The Vengeance of Rome

‘Up like the rocket and down like the stick,’ says Mrs Cornelius, guiding me from the newsagent and back into the crowd. ‘That’s you all over, Ivan.’ A pack of miniature mongrels runs past, under one stall and out of another. A cyclist swerves to avoid them and falls against a display of tomatoes. We move expertly away from the conflict. We have reached the old core of the market, where fruit and veg are still sold, where frustrated locals make every effort to hold their own against the foreign influx. They sell the boojies the rotten tomatoes and the bruised fruit. Friday it is mostly hippies and scalp-heads, dealers of every description. They bring no money in. Whatever they make they take away again.

Here the shops are cleaner and sell recognisable things. We pass both rival fishmongers’ slabs, the cheap butcher’s, the chain baker’s, the white goods shop, the draper’s, the hardware shop, the electrician’s, the Venicia Café and the baby shop. As we approach the pawnshop, the black bulk of Bishop Beesley, not at first recognisable as human, blocks our way. He is considerably fatter than Göring and, of course, is not a real bishop. His real name is Billy the Mouth and he is again released from prison. Like his daughter he is a confidence trickster. Mitzi is currently in Holloway. They rarely meet. Beesley is wearing his familiar dark suit and pullover, a white shirt just visible. It gives him the ecclesiastical look he feels comfortable with. He wipes his hand on a blue handkerchief. ‘My dear Colonel! And the lovely Mrs C!’

He is meeting a mutual friend in the Blenheim Arms, he says. He insists we have a quick one on him. His ship recently came in. ‘In a small way, you know.’

Mrs Cornelius accepts, and I cannot be rude. We leave Portobello Road and enter the pub’s graveolent interior. Quintessentially English, the smell of fried pies and cigarillos blend with bitter beer and harsh spirits. Dark shoulders press together. Little women, holding their own like defiant fowl, slip in and out with glasses of wine. Shifty boys pass miniature paper envelopes back and forth and argue over money. They glance at well-groomed office girls who sit at the bar grinning and smoking or rummaging through their purses. On the other side of the counter the glowering features of little Mo Collier glare with contempt on all and everything. The world is not up to standard. He smoothes his carefully cut moustache. His neat, dark head sports another idiosyncratic haircut, doubtless the current fashion. ‘Near-mutton dressed as almost-lamb,’ says Mrs Cornelius spitefully. She was never prepared to like him. He stands with his eyes avoiding his customers, flexing his muscles and catching glimpses of himself in the polished copper. A pocket Hercules in his fashionable sports vest. The Bishop insists on his attention. ‘Two halves please, Mo, and a small, dry sherry. Ah, there she is!’

A coiffure that was once pure Pre-Raphaelite flame, but now owes something to Mr Sonya in Elgin Crescent, bobs above the mass. Miss Brunner used to run a local girls’ school before the scandal. She is now in private tuition and dresses with the same tempting severity which makes the Bishop her slave. As far as we know, there is no other man in her life. The Cornelius boys tell stories, but neither can ever be trusted to know the truth, let alone tell it. Her uncompromising grey-blue eyes note our presence and are lowered in a brief greeting. She bears herself with a kind of diseased dignity. She is thoroughly groomed but cannot disguise the aura of corruption which surrounds her. She has no power to charm, only to command. She takes a Pernod and makes it clear she has come to meet the Bishop, not chat with us.

A long head hunched in a corduroy donkey jacket turns from the bar. Frank, Mrs Cornelius’s youngest boy. His features are inclined to sag. I think he is on morphine, like Göring. They say he works for Hoogstraten, the property tycoon, and tends to ape his new boss. He wears a striped Jaeger shirt and an old school tie. He is better groomed than his brother, at least. He smiles at me, says something to a companion and comes over. Tentatively Frank kisses his mother, apparently unsure what he will pick up. He squeezes my arm in an aggressive and unwanted demonstration of camaraderie. ‘How’s tricks, Colonel?’

They are always here on Fridays. Even Major Nye comes in on occasions but was offered voluntary retirement and can only rarely afford the fare from Kent. Family business is now his only excuse for visiting the city. We see a few others from time to time. We are the survivors, I suppose. Our means of survival might not always bear much discussion, but I name no names. We have no power. Therefore we cultivate tolerance. The acceptance, I suppose, of the inevitable. We huddle together for comfort. We remind one another of our stories and our great days. Most of us have had a few of those, at least.

I had no plans to spend more than a week with Captain Röhm, but he insisted I stay. Also at his insistence, and with some relief, I shaved off my imperial. He appreciated the action. I was his ideal companion, he said, for this wonderful idyllic place. Then friends turned up. Before I knew it a week had gone and then another. Messengers were sent to the post office, but nothing arrived for me. I had to stay there. Röhm was sometimes absent for a day or two, but there was plenty to do. I spent hours wandering around the vast uncompleted villa. The chief bedrooms and bathrooms were in use and there was a large public room, but most of the rest was only half finished. Röhm never had time to let the builders come back. Somebody was always staying there. But when I was on my own, I might be the last man on Earth.