Angels of the Flood

by Joanna Hines

  They parted just outside the cafe. Mario said he had to get back to Lucca for patients at two o’clock. He shook her hand with the same formality as when he’d introduced himself, then walked quickly away down the street to where he had left his car.

  Kate wandered slowly back to the Uffizi. When she went into the studio Jeremy was telling David and Aiden about his musical epiphany listening to Mahler’s Fifth in a booth in a record shop in Edinburgh. Dido and Jenny were giggling helplessly over the sexual applications of Mars bars, while Francesca struggled to make sense of both conversations. ‘Is that like a Hershey bar?’ and ‘Why didn’t you just buy the record?’

  Kate didn’t feel like joining in with either group. Her friends seemed to manage to be silly and pretentious at the same time. She concentrated on the curls of her young boy’s head and at one o’clock she made an excuse to go off on her own and eat her sandwich looking across the Arno. Not that she fancied him or anything ridiculous like that, but she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like if a good-looking young doctor—maybe one of Mario’s friends, for instance—ever told her she was beautiful like the morning.

  That afternoon she watched Francesca as she worked on the enormous gilt frame, now almost completely restored to its pre-flood state, and wondered what exactly Dr Mario Bassano had meant when he described her as fragile.

  Chapter 15

  Flood

  WRITING TO HIS SUPERIORS when the waters had receded, the British Consul reported that the flood of November 1966 had brought out both the best and the worst in the Italian character. When faced with an immediate problem in their workplace or home, no one worked harder or with more enthusiasm than the Italians, and during the days right after the flood students and schoolchildren made a crucial contribution to the clean-up. But there appeared to be no mechanism to extend these qualities to the level of local or national government. In many cases it was the very safeguards put in place to stop embezzlement which prevented effective action of any kind being taken. The Italian Red Cross was criticized for its failure to act decisively. The inertia at local level made it politically impossible for the International Red Cross to launch an appeal over their heads. The central government in Rome, well aware it was being accused of not doing enough to help, responded by playing down the gravity of the situation. The Municipality of Florence did likewise, since they were anxious not to scare off the tourists whose money they needed in order to put the city back to rights.

  Wealthy Italians were suspicious of their own organizations and preferred to channel their donations through the committees set up by the British and Americans. In England a fund was organized under the leadership of Sir Ashley Clark and money poured in. The London team based at the Uffizi thus found they were needed in several places at once. There was work to be done in the Bargello and in Santa Croce. A group was also sent to work in the Baptistery.

  This octagonal building, clad in green and white marble like the next-door cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, was probably the oldest building in Florence, parts dating back to the fourth century. Dante, like many other famous Florentines, had been baptized in its font. Like the rest of Florence it had been devastated on the night of the fourth of November 1966. Water had poured in and filled the interior to a height of about twenty feet. The force of the flood was so powerful that several panels from the priceless Ghiberti bronze doors were dislodged and damaged. They were taken away for repair. Meanwhile a team of volunteers set to work cleaning the walls.

  Chapter 16

  Baptistery

  DURING THEIR FIRST WEEKS in Florence, the lives of the volunteers were dominated by mud; once they began working at the Baptistery, mud was replaced with talcum powder.

  This talcum powder was a revelation. It bore no resemblance to the sickly smelling stuff that came in little tins with violets on the outside which David gave his aunts at Christmas. This was serious talcum powder, which arrived at the Baptistery in industrial-sized sacks, had no odour at all and was always cool when you plunged your hand in, no matter what the temperature outside. The idea was to cover a section of wall with talcum powder, which would then draw out the mud and muck that had saturated the stone on the night of the flood. After a couple of days the talcum powder was swept away with an ordinary household broom and the process repeated. The trick was getting the talcum powder to remain on the wall in the first place.

  Various methods were tried, patting and smearing and pressing, but the powder only stuck to the walls when applied with some force. The best way of doing this was to throw it. Francesca worked out the technique first. She positioned herself about six feet away, dipped her right hand into a bucket of talcum powder and pulled out a handful, then hurled it with all her strength at the wall. When she got it right, the powder covered the wall in a circle a couple of feet in diameter. ‘The trick,’ she explained, ‘is opening your fist at exactly the right moment.’

  The others tried with varying degrees of success. For the first two days sections of the walls were randomly spattered with white polka dots, but gradually they got the hang of it and the gaps between the dots got smaller, coverage more even. In the early mornings, when it was still cold in the Baptistery, they did proper bowlers’ run-ups before elaborate overarm throws to get warm. Jenny preferred to stand on a chair and throw underarm, while Aiden perfected a wide-arm throw, as though skipping stones.

  It wasn’t long before they discovered that the walls, once they’d been evenly coated with white powder, made a perfect surface for pictures and slogans. After the inevitable large-nosed character peering over a wall—‘Kilroy woz here’—they tried out various Lichtenstein-inspired epithets: ‘KPOW!’ and ‘BAM!’, which surprised the occasional tourists who looked in to see how the heroic rescue effort was progressing. Mostly, they settled for noughts and crosses.

  Inevitably, a good deal of the talcum powder ended up all over the throwers and sweepers. Their hair, faces and clothes all turned a ghostly pale by mid-morning, but no one cared. Especially not Francesca. The well-groomed young woman Kate had first encountered on the bridge was now indistinguishable from the scruffiest of the mud angels, and she obviously loved her new persona. One night, after it had been raining all day and the dirt in the streets had turned back to mud, a group of them were taking a short cut back from the cantina to their lodgings when Kate slipped on a particularly treacherous corner. She fell flat on her back in a puddle. For a moment she was too stunned to move and, when she did try, a sharp pain shot through her upper leg and into her hip. She cursed.

  The others contemplated her predicament.

  ‘Nostalgie de la boue,’ said Dido. It was one of her favourite phrases. ‘I’ve never known anyone take it literally before.’

  ‘“All of us are in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars,”’ said Larry helpfully. His fellow volunteers were beginning to notice that his intellectual pretensions involved endlessly quoting other people. He was less good when an original observation was required.

  ‘Stendhal,’ said Anna.

  ‘Oscar Wilde,’ corrected Larry.

  ‘Isn’t anyone going to help me up?’ demanded Kate.

  ‘You look kind of sexy lying there,’ said David.

  ‘If female mud-wrestling is what turns you on,’ said Aiden. ‘Personally—’

  Suddenly Francesca flopped down in the road beside Kate. Lying on her back she began to swoop her arms up and down through the mud. Kate thought for a moment she’d gone completely mad and she’d have to get in touch with Mario straight away.

  ‘Like this, with your arms,’ said Francesca, a bit breathlessly. ‘Flap them as if you’re trying to fly. In the States we used to make snow angels this way. When you stand up, you’ll see. Look.’

  Kate was touched. It must be a true definition of friendship, stretching out in the mud beside your companion. She took her hand and gripped it.

  Laughing, Francesca struggled to her feet and helped Kate to stand as well. The pa
in had miraculously gone away.

  ‘Look,’ said Francesca again. ‘The shape in the mud.’

  Kate looked. For a moment, in the glutinous surface of the road, the outline of two angels was faintly visible. But mud was a less stable medium than snow, and as they looked, the images melted away.

  The bar was crowded with Italians, mostly men in their working clothes. Kate fended off the attentions of a boy with down on his lip who wanted to brush up his amorous English before the hoped-for influx of tourists at Easter. No sooner had she got rid of him than she had to seek his help to use the public phone.

  ‘Like so,’ he said. ‘I ’elp you. You want see picture of me on ’orse?’

  ‘Later,’ said Kate. ‘First I must talk to my friend.’

  ‘Is very fine picture.’

  ‘I bet it is. Not now. Oh, hello?’ She read from the scrap of paper on which she’d written down the Italian for ‘I want to speak to—’. ‘Voglio parlare con Mario Bassano.’

  ‘Pronto.’

  ‘Mi scusi. Mario Bassano per favore.’

  ‘Pronto.’

  Kate was getting desperate. What the hell did ‘pronto’ mean? Since her entire time in Florence had been spent with English speakers, her grasp of Italian did not get beyond ordering coffee or meals, or simple directions in the street. Her carefully rehearsed phrases didn’t mean she was able to make sense of the replies. She said, ‘Non parlo molto italiano. Is Mario Bassano there please?’

  ‘This is Mario Bassano.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Now she felt foolish. Pronto must be the Italian for ‘speaking’. ‘This is Kate Holland.’

  ‘I know. Is there problem for Francesca?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly.’ Since her meeting with Mario in the Bar Donatello, Kate had found herself thinking about him several times. It felt quite grand to have an Italian acquaintance. Now the volunteers had become such a close-knit bunch, they had very little to do with any of the locals. And she was curious to know what Mario’s interest was in Francesca. Obviously it was more than just professional—but what? She said, ‘She’s been acting kind of weird lately.’ Kate frowned. The boy who had helped her operate the phone had been searching through his wallet and now drew out a dog-eared photograph which he thrust in front of Kate’s nose.

  ‘See,’ he said. ‘I am on ’orse. Very sexy, no?’

  ‘No,’ said Kate, turning away. ‘Not sexy at all, actually.’

  ‘Mi scusi?’ came Mario’s voice over the phone.

  ‘Sorry. Just a bit of local interference. The thing is, Francesca’s okay, there’s nothing major for you to worry about. Just one or two things I wanted to check with you.’

  ‘I am listen.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s difficult to talk on the phone. I thought if you were coming to Florence again soon we could discuss it properly. I mean, I have been sort of concerned about her. It’s probably not significant but… better safe than sorry, eh?’

  ‘Tomorrow is not possible.’

  ‘The next day, then? Ouch.’ Turning her back on the equestrian youth had been a tactical mistake, Kate realized, as soon as his hand descended on her rump. She spun round and glared at him so fiercely that he retreated a couple of steps, but she remembered to put her hand over the speaker before saying, ‘Get lost! Can’t you see I’m talking to someone?’

  ‘Yes. That is Thursday.’

  ‘Great. I’m about to run out of money. Bar Donatello like before?’

  ‘Okay. Five o’clock?’

  ‘Yes. See you then. Ciao, Mario.’

  ‘Ciao, Kate.’

  She put down the phone.

  Her helpmeet was waiting. ‘Now you see very fine picture me on ’orse?’

  ‘Actually, I’d rather see a picture of you being roasted over a slow fire,’ Kate said, and though he didn’t understand the words, her tone was unmistakable, and it did the trick.

  Kate left the Baptistery early on Thursday afternoon and went home to have a bath and wash her hair. The bathroom in their lodgings was shared by the other girls staying there who all worked odd hours at unspecified jobs, so Kate was relieved to find the bathroom empty. There was no shower, but then Kate had always washed her hair in the bath or basin at home; only Francesca lamented the lack of a shower. The bath water was soon opaque with talc and soap.

  She had washed out a shirt the previous evening. Now she borrowed their landlady’s iron and put on a pair of tight-fitting jeans that were almost clean. She was tempted to dig her only miniskirt out of the suitcase under her bed, but decided not to as it would only arouse the curiosity of her friends and she had promised Mario to keep this meeting secret.

  When she was finished she stood on the bed, then crouched down in front of the mirror to see the effect—it was only possible to view a section of her reflection at a time. She had mixed feelings about the results. In common with practically every eighteen-year-old she’d ever met she worried that her bottom was too big, but from there up matters improved. She cinched a belt around her waist, making it smaller, and undid the second button of her shirt so the generous swell of her breasts was revealed. Encouraged, she experimented with undoing the third button too, but even her best bra was too old and grey to risk revelation, so she did it up again.

  After all, it wasn’t as if she was trying to seduce him or anything. She only wanted to look reasonably smart so he’d think well of the mud angels. It was important that he realize Francesca’s new friends were people she could be proud of, even if they did look a bit peculiar. Mario had been courteous when they first met, but his courtesy had been the kind that men like him extend to everyone, even his most bedraggled and unattractive patients. Kate had been suddenly aware of how scruffy she looked. This time, she wanted to make a more favourable impression.

  Mario must have arrived early because he was already at the cafe when Kate arrived punctually at five. Kate made a mental adjustment: he looked younger than she remembered. Maybe it was because she’d been thinking of him as Francesca’s doctor, and doctors were the same age as her parents. But Mario was still young, not much older than the oldest of the volunteers. Compared to all her friends he looked extraordinarily well-groomed and straight, but in spite of that she could see that others might find his narrow, serious face extremely attractive.

  He rose to his feet as she approached and pulled out a chair for her. No one had ever pulled out a chair for her in her life and Kate almost went to sit on another one, thinking it was for himself, before she realized. She sat down quickly.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked politely.

  ‘I’m well. And you?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. You would like some coffee? A drink?’

  What Kate really felt like was a cup of hot chocolate, but she said airily, ‘A Campari soda, please.’ She loved ordering Campari, a drink she’d never encountered in England and which had become fused in her imagination with Florence. Mario came back with her Campari soda and a cup of hot chocolate for himself. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, some compliment, perhaps, some natural consequence of the surprised admiration she’d seen in his face ever since she stepped into the cafe, but then he frowned and said, ‘It is kind for you make time see me.’

  ‘Oh no, I like to… I mean, for Francesca.’

  ‘You think there is problem?’

  ‘That all depends. Sometimes she acts a bit strangely. I thought I might be able to be more help if I had a better idea of the background, what exactly it is you’re worried about.’

  ‘I understand. She—hm—is acting strangely how?’

  Kate hesitated. She had thought of telling him about the night she and David had found her on the bridge, but was afraid that might worry him too much. And Francesca had changed a lot since that meeting. ‘Well, for instance, the other night she set fire to some money.’ Mario’s eyes widened in surprise. Kate leaned forward, feeling the stretch of her breasts against the cotton shirt. Mario glanced down rapidly, then wrenched his gaze
back to her face. She said, ‘Quite a lot of money, actually.’

  ‘She fires money? Why?’

  ‘She was overreacting. A friend had taken us all out to dinner and then at the end she didn’t have enough money to pay. Francesca offered to pay the lot but Jenny didn’t want her to. So Francesca burned the money. It was pretty dramatic.’

  Mario didn’t respond right away. Kate was aware she’d given the impression the incident had taken place since their last meeting, not before it.

  She said, ‘You see, if I had a better idea what exactly you were worried about—you know, what sort of fragile she is—then I’d know what to look out for.’

  ‘She burns money one time?’

  ‘I’ve only seen her do it once.’

  Mario sighed. ‘Is not so good.’ He thought for a bit, before saying, ‘Her family it is—hm—complicated. Once or twice in the past there have been—hm—episodes.’

  ‘Episodes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like burning money?’

  He shook his head. ‘More serious.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Is not possible to say now. But if she burn money then it is not—hm—good sign. Francesca have always the problem with money.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Kate, who was getting tired of talking about Francesca. ‘Never enough of the stuff where I come from.’

  He smiled. ‘Francesca likes to live in a world of—hm—dreams, where money it have no importance. Sometimes she is like a child. A spoil child.’

  Kate looked deep into his eyes and sighed, as though she too had been saddened and perplexed by Francesca’s lack of worldly sagacity. She said, ‘I wonder if Francesca knows how lucky she is to have a friend who worries about her like you do.’

  His cheeks were faintly tinged with pink, as though he was blushing. Kate was filled with a sense of her own power. She guessed that Mario was a young man who had been serious for too long and had missed out on the kind of irresponsible fun that she and the other volunteers took for granted. Even though he must be at least ten years older than her, she felt in some ways more sophisticated than he was.