The Invitation(18)

He watches her, compelled in spite of himself. He thinks that his eyes would be drawn to her even if he did not know her: there is something innately watchable about her; the unique grace with which she moves. It does not appear affected. But who is he to tell? He knows even less of her than he thought.

He watches her husband too. He had decided he did not like the man, but perhaps he should pity him. Hal has made him that old-fashioned word: a cuckold. Except that he is not a figure that invites pity.

The Contessa has appeared now and is greeting them, offering them both champagne. Stella is shaking her head, but he – Truss – takes one for them both and hands her a glass. He is steering her towards the end of the table now, nearer to Hal. She glances up and catches sight of Hal watching her. Good: he rather wants her to see, to see that he understands now what she is. She looks quickly away.

She finds a seat at the furthest possible distance away, says something to her husband – her husband – and sits down. But Truss does not appear to be happy with her choice. He is gesturing to the patch of shade thrown by the parasol, only a few feet from Hal. She shakes her head. And Hal watches as the man takes her by the arm, and half-lifts her out of the seat. He isn’t quite able to believe what he is seeing. To anyone glancing over, it would look as though he is merely helping her from her chair. But to Hal, who has watched the whole interaction, it is something different. He sees the firmness of the grip about her upper arm, the expression on her face: vacillating between humiliation and fear.

He feels in some way that she has let him down. Being married to a man like Truss, a rich man’s wife, makes her ordinary. There are women like her on the Via Condotti every day, stepping from cars, trailed by their hapless spouses. Sweeping past the doorman at Bulgari, trying on, no doubt, the biggest, ugliest, costliest baubles they think they can get away with. And then to Caffè Greco, to compare these new spoils with the others of their species sitting about them. He has never paid these women, or their husbands, any heed before. They have been so far outside his own sphere, and his Rome, that they might as well have been from another planet. If he had thought of them, well, it might have been with something approaching contempt. He can see, now, reflected in the morning sun, the wink of gems at earlobes and wrist. He supposes that at least she has managed to find herself a wealthy man who is not fifty years her senior, balding and fat. Perhaps by the standards of such women she has landed a coup, even if he is a bully.

And yet … she didn’t seem the sort, to be bought off with trinkets. He would have credited her with more intelligence, a greater sense of self-worth.

He catches himself. One evening – and a few brief moments this morning – that is the sum total of how long he has known her. He knows nothing about her. It is nothing but the work of that pernicious thing that once served him so well in his writing: the overactive imagination. She had told him so little about herself that he couldn’t have known anything about her. And it is a relief that he has found out the truth. Now she will take up no more room in his thoughts.





6


Her


I am sure that when people see me, they see someone weak. And they would be right: I am. I wasn’t always, though.

I hadn’t thought about the girl I used to be for a long time. I hadn’t spoken her language, the old language, or even thought in it. Maybe I dreamed in it sometimes, but if I did I tried to forget that as soon as I woke. And then, a year ago, something happened that made me remember her.

I suppose I need to go back to the beginning.

To Spain, 1936.

To a town, cradled in the lee of the surrounding hills. It has been there since medieval times, under the sun. Red roofs and cobblestones, green fountains and moss, scent of coffee and aniseed.

It is there that I think I left her, the girl that I was. Or perhaps somewhere on the road to Madrid.

The last good memory.

June. A very hot night, too hot to sleep indoors, though the farmhouse was built to keep the warmth out. So my father – Papa – makes a makeshift tent for us, of old canvas and furniture. A gauze net over the opening, to keep the bugs out. An oil lamp for light, blown out once we have bedded down. Papa, my little brother Tino and me. We lie there with the dark surrounding us.

I didn’t know how alive the night could be before now. Deprived of all other senses, in our soft cocoon, it is cacophonous. We lie there listening, as my father names the sounds for us: the fluted exclamation of an owl, the frog music, low and guttural. Then, through the opening to the dark garden, the biggest miracle of all. Living pinpricks of light, much closer than the stars, but seeming for a moment to borrow their brilliance. Las luciérnagas. The fireflies.

They remind me a little of Papa. When you find yourself in the spotlight of his interest, there is no greater feeling. And then without warning, it will blink off – he will have made his way on to something else. He is a man of great passions, though most are fleeting. Our education was one. He removed us from school, claiming that our heads were being filled with religious dogma, announced that he would teach us himself. At first, he was wonderfully dedicated to it. He spent hours with us in his study, a generous – if sometimes impatient – tutor. As with his views about many things, his idea of what children should learn was a little eccentric. As a result, I got a good grounding in Greek philosophers, Spanish literature and German political theorists, speak English well and French passably, but know almost nothing in the way of basic arithmetic. Then, one day, the lessons stopped. He needed to focus on the second book: he needed us out of the study, actually … out of the house, making as little noise as possible. They never resumed.