The Takeover (27 page)

Maggie attacked the big gate with her key while the chauffeur’s torch shone on it. With the first touch, a furious din broke loose. Barking of dogs, the screams of women, male voices roaring out the worst possible obscenities, and above all the words, ‘Ladri! ladri! polizia!’—Thieves, police.…Maggie screamed, but bells were ringing now, searchlights beamed from the rooftop of the villa and Berto’s dalmatian, Pavoncino, came streaking towards the gate, barking only less loudly than the barking in the air.

The pandemonium continued while the chauffeur pulled Maggie back into the car, bundling her into the front seat beside him. He drove off at full speed round to the front of the house and got out to ring the bell.

Here, Pavoncino awaited them, barking. But soon, having recognized Maggie, he was wagging his tail. Maggie sat on and waited. A police car drew up, then another.

In the midst of the turmoil Berto appeared with Guillaume, both armed with guns.

The police had taken Maggie into custody and were holding the chauffeur with his hands behind his back.

‘Berto, it’s me,’ Maggie called out.

‘Where are you, Maggie? I can’t see you,’ Berto called. ‘Are you all right?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Maggie said.

The police could not understand English and had already bundled her, in her rags, into a police car, around which the dog pranced joyfully, barking loudly.

The noises in the air ceased abruptly. Guillaume slowly opened the front gate, still with his gun poised. Then, perceiving the dog’s demonstrations of welcome, cautiously approached the police car where Maggie sat meekly, handcuffed to two burly carabinieri.

At first he didn’t recognize her, and could hardly believe her voice when she called ‘Berto!’

‘That’s my wife,’ Berto said. ‘Maggie, what are you doing? You’ve set off my new burglar alarm and all the loudspeakers and the electronic communication with the police station. What’s wrong?’

Maggie was released in due course of time, and brandy administered to the chauffeur. The policemen were invited inside and apologized to, refusing, however, to drink while on duty; they seemed happy enough to have a nice glance round the drawing-room.

‘I dressed up as a pauper,’ Maggie explained in the best Italian she could manage. ‘Because I am a pauper. I’m ruined. I just wanted everyone to know.’

Berto, placing to one side for the moment his bewilderment, translated this with considerable modifications. He explained, in fact, that the Marchesa had only meant it as a joke; she had not known of the burglar alarm. Many more apologies from Berto. Sincere and profound apologies. The police went away and Berto stood looking at his bedraggled wife, still handsome and gleaming through it all as she was.

D
EAR
H
UBERT
,

On my return from a business trip to Switzerland I found a letter from my lawyer, Avvocato Massimo de Vita, in which he tells me you are claiming that I gave you my Gauguin, and that moreover my Gauguin is a fake.

As it happens, I did not give you my Gauguin and my Gauguin is not a fake.

I plan, in fact, to sell my Gauguin. In these days of tight money one has to plan one’s budget, and Berto plans to take my Gauguin to London to sell it. I plan also to dispose of my Louis XIV furniture. I heard an absurd rumor that my furniture and pictures had already been taken away from the house, but naturally you would have informed me had they been stolen. There are so many rumors!! However, I plan the move for Wednesday. As you know I’m not so very keen on Louis XIV and I don’t need it anyway really. I don’t use it, do I? We are planning to collect it next week Wednesday August 27. It is such a long time since we met. We are planning to pay you a visit, Hubert, to discuss your future plans, as we are selling the villa to Lauro as it appears the land on which it is built belongs to Lauro’s beautiful new bride. Isn’t it fortunate that Lauro has been our friend all these years? Would you believe it, but he even cut short his honeymoon to come and discuss my plans with me! What good fortune that the land does not belong to a stranger! In the meantime of course I am taking action against Mr de Lafoucauld who arranged for the purchase of my properties at Nemi as it seems he was most untrustworthy. That is not his real name, of course, but Berto has talked to the police, they have found him in Milan and certainly he will go to prison. Berto has said he no longer cares if his name gets into the papers in connection with a criminal action as we are the innocent party, always have been and always will be.

I hope you can find some other spot in Nemi to continue your plans for your new religion. It sounds very exciting and I would have loved to have been there, too, but I was in Switzerland and besides, Berto is so conventional, he would hate it if I got mixed up with drugs, orgies, etc. etc. Isn’t it good that Lauro is willing to make a little arrangement with me for the house, as it is really an illegal house although I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I plan to move in as soon as possible. Berto, of course, was angry about the orgy but he would naturally prefer you to go quietly. I mean, we don’t want to complain to the authorities as that would be unpleasant. It has been good of you to keep my pictures and my furniture in good condition. I have tried to get in touch with Massimo de Vita to tell him personally what my plans are, but his office telephone number doesn’t answer. A few weeks ago I read in the papers that the Lake of Nemi is ‘biologically dead’ which means it is polluted, but they are building a new sewage system for that clinic, so it doesn’t all go into the lake. I am sure your ancestors would turn in their graves and I do feel for you, after those beautiful ships of antiquity sailed so proudly on its tranquil surface. Of course, Nemi is beautiful and Mary will be sorry to leave, but their house is also illegal and I don’t know if they can make arrangements with the owners of the land, and in any case Michael says we shouldn’t have to pay twice for a house. It is a worry for the Bernardinis also, especially as his wedding to Nancy is to take place soon. She is a very fine young woman and will be a very good housekeeper for him I am quite sure.

If you see Avvocato Massimo de Vita please tell him he has got it all wrong about my Gauguin. I really feel that lawyers these days are very slipshod in their work. Hardly any of them care about their clients any more. I plan to go to another lawyer.

Don’t forget Wednesday, 27, the van will be coming, naturally with an armed escort as one can’t be too careful these days.

Arrivederci and all my love,

Maggie.

P.S. It is terrible the times we are living in. I just read in the Herald Tribune about a dear friend of mine, a financier from the Argentine, Coco de Renault, being kidnaped. Apparently they are asking a fantastic ransom and the poor wife and daughter in Switzerland are absolutely frantic. I put through a call to them immediately but they didn’t want to talk so as to keep the line free for the kidnapers to negotiate. The family say they haven’t seen Coco for months and they don’t know where he is, which is terrible, but the newspapers say he has to send them a power of attorney to release all his money for the kidnapers, and it’s possible the banks will not accept his word in which case he could be killed. It is terrible to read about these events and even more frightening when it is someone you know and it reaches your own door. Personally, I think the wife has already got all his money tucked away somewhere in Switzerland, though the talk of powers of attorney is her way of trying to drive a bargain. They usually put their money in the wife’s name or in a numbered account so I hope my friend will be released unharmed, but how dreadful to pay it all to criminals!

Hubert read the letter slowly to Pauline Thin who had returned the day after Hubert’s three former secretaries had left.

Since the furniture had been taken away there had been quarrels every day amongst them all; the boys simply didn’t have the stamina to sit it out for a month all sleeping on camp-beds and eating in the kitchen. A month was all Hubert had asked of them, just for the sake of appearances.

Maggie’s furniture and her pictures had already been sold in London. Even those pictures which had been copies, and the set of Louis XIV furniture which had been reconstructed, with an original leg here, an arm there, had fetched quite a fat sum, while those original paintings and articles of furniture which remained had fetched a fortune. After Massimo’s half-share had been deducted there still remained a fortune for Hubert, that fortune which he had felt all along that Maggie should have settled on him. It was now only a matter of keeping up an appearance of poverty for a month or maybe a little longer, so there should be no question that he had made off with Maggie’s property. Massimo had left for some unknown destination; he had said California, which meant, certainly, elsewhere; evidently he was used to departing speedily for elsewhere from time to time. Hubert’s half-share of the sale was safely in that nursery-garden of planted money, Switzerland.

‘Miss Thin,’ said Hubert when Pauline arrived at the house the day after the departure of his three discontented friends, ‘if you have come to collect your remaining goods and chattels you have come in vain. The bailiffs have been. They have taken everything, including your knickers. All they have left me are the bare necessities and I, descendant of the gods, am a pauper. What is more, Miss Thin, you have much to account for.’

Pauline said, ‘So have you. Five months’ pay for a start.’

‘Don’t be vulgar,’ he said. All the same, he opened the kitchen cupboard and took a bundle of notes out of a tin. He counted out her pay. ‘Women,’ he said, ‘are incredibly materialistic.’

She sat down on a kitchen chair and checked the money. ‘Your boy-friends have gone,’ she said. ‘I dare say they left for idealistic, not materialistic, reasons. That’s why they left you all alone here, without any comfortable furniture. Where did you get this money from, Hubert?’

‘It’s no business of yours and you’re no longer my secretary. You wrecked my Fellowship and you wrecked my reputation. I have had an anonymous letter from someone in the village comparing me to some false Catholic prelate who set himself up at Nemi with his gang of acolytes two years ago in a villa, with all his holy pictures and his crucifixes and his apostolic papers in order. He claimed to have a commission from the Holy See to purchase vast stocks of merchandise, and when the police finally surrounded the villa he committed suicide. I have all the details here. The author of the letter enclosed the press cutting.’

He had passed it over to Pauline. ‘See what the bloody fool killed himself with,’ he said, ‘a glass of
vino al topicida
!’ It sounds like some speciality in a restaurant, but it’s rat-poison in wine. A very low-class suicide, and I wouldn’t care to know the author of this anonymous letter who suggests I do the same.

‘The hand-writing’s pretty awful,’ said Pauline.

‘So is the spelling. Some village woman. What does it matter?’

‘Oh, Hubert! You would never think of suicide, would you?’ Pauline said. ‘I don’t want this money, really. Take it back. Here it is.’

‘Suicide is not remotely in my mind,’ Hubert said. ‘But I’ll put the money back in the tin for safe-keeping. I hope you’ve learnt your lesson, Miss Thin.’

‘I’ll go shopping and I’ll cook for you,’ Pauline said.

‘I had another letter,’ Hubert had said, and he then had proceeded to read aloud to her Maggie’s letter.

‘That woman is dangerous,’ Pauline said. ‘Where’s her furniture at the moment?’

‘How do I know? Her lawyer took it away.’

‘And your manuscripts, Hubert, where are your documents?’

‘In Rome,’ Hubert said. ‘Transferred to Rome, as was the cult of Diana which, for political and very democratic reasons, spread to Rome in the fourth century B.C.’

‘I saw Father Cuthbert in Rome,’ Pauline said.

‘I dare say you spoke about me. What else would you have to talk about, my dear?’

‘Well, Hubert, I think he’s got a good idea that you should take up the Charismatic Movement in the Church and run the prayer meetings. You do the murmuring rite so well and Cuthbert said it wouldn’t be in conflict with Diana as the preserver of nature, not at all.’

‘It is a long time,’ Hubert said, ‘since Homer sang the wonders of Artemis who came to be Diana. He called her the Lady of Wildlife. There’s much to be said for charisma and wildlife.’

‘They’re the new idea,’ Pauline said, meekly. ‘You have to make a living somehow, Hubert. You can’t stay here with these kitchen chairs.’

‘One way and another, Miss Thin,’ Hubert said, ‘I haven’t done so badly.’

‘We leave tonight at midnight,’ Hubert informed Pauline. It was Tuesday, 26 August, thirteen days after the Feast of Diana and one day before the date fixed by Maggie for the removal of her furniture which wasn’t there. That morning, when Pauline returned from her trip to the village to buy provisions, he had taken the newspapers out of her hand, as usual, waiting for her to serve the coffee. ‘We leave at midnight,’ he said.

Over coffee he handed her a newspaper, folded back to reveal a picture of a decapitated statue. ‘This is a sign,’ said Hubert. Two statues flanking a fountain in Palermo had been mutilated by vandals; the newspaper had printed the one which had suffered most. The headline read, ‘Diana Decapitated’, and the picture showed a sturdy and headless nude Diana with her hound and her stag. ‘It’s a definite sign,’ Hubert said, ‘for us, don’t you think so, Miss Thin?’

‘One good thing,’ said Hubert, ‘about having nothing left to protect is that I can go for a walk.’

He left before sunset, while Pauline set about putting their few household possessions in the back of the station-wagon ready for their transfer to Rome. Bobby Lester, her previous employer so long ago, and a friend of Father Cuthbert, had lent them his flat overlooking the Piazza del Popolo. She placed the tin box with Hubert’s money on the kitchen table to keep an eye on it and sat down beside it dutifully and happily doing nothing but reading small paragraphs in the newspaper and listening to the transistor radio. She wore a black cotton blouse and a red skirt that made her hips seem wider than ever; they spilt over the kitchen chair in a proprietory way, and she knew she was indispensable to Hubert’s future.