“Seventy-three.”
“She’d had more than ninety years of experience judging from the stories I hear.”
Michael pressed the button on the gate and when there was no response pressed it again. Another half minute passed before a woman’s voice said brusquely, “Ms. Leigh here. Who’s there?”
“I am the Reverend Michael Dunlop.”
“The who?”
“The Reverend Michael Dunlop. I’d like to see Miss Firenze if I may.”
“Is this some kind of gag?”
“No. Every month or so I try to get around to making a few community calls on people whose names are presented to me.”
“Well, whoever presented Firenze’s name must have a weird sense of humor. Anyway she’s still in bed eating her breakfast. Do you reverend people pay social calls on ladies in bed?”
“Frequently. I make regular hospital rounds.”
“She’s not sick. She simply stays in her room a lot because that’s where we work. I’m her ghost-writer, collaborator, amanuensis, you name it.”
“It sounds like interesting work,” Michael said. “I’d like to hear about it.”
“I don’t buy that. But it’s been a dull week so come on in.”
The gate opened almost immediately and Michael went inside. When he heard the gate close behind him he suffered the same feeling he always had when he visited the jail, that the electrical system would fail some day and he would be trapped inside, a prisoner no better than the others.
Walking up the driveway he passed two gardeners clipping a privet hedge, an Oasis Pool Service truck and a white-coated attendant carrying a stack of magazines. No greetings were exchanged. The power blower had started up again, monopolizing the air like the manic roar of a new world tyrant.
The intricately carved front door was opened by Ms. Leigh herself, a tall young Chinese woman with short geometrically cut black hair. She wore steel-rimmed glasses and a green-plaid skirt and green sweater with white collar and cuffs. She looked so efficient that Michael suspected she wasn’t.
She proved it immediately. “What did you say your name was?”
“Is. It was Michael Dunlop when you asked me before and it still is.”
Ms. Leigh looked slightly annoyed. “Oh, you’re one of those grammar freaks, are you? You’ll have a field day with Firenze. It’s my job to correct her grammar.”
“Am I going to be permitted to see her?”
“Why not? She perked up when I told her there was a minister here for a visit. Maybe she’s all ready to be converted, but don’t bet the rent on it. She’s having, by the way, a lucid day. Which is to say she’s not as nutty as she was yesterday.” Ms. Leigh looked him up and down carefully before she closed the door. “I presume you’re aware she’s not playing with a full deck.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure how many cards are missing.”
“It varies from moon to moon. Also from man to man. You may get lucky.” Not a mucle moved on Ms. Leigh’s smooth impassive face but she seemed to be amused. “Depending on your idea of luck and what’s on your mind.”
The hall was almost as large as a ballroom. Its polished tile floor reflected the lights of two crystal chandeliers. Along one wall was a trio of pink velvet chairs that looked as if they had come from Miss Firenze’s past and their gold-braid trim belonged on some officer’s uniform. The rest of the furniture was in the Spanish tradition of old Santa Felicia, dark wood and stiff-backed benches and chairs that made no concessions to the human frame.
The floor was so slippery Michael could hardly walk on it. This explained Ms. Leigh’s jogging shoes and the peculiar gait of the maid who was carrying a breakfast tray down the hall.
“We’d better give Firenze a few minutes to primp,” Ms. Leigh said. “There’s a nice little solarium off the library. It’s the only cheerful room in the place so I often use it as an office… Do you like plants?”
“Should I?”
“I see we understand each other,” Ms. Leigh said. “Yes, you should. They’re Firenze’s hobby. What’s your favorite?”
“Roses.”
“Firenze hates roses. She says they’re too much like women, always demanding to be admired and then turning around and scratching you when you come near them.”
“Miss Firenze evidently doesn’t think much of women.”
“No. Odd, isn’t it? Or perhaps not so odd. She doesn’t think much of men either.”
The solarium was a glass-walled room filled with plants of various sizes and shapes in all kinds of containers. The tile floor slanted down to a drain in the center of the room and the air was heavy with moisture. The only furniture was a desk in one corner and two white wicker settees with yellow vinyl cushions.
Ms. Leigh examined the underside of a red-leafed plant, then pulled a leaf off and showed it to Michael. “Notice that fine webbing? You can’t see the nasty little beast responsible for it but he’s there all right, and so are all his relatives. Red spider mites. Hard to get rid of. Sit down.”
Michael sat down on one of the wicker settees. It crackled and creaked in protest under his weight. “I’d like to hear about your job, Ms. Leigh.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never met a ghost-writer before.”
“Actually I’m not a ghost-writer, I’m a real writer. At least I think I am. Anyway, I’m only ghosting until my husband gets a break in Hollywood. He’s an actor.”
“Meanwhile, what do you do for Miss Firenze?”
“Listen. Change tapes. Transcribe what’s transcribable. Sometimes it’s fairly sensible and interesting. Other times it’s profanity or gibberish and I have to clean it up or make sense out of it or ignore it. I do a lot of ignoring.”
“Then the rumor is true, that she’s writing her memoirs?”
“They can’t really be called memoirs because she gets mixed up about names and dates and places. But I suppose it all happened one way or another at one time or another. Her language is often quite picturesque, probably because she’s not inhibited by rules of grammar or by common sense or discipline of any kind. None of it will ever be published, of course, but as long as she keeps talking, Larry and I keep eating and paying for his drama lessons. The money isn’t the only reason I’m staying, though. Her book will never be published but maybe mine will.”
“And what’s yours?”
“Mine will be a book about trying to write her book. It could be quite funny. I’ve kept notes on some of the things she does and says, so I have plenty of material. I also have a title. Madam. Oh, I know Madam has been used in dozens of titles, Madame Bovary, Madame X, and so on. But this is different, don’t you think? I mean, it’s provocative. Isn’t it?”
“I find the whole idea provocative.”
“You do? Really?”
“Yes indeed,” Michael said. “You have a day-to-day chronicle on what’s happened around the villa?”
“Chronicle is too big a word. It’s a collection of haphazard notes, some of her reminiscences, her fits and foibles.”
“What causes her fits?”
“Practically everything, even the weather. Fog is a good example. It depresses her so badly she shuts herself up in her room and mopes for hours. That leaves the staff with considerable time to kill. The attendants read or play cards or watch television. I work on the diary. I can’t simply go home because she might snap out of it at any minute if the fog lifts. She equates fog,” Ms. Leigh explained, “with ectoplasm, the spirit world trying to get in touch with her, ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. San Francisco was her place of business so I’m sure there was a lot of fog in her life. Also a lot of things that went bump in the night.”