The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and other Strange Stories by Reggie Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

crowded up to the catering van, but Jason held back. He did not want to be part of the herd. His aloofness was rewarded because the Director, who happened to be passing, introduced him to a man in a tweed jacket and fawn corduroy trousers. The man was in his fifties, balding and run to seed, but he gave the impression of someone who still thought of himself as young and attractive. This, said the Director, was Sir Ralph Gauge, present owner of Charnley Abbey. Jason took an instant dislike to him.
    Sir Ralph’s manner towards Jason was offhandedly condescending to the point of rudeness. When Jason explained that he had been speaking to the camera extracts from Horace Walpole’s letters which he had learned by heart, Sir Ralph laughed knowingly. He knew that television actors never learned their lines, they just read them off a screen—what was it called?—the ‘autocue’, that was it. Jason patiently told him that it was not the case, but Sir Ralph said that he couldn’t fool him. At this point, the Director, observing a rather dangerous look in Jason’s eye, intervened to say that, as a matter of fact, in this case, they weren’t using autocues on the production. Pretending to ignore the Director’s interruption, Sir Ralph then felt Jason’s velvet costume and said that you could really pull the girls wearing this sort of thing, couldn’t you? Very sixties. Jason smiled and said what a fascinating place Charnley Abbey was.
    ‘Bloody nightmare to keep going,’ said Sir Ralph, stifling a yawn. ‘Well, must be off to see a man about a horse.’ And he walked away. A few minutes later there was a roar and Sir Ralph wearing a tweed cap swept up the drive in an open-topped sports car. He must have been very dashing thirty years ago, Jason thought sourly.
    It was this encounter, Jason decided later, that had compelled him to go and take the little painting. Sir Ralph was a philistine and he did not deserve it, whereas Jason, who had no intention of selling it, would cherish the object. So, before the lunch hour was over, Jason had fetched his over-night bag from his dressing room, slung it carelessly by the strap over his shoulder, strolled up to the little antechamber, taken the painting out from behind the pile of old engravings, put it in the bag with barely a glance at it and strolled downstairs again. As he did so, he found himself trembling violently, but otherwise he felt cool and collected. He returned the bag to his dressing room unobserved.
    The last shots after lunch were so hectic that Jason barely had time to think of his acquisition until he was in the car being driven back to London. Then he was compelled to face the fact that for the first time in his adult life he had committed a blatantly illegal act. Jason tried to analyse his feelings dispassionately, as he often did in times of high emotional tension. He felt keyed-up, more than usually alive, but he also felt the fear of possible discovery and some guilt. There were plenty of arguments to be made against his feeling guilt, but he could not help feeling it. He had broken one of the commandments; he was a thief.
    He would have liked to discuss the whole affair with someone, but he could not think of anybody suitable. Jason was going through a period of solitude having broken up with a girl two months ago. In any case, he knew what they would say. ‘Take it back,’ they would say, and he was damned if he was going to.
    When he got home, he took the painting out of his bag, wrapped it carefully in some bubble wrap and put it in a drawer. He had thought too much about it and was not going to do any more of that until the next morning. That night he managed to distract himself with a visit to the pub and a film on television. He even slept well enough except that once he woke up with a phrase repeating itself over and over in his head: Et in Arcadia Ego . The phrase nagged at him as words do when they come at one from the other side of