Two Lives

9

Soon after seven the next morning I observed the General pointing out to Mr Riversmith the features of the motor-car that Quinty has a habit of referring to as his, although, of course, it belongs to me. The old man drew attention to the huge headlights, the chromium fastenings of the luggage-box and of the canvas hood, now folded down. I heard him say that motor-cars were no longer manufactured with such panache and pride. Mr Riversmith no doubt considered it antique. He said something I did not catch.

I had chosen for our excursion a wide-brimmed white hat and a plain white dress, with black and white high-heeled shoes, black belt and handbag. On the gravel expanse in front of my house I greeted the two men, and in a moment Otmar and Aimée appeared, Aimée in the red dress she’d been wearing the evening her uncle arrived. To my amazement, Rosa Crevelli came out of the house also, clearly attired for the outing, in a flowered green outfit with lacy green stockings to match.

‘Look here,’ I began, drawing Quinty aside, but he interrupted before I’d even mentioned the girl’s name.

‘You agreed it was OK,’ he said. ‘When we asked you last night you said the more the merrier.’

‘I said no such thing, Quinty.’

‘You did, you know. I remarked it would make an outing for the girl. I remarked she was looking peaky these days.’

I firmly shook my head. No such conversation had taken place.

‘You had a drink in at the time, signora.’

‘Quinty –’

‘I’m sorry.’

He hung his head the way only Quinty can do. He protested that neither he nor the girl would offend me for the world; he’d maybe misheard when he thought I’d said the more the merrier.

‘You’re coming with us in order to drive the car,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s different altogether for a maid to tag along. There’s neither rhyme nor reason in it.’

‘It’s only I promised her when you said that last night. She said you were kindness itself.’

This spoiled everything. I’d so much wanted things to go nicely. I’d wanted it to be a pleasant day for Aimée and her uncle; I’d wanted to get to know Mr Riversmith better; I’d wanted the General and Otmar to go on pulling themselves together, benefiting from the diversion; I’d wanted everyone to begin to be happy again.

‘It’s peculiar, Quinty, for a maid to mix with house-guests.’

‘I know. I know. We’re servant class. All I’m saying is, since the misunderstanding is there let it stay. It would be a terrible disappointment for the poor creature. She was ironing her clothes till the small hours.’

So in the end I gave in, even though I felt acutely embarrassed. I resolved to apologize to our guests – well, at least to Mr Riversmith and the General – when a suitable moment arrived. I am servant class myself, as Quinty well knows, but with everyone waiting I didn’t want to explain that naturally there was a difference.

‘Sorry,’ he said again.

I did no more than shake my head at him. Rosa Crevelli had been watching us, gauging the content of our exchanges. I saw him glance at her, and the pout that was just beginning to disturb her sallow features turned into a smile. I approached the others and quietly suggested that Aimée and the maid should occupy the two rear seats, which are a feature of the car, the long middle one folding forward to allow access. Otmar, Mr Riversmith and I occupied this centre section, the General sat with Quinty in the front.

‘Andiamo!’ Quinty exclaimed as he engaged the gears, his sombre mood of a moment ago quite vanished. ‘We’re on the off!’

The sky was empty of clouds. The morning air was cool and fresh. As we drove, I pointed out distant hill-towns and avenues of cypresses for Mr Riversmith’s benefit. Sometimes I indicated a church or, if none loomed near, a roadside café or a petrol station, knowing that for the stranger everything is of interest. Mr Riversmith nodded an acknowledgement from time to time, appearing otherwise to be mulling over matters he did not share. ‘Magnificent, this car,’ I heard the General say. Now and again Otmar turned round to exchange a word with Aimée.

‘You may find it strange,’ I remarked to Mr Riversmith, for what I had touched upon the day before had been on my mind in the night, ‘that we should be going out on a jaunt while still in the grip of the horror that has torn our lives asunder.’

He shook his head. In a conventional manner he said it was a sign of healing and recovery.

‘We long to escape our brooding, Mr Riversmith. We stitch together any kind of surface. But when we look into our hearts we see only a grief that is unbearable.’

I chose those words carefully, and did not add that the loss I’d suffered myself had been far less than that of the others because I’d had far less to lose. I didn’t go into detail because it wasn’t the time to do so. All I wished to make clear was that when, today, he observed his niece and Otmar and the old Englishman he was observing a skin drawn over human debris. Mr Riversmith said he wouldn’t put it quite like that, but didn’t offer an alternative form of words.

‘I just thought I’d mention it,’ I said, and left it at that. The debris of our times, I might have added, but I did not do so.

When we reached Siena, Quinty parked just inside the city gates, positioning the car beneath a tree to keep it cool. When he had raised the canvas roof and locked it into place we set off to walk to the café in the Piazza del Campo, where we were to breakfast. It was quite chilly in the narrow streets we passed through.

‘I must apologize,’ I murmured in a private moment to Mr Riversmith.

‘I beg your pardon?’

I smiled, indicating Rosa Crevelli’s presence with a sideways glance. There is something of the gypsy in Rosa Crevelli, which was considerably emphasized by the vivid green of her dress and her lacy stockings.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mr Riversmith repeated.

I said it didn’t matter because the moment had passed and we could now be overheard. He said yes when I asked him if his wife would care for this city, if the grey alleys in which its natives moved like early-morning ghosts would impress her. When finally we reached our destination the contrast was startling: a bright blaze of sunshine was already baking the paving-stones and terracotta of the elegant, shell-shaped concavity that is the city’s centre. Would that, I wondered, impress Mrs Riversmith also?

He didn’t reply directly. In fact, strictly speaking, he didn’t reply to my question at all. ‘Dr Innocenti gave my niece this guide-book,’ was what he said, and handed the volume to me, unopened.

The great tower of the city-hall rises imperiously to claim a dominance against the plain serenity of the sky. I glanced through the guide-book when we’d settled ourselves at a table in the shade of the café’s awning. Chattering in Italian, Quinty and Rosa Crevelli shook the waiter’s hand. Noisily they ordered coffee and brioches. ‘The journey’s perked her up,’ Quinty whispered when he saw me looking at them.

‘This is very pleasant,’ the General said.

‘Yes, indeed,’ Mr Riversmith agreed, somewhat to my surprise since he had been so taciturn on the walk from the car.

When the coffee came I drew his attention to an entry in the guide-book about the Palio – the horse-race that takes place each summer through the streets of Siena and around the slopes of the Campo where we now sat. I read the entry aloud: that the race was an occasion coloured by feuds and sharp practice, by the vested interests of other cities and the jealousies of local families, that it was wild and dangerous.

‘You’ll notice the decorated lamp standards,’ Quinty interrupted. ‘Tarted up for the big day.’

I wore my dark glasses, and from behind their protection I observed my companions while Quinty continued for a moment about the lamp standards, prompted in what he was saying by the maid. I observed the nervous movement of Otmar’s fingers and the twitch of anxiety that caused him often to glance over his shoulder, as if he distrusted his surroundings. The old man’s masking of his anguish remained meticulously intact. Aimée examined the pictures on the little sachets of sugar that had come with our coffee.

‘The Sienese are renowned for the macaroons they bake,’ I remarked to Mr Riversmith. ‘Those ricciarelli we have at tea-time.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

Later, on the way to the cathedral, we called in at a travel agency, where he confirmed with the clerk the details of the flight back to Pennsylvania. The booking was made for four days’ time, I myself gently pressing that Mr Riversmith should allow his jet-lag to ease before rushing off. ‘I expect you’ve thought about how Aimée’ll settle with you,’ I said when these formalities were completed and we were on the street again. ‘You and your wife.’

Again there was the tightening of the lips, the sharp, swift nod, another silence.

‘Tell me about your sister,’ I invited, tentatively, as we moved on.

Before I’d finished speaking Mr Riversmith stopped in his walk. He turned to me in a deliberate way and said that every time he looked at Aimée he was reminded of his sister. Aimée had Phyl’s hair and her eyes and her freckles. I said yes, I knew, but the observation was ignored. Then, to my astonishment, while still standing on the street, the others now far ahead of us in their climb to the cathedral, Mr Riversmith related the history of the family trouble there had been. His sister had been particularly fond of his first wife. His second, the one called Francine, had somehow discovered this, had even learnt of Phyl’s repeated endeavours to bring the two together again. A couple of months after he married Francine she and Phyl quarrelled so violently that they had avoided speaking to one another since. He had taken Francine’s side and Phyl hadn’t forgiven him. The ugly breach that followed accounted for the fact that her children were unknown to him; he remembered his brother-in-law Jack only from the single occasion he’d met him. A dozen times Mr Riversmith had apparently been on the point of writing to Phyl to see if amends might be made. But he had never done so.

‘Naturally, I was apprehensive, coming out here,’ Mr Riversmith confessed. ‘I’d never even seen a photograph of my niece.’

All the fustiness had gone from him. For the first time he appeared to be a normal human person, endeavouring to contribute to a conversation. He was not a loquacious man; no circumstances in the world would ever alter that. Yet this moving little account of family troubles had tumbled out of him in the most natural way – hesitantly and awkwardly, it’s true, but none the less naturally. I was aware of a pleasant sensation in my head, like faint pins-and-needles, and a pleasant warmth in my body. My first concern was to throw the ball back.

‘Aimée didn’t know she had an uncle,’ I pointed out. ‘So if you and Francine imagine you were condemned in her eyes by your sister that wouldn’t be correct.’

He appeared to be taken aback by that. He even gave a little jump.

‘Of course you weren’t condemned,’ I repeated. ‘Your sister had a generous face.’

He didn’t comment on the observation. I asked when he’d last seen his sister and he said at their mother’s funeral.

‘A long time ago?’

‘1975.’

‘And your father? Yours and Phyl’s?’

Again there was surprise. The father had died when Phyl was an infant, and I imagined the household that was left, he taking the father’s place, much older than the sister. I imagined him mending things about the house the way his father had, cultivating lettuces and eggplant. I wondered if Phyl had thought the world of him, as younger sisters in such circumstances often do.

‘Don’t feel guilty,’ I begged, and told him how the General hadn’t been able to respect his son-in-law and could not find the courage to walk into an empty house or even to cope with solicitors – he whom courage had so characterized. I mentioned Otmar’s Madeleine.

While I was speaking I recalled a dream I’d had the night before. At once I wished to recount it, the way one does, but Mr Riversmith being the man he was, I found myself unable to do so. As you’ve probably deduced by now, dreams have a fascination for me. The Austrian ivory cutter – and, come to that, Poor Boy Abraham – used regularly to seek me out in order to retail a dream, and occasionally I would pass on what I’d dreamed myself. This one, in fact, concerned Mr Riversmith and might indeed have interested him, but still I felt inhibited. In it he was a younger man, little more than a boy. He was repairing a kitchen drawer that had fallen to pieces in Phyl’s hands, the sides dropping away from one another as if the glue that held them had become defective. He scraped away a kind of fungus from the joints and placed the drawer in clamps, with fresh glue replacing the old. ‘You’re clever to do that,’ Phyl said, and the wooden slat of the kitchen blind tapped the window-frame, the way it did in even the slightest breeze when the window was half open. I longed to ask him about that as we climbed the hill to the cathedral, but still I held my peace.

The others were by now out of sight. We found them waiting for us on the cathedral steps, and with Dr Innocenti’s guide-book open the General led the way into the wasp-like building, reading aloud about the floor and the carved pulpit. When we had exhausted the marvels of this most impressive place and had visited the little museum near by, we made for the picture gallery proper. To my considerable relief, Quinty and Rosa Crevelli had disappeared.

In the quiet of the gallery I would have liked to pursue my conversation with Mr Riversmith, but as we made the rounds of the pictures he fell into step with Otmar and the General, leaving me for the moment on my own. Aimée had wandered on ahead.

‘Look at this!’ I heard her cry in another room, and a moment later we were all congregated around the painting that excited her.

It was called Annuncio at pastori, and depicted two shepherds and a rat-like dog crouched by a fire that had been kindled beside carefully penned sheep. The hills around about were the hills of Italy turned into a brown desert, the sky an Italian sky, and the buildings in the background and the foreground were of Italian architecture. But an angel, holding out a sprig of something, was floating in a glow of yellow light, and didn’t, to my untutored eye, seem quite to belong.

‘I’ve never seen a picture as beautiful,’ Aimée said.

It occurred to me, as she spoke, that had the outrage not happened, she would probably have come to this city with her parents and her brother. They would probably have stood in front of this very picture. I looked at her, but her face was radiant. I edged closer to Mr Riversmith, hoping to share this thought with him in a quiet whisper, but unfortunately just as I did so he moved away.

‘Look at how the sheep are fenced,’ she said. ‘Like with a net.’

‘Sano di Pietro was born in Siena in 1406 and died in 1481,’ the General read from Dr Innocenti’s guide-book, and then explained that this was the person who had painted the picture.

‘More than five hundred years ago,’ I pointed out to Aimée, thinking that would interest her.

‘Eight trees,’ she counted. ‘Eight and a half you could say. Nineteen sheep maybe. Or twenty, I guess. It’s hard to make them out.’

‘More like twenty,’ the General estimated.

It was difficult to count them because the shapes ran into one another when two sheep of the same colour were close together. The guide-book, so the General said, suggested that the dog had noticed the angel before the shepherds had. To me that seemed somewhat fanciful, but I didn’t say so.

‘I love the dog,’ Aimée said. ‘I love it.’

Otmar, who had wandered off to examine other pictures, rejoined us now. Aimée took his hand and pointed out all the features she’d enthused over already. ‘Especially the dog,’ she added.

I was quite glad when eventually we descended the stairs again. Pictures of angels and saints, and the Virgin with the baby Jesus, are very pretty and are of course to be delighted in, but one after another can be too much of a good thing. I wondered if Mr Riversmith’s wife would have agreed and, since I very much wanted to establish what this woman was like, I raised the subject with him. I said I had counted more than thirty Virgins.

‘The cathedral would perhaps be more Francine’s kind of thing?’

But Mr Riversmith was buying a postcard at the time and didn’t hear. It was interesting that he’d been married twice. I wondered about that, too.

‘Otmar says you can climb up the town-hall tower,’ Aimée said in the postcards place. ‘We’re going to.’

On the way back to the Piazza del Campo I noticed Quinty and Rosa Crevelli loitering in a doorway. They were smoking and leafing through a photographic magazine, giggling as Quinty turned the pages. I was glad they didn’t see us and that no one happened to be looking in their direction as we went by. You could tell by the cover the kind of magazine it was.

‘Why didn’t I ever see you?’ I heard Aimée ask her uncle. ‘I didn’t even know I had an uncle.’

I didn’t catch his reply, something about the distance between Virginsville, Pennsylvania, and wherever it was she and her family had lived. Clearly he didn’t want to go into it all, but as we turned into the piazza she still persisted, appearing to know something of the truth.

‘Didn’t you like her?’

‘I liked her very much.’

‘Did you have a fight?’

He hesitated. Then he said:

‘A silly disagreement.’

The old man remarked that he would not ascend the tower but instead would search for his gardening manuals. We made an arrangement to meet in an hour’s time at the restaurant next to the café where we’d had breakfast, II Campo. I went off on my own, to look in the shoe shops.

I was after a pair of tan mid-heels, but I wasn’t successful in my search so I slipped into a bar near that square with all the banks in it. ‘Ecco, signora!’ the waiter jollily exclaimed, bringing me what I ordered. It was pleasant sitting there, watching the people. A smartly dressed couple sat near me, the woman subtly made up, her companion elegant in a linen suit, with a blue silk tie. A lone man, bearded, read La Stampa. Two pretty girls, like twins, gossiped. ‘Ecco, signora!’ the waiter said again. It was extraordinary, the dream I’d had about Mr Riversmith, and I kept wondering how on earth I could have come to have such knowledge of anything as private as that, and in such telling detail. I kept hearing his voice telling me about the family dispute, and I rejoiced that we had at last conversed.

‘Bellissima!’ a salesgirl enthused a little later. I held between my hands a brightly coloured hen. I had noticed it in a window full of paper goods, side by side with a strikingly coiled serpent and a crocodile. Each was a mass of swirling, jagged colours on what from a distance I took to be papier mâché. But when I handled the animals I discovered they were of carved wood, with paper pressed over the surface instead of paint.

I bought the hen because it was the most amusing. It was wrapped for me in black tissue paper and placed in a carrier-bag with a design of footprints on it. Did he love Francine? I wondered, and again I tried to visualize her – inspecting insects through a microscope, driving her Toyota. But I did not succeed.

Instead, as I left the shop, I saw Mr Riversmith himself. He was turning a corner and disappeared from view while I watched. I paused for a moment, but in the end I hurried after him.

‘Mr Riversmith!’

He turned and, when he saw who it was, waited. The street we were in was no more than an alley, sunless and dank. If we turned left at the end of it, Mr Riversmith said, we would soon find ourselves in the Campo again.

‘Let’s not,’ I suggested, perhaps a little daringly.

I had noticed, through a courtyard, a small, pretty hotel with creeper growing all over it. I drew Mr Riversmith towards it.

‘This is what we’re after.’ I guided him through the entrance and into a pleasant bar.

‘Are the others coming here? I thought we arranged –‘

‘Let’s just sit down, shall we?’

Imagine a faintly gloomy interior, light obscured by the creeper that trails around the windows. The table-tops are green, chairs and wall-coverings red. The two barmen look like brothers, young and slight, with dark moustaches. Only a sprinkling of other customers occupy tables. There are flowers in vases.

‘Are they coming here?’ Mr Riversmith asked again.

‘A little peace for you,’ I replied, smiling friendlily. ‘I think you’d welcome a bit of peace and quiet, eh? Now, I insist on standing you a cocktail.’

He shook his head. He said something about not drinking in the middle of the day, but recognizing that this was a polite reluctance to accept more hospitality I ignored it. I ordered him an Old Fashioned, since in my house that had been established as his drink.

‘It’s awfully pleasant here,’ I remarked, smiling again in an effort to make him feel at ease. I said there was no reason why he and I shouldn’t be a little late for lunch. If tongues wagged it would be nonsense.

He frowned, as if bewildered by this vernacular expression. I shook my head, indicating that it didn’t matter, that nothing of any import had been said. The barman brought our drinks. I said:

‘I wonder what sort of a person Sano di Pietro was.’

‘Who?’

‘The artist who painted the picture the child was so taken with. Incidentally, I thought it was a bit extravagant, that remark in the guide-book about the dog noticing the angel first.’

He appeared to nod, but the movement was so slight I might have been mistaken.

‘You thought so too? You noticed that?’

‘Well, no, I really can’t say I did.’

The place filled up. I drew Mr Riversmith’s attention to an elderly man with tiny rimless spectacles in the company of a young girl. Lowering my voice, I asked him what he thought the relationship was. He replied, blankly, that he didn’t know.

I asked him about other couples, about a group of men who clearly had some business interest in common. I was reminded of the men in Carrozza 219, but I considered it inappropriate to mention this. One of the group repeatedly took small objects from one of his pockets and placed them for a few moments on the table. I thought they might be buttons. I wondered if the men were in the button business.

‘Buttons?’ Mr Riversmith said.

‘Just a notion,’ I said, and then a Japanese party entered the bar and I said that there was one most noticeable thing about the Japanese – you could never guess a thing about them.

‘Yes,’ Mr Riversmith said.

I kept wanting to reach across the table and touch the back of his hand to reassure him, but naturally I didn’t. ‘What’s the matter?’ I wanted to ask him, simply, without being fussy with the question. He didn’t offer to buy a drink, which was a pity, because for a man like Mr Riversmith the second drink can be a great loosener. All that sense of communication there’d been when he’d talked about his sister a couple of hours ago had gone.

‘I really think we should join the others, Mrs Delahunty.’

Although I’d said it was to be my treat, he had already placed a note on the table and within a few minutes we were back on the street again. I had to hurry to keep up with him.

‘I just thought,’ I said, a little breathless, ‘a few minutes’ rest might be nice for you, Mr Riversmith.’

Although he in no way showed it, I believe he may possibly have appreciated that. I believe his vanity may have been flattered. He slowed his stride, and we stepped together into the bright sunlight of the Campo. The others were seated round an outside table beneath a striped blue and white awning. To my horror, Quinty and the maid were there also. Quinty was boring the General with details of the Tour de France.

‘I see Jean-Francois has taken the Yellow,’ he was saying as we approached them, and the old man nodded agreeably. He showed me a book of flowers he’d bought, the text in Italian but with meticulously detailed illustrations of azaleas. ‘Mollis and Knaphill,’ he said, a forefinger following the outline of the species. ‘Kurume and Glenn Dale. We shall make them grow.’

Otmar and Aimée were looking through their postcards. Rosa Crevelli had opened a powder compact and was applying lipstick. Having given up his effort to interest the General in bicycle-racing, Quinty was smiling his lopsided smile, his head on one side, admiring her.

‘I’ve bought a really gorgeous hen,’ I said.

I carefully unwrapped my prize. Aimée gasped when the pretty thing emerged from its black tissue paper.

‘They have crocodiles and serpents as well, Aimée, but I thought the hen the best.’

‘Wow, it’s fantastic!’

‘ “Who’ll help me grind my corn?” D’you know about the little red hen, Aimée?’

She shook her head.

‘ “I won’t,” said the dog. “I won’t,” said the cat.’ I told the tale in full, as Mrs Trice had related it to me so very long ago, when I was younger than Aimée.

‘Well, I never heard that one,’ Quinty said. ‘Capisci?’ he asked Rosa Crevelli. ‘Signora’s on about a farmyard fowl. Una gallina.’

I leaned toward Mr Riversmith, next to whom I was seated, and said I had hoped Quinty and the girl would have lunch on their own. ‘I must apologize for your having to sit down with servants.’

He shook his head as if to say it didn’t matter. But it did matter. It was presumptuous and distressing. I attracted a waiter’s attention and indicated that Mr Riversmith would be grateful for an Old Fashioned and that I’d like a gin and tonic myself. I did so quietly; but Quinty has an ear for everything.

‘G and t!’ he shouted down the table at the waiter, who repeated the abbreviation, appearing to be amused by it. ‘You like g.t.?’ he offered everyone in turn. ‘I like,’ Rosa Crevelli said. Mr Riversmith said he didn’t want an Old Fashioned.

‘It wasn’t arranged, she invited herself. They’re lame ducks, as you might say.’

Quinty had been down and out, I went on; the girl was of gypsy stock. As I spoke, the waiter returned with my gin and tonic, and one for Rosa Crevelli as well. ‘Due g.t.!’ he shouted, affecting to find the whole episode comic. When taking our orders for lunch he clowned about, striking attitudes and rolling his eyes. All this had been started off by Quinty and the maid. I drew Mr Riversmith’s attention to the fact, but added that they meant no harm.

‘It can be hurtful,’ I said, ‘but there you are.’

The General had put his horticultural manual aside and was describing to Otmar the purpose of different kinds of spades. Quinty joined in the conversation, saying something about a local firm that would supply fertilizer at a good price. When labour was required he advised the General to get estimates. In Italy nothing was done without an estimate. There was a babble of Italian from Rosa Crevelli and everyone had to wait while it was translated. It didn’t amount to much, something to do with where urns for the azaleas might be obtained.

‘A most extraordinary thing,’ I remarked to Mr Riversmith, unable any longer to resist telling him about the dream. While I was speaking the waiter came with bottles of wine and mineral water. He joked again, pouring me two glasses of wine and then, in mock confusion, a third one. Aimée enjoyed his nonsense, and I suppose it was innocent enough.

‘No more than a boy you were,’ I said. ‘Fifteen or so.’

But Mr Riversmith displayed no interest. I asked him if he had dreamed himself the night before and he insisted he hadn’t. He rarely did, he said.

I suggested, though diffidently, that none of us can get through a night’s sleep without the assistance of dreams. Sometimes we forget we dream. We remember briefly and then forget. Or do not remember at all.

‘I am not familiar with the subject,’ Mr Riversmith said.

Hoping to encourage him, I carefully retailed the details of the dream. I described the boy he’d been. I described the child his sister, Phyl, had been. I asked him if he remembered a Venetian blind that on occasion might have rattled, a slat tapping against the kitchen window-frame.

‘No.’

The reply came too quickly. To remember, it is necessary to think for a moment, even for several minutes. But I didn’t want to press any of this. I finished my drink and pushed away a plate of soup, not caring for the taste of it. It was disappointing that Mr Riversmith wasn’t going to bother, but of course it couldn’t be helped.

‘I just thought I’d mention it,’ I said.

I don’t think he spoke again while we had lunch but afterwards, as we walked through the streets to where the car was, I noticed to my surprise that he attempted to engage Rosa Crevelli in conversation. Since her English scarcely exists, it must have been an extremely frustrating experience for him. It was all the more bewildering that he appeared to persevere.

I was a little upset by this and somewhat gloomily walked with the General, whose slow pace suited me. The day before I’d noticed further letters from the two firms of solicitors, so I raised the subject as we made our way together.

‘I’ve written to say I am creating a garden.’

‘Good for you, General!’

‘I’ve been meaning to say, actually: you’ve no objection to Otmar and myself delaying our departure a while, have you?’

‘Of course I haven’t.’

‘He’s nervous to mention it to you, but he’s wondering if the garden could be his way of paying for his board and lodging?’

‘Of course it could be.’

‘From me, it’s a gift, you understand? I shall continue to pay my weekly whack.’

‘That’s as you like, General.’

Since we were passing various small cafés and bars I suggested that he might rest for a few minutes and have another cup of coffee. He readily agreed, and when we found somewhere agreeable I decided not to have more coffee but ordered a glass of grappa instead.

‘A garden can’t make up for anything.’ The old man, quite suddenly, returned to the subject, perhaps feeling that this was the time to say it, now that he had me on my own for a few minutes. ‘But at least it will mark our recovery in your house.’

‘Stay as long as you like.’ I replied softly, knowing that that, really, was what we were talking about.

‘You’re kind,’ he said.

We made a detour on our journey back to my house, turning off the main road and winding our way up to a Benedictine monastery. It was cool and leafy, with a coloured sculpture high up in an archway, and another in the same position on the other side: this is the abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, as close to heaven on earth as you will ever find. With the exception of the General, we all descended several flights of steps, through a forest of trees, to the monks’ church in a cool hollow below. Along the cloisters were murals of St Benedict’s life. Doves cooed at one another, occasionally breaking into flight. In the monks’ shop mementoes were laid out tastefully.

‘Gosh!’ Aimée exclaimed, as delighted as she’d been by the picture of the shepherds and by the hen I’d bought. ‘Otmar, isn’t it fantastic?’

Otmar was always there, unobtrusively behind her. His devotion was remarkable, and constantly she turned to him, to share a detail that had caught her imagination or to tell him something she’d thought of, or just to smile.

‘It is fantastic,’ he said.

‘What’s “fantastic” in German, Otmar?’

‘Phantastisch.’

‘Phantastisch.’

‘That is good, Aimée.’

‘Would a German understand me?’

‘Ja. Ja.’

‘Tell me another word. Tell me the name of a bird.’

‘Taube is for dove. Möwe is for seagull.’

‘How do you say “beautiful”?’

‘Schön is for beautiful.’

‘Schön.’

‘That is good.’

‘Möwe.’

‘That is good too.’

Mr Riversmith bought her a little red and green box with drawers in it, and then we climbed back to where the General awaited us. He had found a tea-room and was reading about flowers again.

‘It’s really beautiful down there,’ Aimée told him. ‘A monk patted my head.’

As we moved towards the car I managed to draw Otmar aside, to reassure him that his proposal for paying what was owing was quite acceptable, and to repeat that he, too, was welcome to remain in my house for as long as he wished.

‘I have no skills for the work. I bring no knowledge.’

I reassured him on this point also, and for some reason as I did so a vivid picture came into my mind: of his buying the railway tickets to Milan on 5 May and counting the notes he received in change. ‘Shall we have a cappuccino?’ Madeleine suggested. ‘There’s time.’ I might have placed a hand on the shoulder from which his arm had been cut away, but somehow I could not bring myself to do so. I might have said he must not blame himself. Without knowing anything, I might have said it was all right.

‘It is possible,’ I said instead. ‘A life you did not think of when you lay in that hospital is possible, Otmar.’

For a second the eyes behind the large spectacles fearfully met mine. I remembered his fingers interlaced with Madeleine’s, and the old man as straight as a ramrod beside his daughter. I remembered the two children arguing in whispers, and a workman with a shovel, standing by the railway line.

‘She is going back to America,’ Otmar said, and there our conversation ended.

In the car Quinty regaled Mr Riversmith with information he’d picked up somewhere about St Mary of Egypt. ‘Singer and actress she used to be,’ his voice drifted back to where I was sitting, and he went on about how scavenging dogs wouldn’t touch the remains of St Bibiana, and how the Blessed Lucy endured a loss of blood through her stigmata every Wednesday and Friday for three years. I was unable to hear how Mr Riversmith responded and didn’t particularly try to, because that Quinty was having a field day didn’t matter any more. What mattered was that Mr Riversmith was an ambitious man: that hadn’t occurred to me before. He was ambitious and Francine was ambitious for him, and for herself. There were other professors with microscopes, watching other colonies of ants in other trees. He and Francine had to keep ahead. They had to get there first. What time could they devote to a child who had so tiresomely come out of the blue? Would serious ambition be interrupted in Virginsville, Pennsylvania? That’s what I wondered as Quinty continued to be silly and Mr Riversmith, poor man, was obliged to listen.

When we returned I lay down for an hour; it was almost seven when I appeared downstairs again. Aimée was in bed, the General said, and wished to say good-night to her uncle and myself. He and I went together to her room, where the shutters had been latched to create an evening twilight. When Mr Riversmith spoke her name she answered at once. I sat on the edge of the bed. He stood.

‘Aimée, I would like you to have the hen I bought. It’s a present for you.’

To my surprise, she seemed bewildered. Her face puckered, as if what I’d said made no sense. Then she turned to her uncle.

‘I didn’t ever know there was a quarrel.’

‘It wasn’t important.’

‘But it happened.’

‘Yes, it happened.’

Since that seemed inadequate, I added:

‘Disagreements don’t much matter, Aimée.’ And deliberately changing the subject, I added: ‘Remember the picture of the shepherds?’

‘Shepherds?’

‘The shepherds with their dog.’

‘And a hen?’

‘No, no. The hen was what I bought for you.’

‘What else was in the picture?’

‘Well, sheep in a pen.’

‘What else?’

‘There were hills and houses,’ Mr Riversmith said, and although I wasn’t looking at him I guessed that that familiar frown was gathering on his brow.

‘And eight trees,’ I added. ‘Don’t you remember, we counted them?’

Through the gloom I watched her shaking her head. Her uncle said:

‘I guess you remember the angel in the sky, Aimée?’

‘Have you come to say good-night? I’m sleepy now.’

I mentioned the visit to the monastery, but the entire day except for that reference to a quarrel appeared to have been erased from Aimée’s memory. Her breathing deepened while we remained with her. I could tell she was asleep.

‘This isn’t good,’ her uncle said.

Of course the man was upset; in the circumstances anyone would be. He asked if he might telephone Dr Innocenti, and did so from the hall. I listened on the extension in my private room, feeling the matter concerned me.

‘Yes, there will be this,’ Dr Innocenti said.

‘The child’s suffering from periodic amnesia, doctor.’

‘So might you be, signore, if you had experienced what your niece has.’

‘But this came on so suddenly. Was it the excitement today, the visit to Siena?’

‘I would not say so, signore.’

Mr Riversmith said he had arranged to return to Pennsylvania with Aimée in four days’ time. He wondered if he’d been hasty. He wondered if his niece should be taken back to the hospital for observation.

‘The journey will not harm your niece, signore.’

‘All day she seemed fine.’

‘I can assure you, signore, she has recovered more of herself than we once had hopes of in the hospital. What remains must be left to passing time. And perhaps a little to good fortune. Do not be melancholy, signore.’

Naturally, in all honesty, Dr Innocenti had had to say that the journey would not be harmful. It was not the journey we had to dwell upon but the destination. And this was not something Dr Innocenti could presume to mention. There were further reassurances, but clearly Mr Riversmith remained far from relieved. No sooner had the conversation with Dr Innocenti come to an end than he made a call to his wife in Virginsville. I guessed he would, and again picked up the receiver in my room. She was not surprised, the woman said. In a case like this nothing could be expected to be straightforward. Her voice was hoarse, deep as a man’s, and because I’d heard it I at last pictured without difficulty the woman to whom it belonged: a skinny, weather-beaten face, myopic eyes beneath a lank fringe, eyebrows left unplucked.

‘What you need’s a good stiff drink,’ I said a little later, when Mr Riversmith appeared in the salotto. He looked shaken. For all I knew, she’d given him gip after I’d put the receiver down. For all I knew, this weather-beaten woman blamed him for the mess they’d got into – having to give a home to a child who by the sound of things was as nutty as a fruitcake. Added to which, the heat in Siena might well have adversely affected the poor man’s jet-lag. I poured him some whisky, since whisky’s best for shock.