The Invitation(99)

A year ago, Gaspari came to visit me. I was living hand to mouth, and I think that he was shocked by how he found me. My savings had almost petered out.

I was eking out the money by living as cheaply as I could, because I understood that when it was gone there would be no more coming. I bought stale bread. I befriended the fishermen by the quayside, and at the end of the day they would give me fish they had not sold for a sum that was nominal only. I could have sold the last things I own of value: an antique compass and a solitary emerald earring, but both held me too strongly in their thrall. I would as soon have sold my own organs as part with these reminders of that spring; of her.

I had not cut my hair for months, and I had grown a dark growth of beard. There was no decision to actively neglect my appearance. It had simply not occurred to me to pay any heed to it. It was only when I saw Gaspari’s face when I met him out of the taxi, that I understood how I must have changed. When I looked in the mirror, after that, I saw a wild man. And when I led him into my rooms, I saw him take in the squalor and deprivation of the place. He said nothing. I understood that he did not want to embarrass me.

At first we talked of everything but her. I knew much of it already, from the letters the Contessa continued to send me. How Earl Morgan had renounced film to live on a farm in Oklahoma, of all things, and was very much the happier for it. That Giulietta Castiglione was much her old self: most recently seen in a café on the Via Veneto with a tame cheetah on a lead.

We talked of The Sea Captain. The film, not the real story – I didn’t want to talk of that. The picture had been a triumph. In one of the letters the Contessa had admitted that she feared it was in part due to the scandal – it lent a spurious, tragic glamour to the whole project. I could see that it made Gaspari uneasy, and I felt for him. He deserved the success without that association.

He had brought a paper with him: a recent copy of Le Monde. I could not avoid news of the outside world entirely, it seemed, when it was literally brought to my doorstep. As he began to read from it, I did not listen properly at first. I was too preoccupied by noticing the changes in my friend, which I could look for now that his attention was diverted. Older, yes, greyer, but his terrible thinness was gone, his stoop less pronounced. He looked … cared-for.

Then I heard him say something that caught my attention.

‘Say that again.’

‘This is what I have come to tell you, my friend.’ Gaspari cleared his throat, and repeated the sentence. ‘“Human remains were discovered by a honeymooning couple swimming off the ?le Saint-Honorat. The remains are believed to be those of Mrs Stella Truss, who disappeared during a party on board a yacht—”’ Gaspari broke off. I think he saw my face. ‘I am so sorry. But I thought that it would help you to let her go.’

‘Are they certain that it’s her?’ It could not be true, I thought. I could not let the possibility of her survival be taken from me.

‘As certain as they can be,’ Gaspari said. ‘They do not reveal all of the details, but they say here that “they are certain of the gender, though the remains are badly decomposed—”’

‘Stop,’ I said, because I could not hear any more. I thought of Truss, and felt that familiar rage return. ‘But this must be enough proof for them. Surely, now, they will have to bring him in.’

‘Hal …’ Gaspari says, a little desperately, ‘they are saying here that the police are satisfied with their original assumption: that it was a terrible accident. Or that she took her own life—’

‘She would never have killed herself.’ Even as I said it I thought of the night I had met her in Rome, when she told me she had contemplated throwing herself from the rooftop. But it was different, this time. She had hope – we had had each other, we had a future.

‘They say here that the circumstances of her background were tragic. That she lost her whole family in the war in Spain. She could have been depressed …’

‘It is not true.’

‘You must let it go. Hal, please, let her go. I thought that this would help you, knowing for certain that she is gone.’

It didn’t help. But I wouldn’t tell him that. I understood that he was trying to be kind.

Later we sat on the flat terrace above the building, with the lanterns lit, looking out over the dark sweep of sea. When the wind is up this is impossible – it is powerful enough to blow the lamps off the roof. But that evening there was only a light breeze, enough to keep us cool and quiet enough to talk over.

‘This life,’ Gaspari said. ‘It is such a solitary one. And this place may be beautiful, but it is lonely too. Come back to Rome for a few days. You can stay with us.’

‘Us?’

He smiled, and nodded.

‘Who?’

‘An Englishman,’ he says. ‘A photographer.’ And then, ‘He is vain, yes, and he can be disagreeable, at times. And yet he is one of the kindest men, underneath. But I think you know that.’





42


Essaouira, Morocco, 1955


Not long ago I received a strange message, from a hotel in Tangier. A guest, the telegram announced, would like to speak with me face to face. Could I travel to Tangier at once? I replied saying that I would speak with them, but they would have to come to me in Essaouira.

It wasn’t possible, came the wire back. I had to come to them.