The Faces of Angels (19 page)

‘Mary,' Henry says as I edge through the tables towards them, ‘glad you could join us.'

‘Hey,' Kirk says, ‘have a pew.' He pats the seat of the chair between him and Henry.

Billy peeks out at me from behind her menu as I sit down, and winks. ‘New necklace,' she says. ‘Very
bella
! And flowers, gentlemen. Both from Lover Boy, and all in one day!'

Henry whistles, and I feel myself blush.

‘Mary has a boyfriend,' Kirk sings.

The teasing is cut off by the arrival of a large plate of anti-pasto, which immediately leads to a discussion of black olives versus green ones, and the menu. When I finally ask about the field trip, which was to one of the Medici villas, Billy shrugs. ‘You didn't miss much,' she says. ‘If you want to go sometime, it'll probably still be there.'

‘Well, it has been for five hundred years,' Kirk points out. ‘Along with most of that lunch we had.' He runs his hands through his hair and shakes his head to dispel the horror. ‘You should have seen the place she dug up this time. A veritable stable, my dear, replete with wheelbarrows, harnesses and straw-covered Chianti bottles.'

Kirk is convinced that Signora Bardino arranges most of her field trips for days when restaurants in Florence are closed, forcing her further afield for lunch. Some of her choices have been distinctly more ‘miss' than ‘hit.' We've begun to learn we're in trouble when she announces that whatever out-of-the-way
locanda
we're destined for is owned by ‘a very talented young chef' who just happens to be one more of her husband's nephews.

For the next half-hour, I listen while they relate the general awfulness of the experience. Then Henry reports that the Japanese girls are in love with Verona, and Kirk adds that they've come back sporting matching accessories, in this case strange-looking bright green hats. Billy wonders out loud if Tony and Ellen from Honolulu are actually brother and sister instead of husband and wife. Or maybe both.

‘They are exactly the same height, and they look alike,' she says, when we express our scepticism. ‘Exactly alike. Their earlobes are the same shape. I promise you. It's a dead giveaway. And they sound just like each other too.'

Kirk snorts as he stabs at one of his ravioli. ‘That's just what happens when you're married. It's creepy, but normal, like
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, or those people who start looking like their dogs. Right, Henry?'

‘Oh right,' Henry agrees. ‘Of course. Shortly after we got married my wife grew a beard.'

‘I am serious.' Billy waves her fork at us. ‘I am deadly serious. I bet you they're, like, one of those pairs of twins that marry each other and then go off somewhere so nobody knows them. Just like that book,
The Secret of the Villa
—whatever it's called.'

‘Oh yeah, I really liked that one,' Kirk says.
The Secret of the Villa Whatever It's Called
. By Who's His Name. Didn't it win the Pulitzer?'

‘
Villa Golitsyn
,' I say. ‘By Piers Paul Reid.'

‘How do you know?'

I shrug. In fact it was another product of Sandy Skivling's from the Book Mobile, but she didn't get as much for it because word got out it wasn't as racy as she promised.

‘Mary,' Billy announces, ‘is a fount of information.'

‘Absolutely,' says Kirk. ‘Mary is a walking version of the Dewey decimal system. In fact, she's a robot with a computerized brain. The Three Little Maids from school are actually clones. Tony and Ellen are in fact their own parents. And you're insane.'

‘Well.' Billy humphs. ‘If you don't like that idea, try this one. Ginevra Montelleone was about to get kicked out of the university.'

‘Who's she?' Kirk asks.

‘The girl they found by the river,' Henry says. She was named by the papers a couple of days ago, but it still seems odd to hear her brought up like this. Henry abandons his
bollito misto
and looks at us. ‘Right?' he asks.

‘Right.' Billy shrugs.

She is eating a veal escalope and impales a piece of meat on her fork, lowers it to her plate and fussily cuts it in half. ‘At least I guess so,' she says. ‘I mean, yeah, she's the girl. And it looks like she committed suicide because she was being kicked out. I mean, that's what I heard.'

‘Where?'

I put my knife and fork down. I haven't actually read the papers in the last few days, and I guess Piero's editors and everyone else have decided to keep toeing the police line. Billy is cutting her meat into tinier and tinier perfect squares. She's so absorbed, she doesn't answer me. ‘Did it say that in the paper?' I ask finally. ‘That she killed herself?'

‘I don't know. I heard it in the caféteria.' She pops a piece of the veal into her mouth. ‘I stopped in for a cup of tea, on my way to the library, and everybody was talking about it. I guess she'd been kicked out of the university a few weeks ago or something. Oh yeah,' she adds, ‘and there's a candlelight vigil thing. We should go. Pay our respects.'

‘No, thank you.' Kirk shakes his head. ‘You can keep the Sylvia Plath Brigade to yourself.'

‘Why?' Henry asks. ‘I mean, why was she being kicked out?'

‘Abortion.'

Billy begins to chew, her jaw working in small, methodical motions that remind me of a guinea pig. I push my plate away. I can't get the pictures of Ginevra out of my head, and as a result I don't feel hungry any more.

‘She led a pro-choice rally a few months ago, I guess,' Billy says. ‘Threw eggs and things at some right-wing politician and got arrested. In fact, it sounds like she was quite the activist, Miss Ginevra Theodosia Montelleone. How's that for a handle? You should be glad,' she adds, nodding at me, ‘that you're just plain old Mary.'

After that, the conversation devolves into stories about names, and by the time we come out of the trattoria a thin veil of fog has dropped over the piazza, and it's dark. The squat façade of the church looms above the sea of cars, the people winding amongst them faint ghostly shapes picked out by nothing more than the shrill ring of their voices and the occasional smatter of laughter. Billy loops her arm through mine. ‘I'm taking Mary home,' she says. ‘She needs a good night's sleep so she'll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning.'

‘Right in time for the Pazzi Chapel.' Henry leans forward and kisses my cheek. There's an early lecture tomorrow on ‘Proportion and Design in the Italian Renaissance' that he apparently has high hopes for.

‘We'll be there at nine. Sharp.' Billy is already dragging on my arm and as we move off, I glance back to see Henry and Kirk going in the opposite direction. Kirk reaches out and raps his knuckles on the roof of one car, then another. The sound is hollow, like gunfire far away.

‘What the hell was that all about?' I mutter. The rapping sounds get fainter and fainter. ‘Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?'

‘Well, I'm sorry,' Billy says. ‘But you look exhausted. Lover Boy is wearing you out.'

‘Don't call him that.' I don't really like being dragged and I take my arm away.

‘Well, what should I call him?'

‘Pierangelo, that's his name.' My resolutions about goodwill seem to be dissolving.

‘How picturesque,' Billy says. ‘Did he come along before, after, or with your husband?' She stands back and looks at me. ‘I mean, is that what happened?' she asks. ‘Archangel, or whatever his name is, appeared, and “poof”, your husband vanished?' Her hair is pinned up and the foggy glow of the street light catches it, forming a nimbus of light around the shadows on her face.

The spectre of Ty, with his smile and his golden eyes and his kindness, materializes, as though her words have conjured him. If I look down maybe I'll see a gold ring, a chip of a diamond on my left hand. Billy has pulled a chiffon scarf out of her pocket and is tying it under her chin, but I don't really see her. Instead I see a cowl. Damned, I hear Rinaldo's voice whisper. Damned. Billy blinks. Her mouth opens. Then I hear my own voice.

‘It's none of your damned business.' Tears blur, soft and mushy, at the rims of my eyes. ‘What happened to me,' I say again, ‘is none of your damned business.' Then I turn and walk off.

We have reached the tangle of narrow alleys on the far side of the piazza. Laundry lines stretch from window sill to window sill on the upper floors of the buildings and the clothes that hang from them are strange dangling shapes above our heads. I start down it, leaving Billy behind, wiping away the tears that run down my cheeks, and angry at suddenly feeling this way. There are no street lights. About halfway up the block a single window is lit, high up, but other than that it's so dark I can't see the gutters, or dog shit, or even the bumpy ridges of the cobbles beneath my feet.

In a few seconds, I hear Billy's footsteps behind me and, as pissed off as I am with her, I slow down so she can catch up. Thinking of Gianni and his friend, I remember that she doesn't know this part of town that well, and it's easy to get lost. The rhythmic sound of her steps echoes behind me, bouncing off the walls of the buildings that seem so close I swear if I spread my arms I could touch both sides.

It occurs to me that I should ask Signora Bardino if I can move. Or I could just move in with Pierangelo. He all but suggested it again last night. But at virtually the same time I think this, I realize I don't really want to do either of these things. Moving out would create insufferable tension, so I'd probably have to quit the course too. Which would leave me with nothing to do. Besides I don't want to. Billy's been bugging me, but she's also right, I am tired. And we've been drinking a lot. Probably too much. And Ginevra Montelleone and Caterina Fusarno have upset me more than I care to admit, and she hit the nail on the head about Pierangelo, which is not exactly her fault.

‘I'm sorry,' I say it without looking back. My voice floats up into the night, but Billy doesn't reply.

We continue like this for perhaps a block, her footsteps beating out a counterpoint to mine. ‘I'm sorry,' I say again, louder, but she still doesn't say anything.

A breeze comes up. A couple of towels hanging from a line ripple in the wind. Up ahead there's an intersection, and a car rushes by on the bigger road, its headlamps hitting the ochre façade of the corner building, flashing a streak of orange in the dark. The sound of the engine fades away and the silence afterwards is too quiet, like a river that's stopped running.

I turn round. The glow from the single window is far back now, nothing more that a muzzy yellowish smear in the dark and at first I can't see anything. Then I spot Billy. She's just a shape, standing in the middle of the street, about half a block behind me.

“Bill,' I call. ‘Come on, I'm sorry.'

She doesn't answer, and I start to call again, but something stops me. I stare into the dark, and feel Billy staring back. A nasty feeling prickles behind my neck. It skitters across my scars like a mouse, as we stand there, neither of us moving.

Then the shrill wail of a horn splits the night, and a moped veers round the corner so fast it almost hits me.

The scooter swerves, and although I can't see the driver's face or make out what he shouts, his hand gesture is universal. A second bike follows hard on his heels, and they zoom up the alley, filling it with noise and light. The beams of the headlights sweep down the dark buildings, picking out nothing but worn mouldings of grey stone and the damp shine of the cobbles. Billy's gone. Vanished as though I imagined her.

The whole thing leaves me peculiarly rattled, and I'm glad to get on to Via dei Serragli where there are lights and a sidewalk. Eager to get home, I almost trot, and when I reach our building about five minutes later the lights are on in the courtyard. The lemon trees throw shadows that look like pickup sticks and I can hear music, Vivaldi. A shrill staccato burst of voices comes from Sophie's apartment, sharp and clear before they're swallowed in the high notes of a violin. I look up and see that our apartment lights are on, too.

Staring up at our windows, I have the horrible thought that the only person who has a set of keys, other than me and Billy, is Signora Bardino. She, or, worse, her husband, has probably dropped by to check out the condition of their precious apartment. I have picked up my room and the living room, but, between going out for a new toothbrush and generally messing around, I didn't do as much as I'd planned this afternoon and the kitchen is still a tip. I'm sure Billy's ashtray's on the table, and it looks like the French windows are loose again. La Bardina's probably having a conniption fit even as I stand here. Or, better yet, maybe she's found out I'm sleeping with her best friend's husband.

I seriously consider running away and hiding in the bar. Then I figure it's pointless. If she knows, I'll have to deal with it sometime. Even so, I climb the empty stairs slowly, instead of taking the elevator, to buy myself time. I figure the best thing to do is say I knew Piero professionally, which has the benefit of being at least sort of true. When I get to the landing, I plaster a smile on, prepare to be charming, or at least contrite, and push the door open to find myself face to face with Billy.

Her coat and scarf are in her hand and she is standing in her socks, the clogs she was wearing at dinner tipped over in front of the hall closet. ‘Mary, I'm sorry,' she says immediately. ‘I was really out of line. You're right, it's none of my business, I—'

‘How did you get here?'

She looks at me. Then she smiles, but half-heartedly. It's the first time I've ever seen Billy look uncertain. ‘I live here,' she says. ‘I have a key.'

‘No.' My voice is suddenly high and insistent. ‘No, I mean, how did you get here. Back here. So fast. Before me?'