waited a bit to get over the shock of being told that I’m very sick and I said, “Randolph, this is her mother and I’m neither sick nor nella bella Toscana, I’m in beastly Heathrow. Where is my daughter?” Well, at first he didn’t want to tell, and I could see that you’d had a row or something, so I said that if he didn’t tell me where you were I’d come and stay with him for weeks.’ She laughed her finely-tuned laugh. ‘And he panicked at that, I can tell you, and he give me the number of your agent, that lesbian potato.’
‘Des isn’t a lesbian.’
‘Well, she look like one. Anyway, I ring your Desbian and I say I must have your address as it’s a matter of life and death.’
‘I’ll sack her.’
‘No, cara, don’t do that. She is plain and means no harm, and I was so very convincing.’
‘Mamma, I haven’t had a row with Randolph. I know you can’t wait to see us split up but you’ll just simply have to wait a little longer, OK?’
‘Then why are you living in this slum?’
‘Because I was never allowed to before.’
‘But you never asked. I’m sure we could have arranged …’
‘That’s just the point. It would have been an arrangement; a tasteful conversion in Islington. I’d had enough of that at the Paragon …’
‘There. I told you. Randolph is the end.’
‘No, not Randolph – comfort, luxury. I could feel myself getting dull. I’m on a kind of holiday. It’s a sort of rest-cure for my work.’
‘You’re collecting material here? Why don’t you just watch it on your soap operas? This – c’e spaventole, veramente vulgaro. Your father, God forgive his soul, perhaps he would have understood – he was sometimes the British eccentric like this – but I, I cannot see it. You think it’s just for art, but it’s snobbish too, you know that?’
‘What?’
‘It’s snobbish, I said. You think you can sail into a place like this and write about them all as if they were merely characters for your stage, but they’re people, Domina, real people, and if they found out what you’re doing they’d be most upset.’
‘Oh, Mamma, really. You don’t know what it’s like. They don’t know who I am. No one ever does, not these sort of people anyway. If I were Fi Templeton, perhaps they might – they remember actresses – but me? Never. They think Domina Feraldi is a luscious Italian.’
‘Well, so she is. Half of her.’
‘I am glad you’re here, Mamma. You look wonderful.’
Isobella chuckled and shook her daughter’s chin in a familiar gesture. The frank sexiness of that chuckle had always come as a pleasant surprise.
‘I’m glad I’m here, too. It’s so good to have you on your own! Now I must go and pay some calls. You’ll meet me for lunch, of course. If you come to my room I’ll have something sent up, then we can set out for Sussex in good time. Va bene?’
‘Va bene, Mamma. A l’una.’
They kissed and Isobella insisted she see herself out. No daughter of hers would be seen wandering through a slum in a state of deshabillé. Domina returned to her room, saw Avril Gilchrist’s manuscript on the floor, and remembered that she had quite forgotten to telephone Westminster Bureau the night before. Already excited at the day off sweet Fate had granted her, she took a ten-pence piece and hurried down to call them now to apologize and announce that she would not be available for work until Friday.
13
Domina paused half-way up the staircase. Someone had left the naked light bulb burning over the pay-phone. Exhilarated by Italian and duty-free brandy, she swayed, staring into the pool of light. It was late but she knew he’d be awake. She stepped forward and dug a coin from her bag. She mouthed the familiar digits as she dialled. The moment the pips finished she was embarrassed at the clarity with which her voice pealed out in the stairwell.
‘Randy? It’s the paramour. Did I wake you? … Good … Oh, I’m fine. Thanks for the letter. Des forwarded it to me … Mamma did? … Yes, I know. She turned up this morning and found me still in bed … No, it wasn’t your fault. It was nice to see her, anyway. We went to Sussex this afternoon and I’ve just got back from the Opera … It’s the eighth – Daddy’s grave … Yes … No, I’m fine, honestly. How are you? Oh blast! No more change … I … Yes … I love you too. ’Bye.’
The pips cut her off and she said ’bye to the bald dialling tone. She switched off the light, continued up to the attic, and wished she had not rung him. Mamma and she had spent the evening playing wised-up women of the world, wry sybils of the Mother Goddess, and now she had let the side down.
Quintus Harding was playing his Gregorian chant again. She tried to get past it, came as far as sliding her key into the lock, then turned and knocked at his door.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s … it’s Mrs Tey. Can I come in?’ Footsteps approached the door and he let her in. She saw at once that he had been working. The room was dark save for a lamp on a table in the window where several books lay open. ‘Oh, I am sorry. You’re working.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t matter.’
‘No.’ She felt drunk. Gross. ‘I mustn’t disturb you. It was only the music. I heard it the other night. The nuns used to sing something like it at school. It’s something I can never quite shake off.’
‘Come in and listen properly.’
‘No. You must get on with your reading. This is the Regina Coeli, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Look, do come in. I wasn’t concentrating in any case.’
She found herself sitting on the edge of his bed while he shut the door behind her and returned to his seat at the table. He had no curtains, and she could see that the red geraniums she had seen from the road were his. The room had an academic air, like someone’s sitting room in College.
‘You must have a marvellous view,’ she said.
‘Not really.’
‘Well, it’s better than mine. Can you see the Gardens?’
‘Just about. Well, some of the trees. But it’s noisier than a back room during the day. And that sign gets on my nerve
s.’
‘Which?’
‘The Hermes one. I think something’s the matter with it. It’s been flickering like that for weeks now.’
Domina stood to follow his gaze down into the street to the crippled flashing of the blue neon letters.
‘Oh. That place. It’s a sauna, isn’t it?’
‘Sort of. Thierry goes there a lot. He made me come with him once, but I find that sort of heat gives me a headache.’ He had been playing with a pencil which now snapped. ‘Damn!’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh. Sorry. Have you been out?’
‘Yes. My mother’s in town and she had seats for Convent Garden. Traviata.’
‘Good?’
‘Marvellous. Pavarotti and Kiri Te Kanawa.’
‘Not really my kind of thing,’ he started, but the Gregorian chant came to an end and he moved to deal with it. Domina stood.
‘Now I must go to bed and let you get on with your reading.’ The room made her unaccountably tense.
‘No. Please stay. Unless you’re exhausted, that is. I’ve been reading non-stop since about eight and my head’s fit to burst. Only if you’re not tired, though.’
She sat down again without a word. She noticed the icon over his pillow. An old, haloed man clutching a haloed boy to his side and leaning on a staff. A lily was flowering on the top of the latter and a dove floated overhead.
‘That’s Saint Joseph, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘It’s copied from one of the side altars at Santa Sofia. Can I put on something else now? I hate talking over chant.’
‘No. I mean, yes do, and no it doesn’t feel quite right, does it?’
He laughed, then checked himself. It was a trait she had noticed when they were talking in the Gardens, before she had fled and left him dealing with the keeper and the goose; he never allowed his laughs to die a natural death, but choked them. He put on some unaccompanied Bach. A ‘cello suite. Randy had been trying to make her listen to unaccompanied Bach for twenty years, but it made her laugh, which made him cross. As Quintus returned to his seat by the window she wondered whether she was going to laugh now. The gravity with which he evidently took himself would be ludicrous were it not for the sneaking suspicion, aroused once more as his features were brushed by the light of the lamp, that he was rather good-looking. Good-looking in a hopeless, ascetic way, of course.
‘Why Saint Joseph?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t there a Saint Quintus?’
‘No. Irredeemably Latin, I’m afraid. Besides, I’ve never held with the idea of revering a saint simply because you share their name. Parents can’t tell whether children will grow up to find their namesakes relevant. You can’t emulate to order. There has to be some sympathetic desire. No, I chose dear Saint Joseph. Or perhaps he chose me.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s always appealed. I felt terribly sorry for him at first, no spectacular martyrdom, just self-effacement.’
‘But he’d been married before, hadn’t he?’
‘You can’t be sure. The part about him being an old man was patently invented by the artists and translators to ease the discomfort of the situation. Especially in Italy. They just couldn’t bear to contemplate that kind of wilful emasculation. Being cuckolded by God seems less unjust if you tell yourself that he’s past his prime, that it’s a second marriage, and turn him into a protective father figure with a wispy beard.’
‘Do you want to emulate his peaceful death?’
‘Don’t mock,’ he said, frowning.
‘Sorry. I’m not really. I just think it’s a little premature to attach yourself to the patron saint of the deathbed.’
‘He’s a hero of male chastity, too. At least, he is to my mind.’
To Domina’s mind the two were one celibacy, a cripple’s existence.
‘Why Quintus, then? Were you actually number five?’
‘Yes. Well, fifth born. There were twins the year before me who only lived a couple of hours.’
‘Oh, how terrible! Your poor mother.’ She wanted to ask him how it felt to grow up with a name that was an abiding reminder of death. The mother must be sick. ‘How old are the other two?’
‘Much older. Roderick’s thirty-two – he’s a vet – and Jennifer’s thirty.’
So you were the baby, she thought. ‘I was an only child,’ she confessed.
‘I know.’
‘How?’
‘Because you ask so many questions.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No. That sounded rude. It’s nice to have someone to chat to.’
‘Don’t you talk to the rest of them?’
‘Not much. They come and go so often that it seems rather a waste of effort getting to know them.’
‘But Penny and Avril?’
‘Penny seems to be scared of me. I can never make her relax. Avril’s quite sweet.’
‘And what about Thierry?’
‘Oh … well … things have always been a bit difficult there.’ His voice sank and he abruptly started shutting books. Even in the half-light his blush could be seen, unexpected on his bloodless cheeks. ‘Where did you get to like Gregorian chant?’ he went on. She stopped staring and played with her dress.
‘At school. Saint Mary’s, Clanworth.’
‘I thought that was a Catholic convent.’
‘It was. My mother’s Italian.’
‘But you …’
‘I married into a Church of England cathedral close. Talk about the pork pie at the Jewish wedding.’ The joke was suspiciously out of character; she ought to be in bed. He laughed, though, then checked himself.
‘When did your husband … ?’
‘Last year.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Not at all. Why are you reading history books? I thought, when you mentioned your Brother Jerome …’
‘Oh. That’s strictly unofficial. As far as my parents are concerned, I’m a second year historian at UCL. I discovered the cathedral quite by accident.’
‘Which cathedral?’
‘Santa Sofia’s. It’s the Greek Orthodox one by the Moscow Road, down there. Well, it wasn’t quite accidental. I’m specializing in the Ottoman Empire, Eastern church powers and things. One day last spring, it must have been, I was buying cakes in the Moscow Road bakery and got inquisitive and went inside. It struck me I ought to know just what Orthodoxy was all about. I went home to dump the cakes, and came back in time for the next service.’
‘And now you’re hooked.’
‘Let’s just say I’m convinced.’
The firmness of his tone disturbed her. It was so unlike the bland security of the Christian Unionists at Cambridge. It dawned on her that they had been the last young believers she had met.
‘Why the classes with Brother Jerome?’ she dared.
‘Well, to start with I just went to ask him to explain things. I’d had a standard C of E childhood – christening, Sunday School, scripture classes, confirmation and no awkward questions allowed. The services are mostly in English (and anyway I’ve got a bi-lingual prayer book) but I felt an outsider. I felt I was enjoying them for the wrong reasons: the music, the smells, the vague sense that here were some people with convictions. I started just talking to Jerome about fundamentals of their belief – still very much the roving historian – then I realized that I was getting ready for something bigger.’
‘You wanted to convert to Orthodoxy?’
‘More than that.’ He gave out a sharp little laugh. ‘I think I might want to become a monk.’
‘God! I mean, goodness.’ Her mind reeled. This was obscene. ‘Do your parents have no idea at all?’
‘None.’
‘Wouldn’t they be upset?’
‘They wouldn’t understand, so yes, I suppose they would be.’
‘What do they want you to do?’
‘They don’t want me to specialize in History. They don’t dare say that, because they don’t ever show how stupid they are, but I’ve mentioned that possibility and I could feel them di
sapproving.’
‘Why? What does your father do?’
‘He’s retired now. He was in the RAF. That’s his only link with me.’
‘You don’t want to join …’
‘No. But I fly.’
Biggies in sackcloth. She really must go to bed.
‘You fly? Where did you learn to do that?’
‘They were so keen, they sent me to Braddleton instead of somewhere more Oxbridge orientated.’
‘I thought that was Army.’
‘Guns. Boats. Planes. Horses. Cricket. Rugger. Anything but Oxbridge.’
‘Or the Ottoman Empire. Were you miserable?’
‘At first. Then I realized how nice it was to be miles from home and started joining in with things. I’ve got twenty-twenty vision so they put me in the RAF division of the Corps and I learnt how to fly. Got my licence before I left. God knows why, really. I knew I’d never want to be a pilot or fight or anything.’
‘But it must be wonderful. I know that sounds crass, but … well – flying! Sorry. It’s only that it’s so utterly unexpected. Do you ever get a chance now?’
‘Oh yes. I go every week. Sundays. You must come up.’
‘Is that allowed?’ She could barely contain her excitement.
‘Of course. I’ve got my advanced licence now, and I’m fully insured.’
‘Where do you fly?’
‘Biggin Hill.’
‘Oh, of course.’ The gigue bounced to a close and the ‘cello suite was over. Domina yawned. ‘Sorry. How desperately rude of me.’
‘Not at all.’
‘My mother appeared on the doorstep at dawn and it’s been a long, long day.’ She rose and started for the door. ‘I must let you get some sleep. Thanks so much for putting up with me. I think I was …’
‘No. It was lovely.’
‘… I was just feeling rather homesick all of a sudden.’ It simply came out. She blushed and put her hand on the door.
‘Wait a second.’ He jumped up. His voice was so very young and eager. She turned. He was unrolling a poster. ‘Look. Isn’t it marvellous? I found it today. There was a sale on in Poster Warehouse. I’ve been wanting to get one of this for ages, but they’ve always been so small. This is huge – look!’ He unrolled the poster along the top of the bed. It was nearly six feet high and four feet wide. The writing was in Dutch, or something Low. It was Brueghel’s Death of Icarus.