Sarah Caudwell - Thus Was Adonis Murdered

The day had come on which the Revenue discovered her existence and reminded her of theirs. They had not initially asked her for money: they had first insisted, unreasonably but implacably, that she should submit accounts. They had shown by this that they were not motivated by a just and lawful desire to fill the public purse for the public benefit: their true purpose was to make Julia spend every evening for several months copying out the last four years’ entries in her Clerk’s Fee Book on an old typewriter that did not work properly. I myself am not entirely sure that the age and defectiveness of the typewriter were an essential feature of the Revenue’s planning. But Julia was: every time it stuck, her bitterness towards them deepened. The Revenue, on receiving the result of her labours, had uttered no word of gratitude or commendation. They had demanded a large sum of money. More than she had. More, according to her — though I think that she cannot be quite right about this — than she had ever had. More than she could ever hope to have.

In this extremity, she had appealed to her Clerk. Julia’s Clerk is called William, an older man than Henry, and perhaps more indulgent. It took a mere two hours of sycophantic pleading, freely laced with promises of perpetual industry, to secure his assistance. He sent out fee notes, as a matter of urgency, requesting immediate payment from those solicitors who were indebted to Julia for her services.

His efforts raised a sufficient sum to pay the Revenue, but left Julia with nothing to live on. Or at any rate with only so much as might support the bare necessities of life. I did not see how she could afford to go to Venice.

“The unhappy events to which you refer,” said Selena, “occurred some months ago. That is to say, in the financial year which ended on the fifth of April. On or about that date, the Revenue wrote to Julia, reminding her that they were now entitled to another year’s accounts.”

“And Julia was jolly miffed,” said Cantrip. “Because the way she saw it, she’d done her bit as far as accounts were concerned.”

“But she consoled herself,” said Selena, “with the reflection that it was only one year’s accounts and couldn’t be as bad as last time. So she went back to her typewriter and in less than three months prepared her accounts for the previous year.”

“But since,” said Ragwort, “her income for the previous year included the rather substantial sum raised by William to pay her previous liabilities to the Revenue—”

“She now owes them even more than she did last year. And she’s really rather despondent about it. Because it seems to her that every effort she makes to reduce her liability will in fact simply serve to increase it. And it is difficult to point to any fallacy in her reasoning.” Selena gazed sadly into her coffee cup.

“It is still not clear to me,” I said, “why she now feels able to afford a holiday.”

“It is true,” said Selena, “that if she takes a holiday, she can’t afford to pay the Revenue. But if she doesn’t take a holiday she still can’t afford to pay the Revenue. On the sheep and lamb principle, she has decided to go to Venice. I think it’s very sensible. She will return to London spiritually refreshed and able to cope with life.”

“Spiritually?” said Ragwort. “My dear Selena, we all know exactly what Julia is hoping to find in Venice, and there is, I regret to say, nothing spiritual about it.” Ragwort’s rather beautiful mouth closed in a severe straight line, as if denying utterance to more explicit improprieties.

“After a bit of the other,” said Cantrip. It is a Cambridge expression, signifying, as I understand it, the pursuit of erotic satisfaction.

“Julia has been working very hard all summer,” said Selena, “and has had few opportunities for pleasure. No one, I hope, would grudge her a little innocent diversion. My only fear is that she may be over-precipitate. I have reminded her that young men like to think one is interested in them as people: if one discloses too early the true nature of one’s interest, they are apt to be offended and get all hoity-toity. But we must hope someone takes her fancy in the first day or two, or she may feel she hasn’t got time for the subtle approach.”

“How long does she have?” I asked.

“Ten days. But effectively only eight, because two are spent travelling. She gets back to London on Saturday week.”

After a moment’s reflection, Selena thought it prudent to qualify her last statement with the words “Deo volente.” The phrase was intended, no doubt, to allow for some lesser catastrophe than Julia’s arrest on a charge of murder.

Despite her professed confidence that Julia would come to no harm, Selena’s conversation betrayed, in the days that followed, an unusually anxious acquaintance with those columns of The Times which carried the news from Italy. It was full, suddenly, of casual references to student unrest in Bologna; the problems of the Tuscan peach farmers; and the doctrinal innovations of the Vatican and the Italian Communist Party. Happily, it appeared that neither crime nor accident, civil commotion nor natural disaster had impinged on any person answering to Julia’s description.

In addition to this negative intelligence, she expected letters. She had impressed on Julia her duty to write daily, for the edification and amusement of those left in Lincoln’s Inn.

“You made it clear, I hope,” said Ragwort, “that the letters should be suitable to be read in mixed company and the activities described of unquestionable decorum?”

“Not precisely,” said Selena. “I said that what we hoped for was a picaresque series of attempted seductions. I told her we would not insist, however, on their uniform success. I said that on the contrary we might think it inartistic.”

Ragwort sighed.

I had thought Selena optimistic to expect that any letters sent from Venice would reach London before Julia herself; but we were fortunate, throughout the period of which I write, in the efficiency of the postal services. The first of Julia’s letters arrived on Tuesday, and Selena, who alone can decipher her writing, read it to us over coffee.

Heathrow Airport.

Thursday afternoon.

Dearest Selena,

“Twelve adulteries, nine liaisons, sixty-four fornications and something approaching a rape” are required of me for your innocent entertainment. Well, you will have to be patient — the aeroplane is not designed to accommodate such adventures. I am beginning, however, as I mean to go on, and in accordance with your own instructions — that is to say, with an exactly contemporaneous account of everything that happens.

It occurs to me that to abide literally by this resolution may have a slightly inhibiting effect on the adulteries, liaisons, etc. In certain circumstances, therefore, I shall hope, as regards precise contemporaneity, for a measure of indulgence — which, since you are the most reasonable of women, I do not doubt to receive.

It is about an hour and a half since you left me at the airport. Things, since you left, have not gone well with me: they have taken me from a place where there was gin to a place where there is no gin, and from a place where I could smoke to a place where I cannot smoke. That is to say, from the departure lounge to the aeroplane. They have also taken my passport.

“They can’t do that to Julia,” said Selena. “She is a British subject.”

And it’s no use your saying, Selena, that I am a British subject and they can’t do that to me. They have done. It began with a difference of opinion about my suitcase; I had thought it was hand luggage, which I could keep with me; the stewardess, at the last moment, decided that it was not. Deferring to the expert view, I handed it over, and she pushed it down a sort of chute. Only as it slid, with irreversible momentum, into the bowels of the aircraft, did I remember that my passport is in the side pocket. I shall not see my passport again until I get my luggage back: which will be, if my memory of airport procedure is not at fault, on the other side of the Passport Control Barrier. We have the makings of an impasse.