Roman Nights Read online

  ‘I do agree,’ said Johnson Johnson. ‘Especially if Charles is the Marquis’s son. Charles Digham?’

  ‘Digham,’ affirmed Charles sweetly. My heart sank. ‘And this,’ he added, ‘is my friend, Miss Ruth Russell. You haven’t said, sir, what brought you to the zoo?’

  The glasses stared at him. ‘I thought I had,’ said Johnson mildly.

  ‘I mean . . .’ said Charles.

  ‘What am I doing here? Oh,’ said Johnson. ‘I’m painting the Pope. I shan’t blackmail you if you won’t blackmail me. Now then. The Maurice Frazer Observatory. Do help yourself to a tissue,’ he added, ‘if you want to wipe the blood off that camera.’ And he put the Fiat into gear and tooled off.

  We got to the Dome in forty minutes, having done the Piazza Galeno in one dizzy circuit and roared past all the tarts on the motorway, doing roughly a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Whatever was under the bonnet of that Fiat wasn’t cinquecento, and Charles and I by tacit consent gave Johnson Johnson the address of the Dome and not the address of the humble lodgings we both shared with Jacko. We had not only been picked up by a nut: we had been picked up by a well-off and dangerous nut and were likely to be exposed either in print or in prison, whatever we did about it.

  At the Dome we asked him in for a coffee, which unfortunately he accepted, and I went ahead and yelled up to Jacko, who was fixing his plateholder on the swing-up shelf which bars the other side of the cupola door and makes sure that idiots don’t march into the Dome with their torches on.

  He came down a few minutes later to make sure we had all the blinds closed but actually to see what Charles had in his hip flask. Astronomers are not allowed to drink before they go on duty: you can get enough straight hallucinations just looking for eight hours through a telescope without resorting to alcohol. Charles, an intuitive man, poured him a noggin for afters into a yellow Melamine cup and related the event of the evening in four succinct sentences while liberally lacing our coffee. Jacko went becomingly white and said, ‘Christ. The Zodiac Trust’ll have kittens.’

  The top brass of the Trust, in the person of one Professor Hathaway, does not expect its projects to get mixed up in murders or suicides. ‘It won’t,’ I said. ‘It’ll have baby lawyers with letters of dismissal all ready for signing by Mr Frazer.’ I stared at Jacko with what I hoped was a message of despair in my eyes. ‘Maybe,’ I added, ‘since Mr Johnson got us away, the police will never get to hear how it happened. Mr Johnson,’ I added with emphasis, ‘is here to paint the Pope.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jacko. His colour was coming back. He twisted the nearest messianic lock of his hair. ‘Would the Pope help?’

  I sometimes think the only reason Di goes to bed with Jacko is that he asks such damned silly questions. I was about to answer this one when Charles, heretofore much subdued, said suddenly, ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We met last week at Castel Gandolfo,’ said Jacko. ‘My God, where did you get that damned cup from?’

  Castel Gandolfo is the Pope’s Summer Palace. It also houses the Vatican Observatory in an elegant house by the lakeside. If Johnson was there, at the very least it was with the Pontiff’s permission. I said to Johnson Johnson, ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘Granted,’ he said.

  ‘Where the hell did that come from?!’ said Jacko. He was talking about Charles’s cup. Charles pointed to a cupboard, and Jacko ran and fell on his knees in front of it. Then he put both hands around the handle like oven mitts and opened the cupboard a fraction. A white mouse with red eyes sneaked out of it and ran under the stove.

  ‘Poppy!’ I said accusingly.

  ‘I was going to put her back,’ said Jacko hurriedly. ‘That bastard Innes tore up all my pictures.’

  ‘I’d have torn them up too if I’d thought of it,’ I said with exasperation. Open war between Jacko and Innes was all that I needed. ‘Now you’ll have to take them all over again. Think of that.’

  He didn’t hear me because he was lying full length under the stove with a broom. Charles had found some All Bran and was emptying it on the tiled floor while Johnson Johnson, with great presence of mind, had shut the door and stuffed dish towels under it. A stream of oaths flowed from under the stove, broken by a flurry of activity. Jacko jabbed with his broomstick, swivelled, rolled over the bran heap and stabbed at the legs of a table. Charles crouched twitching beside him while Johnson, moving from cupboard to table, began methodically to wall in the floor space with Supermercato packets of groceries. A doorbell rang somewhere in the Dome and Charles said, with prescience, ‘That’ll be Innes.’ Johnson began methodically to put the packs back again. We all got to our feet.

  That was all we had done when Innes shoved open the door, after batting it a few times against the dishcloths, and looked with surprise at the bran mash on the floor and Jacko propped on his broomstick and heavily profiled in cereal.

  ‘We were taking an impression for posterity,’ said Charles with great simplicity. ‘What can we do for you?’

  Innes looked around at us all. Then he looked straight under the table and shouted.

  Johnson Johnson yelled at the same moment. They leaped forward together, colliding heavily into the cereal; Johnson, his arms out flung, was a yard nearer the table than Innes, who lay blowing into the bran and then rose uncertainly on to his knees.

  ‘Hell,’ said Johnson with feeling. He looked at us. ‘That was a rat. Did you see it go past you?’

  The door was wide open.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jacko. ‘It’s all right. It went out the front door.’

  ‘We wondered,’ said Charles, ‘who had been spilling the bran. Are you all right, Innes? Have some coffee.’

  ‘And some brandy,’ I said.

  ‘I think,’ said Johnson, ‘I had better be going.’ He was holding his wrist.

  ‘You’ve hurt yourself!’ Innes said.

  ‘No,’ said Johnson reassuringly. He doubled up and then sat down quickly. ‘Charles and Ruth will look after me anyway. Unless I’m keeping you all back from something.’

  We all said no, and Innes delivered his message, which was a pressing invitation to Jacko from Maurice. Jacko said sulkily, ‘I can’t go to his flaming party. Someone has to stay with the 50-Inch.’

  ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Go and have a couple of hours. You needn’t drink. I’ll look after the plates if you’ll put out the chart and coordinates.’

  He was dying to go. ‘We tossed for it and I lost,’ he said appealingly.

  ‘I know. But if the weather had been thick you would have been able to come. I don’t mind,’ I said, and I meant it. I avoided catching Charles’s eye in order to continue to mean it. Jacko was still arguing in an unconvinced way when Innes left and we all made a dive for Johnson, who was doubled up screeching with laughter and continued to laugh while we got his coat and tie off and finally opened his shirt.

  He had a winter-weight woollen vest underneath it, and Poppy. I helped him dress while Jacko lit out for Mouse Hall to return her. I admired Johnson’s jersey.

  He was pleased. ‘I have an uncle who knits them in Margate,’ he added, with a faint wistfulness. ‘Is Maurice Frazer giving a party?’

  One forgets how famous Maurice is. Long before he bought the villa and the garden and the observatories, Maurice had wintered in Italy on the proceeds of his work in the theatre. Everyone in Roman society came to see Maurice. And English and French society. And American. And South American, even. And every pretty girl in the civilized world, whether in society or not. Maurice is seventy or more and Timothy, who looks after him, is his hostess. They are past scandal, but never past gossip. Maurice’s is the finest centre of gossip in Europe.

  I said, ‘Would you like to go?’ because it was easy. Anyone with his wits about him can get into Maurice’s. But to be asked twice to Maurice’s you must be very good company indeed.

  You observe therefore, humble pie, Ruth Russell quite as naive in her own way as Jacko. I did my stint in the Dome; I went home and d
ressed up like a bottle of Mille Fiori d’Alpi and I walked fifty yards to the white marble gates of the villa, where Charles met me in someone’s Alfa Romeo and conveyed me the mile and a half up the drive. He had been two hours at the party already, and behaved like it.

  ‘And Johnson?’ I said, when I got him to stop making tensile tests all over my bodystocking.

  ‘Never mind Johnson,’ he said.

  ‘But I do mind Johnson,’ I said. ‘And I want to get to this party. And if you stop the car once again, I shall leave you. Did Maurice take to Johnson Johnson?’

  Charles made an expansive gesture, and then corrected the ensuing diagonal. ‘Your friendly neighbourhood portrait painter,’ he said, ‘has been given the key to the executive washroom. Maurice has always wanted to meet Johnson and Johnson has always wanted to meet Maurice. A series of portrait sittings has been arranged and will begin this very week, London papers please copy.’

  I stared at Charles, and made a number of mental apologies to Jacko. ‘Aha!’ I said.

  ‘The artist will, of course,’ said Charles, ‘be staying at the villa with Maurice.’

  ‘Oho,’ I said vaguely.

  ‘You thought,’ said Charles accusingly, ‘that he was going to paint you and me and the Pope in a triptych.’

  ‘No,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘No. But I know who’s going to go for him. Di and Timothy.’

  I was dead right at that. Timothy is tall and pink and helpful and Lithuanian, and anything as hand-knit as Johnson was bound to be whipped in and licensed. Timothy met us among the arum lilies at the top of the twin marble staircase and kissed us both while he unwrapped Charles from his ankle-length wolfskin. ‘Darlings,’ he said. ‘You have brought us a beautiful present. The Master is thrilled with him. Truly.’

  ‘Look at all the nice things you give us,’ I said. ‘You do such lovely parties, Timothy.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ he said pinkly, ‘except that you keep all the little treasures to yourself, don’t you? Hasn’t Charles any nice friends?’

  ‘Only you and me,’ I said grinning back at him. I said it before. I have never minded poufs. Charles was mine and I was his, and even people like Timothy knew it. Then we got to our food and awaited our summons to Maurice.

  The excuse is Maurice’s age; but Maurice always held audiences, even when he lived in the Penthouse Suite in the Dorchester. At the Villa Sansavino he held audience in his writing room. During the day, he would be enthroned behind his antique sarcophagus desk. During a party, in velvet jacket and slippers, he would be sitting erect in his antique Sicilian armchair beside the roaring fire, the flames gleaming on his chaise longue, his desk and his books and a quantity of handsome appointments, generally aged eighteen or under and single. All Maurice’s interviews were conducted over the heads of a bevy of girls, many of them related to him, and all of whom knew the time of day to the last double entendre. You needed to watch what you were saying at Maurice’s.

  We made our entry together. Charles and I, because Charles had not been summoned alone in my absence: Timothy is careful about such things. We left the hot, polite uproar of the supper room and, shepherded by Timothy, stepped through the paned door carved with the princely arms of the family who had built the villa and laid out the gardens and erected the first Dome, that obligatory plaything of princes, on top of the gradient.

  Then Charles shrieked. He shrieked, and gripped my arm and, turning, rushed from the threshold, dragging me with him.

  I can tell you precisely what I thought. I thought, Maurice has blown his head off.

  Then I heard Maurice’s voice saying, ‘Well I saw Beatrice, Timothy darling, but where’s Dante?’ and I said to Charles, ‘What is it?’

  I had to say it again before he stopped, and then he put his hands to his head and just stared at me. ‘Don’t you hear it?’ he said.

  I thought. Meningitis. Lord Digham Serious. Lady Teddington Flies Out to Photographer Son. His face was yellow white and his eyes had black slopes cut out under them. I said. ‘Sit down. I’ll get a doctor. Don’t worry. To hell with Maurice.’

  He didn’t sit down. He said, ‘Don’t you hear it?’ in a voice rising distinctly towards panic. It was not the Charles of the obituary notices. But then, it had not been fully Charles of the obituary notices ever since what we had found in the zoo. I expect I looked pretty grotty as well.

  Timothy was coming towards us. I said, ‘I don’t hear anything. Whatever you hear, it must be in your head.’

  He was saying, ‘It’s not. It’s not, Ruth,’ when Timothy came up beside us. He said, ‘Aren’t you well? Ruth, isn’t he well? He must come and lie down then, darling. Along here. It’s my room and ever so comfy.’

  Charles stared at him, his hands still held over his ears. ‘It’s something in his head,’ I said. ‘A noise. He thinks he hears a terrible noise.’

  Timothy blinked. Then, turning slowly, he glided back to the room he had left. We heard his voice, speaking to Maurice, and Maurice’s voice saying, ‘Yes do, do. How exciting!’ Then, as if a command had descended from heaven, Charles’s face altered. His hands eased off and then left his eardrums. He said, ‘It’s stopped!’

  Timothy’s head, appearing in Maurice’s doorway, called dulcetly, ‘You can come along now!’

  We went in.

  We went confronted by ten pretty faces and Maurice, whose face was pretty too. It was a beautiful face, fine and aesthetic and cynical, and upholstered with the finest white hair, like a porcelain vase with white mink on it. He said, ‘Ruth darling. You must have Digham tied off or divorce him. I won’t have you become preggy by someone who can hear Mouse Alarms.’

  I said, ‘We’re not married,’ in the same moment as Charles exclaimed, ‘Mouse Alarms!’ which gives you a rough idea of our respective order of priorities.

  Maurice was with me. He said, ‘Are you living in sin? Why, of course you are. I remember it all. What is the basis of morality? It is a loving relationship, one not to possess, dominate and exploit another person but one in which two people try to understand and care for one another. But how very exhibitionist of you to refrain from marrying. Think how lucky you are, being of opposite sexes. Although you do give me a moment’s worry, Ruthie dear. Career women always do.’

  ‘Timothy,’ I said, ‘is quite safe from me. Maurice, explain the Mouse Alarm.’

  Maurice stared inimically at me. He said, ‘You are the scientist. It is your world we poor creatures of Nature are trapped in. Do I not pay you with shekels to succour us?’

  ‘He doesn’t like mice,’ said Johnson mildly. I hadn’t seen him, there in the shadows; neither had Charles. We peered at him, and the bifocals flashed redly back. Diana Minicucci, almost topless and earmarked like the Passover with cake blusher, was lying reclined at his feet.

  ‘So,’ said Timothy, ‘we had this Mouse Alarm fixed to scare them off. Too high for human hearing, or so they said. I’ll write and tell them. Imagine. How they will foam!’

  I looked at Charles. ‘You’re a freak,’ I said. ‘I suppose you hear dog whistles too?’

  ‘I’ve never been whistled at,’ said Charles, ‘by a dog. Do you have the bloody thing on all the time?’

  ‘Yes. Especially tonight. Tonight was a Red Alert,’ said Maurice peacefully. ‘We heard a certain rumour from Jacko. What a ridiculous name. Almost as ridiculous as its owner.’

  I said, ‘You know, this is a little story I’d hate anyone to tell Innes Wye. He doesn’t know Poppy had wandered.’

  Maurice stared at me with such disfavour. ‘Ruth darling, if you must give a rodent a name, why let your choice fall on a flower? Why not look to the earlier cultures, the strong, the primitive nomenclatures. I often feel,’ said Maurice with gentle melancholy, ‘that God was less than fair to the Shittites.’

  One of the blossoms at his feet raised her fair face. ‘Hittites, Uncle Maurice,’ she said.

  ‘In my book,’ said Maurice gently, ‘it was Shittite. Tell Innes, Ruth, that if he cares
to bring the creature to me, I shall rename it. In a vat. With some sulphuric acid.’

  ‘I once painted a mouse,’ said Johnson Johnson.

  ‘What?’ said Maurice sharply.

  ‘Green,’ said Johnson. ‘It looked very pretty.’

  We left soon after that.

  From the loggia behind the French windows you could see the top of the hill and even the mosque shape of the observatory black against the night sky, with the segment of denser blackness where the cupola was rolled back for the telescope. We left that way because it was quicker, and we looked up at the Dome because we were together, and Jacko was alone, and hadn’t got either Di or her photographs.

  That was how we came to see that tonight there was no segment of dark but a golden triangle. Tonight the cupola was pouring out watts like a lighthouse.

  I bumped into Innes as we raced for the steps. He took one glance where I pointed and joined us. No one spoke. Even Charles, the outsider, knew enough to recognize what was the matter.

  At night the full lights in the cupola never go on. They would spoil the plate, and ruin your night sight. Sometimes, when you lose sight of the wire and begin to see streets and people and cars in the lens, you can relieve your eyestrain in the dim light of the console. But you can’t, of course, abandon the telescope. The motor might stick: the telescope might fail to follow the arc of your subject; atmospheric changes might make your star become fuzzed or the light become jumpy and splintered, so that you have to centre it back on the cross wire.

  On a clear night like this, with exposures going on all the time, the cupola light is never on. Except in an emergency.

  We got to the Dome and I found the front door, which is always locked, had been forced open. Charles swung around the emergency generator and dashed for the stairs to the cupola. I stood in the hall shouting ‘Jacko!’ while Innes closed the door and dragged a chair over to jam it. We heard Charles reach the second floor and then the ring of his feet on the steep iron steps to the telescope. Then a door on the middle floor opened, and a moment later a man came out of the darkroom.

  He looked down and I looked up, and I recognized him. It was the second of the two men from the Villa Borghese.