by Isobel Chace
“I like my hair the way it is,” Ruth said crossly.
But the man paid no attention to her. “Ah yes! I have it!” he exclaimed. “Now we shall cut it!”
In a flash he had produced his razor out of his pocket and had taken a wild slash at a lock of her hair. Ruth winced, not daring to look at what he was doing. She had to admit that he was quick, though. In a few seconds most of her hair was lying in piles around her chair.
“Isn’t that short enough?” she asked him timidly.
“It is not so short,” he cajoled her. “It is to give it shape. It has enough curl to make it easy to keep and that is necessary for someone who takes so little trouble. If you have the shape, you have everything!”
He clapped his hands and yet another assistant brought a trolley full of curlers and pins. His fingers flew over Ruth’s head and the style he had chosen for her began to take shape.
“We will have the manicure under the drier,” he told her softly. “The artist who does the make-up will come along later, when we have finished with your hair and you can see the results better. You have something to read?” He handed her a couple of copies of Oggi and departed, leaving her to her lonely thoughts.
It was difficult, though, not to be excited when she saw the final results. Her hair formed a soft frame to her face in a way that did not lessen the character of her face, but somehow made her look more feminine and gave her personality a warmth. It had always been there, she knew, but she had suppressed any ideas she might have had in that direction so that she would look older in the classroom. Now, looking at herself in the glass, she couldn’t help being pleased with the transformation he had achieved.
“It’s just as well I’m not teaching anyone anything this afternoon!” she remarked with wry amusement to Signora Verdecchio who had come to inspect the result.
“It is a step!” the other lady congratulated herself. “We have you—almost beautiful, and you see, already you are less stern! Soon you will feel quite gay that you are a woman!”
She beckoned to the middle-aged woman who was to teach Ruth how to put on her make-up and the two of them went into a huddle together, deciding which of Ruth’s features should be brought into prominence, and which rigidly suppressed. But about this, Ruth suddenly discovered she had very definite ideas of her own.
“I have quite nice eyes,” she said bravely.
“Indeed!” they all agreed in an admiring chorus.
“Well then, I’d like (to make them more obvious,” she went on.
The make-up artist nodded in complete agreement.
“Someone has told you this, yes?” she teased her customer gently. “He is quite right! In two moments you will see it for yourself!”
Ruth remembered with a blush that it had been none other than Mario who had remarked about her eyes. She began to wish that she had said nothing, but had left it all to Signora Verdecchio. She had no ambition to make herself pleasing to Mario! Or had she? The sudden doubt as to her own motives unnerved her.
The Italian lady was definite. She set out her tray of cosmetics with deft fingers, explaining simply the purpose of each item as she laid it down.
“Now, any questions?” she said at the end of her dissertation.
Ruth looked at the selection in horror. “But I can’t put on all that!” she objected.
“No, no, not all of it. Some eyelashes, I think, though, you must have!”
Ruth was surprised to discover how easy they were to apply. Once her unaccustomed fingers had mastered the art, she could put them on in a matter of seconds and they looked quite natural. It was the same with the eye make-up that her mentor insisted on her using.
“Before you look,” the lady said at last, “we will have a touch of rouge on the cheeks and a quite pale lipstick. There! Now you may look!”
Ruth stared at herself for a long moment. She was not almost beautiful any longer. She was beautiful. And she wasn’t the only person who thought so. She could tell by the sudden silence amongst the group that had gone to work on her. Looking at herself, she felt that the difference between beauty and mere prettiness had been drawn pretty clearly. She was very glad that Pearl was not there to see this transformation, for Pearl wasn’t used to being second to her sister.
“I look nice, don’t you think?” she said hesitantly to Lucia Verdecchio.
“It is just as Mario said it would be!” that lady claimed firmly. “You are quite lovely, my dear!”
Ruth blushed at the mention of Mario’s name. She could scarcely tear her eyes away from her reflection in the glass. It was as though she were looking at a stranger, with whom she had something in common, but not very much. This stranger, this beautiful stranger, had a vulnerable look that Ruth had never detected in herself.
“Mario will be pleased!” his aunt was saying.
“I didn’t do it for Mario!” Ruth retorted.
Their laughter told her that nobody there believed her, not even Signora Verdecchio. Ruth watched her as she paid the extremely large bill without a blink, showering her approval on everyone in the salon.
“My niece will be coming here regularly from now on,” she told them happily. “I can promise you that! You will look after her, won’t you? I can’t stay in Sicily for long this time. My husband needs me in Tunis.”
They promised that Ruth would always receive the very best attention from them whether the Signora was there or not. The tips were large enough to encourage the proprietor to escort Signora Verdecchio and Ruth right to the car.
“It is always a pleasure to serve any of the Verdecchios,” he bowed.
Lucia glowed with content. “It has been very successful!” she smiled. “I am very well pleased!”
She glanced at her watch as soon as they were alone. “It is eleven already. That allows us half an hour to get ready for the ceremony if we go home now—”
Ruth gave her a desperate look. “Signora, we can’t go back immediately,” she pleaded. “I can’t! Besides,” she added, “I haven’t any of my things with me—”
“I have seen to all that,” Lucia Verdecchio assured her. “You have no need to worry.”
“I haven’t even got a present for Mario,” Ruth put in guiltily. She felt awful saying such a thing when she knew quite well that she would never give Mario anything. But she couldn’t allow herself to be driven meekly back to Mario’s house either. She had to go back to Naples—and to Pearl.
The Signora’s eyebrows rose. “Do you want to give him something?” she asked in a deliberately neutral voice.
Ruth felt the burning colour leap to her cheeks. “It’s—it’s customary,” she mumbled.
The Signora came close to grinning. “What a good idea! What did you have in mind?”
Ruth cast about in her mind, feeling more and more miserable by the minute. “I don’t know,” she said at last.
“A gold pen?” Lucia suggested. “You must forgive me for asking, but have you much money with you?”
“Enough for that,” Ruth grunted. “Could we go somewhere more central and have a look at some?” The Signora was only too glad to fall in with such a plan. Ruth felt like a traitor. If only the older woman didn’t look quite so much like the cat who had swallowed the canary! If only she could bring herself to dislike her! And if only, oh yes, if only she could bring herself to dislike Mario instead of feeling weak in the stomach every time she thought of him!
“I saw a shop near the harbour,” Ruth made herself say just as if she had only just thought of it.
“That’s where we go!” the Signora agreed eagerly. “Wherever you say!”
She thrust the car through the narrow streets with determination. The pedestrians flattened themselves against the walls as they passed and a stall of melons collapsed under the sheer pressure of people. Some ragged children rushed down the street, the stolen melons in their hands. The stall-holder ran after them, puffing and fuming in the heat. He shook his fist at Signora Verdecchio and, looking a trifle
dismayed, she came to a stop.
“The streets are too narrow—” she began to explain.
“Then drive your car somewhere else!” he advised her, his pudgy flesh trembling with anger.
“I’ll help you pick the melons up,” Ruth offered eagerly in her broken Italian.
A smile spread over his face as he recognised a foreigner. “Then you do accept full liability?” he demanded.
Signora Verdecchio stepped out of the car, a non-stop spurt of Italian issuing from her. Ruth would have loved to have stayed to hear the end of the incident, but she knew that she wouldn’t get a better chance. If she were to escape, this was her opportunity.
She ran as hard as she could and found herself in the Piazza Kalsa, a fine square behind the Porta dei Greca, with its densely populated alleys, full of sailors and fishermen whose wives are famous for their lace-making and embroidery. The Kalsa is the most typically Arab part of the city and there were delightful little courts that Ruth would have loved to explore. As it was, she ran hither and thither, looking for the way to the port, but there seemed to be no end to the narrow alleys, most of them leading nowhere, or only back where she had been before.
Women, dressed all in black, and small, ragged boys watched her pass. She tried to ask them the way, but they only shook their heads and stared at her with black, apparently sightless eyes. She began to grow frightened and more and more desperate. And then suddenly there she was in the road that led to the port, although she had no idea of how she had got there.
Looking at her watch, she saw that it was already twenty to twelve. She tried to tell herself that it no longer mattered to her. Now that she was not going to be married at noon, the hour of twelve no longer held any meaning. She was cross with herself, therefore, for feeling bereft and forlorn by the knowledge. She sniffed hard and pressed on down the street. She would get on the first boat for Naples and that would be that!
The heat pressed down on her, but she refused to go any slower. She was almost sure that the ticket offices would close at twelve, for the long lunch hour that is universal all round the Mediterranean. She thought that she had made it when she was grasped tightly by the arm.
“I think not,” Mario drawled in her ear.
She turned and faced him, hot and extremely angry. “But why not?” she pleaded. “You know you don’t really want to marry me!”
His eyes widened as he took in her new hair-style and make-up. He whistled softly. It should, Ruth thought, have been humiliating to her to have anyone look at her like that, but it was not. If she were honest, she had to admit that it was pure balm to her shattered nerves.
“I—I can’t marry you,” she said.
He smiled. “I think you have no choice,” he answered gently.
“But I won’t—I won’t marry you!”
He forced her to look up at him. His own eyes were alight with laughter and she could feel an answering quirk of sheer amusement and relief somewhere deep inside her.
“No?” he mocked her.
“No,” she repeated in a shaken voice.
He shrugged. “It’s a pity, don’t you think, with all the preparations already made?” He touched her hair lightly with his fingers. “Was all this for yourself?” He bent and kissed her on the lips. “I think not,” he said.
Ruth said nothing. She knew that if she had, it would have been a total surrender.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE wedding was hardly delayed at all. Mario had done no more than glance at his watch before he had rushed her back down the street to where Henry Brett was waiting with his jeep.
“Will you drive us back to the house?” Mario had asked him with all the charm he had at his command.
“What about your aunt?” Ruth had reminded him. “I left her somewhere over there,” she added vaguely, not really sure which way she had come.
“She will know that I have you safe,” Mario had said.
Ruth had been grateful for the unspoken sympathy of Henry Brett during the silent ride back to the house. It was only when they had arrived and the two of them were standing in the hall while Mario went to discover if the priest had arrived that Henry said:
“I gather the corn has been particularly alien this morning?”
Ruth shook her head. “It’s so ridiculous!” she exclaimed helplessly.
Henry looked concerned. “I’d like to help—” he began.
“No, don’t!” Ruth said quickly. “You’ll lose your job, or—or something!”
Henry’s mouth twisted into a rueful grin. “I very nearly did already,” he admitted. “Your future lord and master was furious that I’d taken you round the village on your own. If I hadn’t known that he didn’t care a button for you, I’d have thought him the original jealous lover seeking revenge!”
Ruth went white. “I wish I could understand it all better,” she sighed.
“I’d have thought Mario was easily understood,” Henry remarked dryly. “He hates to be thwarted. It’s as simple as that!”
“I don’t think it can be,” Ruth objected. “Nobody in Sicily seems to find it the least bit odd that today his wretched honour makes him have to marry me to save my honour!”
Henry grinned. “It does sound a bit medieval, put like that,” he admitted.
“A bit!” she retorted. “And as far as I can see the damage to my honour is only a bit of possible local gossip! Can you beat that?”
“No,” he reproved her, “that isn’t quite fair. If you were a Sicilian girl, you wouldn’t be able to make a respectable marriage after spending the night here. After all, he was here too!”
Ruth stared at him in disbelief. “But nothing happened!”
Henry’s cheeks went a peculiar shade of pink. “I believe that, of course,” he said awkwardly. “I mean, I believe it because you say so. I mean, Sicilians have pretty hot blood, don’t they? You know, any opportunity and all that—”
“Henry!”
“Beg your pardon,” he muttered unhappily.
“I should think so!” she said indignantly.
The colour was still in her cheeks and the light of battle in her eye when Signora Verdecchio came through the front door.
“Ah, there you are!” she said to Ruth. “You’re a very naughty girl! I suppose Mario brought you back?” Ruth nodded silently.
“He was right! He said you’d make for the port if you could.” Her voice rose in anguish. “And I thought you were persuaded that we were doing the best thing!” she complained. “And you’ve messed up your hair!”
Ruth’s hand went involuntarily to her hair, patting a loose curl back into place. “I had to,” she tried to explain. “Mario and I don’t want to marry one another!”
“I won’t believe that’s true,” the Signora fussed. “Come here and I’ll fix your hair!”
Ruth refused to feel guilty. Why should she? But nevertheless she found herself hoping that Mario’s aunt was not too cross with her.
“It’s so ridiculous!” she said aloud. “I can’t believe you are all serious about it even now!”
Lucia clicked her tongue against her teeth. “It is you who are ridiculous!” she claimed fiercely. “Why, any girl would be pleased to marry Mario! You will have comfort and security and the joy of having a family about you. What more do you want?”
“Love,” Ruth said flatly.
To her astonishment, Signora Verdecchio laughed. “And do you think that you won’t fall in love with Mario?” she demanded.
Ruth swallowed. “But will he fall in love with me?”
The Signora shrugged. “There are other things,” she told her. “This romantic love that you think so much about is here today and gone tomorrow. You will have respect as Mario’s wife, and affection, and honour as the mother of his children.”
“But not love?” Ruth said sadly.
“It will come,” Lucia said gently. “If you want it, it will come.”
But Ruth could not believe her. She allowed herself to be
pushed into the salotto and stood disconsolately in the middle of the room, trying not to look at the painting of the Verdecchio who was so like Mario. There were flowers everywhere. It was a mockery, Ruth thought, trying to give a festive air to what had to be an empty feast. Mario’s aunt handed her a bouquet of white flowers that smelt heavily of orange blossom, and then Mario arrived with the priest.
She wondered what would happen if she told him that she was being married against her will, but she found herself smiling when he approached her.
“I don’t speak English,” the priest said apologetically. His thick Sicilian accent made his Italian almost unintelligible to Ruth as well. “It is a very happy occasion.” He looked tired and defeated and went on to mutter something about not holding the wedding in church. Ruth came to the conclusion that it was because she was English and a stranger.
“He doesn’t want to marry me!” she said in a burst, half in English and half in Italian, which the priest quite clearly didn’t begin to understand. The old man nodded gently. “It is the custom,” he said, as if he were agreeing with her.
“Non parlo bene italiano—” Ruth began desperately. She was aware of Mario coming towards her. In another moment, she knew, it would be too late!
“My love,” he said, “are you ready for the ceremony?” He threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand until it hurt.
“But—”
“But?” he echoed.
She was cast into instant confusion. He had called her my love! She tried to free her hand, but she could not. He stood quietly beside her, his Satanic looks becoming magnified in her mind, and making no effort at all to help her.
