Urban Venus (21 page)

I know he isn’t all that keen on me pursuing the dreams, and I know he worries about me and what I might find out and what it might be doing to me and all that sort of concerned boyfriend stuff. But this is momentous; I have to share it with him, whatever he thinks. I need to bounce it all off someone before I burst with excitement.

Stefano has just finished a lecture, so we meet up not long afterwards for coffee in a side-street bar off the Piazza della Signoria.

‘
So, tell me,’ he says, a wary ‘what’s-she-done-this-time’ expression fleetingly crossing his face before he covers it up with a more welcoming smile.

‘
You’ll never believe it,’ I begin. ‘It was only Titian painting me, or rather Maria, as the
Venus of Urbino
! I was there, on the couch, naked,’ I look at him for a reaction but he’s fairly deadpan, ‘roses in my hand, hair braided, dog at my feet – well, eventually,’ I add, ‘but that’s another story. The WHOLE package. JUST like in the painting. UNBELIEVABLE!’

‘
Lydia, don’t you think this has all gone too far?’ he begins. ‘Can’t you see it’s just all wishful thinking on your part? It has to be all in your head. OK so for some reason you
do
fall asleep in front of this painting, maybe there’s a logical explanation for that, maybe not, but don’t you think it’s just your imagination running wild with you? You’ve gone and developed a fixation on this painting, and every time you go and visit it you drift off, have some lovely dream or other, but it must only be because you’re obsessed with it. Your brain’s working overtime to conjure up all these stories, and when you wake up you think they’re real, because you’ve dreamt you’re the woman in the painting. Don’t you think it’s all starting to sound a bit mad? Time to give it a rest now, I think. Don’t you?’

Well, I’d never expected a tirade like that. Last call, Stefano was on my side with the whole dreams thing. I thought he supported me, that he understood that it really was some kind of weird insight into real history, not just his totally bonkers girlfriend and her hyperactive imagination. I hadn’t even got as far as telling him the momentous news that Maria was pregnant…

I’m so shocked I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. I just grab my things quickly and leave the café without a backwards glance, humiliation burning on my cheeks.

Eighteen

‘
Stefano is really worried about you, Lydia,’ Sophia says as we sit across the kitchen table from one another on Friday morning, each nursing a cappuccino. Both of us have lectures to get to, but neither is showing much inclination to actually head for the door. I have the feeling she’s been leading up to this; clearly nominated by the group as official spokesperson, she just needed the courage and a shot of caffeine to launch in and come out with it.

‘
Huh, well he would be, wouldn’t he?’ I reply with sudden vehemence. ‘Bet you all just think I’m mad, don’t you? Go on, tell me you think I should stop, why don’t you? It’s all in my head, blah, blah, blah. That strange English girl and her crazy dreams.’

I am still fuming with Stefano, and haven’t seen him or spoken to him since storming out on him earlier in the week. He’s been trying to text me, and there have been a multitude of messages in several different veins: the worried ones, the angry ones, the sad and sorry ones, the begging-you-to-contact-me ones, but I have just ignored them all, hard-nosed, stubborn person that I am. Only I’m not hard-nosed and stubborn; I know it’s a sorry state of affairs to be in, and aside from the fact that I really, really desperately miss him, I’m worried more than anything that I might have completely blown the status quo of our little group of six fabulous friends. I remember when I first arrived here and met them all, I was adamant that I wouldn’t get involved with any one of them for fear of spoiling the friendships we all have. But there you are, it looks like I have done just that.

I don’t know if Stefano and I will survive this as a couple or not – somehow I doubt it – but either way it’s going to be hard for us to go back to being ‘just good friends’ without some serious baggage clogging up the space between us.

‘
Don’t be silly, Lydia, of course we don’t think you’re mad,’ Sophia says softly, as I realise just how viciously – and unjustifiably – I’d snapped back at her. ‘We’ve always supported you, you know that. And yes, you are slightly, well, unusual, aren’t you? But we’re your friends and we’re behind you and we love you and….. Do I need to say any more?’ She gives me a huge smile which proves just how much she cares, but serves to make me feel even more of an undeserving grump.

‘
Do you think Stefano hates me?’ I ask, deflated again, knowing full well that he could never hate me, but wanting to hear it from someone else’s lips.

‘
Of course he doesn’t hate you. He’s just worried about you. And he wants you back. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but he called a meeting with us all last night to talk about you.’

‘
No, you shouldn’t have told me,’ I say, back on the defensive once more, jumping up from my seat and furiously pacing the room. Sophia is out of her chair in a flash and grabs me by both arms to still me.

‘
Don’t be angry, Lydia, he just wants us to keep an eye on you, that’s all. You have to admit, this whole thing is taking over your life a bit, so it’s no wonder he’s concerned. Don’t be cross with him, and don’t hold it against us either, will you, we just want to help you through this, really we do.’

I slump back into my chair with a sigh. ‘Where do we go from here?’ I ask.

‘
Where do you want to go?’ she replies. ‘Do you want Stefano back? I have to warn you I got the impression from what he was saying last night, that it’s either the dreams or him. He’s not prepared to share you with ‘some sixteenth century bloke’, as he puts it.’

‘
Well you really did have a good old chat about me,’ I say in a sarcastic tone, anger rising in the back of my throat again as I take my seat and strap myself in for the next choppy ride on this emotional roller coaster. ‘Funny how I get to hear about all of this from you – he hasn’t even spoken to me.’ Rage subsides again and hurt takes over as I crumble once more, my head slumping into my folded arms on the table. ‘But he was so supportive at the start, when I first told him about the dreams.’

‘
He hasn’t had the chance to speak; you’ve been avoiding him, Lydia. He’s tried so hard to get hold of you, and short of turning up here and forcing you to see him, which he didn’t want to do, he hasn’t had a lot of choice. Talk to him. Talk it through, explain how you feel and see what happens. Go from there.’

She’s right, I know. I can’t avoid him forever. ‘I’ll call him after my lecture,’ I say. Sophia looks deeply into my eyes to make sure I really mean it.

‘
Do,’ she says.

‘
I promise,’ I reply, pulling myself up to head off and face the day.

Eduardo greets me with big kisses on each cheek as I take up what has become my regular spot beside him for Signore Di Girolamo’s lecture, which today isn’t on Titian, thank God. After all the hoo-hah surrounding my own personal adventures in – purportedly – the life and times of Titian, I’m giving room twenty-eight a wide berth for today; I’m not sure I could cope with another instalment of Maria’s history, the way I feel right now. The topic today is completely unrelated, totally different period, style, everything, which is quite a relief for the time being. Not even a whiff of anything Renaissance for the next hour.

‘
Come stai, Lydia
?’ Eduardo asks me.

He’s so lovely, I can’t possibly tell him that actually everything isn’t entirely
‘Bene
,
grazie’
at the moment. It’s good to have a friend who represents neutral territory in what at the moment feels to me like a war zone, who doesn’t know about my dreams, and to whom I don’t feel obliged to recount the latest development or reassure them that I’m not in danger of emotional meltdown. With Eduardo and this little posse of friends from my course, things are simple and uncomplicated. We meet for regular coffees, have a straightforward chat about life and the world in general or our course work, moan or gossip about the tutors, all the usual sort of studenty stuff, and don’t stray down the route of the deep and meaningful too often. It’s so refreshing, and I want to keep it that way.

‘
You look tired,’ he comments. ‘Everything is OK?’ Bless him for caring, but I shrug it off with a flippant comment about too many late nights, give him a big, reassuring smile, and we settle down for the lecture, poised to be impressed by another gem of knowledge from the great man himself.

Afterwards, despite my earlier resolve to leave Titian alone for today, I find myself wandering up to Signore Di Girolamo, with the intention of talking to him about his book. As far as I’m aware, and unless Vincenzo has told him he lent his copy to me, he doesn’t know I’m reading it. Nor would he be aware that I have such an avid interest in Titian, above and beyond the requirements for the coursework.

‘
Can I talk to you for a moment?’ I ask the great man, who as usual is fighting his way through the student groupies and their reams of questions. He is one tutor who is continually mobbed by students, all desperate to get at a bit more of his great brain.

‘
Could I talk to you about your Titian book?’ I ask again when the coast is clearer and I finally have his attention.

‘
Yes – Lydia, isn’t it? Our English visitor?’ he replies, smiling, and suddenly his attention is focused on me alone. He dispatches the remainder of his groupies with a quick nod and a promise to talk to them later, and hones in solely on me and my query. ‘Ask away. What would you like to know?’

‘
Well, I’m really enjoying your book,’ I begin tentatively, ‘but I’m baffled as to where you get some of your information from. I don’t want to seem rude or anything, but I can’t reference some of this stuff anywhere else,’ I tap the volume I’ve placed on his lectern as I speak. To start with he looks a little taken aback that I should dare say such a thing, his already grey pock-marked face paling further, and I wonder if I have gone a step too far. But then he seems to brighten, pulls himself together with a slight shudder, and gives me another of his rusty park-railings smiles (no lady-killer, this one) as I go on to say: ‘How
do
you get inside Titian’s head like that – it’s almost as though you
knew
him. How could anyone know those things about him?’

‘
Sit down, Lydia,’ he says, leading me to the front row of the lecture theatre and taking a seat beside me. ‘You’re the first person ever to ask me that, you know.’ Actually he looks very pleased to have been asked. ‘But that could be largely due to the fact that I didn’t actually print many copies of this book. I only produced fifty and I still have half of those myself. I didn’t think it would be too much appreciated in the world of, well,
proper
historians, of which I am, of course, supposed to be a member.’ His smile becomes more enigmatic and I am confused even further.

‘
I don’t follow you,’ I say, intrigued. ‘Are you saying it’s fictional then?’ I am mystified as to why a historian of such renown
wouldn’t
make his book available to the wider public – isn’t that how they justify the research grants and make the serious money?

But instead of answering my question he says: ‘Can you come to my office later? Let’s talk about it when we have a bit of time and space.’ He glances towards the small crowd of students who are still lingering hopefully at the door. ‘I take it Vincenzo lent you that copy?’ I nod. ‘Yes, I thought so. Not that he’ll ever have read it himself, of course,’ he chuckles. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting he uses it as a door stop and kicks it about his office.’ How close to the truth he is.

Signore Di Girolamo packs away his notes and folders and gives me a time at which I am to come to his office – half hour from now – then quickly leaves the lecture theatre.

My mobile rings as I’m crossing the Piazza. It’s Stefano and this time, after what Sophia had said earlier – and what I’d promised her – I don’t really feel I can ignore it.

‘
Pronto,’
I say, my voice sounding a little flat as I bravely hit the green button, despite an overwhelming urge to hit the red.

‘
Lydia,
ciao
,
come stai?’
His voice, the same as ever, has the effect on me, the same as ever, of turning my legs to jelly. Only this time that feeling makes me want to cry, as I remember how I’d walked out on him, and how I’ve cruelly managed to ignore him all week. What an awful person I am – he doesn’t deserve this.

‘
Mi manchi tanto, cara.’
I miss you too, Stefano, only I don’t say it out loud; it stays in my head, along with all the confusion of emotions. I
can’t
say it out loud, it’s physically impossible as I’m too choked up and trying hard to pretend I’m not. I’m trying to put on a brave face, only Stefano can’t see that, he can only hear my muffled sobs.

‘
Can we meet up?’ he asks, ever so tentatively, as though I might hang up on him at any minute.

‘
I have to see Signore Di Girolamo now but shall I text you when I’m free? Are you around all afternoon?’ I manage to get my voice back sufficiently to ask him.