“Yes.” He had to play it carefully: he still did not understand what she was driving at. But there could be no harm in asking, “How do you know all that?”
“I don’t really. Except that I was in the W.A.A.F and I married a fighter pilot and it happened to him.”
“I see.” He did not see, so he added, “And so?”
She gathered herself to explain.
“He was burned — very badly — hands and face. And you …”
“Ah.” The scars, yes, that was what she meant. He might have known. Anyone so observant, such curiosity. Of course that accounted for the morbid interest damn her.
He forced himself to say gently, “It was a long, long time ago, Mrs. Lawler. The world has forgotten us. I know you can’t do that, but I try …”
She was crying quietly now, he saw, so he left her, detaching Gwen from the others too and saying to them, “Mrs. Lawler seems to be upset. I hope it wasn’t my fault hijacking her camera.”
“Rose!” Myra called, hurrying across the terrace. “Rose, there are two of the sweetest little lizards running round the fountain. Come and look!”
Rose blew her nose, wiped her eyes, fixed her dark glasses more firmly and obeyed. The lizards, about four inches long and very active, were darting about the basin of a small dry fountain at the centre of the terrace, pursued by several tourists who were trying to photograph them in their short periods of rest. It was an unproductive task for the lizards were practically invisible against the stone colour of the fountain and would be hard to see on the sunny side of it and impossible to pick out in the shadow.
Gwen drove back to Florence with Owen, a silent drive for each had a good deal to think about that did not concern the other. Owen put her down at the tour hotel, simply told her to look out for him in Venice and drove away at once. She had meant to warn him about Mrs. Lawler, but he gave her no opportunity, so he must take his chance that the old snooper did no harm, with her prying and watching and obvious suspicions.
That evening after dinner Rose invited Myra to a walk along the Arno. They went to the first of the bridges and leaned on it looking down at the water, which seemed low and far away and sluggish.
“Hardly possible to imagine it up to where we are and more in those floods,” Myra said.
“I know. Were you ever here before? I mean can you see any difference?”
“No. And you?”
“It’s my first visit too.”
Myra looked at her friend. Mrs. Lawler was staring into the distance now, thinking of all those hard years when she had found neither time nor money to think of going abroad and later when she was alone, still working, saving up to join Tim in Canada. A project that died when he announced his marriage and wrote to say he would bring his Mary to visit her in England instead. So far this had not happened either. So she had come to Italy alone and now …
All at once she felt she must explain to someone, must justify herself in her present dilemma, must stop the dangerous impulses that were beginning to drive her.
“Myra,” she said. “I asked you to come out because if I don’t talk to someone I think I shall go round the bend, or get the next plane home or something equally idiotic or desperate.”
It was not the first time Mrs. Donald had been appealed to. Problems were common among her Civil Service friends. Wasn’t she going about just now with poor Flo, who had been turned down by a late attachment, the bastard. So she said quietly in an encouraging voice, “Go ahead, Rose. Is it about that odd couple, Gwen Chilton and her pick-up?”
“It certainly is.”
With thankful relaxation Mrs. Lawler explained her problem. She still did not betray Gwen; she had promised the girl; she would not break the promise. But Owen …
“I don’t know whether to trust him or not,” she said, with desperation in her voice. “Common sense suggests he is some sort of petty crook, though I can’t see what he hopes to get out of Gwen. Or me, for that matter. Did he push me in Rome? Did he try to get hold of my photographs? If I hadn’t changed the film would he have taken it? Or spoiled it? There was one snap left. I sacrificed it and took that film out on purpose and sent it to England to be processed. Why did he insist on taking a photo of us three, no four, with Gwen? Will he try to get hold of that one? Why should he? He has a camera of his own. I’ve seen him with it. Why didn’t he bring it to the monastery?”
Her spate of questions had exhausted her. She stopped speaking. Myra saw that she was trembling.
“What I want to know, Rose,” she said gently, “is why you’re so het up about this Owen Strong, this total stranger.”
“Because he makes me think of Charles,” Rose answered. “I — I thought I would never … But he … his poor face …”
Her voice trembled now. Myra put a hand on her friend’s arm and said, “You have told us how you lost your fighter pilot husband. He was brought down, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“And badly burned? Face and hands?”
“Yes. Terribly, terribly, burned.”
“And died?” Myra whispered.
Rose jerked back from the bridge parapet.
“No!” she cried in a voice of agony. “No, he lived! They saved him and mended him. They were so pleased with themselves. They gave him back to me — an appalling, terrifying grotesque!”
Myra recoiled too, outraged by the welling up of that old horror, that sickened, sickening disgust. But she had lived through those times herself, though as a child. She had heard of this thing and not all the victims’ loved-ones had been so appalled.
“You had to keep your feeling for him? You had to pretend? But that can’t have been difficult if you loved him.”
“If I had truly loved him. I was twenty. I was in love with him — madly, romantically — his looks, his heroism, his lovemaking. If we had both been able to go beyond all this to find our true selves … But we couldn’t — we didn’t — the hideous mask he now had for a face, and he hated it, it disgusted him, far more than it did me, in the end. I tried, Myra, I truly tried. I did love him. But with Tim on the way by then … No future for Charles in flying, the thing he really loved most … He decided he had no future, so he gave up.”
“You don’t mean …?”
“Yes. He had tranquillisers, of course. I knew what he was going to do. I didn’t take them away. I didn’t warn his doctor. I pretended to myself he was going to do the right thing for us all I did nothing — nothing — to save him.”
“When was this? How long after, well, after he left hospital?”
“Five months. He said once he’d never be able to bear the child looking at him.”
Mrs. Lawler beat her hand on the stone of the bridge.
“It was my fault! My fault! I try to find excuses. I try to beat down the guilt. And then someone turns up like Owen Strong, grinning like a clown with that stretched false skin on his cheeks and round his mouth and it all comes up again and all I want is to help Owen for Charles’s sake, which is ridiculous, isn’t it?”
She had talked herself into some sort of control, forcing her thoughts back to the stranger who had, perhaps, relieved her of some part of the pressure that plagued her wherever she went.
Myra waited, knowing there was nothing she could say to heal such a wound, save allow the bitter discharge of this grief to engulf her own mind as it passed from her friend.
At last she said quietly, “Shall we go back to the hotel? We’ve got an early start for Venice tomorrow, don’t forget.”
“I had forgotten,” Rose answered simply.
They moved away together and hardly spoke on the way back. They said goodnight to one another when they parted outside the lift on the landing of the second floor where each had her room.
“Sleep well,” Myra said comfortably as she leaned forward to kiss her friend goodnight.
“I think I shall,” Rose answered, acknowledging a debt and giving an assurance that neither, being Englishwomen of a similar restric
ted upbringing, would ever refer to it again.
Chapter Nine
The drive to Venice was long and tiring, most of the tourists agreed, though as ‘Roseanna’ went down from the eastern side of the Apennines into the flat lands of the Po delta the continuing rain was left behind, so that by noon the sun shone overhead, the coach warmed up, grew overheated. The roads were dry, the fields with their vines and corn crops shimmered in the sun haze.
At the lunch stop a rather subdued party talked in low voices. Florence had not been a success. The rain and storms, the milling crowds in every place of interest, the infrequent buses and taxis, the language difficulty, all had combined to defeat the sight-seeing. Most of them were getting tired of the monotony of pasta in any of its varieties and sick, too, of tea with one tea bag per pot that was little more than hot water. Secretly they longed for their accustomed monotony of fried fish and chips or baked beans and good strong Indian tea well “mashed”.
Mrs. Lawler and her friends, however, were in much better spirits. They had drunk their fill of the wonders of those picture galleries they had been able to visit and were all agreed that they must somehow manage a week in Florence in the off-season, when they could repeat and extend these pleasures.
Gwen Chilton too was in a cheerful mood. She had every reason to be so. Owen had met her again at the Ponte Vecchio expressly to make amends for letting her get soaked in the thunderstorm. He had given her a fabulous coral necklace of the most delicately pink round beads of the stuff, quite a long one, too, costing the earth. She had worn it under her coat in the coach, not mentioning it to the others, but at lunch, when it lay there round her neck, glowing against the plain pale blue-grey of her straight tunic dress, it drew exclamations of surprise and admiration that made her blush and smile outwardly, while laughing immoderately inside. The poor old cats, she thought as she explained that Owen had insisted on making her a present.
“He had a conscience, I suppose,” she said. “For driving me down from the monastery in the car instead of letting me go in the coach where I should have been absolutely dry.”
As if Owen ever had a conscience about anything, she told herself. Well, neither had she, for that matter. They had gone back to his hotel and she had rewarded him — and herself.
Rose, watching the flushed, pleased face of the little suitcase crook, as she now thought of Gwen, wondered grimly if this story was true, or if the girl had done a clever piece of shop lifting. Perhaps not, she considered, remembering the crowds on the Ponte Vecchio and the number of shop assistants on guard when she went into one of the jewellers to ask the price of a cameo and came out without it.
So Owen had funds, had he? Well, hadn’t she known that, from the way he hired cars and so on. And appeared to be free to follow his fancy wherever it led. It galled her to see that it led to Gwen Chilton, but it could not be denied the girl was pretty and had a good — well, a really lovely figure. Perhaps if this infatuation showed signs of developing she might consider it her duty to warn him, tell him about the attempt on her luggage. No, that would be fatal. Anyway she could never bring herself to tell tales. Just watch and perhaps warn Gwen.
“That girl seems to be making hay, doesn’t she?” Myra said as the three sat with their coffee at the end of the meal.
“And the sun is shining again,” said Flo. “No wonder she’s feeling smug.”
It was the first time Flo had shown bitterness. Remembering what Myra had told her about her friend, Rose said nothing. In a few minutes after that Billie called them to go to ‘Roseanna’.
The rest of the drive to Venice was dull but the arrival there was not. On the contrary Rose Lawler found it fascinating. First the coach moved out along Mussolini’s causeway that linked the mainland with the chief island of the Venice archipelago, the old Venice itself. From its arrival there the coach moved into a queue of cars and coaches waiting to be transported by car-ferry to the Lido, largest and most important of the outlying islands and the one that looked out over the Adriatic.
There was a considerable wait. In the end the passengers had to walk on to the ferry to lighten the coach in getting it aboard. After a voyage down the main channel, passing Venice itself, they crossed the seaway to the Lido, where the cars and coaches drive off and the tour got back into ‘Roseanna’ and were driven to their hotel.
“I thought there weren’t any cars in Venice,” Flo said to Billie, watching them drive past the coach before they started.
“There aren’t,” the courier answered. “There are no roads, only canals, on Venice itself. But there are roads on this island and it’s quite a long one, though not very wide: You’ll see. Besides it’s the big bathing place, the very famous Lido …”
“I know. I know!” Flo told her. “Silly of me … I just thought — it just struck me …”
Billie smiled her professional smile and picked up her loud speaker to announce their arrival, the usual hotel drill, the fact that they were free to make all their own arrangements for their stay in Venice, except for one tour to the very famous glass factory.
That evening Mrs. Lawler and her friends did no more than explore the tree-sheltered main street of shops and eating places, that ran the whole width of the island. With the leafy branches intertwined overhead along the pavements the whole effect was attractive in spite of the tourist crowds. The shade made it possible to walk in comfort while staying cool. Facing the shops, but on the edge of the wide pavement, small tables and chairs with awnings over swinging seats, invited the passers-by to refresh themselves.
“I’m not going to step further until I’ve had an ice,” Flo declared, dropping into a chair at a vacant table to confirm her intention.
The others agreed. With the sun only beginning to sink, the deliciously cool air, the relief from those many hours of smooth but persistent movement on the road, they all three felt relaxed and happy. From time to time they noticed other members of the tour sauntering past, some staring fixedly at the shops, others looking about them and nodding and greeting when they recognised familiar faces. Gwen Chilton was not among them.
“I want to see the real sea,” Rose said, finishing her ice and laying down the spoon.
“Of course,” Myra agreed.
“I want another ice,” Flo objected. “I’ll stay here and you can pick me up on the way back.”
The other two walked on, coming at last to the road that lay coast-wise along the length of the island. The sea however was still hidden by a thick, tall hedge of trees and bushes that screened it and the beach and the bathers from anyone in the road and from the cars that passed to and fro.
However, there were breaks in the screen, double gates, drives-in, lodges where keepers took tickets and stored valuables and gave directions about huts.
“Very organised,” Rose sighed, saddened and a little disgusted by all this. “Give me a good stretch of Devon or Cornish cove with a rock to undress behind and no one to interfere.”
“And no one to warn the fools or pull them out when they go in at the wrong places and the wrong state of the tide,” Myra added. “Come off it, Rose. This is, or used to be, a favoured playground of the wealthy. They must have expected continental comfort and safety. No one must drown, that would be unthinkable. No one must complain; that might lower the profits.”
“We might book a hut for tomorrow afternoon,” Rose said, changing the subject.
“We can do it at the hotel,” Myra told her. “They have a strip of the beach and the huts with it. I asked.”
“You know everything,” Rose laughed.
When the three friends went down to breakfast the next morning Gwen was already seated at their table. She wore a serious face above a fresh pale yellow-flowered tunic and white slacks. No ornaments. The coral necklace was absent.
“You aren’t wearing your corals,” Rose said, as she took her place at the table.
Gwen did not answer.
“We’re going over to San Marco,” Myra began. “On one
of the launches or whatever they’re called. The one that stops everywhere, anyway. Will you be coming, Gwen?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Yes, of course. But I don’t know when.”
She had eaten only half a roll and her coffee cup was half full, but She got up as she spoke and turned from the table.
“Your handbag!” Flo said to the girl’s back.
Gwen turned quickly, swept up the bag and marched away without a word, six inquisitive, astonished eyes following her as she threaded the tables and disappeared through the double swing doors.
Bloody snoopers, she told herself on her way to the lift. Nosy old cows! As if she’d go on sight-seeing with that lot! Sight-seeing! She’d had just about as much of that … If she’d only known what she was in for on this so-called tour … Except for meeting Owen … Owen … He could be sweet in spite of his funny face. He could send her as Jake never did now, never would again. After this job was finished she’d … well, what would she do? What could she do? Walk out, yes. But how …?
She waited in her room for the expected call. It came just after ten o’clock. A few minutes later, having put on the coral necklace and taken it off again because it clashed with the yellow tunic, really because she dared not say where she’d got it, she went out to take the next boat sailing over to Venice.
Five minutes after she had left the hotel the telephone in her room rang again. It went on ringing until the senior assistant at the reception asked the junior man whose room number he was trying to put the caller in touch with.
“The signora Chilton.”
“Imbecile! She has gone out. Can’t you see her key on the hook? Say to the caller Signora Chilton has gone out.”
It was fun, Rose decided, to chug across the water to the various landing stages like a London bus moving from stop to stop. It was fun to see the contours of the famous old buildings change and shuffle as they altered their shapes and perspectives. Finally there was the excitement and awe of arriving beside the square itself, a beautifully different view of life from all those pictures and prints and illustrations and descriptions she had read and seen from time to time over the years.
A Pigeon Among the Cats Page 9
