The Temptation of Jack Orkney: Collected Stories Volume Two. Doris Lessing

healthy, she says, and not neurotic. He is a Catholic of course. He doesn’t mind that she’s an atheist. His mother has explained to him that the English are all pagans, but good people at heart. I suppose he thinks a few smart sessions with the local priest would set Judith on the right path for good and all. Meanwhile the cat walks nervously around the room, stopping to lick, and when it can’t stand Judith watching it another second, it rolls over on the floor, with its paws tucked up, and rolls up its eyes, and Judith scratches its lumpy pregnant stomach and tells it to relax. It makes me nervous to see her, it’s not like her, I don’t know why. Then Luigi shouts up from the barber’s shop, then he comes up and stands at the door laughing, and Judith laughs, and the widow says: Children, enjoy yourselves. And off they go, walking down to the town eating ice cream. The cat follows them. It won’t let Judith out of its sight, like a dog. When she swims miles out to sea, the cat hides under a beach hut until she comes back. Then she carries it back up the hill, because that nasty little boy chases it. Well. I’m coming home tomorrow thank God, to my dear old Billy, I was mad ever to leave him. There is something about Judith and Italy that has upset me, I don’t know what. The point is, what on earth can Judith and Luigi talk about? Nothing. How can they? And of course it doesn’t matter. So I turn out to be a prude as well. See you next week.’

      It was my turn for a dose of the sun, so I didn’t see Betty. On my way back from Rome I stopped off in Judith’s resort and walked up through narrow streets to the upper town, where, in the square with the vine-covered trattoria at the corner, was a house with ROSTICCERIA written in black paint on a cracked wooden board over a low door. There was a door curtain of red beads, and flies settled on the beads. I opened the beads with my hands and looked into a small dark room with a stone counter. Loops of salami hung from metal hooks. A glass bell covered some plates of cooked meats. There were flies on the salami and on the glass bell. A few tins on the wooden shelves, a couple of pale loaves, some wine casks and an open case of sticky pale green grapes covered with fruit flies seemed to be the only stock. A single wooden table wit two chairs stood in a corner, and two workmen sat there, eating lumps of sausage and bread. Through another bead curtain at the back came a short, smoothly fat, slender-limbed woman with greying hair. I asked for Miss Castlewell, and her face changed. She said in an offended, offhand way: ‘Miss Castlewell left last week.’ She took a white cloth from under the counter, and flicked at the flies on the glass bell. ‘I’m a friend of hers,’ I said, and she said: ‘Si,’ and put her hands palm down on the counter and looked at me, expressionless. The workmen got up, gulped down the last of their wine, nodded and went. She ciao’d them; and looked back at me. Then, since I didn’t go, she called: ‘Luigi!’ A shout came from the back room, there was a rattle of beads, and in came first a wiry sharp-faced boy, and then Luigi. He was tall, heavy-shouldered, and his black rough hair was like a cap, pulled low over his brows. He looked good-natured, but at the moment uneasy. His sister said something, and he stood beside her, an ally, and confirmed: ‘Miss Castlewell went away.’ I was on the point of giving up, when through the bead curtain that screened off a dazzling light eased a thin tabby cat. It was ugly and it walked uncomfortably, with its back quarters bunched up. The child suddenly let out a ‘Ssssss’ through his teeth, and the cat froze. Luigi said something sharp to the child, and something encouraging to the cat, which sat down, looked straight in front of it, then began frantically licking at its flanks. ‘Miss Castlewell was offended with us,’ said Mrs Rineiri suddenly, and with dignity. ‘She left early one morning. We did not expect her to go.’ I said: ‘Perhaps she had to go home and finish some work.’

      Mrs Rinieri shrugged, then sighed. Then she exchanged a hard look with her brother. Clearly the subject had been discussed, and closed forever.

      I’ve known Judith a long time,’ I said, trying to find the right note. ‘She’s a remarkable woman. She’s a poet.’ But there was no response to this at all. Meanwhile the child, with a fixed bared-teeth grin, was staring at the cat, narrowing his eyes. Suddenly he let out another ‘Ssssssss’ and added a short high yelp. The cat shot backwards, hit the wall, tried desperately to claw its way up the wall, came to its senses and again sat down and began its urgent, undirected licking at its fur. This time Luigi cuffed the child, who yelped in earnest, and then ran out into the street past the cat. Now that the way was clear the cat shot across the floor, up to the counter, and bounded past Luigi’s shoulder and straight through the bead curtain into the barber’s shop, where it landed with a thud.

      ‘Judith was sorry when she left us,’ said Mrs Rineiri uncertainly. ‘She was crying.’

      ‘I’m sure she was.’

      And so,’ said Mrs Rineiri, with finality, laying her hands down again, and looking past me at the bead curtains. That was the end. Luigi nodded brusquely at me, and went into the back. I said goodbye to Mrs Rinieri and walked back to the lower town. In the square I saw the child, sitting on the running board of a lorry parked outside the trattoria, drawing in the dust with his bare toes, and directing in front of him a blank, unhappy stare.

      I had to go through Florence, so I went to the address Judith had been at. No, Miss Castlewell had not been back. Her papers and books were still there. Would I take them back with me to England? I made a great parcel and brought them back to England.

      I telephoned Judith and she said she had already written for the papers to be sent, but it was kind of me to bring them. There had seemed to be no point, she said, in returning to Florence.

      ‘Shall I bring them over?’

      ‘I would be very grateful, of course.’

      Judith’s flat was chilly, and she wore a bunchy sage-green woollen dress. Her hair was still a soft gold helmet, but she looked pale and rather pinched. She stood with her back to a single bar of electric fire – lit because I demanded it – with her legs apart and her arms folded. She contemplated me.

      I went to the Rineiris’ house.’

      ‘Oh. Did you?’

      ‘They seemed to miss you.’

      She said nothing.

      I saw the cat too.’

      ‘Oh. Oh, I suppose you and Betty discussed it?’ This was with a small unfriendly smile.

      ‘Well, Judith, you must see we were likely to?’

      She gave this her consideration and said: ‘I don’t understand why people discuss other people. Oh – I’m not criticizing you. But I don’t see why you are so interested. I don’t understand human behaviour and I’m not particularly interested.’

      ‘I think you should write to the Rineiris.’

      ‘I wrote and thanked them, of course.’

      ‘I don’t mean that.’

      ‘You and Betty have worked it out?’

      ‘Yes, we talked about it. We thought we should talk to you, so you should write to the Rineiris.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘For one thing, they are both very fond of you.’

      ‘Fond,’ she said smiling.

      ‘Judith, I’ve never in my life felt such an atmosphere of being let down.’

      Judith considered this. ‘When something happens that shows one there is really a complete gulf in understanding, what is there to say?’

      ‘It could scarcely have been a complete gulf in understanding. I suppose you are going to say we are being interfering?’

      Judith showed distaste. ‘That is a very stupid word. And it’s a stupid idea. No one can interfere with me if I don’t let them. No, it’s that I don’t understand people. I don’t understand why you or Betty should care. Or why the Rineiris should, for that matter,’ she added with the small tight smile.

      ‘Judith!’

      ‘If you’ve behaved stupidly, there’s no point in going on. You put an end to it.’

      ‘What happened?