Surviving

by Allan Massie

  “How’s Erik?” he said.

  Sol, she thought, knew everything. Maybe it was the Talk of the Town pages he worked on at the New Yorker.

  “He’s out of town for a few days.”

  “Nice kid. He’s learning there are other people in the world.”

  “Oh, I think he knows that.”

  “You do? Good.”

  He puffed on his pipe, screwed up his face against the smoke, smiled as if willing Belinda to say more.

  “Meg says Stephen’s going home. I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I called round yesterday. He’s still confused, thinks if he could sort his mind out he wouldn’t be impelled to drink. We both know that’s no good. Try to get him to see that. Bring him to the meeting tonight. He listens to you.”

  “I’ll try,” she said, meaning it.

  “Must go. I’m on cook rota too. Come to lunch. The girls were saying the other day it’s a long time since they’ve seen you. They’re great admirers of yours, but I guess you know that.”

  “Sweet of them, but not today, Sol, thanks.”

  It was perhaps what she needed, a friendly domestic lunch with Sol’s family, the three beautiful daughters. But it was also, at this moment, precisely the last thing she wanted. So instead when Sol left her she walked, through Piazza Farnese and then along the Via Giulia, keeping in the shade of the high walls, then turned to the right, through narrow streets, walking at random, even now after years not always certain exactly where she was until without ever having formulated the intention she found herself in Piazza del Popolo where she bought a Daily Telegraph, settled herself at a table outside Rosati’s and ordered a chicken sandwich and mineral water. There was an article by Kenneth on the op-ed page, subject Britain – American or European? Remembering Kenneth and how he was when they had that one time gone to bed in the afternoon in the old North British Hotel in Edinburgh, so long ago now, Kenneth being then Erik’s present age or even less, she was impressed to find him where he was, writing, she supposed, with assured authority. Supposed, because she merely remarked his name, didn’t trouble herself to read what he had written. It had been a mistake that afternoon.

  It was past two o’clock, the piazza as quiet as it would be at any daylight hour.

  “Hi there!”

  It was Mike. He had got himself shaved and was near sober. He sat down, snapped his fingers at the waiter and called for a beer.

  “Just the one,” he said, “the necessary therapeutic one. I’ve had a morning. On the telephone. Work, the drunkard’s last friend. Oscar was wrong, you know. Work’s the salvation of the drinking classes.”

  “Have you seen Meg? Spoken to her?”

  He shook his head, gave her his knowing naughty boy’s smile.

  “Meg doesn’t want to see me. She’s had enough. Who can blame her? Kate too. Same goes for her. I’m on my own, my ownio, best that way I think.”

  “Up to you, Mike, but I think you’re wrong.”

  “Not wrong. Been out of it, but Mike’s himself again. I’m on Foxy’s trail. Old Reynard. Have you seen him, Bel?”

  She picked up her pack of Gitanes and lit one. She blew out smoke.

  “Reynard?” she said. “I haven’t spoken to Reynard for more years than I care to think.”

  “He’s gone missing. AWOL.”

  “So?”

  “London’s worried. Paper I write for. Girl on the paper really.”

  “Run out on her, has he? That was always his style. He’s probably holed up with another one.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. He came to Rome Saturday, didn’t return. Had a date with this girl, finish an interview, she says. She’s been ringing him about it, can’t get hold of him.”

  “Doesn’t sound very unusual.”

  “But it’s a mystery. He had lunch with Kate on Saturday, doesn’t seem to have been seen since. You know he defended her puffy boy murderer, don’t you?

  “As I understand it, Reynard got him off. Innocent. At least not guilty.”

  “I’ve been to his hotel. The Excelsior. He hasn’t checked out, they told me that, but nobody’s seen him since Saturday. Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Oh,” she said, “I expect there’s a perfectly simple explanation. There usually is.”

  XXXIX

  I ought to call Kate, but … I want to call Erik, again. It’s ridiculous, I’ve never known him to say anything interesting. He might say the same of me. It’s his skin and his smile and … and there’s thirty years between us. Wherever I look I see him. Her mobile rang.

  “Kate? I was just going to call you.”

  “We’ve got to talk.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “Not on the phone. Are you at home? I’ll come over.”

  “Do. I promised Sol I would collect Stephen and take him to the meeting. But there’s plenty of time. See you.”

  She fed the cats, put away the faxes Kenneth had sent which were still lying where Erik had dropped them. She didn’t want Kate to know how curious she had been. There was a T-shirt of Erik’s on the terrace. She pressed it to her face. It still smelled of the boy. She took it through to her bedroom and laid it on the pillow where his head had rested.

  “I’m mad,” she said, aloud. “Every bit as mad as Kate.”

  She sat on the terrace and read in his copy of The Charterhouse:

  Shortly after Fabrizio’s departure for France, the Countess, who without admitting it to herself, was already beginning to let her thoughts dwell on him a great deal, had fallen into a profound state of melancholy. All her occupations seemed to her to lack pleasure, and, if one may venture to say so, flavour. She told herself that Napoleon, wishing to attach the Italian people to himself, would make Fabrizio his aide-de-camp. “He’s lost to me,” she exclaimed, weeping. “I shall never see him again! He will write to me, but what shall I seem to him in ten years’ time?”

  Nevertheless she couldn’t wait for the boy to return.

  Kate’s appearance alarmed her. She had lost the air of competence which Belinda had always found so agreeable. She looked like a widow who didn’t know what to say to her husband’s friends at his funeral. Belinda even wondered if she had been drinking.

  “What is it? Have they found it?”

  “No, there’s no word of that. I almost wish there was. I woke this morning from a dream in which they had kept it in the boot of the car and were driving it around the Mezzogiorno. Have you got a cigarette? Thanks.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Does the name Philip Trensshe mean anything to you?”

  “Should it?”

  “He’s a journalist. He wrote about Gary’s case. What he wrote was instrumental in getting the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to pull the stops out. Don’t ask me how that was. It doesn’t matter. His father’s an MP by the way, but only a Lib Dem. It’s the son we’ve to worry about.”

  “How come?”

  “He called me this morning, full of questions about Gary. I wanted to put the phone down on him but I didn’t dare. Do you think he’ll have thought that strange?”

  “Will he? Why should he?”

  “Well, I would in his place. Why should I submit to his questioning?”

  “But you didn’t say anything?”

  “I said a lot. Of course I did. I had to. But that’s not all, not even the worst. This Philip Trensshe has a partner, a girl on one of the Sundays. Seems she’s in the middle of a piece about Reynard and has been trying to make contact with him.”

  “I know about her. She’s the girl Mike’s been speaking to. Here, let’s have some tea. It’ll do you, do us both, good.”

  It wasn’t like Kate, she thought. Perhaps this is what happened when you made control so important, and then found it slipping away.

  “You’ve seen Mike, then?” Kate said when Belinda brought out the tea. “How is he? He doesn’t remember anything, does he?”

  “We don’
t need to worry about Mike, he’s buoyant, almost sober. He’s working, or thinks he’s working, chasing up Reynard for this girl. And he feels good about it, but he doesn’t know anything.”

  “Trensshe and the girl are flying here tomorrow, or the next day, I’m not sure which, if Reynard hasn’t surfaced, as he put it. I think they suspect something’s up. And when they have asked around and discovered Reynard hasn’t been seen since Saturday they’ll go to the police. I’m sure they will.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “Not in so many words, but …”

  “But there’s no body. Till they find the body, the police aren’t going to be interested. Why should they be?”

  “Well … I suppose it’s because I feel guilty that … I don’t know.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Belinda said. “‘Is no business of ours, signore.’ That’s what they’ll say. If a middle-aged English barrister chooses to go off somewhere without a word, well then … they’ll just shrug their shoulders. As for young Mr Trensshe, all you need tell him is what I suppose you may have told him already: that you didn’t see Reynard after your lunch with him.”

  “Yes, but Gary and he went to a bar then. He said he had legal business to discuss with him. And Gary was away for hours …”

  “So?” Belinda said, “so what? What does that matter? We know he didn’t kill Reynard then …”

  “We know. But will anyone else believe it when the body is found? Of course Gary had no motive, until … I mean, Reynard defended him. But … we don’t know anything about Reynard’s movements between the time Gary left him and he came drunk to my apartment. What a mess it is.”

  “If Gary left him at the bar …” Belinda said, “that would let him out, wouldn’t it? Do you know which bar they went to?”

  “No, but in Parioli, I’m sure of that. Probably the one I usually go to, I mean, Gary’s been there with me.”

  “Well, next time you speak to Tom, get him to ask Gary. Then, if the answer’s right, you can put Trensshe on that scent. The waiter might remember.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Kate said.

  She crossed the terrace and leaned over the wall, looking away.

  “There’s another thing.”

  “Yes?” Belinda said.

  “Yes?” she said again.

  Still with her back turned Kate said, “Gary needs an alibi. He wasn’t at my apartment that evening.”

  “I thought the whole point was that Reynard wasn’t there either.”

  “Yes, but …” Kate said, “can we have been here, Gary and me, having supper with you and Erik and Tom Durward before they set off? I’ve been thinking, you see, it would be good if we could say they had left in the afternoon, but that’s not possible because Hertz will have recorded the time Tom hired the car. But if we were all here, and they left for the trip on a sudden whim, well, do you see?”

  “Oh yes,” Belinda said, “I see. All right, only the more lies we tell, the more likely it is … never mind.”

  Pull one card away from a house of cards and the whole thing collapses. That’s what she thought.

  XL

  They drove for two days, without destination in mind, stopping to stroll in small towns and villages, some of which Tom Durward recalled from his journey forty years ago, though more often his memory was obscure. They spoke little. Gary’s silence inhibited Erik; there was much he would have liked to ask Durward, felt himself restrained. Yet there was something peculiarly satisfying in this excursion into limbo. Reality was set at a distance. When Tom called Kate and learned that there was no news of the body being discovered, or at least of any discovery having been reported, Erik’s sense that this was time out sharpened. The battery of his mobile was exhausted; he welcomed the excuse not to call Belinda, whom, nevertheless, he thought of often with tenderness and embarrassment. He watched Gary intently whenever he thought he wasn’t observed.

  On the second evening they drove down into Cotrone and found rooms at the Hotel Pythagoras.

  “A local worthy,” Tom said. “Not the mathematician, the philosopher who taught the transmigration of souls.”

  It was sunset. In the distance they could see clouds piled above the mountains of the Sila, and heard the rumble of far-off thunder. Rain darkened the hills but the town itself was dry, only a wind blowing up eddies of dust. It was the hour of the passeggiata. Girls walked arm in arm on one side of the square, eyed by the boys and young men who congregated round the fountain.

  There was nothing to do but watch. Tom bought a local paper; English-language ones were not available.

  When they had eaten and Tom and Erik had ordered coffee, Gary wiped his lips with his napkin and crossed the square towards the sea. So soon, this now seemed like a habit, a necessary part of the routine of their days.

  Erik said again: “I’d like him you know, if he’d let me. It’s hard to think of him …” he lowered his voice … “as what he is.”

  “No mark of Cain? Did you expect to see one?”

  “Not exactly like, but …”

  “‘There’s no art / to find the mind’s construction in the face …”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Well, then …”

  “People aren’t all of a piece. You’re an actor, you should know that. And whether they should be judged by what they do is an open question.”

  “Have you ever known a murderer,” Erik said, “before now?”

  “Yes,” Tom said. He put a match to his cigar before continuing. “Two certainly, and perhaps three. The third was to my mind the worst. The first, he was a poor thing in the village in Scotland where I grew up. I knew him because he had become a sort of dependent of my mother’s. He lived in a caravan in the lane behind our house, and he did some garden work for my mother. He’d killed his father, a long time before, when he was little more than a boy, and had been adjudged insane and imprisoned in the lunatic asylum twenty miles away. Eventually he’d been released and my mother, who had known his mother, when they were young, took pity on him and indeed provided him with the caravan. I doubt if he would have survived otherwise. He was a poor thing who never spoke above a whisper. Institutionalised, I suppose they would say now. But the gentlest being you could imagine. I never knew why he killed his father, it was a long time ago.”

  “And the second?”

  “Oh the second was more dramatic. He was an actor in a play of mine and he stabbed his wife, right there on the stage. Actually he was supposed to do that, it was in his part I mean, that he stabbed the actress who was playing his wife, and was indeed his wife, but nobody expected him to use a real dagger. That wasn’t how I wrote it.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Oh he’s in prison somewhere, I think he is anyway, a French prison – it was in a performance in Bordeaux.”

  “Were you in the theatre yourself,” Erik said.

  “No,” Tom said, “I don’t follow my plays around, not that closely. But I had known him and liked him. The wife was a sweet girl, but, they said, congenitally unfaithful. He certainly thought so. Rather a mess.”

  “And the third? You said there was a third.”

  Durward called the waiter, instead of answering, paid their bill, picked up his stick and said, “Let’s walk a little before bed.”

  The streets were emptying. They could hear their own footsteps. They walked, like Gary, in the direction of the sea, and came down to the beach, deserted, not even a dog. There was a night chill in the air, and in the distance they could see the light shine from the lighthouse on Capo Colonna.

  Tom said, “The third? Yes, your friend Stephen knows as much as I do about him. More perhaps. He called you by my nephew’s name, Jamie, you said. A dead boy, a boy who killed himself. There’s no doubt that he did. But he was driven to it by an older boy, which is why this third murderer, second in time, was the worst of the three. And now he’s dead in his turn. The mills of God grind slo
wly but they grind exceedingly small.”

  “The mills of God?” Erik said. “I heard you say that before, at Kate’s … You mean?”

  “Yes,” Tom said. “It would be slander if he was still alive, but you can’t slander the dead. I don’t know exactly how – I intend to ask Stephen when we’re back in Rome, but I know as certainly as I know anything, that it was Reynard Yallett drove Jamie to kill himself. It’s not only Kate who owes Gary a debt.”

  XLI

  Kate found herself unable to work. She listened to the tapes she’d made of her conversations with Gary, doing so in case there was anything which it would be prudent to destroy. But there wasn’t. There wasn’t indeed much of interest. She had failed. Evidently she couldn’t continue with him, no matter what happened. It was impossible their relationship should be professional. Indeed it was impossible that there should be any sort of one at all. That was clear. But what was to be done with him, or for him? Perhaps Tom Durward would have a suggestion.

  Last night at the meeting Belinda had occupied herself entirely with Stephen, who sat hunched, silent, trembling. Had she lost Belinda too? That was possible. Damn Reynard. And now these journalists …

  She had hesitated when they suggested coming to her apartment. Why should she let them impose on her? But mightn’t that seem more natural than suggesting a neutral meeting place? On the other hand if she fixed to meet them in a café, she would be able to get up and walk away. But would that make them suspicious? In the end she agreed that they should come to her. Trensshe probably hoped to find Gary there.

  They arrived with Mike in tow. She hadn’t expected that.

  “Mike’s one of our stars,” the girl Clarissa said, “we’re always hoping he’ll write more for us. The piece he did last year about that English bullfighter was the best thing we published in the last twelve months.”