The Takeover by Muriel Spark

Author:Muriel Spark [Spark, Muriel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4506-4
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2012-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

‘THE TROUBLE WITH BERTO,’ Maggie said quietly to Mary, ‘is that his tempo is all wrong. He starts off adagio, adagio. Second phase, well, you might call it allegro ma non troppo and pretty nervy. Third movement, a little passage con brio. Then comes a kind of righteous and dutiful larghetto, sometimes accompanied by a bit of high-pitched recitativo, and he goes on, lento, you know, andante, andante until suddenly without warning three grunts and it’s all over. What kind of an art of love is that?’

‘Rhythm is very, very important,’ said Mary reflectively, ‘in every field of endeavour. What is the recitativo bit?’

‘I don’t understand dialect Italian,’ Maggie said. ‘Ordinary Italian is difficult enough, but this is some sort of dialect that Berto uses on these particular occasions. Afterwards he talks about horses, how a horse may go off his feed from too much exercise or too little or how sometimes horses get lumps on their skin from over-exercise or under-exercise, I forget which. Anyway, he frequently talks about horses afterwards. What kind of an art of love is that?’

‘I could tell you a lot about Michael,’ Mary said, ‘but as he’s your son it makes an obstacle.’

‘I hardly think of him as my son any more,’ Maggie said. ‘Michael can be very inconsiderate. I think of him more as his father’s son and if he’s anything like Ralph Radcliffe then you have a problem there. Ralph was a problem but very, very attractive. Berto is no problem at all, but it’s boring to go to bed with him, especially when you’re my age. In your case you have your whole lifetime in front of you.’

‘Not all of it,’ Mary said. ‘I feel I’m wasting my best years sometimes, and I know Michael’s got a girl in Rome, too. But I want to make a success of my marriage, I really do.’

‘You can always take time off,’ said Maggie, ‘while Michael’s in Rome with the girl.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t like to.’

‘You must think I’m pretty dumb,’ said Maggie, ‘if you think I don’t know that you take time off with Lauro.’

Mary said, ‘Oh, no! This is terrible. You mustn’t say such a thing.’

‘Keep calm,’ said Maggie. ‘Nobody else knows anything about you and Lauro.’

The girl started to cry. ‘I wanted my marriage to be a success.’

‘Go on wanting it, is my advice,’ said Maggie, while Mary dried her tears on a paper tissue from the box beside her and drank a large gulp of her vodka and soda, spilling some of it on her body.

They were in bathing suits on the concealed sun-terrace of Berto’s Palladian villa in the Veneto in the spring sunshine of 1975. They lay side by side on the dark blue mattresses soaking up the sunny vitamins of May in the hours between noon and lunch at two. Maggie reached out for her body lotion and smeared it over her legs, her breasts and shoulders, then, playfully, she smeared the remainder on her hands over

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