The Faces of Angels (32 page)

A gust hits me as I run across the road, almost turning my umbrella inside out. I'm still wrestling with it, trying to hang on to it with one hand and get my keys out of my pocket with the other, when a shadow appears under the entrance arch and thickens into the solid black shape of a priest who must have just finished saying Mass for Signora Raguzza. With his rain cape and old-fashioned hat and umbrella, he looks more like one of the nuns from the convent over by the Carmine. His gloved hand holds the gate for me as I run up the steps and brush by him.

Pools of rain have formed in the courtyard and the lemon trees look miserable. Sophie-Sophia's windows are shuttered; the family must have gone away for the holiday. The downstairs door to our vestibule is closed against the wind, and the stairwells so dark that I hit the lights. The grille of the elevator looks like a cage, dark and unwelcoming, and I take the stairs two at a time instead.

Billy's not home. I sense it as soon as I get through the door, the apartment has the cold feeling of unoccupied space. But I call anyways, and then check the rooms, just to be sure. Pawing through my closet, I settle finally on a skirt and boots, and a deep blue-green blouse Pierangelo gave me. What it needs, I think as I twist around in front of the mirror, is a belt. Something big and funky. The sort of thing I don't have, but Billy does. She came home from the market with a fabulous heavy leather one covered with coins and turquoise bits just a few days ago. Just my luck, she'll be wearing it, but when I go into her room I find it right away, coiled in her top drawer. After putting the belt on, I have a fast paw through her jewellery box. Billy's an earring queen, and sure enough there's a pair that match. As I grab them, my fingers collide with a pretty blue wristwatch. Typical Billy, I think as I close the drawer, to prefer bugging everybody by asking what time it is every fifteen minutes. I check her lipsticks to see if there are any colours I like, but our skin tones are too different. Then, as I'm fastening the earrings and admiring the result in her mirror, my phone starts cheeping. I glance at my watch as I run into the kitchen to fish it out of my jacket pocket. I've been gone exactly fourteen minutes. Men are amazing.
I C U
, the text says. I duck into the living room, look down into the street and wave at the car. Then I text back,
CU2
, drop the phone in my pocket and write Billy a note that I prop against the television. ‘Staying at Piero's. Stole your belt and earrings, will return with rent of bottle of wine—M.'

The BMW's windows are so steamed up I can't even see inside, and I have to tap on the glass to get Piero to open the door, which is annoying because I'm getting wet. When I jump in and throw the umbrella in the back seat, he leans over and kisses me, then raises his finger mouthing, ‘Wait.' The aria from
Madame Butterfly
fills the car, the notes a high, sweet counterpoint to the clatter of the rain. Pierangelo's eyes are closed, his face blissful as his hand moves slightly to the music.

‘Tebaldi,' he says as the last notes linger in the air. ‘Sublime.' He turns the engine over and we pull out into the wet street.

A few seconds later, we stop at the lights on Via Maggio. Ghost figures scurry in front of us, someone wrapped in a mackintosh and carrying a dog, two nuns clutching each other's arms and running, and a tall woman, scarf over her head, who I'm sure is Billy. I twist round as she heads up the sidewalk, rubbing a patch in the fog on my window, and waving. But she doesn't notice me, and a second later she's lost in the blur of the rain as we glide forward, windshield wipers thunking in rhythm, and turn up towards Porta Romana.

I don't see Billy the next day, or the day after that. Which is not surprising because I visit the apartment for a grand total of maybe ten minutes, just enough time to put her belt and earrings back in her room and grab a couple of changes of clothes for myself.

Pierangelo takes Monday and most of Tuesday off. We drive out to Vinci to see the Leonardo museum, wander among the wooden flying machines and admire the rebuilt model of the submarine, then the next afternoon, after Piero spends a couple of hours in the office in the morning, we go to Pisa. We have a long lunch, take pictures of each other leaning under the tower, buy a snow globe with the Campo dei Miracoli imprisoned inside, and linger beside the Arno admiring the beautiful little jewel box that is La Spina, the perfect tiny chapel built to house a thorn from Christ's crown. In the evening, we stop in Lucca, walk on the ramparts holding hands, and have dinner in Piazza San Martino where we watch the swallows dive and swoop against the backdrop of the cathedral.

Now the mini-holiday is over. It's early Wednesday morning and, knowing he has to be back in the office in a few hours, I watch Pierangelo sleeping. A thin haze of beard has grown on his cheeks and chin, and his eyes move under his lids as he dreams. His hand flutters on the duvet like a restless bird.

I pick up my shoes, ease the door open and slip into the living room. I've been awake for a while, and since it's six-thirty, and Piero's alarm will go off in a half-hour anyways, I figure I might as well leave him alone in his habitual pre-work chaos. I rummage in the kitchen drawer for a pen and a piece of paper, and write a note telling him to call me later. Then, as I'm about to prop it up by the coffee pot where he can't miss it, I notice the silver cigarette case he used at the party the other night and I can't help myself. I slide it across the counter and open it.

I'm no expert on silver, but even I can tell that this is nice. It's heavy in my hand, smooth and cool. The lid springs up with a satisfying click. There are two cigarettes, held down by a silver band, but they're not what interests me. What interests me is the inscription. It's nice too, done in heavy mannish Roman letters, very tasteful and surprising. I expected it to be from Monika, but it isn't. ‘To Piero, with all my love for ever—Ottavia' it says, and I feel a nasty little wince in my stomach. Then I look at the date underneath and laugh at myself. ‘
21
April 1980
'. Whoever Ottavia was, she was long before my time. I snap the lid shut and put the cigarette case back where it was. Then I carry my shoes across the living room so I won't wake Piero, and let myself out.

The sky is the colour of unripe peaches. A tiny puff of cloud floats above the buildings and turns faint yellow as the sun hits it. I take a short cut through Piazzetta del Limbo, listening for the rustling sighs of the unbaptized babies, then reach the Lungarno, and hear the whirr of street cleaners. The little drone-like trucks move along the broad avenues ahead of me, and turn abruptly away from the river, buzzing up towards the cathedral.

In four days it will be Easter, Florence's biggest event of the year, celebrated with an odd mixture of the pagan and the Christian, as if—despite D'Erreti's best efforts—the city is still hedging its bets, appeasing whatever gods might be out there. While the cardinal celebrates Mass in the Duomo, a fancy-dress parade will wind its way through the city, its main feature a tall decorated cart pulled by garlanded white oxen and filled with fireworks. Surrounded by flame-throwers and trumpeters, the
scoppio del carro
, as it's called, will finally come to a halt directly outside the doors, and as the service ends, the cardinal will release a mechanical white dove from above the high altar, sending it racing down a guy wire to dive-bomb the cart outside and, hopefully, set off a magnificent display of fireworks. The dove is supposed to contain flints collected by Mary Magdalene from the foot of the true cross, and the general idea is that if the fireworks explode with enough vigour, Florence will be happy and prosperous. If they fizzle, it'll be a rough twelve months.

Billy is adamant that we should all follow the parade together, and have the traditional glass of Prosecco on Ponte Vecchio afterwards before Henry treats us to a feast in the apartment at Torquato Tasso. She's even written invitations in her favourite purple gel pen. Ours arrived in the mail yesterday, and while we've decided we'll join them for the parade and the fireworks, we're ducking out of the feast because Pierangelo's arranged a special treat. He's taking me to the Villa Michelangelo up in Fiesole for Easter lunch.

On the Ponte Vecchio, I stop to watch the river. A sculler glides by on the still, smoky water, and I wonder if he's the one who found Ginevra. He shoots out of the far side of the bridge, silent and straight as an arrow, glances up, sees me and smiles before he bends and pulls and bends and pulls again, rowing in perfect time with the metronome in his head.

The railings around the Cellini statue are festooned with padlocks painted with the initials and names of lovers who have vowed to stay true for ever. The shutters of the jewellers' shops are closed and locked down, making them look like rows of giant bread boxes. A few homeless people have been dossing out by the drinking fountain, their blankets neatly arranged, bulging plastic bags piled at their heads in makeshift pillows. Two of them are sitting up, getting ready to face the day, but one, still rolled in his sleeping bag, opens an eye clouded with dreams, and watches silently as I go by.

At the grocery, the signora's in a frenzy. The morning's pastries and papers have arrived, but Marcello hasn't, so she has to handle the line of customers herself. She's muttering crazily about irresponsible youth, telling every person she serves it would never have happened when she was a kid, as she drops croissants into brown paper bags and yells at the guy who's just arrived with the morning's strawberries. Secretly, I think she's enjoying herself, and when at last he arrives, Marcello seems to agree. He pulls up on the vegetable Vespa just as I'm leaving, and when the signora shouts, he winks at me. His eyes are shiny and he doesn't even blush when I wink back. Maybe he had a really good night at the wine bar last night. I catch the strawberry he plucks from a box and throws to me as I pass.

The apartment is completely silent. I slip my shoes off so I won't make a noise clacking around on the marble floors, and slide in my socks towards the kitchen. The door to Billy's room is ajar. I tiptoe over to close it so I won't wake her, and as I pull it to, I expect to see the shape of her body in the bed, clothes hung over the brass rail, shoes tipped on the floor. But the room isn't even dark. The big metal blind is up, and her pale yellow counterpane is tucked over her pillow. I look round the door and see her belt, still draped over the back of her chair where I left it on Monday morning.

Stepping inside, I see that her earrings are on top of her dresser too, right where I put them. They're surrounded by lipsticks, barrettes and an array of bottles of hair goop. Postcards of Billy's favourite paintings are stuck into the edge of the mirror. Bronzino's portraits of baby Marie de Medici and her mother, Eleanora di Toledo, stare back at me. It's strange, but of all of us, Billy is probably the best student. She is the one who actually takes notes, and reads books. A stack of them, Gombrich and Burkhardt on the Renaissance, and Malraux's
Voices of Silence
, are piled on her bedside table beside a framed, muzzy picture of a house sitting in the middle of an overgrown field that she told me once was her grandfather's farm, or rather what was left of it after he was ruined by the Depression and the Dust Bowl.

Suddenly I feel like a kid caught snooping and whirl round, sure I'll see Billy standing in the doorway. But there's no one there. Unnerved, I tiptoe out. Then, for good measure, I pull the door closed behind me.

In the kitchen, I dump my bag on the table, throw the French windows open and step out onto the balcony where a thin layer of grit sticks to the bottom of my socks. All of Sophie's windows are still shuttered, so the whole opposite wing of the house looks as if it has its eyes closed. Back inside, I put the coffee on and sing to myself, out of tune. Then, while the little silver pot begins to perk and bubble, I wander into the living room.

Milky sunlight spills through the tall window and the cushions are mussed up on the couch, a pair of Billy's pink socks balled beside them. There's a wine glass, one of Signora Bardino's good ones, on top of a pile of books on the side table, a brown film forming in its base that will crystallize and be hell to clean. And there are the postcards. Billy's been at it again, but this time she's pushed the coffee table back so she had the whole rug to work on. Which was necessary, I guess, because since I saw it last, her collection's grown.

I glance at the couch and the glass and I can almost see her, wine in one hand, butt in the other, surveying her creation. There's even a dent in the cushion where she sat. The coffee pot screams suddenly, like a train coming into the station, and I go to take it off the heat, pour myself a cup and come back. As I sink down onto the sofa, I notice the green tin ashtray wedged in beside the books. Sure enough there's one stubbed-out cigarette, its filter perfectly ringed in bright red lipstick.