Roman Summer (13 page)

‘I understood so. You dismissed it as meaningless, and in that context, I agree it was. It was an experiment I shouldn’t have made, and it’s behind us. But supposing I said that, if I knew you better, I feel I
could talk to you as I would to a man, would you be flattered or offended?’

She knew the answer to that. ‘I’d be flattered,’ she said.

‘And I’d mean it that way. But most women would be outraged—they’d conclude that I was implying they had no sex-appeal, and label me as a boor. Fortunately I got the message pretty early in my professional career, and I’ve exploited it successfully ever since. I’ve learned how and when to turn on the male-versus-female heat.’

‘You make yourself sound very calculating and coldblooded,’ said Ruth.

He shrugged. ‘Just self-preserving. I’ve a living to get that’s all-dependent on my management of people, particularly of women. And though I may be case-hardened by now, I enjoy my work—don’t get me wrong about that.’

Ruth thought for a moment. ‘You know, I doubt if
I’d
react very favourably to what you admit is so much—technique,’ she said.

He smiled his one-sided smile. ‘Ah, I don’t let the working parts show
!’

‘And isn’t there a risk that so much of what you once called “jam”’ could—sort of—warp your aptitude for ... the real thing?’

‘If by “the real thing” you mean love and marriage, why not say so?’ Without answering her question, he laughed. ‘Do you realise how busily we’re proving my point? That even you and I, pledged to a platonic evening, are already launched on a classic he-and-she argument? I
think
instead you’d better fill me in on what happened to you after you left Charlwood. It’d
be safer.’

His laugh and his words were a cool breath of sanity which she ought to have welcomed, and could not. She longed to tell him that, proud as she would be to feel herself treated like a man-friend, at heart she was no different from his ‘most women’; as fully aware as they of that man-to-woman pull which he admitted to exploiting.

But she managed a shrug and a smile as she said, ‘By your standards it was all rather dull. I only ever had one job—in the foreign section of a bank. That was how I met Alec—across the counter when he used to come in on business for his firm. We fell in love and then
w
e married and came out here. Circumstances were difficult at first—the language, no friends, shortage of money—but essentially nothing was difficult. We used
to
—
’ She had meant to give
Erle
the merest precis of
those years, but suddenly, her memories of them vividly pictorial, she found herself describing them with tenderness and wry humour.

When she finished speaking
Erle
said, ‘You’re describing a completely other world from mine. You did nothing spectacular; you went hardly anywhere, except on the beaten track; asked if you could pick out one highlighted event or one particular day, I doubt if you could name it, could you?’

‘Of course I could. There were plenty of those,’ she said. ‘But it was all the ordinary days, the ones that rolled over our heads without our noticing them and that I couldn’t name now, even by the years they were in, that made our happiness—until it stopped.’

‘W
ell, thank you for telling me,’ said
Erle
. ‘Is your husband’s grave in Rome?’

She shook her head. ‘No. It was
—
’ She checked,
her lip quivering, and
Erle
looked away, until she said with forced brightness, ‘And now don’t you owe me your life story?’

‘Another time, perhaps. Not now. It’s longer than yours, for one thing, and I couldn’t expect you to appreciate the necessity for some of the details.’ He nodded across at her small radiogram. ‘Have you got some good records? May I hear some?’

‘If I’ve got anything you like. Come and choose,’ Ruth invited, reading his change of subject as a deliberate switch-off from the personal.

They spent a companionable hour or so, listening to and discussing music. Of various famous and eccentric conductors and star performers
Erle
had some anecdotes which hadn’t reached the newspapers, and their talk didn’t touch anything personal again until
Erle
was about to leave.

He took Ruth’s hand, weighing it
lightly
in his own. ‘You know, I ought to have got better acquainted with you when you had freckles that showed all across your nose,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘The Sixth didn’t want to know about Form Four B.’

‘Was there anyone in your lot who used to walk you home from parties and put notes in your desk?’

Ruth
dimpled
at the memory of a contemporary admirer whose very name she couldn’t recall. ‘Yes, there was someone,’ she said.

‘Then perhaps it’s as well I didn’t make contact. I might have been jealous.’

‘Of freckles and a ponytail and rusty eyebrows? Not you!’
she scoffed.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I was young enough to be romantic, and I wasn’t as wary of entanglements as I am now.’

‘Meaning you couldn’t be jealous now if you tried?’

He considered the question. ‘I suppose not. I hope not. Jealousy is a deplorable waste of spirit anyway, isn’t it
?’

(She
would
not betray to him that she knew how cruel—and how demanding of spirit jealousy could be.) ‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘Alec never gave me any cause.’

‘Then we’re two lucky people, aren’t we? We belong to ourselves.’
Erle
dropped her hand, adding, ‘Meanwhile, thank you for a blessedly detached evening. They’re rare.’

When he had gone Ruth leaned her head back against the wall of the tiny vestibule. They hadn’t quarrelled; they had hardly even skirmished, and she could go to bed in the warm glow of his praise of her as a friend. She wanted more, but if that was all he had for her she must settle for that. Tomorrow she would wake up happier than for a long time.

CHAPTER SIX

Cicely w
as to take a poor view of
Erle
’s evening with Ruth.

‘Why couldn’t he have come when I was here?’ she wanted to know.

‘
It was probably one night that he happened to have free,’ said Ruth. ‘By all accounts he doesn’t have many.’

‘But what did you talk about? What did you do?’

‘We talked about all sorts of things. About school for one. And we played some records. I asked him if he would stay until you came home, but he said that would be too late to keep me up, so he left at about eleven.’

‘What a mad, mad whirl!’ said Cicely in a sour grapes tone. ‘I must say that was a nice birthday for me, that was. Jeremy and I had a poozer of a row, and we aren’t speaking now.’

‘But he saw you home, I hope?’

‘Oh yes. We dropped Vivien at their
pensione
and it was on the way here that we had the row. What had happened was that Zeppe Sforza was at the same nightclub with a party, and we joined forces. One reason was that we needed a boy for Vivien, but Jeremy said I danced with all the others much more than with him. I said he knew what he could do with silly jealousy like that, and he said he ought to have known what a lightweight I was, the way I’d dropped Zeppe when he came along, and he wished me luck with my next, or with
Beppo again, if Zeppe was fool enough to have me. Anyway,
he
was through. I said some more in the same vein, and that was that. I suppose Vivien will take his side. But who cares?
Erle
hasn’t gone riding with me since I took up with them, so now I’ll make the earliest date with him that I can.’

Ruth said mildly, ‘It’s a pity about Jeremy though. You seemed to have a lot in common. And choosing between Zeppe and Jeremy, I’d say there was a good deal more future in Jeremy. He’s English, for one thing. You wouldn’t have to leave
him
behind.’

‘And who has to choose between Zeppe Sforza and Jeremy? They’re not the only males in Rome. And who wants a “future”—at seventeen? Look
—that
for Jeremy Slade and all his works!’ Cicely raged petulantly as she ripped from her sketching-block a black-and-white drawing of the Fountain of Trevi, and tore it up.

The next news Ruth had of the rift came from Jeremy himself who caught her up one morning in the city. Hands in trouser pockets, he mooched along beside her, making an earnest business of keeping one foot on the pavement, the other in the gutter. He broached the subject first. ‘What’s Cicely doing with herself these days? Has she taken up with that lout Sforza again?’ he wanted to know.

‘Not that I know of,’ said Ruth.

‘With who, then?’ Jeremy demanded with a fine scorn of grammar.

‘She hasn’t mentioned anyone or brought them home. Is there no hope the two of you could make it up?’

‘Not while she’s got this fool thing about “older men”. I suppose you know she’s carrying a torch for that uncle figure,
Erle
Nash? I tried to laugh her out of it once, by telling her she’d only got a yen for him because he was a sugar-daddy who was out of reach. But she said that was all
I
knew; that he kissed her when they went riding together and that he’d welcome her at his apartment any time. Is that true?
Does
she go to his rooms?’

Remembering the evidence of Cicely’s compact in
Erle
’s desk-drawer, Ruth felt a little sick. ‘Neither of them has ever told me so,’ she said.

‘Well, would they, if
—
?’ Jeremy doubted. ‘I mean—sorry if he’s a friend of yours, but he is supposed to have a reputation, isn’t he?’

Ruth took him up on that. ‘Either you think
Erle
is out of Cicely’s reach, or you suspect him of playing around with her. You can’t have it both ways. I’ll certainly ask her if she’s ever been to his apartment alone, but I think she’ll say No.’

‘Then why did she tell me she had?’ said Jeremy unarguably as they reached the shop Ruth was going to, and they parted.

When Ruth put her question there was a moment’s pause. Then Cicely said ‘No’ convincingly.

‘Well, I met Jeremy this morning, and he says you told
him
you were always welcome there,’ Ruth told her.

‘Oh well
—
’ Cicely’s shrug admitted it. ‘What if I
did? He’d insulted
me,
so I let him have it. Anyway, if he wants to know anything about me now, why doesn’t he come and ask me himself?’

‘Would you be glad to see him if he did?’

‘No.’

Which exchange, whatever it did for Jeremy’s chances, satisfied Ruth that Cicely’s denial had been the truth and that her boast to Jeremy had been so much empty air. There was still the mystery of the compact, but Ruth decided against appearing to throw doubt on the girl by confronting her with it.

So matters rested until, returning one evening from giving a late lesson, Ruth found that Cicely was still out. There was nothing remarkable in that, if she could have been with Jeremy or Vivien, or had left a note saying where and with whom she was and when she expected to be back. But there was no note. Ruth looked at her watch. It was nearly ten o’clock and it was dark. Ruth made herself a light meal and ate uneasily, sitting on the edge of her chair.

Whom could she ring for advice or in search of Cicely?
Erle
, obviously. The Slades. Zeppe Sforza’s home? Cicely’s French girl-friend had gone home a week or two ago, so she was ‘out’. The Casa? No, Cicely couldn’t have got there without the car and she wouldn’t have gone at night. Anyone else?

Before she rang anybody, Ruth went to see if, by elimination, she could find out how Cicely had dressed. The answer seemed most likely to be wedge-heeled evening sandals, velvet evening slacks, and the embroidered halter-top she usually wore with the latter. So she was not in day clothes and in that rig must have gone by taxi. But where?

Ruth’s call to
Erle
’s apartment elicited no answer. Next she rang his office, expecting no result, and got
none. When she rang the Slades’
pensione
Vivien came to the telephone. She was concerned but surprised that Ruth should ask. Neither of them had seen
Cicely
, as Ruth must know, since the night of her birthday. Jeremy was out, but Vivien knew where he was and
Cicely
certainly wasn’t with him.

Ruth cradled the receiver. Where next? The police? The hospitals? She rejected the idea for the moment. She would ring
Erle
again—and again. He must go home some time, though she feared it might be in the small hours. Meanwhile,
Cicely
would surely come back safely; apologetic, Ruth hoped, but with some reasonable excuse.