Lucia arrived alone for lunch, Brabazon Lodge having departed to Milan for an important business meeting. As she entered the lounge she felt her social antennae beginning to vibrate. There was a strange air of expectancy about the place, a sort of pleasurable tension, she was sure of it. She sensed that somehow something was afoot, and her instincts rarely let her down.
She walked towards the terrace, and stumbled upon Georgie and Olga in conversation with a rather nondescript-looking man, whom she took for a bank manager, or perhaps a passed-over civil servant.
‘Oh good, there you are, Lucia,’ Georgie greeted her. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to go into lunch.’
‘Yes, I have passed a perfectly pleasant morning, thank you, Georgie,’ she said a little sharply.
‘Oh yes, well now,’ he replied, affecting to ignore the implied rebuke, ‘may I introduce maestro d’Annunzio?’
His eyes sparkled at her expectantly. He knew her penchant for rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous.
‘Signora Pillson,’ d’Annunzio murmured, leaning over her hand. ‘A pleasure, madam.’
‘Very nice to meet you,’ Lucia said distractedly. ‘Olga, dear, I trust you had an enjoyable morning?’
This with a sharp glance at Georgie.
‘Yes, thank you, Lucia,’ Olga replied. ‘I do so enjoy flying.’
‘Flying?’ Lucia echoed. ‘Yes, I saw an aeroplane earlier. Don’t say that was you?’
‘I had the great honour of flying Miss Bracely to Como,’ d’Annunzio announced, handing Olga her wrap, which had been lying over the arm of her chair. ‘Shall we go in, ladies?’
Lucia noticed that Giuseppe bowed very low as they stepped outside on to the terrace, and the waiters scurried around in a most obsequious fashion. She wondered if Georgie had over-tipped the previous evening. Really, lira were so difficult; all those zeros taxed even her agile mind.
They sat down and Giuseppe handed them menus. Then, with a flourish, he presented the wine list to d’Annunzio and said ‘Altezza’.
Lucia’s ears pricked up and she gazed at d’Annunzio in some confusion.
‘Am I mistaken,’ she asked hesitantly, ‘or did Giuseppe just refer to you as Your Royal Highness?’
The great man waved a hand magnanimously, graciously, condescendingly.
‘The King made me a prince,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I rarely use the title. The name Gabriele d’Annunzio is honour enough for anyone to bear.’
‘Your name is familiar certainly, Your Highness,’ Lucia temporised, glancing meaningfully at Georgie. He detected her difficulty at once and rode to the rescue.
‘I should jolly well think so,’ he cut in. ‘Why, you hear his poetry when Olga sings those wonderful Tosti songs we love so much.’
‘Of course!’
Lucia smiled warmly and clasped her hands in joyful remembrance.
‘What an honour to meet the poet of “Ideale”. It has always been my favourite.’
This was true, since it also happened to be the only one she could remember. She viewed Tosti’s songs with some mistrust, partly because they were Italian and might for all she knew contain all sorts of vulgar references if only one could understand the words, and secondly because they were something which Olga and Georgie pursued together, and after Lucia had mistaken Schubert’s cradle song for the prayer from Cortese’s Lucrezia one evening she had thought it better to feign a complete lack of interest in song as an art form. After all, when a discerning person decides to take no interest in a subject then ignorance simply becomes a rather superior form of discriminating disregard.
She glanced across warmly at Georgie as though to convey an impression of long winter evenings happily shared poring over Tosti on the duet stool, only to notice that his mouth had acquired a curiously pursed look, as it had on that dreadful day when Major Benjy had spilled red wine on one of Georgie’s treasured fingerbowl doilies.
‘That was Errico,’ d’Annunzio said dismissively. ‘A most inferior poet. Now, Miss Bracely, what do you say to a Vernaccia di San Gimignano? It is from a very fine estate. I know the proprietor.’
As lunch progressed, d’Annunzio regaled them at great length with stories of his exploits as a novelist, a poet, an orator who had brought Italy into the war, a soldier who had won great victories on land, a pioneering aviator who had led his squadron to Vienna and back and given the sight of one eye in the service of his country, and a fearless sailor for fear of whose torpedo boat the entire Austrian battle fleet had remained bottled-up in port. Any acknowledgement of contributions by other people to the great events of the twentieth century was notable by its absence.
A second bottle of Vernaccia came and went, followed by a Brunello di Montalcino ordered up specially from the manager’s private cellar. Growing yet more expansive, he waxed lyrical about his plans for a museum to himself, at which point Lucia suddenly looked very thoughtful indeed.
Making any interjection into d’Annunzio’s flow seemed somehow unmannered, given its imposing prose and measured cadences, but Georgie finally managed it after the antipasti and pasta courses had given way to the main business of the meal, and the one-eyed poet was inserting a piece of veal into his mouth.
‘I do so just adore those steamers on the lake,’ he said, introducing a note of bathos into the epic drama that was their companion’s lunchtime conversation. ‘They are so very beautiful, aren’t they?’
The veal seemed to disappear all too quickly.
‘They are typical of our Italian veneration of beauty, of style,’ d’Annunzio replied, gazing pointedly at Olga, who pretended to be terribly busy with her osso buco. ‘In Germany or Austria you would doubtless find something dumpy and unappealing, you only have to look at their women to know that.’
‘For shame!’ Lucia chided him, laying down her knife and fork with a girlish air. ‘Such ungallantry!’
He shrugged.
‘I return all my fan mail from Germany and Austria unopened,’ he said simply. ‘It reduces the strain on my secretary, and it avoids unpleasant experiences. You would not believe the things some people send me in the mail. One deranged woman from Salzburg sent me a dead rat. What can the poor woman have been thinking of?’
‘What indeed?’ Olga concurred innocently. ‘What a shocking want of respect.’
He shrugged again, this time in the manner of a man who can nobly bear any indignity that life cares to throw in his direction, particularly if stamped with a Salzburg postmark.
‘I am sure,’ Lucia countered coquettishly, ‘that Italian ladies do not show such disregard for your fine qualities.’
‘Certainly not,’ he assured her. ‘Mostly they write to offer marriage. Often they enclose some of their underwear as a token of their longing. Understandable of course that their enthusiasm should take such a form, but it does raise the awkward problem of what to do with it all.’
He put another piece of veal into his mouth and masticated rather sadly.
‘Oh –,’ said both Georgie and Olga together, both having had the same idea at the same time. They looked at each other and then quickly looked away again, like a pair of naughty children caught out in a mischievous prank. Georgie stared very hard at his plate and tried to hold his breath. If necessary, he decided, he would start coughing.
‘But of course you must display it all in a cabinet at your museum,’ Olga proffered enthusiastically. ‘Or rather, several cabinets since there is so much of it. Just think, women will flock from all over Italy just to identify their own, and then go home to be feted by their town as someone for whom you had so much feeling as to treasure and display their underwear.’
‘Surely the nation would demand it?’ Georgie managed to get out, before he was consumed by a fit of coughing.
Lucia was much discomfited by all this talk of underwear. Really, the combination of both Olga and Italy acting upon Georgie was producing some most unfortunate consequences. He would never have been so coarse at home. She tried saying, ‘Well, really’ a few times, and then ‘Olga, dear’, but d’Annunzio was nodding sagely as he weighed this new suggestion.
‘It shall be done,’ he announced solemnly. ‘As you rightly say, Signor Pillson, anything concerning my relationship with the Italian people is a matter of national importance.’
‘Not just national, surely?’ Olga asked. ‘After all, maestro, you have acted upon so many great events in international affairs that I would imagine people would come from all over the world to view the exhibits.’
He nodded again, but Lucia was beginning to suspect Olga of poking fun at him (those sly, secretive glances between her and Georgie spoke volumes), and that would never do. She had not even started to think about the various ways in which such a great personage might be fitted into her present and future plans, and she could not afford the slightest possibility of him taking umbrage and disappearing, never to be seen again.
‘I understand from the concierge,’ she cut in smoothly, ‘that one can actually hire a steamer for the evening and go wherever you like. You can even have your own little dinner party on board.’
‘Oh!’ Georgie was captivated instantly. ‘What a wonderful idea, Lucia. Yes, let’s do it!’
‘Trust you to think of something like that, Lucia,’ Olga said admiringly, sounding yet again like Irene. ‘You have such style!’
Such sentiments were of course gratifying, and Lucia acknowledged them by a wan gesture with a gloved hand.
‘It shall be done,’ she announced brightly, looking around the table with a smile, and for a horrified moment wondered if d’Annunzio might think that she was poking fun at him. Yet no, he was beaming at her and nodding. She breathed a sigh of relief. One had to be so careful with these Italians.
‘Perhaps in, say, three nights’ time?’ she enquired. ‘It will probably take time to make the arrangements.’
She pulled her notebook and silver pen from her handbag and furrowed her brow in concentration. Now it was Georgie’s turn to breathe a sigh of relief. Lucia was so very much more amenable when she was planning a project of some kind, and one also tended to see much less of her, as she would be out running around, organising people. He reflected happily that he could probably look forward to at least two undisturbed afternoons on the balcony.
‘And of course you must come, maestro,’ Olga said suddenly, cutting in on Georgie’s pleasant thoughts.
He sat up, aghast. Had the woman taken leave of her senses? He glared at her, and she shrugged imperceptibly, as if in mute apology.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Lucia,’ she went on humbly, ‘what terribly bad form me inviting someone to your party.’
‘Not at all, dear,’ Lucia cried warmly with a little giggle, her eyes gleaming, ‘why, I was just about to say the same thing myself. Do come, please, dear Prince.’
‘Yes do,’ Olga urged. ‘You could fly over in the afternoon and stay the night here. I’m sure they must have a free room.’
He looked dubious.
‘This week is very difficult, I fear,’ he relied, and Georgie’s heart leapt. ‘I am writing my annual letter of self-nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the deadline is fast approaching.’
Lucia was distraught at the prospect of losing her star guest, but rose to the challenge.
‘Of course I do understand the many pressures on your time, Your Highness. Why, at home I suffer from them myself. How everybody works me so.
‘No,’ she said decisively. ‘You must tell us what is most convenient for you, and we will arrange everything for that date. Perhaps you might telephone me here at the hotel tomorrow?’
D’Annunzio thought that perhaps he might, and the meal petered out with dessert and coffee. D’Annunzio departed for his plane in the hotel launch, having first kissed both ladies’ hands, in Olga’s case in what Georgie viewed as an unnecessarily lingering manner. Despite the amount of alcohol which he had consumed over lunch, the floatplane lifted off without incident and climbed away down the lake to the east.
Lucia disappeared at once in search of the concierge, leaving Georgie and Olga together in the lounge.
‘Well really, Olga,’ Georgie protested. ‘What on earth were you thinking of? Why did you have to invite that awful little man to dinner?’
‘Because I could see that Lucia wanted to but wasn’t sure how to go about it herself,’ she replied, smiling at him kindly, ‘and I wanted her to be happy.’
She sat down and picked up a magazine from a coffee table.
‘And anyway,’ she said apologetically, ‘it seemed like the least I could do after I was sick in his aeroplane earlier.’
With Lucia off busying herself with the arrangements for her steamer trip, Georgie was left to his own devices, and was much looking forward to spending another quiet afternoon on the balcony, particularly as so much wine at lunchtime had left him feeling pleasantly drowsy.
Francesco had anticipated this request and helped him off with his collar and into his dressing gown and cravat. The former was bright red and embroidered with a giant Chinese dragon on the back, while the latter was a delicate mixture of gold and puce. As he gazed at himself in the mirror, he could fancy himself positively ablaze with colour.
‘My, aren’t we looking fine?’ Olga marvelled, echoing his thoughts. ‘I hope you don’t mind me coming in – the door to your suite was open.’
‘Not at all,’ Georgie said. ‘You don’t think it’s too much, do you? I wasn’t quite sure about the puce.’
‘Tommyrot!’ Olga exclaimed. ‘Why, you’ll drive any passing woman into a positive swoon of passion, Georgie. In fact, I’m not sure if it’s even safe for me to be in the same room as you.’
‘Oh, really,’ he protested weakly.
At that moment Francesco re-entered the room, having laid out Georgie’s painting kit on the balcony table.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Bracely,’ he said suavely. ‘You know, if you will forgive the impertinence, I would like to congratulate you on your Brunnhilde last year at Bayreuth.’
They both looked at him in some astonishment, so he went on quickly.
‘I can see you are wondering how I could afford to attend such a festival,’ he said with a smile. ‘The explanation is quite simple. A gentleman friend whom I met while he was taking the waters in Baden-Baden very kindly invited me to stay with him during the festival, and it so happened he had a spare ticket for the Ring. I was indeed most fortunate.’
‘Indeed you were,’ Georgie agreed. ‘Why, you know, I thought of going myself, but when I looked into it I found it would be ruinously expensive.’
‘Georgie, dear one,’ cried Olga in dismay. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to go? The singers always get given free tickets, you know.’
‘Oh well, maybe next time,’ Georgie said. ‘Anyway, I saw you in Siegfried at Covent Garden.’
‘Next time I perform a Ring anywhere in the world,’ Olga said decisively, ‘you must come with me, Georgie. You can be my repetiteur or something, or just come as my guest.’
‘Oh,’ said Georgie humbly. He was about to say something, and then stopped. They exchanged glances and each knew the other was thinking back to the time when Olga really had asked Georgie to come away with her on tour, quite out of the blue one day while he was drying his paintbrushes. There had been no earthly reason why he should not have agreed. Lucia was married to Pepino, and Georgie was resolutely single, cutting his usual dash as Riseholme’s long-standing debonair young man. No reason except the most important one of all.
He had shaken his head, not trusting himself to speak.
‘Why can’t you come?’ she had asked.
He had looked her straight in the face and said, ‘Because I adore you.’
Neither of them had ever spoken of it again. Yet now, as they stood close together years later in a hotel bedroom on Lake Como, the resolute Italian sunshine forcing its way between the slats of the shutters and showing them life for what it really was, just a constantly shifting sequence of light and shade, they were reminded, poignantly, of what might have been.
Georgie opened his mouth to say something, and so anguished was his expression that Olga said, quickly and brightly, ‘Why don’t we sit on the balcony together and have a cigarette?’
‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s.’
There was a discreet cough from Francesco.
‘If you please, sir, I have already placed two chairs on the balcony and left you a box of my favourite Turkish cigarettes on the table.’
‘Thank you, Francesco,’ Georgie replied. ‘That all sounds quite parfect.’
Once they were settled on the balcony, Francesco brought a carafe of water and then disappeared backwards with a bow.
They both lit up and gazed contentedly out at the lake while they inhaled. As he allowed the smoke to drift slowly out again, Georgie darted a sideways glance at Olga.
‘Would you like to know what I was thinking just then?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ she replied after a pause. ‘Are you certain you want to tell me?’
‘Oh, I don’t think it can possibly matter now after all these years,’ he said, taking another puff.
He felt a deep inner mellowness beginning to flood through his body and felt that in this mood, and this setting, he could tell Olga anything. The world itself seemed to be flowing past more slowly, almost as if it were giving him a chance to catch up and jump on.
‘Go on then,’ she said with a smile.
‘I was just thinking,’ he said slowly, seeking to choose exactly which words he needed to convey his precise meaning, ‘or, rather, realising, I suppose ...’
‘Yes?’
‘I was just realising,’ he said much more firmly, having now seen exactly what the truth of it was, ‘what a very great shame it was that I have spent so many years lurking inside in the shadows, afraid to stop out into the sunlight.’
‘Oh, Georgie,’ she said gently. ‘My poor dear lamb.’
Returning to the suite some hours later, looking forward to a restorative bath, Lucia stopped dead as she came into the living room. Georgie and Olga were on the sofa, locked together in what seemed to Lucia very much like a passionate embrace. She wondered whether to creep out of the room again and affect not to have noticed anything, but she was not a woman to shirk a challenge and anyway she wanted her bath. Just at that moment she noticed her maid’s frightened face peering round the door to her bedroom, which meant there was no longer any choice in the matter.
‘Please open the shutters,’ she said as if nothing in the world was out of the ordinary, ‘it is so very dark in here.’
As the maid scurried to comply light flooded into the room and it became apparent that Georgie and Olga were in fact fast asleep. Georgie was sitting upright at one end of the sofa, with one arm around Olga’s shoulders. She had presumably originally been sitting next to him, but had fallen sideways so that her face was now resting against his chest and emitting, it must be admitted, some most unladylike snores.
As the shutters clattered back into their resting place the noise awoke the slumbering pair, who gazed around them in some confusion. Olga gave Georgie an affectionate little pat and then pulled herself upright.
‘I assume,’ Lucia said icily, ‘there is some explanation for this unseemly display?’
‘Oh,’ said Georgie, looking totally bewildered. ‘Lucia.’
‘Yes, Georgie,’ said that worthy. ‘Lucia. Your wife.’
The last two words were loaded with unmistakable reproach, and he floundered for an explanation, but found none.
‘I really don’t understand,’ he said lamely. ‘I don’t even remember coming in from the balcony. Olga, what are we doing in here?’
‘Blowed if I know,’ she replied. ‘I’m in the same boat as you. Last thing I remember we were sitting out there looking at the lake.’
She walked rather stiffly over to the French windows and stepped on to the balcony. Four or five cigarette butts had been stubbed out in the ashtray. Suddenly she picked one up and smelled it, teasing it with her fingernail as she did so. Then she started laughing.
‘I am glad, dear, that you should find all this a cause for amusement,’ Lucia commented glacially. ‘Personally I fail to see the joke, but then perhaps I am at a disadvantage in not moving in Bohemian circles where such behaviour is openly condoned.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Lucia,’ Olga said contritely. ‘It’s not like that at all. I’m laughing at us, Georgie and me, for being so naive. Here – smell this.’
She thrust the mangled stub under Lucia’s nose. She recoiled slightly, gazing at Olga uncomprehendingly. Impatiently Olga snatched it away and, crossing to the sofa, pushed it at Georgie. He took it and sniffed it gingerly.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Gardenia perhaps, or honeysuckle?’
‘It’s hashish, you chump!’ Olga cried. ‘We’ve drugged ourselves.’
‘But why would Francesco do such a thing?’ Georgie asked, stupefied. ‘Why, he told me they were relaxing.’
‘So they are in small doses,’ she concurred, ‘but not if you smoke two or three, and particularly if you’re not used to taking the stuff in the first place.’
‘That man is an evil influence upon you, Georgie,’ Lucia declared. ‘I have thought it from the first. There is something not quite right about him. Something I admit I can’t put my finger on, but now you have proof positive for yourself. He has tried to turn you into a drug addict.’
‘Oh, surely not,’ Georgie protested weakly. ‘These cigarettes are in common usage in the Levant.’
‘Allow me to point out the obvious, Georgie,’ Lucia said tartly, ‘but we are not in the Levant. Nor do I, for one, have any wish to go there, and I certainly have no intention of being carried off there against my will in a narcotic haze.’
There was a silence while Georgie and Olga tried to imagine Lucia being stuffed unconscious into a laundry basket by two sinister Orientals and smuggled out of the hotel to a waiting lorry. Unaware of the grainy black-and-white film unfolding in their minds, Lucia enjoyed the silence with satisfaction while she prepared her parting shot.
‘If I were you, Georgie,’ she announced in her best Elizabethan manner, ‘I would dismiss the man on the spot.’
So saying, she turned smartly on her heel and entered her bedroom, and the door closed behind her with a click of finality.