Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

‘Yeah, damn it, and it’s not funny. It’s deadly serious. The knockers have had so much success that now it’s fashionable to say you’re a coward. You may not be one, mind, but you’ve got to say so, just to prove you’re normal. Historically, it’s fantastic. What other nation ever went around saying on television and in the press and at parties and things that cowardice is normal and courage is disgusting? Nearly all nations used to have elaborate tests for young men to prove they were brave. Now in England they are taught to settle down and want security. But bravery is built in somewhere in human nature and you can’t stamp it out any more than the sex urge. So if you outlaw ordinary bravery it bursts out somewhere else, and I reckon that’s what the increase in crime is due to. If you make enjoying danger seem perverted, I don’t see how you can complain if it becomes so.’

This was too much for his French; he said it to me in hot English, and repeated it, when Gabriella protested, in cooler Italian.

‘But,’ she said wonderingly, ‘I do not like a man to say he is a coward. Who wants that? A man is for hunting and for defending, for keeping his wife safe.’

‘Back to the caves?’ I said.

‘Our instincts are still the same,’ agreed Patrick. ‘Basically good.’

‘And a man is for loving,’ Gabriella said.

‘Yes, indeed,’ I agreed with enthusiasm.

‘If you like to risk your neck, I like that. If you risk it for me, I like it better.’

‘You mustn’t say so,’ said Patrick smiling. ‘There’s probably some vile explanation for that too.’

We all laughed, and some fresh coffee came, and the talk drifted away to what girls in Italy wanted of life as opposed to what they could have. Gabriella said the gap was narrowing fast, and that she was content, particularly as she was an orphan and had no parental pressure to deal with. We discussed for some time the pros and cons[199] of having parents after adolescence, and all maintained that what we had was best: Gabriella her liberty, Patrick a widowed mother who spoiled him undemandingly, and I, free board and lodging. Patrick looked at me sharply when I said that, and opened his mouth to blow the gaff[200].

‘Don’t tell her,’ I said in English. ‘Please don’t.’

‘She would like you even more.’

‘No.’

He hesitated, but to my relief he left it, and when Gabriella asked, told her we had been arguing as to who should pay the bill. We shared it between us, but we didn’t leave for some time after that. We talked, I remember, about loyalty: at first about personal loyalty, and then political.

Gabriella said that Milan had many communists, and she thought that for a Roman Catholic to be a communist was like an Arab saying he wanted to be ruled by Israel.

‘I wonder who they would be loyal to, if Russia invaded Italy?’ Patrick said.

‘That’s a big if,’ I said smiling. ‘Pretty impossible with Germany, Austria and Switzerland in between, not to mention the Alps.’

Gabriella shook her head. ‘Communists begin at Trieste.’

I was startled and amused at the same time, hearing an echo of my die-hard father. ‘Wogs begin at Calais.’

‘Of course they do,’ Patrick said thoughtfully. ‘On your doorstep.’

‘But cheer up,’ she said laughing. ‘Yugoslavia also has mountains, and the Russians will not be arriving that way either.’

‘They won’t invade any more countries with armies,’ I agreed mildly. ‘Only with money and technicians. Italian and French and British communists can rely on never having to choose which side to shoot at[201].’

‘And can go on undermining their native land with a clear conscience,’ Patrick nodded smiling.

‘Let’s not worry about it,’ I said, watching the moving shadows where Gabriella’s smooth hair fell across her cheek. ‘Not tonight.’

‘It will never touch us, anyway,’ Patrick agreed. ‘And if we stay here much longer Gabriella’s sister will lock us out[202].’

Reluctantly we went out into the cold street. When we had gone ten paces Patrick exclaimed that he had left his overnight bag behind, and went back for it, striding quickly.

I turned to Gabriella, and she to me. The street lights were reflected in her welcoming eyes, and the solemn mouth trembled on the edge of that transfiguring smile. There wasn’t any need to say anything. We both knew. Although I stood with my body barely brushing hers and put my hands very gently on her arms just below the shoulders, she rocked as if I’d pushed her. It was the same for me. I felt physically shaken by a force so primitive and volcanic as to be frightening. How could just touching a girl, I thought confusedly, just touching a girl I’d been longing to touch all afternoon and all evening, sweep one headlong into such an uncivilised turbulence. And on a main street in Milan, where one could do nothing about it.