Never such innocence, p.30
Never Such Innocence, page 30
David turned his head as the movement caught his eye and he looked at her doubtfully. She smiled a little ruefully and after a moment he looked away again.
Gritting her teeth, Julia tried not to regret falling in love with him. It seemed to her then in a moment of uncharacteristic melodrama and self-pity that she might have been picked out by fate as a lesson to other women who chose to exercise their brains and talents beyond their traditional sphere. Unexpectedly successful in her professional life, she seemed doomed to make a ludicrous mess of the rest. ‘Lucky at work; unlucky at love’, she misquoted derisively to herself and regained a little of her normal common sense.
David had said that he would never regret what had happened and that seemed sensible. There was no point in regretting something that could not be undone by all the contrition in the world.
A half-cynical smile twisted her lips as she thought of the Easter mass she had attended with David and his mother. If only she were a Catholic like Allegra, she would be able to confess, accept whatever penance was imposed and be given a chance to start again as though she had never made love with him at all.
David saw the twisted smile and the calculation in Julia’s brown eyes that had so recently looked at him with love and wondered what she was thinking. She did not look happy. He hoped that it was the future that was making her sad and not the past they had shared. If only she were not married, he thought, things would have been so much easier. They could have taken as much time as they needed to explore their feelings and desires and work them out, instead of leaving each other not only unsatisfied, but with a tantalising glimpse of what might have been.
They reached Venice a little before five o’clock. Julia suddenly thought that she could not bear to go quietly back to the Campo San Maurizio with David as though nothing had happened, to meet Anthony perhaps at the front door and have to answer cheerful questions about Florence.
‘Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to take my stuff back with you?’ she asked rather formally.
‘No, of course not,’ said David, taken aback by her tone. ‘But aren’t you coming?’
‘I think I ought to drop in on Giovanna’s protégées,’ she said with a bright smile. ‘I asked Anthony to give one of them a message before we left last week and I ought to go and see her myself. See you at dinner?’
‘Yes, yes indeed,’ said David, watching her turn and stride away from him through the thin crowd. After a while he pulled himself together, picked up their bags and went to get a boat down the Grand Canal.
Julia walked slowly out through the twisting streets of yellow and cream and brick houses, across small squares, past insignificant churches and across the little backwaters until she came to Giovanna’s house. She rang the front-door bell.
Giovanna opened the door herself, looking short and square and as sensible as ever. Julia found that it was a relief to be able to go back to an aspect of life that was unchanged by what had happened between her and David. She greeted Giovanna and answered her questions about Florence without difficulty. When Giovanna offered her a glass of wine, she accepted and they sat talking of nothing much for a while, before Julia said:
‘In fact I really came to see Raffaella, because I thought I ought to amplify the message I sent to her last week.’
Giovanna looked surprised.
‘But she’s gone,’ she said. ‘She left on Saturday, taking the baby and all her things.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’ asked Julia almost sharply, afraid that Anthony might have delivered the bad news in an unnecessarily insensitive way, or even exercised his talent for withering sarcasm on her. Giovanna shrugged and put her wine glass down on a small table at her side.
‘No. And I asked no questions,’ she said repressively.
‘Of course not,’ said Julia, trying to control her irritation. ‘But anything might happen to her. Oughtn’t you at least …? I beg your pardon. It’s none of my business.’
Giovanna’s expression told Julia how much she agreed with that statement but that she was too polite to say so.
‘It is worrying, though,’ Julia said. ‘Had she ever told you about her murderous brother?’
‘Yes,’ said Giovanna. ‘I had not realised that she had told you. She came to me last Friday morning to say that she had seen him near here and had to leave. I didn’t try to make her stay. Have some more wine.’
Julia allowed Giovanna to refill her glass, but she did not drink. After a while Giovanna said more kindly:
‘Don’t look so worried, Giulia. Raffaella came here when she wanted shelter that she could not get elsewhere. I expect that she has now found some more. I couldn’t make her stay: this is neither a school nor a reformatory. If she needs us again, she’ll come back.’
‘She’s so young.’
At that protest, Giovanna laughed. There was an unpleasant note in the sound.
‘She took care of herself in Rome, after all. She’s one of those who will always find someone to look after her. Don’t worry about her. Drink your wine.’
Remembering the shortages, Julia obeyed and then got up to go.
‘So, until Wednesday,’ said Giovanna. Julia nodded and said goodbye.
When she got back to the house, there was no sign of Anthony. She unpacked the bag that David had left in her room and then walked down to the salon. He was sitting there reading but after one look at her face he put away his book.
‘Julia, something’s happened,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
She almost laughed at that question. Of course something had happened: they had made love to each other, shared everything with each other. It seemed odd that he should not understand how cataclysmic an event it had been for her. Perhaps it had not been so important for him. She looked at him and some of the protective cynicism she had assumed disappeared. There was no longer any hardness in his face. He looked as concerned and affectionate as he had ever done. She could feel the muscles in her face relax and sat down on the hard sofa.
‘What is it?’ said David again. ‘Can’t you tell me?’
‘Of course I can,’ she said, laying a hand on his knee for an instant. ‘It’s just rather worrying. I told you, didn’t I, that one of Giovanna’s refugees wanted me to find out whether she had any chance of moving to England?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said David, moving a little closer to her on the uncomfortable sofa.
‘I thought I had,’ she said, trying to ignore the physical sensations his closeness brought her and concentrate on the subject of Raffaella. ‘Never mind. I’ve been making enquiries for her and I had a letter just before we left that made it clear she hadn’t a hope. Anthony agreed to let her know for me and I went there just now to talk to her…’ She broke off.
‘Well?’ said David. ‘Was she unpleasant? That seems rather unfair: it’s hardly your fault.’
‘No, it’s not that,’ said Julia, frowning at the opposite wall. ‘She’s disappeared.’ She looked back at David, whose face registered nothing but rather puzzled interest.
‘She’s had a frightful time, and … I’d better tell you the whole story or you’ll never grasp it,’ said Julia, smiling a little at his bemused expression. She told him what she had heard of Raffaella’s history and watched his face registering shock, disgust, and sharp, unmistakable anxiety. That surprised her.
‘And so you see,’ she finished up, ‘there she is with a half-English baby and nowhere to go. This Paolo – the brother – may not have done anything to her yet, but she was so terrified of him that I am worried about her.’
David had stood up and got his pipe out of his pocket. He spent rather a long time filling and lighting it. When it was smoking properly he turned to look at her. His face had been wiped of all expression beyond a mild superiority.
‘Julia,’ he said with an inflexion in his voice that sounded a warning. With his head thrown back, his long legs apart, one hand on his pipe and the other tucked into his jacket pocket he reminded her of a barrister about to embark on a piece of doubtful reasoning on behalf of a beleaguered client.
‘Yes?’ said Julia warily.
‘I don’t think that you ought to pay much attention to stories like that,’ said David. Julia stiffened. Whatever they had shared it was not for him to tell her what to believe or what not to believe. ‘This young woman confessed to you that she is a prostitute, and the obvious reason for her disappearance is that she has merely reverted to that way of life. You have no reason to believe anything she has told you and it’s most unlikely that any of it was true. I really do think that –’
‘Thank you for your advice, David,’ said Julia, interrupting him with no expression in her voice at all. She stood up. ‘I think I’ll go and have a bath before dinner.’
She left him looking after her with a worried expression. When she turned back at the door, he forced a smile, wishing that he had told her everything long ago.
Walking upstairs to find out whether there was any hot bathwater, Julia tried to account for David’s odd reaction. Until then he had never shown himself to be anything other than sensible, intelligent, tolerant and kind whatever they discussed or did. The tone of dismissive patronage – and contempt – with which he had talked of Raffaella shocked her, because it was so unlike the man she had thought he was, the man she had come to love.
It was not until she was washing herself in the tepid bathwater that she thought of Raffaella’s child, with his smooth dark hair and his blue eyes, and a possible reason presented itself to her. She dismissed it at once on the grounds that just because David had shown less than his usual benevolence there was no reason to believe him guilty of fathering a child on an Italian girl and abandoning her. There must have been hundreds of partisan bands in North Italy and as many Allied officers. It would have been a ludicrous coincidence for David’s band to have been the same as Raffaella’s. And yet, a voice in Julia’s mind said, he knew Giovanna because of her involvement with the partisans; perhaps Raffaella knew her for the same reason. Perhaps David had introduced Julia into that household so that he could have a conduit for information between them without compromising himself by going there in person.
Anthony’s original warning came back to Julia and she tried to remember the precise words he had used. They had been something like: ‘You may think that he is charming and ingenuous, but he is capable of doing the most destructive things.’ Could Anthony have been thinking of Raffaella when he had said that?
Julia got out of the bath and dried, half thinking herself stupid to have allowed her emotions to lead her into believing David possessed of almost every virtue and half castigating herself for believing that a man she loved so much could have been guilty of what had been done to Raffaella. David had confided to her that making love to women usually killed his desire for them. Was he one of those men who despise women who allow themselves to be seduced? Was it possible that she could have fallen in love with a man who thought like that?
It seemed unlikely and yet she had to admit that experienced though she was in most aspects of life, love was something of which she really knew very little. Until she had met David the only man she had ever loved was Anthony: perhaps after all the difficult feelings she had for him were in fact more real than the dizzying sensations, the longing to protect, and the sense of completion she felt with David.
Wishing that she had ignored all feelings of delicacy and asked Raffaella for the name of her lover when she had the chance, Julia dressed slowly. She took trouble with her face and hair so as to absorb as much time as she could before she faced David again. Just as she was admitting to herself that she really would have to go down to dinner she heard Anthony’s voice greeting Annunziata.
‘Hello, my dear!’ he said when he saw Julia coming downstairs. ‘You look better. How was Florence?’
‘Fascinating,’ she answered in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘So different from Venice. I wish I knew Italy better.’
‘We never came, did we, in the old days?’ he said, holding open the salon doors for her. ‘When things have settled down properly you and I and Comfort must have a kind of grand tour.’
There it was, thought Julia, a reminder of the long history she shared with Anthony. Despite his lack of interest in making love to her or having children with her, he clearly believed that their marriage was solidly rooted and was still making plans for the future.
Together they went into the salon to share an uncomfortable dinner with David. That something else had happened to worry Julia was obvious to him. She was far more formal and conversational than she had been for months. But whenever David looked directly at her she avoided his eyes and spoke to her husband instead. He assumed that she felt guilty – as he did – for what they had done and regretted it, which he did not.
As soon as dinner was over, Julia announced that she was going to help Annunziata with the washing up and then going early to bed. David insisted on carrying the heavy tray of dirty crockery to the kitchen for her and as he put it down he said quietly in English:
‘Julia, please don’t let it make you unhappy. Nothing that’s happened need –’
‘I find myself in rather a muddle,’ she interrupted, speaking carefully and as quietly as he. ‘I need a bit of time to sort things out before I know where I am. All right?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, withdrawing a little way. ‘You know I’d never press you to …’
‘I know, David. Thank you,’ she said. When he had gone, she smiled at Annunziata in relief. Together they cleared the kitchen and Julia led Annunziata on to talk about her son. She seemed glad of the opportunity and confided that she had already made him six new shirts and that Anthony was helping to get hold of a modern wheelchair in which her son could have some measure of independence.
‘Why don’t you go to visit him?’ asked Julia. ‘He isn’t due to leave the hospital for some time and it must be possible. I’m sure Doctor Gillingham could arrange it.’ Annunziata’s face seemed to crumple. She mopped her eyes on the dishtowel in her hand and then apologised.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Julia, puzzled. ‘Is there some reason why you can’t go?’
‘Not if you will allow it, signora,’ said Annunziata.
‘I’ll speak to my husband at once,’ said Julia, surprised that Anthony had not thought of it himself. Annunziata took both Julia’s hands in hers and said slowly and clearly so as to be certain that Julia understood:
‘Signora Giulia, you deserve to be happy.’
It was so clear that Annunziata knew that she was not that Julia was tempted for a mad moment to pour out her whole story and ask Annunziata’s advice.
‘Thank you,’ she said instead, clasping Annunziata’s hands for a moment. ‘We’ll all be happier when we can put the war behind us.’
The next morning Julia awoke with her mind beginning to take precedence over her emotions again. It seemed abundantly clear to her as she lay in the cool light of early morning that she must extricate herself from the Venetian imbroglio as soon as possible. David had told her that he and she could have no future together and so whatever connection there was between him and Raffaella was really irrelevant. Anthony had made it equally clear that he did believe he had a future with his wife. Her only option was to go home and ignore everything that had happened in Venice, and wait for him to follow her. The practicalities of her escape took very little time. The colonel in charge of the Kesselring case made no trouble about her leaving, since he had already found a substitute for her, thanked her for all the work she had done and told her how sorry he was that she had been ill. The man at the airline office found her a seat on a flight leaving three days later, and she sent off her telegrams.
It seemed to her as she was walking back to the Campo San Maurizio that she ought to tell Anthony at once and altered her course for the hospital. She had never set foot in it since the day he had accused her of interfering with his patients and expelled her, but telling him that she was leaving Venice would be easier there than in the house, where they might be interrupted by David at any moment.
As she reached St Mark’s the rain started to fall, despite the growing warmth of the weather. It seemed to her that she had hardly ever seen the city in clear sunlight and she wondered whether she would have liked it better if she had. She felt tired, as she so often had after her illness; tired, useless and a fool. If she had only been content to make the best of her life as it was, she would have been in a far better state.
When she reached the hospital she was disconcerted to be told that Anthony was not available. With a vivid memory of her last visit, Julia then asked for Sister Caroline and made her way to the long ward where Flavia had once struggled with her terrors.
Sister Caroline greeted Julia with reserved friendliness and disclaimed any knowledge of Anthony’s whereabouts.
‘Can I help?’ she asked.
‘Not really,’ said Julia with a smile. ‘I came to tell him that I have to get back to London soon. That wretched pneumonia has rotted up my job here and there’s nothing really to keep me.’
‘Nothing?’ said the nurse rather severely.
‘No,’ said Julia, suddenly so tired that she dropped into a chair beside the nurse’s desk. She knew what Sister Caroline meant and, remembering how kind she had been the previous November, tried to explain.
‘I’m no good to him here,’ Julia said after a while. ‘I might as well go back to London, where I am of some use to my clients at least.’
‘You sound very much like a convalescent,’ said Sister Caroline more kindly. ‘Don’t let your physical weakness drive you into doing things you will regret.’
‘No. No of course not,’ said Julia, recovering herself and wondering what had happened to her to make her confide in strangers and make her brain feel so woolly. ‘Well, goodbye, Sister. It’s been a great pleasure. I wish that I’d been allowed to help a bit more.’
