The Sibyl in Her Grave

solicitude, thumping him on the back.

Madame Zingara concluded her performance with “Pirate Jenny” from The Threepenny Opera. She moved round the restaurant as she sang it, hips and shoulders still undulating, white muslin still apparently precarious, pausing at each table to hold out a large copper bowl. Having not quite expected this, I wondered anxiously what sort of sum it would be proper to contribute.

By chance, or so I imagined, my table was the last in her circuit, so that I had ample time to reflect on this question and to curse Terry for staying gossiping in the kitchen — I assumed that as an habitue he would have known how much was expected.

I finally settled on fifty francs as an amount which could be neither insultingly small nor ludicrously generous and by the time she reached my table had a note of that value ready to place in the copper bowl. She waved it away, however, saying, “Ah, on ne prend pas de l’argent d’un joli garcon comme vous.”

I looked at her in surprise and considerable embarrassment. She smiled and fluttered her long, mascaraed eyelashes. Under the heavy makeup I now recognised the features of our truant carpenter.

I was speechless. Fortunately, because anything I said would have been profane; it would also have been in English and audible at the next table.

“Mais comment ca arrive que vous trouvez tout seul?” the shameless creature continued.

I collected myself sufficiently to reply in the same language that I was with a friend: and that if he did not shortly rejoin me I should be extremely cross.

By the time he returned to our table, dressed in the rather more conventional garments he had arrived in, Sir Robert’s party had left, apparently without mishap.

My intention had been, once we were back at the flat, to speak to him severely about his disgraceful conduct and then to retire early to bed. Somehow or other, this was not at all what happened. I had scarcely begun my lecture when he said, “Don’t scold me, Desmond, I only did it to cheer myself up a bit. I’m feeling so miserable,” and I could not bring myself to go on.

He has a broken heart, poor boy, having formed a deep attachment which he believed reciprocal and found was not. “Cast aside,” he said, “like the proverbial soiled glove. Too banal for words, isn’t it?”

We sat up until nearly three in the morning, drinking Benjamin’s brandy and playing Marlene Dietrich songs while I tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade him that from time to time in human history the same thing has happened to other people and they have sometimes managed to get over it. I even suggested the possibility of a reconciliation with the object of his attachment; but I was given to understand that things had been said which made this out of the question. If the object were to walk barefoot across France to beg for Terry’s forgiveness and present him with a train of forty snow-white camels, laden with gold and diamonds and boxes of marrons glaces, such forgiveness would not now be forthcoming. I am not feeling optimistic about our bookcases.

The noises from the flat next door are becoming quite alarming — I can hardly imagine an ailment worth such an agonising cure as Natasha seems to provide.

So far I have not seen anyone on the roof terrace this morning, nor much expected to, having gathered last night that the morning’s work at the villa would consist mainly of Geoffrey Bolton making telephone calls. There has been, however, a certain amount of interesting activity in the place.

Shortly before ten o’clock, just as I was beginning my breakfast, Edgar Albany came into the place and walked across in the direction of the slightly disreputable bar I mentioned. Unfortunately, the bar itself is out of view from here, being on the same side of the place as this building: I am thus unable to tell you for certain whether he actually went into it and if so whether he stayed there.

My guess, though, is that he did, because almost immediately afterwards Miss Tavistock also came into the place and sat down in the cafe on the opposite side, from which she would certainly be able to see all the comings and goings through the door of the slightly disreputable bar.

Miss Tavistock does not strike me as the sort of woman who would normally fritter her time away in a cafe on a morning when there is work to be done. I am now as certain as can be that Sir Robert is repeating the experiment he tried when Selena was here: Miss Tavistock is acting on instructions to keep Albany under surveillance while he is outside the villa.

But if I am right about that, I also think that he has somehow eluded her — perhaps inadvertently, with no idea that she was keeping watch on him. A few minutes ago, after she had been in the cafe for about half an hour, she made a telephone call. After that she paid her bill and left, presumably to return to the villa. I think that Albany must have come out of the bar and done something, such as hailing a taxi, which prevented her from following. The telephone call would have been to Sir Robert to report and ask further instructions.

I am becoming quite seriously concerned about what is happening next door. I have just seen Natasha driving away in her car, and yet the cries of pain continue unabated — indeed, they almost sound like cries for help. I do not wish to do anything to offend her after she has been so kind, but it does seem irresponsible of her to have left her patient on his own in such a condition as he appears to be in.

I have decided to run down to the postbox, so that this catches the eleven o’clock post and has some chance of reaching you before Christmas Day, and on my way back to knock discreetly at her door. If there is no answer and the cries are still continuing, I shall climb across onto her balcony, which adjoins this one, and find out what is going on.

In haste, therefore, and hoping that you and your aunt both have a splendid Christmas and an excellent New Year,

Yours,

Desmond

13

24 High Street

Parsons Haver

West Sussex

Christmas Eve

Dear Ragwort,

At least, I suppose that by now one should say it is Christmas Eve — the time is about two o’clock in the morning. A few minutes ago I was woken up by Daphne, tapping at my window and calling out to me to let her in. Since my window is about twenty feet above ground level, I found this disconcerting.

Having turned on my bedside lamp, I have decided that it was only the rowan tree that was tapping and only the wind in its branches that was wailing to be let in; but I see no immediate prospect of going back to sleep.

My room is at the back of the house and the window accordingly looks onto the graveyard; but I have slept here many times and never felt the slightest uneasiness about it. If I do now, it must be on account of the thought that Isabella is buried there: there was no one there before that I actually knew. Not, of course, that I actually knew Isabella. And not, of course, that I do feel any uneasiness about it: I am a rational, educated woman, brought up in the second half of the twentieth century — I do not imagine that the dead can climb up out of their graves.

I find myself becoming increasingly anxious about Maurice. This is partly because of something he said to me on the day that I last wrote to you. We met at the letter box, where he too was posting a letter, and he thanked me for the advice I had given him earlier in the day. He had found it, he said, most helpful and had acted on it. Since