Urban Venus (7 page)

‘
I’ve heard things about Signore Tizzaro,’ Sophia warns. ‘Apparently he’s a huge flirt. Just be a bit careful.’

‘
Don’t worry,’ I reassure her. ‘I couldn’t be less interested in him – not my type at all. I wonder who that girl was, though. It did look like she was a bit more to him than just a student. He was painting her too.’

‘
Yeah, he does that, apparently. He has a real eye for a pretty girl who’d make a good model. He’s a fantastic artist, though. In fact he’s got an exhibition coming up at the Strozzi in a couple of weeks. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it and get you to come along,’ she explains, then adds: ‘You might see a few of your fellow female students on canvas!’

Once the rest of the group are deep in conversation about something else I venture covertly to Sophia: ‘I had this weird dream in the museum.’ Much as I want to tell someone about it I don’t want her to think I’m a little bit crazy when she’s only just met me – and has to share an apartment with me.

‘
You fell asleep – in the Uffizi!’ she howls, finding it amusing that the girl who had so avidly toured the museum with her only the day before could find the time to take a little nap with all that enthusiasm bouncing around in her head. ‘How did you manage that?’

I explain to Sophia that it wasn’t the first time it had happened. ‘I had these strange dreams; I wasn’t me, I was someone else and there was this man I was in love with. I think it was the same man in both dreams. It’s all a bit vague, but I think I really loved him, whoever he was. He kept looking at me with these big, puppy-dog eyes. He had this goatee beard on his chin, I seem to remember, a pointy little thing, and his clothes were odd, it definitely wasn’t twenty-first century gear he was wearing. And there was a carriage and horses, I remember that now, too. He was taking me somewhere. Where to and where from I have no idea.’

‘
Well you seem to have remembered quite a bit of it,’ Sophia replies. ‘Do you do this a lot – fall asleep in strange places that aren’t your bed? That could get you into all sorts of trouble, you know!’

‘
Can’t say I do. Think it’s the first time it’s happened actually,’ I explain. ‘I do dream a lot, and I remember quite a bit of my dreams usually, too. But I don’t normally fall asleep in places like that. It’s all a bit odd. Maybe it’s just my body’s way of catching up on the tiredness of the weekend. And looking at all those paintings.’ I try to shrug it off with a smile and make light of it, but I desperately want some more details of the dreams to come back to me, so that I can attempt to make sense of them a bit more.

One of the other girls in the group that I haven’t met before is Francesca, a petite little doll-like thing with huge eyes and a mane of dark, wavy hair down to her waist. I’d noticed her go a bit quiet and awkward and look away from the group when I was talking about Vincenzo earlier. I really want to find out what it is that she knows, so I seize my moment when there’s a lull in the conversation between her and the other girl I’ve not met before, Alessandra, to the other side of her. I feel a bit odd prying into someone’s private life when I hardly know them, and I surprise myself too at my sudden interest in Vincenzo; after all he hadn’t exactly made the greatest of first impressions on me earlier.

‘
What are you studying Francesca?’ I ask. ‘Are you an Art student too? Only you seemed to know Signore Tizzaro when I was talking about him earlier.’

‘
Er… yeah…. no, well, no, I’m not doing Art, I’m studying Classics actually. But….um…. a friend of mine used to know Vincenzo, really well. She had a bit of a thing with him for a while, but he dumped her as soon as the next pretty girl came along. He’s a bit like that. Really do be careful, won’t you?’

‘
How does he get away with it?’ I ask. ‘Back home, lecturers who get into relationships with students can get into all sorts of trouble. It goes on, of course it does, but it’s not quite as out in the open as it seems to be here.’ I’ve barely known this guy five minutes and already I’ve managed to form an opinion of him as the biggest womaniser going.

Francesca gazes off into space and doesn’t go into any more detail, and I don’t push it, but I can’t help thinking that this ‘friend’ of hers is actually her, which is why she doesn’t want to expand on it further. He clearly hurt her, judging by her expression when she heard his name just now, so who can blame her. All she sees is history repeating itself and yet another girl going through what she went through.

But why should I care? I’m not going to be making the mistakes these girls have made. My head isn’t as easily turned by a bit of flattery and the offer to make me his next model and muse. I just want a tutor I can learn something from; any unwanted advances coming my way will be instantly rejected. For some reason he fascinates me though; must be that sheer blatant way he has of going about, taking what he wants and discarding it when he’s finished. Everyone loves a rogue, don’t they? Well, I don’t, that’s for sure. Not any more; I’m all done with rogues.

We leave the café at around eight, and stroll back through the well-lit streets towards the apartment. Florence is so atmospheric by night; I think I almost prefer it once darkness has fallen. It obscures the graffiti and the other imperfections that adorn the city in places where they really shouldn’t be, on walls and archways, even on the huge monuments and churches, and the more subtle light seems to enhance the historic feel of the place, take us back to when it was in its prime. We pass by the majestically up-lit Duomo and the smaller but by no means insignificant Baptistry, whose gilded doors glint with an almost artificial brilliance under the spotlights.

I pause to glance in the window of a tourist-type shop selling postcards and prints of the city’s great artwork. Amongst Botticellis and Giottos of all sizes I spot a small
Venus of Urbino
towards the back of the display, almost obscured by the other pictures. But to me it is as though she has her own personal spotlight, seizing my attention and rooting me to the spot.

The sudden jolt of seeing her hits me with a lightning bolt of memories from one of the dreams I had in the museum. Someone is painting me; I am nearly naked, reclining on a huge sofa or lounger of some sort. The man in the dream is pacing the room, angry about something, and I am doing my best to calm him down. Eventually he gives in and comes to me, and I have an immense feeling of love, sensuous touch and of being held in a way which makes me feel more cherished than anything on earth. Who is this man, and for that matter who is the woman – the one that I ‘become’ in these dreams? Maybe I have just been looking at too many renaissance paintings, too many reclining nudes, and my subconscious brain keeps trying to transport me back to those times?

Sophia calls to me from the corner of the street, shaking me out of my daydreams. ‘Where did you go to?’ she asks. ‘I’ve been calling you for ages, you seemed to go into some sort of trance, it was a bit weird.’

‘
Oh, it was nothing, I think I was just remembering something from one of those dreams,’ I reply, trying to pass it off as unimportant. She really is going to think I’m a weirdo if I keep doing this, so I decide to keep to myself the memories of what came back to me, quickly changing the subject as I run to catch up with her and the others, who have just disappeared around the next corner. Looks like everyone is piling back to ours, and I am glad of that as the last thing I fancy is a night in on my own. These dreams and the memories of them are starting to give me the creeps a bit and I need a good distraction.

I can’t recall having had recurrent dreams before, although these two weren’t exactly what you could call recurrent; they were more like separate instalments of some bigger story, I think, like there’s some crazy soap opera playing itself out in my head. All I know is that the man and the woman – me – are basically the same in both, but I don’t know why and I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what the ‘me’ in the dreams looks like, although I am quite convinced that she isn’t Lydia Irvine, twenty-first century gal.

That’s enough for now; I don’t really want to have to expend any more thought power on it, it’s wearing me out. What I need is a lively night in with lots of friends.

And that was exactly what I got. Stefano, Lanzo, Dante, and my newly acquired friends Alessandra and Francesca didn’t actually leave until some time well after two o’clock. They were all great company, but they left
so late
, and as they have all been so nice to me, I would have felt rude sneaking off to my bed halfway through the evening. Spot the would-be English party-pooper.

Oh God, my head. I know I’m a student and therefore should be used to the whole stay-up-late, get-up-late scenario, but my body clock just doesn’t work like that, and never has done. I was always one of the real girly swots who actually made it to nine o’clock lectures instead of languishing in bed for another two hours, and not because I’d set an alarm clock the size of Big Ben for some unearthly hour to wake me up, but just because I seem to be made that way. And come the evening, when the bell for last orders rang that was pretty much me done too. Nights later than that tend to send me into a downward spiral of tiredness and absent-mindedness.

Still, I haven’t got to go in until my tutorial with Vincenzo at twelve today, so maybe I could try going back to bed and see if I can catch up on a couple of hours…. Worth a try, but somehow I doubt I will be able to. I like to sleep at sensible, grown-up hours, when it’s dark outside mainly, although given my recent propensity for dropping off in the museum, maybe all that is about to change, and it could be argued that I take my rest anywhere and everywhere. Perhaps I should avoid the gallery for a while; those dreams and my attempts at interpreting them are starting to give me the creeps.

Time to resort to headache pills
, I think, as I pull myself out of bed and head to the kitchen in search of water.

‘
Ah, la bella Signorina Earveenay, come stai
?’ Vincenzo greets me as I enter his office for the first of my formal tutorials, shaking my hand fervently with both of his. Which I suppose is better than him coming at me with that double-cheek-kissing thing like everyone seems to do here. I say ‘formal tutorial’ as he’d texted me earlier to see if I’d rather meet him in a café or bar, instead of at the faculty building, to which I’d promptly replied that I’d rather come to him this time, as I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the books on his shelf. So we find ourselves in the confines of his pretty palatial office, and my excuse for meeting him on neutral territory seems to have been accepted without too much fuss. I don’t for one minute think he was hoping to ply me with alcohol and seduce me into being his next model, but given all I’ve heard about him in such a short space of time, I think I would rather be here.

Our tutorials are supposed to be formal, anyway, so I don’t feel too bad about shunning his plans for something a little more relaxed. I am under strict instruction from Newcastle to document all my tutorials and lectures as part of my coursework, which will then count as a very miniscule part of my pass mark for this year. I think it’s just their way of feeling that the cost of me being out here for a year is justified, and also it gives them some proof that I am actually turning up to things and learning from it all. Fair enough, I suppose.

There’s definitely something about being in the right environment to learn, and even if Vincenzo and I had the most in-depth conversation in a bar, somehow it just wouldn’t feel quite as academic as spending our allotted hour here, amidst all his great tomes and academic material. Less temptation to make small-talk, and more focus on the work. I wonder how long it will be before he thrusts one of his own volumes in my face, for me to take away and digest?

But instead of foisting his books on me, towards the end of the tutorial, Vincenzo hands me a stiff, white envelope from a pile on the corner of his desk and says excitedly, ‘Open it now.’ By the look on his face I suspect it is an invitation to his exhibition, which the girls were talking about yesterday. He sits in silent anticipation, hands folded in his lap like a small child who has presented a lovingly home-made Christmas present to its mother and is waiting for her face to light up with delight. He is clearly feeling very pleased with himself at the prospect of a showing at one of the finer art institutions in the city, and rightly so, really.

‘
You’re having an exhibition!’ I exclaim, feigning surprise. Can’t have him thinking I already knew about it, as that might imply that I’d been discussing him with someone else and I don’t want to oil his ego too much.

‘
So, you will come?’ he asks, clasping his hands together. I prolong his agony by pulling a pensive face and producing my phone from by bag, scrolling through the calendar to find the right dates, and then finally saying:

‘
Oh, yes, I can come. I seem to have a free day on the Thursday.’ As if I wouldn’t have gone, but I don’t want him thinking that his exhibition is so important that I would clear the decks to be there, regardless of any other commitments I might have. Actually, I can’t wait to see his work; the little bits of it I’ve seen around his office are very promising. He has a strong, individual style, quite unique really, and despite the female-students-as-model dramas I’ve heard about, I am expecting to be very impressed. I need to give the guy a chance.

The crowds line the streets ten deep. I stand at the open window and gaze down from my privileged position to the masses below, whose gentle chant of ‘Il Papa, il Papa’ grows stronger as the Papal procession nears the piazza, and his ardent followers glimpse for the first time his lavish procession. How fortunate we are to have a visit from our Holy Father; he honours us humble Bolognese so greatly with his presence.