When in Rome. Ngaio Marsh

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      Mr Mailer, it emerged, was sitting on it. By some adroit and nimble sleight-of-hand, he had passed it under his rump while Barnaby was intent upon his recovered property. He now drew it out, wrapped in a dampish Roman news-sheet and, with trembling fingers, uncovered it. A manuscript, closely written in an Italianate script, but not, Barnaby rejoiced to see, bulky. Perhaps forty thousand words, perhaps, with any luck, less.

      ‘Neither a novel nor a novella in length, I’m afraid,’ said its author, ‘but so it has befallen and as such I abide by it.’

      Barnaby looked up quickly. Mr Mailer’s mouth had compressed and lifted at the corners. Not so difficult, after all, Barnaby thought.

      ‘I hope,’ said Mr Mailer, ‘my handwriting does not present undue difficulties. I cannot afford a typist.’

      ‘It seems very clear.’

      ‘If so, it will not take more than a few hours of your time. Perhaps in two days or so I may—? But I mustn’t be clamorous.’

      Barnaby thought: And I must do this handsomely. He said: ‘Look, I’ve a suggestion. Dine with me the day after tomorrow and I’ll tell you what I think.’

      ‘How kind you are! I am overwhelmed. But, please, you must allow me—if you don’t object to—well to somewhere—quite modest—like this, for example. There is a little trattoria, as you see. Their fettuccini—really very good and their wine quite respectable. The manager is a friend of mine and will take care of us.’

      ‘It sounds admirable and by all means let us come here but it shall be my party, Mr Mailer, if you please. You shall order our dinner. I am in your hands.’

      ‘Indeed? Really? Then I must speak with him beforehand.’

      On this understanding they parted.

      At the Pensione Gallico Barnaby told everybody he encountered: the manageress, the two waiters, even the chambermaid who had little or no English, of the recovery of his manuscript. Some of them understood him and some did not. All rejoiced. He rang up the Consulate which was loud in felicitations. He paid for his advertisements.

      When all this had been accomplished he re-read such bits of his book as he had felt needed to be re-written, skipping from one part to another.

      It crossed his mind that his dominant reaction to the events of the past three days was now one of anticlimax: All that agony and—back to normal, he thought and turned a page.

      In a groove between the sheets held by their looseleaf binder he noticed a smear and, on opening the manuscript more widely, found a slight deposit of something that looked like cigarette ash. He had given up smoking two years ago.

      V

      On second thoughts (and after a close examination of the lock on his case) he reminded himself that the lady who did for him in London was a chain-smoker and excessively curious and that his manuscript often lay open on his table. This reflection comforted him and he was able to work on his book and, in the siesta, to read Mr Mailer’s near-novella with tolerable composure.

      ‘Angelo in August by Sebastian Mailer.’

      It wasn’t bad. A bit jewelled. A bit fancy. Indecent in parts but probably not within the meaning of the act. And considering it was a fourth draft, more than a bit careless: words omitted: repetitions, redundancies. Barnaby wondered if cocaine could be held responsible for these lapses. But he’d seen many a worse in print and if Mr Mailer could cook up one or two shorter jobs to fill out a volume he might very well find a publisher for it.

      He was struck by an amusing coincidence and when, at the appointed time, they met for dinner, he spoke of it to Mr Mailer.

      ‘By the way,’ he said, refilling Mr Mailer’s glass, ‘you have introduced a secondary theme which is actually the ground-swell of my own book.’

      ‘Oh no!’ his guest ejaculated, and then: ‘But we are told, aren’t we, that there are only—how many is it? three?—four?—basic themes?’

      ‘And that all subject matter can be traced to one or another of them? Yes. This is only a detail in your story, and you don’t develop it. Indeed, I feel it’s extraneous and might well be dropped. The suggestion is not,’ Barnaby added, ‘prompted by professional jealousy,’ and they both laughed, Mr Mailer a great deal louder than Barnaby. He evidently repeated the joke in Italian to some acquaintances of his whom he had greeted on their arrival and had presented to Barnaby. They sat at the next table and were much diverted. Taking advantage of the appropriate moment, they drank Barnaby’s health.

      The dinner, altogether, was a great success. The food was excellent, the wine acceptable, the proprietor attentive and the mise-en-scène congenial. Down the narrowest of alleyways they looked into the Piazza Navona, and saw the water-god Il Moro in combat with his Fish, superbly lit. They could almost hear the splash of his fountains above the multiple voice of Rome at night. Groups of youths moved elegantly about Navona and arrogant girls thrust bosoms like those of figureheads at the eddying crowds. The midsummer night pulsed with its own beauty. Barnaby felt within himself an excitement that rose from a more potent ferment than their gentle wine could induce. He was exalted.

      He leant back in his chair, fetched a deep breath, caught Mr Mailer’s eye and laughed. ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘as if I had only just arrived in Rome.’

      ‘And perhaps as if the night had only just begun?’

      ‘Something of the sort.’

      ‘Adventure?’ Mailer hinted.

      Perhaps, after all, the wine had not been so gentle. There was an uncertainty about what he saw when he looked at Mailer, as if a new personality emerged. He really had got very rum eyes, thought Barnaby, tolerantly.

      ‘An adventure?’ the voice insisted. ‘May I help you, I wonder? A cicerone?’

      May I help you? Barnaby thought. He might be a shop-assistant. But he stretched himself a little and heard himself say lightly: ‘Well—in what way?’

      ‘In any way,’ Mailer murmured. ‘Really, in any way at all. I’m versatile.’

      ‘Oh,’ Barnaby said. ‘I’m very orthodox, you know. The largest Square,’ he added and thought the addition brilliantly funny, ‘in Rome.’

      ‘Then, if you will allow me—

      The proprietor was there with his bill. Barnaby thought that the little trattoria had become very quiet but when he looked round he saw that all the patrons were still there and behaving quite normally. He had some difficulty in finding the right notes but Mr Mailer helped him and Barnaby begged him to give a generous tip.

      ‘Very good indeed,’ Barnaby said to the proprietor, ‘I shall return.’ They shook hands warmly.

      And then Barnaby, with Mr Mailer at his elbow, walked into narrow streets past glowing windows and pitch-dark entries, through groups of people who shouted and by-ways that were silent into what was, for him, an entirely different Rome.

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