‘You saw the maid again?’

‘Oh yes, I saw her every day. I went—to ask, you know, and in case the . . . ban should be lifted. I couldn’t keep away. And I wanted to make up to the maid for what I had left undone. But, do you know, I couldn’t induce her to take it. She changed towards me completely, and was as grim as she had been on the first day. She wouldn’t let me come any further than the door. She said she wished she’d never let me in.’

‘Did you see the doctor again?’ I asked.

My friend hesitated.

‘Yes, but only once. He didn’t want to see me, in fact he refused. I didn’t know his name, so I couldn’t go to his house, and the maid wouldn’t tell me the hours when he made his visits. But I knew he came every day, so once more I kept watch outside the palace and caught him as he came in, about midday, it must have been.’

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

‘Oh, the same technical stuff about her illness, and that she wasn’t so well, and he was anxious about her, and would I kindly keep away, and so on. I waited till he came out again, a long time, but he wouldn’t speak to me, he just shook his head and hurried off.’

‘How unkind,’ I commented.

‘Yes, wasn’t it? And I came to have a hatred for the place, for Venice, I mean, so in the end it wasn’t so difficult to leave. I gave my address in England to the maid, and begged her to write to me as often as she could, since she said her mistress wasn’t allowed to; but I only got one letter.’

‘What did it say?’

‘Oh, it was stuffed with lies.’

‘What sort of lies?’

‘Oh, ridiculous accusations against me, and against the English generally, and Sanctions, and the war, and how badly England had always treated Italy, and how we had won the war and were worse off than before, and she was thankful for that, and a lot more in the same vein.’

‘But what did she accuse you of?’ I asked.

‘Oh, she said I had broken into the house like a burglar, and had been very wicked, and thought only of myself, and I wouldn’t go away, and I ought to have been prosecuted, and the doctor had said this and that, and everyone agreed with him.’

‘You could afford to disregard all that,’ I remarked.

‘Of course. And that the whole thing had been too much for her, and that she only went through with it because I forced her to, and that she would have sent me away only she was sorry for me, but it went on too long and that was why she died.’

‘She died?’

‘Yes, she died. That was the one fact in all that string of falsehoods.’ He lowered his eyes and his voice. ‘But I know one thing. It wasn’t being with me that killed her—it was being without me. She died of a broken heart.’

He was silent for a time and then said:

‘You agree with me, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Because if I thought otherwise, I couldn’t, I really couldn’t——She died because I was taken away from her. You see that, don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I repeated.

‘I don’t value my life very much, and if I thought there was a word of truth in that letter, except the one fact of her death, well, I should want to kill myself. But there wasn’t. You would agree there wasn’t?’

‘Of course,’ I repeated.

‘You are quite sure?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Will you say it again?’

‘I’m sure there wasn’t a word of truth in it,’ I pronounced firmly. He sighed.

‘Thank you, thank you, Arthur. What a good friend you are!’

The tears were running down his face. I could not leave him like that, late as it was; I stayed with him and tried to comfort him, and it was not, until he had disagreed with me several times that I felt that I could, without unkindness, leave him to himself.

APPLES

‘Uncle Tim, Uncle Tim!’ There was no escaping the voice. Uncle Tim hoisted himself out of his chair and limped towards the window. It still looked a long way off when the cry began again; close to, this time. ‘Coming!’ called Uncle Tim, but it made no difference; the mournful importunate anapaests followed each other without a break. ‘Uncle Tim, Uncle Tim!’ It was like a weary goods train climbing an incline. Uncle Tim threw open the window and leaned out.

‘Yes, Rupert?’

‘Oh, Uncle Tim,’ said the child, and stopped, as though hypnotized by his own incantation.

‘Well, Rupert?’

‘I want an apple,’ announced Rupert, with an air of detachment, and as though fetching his thoughts from afar. He proceeded with quick gasps. ‘I want you to get me one. They’re right up on the tree. Silly old tree!’

‘Why is the tree silly?’ asked Uncle Tim. He tried to speak indulgently, but a shadow of annoyance crossed his face.

‘Because I can’t get the apples,’ answered Rupert, his voice growing shrill. ‘Do come, Uncle Tim, please. I did say please.’

Uncle Tim was moving away when Rupert called him back.

‘Uncle Tim! Come through the window, it’s ever so much quicker. I must have the apples . . . I want them. I’ve wanted them ever since breakfast!’

‘I’m afraid I’m not an acrobat,’ said Uncle Tim.

‘You’re always thinking about your silly old leg,’ argued Rupert. ‘Mummy says so. It won’t hurt you.’

‘I’m not going to give it a chance,’ said Uncle Tim, and he definitely withdrew.

Rupert was standing by the apple tree when his uncle arrived, leaning against it with one hand as though to introduce it to its despoiler. Around him on the grass lay instruments of assault, stones, sticks, toy bricks, even a doll that belonged to his little sister. There was a horrible gaping hole in its brilliant cheek, and its dress wanted smoothing down. Overhead the apples gleamed in the morning sunlight, each with a kind of halo, intolerably bright.

Uncle Tim steadied himself against the lichen-coated trunk and shook it. The rigid trunk gave a little and vibrated with a strong shudder, as though in pain; the apples tossed, noiselessly knocking each other in frantic mirth. But not one fell. Flushed with his effort, Uncle Tim turned and saw Rupert, his face parallel with the sky, staring into the branches with a bemused expression.

‘Why, they’re not ripe,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘They won’t be ripe for a month.’

Rupert’s jaw dropped and his face crinkled like a pond when a breeze crosses it.

‘Don’t cry, Rupert,’ said Uncle Tim. ‘In a month’s time you’ll have heaps; you won’t know what to do with them, there’ll be so many.’

‘I shan’t want them then,’ said Rupert. ‘I want them now.’ He burst into tears.

The passing of thirty years had made a difference to the apple tree; even by the light of the candles Uncle Tim noticed that. There were five candles: four on the bridge-table and one on the improvised sideboard that held, rather precariously, the glasses and decanters. The tree seemed to have shrunk. Some of its lower boughs were dead; its plumpness was gone; its attitude was set and strained; its bark less adhesive. Even its leaves were sparse and small. But Rupert had bloomed. Not into a passion-flower, exactly, thought Uncle Tim, pausing just beyond the reach of the candle-light. The September night was dark, and very warm and still; the unwinking flames irradiated dully the great orb of Rupert’s face. It glowed like tarnished copper and seemed of one colour with his lips, as his features shared their generous contours. His head lolled on the back of a basket-chair whose cushioned rim creaked beneath its weight; but his half-closed eyes, independent of those movements, never left his partner. She was playing the hand, but at times her jewelled fingers came abruptly across, twitching her fur with a gesture always provisional, always repeated. Suddenly she stopped.

‘Four,’ said Rupert. ‘That’s the rubber.’

Uncle Tim came out of the shadow.

‘Isn’t it very damp?’ he said. ‘And rather late? It’s nearly three.’