by Jane Arbor
‘What made her happy?’
‘Why, this picture I gave her of you as a girl of good family who liked me a lot and who sounded as if she might keep me on the straight and narrow path quite pleasurably—’
‘But I don’t understand. Why choose a fictional girl? Surely you must know heaps of girls of your own class whom you could have produced to your mother?’ Alix protested.
Michele looked across at her and up from under his lashes. ‘Plenty,’ he agreed. ‘But none of your quality, and none, I’m afraid, whose families would let them play along. With my reputation, I mean. No, you had to be a fiction to begin with; I had no wish to be saddled with you for good. For just so long, I planned then, as it took Mama to believe in you and to forget the other scandal. Then I could send you back to England or find myself jilted and that would be that, I thought. But—’ he paused and sighed again. ‘I think you’ve a saying in English for my problem. Do you know what it is?’
Alix did. But her Italian not being equal to translating ‘Hoist with one’s own petard’, she said. ‘You mean that, once you had begun this fairytale, you found you were trapped by it?’
He nodded. ‘Sunk almost without trace. When cold fish Leone began to turn sceptical and Mama began to press for more and more about you—what you looked like and when was I going to bring you home and all that. So I went on to the point where I tricked you yesterday and again tonight into meeting them. For Mama’s sake. Though that needs explaining, if you didn’t understand what you saw of her this evening?’
Alix hesitated. ‘I found her charming. But she seemed rather nervous—as if she weren’t fully at ease.’
‘Huh! Putting it mildly. She is a-quiver with nerves, poor darling. Afraid of her own shadow and even more terrified of Leone.’
‘Afraid of your half-brother? I don’t believe that,’ Alix protested.
Michele shrugged. ‘In awe of him, then; of that nonesuch, perfectionist code of his that won’t stand for being let down. Give him his due, I think he applies it to himself too. But whenever he tries to measure me by it and I’m found wanting, then Mama is likely to feel the backwash, and that I won’t have.’
‘You mean you fear the consequences for her of the truth of this stupid affair? But how on earth didn’t you see the red light of that when you first thought it up?’
‘I suppose,’ he allowed sheepishly, ‘because then it seemed the best way out of the coil I found myself in at the time. Once Mama caught on, she brightened visibly and it gave her a weapon against Leone’s gibes at me. I didn’t look much further than that.’
‘You still must have realized there was a limit to the time you could keep it going?’
‘Ah, but when I did, I’d found a flesh-and-blood girl with which to back it—you.’
‘And now?’
Again that appeal from beneath Michele’s lashes. ‘Well, now it could go on for a while—if you’d let it. Why not?’
But Alix had had enough. She stood up. ‘No,’ she said.
He stood too. ‘They’ve met you. You liked Mama. We carried it off, and now I shall be badgered to take you to the Villa,’ he pleaded.
Alix shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that’s your problem,’ she told him.
‘You don’t, after all, feel the slightest bit committed—even to Mama?’
Momentarily she hesitated, but knew she must not yield. ‘I’m sorry—’ she said again, and read his acceptance into his ‘What a pity!’ as he offered her his hand.
In silence she went to the outer door with him and watched until his rear light disappeared round the corner. As she turned back into the empty, dimmed foyer and walked up the echoing stairs to her room she knew she ought to feel relief as of escape from a net. But she only felt very much alone. And Michele’s choice of word with which to appeal to her—‘committed’—was to rankle with her until much later, she slept.
Committed? Involved with these strangers ... with any of them? Why should she be? And since she was not and never would be now, why did she half wish she were? She found no answer to that.
During the days which followed she was almost surprised that Michele kept his word and did not worry her again. He had accepted her “No” so quietly that she had questioned if he had doubted that she meant it. But he made no sign and she did not visit Carlo’s again. Incident closed, she told herself, though she admitted to wondering how and when he had dealt with his dilemma.
Meanwhile she had her own problems. She had found no new job which would pay enough to keep her, and on the day before she was due to leave the pensione, she suffered an unexpected blow. The little flat she had found was not going to fall vacant after all. At the last moment its tenant had decided not to move out, and Alix, who had been too anxious to get it to press for a firm agreement until she took over the key, found herself with no redress at all.
That meant that, when she should be looking for a job, she must give the time to flat-hunting instead, and as the pensione had already let her room there, she must find other temporary quarters too.
The latter should not be difficult, but she bitterly regretted the loss of the flat. Once she had a job its rent should have been well within her means, and she had looked forward to it as a home. However, her immediate need was another cheap pensione, and she was at the writing-table in the residents’ lounge, marking off some addresses in the newspaper, when the desk-clerk spoke from the doorway.
‘A visitor for you, signorina. Signor Parigi.’
Michele! Again—after all? Alix caught her breath and slewed round in her chair as the clerk stood aside to admit, not Michele, but Leone Parigi.
She stood slowly and could only stare, noting again the dominant arrogance of the man as she took his proffered hand. ‘Buon giorno signorina.’ His gesture asked her permission to sit and he did so when she sat down again herself. He offered a gold cigarette case. ‘Will you smoke? You don’t? Then may I?’ As he flicked his lighter—
‘You must forgive me for being the wrong Parigi brother, signorina. Or weren’t you expecting Michele either?’
‘Michele? No—That is—’ Alix broke off, not sure of her ground.
‘Not? Then when?’
‘I—don’t know.’ (How much of his silly plot had Michele been forced to confess by now?) Not knowing, she hedged again. ‘Why do you ask, signore?’
‘In other words, “What business is it of yours?” Which is a good question, of course. Also a snub I’d deserve if—Well, shall we say, supposing matters between you and Michele were all they were made to appear in that little scena you and he laid on the other evening? But they weren’t, I think—were they? Your act not quite well enough rehearsed, wouldn’t you agree?’
Alix flushed. ‘You mean—Michele has admitted that none of it was true? I’m glad—’
Leone shook his head. ‘Your relief is premature. Michele has admitted nothing to date, and he hasn’t honoured us with his company since.’
‘Then how did you know?’
A shrug. ‘Mostly from the evidence of my senses. From noticing that you were embarrassed, and that he contrived to answer any awkward questions for you. I also happened to know by chance that the English Club building was closed for repairs at the date you were supposed to have met there. And for the rest, my experience tells me that in any personal crisis Michele always leaps first and looks later. From all of which it wasn’t too difficult to guess that the show we were being treated to wasn’t quite what it seemed,’ Leone concluded smoothly.
‘I—see. And since you know so much, do you believe you also know—why?’
‘I think so. I imagine he urgently needed cover for a sleazy entanglement which has scandalized our friends and almost prostrated his mother with worry. And so, to make a show of innocence, he cultivated you and offered you for our reassurance, hoping we should accept the relationship at its seeming face value?’
‘Something like that. Except that he says the other affair is over.’
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‘I’d be glad to think so. Meanwhile—’ the dark glance from which Alix had shrunk in the restaurant raked her again—‘he chose well for his purpose. You played your part cleverly enough to captivate my stepmother completely, if not to behaze me. But since it was only a part, would it be in order to ask what considerations Michele offered you? Were they in cash or in kind? Or did you perhaps agree to co-operate only for—what is your expressive English word?—for kicks?’
Alex stiffened. ‘For none of these motives, signore.’
‘Then for love?’
‘Only if you mean that in the English sense of “for nothing”.’ ,
Leone smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t, but let it pass. So—no motive to which you will admit. But equally no foresight of the futility of the thing?’
‘I did realize it was a silly deception that couldn’t go on indefinitely, and I told Michele so.’
‘Yet you still allowed him to involve you in it!’
‘I—found myself involved.’ Alix did not know whether it was an instinct to shield Michele or some pride of her own which refused to admit to Leone’s sledgehammer inquisition that trickery had given her no choice until it was too late to draw back. She added, ‘But after I had met you all, I told Michele I’d have no further part in it. And I shan’t be seeing him again.’
Leone commented, ‘H’m—as neat a piece of feminine sail-trimming as I’ve ever heard! So at that point you shifted the load back to him and—ran?’
‘It was his problem, after all.’
‘Through your connivance, I’d have thought it was also yours. However, currently it’s neither yours nor his alone. For, regret the necessity as I may, I am now making it mine too.’
‘Yours?’
‘Mine. You don’t really suppose, signorina, that I followed you up merely to confirm something of which I was never in much doubt? No, Michele hatched this plot for his own ends. You abetted him for whatever yours may have been. Now I intend to turn it to good purpose and to see that you carry it through.’
‘Through? What do you mean?’
She might not have spoken. Leone continued evenly, ‘To a point in the future when I judge Michele’s mother may be fit to hear without distress that the affair between you is to come to nothing—which she couldn’t tolerate hearing at present. But perhaps you’re not with me so far? You may not know that she is at the moment a neurotic case who must be spared emotional shock at all costs?’
Alix said, ‘Michele only told me after I had met Signora Parigi the other evening, and I’m sorry—very sorry indeed. But even to shield her from disillusion, I can’t possibly do what you’re asking. I—I could never carry it out!’
‘You managed well enough that evening.’
‘You say I didn’t deceive you!’
‘Because I wasn’t your willing dupe, whereas my stepmother’s wishful thinking for Michele made her want to believe in you. And I’d remind you that in any future sessions, you would have me now as your ally, not your enemy.’
‘There can’t be any future sessions. The whole thing is over, finished.’
Leone’s eyes hardened. ‘It should never have begun, signorina. But since it did, it’s going on until I call a halt to it. Because the end should justify the means, and if my stepmother’s present poverty of spirit can be given something to want now and to believe in now, the future must solve its own problems as they arise. Meanwhile she is expecting Michele to bring you to the Villa, and he should do that very soon.’
Alix began to feel trapped. ‘No! Besides—’ she clutched at a straw—‘I shan’t be free very soon. I have to find myself a job.’
‘A job? You were thinking of taking up some work now your father is dead?’
‘Not “thinking of”. I must work.’ Her tone was blunt. ‘That was one of the things which you noticed Michele did not let me admit at the Casino Dei Fiori—that my father was only a bank cashier, not a “banker” at all. I’m not on the Parigi social level, I’m afraid. At the moment I’m living on the small capital my father left, but if I’m to stay in Italy I must have a job.’
‘As what, for instance?’
‘As a clerk. Or in a shop. Or as a hotel receptionist—anywhere where my being fairly bi-lingual would help.’
‘And until you get something—’ Leone looked round the depressing room—‘this is your base?’
‘Only until tomorrow, when I’m moving out.’
‘Where to?’
The effrontery of the question took her aback. ‘I don’t know yet. But does it matter?’
Leone fitted a second cigarette into his holder. ‘Not,’ he said coolly, ‘since you’ll need neither a new address nor a job for the moment, if you’ll accept through me my stepmother’s warm invitation to stay with us for a while at the Villa.’
Alix gasped. ‘As—as what Signora Parigi believes me to be in relation to Michele?’
‘As a girl to whom she says she would be happy to see him engaged—yes. But that’s looking ahead. For now she is content with the situation as far as Michele has described it. She took to you on sight; she wants to see more of you in Michele’s home; through you, she counts on seeing more of him there. It’s, as I think you say in English—“as simple as that”.’
At any other time Alix might have warmed to the appeal of his careful, broken English accent. As it was she could only echo in Italian, ‘Easy? Simple?—under those false colours?’
‘Colours of Michele’s original choosing for you, not mine,’ he reminded her. ‘I merely hoped I might persuade you to wear them while his mother’s nervous health needs gentle handling. When she is better—’ He broke off and stood up. ‘However, I’ve neither the intention nor the power to kidnap you. Therefore my last hope is to offer you a suitable fee. You say you are in need of a job. Well, here is one. So if you can’t do what I’m asking of you for compassion’s sake, perhaps you’ll think it over and name your price?’
Alix looked down at her hands. ‘I’ll do nothing of the kind. I certainly wouldn’t accept money from you. But on the other count, your making it a kind of errand of mercy—makes refusal very difficult,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Then please don’t refuse, signorina. Think of it as a kindness you can do for a sick woman, and come.’ For the first time he seemed to be asking, not demanding, and when she said nothing he approached her and bowed formally over her hand.
‘I’m going to track down Michele now,’ he said. ‘If I send him to you and you decide to come to us, will you let him drive you up in time for dinner this evening? I take it you’ll be available here for the rest of the day?’
She looked up at him, tempted almost to shout ‘No!’ and later to pack her bags and escape. But instead she heard herself saying, ‘Yes, I shall be here,’ and knew, from his quiet ‘Thank you, signorina,’ that she had committed herself to more than being there when Michele came.
As the westering sun cast long shadows across the old Appian Way that lovely evening she had little thought for the magic of the twenty-three centuries of history which the oldest used road in the world had seen. Cohorts of soldiery, pack-mules, chariots, carriages, cars, lorries and jeeps had worn its paving smooth. The ruined grandeur of Roman tombs bordered it; dark tunnels of catacombs burrowed beneath it; pale pink asphodel flowers starred its verges, and picnic-parties on the grass beside it were repacking their food-hampers as they waited for the returning city bus. But for Alix it was merely the die-straight road which was carrying her inexorably into a web of deceit.
Beside her, Michele was driving, not his topolino, his ‘little mouse’ of a runabout, but a luxurious convertible which he had described as ‘Leone’s idea of a fit transport for you’ when he had called for her in it. He had left her to her thoughts for some distance until he said, ‘Venetia isn’t in on all this, you know. Just the three of us, by milord’s decree.’
‘I see. Thank you for telling me.’
At her listless tone Michele threw her an
anxious glance. ‘You don’t mean to back out now?’ he begged her.
‘If I did, I shouldn’t be here.’
He sighed. ‘You had me worried for a moment.’ He laid a hand on her knee. ‘Cheer up, cara mia. All we have to do is to go through the motions and let Leone put the thing over like one of his sales campaigns. It could work. Besides, on closer acquaintance we might turn it into the real thing—why not?’
Alix turned her head. ‘On our beginnings—do you think it likely? I was just a lifeline you reached for and caught.’
A nod. ‘I know. Shame on me. And I admit you’re not quite the kind I usually fall for. I do rather like them—so,’ Michele’s hand sketched a series of ample curves in the air—‘you know—on the luscious side and a bit passionate. Teasers. Not as wholesome and untouched-looking and without any tricks as you ... no offence meant, of course. What’s your own taste in men?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever typed it.’
‘Meaning that I haven’t got what it takes, but you’re too kind to say so. Ah well—’ Michele went on, ‘I must say Leone has the edge on me in the matter of enticement. I thought he was joking when he said you had agreed to go through with all this. Tell me, why didn’t you let him hear I had tricked you into it only just before I took you to Dei Fiori?’
‘I’m not sure. I think, because he had already prejudged me for going along with it at all and my pride dug in its heels.’
For that she earned an approving smile. ‘Good for you! He would probably scalp me if he knew. Yes—?’ Michele added as he saw Alix was about to speak.
She said slowly, ‘Something I don’t understand—You make Leone out a kind of monster. Saying he has no use for women; that your mother is afraid of him and that he would take it out on her for your shortcomings. But why should he bother to make us carry on this act, if he weren’t quite as concerned for her as you are?’