The Disciple

Chapter I: Rogation Days-3

‘There is a perfectly decent jug for the milk, though I haven’t the foggiest notion if Rita has unpacked the silver chest. Let’s just have a look,’ Sir Christopher said, opening the door of a cabinet at random. ‘You see’ – he pointed at an assortment of ill-stacked china – ‘what a slut she is. It’s in the refrigerator, you said?’

‘The milk? Um, ah, yes,’ John stumbled, taken aback by what he misinterpreted as the uncharacteristic vehemence of Sir Christopher’s remark. ‘Here it is,’ he said, hesitantly retrieving a cardboard container.

‘I think it’s too squalid without a proper silver jug,’ Sir Christopher said, recoiling from the commercial packaging. ‘Let’s just forget about the milk.’

And once they were installed under the loggia, Sir Christopher did seem to forget any cares that might lour his horizon – whether it be a misplaced milk jug or an unfinished review – and to settle down contentedly. ‘Too, too delicious,’ he said, sipping his tea.

John smiled, happy to have been able to please Sir Christopher, for, though they had spent little more than one hour together this afternoon arranging the books, he could already see that the art of placating him would require much skill. It was not that Sir Christopher had been in the least rude to him but that the older man could not conceal his impatience with anything that kept him from his work. Sensing that his most effectual contribution would be to establish a climate propitious to Sir Christopher’s writing, John fortified himself with another sip of tea and said, ‘I’ve just had an idea about arranging the books which, well, I mean, I don’t want in any way to appear forward—’

‘No, don’t worry about that,’ Sir Christopher broke in, eager to encourage anyone in looking after his practical affairs.

‘It’s just that it seems to me that the books are so confused – biography and history, even some fiction, mixed in with the art history – that we have to take some of the books off the shelves first, in order to create any sort of general filing system.’

‘I don’t know, that seems terribly like backpedalling,’ Sir Christopher, who only wanted to be finished with the matter, said.

‘Well, you see,’ John spoke quickly, hoping that his plan, seen in its entirety, would convince, ‘I think that if I could establish an order first, I could then move ahead with great speed. To be honest, it’s the sort of thing that is best done by one person. So, I was wondering, what would you think of my setting up a desk for you, just a temporary sort of thing, somewhere else? You said there was a spare room, I think. I could put everything you need for the review you’re working on at the moment – typewriter, necessary books and anything else you can think of – together. This would leave you free to write in peace. Then, I bet within a week or two, I could have your study in perfect order, and you could move back in there and work just the way you always have.’

‘But that is more than one has the right to ask! Do you really think it possible?’

‘I do, though I’d better start right away – tomorrow morning that is – as I won’t be in Florence that much longer,’ John said, returning to a familiar theme.

‘Of course, tomorrow,’ Sir Christopher said, missing (or choosing to miss) John’s emphasis.

‘Perfect.’

‘Oh, but blast, isn’t tomorrow the first of July, Friday?’ Sir Christopher asked.

‘Yes, it is,’ John, who had haggled over each day of the calendar, answered assuredly.

‘Well, I’m afraid that there’s nothing to be done about that. I’ve got Dodo Delfington for the whole day tomorrow – I’m meant to be taking her to Arezzo and Borgo San Sepolcro, for which she will certainly have laid on a car – and there’s no chucking her.’

‘Oh,’ John whispered, unable to mask his disappointment.

‘Of course, if you didn’t mind, you could stay here by yourself tomorrow,’ Sir Christopher said.

‘No, I wouldn’t mind that,’ John, who was thrilled at the prospect of an entire day, an entire day alone, in Sir Christopher’s apartment, said with a smile. ‘It might even be easier that way to set up your provisional study.’

‘The Indian, Rita, can, of course, give you luncheon; it won’t be very good – it will probably even be thoroughly nasty – but it will be something.’

‘That sounds fine.’

‘Right you are. Why don’t you come at nine tomorrow morning, as I don’t imagine Dodo will want to set off before half past? Thank goodness you’re here or one might have quite forgot about the whole thing. And what’s more, Alice Varrow is giving a dinner in Dodo’s honour tonight, and, believe me, she’d make no end of trouble if one failed to turn up. I don’t know if you’ve come across old Alice?’

‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t met her,’ John said flatly, so as not to disclose the fact that he had no idea of whom Sir Christopher was speaking.

‘Oh well, I’m sure you will. No foreigner in Florence escapes her grasp. Alice Varrow has lived here forever, up the hill at Bellosguardo, in a misshapen little cottage, surrounded by what could be quite a pretty garden – if only poor old Alice didn’t have such appallingly suburban taste in plants. But she is something of an institution – albeit a crumbling one – but an institution nonetheless. She used once to write rather decent biographies – of a purely popular sort, mind you – but she now seems reduced to churning out nothing but books about decapitated ladies.’

John laughed and then, in what he hoped sounded a spontaneous fashion, added, ‘On the other hand, I really did admire your mother’s book on the Princesse de Lamballe.’

‘Oh, but, Mamma’s book,’ Sir Christopher said, glibly accepting that his family’s accomplishments should be common knowledge, ‘was a serious piece of work, and, then again, the poor princesse was not so much beheaded as dismembered. Whereas old Alice – well, you know, it’s Marie Antoinette one year and Madame du Barry the next. Still, one can’t not dine with her, though I do feel that I ought to be taking you out, after you’ve given up so much of your time. I don’t suppose you would be free to dine with one tomorrow night, after I get back from Arezzo?’

‘Um, yes, I’d be able to, of course,’ John murmured. Fearful of betraying even a fraction of the emotion he felt, he changed the subject and, pointing at the plants, asked, ‘How do you water them all?’

‘There’s a derelict lavatory off that room to the left there. I imagine they rather want watering now.’

‘Do you want me to do it?’

‘Perhaps we could do it together. It’s the one practical thing I like doing, though I must say that it takes rather a time, filling and refilling the can with water.’

‘Why don’t you get a hose?’ John couldn’t help asking.

‘I never thought of that!’

‘Actually, I noticed that there’s a shop on the ground floor of the building where I’m staying in via Sant’Agostino that sells all sorts of gardening supplies. If you wanted, I could pick up a hose there and bring it along tomorrow.’

‘What a frightfully good idea. Here,’ Sir Christopher said, extracting a square black leather wallet with gilt-metal corners from his coat and proffering a large banknote. ‘You’d better take this for now, and then we can settle other business matters later. You mustn’t forget about that.’

John pressed the money into a pocket without looking at it, whilst thinking that there was little chance that he would forget about what Sir Christopher called ‘business matters’. Lying awake in bed last night, he had repeatedly asked himself if he were not being foolish to offer his services without an overt promise of remuneration and, even more so, to sacrifice his days, during which he was meant to be studying works of art. But as he paced round the loggia this afternoon, handing cans of water to Sir Christopher and admiring, when bidden, some straggly branch or minuscule bud, it was impossible for him not to feel that he was following his properly ordained path. With all the fervour of the neophyte, he told himself, as he watched the, to him, entirely beautiful, tall, silver-haired man clip, trim and soak the myriad plants, that he had entered into an intimately shared communion.

Professions of faith notwithstanding, he passed another uneasy night, frequently wondering why Sir Christopher did not want to accompany him to Arezzo and Borgo San Sepolcro. He would, of course, have declined any such invitation, pointing to all the work he had to do, but he still would like to have been asked.