“Or America or France for that matter,” declared Mr. Woodruff, who had represented his firm on two brief occasions in New York and Paris.
“Probably did,” Mrs. Blundells agreed. Her husband wasn’t sticking up for himself against that jumped-up electronics boy with his showing-off. Besides, at home you only had to listen in the streets and you heard a right tower of Babel. Might be Brum or Sheffield. The Midlands. That was where the foreigners came for ideas, saleable ideas. Why, they got them in the shop most days of the week. Retail hardware and she didn’t care who knew it.
In her front seat with Mrs. Chilton at her side as before Mrs. Lawler read her guide book after they left the Appian Way. She had taken a melancholy pleasure in that long, straight graveyard as they bumped along it, but had not wanted to get down to take photographs when ‘Roseanna’ stopped for that purpose. Nor had Mrs. Chilton shown any wish to get out. Nor Mrs. Banks, knitting away by the window on the opposite side of the coach; nor Penny Banks, smoking her endless chain of cigarettes with the window beside her pulled halfway down.
A horrid girl Penny, Mrs. Lawler had now decided. Uncouth, grubby, dressed in near rags, she had been unattractive hitherto but an object more for pity than wrath. This morning, however, she had shown herself as dangerous as an adder in the grass, as pointlessly aggressive if in any way disturbed.
Moving towards the coach that morning, Penny had pushed past her mother who was in polite competition with Mrs. Lawler to let the other climb up first. She had been about to push past the latter also, but Mrs. Lawler had put out an arm to stop her, saying mildly, “Your, mother first, surely, Miss Banks.” Whereupon Miss Banks had rifted a heavy-sandalled foot and kicked out at Mrs. Lawler’s shin.
The schoolmistress had not spent years with the young in vain. Nor had she lost all of her very highly trained physical skill. She jumped quickly up two steps as the girl’s foot came at her, so that Penny, instead of instant revenge, met an instant steel punishment far more severe than Mrs. Lawler’s rebuke. She fell back against her father screaming obscene abuse in rage and pain.
Mrs. Lawler simply went on up the steps, followed by Mrs. Banks. Neither said anything. Mr. Banks gripped his daughter, told her to shut her filthy trap and threw her up the steps where Mario, eyes shining with excited amusement, for he had not fully understood what had happened, had left the driver’s seat when the two older women had moved to their places.
Penny Banks, writhing at the top of the steps, hit out at the nearest thing to her, which was Mario’s face bending down to see what had happened. The next instant she was picked up and swung round into the place behind her mother. Two very large hands held her down for a few seconds, then released her. Billie’s voice said, with professional calm. “Is anything the matter, Miss Banks? Your father thinks …”
“Bugger my father!” yelled Miss Banks, but her foot hurt, Mario was back in the driver’s seat, neither her mother nor Mrs. Lawler was looking at her, the other people in the coach, after a few nervous laughs, were taking no notice. She collapsed into tears. But Mario had started the engine, so this final bid for importance attracted no attention whatever.
All the same when ‘Roseanna’ stopped, at a viewpoint above the volcanic lake, looking back across the blue water at Castel Gandolfo on the opposite height, Mrs. Lawler said to her companion, “I should like to take a photograph here.”
Mrs. Chilton prepared to leave her seat. Mrs. Lawler went on, “Will you come with me? I see that nasty child has followed the Bankses out. You could guard me from her while I’m concentrating on a picture.”
She spoke in a deliberately light-hearted manner, but her inner fear was quite genuine. Unbelievable it might be, but real violence could not be ruled out, nor a real weapon.
So Mrs. Chilton went first and Mrs. Lawler followed, camera in hand. The rest of the tourists were spread along the low wall at the edge of the lay-by. Penny Banks was sitting on the wall, her injured foot supported upon the opposite knee, showing it to Billie, who had a small First-Aid box open, offering the girl its contents.
“Safe enough for the moment,” said Mrs. Lawler happily over her shoulder, turning back at once to focus her camera upon the distant summer palace.
But there was no answer and when she had finished and turned round she saw that Mrs. Chilton had walked away to the edge of the road and was staring down it where it wound away from the lake and back to the plain below the hills.
‘Roseanna’ took them all into Frascati at mid-morning for coffee and then back to Rome for lunch at the hotel. There was no further trouble with the Banks family. Covered by an ample dressing the injured foot did not seem to be much damaged.
“Bashed the big toe to judge by the blood,” young Woodruff said with authority. “Stubbed it on the steps, didn’t she?”
No one wanted to discuss it with him. Bleeding from stubbed toes was not a favourite topic. Miss Banks climbed the steps after her mother, given a push from behind by her father and a pull from a graining Mario in front. But there were no more hysterics.
At lunch, to Mrs. Lawler’s relief, two more women joined the table she was sharing with Gwen Chilton. They explained themselves in pleasant gentle voices; Myra Donald, a widow, Florence Jeans, unmarried. Both in the Civil Service, working at Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire. Both reasonably experienced travellers and they shared Mrs. Lawler’s interest in the arts. They suggested some more sight-seeing on foot that afternoon, but Mrs. Lawler had had enough for the day, she told them. In fact her encounter with Penny Banks had alarmed and shaken her more than she was prepared to acknowledge and though she now knew she need not in future lack real companions on this tour, she was tired and she wanted to rest and write a few letters. They would meet at dinner, she told her new friends.
Mrs. Chilton had left the dining table earlier than the other three. She had joined in their conversation, Mrs. Lawler had noted, without effort, but with no eagerness. She looked as pale as ever and ate very little. She must be ill, the schoolmistress thought.
Between five and six o’clock Mrs. Lawler decided to go out, buy stamps and post her letters and after that make her way to the square nearest to her hotel and order an ice at the Jag open-air restaurant there.
The late afternoon sun was very hot, the tables and chairs spread in a cool shade. Mrs. Lawler, with a thin air-mailed copy of an English newspaper in her hand, the first she had seen since leaving Gatwick, began to read as she waited for her ice. When it arrived she put the paper down and began to eat. The ice was delicious, the air clear and remarkably free from petrol fumes, the milling crowds colourful, happy, charming, better dressed, better mannered than in the deplorable Piccadilly Circus of recent times. This was excellent, this was wholly excellent, this was what she had …
At the other side of the spread of chairs and tables, sitting close together at a table far out into the street, she saw Gwen Chilton and the scar-faced guide of Siena … Strong, wasn’t it … Yes, Owen Strong.
Chapter Three
“She’s seen us,” Owen said to Gwen, “but don’t look about to find her. We don’t want her coming over.”
“Why not?”
“Too nosy. Too sharp. She frightens me.”
“Get on with you.”
He gave her the comic smile and patted her knee under the table. Gwen smiled back.
“Besides,” Owen went on, “you haven’t told me half that sad story of yours.”
Gwen fumbled in her handbag for her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. But to her annoyance and alarm the tears refused to flow. She tried to sob but it did not sound very convincing.
“Go ahead,” Owen said calmly, disregarding these efforts. “Or would you rather I waved to Mrs. Lawler?”
“You dare!” Gwen sat up straight in genuine alarm. “Besides,” she added waspishly, “she’s heard the lot. All eleven years of it.”
“I bet she hasn’t. No, don’t tell me. Just get on with the last six, was it? After you discovered about t
he girl in Croydon.”
“I told him I had enough evidence to divorce him and had a very good mind to do it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure his business wasn’t cracking. I wasn’t going to be left with nothing. And her to have what there was.”
Owen smiled again.
“Did you tell that sensible decision to Mrs. Highbrow Lawler?”
“What d’ you think?”
“You wouldn’t like it if I did.”
Owen’s face was still pleasantly comic, but his voice held a cutting note that stopped Gwen’s breath. He glanced at her, but waited patiently. He was in no immediate hurry.
At last she said, changing the subject, “I thought you said you were going to Naples?”
“I did. And I was.”
“To stay with friends.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you back?”
“The visit was over. I wanted to come back. Don’t say why to Rome. You know I came back to find you.”
She wanted desperately to believe it. If it was genuine he could find a way for her from the position she was in through no fault of her own. The tour was all right. But at the end of it? She had a vision of arriving back at Gatwick. Who would she find there to welcome her? Him — or —
She shivered violently and one or two people at neighbouring tables looked at her curiously. Owen, who noticed everything, whose eyes had never stopped recording their whole surrounding scene, waved to the white-coated elderly waiter to ask for their bill.
“She’s still there,” he said, meaning Mrs. Lawler. “We’ll go to my hotel. But we’ll walk down to the Spanish Steps to throw her off the scent.”
“How?” asked Gwen sulkily. “She won’t follow us there, will she?”
“I think not,” he answered in a grave, wholly natural voice. “It wouldn’t occur to her.”
“Well, then?”
But the bill had arrived and Owen was paying it and chatting affably with the waiter, so she got no answer, though she gave herself the satisfaction of locating Mrs. Lawler and waving to her. Owen Strong might be taking her to his hotel and she had no doubt of his intention in so doing. In fact she would have felt insulted if she proved to be wrong. But he wasn’t going to have the last word and he wasn’t going to screw any more of the past out of her.
At Owen’s hotel he collected the key of his room while she sat with a drink in the lounge. They went quietly up together and she was not at all wrong about his intention. But very wrong about that last word.
She lay watching him dress, pleasantly drowsy and very contented. She had enjoyed herself more than she had expected and far more than she had thought possible when she joined the coach at Genoa. Not a single one of the men on their plane who looked even capable had turned up on ‘Roseanna’. The thought of two whole dreary weeks with that lot …
Owen looked round at her. Nicely relaxed, ready to give the facts he wanted. Just a little shake and she’d fall like a ripe plum — well, not exactly a plum, a bit shrivelled, even if ripe.
He stopped drooling to himself and leaving his jacket hanging on a chair went over and sat on the side of the bed and picking up Gwen’s left hand gently slid the wedding ring off and stared at the bare finger.
“How long did you say you’ve been married?”
“Eleven years,” she answered, “and each of them after the first, a lifetime …”
“Of misery,” Owen finished for her. “Then how come the ring has left no impression whatever.”
A familiar warning bell sounded in Gwen’s brain.
“The ring?” she repeated to gain time, to choose which tale would go down best.
“Yes, the wedding ring. I don’t believe you, Gwen, my darling. I don’t believe you’ve worn this ring for eleven years.”
He was making it too easy, but still she was puzzled. He had accused her so pleasantly, so smoothly. He was no jealous boy trying to work up his passion by rootling in her past. Oh no. He was far older than she was, in more ways than one. So what was his game? Better cut it off short, but stop the questions first.
Snatching her ring back from him, ramming it on to her finger, she wriggled away to the opposite side of the bed, swung her legs to the floor and said with a well-simulated choking sob, “All right, I haven’t worn it all that time.” And defiantly, “I always take it off at night, anyhow.”
Owen laughed aloud. Gwen went across the room in one bound to smack his crooked face but he caught the hand in such a fierce grip that she screamed, though no sound came, for his other hand covered her mouth.
She was not frightened for she knew he had not lost his temper and he was the kind of man who did not become dangerous until his temper ruled him. So she let herself go limp and found herself plunged on the bed again, while Owen walked across to the wash basin to clean his hand of her saliva.
“Get dressed, you silly bitch,” he said in his gentle voice.
Gwen wept a few genuine tears.
Later, restoring her hair and make-up, she told him the second version of her marital troubles. She did it well.
“I didn’t want you to know,” she began. “Roy Chilton has been my boss for eleven years. He was married all that time, five years before, actually. At first I thought he’d get a divorce, but then as it went on and on …”
“You realised he did not intend to give up his family?”
“That’s right I know it’s an old story, but it does happen. In the end …”
“You ran out on him?”
She nodded and he let her finish the work on her face. Then he said, “What are you using for money?”
She was not caught. In fact she was relieved. Money. That was what he wanted from her, was it? Poor nit. She’d begun to think he was dangerous. But no, not at all. Just over-confident.
She looked round at him and saw with a slight inner chill that he had taken her handbag and had opened it. But it was not money he was after. He rummaged quickly, turning things about roughly, much to her indignation. Finally he pulled out not her wallet, but her passport, saying with an air of triumph, “So now perhaps you’ll tell me. What were you doing in Switzerland three weeks ago, was it? This’ll tell me the actual dates, won’t it?”
Got him again, she thought, waiting, her face very pale but wary.
He dropped her bag on the bed, she pounced and secured it and began to tidy the ruffled contents, bending her head over it to hide the smile she could not help widening her mouth. But she saw in the long mirror on the wardrobe his blank astonishment and confusion.
For, instead of the foreign document he expected to find inside the British cover, he held a genuine English passport, in the name of Gwendoline Chilton, with the usual unflattering photograph, quite unmistakably herself. And there was no evidence on any page to show she had visited Switzerland that year or any other year during the lifetime of that passport. The most recent entry marked her arrival in Italy, at Genoa, five days ago.
Gwen looked up at him. Rage and disappointment but no regret for his shockingly ill-mannered behaviour. So she said quietly, not wishing to goad him into any further physical attack, “If you’ve quite finished with my passport can I have it back, please, and I’ll be on my way.”
He threw it in her direction, but she caught it and pushing it down into her handbag got to her feet and moved towards the door of the room. He did nothing to prevent her. But before she opened the door he said, “I want to know what you were doing in Switzerland last month. Some day you will tell me.”
That stopped her. She turned about, standing very close to the door as if for support.
“I was never in Switzerland. You’ve looked at my passport, you bloody insolent devil! You know I wasn’t!”
“You were. In another name, I reckon … another passport. You’ll not get away with that game for long!”
“Liar! I was never there. Why d’you keep saying it? What do you want to know for? You can’t prove I was. C
an you? Can you?”
“Oh yes. I can. Because I saw you in Geneva. Twice.”
That really shook her, but she rallied. He had given himself away, now. She turned and opened the door, holding the knob ready to slam after her.
“You saw me, did you? I thought you were staying with friends on the Riviera? So what were you doing in Geneva?”
She was out of the room and away before the stream of whispered vicious curses had begun to pour from his crooked mouth.
At the hotel Mrs. Lawler sat with her two new friends in the lounge, sipping a long crimson drink they had recommended. She was not enjoying it much.
“Too like a powerful cough mixture,” she said. “But nice and cold.”
“You’d prefer sherry?” Mrs. Donald said.
“So would you, really, Myra,” her friend, Miss Jeans told her.
“You were telling us about Mrs. Chilton,” Mrs. Donald said, disregarding Florence.
“So I was.” Mrs. Lawler leaned forward. “But she’s just come in. I think she may join us. No, it’s all right, she’s making for the lifts. Yes, well, what was I saying? The stranger in Siena. I don’t really think they’d met before. But one can’t know that.”
“She may have attracted him. She’s rather attractive in a wispy sort of way.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Lawler. Mrs. Chilton had not struck her as being attractive in any sort of way. She had flattered herself that Mr. Strong had joined them at coffee on her own account, to exchange a little interesting conversation. She could not recollect Mrs. Chilton contributing anything at all on that occasion and very little except her melancholy personal history on any other. Now that she herself had found two companions with whom she could discuss and compare the antiquities and the arts, she thought she would prefer to drop Mrs. Chilton, except for that seat on the coach she could hardly warn her away from.
But Mrs. Chilton, who had also welcomed the inclusion of the two Civil Service ladies at her table, for a very different reason from Mrs. Lawler’s, arrived in good time to join the three as a matter of course, and even took it upon herself to suggest sharing a bottle of Chianti to drink with the meal, a habit she established for several days, rather to their tolerant amusement.
A Pigeon Among the Cats Page 3
