The Dividing Stream (24 page)

‘‘You and Colin are real Americans,’’ her grandmother laughed. ‘‘You never think of anything but comfort. But I should like it to get cooler. Yes, that I should like.… Don’t lean too far over the balcony, Nicko,’’ she added sharply, ‘‘ Nicko!’’

‘‘Mummy’s friend has arrived,’’ the child announced, kicking his shoe against one of the stone columns.

‘‘Don’t do that. Nicko, don’t! You’ll ruin your shoe.’’

‘‘Don’t care.’’

Mrs. Bennett sighed and turned away; at this moment she felt neither the desire nor the ability to deal with him, although she knew she should scold. She looked hopelessly at Pamela, who at once cried: ‘‘Stop it, Nicko,’’ and dragged her brother, now screaming loudly, away from the balcony. To console him she began to kiss his hair and cheeks until his tears stopped. ‘‘Draw for me,’’ he said.

‘‘Oh, Nicko, you know I can’t draw.’’

‘‘Draw for me, Granny,’’ he turned to Mrs. Bennett.

‘‘I’m too tired, dear—and too hot. Not now, another time.’’

‘‘Nobody will draw for me,’’ he said, again on the verge of tears. ‘‘I’ll have to draw for myself.’’

‘‘But I’ll watch,’’ Pamela encouraged. ‘‘Colin, come and watch Nicko draw.’’

‘‘I’m busy.’’ Colin was pasting stamps into his album, kneeling on a rug; by his side was a heap of ‘‘swops’’ which he had decided to give to Enzo.

‘‘Oh, Nicko, what a horrible drawing!’’ Pamela exclaimed. ‘‘ What’s it meant to be?’’

‘‘ Bomb.’’ Nicko said with satisfaction. ‘‘All killed. Arms—legs—blood.’’ He drew in a large smear with a red crayon. ‘‘More blood.’’

‘‘Why do you draw such things?’’ Pamela asked; but Nicko was too absorbed to answer. He continued to scribble with the red crayon, and then made some circles of blue. ‘‘Eyes,’’ he announced.

Mrs. Bennett frowned, smoothing her hair away, from her forehead where perspiration had made it stick in a number of loose strands. She knew that the child was unhappy and she feared for his future; but she had no idea what to do for him, and the consequent frustration was poisoning her days. For she loved him more than anyone else in the world. Wearily she got up from the wicker-chair where she had been seated and went and knelt beside him, putting an arm round his shoulder.

But he at once jostled her arm away. ‘‘I can’t draw like that,’’ he said.

‘‘Your collar’s all crumpled.’’ When she began to straighten it, he at once gave her a violent push from him. She toppled, tried to regain her balance, and fell on the rug. He gave an excited squeal of laughter.

‘‘Nicko! Naughty boy!’’ Pamela slapped him across the face.

‘‘You shouldn’t have done that, Pamela,’’ Mrs. Bennett said, clumsily hoisting herself from the rug. She was surprised to notice that Nicko had received the slap without a sound. He was staring down at his drawing, with its splashes of violent bloodshed, while his blue eyes filled with slow tears. ‘‘That was wrong of you, Pamela,’’ Mrs. Bennett added.

‘‘He must be taught a lesson,’’ Pamela said stubbornly. ‘‘He treats you as he pleases.’’

‘‘I don’t mind,’’ Mrs. Bennett said.

‘‘That’s not the point,’’ Colin put in, slamming his album shut. ‘‘You mustn’t spoil him, Granny.’’

‘‘I don’t think children are often spoiled by affection and generosity and forgiveness,’’ the old woman said, fingering the branch that the wind had snapped as if she were thinking of how she could mend it. ‘‘Those aren’t the things that spoil children.’’ The green ribbon of skin lay between the old, dry fingers. ‘‘I’m sure they’re not.’’

Nicko had come across to her and suddenly he put out a hand and clutched the belt of her dress; he buried his face in her side. ‘‘Poor Nicko,’’ she said; and at the same moment she wrenched at the green skin so that it ripped from the tree. The branch fell to the floor. ‘‘ Poor Nicko,’’ she repeated.

‘‘Rain,’’ said Maisie Brandon, clicking on her high-heels towards them. She was fanning one large-boned, emaciated cheek with a copy of
Vogue
. ‘‘ I tried to have a snooze, but I couldn’t. I just sweated and sweated and sweated.’’ She held out the box which she had been carrying under her arm: ‘‘A present for you, Nicko.’’

‘‘For me?’’

‘‘Yes, for you.’’

‘‘What is it?’’ he asked, taking it with some reluctance. He did not like Maisie and she knew that he did not like her.

‘‘Well, open it and see,’’ she replied, sinking into a wicker-chair and shuddering as she said: ‘‘Br-r-r! A moment ago I felt hot and now I feel cold. Fetch my fur, there’s a dear, Colin.’’

‘‘Colin!’’ his grandmother reprimanded, when he continued to read.

‘‘Yes, I’m going. Just let me finish this book.… Which fur do you want?’’ he asked Maisie.

‘‘Oh, the old fox,’’ she said.

‘‘No, you can’t!’’ he declared. ‘‘It would be all wrong with that dress. Mayn’t I bring the mink?’’

Maisie laughed and shrugged her shoulders, obviously delighted. ‘‘As you please, dear,’’ she said. ‘‘ Well, do you like your present, Nicko?’’

‘‘I have a monkey already,’’ he replied.

‘‘Then this will be a companion for it,’’ Mrs. Bennett said.

‘‘Say thank you,’’ Pamela added.

‘‘I like it,’’ Nicko said, as if contradicting them. He clutched the animal to him, and then mumbled mechanically, ‘‘Thank you, Auntie Maisie.’’

‘‘Not
Auntie
Maisie—please!’’ Maisie protested. ‘‘For the hundredth time! I’ve told you. I don’t want to be an aunt”—she laughed—‘‘not even your aunt, Nicko.’’

‘‘It’s bigger than my other monkey. Look, Pamela!’’

Maisie yawned, stretching her bony arms and extending her fingers high above her head. ‘‘Oh—oh—oh! I’m so tired, but so tired! I didn’t sleep a wink. And neither did Chris’s Swede from the noise he made next door. Poor boy, I suppose it was the thought of her that was keeping him awake. Sometimes the thought of Chris keeps me awake, too.’’ She gave her pebbles-in-a-tin laugh. ‘‘It’s priceless, I do think! But I can see what she sees in him. Can’t you, Pamela?’’

She appealed to the sixteen-year-old girl who at once felt enormously flattered.

‘‘Well, I don’t know, Maisie,’’ Pamela deliberated. ‘‘I don’t know.… Yes there must be something about him. I suppose he
has
got sex-appeal.’’

‘‘You bet,’’ Maisie said, yawning and stretching once again, while Mrs. Bennett scowled at her for attempting such a conversation with the children.

‘‘Oh,’’ an anxiously high-pitched voice said from one of the bedroom doors. ‘‘Oh, there you all are. I suppose Max isn’t here, is he? Is he?’’ It was Chris, in the state of anxiety which appeared to have become habitual with her during the last few days. Her hair was unkempt, and the skin of her face, covered inexpertly with powder, was curiously blotched and greasy. She had a boil on her chin which she had covered with a piece of sticking-plaster. There was a terrible pathos about her which even the children felt, though they could not have said what caused it.

‘‘Max has had to drive to Pisa on business,’’ Mrs. Bennett said.

‘‘When will he be back?’’

‘‘I don’t know. Probably not until this evening.’’

‘‘Oh, Lord.’’ Chris swayed, as if about to faint, and put both hands to her temples.

‘‘Is it something urgent?’’

‘‘Yes—no,’’ Chris hastily corrected herself. ‘‘ Oh, it’s not urgent but I ought to see him. Immediately. I don’t know what to do,’’ she added.

‘‘Can I help?’’ Maisie offered.

‘‘No, I must see Max.’’ Then, feeling that perhaps she had been rude, Chris added, in the same mumbled, noncommittal voice that Nicko had used when given the monkey: ‘‘Thank you, all the same.’’

‘‘Sit down,’’ Maisie said. ‘‘You look all in.’’

‘‘Gosh, I feel it too.’’ Chris slumped into a chair and again put her unattractively large hands to her greying temples.

‘‘Headache?’’ Maisie said. She clicked open her bag: ‘‘Let me give you one of these pills. They’re the latest thing.’’

‘‘I don’t want a pill,’’ Chris exclaimed petulantly. Her voice broke: ‘‘I haven’t slept for nights—not a wink.’’

‘‘Neither have I,’’ Maisie said in a voice which was intended to soothe. ‘‘It’s this weather. Wait until we have this rain.’’

‘‘Oh, it’s not the weather!’’ Chris flung out, creaking from one side to another in the wicker-chair.

Mrs. Bennett came across and said softly: ‘‘It’s money, isn’t it!’’; and her sympathy was so evident that Chris’s whole manner at once changed. Hopelessly, she confessed:

‘‘Yes, it’s about money. I’ve been such a fool. Oh, I can’t tell you about it all. But I want Max’s advice.’’ She picked up the branch which had snapped off the tree and gave herself two or three stinging cuts across the hand. ‘‘He understands that sort of thing. I don’t, and Tiny doesn’t. But I’ve been such a fool—such a fool.’’

‘‘What have you done, Aunt Chris?’’ Colin asked with interest. But a sudden gust of wind scattered the cards with which he had begun to play patience and he had to hobble after them. ‘‘Oh, help me, Pamela!’’ he shouted. ‘‘They’ll be blown into the street. You know I can’t walk properly yet.’’ So Chris never explained; and Maisie, though she had wanted to ask the same question herself, did not dare to repeat it.

Suddenly they were all startled by Pamela shouting: ‘‘Nicko, you wicked, wicked boy! What have you done?
Nicko
!’’

The child burst into paroxysms of tears.

‘‘What on earth’s the matter?’’ Mrs. Bennett asked. Only Chris was not interested in the scene, sitting with one hand over her eyes while the corners of her mouth sagged slowly downward.

‘‘It’s the monkey,’’ Pamela explained. ‘‘ He’s thrown it down.

Mummy and Colonel Ross were coming out of the swing-doors and he threw it down. He threw it down.’’

They were never to discover whether by the gesture, Nicko had intended to reject Maisie’s gift, to make his mother and Frank bring the monkey up to him, or to strike them with the first missile that came to his hands. He screamed, he wept, but he would not explain.

It was Rodolfo who at last appeared with the monkey.

‘‘Your mother gave this to me to bring up to you,’’ he explained. ‘‘We met outside the hotel.’’ He bowed and smiled to each of the ladies in turn, saying: ‘‘Good evening’’ in his fearful English pronunciation. ‘‘ Well,’’ he said to Colin. ‘‘Shall we go?’’

‘‘You can’t go out in this weather,’’ Mrs. Bennett said.

‘‘It’s not raining. And we have our mackintoshes,’’ Colin replied. ‘‘And umbrellas, and goloshes. Where’s the harm?’’

‘‘It’s dangerous for you on the slippery pavements with that iron.’’

‘‘But Rodolfo will support me—and Pamela.’’

Mrs. Bennett shrugged her shoulders: ‘‘Oh, do as you please.’’

‘‘When you say it in that voice, it means ‘Don’t do it’,’’ Pamela said. ‘‘Now we can’t go.’’

‘‘Yes, go, go, go,’’ Mrs. Bennett urged. ‘‘Go by all means.’’ For suddenly she had changed her mind, as she so often did. ‘‘Yes, go,’’ she repeated. ‘‘A little rain will do no harm.’’

‘‘That was easy,’’ Pamela whispered excitedly, as they made their way downstairs. ‘‘When I saw the rain coming, I was afraid she’d say no. I was crossing my fingers all the time. I knew it was our only chance before we went away.… You’re cold,’’ she said to Colin.

‘‘No, I’m not.’’

‘‘You’re shivering.’’

‘‘Am I?’’

‘‘It must be nerves,’’ she said laughing. ‘‘You do get het-up over the smallest things. Look at Rodolfo and myself. We’re quite calm.… How are we going to go?’’

‘‘In the filo-bus.’’

‘‘What’s that?’’

‘‘Oh, it’s like a trolley-bus. It goes from San Marco.’’

‘‘Can you walk that far?’’

‘‘Of course I can.’’ Normally Colin complained if he had to walk a hundred yards with the iron on his leg; but his desire to see where Enzo worked had miraculously stiffened his courage.

Suddenly the rain descended; and seemed, not merely to descend, but to rise from the pavement, spattering their legs as they jostled through the crowds. A mushroom-growth of umbrellas covered the Signoria, and the city’s archways were dense with figures who peered out hopelessly at a black sky fissured from time to time by jagged strokes of lightning. When the thunder followed it seemed as if the whole city were subsiding under the rain. The three children hurried with bowed heads, jumping puddles, shouting to each other, and making extravagant detours to avoid the cascades of water which poured, at every few yards, from broken or blocked water-courses. They were in the highest spirits.

‘‘Are we going too fast for you?’’ Pamela shouted to her brother, thrusting her umbrella between two people who were approaching along the pavement.

‘‘No, no,’’ Colin panted and laughed at the same time.

‘‘I can manage.’’ But as he said the words, one of the two advancing umbrellas pressed against him, his iron slipped, and he fell sideways in the gutter. ‘‘Oh, I’m soaked,’’ he moaned. ‘‘Look! Right to the knees. And all this sleeve, too.’’

‘‘We’d better go back,’’ Rodolfo said.

‘‘Yes, you must change,’’ Pamela agreed. ‘‘We can’t go on.’’

‘‘We must go on,’’ Colin said with a determination that neither Pamela nor Rodolfo could ever remember him to have displayed before. ‘‘I’m all right. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. Come on!’’ He hobbled ahead of them, beckoning at the same time.

‘‘But, Colin——’’

‘‘Oh, come on! We’ll only get more wet if we argue.’’

‘‘You know you’re frightened of lightning, too,’’ Pamela said; and at the same moment a fiery arrow seemed to dart downward to the topmost point of Giotto’s Campanile. ‘‘Oh, Colin!’’ she wailed. But her voice was lost in the staccato rap-rap-rap that followed.

All at once Rodolfo began to shout, ‘‘ Run, run, run!’’ and without waiting for them, he careered down the street. A trolley-bus clattered and hissed out of the darkness, sparks spinning downward from its black arm and Rodolfo, having gripped a handle, swung himself up on to a precarious foothold outside the platform, shouting, ‘‘Quick, quick, quick.’’ He extended an arm, but it was an obviously hopeless attempt, since the doors remained closed.

‘‘I can’t!’’ Colin shouted, and muttered: ‘‘ The fool! The bloody fool.’’

Rodolfo flung himself downward, landing in a puddle so that water splashed outward, and then sprinted back to join his friends, with a panted: ‘‘I forgot. I’m sorry. I forgot about your leg, Colin.’’