Free The Biographer by Virginia Duigan Page B

sense of humour? Dished some dirt on Giulia, the Botticelli siren who works in the office on the ground floor of my house, who gave me the eye. Agnieszka seemed to approve of me too. Says Giulia is two-timing a pair of beaux. File them both under: to be cultivated.
    'Greer slash Gigi.Not at all what I expected.First thought was: she reminds me
a bit of Virginia Woolf. A dishevelled version thereof.That elongated, horsey
face and narrow, high-bridged nose. Not unattractive for her age, horsey as
in thoroughbred,not cart.Good bones.Blue-grey eyes.Would've been a looker.
But unexpectedly refined really. Hard to reconcile with things. But that's
mostly the case when you come face to face with people for the first time in
their middle age. They generally don't give their past away. It's not written
on the face, contrary to received wisdom.
    'And she doesn't give much away at all. Greeted me politely but not warmly.Wasn't keen to be alone with me. She watched me a lot during dinner, when she thought I wasn't looking. Seemed to be studying my face.That follows – she used to do portraits. Wary, is how she was. Guarded. When she did speak to me she avoided making eye contact. Well, is that surprising or not?
    'Mischa's her polar opposite. Like he's always described, a big,grizzly bear of a guy,messy,no dress sense,pronounced Czech accent, excitable, up-front emotional. He presents as totally straightforward and spontaneous, unlike her. I'd say she's heavily into self-censorship, won't let anything out without giving it a mental makeover. Whereas he just lets rip, couldn't care less what he says. I get the impression political correctness doesn't get much of a look-in with him, or with Rollo Sonabend either, for that matter.
    'Mischa's never still, always fiddling with objects.Within minutes he'd picked the wine cork to bits then set about building little heaps of cork and breadcrumbs. At dinner he was making patterns with the salt, chewing matches, drawing.The moment we sat down they brought out butcher's paper, covered the tablecloth with it for him to doodle. And a box of crayons.They obviously do that for him every time, like he's a kid with hyperactivity syndrome. Or their tame Picasso.They're very proud of him and Rollo, that's obvious.
    'Mischa proceeded to draw this incredible intricate maze.Well, it started as a maze; ended up more like a jigsaw puzzle. I took it home.Yet I don't think all this activity is a nervous habit or attention deficit or anything, it's just surplus energy boiling up and spilling over. For sixty-five, that's something. He looks his age, but kind of doesn't act it.'
    Greer turned over in bed. Mischa had an arm flung out, wedged under her neck.
He was snoring. She tried to reposition herself more comfortably,then gave
up and slid down in the bed. His arm followed her, resting heavily against
the top of her head, hot and sweaty. He had fallen asleep immediately, as
he usually did. She had lain awake for some time, eyes open in the darkness.
    Before she met Antony she had a clear mental picture of him. It had arrived of its own volition just the other morning, when she heard Mischa loudly singing in the shower. He was belting out his own rock 'n' roll adaptation of Blake's 'Jerusalem', an arrangement he neither varied nor tired of and which never failed to remind her of their first encounter. When he reached the last couplet, 'And was Jerusalem builded here, Among those dark, satanic mills?' Greer had seen Antony Corbino. Two words clinched the vision. Antony's face would be dark and satanic, she was certain of it.
    Instead, as she stood on the steps and watched him materialise in Agnieszka's
excitable wake, she saw that he was light-haired and boyish, and far too urbane
to betray anything much. He had a good-looking face in a conventional, regular-featured
way. Open and round, with unblinking blue eyes.Voyeuristic blue eyes?
    Strictly speaking he should have a cleft chin,she thought, but