Sarah Caudwell - Thus Was Adonis Murdered

And off he went, leaving me alone with Ned. We sat down together, under the shade of an awning, in one of the cafés previously mentioned.

The time had come, I felt, to talk about Catullus: Verona, you will recall, is the poet’s birthplace. If I could not manage, by judicious quotation from the most ardent of lyric poets, to indicate the warmth of my feelings, there was, I thought, no hope for me. With no need on this subject to resort to the guide book — his work was the chief comfort of my susceptible adolescence — I spoke sympathetically of his attachment to Clodia, severely of her unkindness. Ned chose to defend her.

“I don’t see why you think,” he said, “that she ought to have been so grateful for having all this poetry written to her. I expect your friend Catullus got more fun out of writing it than she did out of reading it — she’d probably rather have been taken out to dinner or something.” And more to the like effect.

“Ah, well,” I said at last. “It is natural that you should take her side. Your own experience, no doubt, is all of being the object of passion, rather than of suffering it.”

“I don’t know why you suppose,” he said, looking down demurely in such a manner as to display the full luxury of his lovely eyelashes, “that I am the object of so much admiration. Or that I am always indifferent to it.”

The reappearance at this stage of the Major, who could perfectly well have gone on wandering round antique shops for another half-hour, seemed singularly ill-timed. If the maps he had purchased, supposed to be of antiquarian interest, turned out to be fakes, it would be, I felt, a deserved consequence of his over-hasty selection.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” said the Major. “Can see you two were having a good old chin-wag.”

“I was complaining,” I said, “of the way I am treated by the Inland Revenue.”

“Julia doesn’t think,” said Ned, “that we are fair to her.”

“Oh no,” I said, “I didn’t say that. I could never say, Ned, that you were anything but fair. What I am complaining of is not your fairness: it is your coldness, your lack of feeling, your indifference to human suffering.”

“Ah well,” said the Major, “only doing your job, of course. I’m sure the little lady doesn’t mean it personally, do you, m’dear?”

“I’m afraid she does,” said Ned. “But I hope to persuade her to think more kindly of us.”

My confidence in Catullus seemed vindicated, for this was not a remark, you will surely agree, Selena, which a well-brought-up young man could make without intending some encouragement. Nor, as you shall hear, was this the only cause given me for optimism.

We continued to sit in the café, reviving ourselves with coffee for our homeward journey. The Major was greatly pleased with his maps, and would have liked to show them to us; but they had been carefully rolled and wrapped and he felt it unwise to undo them. Fearing that the maps would put him in mind of some incident in his military career, I agreed hastily that it would be most imprudent.

“Julia,” asked Ned, after a few minutes, “did you know you had a smudge of ash on your cheek?”

“I didn’t know,” I answered. “But I readily believe it.” If one smokes French cigarettes, it is usual, after an hour or two, to get a certain amount of ash on one’s face.

“If you’ll excuse me—” he said. He rose from his chair and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. Then he leant over me, and, resting his left hand lightly on my shoulder, gently brushed the ash from my cheek.

This produced in me, as you will imagine, Selena, a passionate agitation, gravely affecting my breathing and heart beat. Yet it was of the most pleasant and hopeful kind, for I could not suppose that any young man, unless utterly heartless and lost to all sense of shame, could conduct himself in such a way towards a woman whose advances were unacceptable.

“Excuse me, m’dear,” said the Major. “Just off to inspect the jolly old ablutions.”

“When we get back to Venice,” I said, taking advantage of his temporary absence, “instead of paying the exorbitant prices which they charge in the bar of the Cytherea, why don’t you come and have an aperitif in my room? I’ve got some brandy I bought in the duty-free shop.” If I had misconstrued his behaviour, I thought, he could always say that he didn’t like brandy before dinner.

“I’d love to,” answered Ned. “How kind of you, Julia.”

You will imagine with what impatience I now looked forward to our return; how bitterly, though silently, I cursed the late arrival of the coach driver; with what equal fervour, though in equal silence, I urged him to drive back at all speed along the autostrada. Nor, during the drive to Venice or our brief journey by boat to our hotel, was there anything in Ned’s smiles or amiable manner to warn me of the unspeakable treachery he was proposing to commit.

We arrived at the landing stage of the Cytherea.

“How about a snifter in the bar?” said the Major.

“You’re forgetting, Bob,” said the enchanting Ned, sharing between us a smile of angelic sweetness, “Julia has kindly invited us to drink brandy in her room.”

O Perfidy, thy name is man. They are, as I have said, a deplorable sex, and never again shall you hear me speak well of them. If I could think kindly of one, it would be of a young man of obliging disposition, such as Cantrip. Cantrip, you may say, has his faults; but at least he can be prevailed on to engage in a health-giving frolic without expecting one to talk for weeks on end about his soul. Cantrip, so far as I am aware, has never claimed to have such a thing.

“I jolly well do have a soul,” said Cantrip.

“Well, don’t tell Julia,” said Selena. “It’ll only upset her.”

I am old enough, I hope, to bear philosophically a reverse in the lists of Aphrodite; but to be obliged, in addition, to offer the Major the hospitality of my room, not to speak of large quantities of my duty-free brandy, was more than I could easily endure. By the time the long day was over, I was too shattered in spirit to take up my pen to write to you: I sought consolation in the Finances Act.

After a morning of looking at churches, I have returned to the Cytherea for lunch. I shall have the company, it seems, of the beautiful but perfidious Ned — I have just seen him coming across the bridge from the annexe. Let him not look to me for kind words or compliments — I shall upbraid him for every infamy committed by his Department since the institution of income tax.

In a mood, as I have indicated, of the most bitter misandry, this leaves me

Yours, as always, Julia.

“Julia is being unreasonable,” said Ragwort. “The young man gave her no encouragement beyond mere civility.”

“There is,” said Selena, “a postscript.”

Wednesday evening.

The deed is done — Clarissa lives. No time to write more.

Yours, as always, Julia.

“Who,” said Cantrip, “is Clarissa?”

“Clarissa,” said Ragwort sadly, “is the eponymous heroine of the celebrated novel by Mr. Richardson. The phrase used by Julia is that, if my recollection serves me, in which the villain Lovelace announces his conquest of her long-defended virtue.”

“I say,” said Cantrip, “do you mean Julia’s scored with the man from the Revenue?”

“It would seem so,” said Timothy. “I hope that’s not going to complicate things. They’re calling my flight — I’d better go. I’ll ring you tomorrow, Selena, as soon as I know anything definite.”

I hope my farewells to Timothy did not seem unduly off-hand. All my goodwill went with him; but I was a little preoccupied — I had remembered something curious about the news from Italy.