Innocence

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  ‘Oh, of course it won’t be any trouble. I only thought I’d like to tell you.’

  ‘Do you want a girl, or a little teapot?’

  ‘Salvatore wants a girl.’

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’

  Warmth met them at the Gentilini flat, the warmth of air used many times and the urgent activities of the growing Gentilini. But where there had always been confusion there was now a strange calm. The Signora, proud to have conjured up this foreign friend, held her head high. The little girls, with two or three friends who had been allowed in on sufferance to look at the visitor, crowded onto the sofa to worship. Luca, whose face was now heavily shadowed with dark down, no longer defied the large handsome young woman. He trembled when she said anything to him, and croaked. He was going to get up very early the next day to carry her cases to the bus station. Better, he had decided, not to go to sleep at all that night.

  21

  At the via Emilio Münz Salvatore wasn’t back, but half an hour later he walked in, saying, ‘A friend of yours has been staying with the Gentilini.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I mean that very large English girl who was having lunch that day with the Harringtons.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She was at the wedding, too.’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘I can’t understand how they came to invite her. I’ve never known them to have anyone stay. Even Giulia’s mother never stays with them. Why should this friend of yours want to come back here at all?’

  ‘She wanted to go to the farm.’

  ‘Did you take her there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She didn’t want to see where we live? She didn’t want to see what I was like?’

  ‘No, she wanted to go to the farm.’

  22

  I have to do something about Barney, Chiara thought. The trouble was, as always, that Barney was not someone who was done something about. She blundered on, not because she couldn’t stop herself, but because it was the duty of other people to get out of her way, or stay where she put them.

  At first she thought that Cesare might ring up, saying that he had made a mistake. By the end of the week she had heard nothing, and she drove round to the via Limbo. It was still raining — raining in May — and as she got out of the car the cortile’s first floor guttering gave way and discharged a quantity of water which fell sharply behind her and rebounded from the stone flags. The whole building might as well have been in competition with the Ricordanza to see which would collapse first beyond repair.

  She had made up her mind to ask advice, even if not directly, from her father. He was in, but not alone. The Monsignor was there, Annunziata said. Chiara went into the salone. Her father had his back to her, and Monsignore Gondi was poised as usual on the edge of a chair as though to sit down properly would destroy his reputation for overwork.

  ‘My dear child, what a pleasure. I’m on an informal visit, of course.’

  ‘My dearest child,’ said Giancarlo.

  Chiara, though she was almost without vanity and certainly wasn’t thinking of herself at the moment, had a strong impression that the two of them had been talking about her. Presumably they had the world’s disasters to discuss, but she did not think they had been discussing them. Probably, she thought, it was the awkwardness of the professor’s dinner-party. I’m nothing more than a problem to be solved on a rainy spring afternoon.

  But when the slight upset produced by her coming into the room had subsided Gondi said, ‘I have been spending the morning at Valsassina.’ This was fortunate, perhaps she was going to be fortunate all day.

  ‘I should so much like to know how you thought my cousin was.’

  ‘He was in excellent health.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean his health, I meant how was he altogether.’

  Gondi smiled. ‘Does he ever change?’

  ‘Surely not,’ said Giancarlo. ‘That is his speciality.’

  ‘My nephew was born in the large upstairs bedroom,’ said the Monsignore, ‘as I think you were yourself, Giancarlo, and if we’re all spared a third world war I expect him to make a good death in the same bed. A hard-working life, a reproach to the dissatisfaction and restlessness of the times.’

  He spoke, not idly, but not very attentively, as near relaxation as he ever got, a professional man on a family visit. Chiara in her anxiety was quite out of key, and she knew it, when she fixed her pale shining gaze on him and asked him, ‘Does it strike you that Cesare has something to say that he can’t say?’

  ‘Dear girl, in what way?’

  ‘Do you think that perhaps in that half-empty Valsassina, he’s becoming not quite himself?’

  Chiara had turned to her father, who said, ‘You’re very much nearer his age, my dear, than I am. Is that how he seems to you?’

  ‘Uncle, when you were talking to him this morning, did he tell you that I came out there with a friend of mine, Lavinia Barnes?’

  ‘Related, I suppose, to the Markham Castle lot,’ murmured Gondi automatically.

  ‘I don’t know, perhaps. Did Cesare tell you that we came?’

  ‘I think he mentioned it,’ said Gondi tolerantly. ‘Yes, I think he did. Not at any very great length.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘It was while he was telling me what a wretched season he’d had. He said you’d spent an hour or so helping to tie up the vines.’

  ‘And Lavinia?’

  ‘He didn’t, I think mention, her by name.’

  Looking from one to the other of them Chiara felt tired out, and deeply ashamed. She had been a fool to imagine that her father would be able to help her, simply because she could think of no-one else. In consequence she had disturbed him — not much, still, she had disturbed him. And the Monsignore, not allowing himself to become irritated, was obliged to make allowances, exhausting things to make at any time, when he had hoped no doubt for a peaceful few hours. The desire to atone possessed her, the compulsion to make things agreeable, because she had injured them by wanting them to do what they couldn’t. She began to talk about the stone quarries in the Boboli Gardens, which had been reopened so that the Ponte S. Trinita could be built exactly as it had been before the war. She heard herself talking away like a child at a tea-party. There was a sale of tickets, you could buy one ticket to replace one stone, or as many as you could manage. The Monsignore was delighted. He took over the subject himself. He knew, not only the exact number of tickets that had been sold but how many were for stones and how many were for bricks. The bricks were cheaper, and by that means, no doubt, the authorities hoped to draw in the working classes of the city. His voice rose to a certain recognizable tone, like an engine at cruising speed.

  When she left her father kissed her warmly and said quietly, at the door, ‘Your uncle won’t be staying long. But did I understand you to say that Miss Barnes was here?’

  ‘No, no, papa, she was here, but she’s gone.’

  Before she left she went to the kitchen to let Annunziata give her further advice on her pregnancy. Some of these hints had been cut out of magazines, some, it seemed, Annunziata had always known. If the expectant mother was sick, the baby was certainly a girl. It was the longer hair which could be felt tickling the end of the mother’s gullet. But it could be made to lie down smoothly by drinking a tablespoonful of olive oil. Even some of the old women at the Asilo, who had told Chiara that they had never been blessed, had warned her about this. Down in the cortile, where the rainwater glittered unevenly, Chiara leant for a moment against the double entrance and felt the extent of her uselessness.

  When she got home it was dark, but Salvatore was not back. She knew that he was meeting at the hospital, where the neurology and psychiatry departments were to pursue another stage of their more or less open warfare. She rang up 23 Carlisle Gardens.

  The telephone was answered by Lady Jones. The line was not a good one and her high-pitched voice sounded like an angel’s, giving an
intermittent blessing.

  ‘Oh, you dear child, I’ve been told your good news. You won’t mind my saying that there’s nothing like your first child. I’m sure that’s always so, even in Latin countries.’

  23

  One thing was certain, and that was that the child mustn’t be born at the via Limbo. Otherwise Annunziata would seize the opportunity to introduce onto the premises her favourite niece, who was a Sister in a nursing order and seemed to have no difficulty in getting leave to attend private cases. Giancarlo called her Sister Death. She was obliged to bring with her another member of her community, so that made two of them. The double flutter of black and white and the rattling of pill-bottles, which in itself sounded like a recall to order, meant that these particularly irritating women had arrived and were taking charge. The Monsignore said that it set his mind a little more at rest to think that his relatives in Florence, if there was any question of illness, were in such safe hands.

  But Chiara felt, perhaps unreasonably, that Sister Death would never come out as far as via Emilio Münz. She wanted to have her baby there, not in a clinic, but there would be time to suggest this later. Meanwhile the child made its presence felt at the moment only by an uneasy prickling, as though it was a faint-hearted pioneer awash in strange seas.

  In the corridors of the S. Agostino, however, Salvatore’s approach was dreaded. Anxiously and remorselessly he hunted down the obstetrical and gynaecological staff, usually when they were in transit from one room to another and could hardly avoid him. ‘Listen, I’d just like a word of advice. Needless to say I’m not a consultant on my wife’s case, she’s in good hands, I shan’t be professionally connected with the birth in any way, that’s why I’m able to take a completely dispassionate view and I thought it might be of interest to you to talk it over.’

  ‘Are there any abnormalities?’

  ‘Of course, at seven weeks it’s difficult to get a balanced picture —’

  ‘Let’s talk about it in another seven weeks.’

  It was suggested by the senior registrar that Rossi should be locked into his office as soon as he arrived. Meanwhile Salvatore waylaid a well-known visiting obstetrician who must, after all, have plenty of time to spare as he had come to Florence for a Professional Convention for Christian Peace.

  ‘There are just one or two points I should like to clear up with you —’

  ‘Are there any abnormal signs?’

  ‘That’s what I think you would find particularly interesting. The signs appear to be normal in every way.’

  ‘Let me see, you’re Rossi, the neurologist. Where did you qualify?’

  ‘In Bologna.’

  ‘You took your medical qualifications in Bologna, and before specializing you of course conducted your three routine deliveries?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good, how did they go?’

  Salvatore could remember nothing about them.

  ‘They were satisfactory.’

  The surgeon patted him on the back. ‘Like the vast majority.’

  But something must have been not quite right, Chiara miscarried and the baby’s doubtful experiment came to nothing. There was no assignable reason, no illness, no emotional disturbance, and Salvatore no longer wanted to discuss the point with his colleagues.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Barney, speaking patiently from London, ‘but you’ve still got five-sixths of your childbearing life in front of you, don’t forget that. How do you feel?’

  ‘I don’t know, nothing in particular. I’m going to the sea for a bit, to Riomaggiore. The Ricasoli are taking me.’

  ‘Oh, those people.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have told them, only it was in their house I started bleeding. I just had to sit tight, picture it, Barney, I couldn’t get up until everyone else had left.’

  ‘We’re neither of us quite young any more,’ said Barney gloomily. ‘How long are you going to be away for?’

  ‘I suppose I might be away for a month.’

  ‘Won’t your husband think you’re leaving him?’

  ‘He wants me to get well, I suppose. No, he doesn’t think I’m leaving him. I expect I’ll come back sooner than that anyway, I shan’t like it without him. When am I going to see you?’

  ‘I’m going to get married,’ said Barney. ‘I have someone in mind.’

  Chiara felt sick with relief. Barney said that she was going to marry Toby Harrington.

  ‘But, Barney, you can’t, he’s married!’

  ‘Well he won’t be. Of course we shall have to wait quite a while, and fix it. You know, what really broke them up was trying to live at that Scampolo place. They never really recovered from that.’

  ‘Oh, but recovered from what?’

  ‘Of course, it will have to be a registry office. One blessing, my grandmother won’t feel that it would be right for her to come.’

  It turned out that when Barney had arrived back, as she put it, ‘last time’, she had gone up to Scotland and had found her father and Toby Harrington by themselves, drinking whisky. She said that this had given her a new slant on things.

  ‘But you still haven’t told me, when am I going to see you?’

  ‘Well, we shan’t be coming to Italy.’ Barney’s voice changed to one which the nuns at Holy Innocents would have recognized — calmly dismissive, the voice of authority. ‘You must let us know, though, if you’re ever in Chipping Camden.’

  Chiara had never heard of this place, it was entirely new to her. But during the later stages of her life, at times when things were not going well for her, the bewildering phrase used to come back to her without warning: You must let us know, though, if ever you’re in Chipping Camden.

  24

  Salvatore had had it in mind that while Chiara was away he would get rid of the flat on via Emilio Münz and devote all his energies, outside his work, to bringing the S. Agostino to their senses on the subject of his 100% mortgage. Meanwhile he would stay with the Gentilini (since they appeared to have become so hospitable) as a pensionante. Gentilini, however, told him that he was going back to Borgoforte.

  He had never mentioned (and didn’t do so now) that he too, after several years of waiting, had been disappointed in his hopes of a mortgage from the S. Agostino. His request had been much more modest than Salvatore’s, but perhaps even more necessary. One of the marks against him had been his friendship with Dr Rossi, which had made him mildly, but distinctly, unpopular with the administration. The reason he gave for moving, which was also a perfectly genuine one, was that Luca had become very unsettled. It was almost impossible to manage him either at school or at home. ‘In Borgoforte we can share a decent-sized house with my brother-in-law,’ he said. ‘After all, everyone returns in the end to his first love.’

  Gentilini was fond of these proverbs, or popular sayings. Salvatore looked at him in dismay. He decided, after all, to stay on at via Emilio Münz. Without fail he rang up Chiara every evening. The weather in Florence was getting hotter, gusts of warm air blew round the street corners from the bed of the river. She was better off at the sea. Chiara said that she wasn’t, that she was soon going to come back, and that after this she never intended to go near a cliff or look at a fishing boat again.

  25

  One morning about this time Aunt Mad, waking in her flat on the second floor of the via Limbo, felt a pain, as though an unwelcome hand was wringing her dry. It wasn’t by any means the first time, and after a little the pain went away, but she had the impression that something decisive had happened. She said aloud, ‘It’s imagination.’ Her mind answered silently, ‘Why should you imagine it? It’s nothing.’ Her body replied, ‘No, it’s not nothing.’

  This was confirmed by old doctor Manzoni, who looked after her whenever she was in Florence. ‘But she doesn’t take my advice,’ he told the Count, coming downstairs and into the library.

  ‘What have you advised?’

  ‘The question is, what is wrong? What did your father die of?’

/>   ‘He lost interest in life.’

  ‘Well, hypertension is often hereditary,’ said Manzoni. ‘By hypertension I mean high blood pressure. My patients imagine that’s caused by the blood trying to force itself through their arteries which thicken of course as time goes on.’

  ‘And are they right?’

  ‘Nowadays we think not. We incline to the view that the hypertension causes the arteriosclerosis. It’s a natural change, in any case, in later life.’

  ‘Then there’s hardly likely to be a remedy.’

  ‘To most patients I would say “lose weight”, but the Contessa has none to lose.’

  The Count noticed that, as usual, Manzoni said ‘we’ when giving unwelcome advice and ‘I’ when it was acceptable.

  ‘There’s a possible operation, we can sever most of the sympathetic nerve fibres which lead to the abdominal organs.’

  ‘Did you suggest that to my sister?’

  ‘She gave me to understand that she was against it.’

  ‘And are you in favour of it?’

  ‘No. What I’ve done is to leave a bottle of 500 microgram tablets of trinitrin, and told her not to exert herself. If she can’t make herself rest, she should enter a clinic.’

  ‘Could they help her there?’

  ‘No, but it’s better to be beyond help in the right place for it,’ said Manzoni, ‘I mean, among professionals.’

  Indestructible Dr Manzoni had lived without incident under the German occupation, but compromised himself during the forty-five days when Mussolini fled and Badoglio took over, and had to spend almost a year in hiding in a warehouse in the Abruzzi. He often ended his stories — or rather, his one story — by saying that if he closed his eyes he could still smell the tallow and olive oil in which the rats, who had become half crazy, often drowned themselves. If Maddalena were to die, the Count would never have to listen to this story again. The Manzoni era would be over.