‘Miss Thin,’ said Hubert when Pauline arrived at the house the day after the departure of his three discontented friends, ‘if you have come to collect your remaining goods and chattels you have come in vain. The bailiffs have been. They have taken everything, including your knickers. All they have left me are the bare necessities and I, descendant of the gods, am a pauper. What is more, Miss Thin, you have much to account for.’
Pauline said, ‘So have you. Five months’ pay for a start.’
‘Don’t be vulgar,’ he said. All the same, he opened the kitchen cupboard and took a bundle of notes out of a tin. He counted out her pay. ‘Women,’ he said, ‘are incredibly materialistic.’
She sat down on a kitchen chair and checked the money. ‘Your boy-friends have gone,’ she said. ‘I dare say they left for idealistic, not materialistic, reasons. That’s why they left you all alone here, without any comfortable furniture. Where did you get this money from, Hubert?’
‘It’s no business of yours and you’re no longer my secretary. You wrecked my Fellowship and you wrecked my reputation. I have had an anonymous letter from someone in the village comparing me to some false Catholic prelate who set himself up at Nemi with his gang of acolytes two years ago in a villa, with all his holy pictures and his crucifixes and his apostolic papers in order. He claimed to have a commission from the Holy See to purchase vast stocks of merchandise, and when the police finally surrounded the villa he committed suicide. I have all the details here. The author of the letter enclosed the press cutting.’
He had passed it over to Pauline. ‘See what the bloody fool killed himself with,’ he said, ‘a glass of vino al topicida!’ It sounds like some speciality in a restaurant, but it’s rat-poison in wine. A very low-class suicide, and I wouldn’t care to know the author of this anonymous letter who suggests I do the same.
‘The hand-writing’s pretty awful,’ said Pauline.
‘So is the spelling. Some village woman. What does it matter?’
‘Oh, Hubert! You would never think of suicide, would you?’ Pauline said. ‘I don’t want this money, really. Take it back. Here it is.’
‘Suicide is not remotely in my mind,’ Hubert said. ‘But I’ll put the money back in the tin for safe-keeping. I hope you’ve learnt your lesson, Miss Thin.’
‘I’ll go shopping and I’ll cook for you,’ Pauline said.
‘I had another letter,’ Hubert had said, and he then had proceeded to read aloud to her Maggie’s letter.
‘That woman is dangerous,’ Pauline said. ‘Where’s her furniture at the moment?’
‘How do I know? Her lawyer took it away.’
‘And your manuscripts, Hubert, where are your documents?’
‘In Rome,’ Hubert said. ‘Transferred to Rome, as was the cult of Diana which, for political and very democratic reasons, spread to Rome in the fourth century B.C.’
‘I saw Father Cuthbert in Rome,’ Pauline said.
‘I dare say you spoke about me. What else would you have to talk about, my dear?’
‘Well, Hubert, I think he’s got a good idea that you should take up the Charismatic Movement in the Church and run the prayer meetings. You do the murmuring rite so well and Cuthbert said it wouldn’t be in conflict with Diana as the preserver of nature, not at all.’
‘It is a long time,’ Hubert said, ‘since Homer sang the wonders of Artemis who came to be Diana. He called her the Lady of Wildlife. There’s much to be said for charisma and wildlife.’
‘They’re the new idea,’ Pauline said, meekly. ‘You have to make a living somehow, Hubert. You can’t stay here with these kitchen chairs.’
‘One way and another, Miss Thin,’ Hubert said, ‘I haven’t done so badly.’
‘We leave tonight at midnight,’ Hubert informed Pauline. It was Tuesday, 26 August, thirteen days after the Feast of Diana and one day before the date fixed by Maggie for the removal of her furniture which wasn’t there. That morning, when Pauline returned from her trip to the village to buy provisions, he had taken the newspapers out of her hand, as usual, waiting for her to serve the coffee. ‘We leave at midnight,’ he said.
Over coffee he handed her a newspaper, folded back to reveal a picture of a decapitated statue. ‘This is a sign,’ said Hubert. Two statues flanking a fountain in Palermo had been mutilated by vandals; the newspaper had printed the one which had suffered most. The headline read, ‘Diana Decapitated’, and the picture showed a sturdy and headless nude Diana with her hound and her stag. ‘It’s a definite sign,’ Hubert said, ‘for us, don’t you think so, Miss Thin?’
‘One good thing,’ said Hubert, ‘about having nothing left to protect is that I can go for a walk.’
He left before sunset, while Pauline set about putting their few household possessions in the back of the station-wagon ready for their transfer to Rome. Bobby Lester, her previous employer so long ago, and a friend of Father Cuthbert, had lent them his flat overlooking the Piazza del Popolo. She placed the tin box with Hubert’s money on the kitchen table to keep an eye on it and sat down beside it dutifully and happily doing nothing but reading small paragraphs in the newspaper and listening to the transistor radio. She wore a black cotton blouse and a red skirt that made her hips seem wider than ever; they spilt over the kitchen chair in a proprietory way, and she knew she was indispensable to Hubert’s future.
Hubert, meantime, had decided to take his last look at beautiful Nemi, where from every point appeared a different view, every view a picture postcard except that it was real. Down the old Roman road he went, past the old town-council building and into the village. All during July and August Nemi had been crowded with holidaymakers; even a few foreign tourists and some of the pilgrim crowds of Holy Year, lately coveted by Hubert, had brimmed over from nearby Castelgandolfo where the Pope held court in his summer residence. But now, as the road grew darker, there were few newcomers to be seen; most of them had returned to the lodgings which had been provided with great efficiency by the neighbouring convents. After dark, a few local people grouped around the bars and various courting couples leaned over the wall beside the castle, looking at the moon.
Outside the church a mosaic plaque had been put up to commemorate the Pope’s visit to Nemi in 1969. Hubert paused on his way to look at it and saw by the road lamp how it bore on the left the crest of Nemi, blue, white, yellow, rich red and gold, surrounded by the motto Diane Nemus: the Woods of Diana; on the right was a gleaming emblem of a local Christian order of monks, and above them the Montini papal coat of arms, that of Paul VI, crossed by the gold and silver keys of St Peter. Hubert’s walks in Nemi had been few. ‘Nemi is mine,’ he murmured, ‘but I must move on to Rome.’ In fact, he felt carefree and rather glad to be leaving, seeing that he was now in funds and how his future prospects, in collaboration with the Jesuits, seemed full of hope and drama, the two things Hubert valued most in life, all things being equal on the material side.
Down he went to the garden walk on the steep cliffs by the lake, across the bridge, towards Diana’s temple. The moon was almost three-quarters full and on the wane. ‘Always cut wood when the moon is on the wane,’ an old countryman had told him during his first year at Nemi when he had gone out to gather firewood. He smiled at the moon, with no one to see him, and felt very deeply that he was descended from Diana the moon goddess.
The spot where Diana’s temple had been located was not accessible to the public, and even the local people never went to the thickly overgrown alcoves that remained of her cult. But Hubert knew the way to that area which had been named, in more historic times, the Devil’s Grottoes. Not only were the relics of antiquity to be found there, but also numerous caves leading deep into the heart of the cliff under the castle, where vagrants, in the days of lesser prosperity, could take refuge. These caves were now abandoned and overgrown, some of them totally concealed by dense greenery. He plodded through the thick undergrowth, over uneven ground, stopping to hack off a stout branch to help him to beat his path. ?
??Always cut wood when the moon is on the wane.’ The branch broke easily from the low tree.
Suddenly Hubert saw a shape approaching, an old woman, it seemed, probably a gypsy, picking her way towards him. She lit her steps with the aid of a flashlamp. Behind her, but much further into the dark thickness of the wooded cliff, he thought he heard an exchange of voices, but then, stopping still, he heard nothing. The crone, dressed drably with a scarf round her head, came closer and was about to pass him with the usual ‘Buona sera’ of the countryside. ‘Maggie!’ said Hubert. She stopped and shone the torch on him, and started to laugh.
They sat together looking at the lake and the bashed-in circle of the moon for only a little space. Maggie, of course, had taken up almost from where she had left off, and, without any explanation for her appearance or her presence in that deserted spot, said first that she was fine thank you, how was he? ‘Fine,’ said Hubert.
So they found a place to sit and Maggie said, ‘You would never believe it, Hubert, but my daughter-in-law, Mary, has fallen desperately in love with Berto and he’s awfully embarrassed because he loves me exclusively, as you can imagine. He’s trying to pass her off to a journalist friend of his, rather elderly, as he feels that Mary really wants an older man, a sort of father figure. It’s rather pathetic, but it’s all Michael’s fault; although he’s my own son I know he’s neglected Mary and is altogether inadequate, between you and me.’
‘It will sort itself out,’ Hubert said. ‘You look wonderful, Maggie, in spite of all these clothes and things.’
‘Hubert, you’re always so charming! My clothes are a symbol of my new poverty, of course. And then, dressed like this, one hopes to avoid being kidnapped. It’s such a danger, these days. One is in peril.’
‘Oh, I know. You told me in your letter about poor Coco de Renault. Any news of him?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say poor Coco. But maybe he’s going to be poor after he pays the ransom. What about you, Hubert? Are you prospering?’
‘Mildly,’ said Hubert.
‘Of course,’ said Maggie, ‘I happen to know that you’ve sold all my furniture and pictures. My letter was just to satisfy Berto, and be above-board, you know. Where is Massimo de Vita?’
‘Honestly I don’t know, Maggie. There isn’t a thing you can do about it.’
‘I know,’ she said, cheerfully.
‘I’m sorry to hear that de Renault made off with all your fortune,’ Hubert said.
‘I’m getting it back. In fact it has already been arranged,’ Maggie said. ‘Less thirty per cent.’
‘That would be the kidnappers’ share,’ Hubert said.
‘That’s right,’ said Maggie.
‘Where have they got him?’ Hubert said. ‘The papers seem to have dropped the story, so I suppose he isn’t in Italy.’
‘Well, some say California and some say Brazil,’ Maggie said. ‘But in fact he’s right here in a cave in this cliff, well guarded. I’ve just been to visit. Hubert, I simply had to go and gloat.’
‘I can well understand that,’ said Hubert. ‘Is he to be released soon?’
‘Some time tonight or early tomorrow morning. The wife delayed a lot and that made Coco very angry. But in the end she had to make over everything to me in Switzerland, all of it, I wouldn’t settle for less.’
‘Can he be trusted not to report you?’ Hubert said.
‘Well, naturally, he couldn’t indict me. He’s too indictable himself. There are times when one can trust a crook.’
‘There’s something in that,’ Hubert said.
She said goodnight very sweetly and, lifting her dingy skirts, picked her way along the leafy path, hardly needing her flashlamp, so bright was the moon, three-quarters full, illuminating the lush lakeside and, in the fields beyond, the kindly fruits of the earth.
A Biography of Muriel Spark
Dame Muriel Spark (1918–2006) was an acclaimed Scottish novelist, short story writer, and poet whose rhythmic prose and penchant for dark comedy made her one of the twentieth century’s most distinctive writers.
Spark was born Muriel Sarah Camberg on February 1, 1918, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her engineer father, Bernard, was Scottish, while her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Maud, was English family. Their mixed-faith background would fuel many of the moral concerns of Spark’s later novels. Spark was raised in Edinburgh and from an early age attended James Gillespie’s High School. There her education was closely guided by an idiosyncratic teacher named Christina Kay, the inspiration for the title character in her best-known novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
After school, Spark worked as a department store secretary, taught English, and took college courses before meeting Sydney Oswald Spark, whom she married in 1937. Sydney Spark had a teaching job in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and Spark followed him there to get married in 1937. In 1938 she gave birth to a son, Robin. However, Sydney suffered from mental illness and was physically and verbally abusive. Spark left her husband, taking her son and his nanny with her in 1940, but because of World War II’s travel restrictions, she was unable to return to Britain until 1944.
Once arrived, she settled in London, where she worked for the Foreign Office; after the war, she took on a series of writing and editing jobs, mostly for literary and trade magazines. She was the editor of Poetry Review for a few contentious years, until her insistence on searching out unknown poets and paying them for their work caused discord. It was while editing a collection of letters by Cardinal Newman that Spark began to explore Catholicism, eventually joining the Roman Catholic Church in 1954.
After nearly collapsing under the pressures of poverty, loneliness, and an addiction to Dexedrine, Spark sought help for her drug use and began to work seriously on a first novel, The Comforters (1957), partly with the financial and emotional support of the novelist Graham Greene. Though a late fiction writer, Spark began producing novels and stories at a rapid pace. In 1961 she wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, widely considered her masterpiece. The novel follows a teacher at a girls’ school who carefully and manipulatively cultivates the minds and morals of a select handful of promising pupils. In 1969, it was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film starring Maggie Smith and was a Royal Command Performance.
Many of Spark’s novels were brisk, black comedies with vivid characters and subtle moral underpinnings, partly influenced by Spark’s interest in religion. The Mandelbaum Gate (1965), for instance, is set in Jerusalem during the Adolph Eichmann trials, which she covered for the observer newspaper. The Only Problem (1984) draws from the Book of Job, while The Takeover (1976) skewers shallow religious conviction. Aside from questions of faith, novels such as Territorial Rights (1979) and Reality and Dreams (1996) center on protagonists that search for a moral center.
Spark lived for a time in New York City, where she was given an office at the New Yorker. The city was the setting for her novel The Hothouse by the East River (1973). She lived in Rome for many years writing short and more experimental novels until she moved to Tuscany, where she would live for the final thirty years of her life with her assistant and friend, the painter and sculptor Penelope Jardine. Spark regularly published throughout these decades, garnering many honorary degrees and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1993, a Commandeur des Artes et des Lettres in 1996, and an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1978. She died in Tuscany in 2006.
Spark as a child. She began attending James Gillespie's High School for Girls at the age of five.
A 1930 school photograph of the junior class of James Gillespie’s High School for Girls. Spark is seated in the middle row, second from the right. Also pictured, in the middle, is the teacher who was the inspiration for Spark’s Miss Jean Brodie, Miss Christina Kay.
A 1932 newspaper clipping of Spark being crowned the “Queen of Poetry” for winning first prize in a poetry competition. She was crowned by Esther Ralston, a popular silent film actress of the day.
Pages from Spark??
?s notebook from her science class in 1932. Her sketch of a siphon barometer is prominently featured.
Spark with her son, Robin, before she returned to Britain from Africa in 1944.
A London identity card of Spark’s from 1945–1950. The card indicates how many times Spark changed residences during the period following the war.
Spark’s curriculum vitae from 1953. She would continue to experience difficulties as she tried to stay afloat financially and continue writing.
Alan Maclean was beginning his career as a literary editor of Macmillan when he persuaded Spark to turn to novel writing. He would commission her first novel and subsequently published fourteen more.
A certificate, signed by Queen Elizabeth II, signifying Spark’s appointment as a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1993.
Spark’s desk at her home in Tuscany in 2003. The photograph was taken by her friend, Scottish journalist Alan Taylor. (Included by kind permission of Alan Taylor.)
All images copyright of the Muriel Spark estate and by kind permission of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.