Angels of the Flood (16 page)

‘I’m well. And you?’

‘Very well, thank you. You would like some coffee? A drink?’

What Kate really felt like was a cup of hot chocolate, but she said airily, ‘A Campari soda, please.’ She loved ordering Campari, a drink she’d never encountered in England and which had become fused in her imagination with Florence. Mario came back with her Campari soda and a cup of hot chocolate for himself. He looked as though he wanted to say something more, some compliment, perhaps, some natural consequence of the surprised admiration she’d seen in his face ever since she stepped into the cafe, but then he frowned and said, ‘It is kind for you make time see me.’

‘Oh no, I like to… I mean, for Francesca.’

‘You think there is problem?’

‘That all depends. Sometimes she acts a bit strangely. I thought I might be able to be more help if I had a better idea of the background, what exactly it is you’re worried about.’

‘I understand. She—hm—is acting strangely how?’

Kate hesitated. She had thought of telling him about the night she and David had found her on the bridge, but was afraid that might worry him too much. And Francesca had changed a lot since that meeting. ‘Well, for instance, the other night she set fire to some money.’ Mario’s eyes widened in surprise. Kate leaned forward, feeling the stretch of her breasts against the cotton shirt. Mario glanced down rapidly, then wrenched his gaze back to her face. She said, ‘Quite a lot of money, actually.’

‘She fires money? Why?’

‘She was overreacting. A friend had taken us all out to dinner and then at the end she didn’t have enough money to pay. Francesca offered to pay the lot but Jenny didn’t want her to. So Francesca burned the money. It was pretty dramatic.’

Mario didn’t respond right away. Kate was aware she’d given the impression the incident had taken place since their last meeting, not before it.

She said, ‘You see, if I had a better idea what exactly you were worried about—you know, what sort of fragile she is—then I’d know what to look out for.’

‘She burns money one time?’

‘I’ve only seen her do it once.’

Mario sighed. ‘Is not so good.’ He thought for a bit, before saying, ‘Her family it is—hm—complicated. Once or twice in the past there have been—hm—episodes.’

‘Episodes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like burning money?’

He shook his head. ‘More serious.’

‘Like what?’

‘Is not possible to say now. But if she burn money then it is not—hm—good sign. Francesca have always the problem with money.’

‘Me too,’ said Kate, who was getting tired of talking about Francesca. ‘Never enough of the stuff where I come from.’

He smiled. ‘Francesca likes to live in a world of—hm—dreams, where money it have no importance. Sometimes she is like a child. A spoil child.’

Kate looked deep into his eyes and sighed, as though she too had been saddened and perplexed by Francesca’s lack of worldly sagacity. She said, ‘I wonder if Francesca knows how lucky she is to have a friend who worries about her like you do.’

His cheeks were faintly tinged with pink, as though he was blushing. Kate was filled with a sense of her own power. She guessed that Mario was a young man who had been serious for too long and had missed out on the kind of irresponsible fun that she and the other volunteers took for granted. Even though he must be at least ten years older than her, she felt in some ways more sophisticated than he was.

She said, ‘It must be wonderful to be a doctor. I mean, lots of work, I’m sure, but brilliant to know you’re helping people. Even saving their lives.’

‘Sometimes, yes, it is good. But so often there is nothing we can do. Or we are too late. Yesterday I saw a girl from a poor family. She was only fourteen, like a beautiful child, but she was pregnant. She use a stick—hm…’ He paused and made crisscross gestures with his hands.

‘A knitting needle?’

‘Yes, exactly. A knitting needle—and when she arrive to
ospedale
is too late. So many times it is the—hm—ignorance that kill. Is very tragic.’

‘That’s so terrible.’

‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘Is not always easy to be a doctor.’

Kate was moved by his sincerity. She could imagine him moving up and down the crowded wards, a bit like an Italian Dr Kildare. He’d give an encouraging word here, a sympathetic hand on the brow there, sometimes just suffering shared in silence. Throwing talcum powder at walls, even walls as venerable and steeped in culture and history as the walls of the Baptistery, seemed hopelessly trivial by comparison.

She said fiercely, ‘I want to do something useful with my life too.’ The thought had only just occurred to her, but as soon as the words were out, she knew they were true.

Mario looked surprised. ‘You?’ he said.

‘Yes. I don’t think I want to be a doctor. I wouldn’t want to be surrounded by all that ugliness and suffering. I like having beautiful things around me.’ Mario was smiling. Kate warmed to her theme. ‘I love the work I’m doing here. Not just throwing powder at the walls, but working with beautiful objects. I love restoring them to how they once looked. It’s like a kind of healing too, you know. I’d love to work in conservation or galleries or something like that.’

‘That is—hm—fine ambition. And you will get it, I am sure. You are—hm—very strong person. I think you will always get what you want.’

‘You do?’ Kate sat back in her chair. No one had ever expressed such confidence in her before. She felt winded by the possibilities opening up in front of her.

F
LORENCE WAS GETTING TIDIER
. As the raw winter cold gave way to softer days, signs of recovery were appearing like the first green shoots of spring. In the city’s historic centre most of the main streets were cleared of muck and rubble, a few shops had reopened for business, everywhere cement mixers churned and desperate repairs were made—desperate because the city was depending for its financial recovery on income from tourists at Easter.

As the city grew more civilized, most of the volunteers were headed in the opposite direction. By the beginning of February, they had turned into a semi-feral band, at least by Florentine standards. Weeks of living and working in close proximity had forged strong bonds between them and all outsiders were regarded with scorn. Even Hugo at the consulate had long hair now. Scruffy and bedraggled, they strode around Florence as if they owned it, and, for those few weeks, they almost felt as though they did.

Florentines were less quick to call them ‘angels’ these days. They were getting a reputation for immorality and loose living which did not endear them to the locals—the sexual revolution had not penetrated very deeply into Italy by then. Sometimes people shouted
‘Capelloni!’
at them in the street—which they knew meant beatnik—and once, when Kate and David were tramping away from the Uffizi for their lunch break an old woman hissed
‘Disgrazia!’
at them.

They were quite proud at being called disgraceful. Despite their louche appearance, their wildness was more talk than action. There were occasional rumours about the elfin-faced Anna who had a tendency to vanish for ten minutes or quarter of an hour at restaurants where a good-looking waiter had caught her eye. And it looked as if it would only be a matter of time before Aiden and Jenny got together, though she spent hours listening to Larry when he held forth on Nietzsche. She had told Kate she was in love with Larry’s brain but was sexually attracted to Aiden, a state of affairs that left both men fighting for her sole attention. Like most of the girls in the group Kate had spent some time fumbling with Aiden under his black cloak, but though he claimed to have used it once as a cover for intercourse on the top deck of a 73 bus, no one admitted to having gone the whole way with him in Florence.

So far as David was concerned, the volunteers weren’t wild enough. His sexual experience to date had been limited to a one-night stand when he was seventeen with a girl who worked in their local chip shop and a brief affair the previous summer with Sarah Pringle, who’d been his sister Susan’s greatest rival in their Pony Club days. Sarah was sporting about sex, as she was about most things, but he always found her hearty enjoyment a bit dispiriting. For one thing, he’d never been able to discover what she got out of it. She grinned and made helpful noises and afterwards said it had been fab, but he’d imagined real passion would add up to more than that.

Aiden, who remained the self-appointed expert in all things sexual, turned out to have a surprisingly romantic view of the whole business. One evening in the cantina after a good deal of red wine, he’d reflected sadly that he’d had sex too often and made love too seldom. David thought perhaps that was the problem with Sarah Pringle. They’d been having sex, not making love. In that case, he was keen to progress to the next stage: making love. Until a couple of weeks ago, that would have meant Kate. But now he wasn’t so sure. He was still in love with Kate, obviously, but he seemed to have fallen in love with Francesca as well. Partly this was because Francesca was being very friendly towards him these days, whereas Kate appeared to have cooled, but partly it was because Francesca was beautiful and mysterious and never talked about herself. No one even knew if she was still a virgin. Or even how old she was. Dido said she was twenty-two, which made it unlikely that she was still a virgin, but you couldn’t be sure.

When not talking about sex with the others, David spent most of his time thinking about it.

He was thinking about it on the bright Saturday morning when about ten of them clambered on the bus to Viareggio. The previous afternoon had been one of those miraculous Fridays when the man who paid them was actually to be found in his office at the Uffizi, and handed them each a wad of ochre-coloured banknotes. There followed a long session in a nearby bar where everybody put aside what was owed to landladies and bars, then handed money round to everybody else—to and from Hugo most of all—until all the complicated debts were settled. To their amazement there was enough left over for a day trip to the sea.

As soon as they tumbled off the bus at Viareggio, the pungent breeze off the Adriatic brought home just how polluted the Florentine air was that they’d been breathing all this time. They went down on the beach and ran in circles, then took off their shoes and socks, rolled up their trousers and paddled. The water was so cold their feet and ankles were numb within minutes. David was fascinated by the sight of Francesca’s long, pale feet as the icy water rippled over them. He ran up behind her and pushed her, making her lose her balance. She shrieked and fell backwards into his arms—which had been his intention. She lay in his arms, smiling up at him with those incredible long eyes and, without thinking about it at all, he leaned forward and kissed her. The smile vanished from her face, but apart from that she didn’t respond at all, and remained quite still in the crook of his arm. Her eyes were wide, their expression unreadable.

‘Atta boy, David,’ said Ross, who was standing not far away and trying to skip stones.

Kate was watching from a little distance. She looked surprised.

Suddenly David felt uncomfortable. He stood Francesca back up and said with an awkward grin, ‘We should try that again some time.’ She looked at him intently for a moment, but said nothing, only turned and began walking up the beach, kicking up the sand with her bare toes. Kate, with a single backward glance at David, followed slowly.

Ross skipped another stone. ‘So, what’s it like kissing the virgin goddess?’ he asked casually.

‘All right,’ said David. In fact he was feeling slightly breathless.

‘I tried it a few nights ago,’ said Ross. ‘Just the same reaction. I reckon she’s frigid.’

‘Maybe she just doesn’t fancy us.’

‘Then why doesn’t she say so, like any ordinary girl? Instead of going all passive and giving you the big freeze. Nah—’ Ross tossed another stone into the sea and this time it managed three skips before hitting a wave—‘definitely frigid.’

David picked up a stone and hurled it as far out to sea as he could. Then another, larger stone. It didn’t go so far, but smashed into the waves. He felt savage. He wondered if it was possible for this degree of sexual frustration to make you seriously ill, or mad, or just raging out of control.

The girls went off and came back with bread and cheese and salami, and a paper bag full of wizened yellow apples that tasted delicious. They sat in the cold sun at the top of the beach and washed the meal down with bottles of wine. Francesca was sitting across the circle from David, while Kate, to his surprise, was sitting next to him. She fed him small pieces of salami and swigged red wine. Her cheeks were flushed from sun and wine and David forgot about Francesca. Kate had been his first choice all along.

Later, as their shadows lengthened across the sand, Jenny listened to Larry with admiration as he leaned back on his elbows and declaimed Keats and Auden. When he came to a temporary halt, Aiden, who had been watching with a hangdog look through his curtain of yellow hair, took his guitar and sang a couple of songs, ‘Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out’ and ‘I Am a Man of Constant Sorrows’. By now everyone knew most of Aiden’s songs by heart, especially those two, and either sang along or continued talking—even Larry and Jenny. When he’d finished, Aiden was looking less loved and more constantly sorrowful than ever. Larry, ignoring him completely, was reciting a poem about hymens and gasometers which he turned out to have written himself. Jenny said it was so beautiful it should form the basis for a short modern ballet: a choreographer friend of hers would love it. Aiden suggested without much hope that he might write the music.

The sun was sinking towards the horizon, but no one wanted to finish the day just yet. It got colder and their circle drew close round the empty bottles and the remains of the picnic. Kate and David sat a little apart from the others. He touched the fine hair at the top of her neck and she inclined her head towards his. He was so full of desire, he knew this must be real love. He bowed his head slightly and murmured, ‘Kate, I love you,’ to the woolly neck of her sweater.