Knowing how infrequently in the real world things obey the laws of mathematics or any other logical system, I would not, perhaps, but for the wine we had drunk at lunch, have ventured to put this theory to any empirical test; but Verona showed a proper respect for the laws of geometry. Leaving the Cathedral, we walked some distance along the bank, observing on our left the grandeur of the view across the river and on our right a row of antique shops, of professional interest to the Major; then, turning off at right angles to the river, we proceeded, so far as possible, in a straight line; and found ourselves, just as Euclid would have expected, back in the main square.
I was astonished at my success. I had taken my companions on exactly the tour I had planned and had thrown in for good measure the churches of Saint Anastasia and Saint Nicholas, which had presented themselves in our path. In the latter, I had even managed to identify the Madonna and Child by Tiepolo, highly spoken of by the guide book, but treated by the church with a rather cavalier lack of distinction. It seemed unwise to attempt to improve on my achievement.
‘You will observe,’ I said, ‘that this spacious and elegant square is amply furnished with open-air cafés, in which the traveller may find rest and refreshment. Shall we avail ourselves of this circumstance?’
‘If you’ll excuse me, m’dear,’ said the Major, ‘I think I’ll just pop back and have another shufti at those antique shops.’
‘Are you sure you won’t get lost?’ I asked. Much as I would have liked to lose the Major, I felt responsible for him.
‘Trust an old campaigner to get back to base,’ said the Major cheerfully.
And off he went, leaving me alone with Ned. We sat down together, under the shade of an awning, in one of the cafés previously mentioned.
The time had come, I felt, to talk about Catullus: Verona, you will recall, is the poet’s birthplace. If I could not manage, by judicious quotation from the most ardent of lyric poets, to indicate the warmth of my feelings, there was, I thought, no hope for me. With no need on this subject to resort to the guide book – his work was the chief comfort of my susceptible adolescence – I spoke sympathetically of his attachment to Clodia, severely of her unkindness. Ned chose to defend her.
‘I don’t see why you think,’ he said, ‘that she ought to have been so grateful for having all this poetry written to her. I expect your friend Catullus got more fun out of writing it than she did out of reading it – she’d probably rather have been taken out to dinner or something.’ And more to the like effect.
‘Ah well,’ I said at last. ‘It is natural that you should take her side. Your own experience, no doubt, is all of being the object of passion, rather than of suffering it.’
‘I don’t know why you suppose,’ he said, looking down demurely in such a manner as to display the full luxury of his lovely eyelashes, ‘that I am the object of so much admiration. Or that I am always indifferent to it.’
The reappearance at this stage of the Major, who could perfectly well have gone on wandering round antique shops for another half-hour, seemed singularly ill-timed. If the maps he had purchased, supposed to be of antiquarian interest, turned out to be fakes, it would be, I felt, a deserved consequence of his over-hasty selection.
‘Don’t let me interrupt,’ said the Major. ‘Can see you two were having a good old chinwag.’
‘I was complaining,’ I said, ‘of the way I am treated by the Inland Revenue.’
‘Julia doesn’t think,’ said Ned, ‘that we are fair to her.’
‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘I didn’t say that. I could never say, Ned, that you were anything but fair. What I am complaining of is not your fairness: it is your coldness, your lack of feeling, your indifference to human suffering.’
‘Ah well,’ said the Major, ‘only doing your job, of course. I’m sure the little lady doesn’t mean it personally, do you, m’dear?’
‘I’m afraid she does,’ said Ned. ‘But I hope to persuade her to think more kindly of us.’
My confidence in Catullus seemed vindicated, for this was not a remark, you will surely agree, Selena, which a well-brought-up young man could make without intending some encouragement. Nor, as you shall hear, was this the only cause given me for optimism.
We continued to sit in the café, reviving ourselves with coffee for our homeward journey. The Major was greatly pleased with his maps, and would have liked to show them to us; but they had been carefully rolled and wrapped and he felt it unwise to undo them. Fearing that the maps would put him in mind of some incident in his military career, I agreed hastily that it would be most imprudent.
‘Julia,’ asked Ned, after a few minutes, ‘do you know you have a smudge of ash on your cheek?’
‘I didn’t know,’ I answered. ‘But I readily believe it.’ If one smokes French cigarettes, it is usual, after an hour or two, to get a certain amount of ash on one’s face.
‘If you’ll excuse me – ’ he said. He rose from his chair and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Then he leant over me, and, resting his left hand lightly on my shoulder, gently brushed the ash from my cheek.
This produced in me, as you will imagine, Selena, a passionate agitation, gravely affecting my breathing and heartbeat. Yet it was of the most pleasant and hopeful kind, for I could not suppose that any young man, unless utterly heartless and lost to all sense of shame, could conduct himself in such a way towards a woman whose advances were unacceptable.
‘Excuse me, m’dear,’ said the Major. ‘Just off to inspect the jolly old ablutions.’
‘When we get back to Venice,’ I said, taking advantage of his temporary absence, ‘instead of paying the exorbitant prices which they charge in the bar of the Cytherea, why don’t you come and have an aperitif in my room? I’ve got some brandy I bought in the duty-free shop.’ If I had misconstrued his behaviour, I thought, he could always say that he didn’t like brandy before dinner.
‘I’d love to,’ answered Ned. ‘How kind of you, Julia.’
You will imagine with what impatience I now looked forward to our return; how bitterly, though silently, I cursed the late arrival of the coach driver; with what equal fervour, though in equal silence, I urged him to drive back at all speed along the autostrada. Nor, during the drive to Venice or our brief journey by boat to our hotel, was there anything in Ned’s smiles or amiable manner to warn me of the unspeakable treachery he was proposing to commit.
We arrived at the landing stage of the Cytherea.
‘How about a snifter in the bar?’ said the Major.
‘You’re forgetting, Bob,’ said the enchanting Ned, sharing between us a smile of angelic sweetness, ‘Julia has kindly invited us to drink brandy in her room.’
O Perfidy, thy name is man. They are, as I have said, a deplorable sex, and never again shall you hear me speak well of them. If I could think kindly of one, it would be of a young man of obliging disposition, such as Cantrip. Cantrip, you may say, has his faults; but at least he can be prevailed on to engage in a health-giving frolic without expecting one to talk for weeks on end about his soul. Cantrip, so far as I am aware, has never claimed to have such a thing.
‘I jolly well do have a soul,’ said Cantrip.
‘Well, don’t tell Julia,’ said Selena. ‘It’ll only upset her.’
I am old enough, I hope, to bear philosophically a reverse in the lists of Aphrodite; but to be obliged, in addition, to offer the Major the hospitality of my room, not to speak of large quantities of my duty-free brandy, was more than I could easily endure. By the time the long day was over, I was too shattered in spirit to take up my pen to write to you: I sought consolation in the Finances Act.
After a morning of looking at churches, I have returned to the Cytherea for lunch. I shall have the company, it seems, of the beautiful but perfidious Ned – I have just seen him coming across the bridge from the annexe. Let him not look to me for kind words or compliments – I shall upbraid him for every infamy committed by his Department since the institution of
income tax.
In a mood, as I have indicated, of the most bitter misandry, this leaves me
Yours, as always,
Julia.
‘Julia is being unreasonable,’ said Ragwort. ‘The young man gave her no encouragement beyond mere civility.’
‘There is,’ said Selena, ‘a postscript.’
Wednesday evening.
The deed is done – Clarissa lives. No time to write more.
Yours, as always,
Julia.
* * *
‘Who,’ said Cantrip, ‘is Clarissa?’
‘Clarissa,’ said Ragwort sadly, ‘is the eponymous heroine of the celebrated novel by Mr Richardson. The phrase used by Julia is that, if my recollection serves me, in which the villain Lovelace announces his conquest of her long-defended virtue.’
‘I say,’ said Cantrip, ‘do you mean Julia’s scored with the man from the Revenue?’
‘It would seem so,’ said Timothy. ‘I hope that’s not going to complicate things. They’re calling my flight – I’d better go. I’ll ring you tomorrow, Selena, as soon as I know anything definite.’
I hope my farewells to Timothy did not seem unduly off-hand. All my goodwill went with him; but I was a little preoccupied – I had remembered something curious about the news from Italy.
9
Between the best of friends a difference of opinion may arise. So it was with Selena and myself on the matter of Sunday. It seemed to me plainly convenient that I should spend the day at Selena’s. Thus Timothy, when he telephoned, would have the immediate benefit of my advice.
‘I’m sorry, Hilary,’ said Selena. ‘I have an opinion to write on the Settled Land Act. I can’t spend the day in cooking and idle gossip.’
She was quite wrong in supposing that she would have been put to any trouble for my entertainment: the tastes of the scholar are simple to the point of austerity. An omelette of some kind for lunch, with a salad and a few new potatoes; for dinner, a plain grilled sole, perhaps with a caper sauce –
‘No,’ said Selena. ‘Moreover, I have plans for the evening which do not admit of the presence of a third party.’
In that case, naturally, there was nothing more to be said. Selena has an amiable arrangement for the weekends with a young colleague of mine: I would not for the world encroach on the pleasures of either. I spent Sunday, therefore, in Islington, conversing with the cats and reading back copies of The Times: both, in their way, instructive occupations.
Selena telephoned me at half past six. Timothy’s news, so far as it went, was, she felt, satisfactory. He had not yet seen Julia – accommodation had been found for her in the little resort of Chioggia, on the other side of the lagoon – but would be dining with her that evening. His client, having chosen to make the journey from Cyprus by sea, had become unwell during the journey and had fortunately not yet recovered.
‘Fortunately?’ I said, with a touch of severity.
‘One wishes him, of course, no harm.’ The smoothness of Selena’s voice was not impaired by the intervening telephone wires. ‘It does seem convenient, however, that Timothy is free for the time being to pursue his enquiries on Julia’s behalf without having to initiate his client into the mysteries of Schedule 5 to the Finance Act 1975.’
‘Have his enquiries made any progress?’
‘He hasn’t managed to see Graziella yet or talk to the police. But he’s been in touch with a man at the British Consulate who seems to know something of the matter. So far as one can tell at present, there’s nothing solid against Julia at all. It’s just that she made a rather unfortunate first impression on the police. They knew from the start, you see, about her exchanges with the young man from the Revenue: the whole affair was apparently common knowledge among the staff of the Cytherea, from the management to the chambermaids. So when they began to question her and she said she’d never heard of him, they found her attitude suspicious.’
‘I can see that they might,’ I said. ‘Why did she say that she’d never heard of him?’
‘My dear Hilary, it’s quite understandable. They obviously told her that they were enquiring into the death by violence of a Mr Edward Watson. It doesn’t immediately occur to one that a person referred to as Edward is someone one knows as Ned. And Julia, naturally, wouldn’t know his surname.’
‘Would you care,’ I asked, ‘to justify the adverb?’
‘How could she have known his surname? Eleanor Frost-field doesn’t seem to have mentioned it when she introduced them. How do you suggest that she could afterwards have discovered it? Would you expect her, in the middle of telling the young man about his beautiful eyelashes and quoting Catullus, suddenly to ask his surname? Going on, perhaps, to demand such further particulars as his place of birth, his mother’s maiden name and the number of his passport? Of course not. Still less can you imagine that Julia would stoop, in search of such information, to questioning their mutual acquaintances or prying through the young man’s correspondence. My dear Hilary.’ Her voice seemed to melt in a delicate mixture of amusement and reproach: an effect, I am told, which has caused a number of her opponents, realizing the absurdity of their submissions, to settle hastily over the luncheon adjournment on terms favourable to her client.
‘My dear Selena,’ I said, ‘you quite persuade me that no woman of breeding and refinement could be expected to know the surname of any young man whom she was trying to seduce. I hope that Timothy will be equally successful with the Italian police. Was there anything else that made a bad impression on them?’
‘Well – ’ said Selena. ‘They seem to have got rather excited about Julia’s Finance Act. I’m sorry, Hilary, I’ll have to go – there’s someone at the door.’
I saw no prospect, until I knew why Julia’s Finance Act had disturbed the equanimity of the Italian police, of giving my attention to the concept of causa. On the following morning, therefore, I proceeded directly to 62 New Square. Not pausing to announce myself in the Clerks’ Room, I climbed the stone staircase to the second floor. Being occupied for the purposes of their profession by the younger members of Chambers, the second floor is commonly referred to as the Nursery. The Nursery comprises three rooms, of varying sizes: I shall not delay my narrative to explain the finely balanced considerations of decorum, convenience and seniority by virtue of which Selena has the small one to herself, Ragwort and Cantrip share the large one and Timothy occupies the one of intermediate size.
For conversation, their natural tendency is to gather in the large one. I found Selena already there, repeating to Ragwort and Cantrip the news from Timothy which she had given me on the previous evening.
‘Selena,’ I said, ‘what’s all this about the Finance Act?’
‘Ah yes,’ said Selena. ‘The Finance Act. It appears that a copy of this year’s Finance Act, inscribed with Julia’s name and professional address, was found a few feet away from the corpse.’
‘Oh, strewth,’ said Cantrip.
‘Dear me,’ said Ragwort.
‘The Italian police,’ continued Selena, ‘with childish naïveté, took this to be a clue. As your own more sophisticated minds will immediately perceive, it is, of course, nothing of the kind. One cannot infer Julia’s presence from the presence of her Finance Act.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Ragwort. ‘Any more than one could infer, from the presence last Thursday fortnight in Lower Liversidge County Court of a copy of Woodfall on Landlord and Tenant, clearly inscribed with my name, to indicate that it was my property, purchased out of my own resources, that I myself was appearing before that learned and august tribunal; or that I was absent from London; or that, being in London, I had no need of the volume in question for the purpose of advising my clients. It can merely be inferred that certain members of these Chambers— ’
‘I said I was sorry,’ said Cantrip. ‘There’s no need to keep on about it.’
‘That certain members of these Chambers,’ continued Ragwort, ‘whose names I shall not mention because
they have apologized and I, as was my duty, have forgiven them, have very little notion, when it comes to books, of the difference between meum and tuum.’
‘Exactly,’ said Selena. Cantrip, overcome by the joy of Ragwort’s forgiveness, said nothing.
‘Have you,’ I asked, ‘heard anything more from Julia?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Selena, ‘there was another letter this morning. I was just going to read it.’
Terrace of the Cytherea.
Thursday evening.
Dearest Selena,
My letters to you – are they mere ephemera, stop-gap economies for telephone calls? Or are they to serve, in half a century’s time, when you are retired from high judicial office and I, too improvident to afford retirement, still pursuing the vain chimera of paying the last year’s income tax, am advising my clients from the comfort of a Bath chair – are they to serve then as a journal or memoir, when we seek diversion in reminiscence? If so, it would be absurd, though nothing I now write can reach London before me, to end the correspondence with yesterday’s letter. The postscript, it is true, will tell us that I had my way. But when you ask me how I achieved it, I shall have forgotten; and when I ask you whether I enjoyed it, you will be unable to remind me; and when we say to each other that surely there was some curious and interesting sequel, but cannot quite remember what it was, there will be nothing to recall it to our ageing memories. For the avoidance of which and the resolution of all doubts, I shall continue to write until tomorrow evening.
My postscript may have occasioned you some surprise, following, as I recollect, a passage in which I spoke with some bitterness of Ned’s behaviour and announced my intention to upbraid him severely. On the way to lunch, however, I happened to call to mind some advice once given me by my Aunt Regina, who told me that the surest way to a man’s affections was to let him think he knew more about something than you did. It seemed worth trying – my Aunt Regina must be regarded as an authority on such matters, for she has had four husbands; though I cannot actually recall her thinking that any of them knew better than she did on any subject whatever.
Thus Was Adonis Murdered Page 10
