William Trevor - Two Lives

‘If I gave Quinty his marching orders, Tom, he’d take his gypsy with him and they’d end up on a wasteland. They’d make a shack out of flattened oil-drums. They’d thieve from people on the streets.’

‘Mrs Delahunty –’

‘I’ve seen the tourists here looking askance at Quinty, and who on earth can blame them? You must have thought you’d come to a madhouse when he began his talk about holy women. Yet eccentric conversation’s better than being a near criminal. Or so I’d have thought.’

Politely he said he found Quinty not uninteresting on the subject of hagiology. I smiled at him: once again he was doing his best. I remembered him walking beside Rosa Crevelli after we’d had lunch, making an effort to converse with her. He’d had a glass or two of wine, and I wondered if he’d thought to himself that she had an easy look to her. No reason why a reticent man shouldn’t have a fancy, shouldn’t go for that sallow skin and gypsy eyes, a different ball-game from Francine. But this wasn’t the time to wonder for long about any of that.

Perhaps in the morning, I suggested, we might look for a bark-ant together so that he could show me his side of things, since I’d been going on so about my own. For a start, I’d no idea if a bark-ant looked different from the kind of ant that lives beneath a stone. I asked him about that, pouring just a thimbleful more grappa into my glass. I said it was fascinating what he’d said about bark-ants behaving like human beings. I asked him how they came by their name. He didn’t answer, and when I looked up I discovered he was no longer in the room.

11

The old man showed me what he intended, passing on to me the gist of the deliberations that had taken place the evening before, how the Italian had pointed out that in order to create the different levels a mechanical digger rather than a ploughing machine was necessary. This, too, he could supply and operate himself. The General showed me where the terracing and the flights of steps would be. Part of the garden would be walled: the Italian had machinery for demolishing the half-ruined stables and moving the stone to where it could be attractively put to use.

The General repeated that the garden was a gift. But he did not feel he could make such drastic alterations without my agreement. He showed me where a fountain would be, and where the shade trees would be planted.

‘It’ll be beautiful, General.’

‘A garden should have little gardens tucked away inside it. It should have alcoves and secret places, and paths that make you want to take them even though they don’t lead anywhere. What grows well, you cherish. What doesn’t, you throw out.’

The digger would bite into the slope beside the sunflower field. As well as terraces, there would be sunken areas. The Italian who’d come was a man of imagination; he’d entered into the spirit of the challenge. A separate well for the garden might be necessary, rather than the pipeline he’d first suggested. The old cypress tree beside the stables would remain.

‘This’ll be costly, General. Are you sure –’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

Then, for the last time in my presence, the old man mentioned his daughter. We stood among the rank growth of that wasted area, to which the dilapidated old buildings and rusty wheels and axles lent a dismal air. The General stared down at the ground of which he expected so much. In his daughter’s lifetime he had resented the fact that what wealth he left behind would be shared with her husband. ‘I would happily give all the days remaining to me if it might be now,’ he murmured, and said no more.

So it was left. I had accepted gifts from men before, but never one like this, and never without strings that tied some grisly package. I was moved afresh by what was happening, by faith being kept in so many directions at once, by frailty turned into strength. The timbers of these useless buildings and the discoloured iron that had sunk into the ground would be scooped away, the fallen walls given an unexpected lease of life; an old man’s dream would spread on the hill beside the sunflower slope. He knew, as I did, that he would not live to see his garden’s heyday. But he knew it didn’t matter.

That day was hotter, even, than the days that had preceded it. At half-past ten Aimée and her uncle went for a walk, advised to do so before the day became oppressive. There is a selection of straw hats in the outer hall, kept for the tourists, since people who come here always want to walk about the hillsides no matter what the temperature. I insisted that Aimée should wear one, and her uncle also; I warned them to keep to the roads and tracks for fear of snakes. For a few moments I watched their slow progress through the clumps of broom and laburnum, Aimée in a light-blue dress, her wide-brimmed panama too big for her, he in shirtsleeves and fawn cotton trousers, and a hat with a brown band. When they passed from sight I hurried into the house and made my way to his bedroom.

I’d hoped to find a photograph of Francine that would confirm the picture I had formed, but there wasn’t one. His clothes hung neatly in the simple wardrobe, a tie was draped over the back of a chair. A sponge-bag contained an electric razor, toothbrush and toothpaste, aspirin and deodorant. Airline tickets and cufflinks were on the dressing-table; soiled laundry had been folded and placed at the bottom of one of the black Mandarina Duck bags. On the bedside table there was a grey-jacketed volume entitled The Case for Differentia . I opened it, but could not understand a word. Convoluted sentences trailed sluggishly down the page. Words were brandished threateningly, and repeated for good measure: empirical, behavioural, delimit, cognitive, validation, determinism, re-endorsement. Can this be designated an urban environment? a question posed, followed by the statement that a quarter of the ‘given population’ are first-generation immigrants . From what I could gather these were ants, not human beings. I closed the volume hastily.

Beneath it there was a blue notebook full of jottings in what I took to be the handwriting of Mr Riversmith. The script was more than a little difficult to read, pinched and without any attempt at an attractive effect. ?Is evidence, co-operation economic activities, exchange goods, service. ?Trade, familial lines. Pilsfer’s recreation theory shaky. Recurrent exchange gifts cannot be taken recreational. ?Sanctions on miscreant. No evidence Pilsfer’s sleep motive. Seasonal migration dubious. No evidence P’s hospital theory. This surely invalid .

I turned the pages. There were diagrams that looked like family trees without names, but with all the lines joined together, suggesting an electrical circuit of unusual elaboration and complexity. There were further references to recreation and to Pilsfer, who didn’t at all appear to know what he was up to. A particular observation caught my eye, since it was heavily underscored. Maeslink’s theory exploded, premises no validity now: 3 April ’87. Impossible extrapolate. By its nature, sensation indefinable . The last entry, marked Italy July ’87 , was: Sleeping-bag theory ignores monoist structure . In what I’d read the word theory occurred four times.

All this was what occupied him. All this was what fuelled his ambition. All this was what made him reticent. I knew a man once who was scarcely able to address a word to anyone, but that reserve was as brittle as the ice it seemed like, and when it cracked there was a flow I couldn’t stop: there was little evidence to suggest that Mr Riversmith was like that, even if he was more voluble when upset. He was eminent and distinguished and looked up to. There were people who would listen, intrigued, when he explained the world in terms of ants who bred in bark: you could tell all that by his manner. He was not aware of ordinary matters, as the Italian who was bulldozing out my garden was; in fact, he had so far displayed no signs of awareness whatsoever. His cleverness was there as a substitute and it could hardly be worthless. That’s what I thought as I left his room that morning, 24 July 1987, a date I have never forgotten.