The Honeyed Peace (26 page)

Signor Chiaretti was furious. He had made it more than clear to Moira that she must not telephone his office; he had said he was dining unexpectedly with the Minister of the Interior. He had no desire to see Moira today and less and less desire to see her at any time; and he realized he had to go to the flat because otherwise he could not imagine what she would do: telephone his house probably. It was the basis of his life with Gianna that there were never scenes; Gianna was never forced to know anything. And he was dining with Lulu Boisvain and wanted time to go home first, have a luxurious bath, groom and shine himself for the occasion, and arrive tranquil, prepared for a sweet smooth duel. They were dining alone at Lulu's house; her husband was in Milan. Unless he could settle Moira quickly, he would have to go as he was, rumpled, soiled, from a tiring day at his office.

'Enrico,' Moira said and threw her arms around his neck. She was suffering a reaction; she had been crying in the bedroom ever since she arrived. 'Darling, I thought you would never come. I've been through the most beastly scene with Enid. I can't tell you how she treated me. She's put me out.'

Signor Chiaretti recoiled. Not true, he thought; oh, my God, a real first-rate scandal. He despised the Langdons but certainly did not want them as enemies, going around Rome in their congealed way saying he had seduced their cousin.

'What happened?' he asked. He was thinking quickly how to get out of this. He hated them all, those Langdons with their big teeth and blocked-up voices and this weeping, clinging woman.

'She as good as said I was simply in the way. She said I was inconsiderate, when I've worked like a black for her all these months. She said they needed my room for an Italian governess, which is a complete lie, and I should start at once looking for a place of my own.'

'Oh,' said Signor Chiaretti and let out his breath in a sigh. Still, he had to make sure. 'Nothing about us?'

'About us?' Moira asked in surprise. 'Why?'

'Oh,' Signor Chiaretti said again, and took off his coat and sat down, feeling shaky, in one of the bentwood, hard, stuffed armchairs. 'Let's have a drink and talk it over,' he said. I would like, he thought, to wring her neck.

Moira sat on the arm of the chair, stroking his hair, which made him so nervous he wanted to shout at her. 'Sit down over there, darling,' he said; 'I can't think with you close to me.'

Smiling, holding her drink, Moira established herself on the matching hard sofa. 'I've thought it all out,' she said. 'I shall move in here. It's much the best, don't you think? That way we won't—'

'No,' Signor Chiaretti interrupted violently. 'That will not do at all, Moira.'

'Enrico!'

'My dear, for heaven's sake use your head. How long do you think you could keep it a secret? What do you want, an open scandal, with everyone in Rome talking? It is quite impossible.'

'I don't care what anyone says. I love you. I want to be here where you can always find me. I will be happy, feeling that I can make this place into a home for you.'

My God, he thought; oh, my God, what horror!

'Moira, you are very sweet but totally impractical. I live in Rome, you know, I have my work here and a certain reputation. I cannot afford, for many reasons which are too obvious to explain, to be involved in what would end up as a serious disaster. We do not behave this way in Rome, I assure you. We are above all discreet. We do not call attention to ourselves. We do not force people to have an opinion and take sides. It would be unforgivable. Your position would be something you cannot imagine. I cannot allow you to put yourself outside society. You would never be invited anywhere again, no one would speak to you.'

I wonder if it's true, he thought, and ran rapidly through the list of his acquaintances, trying to remember old gossip. It might be true; but generally the knife fell if a married man or woman left home to live openly with another; how did the mistress in the separate flat work out? True enough, he thought, and truth isn't the point. He dared not tell her, as he longed to, that the very idea of knowing she was in his
garçonnière
, waiting like fate, made his blood run cold with loathing.

'You don't want me to stay?' Moira asked.

'My dear, it is not a question of wanting. I beg you to be sensible. It is a question of what can and cannot be done.'

'I do not understand,' Moira said and he saw to his disgust that she was going to cry again.

The only effective way to end this grisly interview would be to take her to bed. He could not and would not. If he hurried he still had time for that craved bath, for a moment of privacy, and a chance to slough off the unlikely, unwanted complications that now filled his life.

'I must go, my dear; I cannot keep the Minister waiting. I will see you here tomorrow at eight and we will plan something. Now be a good girl and take a taxi to a hotel; I think the Hôtel de la Ville would be a suitable place to spend the night. Here's some money,' he said, and pulled out his wallet and noticed with irritation that it always seemed to be thin, he was always running short of cash because he was always giving it unexpectedly to Moira.

She did not move; he laid the notes on the table in front of her.

'Be a good girl,' he said again briskly, 'I must hurry. Good night, darling.' He kissed the top of her head; still Moira did not move or speak or look at him. He hesitated a moment and then picked up his coat and ran down the steps. I will tell her my friend is returning from Tangier, he thought, clacking down the stone stairway. The motor of his car would not turn; he pulled viciously at the starter. I will tell her to stay there a week and then we must give the place up. I will cover her with money, he decided, and write her a letter saying Gianna has had a nervous breakdown and I have to take her to Majorca. Or anything. I will then pray, he told himself grimly, that the deplorable woman doesn't work up some public outrage and make a fool of me forever. In Rome, people laughed. That was the terrible thing; they laughed for years.

She had wept all she could; she was dried out. There was also nothing to think. Backward or forward, her mind came up against nothing. Moira reached for the whisky bottle and poured herself another drink. She drank it steadily, like medicine. She poured another. One idea formed in her mind: if she drank a great deal of whisky she would sleep. And she would sleep here; she smiled craftily; she would not go out alone in the dark, it was above all heartless and terrible the way Enid and Enrico never seemed to mind sending her around by herself at night when Italians were always disrespectful to women. She would not. She would go straight down the hall and curl up in what was her rightful bed.

Staggering a little, Moira made her way down the hall. She undressed, humming a song whose tune she did not seem to recognize. As she turned out the light by the bed, in the room which was very slightly tipped to the left, she thought how lovely it was to have a place of one's own.

Moira woke and was horrified to see where she was. Hammer-strokes beat behind her temples; her mouth tasted disgusting, hot and flannelly; her stomach rocked with an empty coldness. Enid would know she had stayed out all night; how would she ever explain this? She had burned her bridges. Then she remembered; there were no bridges. She sat up and a sharp pain shot from the back to the front of her head. She was shivering. Any moment the charwoman would arrive and see her. She thought of Enrico's words, which had stunned her with misery, last night; this morning they seemed both reasonable and wise. Of course she could not stay here, she must have been mad. Enrico was quite right. She was seized with panic at a picture of people turning away from her in the street, cutting her dead; the telephone would never ring; she would have no one in the world to talk to; the story would get back to London; the mistress of a married Italian, living in a sordid love-nest he kept for her on a back street. God, she said aloud. She threw back the covers and found that standing up made her feel even sicker. She would, chilled to the bone already, take a cold bath; that ought to bring her to. I must get out quickly, she told herself. I must not let Enrico know I disobeyed him, he would be furious; he is absolutely right; we will have to find some other way to manage this.

She took her overnight bag with her, after some hesitation; the charwoman must not find it. She would go to the Hôtel de la Ville, take a room, and then go to Enid's and pack up the rest of her things. Enid was apt to be out in the middle of the morning. Tonight she would talk to Enrico. A flat of her own and any sort of camouflage job was the proper arrangement. She must, in fact, be very careful to see people in Rome; there were always English friends passing through. She would even have to make an effort and meet some new people, perhaps at lectures of the British Council, so that nothing would seem odd or secretive. In England it would be altogether different, but in England everyone would know they were going to be married as soon as his divorce was final. You simply couldn't tell in Italy; these people were so peculiar and insincere and then this thing of their Church. They hated foreigners anyhow.

Moira stopped at a white-tiled milk bar and drank three cups of coffee which helped; she now only felt weak and her eyes ached. The concierge at the Hôtel de la Ville was civil at least and seemed to find nothing strange in her arriving like that with an overnight bag. She went up to the small barren room which faced away from the view, and stood against the radiator trying to get warm. Suddenly her mind went blank and she could not see ahead, as she had only an hour ago; the flat of her own, the respectable job, floated off into doubt. Nothing made sense; everything was temporary, like living on a raft. What shall I do? she asked herself, and her mind churned around, finding nothing but more questions, more uncertainty.

There was no one to help her, no one she could talk to. She longed for her mother, although she could not possibly have explained this to her mother and her mother never had any sure solutions, but at least Mummy was sweet and loved her and always said, 'Darling, I'm sure it will work out for thë best,' so one felt encouraged. No one, Moira thought, no one. I simply don't know what to do. Then she thought of Signor Kollonic, and though she hated him she had to admit he was extraordinary; he did know the past, he could foresee the future. He was the most unsympathetic and revolting person she had ever met, but he was always right really, when you stopped to think about it. I won't let him talk to me, Moira decided, I will say: Tell me what to do; and then I'll leave; I won't let him go on and on in that awful way he has; but I'll get a hint from him of what is to happen. She picked up the telephone quickly, while she still had a firm hold on this plan, and asked for Signor Kollonic's number.

Signor Kollonic disliked the telephone and in any case rarely heard names or remembered them. He made the appointment, wrote down on a torn envelope '11.30 - woman', put the paper on his crowded table, where it was immediately lost, and went on thinking of his problem. Signor Kollonic was defeated by the irrational and he knew it; he was now trying to understand the irrational, which was impossible. He had argued and explained to Giuseppe for two weeks. Giuseppe had sometimes listened and had, more often, retired behind his enormous gleaming brown eyes and his thick curling black eyelashes, and heard nothing. As a threat, Signor Kollonic called in the stars and foretold Giuseppe's hideous future; for a mindless man like Giuseppe the stars would be more convincing than logic and experience. He had in no way lied to Giuseppe; and Giuseppe, despite all this, left.

After two years, Signor Kollonic thought with bitterness, after I am used to him, accustomed, comfortable; after I have given him all the money I earn except for what is needed to keep the house. Signor Kollonic would have understood and accepted, with resigned cynicism, if Giuseppe had left to improve his position. Signor Kollonic had given Giuseppe a Vespa; another man might give him a Fiat; that would be sensible. But Giuseppe, repeating with mulish obstinacy that his parents wished it, that he had always known the girl, had gone off to marry a cow, a twenty-year-old already fat, and what would she be at thirty, with eyes even stupider than Giuseppe's, covered with black hairs on her arms and legs (one could not think of the rest of her without horror), with great heavy breasts and an imbecile's smile? This trap of flesh would now fasten on Giuseppe and present him every year with another Italian. Giuseppe, whose only qualities were beauty and good temper, would become dirty, bent, smelling, would drink too much and beat his wife and do nothing all his life except work and fertilize.

The waste enraged Signor Kollonic, the waste of his own time, of his money, of his affection, and the waste of Giuseppe. But there was more to it, and Signor Kollonic admitted himself to be both baffled and insulted. Giuseppe preferred that horrible girl; finally Giuseppe had shouted this piece of information. Giuseppe had said it was all right when you were young and poor to get a start with a man, but who would want to stay with a man forever? There was nothing like women. Women were the very best. Perhaps a strange malformation like Demetrio did not know this, never having tried, but he would rather spend one night with Flora than a year of Demetrio's little tricks, and he knew what he was talking about, having sampled both. Then Giuseppe had laughed and departed, taking with him his silk shirts, his bright tight-waisted suits, his pointed shoes, and his Vespa.

The ugly absorbent softness of women seemed to Signor Kollonic a threat to any man's life. They sucked blood like leeches, they twined their octopus arms, those quaking mushy bodies existed only to enfold and stifle men.

He answered the doorbell, his mouth still twisted with the disgust he was tasting in his mind, and saw Moira, and recognized her. Another of them, he thought, snivelling, stupid, without will or soul, with nothing to her except that mouthing greed which feeds on men.

Every time she comes to see me, Signor Kollonic thought, observing Moira's drawn face and strained eyes, instead of going to a doctor; what does she think I am? He considered sending her away immediately. But in the last two weeks he had not only pleaded with Giuseppe, he had tried to bribe him; money was scarce now. Briefly, Signor Kollonic resented Giuseppe most of all for this; he would have to accept every detestable woman who came to him, simpering or anxious or conspiratorial; he would have to see and talk to them all, because Giuseppe had cost so much. I will have more time to study Chinese, Signor Kollonic told himself, and I will not allow myself to be bankrupted by the next boy.