The Takeover by Muriel Spark Page B

from a point above and behind him, sometimes from the ground beside him. No words were distinguishable among these doom-like cries and sob-like spasms of laughter. He bayed like an animal. He fell back exhausted. Hubert fetched him a glass of mineral water and two of his Mitigil tranquillizers which the boy took with upturned mad eyes.
    Pauline was trembling. ‘Either you call a doctor or I do,’ she said.
    ‘He can’t be seen by a doctor here in my house.’
    In the end Hubert agreed to take him to Rome to see a doctor he knew who might even get Kurt into a private clinic. ‘It will cost a fortune,’ Hubert said roughly.
    ‘Isn’t Letizia’s cheque enough for the clinic?’ Pauline was eager to know how much.
    ‘Barely,’ Hubert said. ‘We must hope for the best.’
    It was nearly eleven that night when Hubert arrived in Rome with Kurt, who was somewhat stunned by a further dose of tranquillizers and trembling at the wrists and knees, in the front seat beside him. Hubert drew up at the foot of the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna, pressed a golden Victorian half-sovereign into Kurt’s hand, told him it was exchangeable for a week’s lodgings, and put the young man out on the pavement. Kurt made his way without looking back to a crowd of young vagrants and hippies who were sitting or reclining on the steps in the warm young night.
    “That’s that,’ said Hubert when he returned. Pauline had waited up for him.
    ‘A clinic?’ she said.
    ‘Yes, a clinic.’
    ‘What clinic?’
    ‘It’s better you shouldn’t know what clinic. If there are any questions, you know nothing. Just mind your own business, my dear.’
    ‘It’s Letizia Bernardini’s problem. You should phone and let her know what’s happened before she leaves for Greece.’
    ‘Don’t be disagreeable, Pauline. Let the girl go in peace.’
    ‘She hates foreigners, actually. She’s that type of Italian. She’s only using you.’
    ‘She appeared to be very charming. She’s entitled to her bit of folk-schmaltz, it’s fashionable among the young.’
    ‘I don’t need to be told by you what it feels like to be young.’
    ‘But you can be taught by me, I see, what it feels like to be jealous.’
    ‘How could I be jealous,’ said Pauline, ‘when you don’t care for women, anyway? That’s what you told me.’
    ‘I do care for women. I don’t have sex with them.’
    Pauline started to cry. ‘There was something passed between you and Letizia. I could see it. All that tenderness. I don’t know what to believe.’
    Hubert put his arm patiently around her shoulders, meting out an almost equal balance of tenderness. ‘You can’t leave me,’ he said, ‘because we’re friends, and I need you.’

Chapter Eight
    ‘N OW YOU PRIESTS,’ H UBERT said, ‘give me my money’s worth. Ours is a friendship based on mutual advantage and so I expect some intellectual recompense for this materially superb dinner that we are about to receive.’
    Father Cuthbert Plaice said coyly, ‘Oh, Hubert!’ Father Gerard gave a jocular smile to Pauline and lifted his fork.
    ‘Pass the wine,’ said Hubert. Pauline was wearing a long lavender-blue dress of floating chiffon; Hubert wore a deep purple patterned shirt of transparent cotton with expensive-looking blue jeans; the smart dining-room had been opened and the silver and fine glasses brought out; a cold buffet of elegant rarities was laid on the sideboard.
    Cuthbert, having tasted his chilled salmon mousse, looked at Pauline across the candlelit table and said, ‘Everything looks very sumptuous this evening.’
    ‘He means opulent,’ Hubert said, for no other reason than to be difficult.
    ‘It’s only a semblance of opulence,’ said Pauline, warily; she was evidently thinking that their golden windfall must inevitably reach a point of exhaustion.
    ‘But what is opulence,’ said Hubert, ‘but a semblance of opulence?’
    ‘Well,’ said Gerard, ‘I would say there is a very, very great