Roman Nights Read Online Free PDF Page A

colour was coming back. He twisted the nearest messianic lock of his hair. ‘Would the Pope help?’
    I sometimes think the only reason Di goes to bed with Jacko is that he asks such damned silly questions. I was about to answer this one when Charles, heretofore much subdued, said suddenly, ‘How do you know?’
    ‘We met last week at Castel Gandolfo,’ said Jacko. ‘My God, where did you get that damned cup from?’
    Castel Gandolfo is the Pope’s Summer Palace. It also houses the Vatican Observatory in an elegant house by the lakeside. If Johnson was there, at the very least it was with the Pontiff’s permission. I said to Johnson Johnson, ‘I beg your pardon.’
    ‘Granted,’ he said.
    ‘Where the hell did that come from?!’ said Jacko. He was talking about Charles’s cup. Charles pointed to a cupboard, and Jacko ran and fell on his knees in front of it. Then he put both hands around the handle like oven mitts and opened the cupboard a fraction. A white mouse with red eyes sneaked out of it and ran under the stove.
    ‘Poppy!’ I said accusingly.
    ‘I was going to put her back,’ said Jacko hurriedly. ‘That bastard Innes tore up all my pictures.’
    ‘I’d have torn them up too if I’d thought of it,’ I said with exasperation. Open war between Jacko and Innes was all that I needed. ‘Now you’ll have to take them all over again. Think of that.’
    He didn’t hear me because he was lying full length under the stove with a broom. Charles had found some All Bran and was emptying it on the tiled floor while Johnson Johnson, with great presence of mind, had shut the door and stuffed dish towels under it. A stream of oaths flowed from under the stove, broken by a flurry of activity. Jacko jabbed with his broomstick, swivelled, rolled over the bran heap and stabbed at the legs of a table. Charles crouched twitching beside him while Johnson, moving from cupboard to table, began methodically to wall in the floor space with Supermercato packets of groceries. A doorbell rang somewhere in the Dome and Charles said, with prescience, ‘That’ll be Innes.’ Johnson began methodically to put the packs back again. We all got to our feet.
    That was all we had done when Innes shoved open the door, after batting it a few times against the dishcloths, and looked with surprise at the bran mash on the floor and Jacko propped on his broomstick and heavily profiled in cereal.
    ‘We were taking an impression for posterity,’ said Charles with great simplicity. ‘What can we do for you?’
    Innes looked around at us all. Then he looked straight under the table and shouted.
    Johnson Johnson yelled at the same moment. They leaped forward together, colliding heavily into the cereal; Johnson, his arms out flung, was a yard nearer the table than Innes, who lay blowing into the bran and then rose uncertainly on to his knees.
    ‘Hell,’ said Johnson with feeling. He looked at us. ‘That was a rat. Did you see it go past you?’
    The door was wide open.
    ‘Yes,’ said Jacko. ‘It’s all right. It went out the front door.’
    ‘We wondered,’ said Charles, ‘who had been spilling the bran. Are you all right, Innes? Have some coffee.’
    ‘And some brandy,’ I said.
    ‘I think,’ said Johnson, ‘I had better be going.’ He was holding his wrist.
    ‘You’ve hurt yourself!’ Innes said.
    ‘No,’ said Johnson reassuringly. He doubled up and then sat down quickly. ‘Charles and Ruth will look after me anyway. Unless I’m keeping you all back from something.’
    We all said no, and Innes delivered his message, which was a pressing invitation to Jacko from Maurice. Jacko said sulkily, ‘I can’t go to his flaming party. Someone has to stay with the 50-Inch.’
    ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Go and have a couple of hours. You needn’t drink. I’ll look after the plates if you’ll put out the chart and coordinates.’
    He was dying to go. ‘We tossed for it and I lost,’ he said appealingly.
    ‘I know. But if the