The sun fell on Giuli’s face. The cloister was quiet. She was waiting for the scrape of chairs, banging of doors and chatter of voices that accompanied a staff break. Waiting, specifically, for the nurse from Addictions to come out so that she could try and persuade her to breach her duty of confidentiality – and do so to someone such as Giuli, who was as far from being there in an official capacity as was possible. But it was still early and so she dialled Enzo, unsure if her heart was sinking because she’d spent too much time contemplating ethics, or because she just dreaded talking to him. Her own fidanzato, her betrothed.
Sandro would say that you only have to know the difference between right and wrong. Don’t talk about guilt, don’t invent sins. She could even hear his impatient voice in her head: don’t indulge yourself. The phone rang three times and then Enzo answered. At the sound of his voice the dread evaporated, the sky above her seemed suddenly a brilliant blue.
‘Hey, darling,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t know, exactly,’ he said. ‘But it’s not good.’
Out of the corner of her eye Giuli saw movement in one corner of the cloister and she stepped back out of the sunlight.
‘What d’you mean?’ she said, watching. Two doctors – both women – were standing, smoking outside the door that led off the STD corridor. She shifted uneasily. ‘Oh, yes, Bastone. Sandro told me he’d landed you in it.’
‘He did?’ Enzo sounded serious. ‘Well, I guess he did the right thing. Bastone’s in a proper state, God knows what he was thinking, letting them—’ He broke off. ‘You still there?’
‘Yes,’ said Giuli, forcing herself to concentrate. ‘There was a break-in, Sandro said. In the middle of the night.’
‘Bastone called me just after you went out,’ said Enzo. ‘Seven-thirty.’
‘He can’t have slept,’ said Giuli, thinking. ‘Sandro said he called at two in the morning or something. Called them at the seaside.’
‘He’d got the place made secure, at least,’ said Enzo. ‘Not that there was a whole lot of damage, it’s hardly Fort Knox. A cracked pane of glass, which was incidental. The locks are so old it must have taken them all of a minute and a half to force the door.’ He sounded despondent. ‘I should have said something about it months ago, just didn’t get around to it.’
‘And what did they take?’
‘The laptop. Worth about a hundred euros, if that.’
He sounded worried, though, more worried than she could remember him being. Enzo didn’t panic, ever.
‘Was there a lot of stuff on it? Useful stuff?’
‘Nothing that’s not backed up. Mailing lists. Publicity material. Donors’ details. It’s not that I’m worried about, it’s not lost. It’s—’
‘What?’ Giuli said sharply. ‘What is it you’re worried about?’
‘These weren’t thieves,’ Enzo said. ‘They’re not going to sell that laptop. They want what’s on it. They want something on us, on the Frazione.’
‘But there’s nothing …’ Giuli swallowed ‘… to worry about. Isthere?’
‘I mean,’ he said patiently, ‘the names, the people; someone wants to know who’s behind us, who’s involved, who to target. That’s my worry.’
Giuli shifted the phone under her chin. ‘I thought we’d done with all that? That conspiracy theory stuff.’ She spoke uneasily. ‘I thought this was just a – personal thing.’
‘Yes,’ he said, sounding strained. ‘Well, let’s hope so. I mean – it’s bad enough, isn’t it? The personal thing.’ Were there things he wasn’t telling her? ‘I’ll – I think maybe I’ll give Sandro a call. Tell him what Bastone told me, the police and all that. What they – what they said to him. What they did.’
‘All right,’ Giuli said hesitantly, thinking of what Sandro had said about Pietro. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes: in the furthest corner of the cloister she saw the green scrubs and white cap of a nurse appear, luminous in the vaulted shade. ‘All right – look, I’ve got to go, angel.’
The woman stood her ground as Giuli approached across the grass, but she eyed her warily. In her top pocket was the outline of a soft packet of cigarettes: her own little addiction.
Giuli stopped the other side of the low wall and leaned against the fine pillar of pale grey stone. Under the cap the nurse’s brown hair was very short and threaded with white. What was her name? Their paths rarely crossed, but Giuli put calls through to Addictions often enough. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘What for?’ said the woman, her voice smoke-roughened. She fished for the packet without taking her eyes off Giuli.
‘It’s your break,’ said Giuli. ‘I don’t want to spoil it.’ The name came to her, along with the sound of the woman’s voice, and a distant echo of something else. ‘It’s Barbara, isn’t it?’
‘And you’re Giulietta.’
There was something about the way she said it. ‘I work the switchboard,’ she said guardedly.
‘I know that,’ said Barbara, eyeing her narrowly. ‘I put in a word for you when you applied for the job. Though I don’t suppose you’d have been told.’
Giuli stared, uncomprehending. ‘You put in a word for me?’
‘You don’t remember when the Women’s Centre was in the Borgo Santa Monaca?’ The nurse lit up and took a deep drag. ‘I’ve been in this job a long time.’
Shit, thought Giuli. ‘I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot I don’t remember about those days.’
‘I cleaned you up a few times,’ said the nurse, blowing smoke out of the side of her mouth. ‘We’d talk about rehab and treatments and I’d give you a diet sheet and the methadone and you’d disappear off the face of the earth for a few months.’
‘And you still put a word in for me for the job?’
Barbara’s eye was caught by something over Giuli’s shoulder: she took the cigarette from her mouth and held it cupped under one hand. Officially, smoking was not even allowed in the cloister – nowhere that was technically enclosed by the premises.
‘There was always something about you, Sarto,’ she said drily. They were probably the same age, thought Giuli, seeing the woman’s cracked lips, the fine lines around her eyes. Good-looking still – maybe more so for being close to the end of caring what men thought. Or maybe Barbara had never cared.
She inhaled the smoke rising from under her hand, and sneaked another quick drag. ‘You knew what was happening to you. You kept messing up but you kept coming back, too. You never gave up. You knew the difference – and most of them never did, even when they were way back up the line compared to you.’
‘Knew the difference?’
‘Between behaving well and behaving badly,’ said Barbara, taking a long pull on the last of her cigarette, and stubbing it out carefully in a matchbox she took from her pocket. ‘Good and bad, right and wrong, you know.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Giuli, resting her cheek against the smooth warmth of the grey stone pillar, suddenly tired.
‘That’s part of it,’ said Barbara. ‘Not being sure is part of it.’ She stepped closer and Giuli could smell the cigarettes on her breath.
‘So,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you this time, Giulietta Sarto?’
*
He was there, but it looked to Luisa that if she’d been a second longer than her five minutes, he’d have upped and gone.
The Caffè La Borsa was tiny and mirrored and twinkled with golden light: it made Luisa – who’d been there only once, for the shows – think of one of those bars in Paris. It was a tourist place – that was the business they were all in, on this street – but it was fine. Giancarlo was sitting at a tiny round table in the furthest corner, as if trying to hide, a lost cause in this little, light-filled box of a place.
Luisa paused at the bar, asking for two coffees and two glasses of water: Giancarlo had nothing in front of him and she’d be damned if he got away that quickly, not even giving her the time it took to drink a glass of water.
‘So you think we’re shocked,’ she said, setting down the water and the tiny cup and saucer. ‘By what you boys get up to? There’ve been gay men in this city for thousands of years. And if I were prejudiced I’d be in the wrong business, wouldn’t I?’ She was feeling better. ‘Is your mother shocked? I bet she’s not.’
He bobbed his head down. ‘I didn’t mean—’ He put two spoons of sugar in his coffee and stirred it, a flush beginning at his neck.
‘So I’m shocking you now, is that it?’ He laughed, and she saw him relax.
‘No,’ he said, looking at her directly with clear green eyes. ‘It’s just my ma died a while back.’
‘She wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.’ Luisa felt the need to say it. ‘Look at you! Nothing to find fault with.’ She didn’t know what it was in the boy that was bringing this out in her: the euphoria of finding him here, his sweet cleanness, his dead mother even – she’d no idea.
She’d dashed in and out of the shop and hadn’t given Giusy and Beppe a chance to complain. Still, she couldn’t hang about.
‘Right,’ Luisa said. ‘So what’s the story with Chiara? She’s moved out just like that to live with this boyfriend. She’s barely twenty! Her parents haven’t met the man. Is it any wonder they’re worried?’
Their coffee cups were already empty. He looked over her shoulder into the street: she turned to see what he’d seen but no one was looking inside the Caffè La Borsa. No escape for him there.
‘What’s she said to you? To her girlfriends? You’re at the university too, right? Who does she hang out with? What’s this man like?’
A couple came in: a man in a suit, ruddy-faced, past his best, with a woman in very high heels. She spoke in a little girl’s voice, asking complainingly for a Mimosa. Some men, Luisa reflected, wanted that bargain. Most of them wanted it, it sometimes seemed to her, after a day of serving pretty, spoiled women. What would she see in him but the wallet? Giancarlo shifted in his seat, but didn’t bolt. Slowly he took a sip of his water.
‘I haven’t seen the guy,’ he said. ‘None of us has. Come to that, I haven’t seen much of her lately. Since she met him, Chiara comes in less and less and she keeps a low profile. A couple of the girls were complaining she’s avoiding them.’ He smiled. ‘But then, maybe that’s down to them. A particular kind of girl, if you know what I mean.’
‘What kind of girl?’ Luisa didn’t know what he meant.
Giancarlo leaned back. ‘Oh, you know. You’ve known Chiara long enough – she was one of them too until now. Those girls who go on demonstrations and wear baggy sweaters and don’t brush their hair.’
‘Oh, those,’ said Luisa drily. ‘You don’t approve?’
‘Do you? Working in that place?’ And he nodded towards Frollini. ‘I’d have thought they’d drive you mad.’
Luisa eyed him. ‘I think they make the world go round,’ she said, surprising herself. ‘Idealism? Isn’t it what being a kid is all about?’ She laughed. ‘All right, I do wish they’d brush their hair. I don’t think you have to hide yourself in a paper bag to believe in something. It’s like – the burkha, isn’t it? Men need to learn that just because a woman looks good, it doesn’t mean she’s available.’ She stopped abruptly, because he was staring at her. ‘Speech over,’ she said. ‘I’m not prejudiced, is all. I liked Chiara as she was.’ And she realized it was true. ‘It’s too soon for that kind of dressing up.’ She glanced at the woman at the bar, running her finger around the rim of her glass while the man stared at her hungrily. ‘High heels and all that.’
‘Right,’ Giancarlo said slowly, still frowning. ‘But parents never are ready for their kids to grow up, are they? They always want them to stay as they are, sweet and innocent. Life’s not innocent, fun’s not always clean.’ He shifted along the banquette, preparing, Luisa could see, to make his getaway.
‘I know that,’ she said.
‘You know what?’ he said, calling her bluff. ‘I think there’s a bit of, you know, rough play involved here. I think Chiara’s a bit scared of him. That can work. It’s the kind of thing parents don’t like the idea of, but – we like to experiment, you know? With an authority figure.’
Luisa stared. Not Chiara, she thought.
‘So she’s stopped talking to the girls who don’t brush their hair but she talks to you? Because you understand, and they don’t?’
Giancarlo didn’t move off his seat but both hands were down on the leatherette, ready. His shirt came tight across his body with the movement and Luisa saw the outline of something in his top pocket, a little cylindrical shape, pointed at one end. A – not a syringe? She averted her eyes, mind working. Stop it, she thought. You’re not his mother.
‘Maybe,’ he said uneasily, ‘I mean, she did come over yesterday when she saw me. Showing off her new look.’
He rubbed a hand up and down his arm, as if cold suddenly, though it was warm in the bar.
‘But it’s not – I mean, it’s happened all of a sudden. I don’t think she wants to stop being anyone’s friend, not really – I suppose it’s to do with him, you know. When there’s suddenly only one person that matters, everyone else has to take a back seat.’ He looked away. ‘Love, you know.’
‘Love,’ repeated Luisa. The word sounded old and false.
‘Yeah, love,’ he said, looking back at her, defiant.
‘I think maybe you mean sex,’ she said, and looked involuntarily at the couple at the bar.
‘Maybe I do,’ he said, and with that slid out around the table and was on his feet.
‘You got kids?’ he said, looking down at her, and she shook her head. He shrugged. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘You look like someone’s mum.’ Luisa stood, resisting the temptation to offer him her hand this time, folded her arms instead across her body.
‘You’re worried about her too,’ she said. Giancarlo tipped his head.
‘No,’ he said. Then straightened his head again. ‘Well, maybe. Maybe just a bit.’
He moved off then, and she hurried after him: they were caught briefly together in the narrow entrance to the bar. ‘If you were to see her again,’ said Luisa quickly, as if it might be her last chance. ‘If you were to just try and find out where she is …’
‘I’ve got to run,’ Giancarlo said, his gaze caught unwillingly by her need. ‘I’ll be late for my lecture.’ He stepped away from her.
‘You know where to find me,’ she called after him as he moved off, threading his way north through the crowds around the little market.
A woman walking past, hanging on tight to her companion’s arm, turned to peer at her and then at Giancarlo’s broad young back, and Luisa stepped, deliberately expressionless, into the moving throng and back to work.
Chapter Seventeen
‘IWANT TO GO AND see it,’ said Rosselli. Standing there beside the hotel with its jaunty striped awning, bathed in the sharp brilliance of the seaside sunshine, he seemed horribly out of place. His skin had a grey look, as though he’d been living underground.
Sandro had broached the subject of their return as they stood to leave the breakfast table. ‘We can’t stay here indefinitely,’ he’d said tentatively. ‘And there’s your mother. There’s the baby.’ Rosselli had turned to look at him blankly, his milky brown eyes magnified behind the thick lenses.
And there’s my life, Sandro had thought. There’s Luisa, and Giuli, there’s Pietro and Gloria and Chiara to deal with, there’s the great thronging city coming back to life after the summer. Damn the man for getting him involved in this – forgetting that it wasn’t the man, it had been Giuli and Enzo and Luisa feeling sorry for the baby, the whole conspiracy of emotion – but damn him anyway, and his loss and his grief. Because, for all the clean blue air and the sound of the gulls and the freedom of a wide horizon, Sandro couldn’t wait to leave this place.
So when he’d said they’d better pay up and clear out and Rosselli had just nodded, Sandro had taken it as compliance. He’d paid the bill himself
, on a credit card, while the man stood beside him obediently: he’d claim it back, he supposed, though he couldn’t imagine the settling of accounts at the end of this case. Could Rosselli, standing there vacantly with his hands hanging at his sides, still lead his Frazione to power, any kind of power? It seemed improbable. Perhaps there were things about intelligence, and principle, that Sandro didn’t understand, that drained you like this, left you used up. Or perhaps it was just grief.
‘Come on,’ he’d said, leaving the bags in the car, and then, as if all Rosselli had needed was that morning’s hour of catatonic introversion to come to this one decision, he’d made his announcement. He wanted to go to the Stella Maris.
‘I don’t even know if it’s allowed,’ Sandro said, stalling because surely this wasn’t advisable. What if the man – what if he did something reckless? ‘The police have closed the hotel for the time being. There’s no one there but the maid.’
‘I want to go there,’ Rosselli repeated stubbornly. And his eyes seemed to gain focus. ‘And surely if there’s only the maid it’ better?’
Sandro gazed at him, and for a moment a doubt flickered. Always suspect the husband first: could it all be a smokescreen, this sleepwalking show of grief? He had to admit, he didn’t like Rosselli, but more importantly, he didn’t understand him. Bereavement threw everything up in the air, of course, no one could be expected to behave normally under such circumstances. But what he knew – what Giuli had just told him – about Rosselli and Matteo’s relationship, that high-minded, politically committed partnership of theirs, repelled him. He couldn’t understand it.
Sandro passed a hand over his face, and as he felt the patchiness of his own stubble it occurred to him that, fifteen years older and after a sleepless night, he probably looked even rougher than Rosselli. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
A Darkness Descending Page 21