4

‘WHAT I don’t understand,’ Victoria said, ‘is how you can bear it. Tell me. – It’s because you are so thin, I suppose. There’s so little to you.’

‘I sweat, too,’ Nicky murmured.

‘I sweat, tool’ she mimicked good-naturedly. ‘But you also run and jump and swim and play as if it were twenty degrees outside. Do you know it’s one hundred and two? – Yes. Nicky, let us leave. Tomorrow. Señor Gutiérrez will tap his little wireless and in the morning the plane will be here.’

Nicky’s smile was quick and brave – and thoroughly artificial.

‘Okay,’ he said brightly.

‘Okay, okay,’ Victoria echoed. ‘But you want to stay with all your heart. Don’t lie to me, Nicky – even with a smile. It is too warm for lies. No one should lie when the temperature is one hundred and two.’

Nicky lowered his gaze.

‘Is it Eduard?’ Victoria inquired. – A frown and no reply. ‘But he is making eyes at the actress. Isn’t it so? He has no time left . . . for boys.’

Nicky lifted his eyes, blazing, and Victoria’s white teeth caught at her underlip.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I am wicked. There is no lie worse than a half-truth.’

She sighed, adding suddenly: ‘Very well; we will stay on Corbodéra.’

She had turned quickly and was just in time to see it at its purest: the full radiance of Nicky’s smile. It was a flower that opened before her eyes, breaking her heart and healing it, all in one moment. For such a smile, such a look, she would have stayed if the temperature were two hundred and two.

Ah, that boy! How pity had grown. It had been his grief, his illness in the beginning. That he was ‘human’ – a boy – made little difference. So she would have nursed back to health a dying bird she had found in the Roman streets, and lavished it with a care that was passion. But now

‘Nicky?’

He walked quietly to the chair by the window, thinking it was time for the sitting.

‘No,’ Victoria said. ‘We will not sit today. It is too hot – even for looking. Let us talk just a bit. Then you can go back to your artist, or your swim, whatever you choose.’

Nicky nodded, surprised; it was the first day in months they had skipped a sitting. Uncertain, he stood in the centre of the room.

‘Here,’ Victoria said, patting the gold settee. ‘Beside me. – I have business in London – after we leave Corbodéra. Then, I thought, we would go to America. – To the “States”, as you say. To Brooklyn. I want to speak to your uncles.’

Nicky didn’t move or speak. One eye twitched nervously.

‘I have only one uncle,’ he said presently.

‘– Well, to him then. – What is his name? – I have forgotten.’

‘It’s Joseph.’

‘Ah yes. Passanante. Your father’s brother.’

‘Yes.’ He sucked on a finger as if he had pricked it with a thorn.

‘Look at me, Nicky. Let the finger go. Aren’t you curious?’

‘About what?’

‘About why I want to see your uncle, of course.’

Nicky swallowed and blinked.

‘I’m not – curious,’ he replied. ‘I know. You want to see him to explain. To tell about – my mother, and Rome – and how sick I was, and the papers being lost, and Corbodéra.’

Victoria nodded. ‘Yes. In part. Don’t you think that should be done? Isn’t it necessary?’

Nicky hesitated; then shrugged. ‘I suppose. – You don’t know my uncle.’

‘Of course I don’t know him. That is why I’m going.’

‘I mean – he never bothered with us none. I never saw him hardly. I don’t think’ Nothing more. – A tight, still boy, his shoulders hunched, picking at his fingers.

‘– You don’t want to go back to America? – Nicky, speak to me. It’s very important.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you must know! You have feelings. What do they say? What do they tell you?’

Nicky took a deep breath. ‘Since you ask’ he began shyly, and then blurted: ‘I want to stay on Corbodéra. Or go back to Rome.’

That strange, sad look was beginning to come into Victoria’s eyes.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘And I want the truth – from the heart. Tell me what you feel – don’t think.’

‘Well’ he was thinking ‘– it’s nice here; the island is pretty. And Rome . . .’

‘Pretty! The island is pretty!’ she moaned, turning a wild, pained face away from his.

His panic was instant and overwhelming.

‘Don’t do that!’ he shouted, terror ringing his voice like a bell. ‘It’s you! I want to stay with you!’ – touching her chin with fingers that trembled, turning her face, her eyes back to his.

Victoria went limp; for a moment he thought she had fainted.

He was on his feet, his whole body shaking. ‘I’ll get you some water. You need water.’ And, echoing Robert Hunter’s favourite phrase, ‘It’s this damnable heat!’