Angels of the Flood (28 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate, smiling angelically, since she figured this was another male member of Francesca’s family likely to be susceptible to young women, ‘but I’ve only brought jeans with me.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Signor Bertoni, ‘either my wife or Simona would be happy to lend you what is necessary. You must all be about the same size.’

The idea of borrowing clothes from Francesca’s mother was distinctly alarming, and Kate would rather dress in brown-paper bags than the kind of clothes Simona was wearing. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Pappa,’ exclaimed Francesca. ‘You can’t make us look like frumps.’

‘What is a frump?’

‘An old woman who wears horrible clothes.’

‘Neither of you would ever look a frump,’ he said charmingly. ‘Can’t you just do this small thing for me, ’Cesca? It will mean so much to your mother—’

‘No—’ Francesca began.

But Simona burst out, ‘Please ’Cesca, just this once. I can’t bear it when everyone is arguing all the time. You know how Mamma will go on, it’ll spoil the whole evening if you stay in those dirty trousers. Why do you have to upset her on purpose? It’s just clothes, for goodness’ sake. It doesn’t really matter what you wear, that’s what you’ve always told me.’

‘Yes, but…’ Francesca’s arguments died away. It seemed she was a match for any amount of opposition from her parents, but found it impossible to resist an appeal from Simona.

All three retreated to the bedroom Simona and Francesca were sharing and went through the clothes she had brought with her. Kate couldn’t see what Francesca had made such a fuss about. As far as she was concerned, Simona’s clothes might just as well have come out of a dressing-up box, they were so far removed from anything she’d normally wear. Simona was more than happy to treat the whole business as a joke. Kate was particularly taken with a bottle-green dress with tucks across the bosom which tied at the back. ‘It’s a
frock!’
she exclaimed in delight. ‘I haven’t worn a
frock
since I was nine!’

Simona giggled. ‘Mamma made me buy it last winter. It makes me feel like a cabbage!’

‘And look like one, too,’ said Francesca. ‘Poor Simi, why don’t you try on some of our clothes? Then you can see what it feels like to be a mud angel.’

‘Don’t you mind?’ asked Simona shyly, but it was obvious she was longing to put on the forbidden garments. Kate and Francesca dug out their shabbiest things.

‘Look, here’s a shirt I got off Aiden,’ said Francesca. ‘It still smells of him—ugh!’

Kate laughed, remembering the fastidious girl with the patent-leather handbag and shoes they’d first seen on the bridge over the Arno.

‘And here’s some really cheesy jeans,’ she said. ‘They haven’t been washed in a month.’

Simona was scandalized, and enjoying every moment. ‘The nuns tell us it’s a sin to wear trousers that do up at the front,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘In fact they’re not really very keen on trousers at all.’

‘Quite right too,’ said Francesca. ‘All that chafing will give you bad thoughts. Go on, put them on—you won’t go straight to hell, you know.’

Kate and Simona paraded up and down in front of the mirror, Kate in the green dress. ‘Hello, cabbage,’ giggled Simona.

Kate said, ‘My, what very
front-opening jeans
you’re wearing. They look very sexy on you!’

In the end, no one wore the cabbage dress. Simona had brought two twinsets with her as well as the one she was wearing, so they all wore sensible A-line skirts with twinsets. Kate’s was green and Francesca’s was pale blue.

‘Now we’re all dressed the same,’ said Kate, ‘we look like a backing group. What shall we call ourselves? The singing cabbages? Twinset and pearls?’

She was acting up to Simona, who gave the impression she’d never met anyone so sophisticated and amusing. Basking in the unexpected hero-worship, it was some time before she realized that Francesca did not seem to find their clothes funny at all. Far from it. As soon as she was clad in the pale blue twinset and the brown A-line skirt, she fell silent and seemed to shrink.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Kate asked as they were walking up to La Rocca. ‘It’s only for one evening.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Francesca.

‘Of course I don’t if you won’t explain.’

‘I can’t.’ Francesca spoke in a small voice, like a child’s. ‘I just cant.’

‘Well, at least your
zio
will approve,’ said Kate as they approached the house.

‘That only makes it worse.’

‘Honestly, Francesca, you do make heavy weather of them all.’ She caught sight of Zio Toni standing by the window and watching out for them and she flashed him a smile. ‘I mean, I know your mother’s a bit of a battleaxe, but your family aren’t that bad. Simona’s all right when she’s not dressed like a cabbage, and your father’s perfectly nice, and as for your uncle, I think he’s a dear old man.’

Francesca didn’t respond, only stared at Kate with misery in her eyes.

A
LONE IN HIS ROOM
, Umberto Bertoni doubled over in pain, the worst he’d ever known. There had always been pain in his life, from his step-father’s brutality and the first beatings given by the good fathers to drive out the sin from the priest’s unwanted bastard, to the arthritis that had blighted the last decade—but never pain like this. Pain like a white-hot blade scything through his guts, like vermin tearing him to pieces from within, like a foretaste of the torments of hell that lay in wait for him, soon, so very soon. But this agony would pass. He knew it would. Sweat pouring from his face as he rode the waves of pain, he waited for it to ease. No morphine, not yet. There was still work to be done before the night’s forgetting.

With tormenting slowness, the pain released its grip. As soon as it was possible, he forced himself to breathe normally, wiped his face with a lawn handkerchief, waited for the trembling to die down.

Even the worst agony passes in the end; he’d learned that much in a life dominated one way and another by pain. But terror? Ah, terror’s a different matter entirely. Terror never goes. On the contrary, with each day that passed, his terror grew.

He was dying. No need of doctors to confirm what his body told him hour by hour. It was not death he feared. If death was simply a matter of shucking off a rotten body that had become both prison and skilled torturer, then he would have welcomed it with open arms and laughing. It was the prospect of what came after death that turned his bowels to water: all those images from childhood that he’d never quite shaken off, those hungry fires and the everlasting torment of the damned.

He’d spent his life in defiance of God. He’d grown rich and powerful to prove to his early keepers that he was stronger and cleverer than they ever imagined, and he’d never missed a chance to spit in the face of the Almighty. He hated God with a passion, but he’d never ceased to believe in Him. Right now, he’d forfeit everything he’d ever owned to know that the journey into death would be no more than a light going out: darkness and nothingness for ever. But he wasn’t going to get off so easily.

There was sure to be some special punishment waiting for him. But why him? Was he truly so much more evil than others? Wasn’t everyone capable of terrible deeds if temptation came their way? God knows—and God did know, he was sure of it—he’d watched enough people turn from innocence to corruption and on each occasion he’d revelled in the change. Watching others fall from grace was the best way he knew to keep the terror at bay.

And now the terror was back, worse than ever. Well, if he was wicked beyond redemption, then it was only because he was human. Others were just as bad. He could prove it easily.

The lawn handkerchief was a sodden ball in his hand and he threw it down in disgust and rang the silver handbell that stood on the table next to his chair. A young man with a broad, smiling face came in at once.

‘Brandy, Dino.’

The young man poured him a glass and set it in his hand. He drank it down quickly, and let out a sigh of relief.

‘Now, tidy me.’

Without a word the young man wiped his face with a scented towel, combed back his hair and straightened his clothes. He stooped to pick up the crumpled handkerchief and straightened a pot of white jasmine, then stood, waiting for further orders.

‘Fetch the ivory box.’

Surprised, but always obedient, Dino went to a low table at the side of the room and picked up an elaborately carved box, about the size of a book, and set it under the single lamp on the table beside the old man.

‘I’m cold.’

His servant crossed the room and closed the window, fetched a cashmere shawl from the ottoman and laid it across his shoulders. Then he held up a hand mirror for inspection.

Umberto Bertoni nodded. He was ready. ‘Tell her to come in.’

A few seconds after Dino left the room, the door opened once again and Annette walked in. She was wearing a sheath dress of shimmering blue silk, her hair swept back in a chignon, diamonds on her ears and throat. A fine-looking woman, he’d always thought, and far too good for that useless nephew of his. Tense, though. Strung out like a thin wire, ready to snap. Well, he’d find out soon enough.

‘Zio Toni, how are you?’ She addressed him in Italian. ‘Is there anything I can do? You look tired.’

He gestured for her to sit down. ‘Dear Annette, you’re more beautiful than ever this evening.’

‘Thank you.’ She touched her earrings with a nervous gesture as she took her seat on an upright chair and crossed her legs. Diamonds. He wondered where they’d come from: a grateful admirer, probably. There’d been several of those, he knew.

‘I hope you have everything you want at Beatrice,’ he said.

‘Yes. Angelica is very good.’

‘Excellent. And the girls are well?’

‘Yes, thank you, but I fear that Francesca’s friend is a bad influence.’

‘I rather agree.’ He was silent for a moment, thinking. The English girl had shown no fear when she smiled at him and he didn’t like that. There’d even been pity in her gaze and he liked that even less. ‘I think he’s a dear old man.’ Her words had floated up to his open window on the evening air.
A dear old man.
That was unforgivable. Never in his life before had a good-looking young woman treated him with such contempt, like a doddering old fool, a nobody. He said slowly, ‘Maybe you should find a way to get rid of her.’

‘God knows, Zio Toni, I’ve tried. Luckily she has to go back to Florence tomorrow. Before she goes I intend to break the hold she has over Francesca.’

‘How?’

‘I have one or two ideas, but haven’t yet decided.’

‘Maybe it won’t be necessary.’ She started to speak, but he interrupted her, ‘Enough. I have something to show you, Annette.’

‘Yes?’ Always so eager to please.

‘In this box. Here.’ He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small key suspended on silk thread.

Her fingertips were caressing the carved lid of the box.
‘Zio,
it’s exquisite,’ she breathed. ‘You always have such beautiful things.’

He smiled. The fool. Had she even bothered to look at what the carvings depicted? ‘Thank you, my dear. Now, unlock it for me. I want you to see what’s inside.’

Still smiling, like a child with a Christmas present, Annette fitted the key in the lock and turned it. She pushed back the lid. Inside there was something wrapped in a scrap of faded silk. She raised her eyes questioningly and he nodded at her to go on. She lifted the silk out and let it fall back over her hand, revealing half a dozen small photographs; two or three were old, sepia and curled, the most recent was a faded polaroid. She smiled nervously before laying them out in a fan on the little table that stood between their chairs. And still she smiled, prepared to be delighted by whatever she saw.

Gradually, as she absorbed the contents of the photographs, her smile died away. Disbelief, horror, revulsion… it was gratifying for him to observe the emotions that passed over her face.

She pulled back her hand as though there was acid on the silk. ‘Where did you get hold of them?’ she asked. She was fighting the urge to retch. ‘They’re disgusting!’

‘Why, Annette, I might not be much of a photographer, but all the same…’

‘You mean…
you
took them?’

‘I did.’ His smile hinted at a modest pride in his achievement.

‘But… who are they?’

‘You want their names? That recent one was a youth called Guido, the girl was Beata, but those early boys and girls… it was wartime. If I ever knew their names, I’ve forgotten them now.’

‘But…’ Rapidly she glanced at the photographs and just as quickly looked away again. Her breathing was light and shallow. ‘Why—why do you keep photographs of
corpses?’

‘Souvenirs,’ he said softly. ‘My rogues’ gallery. The road to success. And its fruits. Each one tells a story. Do you want to hear them?’

‘No.’ She was looking at the floor, unable to meet his eyes any more. There were more questions, but he knew she would never dare to ask them.

‘Take another look at the one on the left,’ he told her gently, and saw her eyes flicker towards it, nervous as a snake. ‘I took it at Villa Beatrice, in the
camerino.
That’s where he died. We closed the door and he couldn’t find the way out. Doesn’t he look peaceful? As though he’d just fallen asleep. Chloroform is such a kindly death, I’ve always thought.’

‘Why?’ she whispered.

‘The stupid boy got in my way. He stood between me and the purchase of this house,’ he told her. ‘His brothers had agreed, but without his signature we were powerless. And as you probably know, I do not like to be thwarted. There are others, but these are my favourites. Do you want to see the rest?’

‘No. Don’t show me any more. They make me sick.’

‘Strange,’ he paused, watching her closely, then said quietly, ‘That’s exactly what Francesca said.’

‘Jesus!’ Horror-stricken, Annette was on her feet at once. ‘You showed these pictures to her, too? When? When did you show her?’

‘Calm down, calm down. It was years ago. I forget the exact date, but it must have been before she went to America. I was still living at the Villa Beatrice, so it was five years ago or more. It was a wet afternoon, we were both somewhat at a loose end. I thought my little photographs might amuse her, but unfortunately her reaction was similar to yours. Perhaps stronger.’