Miss Garnet's Angel (24 page)

‘As a matter of fact I don't have to be out of here until Monday.' Julia tried not to sound as if she wanted to drop the phone.

‘Oh, that's a relief. Could we do it tomorrow then? Only various things have sort of cropped up.'

Sarah giggled and Julia, who presumed that ‘things' meant Carlo, finished the conversation curtly and rang off.

A reprieve! She lay down on the sofa, pushing off her shoes. What were the names of the seven angels? Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraquel, Gabriel. Damn! She couldn't remember the last one. Trying to, she fell asleep.

The phone rang again and woke her. This time it was Cynthia. ‘We're having a scrap supper,' she said. ‘Bits and bobs rescued from the party. Come over if you don't mind left-overs.'

‘Thank you,' said Julia, confused with sleep. ‘I'm supposed to be packing. But maybe I'll be finished by supper time.'

‘If you feel like it then,' said Cynthia, ever hospitable. ‘Are you really moving in with that young mermaid?'

‘It was a very good party.' Julia did not wish to be drawn on the subject of Sarah. ‘Thank you for inviting me.'

‘Oh, the pleasure is entirely ours! You were our star
guest.' Cynthia was jubilant. ‘I heard you discussed Dante with Joyce's boy—he was lyrical about you. You're a miracle. It must be all those years of teaching. The boy is usually autistic in company!'

Julia, who had been genuine in her wish to discover the source of the lines of the Yeats poem which had beaten in her mind, felt annoyed that sincere interest had been perceived as mere social skill. The conversation had been instructive. ‘It's a reference to the penultimate circle in Hell,' the young Dante scholar had told her. ‘Count Ugolino—he's shut up in a tower with his children and in the end he's forced to eat their dead bodies.' ‘But how unfair,' she had said, ‘to make him suffer in Hell for merely trying to stay alive.'

There was little, in fact, left to do in the apartment. Julia swept the floors a second time and dusted the furniture. Tomorrow she would put bleach down the lavatory and rinse out the tea towels. But really there was nothing else to attend to. And to sit inside, or even on the balcony, waiting for tomorrow seemed suddenly intolerable. She tried to repack the Apocrypha, then, not managing to get the book to fit, tipped others out onto the floor.

A programme for a Baroque concert fell out of one of the books: a memento of an early outing with Carlo. She was on her knees and, overwhelmingly, ‘Oh, my love, my love…' she rocked back and forth, missing him as much—no, more bitterly than ever.

Suddenly it entered her mind that she wanted, urgently, to see the Monsignore. There was something about him
which acted as a deterrent to plaguing thoughts. She hardly knew him—could she turn up at his door out of the blue? But, why not? Why not do just that? Why not turn up out of the blue—he could only send her away again!

*    *    *

Few people were out in the virulent sun. Tomorrow was the first day of July. Exactly six months since her arrival in Venice the weather had swung to its opposite pole. A crowd of Japanese tourists, in the same position on the bridge near the Monsignore's
calle
as they had been the day Charles brought her there, blocked her way. Indefatigable! Was it the self-same party, endlessly recycling itself?

Near the gate with its crest of roses apprehension clawed her stomach. Maybe the Monsignore was asleep? Very likely he would be on such a hot afternoon. If so her visit would be an intrusion. She had better go away.

As she stood, weighing what to do, the bolt of the gate was pulled back and Constanze was there.

‘Oh,' said Julia, ‘I am so sorry. I wondered if the Monsignore might perhaps…?'

‘Ingresse, prego!'
Constanze jerked her head towards the courtyard and marched away, leaving Julia at the gate.

A hesitation—then she stepped inside. ‘Monsignore Giuseppe?'

‘Who is this?' A voice called back.

‘It's Julia Garnet. I was passing so I…'

The Monsignore came forward, holding out his hands. He was wearing only a black gown and a round straw hat on his
head. The pug dog, which had been lying on the veranda, got up and trotted over. ‘See, Marco, a visitor! But this is a marvel! Just as I become bored you arrive like one of the holy angels of heaven!'

‘Oh,' said Julia, flustered by the extravagant welcome, ‘I was just reading about those.'

‘Indeed? What is it you read? I am on the angels' side.'

‘It was the Book of Enoch.' Whatever else she had expected last January it most certainly was not that she would one day talk of the heavenly host to a Catholic priest.

‘Ah, the seven holy angels, you mean.'

‘Yes. What are the spirits who sin in spirit, do you know?'

‘Perhaps like our Catholic sin against the Holy Ghost? The defiance which denies the good yet knows it is good as it does so. May I pour you a glass of prosecco?'

‘Thank you. I wonder why they set an angel in charge of that?'

‘To sin in this way is not inconsiderable—maybe the worst? It is an interesting topic; I must think more about it. And you, you are well after the great party? For myself I drank too much—but my excuse is that I knew I would. At least I did not pretend it was by mistake!'

Julia, who had been going to say she was ‘fine', said instead, ‘I'm not too well, actually.'

‘I am sorry to hear this,' said the Monsignore.

He said nothing else and they sat in silence. A pair of doves landed in the courtyard; there was no other movement
in the implacable afternoon heat. Julia, who wished she had not come, sat unable to speak or move.

After a while she said, ‘I'm sorry—I shouldn't have bothered you,' and got up to go.

‘I, too, am sorry you do not feel able to tell me whatever it is,' said the Monsignore.

‘I don't know how,' said Julia, miserable.

‘Maybe I can guess,' said the Monsignore. ‘Mostly when people come to make confession, people who are not used to making confession that is, it is for one of two reasons—either it is about some wrongdoing or it is a matter of the heart.'

‘I suppose it is about my heart, then,' said Julia, sitting down again.

‘So,' said the Monsignore, pushing the jug of wine towards her. ‘I know a little about the heart.'

There was silence again. ‘The thing is,' said Julia, ‘I don't know where to begin. I'm embarrassed.'

‘Of course.' The Monsignore was matter-of-fact. ‘The heart is a breeder of embarrassment. But we are all of us imbeciles in that area, that you can rely on. We all at times put up our hands before our cheeks in shame.'

‘All right,' said Julia. ‘I'll try and tell you.'

There was another silence.

‘Say nothing,' advised the Monsignore. ‘Let us sit, just. Take some repose.'

They sat. The pug, who had settled himself beneath the skirts of the priest, began to snore. After a bit Julia said,
‘When I came to Venice I'd never really seen beauty before. I had, of course, some aesthetic appreciation but I'd never really let it inside me, if you see what I mean? I met someone, a man, who showed me beautiful things—who explained the beautiful things of Venice to me—and I fell in love with him.'

‘That is good,' said the Monsignore.

‘No—but you see I thought he liked me too. Not loved me, I knew he didn't love me, but I thought he liked me. I thought it was my company he enjoyed.'

‘And it wasn't so?'

‘No. It was a boy. A young Italian boy I was friendly with he wanted to get to know.'

‘Ah!'

‘Yes. At least I thought that was the case. I was very angry and very upset and then I became very ill—I was silly about it all, I'm afraid.'

‘Perhaps. But I think no love is really “silly”, as you call it.'

‘Well, anyway I had just about got over it when I met him again.'

‘When did you meet him?' Then, answering her silence, ‘At the party, was it at the party?'

‘Yes. He was awkward and I was awkward and it was quite ghastly.' Such inadequate words to describe that heart-stopping encounter on the Cutforths' terrace. ‘But then…' How could she explain to this man of God what had happened next. ‘There is a girl.'

‘Ah! A girl in the picture now.'

‘Yes. She was with him at the party. She is someone I had met here too—a restorer in fact at the Chapel-of-the-Plague.'

‘Of course, we spoke of it. It is part of your English “Venice in Peril” work.'

‘She is going back to England and I have to leave my apartment so we both thought it was a good idea if I took over hers while she was away.'

The Monsignore poured himself more prosecco. ‘A hair of the dog!' he said. ‘I am sorry. Please, go on.'

‘I couldn't sleep well so I got up early. It seemed a good idea to walk over to her house. To look at it. God knows why I thought that! Sorry.'

‘Please.' The Monsignore waved his hand. ‘God is not so fussy about His name.'

‘I was outside the house where her apartment is very early in the morning and I saw them.'

‘Them?'

‘Him and her. He was leaving. She was in her dressing gown.' That supple young back. She clasped her face in her hands. ‘I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do this.'

He waited, making, to her relief, no move to console her. After a while he said, ‘I am not sure that I understand but if it is that you have become resigned to this man being homosexual—and you are certain that your original impression is the right one—but it is difficult for you if now it turns out he sleeps also with this young girl, then I would say to you that I doubt that both things can be true. Sometimes, yes, but it is quite unusual. Mostly if a man likes boys he will
prefer more maternal women—if he likes women at all in that way.'

‘How do you know all this?'

The Monsignore grinned. ‘Oh, my dear! The confessional is a marvellous teacher of life. There are not so many sexual realities that I have not heard of in my little box. And, at times, out of it!'

‘But she told me. Sarah told me she had slept with him.' She thought of Sarah's boyish shape. That might have appealed to Carlo. How could a Catholic priest possibly know about such things?

The Monsignore placed a hand on either side of his face as if trying to ward off toothache. After a while he said, ‘You see, a statement is like a cheque. Its value depends upon the resources with which it can be met by the person who issues it. If your Richard Branson writes a cheque for a million pounds it is one thing—if I write it'—he raised his hands dramatically—‘it is another! The statement takes the account into overdraft.'

‘But I saw them,' Julia said unhappily. ‘She asked me not to tell anyone.' She was not much comforted by these financial similes.

‘Listen, my friend,' said the Monsignore. ‘I will tell you a story about myself. It is a story I have told no one, not even in confession.'

‘Oh,' Julia protested, ‘then you mustn't tell me.'

‘But why not?' The blackbird eyes looked opaquely at her. ‘It is a true story and as it happens it contains nothing which
is the business of my confessor. And I am old and soon I must die. You have entrusted your tale to me—it is good I entrust this tale to you. But first we must take some more prosecco.' He hailed someone inside the house.

While they were waiting Julia walked across to the dark carmine roses by the gate. ‘They are lovely.'

‘Unhappily they have blight,' said the Monsignore. ‘But I am lazy and I tell myself nature is better than I at sorting these things out. Of course it is a lie to excuse myself—but not a serious one!' A young woman arrived with the tray. ‘Will you have some more?'

He chinked her glass, like a crystal tulip. ‘So, now I tell you. It is the war. I am a young man, not yet ordained, still at the seminary in Rome. My home is Venice and when I have leave from my studies (which are pretty tough—we must not only write but speak always in Latin!) I return here. All my life when I am away I miss Venice!'

‘I have been thinking I would miss it too and I've only been here six months,' Julia said.

‘It is rumoured that Hitler plans to make Venice his headquarters and a few of us work to ensure that if this comes unhappily to pass the little corporal does not get his greedy hands upon all our Venetian treasures. This, of course, I do not tell my bosses in Rome. Not all of them share my view of Hitler!'

The Monsignore giggled. Julia, who felt some response required of her, gave a rather awkward laugh. She was nervous of the honour being done her.

‘There are ways, forgotten passes, through Venice known to some of us who come from the old families. Now it turns out these are useful for our treasures and also to help our Jewish friends. You understand?'

‘Charles told me you used secret passages to help the Jews escape.'

‘Exactly. My family knows these places but my elder brother is not so reliable. He is not too sure that he does not quite admire the little corporal and his plans. One night it is proposed that I take a Jewish family to hide, I get a feeling.' The Monsignore tapped his stomach. ‘I get this feeling in my insides: a voice says to me, “Giuseppe, don't go!”'

‘Did you think your brother might give you away?'

‘Perhaps. I don't know. Maybe I am quite wrong and my “feeling” here is because I dislike my brother. I never know the truth because my brother has died before I can ask him.'