The Invitation(41)

‘What was his name?’

‘His name was Morris.’

‘How did he die?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ It comes out more harshly than he had quite intended. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘There isn’t any point in speaking of it now. It happened so long ago.’

She nods. ‘Except, you aren’t writing. You told me that you’d stopped, after he died.’

Her tenacity is a surprise. Only this morning he was thinking how weak she seemed, how flimsy and yielding. Perhaps this is his comeuppance.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘that’s right.’ And then he remembers something from that night, something he can use, as a way of throwing it back to her. ‘Your father was a writer.’

‘Yes,’ she says. Now she is the one who appears wary.

‘You never told me his name.’

‘I don’t think you’ll know it. He wasn’t famous outside Spain.’

‘You’re Spanish?’ He looks at her. With the blonde hair, somehow, he would never have guessed. And yet it would explain the accent, with that foreign element beneath.

‘I was.’

It is an odd thing to say. ‘You aren’t now?’

She is wrong-footed. ‘Yes – but I mean that I’m an American, now. That is how I think of myself.’ She glances up at the sky. ‘It’s getting dark. I think we should go back to the yacht.’

He almost smiles. She is just as good at this game of obfuscation as he, perhaps better.

When he stands, she takes a quick step back. And then, as though feeling this might reveal too much, she steps forward again. It is too late, though, because suddenly the thing quickens into life between them, strong as it had been in Rome. Stronger, perhaps, because before there was no knowledge of how her skin would feel against his. It is a relief when she turns away.

He follows her back down through the dusk-laden garden. She wears a very simple linen dress, but with the reverse cut away to reveal the expanse of her back, the stippled line of her spine. He knows suddenly that he wants to put his hand there, to feel the soft warmth of her back. At one point she looks over her shoulder to check that he is following, and he nearly stumbles, caught out.

The scent of the flowers is stronger now, as though the dark has kindled it. ‘What is that?’ he asks, and it comes out as a hoarse whisper, as though the perfume is another secret between them. ‘That smell?’

‘Star jasmine,’ she says, as though she has had the answer ready for him.

Forever after, he thinks, his memories of this spring will be steeped in the scent.

*

‘Tonight,’ the Contessa announces, after supper, ‘I thought we would play charades. I will divide you into teams, and give you each your challenge. You will be playing famous characters from the real or imagined past – and we must all guess who they are. The way I play it is that the teams must confer, and whichever team presents the winning answer is spared. The others must drink a glass of anis.’

She is already setting out the tiny crystal cups, pouring measures of the syrupy liquid into them. There is no time for dissent before she has paired them all off. Earl Morgan and Gaspari, Truss and Giulietta, Aubrey Boyd and Roberto – who tries to protest, to no avail. And then, with a strange kind of inevitability: Stella and Hal. She passes him a slip of paper.

He reads it, and then shows it to Stella, so that only she can see.

Lancelot and Guinevere. When he glances up toward the others, he catches Truss watching him. He feels pinioned by the man’s gaze. Truss smiles, revealing that row of white teeth, and Hal smiles back, but it is a physical effort: the muscles in his face are taut as rubber bands.

Earl Morgan and Gaspari are first. Interestingly, Hal thinks, all the subtlety of the performance is Gaspari’s. Morgan’s performance is strained melodrama, and without the benefit of his rich voice it all feels rather thin. Hal finds himself wondering how many takes it requires to portray him at his scene-stealing best. When Morgan plunges an imaginary blade into Gaspari’s back, and Gaspari turns with a look of agonized betrayal, Aubrey leaps from his seat. ‘Julius Caesar,’ he shouts, in delight. ‘Caesar and Brutus.’

The little glasses are passed round to the losers. While the others grimace Hal savours his, enjoying the warming liquorice taste.

Aubrey Boyd is Titania, smoothing imaginary gossamer skirts over his lap for his lover to lay his head in, and Roberto – clumsy, scowling – is unintentionally hilarious as Bottom. Then Truss and Giulietta make an interesting pairing as Samson and Delilah. As on screen, Giulietta is magnetic: by turns seductive, devious, righteous. It is as though the character has been poured into her, filling the empty spaces. Truss merely suffers the performance, as though he is indulging the game of small children, but there is something between them, a tension, that makes it interesting.

Their turn will be next. Hal turns to tell Stella how he thinks they should do it, but she has risen from her seat. ‘I’m sorry to break up the game,’ she says, ‘but I’m very tired. Please—’ as the Contessa makes to stand too, ‘don’t worry about me. I’m going to go to bed.’





Her


I am anything but tired, as I make my way below deck to the cabin. I feel that I have come very close to danger. As soon as our names were called together, I had to extricate myself. Perhaps it is irrational, but I felt that had we had done it, acted out our parts, everything would have been visible. That night in Rome. The thing that is between us now, that made itself known in the garden this evening – though neither of us would acknowledge it. But I saw his face when I turned back to him.