He had never taken more distasteful action. As he entered by the revolving doors into the hotel foyer he found that all the tourists had gone but that Mr. Mailer was still in conference with the “Etruscan” couple.
He saw Barnaby at once and set his gaze on him without giving the smallest sign of recognition. He had been speaking to the “Etruscans” and he went on speaking to them but with his eyes fixed on Barnaby’s. Barnaby thought: “Now he’s cut me dead, and serve me bloody well right,” and he walked steadily towards them.
As he drew near he heard Mr. Mailer say:
“Rome is so bewildering, is it not? Even after many yisits? Perhaps I may be able to help you? A cicerone?”
“Mr. Mailer?” Barnaby heard himself say. “I wonder if you remember me. Barnaby Grant.”
“I remember you very well, Mr. Grant.”
Silence.
“Well,” he thought, “I’ll get on with it,” and said: “I saw your reflection just now in that glass. I can’t imagine why I didn’t know you at once and can only plead a chronic absence of mind. When I was half-way round Navona the penny dropped and I came back in the hope that you would still be here.” He turned to the “Etruscans.”
“Please forgive me,” said the wretched Barnaby, “I’m interrupting.”
Simultaneously they made deprecating noises and then the man, his whole face enlivened by that arrowhead smile, exclaimed: “But I am right! I cannot be mistaken! This is the Mr. Barnaby Grant.” He appealed to Mr. Mailer. “I am right, am I not?” His wife made a little crooning sound.
Mr. Mailer said: “Indeed, yes. May I introduce: The Baron and Baroness Van der Veghel.”
They shook hands eagerly and were voluble. They had read all the books, both in Dutch (they were by birth Hollanders) and in English (they were citizens of the world). They had his last (surely his greatest?) work actually with them — there was a coincidence! They turned to Mr. Mailer. He, of course, had read it?
“Indeed, yes,” he said exactly as he had said it before. “Every word. I was completely rivetted.”
He had used such an odd inflection that Barnaby, already on edge, looked nervously at him, but their companions were in full spate and interrupted each other in a recital of the excellencies of Barnaby’s works.
It would not be true to say that Mr. Mailer listened to their raptures sardonically. He merely listened. His detachment was an acute embarrassment to Barnaby Grant. When it had all died down — the predictable hope that he would join them for drinks (they were staying in the hotel) the reiterated assurances that his work had meant so much to them, the apologies that they were intruding and the tactful withdrawal, had all been executed — Barnaby found himself alone with Sebastian Mailer.
“I am not surprised,” Mr. Mailer said, “that you were disinclined to renew our acquaintance, Mr. Grant. I, on the contrary, have sought you out. Perhaps we may move to somewhere a little more private? There is a writing-room, I think. Shall we—?”
For the rest of his life Barnaby would be sickened by the memory of that commonplace little room with its pseudo empire furniture, its floral carpet and the false tapestry on the walclass="underline" a mass-produced tapestry, popular in small hotels, depicting the fall of Icarus.
“I shall come straight to the point,” Mr. Mailer said. “Always best, don’t you agree?”
He did precisely that. Sitting rather primly on a gilt-legged chair, his soft hands folded together and his mumbled thumbs gently revolving round each other, Mr. Mailer set about blackmailing Barnaby Grant.
All this happened a fortnight before the morning when Sophy Jason saw her suddenly bereaved friend off at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport. She returned by bus to Rome and to the roof garden of the Pensione Gallico where, ten months ago, Barnaby Grant had received Sebastian Mailer. Here she took stock of her situation.
She was twenty-three years old, worked for a firm of London publishers and had begun to make her way as a children’s author. This was her first visit to Rome. She and the bereaved friend were to have spent their summer holidays together in Italy.
They had not made out a hard-and-fast itinerary but had snowed themselves under with brochures, read the indispensable Miss Georgina Masson and wandered in a trance about the streets and monuments. The friend’s so-abruptly-deceased father had a large interest in a printing works near Turin and had arranged for the girls to draw most generously upon the firm’s Roman office for funds. They had been given business and personal letters of introduction. Together, they had been in rapture: alone, Sophy felt strange but fundamentally exhilarated. To be under her own steam — and in Rome! She had Titian hair, large eyes and a generous mouth and had already found it advisable to stand with her back to the wall in crowded lifts and indeed wherever two or more Roman gentlemen were gathered together at close quarters. “Quarters,” as she had remarked to her friend, being the operative word.
“I must make a plan or two, of sorts,” she told herself, but the boxes on the roof garden were full of spring flowers, the air shook with voices, traffic, footsteps and the endearing clop of hooves on cobble-stones. Should she blow a couple of thousand lire and take a carriage to the Spanish Steps? Should she walk and walk until bullets and live coals began to assemble on the soles of her feet? What to do?
“Really, I ought to make a plan,” thought crazy Sophy and then — here she was, feckless and blissful, walking down the Corso in she knew not what direction. Before long she was contentedly lost.
Sophy bought herself gloves, pink sunglasses, espadrilles and a pair of footpads, which she put on, there and then, greatly to her comfort. Leaving the store she noticed a little bureau set up near the entrance. “Do,” it urged in English on a large banner, “let us be your Guide to Rome.”
A dark, savage-looking girl sat scornfully behind the counter, doing her nails.
Sophy read some of the notices and glanced at already familiar brochures. She was about to leave when a smaller card caught her eye. It advertised in printed Italianate script. “Il Cicerone, personally conducted excursions. Something different!” it exclaimed. “Not too exhausting, sophisticated visits to some of the least-publicized and most fascinating places in Rome. Under the learned and highly individual guidance of Mr. Sebastian Mailer. Dinner at a most exclusive restaurant and further unconventional expeditions by arrangement.
“Guest of honour: The distinguished British author, Mr. Barnaby Grant, has graciously consented to accompany the excursions from April 23rd until May 7th. Sundays included.”
Sophy was astounded. Barnaby Grant was the biggest of all big guns in her publisher’s armory of authors. His new and most important novel, set in Rome and called Simon in Latium had been their prestige event and the best seller of the year. Already bookshops here were full of the Italian translation.
Sophy had offered Barnaby Grant drinks at a deafening cocktail party given by her publishing house and she had once been introduced to him by her immediate boss. She had formed her own idea of him and it did not accommodate the thought of his traipsing round Rome with a clutch of sightseers. She supposed he must be very highly paid for it and found the thought disagreeable. In any case could so small a concern as this appeared to be afford the sort of payment Barnaby Grant would command? Perhaps, she thought, suddenly inspired, he’s a chum of this learned and highly individual Mr. Sebastian Mailer.