Mark Mills - The Savage Garden

Adam had sat through the speech many times before, but it was somehow more persuasive this time, more heartfelt. Antonella and Signora Docci certainly seemed convinced by it, firing off questions that Harry eagerly answered. And as Adam sat and watched, he felt a rare twinge of pride in his brother. It was tempered slightly by jealousy: that Harry could care so passionately about the path he'd chosen for himself.

When Signora Docci finally retired upstairs, Antonella took it as her cue to head home. She couldn't be persuaded to stay; she had a week of hard work ahead of her. This wasn't what Adam wanted

to hear, but he had to make do with a surreptitious squeeze of his arm when she kissed him good night—recognition of what had passed between them in the garden.

Thrown back on each other's company, Harry nodded over his shoulder at the villa looming above them.

"Must be a shocker to heat in winter."

"Must be."

"What happened to her face?"

"Car accident."

"Are you screwing her?"

"No."

"Mmmmm."

"I'm not screwing her, Harry."

Harry studied him with a sporting eye. "I believe you."

"That's a huge relief to me."

"And Signora Fanelli?" asked Harry, fluttering his fingers in the air. "At the Pensione Amorini?"

Adam felt a hand clutch at his heart. How the hell did Harry even know her name? Then he remembered; he had told Harry to go to the pensione and ask for directions to the villa.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"She's bloody gorgeous. And I reckon you're her type."

"Tell me, Harry, was it one or two minutes you spent in her company?"

"Aloof. Like her. Two dark horses. Cavorting together. Yes, I can see it."

"Well, you're wrong. That famous sixth sense of yours must have deserted you."

Harry weighed Adam's words. "Maybe. Yeah. Come to think of it, imagine . . . it'd be like screwing Auntie Joan."

"She's not that old."

He realized too late that he'd stumbled into one of Harry's well- laid conversational traps.

"I knew it!" Harry trumpeted.

"Keep it down, that's Signora Docci's bedroom."

Harry glanced up at the loggia. "What, not her too!?"

"Harry . . ." hissed Adam.

Harry beamed. "You little devil. She's gorgeous, dirty too, from the look of her."

Adam wasn't going to be drawn on this.

"Come on—details."

"No."

"Something. Anything."

"Has it been that long?"

Harry gave a short laugh. "Quite a while, as it happens."

Harry was curious to know if Adam intended to tell Gloria. Not for the first time, Gloria was referred to as "the girl who likes killing animals."

"Her family hunts and shoots."

"And yours lives in Purley, otherwise known as the arsehole of Croydon."

"So?"

"So are you going to let her know?"

"She ended it."

Harry nodded a couple of times. "Well, I can't say I'm upset. I never liked her."

"I know. You told her." "Did I?"

"You don't remember? She remembers."

"Well, who cares now? She's out of your life. And you, Paddler, have finally slept with a good-looking woman."

"Gloria was good-looking."

Harry heaved a weary sigh. "It's like parents and babies. They're too close. They can't see just how ugly the little buggers are." He lit a cigarette. "Love isn't just blind—it blinds."

"That's very profound. Who said it?"

"James Bond, I think."

"In a rare moment of melancholy."

Harry laughed, but Adam knew better than to relax his guard. Sure enough, Harry nudged the conversation back to Adam's other university friends.

"Come on, Paddler, face the facts—you're not one of them. They're all so bloody . . . well, rich."

"They're still people."

"They're people who like people like them. Oh, it's okay now, you're a good-looking boy with half a brain and half a sense of humor. But that bloke you hang out with, what's his name? Big ears, windpipe like a fireman's hose, father owns half of Herefordshire ..."

"Tarquin.

"Right, Tarquin. Can't you see he's humoring you? You're his piece of entertainment, the middle-class boy made good."

"You met him once."

"I'm telling you, he'll drop you as soon as he's back in the real world, and you're selling insurance."

"I'm going to work at Lloyd's."

"Selling insurance."

Adam struggled to control his temper. "You know nothing about my relationships with my friends."

"I've seen all I want to."

"You can't just write off two years of my life like that."

"Why not? You did."

"Fuck off, Harry."

Harry leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette. "I might just take you up on that. I haven't slept in days and I've got an early start."

"You're leaving?"

"You wish. No, I thought I'd have a slog round Florence."

Heading upstairs together, Harry asked if he could borrow some of Adam's clothes. He tried on some trousers, a shirt and a linen jacket. "Christ," he said, checking himself in the wardrobe mirror, "it's little Lord Fauntleroy." He also said, "I'll need some cash."

"I just sent you some!"

"Believe me, you don't want to know."

"Believe me, I do."

"The Swiss girl came back."

"You're right, I don't want to know."

As Harry was leaving his room, Adam asked, "Why are you really here, Harry? In Italy?"

Harry hesitated. "I'm not sure you're ready to hear it."

"I say, Holmes, not the Giant Rat of Sumatra?"

Harry's blank expression broke into a smile. It was a private joke, a cause of much amusement to them as boys: a reference to a Conan Doyle short story in which Sherlock Holmes makes passing mention to Watson of a terrible incident in his past involving "the Giant Rat of Sumatra ... a story for which the world is not yet prepared."

"Demmit, Watson," snapped Harry, "I said never to mention the Giant Rat of Sumatra."

TRUE TO HIS WORD, HARRY WAS UP EARLY. IN FACT, he'd already left the villa by the time adam awoke.

The prospect of a full day free from Harry's unpredictable presence was a big relief. He needed time and space to concentrate. His work on the garden had ground to an almost complete standstill in the past few days.

He had read deep into the night in order to finish The Divine Comedy, rising up through Paradise with Dante to the poet's final, blinding vision of the universe bound together by God's love. Adam had experienced no such epiphany, though, no Damascene revelation. As far as he could tell, there were no further associations between the poem and the memorial garden, aside from a brief mention of Apollo just after Dante and Beatrice have made their ascent from Purgatory to Paradise and Dante calls on the sun god to help him in the last stages of his journey.

Any hopes that he would see things differently in the morning soon vanished. After breakfast he read through his copious notes, searching for missed connections, but drew a glaring blank. Heading for the garden, he barged through the gap in the yew hedge and made a brisk tour, defiantly disinterested. This slightly curious logic—that if he treated the place with indifference it might be more inclined to speak to him—proved unsound. If anything, he found it more inert, more stubbornly unresponsive, than he'd ever known it to be. Even the statues seemed bored by their roles, like a troupe of jaded actors at the end of a long run.

Completing the circuit, he stopped at the grotto and entered. The low morning sunlight slanted through the entrance, dispersing the Stygian gloom. Apollo, Daphne and Peneus shone white as weathered bone against the rock-encrusted wall, a moment of drama trapped in marble by an unknown and rather heavy- handed sculptor.