Patricia and Malise (10 page)

The old people settled at The Grid. Alyson played bridge during most hours of the day whilst her husband snoozed.

It was not the merriest of Christmases that year. Christian drove Malise to the old people's home where Alyson awaited them at the entrance.

‘Daddy's not feeling very Christmassy I'm afraid. They say it's the time of year. I've ordered turkey and plum pudding but it's to be eaten cold – staff are short over the holiday.'

Malise stood stiffly and said nothing as Christian gave his stepmother an unwilling kiss.

Nobody spoke much during lunch, although Alyson and Christian did their best to disguise the silence of the others. The father was completely gaga.

By a quarter past two, the brothers had returned to their scanty quarters at the back of the house. Cold lunch had not taken long to polish off.

About six weeks later a letter came addressed to Malise. It was opened by Christian and came from Giovanni, the one to have put Malise in touch, in the first place, with the Lucca apartment. He had, he said, written in Italian but a kind friend had translated it for him into English.

‘Dear Mr Mc Hip.' In earlier days they had been on Christian name terms. ‘I write to you in some distress. The apartment in Lucca that you rent from my cousin seems to have been empty for many months. No rent has been paid and several of your possessions are still there. Books, a wireless, camping equipment (including a folding tent), some samples of brickwork and a camera. Then outside, is an interesting car, an old Lagonda, which takes up space for others. Nobody knows where the key is for this car. My cousin is anxious to re-let the apartment and neighbours are getting upset about the car. The spare key to the apartment has been kept by a kind store holder in the large piazza and they had, on my cousin's instructions, let themselves in to see if your things were still there. Please can you reply to me here at the British Museum and explain this mystery.

Christian answered the letter, apologised, told of Malise's dementia and reassured Giovanni that the rent was to be paid and that he, possibly accompanied by Malise , would make plans to go to Lucca to sort things out as soon as it was possible to do so.

Malise stood, rigid and pale, and almost appealingly submissive as Christian plotted the journey. Most of the time his mind seemed to be dead blank. Sometimes it stirred and he added a comment or two.

‘Yes. Lucca. Very pleasant. Bells. Many bells.'

But he was of no practical use and Christian went ahead showing masterly power – trimming his brother's hair, shaving his face and cooking his meals. Malise was still able to scramble into his clothes and to use the lavatory where he nearly always forgot to pull the plug.

Before winter was over the brothers went together to Lucca. No key to the apartment was to be found amongst Malise's few possessions and Christian suspected him of having thrown it away in one of his rare but recurring fits of petulance. Malise was certainly in no state to travel alone and Christian enjoyed taking full charge.

In the town they met with the store holder who kept the spare key. Christian borrowed it with gratitude and the help of a dictionary. Malise almost galloped up the seventy-nine steps with glazed but shining eyes as though something tugged at him. Once there they were deafened by bells and in amongst an unmade bed, kitchen equipment and detached oddments including brick samples. Food and rubbish, it transpired, had earlier been removed by the neighbours who held the spare key. Malise stood by the window and, ape-eyed, looked at the basket attached to the rope as, Christian with unprecedented practical skill, put Malise's belongings together with the intention of wrapping and posting them during the days to come. He located the key to Ruggles under the ancient brick where it had been hidden, pocketed it and planned to decide, later, what on earth to do with the wretched car.

Malise spoke once or twice but never using more than a word at a time.

‘Comestibles. Ruggles. Tent. Tent. Tent.'

Between tasks, wrapping and posting – two crates sent by sea – they ate sandwiches and drank coffee at the bar in the main piazza – the one outside which Patricia had fallen from her bike. Now they sat indoors as winter was not over. Although two of the waiters greeted him with warmth, Malise showed no signs of recognition. He just sat and, mindlessly, munched slowly on a sandwich.

One day, late in the morning, Christian ordered slices of pizza to be warmed up as Malise stared at the rails of a staircase that wound up to a sign saying ‘Cabinetto.'

There was a gust, a whirlwind. Christian turned and saw a boy, no more than nine or ten years old, race towards Malise calling ‘Sir. Sir. Where were you? I'll find Mamma. She's talking with her friend, at the back there. Drinking coffee.'

Having given his order, Christian returned to where Malise, unconscious of the excitation with which he had been greeted, sat. The boy had raced to retrieve his mother and was dragging her back towards the object of her mortal terror.

Patricia, clearly heavily pregnant, nodded a polite greeting towards each man. It was not long before she took stock and realised that Malise had no idea who she was; what escapades they had shared or how great had been her dread of seeing him again. All four, including the boy, were silent and confused.

Malise had mentioned to Patricia, whilst flailing in the tent, of a younger brother with a feeble temperament. No feebleness now. He took note of the size of her stomach and wondered. Dates fitted. A Mc Hip in there?

Christian smiled. Patricia, stunned and frightened, told her son that they must leave immediately. She seized his hand and whipped him towards the door as the boy nagged. ‘Sir. Capitano. Why did he not know us? Who was that silly man with him? He kept laughing at his own jokes. Were they jokes?'

Faster and faster, she tugged him away, fearing her own fantasies. Had she really, less than a year ago, rolled about in a tent with that mad man? Left her son in his charge? Quite clearly he was demented. Had he been to Lucca since the tightening of the notch in his trousers? In that case she had been extremely fortunate not to have bumped into him before. Maybe his ugly brother had come especially to rescue him.

Did she hold any responsibility for the loss of his sanity?

The pizza, sizzling, was placed before the two men. Malise, still ape-eyed, asked his brother ‘Who was that charming woman? Did she know me?'

It was the longest sentence he had spoken in many months but Christian found no answer to it. He was occupied in confirming dates in his head. How lucky, as it turned out, that Malise, before losing his wits, had confided in him on the topic of his love affair the previous summer. Had told of a son called ‘Antonio'. It all fitted.

Patricia's terror of bumping into Malise in Lucca had been so fierce that she barely considered her own peculiar behaviour during the summer holiday. Aberration surely. After his letters arrived she did, at least, know that he had been crawling about in the undergrowth in Hertfordshire and tightening notches in his trousers. He had left her with no impression, though, that he might not return to Lucca at any moment.

She shuddered, trembled and her nerves quivered as she bicycled through the town wearing a black scarf and with a beret, hiding her hair, pulled well down – keeping her head as low as she dared – in terror of falling off again and of hearing his formal voice and a touch of jest saying ‘
Scusi
signorina
. I believe we have met before.'

When off her bicycle and lying on her bed, she did begin to think back. Not for long at a time. Memories jarred her with electric shocks. Often she pulled down a shutter in her mind and made shopping lists.

A day came when she decided to stifle insupportable shame and to summon the courage to concentrate. Andrea was working in Pisa and Antonio at school for the best part of the day. She was free of duty at the art academy and decided to drive out to her house in the woods. She had shunned it since the start of term and it needed certain attentions before the winter came. Once there, it felt as if autumn had arrived. Figs lay like tiny cowpats sploshed onto the jagged terrace that surrounded the building. Wasps swarmed all over them and she was scared of being stung. They were everywhere. Buzzing around. Possibly a wasps nest in the eaves. She pulled a chair from the kitchen and placed it up against the outdoor stone table from which she looked over, across the stream, to the terrace where Malise Mc Hip had pitched his tent and where she, leaving Antonio alone in the dark wreck of a house, had pattered to indulge in reckless passion with a semi-stranger. The sudden impulse, perhaps, of a madwoman. At the same time as shaking at her memories, it did comfort her enormously to remember that she had not been entirely insane; had taken fool-proof anti-pregnancy precautions. For many years she and Andrea had hoped to have another child but, none having come along, she was fairly confident of her own infertility. Nonetheless she took no risks in that area. Huge comfort.

Then her thoughts returned to her bicycle tumble. His stately assurance. Never had she seen anyone as handsome. And English. The supper at the top of his seventy-nine steps. Had she been attracted to him then? She thought not. Not particularly. But she had enjoyed the rapport that he and her husband engaged in – although there was something stilted about the English visitor.

Later meetings. Antonio's sightseeing ventures and her boy's delicious delight in ‘Sir's company.

Andrea was often working in Pisa and also often silent when at home. They did, sometimes, visit friends and relations in England but it was never a success. She did not care to dwell on that for it disappointed her. Andrea spoke reasonable English but was reluctant to do so when with her family in Essex. Her family home in Essex was not at all far from the Mc Hip farm in Hertfordshire. Might that have constituted a factor? A topographical twin-ship?

Andrea had encouraged her by saying what an interesting man she had introduced him to. He had, after all, been the one to suggest English lessons.

Maybe, during that first lunch at the
trattoria
, Malise had handed her the notion that he admired her. Apart from that, why had she behaved irrationally?

There had, to her knowledge, been no subdued hankering within her. She loved her husband, her boy and her funny little plot in the hills. Her once-weekly job at the art academy. She had a few friends from England who had settled in Lucca – taught in schools or had married Italian prisoners of war and returned with them when fighting stopped.

It was impossible for her to work out where the gaps had been in her life – or if there had been any gaps.

The Malise thing had been a blast from the blue.

She regretted it deeply. Back her mind went again as she looked to the loathsome spot on the terrace. Fireflies, candles, comestibles, strumming guitar. Maybe the wine. The admiration; flattery of a sort. Hints about being a Mc Hip had puzzled her and had made her wonder if there had been a fashionable general or politician of that name. She took no interest in the aristocracy – had never got the hang of it.

The christening of his car ‘Ruggles' had jarred slightly. An attempt at wholesome humour.

Possibly, too, he had been too successful at winning the admiration of Antonio. The understanding bachelor. The ‘I might not be a father but ….'

She knew he had a slightly simple brother but had been told nothing of the scouts or the choir.

A violent attack of indigestion overpowered her. Pains near her heart. Nausea. She hoped it was indigestion and not a heart attack. She had no pills with her. Day trip. Water from the spring, cupped in her hands, gave her a break and the respite released some power with which to relive the scenes that had engulfed her only a few weeks before. Reconstructing repelled her. The sensation was entirely nasty – heart half burning and shame overpowering her. Panic of the past. Worse than the panic of the present – by far. There was sweat in her hair and round her ears as she went through inward argument. That first kiss. That had stirred something curious in her. It reminded her of something that she had missed – or thought she had missed. The past, the recent past, was a part of her and she was responsible for it. She had treated the ludicrous Englishman badly. Given encouragement.

Both her legs, from the ankles upwards, began to burn. Hot pins and needles. And her back ached. It was frightful.

Those hours (she had no idea how many) when wrapped in sex with the almost unknown visitor, haunted her in many mysterious ways. Then her back started to itch. Another symptom. She had nothing with her – no luggage, no food, no alcohol. The little house was always left empty.

She cried as Antonio's voice sounded in her head ‘Where is Sir? Capitano? I want him to take me on walks again. I want him to make a camp and to drive Ruggles. Why does he not want to be our friend anymore?
Perche
mamma
?'

The itching rose to the tops of her legs and her back ached. Lower back. Then her right shoulder. Her memories were killing her; suffocating her with mental shivers. Her body underwent the mortification of having been given away on a mattress pierced with twigs.

She threw the alabaster peach, that he had given her, into the stream and liked hearing it plop and seeing the water ripple. She loved the word ‘plop'.

Andrea had not been able to join them for several days. Antonio had been in a state of ecstasy. His cup was full. Mother with him, father expected and a thrilling newcomer with a tent and a Lagonda called ‘Ruggles'. Hammock too.

During the infamy of those dizzy sexual exploits Malise had ceased to mystify her. Whilst making love – he had been entirely there. That was what it had boiled down to. Total presence. Top to toe. Ecstasy. Out of doors. Crazed. Walking back to her house on elastic steps.

He left suddenly not, he had said, wishing to be there when her husband became part of the cast. His note. Her relief. She had been pleased when he left. So pleased that she had failed to suffer until later.

Some of his characteristics, in retrospect, had begun to jar on her – such as, one evening, when he said ‘I spied some enticing herbs on the bank. Basil, rosemarina, salvia.' His words, Italianised, had made her squirm a bit. It struck her as vulgar to discuss herbs in that way. If only she had registered the absurdity of it more firmly – and retracted.

The short notes they had handed to each other in the kitchen on the day of their last meeting had been friendly and both written with the intention of continuing their affair once Antonio's holidays were over. Up the seventy-nine steps. How proud he had been of those steps.

That day, the day of Malise's departure, Andrea had found his wife much altered. She was abstracted and uninterested in his activities at the university. Antonio wanted to talk of nothing but the ‘Capitano.' Why had he abandoned them after making many promises? Rides in Ruggles.

She did not write to him at the address in Lucca and did not know if he was there still.

The second day after Malise's departure was different. She flew to Andrea's side and into his arms and bed. He comforted and forgave her – not that he had more than a slight inkling that there was anything to forgive her for.

Now, later, at the scene of the crimes, she walked on tingling legs to the spot where grass was still flattened by the thin mattress and the stretch of tarpaulin. Malise had cleared up meticulously and with pride. It was as if a giant snake had left a slimy trail on the dry grass.

Her local friend came up the hill on foot carrying three letters. They spoke for a while but Patricia was clearly abstracted and her friend found her ungrateful. After all – she had been the go-between, the confidante, and expected more than an icy reception (which is what she got) after walking up the steep hill.

It was, paradoxically, the letters that cheered Patricia up and comforted her. She read them each twice as she ate only the figs not to have been invaded by wasps.

He was in the land of the living – in Hertfordshire. She realised that as she opened each letter in turn.

The first one horrified her. His description of himself crawling through the undergrowth with a bushman's saw and the cost of much blood whilst laying the enemy low, appalled her. His ‘having a tale or two to tell' petrified her. As for his reference to keeping his trousers up. That disgusted her.

The second and the third letters were all in the same vein but each one reminded her of the notch in his belt.

She walked to the village shop where she bought paper and an envelope. A letter could be posted on her way home.

At the stone table she wrote the cruel letter that triggered off the reply (received some weeks later) of ‘Whoa there!'

She had always abhorred screech marks and his letters screeched with them. Poor Malise. The letters he had troubled himself with had been a part of his undoing.

Again and again, the closeness that had sprung up out of nothing and ended quickly, plunged her into misery. She had not wanted to enter his world but he had, inexorably, entered hers.

After writing the letter, she walked into the house. It was dark and damp but very pretty – trees almost breaking in through the windows, she opened the one in her bedroom and heard birds twitter as wasps buzzed. She was thankful that she had never shared that room with Mc Hip. Maybe out of doors didn't count. The house was not contaminated. That was a blessing. Winter wind and rain might dispose of outside evidence. She spotted the pink ribbon that had tied her hair back on the day of Malise's arrival at La Cassetta. It lay on a table beside her bed. The double bed she shared with Andrea. She walked down the chipped, stone stairs to the kitchen where she found a pair of scissors and cut the ribbon into tiny shreds. Malise became no more, in her identity, than a blunt instrument. A garden tool. The memory of his tool provoked an unsteady reaction and she sat down again. One more walk past the oozing, open-mouthed, wasp-infected figs and onto a raised patch of grass where the two trees, between which the hammock had been hitched, leant towards each other – faintly scarred where knots had been tied around their trunks.

She tore up his letters and shoved them into a plastic bag alongside her shredded ribbon.

The magic of the place began to return in shafts of light. The grizzly episode had, after all, lasted but a few days. Even by magnifying those days by five, or even fifty, recovery was not going to last forever.

She had driven back to Lucca, clutching her discreditable secret, where she fetched Antonio from school.

Her terror of meeting Malise, were he to return from England, lasted for several months and then disappeared altogether. It was as if he had never been. She did not know, though, that he, too, was becoming as if he had never been.

Later in the year, as winter arrived, she sat with Andrea at the stone table. Both wore overcoats. Then she said to him ‘Andrea. We are to become parents again.' Andrea was more than amazed and overjoyed. Ecstatic. Proud and dazed. He told her how happy he had been during their few last days together during the summer holiday.

‘What, I wonder,' he asked as he drank coffee and smoked ‘became of that strange Englishman? Malise Mc Hip. The one we met in Lucca and who spent a few nights here in his tent.'

Patricia quaked as he went on ‘We are, I think, lucky to be rid of him. He was interesting and educated but I didn't care for the way he worked in order to impress Antonio. It was a little suspicious – as if he wanted to give us lessons in parenting.'

She answered, ‘He was an oddity. I liked him to start with, then, well to tell you the truth, I went right off him.'

She looked at her happy husband with dedication. He was an excellent person. How could she have been unfaithful to him? As she wondered about that, she realised that she had never, ever been unfaithful. She had strayed, to be sure, but had never stopped loving Andrea. The realisation cheered her up. ‘He was odd; fishy. Handsome to an eerie degree. Snobbish. Self-righteous. Conceited.' Patricia began to revel in her own and her husband's opinion of the strange man who had not hesitated to seduce her.

Various things had to be dealt with before the damp became damper. Logs to be stacked in the shed. Logs that had been left behind by the gypsies who Malise, from his hammock, had thought of tackling on Patricia's behalf as they walked away with large bundles.