The Faces of Angels (34 page)

‘Why didn't you ever tell me?' I ask a minute later. ‘About your mom?'

Pierangelo is layering something in a baking dish now, bending down to check the heat in the oven and slide it in, so I can't see his face.

‘I guess,' he says as he shuts the oven door, ‘because I don't think of her that way.' He straightens up and picks up his glass. ‘As my mother, I mean. She wasn't.' He shrugs and grins. ‘What do you want me to say? She gave me away. So I gave her away.'

‘Did you ever know her?'

‘No.' He shakes his head. ‘I never met her. I was very little, a baby.'

He turns back to the counter and starts rinsing things, putting them in the dishwasher. ‘I think she tried to contact us, a couple of times. I don't really know. And Graziella's right, she did leave me Monte Lupo. Not that there was anyone else. She didn't have any other children.' He shrugs. ‘But it doesn't matter,
cara
. Really. My aunt was a wonderful mother.' Pierangelo turns round, wipes his hands on his apron and smiles at me. ‘That's what she was,' he says. ‘My mother. I didn't need another one. One Italian mama is enough for any boy.'

He comes across the room, puts his finger under my chin and kisses me. ‘Anything else you want to know about me?' he asks.

‘Yes.' I put my hands on his hips, feel the supple curve of his waist. Tug at the knot in the apron strings.

‘What?' Pierangelo is already unbuttoning the top of my blouse. His fingers brush my collarbone. His free hand reaches down and pulls at the zip of my jeans.

‘Who was Ottavia?'

‘A mistake,' Pierangelo says, and lifts me onto the counter so I can wrap my legs around him.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, my note is exactly where I left it. I stand in the hall looking at it for a second, then open Billy's bedroom door, half expecting to find her burrowed in her high brass bed. But her room's the same as yesterday, empty.

Either she hasn't been here, or she has and simply left the note where it was. The third possibility is that she came back last night, saw what I wrote, and went straight to Torquato Tasso, where she stayed because she has made up with Kirk. I pull my cell phone out and call to ask, but all I get is Henry's voice on their machine. Kirk's cell goes straight to message and Henry's doesn't answer.

The kitchen is still pristine from my cleaning fit. Definitely no evidence of Billy here. She invariably hits it like a tornado, and there's not so much as a coffee ground out of place. The bathroom is undisturbed too. Her toothbrush is still beside the basin. Finally, just as I'm beginning to feel like I'm stalking some elusive animal through the jungle, watching for pug marks and broken branches, I find evidence of her in the living room. Her spiral of postcards still takes up the whole floor, but the picture in the centre, the bullseye so to speak, has been replaced. This morning, instead of Hate and her four nasty bags, it's a snapshot of Billy and me.

I crouch down and pluck the photo out of the spiral so I can get a better look at it. We're sitting at a café outside somewhere, and I'm laughing, turning away from the camera, my streaky hair flying across one cheek. Next to me, Billy sits with one elbow on the table, holding the inevitable cigarette, smiling straight into the camera. I don't remember seeing this particular photo before, but that's hardly unusual. She has about a million, addicted as she is to her disposable cameras. She claims she's working on some kind of project, and she's always getting poor unsuspecting passers-by to take pictures of us. Tourists she pounces on. Shopkeepers. Waiters. I smile to myself, stand up and pocket it, sure it's meant for me, a weird Billy-esque peace offering. An apology for rubbing my nose in her discovery about the red bags.

The living room stinks of cigarette smoke, and when I look, sure enough, there's another butt in the ashtray. The lipstick's lavender this time. She really is incorrigible. The room smells as though she didn't even open the windows. The smoke's probably in Signora Bardino's precious curtains and cushions by now, and although I suspect it's too late to save us from a horrendous dry-cleaning bill, it's worth a try. I pick up the ashtray and the dirty wine glass from the side table, and hop across the postcards to unlatch the French windows.

Too late, I realize it's a gusty day, and the latch gives as I turn the handle, blowing the doors open. The curtains huff, papers lift off the desk, rising and falling like leaves, and before I can do anything about it the wind slurs Billy's postcards, pushing the Madonnas into the devils, blowing the judgement of Christ up against the pierced, bleeding body of St Sebastian, and sending the naked hairy lady scooting under the couch. Sorry, Bill, I think, as I get down on my hands and knees and sweep the postcards into a pile, but I'll make it up to you. I'll buy a bottle of Prosecco and we can drink it on the balcony tonight, sitting at my shiny clean table. The naked lady, who I fish out from among the dust bunnies, turns out to be St Agnes. I don't know what the story with her hair is, but I'm sure Billy will have a good time telling me, especially if she makes it up.

While everything is pushed aside, I vacuum the rug. Then I replace the coffee table, put Billy's socks in the dirty laundry hamper, and finally do the Italian equivalent of Windexing the windows. When I'm done, it still smells like smoke—well, smoke and furniture polish—but it looks a whole lot better. I could spray some air freshener around but, given the way most of that stuff smells, I'd really rather opt for the cigarette smoke.

It's just before noon, and I figure I'll run out to buy the Prosecco now, and get something for dinner. In the end I even stop at the signora's shop for flowers. She has tulips in today, red ones, and I get two bunches. Inside, she's chatting with two of her friends and working the till herself. When I pay, she shakes her head and grumbles.

‘An hour,' she says. ‘I say an hour, and he's gone an hour and a half. For two deliveries. In my day, my father would have smacked me up the head.' Her father would have had to be pretty big, I think. Even as a girl, I bet the signora was no shrinking petal. ‘I should have hired an old-age pensioner; at least he wouldn't waste time, chatting with his friends all day when he's supposed to be working. That's where he is now, you'll see. Probably taking his girlfriend out to lunch on my time,' she adds.

‘On a scooter covered in carrots?' One of the other women winks at me.

‘Girls today,' the signora says darkly as she drops the euros into my palm, ‘maybe they dress proper, speak nice, but they're not so picky.'

‘Young man like that, I don't care what it is painted with, I'd ride his scooter.'

This provokes a ribald burst of laughter, and the three women shout
ciao
and wave as I go back out onto the street.

The wind is still bouncing around, sending an empty cigarette pack scuttling along the gutter and the awning over the wine shop ripples and dances. Places are shutting for lunch now, crates disappear from the sidewalk and doors lock. Between that and the fact that it's the holiday, this corner of town is dead. For the next few hours, if you're not in a trattoria or sitting in a bar on a piazza, it will be possible to believe that no one lives here at all. A man passes me, shrugging his jacket on and talking into his cell phone at the same time, a sudden breeze sending his hair straight up, as though someone's riffled it from behind.

Despite the gusts it's not cold—a sure sign that spring is really here, teetering on the edge before it falls over into real warmth, the long predictable days and velvety dark blue nights that lead up to summer. I shift the bag with the Prosecco and the flowers from hand to hand as I turn the corner into our street and see, walking half a block ahead of me, a tall thin man in a blue shirt. Trotting behind him is a little black and white dog.

The sight is slightly unreal, the empty street and the blowing paper making them look like a film clip or a dream, something I've almost been expecting, and I stand watching, half wondering if they'll disappear, melt in the sunlight or turn sideways and vanish, but they don't. Instead, the man and the dog cross to the other sidewalk and step up into the shadowed portico of a tiny old church that is virtually opposite our building.

At first I think they've gone inside, which surprises me, because every time I've walked past the doors have been padlocked. Then a long thin leg ending in a running shoe appears out of the shadows, and the dog circles and lies down at the top of the steps. They're only finding a place to sit.

My heart is thudding uncomfortably, but I tell myself not to be stupid. It's broad daylight in the middle of the city. If I ever want to find out who this person is, now is the time. I step off the sidewalk and cross towards the church, wind fingering my hair.

As I get closer, I see that the space is bigger than it looks. Cool and shadowed, it makes a narrow little room where he's sitting, his back against the side wall, one long leg bent, the other stretched out, disjointed, like a puppet whose strings have been cut. One of the scuffed running shoes has a new lace, an incongruous bright white against the worn shoe, tied in a floppy bow. I flatter myself that the dog recognizes me, since he sits up and gives me his snaggle-toothed grin, but probably he just smells dinner in my bag. Now I make out the edge of a folded blanket and an old duffel bag. They've been dossing here.

I stop for a second, knowing that if I glance behind me I will see our living-room window, and the window of Billy's bedroom, looking down on us.

‘Hi.' Finally I reach out to pat the little mutt.

The man's face is in shadow, one arm is propped on his knee, and, even though I'm prepared for it this time, I feel a creepy shock of recognition as our eyes meet. The familiar amber colour almost glows. Next to him there are two dented metal dishes for the dog, one with water in it, the other with some food.

‘I've seen you before. At Santo Spirito. And in the Loggia dei Lanzi. You're one of the white men.'

He watches me while I speak, his face immobile, and I wonder for a second if he hasn't heard me. If maybe he's deaf, or blasted out of his mind on something. But although he's thin, his skin looks healthy, and he doesn't have that addled look druggies usually do. His big hands, which have a rime of dirt under the short clipped nails, don't twitch or jump. I try again, smiling this time.

‘My name is Mary.' Maybe he's not Italian, I think. Maybe he doesn't speak it. The dog wriggles under my hand, sniffing towards my bag. ‘Look,' I say in English. ‘I have some extra. Would you like it?'

I open a bag, pull out one of the rolls I just bought, and then a package of mortadella. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, or why I'm not scared, but I'm not. I hold the food out and the dog wags his tail.

‘Here,' I say. ‘Please.'

The dog hums in anticipation, and his owner looks at me before he shakes his head. Then he points. I'm not sure what it is at first. Some cheese? The Prosecco? Is he just another drunk? Something in my chest deflates at the idea. And then I understand. It's not the pecorino or the wine he wants, it's flowers. The tulips. I lift one of the bunches out and hand it to him, and just for a second I imagine I see him smile.

While he slips the rubber band off, I give the dog a couple of pieces of mortadella anyways, and break the bread into his dish. Then his owner leans down and props the flowers in the dog's water bowl. He holds them upright, his big square hands cradling the pale green stems and long pointed leaves, then he lets go, and the tulips fall in a fan, a bright splash of colour against the dank grey wall of the shuttered church.

We stare at them gravely before he nods, apparently satisfied.

I should go now. I don't want to crowd his space, this tiny bit of the city that, however temporarily, he's made his own.

‘Mary,' I try again, enunciating in case he can lip-read. I tap my chest. ‘
Mi chiamo Maria
. Goodbye,' I add, as I step down onto the sidewalk. ‘Happy Easter. Maria.
Mi chiamo Maria
.'

‘He can't answer you.'

The familiar voice is so close behind me that I swear I feel a puff on the back of my neck. Whirling round, I find myself face to face with Rinaldo.

‘He's a mute.'

Father Rinaldo is standing on the sidewalk outside the church portico, the long black skirt of his soutane blowing around his ankles, making him look vaguely as if he's at the helm of a ship. The sun is hitting his round cheeks, blushing them bright pink and shiny.

‘What are you doing here?' I step down into the road, gripping my bags, my fingers twisting the cheap plastic handles as though Rinaldo might snatch them from me.

‘The ministry, my child.' He smiles, towering above me, and I think again that he's a bigger man than I remember. It's his doll face and his soft slug fingers that are deceiving. ‘It's Easter week,' Rinaldo says.

He gestures vaguely across the street as he speaks, and beyond him I see a couple of young men and a girl. I'd say they were university students, but they're dressed wrong. The boys are in dark slacks and long-sleeved shirts, the girl in a straight grey skirt and flat ugly shoes. Even at this distance I can tell she's wearing panty hose, thick cheap ones that make her young pretty legs look as if they've been painted beige. They're carrying bags of some kind, and the girl is bending over, trying to give a sheet of paper to a wino who sometimes hangs out by the corner and doesn't seem to want what she's offering.

‘As Our Lord would have us do, in this, the week of his Passion, we are reaching out to the less fortunate,' Rinaldo says. ‘Just as you are, Maria.'

I begin to object, to say that that was not what I was doing at all. Then, instead, I turn away. I have nothing to say to Rinaldo. Crossing the street towards our building, I try as hard as I can not to run, and not to feel the caress of his eyes on my back.