by Ngaio Marsh
‘At the moment it can not be said to beckon one to work. They might as well have hung Please Don’t Touch notices on everything.’
‘You won’t mind once you get going.’
‘You think? P’raps you’re right,’ she said, cheering up. She looked down at the house party round the pool. ‘That’s quite something,’ she said. ‘Very frisky colour and do notice Signor Lattienzo’s stomach. Isn’t it superb!’
Signor Lattienzo was extended on an orange-coloured chaise longue. He wore a green bathrobe which had slid away from his generous torso upon which a book with a scarlet cover was perched. He glistened.
Prompted, perhaps by that curious telepathy which informs people that they are being stared at, he threw back his head, saw Troy and Alleyn and waved energetically. They responded. He made eloquent Italianate gestures which he wound up by kissing both his hands at once to Troy.
‘You’ve got off, darling,’ said Alleyn.
‘I like him, I think. But I’m afraid he’s rather malicious. I didn’t tell you. He thinks that poor beautiful young man’s opera is awful. Isn’t that sad?’
‘Is that what’s the matter with the boy!’ Alleyn exclaimed. ‘Does he know it’s no good?’
‘Signor Lattienzo thinks he might.’
‘And yet they’re going on with all this wildly extravagant business.’
‘She insists, I imagine.’
‘Ah.’
‘Signor Lattienzo says she’s as stupid as an owl.’
‘Musically?’
‘Yes. But I rather gathered generally, as well.’
‘The finer points of attitudes towards a hostess don’t seem to worry Signor Lattienzo.’
‘Well, if we’re going to be accurate, I suppose she’s not his hostess. She’s his ex-pupil.’
‘True.’
Troy said: ‘That boy’s out of his depth altogether. She’s made a nonsense of him. She’s a monster and I can’t wait to get it on canvas. A monster,’ Troy repeated with relish.
‘He’s not down there with the rest of them,’ Alleyn pointed out. ‘I suppose he’s concerned with the arrival of his orchestra.’
‘I can’t bear to think of it. Imagine! All these musical VIPs converging on him and he knowing, if he does know, that it’s going to be a fiasco. He’s going to conduct. Imagine!’
‘Awful. Rubbing his nose in it.’
‘We’ll have to be there.’
‘I’m afraid so, darling.’
Troy had turned away from the window and now faced the door of the room. She was just in time to see it gently closing.
‘What’s wrong?’ Alleyn asked quickly.
Troy whispered: ‘The door. Someone’s just shut it.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Truly.’
He went to the door and opened it. Troy saw him look to his right.
‘Hullo, Bartholomew,’ he said. ‘Good morning to you. Looking for Troy, by any chance?’
There was a pause and then Rupert’s Australian voice, unevenly pitched, not fully audible: ‘Oh, good morning. I – yes – matter of fact – message – ‘
‘She’s here. Come in.’
He came in, white-faced and hesitant. Troy welcomed him with what she felt might be overdone cordiality and asked if his message was for her.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘yes, it is. She – I mean Madame Sommita – asked me to say she’s very sorry but in case you might be expecting her she can’t – she’s afraid she won’t be able – to sit for you today because – because – ‘
‘Because of rehearsals and everything? Of course. I wasn’t expecting it and in fact I’d rather not start today.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘yes. I see. Good-oh, then. I’ll tell her.’
He made as if to go but seemed inclined to stay.
‘Do sit down,’ said Alleyn, ‘unless you’re in a hurry, of course. We’re hoping someone – you, if you’ve time – will tell us a little more about tomorrow night.’
He made a movement with both hands almost as if he wanted to cover his ears but checked it and asked if they minded if he smoked. He produced a cigarette case; gold with a jewelled motif.
‘Will you?’ he said to Troy and when she declined, turned to Alleyn. The open case slipped out of his uncertain grasp. He said: ‘Oh. Sorry,’ and looked as if he’d been caught shoplifting. Alleyn picked it up. The inside of the lid was inscribed. There in all its flamboyance was the now familiar signature: Isabella Sommita.
Rupert was making a dreadfully clumsy business of shutting the case and lighting his cigarette. Alleyn, as if continuing a conversation, asked Troy where she would like him to put the easel. They improvised an argument about light and the possibility of the bathing pool as a subject. This enabled them both to look out of the window.
‘Very tricky subject,’ Troy said. ‘I don’t think I’m up to it!’
‘Better maintain a masterly inactivity, you think?’ Alleyn cheerfully rejoined. ‘You may be right.’
They turned back into the room and there was Rupert Bartholomew, sitting on the edge of the model’s throne and crying.
He possessed male physical beauty to such a remarkable degree that there was something unreal about his tears. They trickled over the perfect contours of his face and might have been drops of water on a Greek mask. They were distressing but they were also incongruous.
Alleyn said: ‘My dear chap, what’s the matter?’ and Troy: ‘Would you like to talk about it? We’re very discreet.’
He talked. Disjointedly at first and with deprecating interruptions – they didn’t want to hear all this – he didn’t want them to think he was imposing – it could be of no interest to them. He wiped his eyes, blew his nose, drew hard on his cigarette and became articulate.
At first it was simply a statement that The Alien Corn was no good, that the realization had come upon him out of the blue and with absolute conviction. ‘It was ghastly,’ he said. ‘I was pouring out drinks and suddenly, without warning, I knew. Nothing could alter it: the thing’s punk.’
‘Was this performance already under consideration?’ Alleyn asked him.
‘She had it all planned. It was meant to be a – well – a huge surprise. And the ghastly thing is,’ said Rupert, his startlingly blue eyes opened in horror, ‘I’d thought it all fantastic. Like one of those schmaltzy young-genius-makes-it films. I’d been in – well – in ecstasy.’
‘Did you tell her, there and then?’ asked Troy.
‘Not then. Mr Reece and Ben Ruby were there. I – well, I was so – you know – shattered. Sort of. I waited,’ said Rupert, and blushed, ‘until that evening.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She didn’t take it. I mean she simply wouldn’t listen. I mean she simply swept it aside. She said – my God, she said genius always had moments like these, moments of what she called divine despair. She said she did. Over her singing. And then, when I sort of tried to stick it out, she – was – well, very angry. And you see – I mean she had cause. All her plans and arrangements. She’d written to Beppo Lattienzo and Sir David Baumgartner and she’d fixed up with Rodolfo and Hilda and Sylvia and the others. And the press. The big names. All that. I did hang out for a bit but – ‘
He broke off, looked quickly at Alleyn and then at the floor. ‘There were other things. It’s more complicated than I’ve made it sound,’ he muttered.
‘Human relationships can be hellishly awkward, can’t they?’ Alleyn said.
‘You’re telling me,’ Rupert fervently agreed. Then he burst out: ‘I think I must have been mad! Or ill, even. Like running a temperature and now it’s gone and – and – I’m cleaned out and left with tomorrow.’
‘And you are sure?’ Troy asked. ‘What about the company and the orchestra? Do you know what they think? And Signor Lattienzo?’
‘She made me promise not to show it to him. I don’t know if she’s shown it. I think she has. He’ll have seen at once that it’s awful, of course. An
d the company: they know all right. Rodolfo Romano very tactfully suggests alterations. I’ve seen them looking at each other. They stop talking when I turn up. Do you know what they call it? They think I haven’t heard but I’ve heard all right. They call it Corn. Very funny. Oh,’ Rupert cried out, ‘she shouldn’t have done it! It hasn’t been a fair go: I hadn’t got a hope. Not a hope in hell. My God, she’s making me conduct. There I’ll stand, before those VIPs, waving my arms like a bloody puppet and they won’t know which way to look for embarrassment.’
There was a long silence, broken at last by Troy.
‘Well,’ she said vigorously, ‘refuse. Never mind about the celebrities and the fuss and the phoney publicity. It’ll be very unpleasant and it’ll take a lot of guts but at least it’ll be honest. To the devil with the lot of them. Refuse.’
He got to his feet. He had been bathing and his short yellow robe had fallen open. He’s apricot-coloured, Troy noted, not blackish tan and coarsened by exposure like most sun addicts. He’s really too much of a treat. No wonder she grabbed him. He’s a collector’s piece, poor chap.
‘I don’t think,’ Rupert said, ‘I’m any more chicken than the next guy. It’s not that. It’s her – Isabella. You saw last night what she can be like. And coming on top of this letter business – look, she’d either break down and make herself ill or – or go berserk and murder somebody. Me, for preference.’
‘Oh, come on!’ said Troy.
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not nonsense. Really. She’s a Sicilian.’
‘Not all Sicilians are tigers,’ Alleyn remarked.
‘Her kind are.’
Troy said, ‘I’m going to leave you to Rory. I think this calls for male-chauvinist gossip.’
When she had gone, Rupert began apologizing again. What, he asked, would Mrs Alleyn think of him?
‘Don’t start worrying about that,’ Alleyn said. ‘She’s sorry, she’s not shocked and she’s certainly not bored. And I think she may be right. However unpleasant it may be, I think perhaps you should refuse. But I’m afraid it’s got to be your decision and nobody else’s.’
‘Yes, but you see you don’t know the worst of it. I couldn’t bring it out with Mrs Alleyn here. I – Isabella – we – ‘
‘Good Lord, my dear chap – ‘ Alleyn began and then pulled himself up. ‘You’re lovers, aren’t you?’ he said.
‘If you can call it that,’ he muttered.
‘And you think if you take this stand against her you’ll lose her? That it?’
‘Not exactly –I mean, yes, of course, I suppose she’d kick me out.’
‘Would that be such a very bad thing?’
‘It’d be a bloody good thing,’ he burst out.
‘Well, then – ‘
‘I can’t expect you to understand. I don’t understand myself. At first it was marvellous: magical. I felt equal to anything. Way up. Out of this world. To hear her sing, to stand at the back of the theatre and see two thousand people go mad about her and to know that for me it didn’t end with the curtain calls and flowers and ovations but that for me the best was still to come. Talk about the crest of the wave – gosh, it was super.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘And then, after that – you know – that moment of truth about the opera, the whole picture changed. You could say that the same thing happened about her. I saw all at once what she really is like and that she only approved of that bloody fiasco because she saw herself making a success in it and that she ought never, never to have given me the encouragement she did. And I knew she had no real musical judgement and that I was lost.’
‘All the more reason – ‘ Alleyn began and was shouted down.
‘You can’t tell me anything I don’t know. But I was in it. Up to my eyes. Presents – like this thing, this cigarette case. Clothes, even. A fantastic salary. At first I was so far gone in –I suppose you could call it – rapture, that it didn’t seem degrading. And now, in spite of seeing it all as it really is, I can’t get out. I can’t.’
Alleyn waited. Rupert got to his feet. He squared his shoulders, pocketed his awful cigarette case and actually produced a laugh of sorts.
‘Silly, isn’t it?’ he said, with an unhappy attempt at lightness. ‘Sorry to have bored you.’
Alleyn said: ‘Are you familiar with Shakespeare’s sonnets?’
‘No. Why?’
‘There’s a celebrated one that starts off by saying the expense of spirit in a waste of shame is lust in action. I suppose it’s the most devastating statement you can find of the sense of degradation that accompanies passion without love. La Belle Dame Sans Merci is schmaltz alongside it. That’s your trouble, isn’t it? The gilt’s gone off the gingerbread but the gingerbread is still compulsive eating. And that’s why you can’t make the break.’
Rupert twisted his hands together and bit his knuckles.
‘You could put it like that,’ he said.
The silence that followed was interrupted by an outbreak of voices on the patio down below: exclamations, sounds of arrival and unmistakably the musical hoots that were the Sommita’s form of greeting.
‘Those are the players,’ said Rupert. ‘I must go down. We have to rehearse.’
II
By midday Troy’s jet-lag had begun to fade and with it the feeling of unreality in her surroundings. A familiar restlessness replaced it and this, as always, condensed into an itch to work. She and Alleyn walked round the island and found that, apart from the landing ground for the helicopter and the lawnlike frontage with its sentinel trees, it was practically covered by house. The clever architect had allowed small areas of original bush to occur where they most could please. On the frontal approach from the lake to the Lodge, this as well as the house itself served to conceal a pole from which power lines ran across the lake to a spit of land with a dado of trees that reached out from the far side of the island.
‘For the moment,’ said Troy, ‘don’t let’s think about what it all cost.’
They arrived at the bathing pool at eleven o’clock; drinks were being served. Two or three guests had arrived at the same time as the quartet of players who turned out to be members of a South Island Regional Orchestra. The musicians, three men and a lady, sticking tight to each other and clearly overawed, were painstakingly introduced by Rupert. The Sommita, in white sharkskin with a tactful tunic, conversed with them very much de haut en bas and then engulfed the Alleyns, particularly Troy whose arm and hand she secured, propelling her to a canopied double seat and retaining her hold after they had occupied it. Troy found all this intensely embarrassing but at least it gave her a good opportunity to notice the markedly asymmetric structure of the face, the distance between the corner of the heavy mouth and that of the burning eye being greater on the left side. And there was a faint darkness, the slightest change of colour on the upper lip. You couldn’t have a better face for Carmen, Troy thought.
The Sommita talked of the horrible letter and the touched-up photograph and what they had done to her and how shattering it was that the activities of the infamous photographer – for of course he was at the bottom of it – should have extended to New Zealand and even to the Island when she had felt safe at last from persecution.
‘It is only the paper, though,’ Troy pointed out. ‘It’s not as though the man himself was here. Don’t you think it’s quite likely that now the tour of Australia is over he may very well have gone back to his country of origin, wherever that may be? Mightn’t the letter have just been his final effort? You had gone and he couldn’t take any more photographs so he cooked up the letter?’
The Sommita stared at her for a long time and in a most uncomfortable manner, gave her hand a meaningful squeeze and released it. Troy did not know what to make of this.
‘But,’ the Sommita was saying, ‘we must speak of your art, must we not? And of the portrait. We begin the day after tomorrow, yes? And I wear my crimson décolleté which you have not yet seen. It is by Saint-Laurent and i
s dramatic. And for the pose – this.’
She sprang to her feet, curved her sumptuous right arm above her head, rested her left palm upon her thigh, threw back her head and ogled Troy frowningly in the baleful, sexy manner of Spanish dancers. The posture provided generous exposure to her frontage and gave the lie to any suggestions of plastic surgery.
‘I think,’ Troy said, ‘the pose might be a bit exacting to maintain. And if it’s possible I’d like to make some drawings as a sort of limbering-up. Not posed drawings. Only slight notes. If I could just be inconspicuously on the premises and make scribbles with a stick of charcoal.’
‘Yes? Ah! Good. This afternoon there will be rehearsal. It will be only a preparation for the dress rehearsal tonight. You may attend it. You must be very inconspicious, you understand.’
‘That will be ideal,’ said Troy. ‘Nothing could suit me better.’
‘My poor Rupert,’ the Sommita suddenly proclaimed, again fixing Troy with that disquieting regard, ‘is nervous. He has the sensitivity of the true artist, the creative temperament. He is strung like a violin.’
She suspects something, Troy thought. She’s pumping. Damn.
She said: ‘I can well imagine.’
‘I’m sure you can,’ said the Sommita with what seemed to be all too meaningful an emphasis.
‘Darling Rupert,’ she called to him: ‘if your friends are ready perhaps you should show them – ?’
The players gulped down the rest of their drinks and professed themselves ready.
‘Come!’ invited the Sommita, suddenly all sparkle and gaiety. ‘I show you now our music room. Who knows? There may be inspiration for you, as for us. We bring also our great diviner who is going to rescue me from my persecutors.’
She towed Troy up to Alleyn and unfolded this proposition. Her manner suggested the pleasurable likelihood of his offering to seduce her at the first opportunity. ‘So you come to the salon too,’ she said, ‘to hear music?’ And in her velvet tones the word ‘music’ was fraught with much the same meaning as ‘china’ in The Country Wife.
