North from Rome Read Free

not at her desk. Miss Halley was not at home. And three days ago he had loitered round the Embassy entrance, hoping to have a few minutes’ talk with her. But either she had left early or she had seen him and taken another exit.
    Now he would never be given the chance to make the apology he ought to have offered in the first place, instead of letting his hurt pride sharpen his tongue. He ought to have said, “You were right. I was letting the theatre swallow me up, I was turning into the re-write machine, the rehearsal haunter, the director’s little helper, the willing autograph-signer, the luncheon speaker, the man who wanted to prove success hadn’t gone, to his head; the man who couldn’t say ‘no’, trying to oblige everybody, failing the only person who really mattered.” For a moment he was startled by the picture he had drawn of himself. Was it just his eloquence, or had he been as neglectful of Eleanor as all that?
    The waiter coughed discreetly and arranged the breakfast tray’s dishes once more. Lammiter searched automatically for a tip, but he was still thinking about Eleanor. If only she had complained. Why hadn’t she spoken out, given him some warning? Instead, just as he was about to leave for six weeks in Hollywood last spring, she had taken off quietly for Rome. He ought to have followed her, right then; but the Hollywood assignment was important: it was his own play, wasn’t it, that was being turned into a film script? Then the job was postponed. Then it was scheduled for May. Then it was delayed again. Then arranged eventually for the end of June. By that time, he was ready to say, “The hell with all this, anyway,” and join Eleanor in Rome. But by that time, he had got her letter about Luigi, Count Pirotta. Goddammit, he thought in sudden anger,did she think I had arranged all these postponements, these delays? Did she imagine I enjoyed waiting in New York, when she was in Italy? She knew I loved her, didn’t she? My career was hers, too: didn’t she know that?
    “Oh, forget it,” he told himself. “Forget Eleanor.” But how?
    The waiter had left, quickly and suddenly, as if he had decided that the fifteen-per-cent tip on the tray was all that was forthcoming. Add to that the fifteen per cent that the management charged for all services rendered, and the waiter had a thirty-per-cent tip for one small jug of coffee, one small jug of tepid milk with skin on, two rolls (one stale), two transparent slivers of butter, and one small jar of dark brown strawberry jam.
    I wish, Lammiter thought bitterly, someone would reach into a pocket and add thirty per cent on to all my royalties. Then, by God, I perhaps could afford to stay a summer in Rome, and argue Eleanor out of her titled dreams. Argue? That was a false hope: everything was beyond arguing now.
    His annoyance with the waiter, he realised, was simply because the man had stirred up memories of his trouble with Eleanor. Wasn’t it enough that his mind had gone blank of creative ideas, that the play he was about to begin when he arrived in Rome had vanished into thin air? How could he work? He could neither think nor concentrate. He could only look at ruins (for he was standing at the window again) and speculate about the past—a pleasant way of spending the present to avoid thoughts about the future.
    He went back to his packing. It was then that he remembered his photographs. He had six rolls of film being developed and printed at that photography shop just off the Via Veneto. Hewas to collect them just before eight o’clock this evening, when the shop closed. How could he have been so inept as to forget all about them? He’d have to stay one more night in Rome, after all.
    He called down to the hotel desk, and told them that he would not be checking out that afternoon, that he’d stay one more night. The voice replying to him was genuinely perturbed. It was sorry, extremely sorry, but his room had been assigned to someone else. All