The Girl, the Dog, and the Writer in Rome

by Katrina Nannestad

  While Giuseppe and Pazzo charmed the crowds and filled their money pouch with coins, the girl and the dog explored the Colosseum. They wandered around inside the soaring walls, peering down into the space that would once have been alive with gladiators, chariots, lions, tigers and elephants. Sometimes the Romans had even filled it with water and real ships to re-enact famous battles. Freja tried to feel the wonder that a child would have felt two thousand years ago at seeing such a spectacle. But she couldn’t. All she felt was a prickling at the back of her neck, as though she was being watched. She tried to imagine herself surrounded by thousands of spectators, cheering, clapping, stamping, but she continued to feel very small . . . very alone . . . very exposed.

  ‘Come on, Finnegan.’ Freja rested her hand on the dog’s neck. ‘Let’s go down.’

  But downstairs, the nasty feelings remained. And even though she tried to follow the main passageways that were flooded with sunlight, a sudden wrong turn found them all alone in a cold, dim corridor.

  A noise echoed in the dark behind them. Footsteps, perhaps.

  Again, her neck prickled, as though she was being watched.

  ‘Hello?’ said Freja, but the word came out as a mere whisper.

  Finnegan stiffened at her side.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ she squeaked.

  Three pigeons flapped out from the darkness, swooping so close that Freja felt wings brush her cheek. She turned on her heel and ran. She ran like a lion being chased by a gladiator until she stumbled upon the exit and burst out into sunshine, fresh air and crowds of people. Happy, harmless people.

  A group of schoolchildren walked by in pairs, their teacher speaking rapid Italian as he pointed up at the stone arches. An acting troupe, dressed in togas, strolled along, laughing and licking pistachio gelato. Finnegan ate a slice of salami that someone had dropped on the ground. And the high, sweet notes of Giuseppe’s voice drifted through the air and mingled with the distant sound of traffic.

  ‘Silly,’ muttered Freja. ‘I’m such a scaredy-cat.’ She wiped her eyes and laughed. She grabbed a handful of Finnegan’s fur and, together, they pushed through the crowd and headed towards the music, the monkey and the organ grinder.

  ‘Boof!’ Finnegan stopped. He spun around so that he faced the Colosseum once more.

  Freja tugged at his fur. ‘Come on, puppy.’

  But he refused to budge. ‘Woof! Boof!’

  Freja followed his gaze. ‘My beanie!’ she cried. ‘You’re right, Finnegan. It’s the beanie that Clementine made for my birthday. The one I lost in the church in the middle of the night. I’d recognise it anywhere!’

  The girl and the dog watched as the cherry-red pompom bobbed above the sea of heads, getting closer and closer.

  Hackles rose on Finnegan’s neck and shoulders. A thunderous rumble welled up inside his chest.

  Freja held her breath.

  The person wearing the cherry-red beanie broke from the crowd, strode forward and glared down at them.

  Freja’s blood ran cold.

  For the person wearing the beanie was also wearing the robes of a priest. He scowled, the scar on his face puckering and wrinkling in a familiar and terrifying manner.

  Freja’s mind screamed, ‘Run! Run!’ but her legs had turned to marble. She might just as well tell Oceanus to run from the Trevi Fountain.

  Padre Paolo leaned forward so that his nose almost touched Freja’s. His breath blew hot and garlicky on her face. ‘You tell Tobias Appleby to do his own dirty work from now on,’ he warned. ‘Only a coward sends a little girl to spy on his enemy.’

  Finnegan snarled, his sharp white teeth glistening with spit.

  Padre Paolo stood upright. He pulled the cherry-red beanie from his head and threw it at Freja’s feet.

  Freja’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

  The priest touched two fingers to his face below his eyes, then stabbed them at Freja. ‘I’ll be watching you,’ he hissed. He stepped back and disappeared into the crowd.

  Freja bit her lower lip to stop it from wobbling. She bent down and grabbed her beanie. She brushed some dirt off the pompom, whispering, ‘I’m all right. I’m all right. Everything’s all right.’

  But even Finnegan seemed rattled. He continued to stare in the direction the priest had gone and showed not a jot of interest in the giant cherry-red pompom on Freja’s beanie.

  ‘Everything’s all right,’ the girl whispered once more.

  But as she walked back to Giuseppe, her heart slammed against her ribcage over and over again, declaring that she was a liar and everything was far from all right.

  CHAPTER 30

  Lies, lies, despicable lies

  An hour later, Finnegan and Freja were back at Trattoria Famiglia, sitting at the table by the kitchen door. Finnegan had already wolfed down two enormous servings of Nonna Rosa’s spaghetti Alfredo and was now licking the bowl as though he hoped to wear a hole in it.

  Freja poked and prodded her pasta with a fork, but couldn’t eat a bite. She pushed her bowl towards Finnegan. He gobbled and guzzled, then slurped the final strand of spaghetti so quickly that the loose end flicked wildly from side to side. Creamy sauce splattered all over the tablecloth, the wall and Freja’s shirt.

  ‘Boof!’ said the dog, perhaps in apology, then licked the sauce off Freja’s sleeve, working his way from the cuff upward. When he reached the top, he swiped his tongue around her ear and dribbled on her shoulder, then trotted off to the bar for a glass of lemonade.

  Freja looked down at the cherry-red beanie where it sat in her lap. She plucked at the pompom, frowning.

  How did Padre Paolo get hold of her beanie? It had fallen off her head when she’d fled from the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. She’d been so frightened that she hadn’t dared stop to pick it up.

  ‘Terrified,’ she whispered, ‘by the cat and the echo of my own footsteps.’ But even as the words came out, she realised they were false. For she now remembered another detail, one that had been pushed to the back of her mind by everything else that had happened over the last two days.

  ‘The door!’ gasped Freja. ‘I closed it when I left the church. I felt the latch click into place. But then . . . when I looked back, it closed again. Someone was inside the church. They must have been there the whole time!’ She shuddered. ‘It was a person that made the bump near the altar, not the cat! It was another set of footsteps, not the echo of mine. And it was that same person who opened the church door and spied on me as I walked down the stairs.’

  She closed her eyes tightly. She squeezed the pompom on the beanie.

  ‘It was him!’ she cried, her eyes flying open, her chair clattering backward as she sprang to her feet.

  A man at the next table got such a fright that he stuck a forkful of veal into his cheek, missing his mouth completely. His wife made a tut-tut sound with her tongue. Although whether this was aimed at Freja or her husband was not completely clear.

  Freja righted her chair and sat down again. ‘It was him,’ she whispered to the painting of the Pope on the wall. It helped to have someone listening. It made her think more clearly. ‘Padre Paolo was in the church. He was already there when I went inside to pray for Clementine. And that’s how he got my beanie.’ Her stomach clenched. ‘Padre Paolo saw me in the church and he thinks I knew that he was there. He thinks I went there to spy on him!’ She leaned closer to the Pope and gasped. ‘He thinks Tobias sent me to spy on him . . . that Tobias was sending me to do his dirty work!’

  Freja felt a spark of excitement. Surely this was another piece of the puzzle solved!

  But what would the priest — who was not really a priest — be doing in the Church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in the middle of the night? Not praying, that was for sure. If he was pretending to be a priest, he’d be glad to be caught in the middle of a prayer. Instead, he was furious! He must have been doing something wrong. Something illegal.

  Something bad.

  She must tell Tobias
.

  The Pope stared at her in disbelief.

  Of course! The Pope was right. She couldn’t tell Tobias. For then he would know that she had been wandering around Rome alone at night. And she would have to tell him that she had left Nonna Rosa’s this morning too. Because how else could she explain her discovery?

  Tobias would be disappointed in her. He might even be cross.

  ‘What a mess!’ she moaned.

  She pulled the beanie onto her head, down over her eyes, and flopped forward. Her glass fell over. Water ran across the table and dribbled onto the floor.

  ‘I say, old chap, you’re looking a bit green around the gills.’

  Freja lifted the beanie from one eye and peered up at Tobias. ‘I’d like to go home now, please,’ she whispered.

  As they stepped out into the street, Freja froze. She glanced nervously from side to side, taking in every detail, until she was certain no-one was loitering in the shadows. She slipped her hand into Tobias’ and willed her jelly legs to walk.

  Tobias frowned down at her. ‘Your fingers are like ice, old chap!’

  Freja forced herself to smile up at him.

  His frown deepened. ‘I don’t remember you wearing that hat when I walked you to Nonna Rosa’s this morning. How terribly odd! I know that I’m dreadfully absent-minded and sometimes forget my own name. But that hat is a jolly marvel — not the sort one fails to notice.’

  ‘I wasn’t wearing it,’ said Freja. ‘I left it at Trattoria Famiglia the other day and Nonna Rosa gave it back to me this morning.’

  Tobias nodded.

  Freja burned with shame. The lie had slipped so easily from her lips.

  Of course, they had both told many lies over the last few days — that Tobias was Leonardo Stupido; that Freja was his niece; that tossing a lipstick into the Trevi Fountain would bring you true love. But they’d lied for good reason, to fool the nasty priests who were not really priests at all. Here, now, she was deceiving Tobias, the sweetest, kindest person she had ever known. It felt rotten.

  Back in the apartment, she slipped into her room and closed the door. She sat at her dressing table and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The cherry-red beanie glared at her, accusing her of telling lies and keeping secrets that should be shared. She swiped it off.

  Dropping her chin, her eyes fell upon the battered little treasure chest. She reached out and flicked the rusty metal lock with the tip of her finger. ‘More secrets,’ she snorted. ‘Secrets under lock and key.’

  She frowned. She picked up the treasure chest and turned it over in her hands. The secrets inside rattled and clunked.

  Freja shrugged and stuffed the little chest into her cherry-red beanie. She stood up, marched across the room, shoved the bulging beanie inside her satchel and buckled the flap. Dropping the satchel, she kicked it. Hard. It slid across the floor and disappeared beneath the bed.

  ‘There!’ She stepped back and dusted her hands together. ‘All of the secrets are out of sight!’

  ‘Ow-ow-ow-oooow!’ Finnegan hollered from the other side of the door.

  Freja let the giant hound in. He leapt up, placing his front feet on her shoulders, and swept his broad tongue back and forth across her face, whimpering all the while. He was relieved, excited and delighted to see her, as though they’d been separated for five weeks rather than five minutes.

  Freja laughed, despite her bad mood, and kissed his enormous, wet nose.

  Satisfied, the dog released her. Trotting to the bed, he jumped up onto the quilt, stretched out and settled in for a good chew on the corner of the pillow. Freja flopped down beside him and lost herself once more in the pages of Rome’s Reward.

  CHAPTER 31

  Tumbling down Janiculum Hill

  The girl, the writer and the pretty chef stood side by side on Janiculum Hill. The Tiber River wound its way along the bottom of the hill, slithering through the arches of one marble bridge after the next. Rome stretched out before them — domes, bell towers, ochre walls and endless terracotta rooftops. Ancient pine trees soared above their heads, a light breeze whispering through their branches.

  ‘Beautiful,’ whispered Freja. ‘It’s all so very beautiful.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ sighed Tobias. ‘Beautiful.’ But he wasn’t looking at the view or the ancient pines or even the brilliant blue sky filled with powder-puff clouds. His gaze was directed at Vivi. Today, she was dressed all in white — crisp white shirt, white jeans, white sandshoes and white headband. The only touch of colour was a pale yellow scarf around her waist and the yellow-and-white striped box of macarons she held in her hands.

  ‘Beautiful,’ repeated Tobias. ‘Like a meadow full of daisies on a warm summer’s day.’

  Vivi blushed.

  Freja wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Woof! Boof!’ Finnegan bolted across a grassy clearing a little further down the hill. His ears flapped in the air and a black hat flapped from his mouth. Moments later, an elderly man tottered into view, shouting and waving his walking stick in a threatening manner.

  ‘Finnegan’s a bit skittish today,’ said Freja. ‘He stole a box of biscotti from the kitchen cupboard and gobbled them all up. And he’d already eaten five pieces of burnt toast with marmalade and his daily jar of raspberry jam. We think he’s had too much sugar. It does make him rather silly.’

  ‘He is just a puppy,’ explained Tobias. ‘We can’t expect too much of the poor little thing.’

  Vivi watched as the poor little thing ran back towards the elderly man, bowled him over and licked his bald head until it glistened in the sunlight. ‘Woof! Boof!’ the dog barked. The man sat up, shook his head and burst out laughing.

  ‘Astonishing!’ gasped Vivi.

  ‘Yes,’ sighed Tobias, still looking at Vivi.

  Her eyes twinkled and she said, ‘Shall we eat?’

  Tobias grabbed the picnic hamper from the back of the motorcycle.

  Vivi spread a yellow-and-white chequered rug on the grass and laid out a white linen serviette for each of them. She unpacked the hamper and the centre of the rug was soon filled with a delicious Italian picnic — a large, crusty loaf of bread, sun-dried tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, anchovy-stuffed olives, paper-thin slices of prosciutto and salami, small, soft balls of bocconcini, fresh tomatoes and large yellow pears.

  Meanwhile, Tobias pulled a Thermos, a teapot shaped like a sheep and a canister of tea leaves from his backpack. ‘Can’t have a proper picnic without a pot of tea,’ he murmured. ‘My word, no. A picnic without tea would be a disaster . . . as bad as trifle without jelly . . . a book without words . . .’

  ‘The Trevi Fountain without water!’ shouted Freja.

  ‘Rome without ruins!’ cried Vivi.

  Tobias nodded. ‘So we’re agreed: A picnic without a cuppa would be an absolute disaster. It’s a jolly good thing I remembered my teapot!’

  They sat and nibbled and laughed and chatted. Freja told Vivi everything she knew about walruses, spending quite some time describing the way they used their whiskers to locate clams, mussels and bottom-dwelling organisms. ‘Like using a metal detector to find gold,’ explained Freja.

  Tobias ate an artichoke heart and confessed that artichokes always made him think of a character in his second novel. ‘His name was Artie,’ said Tobias. ‘The jolly thing is, he choked. Artie choked!’

  Vivi stared at him.

  Tobias tugged at his ear. ‘Well, actually,’ he muttered, ‘someone else choked him . . .’

  Freja giggled and bit into a macaron, a yellow one because it matched Vivi’s scarf and the picnic rug. Sugar danced across her tongue, chased by a lemony tang and a quick sour buzz. So much magic in one small bite.

  ‘Vivi,’ she said, ‘is it hard being a chef?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Vivi, smiling. ‘It’s hard work, but it’s a lot of fun. It brings me great joy to fill people’s bellies with delicious food and their hearts with warm feelings.’

  ‘Warm feelings,’ echoed Tobias.
His voice was dreamy, his grin wobbly.

  ‘Here!’ said Freja, thrusting the yellow-and-white striped box towards him. ‘Have a macaron!’

  Vivi smiled. ‘My nonna used to own my little café. It was called Café Delizioso back then and I trained in the kitchen as her chef. My nonna worked in her café for fifty-five years. Then one day, a little over a year ago, she took off her apron and passed it to me.’ The smile lingered on Vivi’s raspberry-gelato lips, but tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Nonna said, “Enough. I’m tired. Now it is your turn, Vivi.” She went upstairs to bed and she didn’t wake up the next morning.’

  Vivi stared at an ant as it crawled slowly across her serviette. She sniffed.

  Tobias reached across the bocconcini, the artichoke hearts and the cups of tea to place his hand gently on top of Vivi’s.

  Freja watched, open mouthed, as Vivi’s olive-skinned hand turned upward and her petite fingers entwined with Tobias’ long, ink-stained fingers. The breeze dropped, the pine trees ceased to whisper and Freja stared. Something magical was happening. Something that filled Freja with longing and loneliness and happiness and a sense of wholeness all at the same time. It was, she realised, love.

  ‘Boof!’ Finnegan bounded into their midst, breaking the spell and squashing the remaining macarons.

  Vivi threw back her head and laughed. Finnegan gobbled the squashed macarons, then leapt at Tobias, bowling him over.

  ‘So!’ cried Vivi, jumping to her feet. ‘Now we have full bellies and lots of energy. Perhaps it is time for you to teach me your special game. The one you call Cheese Wheels.’

  CHAPTER 32

  A thrilling game of Cheese Wheels

  ‘Cheese Wheels in five easy steps!’ Tobias stood at the top of the grassy slope, a frown on his brow, a slice of salami stuck to his knee.

  The girl and the pretty chef stood to attention.

  The pretty chef giggled.

  Freja elbowed her. ‘Shhhh! This is serious, Vivi.’

  ‘Scusa,’ whispered Vivi, then burst into a peal of laughter.