The Invitation(34)

‘You couldn’t sleep?’ she asks him.

‘No. It’s too quiet.’

‘Yes. I don’t think it’s ever quiet in New York – not even in the middle of the night. What time is it now?’

‘Two a.m.’

‘Oh. So late – I didn’t realize.’

He can feel her unease at being here alone with him. It is in the way she holds herself, absolutely upright, shoulders rigid, bent legs drawn as far from him as they will go.

When he sees her wrap her arms about herself he offers her his sweater. ‘Please. You must be freezing.’ He shrugs it off and leans forward, thrusts it toward her. She flinches away from him, as though his nearness might scorch her, and shakes her head. ‘I’m fine.’ And then, in an afterthought, she takes it.

She does not leave. She could, but she chooses not to. He wonders if it would be worth broaching the unspoken thing: that night in Rome. Let her know that it didn’t mean anything to him – that he understands it was the same for her. She must be thinking the same thing. ‘I don’t know why I did it,’ she says, as though he has asked the question, ‘I wasn’t myself, that night. I didn’t think …’ she trails off.

‘I wondered whether you did it because you thought we’d never see each other again.’

For the first time, she looks directly at him. He feels her answer, though she doesn’t say it aloud. Yes.

‘Well,’ he says, ‘it was a surprise for me, to see you again. It must have been an unwelcome one for you.’

She swallows.

‘I think, if he found out—’ She stops herself, suddenly. ‘I don’t know what he would do.’

‘You don’t think he knows anything?’

‘No,’ she says, as though reassuring herself. ‘There’s no way that he could.’ Watching her, he thinks he sees a small convulsion of fear. It gives him pause.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it,’ he says. ‘I felt he was almost too pleased to make my acquaintance. I wondered if it meant anything.’

She relaxes, ever so slightly. ‘He’s like that with everyone. My husband is … well, he’s a very charming man.’

It is precisely the word, Hal thinks: charming. It expresses perfectly the superficiality of the man’s manner.

‘I wish I could explain,’ she says, suddenly, ‘why I did it.’

‘You don’t need to,’ he says. ‘I think I understand it. Your husband was away.’ He knows that he is being cruel, but can’t seem to help himself. He sees her make an effort not to mind.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ she says. ‘I really was a little mad, I think. I had just learned something …’

‘About what?’

‘About myself, I suppose.’

He waits.

‘I was in an odd frame of mind. And then you appeared, and you were different, not part of that world …’ She looks at him. ‘I haven’t explained it, have I?’

‘No,’ he says, ‘but I understand. We’ve all made a mistake.’ It feels unpleasant to say that word: mistake. It is his pride, of course.

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Quite clearly,’ he says, ‘it was a mistake. But that’s all right. You don’t need to say any more. If you don’t mind, I’m tired. I’m going to go back to bed. Goodnight, Mrs Truss.’

‘Goodnight.’

Probably, he should guide her back to her cabin, make sure that she gets down the ladder safely. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But it is, somehow, beyond him. There is only so much injury to his pride that he can take. There is only so much, too, of sleep-mussed hair, of pale bare skin.

When he glances back, she is still sitting there. She is looking not towards Portovenere, but out to sea, into blackness. She seems, suddenly, to be somewhere else entirely.





11


Her





December 1936


In the distance, we can hear the war, growing nearer; a constant barrage of artillery. Sometimes it sounds as though it is almost upon us. Tino wakes in the night, crying. I go to his room, and sit with him and Se?or Bombón long into the small hours. I read to him with his hot form pressed against my side and the cat stretched across our knees, sometimes until dawn shows pale on the horizon. Sometimes I sing to him, snippets of song heard on the radio, lullabies remembered from my mother.

He has a new preoccupation now; a fear that has supplanted all the others. I wish that I could tell him, as I have in other times, that it is all only in his mind – that there is no threat. But I can’t quite bring myself to tell him a lie.

‘What will we do,’ he asks, ‘when they come here?’

‘If they do, Tino,’ I say, ‘they won’t hurt us.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we’re children.’ I try to make it sound as though I believe it myself. There is talk on the radio of what they are doing to people: to children younger than him, to young women like me. Though if you trusted everything you heard, you would go mad.

‘And Se?or Bombón?’

‘He’ll be fine too.’

‘What about Papa?’