The Dividing Stream (19 page)

‘‘Bravo!’’ someone exclaimed.

‘‘Listen.’’ His head tilted to one side, so that his neck made a roll of fat against his stiff collar, Signor Commino raised a hand. They were silent. And the small, golden comb continued to yield up its melody at the touch of the revolving pins.

‘‘What is it?’’ Pamela whispered.

‘‘ ‘The Bluebells of Scodand,’ ’’ Colin whispered back.

But the music had ceased. Hands were clapped; there were shouts, laughter and calls for an encore.

‘‘This must have belonged to an English lady,’’ Signor Commino said, making his familiar gesture of scratching with his forefinger at the single tuft of hair on the front of his scalp. ‘‘The machine is Swiss, the music is English. No?’’

‘‘Scottish,’’ said Pamela.

But he took no notice of the correction. ‘‘And therefore it seemed just to me that I should give—lend it to your brother. There is also’’—he stooped to examine the inside of the lid which framed a list of the tunes in the handwriting of the early nineteenth century—‘‘ there is also—ah, yes—‘Drink to me only’, ‘Cherry Ripe’, and—but you may see for yourself. See, see?’’ His stubby forefinger, with its thick, spade-shaped nail and tuft of black hair, pointed to the list, while he drew Pamela closer. ‘‘See?’’ he repeated.

She squirmed away from his grasp; she could not bear to be touched by him.

‘‘Take good care of it, young miss, young master.…’’ He began scrabbling for the paper off the floor of the dusty loggia and twisted it untidily round the box. ‘‘There! And a speedy recovery, a speedy recovery.’’ He pulled off his trilby hat and his grey bush of hair opened out like an umbrella and flopped about his ears. ‘‘
Arivederci
,’’ he said; and he continued to back away from them, repeating ‘‘
Arivederci
… young miss, young master … speedy recovery …’’ until he had disappeared from sight. The children all burst into extravagant laughter in which the spectators soon joined.

‘‘But it’s bad to laugh,’’ Colin said at last. ‘‘It was kind of him to bring it after the way we behaved that night.’’

‘‘Oh, he’s only trying to smarm up, because he knows that Lena takes notice of what we say and wouldn’t marry him if we said we didn’t like him. I bet you it’s that.’’

‘‘No, I don’t think so,’’ Colin said.

‘‘You don’t want Lena to marry him, do you?’’ Pamela challenged.

‘‘No—no, I don’t,’’ Colin had to admit. ‘‘But I like him all the same.’’

‘‘You didn’t that night.’’

‘‘Well, I do now. I’ve changed my mind.’’

‘‘Because he brought you a musical-box?’’ Pamela said with contempt. ‘‘A loan,’’ she added, imitating his accent. ‘‘Because it is antique and therefore costly and belongs to my mother.’’

‘‘You don’t understand,’’ Colin said. And that was always to be his complaint against her; there was so much she did not understand.

‘‘I must eat now,’’ Colin announced when the boys had carried him up to his bedroom. ‘‘I suppose you both must eat too.’’ Rodolfo and Enzo looked at each other and laughed, and Colin said: ‘‘Don’t you eat now?’’

Enzo pulled out his unemployment card. ‘‘Monday, Wednesday, Saturday,’’ he said.

‘‘And Rodolfo?’’

‘‘I have a hundred lire.’’ In fact he had three hundred.

‘‘But that’s nothing.’’

Rodolfo shrugged his shoulders.

‘‘I haven’t any money,’’ Colin said. He always spent his pocket-money as soon as he was given it. ‘‘ How will you manage?’’

‘‘Oh, we can buy some bread—and perhaps some
mortadella
or some cheese.’’

‘‘But that’s not enough. Here, wait a moment.’’ Colin had seen the box of chocolates which Maisie Brandon had brought him that morning, and he now picked it up and held it out towards them.

‘‘No—no,’’ said Rodolfo, eyeing the box greedily.

‘‘Yes, you must take it. I want you both to have it.’’ (He wanted Enzo to have it; it was terrible that he should starve.) ‘‘Go on, take it.’’

Rodolfo put out a hand, but Enzo said sharply in Italian: ‘‘Don’t take it. We mustn’t take it. Thank him and say we can’t.’’

‘‘Yes, but——’’ Rodolfo said.

‘‘Don’t take it!’’

Colin was still holding it out. ‘‘Why shouldn’t you take it?’’ he asked, his usually precise French becoming ungrammatical as his excitement mounted. ‘‘You’ve spent the whole morning looking after me, and if it weren’t for you, my father would have to pay someone to do it. I want you to take this, as a return for what you’ve done.’’

‘‘He says it’s to pay us,’’ Rodolfo said. ‘‘That’s fair enough. We sweated our guts out carrying him to the river.’’

‘‘Pay us! Who does he think we are. We didn’t do it because——’’

‘‘Well, I’m going to take it anyway.’’ Rodolfo’s hand closed on the large and expensive box, and Colin smiled with relief.

‘‘I’m glad you’ve decided to be sensible,’’ he said. ‘‘It was so silly to refuse. I’ve got everything here, and you’ve—you’ve got so little.… Is work very difficult to find?’’ he asked as they prepared to leave.

Rodolfo laughed. ‘‘Impossible.’’

‘‘But you do really want to work?’’

‘‘Who, me?’’ Rodolfo pointed to himself, as if incredulous at what had been said. ‘‘Of course I want to work, I want nothing more.’’

‘‘And Enzo?’’

‘‘He, too. He’s strong, he’s a good lad. But there’s nothing for us. Damn all.’’ Using the English phrase he made a derisive gesture with both hands as if he were smoothing down a tablecloth.

Rodolfo sold the chocolates back to the sweet-shop where Maisie had bought them, for half the price she had paid, and then, after much argument, took Enzo to the Ristorante Popolare where they both gobbled two plates each of
pasta al sugo
between draughts of wine. Meanwhile Colin was letting his lunch-tray get cold, as he wrote a letter:

D
EAR
M
RS
. B
RANDON
,
When you came this morning you said that Lady N. found

it difficult to find servants. I have a friend, I think you have

seen him here with me, and I was wondering …

T
HEY
had visited a monastery on a hill outside Florence, and having been shown innumerable paintings by Sodoma and Dolci, had now descended to eat an execrable dinner in a restaurant by the roadside.

‘‘Another
Strega
!’’ Chris exclaimed to Béngt. ‘‘You must have had a dozen.’’

‘‘Mind your own business.’’

Chris gave die laugh she always used when she had not the courage to appear to mean what she said. ‘‘But it is my own business—until your allowance arrives. Isn’t it?’’

‘‘You are vulgar,’’ Béngt said, turning the glass between his fingers.

‘‘And you’re drunk,’’ Chris retorted, again with the laugh.

‘‘Look here, old boy, I’m not going to have that sort of thing said to my wife,’’ Tiny Maskell announced. But he continued to draw on his pipe, scattering sparks into the dark corners of the terrace.

‘‘Oh, keep out of this, Tiny,’’ Chris said irritably. ‘‘ Please don’t do the heavy husband.… But seriously, Béngt,’’ she went on with a sudden, maternal softening in her voice. ‘‘You’re too young for so much drinking. It’ll grow on you. It’s awful to see a young man putting away glass after glass like that—it really is awful.’’ She tipped into her own glass a thimbleful of the green liqueur which a monk had persuaded her to buy at the monastery. She had bought a bottle of red liqueur, too; the monk had assured her they both tasted alike.

‘‘And how you can drink that stuff!’’ Béngt said contemptuously. ‘‘You are vulgar, I told you, and you have no taste.’’

‘‘That’s enough, Arbach,’’ Frank Ross said quietly but decisively, omitting the ‘‘ von”. ‘‘Hold your tongue, if you’ve nothing civil to say.’’

Karen smiled down at the tablecloth, as if this intervention had given her extreme, but secret, pleasure and then looked across at him: ‘‘Don’t you ever drink?’’

‘‘No.’’

‘‘Smoke?’’

‘‘Sometimes.’’

‘‘And you eat some
tagliatelle
and say you’ve had enough,’’ she added in reference to his meal.

‘‘You should be up there,’’ Max said, pointing to the monastery.

‘‘Oh, but he isn’t dirty enough,’’ Chris protested, while von Arbach belched loudly. She glanced at him and then continued: ‘‘How that monk smelled! Did you get near him? He would keep button-holing me, not that I could understand a word of his lingo until he spoke French, and there he was leaning over me, right over me, and his breath was like a blow-lamp, and one could tell it was weeks, well, months or even years, since he’d thought of changing his clothes. I always thought cleanliness was next to godliness.’’

‘‘
Next
to godliness,’’ Frank Ross said. ‘‘But if you’re godly, why worry about the next best thing?’’

‘‘Hold tight, my dears,’’ Chris said, glancing over her shoulder. ‘‘Prepare for a shock. Here’s the bill, here’s the bill. Who’s feeling strong?’’

‘‘My party,’’ Max said, taking the grubby paper from an even grubbier hand.

‘‘Oh, but no,’’ Chris said. ‘‘And all Béngt’s
stregas
, and Tiny’s
cointreau
. And I ate much more than any of you. I don’t call that fair.’’

‘‘My party,’’ Max repeated.

Well, of course, he could afford to pay; he was rolling, absolutely rolling in it. And there they were with their wretched fifty pounds each. It was not as if he had even been particularly generous to them in the past. But they were all like that, all these Americans. Mean, just mean.

Chris smiled. ‘‘It’s terribly sweet of you. Tiny, Max insists on treating us to dinner. We really oughtn’t to let him, because I’m sure it’s something fabulous.’’ She watched Max closely as he counted out eight thousand lire, and was disappointed that the sum wasn’t more. ‘‘You are angels,’’ she said. ‘‘ You’ve been so good to us. Béngt, aren’t you going to say thank you?’’

‘‘Gratitude spoils what one’s given,’’ Béngt said, his head lolling on to one shoulder; he smiled vacantly, raised a hand to his mouth as if he were about to sneeze, and gulped some more
strega
.

‘‘What an original idea!’’ Chris laughed. ‘‘Anyway, Max and Karen, thank you very much from all of us.’’

‘‘I only wish it had been a better dinner,’’ Karen said.

‘‘Oh, but that wasn’t your fault, you weren’t to know,’’ Chris said clumsily. She looked round her: ‘‘ I wonder if there’s a ladies’ room anywhere. I awfully want to spend a lira.’’ Eventually she got up and going across to the proprietor who was sitting in the deserted dining-room within, reiterated: ‘‘
Gabinetto, gabinetto
,’’ insistently until she and Karen were led off through a labyrinth of corridors.

‘‘Cigar?’’ Max said, producing a case.

Béngt helped himself, Ross declined, and Tiny Maskell announced, oddly subdued: ‘‘I think I’ll stick to the old pipe.’’ He was slumped in a blue blazer which seemed far too big even for a man of his girth, as if the joviality had all run out of him through some invisible puncture. Suddenly he looked across at Béngt with his slightly bloodshot eyes and said: ‘‘I’d like to have a word with you alone, old man.’’

‘‘With me?’’

‘‘If you don’t mind.’’ He gritted his irregular, brown teeth on the stem of his pipe. ‘‘ Come for a little stroll.’’

‘‘Can’t we——?’’

‘‘A stroll will do you good.’’

Béngt tripped on the three steps down from the terrace and was only saved by Tiny, who put out an arm. The Swede giggled stupidly at this accident, and repeated, ‘‘Almost, almost, almost”, as if he could not believe his luck. He and Tiny began to walk down the whitely glimmering road, Tiny’s arm still round the Swede’s shoulder as he swayed and stumbled forward.

‘‘Fat lot of use talking to him when he’s in that condition,’’ Frank Ross said.

‘‘I suppose it’s about Chris.’’

Ross laughed. ‘‘Oh, I imagine something far more important.’’ When Max looked at him in interrogation, he said: ‘‘Money.’’

‘‘Money?’’

‘‘Hasn’t Karen told you that Chris told her that the allowance has still not arrived. This is the third week that they’ve had to pay his hotel bill.’’

‘‘At the Palazzo d’Oro? But how on earth do they manage it?’’

‘‘Precisely.’’

‘‘You mean——?’’

‘‘There are ways of making ‘ arrangements’. Two years ago it was pretty safe—if one used one’s common sense. But now …’’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘‘Chris is a fool. We would have lent her some money, if it meant that.’’

‘‘She’s a little afraid of you,’’ Frank Ross said. ‘‘She probably thought that it would be hard to explain. In Wimbledon, married women don’t keep their lovers.’’

‘‘Poor devil,’’ Max said, with genuine compassion, pulling at his cigar.

‘‘Oh, I don’t think she really deserves any pity, do you? She’s making such an ass of herself. Everyone must notice.’’

‘‘Certainly the hotel staff do. I’ve seen them smile behind her back.’’

‘‘And your children,’’ Ross put in softly.

But whether from disinclination or because he had not heard it, Max left this last remark alone. When he next spoke it was of the war in which they had both shared. It was an inexhaustible subject, and the only one which made them feel wholly at ease in each other’s company.

Meanwhile in the ladies’ room, Chris was saying: ‘‘ Oh, I can’t. It’s one where you have to squat, you know. In the Gare du something-or-other Tiny used one back to front and he went and fell in.’’ She began laughing and then all at once burst into tears.

‘‘Chris, what on earth’s the matter?’’ Karen asked.

Strangely, Chris’s crying had given to her the youthfulness which she had never been able to achieve by the Dauphin bob, her teen-age clothes, and her artificial girlishness. Like a child, she pressed her cheek against the flaking whitewash of the lavatory wall and blubbered without restraint.

‘‘Chris!’’ Karen said sharply.

‘‘It was awful having him speak to me like that, just as if I was dirt, nothing but dirt. Sometimes he can be so kind and then a devil gets into him and he hurts me all he can. It’s not fair!’’

‘‘Who do you mean?’’ Karen asked.

‘‘Well, Béngt, of course,’’ Chris snapped irritably. ‘‘Who else could I mean?’’ For a moment she stopped crying, but then once again she began: ‘‘He knows I love him and would do anything for him and instead of respecting that, he just trades on it, just trades on it, and uses me as he pleases. I might be a door-mat for him, really I might. Oh, I’m so unhappy!’’ Splinters of whitewash were lodged in her hair, and an enormous chunk lay on her cheek like a mound of sticking-plaster.