1952 - The Wary Transgressor Page 4

  I got up, shaved, dressed and went out. I bought some bread, cheese and sausage, a bottle of vino rosso and two newspapers. By the time I got back to my room it was just after nine.

  I read the newspapers, and then picked up one of my notebooks and tried to concentrate on planning a new chapter in my book, but my mind kept straying to Laura, and I soon threw the notebook aside.

  It was now eleven-thirty. Any moment now, I told myself, she will ring.

  But she didn't.

  Minutes dragged into hours. Three times the telephone rang; each time it was for someone else living in the house. By three o'clock I was fit to walk up a wall.

  I stayed in that sordid little room from early morning to late at night, and when I finally, fell asleep in my chair at twenty minutes to one o'clock she still hadn't telephoned.

  She didn't telephone on Tuesday nor on Wednesday. I remained in my room the whole time, waiting.

  By this time I was hating Bruno Fancino as I had never hated anyone in my life. I was now glad he was helpless and speechless.

  I called him all the obscene names I could think of. I hoped he would die; I even prayed for his death.

  On Thursday morning I was still sitting in the armchair, waiting. For the past two days I hadn't bothered to shave, and I had had very little sleep. I was in a murderous mood, and my nerves were like naked threads of pain; the slightest sound tortured them.

  Around midday, when the sun was at its hottest, the telephone began to ring.

  I tore open my door and ran blindly down the passage to the booth.

  "Hello?" I shouted, grinding the receiver against my ear. "Who is that?"

  A man's voice said, "Could I please speak to signora Puceilli?"

  I slammed the receiver back on its cradle and stood snarling at the instrument that was driving me out of my mind. When the bell rang again, I snatched up the receiver and cursed the man at the other end like a raving madman. Then I flung the receiver from me and stormed back to my room.

  Giuseppe was standing by the window, his wine-soaked face frightened.

  "What do you want?" I shouted at him. "What are you doing here?"

  "Quietly, David," he said. "What has happened? Are you ill?"

  "Get out!" I said. "Get the hell out of here!"

  "Gently, my poor boy," he said. "What can have happened to you to make you look like this? Sit down and tell me. I haven't seen you for days. I never thought I'd find you in this state."

  "I don't want to talk to you," I said. "Get out!"

  "But I can't leave you like this. Surely there is something I can do? Is it money you want?"

  "I want nothing from you. Will you get out!"

  He clicked his horribly white, ill-fitting teeth, and the veins in his raddled nose went a deeper purple.

  "Perhaps it is a woman?" he said. "Now, please, listen to me, David; no woman is worth…"

  I went over to him and caught hold of his coat front.

  "What do you know about women, you drunken, lousy old ruin? Don't talk to me about women! Get out before I throw you out!"

  I swung him so violently towards the door that he nearly fell.

  "But I'm your friend, David," he wailed, clutching hold of the door to save himself falling. "I want to help you."

  I shoved him out of the room and slammed the door in his face.

  Then I picked up a bottle of wine and threw it with all my strength into the fireplace. The bottle smashed, and glass flew about the room like shrapnel, and the red wine stained the wall like a smear of blood.

  That was Thursday.

  There was no word from her on Friday. I waited until six o'clock, and then I went down the passage to the telephone. I called her number.

  I stood in the stifling booth, listening to the burr-burr-burr on the line, my heart slamming against my ribs. Then the line clicked into life, and a woman's voice said. "This is signor Fancino's residence. Nurse Fleming speaking."

  I stood there, my ears strained to catch any sound that might tell me that Laura was in the room, but I heard nothing except the nurse's gentle breathing and the faint rustle of her starched apron.

  "Who is that, please?" she asked, her voice sharpening.

  Very slowly and reluctantly I hung up.

  I walked down the passage to my room. I felt as if I had been in a fight, and had taken the worst hiding of my life. I knew then that she meant more to me than anything else on earth. She was in my blood like a virus, and this waiting for her had cracked whatever spirit I had left. For years now I had been living rough, kidding myself I was going to pull out of it someday, do something worthwhile, and now I knew I was never going to pull out.

  I saw my future burst in my face like a soap bubble: all because a woman with copper-coloured hair and a shape to drive a man nuts hadn't lifted a telephone receiver and called my number.

  As I stood outside my door, my fingers around the door handle, I decided to do what all the weak kneed, spineless, gutless wastrels always do when they get a knock that drops them on their backs.

  I decided to go out and get good and drunk, and then go with some street woman.

  I pushed open the door and walked into the sordid little room.

  Laura was sitting on the arm of the armchair, her hands folded in her lap, her beautiful slim ankles crossed, the skirt of her severe blue linen frock primly pulled down over her knees.

  The telephone down the passage began to ring: an insistent, strident clamour that a moment ago would have sent me rushing to answer it. But I scarcely heard it. It had suddenly ceased to be a tantalizing tyrant which could stop my heartbeat and turn me into a breathless, mindless imbecile. Now it was nothing but an extraneous noise as anonymous as a stranger in the street.

  I leaned against the door, looking at her.

  "I'm sorry, David," she said. "There was nothing I could do about it. I wanted so much to ring you, but the telephone is so jealously guarded. I knew you would be waiting to hear from me. I knew you were suffering as I was suffering. This afternoon I could stand it no longer. I said I was going for a drive along the Lago. When I reached Milan I phoned the nurse and told her I had had a breakdown, and I was stranded."

  I wasn't sure if I had hear aright.

  "You mean you're not going back there tonight?"

  "No, David. I'm going to stay here with you."

  I walked unsteadily to the bed and sat down.

  "If you could have seen me just now in the passage," I said, rubbing my face with my hands. "I was set to go out and get drunk. In another five minutes you'd have missed me, and now you tell me you can stay the night. It's like riding a switchback."

  "I didn't mean to make you suffer like this, David," she said. "Did you imagine I had forgotten you?"

  "Oh, no. I didn't think that. It was just I was expecting you to call on Monday, and I waited. I kept waiting, and as the hours went by I worked myself up. I was ready to walk up the wall just now: ready to blow my top."

  "I'm here now, David."

  "Yes, that's right. I can't quite believe it. I feel as if I've had a punch in the guts." I looked at the mess in the fireplace, the stain on the wall. The room looked gruesome and sordid now the rug, the bedspread and the tablecloth had gone. The only relic of the previous meeting was the copper-coloured begonias in the pot on the table. "I don't like to ask you to stay here, Laura. You can see what a hole it is."

  "Do you think I mind? With you I could be happy in a cave. Don't be silly, David. Nothing matters except I have a few hours with you."

  I got up and went over to the mirror. I looked pretty terrible with a two days' growth of beard, and my eyes sunk deep in my head for want of sleep.

  "I'm going to shave," I said.

  "Shall I be in the way? Would you like me to wait for you outside? I could go for a walk "

  "Do you think I'm going to let you out of my sight even for five minutes?" I said. "I've got to shave. I can't take you in my arms with my face like this."

 
I poured water out of the jug into the basin and began to lather my face. My hands were very unsteady.

  While I shaved, she sat, silent, watching me. Then after I had sponged my face she said, "We must do something, David. This could happen again. It will happen again."

  "No. It's not going to happen again. You must leave him, Laura. He's no use to you. Can't you see that? He can't expect you to stay with him. You must free yourself of him."

  "I've been thinking about that. If I left him, David, would you like me to come here to you?"

  I turned slowly and looked at her. My eyes took in the sheer silk of her expensive stockings, the severe cut of her frock, the slim, white, well-manicured hands, the gold bracelet around her wrist, the diamond clip worth three hundred thousand lire, the shiny, glossy hair on which a hairdresser had spent much time and attention. I saw her against the background of the dirty, yellowing wallpaper, the cramped little bed and the threadbare carpet.

  "Here?" I said. "Why, no, you couldn't come here."

  "Where else could I go, David? I haven't any money except what he gives me. Do you think I could work with you? I might make a very good guide. Do they have women guides?"

  "Please don't joke about this," I said, feeling blood rising to my face.

  "But I'm not, darling. I'm trying to solve a problem. Perhaps you could get a better job. Perhaps you could finish your book. I could do something, David. I don't want you to think I'm useless. Do you think I could become a waitress?"

  "Stop it!" I said angrily. "Stop talking like that! I can't get a better job. If I finished the book it wouldn't make any money, and it would take me months even if I worked on it every hour of the day. How can you imagine you could work as a waitress?"

  "But we must do something, David."

  I poured the water away.

  "Haven't you any money of your own?" I asked, not looking at her.

  "I'm afraid I haven't. I could sell my jewelry, of course. We could live on that for a little while. It might carry us over until you made a little more money."

  I moved over to her.

  "What the hell are we talking like this for?" I asked. "Both of us know we couldn't live like that. I'd rather not have you at all than bring you down to my level. You'd grow to hate me in a little while, Laura. It'd be all right so long as your money held out, but when it had gone, and the squeeze started, and you couldn't buy any more new clothes, and you hadn't any jewelry to make yourself look as you are looking now, you'd begin to hate me."

  She put her hand on mine.

  "No, I wouldn't. I told you: I could be happy with you in a cave."

  "Shall we be serious for a moment?" I said. "There's only one way out of this."

  She looked up sharply, her eyes suddenly tense, and her slim hands closed into fists.

  "And what is that?"

  "I must try to find a job near the Lago. I will talk to Giuseppe. He knows all the tricks. I might get something at the vaporetto station. Then we could meet more easily. You wouldn't have to do the long journey here. You could slip away for an hour or so without being missed."

  The tension went out of her eyes, and her hands relaxed.

  "Would you like that, David?" she asked, and opened her handbag for a cigarette. "Would that satisfy you?"

  "It would be better than what has been happening these last three days. At least, I could catch a glimpse of you from time to time, and we could meet late at night. Would it be difficult for you to leave the villa after everyone has gone to bed?"

  "No, that would be possible," she said in a tired, flat voice.

  "You don't sound very enthusiastic," I said, looking at her.

  "Don't you think much of the idea?"

  "I think it would be very dangerous. You don't know the Lago as I do. There are so many prying eyes. We could never hope to keep our meetings secret, David. I have to be very careful. Bruno would divorce me if he found out I was being unfaithful to him. When he is dead I come into a lot of money. If I make a false step now I would probably lose it all."

  "I see." I sat down on the bed and ran my fingers through my hair. "I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't thought you would be rich in your own right when he is dead. That widens the gulf between us, doesn't it?"

  "It narrows it, David."

  "Do you imagine I'd live on your money?"

  "No, I'm sure you wouldn't. But it isn't my money. It's Bruno's. I can imagine you would accept a loan to set up in some business and pay me back when you have made a success."

  "You've been thinking about this quite a lot, haven't you?" I said. "But if he has lived for four years, what makes you think he's not going to live another four years? Or perhaps you think we could wait four years or even more?"

  "You see caro, we are very nearly quarrelling now," she said gravely. "Even before my magic for you has lost its edge."

  "Your magic would never lose its edge," I said. "I'm sorry, Laura; only I just don't want to go through these past days again. Do you know what I was going to do just now—before I came in and found you?"

  "Yes, I know. Men do that sort of thing when they are hurt. Don't think you are the only one." She flicked ash into the fireplace. "You promised me you wouldn't phone."

  "I know. I'm sorry about that too. I was half out of my mind."

  "You might take even greater risks if you came to the Lago. If I couldn't get away, you might come to the villa. Can't you see, David, it wouldn't work?"

  "Then what are we going to do?"

  She studied me in a long moment of silence.

  "There is a way, David," she said.

  Then I knew instinctively that she had worked it all out, but hadn't been ready to tell me until I had exhausted my own ideas, and had proved to myself there could be no other solution except hers.

  "What is it?"

  "The doctor likes Bruno to spend the day in a special wheelchair," she said, looking down at her hands folded in her lap.

  "At night he is moved from the chair to his bed. Nurse Fleming can't carry him so we have a man to do it. He also looks after the car and the motorboat. He gets paid seven thousand lire a week, and all found."

  "Why tell me this?" I asked sharply. "What is it to me?"

  "He is leaving at the end of the week."

  I went hot and then cold.

  "You mean you want me to take his place?"

  Still she didn't look at me.

  "It is the only safe solution, David."

  "I see." I struggled to keep my voice under control, "I would like to get this straight. You are suggesting I should be your husband's nurse, is that it? Each morning I carry him from his bed to a chair, and each night I seduce his wife. For that I am to be paid seven thousand lire. Well, yes, on the face of it, it's a wonderfully attractive offer."

  She looked up then, her eyes glittering.

  "Is that all you have to say, David?"

  "Oh, no, there is a lot more I can say. I can't imagine anything more unpleasant than to go into a room every morning and meet the eyes of a man who can't move nor speak after I have been with his wife during the night. That should be an experience worthy of even my rotten standards of living. Not only shall I be stealing his wife, but I shall be enjoying his food and his board, and shall be paid for doing it with his money. It is an overpoweringly attractive offer."

  She gave a little nod of her head, then got up, went over to the chest-of-drawers and picked up her hat and handbag.

  "Wait a minute, Laura," I said, getting to my feet. "You're not going yet. We can talk this thing out."

  "No, I'm going. I'll go to a hotel. Goodbye, David."

  I was standing now with my back to the door.

  "Can't you see how impossible such an idea is?" I said.

  "Oh, yes, I can see that. Will you let me pass, please?"

  "You're going to stay here. We're going to talk this thing out."

  "David! Please let me pass!"

  "Stop being dramatic! You're damn' well going to stay here
, and we're going to find another way round this. Now sit down and let me think."

  Her face had turned pale. She faced me with fists clenched and her eyes hurt and angry.

  "There's nothing to think about," she said. "I've given you the only solution. If you're too proud, too stupidly narrow minded and too damned masculine to take me that way, then that settles it. I'm not going to stay here another moment. I was an utter fool to have let you make love to me. You set me on fire for you, and then you haven't the moral courage to see it through." Her voice went up a note. "Do all your thinking when I've gone! I'm not going to discuss it anymore! Now let me go!"

  I grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her.

  "It's you who haven't done the thinking," I said violently, "or you wouldn't try to talk me into such a disgraceful situation! Think about it now! Are you going to let me make love to you in his house, almost within his sight? Could you do that?"

  Her handbag slipped out of her hand, and her arms went around my neck, pulling my head down, so her face was against mine.

  "I love you so, David, I'd let you make love to me in his room. Don't you understand caro, he means nothing to me; nothing at all? He has never meant anything to me. I married him for what I could get out of him, and I've suffered for it ever since. I have no pity for him as he had no pity for me when he was strong and patronizing: and you don't know how patronizing he has been to me. I'm not being unfaithful to him because he has never had my loyalty. Do what I ask, David. If you don't I'll never see you again. I shall go bad, as you were going to go bad when you thought I wasn't going to telephone." Her voice broke. "I can't endure any more days like the days we have just been through. You've got to do it, David, or finish it now."

  I pushed her away so I could see her white, tense face.

  "Kiss me, David."

  When my mouth touched hers, resistance went out of me.

  I woke with a start, and half sat up as I felt a hand gently shake my arm.