The Savage Garden

by Mark Mills

  These sculptors constituted a new movement, he claimed. Not for them the bald abstraction of their predecessors. Their creations were rooted in a postwar world of broken buildings and broken people. Their language was one of terror and trepidation. They tore into the human form, flaying it, tearing it limb from limb, discarding what they didn't want. And when they were done, they found themselves presenting to the world an army of creatures—part man, part beast, and sometimes part machine. As one of Harry's teachers at Corsham had said to him: "When you've seen the inside of a Sherman tank after a direct hit, it all becomes the same thing."

  It was a Europe-wide movement—a new geometry of fear— and as long as there were wars or even the prospect of them, it would always have meaning.

  Adam had sat through the speech many times before, but it was somehow more persuasive this time, more heartfelt. Antonella and Signora Docci certainly seemed convinced by it, firing off questions that Harry eagerly answered. And as Adam sat and watched, he felt a rare twinge of pride in his brother. It was tempered slightly by jealousy: that Harry could care so passionately about the path he'd chosen for himself.

  When Signora Docci finally retired upstairs, Antonella took it as her cue to head home. She couldn't be persuaded to stay; she had a week of hard work ahead of her. This wasn't what Adam wanted

  to hear, but he had to make do with a surreptitious squeeze of his arm when she kissed him good night—recognition of what had passed between them in the garden.

  Thrown back on each other's company, Harry nodded over his shoulder at the villa looming above them.

  "Must be a shocker to heat in winter."

  "Must be."

  "What happened to her face?"

  "Car accident."

  "Are you screwing her?"

  "No."

  "Mmmmm."

  "I'm not screwing her, Harry."

  Harry studied him with a sporting eye. "I believe you."

  "That's a huge relief to me."

  "And Signora Fanelli?" asked Harry, fluttering his fingers in the air. "At the Pensione Amorini?"

  Adam felt a hand clutch at his heart. How the hell did Harry even know her name? Then he remembered; he had told Harry to go to the pensione and ask for directions to the villa.

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "She's bloody gorgeous. And I reckon you're her type."

  "Tell me, Harry, was it one or two minutes you spent in her company?"

  "Aloof. Like her. Two dark horses. Cavorting together. Yes, I can see it."

  "Well, you're wrong. That famous sixth sense of yours must have deserted you."

  Harry weighed Adam's words. "Maybe. Yeah. Come to think of it, imagine . . . it'd be like screwing Auntie Joan."

  "She's not that old."

  He realized too late that he'd stumbled into one of Harry's well- laid conversational traps.

  "I knew it!" Harry trumpeted.

  "Keep it down, that's Signora Docci's bedroom."

  Harry glanced up at the loggia. "What, not her too!?"

  "Harry . . ." hissed Adam.

  Harry beamed. "You little devil. She's gorgeous, dirty too, from the look of her."

  Adam wasn't going to be drawn on this.

  "Come on—details."

  "No."

  "Something. Anything."

  "Has it been that long?"

  Harry gave a short laugh. "Quite a while, as it happens."

  Harry was curious to know if Adam intended to tell Gloria. Not for the first time, Gloria was referred to as "the girl who likes killing animals."

  "Her family hunts and shoots."

  "And yours lives in Purley, otherwise known as the arsehole of Croydon."

  "So?"

  "So are you going to let her know?"

  "She ended it."

  Harry nodded a couple of times. "Well, I can't say I'm upset. I never liked her."

  "I know. You told her." "Did I?"

  "You don't remember? She remembers."

  "Well, who cares now? She's out of your life. And you, Paddler, have finally slept with a good-looking woman."

  "Gloria was good-looking."

  Harry heaved a weary sigh. "It's like parents and babies. They're too close. They can't see just how ugly the little buggers are." He lit a cigarette. "Love isn't just blind—it blinds."

  "That's very profound. Who said it?"

  "James Bond, I think."

  "In a rare moment of melancholy."

  Harry laughed, but Adam knew better than to relax his guard. Sure enough, Harry nudged the conversation back to Adam's other university friends.

  "Come on, Paddler, face the facts—you're not one of them. They're all so bloody . . . well, rich."

  "They're still people."

  "They're people who like people like them. Oh, it's okay now, you're a good-looking boy with half a brain and half a sense of humor. But that bloke you hang out with, what's his name? Big ears, windpipe like a fireman's hose, father owns half of Herefordshire ..."

  "Tarquin.

  "Right, Tarquin. Can't you see he's humoring you? You're his piece of entertainment, the middle-class boy made good."

  "You met him once."

  "I'm telling you, he'll drop you as soon as he's back in the real world, and you're selling insurance."

  "I'm going to work at Lloyd's."

  "Selling insurance."

  Adam struggled to control his temper. "You know nothing about my relationships with my friends."

  "I've seen all I want to."

  "You can't just write off two years of my life like that."

  "Why not? You did."

  "Fuck off, Harry."

  Harry leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette. "I might just take you up on that. I haven't slept in days and I've got an early start."

  "You're leaving?"

  "You wish. No, I thought I'd have a slog round Florence."

  Heading upstairs together, Harry asked if he could borrow some of Adam's clothes. He tried on some trousers, a shirt and a linen jacket. "Christ," he said, checking himself in the wardrobe mirror, "it's little Lord Fauntleroy." He also said, "I'll need some cash."

  "I just sent you some!"

  "Believe me, you don't want to know."

  "Believe me, I do."

  "The Swiss girl came back."

  "You're right, I don't want to know."

  As Harry was leaving his room, Adam asked, "Why are you really here, Harry? In Italy?"

  Harry hesitated. "I'm not sure you're ready to hear it."

  "I say, Holmes, not the Giant Rat of Sumatra?"

  Harry's blank expression broke into a smile. It was a private joke, a cause of much amusement to them as boys: a reference to a Conan Doyle short story in which Sherlock Holmes makes passing mention to Watson of a terrible incident in his past involving "the Giant Rat of Sumatra ... a story for which the world is not yet prepared."

  "Demmit, Watson," snapped Harry, "I said never to mention the Giant Rat of Sumatra."

  TRUE TO HIS WORD, HARRY WAS UP EARLY. IN FACT, he'd already left the villa by the time adam awoke.

  The prospect of a full day free from Harry's unpredictable presence was a big relief. He needed time and space to concentrate. His work on the garden had ground to an almost complete standstill in the past few days.

  He had read deep into the night in order to finish The Divine Comedy, rising up through Paradise with Dante to the poet's final, blinding vision of the universe bound together by God's love. Adam had experienced no such epiphany, though, no Damascene revelation. As far as he could tell, there were no further associations between the poem and the memorial garden, aside from a brief mention of Apollo just after Dante and Beatrice have made their ascent from Purgatory to Paradise and Dante calls on the sun god to help him in the last stages of his journey.

  Any hopes that he would see things differently in the morning soon vanished. After breakfast he read through his copious notes, searching for missed connections, but drew a glaring
blank. Heading for the garden, he barged through the gap in the yew hedge and made a brisk tour, defiantly disinterested. This slightly curious logic—that if he treated the place with indifference it might be more inclined to speak to him—proved unsound. If anything, he found it more inert, more stubbornly unresponsive, than he'd ever known it to be. Even the statues seemed bored by their roles, like a troupe of jaded actors at the end of a long run.

  Completing the circuit, he stopped at the grotto and entered. The low morning sunlight slanted through the entrance, dispersing the Stygian gloom. Apollo, Daphne and Peneus shone white as weathered bone against the rock-encrusted wall, a moment of drama trapped in marble by an unknown and rather heavy- handed sculptor.

  Peneus seemed strangely uninvolved with the scene unfolding above him, quite content where he was, sprawled along the rim of the marble basin, cradling his water urn. His expression was hardly that of a man who has just answered his daughter's plea to turn her into a laurel tree. Rather, he wore a look of weary resignation, the sort of look worn by Adam's father when asked to perform some tedious domestic chore.

  As for Daphne, her face suggested there were far worse fates to suffer than metamorphosis. She was frozen in the act of turning her head to look behind her at the pursuing figure of Apollo. Maybe her expression was intended as one of welcome release from unwelcome advances, but there was something ecstatic in the curl of her lips that implied she was actually enjoying herself.

  He studied Apollo carefully—Apollo, his last remaining link to The Divine Comedy. He was reaching for Daphne, but the gesture was hardly fraught with desperation and hopelessness, as it was in Bernini's famous sculpture of the same subject in the Villa Borghese. In fact, here in the grotto they looked more like an amorous young couple playing tag in the woods.

  His gaze dropped to the unicorn, its head bowed toward the empty marble trough. He ran his fingers over the stump of its missing horn, his mind turning to the drawing he'd come across in the papers gathered together by Signora Docci's father. It was a pen-and-ink sketch of the grotto executed in the late sixteenth century, therefore almost contemporaneous with the construction of the garden. The anonymous artist wasn't exactly overburdened with talent, but it was pretty evident that the unicorn had been missing its horn even way back then.

  Was it possible it had never had a horn? If so, what did this mean? If a unicorn dipping its horn into the water signified the purity of the source feeding the garden, what did a hornless unicorn signify? Impure water, not fit to drink?

  Instinct told him that nothing in the grotto had been left to chance, that each and every one of its peculiarities was a necessary part of another story buried away in the composition, according to Federico Docci's instructions.

  The harder he strained to see it, though, the more it receded from him. In his frustration, he found himself talking to the sculptures, exhorting them to share their secret. He was still doing this when a shift in the shadows at his feet announced the appearance of someone in the entrance behind him.

  Maria had been out gathering wildflowers. An unruly bunch of them lay in the shallow wicker basket hanging at her elbow. Her eyes ranged over the interior, establishing that—yes—Adam was alone. And—yes—he was obviously losing his marbles.

  "Another beautiful day," said Adam.

  "Yes."

  "Not as humid as yesterday." "No." Maria raised the basket. "I have to put these in water."

  Adam winced as she left, a flush of embarrassment warming his cheeks, sweat pearling his forehead. He tried and failed to see the humor of the situation. Maria obviously experienced less difficulty, because a moment later he heard the dim but unmistakable sound of laughter.

  He waited awhile before creeping from the grotto, eyes screwed up against the glare. He lit a cigarette. It was his first of the day and he was hit by a wave of light-headedness.

  He glared at Flora—twisted on her plinth, perched high above her kingdom—and he found himself thinking that she was to blame. The goddess had issued an edict of silence to her subjects; she had commanded them to shun his advances. Why, though? Why allow him to glimpse a part of the story, then shut him out?

  Only one answer presented itself to him.

  Okay, he thought, let's do it your way.

  He was nearing the villa, still working out how best to broach the sensitive subject with Signora Docci, when he saw her on the lower terrace, standing at the balustrade, looking out over the plunging olive grove. He wondered if Maria had told her about his solitary rant in the grotto.

  Her face as he approached suggested she knew nothing of the incident. "Good morning," she said.

  "Good morning."

  "Another beautiful day. Not as humid as yesterday."

  His exact words to Maria in the grotto.

  Adam gave a weak smile.

  "Are you feeling better?" she inquired.

  "I was feeling fine then, and I am now."

  "I have a cousin—Alessandra—they took her away for the same thing."

  She was clearly going to have her moment of amusement at his expense, whether he liked it or not.

  "Talking to sculptures?"

  "Paintings."

  "Waste of time," said Adam. "They've very little to say for themselves."

  She laughed. "Where's Harry?"

  "He went into Florence."

  "He's a strange young man."

  "He had a difficult birth."

  "Really?"

  "No. But he's always been like that, as long as I can remember. He doesn't care what people think of him. He just, well... is Harry."

  "Is he a good sculptor?"

  "I don't know. I suppose. They asked him to stay on and teach when he graduated last year."

  "He must have something, then."

  "Yes, a strange desire to spend the rest of his life welding rusty pieces of metal together."

  It was a cheap swipe, revenge for Harry's assault on him the night before, but Signora Docci was amused.

  "You remind me of Crispin when he was younger. He also made me laugh."

  It was the opportunity he'd been waiting for.

  "I wanted to ask you about him."

  "About Crispin?"

  "It's a personal question."

  "Oh."

  "Very personal."

  She took up her new cane, crossed to one of the benches and lowered herself onto it. "On one condition—I'm allowed to ask you a personal question first." "Okay."

  "Are you falling in love with Antonella?"

  "No," he replied after a moment. "I think I already have."

  "Why?"

  "That's two questions."

  "I'll allow you two."

  "I don't know why. I hardly know her."

  "No, you don't."

  "It's inexplicable."

  "Physical attraction—that's inexplicable."

  "It's more than that." Trying to pin it down in words was impossible. "I can see myself being happy with her."

  "And if I told you she had made a number of young men quite unhappy?"

  "I'd ask myself what your reasons were for saying it." "You don't believe me?"

  "I didn't say that. But maybe I'm young enough to make mistakes and still survive."

  "Mistakes at any age can color a life forever. Just one mistake." "Emilio, for example?"

  There, it was done now, there was no turning back.

  "Emilio?" she said warily.

  "Was he your son?"

  "Of course he was my son."

  "I mean . . . with Professor Leonard."

  Signora Docci turned and stared off into the distance. When she looked back at him he saw that her eyes were moist with tears. Her voice, however, remained surprisingly level, devoid of emotion.

  "I would like you to leave."

  "Leave?"

  "Today."

  "You mean—?"

  "Yes. I want you to leave the villa."

  Adam could hear the blood beating in his ears. It was about
all he could hear.

  "I'm sorry if I've offended you."

  She looked away. "Just go."

  He shaped the snowdrift of papers on the desk in the study into ordered piles. It took three trips to carry everything upstairs to his bedroom. He did so in a daze.

  He pulled his suitcases out from under the bed and began to pack. At a certain moment he had to stop. He went to the open window and smoked two cigarettes in quick succession, working through the consequences of his behavior.

  The Pensione Amorini was out of the question; too close to home. He'd take a room in Florence, pick up his photos, maybe stay a day or two. Shit. Harry. He'd completely forgotten about Harry. He'd have to wait at the bottom of the driveway for Harry to return from town. What would he tell him? The truth? He couldn't tell him the truth: that they were without a bed that night because he'd felt compelled by a statue of a classical goddess to ask probing and impertinent questions about their hostess's dead son.

  His only comfort was that, as explanations went, it wasn't so far removed from some he'd heard from Harry over the years. Harry would probably just shrug and ask him where the nearest bar was.

  Maybe he'd go to Venice with Harry. Why not? They'd never been traveling together.

  He was still groping for empty consolations when he heard a light knock at the door.

  "Yes?"

  It was Signora Docci.

  She crossed to the armchair near the fireplace and subsided weakly into it.

  "Emilio wasn't a mistake," she said. "I knew exactly what I was doing. Even if Crispin didn't." She paused. "We were in love. I can still feel the force of it. It was almost violent. What I did . . . what I allowed to happen . . . it made sense at the time, complete sense, in the way that things do to the young. And I was very young—your age. I don't expect you to understand, but Emilio was a gift to myself because I couldn't be with Crispin."

  "Why not?"

  "Money of course. He didn't have any, and Benedetto's family did. A lot. The estate was in trouble at the time. My father felt bad, I know—he was very fond of Crispin—but he would not allow us to be together." She lowered her eyes. "Benedetto was a good man. I have not had a bad life."