Territorial Rights (11 page)

Violet now stepped forward and ordered the second driver to wait. She looked at Curran and said, firmly, ‘All this stuff must go back. I can’t have it here. I’ll pay Lina a month’s wages and let it go at that.’

‘I’ve nowhere to go,’ Lina said. ‘I’ve rented my flat to an Ethiopian student. I’ve brought my belongings to your house. You gave me the attic studio and I have my civil rights. I fled my country and I got asylum. You have no rights on your side. The student has paid me three months’ rent in advance, which is money that I needed, and it is my right to make my profit in a capitalist system.’ She hauled the first of her bundles over to the lift and pressed the button for it to descend. She pushed in the bundle and heaved another package over to the lift. ‘And I can help you with your researches, like you said you will help me with mine. Don’t worry.’

‘You promised,’ said Curran, suddenly infuriated, ‘to help her find her father’s grave.’ Violet stood still and dignified, as if the pink and pearl daylight were her natural backdrop. ‘Her father’s grave must be somewhere in Venice,’ Curran said somewhat emphatically. Violet looked at Curran and they smiled at each other. ‘My spirit-stove,’ Lina said, pouncing upon it where it lay behind a box. ‘Now I go up to the top and I come down again for the rest. If you hand over the key, I know my way,’ said Lina.

Later that day Violet sent off a telex to GESS which, decoded, read: ‘Friends at Hotel Ld Byron. She won two hundred thousand in a lottery two years ago otherwise penniless. Please instruct but must warn operational costs this end increased twenty-five percent.’

T
HE ATTIC STUDIO IN
Ca’ Winter was such that Lina had dreamed of sometimes, before she left Bulgaria, when Serge had been recounting his stories of life in the western countries. She had since actually seen grand and spacious attics like this, with adequate windows, northern lights, in Paris and in London, and had seen their pictures in films. These wonderful studios were always in the hands of expensive-living people, sometimes of an arty turn, sometimes not. Poor artists, she had found all her life, were no longer able to afford these attics of character atmosphere as Lina described it to Violet as she looked round her new studio the day after she had moved in. The vast space available to Lina’s tattered belongings swallowed them up so that they looked nothing like so desperate as they had on arrival. Violet had put in a divan bed, completely overcome by Lina’s determination to exist in these surroundings. This is a good attic apartment,’ Lina told her. ‘You must have money to throw away, that you haven’t rented it before, but I commend you for handing it over to me. The bed is too narrow, it is a single person’s bed only. I hope I can help you in your jobs and your sociology in return for all this atmosphere.’

‘I already told you,’ Violet said as she looked round the room, ‘that I could get money for this attic.’

‘But you don’t care for money,’ Lina said, agreeably.

‘I have to care. But this big room has memories. Personal ones. I like to keep it available for myself. You can only have it temporarily.’

‘First I make some memories for myself,’ Lina said.

Lina had already, the previous night, shown herself eager to be of service in Violet’s establishment; the only thing she would not hear of was that she should not have her attic. Last night, Lina had descended from her attic to the kitchen where she not only mended an electric iron but cooked a good meal made up of rice and pieces of fish, which she had served and eaten with Violet, who had thereupon made up her mind to make the best use she could of Lina.

Now, in the morning, she stood surveying what Lina had done to the attic. ‘I wouldn’t bring your boy-friend up here to sleep,’ she advised.

‘Why? Are you jealous?’

‘My dear, what would I want with that boy?’

‘I mean, jealous for me. There must be some reason you wanted me so much to come here. You want me?’

‘No, thanks,’ Violet said. That’s not my way of things.’

‘Just as well,’ said Lina, ‘because my boy-friend wants me. I have to call him. Where did he go? He should have helped me to move in here.’

‘Maybe he’s left Venice.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, if you say he didn’t sleep in the pensione the night before last, well, perhaps he’s just gone off. Young men do go off.’

‘But he left his clothes. Only he didn’t sleep there. He must have spent the night somewhere else. Could be, with Curran.’

‘Could be, with Curran,’ Violet said. ‘Would you mind doing some shopping for me? Are you a good shopper?’

‘What shopping?’

‘Well, the grocer, and mainly, this morning, the butcher. People coming to dinner.’

‘I know good butchery when I see it,’ Lina said. ‘So you give me the orders and the money, and I can go across to the Pensione Sofia to find Robert, too. I have told him he must be a man of vision and I can make him one.’

Grace Gregory found Arnold, that morning, sitting gloomy and solitary in the lobby of the Hotel Lord Byron. ‘At last!’ she said, sitting down heavily in the chair beside him.

‘What are you doing out here?’ said Arnold, who, in his younger days, had spent some time as a teacher in Kenya.

‘Quite a fancy place, this,’ said Grace, looking round the hotel lobby. ‘It must be expensive.’

‘I’m on a holiday,’ said Arnold. ‘Did Anthea, or did Anthea not, send you to spy on me?’

‘Anthea knows where you are. It’s hardly for me to spy on you. Anthea just wants to know your future plans. Do you intend to have a permanent liaison with the cook?’

‘You’re jealous, Grace.’

‘Ah, that’s what they all say. At least I protected you. Anthea knows nothing about us. She knows all about Mary Tiller. I saw Anthea, beginning of the week. Her nerves are at—’

‘Breaking-point, I know, I know,’ he said. ‘So are mine. And I come here for a holiday. … What do I find? First thing, Robert hanging round the reception desk, looking like a male tart and poking his nose into our business. Second comes Robert’s rich friend Curran, insulting me in my own bedroom. Number three, along you come, all the way out here to Venice, where I’m on my holiday, and you bring up Birmingham. I want to forget Birmingham. I’m under orders.’

‘Whose orders?’ Grace said.

‘My doctor’s orders.’

‘Oh, I thought you meant the cook’s.’

‘And you must please not call Mrs Tiller the cook. Cookery is chemistry. Mrs Tiller is a very intelligent companion.’

‘Well, Arnold,’ said Grace, ‘I can’t say you look as if you’re enjoying her company. You’ve lost your twinkle. You used to have one.’

‘A what?’ said Arnold.

‘A twinkle in your eye. It’s a lovely day and you’re in Venice. Nice and brisk. You should see the art-work in the galleries!’

‘I’ve been to the galleries.’

‘When you had Anthea to go home to at nights you used to make the most of your days. You look like a long draught of pump water. I wonder what Anthea married you for. Here’s Leo.’

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Leo.

‘Who are you?’ said Arnold.

‘Leopold Leopoldi,’ said Leo.

‘A former pupil of Ambrose,’ said Grace.

‘I recall the name but I wouldn’t have recognised you,’ said Arnold looking with some distaste at Leo’s two eyes and nose which were all that presented themselves for recognition amidst the frizzed foliage of black hair surrounding them.

Leo sat down. ‘Robert seems to have cleared off,’ he said.

‘Back to Paris?’ said Grace.

‘Good,’ said Arnold. ‘Wherever he’s gone, that’s one of you the less.’

‘I don’t feel we’re welcome,’ Leo said, settling himself further in his chair. He had a bunch of picture postcards in his hands, and now started to write to his friends.

‘Well, Grace, you might as well have a drink,’ Arnold said, having softened a little at the news that Robert had left Venice. He even included Leo in the invitation. Leo accepted without looking up from his card-writing.

‘Tomorrow, Sunday, I’m going to ring Anthea again. You get it cheaper, Sunday. Have you any message to send?’ Grace asked him when they had been served their drinks.

‘Why do you ring Anthea?’

‘To keep her advised as to her state of wedlock,’ Grace said. Leo looked up for a moment with bright eyes, then went back to his card-writing.

‘This is persecution,’ Arnold said, looking round the room.

‘Mary Tiller’s in the hairdresser having her roots done,’ said Grace. ‘So I shouldn’t think she’ll be back for some time if that’s who you’re looking for.’

‘If I want to tell my wife Anthea anything,’ Arnold said, ‘I can ring her myself. In fact, I might do. Now, suppose we agree that you spend the rest of your holiday with this young man and enjoy yourselves, and leave me alone to enjoy my holiday, too?’

‘Venice is a small place,’ said Grace.

‘Well, Mary and I will be moving on somewhere else. That’s all I can say to you.’

Leo made one of his rare comments; he had looked up from his postcards to sip his beer. ‘Oh, good!’ he said. But it was immediately apparent that he was referring to Lina who had come into the hotel laden with plastic shopping-bags.

‘I come to you,’ said Lina, ‘with my grocery and flesh, because I had to do my shopping for the Countess. You know, I had to walk to the other end of the island as I am acquainted with the cheap shops there. I know an old butcher, he makes me up my lard since I was in Venice. The Countess Violet likes cheap, it will make her pleased. But I took the
vaporetto
back as quick as possible to see you.’ She sat down beside Leo and dumped her shopping on the table and the floor. ‘And I must tell you that I went also to the Pensione Sofia to find Robert. Two nights now, he hasn’t been to his room, and his belongings are there still. He’s missing since Thursday and the ladies at the Pensione say that they haven’t heard. Curran was there, too, looking for him. Curran says it’s typical of Robert just to walk away and leave everything, and not to worry. But I say we tell the police.’

‘I agree with Curran,’ said Arnold. ‘My son is irresponsible.’

‘Thoroughly irresponsible,’ said Leo placing a comforting hand on Lina’s.

‘While I’m here,’ said Lina, ‘I ought to snoop. It’s part of my job.’

Arnold looked round the room. ‘Mary should be back soon,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting an hour.’

‘I don’t need to snoop on you,’ Lina assured him. I know all about you already.’

‘No’, said Violet on the telephone, ‘he hasn’t been here. Lina was expecting him to call or phone. I expect she’s gone off with him. She should have been back with the shopping.’

Curran said, ‘Yes, I saw her at the Sofia. But she hasn’t found him. He’s not there. He hasn’t been back for two nights.’

‘Are you anxious?’

‘No, only curious.’

‘See you tonight at dinner. Eight o’clock.’

‘Eight o’clock,’ said Curran.

W
HEN THE WEEKEND PASSED
without any sign of Robert, nothing at all, no message, nothing, Curran went around the vicinity of the Pensione Sofia making a few enquiries. ‘It is not,’ he explained to Violet on the telephone, ‘that I am responsible for Robert. I am not condemned to take care of him. Only the girls, I mean Katerina and Eufemia, say it’s their duty to inform the police, it’s the law and so on.’

‘Has he got his passport with him?’

‘Oh, yes. He always carries his passport when abroad. He could have gone anywhere. It’s all rather typical. …Draw attention to himself. … A real damn nuisance. … Lina and who? Lina and Leo. Who’s Leo? Oh, well, I haven’t time to think about their affairs. Let them sleep with each other all day, all night; I only want to know if she’s had any message. Typical of the young, they don’t care what happens to their friends, they just fall into bed with someone else. … Yes, Violet. I know we were young once ourselves but we had some sense of behaviour, and we had feelings. I’m not going to be condemned to spend my time looking for Robert. No, he isn’t in my flat in Paris; my man there hasn’t seen or heard from him. There are a few bars here in Venice where they might know something, near the Sofia. He used to hang around. …’

The prospect of going around the bars alone asking for Robert did not appeal to him after the first try. ‘I’m looking for a young student; he was here last week. Name, Robert Leaver. Tall and thin, twenty-four, brown curly hair and a moustache, nice-looking.’ The bartenders and the groups of multi-national students looked at him, some replying with cynical indifference, some with plain resentment and with amusement, too. It was not a good idea. Curran went to the Hotel Lord Byron and claimed Mary Tiller from under Arnold’s eyes just as the couple were about to set off for their morning coffee at Florian’s in St Mark’s Square, like so many others.

‘I’ll come, too, if you insist on taking Mary. I’ll make enquiries everywhere. I’m the father,’ Arnold said. ‘I don’t know why I should do it, but I will.’

‘That would be the worst thing you could do,’ Curran said. There would be a lot of gossip and nothing accomplished. If he’s made friends in Venice they certainly won’t tell his father where he’s gone. Then the police are always hanging around these bars, you know, in plain clothes, dressed like students. They’ll imagine he’s on the run.’

‘Well, he is on the run.’

‘No doubt,’ said Curran. ‘Then let him run and don’t antagonize him. He’s free to do what he likes.’

‘He has no money,’ Arnold said.

‘Oh, yes, he has. I gave him some,’ said Mary.

‘Look, Arnold,’ said Curran, ‘you take a trip to one of the small islands. They’re very picturesque. Torcello, for instance. Mary and I can just go around on Robert’s usual beat, explaining that we’re tourists, we’ve come to Venice and we’re looking for a young friend.’

‘He might have gone back to Paris,’ Arnold said.

‘I know that. He might be in Turkey, anywhere.’

‘Arnold, don’t fuss,’ said Mary.

‘If you’re going to spoil our holiday like this, Mary,’ Arnold said, ‘I shall return to England.’

Oh, no,’ said Mary. ‘I’ll be back this afternoon. There’s nothing, really, to be anxious about, but it’s only that Curran wants to know, and the people at that Pensione want to know, naturally.’