The Woman at the Window (11 page)

They both looked more closely at the photograph as though they were seeing Annette for the first time.

‘And so her Odyssey began. As far north as Stockholm and as far south as Naples with a spell in Salzburg thrown in. But always those cheques from home never failed to catch up with her. A privileged vagabond. A perpetual student in search of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and as much truth as a pampered stomach could stomach. In the end she signed up for Vennenberg's new glamorous course in computerised archaeology and, as the phrase goes, the rest is history.'

‘What did she see in him do you think?'

Griffiths seemed anxious to know. It couldn't be put down to nothing more than natural selection and perpetuating the species. It was something between a whim and an illusion and yet it was a vital element in human existence that had to be taken into account.

‘What does anybody see in anybody? Maybe she wanted a more acceptable father? A large nordic figure, soft inside, anxious to please, yearning to be mothered. That's how it goes, Griff. Emotional supply and demand. We can ponder too long over these little things. He was a bit like a large dog, eager to be petted. And she was keen on dogs. And of course there was that distemper of late middle age. The longing to remain youthful.'

Griffiths palpated his expanding stomach with the tips of his fingers.

‘I used to worry about that sort of thing,' he said. ‘I haven't for ages.'

Marloff still played tennis. Griffiths in no way held this against him. He was content with his own untidiness. He liked to assume it gave him more time to devote to his researches into the nature of truth.

‘The twists and turns,' Marloff said. ‘There really is no end to it. Quite unexpectedly Vennenberg came into a heap of money.'

‘Before or after?'

Griffiths insisted on the proper order of events. Quite apart from establishing hard fact, any gratuitous acquisition of wealth threatened to transform a homily into a fairy tale. Homilies were much more to his taste.

‘That I don't know.'

Somehow the small gap in his knowledge only added to the extent of Marloff 's omniscience.

‘What I do know is that Vennenberg had a brother who was a brilliant biochemist. They didn't get on and didn't have much to do with each other. But the brother died of pancreatic cancer and all the patents and royalties and so forth fell into Vennenberg's lap. To cut a long story short he promptly resigned and came down here and bought these properties that included the ruined castle of Capestri, and he and his beloved Annette set about restoring it together.'

‘Would you call it a castle? More like an overblown farmhouse.'

‘Marked on the old maps as Castello. He showed it to me. It must have been the year you and Myfanwy didn't come down here. He found books about it. And manuscripts. In some old episcopal library. Excited as a schoolboy. Resolved to write a history of the whole estate. He became absorbed in the enterprise. Medieval archaeology all around him. And an intriguing strata of local superstition. It was haunted. There was a ghost! That's how they got it cheap. A charming ruin in an isolated position with a spectacular view and a romantic couple with pots of money to put into its restoration. They both loved it.'

‘Wouldn't suit us though, would it?'

‘No. But we've got to admire it. It will help things along.' ‘What ghost anyway?'

He was sceptical but still interested. As Myfanwy said when you find a place you've got to know about it. Settle in like good neighbours. ‘We don't want to degenerate do we into ex-pats hanging about just for the sun and the booze,' she said. Griffiths had great respect for his wife's good taste.

‘An unfaithful Orsini wife tossed over the cliff returns to haunt the place.'

‘Hum. We make our own ghosts. Anway, I want some- where where I can relapse completely into the condition of growing older. Where things won't go bump in the night.'

‘Wait till you see it,' Marloff said. ‘ The photographs don't do it justice. No view of the track through the vineyard. There's work to be done of course. There always is. I think the girls will be very excited by it. Your glass is empty, Griff. Shall we have another? This place isn't too bad, is it?'

Marloff was keen to initiate their habitual competition in generous entertainment. It was one way that had developed over the years through which they could express some regard for each other. Griff lit another of his small cigars on the pretext it would help to keep the gnats away. There were other guests still out on the terrace, some moving with unselfconscious grace between the shadows and the lamplight. The houseboy in his white jacket brought them more brandy, shuffling his shoes in the gravel.

‘A few years back I dropped in there on my way to Rome and there she was, the fair Annette, on top of a ladder plastering a hole in the dining room wall. High up it was. I was quite alarmed for her. But she was laughing like a schoolgirl on holiday. Working as hard as her grandfather ever did with his automobile spare parts. She had never been so happy. She said so. Such energy. With these German genes hard labour conquers all, including an inclination to slide into depressions. Vennenberg was so proud of her. You could say she gave him new life. He was borrowing her youth. Smiling and smirking at her he was, all through lunch. I felt quite an intruder. They were totally absorbed in the house and the garden. And each other.'

‘A Garden of Eden just made for two… and now enter the snake.'

With lugubrious humour Griffiths waved his cigar over the image of Mario in the photograph.

‘Not at all. At least not in the way you seem to anticipate, Pastor Griffiths. Vennenberg never knew Master Mario. Or if he did, only as a peripheral relative of the egregious Salvatore.'

‘A different snake?'

‘Nothing of the kind. An employee. A general factotum and fount of local wisdom. Vennenberg used to repeat Salvatore's comical pronouncements. You could call him a cunning clown, but he wasn't a snake.'

Griffiths' face clouded with suspicion. He wanted to know more about Marloff 's sources of information.

‘I saw a lot of Vennenberg that year. He was a very good host when he could take his eyes off Annette.'

‘So you stayed there?'

‘Once or twice. Very cultivated chap, Vennenberg. Laid down an excellent cellar. And he took a real interest in dialects as well as medieval history. Very good on Belli.'

‘Who's Belli?'

‘Roman dialect poet.Vennenberg wanted to turn Capestri into a late medieval version of the Garden of the Hesperides with lemons instead of golden apples. The vineyard of course and the almond orchard. And the dogs. A breed of white shepherd dogs from the Maremma.'

‘So where's the bloody snake?'

Griffiths was irritated by his own ignorance. If there were snags in the enterprise ahead he wanted to be made fully aware of them. Myfanwy and Marjorie were enthusiastic gardeners and liable to be dazzled by vivid evocations of the fecundity of the Capestri district. There was too much un- diluted pseudo-medieval romanticism being allowed to pass unchecked.

‘Well there you are.'

Marloff took his time to relish Griffiths' undivided attention. At least as long as the pause lasted the wealth of information equalled the capital resources Griffiths controlled.

‘Not a character you see. Not a person. The cruel blow came from Providence disguised as our old friend Impartial Nature. Without that they could have gone on enjoying the fruits of the earthly paradise for many a long year. Vennenberg, poor chap, was struck down by the very enemy within that destroyed his brother. So that you could say, if you were looking at it with cold scientific objectivity, the very cell that brought him great wealth also sealed his fate.'

Griffiths resisted the temptation to dispute Marloff 's use of the word Providence. It was a concept that had worried him since childhood. The zeal of his ancestors had evaporated under the pressure of time and tolerance, but he remained uneasy in the role of detached observer. There had to be more to life than seeking out the most comfortable niche and settling in it.

‘The fact is Vennenberg saw it coming, and he was terrified.'

They paid a brief homage of silence as they contemplated the awesome power of disease.

‘How old was he? When he knew.'

‘Rolf Vennenberg, middle fifties. The girl Annette, early thirties.'

The facts were cold comfort, like the dates on a tomb- stone.

‘How many years of bliss?'

‘That I can't tell you. Ten maybe. Maybe less. Who can measure bliss?'

‘There you are.'

Griffiths derived some satisfaction from the admission. ‘The devil is always in the detail.'

‘All I can say is, I saw it. And it existed. And then I suppose it was washed away in a tidal wave of anxiety. The search was on for the miracle cure. What else was all that money good for? Clinics and sanatoria all over the place. Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, and God knows where else. She never left his side, all devotion and dedication, so that obsequious creature Salvatore was left in complete charge at Capestri. He had the run of the place, not to mention the use of Annette's Fiat. His family were in and out. The Vennenbergs came back and forth of course, and there were the friends of a kind they had dotted here and there, within calling distance. Mostly Germans, Swedes and Swiss as it happens. And there was that so-called Principessa, Elena Cristina, who declared herself devoted to Annette, and specialised in knowing everything about everybody. Salvatore was a bit scared of her. But if he bobbed and bowed and scraped enough he usually got away with it. In any case it was generally assumed that Salvatore the loyal retainer was worthy of all his perks. The amazing thing is the wealth kept on coming. Annette's grandfather and then her father died, and in rolled another fortune.'

‘But it didn't do away with the problem. Vennenberg's fears.'

‘She drowned them,' Marloff said. ‘Cures and alcohol ran together. First she poured out for him and then he insisted she join him. Bliss dissolved into an alcoholic haze. And so it went on to the end. His end I mean.'

‘Humm.'

Griffiths could only grunt the misgiving he had that death could ever be that easy.

‘He wanted to be cremated but that proved to be too difficult, which is odd, considering all the money they had. Maybe she was too drunk to organise the trip to Perugia.To make up for the mess, she had him buried in an imitation Orsini tomb in the garden. This was useful. Annette trans- ferred her dedication and devotion to the garden, the house, and the dogs. In that order. She told the Principessa she would live alone there to the end of her days. She had enormous faith in the dogs. She believed they could still see him around. Or at least his ghost.'

Griffiths gave a sigh and took a consoling sip of brandy. 

‘What a species,' he said. ‘Dogs know more than we do.' 

‘Come on Griff. Cheer up. I thought you had come to the

conclusion that there was some form of salvation lurking on the edge of the universe.'

Marloff made a brief sequence of gestures in the balmy night air to indicate an all-embracing and comforting view of the human condition. Griffiths muttered phrases about lost sheep having no health in them.

‘I wouldn't call the fair Annette a lost sheep,' Marloff said. ‘All that worldly wealth. Don't we call it worldly because it gives us worlds to command?'

‘Money doesn't buy youth, Marloff. Or wisdom. In the end we are all victims.'

‘Oh dear. Just listen to him. Sweet melancholy. Only those with a good bank account can afford to indulge in it. The Salvatores of this world spend all their energies on avoiding becoming victims. Imagine it. He saw his chance. A wealthy young widow locking herself up a lonely tower. There he was a pagan countryman tying up his vines and watching a young woman, as he might have put it, denying the forces of nature. There was a need to be gratified and there had to be something in it for all the family. Don't look so disapproving. It's the way they've looked at things from time immemorial. All he had to do, as you might say, was to find the right opening for his vigorous young cousin Mario, just finishing his military service. Who better to help in the garden! Imagine the hints and whispers in Salvatore's cantina. “Listen. You come and work for me. I can't pay you much as you know. But this young widow… she's lonely. I need some help in the garden. The roof needs attention and I can't climb like I used to. And you know about cars and that old car of hers… she likes it. You make it go better.” '

‘And so the serpent crawled into the garden after all.' 

Griffiths picked up the photograph to look at the bare 
muscular arms of the young man in the middle and the terracotta flask in front of him.

‘Not so much crawled,' Marloff said. ‘Jumped! One day while she stood at the window he tumbled off the roof and landed in some bushes. He jumped to his feet laughing and his arms stretched forward like a footballer who had just scored a goal.'