The Lovers

by Morris West

  ‘It was Hadjidakis who showed me how to steal an apple on a fly-past run in the market. It was he who taught me about sex and the nine and ninety ways you could have it, and he gave me my first lessons himself. It was he who took me to my first bar and taught me how to listen to the talk: the clerks from the law offices, the enforcers from the loan sharks, the business girls and their pimps, the cops passing by to pick up the free drink and the envelope with the Friday money in it. He taught me about trade too – how to buy low in the flea market and sell higher, peddling door-to-door to the housewives. He’d bargain for the goods. I’d sell ’em to the ladies. I didn’t need the money – we had lace curtains, remember? – but Hadjidakis kept it for me, so I wouldn’t have to explain it at home. And somehow he managed to make it grow like a conjurer’s mango tree.

  ‘One day we made a pact. Wherever and whenever I got a job, I would find a place for him, a place near me. I would haul him up the ladder with me and he would cover my arse from the bastards below. We would share everything, vacations, adventures, lovers, confidences, everything! When he got married, things changed. They had to; but we still cruised together, until I offered him a job on my first boat as first mate, engineer and well, master of ceremonies – whore-master, some folks would call it; but with Hadjidakis you couldn’t think of it that way. At least I couldn’t.

  ‘I asked his opinion on everything, even on my association with Farnese and my marriage to Giulia. He advised me to go ahead, to put down roots in the old world as well as the new. He understood politics. His old man had been a ward-heeler for Honey Fitz among the Greek community in Boston. He didn’t want me to get involved in the Tolvier affair. He thought there were too many players in the game. I thought I knew better. Besides, Dulles and his friends were calling in some markers and I knew I’d need some favours too, once Farnese and Galeazzi and I started to work together . . . Well, this is how it ends! Giorgios is dead. And I’m making my confession to a mick from down-under who, rumour has it, tried very hard to seduce my beloved Giulia. Now what would you say to that, Mr Bryan Cavanagh?’

  ‘I would say,’ and he said it very slowly because for the first time in his life he was groping for words. ‘I would say, Mr Molloy, sir, that rumour is a lying jade, and I think I can name the jade in question.’

  ‘Can you now. Would you try it on me for size?’

  ‘Farnese’s girlfriend, Aurora Lambert. He’s tired of her. She’s looking for a new patron and angel, you!’

  ‘Clever boy! Go to the top of the class!’

  ‘It was an easy question. What’s hard to understand is your need to ask it.’

  The question sobered Molloy for a moment. He took his time over the answer.

  ‘Well, Cavanagh, as I’ve just tried to explain to you at great length, I’ve been robbed of the greatest love in my life. I know I’m getting a new chance with Giulia – which I’m very lucky to have. The problem is I’m not sure my experience fits me to handle a lady of her quality and lineage. Is there any advice a young fellow like you might be able to offer me?’

  ‘None, sir. You’re the man with the years and the experience. All I can remember is what my mother used to tell me: “Before you sit down to supper with decent folk, Bryan Cavanagh, make sure your hands are clean!”’

  ‘A wise woman!’ said Declan Aloysius Molloy. ‘A wise, wise woman. Now will you watch me down the gang-plank please and help me into a horse and buggy? I’m a mite unsteady on my feet.’

  Forty years on, it was the fear in the man which Cavanagh remembered most poignantly. He was like a puppet, hanging from the catwalk with all his limbs askew and no puppet-master to bring him to life.

  It was a fear that Cavanagh now understood very well. The plane was coming down now on a steep descent into Fiumicino. The moment he stepped off it, he would be walking into a void, the dark backward of forty lost years.

  Arms of Principe Alessandro di Mongrifone

  BOOK TWO

  A Weekend at Mongrifone

  1992

  The drive from Fiumicino to Mongrifone was irrevocably lost to him. His chauffeur was a taciturn young Florentine who drove the big Mercedes so smoothly that Cavanagh slept all the way, from the image of Leonardo da Vinci at the airport to the portals of the Farnese villa in the Sabine Hills.

  The chauffeur handed him over to a major-domo, an elderly white-haired fellow with courtly manners, who conducted him up a wide, circular staircase to a huge bedroom which opened out onto a terrace and a panorama of vineyards, farmlands, orchards, greenhouses and vegetable gardens, with misty blue ridges in the background.

  The major-domo explained that the Principessa had left early in the morning for Rome, but that she would be back for lunch about one o’clock. Meantime, after so long a flight, the dottore would no doubt appreciate a bath and a sleep. If he had any clothes to be washed or suits to be pressed, they would be taken care of while he rested. Meantime, he would be pleased to unpack the baggage and draw a bath for the dottore.

  As he worked he offered small sweetmeats of information. This was formerly the bedchamber of Prince Alessandro, dead these many years, but still remembered and loved in Mongrifone. That was the town over there to the right, on the crest of the hill. In the old days, the family had maintained its residence within the walls of the fortress; but in the nineteenth century they had moved out to this estate, which was called the Prince’s Villa. It was a large enterprise as the dottore would see; but the Principessa managed it with great skill.

  The bathroom was large enough to parade a platoon and the bath itself was a huge porphyry tub with steps leading into it and dolphin heads for faucets. There was a dressing-gown hung behind the door, a rack of thick towels and an array of toiletries in crystal bottles.

  On the bedside table was a note and a gift-wrapped package. The note, which carried Giulia’s personal escutcheon, read simply: ‘I lend to you what you gave to me. The tears are real. They are the tears of joy I shed when I knew you were coming. Te voglio, te penzo, te chiammo. Giulia.’ Inside the package was the tear-vial, mounted on a tiny gold stand, and stoppered with a gold coronet. There were indeed a few drops of liquid inside it. Cavanagh tested them on his tongue. They had a salt taste to them, just like those he had tasted on her cheeks the night before they parted.

  The major-domo announced that the dottore’s bath was ready. When he was rested he should simply ring the bell and the pressed clothes would be returned to him. There was mineral water on the table. If he desired coffee, any other beverage, he had only to call. He wished the dottore ‘Buon riposo’ and went out, closing the door behind him.

  Left alone, Cavanagh studied himself in the mirror and decided that what he saw was a mess. His skin was pasty, he had botched his shave on the aircraft, his tongue looked like the bottom of a birdcage, his brain – if there were anything left of it – must have turned to butter, because there was no gleam of intelligence in the dull, bloodshot and brutish eyes. So the whole toilet would have to be done again. He cleaned his teeth, washed his mouth, shaved with patient care, boiled himself in the bath for forty glorious minutes, dried himself on a fluffy towel as big as a bedsheet, then wrapped himself in the dressing-gown and slept until twenty minutes after midday.

  When the major-domo delivered his freshly minted clothes, he asked what dress might be appropriate for lunch. The answer was instant:

  ‘The Principessa asked me to tell you, sir – very casual. There are no guests. You will be lunching on the terrace in warm sunshine.’

  ‘The Princess is back then?’

  ‘Yes, sir. She will pass by your room and pick you up in about twenty minutes.’

  ‘You must forgive me. I have neglected to ask your name.’

  ‘Bosco. Luca Bosco . . .’

  ‘You’ve been with the family a long time?’

  ‘Too long to think about, dottore. But if you have questions, I am to tell you that the Principessa wants to deliver all her news herself. She warned me that if I g
ossiped with you, she would have my head.’

  Cavanagh laughed.

  ‘I believe you, Luca! She can be a very formidable lady.’

  ‘But not with you, dottore. Not ever with you!’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  The old man gave him a sidelong, mischievous grin and refused the bait.

  ‘You mustn’t tempt me, dottore. It’s my head that’s threatened, not yours.’

  The next instant he was gone, leaving Cavanagh to make a momentous, solitary decision on what he should wear to lunch with Giulia the Beautiful and whether his gift to her was too trivial or too audacious in the memories it evoked.

  He had found it in a small jewellery store on Madison, one of those expensive holes in the wall, which traded in estate jewellery and sold pieces on consignment for ageing or needy clients. It was a Victorian piece, quite small for that period, a golden salamander with emerald eyes and a pavé of tiny rose-cut diamonds down the spine. They had asked an outrageous price for it, but he had haggled them down to seven hundred and fifty dollars – which made him feel less guilty about buying a gift for an old lover, or on the other hand, about spending too much of the fee with which the said lover had endowed him. He took one last look at the piece, closed the little velvet box and laid it on the bedside table beside Giulia’s gift.

  Clothes were the next problem. Hell! What was he? A teenager going out on his first date? An open-necked shirt, light fawn slacks, Gucci loafers – what else could you do with a sixty-five-year-old conseiller d’état, who was hard put to keep his belly reasonably flat and who could do nothing at all about his receding hair line. He was just making a final inspection of himself when he heard the knock on the door and Giulia’s announcement:

  ‘It’s me, Giulia.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Cavanagh, and watched in sudden fear as the door opened and Giulia stood before him.

  Time had been kind to her and she had let it do its own work in peace. She was grey now, but still trim and firm-breasted. There were lines on her face; but they were not the down-drawn strokes of melancholy, rather the patterns of contentment and acceptance. Only her eyes had not changed, those big, dark, lustrous orbs that had charmed the heart out of him forty years ago. She wore a cream silk blouse and black silk slacks and low-heeled shoes, and her hair was tied back with a ribbon of black moiré silk. That was all he had time to take in before she kicked the door shut and came running into his arms, and time rolled back, in the wink of an eye, to their first breathless encounter on the dockside at Santo Stefano. As it had been long ago, it was Giulia who found voice first.

  ‘We’re always like this aren’t we? Nothing to say – and then I have to start the talking.’

  ‘You know me, my love, Cavanagh the dumb mick!’

  ‘Whatever else you were, my love, you were never dumb. Did you find my present?’

  ‘I did – and thank you.’

  ‘They’re real tears, Cavanagh.’

  ‘I know. I tasted them.’

  ‘Did they taste happy?’

  ‘If you tell me so.’

  ‘I’m still wearing your pendant. I’ve worn it since the day we parted.’

  She opened the buttons of her blouse to show him the golden medallion cradled in the cleft of her breasts. She drew it out and offered it to him to handle. It was exactly as she had described it in her letter, buffed and rubbed by forty years of contact with her body, but like the body itself, all the more precious for the defacements of time. He handed it back, and before she re-buttoned her blouse, he bent and brushed her breasts with his lips. He felt her flinch in surprise; but she did not withdraw. She smiled when he told her:

  ‘The last time, I promise!’

  ‘I’m glad you still want to touch me. Have I changed much?’

  ‘Like good wine, Giulia mia – only for the better. I brought you a gift too.’

  He handed her the little velvet box and watched as she opened it. The light in her eyes and the smile on her face moved him near to tears. She kissed him full on the lips and thanked him in a rush of words.

  ‘I’m going to put this on now and wear it while you’re here. The salamander’s an animal that can survive in the hottest fire. We’re survivors, Cavanagh, both of us.’ She pinned the brooch to her blouse, patted it into place, looked at herself in the mirror and then, imperious as the Giulia of old, commanded him: ‘Take my arm, Cavanagh! My staff are dying of curiosity. Let’s give them a good entrance, shall we?’

  They lunched under a pergola of vines that threw dappled shadows on the white napery. They were served by the major-domo, who poured the wine and ladled the food, a maid in a starched apron and cap who handled the plates, and a formidably large female cook, who presented each dish as if she were Brillat-Savarin himself. Giulia had to restrain her giggles until the cook left the scene and she was able to explain to Cavanagh:

  ‘We don’t always do things with this much style; but if I hadn’t displayed you to them they’d have gone on strike.’

  ‘Who do they think I am?’

  ‘They know who you are, Cavanagh. La vecchia fiamma della principessa! My old flame! They love the idea. Luca adores a little intrigue. He says this is the way it used to be in the Prince’s Villa. The women have even been gossiping about whether we’d sleep together while you’re here. I told Luca to knock that notion on the head immediately!’

  ‘You might at least have offered me the refusal.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want to play that game again, would you Cavanagh?’

  ‘I’d like to, my love, but I’m afraid I’d make a great fool of myself.’

  ‘Tell me about your life, your wife, your family.’

  ‘What’s to say, Giulia my love? I have a happy family and a successful practice. I’ve been a lucky man.’

  ‘So share the luck, Cavanagh. Tell me what you did after Ischia.’

  ‘We sailed straight to Antibes. We were supposed to drop Rodolfo off along the way; but he refused to quit. He wouldn’t leave Miss Pritchard. He was set on going to England with her. The last I heard they were dealing with the question of a passport and a visa and how he was going to get them. I paid everybody off, and handed the ship over to Glémot. We had a wild party in Cannes and went our separate ways. Then, I hitch-hiked to St Tropez where I met a girl, and then on to Toulon, where I met another girl and then to Marseilles, where I met several girls – and not a damn one of them can I remember; because you were always there, like a candle in the window, calling me home to a feast day I’d never enjoy again.

  ‘I’d wake in the night wondering where you were, what you were doing, how Molloy was treating you. Then I decided that the ports and docks and seaside girls were doing bad things to my spirit; so I went on to Paris, found myself a little mansard apartment on the Left Bank and started to write to the people to whom Galeazzi had given me introductions. The speed and the cordiality of the replies astonished me . . . I was so dumb then, I never understood what a powerful man he was. When I finally caught on, I decided to spend whatever it took to get myself to New York and London and Rome to meet Galeazzi’s friends in person.

  ‘The outcome was magical. Career opportunities opened to me on both sides of the Atlantic. I couldn’t make up my mind, so I decided to talk to Galeazzi himself. We arranged to meet on his next visit to Paris. We sat up half the night talking in his suite at the Crillon. He was very gracious and very open. He urged me to take a long-term view, to do post-graduate work in international law in America, in Great Britain, France, Rome and in Moscow itself, if I could bear it and if I could get a visa. He advised me strongly against making a career in the United States. His reason was curious, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. He said: “Remember always that the United States were built – are still being built – by Europeans in flight from their origins. You are not in flight, you are a young man surprisingly sure of his identity, who has come to discover his spiritual and intellectual roots. What you have found is a was
teland – a continent which has just seen the final sequelae of the Great Schism between Rome and Byzantium, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the fall of monarchies and dictatorships, the tribal enmities that began with the great migrations across the steppes into Europe. But mark my words, Europe will recover, and slowly begin to see that its salvation lies in co-operative effort and some code of common belief and law. It might challenge you to be part of that process, a catalyst for change. If it doesn’t, then I think you would be wiser to return to your own country and make your career there.’

  ‘I thought about it for a long time and finally opted for the long haul, post-graduate studies in five countries, and a career in international law. I got myself a very junior job with a member of the International Commission of Jurists. I was half a step above an office boy, but the job enabled me to survive and study.’

  ‘Did Galeazzi tell you anything about me?!’

  ‘Nothing, except that you and Lou had a son. He made it clear that any further questions from me would be an unwelcome intrusion.’

  ‘But your career marched forward?’

  ‘It did, thank God and Galeazzi! Would you believe I now have a very distinguished woman client who pays me fifteen thousand dollars just to fly over to Rome and visit her! It’s a madness of course; but lawyers make their money out of other people’s follies!’

  ‘Cavanagh, my love, you haven’t even begun to earn your fee! Tell me about your wife. What’s she like? Where did you meet her? Are you happy – both of you?’

  ‘Yes, we are happy and I thank God every day of my life for the woman he finally gave me.’