The Big Story

by Morris West

  Blind and despairing, Richard Ashley stumbled down to the water’s edge and tried to wash the sand out of his eyes.

  “Women!” said Tullio Riccioli, in his drawling precious voice. “Women are an infernal nuisance. Love them and they cheat you—or send you bankrupt with a brood of squalling bambini. Ignore them and they throw themselves into your arms. A man should live on a desert island with a paint-box and a sympathetic friend.”

  “Tullio, I think you’ve got something!” said Ashley.

  Tullio had been painting on the terrace and Ashley had stumbled into him as he came back to the house, his eyes scalding and scarred. Tullio had made no fuss, but whisked him upstairs and out of range of embarrassing enquiries. Now he was in his room, sitting in a low chair, head canted back, while Tullio’s soft, womanish hands probed for the sharp sand crystals and bathed his smarting eyeballs with olive oil. It was difficult to talk with his head thrown back and his throat muscles stretched, but any talk was a relief from the torment of loneliness and self-accusation.

  “You quarrelled with her, did you?”

  “I apologised to her.”

  “A singular folly,” said Tullio calmly. “You are old enough to know better.”

  He sponged the upturned lids with cotton-wool and dropped warm oil over the inflamed conjunctiva. Ashley sighed with relief as the lids settled back without the searing pain.

  “Thanks, Tullio. I’m very grateful.”

  Tullio wiped his hands on a silk handkerchief.

  “A pleasure, my friend. We all need allies against the ladies. It sickens me to think what a man must go through for the privilege of having children who will later kick him in the teeth.”

  “They tell me you’re going through it yourself very soon.”

  “Oh that!” Riccioli shrugged fastidiously, and wrinkled his fine patrician nose. “That is a matter of business—tedious but necessary. Once it is over…” He waved a delicate hand in dismissal. “Finito! That’s the end of it.”

  “The island, the paint-box and the sympathetic friend?”

  “Precisely. Does it shock you?”

  “Nothing shocks me any more,” said Ashley, with considerable conviction. “But I’d be interested to know how you made the bargain. It sounds like a profitable business.”

  Tullio fished in his breast pocket, brought out a miniature manicure set and addressed himself to the delicate business of buffing his finger-nails.

  “It started with Carla Manfredi. Perhaps you know her? She’s a bitch but loaded with money. She sponsored my first exhibition. We got very good notices, even if we didn’t sell very much. I wanted her to do another but by that time she’d lost interest in art and turned to music. He’s a Pole, I believe. Carla thinks he’s a second Paderewski. However, she did suggest that I try Orgagna. She arranged for us to meet at a party, and later I talked to him at his office. He’s quite happy to finance me—on these terms. They’re quite generous really. Though I do suspect Elena’s getting a lot more out of it than I am. Wouldn’t you say that?”

  “I think it’s very probable,” said Ashley, with ready sympathy. “As you say, women are a nuisance, but they seem to get the best of most bargains.”

  Riccioli looked up sharply in fear of being laughed at, but Ashley’s face was blankly serious. He smiled at Ashley.

  “You’re not making much profit yourself, are you?” Ashley made a rueful little mouth and looked shrewd.

  “A little—but not enough. I’m prepared to lay out money to make more.”

  “How much?”

  The limpid, girlish eyes were hard and calculating. Tullio Riccioli might be the spoiled darling of the salons and the fastidious friend of the aesthetes, but he’d started life in a Roman slum and he was certain he was never going back.

  “A thousand dollars,” said Ashley coolly. “Up or down according to the service.”

  “Name it, signore!” Tullio made him an elaborate pantomime of service.

  “Later, Tullio, later!” Ashley’s smile was bland as butter. “I thought you’d be interested to know the money was up.”

  “Money’s the only thing that does interest me.

  Money and painting.”

  “What about the sympathetic friend?”

  “That’s what the money’s for,” said Tullio innocently.

  Then the gong sounded for lunch and they walked out of the room together, chuckling like a pair of conspirators. In spite of his damaged eyes and Cosima’s damaged pride, Ashley thought he would enjoy his meal.

  He had useful information and the promise of more in the near future. More than that, he had an ally, bound to him by the strongest chain of all—money.

  Lunch was a desultory meal served under the big vine pergola in an angle of the terrace. They ate reclined on the canvas chairs, while the servant girls hurried from one to another with plates of food, and Carlo Carrese stood, like an attendant Gorgon, by the ice-bucket where the heady white wine of the Orgagna vintage lay cooling in round-bellied bottles.

  They were languid with sun and content to drowse over the meal. They were uneasy with each other, so that conversation flagged quickly and Ashley, remote behind a pair of sun-glasses, was able to study their faces and their attitudes.

  The old major-domo interested him most of all. His attitude was one of deferential service to each, but for Orgagna he reserved a special, almost paternal solicitude, settling the cushions at his back, questioning him on the quality of the wine and the dishes, watching for the slightest gesture of request.

  He must have been nearly seventy, Ashley thought; but his back was straight, his hands were steady and he moved as lightly and as swiftly as a young man. His face was lined and weathered like a rock. There were deep furrows about his eyes and his mouth was tight and firm. His great hooked nose and his black, flashing eyes gave him a curious resemblance to Orgagna himself.

  Ashley wondered if some of the strain still persisted in him, transmitted through one of the stout peasant girls whom the old Vittorio had taken to his bed in the wild days. His position was obviously one of privilege, since Orgagna, who was brusque with the other servants, was smiling and affectionate in his dealing with the old man.

  Here was another mystery.

  The dead man was the brother of Elena, and by inference the son of the old steward. How did one explain the bond of friendship between a father and the man who had killed his son? Unless the father, too, were party to the act of murder.

  At first blush, it was a crazy thought. Yet the Italians made operas of relationships like that. The ghosts of darker sins haunted the dim palaces of Florence and Venice and the mountain towns. It was an old country, as Harlequin had told him, and its passionate, complex people lived still in the shadow of their turbulent past.

  When the meal was over, the others drifted into the house for their siesta ; but Ashley, more active and less at ease, wandered down to the shade of the orange garden, where the light was soft on his aching eyes and the air was cool and perfumed.

  This time his path led him into a small arbour, set about with stone seats, on the far side of which was a small shrine of the Madonna, an antique statue, set on a small pedestal under a wooden canopy. There was a lamp in front of it and a small vase of flowers, but the oil was spent and the flowers were wilting in the dry summer air.

  Ashley sat down on one of the stone benches and looked up at the statue. The tiny face was gentle and remote, set in a timeless tenderness for the Infant cradled in the stiff folds of the cloak. The gilt had weathered off the crown and the blue was long since faded from the robes, but it was still a thing of beauty, of serenity and strange simplicity.

  That was another thing you had to reckon with in this people, Ashley remembered. They believed in God. They believed in the Devil. They believed in the Mother of God and in all the ministering hierarchies of saints and angels. Their relationship with the spirit world was real and personal. And if their symbols were florid and their superstitions affronted
Puritan tastes, why, they were a frank and lusty people who liked to be able to see their heaven and smell the brimstone of their very baroque hell.

  Even men like Orgagna and women like Cosima were nurtured on the same belief Though they might refuse to practise it, or appear to reject it, they never quite succeeded. It gave their passion a peculiar intensity and their sins a resolute abandon. Risking eternal damnation for love or profit, they were less concerned with the temporal risks of either.

  The reflection made him uneasy. He did not belong here. He was a man from the New World, naked, isolated, walking unready among the snares of the old people. He remembered George Harlequin and longed perversely for the comfort of his presence. He was a European. He was attuned to the subtleties of the old ones. He was…

  Then sleep overtook him and he dozed, slackly, against the rough stone of the garden seat.

  He woke to the sound of a woman weeping. He had the presence of mind to make no movement, but sat, tense and silent, watching the pitiful little scene in front of the statue.

  Elena Carrese was kneeling there, her head bowed against the rough wood of the pedestal, her shoulders heaving with uncontrollable sobbing. Her hair was in disorder and her hands caressed the feet of the statue. Now and again she raised her head, looking up into the mild eyes of the Madonna, praying passionately in the tumbling dialect of the peninsula. Much of it was lost to Ashley, who spoke good Italian and a little Neapolitan, but by straining and concentrating he pieced out the broken sense of it.

  “Madonna mia!… Mother of God! Pity my misery.… Pity! Pity! I loved him and he has sent me away. I made myself a putana for him, damning my soul to hell. Now he wants to marry me to a man who is no man but a femmenella—an odd one, who will deny my womanhood and refuse me children.… Pity me, Madonna! You who are a woman and understand. Pity me and give him back to me!…”

  The words came pouring out, the plea repeated over and over like a refrain, until the grief in her was spent and she crouched, exhausted and despairing, at the foot of the statue.

  As he watched her, Ashley understood that now or never he must make her an ally. He knew also that if he made a false move, she would be lost to him for ever. He dared not go near her. He dared not touch her. He spoke to her from where he sat, softly, pityingly, very, very carefully.

  “The Madonna understands, little one. I understand, too. I can help you if you let me. I swear to you on the feet of the Madonna that I didn’t kill your brother.”

  Slowly, cautiously, she raised her head and looked at him. Her face was ravaged with tears. There was no sign of the brightly polished beauty who had preened herself on the terrace of the Hotel Caravino. She was back to the beginning again—a peasant girl, brokenhearted, lost and lonely in the big indifferent world. She had no strength to run away. She crouched there, staring at him, with the blank, scared look of a cornered animal.

  Ashley sat on the stone seat and smiled at her. He talked rapidly in a low, soothing voice, using as much dialect as he could muster, soothing her as one might soothe a dog, patiently, warily.

  “I know what has happened to you, Elena, and I pity you. I know what he’s planned for you—and for that I pity you more. I know the lies that have been told you and I know why they were told. They told you I killed your brother. It was not I but others who took him and threw him under the wheels of my car on the road to Sant’ Agata. They have told you that I am a liar and a cheat. Yet it is they who have lied. Give me two moments, here, now, and I will tell you the truth and you may judge for yourself I will try to help you. You need not be afraid of me. If you wish to go, I shall not stop you. If you will sit and talk to me, I shall not touch you nor even come near you. I swear it—on the feet of the Madonna, on the hands of Gesu.”

  Slowly, ever so slowly, the words began to penetrate the curtain of panic. He watched her become tense, as their meaning came home to her. He saw the blank eyes light with hostility, the hostility give place to fear and curiosity, and faint, faint hope. Then, at long last, she stood up, brushing her knees with a pathetic mechanical gesture, fumbling in her pocket for a handkerchief

  Ashley grinned and tossed her his own.

  “Here, use mine! It’s bigger.”

  The handkerchief fell short and fluttered to the ground in front of her. If she picked it up, he would have won. If not…

  She looked at the handkerchief. She looked at him. She hesitated a moment, then stooped, picked it up, and began wiping the tear stains from her face. Then she walked over and sat down beside her.

  “Now tell me,” she said flatly. Her face was a wooden mask.

  He told her.

  He told her everything—his old love for Cosima, his investigation of Orgagna, the drive out to the Retreat, the accident, his interviews with Orgagna and the police. The only thing he did not tell her was his bargain with Tullio Riccioli.

  When he had finished, she was sitting like a cataleptic, bolt upright, eyes dosed, hands folded in lap. He said, quietly:

  “Do you believe me, now?”

  Her voice was dead and toneless as she answered him.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you understand that we can help each other?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am willing to help you. Will you do the same for me?

  She opened her eyes and looked at him and he saw, with a faint prickling of horror, the new devil he had raised. Elena Carrese was a woman now, eaten up with jealousy, her love soured into a bitter hate for the man who had seduced her first and then shamed her.

  “Yes,” said Elena Carrese. “Yes, I will help you. I will help you destroy him.”

  Then, without warning, she buried her face in her hands and wept again, while Ashley patted her shoulder helplessly and tried to soothe her. She leaned to him then, as a child leans to the comforting breast of a parent.

  And when Carlo Carrese walked into the arbour he found her in Ashley’s arms.

  The old man towered above them, his face a wooden mask, his eyes full of cold anger. In one hand he held a short knife and in the other a small posy of flowers he had cut for the shrine. Elena jerked out of Ashley’s arms and stared up at him, horrified. Ashley watched him warily, timing his movement in case the old man should strike down at him with the blade.

  The old man made no move. His mouth opened and his voice came out, dry and peremptory as the snapping of a stick.

  “You, child, go back to the house!”

  The girl stood up, edged herself round her father, as if afraid of a blow, then went running swiftly up the path under the orange trees.

  Then Carlo Carrese turned on his heel and walked over to the shrine. Methodically, without haste, he emptied the dead flowers, refilled the vase with water and began to arrange the fresh blooms. He reached behind the statue, brought out a small bottle of oil, refilled the lamp and lit it, so that it made a small, weak flickering at the feet of the Madonna. Then he crossed himself, uncovered his head, and stood, with folded hands, a long time in prayer.

  Ashley watched him, fascinated. When the old man had finished his prayer, Ashley stood up and walked over to him. He said quietly:

  “What were you praying for, Carlo?”

  The question surprised him. He considered it for a long moment. Then very deliberately he answered it. All the time his dark, inimical eyes never left Ashley’s face.

  “When the old Duke died, signore, he gave into my hands the care of his son. He made me promise to care for him as if he were my own. I have done that, so far as my strength allowed. Now I am old and have not much strength. So… I pray for him… and for the honour of his house.”

  “It is a good prayer, old man,” said Ashley calmly.

  “I pray for more than that, signore.” The dark eyes challenged him again. “I pray for the signora, who is the wife of my master. I pray that the Madonna may keep her safe—and wise. I pray that soon you will go away from the place and leave us all in peace. I pray for my daughter that she may keep her soul pure
to God and her body clean to the man who will marry her.”

  “Should you not also make another prayer?”

  “What?”

  “Should you not also pray for your son, who was murdered by your master?”

  “I have no son, signore.”

  Then Ashley saw the knife coming up, and the hand, thumb on blade, striking upward towards his belly.

  His palm took the impact of the old man’s wrist. His fingers closed on it, wrenching and twisting, so that the knife spun away and clattered against the stonework of the seat. He heard the old man gasp with the pain of it and he flung him staggering against the shrine, so that the flowers toppled over and the oil was spilt over the small, tender feet of the Madonna.

  “You are a fool, old man,” said Ashley breathlessly. “Your master is a cheat and your daughter is lost already. And neither will thank you for what you have done today.”

  He turned away and walked slowly down through the orange trees. The old man watched him go, with sombre, hating eyes. The little Madonna watched them both. But her eyes were wood and she saw none of it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE SAME NIGHT, after dinner, Orgagna invited Ashley to his study.

  They left Cosima and the others at coffee in the salon and walked upstairs to a big panelled room that looked out over the water to the humped lights of Capri. The furniture was a florid baroque and two walls were lined with books bound in calf and embossed with the arms of Orgagna. Once again Ashley found himself stifled by so much magnificence, but Orgagna moved among it with the unconscious ease of possession.

  He opened a wall cabinet and brought out brandy and cigars. Then, when the brandy was warmed and the cigars were drawing strongly, they sat in great high-backed chairs, facing each other on either side of the window. Orgagna went straight to the point.

  “I have decided, Ashley, that it would profit us both to be frank with each other.”

  “I’d welcome some plain talking.”

  “Good!” Orgagna fluffed the ash from his cigar and took a careful sip of brandy. “It may surprise you to know that, in spite of what lies between us, I have achieved a—a reluctant respect for you. You have a good brain, much courage and an uncommon strength of purpose. In other circumstances we might have come to friendship. That is now impossible. However, because I respect you, I am able, without too much damage to my pride, to explain myself to you.”