The Faces of Angels (35 page)

Safely inside our courtyard, I drop my bags and sit down on the lip of one of the huge pots, my hands shaking. The sun washes across the paving stones and a lemon leaf skitters into the portico while outside on the street I hear footsteps and the low perk of voices as Rinaldo and his acolytes pass by, spreading God's work through the city.

The first thing I spot when I round the fountain a half-hour later is the black wing of Kirk's coat. He and Henry and the Japanese girls are already at our table at the bar, and as I pull out a chair he turns on me.

‘Where's Billy?' Kirk asks. But before I can say I don't know, we're set on by Ellen and Tony, who are climbing over the low plastic hedge, each of them holding Signor Catarelli by an elbow, as if they have him prisoner.

Kirk glares at me, as though Billy's vanishing act is my idea, and the Japanese girls shift uncomfortably in their chairs. Henry smiles half-heartedly and shakes hands with Signor Catarelli, while Ellen, completely impervious to the atmosphere at the table, hands out postcards of the
Primavera
.

‘Here,' she says. ‘I bought one of these for everybody.' She beams and sits down as I stare at the card in my hand.

The last time I went to the Uffizi, the Botticelli room was too crowded, so I stuck with Simone Martini's slant-eyed Virgins, but here in my hand the three half-naked Graces still cavort on their field of flowers. Mercury still holds the clouds back, and Venus still blesses the scene with the sort of absent benevolence that makes her look as if she's stoned. All while Primavera herself scatters flowers from the skirt of her hippy dress. In the corner Zephyr, looking bluer and meaner than ever, grabs Flora, making her spit flowers.

Maybe it's just today, but I don't think so. The truth is, I've always found this picture slightly nightmarish. It has the dreamlike effect of beauty on the surface, while something dark and bad is going on underneath. Zephyr's cold and blue-grey, like something dead, and I can almost feel his chilly hands on poor, pudgy Flora's soft white stomach. She's terrified, and the rest of them are oblivious. She screams and screams, but nobody takes any notice.

‘So,' Signor Catarelli is saying, ‘the three Graces may also be manifestations of Venus herself. Three aspects of one goddess, three images of one whole.'

‘Just like the Trinity!' Ellen chirps.

‘Jesus Christ,' Kirk mutters under his breath.

‘Exactly,' Signor Catarelli smiles.

Bent over their notes, Ellen and Tony miss this exchange, and the Japanese girls are too busy eating. But Henry suppresses a smile as Signor Catarelli goes on, bringing his explanation to a close.

‘It is an obscure picture,' he says. ‘Which some argue only adds to its greatness; the fact that what seems clear on first glance becomes less clear the longer we gaze upon it. So we must accept that the images mean more than one thing at any given time.'

Ellen bursts into vigorous applause as he stops speaking, causing a brief flash of panic to dart across the poor man's face. His lunch sits untouched in front of him, and I'm sure he's terrified that now Ellen's going to pepper him with questions, preventing him from ever picking up his fork. Henry rescues him, pouring him a glass of wine and urging him to eat.

‘I wonder if he was having second thoughts when he painted it,' Henry says. ‘Botticelli, I mean. Didn't he finally reject humanism, end up a huge fan of Savonarola's?'

‘Card carrying,' Kirk says. ‘Right?'

Signor Catarelli nods, stabbing eagerly at his ravioli. ‘According to Vasari, he felt a deep need to re-examine his faith in the last twenty years of his life. So the work becomes both prophetic and apocalyptic, and yet he cannot leave behind him the immense richness of Ficino's Neoplatonism, or perhaps the memory of his great patron, Lorenzo. Which God do you betray? In that way,' Signor Catarelli says, reaching for his glass, ‘he typifies Florence.' He takes a sip and smiles ruefully. ‘Perhaps,' he says, ‘he typifies Italy. The seduction of beauty, literature, art. Petrarch, Dante, Michelangelo, Botticelli himself. The surface of the ocean. But underneath, always, there's that other tide, the pull, pull, pull of the church on our hearts.'

We have become so used to hearing jokes from him that there is a momentary silence at the table. A round, ageing man in a beautifully cut threadbare tweed jacket, Signor Catarelli looks at us and smiles, but there is nothing in his face but sadness.

It's perhaps a half-hour later when Ellen and Tony escort him away, their chatter as bright and sharp as broken glass.

‘Well,' Henry says, ‘that was certainly jolly. I think I'll have a grappa with my coffee to recover. Possibly two. Anyone else?' He signals to the waitress, and Kirk nods. He's fiddling with something in his pocket, and I can't help thinking it's Billy's ring. I can practically see the tiny hearts pushing against his fingers.

‘I would like one.' Mikiko looks back at us, widening her eyes when we all stare at her. ‘Well, why not?' she says. ‘We don't just drink tea, you know.'

Unexpectedly, it's Kirk who reaches over and pats her hand. ‘We never thought you did,' he says. He smiles, looking almost as sad as Signor Catarelli, and when the waitress comes to the table, he tells her to bring a round of grappa for everyone. Then they all look at me, and this time it's Ayako who asks the question.

‘So?' she says. ‘Where's Billy?'

I tell them I don't know. That I haven't seen her because I haven't been at the apartment much, but that I do know she's been there. I describe the postcards, and the wiped-off messages on the machine. The cigarettes and the lipstick.

‘Well,' Mikiko says finally, ‘maybe she went away. Just for the day, or something. She said she wanted to see Siena. Maybe she decided to spend the night.'

‘She's a big girl, she'll show up when she's ready.' Henry shrugs.

Kirk doesn't say anything. A second later the tiny glasses of grappa arrive, and he throws his back in one gulp. ‘She could at least call,' he says.

‘She could,' Henry agrees. ‘But then she wouldn't really be Billy.'

Back in the apartment, I turn on all the lights. The wind has stopped, and it's just warm enough to sit outside, so I wipe the table again and put the tulips in the centre. At dusk, I set the table for two, using Signora Bardino's pretty flowered plates and mismatching old-fashioned silver. It looks lovely, like a scene from one of those movies about Americans who come to Italy and make all their dreams come true. I even find a candle lamp and light the flame so it flickers in the glass. Then I sit down to wait.

There's the occasional click of steps from Signora Raguzza's apartment, a rustle of voices. Someone turns on the lights in the courtyard. The lemon trees throw shadows, filigree patterns against the walls of Sophie-Sophia's wing of the building. After a while I go back inside, take the salami, cheeses, prosciutto and olives I've bought and lay it all out on a serving plate. I put the crusty rolls in a little porcelain basket and lift two wine glasses down from the top shelf of the dresser. Then I stand at the rail, watching the darkness under the archway, waiting to hear the clang of the gate and see Billy's figure thicken out of the dark, the gold crown of her hair sparkling in the light.

At just past eight, there's a burst of voices. The security gate clangs, footsteps ring on the paving stones, and I wonder who she's brought with her. But when they emerge from under the archway, I see a middle-aged couple, well dressed and dragging two small children. The woman is carrying a covered dish, hanging on to it precariously as she hauls a little boy in best clothes, a mini dark blue blazer and long pants. The man has a bottle of champagne, and looks slightly as though he's contemplating thunking it over the head of the little girl who hangs on his free hand.

Signora Raguzza's family coming for dinner on Holy Thursday.

‘Don't you want to see Nonna?' the man demands, as they disappear through the lower door. A second later I hear clattering on the stairs and a burst of voices.

At nine I pour myself a glass of red wine, pick at the salami and eat most of the olives. At ten I put the food away. At eleven-fifteen, Signora Raguzza's family leaves. The lights go off in the courtyard and I clear the table on the balcony, bring the tulips in, and tie the latch of the French windows in the kitchen with some cooking string I find in the back of a drawer.

Kirk's right, I think, she could at least call. Then I tell myself that she assumes I'm at Pierangelo's, and it's no big deal. The ‘gift' has probably let her down, so she doesn't know I'm sitting here waiting for her. I imagine her in a bar in Lucca or Siena. Maybe she made it all the way to Ravenna to see the mosaics, and went on to Ferrara or even to Venice, where right now she's sipping spumante by the Grand Canal and seducing twenty-year-olds. I check the phone in the living room, listen to the empty buzz of the dial tone as if it could tell me something, then check my cell's turned on and prop it on the side table next to my head while I lie on the couch, reading.

I don't know what time it is when the book falls onto my chest, maybe midnight. I should go to bed, I think, but instead I pull Signora Bardino's satin throw off the back of the couch and read one more chapter. This time, when the book falls out of my hand, it lands on the floor.

I hear it vaguely, a thud, and reach up and turn off the lamp as I close my eyes. I'll go to bed, I think, when Billy comes home. After I've talked to her. Which will be any second, because I can hear her keys in the door.

‘Bill!' I sit up with a start.

My heart's racing, banging all through my body, in my ears, my throat, my stomach. Fragments of dreams jangle around, and I realize I'm clutching the satin throw, pleating it into a rumpled ball. I sit there in the crackly stillness, knowing I shouldn't move, and wondering what woke me up.

Street light filters in through the tall windows, making the room black and white. I slide my eyes to the living-room door. I can see a wedge of the kitchen: the corner of the table, a block of floor, the white stripe of the linen blind on the French windows. Nothing moves. It feels too still, as if the apartment's holding its breath. Is someone in there? Or just down the hall? Around the corner, flattened against the wall beside the spindly ornamental chair? Is that what woke me up? The skin on my face feels hot, as if someone's held their hands on my cheeks while I slept.

A knot of panic lodges in my throat, and my hand reaches backwards, groping, fingers fastening on the wine glass I brought in from the balcony. Shoved hard, straight into someone's face, it would do some damage. I slip my bare feet out from under the throw and place them on the cold marble floor.

It seems to take for ever to stand up, to make my knees straighten and bear my own weight. The throw slithers to the floor with a hiss, and I freeze, waiting to see if the sound alerted whoever's here. But nothing moves. So finally I take the first step, the wine glass held at my chest, grasped by the stem, my elbow bent like a spring.

The second step is easier. The third brings me to the door. I can see into the kitchen now. It's empty. The French windows are still tied shut. Across from me, the bathroom door is ajar and my bedroom door is closed, just the way I left it. So is Billy's. Then something shifts, a movement in the air, less than a sigh, and my eyes focus on the end of the hall, and the tall front door. There's someone on the other side. I can feel them. I can feel their heart beating.

‘Billy?' I whisper. But nothing moves.

I slide forward, past the half-moon table and the little chair. Past her bedroom door, until I'm not six inches from the polished mahogany panels. Until I can put my cheek against the dark glossy wood, my lips to the crack above the big brass locks.

‘Billy?' Her name is no more than a breath.

‘Billy, is that you?'

Then I realize there's something else, a smell, wafting under the door. Sliding through the cracks. Sweet and redolent and familiar, acacia hangs in the night air like half-heard music.