The Marshal Makes His Report (26 page)

‘Excuse me . . .’ He had gone over to the window and looked down. There were a lot more people there by now and, though it was impossible to be sure from such a height, the Marshal reckoned that a few journalists had got in. The big double gates had been opened, which meant that the ambulance was expected. He had decided then to go down. But suddenly Neri was behind him.

‘Marshal. I beg your pardon. It was only for a moment—I was particularly fond of her, you see. Her kindness and . . .’

‘Of course, I do understand.’

‘Father Benigni . . . He was right, you see, that if there’d been no truth in it I would have caused dreadful pain and upset for no reason—and Catherine did tell me she was going away and so I waited. I waited . . . but now, I must do what is right in God’s eyes but I want to ask your indulgence—please sit down.’

Perhaps Neri was right about the drugs wearing off. His face, though the lips were still tinged with blue, had a more normal colour. Or was that because the rosy light had drained away from the high room?

‘Father Benigni was right about two things: we can’t confess the sins of others and people do say wild things in anger which have no basis in truth. They are said to wound. In this case, Marshal, they wounded my father to death and I . . . I began it all—’

‘No,’ the Marshal said firmly. ‘You began nothing, you harmed nobody. You loved Catherine Yorke, didn’t you?’

He was taken aback. No doubt he had never given his feelings a name and perhaps, anyway, the subdued and childlike turmoil that lived inside his head feeding upon itself could not rightly be called love. But whatever its true nature, it existed and was yet another source of guilt for this overloaded soul.

‘My father loved her—perhaps you know that by now.’

‘Yes.’

‘He said that night that she was—that she was expecting his child. I understood him then. There was never any time to tell him, to talk to him, and now he’s dead. I understand that though he loved Catherine, what had made him so determined was the thought of the child. A healthy normal child, Marshal. Look at me. What sort of son was I for him? He has a brother, you know, though you may not have seen him. I always thought he envied his brother. There’s a little girl, Fiorenza. They brought her to see me once, I don’t know why because I was too sick to talk to her but I remember her, even so. Very tiny and full of energy. I saw her again at my father’s funeral and I understood. That’s what he wanted, children like that. I know there were times when he couldn’t bear to look at me. I used to dine down there with them but I could see how I disgusted him, so now poor Grillo drags my tray up here. I’m a burden to everyone and I have nothing to offer in return.’

The Marshal felt the truth of this and felt no inclination to offer banal denials. But he remembered Catherine Yorke’s letter.

‘There was a letter,’ he told Neri, ‘from Catherine Yorke to her brother. She talked about you. She said that she and your father talked of you often, that your father suffered, as you saw, but that it was because he cared. She said, “If only we could take him with us.” ’

Neri’s eyes were alight. ‘She said that?’

‘And she meant it. She said coming up to see you helped her when she felt sad.’ It occurred to him that he was offering the poor creature affection coming now from beyond the grave and so he added, ‘Your Aunt Fiorenza has spoken to me about you. She is afraid for your health and wants to see you well. She asked me to help you. I can do that only if you feel you can help me.’

Neri was silent. Again there was a moment when he could have got up and left and gone down to William, done something useful instead of insisting on this truth which he could never use except for his own satisfaction. And was his personal satisfaction worth a life?

Then Neri said, ‘I’ll try.’

After that nothing would have dragged him away.

‘Try, then, and tell me what happened on the night your father died.’

‘There was a quarrel . . .’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was . . . in my bathroom—I’d got up, you see. Well, from there you can hear. Then I went down to my sitting-room where there’s a connecting door. I was frightened.’

‘Why were you frightened?— Do you mind if I switch a light on? Would it bother you?’

‘Afterwards. Let me tell you this first . . .’

For him it was still the confessional. The Marshal felt uncomfortable at being forced to play the priest but there was little he could do if he wanted to hear the truth. He must accept this great burden of guilt from the innocent.

‘I went down because their quarrels were sometimes so violent. Because my—I was afraid for my father. Even so, I shouldn’t have listened behind the door like that. It was cowardly. In my heart I want to do what’s right but my actions always come out as cowardly, vile.’

‘It wasn’t so unreasonable,’ the Marshal pointed out, ‘to want to be on hand if violence broke out but to be reluctant to interfere otherwise. Surely anybody would have done the same.’

‘Do you think so? Do you really think so?’

‘Well, I’m only giving you my opinion.’ There was no getting away from it. He really wasn’t quite right in the head and this childlike trust in his burning eyes, evident even in the half light, irritated the Marshal. It wasn’t normal and it upset him. That, too, may have contributed to the way things went afterwards.

‘Well—’ Neri clasped his large hands together and began squeezing them rhythmically—‘I’m glad you see it like that and yet, if I’d opened the door at once, my— she wouldn’t have said those things, not in front of me. I’m sure she wouldn’t, and then my father would have lived.’

‘What did she say to him?’

‘They were quarrelling about divorce. They had before, more than once, but this time my father had made up his mind and how he did it was up to her. If she wouldn’t agree he would use Hugh Fido’s name— you see! That was my fault, too, because he would never have known but for—’

‘What answer did she give him?’

‘She laughed in his face. Sometimes, when she’s really angry she laughs. It can be very frightening.’

‘Were you frightened that night?’

‘Yes, I was. There was something—I don’t know— something unreal about the quarrel. Of course, now I know . . . It was unreal because she—’

‘Are you all right?’

The Marshal leaned forward to peer at him closely. The glazed look caused by the drugs had gone but he looked ill now, perhaps the strain of telling this was too much for him. But then, how else was he to unburden himself?

‘It’s my heart . . . there are some pills I should take but it doesn’t matter—He told her then. He told her that Catherine was expecting a child and I understood. I wish I could have talked to him. I wish I’d had the chance to tell him that I understood.’ He was still squeezing his hands in anguish.

‘It’s always the way,’ the Marshal said, ‘when someone dies. We think of the things we never said. I felt that way when my mother died.’

‘Did you?’ Neri’s voice was soft, wondering. ‘But she didn’t die the way my father . . .’

‘No, no, she was sick. But you feel it just the same when they’re gone.’

‘I’ve talked to him in my prayers but I can’t reach him. I haven’t even a memory of him, of us together. I was always sick and he was so busy. But once . . .’ He stood up shakily, looking about him, his hands still gripped together. ‘Once when I’d been very sick he came to see me and brought me something . . .’ He went to his bedside cupboard and took from it his father’s present. It was a news magazine. The date was the November of four years ago. The Cellophane wrapping was unbroken. ‘He thought of me, you see, and brought me this and said, “It might cheer you up to read what’s going on in the outside world.” It was a kind thought, don’t you think?’

‘Very.’ The Marshal recognized the kind thought as being Fiorenza’s but it was touching that Buongianni had tried to follow her advice. ‘You never did read it, though?’

‘Oh no. I much preferred to keep it intact and now I’m very glad I did. It’s something to remember instead of remembering the sight of him up there, the sight of him—’

‘Try and keep calm. You’ll feel better when you get it off your chest. How did the quarrel end?’

‘He said that Catherine had gone to England to think things over but that he intended to go after her the following day, because on no account did he want her to—to not have the child, and then—that was when she started screaming with laughter and she told him that he could save himself the journey because his—his tart was right here . . .’ Neri’s voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper, as if the words hurt him physically. Then it became harsh and it might have been Bianca Ulderighi herself speaking, watching what had been her husband crumple before her eyes.

‘Just what she deserved. As she was offering her services I found her two suitable clients, people on her own level, and if they accidentally broke her neck there was no harm done. Where are you running to? There’s no need for you to interfere. I’ve seen to everything. They put her body into Cinelli’s tomb—I thought of that. And what’s so amusing is that instead of Cinelli’s bones in there we found those of a dog that dissolved into dust at a touch! So much for the curse. So you see it’s all settled. There will be no divorce.’

Neri paused, breathing deeply, searching for his own voice.

The Marshal shuddered as though Bianca Ulderighi were in the room with them. He spoke loudly himself to dispel the sinister atmosphere. ‘Is that where he went when he went down in the lift? To the cellars?’

‘Yes, I think so. I didn’t watch him. I’d been behind the door all that time and then when everything was silent I opened it. She was standing just as he’d left her, very erect, her head high. She looked very serene, almost smiling, and I thought that none of it could be true, that now she would tell me that it had all been a cruel joke to frighten my father. We’ve—we were always very close. She never left my side when I was sick, and she used to tell me everything. So I waited.

‘Then I realized that she wasn’t even seeing me. I was right there at the door facing her and she went on standing there, smiling and smiling . . .’

Neri lifted his grief-stricken face to the Marshal’s.

‘I’ve thought about it so much and I’ve prayed. I’ve prayed for him and for what he didn’t do.’

‘I understand,’ the Marshal said. ‘He intended to kill your mother and didn’t. She told us that.’

‘He came up my staircase, Marshal, not in the lift. He came up my staircase and only when he didn’t find me in my bed did he run back down and go through the door where he found us together. I don’t know why he didn’t shoot both of us then. Now that you’ve told me about Catherine’s letter I wonder if that—
She
cared about me.’

‘What she said was that he cared about you.’

‘In any case I’ve forgiven him for what he wanted to do because I can understand. He must have suffered terrible anguish, I know that. Father Benigni insists that suicide is as much a sin as murder and I know he must be right, but God will forgive him because he suffered so much, I believe that.’

‘Did he go up to the roof then?’

‘Yes. I think . . . I think it was just to get away from us. I ran after him but it was too late. He was stronger and faster and I couldn’t keep up.’

‘But your mother could surely—’

‘Oh no. No. She didn’t move. When I came down to tell her she was standing exactly as I’d first found her. She was still smiling. I told her he was dead and all she said to me was, “Go back to bed.” I said I can’t carry him, not by myself. We can’t leave him up there. I’ve got him off the parapet but I can’t carry him. What can I do?’

‘Go back to your room. Wash yourself.

‘She was still smiling. It was still as though she couldn’t see me. As I went away I heard her telephoning someone. I suppose she had my father taken down to the gun room. I heard them a long time afterwards, I heard them on my stairs dragging . . .’

The Marshal’s ear caught the sound of a siren. He went to the window. The ambulance was coming in. There was a lot of noise, voices, instructions, but it was spent and distorted when it reached this height.

‘I must go down.’

‘I’ve never spoken to her since.’ Neri’s face was composed, his eyes focused on some faraway point visible only to himself.

‘I must go down,’ the Marshal repeated. ‘I’ll send Grillo up to you.’

When he reached the door he heard Neri remark quietly, ‘I was right, wasn’t I? I said they’d make me do it in the end and they have.’

The Marshal looked back over his shoulder, hesitating. Neri had his back to the door. He might have been addressing the Marshal or only an idea of the Marshal. In any case he didn’t turn. ‘She was in that little box. And now I’ve done it. I’ve destroyed her.’

‘I’ll send Grillo up,’ the Marshal said again because he didn’t know what else to say.

The left hand and arm were folded beneath the trunk and
the right arm outstretched. (See enc. 1 Photographic file.)

Though the square of sky above was still pale turquoise, no light by then penetrated the courtyard and the atmosphere was tense and subdued now the fuss of the ambulance’s arrival had died down. The Marshal had been right about the journalists. The magistrates were still down in the cellars and once they came up the press would surely be evicted, but in the meantime they were huddled together under the colonnade near the old tata’s door, smoking to keep their spirits up in the gloom. They’d get a fright all right if she opened up and attacked them, but no doubt she heard nothing, locked in to her own icon-lit world by her deafness.

He found Lorenzini talking to one of the ambulance men and gave him instructions as to the discreet removal of the body because of William.

‘Then you don’t want him to identify?’

‘I think I’ll ask Dr Martelli. She was her patient.’

‘Right, I’ll tell them—’ Lorenzini interrupted himself and caught the Marshal’s arm. ‘Look who’s arriving.’

Someone behind them, probably one of the journalists, whispered, ‘The Marchesa.’

She was dressed, very elegantly, in deep mourning. She was followed at an almost imperceptible distance, by the chief public prosecutor. Inside the gate she rang the bell for the porter, then walked towards the central well and paused. She looked at the ambulance and said something in an undertone to the chief public prosecutor. The porter came hurrying up to her, buttoning his jacket. Without looking at him, she said, ‘When these people have finished, go down and see how much damage they’ve done.’