Angels of the Flood (21 page)

They had reached the top of the long hill. Lights and valleys and more hills lay ahead of them.

‘Is some crazy peasant,’ said Mario. ‘Stop the car and I drive now.’

‘No,’ said Francesca, suddenly decisive as she pressed her foot down on the accelerator. ‘It’s time that jerk learned a lesson.’

‘What you doing?’

Francesca didn’t bother to answer. Kate imagined she could almost hear the Topolino heave a sigh of relief as it crested the top of the hill and set off gaily down the winding road the other side. Francesca changed quickly through the gears to top. Mario shouted at her in Italian. Francesca ignored him. She kept glancing in the rear-view mirror. Kate wondered if she was trying to throw their pursuer off: if so, it was a futile effort. The Topolino was zooming along at full tilt while the car behind was just cruising. Kate didn’t find it funny any more.

She said, ‘Francesca, slow down for Christ’s sake!’

‘You want me to slow down?’

‘Yes!’

‘Okay, then,’ said Francesca, her voice rising with excitement. ‘Stand by everyone for an emergency stop.’

Kate and Mario shouted together, ‘Francesca, NO!’

‘Now!’ she yelled, slamming on the brakes. Kate was thrown violently forward. Mario was bathed in light from the following car as his body slewed against the dashboard and he thrust his hands forward just in time to stop his face smashing into the windscreen. The car’s interior was filled with the scream of brakes and a klaxon blaring and for a moment Kate thought their pursuer was going to plough into the back of them smash her to pieces. Terror flooded through her body. Then the headlights fanned across the car and away to the left of them and, horn still blaring, the huge car swerved past them away down the hill and out of sight round the next sharp bend.

Mario was talking to Francesca in Italian, very rapid and angry Italian. Kate was shaking and drenched in sweat. She didn’t have to be a linguist to get the gist of what he was saying.

Francesca sat with her hands on the steering wheel. She was panting. ‘I knew what I was doing. We were perfectly safe.’

Mario, obviously, did not agree. ‘Now I drive,’ he told her. It was a statement, not a request. Francesca got out of the car and lit a cigarette and Mario did too and then they swapped places.

‘I taught him a lesson, didn’t I?’ said Francesca as they drove away.

‘Yes,’ said Mario angrily. ‘Very stupid lesson and Kate she almost get killed. You act like crazy child, Francesca. This car it is not for toy.’

They drove the rest of the way smoking in silence while Kate’s heart rate gradually returned to normal.

Dorabo was not a very big town, hardly more than a village with a couple of bars and a church. Kate crouched down to peer through the side windows of the car, trying to recognize the place they must have driven through that afternoon, but it looked closed up and mysterious, a nondescript Italian one-horse town that she would probably never see again. The shock of the near-collision had left her with a heightened sense of awareness. This town, this moment, suddenly seemed to be of vital importance in her life and she had to imprint every smallest detail on her memory.

Mario parked outside the bar. The Topolino was so close to the ground that Kate, tilting her head sideways for a better view, could still see only halfway up the entrance to the bar: several trousered legs and chairs and the bottom section of a fridge full of soft drinks.

Francesca twisted round and smiled at her. ‘You okay, Kate? I’ll get Hugo. I won’t be long.’

She climbed out of the car. Mario shook out another cigarette from the packet. Kate had never seen him smoke like this before. She said, ‘What was that guy playing at?’

He dragged on his cigarette and said, ‘Francesca is crazy child. She think she has—hm—magic life and nothing can injure. Is bad accident coming, I know in my bones.’

Kate touched his shoulder, just where his hair curled down over the ribbed neck of his sweater. She’d been wanting to do it since leaving the Villa Beatrice. Such a casual gesture, and yet the shock of it sent a current charging up her arm. It was the same for him, she could tell. He reached up and put his hand over hers. Kate felt a giddying gust of desire, like nothing she had known before. As though she might faint with the power of it.

She said, ‘You mustn’t worry so much, Mario. Relax.’

‘No, Kate, is important I must worry.’

‘Why? You’re not in love with her, are you?’

He removed his hand. ‘You are all like children,’ he said. He sounded irritated by the whole business.

‘We’re just having fun,’ said Kate.

‘Like stupid children.’

Kate felt as if she’d been slapped. ‘Well, at least we know how to have a good time,’ she said, and withdrew to the very back of the car.

Just then the passenger door swung open with a rush of cool air and the neck of an enormous wine bottle, like an elephant’s trunk, was thrust into the car.

‘God, poor Hugo,’ Francesca was saying. ‘He got a ride in a Mercedes and the driver just about raped him. Said he was a big shot in fish canning, as if that was some kind of excuse, can you believe it?’

‘Hi, everyone,’ said Hugo, piling in behind his bottle and nearly poking Kate’s eye out with the cork. ‘Thanks for the rescue. I thought I was going to have to walk.’

On the way back he told them of his mishaps. Kate was only half listening. Perversely, Mario’s rejection had made him suddenly more attractive in her eyes. Which was odd, really, because she’d never made a habit of falling for difficult men.

A
FULL SCALE ROW
erupted between Mario and Francesca as soon as they got back to the Villa Beatrice. Kate assumed he was still angry about her dangerous driving and didn’t bother trying to follow it, though she felt somehow satisfied that she wasn’t the only person Mario had turned on. Hugo, who hated rows, disappeared into the party with his enormous wine bottle tucked under his arm like a lance and was welcomed with cheers. Kate was about to follow him when Francesca grabbed her arm.

‘Stick up for me, Kate,’ she said. ‘Tell him he’s not the boss of my life!’

‘Can’t you tell him yourself?’ Kate was genuinely puzzled.

Mario said something to Francesca in Italian and she replied just as fast and just as angry. From all her
non vados
and
non voglios
Kate gathered he was trying to make her do something against her will.

Their argument must have been audible in the room where the music was playing. David came into the hall. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked Kate.

‘Search me,’ she said. David suddenly seemed remarkably attractive, with his black eyebrows and his sportsman’s build, but most of all because he was familiar, and could be guaranteed not to tell her she was acting like a stupid child. ‘We might as well leave them to it.’

David frowned. To Kate’s annoyance he put a hand on Francesca’s shoulder and said, ‘Francesca, are you okay?’

She spun round. ‘Tell him for me!’ she said in English. ‘Tell him he can’t make me do this!’

‘Do what?’

‘Just tell him I’m through with whoring for my family!’ There were tears of anger on her face. ‘I won’t do it any more. I wont!

There was a stunned silence.

Then Mario asked, with genuine bewilderment on his face, ‘Whoring? What is this?’

David put his arm round Francesca’s waist and said to Mario, ‘Maybe you should just leave her alone.’

‘You not understand,’ said Mario.

‘I can see when someone’s party is being spoiled for them.’ He pulled Francesca to his side and Kate saw how she seemed to relax in his embrace. ‘It’s okay, sweetie. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. Hey, know what? You look like you could use a dance.’

‘A dance?’ She echoed his words.

‘That’s right.’ David’s hand was caressing the nape of her neck, under her thick mane of hair. He looked across at Mario and smiled. ‘It’s party time, folks.’

‘Francesca!’ Mario was pleading with her. She said something crude in Italian, then laughed and went towards the
sala
with David.

Just before she got to the door she turned and said, in English, ‘Just remember, Mario, you don’t own me. No one does. No one’s ever going to own me again.’

‘That’s right,’ said David, kissing the top of her head. ‘You tell him like it is.’

Then she and David vanished into the music and cigarette smoke of the party and Mario, watching them go, cursed loudly. Kate had never seen him like this, so full of rage and frustrated energy.

She was about to follow the others into the other room, but then she turned and said, ‘What’s all this about, Mario?’

He blinked, as though he’d forgotten she was there, he was so bound up in the power struggle with Francesca. He smiled bitterly, ‘Francesca makes ruin of her life,’ he said tersely.

‘You don’t think maybe you’re exaggerating a bit?’ asked Kate. She’d come here for a good time and now it all seemed to be getting a bit heavy. Mario needed to lighten up. She’d have been happy to show him how, but didn’t want to risk a second rejection.

He didn’t answer, merely shrugged and turned towards the front door.

‘You’re not going, are you?’ said Kate, following him.

‘I must make visit for her uncle,’ he said.

‘But what about the party?’

‘Maybe later I return.’

‘Wait. I don’t understand. What’s going on?’

They stood at the top of the steps and Mario lit cigarettes for both of them. His hand, Kate noticed as he held the lighter, was shaking.

She asked again, ‘What were you arguing about? Why did she say that about people owning her?’

‘Francesca she make big
esagerazione.’

‘She exaggerates?’ Mario nodded and Kate went on, ‘Was that why she talked about whoring for her family?’

‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘What is this word whoring?’

‘It’s what prostitutes do. Selling sex for money.’

There was genuine shock on Mario’s face at this translation. He said,
‘Certo,
sometimes I think Francesca she is crazy woman.’

‘She’s my friend,’ said Kate. ‘I don’t like to see her upset.’

‘A real friend for Francesca would help her now. Not let her throw it all away.’

‘Throw all what away?’

He looked intently at her for a moment, then took her arm and said, ‘Come. I show you.’

They walked round the side of the house, their shoes crunching the small stones of the pathway, and came to a wide stone terrace overlooking the valley. Its pale marble balustrades were what you saw in that first view of the house from halfway up the drive. Here the sounds from the party were more muted, talk and laughter and ‘Cathy’s Clown’ on the record player. There was a sense of the outdoors and the vastness of the Italian hinterland, distant hills and the huge canopy of sky, a scent of leaves and earth and woodsmoke. Far below them they could see the pale curve of the river in the valley, and as they watched a single headlight fanned over the river, then slowed as it crossed the narrow bridge.

‘Is beautiful?’ He turned to look at her.

‘Very beautiful,’ agreed Kate.

‘It belong to Francesca’s uncle.’

‘And he’s dying?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does he have children of his own?’

‘No.’

‘So who gets all this when he dies?’

There was silence. Mario dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it under his heel.

She asked again, ‘Francesca?’

‘No one knows. Her uncle make the big secret.’

‘But it might be Francesca?’

‘She was always the—hm—favourite. Since long time.’

Kate had the sense that random fragments were beginning to form a coherent picture. Or if they didn’t make the picture yet, that still, they would do. So many things about Francesca that she hadn’t understood before. She said, ‘Maybe the money’s not so important to her as you think.’

He gestured with his hand, a gesture of impatience and dismissal. He said, ‘She does not know. She think because she has—hm—good time in Florence with you and your friends, that she can make a different life for herself. But is a fantasy. She cannot be for always an
angelo del fango.’

‘But she can work. She can make a life for herself, same as the rest of us.’

‘Francesca is not like the rest of you.’

‘How can you be so sure? You haven’t known her these last few weeks. She’s changed while she’s been with us in Florence. We’ve all changed a bit, but with Francesca it’s gone really deep. As if she’s discovering the person she really is. And anyway, why does it bother you so much whether she gets her uncle’s money or not? What’s in it for you?’

‘I want the good life for Francesca.’

‘Yes. Well. And so do I. But money isn’t what makes the good life. What about her uncle? Has his money made him a happy man? The important thing is doing something you care about and being with people who love and respect you, that’s all that matters in the end and—’

‘Basta!’
He interrupted her impatiently. ‘Enough. This ideas is good for pop songs, not for real life. You have corrupt Francesca with this crazy talk.’

‘Me? Corrupt Francesca? That’s rich, coming from you. You’re the one who’s dragged her here against her will. All we want is for her to be herself and be happy. And she has been happy this last few weeks, you should have seen her. Then you’d know that I was right!’

There was a long silence. Mario turned to her and said, ‘Kate, when you are angry, you are
molto bella.
You know what that means?’

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting, but she refused to be thrown off course. She said, ‘How come you’re so involved in Francesca’s life? Are you in love with her?’

This time the silence stretched out so long Kate thought he was offended at the question and wasn’t going to answer at all. But finally he sighed, and said, ‘In past I think yes, I love Francesca. But now…’ He looked directly into her eyes and Kate felt a tremor, almost like fear, feather up the whole length of her spine. ‘Now I am not so sure.’

She was holding her breath. Now, if ever, Mario would tell her everything: why Francesca had run away from her family, why she had been so desperate that night on the bridge, why this weekend had been so important, what the ties were that bound them. But there was something else trembling in the balance as they stood there on the terrace, some connection between Mario’s uncertainty about his feelings for Francesca and the way he was looking at Kate right now.