For a few fractions of a second, Cary feared the worst: Bondurant in the hands of a journalist! Would Raymond and Betsy have dared to do such a thing? Reading on, he realised that the article and the so-called ‘exclusive interview’ were a collage of old statements, repeating inaccuracies that had been corrected at the time. The writer, one Paul Moorish, had not been to the house (he supplied no descriptions), and nor had he met his lookalike. A diversion that screamed ‘MI6’ from the first line to the last. There was also a photograph.
‘Good Lord! Put me in contact with your superiors straight away!’ he erupted from the back seat, as he realised that the photograph did indeed show Bondurant, with an eager smile and the wrong sort of tie.
A regimental tie! Under no circumstances should you even dream of wearing such a tie unless you belong to the club or institution announced by the colours. It was a black and white photograph, but the tie appeared to have its origins in the Royal Pioneer Corps. Typical gaffe by a sloppy yank. In an English newspaper. ‘His’ face!
So, for a moment, Cary stopped thinking about Tito and devoted himself to reprimanding Her Majesty’s servants over the telephone, climbing the hierarchical ladder three steps at a time until he spoke to Sir Lewis in person and threatened to abandon the mission if any similar lapse of style should come to light.
Chapter 48
Bologna, Villa Azzurra, 26 April
Outside it has been raining for hours.
He loves the smell of wet grass and mud and moist air and gleaming tarmac, in which you can see your reflection where it is smoothest. He loves it: people passing with their umbrellas low above their heads like so many vampires and the water roaring along the gutter and the light from the streetlamps dripping on to the street.
He would like to get up, now, open the window, bring in all that good smell and send out the lysoform, bleah, awful, you sniff two drops of it and you’d think you had two litres in your stomach.
And the lysoform calls to mind the bad things, the ones you should never think about, no, it’s better not to think about it, come on, let’s go for a walk. Yes, yes, a walk. Do you want a cigarette? Because when you were a child that was what she used, poor mum, lysoform, down into the hole to drown the monster that jumps out to bite your willy. Die, you horrible thing!
We would really need to open the window, to let the monsters out. But forgive me, if the lysoform dissolves the monsters, then they can’t be here in the lysoform room, not at all. And then where are they? Oh, forget it, his monsters are inside, better not to talk about it.
You’d like to get up, but you can’t. Why not? Well, you know that when you get agitated you’ve got to go to bed. But nothing happened, did it? Say it, say it, nothing happened. Nooo, what on earth is supposed to have happened! If he’s just a bit worked up, that happens every now and again, now let’s give him this special medicine and it will pass.
He gets agitated every now and again, you know? But he never broke a nurse’s nose. Do you think so? He hasn’t been calm since they stopped giving him the medicine.
Can you break a nurse’s nose? Can you have breakfast at night? What does a friend of mine say to me if I grab his snack from him? What happens when I have my impulses? Give me an example. Well, you know you’re not supposed to grab Giorgio’s snack from him, you know that.
Do you want a cigarette?
Don’t grab other people’s snacks. Under any circumstances. At night you sleep and you don’t get up and you don’t go to the kitchen to make coffee, because it puts you in a terrible state. You mustn’t give cigarettes to Davide, no, under no circumstances must you ever do that again. Too much cold water hurts and if you drink it in such a hurry I’m never giving you any more. There are rules here, you know.
Fine, rules, nothing has happened. But now you’re getting me up to send the monsters away?
The nurse walked quickly, spurred on by the nervous tapping of the heels behind him.
After three-quarters of an hour talking to her husband’s locum, Angela was not even any calmer, let alone satisfied by the brief statement that she had had to sit through. ‘A sudden thing, we really weren’t expecting it, until just the other day everything was going swimmingly. ’
She would happily have talked to Marco, who had known Fefe for a long time and understood his reactions better than anyone else. But Marco was on honeymoon and wouldn’t be back for a week.
As they walked down the corridor, Angela tried in vain to calm herself down, by digging her nails into the leather of her handbag and inhaling great gulps of lysoform.
Ferruccio had been put in a different room, on the third floor, a room all to himself. Angela knew very well what that meant. Odoacre, on the phone from Rome, had reminded her, to avoid nasty surprises. ‘Just for today, they’ve assured me. To keep him from hurting himself, more than anything else. ’
It was Odoacre himself who had given her the news, and even the fact that they had warned her in advance hadn’t gone down well with her; it made her feel useless. Fine, he was the leading physician at the clinic, he followed Ferruccio’s therapy in person, he was the head of the family and all the rest, but who cares, a sister should have the right to know before anyone else, isn’t that right?
That was why, when her husband had promised to come home that very evening, leaving the conference and his illustrious colleagues, Angela had had an impulse of pride: ‘Just stay in Rome,’ she had insisted, ‘you don’t need to put yourself out, I’m thoroughly capable of looking after my brother on my own.’
Then she had changed her mind. She knew Odoacre, she knew how fond he was of his work, and Fefe wasn’t as serious as all that. If he came back, it was to be close to her. For her, not for Ferruccio.
‘Hello, Signora Montroni. Come through.’
The old servant wrung out the floor cloth, dropped it into the bucket and bowed slightly.
‘Hello, Sante,’ Angela replied distractedly.
‘I heard about your brother, I’m really sorry.’
‘Never mind, let’s hope it’s only temporary.’ Angela hated small talk, but Sante was always good with Fefe, always available and patient, and his interest was sincere.
‘Yes, let’s hope so, he’s seemed strange to me lately, and on Monday he didn’t even bring any cigarettes.’
‘Then he must have been in a sorry state!’ Angela tried to joke, but it didn’t work terribly well.
Just before the first door, the nurse turned towards her. ‘Signora —’ he said in a voice filled with compassion.
Angela nodded her head, an exaggerated, insistent nod, to spare herself what was to come: ‘It’s ok, thank you, I know the procedure.’ Then she hid her face in her hands, because ‘knowing the procedure’ gave her no comfort whatsoever.
The door opened. Ferruccio was lying on the bed, staring into the distance, his blanket tucked up around his neck. The three straps were barely visible: around his chest, his waist and his ankles. Angela tried not to think about them, to empty her mind of the bad memories and walk towards him with a smile.
‘Hi, Fefe, I’ve brought you some cream puffs.’
‘Yes, that’s fine. Can you open that window a bit to let the monsters out?’
‘What monsters, Fefe?’
‘Oh, forget it, his monsters are inside, you know? Better let them stay there.’
He always talked about himself in the third person when he wasn’t well, and parroted the phrases he had heard other people using about him. Angela sniffed the air and immediately worked out what was wrong.