Invisible. Jonathan Buckley

five or six years she came out again and now she was no longer pretty. She was much more than pretty: she was splendid. When she was younger she was always paler than the other girls, but now her skin was the colour of cream, like those ladies in earlier times who never let the sunlight touch them. And her hair – which was unusual also, because it was red as rust – it seemed even more bright now her skin was so white. It seemed to burn around her head, like a halo. She had become thin in her body and in her face, in a way that made her eyes huge and gave her a nobility she did not have before. In every way she was changed. Before she was mad about new clothes; now she wore plain dark dresses, very simple, very ordinary. Before she was a real talker; now she spoke when she had to speak to somebody, that was all. Now every day she went to mass, and after mass she went to the shops. She never talked about her husband or anything that she had ever done in her life. She is still in Recanati, living alone, in the apartment she shared with her husband and son. You see her every morning, on her way to the church. Sometimes you see her with Paolo or his children, but not often. All the women who hated her when they were young, when she took all the boys they liked, now they look at her with respect or pity, or as if she has something saintly about her. My mother looks at her in this way, but now the sight of the widow Pallucchini is making her jealous too – truly jealous, I think, though it’s about something that is dead and was never very alive, so my father says. And the jealousy is bad because the reason for it is this woman who has suffered and become sort-of-holy. So father will now reason with mother and life will be normal again soon, because really he did not do anything wrong and they have always loved each other, my father and my mother, in their way, which I know is a strange way sometimes. But love is always a strange way, no?

      I almost forget: tomorrow night Monica and her husband Bruno are inviting me to their house to eat with them. I will phone if it is possible, but I think it will be a long evening, because we all like to talk and it is a very long time since I have seen Bruno. But the day after, for sure, we will speak, you and I. But you must tell me the number of the hotel – you forgot to do it.

      What other things are happening in Recanati? I have met Pierluigi’s girlfriend, the magical Graziana. She is beautiful. But of course she is. Pierluigi cannot see girls who are not beautiful. Ugly girls are invisible for him. Graziana’s mother is from Finland, so she is tall and blonde, with big blue eyes. And big big breasts. They are really amazing – you could hang an umbrella on them. Two umbrellas. I am sure she did not buy them from a doctor, because they do a little wiggle-wiggle swing when she walks. La Stupenda I call her. Pierluigi is very happy. Now he might not come to the villa. He wants to stay here to play with Graziana and her breasts. I am full of envy. My mother has the widow Pallucchini to make her miserable and I have Graziana’s breasts. Ha ha – I wish. Perhaps you wish too? Goodbye. She has good legs too. Bye bye.

      Easing back in the chair, he brings to mind the melodiously deep voice of Claudia’s father, and his study full of books, and he remembers the sweet lemon fume that rose from the pot of tea he had set on the desk. The door had been closed, to shut out the sound of Claudia and her mother, who were talking in the kitchen. ‘We leave the women for a while,’ said her father, leaning forward to touch his wrist. ‘I must read you something,’ he said, taking a book from the desk. ‘Some sentences from Mr Burton. There are some words that escape me. I hope you will know them.’ He read a lengthy paragraph, with quirks of pronunciation and stress that he had passed on to his daughter. ‘It is superb, yes? Superb, sublime.’ It was the day after the visit to the Leopardi house and her father wanted to know if Claudia had told him about the coachman’s daughter? Did she tell him about the Contessa’s religious madness? About the way the great library was assembled? ‘Good, good,’ he commented at each reply, until at last he discovered something that Claudia had failed to mention: the public examinations of Giacomo, Carlo and Paolina, who were obliged by their father, Count Monaldo, to answer in Latin the questions relating to history, Christian doctrine, grammar and rhetoric that were put to them by the eminent citizens of Recanati. And later that day, at supper, Claudia joked to her father that he was as bad as Count Monaldo, and complained about the English exercises he used to make them do, every night, making them learn poems they did not understand.

      In reply he writes:

      I can think of a couple of anatomical corrections that might indeed be of benefit to us, but breasts like La Stupenda’s are not what I have in mind, however remarkable those protrusions may be. Though I wish your brother great joy with the beautiful big chest, I prefer the dimensions of yourself and Marie Antoinette, whose exquisitely modest bosom was said to be the inspiration, as you might know, for the shape of the champagne glass. But did you know that the breasts of Joan of Aragon – Juana la Loca, the mad mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V – were reputed to exude a perfume of ripe peaches? I think we need hear no more of Graziana and her wiggle-wiggles.

      Thank you for the story of your parents and the widow Pallucchini. I am pleased that harmony is returning to the home. I have to say that I don’t find your mother’s jealousy at all ridiculous. Envy is something I experience every day, but I have not experienced jealousy and I sometimes wish that I could, because evidently I am missing something. If I could see, then I could be very jealous, I am sure. Seeing the handsome Recanati boys you once kissed – that might make me as jealous as your mother. Is Bruno one of them? As it is, they don’t really exist for me, not substantially enough for retrospective jealousy, though I can envy them for having seen you, and seen themselves being seen by you.

      As for my parents, the visit was not a success. I did try not to become irritated with my mother, but I made an insufficient effort, I fear. There’s something in her manner that suggests she regards her son’s misfortune as her fault and/or her burden in life, and the way she fusses around me makes me feel like a perpetual convalescent. I shouldn’t complain about her, I know – it was hard for her, bringing me up, and she did everything possible to make my childhood happy. And it was happy, by and large. I am grateful to her, and I do love her, but an hour of her company makes me want to go out and chop down large trees with a very big axe. With my father, on the other hand, there is no friction. What we have is a guilt-sodden truce. He seems to be afraid of me sometimes, and guilty at being afraid. And I think he doesn’t really like me all that much and feels guilty for that as well, while I feel guilty for whatever it is that he doesn’t like. I wonder sometimes how we came to be like this. My impression is that we moved in symmetry, my father withdrawing as I withdrew into blindness. I seem to remember that we understood each other better when I could see something of him, but this may not be true. I don’t know. I’ve started maundering. To conclude: I was a boorish lump and must go back soon, to make amends.

      While I’m thinking of it, I think your French phrase is esprit de l’escalier.

      And what of life at the Oak? I’m still rattling around in it like one of the last biscuits in the barrel, yet Mr Caldecott, the manager, seems to be permanently on duty: he was at the desk when I first arrived, when I went downstairs to dinner in the evening and when Charlotte picked me up yesterday morning, and he was still around when I came back. I went for a wander in the garden before breakfast this morning and lo! – he’s there again. I can’t imagine what’s keeping him busy. Perhaps an inundation of coach parties is imminent, but I rather doubt it. We had a talk, the manager and I, after Charlotte had deposited me back here. A brief but pleasant chat, out in the garden, from which I learned that Mr Caldecott is a divorced hotelier with a preference for the rural life. I like him. His jib is a pleasing jib, you might say. I have also conversed, in a desultory fashion, with a member of Mr Caldecott’s staff. Her name is Eloni, she’s from northern Greece and that’s about all I know. She’s not the most voluble character, which is a pity because she has a fine voice: low and laryngitic, like a 100-a-day smoker.

      No time for Leopardi yesterday, but I feel that work will go well today. Your message has gingered me up for a long stretch at the desk. Speak soon?

      He adds the phone number of the Oak, and as soon as his reply has gone he resumes the translation of Leopardi. At four o’clock he rings reception to ask if he might order a plate of sandwiches and a pot of lemon tea. It is the manager himself who takes the call and who ten minutes later brings the tray, and places it on a table to the side of the bureau, and then departs, having made his presence as unobtrusive as possible.