Nostalgia

by Jonathan Buckley

  FOR SUSANNE HILLEN

  AND BRUNO BUCKLEY

  THERE IS STILL PLENTY OF GOOD MUSIC

  TO BE WRITTEN IN C MAJOR

  ARNOLD SCHOENBERG

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  Also By Jonathan Buckley

  Copyright

  1

  1.1

  THE RECORDED HISTORY OF CASTELLUCCIO begins with the Etruscans, whose settlement was centred on the area now occupied by Piazza del Mercato, but it was not until the twelfth century that walls were first built around the town and its fortress – the Rocca – was raised at its highest point. In 1203 the comune of Castelluccio elected its first podestà (chief magistrate), whose residence was within the Rocca. Not long afterwards, an earthquake wrecked the fort and a new Palazzo del Podestà was constructed in the centre of the town. The fortress itself was rebuilt some time after 1360, when Ugo Bonvalori of Volterra became the podestà. The most notable feature of the new Rocca was the Torre del Saraceno, which remains the tallest structure in the town and incorporates, in its lower storeys, portions of the pre-earthquake fortress. By the end of the century the Bonvalori family had taken occupation of the Rocca and had become, de facto, the ruling family of Castelluccio, a position they maintained until the 1470s, when Castelluccio came under Florentine control. The Rocca then fell into disuse.

  Workshops and warehouses had taken occupancy of various parts of the fortress by the late eighteenth century. In 1787 extensive damage was caused by the explosion of a quantity of gunpowder that was being stored in the former dungeons. After another earthquake in 1846 the only substantial part of the Rocca left standing was the Torre del Saraceno.

  Two different explanations are given for the name of the tower. Some believe that it comes from the effigy of a Saracen that was suspended from a gibbet in the courtyard of the Rocca for use as a jousting target. Local folklore prefers to attribute the name to the small basalt head that is embedded in the tower’s northern façade. Though probably dating from the fourth century, the head is popularly said to depict a North African slave who was murdered by Muzio Bonvalori after insulting one of Muzio’s half-sisters.

  1.2

  It’s late in the afternoon, a mid-August Thursday. A man is at work on the roof of the Torre del Saraceno, fixing a pole to the parapet with steel bands. That done, he attaches a flag – the emblem of Saint Zeno: a boar, with one foreleg crooked – with a thin metal spar to hold it out in the breezeless air.

  From the window of his studiolo Robert Bancourt watches the man for a minute, before returning to the email that has arrived from Max Jelinek, chairman of the Jelinek optical equipment company: Dear Mr Bancourt – we understand perfectly that Mr Westfall’s commitments do not permit him to undertake our proposed commission at this point in time. An artist of his standing is always in demand. We appreciate that. But we were so amazed by what Milton Jeremies showed us – for this portrait, we’ll wait for as long as is necessary. November would be OK for Myrto – she could come to Italy for two or three days, maybe four. Would that work for Mr Westfall? Let me know what he says. As for the fee – let’s just say that there’ll be no problem on that score. A photo of the wife has been attached to the email. Myrto’s face is as taut as a football, and the eyes stare through the skin in a delirium of contentment; the teeth are an orthodontical masterclass, and she seems to have carbon fibre for hair. God knows what age she is: anywhere from 55 to 75.

  Now the man is sitting on the parapet, legs dangling, talking on his phone as if he were lounging on a park bench rather than perched at an altitude of 34.5 metres, with nothing but air between his feet and the street; he types a text with a thumb while adjusting the fittings of the flag with his other hand; he waves to someone down on the street.

  Robert’s phone rings: it’s Teresa. It’s been another dull day in the office. ‘So are you with your master this evening?’ she asks. He is, as he’d told her this morning he would be. ‘See you tonight, when he lets you go,’ she says, like a woman resigned to her husband’s stupid hobby.

  On the bench there’s a canvas to be stretched; Robert is stapling the canvas to the frame when the doorbell rings. ‘Door!’ shouts Gideon.

  1.3

  Claire Yardley steps out of the Albergo Ottocento onto Corso Garibaldi, and pauses to get her bearings from the map that the receptionist has given her: the building opposite is the old theatre; turning right will take her to Piazza del Mercato.

  Within a couple of minutes she is on the square. She aligns the map with the landmarks – the church on the far side, on the right; the tower to its left – then walks towards the place marked by the red cross. There, as the receptionist had described, is the ironwork arch, clogged with wisteria; and there’s the bar, the Alla Torre, with a second arch beyond it. The gates are closed with a chain that’s been looped around the handles half a dozen times, but it’s not padlocked. Through the arch, she sees a garden of shrubs and gravel paths; on the right, a small flight of steps, leading to double doors. Ring the top button, marked 5, she was told, but the top bell has no label. She hesitates, then presses; a full minute passes before a voice shouts out of the entryphone: ‘Pronto?’

  Unnerved by the tone, she puts her mouth close to the door. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Is that Mr Westfall?’

  ‘No,’ is the answer. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I’d like to see Mr Westfall. Would that be possible?’

  ‘You need to make an appointment,’ she is told.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ she replies. Receiving no immediate response, she continues: ‘Can I make an appointment to see him later?’ she asks.

  ‘He could see you on Saturday.’

  A runnel of sweat sprints out of her hair and into an ear. ‘I really would like to see him today. Is that not possible?’

  ‘He could see you on Saturday,’ the voice repeats. It’s like talking to a computer.

  ‘Saturday is too late,’ she says. ‘I’ve come from London. Is this evening out of the question? For a few minutes? That’s all I need.’ A young woman is sitting at a table outside the bar; she seems to be amused by the situation.

  There is a pause, in which muttering can be heard in the entryphone. The voice instructs her: ‘Wait there. I’ll come down.’

  A minute later, the doors are opened by a wiry individual, fair-haired, slim, not tall, probably mid-thirties, in jeans and white T-shirt and navy blue plimsolls. He has a small quiff, which contributes to a 1950s kind of look. This must be Robert.

  He is looking at a woman who couldn’t be more obviously English. The dress is a shapeless floral number, with a lot of pale and dusty pink in it, and the body is what you’d expect of a woman of her age – maybe forty – who doesn’t believe in strenuous exercise; the face is so unremarkable that he’d struggle to recall it tomorrow; the hair – medium length, dark brown, straight – has been ordered into an approximate tidiness rather than styled. The eyes are an attractive green-grey, though, and the gaze is strong, even if the expression does suggest a customer who’s had to queue for half an hour at the complaints desk.

  ‘I’m Mr Westfall’s assistant,’ he says, offering a hand. There’s a nervy tension in the handshake; and clearly he’s not in the best of moods.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she says.

  ‘He can’t be disturbed at the moment. I’m sorry,’ he tells her, with a small smile that denotes immovableness. ‘He’s working. He never sees anyone in the afternoon.’

 
‘And when he finishes working – what then?’

  ‘He eats.’

  ‘Straight away?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take up much of his time,’ she persists. ‘I really do want to meet him. It would mean so much to me.’ There is a wheedling tone in her voice, which she dislikes.

  ‘Are you a painter?’ he asks.

  It’s obvious that he thinks she cannot be an artist, so she answers: ‘Yes, I am.’

  He seems a little surprised, but not disbelieving; his mouth opens slightly; he is a fraction less resolute now.

  ‘Just ten minutes?’ she pleads. ‘Five? I can come back any time this evening. Any time.’ She smiles; it’s too blatant an attempt to elicit sympathy, but it works.

  ‘I’ll have a word,’ he says. ‘Wait here.’ He leaves the doors ajar; the young woman at the table, turning the pages of a magazine, is smirking; a brown dog emerges from the shrubbery, trots up the steps and, ignoring her, nudges open one of the doors with its head, a moment before Robert reappears.

  ‘7.45,’ he says. ‘He can give you ten minutes.’

  ‘That’s fine. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he says, coolly. He steps back, taking hold of the door handles, and says: ‘The name?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your name.’

  ‘Matilda,’ she answers.

  ‘I’m Robert. We’ll see you later. 7.45. Don’t be late. He has a thing about punctuality.’

  ‘I won’t be late,’ she assures him. ‘Thank you.’

  The doors are already closed. The young woman gives a smile as Claire passes her table.

  1.4

  Gideon sits on a high stool in front of one of the easels. He is at work on a still life that has been commissioned by Niccolò Turone, formerly a test driver, nowadays the boss of a travel company which specialises in wildlife-watching expeditions. On the right-hand side of the picture, in front of a stack of cogs, there is a lizard, almost completed; Gideon is refining the colours of its tail when his assistant returns.

  ‘She’ll be back at a quarter to eight,’ says Robert, on his way through the studio.

  ‘Lord save me,’ murmurs Gideon, changing his brush. ‘Describe her,’ he requests.

  ‘My age, thereabouts. Catalogue clothes. Headmistress of a primary school in the depths of Surrey.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘A guess. Says she’s an artist.’

  ‘Evening-class watercolourist?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘A treat awaits. She understands she’s in the express lane?’

  ‘That was made clear.’

  ‘Good chap.’

  ‘One other thing,’ says Robert, at the door of his work room. ‘Max Jelinek. He’s proposing that the wife comes here in November. We have a photo. You might want to take a look.’

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘Severely rejuvenated face. Huge quantities of botox, plus knife work.’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘Remuneration would be generous.’

  ‘Of what order of generosity?’

  ‘The fee would not be an issue.’

  Gideon stops; he squints at the canvas as if it were a mirror. ‘Oh Christ,’ he sighs.

  ‘So what shall I tell him?’ asks Robert.

  ‘Tell him I’d rather eat gravel for a year.’

  ‘I’ll tell him we’ll let him know, at some unspecified point in the future.’

  ‘Yes, do that,’ says Gideon. ‘But not November. Next year. We can keep the wolf from the door until then.’ With a cocktail stick he applies three dots of colour to the lizard, and with each dot he mimics the ching of an old cash register.

  1.5

  WESTFALL, GIDEON. Born London, 1948. Attended Camberwell School of Art, 1968–72, prior to studying with Martin Calloway, 1973–75. First group exhibition: The New Classicism, Satler Gallery, London, 1978. Has exhibited widely in the USA and Europe; works are held in numerous private collections. Since 1993 he has lived in the central Italian town of Castelluccio.

  [From Who’s Who in British Art: 1945 to the present, edited by L. Andriessen & J. C. Myers, London, 2009.]

  1.6

  At 7.43pm Claire walks through the gate by the Alla Torre and there is Robert, on the steps, waiting. He checks his watch, gives her a gratified nod, says ‘Good evening’, and turns to lead her up the terracotta-tiled staircase. ‘We’re on the top floor,’ he says, and nothing more. By the time they reach the second storey she’s already six steps behind him; he doesn’t turn round.

  At the top landing he waits for her to catch up. A piano is playing inside. ‘Is that him?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Robert answers. ‘In so far as it’s his hi-fi.’ This is said without a smile. ‘Bach,’ he adds. ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book Two. One can never have too much of it, I say.’ He knocks, then immediately takes a key from his pocket and opens the door. They are in a dark hallway, facing another door; again Robert knocks and opens.

  This is her first sight of Gideon: he is sitting in an armchair, eyes closed. He lifts a hand, to signify that they should wait until the music has ended. Robert closes the door silently, takes a single step into the room; he peruses the ceiling, with his bottom lip pushed slightly out.

  Claire looks around the room. CDs fill a dozen shelves beyond the armchair, which faces a pair of loudspeakers that are as high as her shoulders. As expected, there are pictures: a woman, naked, lying on her back on a mattress, against a bare brick wall; a ruin, perhaps a cathedral, with grass growing in the nave; objects – bottles and jars, mostly – on a tabletop; a man standing on a wide grey sandy beach. The last one appears not to be by the person who painted the other three.

  The final chord evaporates, and Gideon aims the remote control at the CD player, with a conductor’s gesture of termination. He raises himself from his seat, carefully, smoothly, as if out of respect for the silence that the music has become. He removes the disc from the player, and Robert says: ‘Here’s Matilda.’

  Gideon puts the CD in its case; he files the disc on its rightful place. ‘Thank you,’ he says, and Robert departs, soundlessly. It’s like paying a visit to a cardinal.

  ‘So,’ says Gideon, facing her at last. ‘You’re from London.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Here on holiday?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘In what way “sort of”?’

  ‘It’s partly a holiday, but mainly I’ve come to see you.’

  In his face there is barely any visible acknowledgement of this statement; just enough for it to be understood that she would not be the first person to have come to Castelluccio primarily to meet Gideon Westfall. There is some resemblance to her father. The hands are her father’s: the thick, strong fingers, with flat and wide nails, like plectrums. Gideon’s hair has thinned as her father’s had thinned, and the mix of grey and dark brown is her father’s, as are the waves around the temples. The eyes are a version of her father’s too: the same colour, the same suggestion of purpose; this is a man, she observes, who aims to impress himself upon people at the outset. He’s larger than her father: both taller and heavier – fatter than in any of the photos she has found online. ‘Robert tells me you’re an artist,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not an artist,’ she replies.

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But that’s what you told Robert.’ The eyes have taken on a surface-penetrating intensity; displeasure is rising.

  ‘It is,’ she admits. ‘But I’m not.’

  ‘So why did you lead Robert to believe that you were?’ he demands. ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ she says.

  ‘Why should I recognise you?’

  ‘We’ve met. It’s been a few years. Best part of twenty. I’ve changed a bit.’ She waits for him to work it out, but he is not trying to work it out, so she tells him: ‘I’m Claire. Claire Yardley
.’ It’s quite impressive, the lack of reaction: he merely angles his head to the left a little, and fractionally narrows his eyes, as if he’s looking at a picture which until this moment had not interested him; now he’s spotted a mildly curious detail.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he murmurs. ‘You’re Claire.’ One corner of his mouth makes a wry upturn. ‘Yes. Yes, I can see it.’

  She offers a hand. ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘pleased to meet you.’

  Her manner is that of a seconded police officer meeting a colleague with whom she’s going to be working for a while. ‘Likewise,’ he says.

  ‘Surprised?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Not too unpleasantly?’

  ‘No. Not at all. But I can’t say I’m altogether sure the subterfuge was necessary.’

  ‘For all I knew, if I’d pressed the buzzer and said who I was, you’d have told me to go away.’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t.’

  ‘No “of course” about it. Eccentric artists and all that. And you did fend me off when I emailed.’

  ‘I’m not eccentric, and I didn’t fend you off.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘I said I was busy. Which I am.’

  ‘”Busy for the foreseeable future”. That’s not an invitation, is it?’

  He appears to disregard this point; he looks at her closely, as if reasoning away a grain of doubt as to her identity. ‘Do sit down,’ he says, like a lawyer with a client, indicating his armchair. He props himself into an angle of the wall, beside a window; she has to twist in the chair to face him. ‘So, you’re on holiday?’ he asks.

  ‘I told you,’ she replies. ‘I’ve come to see you.’

  ‘But not just to see me, surely?’

  ‘I’ll have a holiday while I’m at it. But you’re the main reason.’

  A momentary lowering of an eyebrow suggests that he finds this odd, and perhaps a little disturbing, as if she’s revealed that she can name every address at which he’s ever lived, plus the dates. ‘You’re here on your own?’ he asks.