‘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.
I have not forgotten it because what happened on the afternoon of that day was that I received one of the most unpleasant shocks of my life. Mr Riversmith asked permission to make yet another telephone call to Pennsylvania; I said of course, and went to my room. He was remarking, when I lifted the receiver, that he had never before encountered a romantic novelist. Then, distressing me considerably, he referred to as ‘trash’ what last night he had called most interesting. He referred to the grappa we’d enjoyed together as an unpleasant drink. The word ‘grotesque’ was used in a sentence I couldn’t catch. The brief, and private, revelations I had made – in particular the death of Mrs Chubbs – were described as ‘a drunken fantasy’. He said I’d gone to Idaho thinking I’d find the Wild West there, which had he listened he would have realized wasn’t so. ‘Some honey!’ the hoarse voice at the other end more than once interrupted.
I couldn’t understand it. In good faith I’d shown him my titles. I’d gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange an outing to Siena. I’d given him drink after drink and had not even considered entering them in Quinty’s book. ‘Her imagination has consumed her,’ he said. From his tone, he could have been referring to an ant.
I replaced the receiver and simply sat there, feeling weak, as though I had been bludgeoned. He hadn’t even become familiar with the books’ contents: all he had done was to read a few lines because I asked him to, and to glance at the illustrations on the jackets. I smoked, and drank a little, hardly anything really. Quinty knocked on my door and said there was tea downstairs; I thanked him but did not go down. He knocked again at dinner-time, but again I chose to remain on my own. I watched the dusk gathering and welcomed it, and welcomed darkness even more. When I slept I dreamed a terrible dream:
It was Otmar who brought the thing on to the train. Long before they’d met in the supermarket he and his friends had picked the girl out. They knew all about her. She was suitable for their purpose.