The Cypress Garden

by Jane Arbor

  ‘That’s no excuse for taking off without a word to you. How long has he kept you waiting?’

  ‘We arranged to leave at eleven o’clock.’

  Leone looked at his watch as he went over to his own car. ‘And it’s nearly noon now. However, I’ve the morning free until I have to see some buyers after luncheon, so I’ll take you myself. Have you got your things with you?’

  ‘I left them on the loggia.’

  ‘Then I’ll meet you on the drive in five minutes. I’ll leave word for Michele about where you are.’

  On the short drive by road down to the Lake Alix asked him if he swam himself at the Club.

  ‘Not often, though I keep some gear there,’ he told her. ‘I usually prefer to swim from our private beach.’ They were out on the lake foreshore now and he stopped the car in order to point across to a narrow strand backed by dark trees. ‘That’s it over there. If you want to use it yourself there’s a path down to it through the wild garden.’

  The forecourt to the Club Del Lago was full of luxury cars and when Alix saw the swimming pool—an artificial one built above and out over the lake—she thought that she too would rather swim from the Villa’s private beach. Here there was too much glare, too loud a concert of talk, too many bar waiters scurrying with too many drinks to too many supine bodies laid out in the sun.

  ‘Remind me,’ she adjured herself as she changed into her one-piece white suit and freed her hair of its Alice band, ‘to mention some time I don’t see there’s much to choose between this and the Lido except snob value.’ Then she ran out on to the hot marble of the pool surround and plunged gratefully into the almost empty water.

  She came up to find Leone beside her. She had left him in the bar. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you meant to swim,’ she told him.

  ‘I followed you in,’ he said. He swam beside her for a yard or two, then doubled over to plunge deep from the surface and away, leaving her slower stroke far behind on his way back to the side of the pool.

  He dived a few times from the high boards and Alix, treading water to watch him, found herself thinking how much of his withdrawn aloofness he had shed with the beading of water on his face and torso and the wet plastering of his hair forward like a schoolboy’s. Somehow it cut the distance between them, and when he beckoned to her from the side and she swam over she was hoping Michele would not turn up just yet. When he did there was bound to be friction between the two men, destroying this brief revealing glimpse of a Leone actually able to play.

  She sat beside him on the pool edge, idly throwing jetlets of water with her toes. Some of the men who came by had a ‘Ciao!’ and a handshake for Leone. But though she was aware of some inquiring glances her way, he did not introduce her to any of them. Presently he asked her whether she dived and she told him she did. She sat back, supporting herself on her hands behind her, and peered against the sun at the diving boards.

  ‘I’d go from the middle one, not the top,’ she offered.

  There was a tiny pause. ‘Not even if I dared you to it?’ Leone asked.

  Puzzled by the question, she sat forward again, hugging her knees. So she was just behind him and found she was watching the strong ripple of the muscles beneath the gleaming brown skin of his shoulders. ‘I doubt it,’ she told him. ‘I’ve never dived from that height yet. But why do you ask?’

  He looked back at her briefly. ‘Could it be, I wonder, that I’m drunk with power from your admission last night that you’d acted on one “dare” from me, and so I was pushing my luck with another?’ he parried lightly.

  Alix stood up, flexing her knees and smoothing her suit over her hips. ‘And were you?’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘No, of course not. That top board is for men. It would be a foolhardy height for a girl—where are you going?’

  But toe-poised and skittering water as she went, she was away ... running towards the diving platforms, impelled by some demon of show-off or bravado quite foreign to her. She only knew that when she reached the ladder she went up ... and up. Past the lowest board, past the middle, out on to the highest and was looking down.

  Sickeningly far below was the blue stir of the water, looking deeper than any clear depth into which she had ever plunged. She was aware of upturned, interested faces and, momentarily, of Leone, standing now, beginning to walk, then running.

  No time to lose. Now or never. She took the tiny necessary pace forward, curled her toes over the board’s edge, arrowed her arms and head—and dived.

  She knew it was perfect. That the air flight of her body was straight and controlled; that her penetration of the surface was deep and clean. She came up to a small chorus of male ‘Bravos’, but her first glance was for where she had last seen Leone, knowing suddenly that it was his praise of her feat, however drily given, that she craved.

  He was there, halted now and looking across at her. But as she lifted a hand to him and took a single crawl-stroke towards joining him, he deliberately turned his back and strode away towards the changing-cabins. It was as direct a snub as she had ever suffered from a man, and she felt almost physically choked by her chagrin.

  So! He had disapproved and wasn’t generous enough to hide it! Well, if he thought she was going to sidle up behind him like a cowed puppy, he was mistaken. In fact, for two pins she would—No, on second thoughts she wouldn’t. She might have had beginner’s luck and it would be too shaming if, at a second dive, she pancaked in front of all these people. But if by leaving her he meant her to follow at once and be ready to be driven back to the Villa in disgrace, he could wait a little. On this small defiance she swam round the pool again and came back to the side under the beginners’ springboard where her toes could just touch bottom.

  She bounced gently, buoyed by the water. Above her from the surround there was a murmur of feminine voices. Two ... talking about Leone ... about herself, and she was eavesdropping. She ought to show herself, swim away in full view. But to her shame she stayed, hidden by the board, and listened.

  ‘Il Parigi—with a girl! What shall we be seeing next? Who is she?’—one voice.

  The second—‘I’ve no idea. I saw Giorgio speak to him, but he wasn’t giving. Cradle-snatching too, at that.’

  ‘Cradle-snatching? What do you mean? She’s not as young as all that.’ The echo was tart.

  ‘Still, young for him, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘But old enough to know all the tricks. Didn’t you see her over there, doing that model act for his benefit—sitting back and arching her throat and flaunting her shape? And that dive! Though I suspect she went too far there—the great Parigi tends to grudge limelight to other people. Where are they now?’

  A sound as if one of the speakers had sat up to look around her. ‘I don’t know. They must have left.’

  ‘Gia. Anyway, if you consider this one young for him, what about La d’Anza? He is seen about with her often enough.’

  ‘Ah, but haven’t we agreed that that’s Venetia’s idea, more than his? That she is only marking time with her other tame conquests, like that wan Giraldo Torre who is her latest? No, if Leone really is beginning to run this other girl, she had better watch out. For young Venetia isn’t going to like it at all. Do you want to go? Shall we—?’

  But there shock and distaste for her role took Alix away. She plunged and swam underwater to the far side of the pool where she climbed out, feeling ashamed, deflated, all her spurt of defiance against Leone gone. And when she saw him coming over, dressed now, she had little spirit left to meet the anger which sparked from his eyes.

  Exactly as if he had the right to criticize her, he said, “Well, I trust you’re pleased with yourself, signorina? Though if I may say so, I thought that solo act of yours about as headstrong and vulgar as it was dangerous.’

  Alix pinned down the word which hurt most. ‘Vulgar? she echoed faintly.

  ‘Exhibitionism is always vulgar,’ he retorted crushingly. ‘But it was the danger you were courting that mattered more
. Taking a dive from that height when you had just admitted to me that you weren’t equal to it, that you had never attempted anything near it before! ’

  ‘There has to be a first time!’ It was an attempt at jauntiness which failed.

  ‘Granted—if it were a logical step in your diving practice, not a silly impulse to show off, before I could forbid you to do it.’

  She allowed him the truth of that. ‘If I hadn’t done it on the spur of the moment I shouldn’t have done it all. But I did—and quite successfully, I know.’

  ‘And if you hadn’t—if you had made yourself a laughingstock or been injured quite nastily, I daresay you could contrive to blame me, if not for inciting you, at least for putting the idea into your head?’

  Stung anew, she retorted, ‘I’d have done nothing of the sort!’

  ‘So you say, but you happen to be a woman. However’—he looked at his watch—‘as Michele hasn’t seen fit to show up, I’m afraid I can’t spare any more time. If you’ll get dressed now, I’ll meet you in the bar for one drink before I take you back.’

  On her dignity, Alix said, ‘I shan’t want a drink, thank you.’

  He threw her an oblique glance as he turned to walk beside her. ‘Sulking?’ he inquired.

  ‘No, I just don’t want a drink, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I do. You could say I’ve suffered a state of shock and deserve one.’ His tone was decisive but light, with even a hint of laughter as he went on, ‘Because, dare or no dare, I admit to feeling responsible for you when I saw you on that board. And you—well, you should have your success toasted. So I’ll still meet you in the bar, hoping you’ll drink with me.’

  But when, mellowed slightly by this olive-branch, Alix joined him there, he was not alone. Perched jauntily beside him, in white Capri pants and a brief halter-neck, was Venetia, her back turned pointedly to the young man, Giraldo Torre, her deep shadowed provocative eyes all for Leone. As Alix came up she was toying childishly with his hand which lay on the counter; spreading the fingers wide, tracing an imaginary line round them, and at the sight of her Alix was recalled with a jerk to the gossip which she had had no right to share, but which had seemed to confirm some of her own guesswork about Venetia.

  She did regard Leone differently from Michele. He was more important to her plans. She fenced level with Michele; with Leone she was on less sure but far more woman-to-man terms. And he indulged her. Why? And why, faced with the likely answer to that, should this stab of envy of Venetia hurt quite so much? Alix wondered; and told herself it was because she too felt the male challenge of Leone without getting the same tolerance he accorded to Venetia.

  Giraldo Torre saw her first and bowed. ‘Buon giorno, signorina. What will you drink?’

  But Leone cut in, ‘I’m afraid time is limiting us to one, Giraldo, and Alix is having it with me.’ He ordered her choice, then told her that when Venetia had been driving with Giraldo earlier in the morning Michele had passed them in his topolino some way along the road to Rome.

  ‘Going,’ Venetia confirmed, ‘like the proverbial scared bat.’ She narrowed her eyes at Alix. ‘It’s as I suspected, cara mia—you don’t seem to have trained him very well. If I were a man’s house-guest and he suddenly winged off, he could whistle himself hoarse, the next time he wanted a date.’ She turned her smile on Leone. ‘Nice of you to stand in for Michele! But what do you mean, you’re short of time? Aren’t you lunching here? Why can’t you join up with us?’

  ‘Because,’ he told her, ‘I’ve some afternoon engagements and I promised Madrigna I should be lunching at home.’

  ‘Oh, Zia Dora!’ Venetia’s shrug was impatient. ‘When you get back, you could well find she has had a rusk and a glass of milk on a tray in her room. Stay for lunch?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Dio mio!’ She pulled a face at him. ‘But listen—if Michele is back by now, he’ll expect to find Alix there. So if Giraldo drove her back, she and Michele could lunch with Zia Dora instead—why not?’

  Leone drained his glass. ‘No,’ he said again. ‘Are you ready, Alix?’

  ‘Are you ready, Alix?’ Venetia’s echo mimicked him and she swivelled on her stool to face Alix. ‘Because if he says so, you’d better be! But remind me some time, won’t you, to ask you what you think you may have that I haven’t? Because he hasn’t taken a morning off to bring me swimming since I don’t know when! Well, have you?’ she appealed again to Leone.

  He laughed shortly; lightly knuckled her chin. ‘Perhaps because you’ve never lacked for some other escort since I don’t know when!’ he teased her.

  ‘Oh—! You mean, when Michele walked out on Alix, you had no choice but to take pity on her? Well, of course—!’ From the clearing of Venetia’s face it seemed that she felt she had won that round.

  As if she and I were in rivalry for something, thought Alix. But competing for what?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On reaching the Villa they found Michele there. He had suddenly remembered, he said, that he had arranged for an electrician to do a repair job in his loaned apartment and had gone to meet the man there and to let him in. He hadn’t left a message for Alix because he had expected to be back in time. But the man had been late; a flat tyre and no spare had further delayed his return, and when he heard that Leone meant to bring Alix back to luncheon, he hadn’t thought it worth while to follow them.

  Leone said cuttingly, ‘The whole city of Rome—and not a single telephone in working order?’ But there Alix left him and Michele to whatever dispute that might spark off, and at luncheon, when they were joined by Signora Parigi, nothing was mentioned of Michele’s truancy. Leone told her that he had been at the Club for the morning, but it was clearly in the interests of his plot to leave in the air the idea that Michele, not he, had escorted Alix.

  Immediately after the meal he left, and when Signora Parigi had gone for her siesta, Alix asked Michele to show her the way by foot down to the lake.

  He agreed readily. (‘Must unblot my copybook somehow!’) He kept his arm ostentatiously round her shoulders until they were out of range of the house, then he gave her a playful clip behind and released her. ‘So much for the precious “image” for the moment! How long do you suppose we’re expected to keep it up?’

  Alix said, ‘I don’t know, except that Leone is talking in terms of months.’

  Michele’s jaw dropped. ‘Months? Have a heart!’

  ‘Up to three, anyway. And if Leone’s idea is really going to help your mother, it could take all of that, I daresay.’

  ‘Gia. If that’s his plan—’

  ‘ “If” it is? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Anyway, we’re going swimming, aren’t we? So let’s do just that and forget Leone until he looms—no?’ The beach on the lake was a secluded curve, shelving down gently into deep water. There was a boathouse with an annexe where they changed. They swam and sunbathed for an hour, then Michele ran out and launched a small speedboat.

  ‘Yours?’ asked Alix.

  ‘Leone’s, really. Venetia teased him into getting it and has been sore ever since because he won’t let her take it out alone. I thought we’d take a trip round the lake; flaunt past the Club, and show ourselves to all the busybodies on the Marina there. That ought to earn us a good mark, correct any impression they may have collected this morning that you’re Leone’s property, not mine.’

  Mentally hearing the gossiping voice—‘II Parigi—with a girl?’ Alix agreed it would be a good idea and let Michele hand her into the boat.

  He handled it expertly, curvetting across and across in great figures-of-eight, shooting close inshore and out again and several times swooping at full throttle past the lake frontage of the Del Lago. Alix sat tensed until she got used to the speed. But presently she was lifting her face to the sun and the whip of the wind, exhilarated by both. When Michele told her to, she waved to ‘the pretty ladies and gentlemen’ and was as aware as he that when they passed the Club they were both reco
gnized and that heads were being craned to watch them.

  They had dressed before taking their run, so when Michele had housed the boat again they were ready to go. On the walk back Alix asked again the question he had evaded earlier.

  ‘What did you mean—“if”—about Leone’s plan to hearten your mother?’ she said.

  Michele didn’t answer at once. Then—‘Just that I’ve begun to doubt whether his motive is as pure as all that. Or even that at all. Supposing, instead, he thought I—and you too—should be punished for starting the thing, so he decided to pin us both by the heels just—and only—for the fun of seeing us squirm?’

  Shock halted Alix. ‘Oh no!’ she breathed. ‘Why, that would be—sadism, no less!’

  ‘Well?’

  She walked on. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘He couldn’t—It must be the—other. In his way he cares as much for your mother as you do, I’m sure. And his plan just could succeed, given time. I mean, I think Signora Parigi enjoys my company already, and having you around too—’

  Michele cut in, ‘Are you arguing for argument’s sake or whistling in the dark? Just one simple question for you, my girl—supposing I’m right, what then, as far as you are concerned?’

  Alix shook her head. ‘I don’t allow that you are right.’

  ‘Don’t beg the question. I can see you don’t want to believe I could be right. Leone has managed to bemuse you that far. But if I am, little as I’d hate to lose touch, I hope you’d leave just as soon as you could pack and be off? Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ he urged.

  ‘Yes ... Yes, of course. If I hadn’t thought I might help your mother, I’d never have come. And if you’re right; if it was never Leone’s idea that you and I might be able to help her, then there’d be ... well, nothing to keep me here. But if you have these doubts of his motive, why don’t you face him with them?’