This morning we have azure over most of the sky and white clouds dotted on the horizon, tiny small clouds, you could not hide a house in any of them. It would be good here, Edward, for both of us. You must come with me. You must. You must.
I keep thinking of things I should have said in my interview. There is a clever way of saying this. A special phrase, in French. What is it? Today we will be at my aunt’s house – she is ill again. But I will find some time to write the story for you. I hope you get some quietness today. I am very sleepy, so this is my ending. Baci, baci, baci. Your Pavolini.
three
A faint vibration, a low quiet thrumming, obtrudes into Edward’s consciousness. He hears it, at first, as water flowing through pipes: it is the sound that one hears when a heating system starts up and hot water begins to fill the radiators. Emerging from sleep, he recalls what time of year it is, and in the same instant he detects a smaller, sharper sound inside the murmur, a ticking inside the vibration. The source of the ticking is to his left, from where a wave of cooler air now passes, followed by a smothered boom of thunder. He goes to the window. Placing a palm on the glass, he feels the pulse of the rain. He pulls the window up and wipes his fingers across the slick wet paint of the frame. Again there is thunder, weaker than before, like a noise from a far-off quarry. He waits, and eventually there is one last boom, an expiring groan, so feeble it barely breaks through the sound of the rain. The horizon shrinks back to the margin defined by the spattering of water on the sill, then a piercing flourish of birdsong makes a point in space come into being, close to the building, within the garden. A pause follows, and a trill of high notes, a whistled baroque embellishment, identical to the first, straight ahead of him, no more than twenty yards away. A third trill receives an answering song: the same notes, in a new sequence. From a deeper recess of the garden comes a different call, a chirrup which rouses three or four kindred voices in a single tree or bush, down to the right, and this small chorus in turn stirs another, of the same species, somewhere behind it, and soon the garden is a fountain of birdsongs.
He puts on yesterday’s clothes and goes out into the corridor, into silence. With creeping steps he walks to the gallery. At the table near the top of the stairs he stops to ascertain what stands on it. His hands bump into a block of stone, on which a stone head is supported, a head with a swarm of minuscule furrows on its cheeks and a narrow nose and high brow crowned with short curls. The eyelids are smooth as cowries and half-lowered, and below the high collar there’s a medal or a badge of some sort. A general or a prince, he surmises, giving the bearded marble face a parting caress. Descending the stairs he becomes aware of rain drumming softly overhead, on a wide svkylight, he assumes. He steps down onto tiles and crosses the enormous hall, passing close to a clock he had not noticed before. Sensing the imprint of something sizeable on the air in front of him, he raises his arms and strikes a pedestal, with a long-leafed plant atop it. He steps aside, and five paces onward he touches the wall, which he follows to find the glass doors. They do not budge when he pushes them, but where they meet the floor he finds a metal plate with a countersunk bolt that slides easily upward, and at the top there is another, and then one door is free.
He stands in the shelter of the porch, his hands braced on a coarse stone column. Though the sun must be up, the coolness of night persists and the air has the cleansing scent of night-time. The conversation of the birds is ending; the rain is louder than it was. Water gargles in a drainpipe near the porch and the gravel driveway hisses, like air leaking from an inner tube that is almost flat. He leaves the porch and walks towards the garden, making a cowl of his jacket. A path of uneven stones departs from the gravel, flanked by leaves that scrape lightly under the impact of the pattering raindrops. Rhododendron, he guesses, and confirms his guess by touch. He reaches a junction of the path, where the rhododendron ceases. Following a track of bricks that veers off to the right, he comes to a spot where the rain is suddenly quieter. He stops and pulls the jacket down to listen. On both sides of the path he discerns a whispering that is the sound of water on a wide area of grass. He continues along the bricks until he comes to a smoothly paved area, encircled by sibilant shrubs. The rain is forming puddles here, but there is also a body of water high up, at the level of his head. His hands, groping, find a broad stone bowl that is fringed with slime. The shower is rapidly becoming heavier: the surface of the water in the bowl is burbling now, and the foliage of a nearby tree, a high tree, has begun to seethe. On the paving stones the rain raises a roar like a ceiling fan revolving at speed. It is a downpour now, but he does not move. Feeling the cold moss on his fingertips, and the cold water dribbling across his scalp, and the cold wet fabric on his chest and thighs, he senses the boundaries of his body, the contours of his invisible body, the dimensions of himself. All around him the garden is defined by tones and textures of sound, a continuum of sounds that give to the place in which he stands a continuous depth, a cohesion that the world presents to him infrequently. Avidly he listens, standing at the water bowl like a pilgrim with his hand on the foot of a miraculous statue.
Eloni looks out of the window of the dining room and sees Mr Morton walking along the path to the rose garden. His hair has been flattened by the rain and his jacket hangs over one shoulder like a used towel. His shirt is so wet that it looks as though his skin has been covered with clear plastic, but he is smiling as he walks along, turning his face this way and that, like somebody who is admiring the flowers. At the wooden arch of the rose garden he seems to change his mind. He lifts his face into the rain and wipes a hand down it, from his hairline to his chin. For a minute or longer he stays there, facing the clouds, then he moves off towards the hotel entrance, and his mouth is moving. He is talking to himself, calmly, continuously, as if having a discussion on his own. ‘Mr Caldecott,’ she calls, not raising her voice. She points at Mr Morton, who has gone up to one of the stone animals and is patting its head, smiling as you would smile at your pet dog. Mr Caldecott puts down the knife he was polishing and moves nearer to the window to watch what is happening, but at that very moment, as though he knew they were spying on him, Mr Morton stops what he was doing and crosses the path to the front door. ‘Do you think he is all right?’ she asks. Hearing the clang of the front door, Mr Caldecott goes out into the hall.
She finishes preparing the tables, recalling the old man who was mad. From morning to dusk some days he would stand by the fountain with his bag of apples and sing the same English song over and over again. His father was a duke, he said, and the pockets of his jacket were crammed with letters he said were from his father, but the letters made no sense at all, she was told. And on Sundays he walked all day, pressing a Bible to his heart, talking to himself as he walked, like Mr Morton was doing, and when he comes into the room for breakfast Mr Morton does look a bit mad, because he is grinning as if he has just met a friend in the hall, and he has rubbed his hair so it looks like straw sticking out of a sack, and his shirt is only half tucked into his waistband and has damp patches all over it.
He crosses the room, towards a chair that has been left out of place. Before she can move it he has knocked against its leg and stumbled. An expression of panic flashes on his face; his hand is on the back of the chair, gripping it as though it were a railing on the edge of a cliff. She runs up to him, and his eyes seem to trace shapes in the air around her head. ‘I am sorry,’ she says. ‘Let me, please.’
‘Thank you,’ he says, and his hand moves up and closes gently on her shoulder. ‘I’m clumsy this morning,’ he apologises. ‘I think I have water in my ears. I got caught in the rain,’ he explains, with a small laugh.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It was bad.’
‘It was quite something,’ he replies. ‘I enjoy a good deluge. Wakes me up,’ he says, making his eyebrows go up and down. ‘And now I’m in the mood for a huge volume of food,’ he smiles, lowering himself into the chair that she has pulled out for him. Speaking clearly and courteousl
y, he tells her what he would like to have for breakfast, and then, toying with a spoon, he remarks: ‘I didn’t catch your name. Yesterday, when I asked you –’
‘Eloni,’ she responds, retreating half a pace, and she adds, in the same breath: ‘I bring your coffee.’
‘And where are you from?’ he asks. Smiling directly at her face, he waits for her to answer. ‘Do you mind my asking?’
‘No. No. I come from Greece.’
‘From where, exactly?’
‘Ioannina.’
‘Ioannina,’ he repeats, pronouncing the name exactly. ‘Ioannina. Forgive me. I don’t recognise it. Where is Ioannina?’
‘The north.’
‘East or west?’
‘West.’
‘Up in the mountains?’
‘By the mountains.’
‘Is it a big town?’
‘A big town, yes.’
‘I see,’ says Mr Morton solemnly. ‘I apologise for my ignorance. I haven’t been to Greece and I haven’t read an atlas for a very long time.’ With the edge of his hand he pushes a shallow wave across the tablecloth. Just as she is turning to go, he asks: ‘And how long have you been here?’
‘In England?’
‘In England. At the hotel. Either.’
‘Some months.’
‘And do you like England?’ he asks with a smile that does not seem to be the smile of someone who is trying to trick her.
‘I like it, yes.’
‘But it rains.’
‘Everywhere it rains. It is not so bad.’
‘True, true. Everywhere it rains,’ he laughs, nodding his head, and then suddenly he says: ‘You have an intriguing voice.’ He says it plainly, as if her voice were something in the room, as if he were making a comment on the colour of the carpet. ‘It’s very nice to hear,’ he continues. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘No,’ she replies.
‘Good,’ says Mr Morton. ‘Sometimes I misjudge.’ He rubs his jaw, and it is obvious that he is thinking about what she has told him. ‘Forgotten to shave,’ he remarks, scowling at his hand. ‘I mustn’t keep you. You have other things to do, I’m sure.’
She turns away from Mr Morton’s smile, believing that he knows she is lying. At the door of the kitchen she looks back, to see him rubbing his chin thoughtfully, like a detective thinking about a clue. He turns his face towards her, and her skin goes hot and then cold. She steps backwards into the kitchen, certain now that he knows she is lying. When she takes his pot of coffee to his table she is afraid to look at him; she pretends to be busy so as to avoid having to talk. Through the window in the door she watches Mr Morton as he eats his breakfast. From time to time he stops, holding his fork upright and lifting his head as though listening to someone speak. Her heart is beating out of rhythm as she watches Mr Morton, and long after he has gone back upstairs it still feels as if something heavy and small, like a little block of lead, is turning inside her chest. Annie is telling her about something she saw on television last night, but she cannot listen properly to what Annie is saying. To control the shaking of her hands she washes some pans that did not need to be washed; she mops an area of unstained floor. At the bang of the kitchen’s inner door an attack of dread turns her muscles to water. She cannot move, but it is only Mr Caldecott, who is calling her into his office.
He closes the door of the office and shows her the chair she should sit on. He does not sit down himself, but leans against his desk, with a serious expression and his arms folded, just as he did on the morning she first saw this room, after she had told him the truth about where she was born.
‘Mr Morton seemed OK to me. Did he seem OK to you?’ he asks her.
‘Yes. He is OK.’
‘He seems a nice man.’
‘Yes,’ she says, but Mr Caldecott is not looking at her now. He is gazing into the garden, as if waiting for somebody to arrive with news that may not be good. With a blink he cuts off the thought that is troubling him and turns back to her. His lips make a shape like a smoker’s, slowly breathing out. ‘I’ve made some more calls, Eloni. It doesn’t look very hopeful, I have to say. There’s a hotel in Bath, the manager’s a friend, but he couldn’t arrange things the way we’ve arranged them here. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘He would have to do things properly. With the paperwork. You see?’ His hands rise and fall in an apologising gesture. ‘In London people wouldn’t be so strict. There would be more opportunities.’
‘I don’t want to go back.’
‘I know you didn’t like it. But it would be better for you, for work.’
‘It is a horrible place. And you need too much money. I cannot go back,’ she insists, and Mr Caldecott acknowledges that she cannot. Worriedly he glances at the garden again. ‘What will happen, Mr Caldecott?’ she asks him. ‘With the hotel?’
‘No, they won’t knock it down. They are selling it to another company, who will change it into something else. A club with bedrooms.’
‘For people to stay?’
‘Yes, for people to stay.’
‘So they will need it to be cleaned. So I could work here?’
‘Well, it will be closed for a long time, while they refit the building. And I think it would be difficult to work here. Difficult for you.’
‘But you will stay here?’
‘No, Eloni. I won’t stay here. They will bring a new manager.’
‘But you will be here? In this place? This –’
‘Area?’
‘This area, yes,’ she says, feeling her heartbeat growing stronger and uneven.
‘No. There’s not much demand for hotel managers in this neighbourhood,’ he says, picking a hair from his cuff. ‘I think it will be London. The bright lights.’
At the thought that she may never be in Mr Caldecott’s office again she looks where he is looking, at the path that leads to the tennis court. Steam is coming off the stones in curling wisps that disappear as they rise. The sunlight on the hanging raindrops looks like thousands of tiny light bulbs in the bushes, like Christmas lights but in summer. When a blackbird bursts out from the branches of the evergreen tree it sends up a shower of droplets that glitter like stars against the dark green leaves. It is so beautiful, the garden of the hotel, and so quiet in this room, that she feels as if she has drunk something that has made her mind stop working, a delicious drink of forgetfulness.
‘Well,’ says Mr Caldecott, touching the knot of his tie as he stands up.
‘Yes,’ she replies, pushing herself out of the chair. ‘I must go to clean the rooms,’ she says, and as she leaves the office she is thinking of the lights of London, the huge billboards of flashing lights above the traffic. She sees the crowds of people pushing each other, in air that tasted of aluminium, and then she sees another scene, a scene she was trying to keep away, and she has to go into an empty bedroom so that nobody will catch her crying, and she sits on the bed, pressing her face into a pillow until she can longer see the tattooed man.
In his room, Edward listens to another e-mail from Claudia:
Here is the story for you. It is a bit silly but also I think a little sad, and beautiful too. A postcard is what it is about. An old postcard and an old love. Not even a love, I think.
Papa called me into his cave of books. He gives me a creased old postcard and tells me what the trouble is about. Last week mother decided to make the living room tidy. The books were spreading all over the apartment – a book-lava, flowing out of the studiolo into every room. She picks them up from under the television, behind the chairs, all over, and carries the pile back to their right home. As she puts the books down, this postcard falls out of one of them. It’s an interesting thing to find – an old-style card, with wavy edges and a picture of Piazza Navona on the front, all in brown. It is addressed to my father at his parents’ house and was sent by someone called Antonietta. She reads the message. The message is not interesting: ‘Rome is exciting
…so many things to see…we have visited this and this and tomorrow we will see that and that.’ Boring, the usual thing. But Antonietta had drawn a little red heart in one corner and a little arrow through it. So mother looks at the date: it is from the time when she (mother) was my father’s girlfriend, but before they were going to get married. My mother knows these dates: I know cephalopods, my father knows politics (and a lot more) and my mother knows when my father kissed her, and when he asked her to marry him, and when I walked my first step. She has all these dates wired into her brain. My mother is a calendar.
When my father comes home the postcard is on his desk, in the middle of the desk, so he cannot miss it. The evidence. He picks it up, looks at it, puts it aside. A bit curious, but that is all. He puts it aside. But mother is behind him, watching. She thinks she sees what she was afraid of seeing – and what she wanted to see. Why was the card in the book, she wants to know. It has been in there for years and years, he says. He has not read the book for a long time. He’d forgotten it was there. It’s nothing important. So why had he kept it? He hadn’t kept it, he answers – he just hadn’t thrown it away. That is a different thing. Sometimes my father’s way of reasoning – his way of all the time being reasonable – makes my mother very angry and this is one of those times. She was already angry; now she is furious, because he is being like a Jesuit. Why had he kept the postcard? It is very meaningful for him, that is obvious. Why had he kept it? Was that girl in love with him? Was he in love with her? And my father, instead of telling her ‘No’, he stops to have a think. This was stupid, but what he did next was really stupid. He has his think and he says, ‘Perhaps a bit. Before I met you.’ Why did he say this? Is it because he wants to be an Englishman? Because this is what an Englishman would do? Not do what is best but answer like a child, honestly, saying the truth even if it makes things worse? He says, ‘Perhaps a bit.’ Unbelievable, no? This is the man who knows my mother better than anyone in the world. It is the worst he could do.
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