William Trevor - Two Lives

‘Let’s walk a little way, shall we?’

I led him along the dusty road I was so familiar with, by slopes of olive trees and vines. Endeavouring to keep the conversation ordinary, I was about to apologize for Quinty’s conversation in the car on the way back from Siena, but then I remembered I had already made an effort to do so.

‘I hope you find it peaceful here,’ I said.

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘There’s an Italian expression, professor – far niente . D’you know it?’

‘I don’t speak Italian, Mrs Delahunty.’

‘No more do I. Far niente means doing nothing. Dolce far niente . It’s nice to do nothing.’

‘ Far niente ,’ he repeated.

‘You’d say it about sitting in a café. As we did in Siena. Or doing as we’re doing now, ambling aimlessly. Enjoying the peace.’

‘I see.’

That brought another subject to an end. Nothing was said for a while: then remembering that my companion had revealed he’d been married twice, I asked something about that, whether he considered that divorce was like death in a marriage.

‘As great a sadness?’ I hinted.

‘Yes.’

‘It cut you up, Tom?’

‘Yes, it was painful.’

I dragged from him the name of his first wife: Celeste Adele. Sometimes there is not the slightest difficulty in visualizing a person spoken of, perhaps because of the intonation or expression that accompanies the reference. This was so now: the woman who appeared in my mind was kittenish and petite, dark-haired, much prettier than Francine.

‘When was your first wife’s birthday, Tom?’

‘Adele’s?’ He had to think. Then: ‘May twenty-nine.’

I stopped. ‘No wonder it didn’t work out, Tom.’

‘I don’t imagine our break-up had to do with her birthday!’

This opinion was delivered lightly, possibly intended as a joke. If it was, it was the first time he had endeavoured to make one since his arrival in my house.

‘What’s Francine’s birth sign, Tom?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not aware of it.’

‘When’s her birthday?’

‘August eighteen.’

‘Oh, Tom!’

He frowned, appearing to be genuinely bewildered. When I explained he said:

‘I’m afraid I can’t accept that individual characteristics have much to do with when a person’s born.’

I didn’t contradict that. I didn’t argue. We walked on again. In a companionable way I slipped my arm through his. The truth was that when I’d picked up the receiver and overheard that unpleasant conversation I’d already had a drink or two, though not much by any means. Sometimes things aren’t as crystal clear as they might be when you’ve had a drink. On top of that the line to Pennsylvania had not been all that good. He’d said something about what he called a ‘little-girl voice’, and that, of course, might well have been a compliment. I couldn’t help thinking that it was nice to have your voice likened to a young girl’s. For some reason my thoughts kept harping on that, and while they did so I kept wanting to tell him about the couple in the travelling entertainment business who’d perished when their motor-cycle soared towards heaven over the top of a Wall of Death. It was ludicrous of course, but I wanted to tell him – of all people – about taking that dog for a walk by the sea, and about the person I’d assumed to be my father importuning me in a cinema and in a shed and finally in a bedroom. I even wanted to tell him about the Oleander Avenue scandal. But he was cautious himself in what he said and in time I caught caution from him.

‘Was it a hell with Adele, Tom?’

‘We were unsuited.’

‘She left you in the end?’

‘No.’

‘Geminis often do the leaving. I only wondered. Did Adele have children later on?’

He replied, rather curtly, that Adele was forty-three when they parted and had not had children, though in fact she had re-married. I said I was sorry it had been a hell with her.

We paused and looked back. I pointed out a hill-town in the misty distance, and a few more landmarks, a tower that two Swedish women had begun to renovate and then had given up, a rock formation that looked like human figures. As we walked on again I said:

‘Why did they dislike one another, Tom? Your sister and your wife?’

He was reluctant to supply this information. His eyes had a faraway look and I remembered the jottings in the notebook at his bedside. No doubt he was among those jottings now, no doubt castigating Pilsfer for some fresh inadequacy. I pressed him, very gently. He said:

‘They didn’t dislike one another. It was simply that my sister wanted me to try again with Adele.’

‘But it was your life, eh?’

‘She didn’t seem to appreciate that it was.’

Time had passed, they hadn’t made it up: there was more to all this than the bald explanation I’d been offered. Perhaps he didn’t know: men sometimes don’t. But I sensed that his sister had recognized Francine for what she was and made it clear to her at the time of the divorce. ‘It won’t last, Tom’: he didn’t confess his sister – less outspoken and quieter in his presence – had said that, but I guessed she had. I also guessed that the wound this opinion left behind was deep.

‘There’s another very good Italian word, Tom. Colpa .’

‘What’s it mean?’

Again I was careful not to alarm him. Colpa meant guilt, I explained. The General experienced guilt because of his daughter. Otmar experienced it because he was responsible for Madeleine’s presence in Italy. ‘And you quarrelled with your sister instead of standing up to Francine.’

He said something I didn’t catch. We turned off the road on to a path that wound up a hill where umbrella pines grow in clumps. Here we must keep a special eye out for sleepy vipers, I warned. Better to have worn rubber boots, but Quinty’s would be too small for him, and it was only after we’d begun our walk that I realized there was something on that particular hill I wanted him to see.

‘This is a beautiful country, Tom. There are beautiful moments hidden away in corners. I have seen, near the Scala in Milan, a stout little opera singer practising as he strolled to a café. I have seen a wedding in the cathedral at Orvieto, when the great doors were thrown wide open and the bride and groom walked out into the sunshine. Something choked in my throat, Tom.’

I believe he nodded. Sometimes his gestures were so slight it was hard to make them out. There was the tranquillity of my house, I went on; in time there would be the garden. Where there had been only rusted iron and tumbled-down buildings before, birds would nest. Bees would search for honey among the flowers.

‘It is as though, Tom, we are all inside a story that is being composed as each day passes. Does that explain it better?’

‘I guess I don’t entirely grasp what you’re suggesting. And about my sister –’

‘All right, Tom, all right.’ I pressed his arm a little closer. He was on the way to becoming agitated, and really there was no need for that. Why should not Aimée be healed, I asked him, as the scratches on my face had healed already, as Otmar’s stump would heal, and the General’s leg?

‘That is what we hope for.’

‘She is happy here, you know. Or as happy as she can be at the moment.’

‘My wife and I are extremely grateful to you –’

‘Is there not a sacrifice you would make, Tom? After years of keeping your young sister at arm’s length, through no fault of hers? Do you not owe something to her memory? As the old man does to his daughter’s and Otmar to Madeleine’s?’

‘I’ve come here to bring my sister’s child home.’ He spoke flatly; stolidly, I thought. For the first time he sounded a little stupid, although I knew that was ridiculous. ‘I am taking in my sister’s child,’ he said.