My Brother Michael Read online

  I should perhaps say here that her eyelashes were very long, quite real, and quite beautiful. This is in case it should be thought that my description of Danielle smacks of prejudice. The only reason that I had then for prejudice was the expression on Nigel’s face, stuck there on his knees on the floor with his ungainly hands full of the delicate drawings, turning to face the door, and saying ‘Danielle!’ in a cracked young voice that gave him away immediately and very cruelly.

  He shoved the drawings clumsily into the folder and got to his feet.

  After that first greeting she had ignored him. Nor, after one cool glance, had she looked at me. Her eyes were all over Simon.

  She said again: ‘Hullo.’ I don’t quite know how she made the simple dissyllable sound sexy, but she did.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Simon, not sounding sexy at all. He was looking ever so slightly amused, and also wary, which annoyed me. Why it should, I’m not prepared to say, and didn’t try at the time.

  Nigel said hoarsely: ‘What are you doing here? I thought you’d left Delphi.’

  ‘I had. But I came back. Aren’t you going to ask me in, Nigel dear?’

  ‘Of course. Come in. It’s wonderful – I mean I didn’t expect you back. Come in. Sit down.’ He darted forward and dragged out the best chair – the one I had vacated – for her. But she walked past it towards Simon, who was standing by the window. She went very close to him. ‘I’m sleeping in the studio, Simon. I got tired of the Tourist Hotel, and anyway I can’t afford it now. You don’t mind me coming here, do you … Simon?’

  ‘Not in the very least.’ He looked across her at me. ‘You’d better be introduced. Camilla, this, as you’ll have guessed, is Danielle. Camilla Haven: Danielle Lascaux. I told you that Danielle was here for some time with the French School. She was Hervé Clément’s secretary. You probably know the name. He wrote Later Discoveries at Delphi.’

  ‘I read it not long before I came here. How d’you do?’ I said to Danielle.

  She gave me a brief stare, and a barely civil nod. Then she turned, and with what looked like very conscious grace, sat down at the opposite end of the bed from me, curled her slim legs up under her, and leaned back against the bed-head. She tilted her head and sent Simon a long look between narrowed lids.

  ‘So you’ve been talking about me?’

  Nigel said eagerly: ‘It was your portrait – the one I did of you.’ With one of his ungraceful gestures he indicated the untidily stuffed portfolio lying on the bed beside me.

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘It’s very good, don’t you think?’ I said. ‘I recognised you as soon as you came in.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Nigel’s quite a clever boy, we know that.’ She sent him a smile that was a shadow of the one she’d given Simon, then reached out an idle hand and pulled two or three sheets out of the folder. I saw Nigel make a small sharp movement, as if of involuntary protest, then he sat down in the orange canvas chair, his hands dangling between his bony knees.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it’s a good enough portrait. Are my eyes really as big as that, Nigel?’ She was leafing through the drawings: her own portrait; the one we had called the ‘Phormis head’, with the close curls and tight smile; the cyclamen; and a drawing I hadn’t seen, of a man’s head and shoulders. ‘Flowers?’ said Danielle. ‘Are they paying you to do things like that, Nigel? … Who’s this?’

  Her voice had changed on the query, so abruptly that I was startled. I saw Simon turn his head, and Nigel almost jumped. ‘Who? Oh, that. That’s a chap I saw today on Parnassus. We were just saying before you came in that he was rather like an archaic—’

  ‘No, no!’ She had been holding the Phormis head, and another drawing. She dropped the former abruptly, and thrust the other forward. ‘Not that one. This.’

  Something in her voice suggested an effort for self-command, and to my surprise her hand was unsteady. But when I said ‘May I?’ and leaned forward to take the drawing gently from her, she let it go without protest. I looked at it with interest, and then more sharply. It showed the head and bared throat of a young man. The face was beautiful, but not with Niko’s vital and very Greek beauty; this was remote, stern, perhaps a little sad. He was not, I thought, a ‘Hellenic type’ at all, though something about him was oddly familiar. But it appeared that he was not intended to form part of Nigel’s gallery. This was the only portrait I had seen where Nigel had used what I might call his ‘flower technique’. It was in his own style; the work was delicate, sure and arrestingly beautiful.

  ‘Why, Nigel …’ I said. ‘Simon, look at this!’ Danielle let the others fall to the coverlet. She appeared abruptly to have lost interest, only asking: ‘Did you do those today?’

  ‘Yes.’ And Nigel, before Simon had time to do more than glance at the drawing, had finally and this time effectively swept every drawing back into the folder and shoved it under the bed. He looked flustered, and every bit as resentful as he had done earlier. But Danielle didn’t pursue the subject. She leaned back again and said in her usual slightly bored tone: ‘For God’s sake, Nigel, are you going to offer me a drink?’

  ‘Of course.’ Nigel dived for the bottle of ouzo, put it down again so that it rocked and nearly spilt, then dashed to rinse a tumbler out in the basin.

  I put my own glass down and made as if to get to my feet. But at that moment I caught Simon’s eye, and I thought he shook his head very slightly. I sat back.

  He looked down at the girl. ‘I thought you’d gone, Danielle? Hasn’t the “dig” packed up?’

  ‘Oh, that. Yes. We got to Athens last night, and really I thought it would be rather a thing to be back in civilisation again, but I had the most dreary scene with Hervé, and then I thought to myself I really might as well be back in Delphi with …’ she smiled suddenly, showing very white teeth … ‘back in Delphi. So here I am.’

  Nigel said: ‘You mean you’ve got the sack?’

  ‘You could call it that.’ She watched him for a moment through the cigarette-smoke, then she turned to me. ‘Simon told you the polite fiction,’ she said. ‘Actually, of course, I was Hervé Clément’s mistress.’

  ‘Danielle!’

  ‘For God’s sake, Nigel!’ She hunched an impatient shoulder. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’ Then to me: ‘But he was getting to be a bit of a bore.’

  ‘Really?’ I said politely.

  I thought her look was calculating under the long lashes. ‘Yes, really. They all do, sooner or later, don’t you think? Do you find men bore you, Camilla Haven?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ I said. ‘But then so – occasionally – do women.’

  That one went straight past her. ‘I hate women anyway,’ she said simply. ‘But Hervé, he was honestly getting to be the utter end. Even if he hadn’t quit the “dig” here and gone back to Athens, I’d have had to leave him.’ She blew out a long cloud of smoke, and turned her head to look up at Simon. ‘So back I came. But I’ll have to sleep here, at the studio. I’m on my own now, so I haven’t got the cash for the Tourist Pavilion, or anywhere else for that matter …’ She smiled slowly, still looking at Simon. ‘So I’ll have to sleep rough.’

  What it was in her intonation I do not know, but somehow she managed to say the last simple sentence as if it meant sharing a bed with a sadist, and that meant Simon. I felt another spasm of intense irritation. I knew I should have wanted to feel sorry for Danielle, or even amused, but somehow it wasn’t possible. I was beginning to suspect that she was not trying to ape a pathetic maturity; the weltschmerz wasn’t a pose, it was real, and rather dreadful. So was the weariness in the big lost eyes. But the pity I should have owed her I felt for Nigel, now feverishly drying the tumbler and saying rapidly:

  ‘It’s wonderful to have you back. You know that. And of course you must stay in the studio. We’d love to have you, and you’ll be quite all right here. There’s only me and Simon and a Dutch painter—’

  ‘A Dutch painter?’

  Simon said smoothly: ‘A boy of abo
ut twenty who has walked from Jannina and is very, very tired.’

  She shot him a look up under the fabulous lashes. ‘Oh.’ She threw the half-smoked cigarette into the wash-basin where it, lay smouldering. ‘Give me another cigarette, Simon.’

  He obeyed. ‘Camilla?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  Nigel pushed past me with a tumbler three parts full of neat ouzo. ‘Here’s your drink, Danielle.’ His face was anxious, concentrated. He might have been carrying the Holy Grail. She took it from him and gave him a brilliant smile. I saw him blink, and the flush on the burnt cheek-bones deepened. ‘Nigel, darling. I’m glad I came back.’

  ‘Danielle—’ He made a clumsy movement towards her but she evaded it without seeming to see it, and lifted the glass towards him as she sat back against the bed-head.

  ‘Gia sou, Nigel darling … But you’re not drinking with me.’

  It should have been corny, but it wasn’t. The expression on the boy’s face was naked. He turned and grabbed the bottle and poured an inch or two of liquor into his empty glass. But even as he turned back, the girl yawned, stretched, tilted her head back on its long neck, and put out a hand towards Simon. Her finger-nails were very long and very red. Her fingers ran caressingly down his sleeve. ‘Actually,’ she said, still in that bored, velvet voice, ‘actually, you know, I’m Simon’s girl. Aren’t I, Simon?’

  I must have jumped about a foot. Simon looked down through the smoke of his cigarette, and said lazily: ‘Are you? Delighted, of course. But perhaps in that case you’ll tell me why you hired a car for me in Athens this morning?’

  The hand froze, then withdrew quickly. The thin body twisted on the bed in the first movement she had made unconsciously since she came in. It wasn’t sexy in the least. It was plain startled. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The car you hired in my name this morning. The car you were to have picked up at the Alexandros restaurant.’

  The black eyes held his for a moment, then dropped. ‘Oh, that.’ Her voice was calm and husky as usual. ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘My dear Danielle, you hired it for me, didn’t you? And you failed to pick it up. Naturally the people at the Alexandros got in touch with me.’

  ‘But that’s impossible! How did they know?’ She was scowling up at him now.

  ‘Never mind how. Tell me why.’

  She shrugged and drank ouzo. ‘I wanted to come back to Delphi. I told you that I hired a car. They never take any notice in Greece of a woman, so I gave your name.’

  ‘And said it was a matter of life and death?’

  ‘What? Don’t be silly. Of course I never said that.’ She laughed. ‘You’re very dramatic, Simon.’

  ‘Perhaps. A dramatic place, this. It gets into the blood. But you did hire the car.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And came without it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  I thought unhappily, because a fool of a girl called Camilla Haven had already taken it. Why couldn’t Simon let well alone? Somehow I didn’t particularly want to tangle with Danielle Lascaux. And she had every right to be mad with me if she had hired the beastly car – in whatever name – and had then had to come up to Delphi by bus. She didn’t look tired and bad-tempered, but it seemed she had arrived very late, and that was presumably my fault.

  ‘Why?’ said Simon.

  She said sulkily: ‘Because I got the offer of the jeep from Hervé. It was more convenient.’

  I said, before I thought: ‘I knew I’d seen you before! You were the girl in the jeep that overtook me just before Thebes. I remember you particularly. You were driving on the wrong side of the road.’

  She yawned, showing her tongue between her teeth. She didn’t even look at me. ‘Probably. I find it more exciting that way.’

  Simon said: ‘Then you got up here well before Camilla did. Where’ve you been?’

  She said, almost bad-temperedly: ‘What’s it matter? Around.’

  I said: ‘In Itea?’

  Danielle shot upright on the bed. Some ouzo spilled. ‘What are you talking about?’ I saw a look of surprise touch Simon’s face, then the familiar expressionless mask shut down. With the faintest quickening of the blood, I thought: He’s interested. This means something.

  I said: ‘I saw the jeep in Itea this evening. It was parked beside a house that stands right away from the village in the olive woods. I hadn’t realised till this minute that it was the same one, but now I remember. It had a little tinsel doll hanging in the windscreen – where they usually have the icons. I remember noticing that when you passed me near Thebes.’

  She wasn’t drinking. The smoke from that eternal cigarette crept up in a veil hiding the expression of her eyes. ‘This evening? How can you be so sure? Wasn’t it dark?’

  ‘Oh yes. But there was a man with a torch tinkering with the engine, and the light caught the tinsel. Then the lights went on in the house.’

  ‘Oh.’ She drank a gulp of neat ouzo. It didn’t appear to affect her. ‘Well, I expect it was the same jeep. I was down there, with … someone I know.’ Again that intonation, that glance up towards Simon. Nigel was watching her like a lost dog. I thought it was some – surprising – impulse of mercy that made her add: ‘I always go down to Itea in the afternoons. I’ve done it for weeks. I go to swim. Nigel knows that.’

  Nigel responded instantly, almost as if the last sentence had been a plea of proof. ‘Of course I know. But – did you really go there today before you even came up here?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She gave him a narrow, glinting smile. ‘You were out, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you might be. And I’d brought Elena a present from Athens, so—’

  ‘Elena?’ said Nigel quickly.

  ‘My friend in Itea. She often bathes from the same place as me, so I went back to her house with her.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Nigel.

  I thought she watched him for a second before she turned back to me. ‘And you, Camilla Haven? You went down to Itea first, before you came up here?’

  ‘I only came up here an hour ago. I’m only visiting. I’m staying at the Apollon.’

  ‘But you went straight to Itea.’ The words were sharp, almost, and sounded so much like an accusation that I said quickly: ‘I called at the hotel first.’ Then I added: ‘I went down to Itea to find the hirer of the car.’

  There was a little silence. ‘The … hirer of the car?’ repeated Danielle.

  ‘Yes. I – it was I who brought the car up from the Alexandros in Omonia Square. I–I was looking for the “Monsieur Simon” who was alleged to be wanting it.’

  She blew out a small cloud of smoke and leaned back against the head of the bed, regarding me through it. ‘I … see. You brought my car up here? You?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said unhappily. ‘I was in the Alexandros restaurant when the man from the garage came, and he mistook me for you. He gave me the keys and told me it was urgent, and that “Monsieur Simon” wanted the car at Delphi as soon as possible. I – we got in a muddle of cross-purposes, and he vanished, leaving me with the key, and no idea of the address of the garage. I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to come here myself, and – well, he’d been so insistent that it was a “matter of life and death” that—’

  ‘That stuff again,’ said Danielle.

  ‘That stuff again.’ I added: ‘I’m glad I don’t seem to have inconvenienced you after all. You must have got here well before me. I told you you passed me before Thebes.’

  She said quite sharply: ‘And why did you have to go to Itea to find Simon?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t. I – well, he found me quite easily. But of course as he didn’t know anything about the car, that didn’t help. We went to look for another “Simon”, actually a Simonides who keeps a baker’s shop near the cinema.’

  ‘That’s not,’ said Danielle, ‘in the olive woods.’

  ‘No. I went to see the Pilgrims’ Wa
y.’

  ‘The Pilgrims’ Way?’ she said blankly.

  Simon said: ‘Yes. You ought to know all about that, Danielle.’

  She said quickly: ‘Why?’

  ‘My dear girl. Because you’ve worked here as an archaeologist’s secretary.’

  ‘Mistress,’ said Danielle automatically.

  Nigel said suddenly from behind me: ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.’

  She opened her mouth as if to say something blistering, but shut it again, and gave him one of her slow smiles. I didn’t look at him. I said quickly: ‘Look, Danielle, I really am terribly sorry about this car. I suppose I – yes, I did think I might be doing the right thing, but it seems I was a bit hasty. I do hope it isn’t going to cause any inconvenience now, because—’

  ‘You brought it up here.’ She turned her head to give me a narrow look through the curling smoke. ‘You keep it.’

  I looked at her for a moment. Then I said slowly: ‘I suppose that is fair enough.’

  ‘You weren’t asked to bring it here. I don’t want it. You’re stuck with it, and I hope you can afford to pay for it.’ She turned away to flick ash towards the wash-basin. It missed and fell to the floor.

  There was a short silence. I said carefully: ‘Whom do I pay?’

  Her head came quickly back to me. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘What I said.’

  ‘Well, me, of course. Didn’t they tell you the deposit had been paid?’

  ‘Oh, yes, they told me that.’

  ‘So what?’ said Danielle.

  I stood up and picked up my handbag. ‘Only that it surprises me a bit that you didn’t call in on the garage after you’d got the jeep, and cancel the car. If you’re as short of money as you’ve been telling us, I’d have imagined the deposit would have come in very handy. In fact, I can’t see why you should have hired a car at all. The bus is cheaper. Perhaps you’ll let me have the receipt, with the address of the garage?’

  She sounded sulky. ‘Tomorrow. I have it somewhere.’