Free Territorial Rights by Muriel Spark Page B

not the pillars, of Venice. At the same time she practised several small money-making activities, never letting any opportunity pass, such as the publicising of an American art exhibition or a German film show. She worked hard at these jobs of public relations lest some evil should befall her; a cosy study in her apartment was dedicated to files and card indexes. Maybe it was the memory of a hard-up youth that made her feel for ever in need of picking up a small fee here and there. Certainly, the Countess de Winter had been left quite well-off by her husband, and although feeling the pinch compared to the old days, she still managed to keep her private motor-boat.
    While Grace Gregory with her young friend Leo was high over the Alps on her way to foreign Venice, its waterways and its bridges, to sort things out, Violet’s thoughts were on the discreet letter she had received from GESS which, being decoded, offered her the exciting prospect of a small job.
    Curran was in no way objective about Violet de Winter. To him, who had known her as a young woman, she had improved over the years; to him, she was a late-blooming person. What to him was the result of a long hard haul to improve herself from the sallow and sullen English girl he had known before the war, would be to a newcomer in her life a remnant of some braver and more glittering social personality. That she had been of service to Curran throughout the long years of their friendship made her features beautiful to him, now that she was sixty-four, beyond what they actually were. And she had attained, little by little, the power to infuriate him, whereas thirty years ago it had been the other way round.
    The day after Violet got her missive from GESS came a telephone call from Curran.
    ‘I heard you were in Venice,’ she said.
    ‘Naturally,’ he said.
    ‘Well, I just heard you were in Venice, that’s all. Did you read about Carla’s cocktail-party in Verona?’
    ‘No, why should I?’
    ‘It was in all the papers. Connie threw a vase at Ruffolo the sculptor and said he should have been a bricklayer.’
    ‘Oh, yes, I heard about that, I—’
    ‘Well, I was there.’
    ‘Why are you boasting about it? I’d hush that up if I were you.’
    ‘Well, Curran, it was something to see, I can tell you. I arranged the publicity. It was quite something. When are you coming over? Are you at the Lord Byron?’
    ‘Yes. May I come now?’
    ‘Not now. No, please don’t come just now. Come at five this afternoon. I’ve got a job on; I’m busy. I’ll send my boat over for you at five.’
    ‘I can walk across the bridge at five.’
    ‘But it’s a filthy day. You—’
    ‘See you at five,’ he said.
    At five in the afternoon it was still raining and a gale blew up making the dark grey sea send the ships anchored in the lagoon into a static gallop. The canals were at low tide, chopping up their smells.
    Violet had her central heating well regulated; she had switched on the rosy lamps, and shut out the very watery view by drawing the silvery satin curtains an hour before the reasonable time. Curran thought how like Violet to do that. She always made her own environment. She seemed to rule Nature, more and more as she got older. More and more he felt her to be his equal.
    ‘Well, how is Robert?’ she said when he had settled himself with a drink. The last time she had seen Curran had been a few months ago in his house in Paris, where Robert was still installed.
    ‘Oh, he’s left Paris. He’s in Venice.’
    ‘Then he’s with you.’
    ‘No, he’s not with me. He’s staying at the Sofia.’
    ‘Oh, there! Why?’
    ‘He found a room there,’ Curran said, ‘that’s why.’
    ‘Oh, he found a room there. Am I stupid,’ said Violet, ‘or am I right in thinking he left you and came to Venice on his own?’
    ‘Well, you’re right,’ Curran said. ‘He’s interested in a girl he met in Paris. She came to Venice.’
    ‘Is he interested in girls?’ Violet said,