Free Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford Page A

heavy feeling of afternoons, the sense of standing still, of belonging nowhere. It was warm in daytime, out on the terrazzo, on the sunny side of the street, indoors it was cold. I had not known that the South could be so cold. The pensione was empty; the owners, the hard-working owners, the Emilios, were kind to the bambina . Oh they were more than that. I was living with the open-armed emotions of Italian working people: their goodness, simplicity, affection reminded me of my father’s Lina, but in that village Lina had been a rare bird; here, lovingness splashed like the quick water from the fountains, and the current of shared humanity flowed through the most trivial of daily exchanges. All the same I did not weep in Signora Emilio’s arms, nice though it would have been, because of her criticism – unspoken – of my mother. Chivalry forbade. I still had an old racket and found a wall against which I could play tennis solitaire. The ball kept going over garden fences which meant ringing doorbells and apologies; one man got furious and that put a damper on the game. When O was with us at Merano he had bought me something I had much coveted in the shops, a pair of those Tyrolese shorts made of beautifully soft chamois leather, complete with embroidered braces and white linen shirts. To boost my morale I put on these shorts and a nice clean shirt for la cena in the evening. I was soon aware that this was frowned upon – girls at Sorrento were no better off than girls at Feldkirch, in an obscure way I was causing scandal again. I hardened myself: I no longer took pleasure in my shorts but I went on wearing them. When at last they returned – this time they returned together, mummy and Alessandro – I was taken to Pompeii for a treat.
    * * *
    Life became settled unsettled. We went to Capri for a time (where someone gave me lessons), then back to the mainland, then over to Sicily, to Palermo, Taormina, Syracuse.
    ‘Are we on the run, mummy?’
    ‘You might call it that.’
    ‘Are you … Will you …?’
    ‘No, darling, we’re not going to get married. He wants to, I will not. I’m sure I’m right. Carpe diem . And don’t look so many questions.’
    She and Alessandro must have had troubles. I was one of them. (Fancy taking the child with them, they were saying; they seemed to be looming everywhere.) The buff envelopes were slow to catch up with the postes restantes, but they came. My sister’s husband had been accepted as my legal guardian. Then my sister left him, like that, out of the blue, running away with a young good-for-nothing (was there any stability in our family life?) and my brother-in-law, ex-brother-in-law, backed out. I became the ward of a court and the court wanted to know where I was. It was my mother now who was badgered about educating me. On principle she was all for it, being well educated herself, at home as it happened; she believed in tutors though at present this was awkward – local lights were engaged when they could be found but did not amount to much. Alessandro tried to teach me algebra which he knew but was not very good at making clear; besides, my mother, for whom time did not exist, would interrupt. 
    Another source of awkwardness was my father’s will, an impossible will as the courts conceded in the fullness of time. He had left the château and contents to my half-sister and myself provided that the estate was never sold and the collection preserved in perpetuum. There was no money for upkeep, to keep the place in repair, the objects dusted and warmed, the taxes paid (there were horrendous arrears). My sister decided to contest the will but could not do so without my consent: I was a minor, my mother’s address (by then) was poste restante Agrigento, my official guardian a court. The court prevaricated; meanwhile money was required, considerable sums, and there was no money (just a bundle of old banknotes in my father’s safe made worthless by inflation). To raise