The Beast (20 page)

*

He had to; but already by the following morning, when he woke at eleven—having finally dragged himself to bed at four—he had realized how difficult it would be. Because he couldn’t tear her away physically; and if he went himself and expected her to follow—she wouldn’t. And then it was useless to ask her to reflect further, or to try to convince her that she couldn’t be in love, or that she might fall out of love as quickly as she had fallen in; Meg was too serious for that, and she obviously had reflected already. And finally, even the idea of trying to expose the Lieutenant as a fraud was hopeless; because he clearly wasn’t. At worst he was a bore; and if Meg wasn’t bored by him …

The only thing to do then, he told himself at last, was just try to hold on, to hold out until this month was over; and trust that once Meg had left this place she would get over her madness. Once she had escaped from this realm of evil she would see the light; see where duty, sense, hope and real happiness lay. She would, he told himself, be able to distinguish good from bad.

He got out of bed and went over to his window, and looked down the coast to the castle, floating massively in the heat. The castle where the prince of darkness dwelled; the prince of the ordinary. And as he looked Benjamin whispered, silently: ‘I will defy you.’

He sat by the swimming pool for most of the next three days, hardly ever seeing Meg, not talking to her when he did, doing nothing and eating almost nothing; though Meg did bring food for him. And he would have gone on sitting there for the rest of the month probably, if Meg hadn’t finally come to him, put her arms around him and whispered ‘Oh Benjie dear, I’m sorry.’

That broke something in him; and after they had both cried in each other’s arms for some time, and Meg had told him that she knew what he was feeling, and that he must realize no one would ever be able to take his place in her life, and that even if she married the Lieutenant—which he had already asked her to do, though they had known each other such a short time—she would always love
him,
he felt a little better. Or at least felt strong enough to contemplate the idea of Meg’s love and possible marriage; and to decide that he
must
take active steps,
even if they proved to be useless, to prevent it. For
anything
was preferable to just sitting and waiting; and though he didn’t really give himself much of a chance—one never knew. Furthermore, he told himself, if he did just sit and wait till the month was over, and trust that leaving Gaeta would have the desired effect, it might, the way things were going, be too late. Meg might already be married by then.

They had dinner alone together that night—though he told her, soulfully, that he didn’t really mind if the Lieutenant came—and the following morning, after Meg had told him that she was going to do some shopping, that the Lieutenant was working again now, but if Benjie was sure he didn’t mind she’d ask him to come to the house tonight, he put the first of several possible schemes into practice.

He walked to a restaurant a short way down the road, and phoned Donald. Because it had occurred to him that any day now Donald would be getting in touch with Meg to ask her to come up and dog-sit while he was away
filming
. And if he could be persuaded to go away earlier than intended, and stay away longer—on the grounds that Benjamin had to come up to Rome to do some research or something, and since he was going to be there anyway Donald might just as well take a few days’ holiday—there was a chance that, with Meg away from Gaeta for a week or more, he might be able to make her see reason; or at least change her mind. For while of course it was only a hundred or so kilometers from Rome to Gaeta, and the Lieutenant could easily drive up if he wanted to, it
was
the getting away from here that was the important thing.

Donald sounded delighted to hear Benjamin; he said, as soon as he realized who it was, ‘Oh I’m so glad to hear from you. I was afraid you’d be angry with me.’

‘Why should I be?,’ Benjamin asked suspiciously.

‘You didn’t get my letter?’

‘No.’

‘Oh dear. I sent it days ago. Oh dear. But I wrote and told you that filming had been put off for a month, so Meg won’t have to come up at all. And I was afraid you’d be angry because it was because of me you went to Gaeta, wasn’t it? And I know you wanted to go to Greece. Meg told me. I’ve been feeling so guilty. But do tell me that you’re having a good time.’

As gracelessly as possible, but without actually being rude, Benjamin told him.

Still, as he walked back to the villa he had tears in his eyes yet again. Goddam it, he told himself. Goddam it, and Goddam him.
Goddam
him! Some wretched English actor who expected everyone to rearrange their holidays because of his fucking dogs. And for no reason! And who, because of it—no, he couldn’t bear to think about it. He would choke the man if he ever got the chance. Strangle him, and his bloody dogs. It was all his fault. All of it!

*

The second attempt to dispose of the Lieutenant came a further three days later; though three days, this time, during which Benjamin had been nursed by Meg as if he were a shell-shocked invalid during the day, and been treated as if he were a Buddha who had been blasphemed by Meg and the Lieutenant in the evening. He would sit, fat and silent, with a tragic little smile hovering on his soft lips, by the candle-lit swimming pool; and they would ask his opinion on everything, and defer to him on everything, and finish almost every sentence they spoke with a ‘What do you think, Benjamin …?’

But on the morning of the third day, when Benjamin
went to join Meg on the beach—for the invalid needed his nurse, and felt dependent on her, even if it involved sitting with her on hot dirty sand, and cooling his body in frothy, polluted sea water—he found her talking to a cheerful, pleasant looking youth of about her own age, whom she introduced as Claudio. And as she introduced him, and Benjamin beamed at him, he thought ‘It’s over, the horror, and now our holidays can really begin. Meg’s got bored with the Lieutenant, and this Claudio is going to join the ranks of the Albertos and the Heinzs and the Jean-Pierres …’

And if Meg seemed to like the boy, and went swimming with him, and talked with him, and laughed with him—he had picked her up, she whispered, as she had been
waiting
for Benjamin to join her—Benjamin himself fairly lavished smiles and approval and encouragement on him; always going off to buy ice creams, going off for long swims by himself so as to leave the two ‘young things’ together, even attempting to exchange a few words in Italian; a thing he never normally attempted with any of Meg’s summer boy friends.

And when, at about five in the afternoon, Meg said she was going back to the villa to take a shower and told Benjamin, when he asked, that the Lieutenant wasn’t coming this evening—he was busy—he felt, for the first time since he’d arrived, ecstatic. He told Meg he would have one more swim and then come and join her.

But as soon as she had gone he abandoned any pretence of going into the water again, and turned to the young Claudio, who seemed uncomfortable at being left alone on the beach with him, and was obviously about to take
himself
off somewhere; and told him, in Italian—and he was so excited that he forgot to be surprised about his sudden
fluency in the language—that Meg was going to be on her own in the house that evening, and if he liked to go and keep her company …

He sounded, he knew, like some old pimp describing a very young virgin to an even older client. His bulging eyes shone, his fat lips quivered, his hands shook as he tried to suggest what pleasures might lie in store for the youth …

He himself was going out at seven, Benjamin said. If Claudio liked to go over around eight. Their house was the white villa directly over the road from here …

Yes, the young man said, now more than uncomfortable, and standing up and pulling on his shirt and trousers. Yes, he said, with alarm in his face. Yes, that would be fine, and he’d go. He’d definitely go. Around eight. And—goodbye.

‘Goodbye,’ Benjamin said, as he watched Claudio almost run away. And then he smiled to himself; a great, greedy smile. Sure the boy was alarmed; he was probably actually frightened. But he was young, and he was curious; and he would come. Come to taste the fruit that the perverse old pimp had offered him. Of course he would come. He had to come …

‘Are you all right?’ Meg asked him when he got back to the villa. ‘You’ve been strange all day.’

‘Yes,’ Benjamin said, trying to look his usual doleful self. ‘Yes, sure.’ He let his lips bunch into a pout. ‘It’s just that that Claudio reminded me of—old times.’

‘Oh Benjie,’ Meg laughed. ‘Please don’t.’ Then she said, ‘What shall we do this evening?’

‘Would you mind,’ Benjamin said, ‘if I went off by myself into Gaeta? I mean I hate to leave you alone, but—I want to think.’ His eyes widened, as if in pain.

Meg gazed at him for a while, apparently uncertain
whether to be hurt, or annoyed, or worried. But her eventual ‘No of course I don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of washing and other things to do anyway,’ showed that she felt all three. She turned away with a little frown, and said ‘I must do a bit of thinking, too.’

Perhaps he had; but Benjamin was never to know. He was never even to know if Claudio had come at all. First, because when, at seven o’clock next morning—he had hardly been able to sleep—he peeped round the door of Meg’s room, expecting to see a boyish, dark body sleeping next to Meg, what he saw instead was a wiry,
sandy-coloured
body; the Lieutenant’s body. And secondly, because neither Meg nor the Lieutenant ever told him.

Benjamin, however, suspected that something had happened. Because he couldn’t help feeling that, when the two of them got up and said good morning to him, they showed him less deference than they had shown him in the preceding days. There was a touch of arrogance in their attitude. A touch of suspicion …

Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe it was because his sorrow and disappointment had reached a new depth. Maybe it was because the Lieutenant, feeling that he had really taken possession of Meg now, felt he had also acquired
proprietary rights to everything about her; including the house she stayed in and her brother. Maybe they felt guilty, and hence defiant. Maybe they just felt they had put up with enough nonsense, and if he didn’t like things the way they were, he could leave. Maybe, maybe, maybe … He didn’t know. But there
was
a difference, and he couldn’t help but be aware—and become even more aware in the days that followed—that now, rather than viewing him as an invalid, they viewed him as a slightly irritating old grandmother whose presence they had to put up with; and rather than treating him as an outraged Buddha, whom they had to placate, they treated him as a Buddha-shaped balloon, which they kept tied to a piece of long string, and tagged around with like two kids.

He couldn’t stand it. And now, just because they behaved as if they had an irksome obligation to him, and kept him, as it were, tied to a string, he couldn’t even retire to a sulky solitude by the swimming pool. If they viewed him as an irritating grandmother, what could he do but behave like one, being always around even when—especially when—his presence was obviously not welcome; and if they treated him as two kids might treat a balloon they didn’t particularly like but didn’t particularly want to burst, what could he do but bounce in the air behind them, and force them to treat his sensitive skin with care?

It was humiliating. It was hideous. It was disgusting …

And then, one night, he made his last attempt. It was something, to his mind, almost as shocking as Meg’s relationship with the Lieutenant itself. It was something for which, if someone had suggested the idea to him a month ago, they would have been laughed at, or spat at, or hit. It was something inconceivable, impossible, insane; something base, foul, loathsome.

Sitting in his bedroom, at two in the morning, he wrote a letter to his parents.

He wrote several letters in fact; but only one of them he sealed in an envelope and, next morning, sent; special delivery.

The first he wrote ignored the fact that he had had no communication with them for years. Cold and formal, it simply told them that Meg had become involved with an unsuitable man who would never make her happy, and that it was their parental duty to do something about it.

The second letter started in a ‘mature’ vein. ‘I realize that in the past our relationship has not been happy. However, I do think it is time for bygones to be bygones.’ It went on to say that Meg had become involved with an unsuitable man who would never make her happy, and that it was their parental duty to do something about it. ‘For I see, now, that though I have tried to usurp your
authority
in the past, there are certain responsibilities that only a parent can claim; and which can never, ever, be
renounced
.’

The third letter was cringing and apologetic. ‘Dearest Mother and Father, Can you, after all these years, forgive me? I know it is sort of late, but only recently have I come to realize how badly I have behaved towards you nearly all my life. It nearly makes me cry when I think how much I must have hurt you.’ It went on to say that Meg had become involved with an unsuitable man …