by Peter Watson
He had just returned to the house, after his swim, and snatched at the receiver, half angry that anyone should call so early but expectant too because, presumably, it was urgent. Maybe it was from somebody who worked in the firm’s offices halfway round the world. No. A man’s voice, which sounded so close it could have come from the next room, said: ‘Excuse me. Is that Mr Colwyn, of Hamilton’s?’
‘Yes—who is that?’
‘Just a moment, please. I have Monsignor Hale for you.’
Monsignor Hale. David placed his swimming things on a chair and turned to lean against the edge of his desk. A troop of horseguards clattered by outside, early morning exercise for men and beasts. Why would Hale be calling at this ungodly hour? David had met the apostolic delegate in London only once, at a reception to mark some exhibition. But he knew that Jasper Hale was a much-liked figure in the capital—urbane, witty, a connoisseur of wine, a linguist of prodigious achievement.
The line clicked as the delegate took the receiver at his end. ‘Don’t be too angry with me for calling you this early, Mr Colwyn. His Holiness says it’s urgent.’
‘His Holiness?’ David frowned into the receiver. He wondered if Hale knew he was a Catholic.
‘I’d hoped you would be impressed,’ chuckled Hale. ‘I was, I can tell you, when he telephoned me himself from Rome not half an hour ago. Of course,’ he sniffed, as if it explained everything, ‘they are one hour ahead over there.’
David smiled but said nothing. The Monsignor would get to the point soon.
‘I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that “the Lord moves in mysterious ways”, Mr Colwyn. In my job I’m used to it, but not everyone is. I’ve got a mystery for you.’
He paused. David suspected Hale was trying to gauge his reaction to what he had said so far. So he obliged: ‘Good. I’m a sucker for mysteries.’
‘Thank you for making it easy for me, Mr Colwyn. Very civilized. Well, here’s the story. The Holy Father wants you to go to see him. Today, I mean. The mystery is, he won’t say why in advance. It’s all top-secret. He came through me and not the Archbishop at Westminster since they are an even bigger bunch of gossips than we are here. But His Holiness wouldn’t tell me anything at all about the reason why he wants to see you. He just said: “Make Colwyn come. It’s urgent.”’
Thoughts crowded into David’s brain. This was weird, surely, this type of request? Or did it happen all the time, only most people never knew? He could change his plans—no problem there, it was a humdrum day. But did the invitation involve business, or something else?
‘Am … am I being invited personally, Monsignor, or professionally?’
‘I wish I knew, Mr Colwyn, I wish I knew. All I do know is that I must telephone one of the Holy Father’s secretaries once you have made up your mind. If you agree to go my car will pick you up wherever you want in time for the Alitalia flight at two this afternoon. You have an appointment with His Holiness at six-thirty tonight. A room will be reserved for you at the Hassler—I hope that’s convenient. You will be free to return to London tomorrow.’
David had not got to the top of his profession without possessing a full set of instincts and these now told him to say yes at once. After all, it is not every day a Pope asks to meet you, especially a brand new one. Nonetheless, he hesitated.
‘Monsignor—I take it you know that I am a Catholic?’
‘Yes, Mr Colwyn.’
‘And do you know also that I am separated from my wife—who is not—a Catholic, I mean?’ Sarah and he had been apart for more than a year now. She had left him, more or less overnight, for a junior minister in the Government. Ned, their son, lived with her and that had been the worst blow. After months of depression David was only now beginning to come round.
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘I didn’t mean that. There may be a divorce at some point. I can’t say. But I wouldn’t want to embarrass His Holiness.’
‘You sound like a conscientious Catholic, Mr Colwyn, but remember, Pope Thomas is an American. Not as hard-headed or as hard-hearted as their President, Mr Roskill, but a realist all the same. The Church will change under this Holy Father, have no doubt. On birth control, on divorce, maybe even on priests being allowed to marry—though I am against that myself. Rome has been backward for too long. That is why he was elected, after all. If that is your only worry, you need have no fear. You will find Thomas Murray an intelligent and likeable man. Above all, a doer.’
Above David’s house the early morning transatlantic jets growled into Heathrow, unseen because of the low cloud. It would be nice to feel the sun of Rome.
‘Very well then,’ said David. ‘There’s nothing I can’t get out of today. I shall look forward to meeting His Holiness.’
‘Thank you,’ breathed the delegate, obviously relieved. ‘One other thing. You will have a confidential secretary, I expect. She will no doubt have to know where you are going, in case of emergencies. But the Holy Father would be grateful if no one else were to be told. I hope that’s acceptable.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. My secretary is called Sally Middleton, in case it should matter.’
‘Good. I shall call Rome right away. My car will pick you up at your office—when? Twelve-thirty? You will of course be met at Rome airport.’
‘I should have thought that, if secrecy matters, the sight of your car picking me up would be riskier than me taking a common or garden taxi. You can reimburse me later.’ David raised the tone of his voice to make it obvious that the last quip was a joke.
‘I think you are right Mr Colwyn and, if you don’t mind, that’s what we will do. Now, I must wish you a pleasant flight … and I hope the mystery has a happy ending.’
In fact, the mystery had only deepened during the day. By the time David arrived at Heathrow he had read the papers and listened to the radio news in the taxi. Everywhere the lead item was the earthquake at Foligno the previous day, where the dead were now estimated at nearly 1,200. But also prominently displayed on the front pages was the extraordinary attack made on the Pope by the communist mayor of the stricken town. Everyone was outraged that Pope Thomas had been abused so badly after he had specifically cancelled his appointments that day to fly to Foligno and share in the grief of the victims. Only the communist papers in Italy had supported Sirianni. In some of the more popular papers, David noted, the attack on the Pope even outweighed the earthquake itself. Newspaper values, he told himself. There had been earthquakes before but attacks on the Holy Father were much rarer. He would have thought the Pope would have been far too busy to see him, today of all days.
The Alitalia flight touched down on schedule. As soon as he came out of the green channel he saw a driver holding a card with his name, and he was shown straight into a small, black, very discreet Mercedes. David was an authority on Roman painting, the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries especially. He therefore knew the churches, palazzos and libraries of the city very well. That included St Peter’s, the Vatican museums and the Secret Archive, but he had never been inside the city-state proper, where the Pope and the top curia lived, and he was intrigued to see what it was like.
At the Porta Sant’Anna, the business entrance of the Vatican, on the Via di Porta Angelica, they were stopped by a Swiss guard, dressed in a navy beret, a blue blouse, blue knickerbockers, long blue woollen socks, and white gloves. He didn’t hold them up for long: he recognized the driver and David was expected.
What then happened was mystifying. As they drove inside the gate the driver pointed out the Vatican Bank—the Institute for Religious Works—on the left, and the papal apartments behind that. But David wasn’t taken there, the obvious destination, he thought, for a papal audience. Instead, they drove straight through an arch ahead of them, into a courtyard with what he recognized as the Borgia apartments on the left and the Secret Archive on the right; then on through another arch which, this time, led inside a building. They turned left, up a cobbled ramp, which was in a kind of tun
nel and were in no time out into a courtyard surrounded by high walls. The driver had to stop for another guard, this time dressed like an ordinary policeman. As he slowed to be recognized, he waved casually at the building on the left and murmured: ‘Capella Sistina’—the Sistine Chapel.
David craned his head up. ‘Grazie,’ he said. He had not realized the chapel was so tall.
Past the guard they went through another arch and David could see the apse of St Peter’s and the Vatican gardens ahead of him. But the car turned sharp right, through yet another arch and raced along a dead straight road for about a quarter of a mile. A huge, straight building was to the right—David calculated it must be part of the Vatican museums. To the left were the gardens—covered walkways, box hedges, conifers, Japanese maples, a waterfall. The car came to a halt at the end of the straight road, where there was a right-angled bend. Another large building faced them and, set in the corner between these two facades, was a small grey-green door. The driver got out and led the way to it. The door was opened immediately by a security guard, who showed David into a small room. It was someone’s working office rather than a waiting room proper, but he was not there long. A small nun, in a grey habit, soon came in and said, in English: ‘Mr Colwyn? Follow me please.’ She set off at a brisk pace up a flight of wide stone steps. At the top they turned back on themselves and went up another flight. At the top this time there was a large hall and yet more security guards. The nun showed David into what he at first thought was a long corridor, since the view stretched for some hundred and fifty yards. ‘You may wait here, Mr Colwyn. The Holy Father will not keep you long.’ The guards remained but she was gone.
David could see that it was by no means a simple corridor where he was being left. To his amazement, he had been shown into the Vatican picture gallery.
He stared ahead of him. The gallery consisted of a number of rooms in a straight line, with the doorways between rooms all in line as well, so he could see from one end to another. It felt like a hospital with pictures. He had been here before, of course, but not for some time. He looked back. The security guards were talking among themselves; there seemed no sign of the Pope. Glancing at his watch, he noticed that it was in any case not quite six-thirty. Pope Thomas was a busy man: presumably he would be a few minutes late at least. David strolled into the gallery. Why had the Holy Father decided to meet him here? The apostolic delegate had said more than he meant when he called the whole business a mystery.
The first rooms contained the early paintings, primitive, icon-like pictures with thick gold backgrounds, mostly fourteenth century, from Siena, Florence, Rimini. David knew collectors who would kill for paintings of this type but they were not to his taste. Further down came a room he liked better, containing pictures by Pinturicchio and Perugino. David loved Pinturicchio’s exuberance, his cheerful greens and reds. There was always something going on in his pictures.
Suddenly, before he could go any further, David heard a commotion. He looked back. Coming towards him from the large hall where the security guards had been waiting, limped the Pope, glowing in his white cassock. A number of other figures spilled around His Holiness. David walked towards the group, not sure what greeting to use. Should he kneel? Or just shake hands? The Holy Father’s limp seemed pronounced today. But David had only ever seen it before on television so perhaps the cameras softened and blunted it in some way. David had forgotten, if he had ever known, why the Pope limped. In the event His Holiness put him at his ease by calling out, when he was a few paces away, ‘Thank you for coming so promptly, Mr Colwyn. I know how busy you must be. I am in your debt. But we shan’t be wasting your time, I hope.’ And he held out his hand in such a way that he clearly expected it to be shaken, not kissed.
‘Monsignor Hale was very persuasive, your Holiness.’
The Pope smiled. He was slightly taller than David expected and the predominant impression he gave on first meeting was of a man who, apart from his leg, was remarkably fit. His hair, though flecked with white, was shiny and bushy; his eyes—greenish unless the light was playing tricks—were never still; and his mouth was wide, the lips full but not sensual so that the impression was of an open—but controlled—face. As they shook hands—a firm, not overlong handshake—David was faintly surprised to register that the Pope smelled very fresh, as though he had just taken a shower and doused himself in cologne.
His Holiness was turning now, introducing the other people he had with him. First, out of politeness rather than precedence, came a face David did recognize, Elizabeth Lisle, the Vatican press secretary. After his election, controversial enough in itself, Thomas Murray had immediately followed up with this equally controversial appointment. Elizabeth Lisle was also American but that wasn’t what made her controversial so much as the fact that she was a woman. In fact, appointing a woman as press secretary was not quite the revolutionary move some of Thomas’s enemies made it seem. The Pontifical Commission on Social Communication—Vatican—speak for press office—had long been staffed at lower levels by women, very often American women. The Pope had merely noticed that, in giving the top job to a female and drawing her into his confidence, he was able to bring the other sex centre stage in the Vatican without any fundamental change of policy. He was thus able to send signals to the outside world, that things were changing in Rome, without any interior wrangling. It was a simple, bold, astute move that marked Thomas as an instinctive politician. On reflection, many of his early critics had conceded as much.
David shook hands with the woman now. She was dressed in a dark, two-piece suit, over a white silk shirt. The most striking thing about her, he thought, was her neck, long like a swan’s. ‘Welcome to the Vatican, Mr Colwyn. I am responsible for the arrangements. If you have any criticisms, shoot at me.’
David smiled back and shook his head. ‘No problems so far. The Hassler has always been my favourite hotel here.’
His attention turned to the figure on her left, a severe-looking man in glasses, whom he also recognized. Cardinal Ottavio Massoni was the second most powerful man in the Vatican, Thomas’s Secretary of State. An Italian and a conservative, he had been Thomas’s main rival for Pope. The two men were as different as Peter and Paul. It had been a surprise when Thomas offered the job to Massoni but not as big a one as when the Italian had accepted. Still, the arrangement seemed to be working well so far, though it was early days. Massoni, now in his late sixties, had a rather cadaverous skull, and was famed for his taciturn manner. To the wags in the Secretariat of State he was known as ‘P.A.’ which stood for ‘Pronto—Arrivederci’, the only two words which, it was alleged, he ever said on the telephone. So it was no surprise to David when the Cardinal merely took a pace forward, shook hands, said ‘Buona sera’, and stepped back again.
A second cardinal presented himself. This was Luciano Zingale, introduced to David as President of the Patrimony of the Holy See. Bald and fat, he looked more like a boxer than a religious man, his appearance not helped by the rimless glasses he wore. But he was civil enough and bowed as he shook David’s hand.
Of the three other men in the party one was Father Patrick O’Rourke, the Pope’s principal private secretary. The second was Dottore Mauro Tecce, general secretary of the Pontifical Monuments, Museums and Galleries, and the third was actually someone David knew, Dottore Giulio Venturini, curator of the picture gallery where they all now stood. David had seen him often at exhibitions and even one or two sales. He had read his books. They had sat next to each other in the Vatican’s Secret Archive. Venturini gave him a small smile but it was scarcely warm—more wary. What was going on?
He was about to find out. ‘This way, Mr Colwyn,’ said the Pope, and moved further into the gallery. The rest of the party followed. Thomas walked past a number of Tuscan statues of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, back past the Pinturicchios and the Perugino and into a large hall at the end. Lit from above, partly by natural light—what was left of it—this room had a ‘blue-green’ feel t
o it: the marble of the floor contained much green, while the tapestries around the walls were the pale, watery blue that old thread assumes with great age.
On the far wall, which Pope Thomas now made for, there were three large paintings. In the middle one Jesus seemed to float in the air, above some two dozen individuals all lost in wonder, pointing, staring, gasping. The right-hand painting showed, in its top half, the Virgin being crowned and, below, grouped around an empty tomb, the twelve apostles looking up. But the Pope stood before the painting on the left.
Thomas turned and signalled for the security guards, who had followed the papal entourage, to leave. When they had gone he said: ‘Mr Colwyn, our discussions this evening are confidential. I take it I may have that assurance?’
David nodded.
‘Good. To be frank, I hope that we shall be able to do some business but in case we cannot this meeting never took place. Yes?’
‘I understand,’ said David, thinking he would burst if the man in white didn’t get to the point soon.
Pope Thomas looked at the pictures in front of them. ‘I understand that as well as being chief executive of Hamilton’s you are also an authority on Roman painting. You will therefore probably be more familiar with these three works than I am.’ The Pontiff looked hard at David, assessing, challenging, waiting.