The Beast (7 page)

Next morning, as she and her father drank coffee in the dining room, she asked him if she could go to some school, to study English.

She wasn’t certain if the language she had heard had been English; it might well have been French, Russian, German or Spanish. But it didn’t matter. It was a foreign language, and she felt that if only she could learn a foreign
language—any foreign language—she would always be safe. She would always have some contact with the real world, and while she might go on living here as a sort of foreigner in exile, in this house in the pinewoods in Ostia, she would always know that there was, somewhere, a real land waiting for her, where she could, if absolutely necessary, retreat; and whose inhabitants, if she asked for help, would understand her.

She chose English because she saw more advertisements for English schools in the newspapers than for French or German schools.

After her father had willingly, happily, given his
permission
, she phoned all the schools she could find in the phone book and asked about prices, methods of study, duration of courses, and the precise locations.

The one she decided on was in the suburbs of Rome, near a station on the line that went from Ostia to the centre. The course, a hard-voiced girl told her on the phone, consisted of a hundred lessons. The student was given books to study and tapes to listen to; and once a week, had to come to the school for an hour to have a private lesson with a teacher, who would check that each lesson had been learned properly, before giving out the tapes for the next lesson. If the teacher decided that the lesson hadn’t been learned properly, the student would have to listen to the same tapes, and study the same lesson for another week. Later on in the course—or as soon as it became possible, the secretary said—the teacher would also converse with the student during the hour long lesson. Finally, the secretary said, the course could be started at any time, and the school was open all year round.

Antonietta started the next day.

As soon as she had finished her first lesson, she knew
that she had done the right thing; and as the weeks passed and she progressed (she never, ever, had to repeat a lesson; she studied the entire time, so that all the teachers
complimented
her on her pronunciation and her diligence) she felt that she was slowly climbing a mountain range, on the other side of which was a wonderful country, and more of which came into view as she took each step higher.

And now, on her thirtieth birthday, she was setting out for her last lesson; taking those last few paces that would end, officially, with some sort of diploma; but would also, by tonight, bring her to the summit of the mountain, and give her at last the whole magnificent panorama of the land on the other side. In just an hour’s time she would be able to claim—with justification—that she spoke English perfectly; and in just an hour’s time, she would feel that she had the right to read the literature of the wonderful country on the other side of the range. She would be able to read real books again, and real magazines; and as her father, as a birthday present, had given her this morning a year’s subscription to the London
Times
, she would also be able to read about what went on in the real world.

Because, she told herself as she walked down the path to the road and the bus stop, trying to keep in the shade, and listening to the crickets screaming in the trees, what she read in the Italian papers wasn’t, in fact, real. It was all only a novel; an endless, and at times not even very interesting, novel that she read from day to day but didn’t, basically, find believable.

And wasn’t that the true reason, she asked herself as she stood now at the bus stop, beside two tanned and salty boys with their bathing things in brightly coloured bags, why she hadn’t called the police and told them what she had seen from the kitchen window? Because when
she had read in the paper about what had happened, hadn’t she, deep down, felt that what she was reading about
was
only a story? A tragic, terrible story—but a story nevertheless. And the fact that she had witnessed the beginning of the tragedy signified nothing. After all, the scene itself had only been a scene from an unreal world; and could she be certain that what she had witnessed had actually happened? Wasn’t it possible that it had only been some little trick in time, some joke of reality; some preview, as it were, of the events she had later read about, as far as the paper and the police had been able to
reconstruct
them? Oh yes, she told herself, it was very possible …

The boys at the bus stop were glancing at her curiously, and she wondered if she were trembling. But even if she were, she thought, she couldn’t do anything about it; and anyway, it was quite understandable. It wasn’t every day that one was given a passport to another world, to a real world. To a world of real life …

The secretary, a thin, hard-faced girl, gave her her usual contemptuous, patronizing smile of welcome—or perhaps it was a little more friendly than normal this afternoon. Was she glad that this would be the last time she would be seeing her, Antonietta wondered? Or was she amused by the phone call she had received yesterday? It didn’t matter, either way. She pitied the creature—that thin, painted illusion of a girl, with all her boy friends and her scarlet
nails—far more than the girl could ever pity her. For being, in any case, what? Simply a white, dumpy,
middle-aged
looking girl, with a dull round face, tightly waved and lifeless hair, and never a trace of make-up?

She asked—unable to keep a trace of coyness out of her voice, a coyness she didn’t actually feel, but thought was expected of her—if she had been assigned the teacher she had asked for on the phone yesterday.

Oh yes, the secretary said, and almost winked at her. It looked like a wink anyway, Antonietta thought, as she went to sit in the waiting room to be called for her lesson. But perhaps it had just been a twitch of scorn.

There were six teachers at the school; five girls and a man. Three of the girls were American, one Canadian, and one Australian; the Australian was the only pleasant one, the only one who didn’t, when she came to call Antonietta for her lesson, make some silly feigned slip with her name, such as saying ‘Good afternoon, Miss Misery,’ or ‘How are you, Miss Miseria.’ The man was English, and he had only ever given Antonietta her lesson once in all the two years.

There was, normally, no way of choosing one’s teacher. The secretary made a programme every morning, and assigned various teachers to however many students there were who wanted lessons that day; and the teachers
themselves
swopped students, according to their personal likes and dislikes. Antonietta more often than not ended up with the Australian girl.

But yesterday morning she had called the school and asked the secretary if, as a special favour, and since it was her last lesson, she could be assigned the Englishman as her teacher.

She wanted the Englishman as her teacher because he
had been nice to her that only time he had taught her (nicer even than the Australian girl, who hadn’t been able to keep a look of compassion out of her face when Antonietta told her that though she lived at the sea she never went to the beach, and in fact never went out at all, whereas the Englishman had simply smiled at her gently, as if he understood her); because he was English, and
therefore
even more qualified, in her opinion, to communicate with her in her chosen language than any American or Canadian or Australian; because he was, he had told her, a writer—a writer of real books; because he finished work, she knew, at six o’clock; and finally, because he owned a flame-coloured car.

Had
it been him she had seen? She honestly didn’t know …

At five o’clock a bell rang, and the students who had had lessons the previous hour came out of the small rooms that led off the waiting room.

Antonietta got to her feet.

The Englishman—tall, thin, with a very red face and strangely colourless hair, wearing trousers that were just too short, brown suede shoes, and a bilious yellow shirt—walked over to the programme by the secretary’s desk to see the name of his next student. But before he could get to it, Antonietta called after him, ‘It’s me, Mr Ball.’ He wheeled round, looked at her—at this girl who had so confidently, so ringingly, said ‘me,’—and smiled at her. Then he murmured politely, drily, ‘Will you come with me, Miss Misseri.’

He had remembered her name …

He led her to one of the small rooms off the waiting room, and with great gallantry, opened the door for her.

They sat down at a small table, facing each other, and
Antonietta handed him her progress chart, on which each of the lessons she had done had been marked.

‘So this is your last lesson.’

Antonietta smiled.

‘And what are you going to do now you’ve finished?’

She smiled again—but more absently this time—and said ‘Oh, I’m going to enjoy myself now. I’m going to read. And I think I’ll try to find some English pen-friends. And I might even travel.’ She paused, and then added, as if to herself ‘I’d like to go to England.’

Could she tell him, she wondered, that she already had been to England? To London, where she had seen the Changing of the Guard, and the Tower and St Paul’s, and to Stratford-on-Avon, and to York, and to Edinburgh, and to some small village in Cornwall whose name she couldn’t remember.

Could she? No, probably not, she decided. He might not understand if she told him how she had gone.

Last year, on her birthday, her father had given her a big, glossy, illustrated book about England …

‘Just as a tourist, or to live?’, the thin red-faced
Englishman
asked politely, professorially.

‘To live,’ Antonietta smiled.

‘Why do you want to live in England?’

Antonietta looked at him—he was no longer quite young, and seemed tired—and wondered, again, whether she could risk it. And then, since this was her last lesson, she thought: why not? But she chose her words carefully.

‘I think that maybe England—is more real than Italy.’

The Englishman’s expression didn’t change.
Did
he understand her? Or was he simply used to his students saying anything, and didn’t care what it was as long as it was well pronounced? He said politely, drily, ‘Why’s that?’

Antonietta flushed, and then—thinking she could avoid the question—giggled. Then she flushed even more deeply, felt ashamed of herself for her stupidity, panicked, and rushed on, ‘I just don’t think I have a real life here, and I think perhaps in England I could.’

Now the expression did change, she saw. To one of very slight alarm. But the mouth smiled kindly. ‘I don’t think I should count on it.’

‘Oh,’ Antonietta said.

‘But I would go if I were you,’ the Englishman murmured sympathetically. ‘If that’s how you feel.’

‘Would you?’, Antonietta said.

‘Yes, why not?’

Antonietta sighed. ‘I think I shall then,’ she said.

*

For the next forty-five minutes the lesson progressed as planned. Mr Ball listened to her read a précis she had written, asked her some questions about the tapes she had listened to, discussed English slang with her, and talked about some of the more subtle differences between English and American usage. Then he looked at his watch and said ‘Well, we might as well chat for these last ten minutes. Because I can’t plan your next lesson for you.’

Antonietta nodded, and felt now quite calm and sure of herself. Her last lesson was almost at an end. These last few steps were up to her.

She said ‘Why do you teach English, Mr Ball?’

If he had seemed tired before, he looked completely exhausted now; exhausted, and suddenly very old. He had been listening to too many students for too many hours, listening to too many of their questions. Still, the red face made an effort. He raised his eyebrows—they were as strangely colourless as his hair—and smiled.

‘I have to earn a living.’

‘But you’re a writer.’

‘I haven’t published much.’

‘But you keep on writing?’

Still the smile; impeccably polite. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

‘And you live all alone here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps,’ Antonietta said hopefully, ‘your books are the only real things in your life.’

‘Perhaps,’ the Englishman, sitting facing her in that small, hot square room, furnished only with a table and two chairs, said.

‘And why do you live in Italy?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said gently, ‘because I once thought that “abroad” was more real than home.’ And still he smiled.

Antonietta gazed at him, at this thin tired man sitting across the table from her, and wanted to comfort him; wanted to stretch out one of her white plump hands and touch him with it. But she didn’t, because she had
something
else to do with her hands. She unfolded the
newspaper
she had brought with her, and said ‘Can I translate an article from this paper I’ve brought with me? I’d like you to see if I can really make a perfect translation.’

‘Yes, of course,’ the Englishman murmured.

Reading very slowly, Antonietta started: ‘English girl found brutally raped and murdered.’ She paused for a moment without looking up, and then went on, ‘The horribly mutilated body of an English tourist, identified as Miss Janice Elizabeth Guthrie, was found last night in the pinewood at Ostia. Miss Guthrie, who arrived in Italy four days ago, was viciously raped and sodomized with what,
police say, appears to have been a mechanical object, before being strangled with the orange T-shirt she had been wearing. It is believed that Miss Guthrie was hitch-hiking back to Rome after having spent a day at the beach, and was picked up in a car by her assailant, before being driven into the woods and killed. Police are anxious to interview anyone who saw Miss Guthrie yesterday, either on the beach or, more particularly, as she was trying to hitch a lift. So far they have no clue as to the identity of Miss Guthrie’s murderer, who police described last night as’—Antonietta paused once more, and then added, ‘as obviously being a maniac.’