The Honeyed Peace (24 page)

Moira told Enid that she had telephoned Mrs Martin, while she was out doing an errand, to say that she could not come tonight; she thought she was getting a bit of a cold and felt rather low. 'No, dear,' Moira said, 'thank you so much, I won't have anything to eat. Two aspirins and my nice warm little bed and I'll be quite chipper tomorrow.' In the night, anger left her, and there was only the loneliness and the sorrow and the sense of infinite betrayal.

Signor Chiaretti knew what had happened as soon as he came in the door, breathed the rich fumy air, and saw Moira sitting at a table against the wall. The lights were blinding blue-white, the walls were white, the table-cloth was white; this combination helped to make Moira look like a very sick patient, waiting her turn on a bench in a clinic. Her face, besides showing all the obvious marks of sleeplessness and anguish, wore an expression of nobility; it was classical; the woman lied-to, the adoring woman treated contemptibly by the brute male. For a moment Signor Chiaretti was so bored by the prospect of all the talk ahead that he thought of walking quietly away; Moira had not seen him, since she was studying her vermilion fingernails. .Then he brightened or warmed to his task. In a way it had gone too well and too easily. The affair had had a certain pattern which threatened monotony. It would now be interesting to see whether she would accept this too, as she had accepted her initiation into complicated sexuality, as she had accepted lying and deceit and also money.

During the week away from Moira, he had met Lulu Boisvain twice for brief drinks. He noted signs of surrender in Lulu; perhaps with a little more effort, Lulu would at last admit herself ready. But Moira, outraged, became new and even more temptingly difficult.

'My dear,' Signor Chiaretti said and kissed Moira's hand. They were in public, she could not wrench her hand away. Signor Chiaretti sat down, shook out his napkin, picked up the menu, and said cosily, 'We must have a magnificent celebration dinner. It has been years since I have seen you, little one.'

The waiter was on them, there were floods of lamentable pointless Italian talk, asking whether the lamb was really good as if the waiter were apt to say it was old, stringy, rotten; there were detailed instructions on how the lamb should be cooked, what was to be done with the vegetables, inquiries about cheese; you would think that eating was a grave and final operation, and not something one did three times a day every day of one's life. The fuss, the pretence, Moira thought with contempt. It was all ghastly, ghastly like his shirt with the too-wide collar, like his tie, which was satin if one could believe it, like the expensive suit with overstuffed shoulders. How could I? Moira asked herself. It is no good thinking foreigners don't have to be gentlemen, they do: one must never deceive oneself about such things, only disaster results.

The waiter left; Signor Chiaretti smiled at Moira. 'Tell me what you have been doing,
cara
. You look too delicious, and that dress suits you perfectly.'

It was almost impossible to begin. Moira had not foreseen this. She had been so certain of her emotions, so certain that she would freeze Enrico and teach him to know himself forever as a cad, that she had not planned what to say nor when to say it.

Now, hating her voice because it shook, and hating her words which were weak and whining, she said, 'Why didn't you tell me, you were married?'

'Tell you?' Signor Chiaretti said, his brown eyes wide with wonder, but no guilt, no anxiety. 'Didn't you know? Everyone knows. I have always been married, dear. You mean to say you'did not know?'

'No,' she cried and beat her fist on the table, her eyes shining with tears of rage. '
No
,
no
,
no
. You know I didn't. How could I? You are lying again. This is more of your horrible cheapness. Can't you ever speak the truth?'

'
Cara
,' Signor Chiaretti said reprovingly,'people may not understand English but they can always tell by a voice, so loud, my dear, please ...'

Moira's mouth closed in a tight line, immediately. The final humiliation was to make a scene in a restaurant. He was doing this to her, too. She could not fight him; he slipped through her hands; there was nothing firm to stand on; he was too dishonest; she must simply leave him now and leave unsaid all the truths she owed him. Leave him, in fact, unharmed and victorious.

'I am going,' Moira said. At least he would understand her voice, the look in her eyes, even if she did not have his criminal Italian talent for words.

'But no,' Signor Chiaretti said softly and took her hand under the table-cloth, 'but no, my lovely one. You must give me an explanation of this cruelty. We have, after all, been very close to each other. You cannot leave me like this, without telling me why; it would not be like you, who are so fair and so good.'

'You lied to me.'

Then she had to look away, seeing the white plastered wall as a shifting blur. She could not sob in a trattoria; any minute she would have to take out her handkerchief and wipe her eyes and her nose; the mascara would run; it was beyond endurance.

'I lied to you?' Signor Chiaretti repeated in a tone of injured astonishment. 'I? When? Never, I would not dream of lying to you. I do not understand.'

'You never told me you were married.'

'But, my darling, I am sure Mr Langdon knows, everyone knows. I am not a famous man but many people in Rome know me, have met me, it is no secret. How could I imagine that you would not know this from the very beginning? And it would not cross my mind that we should talk about it, you and I. My wife is a very dear friend, of course, but she has nothing to do with you and me. Surely you would not have wished to hear, when I held you in my arms, that my wife does not like canasta, that she prefers the music of Verdi, that she buys her shoes at Ferragamo?'

Moira blushed, feeling heat spread from her forehead hideously down her face to her throat; even her hands were sweating. She wanted only to escape, find a dark room, and hide in it and weep for this incomprehensible ruin. Somehow, and she could not understand how, she was no longer clearly and justifiably insulted, she stood condemned of vulgarity.

'I would never,' she whispered, 'never. If I had known.'

'My poor little darling, my poor sweet little darling. You know nothing of the world. You are hurt and shocked by something so ordinary, so unimportant.
Cara
,
cara
, be quiet now and listen to me. We are married very young here and we are married in our Church for always. Perhaps one is fortunate enough to find a friend in one's wife or husband, perhaps not. But only that remains; nothing has been shared, my dear; you are unique. You need never imagine that I deprive you of anything to give to anyone else.'

Moira put her hand over her eyes.

'Would you expect me, finding you,' Signor Chiaretti asked in a gentle humble voice, 'wanting you, knowing what you could be for me, to reject what I so need, to starve myself because of a legal technicality? You ask too much of men, Moira; we are human; we must have warmth and passion in our lives. We accept the facts we cannot change; marriage is a fact; but we do not accept to die. You would wish me to die. You think me evil because I cannot turn away from life when I find it.'

Signor Chiaretti was not pleased with himself. He knew he was handling this well but he was not pleased. There were too many lies and they lowered his standard; he began to feel uncomfortable with himself. He avoided the word 'love ', not that the word mattered to him but that he knew it was the key word for Moira, and would make her forgive him at once. He could not do that; some rules had to be respected; he had already cheated on his code as much as he could. If more were necessary, he must let the matter drop. It would hardly be worth while to keep her at the price of his pride.

'I don't know,' Moira said, 'I am all confused.'

The waiter appeared, adroit with plates. The waiter and Signor Chiaretti bent their attention to serving Moira. Signor Chiaretti hoped she would like this, hoped the cook had properly prepared that; he treated Moira as an invalid who must be teased into taking a little nourishment. Faced by roasted baby lamb, it was difficult to maintain the same tone; the food was so good, so earthy, so solidly present. One could not be emotional while chewing.

Signor Chiaretti reverted to Moira's appearance. 'What have you done to make yourself even more beautiful, darling?'

Moira was forced to talk about the coiffeur, which led her to describe the dress she had ordered and fitted; Signor Chiaretti was all interest, he suggested the sort of bag and shoes to go with it. Moira mentioned a film she had seen; he wanted to hear the story; he found it enthralling, he said it was more exciting to hear her tell of a film than to see it oneself. Moira ate the sweet, a St Honoré, with delight, remembering how tasteless the food was in England, nothing at home could compare, for lovely thick gooey lusciousness, with this pastry. Swallowing chocolate whipped cream, Moira spoke of the astrologer. Signor Chiaretti thought the man an unpardonable meddler. So that was where Moira had learned, from the stars, Dio mio, what anyone on any street corner could have told her if she'd asked; this pederast fortune-teller was a menace. Signor Chiaretti asked questions, laughed, admired Moira's originality in finding her way to an odd corner of Rome, to the rather shivery fiat of a strange man. She ate and talked, it was wonderful to be with Enrico again; she had missed him; there was no one as interesting. It was really terribly dull at Enid's, where no one ever said anything amusing. Enrico was the only person she knew who made talking so easy and such fun.

Over coffee, Moira remembered what this evening was about, and the pain of yesterday, and the dead grey nothingness of the morning. The memory came from a distance, aching like an old wound, and filled her with fear of the future. Enrico had hurt her abominably; he believed in perfect sincerity that he had done nothing wrong. Catholics were so terribly unfortunate, imprisoned forever in these awful marriages which were arranged for material reasons, usually, when they were too young to protect themselves. It was true that a man could not live his life in gaol. Enrico was after all helpless, he had been caught and trapped, and how starved he must have been for love and companionship and passion. Yes, Moira thought, sipping coffee, passion: it was his right and her right; people did not have to freeze to death, be alone and unused and dying of a cold hunger, simply because the Church refused to allow divorce.

Must she now, because Enrico and his wife were Catholics, which was not their fault, throw Enrico away, and throw away their great chance for happiness? She could not plan how they should live, inside this new, numbing limitation of his marriage, she could not imagine the future clearly as she had before when they would have been together always in their own home, dedicated to each other and to their powerful love. But Enrico, who was so sure in the world and so wonderfully competent, would find a way if she forgave him, if she understood not only him but the hypocritical arrangement of life in Italy. Why should she punish him for a system he had not invented? why should she suffer when she loved him and needed him, because of an inhuman religion which had nothing to do with her?

'We cannot stay here,' Signor Chiaretti remarked. The waiters were already eating at a round table far back in the restaurant.

'You said you had rented your flat to Americans,' Moira said and anger returned to her voice. 'You knew you were tricking me.'

'Moira, Moira, please, let us not be wicked to each other. My wife had the notion of renting the flat and moving to the Grand Hotel; she is cross with the cook; she thought it would be pleasant not to trouble with servants this winter. She has changed her mind. I had already made other arrangements for us. A friend, who cannot stand the cold, has gone to Tangier and given me his flat. It is quiet and private; it can be our own place if you wish.'

'Well,' Moira said.

'Come and look at it. At least let us go where we can talk without being overheard. I will take you home as soon as you like.'

Signor Chiaretti was building up resentment against this woman.

Who in God's name did she think she was? He had been kind, attentive, generous, and extremely useful to her; she had no excuse whatever for this show of righteousness. She was boring now in a different and offensive way; she would pay for it. If she gave more trouble, he would tell her to run along; he had had enough of this. A woman could be allowed a certain amount of caprice but not so much that she became a nuisance.

Moira was silent in the car. At night, the small shops on the street were dark; she did not realize the shabby commercial aspect of this neighbourhood. The building was an ugly nineteenth-century apartment house which had become a more or less disguised tenement. Signor Chiaretti said nothing about the brown peeling walls, the ill-lighted stone stairs, but climbed behind her up three flights to a varnished door, found a key, made a carefully uncertain gesture searching for the light, and stepped back to let her enter. Moira saw a hallway which reminded her of Signor Kollonic's apartment; she followed Enrico into a small living-room which was clean and without character, as neat, as unwelcoming as a modern hotel room. The furniture was an anonymous set of blond wood, the walls were beige, there were no books, no flowers. Three Dufy prints hung on the walls.

'We must make it more home-like,' Signor Chiaretti said. 'My friend is a bachelor.'

Moira sat down, crossing her ankles; she did not take off her gloves.

'
Cara
,' Signor Chiaretti said, 'this is no use. If you must go on this way, there is nothing I can do. I have explained. I cannot go on explaining. You have told me you love me. Evidently you have changed your mind. It is better that we should separate now.'

'Oh, Enrico,' she said, seeing how it would be. He would drive her home; she would get out of the car; he would take her hand and say good night and goodbye; he would drive away down the stony street and that would be the end and she would be alone, always alone, remembering everything she had lost. 'Enrico,' she said and blinked back a rush of tears.