Never Such Innocence, page 18
She had been quite unable to believe what she was watching. It seemed to happen so slowly that ever since she had castigated herself for not speaking, not flinging herself on the young man with the gun before he could fire.
Giovanna shuddered suddenly, thinking of the blood and tissue that had sprayed from Roberto’s head down the front of her skirt and the mocking greeting of one of the masked young men.
‘We apologise, signora,’ he had said, ‘that it has taken us so long to rid you of this Fascist pig. But we have been busy in the town.’
Giovanna had gagged then and nearly fainted as she clung to the big desk, trying to keep upright until they had gone. But they had not gone until they had stripped her house of everything of value that they could find and carry away. She gasped again at the memory, feeling the same terrible powerlessness, the fear, the disgust and the desperate anger.
‘Are you all right?’ Julia’s cool, English voice brought Giovanna back to the present. She looked almost in disbelief at the shabby furnishings of the house she had rented and the sagging bookshelves behind the upright figure of her intelligent, sympathetic, but probably prejudiced English pupil.
‘Say it in Italian, please,’ she said to give herself time to bury the memories again. Julia struggled, reached for her pocket dictionary and eventually produced an acceptable Italian sentence. Giovanna manufactured a smile.
‘Bene,’ she said. ‘You have done well, and you learn quickly.’
‘You’re a good teacher,’ said Julia. She looked at her watch. ‘May I drop in downstairs before I go? I promised to lend Raffaella a book. She learns quickly too, much more so than any of the others.’
‘Ah, yes, I can imagine it. She seems intelligent.’
‘Giovanna,’ said Julia slowly, ‘how much do you know about her? I mean, has it ever struck you that she is not quite the same as the others?’
‘Of course it has,’ came the calm answer, ‘but that doesn’t matter. She came here afraid and in need. I don’t ask questions of any of them. What does it matter now what happened before? The partisans killed Roberto, because he belonged to the wrong side. It didn’t change anything for them; it did them no good. Between them all the different sides have wrecked Italy. Someone has to rebuild something, put people’s lives together again without digging around for reasons to hate.’
‘I see,’ said Julia. ‘But ought you not to find out about her?’
‘No,’ said Giovanna categorically. ‘Even if I wanted to, how could I? The only name I know her by is “Raffaella”. It’s unlikely that it is her real name and even if it were how would it help me to find where she comes from?’
‘But what about her identity papers? Ration books?’ Julia asked.
Giovanna shrugged and her heavy eyelids drooped over her black eyes.
‘She had none when she came. But they are not always … necessary. They can be … replaced.’
Julia was not certain whether Giovanna was telling her that she had bought forged identity papers for Raffaella and she was careful not to ask. Giovanna’s gibe about the ‘innocent English’had been enough to stop Julia from feeling any right to moral superiority. When they had said goodbye to each other, she went down to look for Raffaella to hand over the book she had brought. She knocked on the door.
‘Entra,’ called Raffaella and Julia went into the small bedroom to find her sitting by a window with her child in her arms.
She was trying to persuade her baby to eat little squares of bread that looked as though they had been dipped in milk. There was a lamp on a chest beside the window seat and its yellow light poured down on her smooth blonde hair, making it shine and pointing up the contrast between its luxuriance and the shabbiness of her cheap black dress. But what Julia noticed most of all was the tenderness with which Raffaella held her baby and the gentle smile on her small mouth. Trying not to remember her tormenting dreams and needs, Julia almost backed out of the room, reluctant to disturb the two of them.
‘Signora Giulia,’ said the girl, looking up from her child at last. She dropped the last soggy piece of bread back into the painted bowl beside her and picked up a clean rag to wipe his milky lips. ‘How good to see you. Is that right in English?’
‘That’s right,’ answered Julia, smiling. ‘You are making very good progress at your English conversation. I have brought you the book.’ She put it down on the window seat beside Raffaella.
‘Ah, thank you,’ she said, stroking the child’s furry head in a casual, happy way that made Julia’s insides clench. It seemed absurd to feel bitterly jealous of a girl hardly out of her teens, who was saddled with a fatherless child in a country that was three-quarters ruined. But, absurd or not, jealousy was just what Julia felt and it disgusted her.
The child was as attractive as his mother, with big eyes that were less green than hers, although his hair was dark. He smiled a lot and gurgled happily when she held him up and kissed him.
‘Would you like to hold him, signora?’ Raffaella said suddenly as she caught the expression of longing on Julia’s usually calm, firm-chinned face.
‘I?’ said Julia in a tone of surprise, but her arms had already arranged themselves to receive him. Raffaella tightened the blue shawl in which she had wrapped him and handed him over. Julia sat down on a hard wooden chair that Raffaella brought her and looked down into the baby’s face. He seemed quite content within the arms of an inexperienced stranger and suddenly smiled up at her, opening his mouth and crinkling up his blue-grey eyes. Julia thought that there was a flash of intelligence in them, but she dismissed the idea as nothing but sentimentality.
‘How old is he?’ Julia asked, looking away from the child into the pretty face of his mother and noticing that her mouth was a quite different shape from his. Hers had a short upper lip, while his was both bigger and more evenly closed.
‘Eighteen months,’ answered Raffaella, having counted through all the English numbers up to eighteen so that there could be no misunderstanding. ‘He is very greedy, and bigger than that.’
‘But charming,’ said Julia, taking hold of one of his hands and revelling in the sensation of closeness when his small fingers gripped hers.
‘Like his father,’ said Raffaella, holding out her arms. With some reluctance, Julia handed the child back. Jealous herself, Julia was aware of the passionate envy that Raffaella might feel of someone in her position and she had no wish to sound like Lady Bountiful, dispensing charity and demanding confidences in return. She did not want to ask any indiscreet questions, and yet if Raffaella wanted to talk, Julia did not want to stop her. She compromised with an interested smile.
‘Signora Giulia,’ Raffaella said after a moment of obvious indecision.
‘Yes,’ said Julia encouragingly, noticing with surprise that there was a calculating expression in the pale-green eyes that looked across to hers.
‘Can you help me to go to England, and … to live?’ Raffaella asked.
‘I think that’s a bit unlikely,’ said Julia, quite taken aback. ‘I have no powers to do anything like that. Why England? Wouldn’t America be a better place for you to start again? There are so many Italians there and it’s a place where –’
‘I do not like Americans,’ said Raffaella bitterly. Julia, still feeling sore about the way the United States exercised their enormous power to coerce and criticise her country, could not prevent a sympathetic smile forming on her lips. Raffaella brightened at once.
‘I just do not know, Raffaella,’ said Julia slowly. ‘I will try to find out if it would be possible to get you to England. I expect it will be difficult. You are wise to practise your English while you wait,’ she added, no longer surprised that Raffaella always had a question prepared at the beginning of each lesson about some aspect of English life and often begged for books and extra work. None of the other women had ever shown so much interest.
‘Grazie, signora,’ said Raffaella, letting her heavy eyelids hide whatever expression there was in her pretty but slightly protuberant eyes.
‘Well, goodbye,’ said Julia, getting up. She could not resist going to stroke the child’s head for a moment and closed her eyes as she felt his warmth under the palm of her hand. ‘I shall see you on Wednesday as usual. Will you give my regards to the others, please?’
‘Certo,’ said Raffaella, watching her over the baby’s head.
Julia walked home through the shabby streets of the Dorsoduro, using her torch in all the unlit alleys and squares. She knew the way well enough by then to turn left and right by instinct and as she walked she tried to think of ways in which she might be able to help Raffaella.
When she reached the Accademia Bridge, Julia leaned for a while against the parapet, looking down to the Grand Canal towards Santa Maria della Salute. It was very cold, but everything looked so wonderful that she was prepared to put up with it for a while. The moon had risen while she was in Giovanna’s house and now lit the black water of the canal with sliding pools of whiteness. It fell, too, on the palaces on either side, catching the coloured marble inlay of one and the eccentric funnel-shaped chimneys of another, and bathed the entire white dome of the Salute so that it stood majestically pale against black sky and black water at the head of the canal.
A small motor boat chugged through the canal beneath the bridge, sending the water slapping against the palaces and splintering the moonlight on the water into a hundred flashing fragments. Julia leaned her elbows on the uncomfortable parapet of the bridge and acknowledged the allure of Venice that she had resisted in her first, depressed reaction to the city. She was happier than she had been when David Wallington had told her how much he loved the place and she was prepared to admit the pleasure it could give.
As soon as she reached the house in the Campo San Maurizio Julia went straight up to her bedroom to drop her Italian text books and take off her hat before joining the men in the huge, cold salon for dinner. But when she walked into the room she had the distinct impression that she was interrupting something very important.
Her husband was sitting at one end of the gilded sofa with his head in his hands and David Wallington was standing in front of him, talking very quietly. He stopped as soon as he heard Julia’s step and turned his head, revealing a bleak and worried face.
‘Are you all right, David?’ she asked, suddenly anxious. ‘You look terrible.’ He nodded his dark head and she expelled the breath she had been holding. Then David moved aside so that she could see her husband. When he did not speak, David said:
‘Anthony’s had some very bad news. I’ll get you a drink, old man.’
‘Have you, darling?’ said Julia going to her husband’s side at once. She sat down on the sofa and when David had walked out of the room took one of Anthony’s hands in hers. It was clammy with sweat and he withdrew it at once, but he did not cover his face again. She saw that his skin was grey and as sweaty as his palm; his eyes looked bloodshot and his mouth pinched. Every other thought was banished from her mind by concern for him.
‘What’s happened, Anthony?’ she asked. He turned to look at her and she could not be sure whether it was anger or dislike that distorted his face.
‘Flavia’s dead,’ he said, looking away again.
For a moment Julia could not speak as she tried to control the maelstrom of wildly different emotions that swirled in her mind. At once relieved that the news was not worse for Anthony personally and sad that the appealing, unhappy child was dead, she wished that she had been able to do more to ease Flavia’s torments and resented Anthony’s prohibition all over again.
‘What happened?’ she asked when she could be sure that her voice would sound gentle again.
Anthony straightened his spine and then leaned against the rigid gilt back of the sofa, looking up at the frivolous painted ceiling.
‘It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that she’s dead.’
‘I’m so sorry, Anthony,’ said Julia. ‘But you mustn’t let yourself hurt like this. You know better than anyone that there’s never a guaranteed cure for any serious medical condition. And –’
‘For God’s sake! Don’t try to comfort me,’ he said bitterly through clenched teeth. Taken aback, Julia got off the sofa and went to stand at one of the long windows looking down at the canal. It seemed such a short time ago that she had been happy. The darkness of the water reminded her of Flavia’s huge, frightened eyes and the reflected light of the moment when she had at last smiled and spoken. Julia turned her back on the moonlight.
‘Anthony,’ she began again, but before she could say any more, David Wallington came back, carrying a tray with a bottle and three glasses on it. He put the tray down on the table, which, Julia saw, was already laid for dinner, and opened the bottle. He poured out three glasses of wine and took one to Anthony.
‘Here,’ he said carefully. ‘You need a drink.’
‘To drug myself into insensibility?’ said Anthony. ‘I thought you always believed that I ought not to give them those drugs. Shouldn’t you be delighted that I’m feeling like this about the consequences?’
‘No of course not,’ said David carefully. He went to fetch a small table and carried it to the sofa so that he could put Anthony’s drink on it within reach. But Anthony ignored it, got up and announced that he was going to have a bath.
‘I hope there’s some hot water for him,’ said Julia. ‘David, what was all that about?’
‘It’s a bit complicated,’ he answered. ‘Why not come and sit down?’
Julia did as he suggested and waited.
‘Come on, David,’ she said, putting all the authority of her five years’seniority into her voice. ‘I know that you don’t like breaking confidences, but I’m only going to put my foot in it with Anthony if I don’t understand what’s been going on.’ He looked at her, unhappy and pleading, but she did not let him off the hook.
‘You probably know that penicillin is desperately scarce?’ he said at last. Julia nodded impatiently. ‘Well, in certain emergencies, Anthony has bought it on the black market – out of his own money. He did that this time when the child got meningitis. She died soon after the first injection. Anthony thinks that the drug must have been adulterated – or fake.’
Julia was silent as she absorbed the horrible implications of what David had said.
‘Oh poor Anthony,’ she said slowly. ‘No wonder he couldn’t bear to be comforted. He must feel as though he killed her himself.’
Chapter Fourteen
Anthony did not return to the salon that night and so Julia knocked on his door when she went up to bed.
‘Come in,’ he called in a resigned voice. She went in to see him lying on his bed in the dark. He was still fully dressed and there was a cigarette smouldering unsmoked in the ash tray by his side.
‘Well?’ he said disagreeably. ‘I suppose David has told you about my illegal drug running?’
‘Anthony,’ said Julia carefully, ‘don’t build up a great drama where there isn’t one. Flavia’s death is quite bad enough without that.’
‘Good heavens!’ he said, swinging his feet over the side of the bed and switching on the light. ‘Don’t tell me you – my excessively law-respecting wife – think I was right to buy black-market penicillin?’
Julia fetched a chair and brought it to Anthony’s bedside.
‘No,’ she said, not prepared to lie even to comfort him, ‘I don’t but I can understand precisely …’
‘How gratifying for us both that you understand,’ he said. Julia winced at the sarcasm.
‘I hadn’t meant to sound patronising,’ she said when she could. ‘Don’t let’s quarrel about it. I came because I hate you to be unhappy and I thought that perhaps I could help. We used to talk sometimes in the old days when you had had a tragedy at the hospital and it seemed to help you then.’
Something in the reasonableness of her voice or her good intentions reached Anthony. Through the agony he recognised what she was offering him, but it was something he could not accept. He stubbed out the cigarette and wiped both hands over his face.
‘I’m not really fit for human consumption tonight, Julia,’ he said, trying to sound less angry. ‘And there is nothing on earth you could do or say to make me feel less ghastly than I already do. I loved that child and I killed her. The fact that she might have died anyway, that she was living in terror and misery that are now over, that … oh, all the rational consolations you are no doubt ready to hand out: none of them can touch what I feel now. Go to bed and leave me alone with it.’
‘All right,’ said Julia, getting up to put the chair away. ‘But if you –’
‘No, Julia,’ Anthony said, sounding at the end of his tether. ‘Don’t say any of it. Just go away.’
Julia left and went to lie alone in bed, wondering how to help him and why she could not and what had happened between them to make him so unreachable. She wished that she could understand him as easily as the witnesses she cross-examined in her professional life. None of her carefully developed rationality could stop her feeling as though he had hit her, and none of the real compassion she felt for him could stop her feeling angry about it.
The next day when Anthony came back from the hospital he announced that he had arranged a funeral for Flavia at three o’clock the following Saturday afternoon and expected that Julia and David would be there. Both of them agreed at once, prepared to do anything that might make him feel less desperate about the child’s death.
Anthony had chosen a small shabby baroque church close to the hospital for the service, and they all made their own way there separately. When Julia arrived, dressed in her black London suit and best hat, she was surprised to see that the church was almost full and that many of the mourners were children. David was sitting beside Anthony in one of the front rows of chairs, dressed in uniform, and Annunziata was there too. As Julia walked up the aisle to join them, she recognised Sister Caroline from the hospital as she passed and assumed that the rest of the congregation were Anthony’s colleagues and patients.
