‘Let’s go for a long drive tomorrow,’ she suggested.
Tonino had arranged to go with Luisa and her brother to Prato. But so strong was his emotion, that he was on the point of accepting Moira’s invitation and sacrificing Luisa.
‘All right,’ he began, and then suddenly thought better of it. After all, he could go out with Moira any day. It was seldom that he had a chance of jaunting with Luisa. He struck his forehead, he made a despairing face. ‘But what am I thinking of!’ he cried. ‘Tomorrow’s the day we’re expecting the manager of the hotel company from Milan.’
‘But must you be there to see him?’
‘Alas!’
It was too sad. Just how sad Moira only fully realized the next day. She had never felt so lonely, never longed so ardently for his presence and affection. Unsatisfied, her longings were an unbearable restlessness. Hoping to escape from the loneliness and ennui with which she had filled the house, the garden, the landscape, she took out the car and drove away at random, not knowing whither. An hour later she found herself at Pistoia, and Pistoia was as hateful as every other place; she headed the car homewards. At Prato there was a fair. The road was crowded; the air was rich with a haze of dust and the noise of brazen music. In a field near the entrance to the town, the merry-go-rounds revolved with a glitter in the sunlight. A plunging horse held up the traffic.
Moira stopped the car and looked about her at the crowd, at the swings, at the whirling roundabouts, looked with a cold hostility and distaste. Hateful! And suddenly there was Tonino sitting on a swan in the nearest merry-go-round, with a girl in pink muslin sitting in front of him between the white wings and the arching neck. Rising and falling as it went, the swan turned away out of sight. The music played on. But poor poppa, poor poppa, he’s got nothin’ at all. The swan reappeared. The girl in pink was looking back over her shoulder, smiling. She was very young, vulgarly pretty, shining and plumped with health. Tonino’s lips moved; behind the wall of noise what was he saying? All that Moira knew was that the girl laughed; her laughter was like an explosion of sensual young life. Tonino raised his hand and took hold of her bare brown arm.
Like an undulating planet, the swan once more wheeled away out of sight. Meanwhile, the plunging horse had been quieted, the traffic had begun to move forward. Behind her a horn hooted insistently. But Moira did not stir. Something in her soul desired that the agony should be repeated and prolonged. Hoot, hoot, hoot! She paid no attention. Rising and falling, the swan emerged once more from eclipse. This time Tonino saw her. Their eyes met; the laughter suddenly went out of his face. ‘Porco madonna!’ shouted the infuriated motorist behind her, ‘can’t you move on?’ Moira threw the car into gear and shot forward along the dusty road.
The cheque was in the post; there was still time, Tonino reflected, to stop the payment of it.
‘You’re very silent,’ said Luisa teasingly, as they drove back towards Florence. Her brother was sitting in front, at the wheel; he had no eyes at the back of his head. But Tonino sat beside her like a dummy. ‘Why are you so silent?’
He looked at her, and his face was grave and stonily unresponsive to her bright and dimpling provocations. He sighed; then, making an effort, he smiled, rather wanly. Her hand was lying on her knee, palm upward, with a pathetic look of being unemployed. Dutifully doing what was expected of him, Tonino reached out and took it.
At half past six he was leaning his borrowed motorcycle against the wall of Moira’s villa. Feeling like a man who is about to undergo a dangerous operation, he rang the bell.
Moira was lying on her bed, had lain there ever since she came in; she was still wearing her dust-coat, she had not even taken off her shoes. Affecting an easy cheerfulness, as though nothing unusual had happened, Tonino entered almost jauntily.
‘Lying down?’ he said in a tone of surprised solicitude. ‘You haven’t got a headache, have you?’ His words fell, trivial and ridiculous, into abysses of significant silence. With a sinking of the heart, he sat down on the edge of the bed, he laid a hand on her knee. Moira did not stir, but lay with averted face, remote and unmoving. ‘What is it, my darling?’ He patted her soothingly. ‘You’re not upset because I went to Prato, are you?’ he went on, in the incredulous voice of a man who is certain of a negative answer to his question.
Still she said nothing. This silence was almost worse than the outcry he had anticipated. Desperately, knowing it was no good, he went on to talk about his old friend, Carlo Menardi, who had come round in his car to call for him; and as the director of the hotel company had left immediately after lunch—most unexpectedly—and as he’d thought Moira was certain to be out, he had finally yielded and gone along with Carlo and his party. Of course, if he’d realized that Moira hadn’t gone out, he’d have asked her to join them. For his own sake her company would have made all the difference.
His voice was sweet, ingratiating, apologetic. ‘A black-haired pimp from the slums of Naples.’ John’s words reverberated in her memory. And so Tonino had never cared for her at all, only for her money. That other woman. . . . She saw again that pink dress, lighter in tone than the sleek, sunburnt skin; Tonino’s hand on the bare brown arm; that flash of eyes and laughing teeth. And meanwhile he was talking on and on, ingratiatingly; his very voice was a lie.
‘Go away,’ she said at last, without looking at him.
‘But, my darling . . .’ Bending over her, he tried to kiss her averted cheek. She turned and, with all her might, struck him in the face.
‘You little devil!’ he cried, made furious by the pain of the blow. He pulled out his handkerchief and held it to his bleeding lip. ‘Very well, then.’ His voice trembled with anger. ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go. With pleasure.’ He walked heavily away. The door slammed behind him.
But perhaps, thought Moira, as she listened to the sound of his footsteps receding on the stairs, perhaps it hadn’t really been so bad as it looked; perhaps she had misjudged him. She sat up; on the yellow counterpane was a little circular red stain—a drop of his blood. And it was she who had struck him.
‘Tonino!’ she called; but the house was silent. ‘Tonino!’ Still calling, she hurried downstairs, through the hall, out on to the porch. She was just in time to see him riding off through the gate on his motor-cycle. He was steering with one hand; the other still pressed a handkerchief to his mouth.
‘Tonino, Tonino!’ But either he didn’t, or else he wouldn’t hear her. The motor-cycle disappeared from view. And because he had gone, because he was angry, because of his bleeding lip, Moira was suddenly convinced that she had been accusing him falsely, that the wrong was all on her side. In a state of painful, uncontrollable agitation she ran to the garage. It was essential that she should catch him, speak to him, beg his pardon, implore him to come back. She started the car and drove out.
‘One of these days,’ John had warned her, ‘you’ll go over the edge of the bank, if you’re not careful. It’s a horrible turning.’
Coming out of the garage door, she pulled the wheel hard over as usual. But too impatient to be with Tonino, she pressed the accelerator at the same time. John’s prophecy was fulfilled. The car came too close to the edge of the bank; the dry earth crumbled and slid under its outer wheels. It tilted horribly, tottered for a long instant on the balancing point, and went over. But for the ilex tree, it would have gone crashing down the slope. As it was, the machine fell only a foot or so and came to rest, leaning drunkenly sideways with its flank against the bole of the tree. Shaken, but quite unhurt, Moira climbed over the edge of the car and dropped to the ground. ‘Assunta! Giovanni!’ The maids, the gardener came running. When they saw what had happened, there was a small babel of exclamations, questions, comments.
‘But can’t you get it on to the drive again?’ Moira insisted to the gardener; because it was necessary, absolutely necessary, that she should see Tonino at once.
Giovanni shook his head. It would take at least four men with levers and a pair of horses. . . .
‘Telephone for a taxi, then,’ she ordered Assunta and hurried into the house. If she remained any longer with those chattering people, she’d begin to scream. Her nerves had come to separate life again; clenching her fists, she tried to fight them down.
Going up to her room, she sat down before the mirror and began, methodically and with deliberation (it was her will imposing itself on her nerves) to make up her face. She rubbed a little red on to her pale cheeks, painted her lips, dabbed on the powder. ‘I must look presentable,’ she thought, and put on her smartest hat.
