The Roses of Picardie

by Simon Raven

  First, he telephoned the Brigadier who commanded the 17th (South-Eastern) Lorried Infantry Brigade, quoted a mandate recently granted to his department by the Ministry of Defence, and on this authority requisitioned the services of two battalions of fully trained infantry for ‘unspecified fatigue duties’, these to last for seven days commencing on 29 November. He also requested the Brigadier to confirm that the personnel of the Ministry of Works in Dover Castle (where the Brigadier had his headquarters) had received instructions from the Minister to close Dover Castle to the public during the same seven days that had been named for the performance of the unspecified ‘fatigue duties’.

  The Brigadier said that these instructions had indeed been received by the personnel of the Ministry of Works, who had already (as also instructed) caused notices to be posted in the area to inform the public of the proposed closure, this being attributed to a fictitious project of ‘Reconstruction’. Comprehensive measures had also been taken to inform tourist agencies, etc., etc. The officials had obeyed their orders without any question, said the Brigadier, because they were sound and responsible men, many of them old soldiers; but they were rather puzzled at being required to engineer such a deception and would appreciate some sort of briefing about what was going on. So, for that matter, would he himself. To take two battalions away from their normal duties for seven days was no light matter, and it was playing old Harry with the arrangements for the administrative inspections due in early December.

  To this Q replied that the Brigadier and the two Lieutenant-Colonels commanding the battalions on requisition would be fully briefed before very long. As for the officials of the Ministry of Works, they were simply to be told that the closure was required by the exigencies of the public service. If, as the Brigadier maintained, they were responsible men, many of them with military records, then they would understand by this that they were to mind their own business and not to ask annoying questions.

  Q made his next telephone call to the Dean of Canterbury. A date had been fixed, he told the Dean, for the performance of the necessary task of which the Dean was cognizant. Work would begin on 29 November and would last for seven days. No, it would not be necessary to close the Cathedral, only the Crypt and the South-East Transept.

  Next, Q addressed a memo to ‘Lambda of Bio/Chem.’ which ran:

  I cannot persuade Theta to compel Jones to bring Blakeney in immediately. Theta points out that there are still five weeks (exactly, as it happens) before Operation Falx and he is sure Jones will produce Blakeney in plenty of time. I am not so sure. I hope you can continue the necessary research for Falx without Blakeney’s help. Theta says that in any case Blakeney won’t be of much help until he is ready and willing to come. Theta could be right about this. He is at least ready to adopt tough measures should time become really short.

  I will let you have the latest set of figures re Blakeney tomorrow.

  Q of Home.

  This memo Q put into a buff envelope, on which he wrote ‘To the Assistant Manager, AltoMarine Products Ltd’. He then summoned a messenger and instructed him to deliver it at the offices of AltoMarine, which were on the third floor two doors further down Jermyn Street.

  ‘Thank God that’s done,’ he said aloud. And then, ‘Is Theta a sentimental fool, or a man of sound intuitions?’ Since he received no answer, he put on the greatcoat which he had bought second-hand in Oxford, when an undergraduate of Hertford College, thirty-two years before, and walked down the street to dine alone and very elaborately at the Stafford Hotel.

  ‘There is a story,’ Balbo said to Jones, S, of Glamorgan, ‘that even long after the Greek colony of Poseidonia became the Roman city of Paestum the citizens continued to remember their Greek origins, and once a year used to call on their Gods by their Greek names and weep as they remembered they had once been Greeks.’

  ‘Who told you that story?’

  ‘The Companion Guide to Southern Italy,’ said Balbo honestly. ‘Another thing it says: Paestum was famous for its roses, from which they used to make scent.’

  ‘Roses?’ said Syd. ‘They seem to be featuring today. First on the beach at Positano… But none of this has anything to do with your hunch, Balbo?’

  ‘Not as far as I am aware.’

  Balbo looked up at the Doric capitals and broken pediment of the Temple of Poseidon, then away through tall, waving grasses towards the sea.

  ‘Pity you can’t actually see the sea,’ he said. ‘It used to come in much closer, of course. So much closer that a pirate or shady merchant…like our friend Commingi…might have found it a very handy area in which to store things…to hide things, Sydney.’

  Balbo led the way along the road of broken stone. After a while they came to a crossroad. Behind them was the Temple of Poseidon, which they had just left, and beyond it another Doric temple, archaic, squat, sprawling. Before them was a third temple. Otherwise nothing but scattered stones in coarse grass? Nothing? It must be possible to see the village from here, Balbo thought in a momentary panic, the Museum, the Church of the Annunziata, the numerous restaurants and hotels mentioned in the Companion Guide. Yes, of course he could see the village; just for a moment it had been obscured by a mound, that was all.

  ‘Remains of the Roman Forum,’ said Balbo, gesturing at the stones. ‘The Greek Agora is underneath it. If we walk a little further…by this mound, Sydney, is a subterranean chapel. Dedicated to Hera, the Guide says. Think of that picture, Sydney. The causeway, representing some special kind of voyage, leaves the mainland, passes behind the figure of Commingi, and at some point, unseen by us, passes onto, or into, the islet on which those three temples are placed.’

  ‘Careful, Balbo. You’re telling me about your hunch before it’s been proved right. You didn’t want to do that, you said. You might feel silly if it turned out to be a dud.’

  ‘It has been proved right. Sydney. Already.’

  ‘I thought I saw that little girl again.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, Sydney.’

  ‘Slipping round that mound. There were roses in her basket and something else. Small flowers like a cross. White.’

  ‘Alyssum. Sweet alyssum. Funny.’

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘Coincidence, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re not being very plain, Balbo.’

  ‘Let me explain, step by step. My hunch, Sydney, now proved right, was that the causeway, which disappeared unseen into the islet below the temples, signified a voyage – possibly from Positano but no matter – a voyage from somewhere which ended in or near some cave or grotto, unseen in the picture and therefore secret in fact, in the region of, and in a sense underneath, the three temples of Paestum. In that cave or grotto Commingi would store his loot. All right?’

  ‘All right – as a hunch. I don’t see that it’s been proved yet.’

  ‘Sydney, the cave or grotto which I hypothesized now turns out to be this underground chapel.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Balbo was breathing heavily with excitement.

  ‘It fulfils all the conditions. It is near the three temples and it is underground – i.e. beneath their level. It must have been Commingi’s secret hiding-place, Sydney, because there is a sign scratched in that stone, near what must have been the entrance to the shrine, a crude sign of a face with only one eye and only one ear, characteristics, or rather deprivations, which distinguished the portrait of Andrea Commingi.’

  ‘Where…is this sign?’

  Balbo pointed to a stone supported horizontally, like a lintel, by two shafts which protruded some six inches from the ground.

  ‘But it’s tiny. Balbo. How on earth did you spot it?’

  ‘Scientists…who have spent long periods in laboratories scrutinizing arrangements of cells or patterns of corpuscles… develop a sharp eye, Sydney.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you spot those letters in the picture?’

  ‘Because my eyes were still dull, as they had been for years. It must
be you that have begun to quicken them.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I like to please you, Sydney. I very much want to impress you.’

  ‘Well, fella, you certainly have.’

  Syd Jones bent down and examined the inscribed face once more.

  ‘No doubt of it. One eye, one ear. Obviously there to mark the spot clearly for Commingi’s confederates and so on – but too small for anyone to see unless he had biz here and had been told whereabouts to look. Too small for anyone but you, that is. But now comes the old question, Balbo: this tells us “Commingi was here”; but what does it tell us of his knowledge of the Rubies?’

  The evening breeze raced through the grasses to the sea. Somewhere a bell was rung.

  ‘They want us out… What does this tell us, Balbo, about the Rubies? Or about Commingi himself, for that matter?’

  ‘Nothing new.’

  ‘Could the Rubies be hidden in that shrine?’

  ‘No. It was excavated very thoroughly some years ago. They’d have come to light then if they’d been here. Anyhow, if Commingi himself had the Rubies, for which supposition there is no positive reason whatever, he wouldn’t have left them here, he’d have taken them on to Corfu and thence to Lycia. But if we assume, as we’ve had to, that we must just go on searching back into the past, hoping eventually to hear news of the Rubies, then, Sydney, this place does tell us something… something which might just keep us in the hunt.’

  ‘I’ll be buggered if I can see what, sport.’

  The bell rang again, more urgently. They turned and walked back towards the two temples to the South of the Forum. The dying sun struck through cloud and gilded the columns of the Temple of Poseidon as they passed.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ said Balbo at last. ‘Quite a good next step back for us would be to Andrea’s mother or father…uncle or aunt…or whatever.’

  ‘Granted.’

  ‘So where are they living – while Andrea is racketing up and down this coast?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Safe at home somewhere. Being a good son (why not?) he makes sure they have every comfort for their old age, and he carries with him some little token of their love. Like a medallion, or a crucifix, or a charm against the evil eye – like this one.’

  Balbo held up an oval slab of shoddy plastic, perhaps two inches long. On one surface was carved an attenuated figure in skirts, hands raised in adjuration; on the reverse, a creature with the body of a rhinoceros and a head that was encased in scales and bristly with spikes and fangs.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘At the little shop by the entrance. When we came in, while you were having a pee. It’s a copy of a stone found in the subterranean chapel when it was excavated. The carving on the stone had been dated to the late seventeenth century, the advert on the counter said, and the stone’s presence in the chapel was unexplained. Now I’m explaining it. That stone was – or could have been – a charm once the possession of Andrea Commingi, who was constantly in and out of that chapel during the last years of the seventeenth century. It was a present from the old folks at home, or at any rate it came from a region with which he was in some way connected.’

  ‘Begging a lot of questions?’

  ‘Yes, but this could be so, and if we’re to continue in business we’ve got to believe it is so, because it’s all we’ve got to go on. You know what those little carvings are?’

  ‘No. Do you?’

  ‘Oh yes. At one time I spent several holidays in the part of the world from which they came – and to which we are now going.’

  ‘All on account of a plastic souvenir?’

  ‘A copy,’ emended Balbo, ‘of a stone carved in the seventeenth century. That brute on one side is the Tarasque.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘A monster that lived in the Rhône and came out from time to time to terrorize Tarascon. It also captured respectable washerwomen and made them act as wet nurses to its puppy, the Drac. Many noble knights of Provence were sent against it. All were humiliated and most devoured whole.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right monster?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve seen pictures and models of it in the museum of folklore at Arles. That is the Tarasque and on the other side is Saint Martha, who came to Provence from Bethany with Lazarus and the three Marys, and subdued the Tarasque with Holy Water and commanded it to stay at the bottom of the Rhône till the end of time. But the thing is, Sydney, whoever possessed the original stone – and why not Andrea? – must have had connections with that part of Provence…Tarascon, Beaucaire, Arles, Mignon or Nîmes perhaps.’

  ‘First,’ said Syd Jones: ‘that stone might just as well have belonged to one of Andrea’s crew.’

  ‘We’ve agreed to make an act of faith that it was Andrea’s.’

  ‘You’ve agreed. Let’s say I join you. Which part of Provence is that stone aiming at? You’ve just named Tarascon – and a great ring of towns all round it.’

  They passed out of the enclosed site and turned right towards the hotel at which they were to spend the night. The sun flashed for the last time through the Temple of Poseidon. The bell rang, slowly and without insistence; no longer a warning that the day was dying but a lament for its death.

  ‘The funny thing is,’ said Balbo, ‘that girl you saw with roses and alyssum.’

  ‘What’s funny about her?’

  ‘Peculiar. The coincidence. Provence is famous for alyssum, particularly Arles. Dans Arles, où sont les Alyscamps,’ Balbo quoted. ‘And the Alyscamps are also famous for their roses: Quand l’ombre est rouge, sous les roses. Alyssum and roses in that girl’s basket; an appropriate mixture, in view of our own destination.’

  ‘So you think we ought to take the hint and go to Arles?’

  ‘Certainly. But first I think we should go to Tarascon. After all,’ said Balbo holding up the plastic oval and peering closely at it in the dusk, ‘it was the jolly old Tarasque that gave us the clue.’

  ‘Two days’ drive from here.’

  ‘I look forward to them, Sydney. Let’s go and drink to the Tarasque –’

  ‘– And its puppy the Drac.’

  On the whole, quite a satisfactory outcome, thought Syd Jones, as he bought Balbo a Campari and soda – nothing stronger, Balbo had said – in the bar of their hotel. The trail was getting cold. From a personal point of view he was sorry, as he was enjoying Balbo’s search, indeed was rather fascinated by it; but there could be no doubt that its termination would make the performance of duty very much easier. If they drew a blank in Provence, there would be no alternative but for him to take Balbo back to England and deliver him in Jermyn Street. The whole matter, thought Syd, would have been decided for him: he need have no conscience at all about deflecting Balbo from a mission which would by then be dead, and none about handing him over, because Balbo, when all was said, would be needing occupation and livelihood, and with both of these the Department would assuredly provide him. True, the task which awaited Balbo might not be a very wholesome one, but at least it would provide him with something to exercise his mind, and that, once his search had to be abandoned, Balbo would surely need – if he were not to fall back into the state of mental atrophy and moral torpor in which Sydney had found him.

  That the search would have to be abandoned, Syd was almost certain. The reasoning which was now taking them to Tarascon was tenuous (to say the least of it) and the evidence on which that reasoning was based was almost worthless. If Andrea had used that chapel to store his merchandise, and if he (and not someone else) had dropped that stone there, and if that stone was a gift from close relations or a reminder of a place of importance to Andrea (as opposed to a trifling curio which he had casually picked up), if all these most unlikely conditions were true, then there might just be some clue in Tarascon or that region to take them on another step. But what sort of clue, for Christ’s sake? And precisely how and where should they look for it?

  No. The thing w
as as good as over. The wonder was they had come as far as they had. Luck had certainly been on their side… And so what, thought Syd, if the luck holds, if we do find something in or near Tarascon, if the trail should grow warm once more… Could he bear to leave it? Could he bear to drag Balbo away from it? Would Balbo consent to be dragged away from it? What would Jermyn Street do if they both stayed with it? How long, in the end, would Jermyn Street hold its hand? Well…these were questions for which he did not expect to have to find an answer; he would trouble himself no more with them at present; he would simply look forward to a pleasant two days’ drive, up the Italian coast and into the heart of Provence, with his good friend, Balbo Blakeney.

  I suppose, thought Balbo for his part, that it’s all turning out for the best. I never really believed in this search; I’m only keeping it up to please and amuse Sydney (I like pleasing Sydney – I hope he’s noticed how I’m knocking off the hard stuff); and some time it’ll have to end, probably in Tarascon, because although the thesis which I put up to Sydney could be true, I’d lay 10,000 to 1 against.

  Well, so be it, Balbo thought. We shall have a lovely drive together to Tarascon, and when we draw a blank there I can tell myself I’ve done everything in my power to give Sydney pleasure and to keep faith with the Kyrios Pandelios. This being so, it will then be time to go back to England, where Sydney says I’m needed to help them cope with some extraordinary plague of rats. Sydney will have done his duty in getting me home, which will be good for Sydney. As for myself, I may or may not enjoy what work they have for me to do, but I shall certainly benefit, mentally and financially, from the employment, and if, as Sydney says, this has something to do with saving the fabric of Canterbury Cathedral, then I shall be proud to be of service in this way. If, on the other hand, this talk of Canterbury and the rest is official cover for something else, something really disgusting which they have thought up…well, as to that, there is no more to be thought or said until I know precisely what it is. After all, the operations which they think up, while more often than not disgusting, are apt to be necessary as well. But suppose, just suppose, they are up to something which I would regard as criminal…? Well, you just wait, Balbo Blakeney, you just wait and see.