Free The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah Caudwell Page A

Old House, warmly recommended by
The Guide to Comfortable Tax Planning
for the excellence of its cuisine and the romantic charm of its surroundings, Patrick Ardmore had continued relentlessly with his strategy of paying no compliments, refraining from physical contact, and making frequent references to his devotion to his wife. Poor Julia, naturally finding this irresistible, had not known what to do.
    “When afflicted by feelings of the sort I have described,” said Julia, “one would normally adopt the forthright and vigorous approach recommended by Shakespeare in his celebrated poem ‘Venus and Adonis.’ I don’t say that it’s invariably successful—on the contrary, I have often known it to end in the most wounding of rebuffs—but at least one has the consolation of knowing one has done the right thing and acted in accordance with the best possible precedent. When, however, the object of one’s desire is a man much older than oneself, who can’t sensibly be complimented on the perfection of his profile or the smoothness of his complexion, that approach doesn’t seem to be quite appropriate. I accordingly found myself at a loss. The trouble was, you see, that I didn’t want to do anything which might make Patrick feel embarrassed and want to avoid me. It was absurdly sentimental of me, because there was no particular likelihood of our meeting again anyway, but I couldn’t help it.”
    “She was at the mercy,” said Selena, “of feelings beyond her control.”
    “Yes,” said Julia. “And yet at the same time I thought how sad it would be to discover in thirty years’ time that after all he, too, would have liked to make an advance but had also refrained, perhaps for some motive similar to my own. So I felt confused and didn’t know what to do.”
    “Her mind,” said Selena, “was a whirl of conflicting emotions.”
    “Yes,” said Julia. “So the impasse—which I take to be the correct expression for a situation in which no one makes a pass at anyone—continued throughout my stay and until after dinner on my last evening. And might indeed not have ended then, except that or” the wayback to our hotel I tripped over something, and Patrick took my arm to prevent me falling over. This had a very peculiar effect on me, even worse than the breathless-ness and indigestion which I have previously mentioned—I felt as I suppose an ice cream might feel when hot chocolate sauce is poured over it.”
    “Her senses reeled at his touch,” said Selena triumphantly, having evidently felt that without this phrase the story would be somehow incomplete.
    “Yes,” said Julia. “And it was at this point that I thought of Alcibiades. The distinguished general, as you may remember, found himself as a young man in a somewhat similar position with regard to the philosopher Socrates, and the tactics which he employed on that occasion are recorded in some detail in Plato’s
Symposium
. Although in that particular case they were unsuccessful, one somehow has the impression that Alcibiades was a young man of considerable expertise in such matters—I felt I could do no better than follow his example.”
    “You mean,” said Ragwort, looking puzzled, “that you invited Patrick Ardmore to a friendly wrestling match in the nearest gymnasium?”
    “No, no, Ragwort, of course not. I doubt very much if there is a gymnasium in Grand Cayman—there is certainly no mention of such a thing in
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—and even if there were, one could hardly expect it to be open at midnight. No, the essence of the Alcibiades strategy, as I understand it, is to make no advance oneself but to find ways to make it clear that one would be happy to receive one. So I invited Patrick to help me to finish off a bottle of wine which I had in my room and which would otherwise be wasted—and you will surely admit, Ragwort, that considering howlate it was, he could without any incivility or embarrassment have said