by Primula Bond
Upstairs the groaning and panting stopped, regained a second momentum with a kind of desperate shriek, then died.
It was as if everyone was holding their breath, daring each other to be the first to move. Why does masturbating make you feel so alone? No one to hold or touch after, that’s why. I got my own breath back and fumbled for my guidebook as if someone was watching me accusingly. Suddenly the door beneath the window opened. I pretended to study my map but glanced over the top of it to see what voluptuous, sated creature was emerging from the house.
But instead of a dishevelled Monica Bellucci lookalike in a fur coat and stilettos, with messed-up tendrils of black hair and scarlet lips, a slim, plain-looking figure with short fair hair in a long grey dress, thick tights and flat black lace-ups hurried out into the wintry light, fastening a billowing cape in a bow at her neck. Then, as she stepped backwards to call something up at the window she pulled a white cap and then a grey veil over her hair and fastened it with kirby grips. That woman in flagrante I’d been eavesdropping on, the afternoon adulteress, or whore, or honeymooning wife was actually – a nun!
I stifled a snort of laughter. Maybe she was in disguise. In fancy dress?
She put her hand up beside her mouth and called again. ‘Carlo! Answer me!’
The man refused to come to the window. Some kind of row going on?
‘For God’s sake!’
Finally a man’s hand pushed through the geraniums in the box and flung some cash down to the ground. Maybe she was a tom, after all?
‘Bastardo! I don’t want money!’ the nun half hissed, half screamed, waving her arms out of the cape. ‘I’m not one of your tourist groupies!’
Her accent was almost perfectly English, the smoker’s sexy rasp totally at odds with the prim exterior.
‘No?’ He shouted down. ‘Well, then you should start acting like a proper girlfriend and stay the night with me for once, instead of sneaking off after I’ve given you one. Oh, just fuck off back to your little prison before they notice you’re missing.’
‘Don’t you dare! You know my situation there! You know I can’t –’
I still couldn’t see her face, but I could see that she was shaking. Her hands, raised in the air as if to try and reach up to him, smacked back down to her sides, the fingers furiously twisting and bunching up the thick material of the cloak.
‘Well, I’m fed up with waiting. Plenty more where you came from.’ He was at the window now. All I could see was a head of dark, curly hair and a navy sweater rolled up over big strong arms. His hands were curled into fists on the edge of the windowsill. A livid red scar ran round one wrist like a bracelet. ‘Use the money to buy yourself a new prayer mat, or a Bible, or a nice fat candle, or whatever you use in there for kicks.’
‘Vaffanculo!’ she screeched, making the pigeon flap up in alarm. ‘Go fuck yourself!’
She turned on her heel, threw the hood over her head, and rushed out through an archway on the far side of the square from where I’d entered. As I levered myself stiffly up from my damp seat, Carlo caught sight of me. His black eyes glittered furiously as if I’d done something wrong. Then he stopped, and looked right at where my coat was unbuttoned, my skirt still hoicked up round my thighs.
‘You’re all tarts!’ At least I think that’s what he said. Maybe it was ‘Your last chance!’ Either way I felt a rush of shame, followed by a rush of fury that he’d made me feel that way. He slammed closed the shutters and suddenly his window became as blind and deaf as all the others in this ethereal city.
I could hear her footsteps tapping away into the distance. Silence and darkness were gathering round me again, along with lanky tendrils of fog. I started to run after her. She was the only human being I’d seen in the last hour, after all. Not counting the stalker, who I reckoned wasn’t human at all. Worse than that, I had no idea where I was and it wasn’t funny any more. At least she’d be able to tell me the way back to my plush hotel on the Riva degli Schiavoni.
‘Scusi! Signorina!’ I called out, careering out from under the archway and on to a narrow, slippery pavement beside a sliver of green canal. There were no railings, and I nearly splashed straight into the water. As I fell back against the wall, heart juddering, I caught sight of a tall dark figure standing on the other side of the canal, framed by another archway. The hat shaded the face. All I could see was the high collar of his coat and the sharp chin turned sideways. In the dusk he was a whole lot spookier than in last night’s fantasy. Downright scary. And he was, like me, intently watching the nun as she lifted one sturdy shoe to climb a little stone bridge.
As my voice echoed off the water she flinched and turned round sharply. Her ankle scooted out sideways, veering her towards the water. I gasped apologetically, but luckily instead of going into the canal she fell heavily against the stone balustrade of a little bridge.
‘Ach, cazzo!’
‘Oh, shit!’
We swore in unison, our voices amplified by the silent, slimy walls. I teetered carefully along the slippery stones, glancing again in the direction of the stalker. But by the time I had reached her and saw how awkwardly her ankle was twisted, the dark figure had vanished.
‘Hey, I’m sorry to startle you,’ I stammered, kneeling down beside her as she groaned and rubbed her limp ankle. I checked again. Yes. He’d gone. ‘I was only after some directions.’
Just as I wondered impatiently if she wasn’t making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill with all this groaning and writhing, she looked up at me from under the cape, opened her mouth to reply, and there was a kind of punch inside my chest. She was like something out of a Botticelli painting. An angelic face staring out from a soft-focus tangle of other angelic faces in an advert for some perfume. There was no distant, starved, prematurely aged expression such as I would expect from a nun. Her pale heart-shaped face seemed to glow out of the shadow of the heavy material she was wearing, with high cheeks flushed so pink – from her recent secret fuck-fest, obviously – that they looked as if she was wearing blusher.
The tight grey frame of her veil accentuated that very absence of any make-up or artistry and in any case those huge blue eyes, long eyelashes and plump pink O of a mouth needed no mascara or lipstick, let alone the kind of invasive procedures involving needles that I’d been contemplating recently. She was ridiculously pretty; like a doll with life breathed into it.
‘Help me!’ she stuttered, glancing round anxiously. ‘I’m already late for prayer, and if I don’t get back they’ll kill me!’
I took hold of her arms and pulled her upright. The colour drained from her face as she leaned against the bridge.
‘Seriously? Get back where? Who will kill you?’
‘OK, not literally.’ She closed her eyes briefly and tested her weight on the foot. ‘But I am petrified, because they will punish me for sure if I’m not in chapel on the dot. They’ll know I’ve been outside without permission. Well, that’s because they never give permission! So, let’s go. Andiamo!’
I still had hold of her arm as she started to hobble over the bridge. This close to her I could make out several old piercings for studs in both ear lobes and a couple of fine strands of blonde hair trying to escape the white cap under her veil.
‘You’re English?’ I asked. ‘I thought I heard you speaking Italian just now?’
‘Half English. Born here, brought up in London. Came back here to try to see my family and take up my vocation.’ An even stronger flush rose from her throat right over her cheekbones as she stopped dead. ‘You heard me talking? You were spying on me just now in the campo? Oh God! She sent you! I’m done for!’
‘Don’t be so silly! A spy? Moi?’ I dropped my hands in exasperation. ‘Being a spy would be much more fun than the dull reality, I promise you. I’m just a tourist. I’ve never seen you in my life before. So how could I spy on you?’
She shrugged, still eyeing me suspiciously. Her shoulders were so slight.
‘Mother Superior, Mother
Marta – she’s capable of anything.’
‘In fact if you must know I’m on business buying glass for my shop in London. So it’s all perfectly bona fide. Nothing cloak-and-dagger about me.’
Her pout turned into a weak smile. We paused a little longer for her to get her breath, then picked up speed descending the bridge. She turned right along another narrow pavement, then through another archway similar to the one where I’d seen my stalker. By now I was even more lost than before.
‘But in answer to your accusation, yes.’ I couldn’t resist it. ‘I saw you there, scuttling out of that house, swearing at someone called Carlos, was it? The guy in the window?’
‘Carlo.’
‘The guy you were shagging just now like there’s no tomorrow?’
‘Shagging?’ There was a catch in her voice. She bent her head and tried to quicken her pace. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’
‘Oh, you understand me perfectly, Sister. I’m just putting two and two together. You are forbidden to leave the convent, but you absconded to be with your lover. He was fucking your brains out and you were loving it! I heard everything. The groaning, the bed creaking and banging against the wall, his voice, your voice – I have to admit it was a bit of a turn-on, all that je t’aime stuff in the middle of a dull afternoon when you haven’t had some for a while. Really X-rated! I’m amazed you didn’t have the whole city listening in! You have well and truly jumped the wall, haven’t you?’
‘Stop it! Stop it! You’re mistaken!’ She stopped abruptly again and pulled me round to face her. No longer the cute dolly. Her blue eyes sparked with a strange wild fire. ‘And keep your voice down, please, signora. So, thank you for helping me, but I have to go now!’
‘Hang on! I came over because I need you to help me!’
‘I don’t have time. I can’t help you. Can’t even help myself.’ She shrugged me off and started to walk away, but soon she stumbled, whimpering with pain. When I caught up with her she slumped against me, helpless again. ‘Please! If you come back with me you can’t tell them where I was or what I was doing or they’ll thrash me to kingdom come!’
I bit my lip in disbelief.
‘I’ll keep my mouth shut on one condition. That you spill it all out to me.’
She shook her head, tucking imaginary strands of hair behind her ears and tugging the hood over her veil. A blast of cold air whistled round the corner, and we shrank back into a doorway.
I tried again. ‘Sister, tell me what’s wrong. Something is bothering you, I can tell, and I’m extremely good at keeping secrets.’ I lowered my voice. ‘You can use me as your confessor, if you like.’
A tear sparkled in the corner of her eye. I swear if I didn’t know better I’d have had her down as some kind of actress. Because it got me right where it was supposed to. I was already putty in her hands.
‘They’re tugging me every which way. Him, and them. They’re all ripping me in half!’
Now I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Calm down with the melodramatics, honey. It can’t be that bad.’
She hesitated, then clasped her hands together. ‘Carlo, he’s my old boyfriend, you see, from when I was young. We bumped into each other last summer, just before I was going in to the convent, literally when I was on my way there. I had just left my family. Well, my cousins. The others won’t speak to me. I was saying goodbye.’
‘Goodbye?’
I decided to be patient, almost unheard of for me. After all, it hadn’t taken much persuasion for her to pour her heart out. It would be worth it just to hear what else had been going on up there in that bedroom.
She was quiet for a moment so we restarted our snail’s pace, past tourists studying maps, workers carrying briefcases, a crocodile of children coming home from school. On a wider stretch of canal a barge chugged past us, a grand piano lashed to its deck. Nobody looked at us. Two women, deep in conversation, a nun and a sharp-looking businesswoman – what was to notice?
‘It’s a closed order. We are not allowed to speak to outsiders except through a grille. It’s silent, and it’s bliss. We’re not even allowed to speak to our Sisters unless we’re working, and then we chatter like starlings though we’re not supposed to. We’re not even supposed to have favourite friends, though of course we do. I work in the winery. I have just produced my own label. La Religieuse. I trained as a wine taster in London, you see. It’s very potent, and pre-order sales have already meant they can afford to restore the frescoes in the chapel.’
‘Yes, yes, enough already about all that. What I want to know is, if it’s all such bliss in there why do you keep running away to see Carlo?’
That flush as she considered the question. Those parted lips. Having heard what sounds she could make I could easily imagine that lovely face melting as she flung herself in ecstasy under the muscular body of her lucky boyfriend. It must be like Christmas every day for him when he heard the secret knock, saw his hooded visitor at the door, when he pulled her into his grotty little house and unpeeled her cumbersome clothes to get to the white nakedness beneath. Her pale thighs opening for him on that creaking bed, him falling on top of her, pushing himself inside her, the shadows falling upon their writhing, bucking bodies …
I sat her down gently on the steps of a church. Hell, I was the one who needed to sit down. We watched some old men in a workshop hammering and moulding various slim pieces of wood to form the curved ribs of a gondola.
‘I told you! I’m torn between the two! I love him, but I love my Sisters and my other life, too. It’s what I have chosen. One day soon I’ll either be locked in for good. Or locked right out.’
‘So how did this thing with Carlo start over?’
She swallowed and stared back the way we’d come. ‘I’d said my farewells and I was walking along the beach on the Lido, trying to calm myself down before I took the vaporetto back to the city, and there was Carlo coming out of the sea like some kind of god. When I last saw him he was a skinny teenager and now he’s, oh God, he’s all man, he was in these tight swimming shorts, really tanned and muscled, big shoulders.’
‘Big everything?’
A little snuffle of laughter escaped her. She clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Yes! You couldn’t miss it! And there was me trudging along, no make-up, hair already chopped off, eyes red from crying.’
‘He saw you in this get-up?’ I plucked at her skirt, expecting her to slap my hand away. I lifted it a little. Her ankles were dainty in the hideous shoes. I lifted the skirt a little higher. I couldn’t stop myself. And she didn’t stop me. Higher, and I saw that she was wearing thick black stockings, which should have been ugly but were enticing in a St Trinian’s kind of way, and even more so when I saw that they were fastened at the top by black suspenders. My stomach gave a surprised clench of desire at the sight of her smooth white flesh above the industrial-strength wool. I had a mad urge to see what kind of knickers a nun would wear, but belatedly she slapped my hand away.
‘Oh, this isn’t a proper habit. This is just for novices, and they make it as scratchy and hot as hell. But I always wore very plain clothes, no jewellery, no heels. No adornment at all.’ She sighed. I smelt sweet, chocolatey breath. ‘I hadn’t looked at a guy for years. Not been interested. I guess it made the call from God all the easier to answer.’
The way she said it made it believable. If I had to listen to someone banging on about a call from God while sitting in a pub in Clapham or on a rooftop bar in Manhattan I’d have snorted with derision. But sitting here on the steps of this church in a corner of this magical maze of a city? Listening to this very real, almost petulant girl? Being called by God somehow made perfect sense, however inconvenient it must have been. I felt a physical tug to get closer.
‘So how old are you? You look too young to have been struggling with this, this call, for years.’
‘I’m twenty-three. Nearly twenty-four.’ She pulled herself up like a little soldier and something in my heart gave way a little more. ‘And I w
as – I am – more than ready.’
‘Go on, Sister. I want all the details of this wicked assignation.’ I nudged her. ‘It’ll make you feel so much better.’
‘He’d changed so much, but he recognised me instantly.’
‘Your face is the same.’
‘Oh, signora! That’s exactly what he said!’ She clasped my arm with her little fingers. ‘Oh God, those old feelings came rushing back, even though he was the one who hurt me! He was my first – my last – and I was trembling, churning stomach, weak knees, breathlessness, and he was right in front of me, and he knew, he told me later, he knew exactly what I was planning to do, he could tell from my horrible clothes and hair and also the grave expression on my face, and that’s why he barely said a word, he just dragged me off the beach into this little hut where he’d been painting tourist portraits all summer, just a few blankets, cooking stove, glasses, beer, and we just kissed and kissed, and his mouth and his tongue pushing in and he practically had a beard, oh, I had such a scratched sore chin when I finally got to Santa Maria!’
I presumed that was the convent and the name was like a cold shower over both of us.
‘Tell me, Sister,’ I urged her, pressing my hand on her thigh. ‘Offload all this angst. Indulge an embittered old bag and tell me!’
‘You’re not an old bag, signora! You’re so beautiful!’
Now it was my turn to blush.