‘Have you eaten properly today?’
She said nothing.
She closed her eyes again, picturing her grandmother in her large wicker chair, a blouse cut arrestingly across her chest.
‘Elena.’
She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘Of course I’ve eaten.’ But seeing his hurt expression, she immediately sat up and put her arms round his neck. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly into his neck. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Just remember we’ve escaped all that, Elena.’ He looked down at her, pushing back her hair from her forehead. ‘You’ve escaped,’ he said, gripping her tightly. ‘You’re a woman now, with your own family. Don’t let her in.’
But as he held her to him she met her reflection in the glass of the window behind him, and her eyes seemed like two dark holes out of which anything could climb.
Rue de Lille, 1925
‘Books books books.’
‘Why are there so many?’
The solid men in overalls kept rolling the bookcases into the nursery so that they began to form a kind of maze.
‘Because Cousin Walter didn’t know when to stop.’ Harry sat down on the edge of the bed and she felt the mattress shake with the excited tremor of his legs. ‘There are eight thousand of them.’
‘Where will they all go?’
‘Into our heads to feed our guts.’ He stood and took one from the shelf. ‘Bound in the skin of an eighteenth-century courtesan.’
As Diana reached up to touch he snapped it shut, crocodile quick, and began shouting at the men where to put the next ones.
‘But how will I get to my desk? Or my window?’
He looked around and smiled at the darkening room.
‘I like it here now with these trenches made of words. And you little rat, scurrying back and forth in the in-between.’
Roccasinibalda, 1970
‘Let me, Mr Porto. You’re making a mess of that beautiful ham.’
Diana moved into the bright light falling from the open refrigerator and took the knife from the poet’s hand. He threw a trailing strip of fat into his mouth and smiled.
‘The most delicious ham in the world. When I think of the shit I eat in America. Did you know you can buy ham there that is formed in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head? A pig turned into a mouse – food to make kids feel safe. A fairy tale of the darkest order.’ He ate another piece. ‘The process for making this is very elaborate. A real craft. More than seven stages, over a year. I would not have the patience.’
‘What about your poems?’ Diana said, concentrating on the smooth cut of the knife. ‘Isn’t that a similarly arduous process?’ She set a plate down and then eyed the remaining contents of the fridge. ‘I’m ravenous.’
Ellis flicked his eyes over the body bent before him. She was wearing a dress that tucked in at her waist and those tied-on shoes – there was something about her that made him nostalgic. She stood up straight holding a plate of meat and a lettuce and threw him a smile.
‘Would you like me to cook you something? I like to eat late at night.’
‘Are you sure that meat’s all right? It’s been there for some time.’
She laughed. ‘I like my meat hung until the first maggot falls to the floor. Brings the flavour to life.’
‘You really are lost to your country. America wouldn’t know what to do with you.’
‘Now that’s a compliment.’ She turned away and, placing the bloody meat on a large slab of marble, began to twist a pepper mill over it.
‘You never go back?’ he asked.
‘Occasionally. My money’s held hostage by the draconian Bostonians.’
‘And you’re still welcome? Despite your mother breaking ranks?’
‘Oh, she was never out.’ She reached over and took a pinch of salt. ‘There’s no such thing when the blood’s that blue. They all loved having someone to be scandalised by. She was doing them a favour. Probably made them all feel wonderfully together. There’s nothing quite so unifying as having a common enemy, is there?’
He smiled and filled her glass.
‘My mother did go back though, in the forties. For quite some time. Not to Boston, of course, but still . . .’
‘Yes, she mentioned a haunted plantation in Virginia.’
Diana raised her eyes to the heavens. ‘Hell.’
‘An interesting choice, I must say.’
‘She had a new husband, a college football player, and she let him choose where they were going to live. I think he wanted to be a corn farmer, little realising that where my mother goes, a scourge follows. By that time she was entirely caught up with that Surrealist psychopath Dalí and his band of exhausting hangers-on. He “enchanted” Mother’s pond, which involved cutting my new bicycle in half and throwing it in the middle.’
‘And where is the young husband now?’
‘In a bar somewhere? Dead? Who knows. He turned out to be a nasty drunk. He would disappear for months, then come back when he needed some more money. He was only twenty-six when they got together and she was well into her fifties. I never understood what she saw in him, daylight-wise. I’m sure he was a riot in the feathers.’
‘My old man was a mean drunk. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Let alone a woman worthy of worship like your mother.’
Diana was silent as she crushed a white bud of garlic with the flat of a knife.
‘Been working up an appetite?’ He leaned back and crossed his arms.
‘I always have an appetite.’
‘I noticed you and the lawyer having a little quarrel at dinner. You don’t like him.’
Diana looked at him as she poured vinegar into a jar. ‘You’re very observant, Mr Porto. I forget that about having writers around. And no, I don’t like him. He’s far too dependent, it’s unattractive. A personally unsuccessful lawyer should set off alarm bells, don’t you think?’
‘I have no interest in them.’
‘My lawyers are always the kind of men you can put your trust in. I met my most recent while sailing. He lives on one of those funny little Channel islands that were occupied in the war. If you’re going to employ someone to keep your affairs in order then you might as well choose someone you want to have an affair with while they’re at it.’
Ellis smiled obligingly. ‘Where is he now?’
‘Oh, he’s around, but his wife keeps him on a tight leash.’ There was a hiss of hot fat as she laid the meat in the pan.
‘I didn’t think you were the type of woman who would know how to cook.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’ He spread his hands.
‘You only need to be able to do a few things well. Meat – rare. Eggs, obviously. A good green salad – only the tender leaves. A very tight dressing.’ Diana shrugged. ‘I like taking care of my friends.’
Ellis was careful not to register his pleasure at being counted as such.
‘I was taught the basics by a wonderful woman when I was growing up in Paris. A lesbian called Louise, built like a longshoreman. She cooked good French food, though working for my mother meant she also had to learn how Americans ate. She became quite expert at frying chicken and making creamed cod for Mother’s endless dinner parties. Nowadays, of course, a good cook is as hard to find as an albino alligator, though I was lucky with my housekeeper Inés. Loyal and lacking in self-esteem. Those are the qualities to look for.’
‘Don’t you think the days of servant and master are done? Why should some poor old broad have to pick up your panties just because you can pay her?’
‘Because she needs a job?’ Diana said, sounding bored. ‘Mr Porto, my mother and I don’t see eye to eye on many things, but we are in complete agreement when it comes to wealth not proportionate to personal need. I should also remind you that we’re having this conversation in the kitchens of a castle.’ She forked the chops from the pan onto a plate.
‘You haven’t cooked those for very long.’
‘They’re practically char
red. Now salad.’ She poured the dressing over the leaves lying curled in the wooden bowl and then undid the small buttons that ran up the length of her sleeves and pushed them up. ‘La salade doit être retournée comme une femme.’
‘Bien sûr, jusqu’ à ce qu’elle soit bien mouillée.’
Diana frowned. ‘You speak French.’
‘You’re surprised.’
‘Yes.’ She nodded, her face softening. ‘But pleasantly.’
‘The Navy. I spent a lot of time in a French whorehouse in Okinawa. A lotta bangs all round. You?’
‘I was taken to Paris when I was six and stayed there right through the war until I joined the Red Cross.’
Ellis raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes.’ Diana straightened her shoulders. ‘I drove ambulances.’
‘Very impressive.’
‘I might look like I sit around all day, Mr Porto, but I’ve lived my life.’
‘I believe it.’
‘So,’ she asked, smiling, ‘did you ever go to France?’
‘I’m an American poet.’ He spread his hands. ‘But it’s like a broad that’s had too many men. It’s Greece that blew my mind.’
Diana laughed, a raucous sound, and they stood at the counter and ate, blood leaching across the shared plate.
‘Everybody raves about Paris in the twenties, but I think the later times were more interesting in France. Life under occupation was grim in many ways, of course, but I’d be lying if I denied that I found it fascinating. One night I crashed a German nightclub by following two officers inside and my God it was a tawdry evening. The Nazis were treating the girls roughly and there was an air of absolute desperation about the whole scene. The evening was redeemed by a single moment of victory when I saw a pink-haired blonde retaliate with a resounding smack across the flabby face of the Prussian who was mauling her.’
‘Why did you stay? You could have gone anywhere.’
‘I was loyal to the place. My mother had returned to the States, enraptured by her surrealism. Her contribution to the war effort was to open a gallery of Modern Art in Washington.’
‘Truth is needed more than ever in times of war.’
‘Not more than bandages.’ Her eyes flashed. Ellis continued to eat, and said nothing. ‘I wrote a book about the war actually.’ Diana spoke in a quieter voice. ‘It sold very well.’
‘What was it called?’
‘Through Occupied Territory.’
‘Your mother wrote one too, didn’t she? The Passionate Years?’ he hazarded.
Laying down her knife and fork, Diana crossed her arms. ‘It’s out of print.’
‘So both you and your mother have written books about yourselves.’
‘Well, some lives are worth recording,’ Diana said with a lift of her chin. ‘Why do you write?’ she asked after a pause, wiping a lettuce leaf in the bloody juices collected on the plate.
‘Because I don’t know how else to fight the days.’ He chewed thoughtfully. ‘This meat is raw.’
Diana smiled.
‘I read up about your stepfather while I was back in New York. Harry Crosby – the WASP war hero.’
Diana was still. Ellis noted this and the sound of his chewing suddenly became very loud in his ears.
‘War is no laughing matter. I’m surprised you mock it so readily.’
‘I don’t mock war, I mock heroic labels.’
‘We can’t help where we’re born.’ She flicked her eyes over him. ‘I’ve often thought that those who try to change that little twist of fate are reserved for some special punishment.’
They were silent for a moment.
‘You know,’ Diana began to speak again. ‘Verdun devastated him, whatever my mother might say. He used to tell me about it late at night as the moon spilled over us. He would read aloud from his endless books.’ She poured herself a glass of wine and then pushed the bottle towards Ellis. ‘Occasionally he’d describe the bodies, horrible and broken, clawing at their mouths. The water alive with red slugs. Rats that invaded the dugouts and ran all over the bodies of the sleeping boys.’ Her body was tensed. ‘It was the end of his childhood. All the genteel manners he’d been guided by just . . . died. And he almost died, you know. He should have died.’ She spoke earnestly. ‘His friend was talking to him as they both cleaned their ambulance when a shell fell right where they were standing. Ambulance gone. Friend gone. Only Harry lived.’ She fell silent and Ellis saw that her blue eyes had darkened as though a cloud were moving through her.
‘The end of God,’ he said, rubbing his thumb across his lip.
‘How could anyone go on believing in the same God being prayed to by boys soiling two different uniforms?’
‘And so he worshipped the sun . . . Gaze blank and pitiless . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘Some of Crosby’s ideas about the sun are interesting. But a lot is derivative. Most of it seems like superstitious baloney.’
‘Isn’t that religion in a nutshell?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Anyway, isn’t all this interest in another writer rather putting to bed the idea of the self-obsessed artist?’
‘I like to know who I’m sharing a roof with.’
‘But you’re not sharing a roof with my stepfather.’ Diana waved her hair back from her head and turned away.
‘So, ambulances,’ he said softly. ‘Making the old man proud.’
‘Old man?’ she repeated, turning back towards him. She shook her head. ‘He didn’t let that happen to him.’
Rue de Lille, 1924
Mette was waiting to take her up.
‘They’ve been home for a few hours. Can’t think what they’ve brought back in all those boxes.’ She breathed heavily as she heaved her body up the stairs. ‘Even more dusty nonsense to keep clean, I’ll bet.’
‘They went to the desert,’ Diana explained, her voice echoing on the shadowy stone staircase. ‘And to see the tombs. They buried people with their pets still alive there.’
‘Waste of time,’ Mette muttered darkly.
There were many people upstairs, sitting around and standing in the hallway, talking in groups. Diana was led past Harry and she heard him describing ‘a scorpion, that if it is cut in two, will begin a battle between the head and the tail . . .’ There was the pop of a champagne cork and through the chatter Diana could hear her mother’s voice rising and falling above all the others, already telling her tales, as Mette’s chafed red hand led her into the drawing room and then left her by a table. On it was the huge carved head she’d always admired, its eyes closed in sleep. She touched it and it was smooth under her hand. She drew it towards her, wanting to feel if she could lift it a little. She just needed to get a better angle so that she could . . .
‘Diana?’
She looked up and her mother was looking at her. So was everybody else.
‘She’s making love to the Brâncuși,’ her mother laughed. ‘Three months and she hardly seems to have noticed I’ve been gone.’
Diana stared hard at the floor, trying not to see the three blackened hands her mother was unpacking onto the table.
‘Look at Harry’s ring. A sun ring.’
He held his hand up to show the room the heavy gold ring on his finger.
‘He will never take it off.’ Her mother stood behind him, holding herself tight against him.
‘I will never take it off.’ He stared up at it, his arm held high.
‘Come and get your present, Diana,’ Caresse turned and called to her. ‘Harry picked it out especially.’
Roccasinibalda, 1970
‘Diana, you must meet Heike . . .’
‘Must I?’ Diana came over reluctantly, holding a loaded straw basket.
‘Where have you been? What bounty!’
‘To the market in Rieti. Just look at these persimmon.’ She put down the basket and pulled open a paper bag full of soft-skinned orange fruit. ‘They’re perfect.’ She smiled down at them, but as she glanced up at the two women, her fac
e closed again.
‘Heike is here from Berlin and has been telling me all about a journey she’s just made to the Australian outback. It sounds absolutely breathtaking. Apparently, there’s a very important art movement starting there with the indigenous people beginning to share their paintings of the . . . what did you say it was called, Heike?’
‘Their dreaming,’ the girl said.
‘Yes. The dream time. It’s quite wonderful, Diana. They each have their own song and the song gives them a map of the land and . . . well, it’s fantastically complex and just riveting. I am going to write to a young artist I know from Sydney and ask him to begin organising something for next summer. I’d like to invite the aborigines here for an exposition, and perhaps a painting on the walls of the castle or a series of rooms . . . I’m so glad you’ve shared this with me, Heike. Don’t you think it’s fascinating, Diana?’
‘Yes, I do.’ She spat a shining brown pip into her cupped hand.
‘And what do you do, Diana?’ The young German woman turned to her.
‘Diana drifts about,’ Caresse interjected. ‘Heike makes conceptual pieces, darling. It’s an important new direction. You know, Heike, I must introduce you to a woman I know in Buenos Aires who runs a ranch that grows the hemp you were talking about. Perhaps you could go and spend some time there and make some of your work in the Argentine.’
‘Yes.’ Heike nodded, smiling. ‘That would be very nice.’
‘My mother is as good at fixing people up as she is bad at letting them finish their sentences. But you must make use of it, Heike.’ Diana smiled at her as she stood to go, trying to ignore the little ache that was spreading up through her chest, threatening to pull the corners of her mouth down. She focused now on the girl; there was something pliable about her that she warmed to. ‘I’m going to swim later, you should come with me. I’ve found a terribly good little trattoria in a village I pass through. We can have some dinner together.’ She deliberately kept her gaze away from her mother.
‘Thank you, I would like that.’
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