The Marshal Makes His Report (19 page)

‘I imagine he blames her for what happened, too.’ Lorenzini was still disappointed at its turning out a suicide after the excitement of Tiny’s prints.

‘You could be right,’ the Marshal said, but he didn’t sound convinced. Doctors had been sent for then, and the Marchesa had taken the Marshal away to her private drawing-room. There he had sat, discomfited by the comfort of a big velvet armchair, facing the double portraits of Lucrezia and Francesco. He wondered where Fido’s portrait of Bianca Ulderighi was but didn’t ask. He didn’t ask anything, only sat there with his hat on his knees, watching with bulging expressionless eyes. Watching rather than listening. He was a little less frightened of her now but even so, her beauty distressed him. Someone so fine and graceful and with such deeply luminous eyes should have a soul to match. It confused you. The Marshal knew in his heart that this woman was probably ruthless and certainly immoral but the message received by his senses contradicted this just as Neri’s ugly decadence had hidden his delicacy of mind and heart. Was it just this generation or had it happened over the centuries that beauty had gone one way and virtue the other?

The faces in the two paintings looked out at him with more life and expression than his own. Francesco, dressed in his wedding clothes, white embroidered with gold flowers, fresh flowers crowning his golden hair. Maybe he was the last of the Ulderighi to have a soul that matched his beauty and he had ended, thrown from his horse against the stone portal of the great doors. Lucrezia gazed out at the Marshal, the same face, he was sure now, that had looked up from her rosary in the fresco. The same face, too, that was inclined towards him now in an imitation of intimacy.

‘You can understand, I think, that the natural wish to avoid scandal and disgrace for my unfortunate husband was quite overridden by the danger to my son’s health. He is the only heir.’

What did she expect him to say to her? He stared back at her in silence and he didn’t care a damn that she must have thought him as dumb as an ox. He’d never made any claim to be bright. She had offered him refreshment which he had refused. She had not been so indelicate as to ask him directly to keep what he had heard to himself.

‘But then,’ he said to Lorenzini, ‘she didn’t need to. Who would I tell at this point?’

‘But did she offer any explanation?’

‘She told me they’d quarrelled, which I knew. Corsi apparently went down and got a rifle.’

And brought it all the way up again instead of shooting
himself down in the gun room?

His intention, Marshal, was to shoot me.

‘That was when Neri appeared, woken by the noise. He said his father was screaming abuse and was in fact pointing the gun at his mother. Perhaps it was Neri’s arrival that changed everything. Corsi pushed past him on to the tower staircase. Neri followed. He saw his father shoot himself.’

‘And you’re convinced he’s telling the truth.’

‘He is telling the truth.’

‘And everything the Marchesa says corroborates it.’

‘Mmph.’

‘You don’t agree?’

‘Oh, you’re probably right, only . . .’ The Marshal wasn’t so good at expressing himself. He hadn’t listened to much of what the Marchesa had told him, he’d only watched her. ‘I believe him,’ he said at last, ‘but I don’t believe her.’

And no amount of Florentine logic on Lorenzini’s part would shake him. In the end the Marshal felt a bit guilty. It was Sunday night and he had dragged Loren-zini away from his wife and baby because he needed someone to tell all this to. And there Lorenzini sat, looking absurdly young in jeans and T-shirt, his face earnest, trying to understand and failing.

‘I shouldn’t have dragged you out like this. Go home.’

When he’d gone the Marshal sat alone for five minutes or so before getting up from his desk rather stiffly and switching off the lights.

At about one-thirty in the morning he said to his sleeping wife as though they were in the middle of a long conversation—as indeed they were in his own head—‘It’s true, though, isn’t it, that when you go to confession you’re only obliged to confess your own sins? Teresa, are you listening?’

‘What?’ She turned towards him half awake and then opened her eyes wide. ‘What’s the matter, you’re not ill?’

‘No, of course not. I was just wondering. I’d never really thought. You only confess your own sins, so even if you know something terrible that ought to be brought to light . . .’

‘You’d tell the carabinieri. For God’s sake, Salva . . .’ She turned her back on him and pulled the sheet round her shoulders with a wrench. ‘I wish you’d get to sleep at night, you might be a bit less dozy in the daytime.

‘Grand plié!’
Two heavy thumps on the floor. ‘In first two
demi plié,
one grand
plié, cambré
forward, in second
cambré
backward, in fourth
cambré
towards the
barre,
in fifth two
grands pliés
and
grand port de bras, soussus
and turn.’

The stick thumped again before the music began and the Marshal turned away, intimidated, to listen to another door. The one on his right was closed but the chatter and laughter coming from behind it suggested that there, at least, he wouldn’t be interrupting a lesson. He walked straight in and stopped. Twenty or so tiny girls were in various stages of undress, many of them standing on the large table which almost filled the room, hopping and chattering as their mothers pulled pink tights off them, or inexpertly wriggling out of leotards by themselves. To the Marshal they looked hardly big enough to be walking, let alone dancing. He was relieved to see one or two fathers in the fray struggling with all those pink ribbons and frills and it was to one of these that he called over the general racket, ‘Where can I find the directress?’

‘I think she’s—sit down—I said sit down! Here on the edge of the table or you’ll rip your tights—sit
still!
I think she’s teaching the class in the centre studio, either that or—Come back!’ And he was off in pursuit of his little imp, as pink without her satin outfit as she had been in it, scrambling away across the table towards a giggling friend who was trying to do a handstand wearing nothing but pink tights. The Marshal retreated and closed the door on this mini-inferno. Just as well, he thought, that they’d only had boys. He couldn’t see himself being able to cope with that.

Intimidated as he was, it was lucky for him that a young woman opened a door further along the passage and looked out, calling ‘Are we all here?’ She saw the Marshal blocking the passage with his black bulk and looked at him kindly. He hurried towards her and she smiled.

‘If your little girl’s in the first course they’re already out. She’ll be in the changing-room. It’s Lucilla’s father, isn’t it.’

‘No, I . . . I’m not anybody’s father, mine are boys, you see . . . No, I want a word with you about something rather important. I’m sorry if I’m interrupting you.’

‘Ah! It’s not about . . .’ She glanced upward, there was no need to say more.

‘Yes.’

‘Then of course, but you must come in because I can’t leave the children to their own devices, you can imagine.’

After the scene in the changing-room the Marshal could indeed imagine and he followed her inside. Another giggling troupe of fairies, this time in pale turquoise. The young woman, with a dispatch and authority such as he’d rarely come across in the army, had them lined up at the barre, feet turned out, eyes to centre and dead silent within the space of three seconds, and with the simple order ‘Warming up exercises!’ she switched on a tape of music and was at the Marshal’s disposition.

‘I saw that they kept it out of the papers, I mean that it was a suicide—not that you could blame anyone for that but I’ve no time for the woman, myself.’

‘The Marchesa?’

‘Better keep your voice down. The little Corsi child is in this class—Children! straighten those knees in
relevé.
Fiorenza! hold your head higher and keep it still, that’s it, that’s better.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Fiorenza Corsi. Rumour has it that if anything happened to Neri Ulderighi she’d inherit and I think it’s probably true. She’s named after her aunt, Fiorenza Ulderighi, great-aunt she must be, and goes up to see her after every lesson here. I sometimes think that’s the only reason we’re still here. We’re being evicted, you see. She was glad enough to rent the place when she needed money in a hurry but now some fancy firm wanting a fancy address has offered five times the rent we can afford, so . . .’

‘I see. Well, things are different now, of course, as she’ll inherit Corsi’s fortune.’

‘Mm. I don’t think that helps us. She’s never wanted tenants, so if she can afford to restore without letting we’ll all be on the street—I must stop the tape, just a moment.’

She ran swiftly across the room as the exercise came to an end and stopped the music.

‘And turn! First position heads high! Let me see you grow! Good. Preparation one two three four
plié
. . .’

The Marshal watched them, less frightened of them now they were under control. Tiny plaits and buns beribboned, delicate hands and feet moving in unison . . . it might be nice, after all, to be Lucilla’s father.

The young woman came tripping back to him in her coloured tights and tunic. Her hair was tied back with some sort of scarf of the same colour and the Marshal realized as he looked at her that hers was the first really cheerful face he had come across in that building. She smiled at him.

‘I can’t leave them more than a minute, you know, so . . .’

‘Of course.’ He pulled out Tiny’s mugshot. ‘I’m trying to find out whether this man’s been seen in or around the building, and in particular, if he’s been seen with the porter’s son who lives downstairs.’

She looked hard at the photograph, fascinated. ‘I’ve never seen one of these before. Is he a criminal?’

‘A criminal, yes.’

‘I’ve certainly never seen him around here—I mean, my goodness, you wouldn’t forget a face like that, it’s terrifying—you surely don’t want to show it to the children? I really don’t think you should. Besides, they’re much too young to be reliable, so it’s really not worth frightening them—and their parents! If they hear about this they won’t send their children! Oh, I really don’t think . . .’

‘No, no, as you say, they’re too young. Don’t worry. Perhaps the older students I’ve seen around?’

‘Yes, of course. The best thing would be to go next door. My sister teaches the intermediate class. They’re eighteen and nineteen years old so that would be all right. But . . . excuse my asking, but if he committed suicide, then what—’

‘It’s a bit complicated. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Well, if you say so, but I don’t like the thought of a character like that hanging around here— No, don’t go out again. There’s no need. Use the connecting door.’

She pointed the way through and then clapped her hands.

‘Children!
Grand plié!
’

The Marshal began to tiptoe across the big room as the tiny creatures dipped and stretched, their faces registering a solemnity matched only by his own. His efforts to get out quietly ended in his putting his large foot into a wooden tray parked near the door and upsetting its contents. A peal of childish laughter rang out over the music. The Marshal grabbed for the door and propelled himself through it, then drew in a frightened gasp of breath as a man’s figure came flying through the air in a diagonal leap across the room and landed an inch short of him with an impressive emergency stop.

‘Bravo!’ A burst of applause and the young dancer grinned at the Marshal, then turned and bowed to his fellow students.

‘I beg your pardon. They said I could . . . I beg your pardon.’ The Marshal’s face was red with embarrassment and he stood where he was, in the corner by the door, afraid to move another step. A tall, white-faced woman in black strode towards him. She was carrying a long white cane and the Marshal was relieved to see that her face, though stern, looked amused. The eyes, large and black, were laughing at him.

‘You’d be safer behind the piano.’ She pointed her stick and raised her left arm. The Marshal, submitting, was marshalled.

‘Two minutes!’

The dancers, dressed in layer upon layer of ragged and complicated bits of clothing, flopped to the floor in alarmingly dislocated attitudes.

‘What can I do for you?’

The distracted Marshal came to attention and produced his photograph. Nothing. Not only did no one recognize him but he was quite sure that, as he left the room, he heard one of the youngsters say, ‘They beat them up when they arrest them, that’s why they look so awful.’

Put out by failure and that last remark, the Marshal was back down in the courtyard before he remembered that he should have gone on up rather than coming down. He didn’t know for sure whether that was just a mistake or his reluctance for the next interview. He was reluctant all right, there was no doubt about that. He could have done without seeing anybody by the name of Ulderighi for the rest of his life. Nor was he used to being summoned like a servant. He stood there for a moment in the shadows of the courtyard, trying to settle his nerves.

You walk very slowly and sometimes you stop and stand
quite still for a moment as though you were saying something
to yourself. Then you go on. You’ve often seemed so troubled.

Well, he was troubled, right enough, and not least by the idea that within these walls he was always observed. Troubled too by a sense of dread that had never left him since the first time he’d entered this courtyard. He glanced up at Neri’s tower. He could make out nothing but that didn’t mean he wasn’t being watched. He walked to the well and back, trying to reason with himself. An old place like this one—not to mention his having heard such gruesome stories connected with it, would give anyone the creeps. It gave the young Englishman, William, the creeps and he hadn’t hesitated to say so. Well, then. That was all there was to that. And as for being summoned by the Ulderighi, wasn’t he summoned, and peremptorily at that, by the humblest people of his Quarter? He never minded it. He had endless patience for them, so why not for the Ulderighi, who, Lord knew, had troubles enough to warrant a bit of patience. The father dead by his own hand, the son sickly. No amount of money would make up for that. With an effort at calm and determination he took Fiorenza Ulderighi’s letter from his pocket and checked the time of the appointment against his watch. It was early yet. The letter had arrived that morning but not in the post. It had been delivered by hand and unsealed and received by one of the Marshal’s men. Delivered by Grillo. Half an hour to kill. He thought of a coffee or something at the pizzeria across the road but he didn’t fancy it somehow. Chap there always gave him funny looks for no reason he could think of. On impulse, he crossed the courtyard and rang William Yorke’s bell. Having rung it, he realized that the excuse of showing him Tiny’s photo wouldn’t be very convincing since William had arrived after Corsi’s death. Then it occurred to him that the sister should be back by now. That was good enough. He rang again and listened. The door didn’t open but he was convinced that someone was in there. The one-roomed flat was so tiny that, despite the thick door, you could practically sense someone breathing. Then he was sure he heard a small movement. He rang again at length. Another movement, and a voice asked, ‘Who’s there?’