The Possession of Mr Cave (3 page)

Every life, as with every story, has its various turning points.
Often they are clearly marked as such. The symptoms of dizzy
nausea that signify first love. A wedding. A graduation. A
sudden windfall. The death of those we need so much we take
them for granted.

At other times the turning point is less clear. Something
shifts, and we may sense it shifting, but the cause is as invisible
to us as a swerve in the wind.

Do you remember how hot Rome was? Do you remember
that argument we had in the queue to get into St Peter's? That
Vatican policewoman had handed you a paper cape, so God
wouldn't take offence at your naked shoulders.

You'd accepted it with a smile, of course, as you hadn't
changed so much as to be impolite to strangers. But the
moment she was gone you said, in a quietly forceful tone: 'I'm
not wearing it.'

'I don't think you have a choice.'

A year, or even three months before and that would have
been enough. You would have put the cape on and smiled at
how silly you looked and forgotten all about it once you were
inside the basilica. We would have wandered around with
pilgrims and other tourists – some caped, like yourself – and
marvelled together at Michelangelo's dome and all the other
Renaissance treasures contained inside.

But no, you were adamant. 'I'm not wearing it,' you kept
saying. 'I'm not wearing a lime-green cape. I'll look like a tent.'

Never in your fourteen years on the planet had I seen such
a look of resolution on your face.

'Bryony,' I said, 'don't be ridiculous. No one's going to care
what you look like.'

'I'm not Catholic,' you said.

I drew attention to a Japanese woman, in front in the queue,
putting her cape on without complaint.

'I doubt she's Catholic. Now come on, don't be childish.'

Don't be childish. Ironic, of course. If you had been six or
seven, then you would have wanted to wear the thing. If you
had been eight or ten or even twelve then none of God's police
officers would have found your bare shoulders guilty of any
offence.

I can see your face. Too childish and too grown-up all at
once, still saying it like a mantra, mumbled through your lips:
'I'm not wearing it, I'm not wearing it . . .'

People were looking at us now. More people than would
have ever looked if you'd have worn the cape. Among the
gazers were two American boys, who I surmised were about
three years older than you. They had no parents with them,
and I suppose you had noticed them too. Maybe this was why
you didn't want to wear the cape. They were laughing, anyway,
and their laughter flushed your cheeks. I turned and stared at
them, for your sake, but they didn't notice me. They just
carried on in hysterics: their long, clumsy limbs falling on and
around each other, like reincarnated puppies.

One last time, your voice in a whisper: 'Please, Dad. Don't
make me wear the cape.'

I turned back to your face, half in my shadow, and in a
moment of weakness I decided not to argue.

'I can wait for you there on the step,' you said, answering
my unvoiced question.

I think this was the moment I told you about Florence
Nightingale's experience of St Peter's. Of course, when you
were younger the Lady of the Lamp had been one of your
heroines, and you had even turned your room into a
Crimean battlefield, dressing the wounds of Angelica and all
your other dolls. But when I told you that no event in
Florence's life had ever matched her first visit to St Peter's you
were unmoved, and by this point we were close to the entrance.

'I'll be over there,' you said, handing me the cape.

Before I knew it you were walking off, assuming it had been
agreed. By this point I was being motioned through a metal
detector by a surly, and armed, member of God's constabulary.
I suppose I could have still followed you, and made even
more of a scene, but I somehow managed to assure myself
you would be all right.

I think I imagined that you would sit there and brood about
how foolish you had been to neglect such a chance of enriching
your mind. I thought of it as a kind of lesson, something that
would highlight the mistake in your behaviour and correct it.

So I went inside, told myself you would be all right, and
tried to feel the splendid glory of the place.

I remembered the last time I was there, with your mother.
Then, we had been moved with a mutual emotion that seemed
as overwhelming as the architectural proportions themselves.
That almost paradoxical feeling of diminished human scale,
paired with a sudden swelling of the spiritual self, had been like
nothing we had known on this earth. We had marvelled at the
dome, and then climbed up to the lantern to see Rome as God
might see it, a beige bowl of intersecting histories, rendered so
beautifully coherent your mother had tears in her eyes.

This time though, I stayed at ground level and felt the
empty terror of the place. I just shuffled along with the other
tourists, and paused for a short while in front of Michelangelo's
Pietà
, staring at the sculpture through a sheet of bulletproof
glass. It still had an impact though. Indeed, the glass added
another layer to the narrative. It seemed to suggest the distance
between the dying Christ and the modern world, a distance
brought about by the desire to protect.

An equivalent desire was there in the face of the Virgin
Mary, sitting strong and father-like, with the feeble-bodied
child across her lap. I wished you had been there by my side
to see it. The foundation of a religious faith expressed as a
parent's tragedy. A parent whose son had gone away from her,
out into a world that killed him. And then too late he was
returned to the safety of the parent's lap. A safety that meant
nothing now.

I stayed there for a short while, as tears glazed my eyes.
Tourists stood all around, with star-struck faces, ready to tick
off another sight before moving on. Of course, none of them
displayed any understanding of what Michelangelo was trying
to say. They just made the same pleasant mumbles as they
had when they stood in the Sistine Chapel, casting their eyes
down from the ceiling through the Last Judgement and an
underworld that stopped above their heads.

Michelangelo's message to me, standing in front of the
Pietà
, was clear. Agony awaits if you let your child out into
a world of lost souls. You must protect her, and you must
never let her go.

I walked away, without seeing anything else. No chapel, no
altar, no memorial or papal tomb could steer me from my
course. I went outside and took a moment to find you. For
a second I thought you had gone. There were too many people
to make sense of the scene, but then my eyes found the column,
and the step, and you sitting exactly where you had said. I
rushed over, and didn't notice the two American boys until
the last moment. I can see that appalled look on your face as
I approached. A shame so intense it spilled into hatred.

'Bryony, shall we go?'

You rolled your eyes, and the boy-pups laughed and said,
'See you later.'

'See you later?' I asked, as we walked past the Egyptian
obelisk towards the Via della Conciliazione.

You shrugged, and said nothing.

A figure of speech, I told myself, as I glared again at your
bare shoulders. Nothing to sweat about.

And yet, in that delirious July heat, it was impossible not
to sweat. 'Right,' I said. 'The Forum's the next on the list. I
don't think you'll require a cape for that.'

I fell from the heavens through a night-blue sky, dropping fast
as my body gained form and mass. It felt like an eternity,
waiting for the flat earth to come into view. A dark carcass of
land bleeding moonlit lakes and oceans. I was heading straight
towards the water but landed in my bed feeling worse than
ever. Knowing something was wrong, I got up and left the
hotel room to go and knock on your door.

There was no answer, so I tried again.

Nothing.

Try to put yourself in my shoes – although, to be precise I
was barefoot – as I stood out in that hallway. 'Bryony,' I said
your name softly at first. 'Bryony, it's me.'

The silence scared me, so I kept knocking it away. Voices
from other rooms told me, in numerous European languages,
to shut the whatever up. I stopped knocking, went downstairs,
and explained to the old man behind the desk that something
could be the matter. He blew a long sigh, as though I were a
regret he had just remembered, but eventually he gave me the
key. When I got back upstairs and opened your door I sank
at the sight of your empty bed. I scanned the room, and sent
your name into every corner. There was nothing but clothes
and magazines and all those other empty parts of you.

For your tenth birthday I had bought you a selection of films.
Whistle Down the Wind. The Railway Children. Meet Me in St
Louis
. And your mother's favourite,
Roman Holiday
. It became
your favourite, too, and I saw no problem with that at the
time. 'Suitable for all' was the advice of the British Board of
Film Classification. Now, though, I hold Audrey Hepburn at
least partially responsible for your antics in the Eternal City. A
young princess escaping her responsibilities by heading off into
the Roman night, to find love and freedom and Gregory Peck.
The message of that film clearly infected your vulnerable mind.
Why else would you leave your hotel room in that same city
to search for whatever adventure you thought was out there?

I walked those ancient streets without direction, for how could
I know which direction to take? You could have gone anywhere.

I remember heading down the Via Condotti, where
mannequins in designer dresses stared out from dark windows.

A girl about your height turned the corner and I called your
name. She was coming towards me, a walking silhouette, but
didn't answer. My heart died as I realised it wasn't you, but a
grubby-faced street urchin carrying a baby. Not even the baby
was real. A plastic doll, which she threatened to throw towards
me. She hissed at the same time, and then said something in
a language I'm sure wasn't Italian.

'Money,' she clarified, realising I couldn't understand.
'Mun-eeee.'

I kept on going, at a quickening pace, while the ragged
gypsy girl stood in the street hissing curses, snake words, to
poison my luck.

I alternated between a walk and a jog as I trod those streets,
feeling a rush of hope at the sight of every moving shadow,
at the sound of every new footstep, only to plunge into deeper
despair when you were not the source.

This went on for hours, this jogging after every new hope,
asking drunks and homeless emperors and men stocking up
newspaper kiosks if they had seen you. Of course, it was all
futile. Really, I should have returned to the hotel and waited
for you in the foyer.

Light came, and the city slipped slowly into its daytime
colours. The jaundiced yellows of the old and dying.

I had to head back to the hotel. I knew that. But I also knew
that if you weren't there I would fall into a nightmare beyond
all imagining. 'Bryony,' I called, down every deserted street.
What despair your name contained when it was unanswered!

What if you had been kidnapped? I know this sounds ridiculous
to you now, and maybe even to me, but I did not know
where you were. There was no note in your room to explain
where you had gone, and in the absence of explanation the
mind torments itself with all manner of horrendous things.

I walked back slowly, as time and hope were equal partners
in this, through the Piazza di Spagna, passing the deserted
Spanish Steps and the house where Keats wasted away. As I
walked by the fountain I sensed his ghost, alone and palely
loitering at the window, trapped for eternity in the city he
thought would heal him. But not even Keats, that great interpreter
of the human soul, could offer me any clue or comfort.

I returned to the hotel and asked the man behind the reception
desk if he had seen you.

'I am sorry, sir, but I am only just beginning,' he said, as
oblivious to my pain as to the strange poetry of his words. He
was a younger man, a less obvious misanthrope, but such was
my delirium that I had thought it was the same one as before.

I was, by this point, quite dizzy with fear, and again my
mind was beginning to fuzz and tingle.

I must have muttered some kind of thanks and then climbed
the stairs up to the third floor, as an ashy darkness tinged away
at the periphery of my vision.

If you were there, in your room, I was going to hug you
and kiss your forehead and stroke your hair. I was going to
tell you 'I love you' and you were going to tell me 'I'm sorry,
I didn't mean to worry you' and I wasn't even going to think
about telling you off. The relief was going to be so much, so
perfect and so complete, that it would be impossible to scold
you. It is peculiar, isn't it? The way our minds bargain with
fate when every future possibility still hangs in the balance.

I knocked on your door, as the darkness crept closer. Were
you asleep? The seconds ticked by without you answering,
and I felt the corridor tilt under my feet. I had to steady
myself by placing a hand against the wall. I knocked again.
'Bryony, are you there? Petal? Bryony?' This time no one told
me to be quiet, although I doubt I would have been aware
if they had. The rest of the world could have slipped out of
space and time and I wouldn't have noticed. The only thing
that mattered was concealed behind that door, 305, and I was
about to go back down to the reception desk and get the
man to give me the key when I heard something. You. Your
feet padding across the carpet. 'Bryony?' The door opened
and you were there, rubbing the dreams out of your eyes.

Had you been asleep, or were you just pretending? Was that
delay in answering a part of the act? Were you aware that I
was aware? Oh, the heavy weight of trivial questions!