The Lovers

by Morris West

  ‘It would seem from the message that he’s kept his promise.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake! You know what he’s done as well as I do. Look at that smoke. There must be half a mile of seaway ablaze now. He’s blown up the Jackie Sprat, with Benetti and his mate on board! He didn’t even have to stick the mines on the hull. He could have planted them in the bloody engine room during the search!’

  ‘But you can’t prove that,’ said Farnese firmly, ‘not in a million years. Read the last line of your message . . . “Sicily is beautiful” . . . He wants us out of here.’

  ‘I’m sure he does!’

  ‘Whatever Jordan has done,’ Farnese persisted, ‘it all works to our benefit. A real threat has been removed. Those who ordered Hadjidakis’ death have been put on notice that there is no profit for anyone in a long vendetta. Thanks to your careful thinking, we are totally divorced from anything that may have happened out there.’

  ‘We were the decoys, for God’s sake!’

  ‘No! We were the quarry pursued by predators! My suggestion now is that we begin our picnic and spare the ladies any distressing speculation. Yes?’

  ‘We don’t have much choice, do we?’

  ‘None at all. We enjoy our day. And tonight we point our nose southward.’

  Cavanagh turned to go. Farnese laid a hand on his arm to detain him.

  ‘Mr Cavanagh, let me tell you something. There is no court in this country, or indeed anywhere in the world, which would find that you had acted badly in this matter. You cooperated with the authorities. You protected your guests, your crew, your ship. You were not involved in any way in this inter-service operation.’

  ‘How the hell can you take it so calmly? This is murder – a double murder – and I helped to set it up.’

  ‘So you did. But remember, I did warn you that you were playing in a game you didn’t understand. You invoked your authority as master of this vessel. I deferred to it, because your own obstinacy made you a most convenient scapegoat.’

  ‘It’s a lesson I’ll remember, sir, but not one I’ll thank you for!’

  ‘The lesson’s more important than the thanks.’ Farnese’s indifference was itself an insult. ‘It may one day save your life!’

  He had set much store upon the simple matter of Giulia’s diving lessons. He was jealous of them, as a child might be jealous of a private game with a beloved friend. They would be the first open leisure they could enjoy together, the first real playtime, in which they could share looks, waves, gestures, simple bodily contacts, without the urgency of furtive mating in the confined space of shipboard. It would be his first chance to display to her his physical skills, and be there to support her while she mastered them herself.

  Yet, when the moment came, in the sheltered inlet on Molara, out of sight of the ship and the people on the beach, he found himself suddenly brusque and constrained, reverting to the old routines of the Navy instructor, setting out curtly the cautions that must be exercised on entering this new element.

  Giulia, on the other hand, seemed to welcome this unfamiliar attitude of professional detachment. She listened carefully, asked intelligent questions, committed herself with full confidence to each step of the drill. When they surfaced after the first practice dive, she told him:

  ‘I thought I would be much more nervous; the way one is if a parent or relative wants to teach one to drive a car or play a game. On the contrary, you were so cool and professional, I didn’t feel awkward at all.’

  ‘I’m glad. This is a dangerous sport, mistakes can be costly. Yet how do you lecture the woman you adore?’

  ‘I didn’t feel you were lecturing me – but I didn’t feel you were adoring me either.’

  ‘Enough from you, Principessa! Now, we’re going back into the water. Same exercise, clearing the Eustachian tubes, then we’ll go out a way and swim round the rocks, diving to about fifteen or twenty feet. We’ll swim together. I want you to practise looking at the depth gauge and the watch on your wrist. That again is like driving a car – you go through the safety motions every time – and remember that we keep signalling to each other, and the signals are standard too. Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  ‘Let’s go!’

  This time, the pleasure began to return. In the water she was beautiful to watch. Her movements were fluid, her breathing was regular and unhurried, her normal impulsiveness was subdued to the rhythms of this world, still quite new to her – to the movement of the sea grasses, the silver flash of the minnow schools, the slow cruise of an inquisitive grouper, the flurry of a flounder burying itself in the sand, the furtive progress of a hermit crab in his borrowed house. Finally, Cavanagh pointed to his watch and signalled that it was time to make the homeward circuit round the headland.

  This time Giulia led the way, with Cavanagh trailing a short way behind her. Suddenly she stopped and pointed downwards. There, half-buried in the sand was the shoulder, the lip and the handle of a terracotta amphora.

  Cavanagh signalled her to dive and then joined her on the sandy bottom. He motioned to her to disturb the sand as little as possible and then began gently to free the amphora. The task was easy. It was a fragment only, from one of those long inverted cones which the old-time sellers of wine and oil fitted into slots outside their shops. It had no value at all, but its discovery was an event for both of them. When they came out of the water, they sat on the beach to examine it. Cavanagh pointed out the grooves of the potter’s fingers on the inside surface and the small fragment of a seal stamped into the shoulder. Giulia smiled and kissed him.

  ‘It’s important to you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes it is. It’s the connection, don’t you see? The connection between some long-dead mariner and me, the man from the farthest continent. I doubt he was wrecked here. The amphora probably broke and was tossed overboard as a piece of ship’s rubbish . . . But we found it, you and I. So we’re connected to the potter, the merchant, the sailor . . . I’d like you to keep this.’

  Giulia declined gently.

  ‘No, you keep it. Our places are full of such things, much more perfect, but none of them means as much as this fragment, now that I’ve seen the light in your eyes and the smile on your lips . . .’

  ‘Today is only the beginning. We’ll find better things.’

  ‘But none will be as precious to you as this. Tell the truth now!’

  ‘You’re right, my love. None will be as precious as this. It puts the taste back into a very bitter day.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He told her all of it: his deal with Carl Jordan, its brutal outcome, her father’s contemptuous absolution and his curt warning. Giulia heard him out in silence. She gave no verdict upon his actions. She offered no sympathy for his distress. She said simply:

  ‘Last night you said a thing that troubled me very much. The name of the game, you said, is my lady or my life.’

  ‘That was a bad joke. I beg you to forget it.’

  ‘No, my love, it was not a joke. What happened this morning, what papa said to you, these were not jokes either.’

  ‘Very well! I accept that, but I cannot accept that you or I should live in fear of faceless monsters.’

  ‘I can’t accept it either; but I know better than you that the monsters exist. I fear them. I fear for you too because I love you with all my heart, Cavanagh!’

  ‘And I love you too, Giulia mia! So not all the monsters in the world can defeat us.’

  ‘Oh yes they can! And they will, just as they did today . . . It breaks my heart, my love; but I have to say it. I cannot, I will not marry you!’

  ‘You don’t mean it. You can’t!’

  ‘I mean it. From now until we arrive in Ischia to meet Molloy, I am yours, morning, noon and night. I don’t care who knows it or sees it. But the hour before we dock, you walk out of my life; I walk out of yours.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God!’ Cavanagh reached out to grasp her but she stepped away. ‘This isn’t you talki
ng. It’s your father, your aunt . . .’

  ‘No, Cavanagh! This is your Giulia – and I’m yours as long as I live, as long as you care to remember me. But if you die – what’s left to me? A ghost piping in winter among the laurels! I won’t risk that. I won’t risk you. Please don’t be angry!’

  ‘I’m not angry. I’m crying inside me. I can taste the salt on my tongue. I love you, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘I’m so proud you love me, Cavanagh. Let me go on being proud of you. Let me wave you like my banner, even if it’s only for these last days.’

  ‘I can’t let you go to that son-of-a-bitch Molloy. I know what he is. I . . .’

  ‘Hush, my love! I know what he is too! You don’t have to hate him so much. My namesake tamed the Borgia Pope and none of his monster sons dared threaten her. I’m not afraid of Molloy – and I will not see you shamed by him or by my father . . .’

  ‘It’s myself who’ll do the shaming, if it comes to that. I’ll ram Hadjidakis’ book down Molloy’s neck and make him chew it page by page! Crazy, isn’t it! I’m losing the only thing I prize in my life and all I can think of is a book written by a Greek who only half knows his mother tongue!’

  Cavanagh’s humour turned suddenly black and bilious. ‘Come on! Let’s make love! Let’s peel off this bloody rubber suiting and disport ourselves like honest peasants on the beach!’

  ‘You’re not a peasant, Cavanagh. To me, you’re a prince!’

  ‘That’s nice to hear, Giulia mia; but I have to tell you, some son-of-a-bitch has just turned me into a toad!’

  The Farnese Fleurs-de-Lys

  INTERLUDES

  New York to Rome

  Flight AZ 611

  1992

  The Friday evening flight was a red-eye, which departed Kennedy at five in the evening and landed at Fiumicino at seven in the morning. In spite of his age, Bryan de Courcy Cavanagh had developed a tolerance for long-haul overnight flying. His prescription was simple: he ate little, drank only mineral water, then blotted out the world with earplugs and eyeshades, closed all the doors of his mind and willed himself into instant oblivion.

  This time, however, the formula had failed. They were three hours out on the Great Circle route and he was still wide awake, his once-tidy mind a jumble of business memoranda, family news from Louise, speculations about why Giulia had summoned him to Rome, and a whole jigsaw of forty-year-old memories which he was trying to fit back into a logical sequence.

  The business matters were swiftly dismissed. He opened his briefcase, reviewed the decisions of the meeting in Manhattan, re-checked the list of documents his office had been instructed to produce, did some quick arithmetic on his own earnings, decided there was nothing to be worried about and much to be grateful for, and closed the briefcase.

  The family news was neutral. Everyone was well. Cavanagh’s only anxiety was whether he had been over-voluble in his explanation of this sudden call to Rome and his new client, Impresa Romagnola. Louise was interested only in his personal well-being; she was not at all concerned with the persons or corporations which made up his client list. This time, however she had cut him off in mid-talk and asked:

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right, darling?’

  ‘Of course I’m all right! Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because you’ve told me all the news. You’re going to Rome to see a new client. Now you’re burbling on and on like the proverbial brook . . .’

  ‘Am I? I didn’t mean to. It must be a reaction. Yesterday was a long, rough day. I had my birthday dinner alone at a little bistro up on Madison. The wine must have been even rougher than it tasted. Anyway I’ll see you Monday. Give the kids kisses for me – and save a couple of the best ones for yourself. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too. Godspeed.’

  Which brought him, by a round turn, back to the jigsaw pieces of the past, still rattling round in his brain-box. He had to set them in order before he faced Giulia in Mongrifone. He had worked long enough in the law to know that the advocate who came to a case with holes in his brief would soon find his money and his clients leaking away through them. Somewhere in all the mess of memories was the reason for Giulia’s summons and her urgent call for his presence in her life after forty years of absence.

  Up to the moment of destruction and of love on the beach at Molara, everything was clear. It was the events of the aftermath which had to be set in order. As the big 747 droned its way through the night, Cavanagh made his own silent flight into the black abysses of the past . . .

  From the moment they rejoined the picnic party, there was a subtle change in the atmosphere. It was, as Giulia said later, ‘as if they were waiting to inspect the bloody sheets after the wedding night, or to measure the bridegroom’s member to prove that he was potent’. No one, however, knew how to frame the question or dared to put it until Cavanagh issued a curt command.

  ‘Rodolfo, I’d like you to take the tender and give Miss Lambert and Miss Pritchard a tour of the harbour.’

  Miss Lambert opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it. Lenore Pritchard said nothing and headed immediately down to the boat, leaving Rodolfo to shepherd the reluctant Aurora. Once they were afloat and out of earshot, Giulia made her announcement.

  ‘It’s no secret to you, papa, or to Aunt Lucietta, that Cavanagh and I love each other and that we are lovers in fact. This morning Cavanagh asked me once more to marry him and go away with him to share his life. For reasons which you fully understand, and which Cavanagh still finds hard to accept, I refused. He had promised from the beginning that if I did not want to marry him, he would walk out of my life. He is an honourable man. He will keep that promise. But now hear me, papa! We are lovers still. We shall be until we come to Ischia and Lou Molloy is there to claim me. Until that time you will not ask where I am or what I do with this man I love, who is breaking his heart to keep his promise. You will not shame him, snub him or belittle him in any way. If you do, I shall be gone – and all you have built on my marriage to Molloy will be in ruins. You know me, papa. I keep my promises too.’

  There was a long, bleak silence before Farnese asked:

  ‘Do you want to say anything, Mr Cavanagh?’

  ‘Only this. I didn’t compose Giulia’s speech. If I had, I should have left out the threat at the end. If anyone treads on the tail of my coat I’ll deal with them personally. For the rest, neither Giulia nor I will embarrass you on board; but I hope you won’t grudge us the last drops of the happiness we have.’

  ‘No, Cavanagh. I won’t grudge them to you. You may find it hard to believe, but I wish you much good in your life.’

  ‘I do find it hard to believe, sir; but it’s too late in the day to argue the matter. Let’s part in peace.’

  Farnese hesitated a moment and then nodded agreement.

  ‘In peace. Yes, of course.’

  To which the Countess added her own tart little postscript.

  ‘A few days ago, Cavanagh, I asked you a question. You’ve just answered it for me.’ She raised her glass and pronounced the old-fashioned salute: ‘Salve! Hail!’

  ‘I hail him too, papa.’ Giulia, diminutive but defiant, stood beside Cavanagh. ‘I’m marrying Lou Molloy; but never forget, this is the man I love!’

  After that, unless his memory was playing him tricks, they behaved, for a very short while, just like a family. They linked arms and walked along the beach looking for shells, they paddled in the shallows and skipped stones across the water until Rodolfo brought his charges back from the tour of the bay and drove them all to the ship before returning to dismantle the picnic site.

  On board, another strangeness awaited him – or was that too just a trick of tired memory? It seemed that the crew were looking at him with furtive eyes, as if he were Moses, with horns of light on his brow, coming down from the mount of revelation. But the only verbal memory he could summon up was Lenore Pritchard’s remark:

  ‘What happened to you today, buster? You look as thoug
h you’ve taken a real beating – or was it just too much sex under the rosemary bushes!’

  After that, pictures of their last ports of call unrolled themselves like film on an endless spool.

  They were all small and unfamiliar places, because Farnese was restless and very bored with his Aurora and he wanted to stay on the move, far away from big ports and tourist centres.

  The names echoed in the dream like ancient incantations: Alicudi, Filicudi, Salina, Lipari, Vulcano, Panarea.

  The images were not of today, with ferry docks and tourist hotels, but of forty years past, when the islands were still places of exile, their natives were small inbred tribes, their dialect a barrier against casual contact.

  Their recreations on the cruise were simple too. They bathed in hot pools, they dived in blue caverns, they shopped in tiny fish-markets and drank dark, sulphurous wines grown on precarious terraces. One night they made the circuit of Stromboli itself, a cone of fire with fresh lava flows rolling slowly down its slopes. After that they sailed until dawn and dropped anchor under towering cliffs, with a beach between, in the Gulf of Policastro.

  Amid all these dramatic landscapes, the images of Giulia seemed the least precise, the most fleeting. She was always present, as she had been on the voyage itself, in bed during his rest time, on deck as he went about his duties, on the bridge during the night crossings. Each of her presences was a delight; but they were all in mezzotint. It was like an ironic reprise of ‘Passione’, only this time with the words reversed: ‘Cchiù vicina me staie, cchiù luntana me sento. The closer you are to me the further away you seem . . .’

  Then, out of all the soft-focus images, one projected itself with absolute clarity.

  It was very early in the morning. They had dropped anchor off a sandy beach in the Gulf of Salerno, just opposite the ancient ruins of Paestum, which they proposed to visit during the day. The crew were busy, washing decks, brushing carpets and polishing brass-work, while Cavanagh, just off night-watch, was drinking coffee with Chef in the galley. In his forthright fashion, the Chef put the question: