Nostalgia

by Jonathan Buckley

  ‘You could do without,’ he suggests. ‘I’ll be going in a minute. You can stay for as long as you like. Just slam the gate when you go. No one can see you,’ he says. ‘Look around.’

  She does not look around; instead she gives him a look that dismisses the suggestion, then lowers herself into the water. After a dozen sedate lengths she gets out. As he is dressing on the other side of the pool, he hears her make a hissing sound; she has dropped the towel and is picking at her hair, wincing. ‘You OK?’ he calls across, and in the same moment she yelps, doing a small sideways jump. She swats at the air, where now he sees three or four bees, circling above her head. ‘One of the buggers has stung me,’ she shouts. There’s a shower built into the wall; he tells her to get under it, which she does. A flick of his towel encourages the bees to depart.

  ‘Let me look,’ he says, when she steps out of the shower. She tilts her head towards him, pointing to the spot; her scalp is reddened on the crown, and he finds two stings in there. From his wallet he takes a credit card, with which he strokes the stings out of her skin.

  ‘You’ve done this before,’ she says.

  ‘Swipe, never squeeze,’ he answers. ‘Tweezers are the worst. They squirt the poison in.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ she says.

  ‘It would be a good idea to put some ice on this,’ he tells her. ‘And shampoo, to clean it up.’

  She picks up her towel, and he goes over to the other side of the pool to get dressed.

  Her scalp is itching, and after she has rubbed her head with the towel the itch gets worse. She sits on the sunbed. A warmth is spreading into her face from her scalp. The sunbed feels like a dinghy that a small wave has lifted off the sand. She dries herself, gets her underwear on. Reaching for her dress, she sees on her arm a blush that doesn’t look like sunburn – can’t be sunburn. There are bumps in the reddened area. One side of her face now feels sunburned too, and she has the sensation of a thumb pressing on her throat. She can’t bring the dress into focus. Beginning to panic, she calls: ‘Robert – something’s wrong.’ Her tongue feels much too large; the wall is lurching.

  Robert holds her shoulders. Peering into her face, he says something. The sky is changing colour; she is choking and there is a banging somewhere, like a huge drum. She sees Robert talking into his phone; she hears him, but can’t make out what he’s saying. Heat falls through her body; something has burst.

  7.9

  She is lying down. A woman’s voice is near; the woman is holding her hand and talking to her but it isn’t a woman it’s Gideon who is telling her to do something but she doesn’t understand what he’s saying to her and he doesn’t understand what she’s saying to him. ‘Immediately,’ she hears someone say. Robert is speaking; his voice seems to be coming out of an enormous tin box. Her skin is hot; she is trying to speak but her throat is closing and she cannot remember the words she wants. Robert has an arm around her. The stone wall is moving, and the air is full of grey grains. A man’s face falls towards her; he has a plastic triangle in his hand; he smothers her. Gideon is looking angrily into her face and another man is doing something to her arm. Her eyelashes are quivering against a milky light; the blue sky flashes in a window above her head.

  Then she is in a very bright room and Robert is talking over her, to someone she cannot see. He talks to her, as a needle is put in her arm. She is talking back, but from his face she knows she is not making sense. Over and over he says the same things: she is OK; there is nothing to worry about; she has to stay; she is OK. A woman says something to him and he is gone; Gideon has also gone.

  When she wakes up Robert is there. He explains what has happened: the sting made her system shut down; her blood pressure plummeted; adrenaline and oxygen did the trick. ‘Could have been a lot nastier,’ he says. For some reason she puts a kiss on his hand. He writes his mobile number on a tissue. ‘They’re telling me to go,’ he says. ‘They’ll kick you out in the morning, probably. I’ll be here at nine.’

  7.10

  The Italian honey bee, Apis mellifera ligustica, is a sub-species of the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera), and was first described by the Italian entomologist Massimiliano Spinola (1780–1857) in his Insectorum Liguriæ Species Novæ aut Rariores, quas in agro Ligustico nuper detexit, descripsit, et iconibus illustravit, published in 1806. Though ill-suited to the winters of northerly latitudes, Apis mellifera ligustica thrives in climates ranging from the cool temperate to the subtropical. It produces a large volume of honey, and is the most widely kept honey bee in southern Europe and the Americas.

  There are tens of thousands of individuals in a colony, but usually there is just one queen. The queen is the only bee to produce eggs, which are laid singly in the cells of the comb. A queen will lay either a fertilised or an unfertilised egg: fertilised eggs are laid in small worker cells, and develop into female worker bees; unfertilised eggs are laid in the considerably larger drone cells, and develop into haploid male drones. Sustained by a diet of protein-rich royal jelly (a substance secreted from glands on the heads of young workers), the queen deposits eggs continuously, laying as many as two thousand per day in spring. After three or four years, on average, the queen loses the ability to lay fertilised eggs, or can no longer produce the pheromones with which she controls the hive. At this point, the workers will create virgin queens by heavily feeding the larvae of normal workers with royal jelly, which makes them develop into sexually mature females. The ailing queen will then either be killed or will leave the hive with a swarm, to establish a new colony. Except for the mating period in the early weeks of her life (she mates once, with multiple drones, and retains the sperm for years), such a swarming would, in most instances, be the queen’s first flight from the hive.

  The chief function of the drones is to mate with a queen: drones are peripatetic, rarely mating with the queen of the hive that produced them, and after mating the drone will always die, because its reproductive apparatus is severed in the process. The maximum life expectancy of a drone is about ninety days. The drone has no stinger.

  In an average colony of 50–80,000 bees, some two or three thousand will be drones. The rest, except for the queen, will be workers, which are non-reproducing females. For the first twenty days of its life, the worker cleans the hive, feeds the larvae, builds comb cells and stores nectar and pollen; for the rest of its life it forages for pollen and nectar. Worker bees will attack if they sense a threat to the hive. While foraging, on the other hand, they rarely sting except to repel physical contact. The stinging mechanism of the worker honey bee is a modified ovipositor, comprising a venom sac and a barbed stinger, which in turn comprises a stylus flanked by two barbed lancets. Working in opposition to each other, these lancets pull the stylus into the body of the victim by contraction, while contractions of the venom sac insert the apitoxin into the wound. When a bee stings another bee or another insect, it withdraws the stinger before the barbs can engage; if the victim has a skin, however, the barbs become inextricably burrowed in the flesh, and the bee can remove itself only by pulling away from its stinger, an action that inevitably leads to its death. The venom sac will continue to pulsate even after it has been torn from the bee’s abdomen, and the injection of apitoxin can continue for several minutes. Alarm pheromones are also released as the apitoxin is being injected, which may attract other bees and incite them to attack.

  For a human the sting of the honey bee is relatively mild, but in about two percent of cases the venom causes anaphylactic shock, which can be life-threatening. Queen honey bees can also sting, and the stinger of the queen, lacking barbs, can be used repeatedly; queens, however, use their venom only for killing rival queens, often before pupation has occurred.

  7.11

  ‘So she’ll be out in the morning?’ asks Gideon. He is at work on Turone’s picture, and has not yet paused, not even at the words ‘anaphylactic shock’.

  ‘Some time tomorrow,’ says Robert.

  ‘That’s good,’ says
Gideon, selecting another brush. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘She’ll miss her flight, I think,’ says Robert, and Gideon nods. ‘They say she should be discharged in the morning, but I doubt it’ll be early enough.’

  ‘Hmm,’ comments Gideon; it’s not clear whether the sound is a response to this information or to the mark he has just made.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ says Gideon, applying a minuscule quantity of white to the canvas.

  ‘Would you care to repeat it?’

  ‘You think that she’ll miss her flight,’ he recites. ‘You were told she should be discharged in the morning, but you doubt it’ll be early enough.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Maurizio,’ Robert goes on.

  ‘OK,’ says Gideon.

  For a few seconds Robert watches Gideon at work; with the precision of a thief outwitting a pressure-sensitive alarm, Gideon inserts another speck of white into the image. ‘The Ottocento is fully booked from tomorrow. Because of the festival.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So she’ll have to go elsewhere.’

  ‘Understood.’ He pulls back from the canvas to scrutinise it; he sniffs; the expression says he’ll accept what he’s done to it. A thicker brush is taken up, and he looks at Robert for a half-second. ‘I can’t have her here,’ he says. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Well, she is your niece. And it’s only—’

  ‘The fact that she’s my brother’s daughter is neither here nor there.’

  ‘OK. I thought—’

  Gideon takes a steadying breath before advancing the brush. ‘Have you tried any of the hotels in Cásole?’ he asks.

  ‘No, I haven’t. Of course I haven’t. I had to talk to you first.’

  ‘There are some decent places in Cásole, aren’t there?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Give them a call. I’ll pay for the room. And for her flight. That goes without saying.’

  ‘We cannot pack her off to Cásole.’

  ‘It’s not far. She can borrow my car.’

  ‘She didn’t come all this way to stay in Cásole.’

  ‘Nice little town. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Gideon, I’m not going to take her out of hospital then dump her in a place that’s miles away. Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Is the Cereria full?’

  ‘Yes, the Cereria is full.’

  Affecting to see no alternative to Cásole, Gideon raises his eyebrows and sighs, nonplussed.

  ‘I’ll put her up,’ says Robert, inevitably. ‘If she misses the flight, I’ll put her up.’

  ‘You don’t have a spare room.’

  ‘I have a sofabed.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Gideon. ‘I was forgetting.’

  ‘Easily done.’

  ‘But you mustn’t feel that you have to.’

  ‘God forbid,’ says Robert.

  ‘It might be the best solution, though,’ says Gideon. ‘I think you’re right about Cásole.’

  ‘I’m glad we agree.’

  Gideon gives Robert a smile, not of thanks, but of sympathy for finding himself in a situation that has required this inconvenience of him. Returning his attention to the picture, he says: ‘I’ll pay the bill at Ianni’s too. Tell him I’ll go over there this evening and settle up, would you?’

  ‘Aye aye, captain,’ answers Robert, and here, as if finally hearing the tone, Gideon looks at him again. ‘You sure you’re OK with this arrangement?’ he asks.

  ‘There is no alternative.’

  ‘No, there is an alternative, but we’ve agreed that it’s not preferable.’

  ‘I’m OK. It’s only for a day or two.’

  Already Gideon’s attention has been transferred to the canvas. Arms folded, he exhales loudly and raises his gaze to the ceiling. ‘Christ,’ he murmurs, ‘I want shot of this damned thing.’ He jabs the picture lightly with a brush, as if sticking a dart into a photo of someone he cannot abide. Then he says: ‘She should stay for the festival, don’t you think? Shame to miss it. How would you feel about that?’

  ‘Another day doesn’t make much difference.’

  ‘But you mustn’t—’

  ‘If she wants to stay, that’ll be fine. You can reimburse me for whatever she takes from my fridge.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I was joking,’ Robert tells him, turning to go back down. He’s at the top of the stairs when Gideon says, as if this is what he’s been waiting to say all along: ‘I would only have been in the way, if I’d come with you.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Robert replies.

  ‘No, I would. Chaos enough without me there,’ he says, looking at him more directly than at any previous point in the conversation. He strokes the brush across the palette. ‘And hospitals give me the willies,’ he says, arresting the movement of his brush for a moment.

  ‘Whereas I love them,’ says Robert, descending. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Give my regards to Teresa.’

  ‘I shall.’

  ‘Thank you. For everything.’

  ‘Not at all. A domani.’

  ‘A domani.’

  7.12

  ‘But what exactly happened?’ asks Teresa, lowering the volume of the TV; she turns to give her full attention to his account. ‘Frightening,’ she comments, with a chilled quiver of the head. ‘Will you go and fetch her?’

  ‘I will,’ he answers, expecting trouble, but there – with a nod that makes no comment other than acknowledgement – the subject is finished.

  ‘I had a good day at work,’ she tells him, getting up. ‘We sold a house. We actually sold a house. A big one. The villa at Pievescola. To a Belgian. A big fat Belgian with lots of cash.’ She goes into the kitchen and returns with two glasses and a half-full bottle of Verdicchio. A toast is drunk to the improving fortunes of the Tranfaglia property agency.

  The film that she’s been watching has only half an hour left to run: it’s a supernatural thriller, ‘totally stupid,’ she says; she tells him what the twist will be, and it turns out she’s right. She apologises for being so tired the previous night.

  Leaving the lights off, she opens the bedroom window and the shutters. She leans out to peg the shutter back, and the pale light of the streetlamp slides over an arm, a breast; she turns and straightens, presenting herself, arms wide, then steps forward to kiss him.

  With a fingertip he relishes the sleek skin of her hip, and her gaze remains for a second where his touch has been. A smile appears to approve the form that she is making, and the form that they make together. Then, laughing, she falls onto him. She shrieks, and bites a hand to quieten herself when Renata bangs on the other side of the wall.

  In the early hours of the morning he wakes up. Teresa is not there; the bathroom light is on. Ten minutes pass before she comes back. ‘OK?’ he asks.

  ‘Renata was awake,’ she explains.

  8

  8.1

  IN JANUARY 1883 the town council of Castelluccio held a competition for the design of a theatre. Twelve months later it was announced that the contract had been won by the Sienese architect Andrea Gaetano, who had conceived a building which, while alluding to the Gothic architecture of his home city, and to the Palazzo Pubblico in particular, would also ‘harmonise with the urban fabric of Castelluccio’. To make way for the theatre, three houses were demolished on Via del Corso, which soon after became Corso Garibaldi. On July 5th 1886 an audience of three hundred and fifty attended the inaugural presentation: La moglie del giudice (The Judge’s Wife), written especially for the occasion by Fabio Benedetti, a playwright from Modena. Both the author and the architect were on stage to receive the acclamation of the townspeople.

  The embroidered image on the stage curtain, depicting the town from an aerial perspective, was derived from a picture by Domenico Scattolin of Volterra, who also painted the ceiling fresco, showing Apollo, Orpheus and the Muses. The other notable decorative features of the horseshoe-s
haped auditorium were the pairs of female figures, in painted wood, which flanked the central boxes of each of the theatre’s three tiers. Carved by Maurizio Puppa, two of these figures were modelled on Puppa’s wife, two on his wife’s twin sister, and two on his eldest daughter. Only the last pair survived the fire that severely damaged the interior in 1931. The ceiling fresco was destroyed in the blaze, as was the curtain, and although the cast-iron framework that supported the boxes did not collapse, the structure was deemed to be unsafe, and the Teatro Civico was closed. It remained unused for the next four decades.

  Restoration and consolidation was funded primarily by the film actor Filippo Beltrami, whose great-grandfather, Cesare Beltrami, had created the role of the judge in La moglie del giudice. Renamed the Teatro Gaetano, the theatre reopened in 1973, but in 1991 it closed again. It has remained closed ever since.

  8.2

  Gideon, on his way down the Corso, at the end of his morning walk with Trim, notices Giovanni Cabrera and a gaggle of his pals, outside the Teatro Gaetano, apparently looking at the door. Visible above their heads is the blond crew-cut of a thin middle-aged man in a black suit and black shirt, to whom one of the boys appears to be explaining something, until Giovanni, noticing Gideon, stubs out his cigarette on the theatre’s step, whereupon, as if at a signal, Giovanni and his entourage slope off. The man in the black suit remains; he wipes his glasses with a cloth, while considering the theatre door. Gideon goes closer and sees, in scarlet spray-painted capitals, filling the entire width of the double door: ILARIA ERA QUI.

  The man puts his glasses back on, scrutinises the graffiti again, then turns to direct at Gideon the nod of a detective greeting a colleague who’s belatedly turned up at the scene of an incident that’s not worth the effort of investigating. Gideon recognises the face from the festival website: he’s the composer, the Danish chap.