Never Such Innocence, page 26
‘I’d love it,’ said Julia, feeling more cheerful. ‘How kind of David – and his mother!’
‘He’s a good friend,’ said Anthony. ‘Angry though he’s made me in the past, he is a good lad. Well I’ll tell him it’s on then. Good.’ He walked through the communicating door into his own room, leaving it open while he dressed. When he was ready he came back into her room, shutting the door behind him on his way down to dinner.
‘You look very miserable,’ he said kindly, pausing by her bed. ‘Can I help?’
Julia manufactured a smile.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You can give me permission to wash my hair. I tried to get Comfort to help me and she refused without your say-so. Please? It feels unspeakable.’
‘Of course you can,’ said Anthony, laughing. ‘I’ll ask Annunziata to bring you hot water and towels first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘Good,’ said Julia. ‘And you could answer a question, too, if you will.’
‘If I can,’ he said.
‘I’ve been wondering about David,’ said Julia casually, as though the question were not of the utmost importance to her. ‘You reminded me a minute ago of your original warning about him. What was it he did to make you so terribly angry with him before I came?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Julia,’ said Anthony with a return of the impatience he had shown so often before she got ill. He even pulled back his cuff to look at his watch. ‘No one who wasn’t with us in the hills could possibly understand what it was all about and it’s over now. I’ve just about managed to forgive him. Let’s leave it there. It really isn’t any of your … concern.’
‘Fine,’ said Julia and watched him go. She wished that she could ask David what Anthony had been talking about, but she obviously could not. Everything David had shown her of himself had made her love him and yet she believed that he had done something unspeakable. The two sides of the equation did not balance and she could hardly bear the implications of that.
Comfort left Venice two days later, promising to write to Julia every week and to do her best to put the house in order for their return. Her departure left Julia depressed. Seeing how low she was, Anthony decided that she needed to get out of the house and gave her reluctant permission to spend half of each day in court. David escorted her there on her first morning and was touchingly concerned for her, insisting on taking a cushion for her to soften the hard seat on the press benches and urging her to promise to leave the stuffy, dark-panelled room if she felt faint or troubled.
‘A little faintness would be nothing,’ Julia said, ‘compared with the excruciating boredom of spending all those empty hours in the house. How women who don’t have professions manage to keep themselves sane I cannot imagine!’
‘You could never give up the law, could you?’ asked David.
‘I suppose I could,’ said Julia, thinking of the children she longed for, ‘if there was something equally important I had to do. But to sit around in a house, organising bazaars, having my hair done, that sort of thing? No, I couldn’t do it. That reminds me,’ she added, ‘I wanted to say how kind it is of you and your mother to arrange this Easter holiday for us.’
‘It is a real pleasure, believe me,’ said David, smiling down at her. ‘And Mama has written to say how grateful she is that we’ll be able to see how the old house has stood up to the war and cope with any disasters for her.’
‘She must have missed it,’ said Julia.
David’s smile faded.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I think the war must have been hard on her … particularly while Italy was still part of the Axis; not least because there was a camp for Italian prisoners of war just beyond our gates in Scotland. She never said anything about it when I went up there for my last leave, and she’s never written about it since, but I can imagine a little of what she felt. Fiesole has always seemed very like home to me too,’ he added with apparent irrelevance.
They threaded their way through the vegetable market, full of dull early spring vegetables instead of the mounds of tomatoes and aubergines and peppers and artichokes that Julia longed to see and buy, and reached the Tribunale di Giustizia a few minutes later.
Julia was touched by the number of people who congratulated her on her recovery as she made her way with her cushion to her allotted seat at the end of the press benches, and gave several brief accounts of her illness to people who asked. The court might be in a foreign country, there to try a citizen of yet a third nation, but it was her element and she was relieved to be back in it, even though she could take no active part in the trial.
The proceedings began in their customary stately way and then a Colonel Beelitz was called as a defence witness. He was there to explain to the court that he and the other officers had tried to control the Nazi leaders’demands for gross reprisals for the deaths of the Germans in the Via Rassella. Hitler had apparently demanded that fifty hostages should be killed for every dead German soldier, and Himmler had wanted whole areas of Rome to be cleared and their inhabitants deported.
Julia was so interested in the cross-examination that she almost disobeyed Anthony’s instructions to go back to the Campo San Maurizio for lunch and spend the afternoon in bed, but, remembering how weak she had felt the previous evening, she did as he said. Once she had taken off her black suit and was lying in bed dressed only in her underclothes and dressing gown, she admitted to herself that she was so tired that she might not have lasted out the afternoon in court without fainting.
She slept until Annunziata came to call her soon after five with a bowl of zabaglione, which Julia had never tasted until her illness. It seemed to her a wonderful invention, making far more of a single egg than any British concoction, easily digestible, tasting rich, sweet and thoroughly sustaining. She insisted on sharing it with Annunziata, who looked even more gaunt than she had done before the news of her son’s survival, and then got up.
For a miracle, almost boiling hot water poured out of the taps into the bath and Julia let herself have a really deep bath for once, lying there dreaming about the day when her life might be whole again and weaving plans to make it so, until the skin of her fingers and toes crinkled and the water felt cold. Stirring it around herself, she looked down at her long body, noticing how her illness had removed the last spare flesh. Her ribs were clear, her hipbones stuck out like mountains on a desert relief map, her thighs were straight and looked even longer than usual. Remembering the struggles she had had in the early days of her married life to avoid putting weight on her waist and hips, she laughed.
Relaxed and without the miserable depression of the previous few evenings, Julia pulled herself out of the water, rubbed herself vigorously with the hard, thin towel Annunziata had left there for her and went to dress.
Twenty minutes later, wearing her grey-flannel trousers and mole-coloured jersey and with her hair casually tied back in a velvet ribbon, Julia walked into the salon, only to be brought up short by the sight of David staring blankly at a yellow form in his right hand, a tumbler of whisky ignored and tilting in his left.
Pretending for a moment that she had noticed nothing wrong, Julia poured herself a glass of vermouth and then turned to face David. His thin face was yellowish-white and his whole body seemed somehow diminished. His blue eyes stared at her blindly and when she gently said his name he gave a start, spilling whisky over the crumpled telegram.
‘David?’ she said again, just as quietly, putting her glass down on the table again. ‘Is it very bad?’
He made a tremendous effort to bring himself back into reality; his hands shook and he swallowed twice as he tried to speak; then he passed his right hand, still clutching the telegram, through his dark hair. Feeling the strange texture of the paper in his hair, he brought his hand back in front of his face, and his dazed eyes focused on the telegram. He could not bear to talk about what had happened and so he handed it to Julia and went to sit on one of the excruciatingly uncomfortable gilded chairs by the window while she read it.
Julia smoothed out the single sheet of paper.
Your father and Jonathan killed in motor accident yesterday stop Funeral tomorrow stop Desperate to see you stop Arriving Fiesole Maundy Thursday stop Mama.
Julia looked from David to the telegram and back again. At first he sat looking at his feet, and she could not think of a thing to say. All the obvious expressions of sympathy were wholly inadequate. Knowing how much his brother had meant to him and how happy Jonathan’s slow progress towards regaining his health had made him, Julia could hardly say, ‘I’m so sorry they’re dead.’
Then David looked up and, as though the desperate misery in his eyes had called out to her, Julia went and knelt on the hard, icy floor at his feet, reaching up with both hands. She put them on his broad, bony shoulders.
‘David,’ she said, ‘my dear, dear David.’ He looked straight at her, and she could tell from the way his lower eyelids were drawn up at the inner corners and his nostrils distended that he was trying not to cry. He leaned forward until his head was lying against her shoulder. His need for comfort overrode every other consideration and Julia cradled his head with one arm, stroking his thick, soft hair with the other hand. His hands clutched at her back.
Julia could feel the cool, faintly bristly skin of his cheek against her face and she was bitterly ashamed that in the middle of his awful pain she was conscious of the pleasure of it. When he rubbed his face briefly against her shoulder, when she felt his warm breath against her neck, when his big hands pulled her closer to him, she felt all her senses responding and had to work hard to keep her breathing slow and even and her hand light as it stroked his hair. Ashamed of her response though she was, she would not pull away from him while he needed her; that would be even worse.
At last he relaxed his grip on her back and pulled himself up to sit straight in the purgatorial chair.
‘I’m sorry, Julia,’ he said a little stiffly. ‘That was unforgivable.’
‘No it wasn’t, David,’ she answered kindly. ‘It was very natural, and I’m glad I was here.’
‘I must go and telegraph Mama,’ he said suddenly. Julia removed her hand, but he did not stand up. After a moment’s pause, Julia asked if he wanted her to go to the telegraph office for him. He shook his head.
‘No, the air will do me good. Don’t keep any dinner for me.’
‘You must eat, David. I’ll get Annunziata to keep something hot in the kitchen and then if you’d rather not be bothered with us tonight, you can have it there – or in bed, if that would be better,’ said Julia, her heart feeling as though it were held in a tightening vice as she saw his misery.
He gripped her wrist suddenly, so hard that she almost cried out.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to be with you, Julia. God forbid! I don’t want to eat, that’s all. Oh Lord, that must be Anthony,’ he said.
Julia had heard nothing.
‘Will you tell him for me, Julia?’ he begged, getting out of the chair at last. ‘I don’t want to have to talk.’ He knew it was not fair to lay everything on her while she was still so weak, but he trusted her implicitly and there was no one else.
‘All right, David. Go and send your telegram, and then come back and try to have some food when you can,’ she said.
He nodded, released her hand, and walked quickly to the door. With his hand on the knob he half turned back to her.
‘I’m glad you were here,’ he said in a strangled voice and then went out.
Julia rubbed her eyes with a handkerchief and then went to retrieve her drink. She had just taken a mouthful of the rather sour wormwood-flavoured wine when Anthony came breezily into the room.
‘I say, what on earth’s the matter with the Boy David?’ he asked, seeing his wife.
‘There’s been a most frightful accident,’ she said and Anthony stopped quite still just inside the room. ‘His father and his brother have both been killed. He asked me to tell you, I think because he can’t bear to talk about it. He was reading this when I got here,’ she went on, holding out the telegram.
Anthony came to read it, then automatically folded it up and put it in the breast pocket of his black coat.
‘Poor boy,’ he said with more tenderness than Julia had heard from him since the crisis of her illness. ‘Well that puts the lid on the Fiesole plan. We obviously can’t go thrusting ourselves on that poor woman now.’
‘Heavens no,’ agreed Julia, thinking about the Easter plans for the first time that evening. ‘Lucky that he’s already got permission to go. I wish there was something we could do to help him, though.’
Anthony put an arm around her shoulders and she looked at him, surprised but pleased that he had managed to touch her again.
‘You always did believe it possible to cure other people’s unhappiness,’ he said. ‘But the truth is that however sympathetic or kind one is, one can’t ever do anything to prevent someone else hurting.’
‘Except perhaps listen,’ said Julia, who believed passionately in the ability – and obligation – of friends to help.
‘I doubt if David’ll talk. He’s a very private man, Julia. Don’t be too hurt if he shuts us both out now,’ said Anthony.
‘I’m old enough to wait without being hurt for people to let me in again,’ she said lightly, hoping that he had listened to what she said and understood its application to himself.
David did not in fact begin to relax his reserve until nearly a week after the telegram had arrived, when Julia judged it a suitable moment to say that she and Anthony would be making other plans for Easter. For a second or two David looked stricken. He said nothing, but just stared at Julia, the hurt twisting his sensitive mouth.
‘But, dear David,’ she said pitifully, ‘you can’t want us interfering at such a moment. We’d be desperately in the way. Your mother will want you to herself.’
‘Would you really hate it so much?’ he said at last, and then hurriedly added: ‘Of course you would. I’m sorry.’ He tried to smile, but it was a poor effort. ‘Of course you must go somewhere else.’
‘I shouldn’t hate it, David; not if you needed me,’ said Julia, telling the unadorned truth.
Anthony, predictably enough Julia thought, decided that his patients needed him too much for him to take any kind of holiday over the Easter weekend, but he made no objection to David’s formal request to take Julia away to stay with his mother.
Chapter Nineteen
Anthony escorted Julia and David to the railway station on the Thursday before Easter and while David went to buy the tickets, Julia seized the opportunity to ask her husband to do a small errand for her.
‘One of my Italian teacher’s refugees has been badgering me to find out whether she could get permission to live in England,’ she said. ‘I’ve always thought it unlikely, but I’ve just heard from George this morning that it is impossible. Her claims are just not strong enough. Would you take her the message for me? It seems very unfair to leave her hoping when there is no hope.’
‘All right,’ said Anthony, shrugging. ‘If it’s that important, I might as well go straight from here. Why not give me the letter – unless there’s anything private in it – and the woman’s address.’
‘There’s nothing private,’ answered Julia, ‘although I would quite like the letter back when you’ve shown it to her.’
‘All right,’ he said, kissing her cheek as David came back towards them with the tickets. ‘Now, don’t let poor David’s tragedy wear you down. You’re still convalescent and you need to rest.’
‘I promise to follow all your instructions,’ said Julia with illusory meekness. Anthony laughed and touched her cheek briefly. Julia smiled to see him happier than he had seemed before her illness.
‘I’ll miss you,’ she said. ‘All right, David, I’m coming. Goodbye, Anthony.’
He held open the train door for her and heaved their two bags up to David.
‘Take care of her, old man,’ he said and slammed the door shut.
‘Of course I shall,’ said David through the open window.
‘I’ll see you both on Monday night, then,’ said Anthony, turning away.
Julia spent most of the journey between Venice and Florence trying to decide exactly what to say to David’s Italian mother. He had told her enough about his parents’passionate devotion to each other for Julia to feel desperately sorry for her.
They reached the railway station at Florence just after four. David jumped down on to the platform and put up his hands for the baggage. Julia handed it down to him. When he had dumped their two canvas bags on the ground, he reached up again to help her down from the high train.
Once again the touch of his hands on her wrists made her insides lurch with pleasure.
‘How do we get to Fiesole?’ she asked and was pleased to hear that her voice sounded entirely passionless.
‘A friend of mine who’s working in and around Florence said he’d meet us in his jeep if he could make it,’ David answered looking round. ‘If not, it’ll probably have to be the bus.’
They walked out of the station and stood, blinking a little in the bright sunlight. Julia was just thinking how wonderfully refreshing it was to be in the middle of a real city, with town noises and roads and motor cars, when it dawned on her that her baggy brownish-grey tweeds and old felt hat were far too countrified. She had put them on without thinking, because they were what she had always worn for travelling outside London, but she began to wonder what David’s mother would think of them and to wish that she had put on her good black coat and skirt instead with one of her London hats. A shout from David made her start.
‘Bill!’ She turned to see David waving. ‘There he is, Julia; so you won’t have to walk to the bus. Good.’
