by Penny Feeny
‘He was running away. It made him look suspicious. Anyway, let’s start again, shall we? Have you had a good day so far?’ The girls exchanged looks, shrugged in reply. ‘Well then, do you fancy an ice cream in Rosati’s?’
‘What’s Rosati’s?’
They had faced each other for almost a century, Canova and Rosati, the two lavish cafés at the entrance to the square, both wildly overpriced but fitted with such opulent elegance and offering such tempting displays of fancy pastries, the girls were sure to be impressed. Of the two he preferred Rosati’s. The walnut panelling, parquet flooring and linen napery spoke of a different, more glamorous era.
They chose a central table beneath a dazzling chandelier so they could ogle the pasticceria: the glossy fruit tarts, dainty macaroons, confections of chocolate and cream. Mitchell ordered another beer to dull the pain in his elbow and Sasha an apricot frullata. Ruby settled for ice cream: scoops of pistachio and strawberry served in a tall-stemmed glass. They couldn’t make up their minds about the cakes.
When he asked them again to tell him about their morning they were evasive, possibly they’d overdosed on Renaissance painting. ‘My day hasn’t been so great either,’ he admitted. ‘Though I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen that living statue of yours before.’
‘He’s usually in Piazza Navona,’ said Sasha. ‘Perhaps he thought there’d be less competition here. But he’s not really a mate. I only came across him a couple of times.’
‘Through Gina?’
‘Yes.’
‘She took his photo, didn’t she?’
‘Um… Maybe.’
‘I saw it,’ he said. ‘She’s got an exhibition on, did you know?’
Ruby said, ‘What? You went to see her exhibition?’
‘Yes,’ he said, mildly annoyed by the implication. Did they think him such a philistine? ‘And he’s in it, all dressed up in his toga. A bit freaky if you ask me.’
Sasha was sucking up her milkshake through a straw; she began to choke as if she’d inhaled some by accident and Ruby thumped her on the back.
‘Did you… did you like her stuff?’
‘Yeah. Some of it was a bit contrived, but on the whole I was impressed.’
A long silence followed, though it may have seemed drawn out because most of the other tables were occupied by vivacious gesticulating Italians. Sasha blew her nose. Ruby carefully scraped every morsel of ice cream from her glass and licked the spoon clean. These feisty young women, he thought fondly, were little girls at heart. Sugar and spice and all things nice. Sasha had braided her hair, exposing the childish curves of her face, the clear soft complexion with its scattering of freckles.
‘I was at a loose end,’ he said. ‘I should have gone along with you two. I didn’t get much joy from the agency.’
‘They didn’t have anything else, you mean? Nothing to swap?’
‘That’s what they claimed.’ He couldn’t tell whether Sasha was relieved or disappointed. He pulled the money from his pocket. ‘This was the pay-off.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to stay with us then?’
‘D’you want me to move out?’
‘’Course not.’
‘I might look at some hotel rooms… But this…’ He flapped the notes. ‘This is pathetic. I’m going to blow it.’
‘Can we help you?’ said Sasha with a sudden urgency.
‘Sure you can. What d’you reckon? We hire scooters for the day, pig-out at a top restaurant, buy an audience with the Pope?’
Ruby giggled, seemed about to break in with a novel idea of her own, but Sasha said, ‘Um, we could go shopping.’
This was the suggestion he least favoured. For Mitchell shopping was a functional activity, like showering; he couldn’t see the attraction of it as a leisure pursuit. Particularly in little boutiques like the ones along the Corso, where impossibly svelte assistants hovered and preyed. Sasha and Ruby would take a hundred and one garments into the inadequate fitting rooms and change their minds a hundred and one times while he waited like a lemon.
‘Be my guest,’ he said, laying the money on the cloth between them. ‘But if you don’t mind, I won’t come with you. Not really my bag.’
She stared at the notes as if they were on fire and then snatched them up hastily in case he changed his mind. She mumbled something under her breath to Ruby but wouldn’t meet his eye. Given that she’d just been presented with 200 euros, he thought his daughter could have looked more grateful.
26
Gina stooped for the little brass pot, threw out the desiccating pieces of foliage and took it to the tap to fill with water. She carried it back to the grave and unwrapped her bunch of tulips and freesias, their golden petals streaked with an apricot blush. Tulips, because Felix had always loved them, admired their form; freesias for their fresh intense fragrance, like bottled sunshine – although today she didn’t seem to be able to smell it, any more than she could smell the sharp resin of pine or the honeyed drift of jasmine.
So, she couldn’t smell; she couldn’t hear, because the lush vegetation absorbed all intrusive sounds; and she couldn’t really see because her eyes kept welling up. She’d been before in this familiar place, otherwise known as rock bottom. But this time was different because the shock had come out of the blue, with no warning at all. At least, with Thomas and Felix, she’d been given the chance to prepare. She’d known she wasn’t going to be able to keep Thomas, that he could only give her the briefest moment of joy; she would have been a lousy mother. As for losing Felix – she’d had plenty of notice of that.
Felix had gone to great lengths to wangle his plot in the Protestant Cemetery. Just think of the company! he’d said. It was a private enclave: a confusion of angels and cherubs, of Eastern Orthodox crosses, of graves framed by stubby box hedges, of paths bordered with narrow columns of cypress, a sprawl of roses around the memorial urns, innocent daisies in the grass. At first she’d thought it ghoulish, his choice to moulder underground, but now she was glad to be able to visit him. She plucked a couple of weeds and pieces of blown litter from the earth and addressed his headstone.
‘You see how crap I am at coping without you? I’m a total disaster. Okay, so I’ve never been much good with money, but let’s face it, anything precious slips through my fingers. I was such an idiot to think my luck might have changed. An exhibition – wow! A commission – bring it on! Two pluses, no? But somebody up there, darling – maybe you’ve even met the bastard – wants to chuck in a minus before Gina Stanhope gets too big for her boots. The picture wasn’t really mine, I know that, the way Thomas was never really going to be mine either. But I should have looked after it better for you. Shit, I am so sorry. I should have let David take care of it when I couldn’t afford the insurance. I should had trusted him more. I’m not good at that, am I? You were the only person I ever really trusted.’
She’d thought of going to the crypt and unburdening herself to Leone. On the phone he’d been sympathetic, but in the flesh she suspected she’d read disapproval. She knew she was to blame. It was the sale of the photos that had made Joe impatient to try his luck and move on, follow a fantasy instead of biding his time. All he’d managed to achieve to speed up the process was to put himself at risk of deportation. And she couldn’t do anything to help because she had been robbed of a single piece of paper. Funny: a piece of paper was what Joe needed too.
Usually her visits calmed her, although today, as she squatted on the ground adjusting the freesias in the pot, she wasn’t so certain she’d come away with any sense of reassurance. Even with the best will in the world, Felix would be annoyed. You are the keeper of my flame, darling, he’d said. Keep it burning.
‘You thought I wouldn’t be able to fuck it up, didn’t you?’ She continued, ‘With the Lion King checking I didn’t fritter your inheritance, hanging in there at every turn. We wouldn’t have had anything to do with each other if it hadn’t been for you. But I reckon I’ve been a pretty good supporter of
the lost boys, even if I have been a bit unorthodox sometimes. And Leone hasn’t complained up to now. Boy, he can make you feel small though. Grubby. How does he manage it? I’ve never done anything half as dreadful as he has and yet those black eyes of his just floor me.’ Her head drooped in despair. ‘I used to accuse you of being defeatist, didn’t I? Well, now it’s my turn. I so need advice, darling. Where the fuck do I go from here?’
A phone began to ring in the bag at her feet. The caller could be any one of a number of people: friend, client, colleague. It might be David with more information about Franco Casale. Or Bertie himself – not that she was in the mood to handle Bertie. But it was neither of those.
‘Ciao, Gina!’ said Vicki.
‘Ciao,’ said Gina flatly, wandering away from the graveside to sit on a low stone wall.
‘I promised to call you after the opening and I’ve been so busy it’s taken me days to get around to it. I’m really sorry about that.’
‘You’re ringing to say you’re sorry you didn’t ring?’
‘No! I’m explaining, that’s all. Anyway, I had a fabulous time that night. I thought your show was marvellous and I hope it got lots of interest.’
‘Yeah, there was a review in the culture section of Il Messaggero.’
‘Anyway, how’s it going?’
‘The exhibition?’ There was a smudge of dirt on the knee of her trousers. As she rubbed it, it spread. ‘Okay, I guess.’
‘Gina?’
‘What?’
‘You sound weird.’
‘Do I?’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Depends what you mean by everything.’
‘Well, not the show then. How are you?’
In the distance, beyond the avenue of cypress, she could see a sliver of white pyramid and a shuffling tour group. ‘Actually…’ She was going to say, I’m feeling shit, but what was the point? What could Vicki do? Instead she said, ‘I saw Mitch yesterday.’
‘Oh my God!’ Vicki’s voice soared. ‘You mean the Mitch, the one who…’
‘Whose daughter I met in the summer, thanks to you. Yes. She’s back, plus her friend and he’s come with them.’
‘And you’ve met up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Did you tell him anything.’
‘We went through all this before. What’s to tell?’
Now she was exasperated. ‘Don’t be utterly ridiculous, Gina. I agree it’s a bit late at this stage, but all the same… If only you’d contacted him at the time like I kept begging you.’
‘I was kind of low, if you remember. I think they call it postnatal depression.’
‘Which is why I finally stepped in and made the effort on your behalf. But up until then you were just bloody-minded. He never got back to us because you wouldn’t even let me give him an inkling of what it was about. And then you raged at me for interfering. So we don’t dig it all up, I understand. But since he’s, what can I say… reappeared – and actually I’m glad about that and whatever part I might have played – surely you have a chance to…’
‘To what?’
‘Put the record straight. Come clean.’
Gina licked her finger and rubbed again at the smear on her trousers; pale linen showed every goddam mark. ‘I mightn’t see him again. The girl happened to show up yesterday with him in tow and I had to enlist his help because… Oh Christ, darling, you do not want to know the mess I’m in.’
‘Try me,’ said Vicki. ‘We could meet for a drink after work. The twins will be at Nonna’s. Sometimes it feels like I only had them for her benefit. I hardly see them. The freedom’s nice, but, Dio mio, does she spoil them. They’re becoming right little emperors.’
‘No thanks. I need to go home and lie down. I can feel a migraine starting and I shouldn’t be in a public place.’
‘Where are you?’
‘With Felix.’
‘Oh Gina!’
A young brindled cat was weaving between her legs and she leaned forward to scratch between its ears. The cat wriggled in appreciation but its fur was harsh and gritty; her hand felt dirty.
‘Do you want me to come over? It sounds as though you need someone.’
‘Yes,’ said Gina. ‘I do need someone. I need a hitman, that’s who, to get Bertie off my back. Bury him head-first in concrete. That would be my dream.’
‘What’s he done this time?’
‘Where do I start? You know he sent some joker round to sabotage my show?’
‘Really? It is still running, isn’t it?’
‘Barely. He threatened to close me down so I had to substitute a couple of shots. They were the ones I shouldn’t have taken of Sasha and Yusef.’
‘Of who?’
‘Never mind, that’s another story. But Bertie’s put this cazzo, Casale, up to buying them. I think he wants to prove the apartment’s a knocking shop.’
‘But Gina – ’
‘That’s not the worst of it! He despatched another of his light-fingered ladro mates to steal the Twombly.’
She could sense Vicki’s confusion, sitting at her computer, scrolling through the online celebrity magazines, hoping to be grabbed by something of interest. Vicki often referred to the devilry/revelry of their flat-sharing days in San Lorenzo with rose-tinted nostalgia, but she also gave the impression that she considered she’d moved on. She had acquired the standard accoutrements of an upwardly mobile modern woman: a professional husband (possibly faithful, possibly not), two children, home ownership, a job with a pension. These were the goals on which people set their sights. But how could you be deemed a failure if you hadn’t striven for such goals in the first place?
‘What’s a twombly?’ she said.
‘Cy Twombly,’ said Gina impatiently. ‘You know, the illustrious American artist. Didn’t you come to his opening show at the Gagosian with me? Quite old and more than quite valuable. Felix left me an early drawing. He probably guessed that one day I’d have to cash it in.’
‘Valuable? Like, how much?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to ask David. Only I can’t because it’s been stolen.’
‘Oh my God! Have you told the police?’
‘Darling, whenever have you got a result from reporting anything to the police? There was no evidence of a break-in. I can’t prove I had the bloody picture in the first place and I can’t go around denouncing Bertie as the perpetrator. They’ll lock me up for defamation.’
‘I don’t know why you get yourself mixed up with these types.’
‘You sound like my mother.’
‘And I don’t think you should be at home on your own.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Gina, not moving from the wall; the cat sprawled beside her scratching its fleas. ‘I’ve got to the bus stop now and I can see it trundling towards me. Such a welcome sight, don’t you think, the bus home?’
‘What you need – ’ began Vicki again.
‘Apart from the hitman? Yes, I know and I’ve got David on the look-out. What I need massively is a bloody good lawyer. Any ideas?’
‘What about Mitch?’
‘He’s not a lawyer. He flies aeroplanes.’
‘What I meant was, what are you going to do about seeing him?’
‘I’m getting on the bus,’ said Gina, squinting along the line of box hedging towards Felix’s burnished granite slab. She imagined him chortling quietly; he’d enjoyed watching her wind people up. ‘My plan is to pick up a bottle of cheap brandy from Signora Bedini, climb into an empty bath with a box of matches, pour it over my head and self-immolate.’
‘Gina, that’s not funny. You say one more piece of nonsense like that and I’ll bring the twins round and bang your door down.’
‘You strike fear into my heart.’
Vicki said, ‘Will you promise me something?’
‘What?’
‘You really won’t do anything silly? You’ll ri
ng me if…’
‘If what?’
‘If, you know… I’m only trying to be a good friend, Gina, that’s all.’
‘Right. Thanks.’
She ended the call, tossed the phone into her bag and stood up from the bench. The cat had its hind leg behind its ear and was nuzzling its haunch. She said goodbye to Felix, left the cemetery and caught the bus to Trastevere. In the alimentari she changed her mind and bought grappa instead of Vecchia Romana. She poured herself a large slug, took two painkillers, changed into pyjamas and lay down on her unmade bed, willing the headache to go away. When the banging intensified, accompanied by an irritating buzz, she realised someone was at the door. She assumed Vicki was carrying out her threat and resisted opening it. A male voice called her name. She stiffened, listened again.
No, not Bertie.
Mitch.
27
They had been by a lake. He’d forgotten whether it was Italian or Swiss, whether near Milan or Geneva, but he remembered picking their way along its edge until they reached a deserted strip of fine shingle. Gina spread out the towels and Mitchell unloaded the picnic he was carrying – although picnic was too grand a term for a bottle of wine, two ham-stuffed panini and a bag of black grapes. A large flat rock jutted over the water and he buried the bottle in its shade. It was early autumn but the sun was strong and most of the trees screening the lake were conifers; they could have been anywhere, anytime.
Gina removed her clothes and stretched out to sunbathe. He challenged her to a swim.
‘The water will freeze your bollocks off,’ she said.
‘I will if you will.’
‘Nah, can’t be bothered.’ She was long-limbed, athletic – she’d out-run him once or twice – but generally lazy.
‘Too soft, you are. We could race to keep warm.’
‘You’re not tempting me.’
‘Fine. I’m going in anyway.’ He undressed and waded into the rim of the lake where the waters were shallow and balmy, but the ground sloped sharply and he was soon out of his depth. He felt the hairs rise on his arms as the temperature fell to an indescribable chill. He struck out in a swift crawl to keep the blood flowing. When he turned to look back Gina was on her feet watching him. ‘You should come in,’ he called, suppressing a gasp. ‘It’s lovely.’