by Ray Connolly
She had gone. His Sunday kind of woman had left him. That was the real hurt.
Chapter Five
The Taormina chief of the carabinieri would have been an extremely handsome man in the Edmund Purdom sort of way but for one flaw. He sweated too much, and when he crowded into Charlie’s room in the local hospital along with a young, grinning police interpreter and the dapper, brown-suited hotel manager, Charlie could not help but be aware of the flaw. The room was not big enough for four people and the smell of sweat, too.
Charlie had been in the hospital for nearly a day when the carabinieri called on him. By this time he was fully conscious, and aware that his stay in the hospital was to be made as comfortable as possible, due mainly to the concern of the hotel manager, who, fearing a lawsuit, had arranged a private room and apparently flowers by the truck-load.
At first the policeman’s questionings followed the set pattern taken by police the world over. Since nothing had been stolen he was looking for a motive for the attack. But when he realized that Charlie was nothing more important than a musician his interest in the case visibly waned and the words delitto d’onore began to float between the three Italians with an increasing frequency. The sweating policeman closed his notebook, stuck it into the button-down pocket of his beige tunic and stood up.
But even Charlie with only holiday Italian knew what delitto d’onore meant. And despite his buckled mouth he was determined to have his say: ‘Wait,’ he grunted towards the interpreter. ‘Tell him to wait a minute.’
The interpreter looked towards his smelly senior whose attention had been arrested by the urgency in Charlie’s cracked voice.
Charlie continued: ‘If I was the subject of the crime of passion, as you call it,’ he said, ‘then the lady from room three-o-seven had to be the object. Right?’
The police chief listened to the translation and then nodded curtly.
‘So what happened to her?’ asked Charlie.
The interpreter and the chief of police looked towards the hotel manager, neither with any great show of interest.
The hotel manager did not need an interpreter. His English was as creamy as his shirt. The lady in room 307 had checked out very late the night before, early that morning actually, when her husband had come for her, he said. Yes, he agreed, she had left in a hurry, and it was a surprise, but this happened all the time, and her bill had been paid in full in cash by her husband.
At the repeated mention of the word husband the policeman had said something rather smugly to the interpreter, which Charlie gathered was that holidaymakers should beware of involvements with married women.
‘But she wasn’t married,’ Charlie gurgled through his stitched lips. ‘She told me.’
The chief of police and the hotel manager exchanged knowing, theatrically patient looks.
‘Listen, I’m not a complete dummy … she promised me, she said she wasn’t married,’ Charlie insisted.
A trio of blank expressions met him. The police chief sighed and said something under his breath.
‘What was that?’ demanded Charlie of the interpreter.
The interpreter looked embarrassed, but the police chief with a careless shrug of his shoulders made a gesture as though to say ‘Go on, tell him.’
‘He said “they never are”, Signor Fairweather,’ said the interpreter.
Charlie felt himself growing tense with anger: ‘What about her passport? What did that tell you?’ he asked of the hotel manager.
‘The clerk thought that she was single. But it could have been an old passport. Her husband was English. She lives in London.’
‘English? London?’ Charlie felt a well of doubt opening beneath him. She had avoided admitting that she lived in London. Why had she always refused to answer his questions? Who had telephoned her and sent the telegram? ‘This man you say was her husband … how do you know that he was English?’ he asked.
The hotel manager looked partly amused by his guest’s inquisition. ‘The porter … the young man who found you … he saw a fair-haired man and two others. Big men. They asked him the way to the bar. Then Franco, you know Franco, he worked in London for many years for a company called Golden Egg … Franco recognized their accents. Working class London, he said. Cockneys? That’s right. Yes. Cockneys. That’s what he called them.’ He pronounced the word Cockneys as though it were a kind of aperitif – Coccnis.
‘What time were they in the bar?’
‘From about ten-thirty until eleven.’
‘And then?’
‘They left the bar. Franco closed down and went to bed. He assumed they had gone back to their own hotel. They told him they were staying at Acitrezza.’
Charlie turned towards the police chief who had been listening to a simultaneous translation of the conversation from the interpreter.
‘Were they staying at Acitrezza?’ asked Charlie.
The police chief listened while the translation was again made. Then he began to jabber very quickly in Italian. He was now an indignant and pompous man, weary of making explanations to this inquisitive minstrel.
‘What is he saying?’ Charlie asked.
‘He says that he sees no reason why he should answer any more questions from you, that you brought the whole thing on yourself, that no, they did not stay in Acitrezza, but he does know that they have all now left Sicily and are back in London. They left on the direct flight to London from Palermo this morning. He checked with British Airways himself.’ The young interpreter polished his tinted glasses as he spoke, avoiding eye contact with Charlie.
So that’s it, thought Charlie, trying to picture the fair-haired man he had seen standing outside the lift after he had left Kate’s room. Had that been the man who had said he was her husband? He knew that it was.
‘But what about the night-porter?’ Charlie said suddenly as the two men, accompanied by the ever beaming and solicitous hotel manager, began to make their way towards the door.
‘The night-porter?’ The hotel manager looked irritated as though being reminded of a skin allergy.
‘The man with the oily hair. Why didn’t he come when I rang the bell? Where was he?’
‘He was unwell, Mr Fairweather. He was not at the desk. He is better today.’
‘But I saw him last night …’
‘And then he was unwell. His sickness came without warning. These days even in Sicily it is impossible to find reliable staff.’
‘He wasn’t there when he was needed … funny, isn’t it?’ jibed Charlie.
The hotel manager stopped by the door. His mood was now patronizing: ‘Signor Fairweather, from where you are lying, two broken arms, broken teeth, bad bruises all over your body … I can understand how you are thinking. You don’t believe in coincidence: you think about conspiracies. You can’t believe that the lady might have deceived you. But from where I stand, running a hotel which will have ten thousand guests this summer, and where half of the staff only come because they have heard that English and German girls are more obliging than Sicilian girls … from where I stand I see only aggravation and problems. No conspiracies: no unexplainable coincidences. Just trouble. If I had a thousand lira for the trouble that happens every time a wife goes on holiday by herself I would be a millionaire. Signor Fairweather, I’m sorry for what happened to you. We have done everything in our power to make some kind of reparation, but believe me, I think the very best you can do is accept the situation for what it is. And now, if you will excuse me, I must get back. We are expecting a party of Americans from Philadelphia who have come to discover what I think they call their roots. And as you will know, I am sure, Americans can be very demanding guests for an understaffed hotel.’
‘Just one more thing,’ said Charlie as the police chief and interpreter left the room. The manager turned back, his expression a mirror of mortification.
‘Yes, Signor Fairweather.’
‘The lady only told me her name. I don’t even know where she comes from.’
> The manager frowned for a second: ‘I’m not sure …’
‘Please,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d just like to know who exactly I got beaten up for, and where she was from.’
The manager put a hand in his pocket and took out a black leather-bound diary. ‘She booked in as Katherine Sullivan.’
Charlie nodded: ‘I’d like to write it down, but my hands …’ He looked down at his arms bound in plaster and slings. The manager came back acrosss the room to him. ‘If you could write down her address on the plaster on my right arm I won’t ask another question,’ said Charlie. ‘And I won’t see my solicitor about damages when I get home.’
The sliver of bribery had its inevitable Italian success. Taking a gold ball-point pen from his suit the hotel manager leaned across Charlie’s broken arm and scribbled quickly across the hard plaster. ‘Katherine Sullivan, 15 Phillimore Mansions, Upper Phillimore Gardens, London W8.’
Charlie watched him silently. He knew that place. It was a block of luxury flats a couple of miles from where he lived. It seemed an ironic coincidence, but then on virtually every holiday he had met someone from practically just around the corner. The Mediterranean is a small place for Londoners on holiday.
‘And now I really must go,’ said the manager, obviously concerned that he had broken a position of some trust.
‘Thank you,’ said Charlie. ‘I won’t bother you again.’
And with that and a little bit of a bow and scrape the hotel manager left Charlie to consider the state he was in, to admire the flowers, and sit, arms crossed in two separate slings, unable even to scratch his nose when it became itchy.
Chapter Six
He left hospital at his own insistence a week later, bored to distraction. Since he was in no state to go back to lying on the beach the hotel arranged a taxi to take him to the airport and reimbursed the whole cost of the holiday, air fare included. This, considered Charlie, was more generous than they need have been since he had promised not to cause any trouble, but he did not refuse their generosity.
So when he arrived back in London just two and a half weeks after his holiday had begun he was financially hardly worse off than when he had left; which was just as well, since the young ladies of Prince’s Gate School would certainly not be welcoming him back with two broken arms and a smashed-in face, and the Starlight Rooms cocktail bar was going to have to get by for the time being without his tinkling sweet-nothings into the early hours.
Getting home from London Airport was his first problem. Despite his two be-slinged arms, finding a porter at Heathrow who would carry his bags was like asking a favour from the Gestapo; while the taxi driver who then drove him to his West London home heaved impatient sighs of unconcealed occupational rudeness when Charlie asked, in the humblest manner possible, whether he might be so kind as to carry the suitcases down to the basement front door.
‘This ain’t on the clock, mate, you know,’ grumbled the driver, a small, stout creature with bright red hair, a bulging paunch and a thin pencilled-in slit where his mouth should have been.
‘I’m sorry. I had an accident,’ said Charlie, stumbling out of the cab, his jacket fastened together around him with a piece of string, while his crossed arms swung helplessly inside their plaster jackets.
‘And what if I have one, falling down these bleeding stairs … no insurance for me, is there? You people should think about these things. I’m a driver … not a porter. There is a difference you know. Skilled job, innit? I pedalled round London for two years on a bike learning the streets before I got my licence … you know that? What did you do, anyway … fall off yer surfboard …?’
Imagining that he had made a joke the cabbie began to laugh to himself, parting his lips to reveal a slicing little tongue that looked as though it was cutting his face in half.
‘The keys are in my right hand pocket. If you could just open the door and let me in, I’ll be able to manage from there,’ said Charlie, realizing that he was a good ten inches taller than the driver.
The cab driver looked at him, and then began to rummage in Charlie’s jacket pocket. He found the key and opened the door. ‘Anything else, mate? I mean, you wouldn’t like your bottom wiping at the same time, would you?’ Again he broke into a vulgar peal of laughter.
Charlie was not amused: ‘It may interest you to know that that is the one thing I can still do,’ he said. ‘Now if you feel in my breast pocket you will find three five pound notes. I suggest you take them and drive back into the hole from which you so recently crawled.’
The cab driver looked up at Charlie: ‘You want your legs doing, too, mate? Can’t you take a joke?’
Charlie looked down at him. Even with his arms useless he knew he must look a pretty powerful man: ‘If I were you, sonny,’ he said with just a murmur of derision, I’d take the money and run. It’s a very generous tip.’
The cab driver regarded him again. Then shoving out his hand he felt in Charlie’s breast pocket, found the three notes, and stumped up the steps back to his still idling taxi: ‘All right, King Kong,’ he called down as he reached the pavement, ‘keep your shirt on.’ Then perhaps realizing the inordinate difficulty which was going to face Charlie when he came to actually take off his shirt he broke into laughter again, climbed into his cab and drove away down the elegant street.
Charlie watched him go. His face was expressionless. Then pushing his door further open with his foot he began to shove his cases through the doorway, one by one.
It was a glorious May day, and despite the cab driver he felt a blanket of happiness and security fall over him as he entered the flat.
Charlie’s home was the basement of a large Regency terraced house in Lansdowne Road, which is at the better end of Ladbroke Grove, and which he had occupied on a fixed and therefore low rent for the past fifteen years. It was a large flat for a single man, but a companion such as music demands a lot of space.
Pushing his way through the small hall he ignored the unopened mail on the doormat, and piled neatly on the dresser, and made instantly towards the sunshine which was flooding in through the back windows. His living-room faced west over the garden, and it was to the garden that he immediately looked. Before he checked anything else, he had to be sure that the garden survived without him. As the longest serving resident of the house he had made the garden his own, and when he was away he worried in case other members of the household should not afford it the same respect. This time his worries proved groundless. It was neat and tidy, although the lawn needed mowing. But best of all the flowering cherry was at its peak, and snowing a dappling of pink petals all over the grass and flower-beds in the slight spring breeze, making delicate patterns around the bluebells.
Having ascertained that nothing looked amiss outside he turned and considered his home. The bright sunlight made the light layer of dust covering everything more apparent, but apart from that there was no discernible difference. There was the settee, the expensive Knight piano, masses of untidy and unpleasant-looking stereo equipment, a guitar in a case, an easy chair, a hired televisiom, a mahogany table with four chairs, bought from a shop off the Portobello Road when it was actually possible to buy there without being scalped, and a sideboard of oak. Sitting on top of the sideboard were the framed highlights of his life – a picture of himself at the age of eight at the family piano, various certificates, and two silver cups and three medals for swimming.
He took in the room quickly. All was as he had left it. He felt satisfied, but he also felt a growing sensation of anti-climax. Ever since the beating up he had been looking forward to getting home. There would be something there to take his mind away from Kate. He had been sure of that. But now as he stared disinterestedly at the few letters which had accumulated during his absence he realized what he had always really known. Nothing had changed during his holiday: only himself, and he wanted to forget that.
He made his way towards the kitchen. A cup of tea would revive his spirits, he thought. But even as he made t
he decision, he realized that he couldn’t have one. It took two hands to make tea. He could only use one with extreme difficulty. Jesus, he thought, as the practical problems of being alone again began to accumulate, he might just as well be in a strait-jacket.
He wandered back into the living-room and sitting down at the piano he considered his long and uncharacteristically elegant fingers, poking like tortoise paws from out of the hard white plaster of Paris casings in which his wrists and arms were wrapped. He badly needed to play to exorcize the loneliness.
With extreme difficulty he opened the piano lid, and leaning forward, forced his fingers to seek out the keys. It was hopeless. His arms seemed bound by steel.
For the first time he felt sorry for himself. Suddenly despite the sunshine, despite the blossom outside the window and despite his perennially persistent optimisim, he very gradually and with great surprise to himself began to cry – the first real tears he had shed since childhood, great warm drops of despair and frustration that ran down his cheeks and plummeted on to his trousers.
‘Hello! Are you home?’ The voice came as a sharp ringing demand from the front door.
Charlie looked up, and instantly tried to hide his weeping. He was too late. Before he could wipe his eyes on his jacket sleeve, a face, stern and peaked, came around his living-room door and Florence Searle marched into his home, her sensible brown lace-up shoes striding across his floor like a trooper.
‘Good God,’ said Florence examining his holiday scars in one instant take, ‘I suppose one shouldn’t ask if you had a good time. What happened to you, for heaven’s sake? You look perfectly dreadful. You should be ashamed of yourself. You men are all the same. Always fighting and falling out. Was it a woman? It was a woman, wasn’t it? I knew it. And at your age, too. Probably some little nymphet of seventeen. Now, what about some tea?’
Florence was always like this, bustling, bullying and never listening. A spinster of fifty-nine, with a tall straight back and fierce sharp eyes, her life revolved around her work in the Kensington and Chelsea Library, where borrowers trod in fear when returning overdue books; and a local adult literacy class, where five nights a week she led a crusade against illiteracy among Commonwealth immigrants, who, she had determined, would learn to write, read and speak the Queen’s English as possibly only she and the Queen still knew it.