Tess gasped, she couldn’t help it. She had been to Rome several times, starting with when she was a teenager on a school trip, and she must have come to the Trevi Fountain then, and other times since. Yet she had no personal memory of it, more a composite, and she didn’t know if that was real or based on La Dolce Vita. Not until now.
‘It’s hilarious,’ Peter said.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she retorted. He looked at her, surprised.
‘You really think so? I think it’s awful.’
Vast, alarmed-looking horses and athletic but slightly indolent-looking gods stood over them, as the floodlit bright blue water crashed against the huge white marble edifice, which was carved as if it were rock and stone, with botanical accessories. Tess laughed with delight. ‘How can you say that. It’s brilliant. Look—’ she grabbed his hand. ‘Look at that seagull, looking really confused, next to that marble plant. It doesn’t know if it’s real or not.’
Peter smiled and squeezed her hand, not releasing it. ‘Maybe you’re right. It’s pretty nasty in the day, though.’
‘But we’re here at night,’ Tess said, turning to him, smiling happily. ‘And it’s lovely.’
There was a silence; a comfortable silence, and Tess thought again how easy it was to be with him, this virtual stranger. He held onto her hand, as they stood at the side of the fountain, watching a few teenagers play at its edge, a couple talking seriously, an old man walking steadily past, eyes averted, as if its very gaudiness offended his eyes. One of the teenagers screamed in outrage, as another took something off him and ran away, laughing. Tess turned to Peter, curiously.
‘You never asked me any questions,’ she said, suddenly. ‘I thought you wanted to ask me some questions, about the mugging.’
‘I did,’ he said. ‘Oh—yes, that’s totally right.’ He looked a little chastened; she wished she hadn’t said anything. ‘We should do that.’ He released her hand, and ran his fingers through his hair. The moment was gone, she realized, cursing herself. She’d ruined it. ‘So—what are you doing tomorrow night?’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Hey, no!’ Peter said. ‘What are you up to, maybe we could have a quick conversation about it, or maybe—’
‘Well, we get back from Pompeii late afternoon, I think, and we’re just doing our own thing tomorrow evening, I didn’t want them to worry about having to get back and change for supper so we’ll just have something casual.’ She paused. ‘So, I’m kind of free.’
‘Right.’ He was rummaging in his pockets, and didn’t look up. Tess swallowed, and put her hand on his arm.
‘And then Friday’s free too. All day. I’m by myself all day.’
‘A free day,’ said Peter. ‘That is interesting. So—it’s a free day.’
‘Yes,’ said Tess.
‘Meaning—’
‘We can do whatever we want.’ Her eyes met his.
‘Can we?’
‘Not necessarily you and me,’ she said, tapping him on the chest. ‘But—’
He caught her hand and held it. ‘I’m serious,’ Peter said. She looked at him, curious.
‘What do you mean?’
‘This,’ he said, and he bent his head and kissed her.
Usually, there is some sign that the hero and heroine of the scene are about to start kissing, Tess thought. But here, none—well, he was a boy, she was a girl, they were in Rome, it was a late night in summer…but other than that…Oh. She really was out of practice at recognizing the signs.
She closed her eyes briefly, and Peter put his hand on the back of her neck and drew her towards him. It was late, and quiet, and the only sound was the crashing water from the fountain, and the only movement the water falling against the floodlit white carved rocks of marble. His chin scraped hers; she could feel his tongue, gently pushing into her mouth. His lips pressed on hers, and he pulled her towards him, fervently, his hands on her hips.
‘It shouldn’t happen here,’ he said, after a while, pulling away from her and breathing deeply. His fingers touched her shoulder bone, moving the strap of her dress off a little so he could kiss her skin. ‘This place isn’t the place where it should happen.’
She smiled. ‘I don’t mind. I like it.’
‘You are such a lil’ tourist.’ He was kissing her collar bone now, moving up to her neck, his lips tickling her, his stubble scratching her. She sighed, catching him to her. ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?’ he murmured, the pads of his fingers stroking her skin.
‘Yes,’ she said happily. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘You’re not going right now, are you?’
She looked at her watch. It was just after two. She looked back at him, at his dark eyes, glittering in the light from the fountain, his wicked, kind smile that she knew so well, she felt, yet which was so full of promise, so exciting.
‘No,’ she said, grinning. ‘Not right now.’
‘How long have I got?’ he said, running his hands through her hair, over the back of her neck.
‘Oh…about five minutes. Max,’ she said, smiling. And she kissed him back, pulling his head towards her, wrapping her arms around him and, for the first time since she’d got to Rome, Tess Tennant started feeling less like an old schoolteacher and more like a young woman.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Going to the ruins of Pompeii, a summer home town for rich Romans destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD and preserved beautifully in volcanic ash, so that generations of tourists can troop round its wide, spookily empty streets and pay five euros for a small bottle of water, is not a day trip away. It might be, if you are a hardy type who doesn’t mind getting up at six a.m. to supervise a group of truculent grown-ups in getting to the station and on the right train for Naples at seven a.m. but otherwise it is just too damn hard. And yes, arriving at Naples, the craziest town in Europe, is a little taxing, but you just have to go with the flow because something weird is going to happen to you, even if you’re only there for twenty minutes. As Tess discovered.
It was peculiarly unfortunate that the group of child pick-pockets selected Carolyn Tey to rob of some euros in her moneybelt, and even more unfortunate that a taxi driver, enraged when they said they didn’t want a cab, that they were only looking for the Circumvesuviana train station, the train line that went to Pompeii, should squeeze Carolyn’s bottom, of all people’s, and ogle her quite so suggestively. As Diana said, when they were finally on the local line and Carolyn lay, prostrated across two seats, gasping with hysteria, ‘I don’t usually ask for that kind of thing, but I do wish he’d picked me instead of her.’
Tess was only thankful that Leonora Mortmain had said she was not coming today. She was probably right to give it a miss. ‘I am not being buffetted from pillar to post to go to Pompeii and back in One Day,’ she had said. ‘It is a ridiculous idea. I shall stay in my room, and they may bring me luncheon on the terrace.’
Travelling on this line, which skirted the Naples coastline, going down to Sorrento and Positano, those beautiful coastal resorts, had long been a dream of Tess’s, and what a dreadful disappointment it turned out to be. The line was slow, the trains were hot and dirty and covered in graffiti, the landscape was impoverished, industrialized and uninspiring. The sea was miles away. They chugged in muggy silence, looking out of the greasy, graffiti-covered window, and Tess started to wonder then if this was a good idea.
At ten thirty they disembarked from the train, and by eleven they were wandering round the ruins of Pompeii, and it suddenly became a good idea. The streets were wide and empty, the stepping stones the citizens used to cross the roads were still there. The bawdy drawings of Priapus with his enormous member—painted as good luck, to ward off evil spirits from the house—briefly revived their spirits. It was their third day of sightseeing, and Tess felt able, as she led them around, to cross-reference with a couple of other places they’d visited. The little stalls, with two holes in the counters for amphorae that would have sold food, rig
ht next to a grand nobleman’s mansion, next to a brothel, next to another stall selling wine: Tess always loved how jumbled up it all was, like the Forum. It wasn’t like suburbia as she knew it, rows and rows of identical houses, where a corner shop was a good five-minute drive away. Everything was together here: rich and poor, good and evil and, in the distance, a dark, sloping shadow, the mass of Vesuvius, covered even today in a dark cloud.
‘It seems so far away, they must have watched it erupt and thought they were going to be OK,’ said Liz, as they stood on the Via del Vesuvio and looked north towards the volcano.
‘They did,’ said Tess. ‘And that’s why so many people died, and so quickly.’ She rubbed her eyes.
‘Hey, are you all right?’ said Liz curiously. ‘You seem awfully tired, if you don’t mind me saying so! Are you coming down with something?’
‘I didn’t get much sleep,’ Tess admitted. ‘Totally my fault. I’m exhausted. Bit of an early start, too.’
Liz nodded. ‘You’re telling me. Oh, well. You can sleep this evening. And tomorrow.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Tess. She rubbed her ear.
She didn’t know if she was going to see Peter that night, or even tomorrow. She wanted desperately to see him again. Her mind was totally alert: she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She was fizzing with excitement about seeing him again, despite her grogginess and lack of sleep. What was it about him that was so completely appealing? It wasn’t just his extraordinary good looks, nor the way he made her laugh. Nor the way she could tell him anything. It was—oh, a combination of all of those, but more the feeling that it was like a sign, a weird karmic thing that had brought them together. Despite having signed a witness declaration form at the Polizia the previous day before supper, a laboriously long process, she was certain that was the last she’d hear of the moped mugger. The pain in her shoulder was almost gone, too: it was, honestly, she felt, as if that was all imaginary, just a ruse to get her to meet Peter. As if, after years of Will’s coldness and Adam’s mind games and then months of wearing clompy shoes and not shaving her legs and feeling totally unattractive, as if she had been sleeping, and he had come to wake her up.
‘You make me feel like a natural woman,’ she sang quietly. ‘Here, we’re going to the Visitors’ Centre for lunch.’
‘And then home?’ Carolyn asked hopefully.
‘Bit more to see, and then home!’ Tess said perkily, girding herself and picking up a tray. ‘Ooh, pasta salad. Lovely!’
It was a long, long day, and when they eventually got back to the hotel in Rome the pinched feeling behind Tess’s eyes felt more like a vice, and her feet were killing her, the blister on her toe resembling something like an open sore. She staggered up to her room in the late afternoon heat, trying to be polite to poor Carolyn—no, unfortunately she didn’t think there was any point in filing a report with the police on the Incident in Naples—and Jan Allingham—no, she didn’t have any hairspray, but there was a pharmacy opposite, they would have some. Thank you. Goodnight.
She opened her bedroom door, kicked it shut with her foot, flung open the window and then fell face forwards onto the freshly straightened and turned-down valance, feeling the silky, shiny new sheets under her nose and chin.
‘I love you, bed,’ she muttered, and closed her eyes, her legs sticking off the edge of the bed, and she passed out in seconds.
Minutes later—or was it hours? Days, it could have been—Tess awoke, to the sound of banging, she thought in her head. Blearily, she looked up, then turned over so she was on her back. What was it? She looked up, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, and then realized she had no idea where she was, or what time it was. She blinked, breathed in, saw the open window, realized she was in Rome, and looked at her watch. It was eight o’clock—must be eight o’clock at night. Yes. Pompeii. The train ride back to Naples in the carriage smelling of urine…She ran her hands over her face, feeling the slimy grime and sweat of the day settling in her pores…
There was that noise again, on the window. It was more like a splatter, not a bang. Tess sat up, her head spinning, and looked towards the open window, as if expecting to see a swarm of frogs, merrily jumping up and down and throwing themselves wetly against her shutters. She got up and, with a slightly wobbly gait, for she was still half-asleep, leaned out of the window, which is when it hit her.
Something cold, fleshy and wet landed on her face. She screamed, her mouth obstructed by whatever it was that she thought was attacking her, and fell back onto the bed. From a distance, she could hear someone, calling, ‘Tess! It’s me! Hey, are you OK?’ Her hands flew to her face, shaking, her reactions delayed by fatigue and recent sleep, and removed a clump of wet paper towels, which had been soaked in something…she sniffed it. Wine?
‘Eh?’ she said aloud, in the darkness of her room. She hauled herself up from the edge of the bed, and leaned gingerly out of the window again, holding up her hands. ‘Don’t throw any more!’ she called incoherently into the leaves of the trees outside her window. Then she looked down, onto the pavement.
There, standing on the pavement with a metal bucket in his hand, was Peter, looking up at her, concern etched on his face.
‘Shit,’ he said, as Tess dabbed ineffectually at herself. ‘Did I get you? I was only trying to get your attention, I wasn’t even sure you were there…I couldn’t risk throwing stones, I did that once before and it broke a window clean through.’
‘Peter?’ she said, dumbly. ‘Hello? Is that you?’
He smiled up at her. ‘Hey.’
‘Hey,’ said Tess, rubbing her brow, where she had been hit particularly hard. ‘What the—’
‘I was just wondering if you wanted a drink,’ Peter called up. An old lady passed him on the street, muttering at him, and gesturing at him; he stepped out of the way.
‘So you wait outside my room and then hit me in the face with paper soaked in—what is this?’
‘Prosecco,’ he said. ‘I got a bottle of it.’ He held up the bucket, which she could now see was an ice bucket. ‘I remembered you like it.’ He sighed, and started laughing. ‘This hasn’t gone well, has it?’
Tess laughed too—she couldn’t help it, it was infectious. ‘I’ll come down,’ she said. ‘Give me five minutes.’
‘Have you eaten? I have an idea.’
‘No, and I’m starving,’ she said.
‘That’s great.’
‘Peter—’ she called.
‘Yes, Tourist Tess?’
‘I’m so tired I can barely stand.’
‘That’s OK. We’re going to be sitting.’
‘Oh.’ Tess smiled down at him. ‘Oh. OK. Um—I’ll see you in a sec.’
‘Hurry up,’ he said, and she could hear the laughter in his voice as she stepped away from the window.
Thirty minutes later, at the top of the steps leading to the Janiculum Hill, where the streets of Trastevere are even more cobbled and steep than usual, Peter and Tess sat on a bench overlooking the city, each eating a pizza and drinking the Prosecco in the wine bucket.
‘This is possibly my favourite meal so far in Rome,’ Tess said, chewing happily. She turned to him and shivered, hardly able to believe he was next to her, that this was happening, this lovely, handsome, kind stranger was real.
‘You haven’t had pizza yet?’
‘I have,’ said Tess. ‘But every time I’ve eaten so far, it’s mostly been with a group of people who are tugging your arm and asking what the Italian for parmesan is, or where the loos are, or when we’re leaving, or—having mental breakdowns and acting totally weird. I haven’t just—’ she turned and smiled at him—‘just sat and eaten some food and chatted.’
He tucked a lock of her unruly black hair behind her ear, and smoothed his finger over the bone beneath, tracing a path down to her neck. ‘Poor thing.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ she said softly, breathing in, luxuriating in his touch, letting the feeling it gave her to feel his fingers on her skin sink
in. She rubbed her eyes. ‘I am complaining, and I should shut up. I’m just tired.’
‘That’s my fault.’
She looked out at the grey-blue sky fading into night, the glowing ochre city beneath them, the pizza box on her lap, his hand on her shoulder. ‘How can you say that, Peter?’ she said, smiling. ‘This is the best bit so far.’
‘It gets better,’ he said, moving along the bench so he was next to her. He kissed her gently, sucking her bottom lip and biting it tenderly, his hand on her neck. Behind them a couple passed by, talking fast in Italian, not breaking off at all to wonder at two people kissing on a bench high above the city. She loved that about Rome. No wrapping herself up in layers, the feeling of sun on her shoulders, the feeling of Peter’s lips on hers. She felt she was coming alive again. No one to care, no one to answer to…for this night and tomorrow, anyway.
‘I’m on holiday,’ she said, happily.
‘You’ve finally realized,’ he said, kissing her neck.
‘No, I mean—I’m free tonight and tomorrow. It’s my holiday within the holiday.’
‘So you are,’ he said, his eyes glittering at her in the dark. ‘So you are. Well, what are you doing tomorrow?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly shy. ‘I was going to—’ Her hands knotted themselves together in her lap. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.
Peter sat back and looked at her. ‘Come back to my apartment. Tonight. We can spend the day together tomorrow.’
‘No!’ said Tess, laughing. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’ he said seriously. ‘What’s stopping you?’
‘I—’ Tess looked out over the twinkling scenery of Rome, laid out like a set design in front of her. ‘I don’t know you. And I have to get back tonight, to make sure no one’s died, or run off, or something.’
‘Go on.’
‘And—’ She blinked, her eyeballs aching as they had been all day. ‘I’m really, really tired.’
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