I Remember You (19 page)

‘Shhh,’ said Jan, as the waiter hovered nearby.

But Diana was furious. ‘I’m sorry, that’s incredibly offensive to Philippa,’ she said. ‘She didn’t bring that on herself. You know that, better than most people.’

‘Really?’ Leonora Mortmain gently put her lips together, and raised her eyebrows a fraction. ‘I didn’t know her as well as you.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ said Diana pointedly. Tess stared at her, she had never seen her so full of fury. ‘And you ditched her son, too, when he most needed help. If I was you, I’d keep my opinions about Philippa to myself.’

There was an icy silence. Tess, transfixed with horror, came to with a start to find someone plucking at her elbow; it was Carolyn, asking if they should get the bill. Tess said yes, and realized Diana was watching her, glowering under her fringe. Tess met her gaze and grimaced apolo getically, as another memory surfaced: Diana and Tess’s mum, after the funeral, arriving to clear out Philippa’s cottage. Adam shouting at them, the awful rows they had about what to keep and what to throw away and in the end, them leaving him to it, as he refused their offers of help, alone in that house. She had spent that summer among Philippa’s things; she wondered where they were now—probably still in the attic somewhere, her clothes eaten away by moths, the books turning to dust, when she herself was still so alive in all their minds.

Strange, these things that she only thought of when she was away from the town. She looked around the table, at these faces that were becoming so familiar to her, looked at them again as if she was seeing them for the first time. Was Jan the bustling, bossy, organizational freak she made out she was, or did she also have a sensitivity with which Tess wouldn’t have credited her? Diana—she had always seemed so scary, but was she really that person, or someone warmer, sadder, with a more interesting past? Middle-aged women get a raw deal, Tess was starting to realize. Middle-aged men can run companies, put on weight, clap each other on the back and do what the hell they like, but middle-aged women aren’t allowed to be anything more than ciphers of something rather amusing. They’re not allowed to have hopes and dreams and keep secrets, or be empire-builders,
confident and strong. They either have to be flapping and fussing or dry and disapproving—

‘Tessa?’

Her head snapped up. ‘Yes?’ she said, coming out of her reverie.

‘How do you say, “Can I have a Coke?”’

As they were finishing their meal and coffee was being ordered, there was a sudden commotion. A dog rushed into the restaurant, barking loudly, followed by its owner, who had let go of its leash. It was a mongrel dog, not huge, but large enough to push chairs out of the way and dislodge an unused table as it ricocheted, full of energy and panic, through the restaurant. The diners were alternately shocked and amused when he shot like a bullet through the doors.

‘Look!’ Ron cried, as the dog leapt past him.

‘Stop him,’ someone said quietly. ‘Please, stop him.’

‘Oh, he’s just a little thing,’ said Diana briskly. ‘Nice little chap. Wonder what he’s doing.’

‘Stop him, please,’ said the voice again. Tess looked back to the table to find it was Leonora Mortmain. Her eyes were huge, she looked as if she had aged ten years in ten seconds. ‘I do not like dogs,’ she said, scrabbling to get to her feet. It was unsettling to see her so discombobulated. ‘Please. Stop him.’

‘You don’t like dogs?’ said Diana, amazed.

‘I hate them.’ She patted her hair. ‘I hate them.’ There was a silence around the table; Leonora Mortmain gave a shallow sigh. ‘I shall go back to the hotel now,’ she said, finally struggling to her feet. She tapped her stick on the ground smartly and leaned on it, pushing stray grey locks of her hair back into place with a shaking hand. Behind her, the owner and his pet were reunited, with much wailing and many imprecations, and both fell into the street again, the dog dragging the man impatiently by the lead. Tess half stood up, but Leonora shook her head. ‘No. Mr Thaxton, would you be so kind, could you escort me home?’

There was a slightly stunned silence. Tess loved Ron in that moment, for the polite way he got to his feet, nodding. ‘Of course,’ he said, only slightly reluctantly. ‘My pleasure.’ Andrea glared at him imploringly, but Ron took Leonora’s arm and they left the restaurant, going out into the night. Tess could hear laughter from the street, see the orange light from the candles on the tables outside and she thought again how incongruous Leonora Mortmain was, here, how she should instead have been touring Rome with Mr Casaubon from
Middlemarch
. Had she ever been young? Had she ever yearned to hurl herself out of the restaurant into the warm, jasmine-scented evening, feel her bare feet on the cobbles, run across the ancient river into the heart of the city, ride a moped, drink wine till dawn?

Tess shook her head. Of course she hadn’t. She gazed out at their retreating figures and thoughtfully chewed her fingernail.

‘Isn’t it true,’ Jacquetta Meluish said, recalling her to the present, ‘that there was a bookshop in the Forum? I seem to remember, when I stayed here with a dear
professore
friend of John’s—’

Diana Sayers raised her eyes to heaven. Andrea nudged her. The two younger girls smiled politely, and Carolyn Tey assumed an expression of rapt interest.

‘Are you all right, dear?’ Jan Allingham said suddenly, leaning over to Tess. Jacquetta stopped in surprise.

‘Me? I’m fine,’ said Tess.

‘You look rather tired,’ said Jan.

‘She does, doesn’t she?’ said Andrea, leaping on this gap in the conversation. ‘You’ve had a long day, dear. Perhaps you should go back to the hotel too.’

‘We’ve all had a long day,’ Tess said, laughing.

‘Yes, but we haven’t been flung against the wall by motorcycling muggers,’ said Diana. ‘That shoulder’s going to bloody hurt you tomorrow, you know.’

Tess didn’t want to tell them that it already was. She smiled, touched that they cared, but knowing that she couldn’t leave them, take off back to the hotel, or even anywhere else.
You should enjoy yourself, too
, the American had said.

‘Oh, well,’ said Jan. She patted Tess’s arm. ‘We’ll be back home soon. Home! I mean back at the hotel.’ She laughed. ‘Oh, look at me, here five minutes and I’m calling it home!’

Jacquetta said, ‘I always think of Rome as somewhere where one could happily live. That’s what I was saying, about John’s friend Alberto, who was professor of music…’

Tess cast one last longing look out of the door, as the vibrant blue light of evening turned slowly into night.

Ron was waiting for them when they arrived back at Albergo Watkins, sitting in the tiny makeshift bar-cum-lobby. He was clutching a beer, with one leg thrown out in front of the other, one arm resting on the back of the wooden settle that lined the wall. The receptionist was studiously ignoring him.

The effect Ron was aiming for—unruffled international traveller who hangs out in hotel lobbies—wasn’t quite convincing. He looked rather cross and, as they all came back in, turned to them with something like a snarl, leapt up and then carefully put his glass of beer back down on the table.

‘That woman—’ he said, advancing towards them, his grey eyes wide open. ‘Tess, don’t put me next to her again this holiday. Otherwise I want a refund. I am not doing that again. I’ll sue.’

‘Ron shouldn’t eat rich foods in the evening, you know,’ Jan whispered loudly to Andrea. ‘They make him ever so cross.’

‘It’s none of my business what he eats in the evening, thank you, Jan,’ Andrea said.

Tess, who had a pack of legal information as well as Health and Safety, First Aid and travel tips up in her room, none of which she wanted to have to use, blinked at Ron in alarm.
‘Er,’ she said. ‘OK, Ron. I’m sorry—she asked and I thought you’d be OK. Oh, dear,’ she said, seeing he really did look upset. ‘What did she say?’

‘Things,’ Ron said, grinding his teeth and pacing.

‘Ooh, what kind of things?’ said Andrea, her sharp little face alive with potential outrage.

‘She told me—’ Ron said, stiffly. ‘She—oh, that woman. She told me that I should write and apologize to her for the things I’d said. Otherwise there’d be consequences. Consequences!’ He gave a snorting laugh, which dissolved into a fit of coughing. ‘Cool as a cucumber, we’re walking back through the streets, all nice as you like, I’m trying to be polite and she says that.’

‘
Write and apologize?
’ Andrea said incredulously. ‘After what she’s done?’

‘That’s not all,’ said Ron, pacing up and down. ‘That is not all.’

At that point a German couple slowly opened the front door and stepped into the lobby, where they were prevented from advancing any further because of the bottleneck of aghast onlookers listening to Ron. Tess gently moved Liz and Jacquetta out of the way so the couple could move past. She watched them abstractly, admiring their European-ness, the woman with her frameless neat glasses, shiny cropped blonde hair, the man tanned and athletic, she in crisp linen, he in a shirt and pressed trousers. They were so very different from the ragged mob standing in the lobby with her.

She pressed her fingers to her temple, wanting to stay calm. ‘What else?’ she asked.

‘She said—’ Ron cleared his throat. ‘Actually, can you give me a minute?’

No one quite knew what he meant by this, so no one moved.

Ron closed his eyes and flared his fingers upwards, so his palms faced outwards, like a mystic sage. ‘I meant, can you leave me and Tess, please? I need to tell her something.’

‘Oh,’ said Andrea, disappointed, but Diana Sayers motioned to her to be quiet. Andrea looked at Ron, who looked back at her and nodded, a look of silent understanding, and she suddenly switched. ‘Right, see you upstairs,’ she said, and pushed Liz, Claire, Jan, Jacquetta and Carolyn towards the stairs.

‘What is it, Ron?’ Tess said, moving towards him. Silence fell in the lobby, and the woman behind the desk looked up, bored, twitched her thick Prada glasses and went back to her crossword puzzle.

Ron scratched his head and bared his gums, breathing in so the air whistled between his teeth. ‘Oh, goodness,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to say this, that’s all.’

‘Say what?’ Tess asked, unaccountably scared by his grave demeanour. He was silent. She said gently, ‘Ron, come on, tell me.’

‘She’s cracked in the head,’ he said eventually.

‘Who?’ Tess said stupidly.

‘Mortmain. Her.’ He could barely bring himself to say the name. ‘Leonora Mortmain.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I meant what I said just now. But there’s more to it than that. Sh-she’s—sommat’s wrong with her, I don’t know what it is. I think seeing that dog set her off.’ He scratched his head again. ‘Rude bitch,’ he said, with a flare of his anger again. ‘Sorry.’ He looked down.

Tess felt fear strike into her heart, she didn’t know why. ‘Ron,’ she said, as if to a child. ‘Tell me what she said.’

‘It’s hard to say,’ Ron said frankly, his eyes meeting hers. ‘She’s got something on me, for starters.’

‘What’s that?’ Tess said.

‘She knows about something.’ Ron rubbed his face with his hands, in some kind of agony. ‘I bribed a man, fellow on the council. Way back, years ago, Tess, right? I wanted to open a cinema, little picture house.’

‘That would have been nice,’ said Tess, encouragingly. Ron’s face was creased with distress.

‘Would have been. Would ha’ been great for the town, always wanted a cinema when I was a boy, growing up there. But I stuffed it up, didn’t I? Gave a bung to someone on the planning committee, he was bent as they come. They got him for a whole bunch o’ stuff, and they found out about me.’

‘Oh, dear, Ron—’ Tess said, upset. ‘That’s—’

‘It was bloody stupid of me, and I thought no one knew,’ Ron said, grimacing. ‘I got a sentence, suspended, paid my fine, thought it was all done. But she’s found out. How’s she found out?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tess said. ‘I honestly don’t know, Ron, but you mustn’t—’

‘Argh,’ Ron said again, a low angry noise. ‘I hate her. She was enjoying it. She said, she said all that stuff about how I had to apologize to her. That everyone on the committee, the one against the building works, we should all apologize to her. We’ve harassed her, ‘parently.’ His voice was bitter. ‘She said she’d make sure everyone knew what I done. That I should give up the campaign. She’s ruined the town, doesn’t even care—’ He looked up at her. ‘Do you think less of me? Bet you do, now you know. What people are going to say…’

Tess put her hand on his arm. ‘Course I don’t,’ she said, patting his shiny nylon shirt. ‘Come on. You mustn’t let her get to you. She won’t say anything, and who’d believe her? What else did she say?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ he said simply. She nodded encouragingly. ‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘She doesn’t like you. She’s going to complain about you to the school when we get back.’

Tess nodded imperceptibly, though she felt sick. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Any particular thing?’

‘That’s what I mean. She says you’re a bad influence.’

Tess laughed, almost with shock.

‘She was just saying it as if it were normal, you know, as
we’re walking back through the streets, and it’s this nice evening and I say, more to get her off the subject of my troubles and all, I said, “Isn’t it nice havin’ Tess showing us round Rome, she always was a nice girl, even when she was little, Frank and Emily must be proud of her.”’ He looked embarrassed. ‘Anyway, that’s by the by. So we’d just turned off that main square onto a side street, and it’s very dark all of a sudden. She stops and stares at me, but not at me, like at someone else, and she says, “She’s a bad influence.” Just like that.’

Tess shook her head, and gestured to him to carry on. Her throat felt thick, as if a piece of bread were stuck in it. Ron was in his stride now. “A bad influence, and they was right, I shouldn’t have come.” So I says, “Who’s they?” and her voice is all shrill and everything and she says, “Never you mind that, I’m going to make sure she don’t do one of these trips again.” And then she says—’ Ron cleared his throat—‘she says, “I don’t remember him any more.” Like that. She was crying. Trying to at least. My blood ran cold, I tell you.’

‘“Him”?’ Tess said sharply, so loudly that the receptionist looked up from her book again, making a moue of bored curiosity with her mouth.

‘That’s what she said,’ Ron told her, with relish. ‘That’s why I think she’s cracked in the head.’ He shivered a bit. ‘I asked her what she means, and she shakes her head and says, “No one remembers.” And then she laughed! She sounded mad. High-pitched and everything, and I knew she wasn’t listening to me.’ He said, almost calmly, ‘It was like she was talking to someone else, someone who wasn’t there.’

‘Blimey,’ said Tess. She put her hands on her hips. ‘Well—’

‘She don’t like you,’ Ron finished, almost triumphantly. ‘She really don’t like you.’

There was lots that didn’t make sense, and Tess was not sure enough of Ron’s testimony to give in to the sinister feeling of unease uncoiling within her. She remembered Leonora on
their first night here.
You are rather like me
. Well, she obviously didn’t think that today. She pulled herself together and said, in her most normal voice, ‘Listen, Ron, I think she was probably tired. Don’t worry about it.’

He looked at her. ‘She wasn’t tired.’

‘She’s an old lady, Ron—’ Tess wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘And she’s not the easiest of people, let’s face it. In fact, it’s pretty hard to feel sympathy for her. But she’s here on her own, she doesn’t have any friends, and she’s had a long day. I think the wine got the better of her.’

‘She only had a glass.’

‘Look—’ Tess said, squeezing her arm with her hand, forgetting how sore it still was.

‘Your shoulder OK?’ Ron said.

‘It’s all right. Just a bit tender.’ She winced, and it made her remember. ‘It’s been a long day for us all, that’s what I think. So—can you do me a favour? Don’t mention this to anyone. The last bit, I mean, as well as the first bit. I don’t want them thinking Leonora’s gone mad.’

Ron looked unconvinced. ‘Course I won’t,’ he said, gloomily. ‘But I think she
has
gone mad,’ he said.

Tess patted his arm in what she hoped was a friendly, conspiratorial way, not a patronizing, shut-up-and-give-it-a-rest way. ‘Perhaps she has,’ she said, with gallows humour. ‘But she was a bit weird to start with. Let’s monitor it ourselves, shall we?’

‘It was those eyes,’ Ron said, unwilling to let it rest. ‘Her eyes, they looked so spooky.’

Tess was suddenly very, very tired. ‘Right,’ she said, nodding and feeling that perhaps Leonora was right, she was a terrible tour group leader, but for the moment if she didn’t go to bed she would simply curl up on the fake marble floor of the lobby and pass out. ‘I’ll watch out for the eyes and—and Ron, thanks.’

Ron nodded briefly, like a soldier. ‘My pleasure.’ He stepped
back, bowing his head as a farewell gesture, and climbed up the stairs, leaving Tess alone.

She stared around her, taking in the large, attractive Victorian painting of the Colosseum that hung on the wall by the staircase. Around the base of the huge structure, possibly the most recognizable image of Rome, well-dressed ladies and gentlemen promenaded in a genteel fashion, as the dark, brooding circle rose above them, giving no hint of the torture and relentless slaughter that had taken place there. Again it struck her how funny it was, that they had spent the day parading round these old ruins, saying ‘Ooh’ and ‘Aah’ and not really thinking about the reality, the fifty thousand people who could be accommodated there, the bloody games that lasted from dusk till dawn where on one day alone five thousand animals could be killed, and many gladiators too. Staring at the refined figures circling the old amphitheatre, Tess was reminded of one fact: that the Romans had, by dint of rounding up countless rhinos, hippopotami, tigers and lions, purged the more dangerous corners of their empire of bloodthirsty animals who posed a threat to them. She shook her head. This was civilization, too, but it was a strange kind of civilization.

‘Sir Frederick Fortt,’ she said, reading the name of the artist at the bottom of the canvas. The receptionist looked up again.

‘Mees Tennant,’ she said, her lovely, low voice caressing the consonants of Tess’s name. ‘Tessss Tennant?’

‘Yes,’ said Tess, shrugging her shoulders wearily, wondering what fresh hell awaited her with her messages.

‘Theeese are for you.
Che bellissimi fiori!
’ she said, and she reached down to her side and picked up a bouquet of roses. She thrust them at Tess unceremoniously.

Tess took them. They were roses, palest pink, scented, tied with a thin blue ribbon to which a tiny envelope was attached, and the scent of them took her breath away. The receptionist smiled at her conspiratorially.

‘You have an admirer here, in Roma!’ she said.

‘I very much doubt it,’ Tess said, thinking of her conversation with Ron, but she laughed. ‘
Grazie, signorina
.’

‘Grazie, e buona notte.’

She climbed the stairs, tiredness gone, fingering the crisp white card, her fingers fumbling with the keys so she could get into her room and open the envelope.

Hope your shoulder feels better. Come have a drink with me tomorrow after dinner, and I’ll show you the real Rome. No tourists! Via del Mascherone off the Piazza Farnese. You should enjoy yourself too, while you’re here.

Ciao

Peter