The Calligrapher

by Edward Docx

  Madeleine actually blushed. ‘It’s very nice to meet you too – Jasper has told me all about you.’

  This was not strictly correct. Neither had been told all that much about the other. But I noticed how it was my grandmother and not Madeleine who found a way to make the truth – my silence – eloquent.

  Professor Williams offered his hand. ‘Call me Fergus,’ he said.

  Another shock. In all the time I had known the professor, I had not once heard him volunteer his Christian name before.

  Amidst further small talk and pleasantries, and with that contained excitement and sense of well-being that comes with long anticipated meetings and the prospect of eating outside, we all sat down and Grandmother ordered our first bottle of wine.

  ‘So, have you both been enjoying yourselves? I hope Jasper has been a dutiful guide?’ Grandmother addressed Madeleine as she took off her hat; she had cut her hair short and she looked younger – or rather she looked ageless, like one of the senior goddesses in those old Hollywood films about Mount Olympus.

  ‘Oh yes. He’s been taking me everywhere. Today we’ve been to the Vatican and the Coliseum and the Moses statue – I can’t remember what the church is called. And Father Cedric was great.’ Madeleine was recovering her self-assurance. ‘I felt like I should have thanked him more. He was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. Apart from explaining all the pictures properly, which nobody ever does, he told me the complete list of cardinal virtues and which of the English kings were secretly Catholic. I was hoping he would take me to see the Pope but apparently he’s more or less dead.’

  ‘Madeleine pumped him for all the information she could get,’ I said, sounding slightly aggrieved.

  ‘No I didn’t, Jasper,’ Madeleine interposed. ‘He only told me about your art competitions because we were looking at so many pictures ourselves. It’s true we did make some comparisons at one stage but in the end we decided that – of the two of you – Caravaggio was the more interesting man.’

  Grandmother chuckled. ‘What’s the flat like?’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ I said.

  ‘Absolutely perfect,’ Madeleine added. ‘I’m starting to wish we were here for longer. I guess I’m just going to have to come back.’

  ‘You must.’ My grandmother smiled.

  ‘A-ha. Here is the wine,’ said Professor Williams, eyeing each glass as it travelled from tray to table.

  The woman who had greeted us poured a little for Grandmother by way of inviting her to taste; but Grandmother was having none of it and waved her to carry on.

  Some moments passed as we each made friends with the Orvieto. Then Professor Williams broke the silence: ‘Grace mentioned that you travel a lot, Madeleine?’

  ‘Yes – it’s mainly for my work. I’ve just been in America.’

  ‘Oh and how is New York?’

  ‘It’s very odd – a different feel to before. More together. Everyone is very conscious of being a “New Yorker”. It’s much nearer the surface.’ Madeleine spoke quickly. ‘But I was only in town for an overnight flight swap this time. So I didn’t really get a chance to hang out … Then I was straight down to Sacramento. And believe me, nothing much happens down there. Except for the crayfish.’

  ‘Yes,’ Professor Williams said, affecting world-weariness. ‘I have been to Sacramento. On a lecture tour. It’s not exactly an exciting place, is it? Where’s the festival?’

  ‘Oh, it’s in a small town about seventy miles north. And before that I was in Amman in Jordan for my work.’

  ‘You’re writing a book?’ Grandmother interrupted.

  Genuine modesty as always from Madeleine on this subject: ‘Hardly a book really – more a sort of literate travel guide. Or I hope it is.’

  Madeleine eyed a second bowl of chillies that had arrived.

  ‘It’s going to be promoted, though,’ I said. ‘The publishers care about it being a success. They rate you.’

  Madeleine crossed her fingers.

  ‘Where is it set?– if that’s the right word – I get confused.’ Grandmother frowned as though dismissing a lifetime spent with the awkwardness of language.

  ‘Syria mostly – but Jordan as well. A kind of woman’s tour guide.’

  Professor Williams interjected: ‘Why a woman’s tour guide, if I may ask?’

  Grandmother replied for Madeleine. ‘Because men aren’t worth writing for, Fergus. They think they know everything already.’

  Madeleine grinned. ‘Lots of reasons. Mainly because the bookshops are crawling with normal guides so there’s no way a publisher would buy another one. Also because people think that these countries are tricky for women and that bothers me. I want to open places up a little – or at least say that, hey, it’s OK, everything you need is there if you know where to find it.’ She went for a chilli. ‘But most of all because there is something about writing for women which I like – I think women pay more attention.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said, taking a sip of wine, ‘you can’t say that, men pay just as –’

  Madeleine interrupted. ‘No, they don’t. Men have to concentrate hard to detect the feel of what is being said beneath the exact sense – but women pick it up more easily. Really. Women just – you know – get it.’ She turned and smiled at me. ‘Anyway, how would you know? You only read books written by other men hundreds of years ago and you said yourself that you have no idea about travel writing. You’re not even interested in travel – or not anything that isn’t European anyway. Portugal is an adventure for you.’

  Grandmother and Professor Williams laughed. I held up my hands. ‘I know nothing. It’s true,’ I said. I had been humbled.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Grandmother with pretend sympathy. ‘You have plenty of time to start learning.’

  As the fountain ran, so the conversation took its easy course and I watched and I listened but there was nothing but good humour and congeniality in all eyes. And though I make no claim to understand the mind of my grandmother – much less Madeleine’s – it seemed to me as though they were getting on. (I must have been a fool, I thought, to have ever imagined otherwise.) At Madeleine’s suggestion, my grandmother ordered for everyone and it was nearing midnight before we faced the happy herbal madness of our Averne – the liqueur to end all liqueurs.

  Just as we were leaving, Grandmother asked: ‘And your friend William – how is he?’

  ‘Oh God, I forgot to say: he’s getting married.’

  We walked around the corner to my grandmother’s flat on Via Gustiniani, a dimly lit street that must have looked more or less the same for four hundred years. We were a close-knit ensemble, I thought, as we stopped together outside the huge front door with its heavy iron hinges and rows of metal studs braced in the wood. Grandmother took out her key, which was comically large (as though fit for some medieval treasury), and inserted it into the lock.

  ‘It’s a knack,’ she said quietly, ‘you have to pull it out two millimetres and then tilt it to the left.’

  She jiggled a moment. The smaller door, which had been cut into the larger, opened smoothly and we stepped inside one by one. The air smelt different – of older stone and of the cypress tree in the courtyard ahead. We fumbled along in the dark a little way until Grandmother hit the light and then we began climbing the groaning wooden stairs that led up on our left.

  ‘I’m afraid Jasper and I have always lived on top floors,’ Grandmother said to Madeleine as we paused to gather breath on one of the landings. ‘I have no idea why it has turned out that way. It’s a real pain. Especially at my age. But at least it means that only people who really like us ever come to visit. Isn’t that right, Fergus?’

  The timer lights went off and I heard Professor Williams click them on again behind me. ‘That’s right,’ he said, out of breath. ‘Absolutely right.’

  By average Roman standards, Grandmother’s flat is luxuriously big. Even so, the piles of books and manuscripts were encroaching – forsaking the huge dining table (never once
used for dining), running past all her book shelves (stacked and banked with a librarian’s ruthlessness), collecting in heaps and rolls beneath her favourite wall map (‘Europe: 1492’), gathering here and there in string-drawn bundles around her leather reading chair, taking over the room in a slow but inexorable tide – and this despite her also having a separate study and a master bedroom, likewise overrun. And the books were not the only things taking up space.

  ‘What are all these statues doing?’ I asked.

  ‘And how did you get them up here?’ Madeleine added.

  Professor Williams cleared his throat eloquently.

  Lined up against the wall just inside the door, a collection of five shoulder-high white stone statues stood unselfconsciously on random pages of Stampa. Round about them on the floor, also on newspaper, lay a number of extra fragments – an arm, a head, a thigh, an ear.

  ‘Oh – I’m guarding them for someone,’ Grandmother said, as she switched on various sidelights. ‘Don’t worry, they aren’t Roman or anything, and I promise I haven’t stolen them – they’re only late sixteenth century – second rate. Now, I shall make the coffee and then we –’

  ‘Madeleine,’ Professor Williams broke in, ‘I’m going to take my pipe on the terrace. Would you care to join me? Grace won’t allow smoking in here, I’m afraid. Upsets the manuscripts – apparently. But out there we can do what we like. We’ll smoke enough for the next hour and I’ll point out some views.’

  ‘That would be great,’ Madeleine said, meaning it.

  They opened the terrace doors at the far end of the room and the city raised its voice for a moment as they stepped out. Then all was quiet again.

  I followed Grandmother into her kitchen, where I watched her going through the cupboard in which her coffee beans were kept. ‘Do you want me to do this?’ I asked.

  ‘No – no. Of course I don’t. Now what do you think? Kibo-Chagga or San Agustin? What kind of a girl is Madeleine?’

  ‘She’ll like anything you make.’

  ‘I realize that, Jasper. I’m just wondering what would be – you know – optimum.’

  ‘Kibo-Chagga.’

  ‘OK.’ Grandmother selected a packet, unpegged it and began pouring the beans into the electric grinder. ‘Kibo-Chagga it is.’

  A high-pitched whirr filled the kitchen. Grandmother shook the grinder then ground again. She turned to face me, waving the coffee under her nose. ‘And don’t ask me what I think about her, Jasper, because it’s not a fair question.’

  ‘What do you think about her?’

  She smiled. ‘I don’t think anything.’

  ‘Yes, you do, you always think things.’

  ‘Don’t be silly and don’t be facetious.’

  ‘Sorry. But anyway: what do you think?’

  She reached down her espresso cups and shrugged. ‘What do you want me to say? For ten years you maintain absolute silence about your relationships – you take care to keep your private life private – for which I am grateful – then one day you turn up … with someone. Obviously, you feel strongly. More than that. Obviously you feel very strongly.’ She turned on the espresso machine. ‘I for one am not going to question your judgement. I trust what you think because I know … I know you wouldn’t think anything unthoughtful.’

  ‘Come on, Grandma, stop talking in riddles. What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Exactly what I say.’ She placed the cups on top of the Brasilia to heat. ‘Honestly, Jasper, you come on. I have known Madeleine for less than five hours.’ She tested the steamer. ‘Had I better froth some milk?’

  ‘Not necessary,’ I said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking you to be profound, Grandma. Just: do you like her?’

  ‘And I’m saying, Jasper, that my opinion doesn’t matter. I will be dead –’

  ‘Grandma!’

  ‘I will be dead soon enough. You will still be living with the consequences of whatever you decide. So the most important opinion is your own. And the fact is’ – she locked in the metal barrel and pressed the magic button that sent the pressurized steam surging through the powdered beans – ‘the fact is that I know you have made up your mind. I can see it in the way you are with her. So I am happy for you.’

  Her insight was so clean and clear that I felt compelled to deny its truth. ‘I have not made up my mind about anything.’

  She looked me in the eye before returning to her ministrations. ‘Yes, you have. You have definitely made up your mind. Or you wouldn’t be standing here asking me what I think. You only ever ask me what I think when you already know what you think. So don’t lie – and if you must, then please lie a little better.’

  ‘I forbid you to say ever again that you are going to die soon. It’s –’

  ‘True. It’s true.’ She smiled – without her usual impishness but tenderly instead. ‘Jasper, you have got to stop being such a romantic. Listen to me.’ She turned to face me directly. ‘Of course I like her very much. Yes, yes – I do. I think she is intelligent and you will never be bored. I think you will always find her attractive, which is important. I think that she is capable of dealing with you and you with her. I think she’s … well, for want of a better word … I think she’s your match. At my age you have an instinct for what people are really like – because you have seen it all before. And, yes, she is your equal in many ways.’

  ‘But what?’

  She sighed. ‘There really is no hiding from you, is there?’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But I think that you may not necessarily be very … very content.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Grandma, you can’t just say that and not –’

  ‘Jasper, don’t be cross, I –’

  ‘I’m not being cross. I just … I just want to know what you really think because … because it’s important for me to know what you think. I want to – you know – I –’

  ‘OK, OK. Dear, oh dear, oh dearie me.’ The cups were full with their shots but she let them be. ‘If you really want to know,’ she shook her head, ‘I think that Madeleine is unhappy inside of herself and that she is using you as a way of working out her upset – which, by the way, she will never admit to. Probably parents. Probably a great deal of unhappiness. I don’t know. She’s still young and most people’s parents impair the first forty years of their lives whatever they do. In the meantime, I think that she might begin to torment you instead – to give herself some time off from tormenting herself if you like. Therefore, the only question you have to ask yourself is – simply – can you cope with it? And if so, for how long? For a year? Ten years? The rest of your life? Because it seems to me that you are going to have to be quite strong and ready for a lot of … turbulence.’ Grandmother took a long breath. ‘I imagine that she never really lets her hair down emotionally – right? She never tells you that she likes you or even that she is interested in you; you spend a lot of time guessing her feelings?’ I nodded slowly. Grandmother continued: ‘Which can be tough going – especially for men. I’m sure that you will have your moments – everyone does – but most of the time she’ll be as distant as the horizon. There could be whole years when you’ll have to be prepared to care for her even though she doesn’t seem to care for you.’

  She let her words have a moment to themselves then allowed her eyes to flicker a second with gentle sarcasm. ‘On the other hand, she may well be just the answer to whatever you yourself have been – shall we say – looking for. Someone to take your mind away from itself, once and for all. You probably need that. And – you know – it’s not just the worst but also the best marriages – relationships, partnerships, call them what you will – that are founded on mutual need and dependency. Some turn out to be all fighting. Others turn out to be all bliss. But with her, I think you can be sure that it is never going to be one of those everyday happy-as-we-go things.’ She held up her finger to stop me interrupting. ‘Yes, I know you think happy-as-you-go is too dull t
o bear and you would rather die than be run-of-the-mill or incurious or mediocre – that’s my fault, I brought you up to think that way – but now I feel slightly differently. I feel that there is a lot to be said for ease and contentment and fulfilment – there’s a certain dogged grace in everydayness which is not given the credit it deserves. You can get things done, for one thing. You can make progress in other areas of life. Think about that. Anyway, they’re coming back in. That’s all I am saying. You’ll have to fly back here and visit me again if you want to hear any more. Henceforward my lips are sealed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and put my arm around her. ‘I’ll take those through.’

  ‘No, you won’t. They’ve cooled. I’ll make fresh,’ she said. ‘And I haven’t forgotten by the way: tomorrow I want to look at your work.’

  We went to a nightclub after that – until four or later – somewhere in Testaccio. On the way back, I got us a little lost and we entered Trastevere by way of the market in S. Cosimato. The stalls were already setting up – a woman unloading figs from her van and the flower seller arranging his lilies. Arm in arm and gladly tired, we walked past. In the Piazza S. Maria, it started to rain.

  PART FIVE

  24. Farewell to Love

  Whilst yet to prove,

  I thought there was some deity in love

  So did I reverence, and gave

  Worship, as atheists at their dying hour

  Call, what they cannot name, an unknown power,

  As ignorantly did I crave:

  The way she did it wasn’t even cruel. A quiet assassin on a routine evening job at the kasbah: the swish of the lightweight cloak, the intimate glint of the sliver-thin knife, the first incision, the smothering hand to the mouth, a flick left, a slit right, a little exertion for the final upward stroke that splits the ribs and touches the heart; her victim slumps, but already the assassin is fading into the crowd and away with the dusk.