A Florentine Revenge Read online

  A mother and daughter came through the door, breathless with excitement, English – very English – with padded jackets and ugly shoes. Well made, but very ugly. ‘We’re looking for wedding pumps,’ said the mother, in English. Luisa, whose English was rudimentary but serviceable within a narrow range of vocabulary – shoes, handbag, evening gown, cocktail dress – responded flawlessly, but it never ceased to amaze her, the presumption of the English that wherever they went, they would be understood. Others did it, French, Spanish, Germans not so much, but the English were something else. She didn’t hold it against them, not today, anyway.

  ‘And perhaps something for my mother,’ said the daughter shyly. ‘A suit, or a dress. For my wedding.’

  ‘Come this way,’ said Luisa, and she turned to guide them upstairs. With every step she concentrated on the soothing thought that up there among the rows of pale sweaters, the rails of suits and dresses, heavy satin and wool crêpe, she knew exactly where she was, and there she would be able to find this woman and her daughter everything they needed.

  9

  To get from the Regale to San Miniato was a walk, at a leisurely pace, of perhaps forty minutes. The morning was perfect, crisp and clear, and at this time of year the city was not too crowded. From March to November the streets, to the north of the river at least, were threaded through with tour parties following their guides patiently from the Ponte Vecchio to the Duomo, across to Santa Croce, back to the Medici Chapel, and Celia found it hard to see where the pleasure might be found in the walk. Today, though, as Celia, flanked by Lucas and Emma Marsh, traced a meandering route through the cold, narrow streets, they were almost empty. Overhead a pale sun illuminated the frosty blue of the sky, and in the calm it seemed to Celia as though the city was revealing itself to them alone.

  ‘You don’t want to go to the Accadèmia?’ she said as they passed the copy of the David outside the great rusticated facade of the Palazzo Vecchio, mildly curious that Lucas Marsh hadn’t specified such a visit. Almost everyone did. ‘To see the restored original? There’s been a lot of fuss over it.’

  Emma Marsh, muffled up in a heavy tweed coat that matched her skirt, her cheeks pink with cold above it, wrinkled her nose. ‘Not really,’ she said, glancing over at her husband like a recalcitrant child. ‘Not too much culture. Not too much indoors.’ Although they were roughly the same age, Celia marvelled at how like a child Emma Marsh seemed; was it marriage to a powerful man that did it? It might have been irritating, but it was not; all the same, Celia found herself puzzling over Emma Marsh – could she really be as guileless and open as she seemed? Lucas Marsh, wearing a long, dark wool overcoat, stood with his hands in his pockets and looked back at his wife with a hint of a smile.

  ‘Certainly not,’ he said gravely. ‘We have to get the balance right, don’t we? It’s your birthday, after all.’

  They walked on through the long arcaded space of the Uffizi and beside the river. Emma Marsh chattered animatedly, pointing out a crane perched on a branch in the green water, asking about the terraced formal gardens of the Palazzo Bardini that came into view, tumbling down the hill on the south side of the river. Lucas Marsh said almost nothing, only occasionally responding when Emma took hold of his arm to point something out – a piece of stone carving, snow on the mountains to the west, the golden gleam of San Miniato’s facade in the morning sun – but he did appear to be listening intently.

  Although in Celia’s experience of guiding couples the women were generally more communicative than the men, it was not always this way; quite often the men were insistent on getting their money’s worth from her, and had a particular approach, an interest in acquiring facts rather than stories. Lucas Marsh’s silent attention was, in Celia’s eyes, to his credit; she began to like him in earnest as he walked beside her, hands in pockets. As they emerged from the Uffizi on to the river he also appeared to be taking notice of everything around him, and not only the palaces and views but the banks of the river below, the rowing club, the fishermen hunched over their rods, the passers-by. There was a kind of perpetual tension about him, an alertness, that drew Celia back to him even as she responded to Emma’s questioning.

  The embankment was busy with traffic; the three of them crossed to the arcaded pavement where arches supported the Vasari corridor. Celia had come this way because she wanted to show them the corridor stretching across the river, the private passage of the Medici that led from their apartments in the Pitti Palace to the seat of government in the Palazzo Vecchio, but even as she launched into her description she felt it might have been a mistake. The embankment was packed, under the arches the souvenir stalls and pavement artists narrowed the pavement even further, and they found themselves jostled by precisely the throng that the corridor over their heads had been built to avoid.

  Celia was about to point this irony out to Lucas Marsh, but when she turned to look over her shoulder at him she was brought up short by his expression. She followed his gaze to see what he was looking at; a pair of dark-skinned men, walking shoulder to shoulder through the crowds towards them. Eastern Europeans, thought Celia automatically, falling into an old city habit, assessing provenance and nationality in the streets packed with tourists from everywhere, and after having her pocket picked she was on her guard. The men were bearing down towards them through the crowd; it looked as though they must separate to avoid knocking someone over, but as Celia watched they forged past her, forcing a path between Lucas and Emma Marsh, splitting them apart. Celia caught a whiff of something strong as they passed, sweat and petrol; she saw their raw, red hands, ungloved in the cold. Emma gave a little startled gasp, half a laugh, and Celia saw Marsh’s head whip round, following the men; they didn’t look back and almost as suddenly as he had turned after them Marsh was back at his wife’s side, his hand on her elbow.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, breathless, no trace of his smiling easiness left. He was, Celia thought, even paler above the dark overcoat than when she had first seen him, and rigid with tension.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Emma, smiling, round-cheeked. ‘Fine.’ But she had paled a little too. Celia cursed herself for taking this route; she looked down the river after the men, but she could see no trace of them. Staring down the embankment, she thought of Marco’s warning.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, turning back to the Marshes, briskly apologetic to subdue her own anxiety as well as theirs, ‘we’ll be out of here soon. Up ahead the crowds all disappear.’ She nodded along the river to the east, the tower of the San Niccolò gate at the end of her road rising in the mist at the edge of the old city. Home, she thought, surprised by her affection for the sight. She side-stepped to avoid treading on cheap posters laid out on the paving stones and, taking Emma Marsh’s other arm firmly, announcing her passage with a running patter of permesso and scusate and excuse me, she carved a path through the packed bodies until they were out the other side.

  By the time they reached the Ponte Alle Grazie the crowds had evaporated, and Celia kept up her commentary – on the construction of the Ponte Vecchio, the old wall of the city and the buildings that came into view on the far side of the river – to restore equilibrium. It did happen, she told herself firmly, wealthy visitors were often taken aback by the crowds, the press of humanity. Take a different route back, that’s all. She stole a glance at Lucas Marsh; his quiet composure seemed quite restored, but as she continued to talk, describing the reconstruction of the Bardini Gardens to his wife, Celia could tell that what might be taken for calm in Lucas Marsh’s demeanour was nothing like it. In that moment on the crowded embankment when he had turned after the men something had been exposed in him, even if it was covered again now. Was it that he was dangerous, or endangered? Celia was reminded of something, of walking the humid corridors of the Reptile Room at London Zoo with her mother, looking in at what appeared to be a patterned rock only to watch it rear and strike at the glass in the space of a single panicked heartbeat.

  They crossed the river and tur
ned in to the Via San Niccolò past the great studded door of the Palazzo dei Mozzi. It was quite empty, as usual, and shadowed except for a shard of light shining down its canyoned length. The buildings were so huge and the street so narrow that there was never more light than this; Celia liked to show this particular street to visitors, for its silence and for the variety of its facades. Each one was different, some etched with sgraffito, others ornamented with gargoyles shaped like greyhounds’ heads, or mermaids, some plain and sombre and massive, and Celia began to point them out, giving some history as she did so.

  ‘Ooh.’ Emma Marsh shivered a little as they entered the gloom. ‘It’s very quiet, isn’t it?’

  ‘Lovely,’ said Lucas Marsh, and Celia turned to him, surprised. It was the first time he had volunteered a comment, and as she looked at him standing there, surveying the tall, dark buildings with appreciation, suddenly it seemed that this street was the perfect setting for him. With his ascetic look, his high forehead and long straight nose, even the dark, expensive clothes that fitted his narrow frame with luxurious precision, he might have been a ruthless nobleman in modern dress, a merchant prince, Emma his delicious trophy wife. They turned towards the gate of San Miniato, Emma exclaiming over its honey-stoned prettiness, the geraniums in the window-boxes on the Costa dei Magnoli and the olive groves that rose behind the grey stone of the city walls.

  ‘Now, I could live here,’ she said, turning impulsively to her husband. ‘These houses are so sweet! Look at their little gardens, the trees…’ Lucas Marsh nodded, but he was looking back down the street, and Celia had the impression that he preferred the dark, narrow space between the great palaces.

  They walked quickly up the last stretch, the rows of stone steps that made up the pilgrims’ path of the Monte alle Croci, across the winding viale and they were there. It was a stiff climb; some of Celia’s more sedentary clients complained bitterly about it, but Emma Marsh’s cheeks were only a little pinker than usual and Lucas Marsh seemed barely out of breath. All the same, they stood for a moment in the sun at the top of the steps and looked together, unified in silent admiration, at the red city laid out below them.

  *

  These days, Luisa knows, they tell you to cuddle the baby, give her a name, take a photograph. She can’t see how that would help. How would you ever be able to forget?

  They said there was no reason why they shouldn’t try again. No reason other than terror, of course, though they didn’t know about that. So she and Sandro went on as though nothing had happened, except that as if by silent agreement there was no trying again; there were plenty who said it might have been better if they had separated, but it had tied them inextricably together, knotted and wound about with guilt and confusion. Luisa had gone back to work.

  After six weeks she had woken one morning alone in the bed and had seen a bright spring sky through the window where Sandro had left the shutters open on his way to work. At the sight of that sliver of blue she had felt something stir, like hunger, an instinct for survival like a pale seedling working up through the soil, and she had lain very still, not wanting to disturb it. And to her astonishment as she lay there in the thin morning light Luisa found herself thinking with longing of the shop, the rows of wooden drawers with their glass fronts, the folded silk and lawn, and she had cried then. Over the thought of lace handkerchiefs. She sometimes wondered whether if she hadn’t gone back to the shop, who knew, she might eventually have left Sandro instead, or he her, but this was how things had turned out. No use crying over it now.

  At work one or two whispered to Luisa that they were sorry, but then it was quietly left unmentioned. To begin with everyone understood, then there was no one left who knew what had happened and it turned into an unnamed sadness in her past, an indefinable something. Luisa grew older, she and Sandro rubbed along; she hit forty and knew, this was it, last chance. And then at a swimming pool on the edge of town a little English girl had gone missing.

  10

  As Celia explained the facade of the church – Roman arches, Byzantine mosaic – and the legend of its founder she saw Lucas Marsh look at his watch and she faltered; was he bored already? But then his attention was back with her; marking time was a businessman’s reflex, perhaps. They went inside.

  Immediately they were swallowed up in a profound gloom. San Miniato was dark and cavernous inside; when they entered the only light seemed to be coming from votive candles and their glittering reflection in the apse, which was lined with gold mosaic. It was very cold and almost empty; up ahead in the presbytery Celia could see only one other group, a handful of people looking up. There was a click and a faltering light came on, illuminating the Christ figure gazing down from the apse; an echoing, whispered commentary began. Celia turned back.

  ‘Let’s start in the sacristy,’ she said, and again she thought she saw Lucas Marsh look at his watch. She pressed ahead. ‘This way.’

  The sacristy was a solid, square room, half-panelled and lined with frescoes depicting the life of San Benedetto, his miracles and temptations, frescoes lurid with demons and culminating in a depiction of his ascent to heaven on a kind of celestial elevator at which Emma Marsh laughed, a bright, happy sound. Her husband had his hand around her waist and Celia saw that he was stroking her hip mechanically, absently.

  By the time they returned to the body of the building the other party had gone and the church appeared to be quite empty; Celia, anxious now to complete the tour without delay, was able to lead them through the building’s architecture, the few paintings, the apse, without interruption or observation. She finished the tour in the crypt. Lying not quite underground, behind the raised altar, it was a lovely space, hidden from the rest of the church and with a mysterious, otherworldly quality The fine arches of the vaulted space were supported by delicate columns plundered from churches and mosques across the Mediterranean, each one different, and as she had expected, Emma Marsh was delighted by it.

  Wandering through the columns – fluted, twisted, pink and grey and green – Emma stroked them as she passed, something acquisitive in her touch as though she wanted to take them home with her, asking Celia about their provenance. As she answered, wondering as she did about the Marshes’ house in London, imagining it filled with Emma’s impulse buys, marble, mosaic, mahogany, Celia heard the heavy creak and bang somewhere behind them of the massive door of the church as it opened. Briefly a little pale daylight altered the gloom where they stood and then died away, the votive candles flickered in a draught that blew around their ankles and subsided. Celia turned instinctively, but of course the door was out of sight of the crypt and she couldn’t see who might have come in. As she looked around she did, however, register that Lucas Marsh had gone.

  ‘Would you like five minutes to wander around?’ she asked Emma, a sudden impulse telling her to find him, anxious about that clock-watching. Had he stalked off, bored, impatient? Emma Marsh nodded dreamily, pulling her beautiful coat around her, small feet in ballet pumps, the sensible shoes her husband had instructed her to put on for the walk. She might have been mistaken for a child.

  Celia came around the altar, and saw no one. She looked at her own watch now; it was exactly twelve-thirty, they weren’t even running late. She had booked the Marshes’ table for lunch for one and they had plenty of time to get there. Celia would drop them at the restaurant, would meet them again at the Uffizi at three. But she needed to know if anything was bothering Lucas Marsh. She climbed the steps beside the altar to the choir stalls and looked around the space; nothing. Quickly she ran back down and crossed the chequerboard marble of the transept to the door, hauled it open and came face to face with Dan Strickland.

  Celia gave a small gasp and stepped back inside. Dan looked startled and she glanced away, flustered. Through the doorway over his shoulder she caught sight of Lucas Marsh outside, his back to her, standing at the head of the steps and silhouetted against the red city laid out below. He was talking intently into his mobile phone.

>   ‘Celie?’ said Dan, and she closed her eyes briefly, leaning back against the door. Only Dan called her that, not even Kate. She opened her eyes again quickly and saw that outside the steps were empty; Lucas had disappeared. She took another step back into the church and Dan followed her inside.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, peering at her. She nodded dumbly, recovering herself. ‘Fine,’ she managed. Cleared her throat. ‘Fine,’ she tried again, smoothly this time, nodding. ‘I’m on a job.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dan, his brow clearing. ‘Right.’ She could see his face properly now, turned to the light coming through the door; he looked tired, she thought, a day’s growth on his chin, and there was more grey in his wiry hair although it still stood up from his forehead, unruly, English. You could never mistake Dan for an Italian, not even from a distance; Celia found herself wondering with a tug if he would ever go back home. If it was home, for any of them.

  ‘How about you?’ she said. ‘What are you doing up here?’

  ‘Been asked to write a piece on Florentine cemeteries, of all things,’ he said, jerking his head back to indicate the space behind the little church filled with marble mausoleums and alabaster angels. ‘I suppose they asked me because they’re full of English poets.’ He laughed. ‘Not too bad a commission, actually.’

  Celia felt the urge to take him by the arm, sit down on the steps and look at the view, to gossip as they used to. She just nodded. ‘So everything’s okay? You’ve been writing. And…’ She hesitated, decided, Be grown up about this. ‘Allegra?’

  Dan laughed abruptly. ‘Not much writing,’ he said, looking down at his hands. ‘Not real stuff. And Allegra – well. Didn’t last long, as it happens. She – well. I’m much too old for her. I…’

  ‘Yes?’ said Celia.

  Dan looked back up at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘About Allegra—’