‘The idea,’ said Davey, impatiently, ‘is health. If you are too fat you lose and if you are too thin you gain. I should have thought a child could understand that. But Sonia won’t stick it for a day, no self-discipline.’
‘Just like One, poor darling,’ said Cedric. ‘But then, what are we to do to get rid of those kilos? Vichy, perhaps?’
‘My dear, look at the kilos she’s lost already,’ I said, ‘she’s really so thin, ought she to get any thinner?’
‘It’s just that little extra round the hips,’ said Cedric, ‘a jersey and skirt is the test, and she doesn’t look quite right in that yet – and there’s a weeny roll round her ribs. Besides, they say the orange juice clears the skin. Oh, I do hope she sticks it for a few more days, for her own sake, you know. She says another patient told her of a place in the village where you can have Devonshire teas, but I begged her to be careful. After what happened this morning they’re sure to be on the look-out and one more slip may be fatal, what d’you think, Davey?’
‘Yes, they’re madly strict,’ said Davey. ‘There’d be no point, otherwise.’
We sat down to our luncheon and begged Davey to begin his story.
‘I may as well start by telling you that I don’t think they are at all happy.’
Davey, I knew, was never a one for seeing things through rose-coloured spectacles, but he spoke so definitely and with so grave an emphasis that I felt I must believe him.
‘Oh, Dave, don’t say that. How dreadful.’
Cedric, who, since he did not know and love Polly, was rather indifferent as to whether she was happy or not, said,
‘Now, Davey dear, you’re going much too fast. New readers begin here. You left your boat –’
‘I left my ship at Syracuse, having wired them from Athens that I would be arriving for one night, and they met me on the quay with a village taxi. They have no motor car of their own.’
‘Every detail. They were dressed?’
‘Polly wore a plain blue cotton frock and Boy was in shorts.’
‘Wouldn’t care to see Boy’s knees,’ I said.
‘They’re all right,’ said Davey, standing up for Boy as usual.
‘Well, then, Polly? Beautiful?’
‘Less beautiful’ (Cedric looked delighted to hear this news) ‘and peevish. Nothing right for her. Hates living abroad, can’t learn the language, talks Hindustani to the servants, complains that they steal her stockings –’
‘You’re going much too fast, we’re still in the taxi, you can’t skip to stockings like this – how far from Syracuse?’
‘About an hour’s drive, and beautiful beyond words – the situation, I mean. The villa is on a south-easterly slope looking over olive trees, umbrella pines and vineyards to the sea – you know, the regular Mediterranean view that you can never get tired of. They’ve taken the house, furnished, from Italians and complain about it ceaselessly, it seems to be on their minds, in fact. I do see that it can’t be very nice in winter, no heating except open fireplaces which smoke, bath-water never hot, none of the windows fit, and so on, you know. Italian houses are always made for the heat, and of course, it can be jolly cold in Sicily. The inside is hideous, all khaki and bog oak, depressing if you had to be indoors much. But at this time of year it’s ideal, you live on a terrace, roofed in with vines and bougainvillea – I never saw such a perfect spot – huge tubs of geraniums everywhere – simply divine.’
‘Oh, dear, as I seem to have taken their place in life, I do wish we could swop over sometimes,’ said Cedric. ‘I do so love Sicily.’
‘I think they’d be all for it,’ said Davey, ‘they struck me as being very homesick. Well, we arrived in time for luncheon, and I struggled away with the food (Italian cooking, so oily).’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Well, you know, really, it was one long wail from them about how difficult everything is, more expensive than they thought it would be and how the people – village people, I mean – don’t really help but say yes yes the whole time and nothing gets done, and how they are supposed to have vegetables out of the garden in return for paying the gardener’s wages but actually they have to buy everything and as they are sure he sells the vegetables in the village they suppose that it is their own that they buy back again: how when they first came there wasn’t a kettle in the place and the blankets were as hard as boards and none of the electric light switches worked and no lamps by the beds – you know, the usual complaints of people who take furnished houses, I’ve heard them a hundred times. After luncheon it got very hot, which Polly doesn’t like, and she went off to her room with everything drawn and I had a session with Boy on the terrace, and then I really saw how the land lay. Well, all I can say is I know it is wrong, not right, to arouse the sexual instincts of little girls so that they fall madly in love with you, but the fact is, poor old Boy is taking a fearful punishment. You see, he has literally nothing to do from morning to night, except water his geraniums, and you know how bad it is for them to have too much water; of course, they
