Love Falls (15 page)

 

 

‘It must have been the food.' Lambert was apologetic at breakfast. ‘You don't mind, do you, if you go off and look around the city on your own? I just think I should stay with her. In case  . . .'

‘Of course.' Lara hated the thought he might be lying, and as soon as she could she cut him off. ‘It's fine.'

She set off shortly after breakfast with a map, the location of the hotel marked by the concierge in red. She found her way to the river, and from there headed towards the Ponte Vecchio and the Pitti Palace behind it. The Pitti Palace was not small, as she'd imagined it to be, but a huge imposing building of grey stone. She bought a ticket and went up the wide stairs where she found a room of statues, carved in white marble, the men, without exception, their penises lopped off. Why? She peered closer, how and when did it happen? And she looked round to see if there was anyone she could ask. But everyone else was gazing at the paintings, the portraits and still lifes, the sombre and ecstatic scenes of Old Testament cruelty and death.

She walked on through the rooms, but found herself distracted by the ceilings, carved and modelled out of gold, and by the walls hung with intricately designed paper, the detail of the tiles on the floor. In the royal apartments there were carpets, crystal chandeliers and four-poster beds and she felt too dazzled by their splendour to give more than a brief glance at the paintings.

By the time she emerged into the open, she was ready to lie down. She sat on a bench in the courtyard and let her eyes rest thankfully on the plain stone. Two cats appraised her for the likelihood of food.

‘Go away, shoo.' She couldn't unbend her heart to their filthy coats and motheaten ears, and she thought of her own cat, Berry, with her dainty walk and luminous white bib.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, remorseful, wondering since when she'd become so hardened, and she went into the café and bought a packet of biscotti and some milk, and pouring the milk into a saucer she watched them snuffle it up.

There was a fountain thick with water lilies at the back of the courtyard, where stone cherubs fought each other playfully in the water. The bottom was lined with coins, a year at least of wishes, and so Lara threw in a coin of her own. She watched it arc and spin, splash through the water, and just in time, before it reached the bottom, she wished for her life to begin. Was it too much? Too greedy? To wish for her whole life? But in the streets where she lived she'd seen too many people made desperate by ill health, by poverty, by broken windows and drunk men, that she knew how it could go. She thought of her mother, how she'd carved a bright space for them both, painted the rooms of their small house white to make them larger, painted the fridge, second-hand and stained, bright-blue. She felt an ache in her heart, so sharp she retreated to her bench, but she didn't know who it was for. For her mother, she decided, although Kip's name was in her palm, ready to throw in the form of a new coin. Kip. She allowed herself to think it, but she was too cowardly to wish for more.

Lara wandered through the streets, bought herself a slice of pizza, gazed at the teenagers larking about for photographs. They looked so well cared for. How, she wondered, had they managed to stay children when she'd been grown-up for so long?

Later she knocked on Lambert's door. ‘I'm back,' she said through the glossy painted wood, but there was no reply.

 

 

Lara was almost asleep when Lambert called for her. ‘Are you ready? We need to leave soon.'

Isabelle was standing a little way behind him.

‘Do you feel better?' Lara asked, and it was true, Isabelle did look a little pale.

They travelled to the station together and Lara waited, gazing around at anything that might distract her while Lambert and Isabelle said goodbye. But she needn't have made such a pretence of blindness, because they only kissed, a little peck on each cheek, waving once before the train pulled out.

‘Bye, Lara,' Isabelle called and Lara had to spin round and wave before she missed her.

They had half an hour before their own train left, and to make up for their previous journey they bought enough supplies for a week.
Panini
and crisps and brown bags bulging with fruit, newspapers, magazines and sweets. They sat opposite each other, flicking through glossy scented pages, munching their supplies, swigging back luxurious amounts of water, and when after an hour Lambert slipped off his shoes and put his feet up on her seat, Lara didn't flinch or move away.

Ginny and Caroline were both waiting on the platform at Siena. Lara saw them as soon as she stepped down from the train.

‘Well done,' Caroline said when they came near. ‘You made it back,' and she looked at Lambert with an amused eye.

Ginny couldn't help herself – she gave Lara a hug. ‘How was it?' she asked.

With even more pleasure than it had given her at the time Lara described for her the wonders of Florence. ‘You really should go,' Lara urged her.

But Ginny began murmuring anxiously about her mother and her tomatoes and Lara saw that she'd already made up her mind to go straight home.

‘That reminds me,' Caroline said as they climbed into the car. ‘I've got to know, are you staying for the Palio or not? Tickets are virtually impossible to come by, so if you are  . . .'

‘Yes,' Lambert said without hesitation.

‘Lara?' Caroline's eyes were sharp. ‘You'll stay?'

‘Yes,' she nodded fervently. And she imagined the murderous racing of those hooves, the shrieking people, but mostly the opportunity of those extra days.

‘Well' – Caroline was smiling – ‘whatever made you change your mind, I'm glad.' And she steered the car towards the sweet cool air of home.

 

 

Kip's jumper had been washed and pressed and folded with her own clothes into the wardrobe. Lara took it out and sniffed it, but there was nothing left except soap suds and fresh air. I'll take it back to him tomorrow, she thought, and just then Lambert appeared at the door.

‘Should you ask your moth –' He coughed over the unaccustomed word. ‘Your mother, about staying? Or at least let her know?'

‘Yes.' She realised she was still holding the jumper and in her confusion she put it on. ‘I'll do it now.'

They went downstairs together to where the telephone sat on Caroline's desk. Lambert helped her through the code and then idled away towards the terrace, lighting up a cigarette, while Lara rang her own number and listened to the familiar ring. She could hear the echo of it on the green hall table, shrilling up the stairs, sounding through into the kitchen, where, likely as not, her mother would be sitting, reading the paper, a pan of rice, some soup maybe simmering on the stove.

‘Mum? It's me.'

Her mother gasped, as if to hear her voice was painful. ‘Lara?'

‘How are you?' Lara was teasing, stalling, because of course she knew Cathy would be too concerned with the reason for her ringing to answer she was fine.

‘Is something wrong?'

‘I just wanted to let you know, I'm staying for a bit longer.' She could feel her mother's breathing change. ‘Just for another five days, just so you know not to expect me back at the end of next week.'

‘All right . . .' Her mother was listening for clues now. ‘Is that what you want?'

‘Yes. It's a horse race. The Palio. Apparently we'd be mad to miss it.' Lara knew this was a language of indulgence Cathy had no wish to understand.

There was a silence.

‘Well . . .' she said at last. ‘Have a good time.'

‘Yes.' There was a pause where people in American films would have declared their love. ‘Bye then. See you soon. Bye.' And with nothing left to say they both put down the phone.

Lara knew that for her mother the telephone was a dangerous machine. You could pick it up, dial, lose yourself in conversation and then, some months later, the ruinous cost of it would drop through the door. There was a radiator like that in the hall. A plug-in electric radiator they used only in deepest winter when the insides of the windows frosted up. Cathy would switch it on, and just when the hall, with its rug and its bare boards, would start to thaw she'd lose her courage and switch it off again. Lara used to eye it sometimes, its red light winking, its sharp edge pulsing heat, and imagine pound notes burning just above it, shrivelling and falling to the floor.

 

 

‘Oh by the way.' It was breakfast time and Caroline was spooning sugar into hot black coffee. ‘Your Ceccomoro lot came calling for you.'

‘Really?' Lara studied the apple she was slicing – widthways to admire the star of its insides. ‘When?'

‘Yesterday. Or the day before. Let me think now.' She closed her eyes to conjure up the date. ‘They were going on some expedition, wondered if you'd like to come along.' Caroline smiled, helping herself to a soft white roll. ‘But I told them you were away.'

‘I've umm, I . . .' She looked down at her plate. ‘I was wondering if there was a way to walk over there. I've got something . . . I should return.'

‘Oh, don't worry. I've got to go up and talk to Andrew. I'll take it for you, if you like.'

Lara bit into her lip. ‘Thanks.' She saw her chances disappearing. ‘I'll get it for you. It's just a jumper. Actually, it might be Kip's.'

‘But is there a way?' Lambert looked up from his paper, news of the Royal Wedding finally replaced with the headline that one more Irish hunger striker was dead. ‘Is there a way to walk to Ceccomoro? It might be nice for Lara to try it, before it gets too hot.'

‘I've really no idea. I can't imagine.' Caroline looked at her. ‘But have a lift, if you're determined to go.'

 

 

An hour later, they were driving along the road to Ceccomoro, Caroline behind the wheel, her face dappling in and out of shadow as they passed under trees, her skin bleached white in the open scorching stretches between fields of sunflowers and maize.

‘Did you enjoy Florence?' she asked, and too eagerly, like a girl guide, Lara replied, ‘Oh yes.'

‘It must have been terribly busy, rushing about, seeing everything . . .' There was a pause and Lara knew, for certain, that she was hoping to find out more.

‘Yes,' she said more tentatively. ‘And it was incredibly hot.'

‘You mean too hot to visit galleries?'

‘No.' She'd already told her, last night at supper, about the splendours of the city, the queues at the Uffizi, the serene beauty of
David
, while Lambert interrupted occasionally to add his comment as if he'd been with her all along.

‘Just so hot, walking about. The air is so muggy. It makes you tired.'

‘Siesta weather . . .' she murmured.

And remembering the luxury of that white bathroom, Lara relaxed. ‘Yes, it was hard to leave the hotel.'

Caroline took her eyes off the road and looked at her, just for a second, and she was sure, although she couldn't imagine how, that she'd given something away.

In silence they curved around the edge of the valley, slowing at the point where the village of houses that was now Ceccomoro nestled against the side of the hill.

‘There were people who lived there until not so long ago,' Caroline told her. ‘Old people who'd lived in that village all their lives, who'd never left these hills. Can you imagine? Never even been into Siena.'

Caroline turned off on to the narrow white road, past the stone lions, and pulled up in the yard. Lara clutched Kip's jumper as if it were a ticket. She noticed that the jeep was not there, and as she followed Caroline that the swimming pool was empty, the rose garden deserted.

They stopped in the cool stone hall of the main building, climbing a few stairs into an elaborately decorated room, vines and flowers and diamonds painted straight on to the plaster, and there, as if he'd been watching for them, was Andrew Willoughby, dressed in slippers and a cravat, holding a file of papers under one arm.

‘Darling.' He pressed his lips against Caroline's bone-china cheek. ‘So punctual. And who do we have here?' He turned to Lara and raised his eyebrows, ‘A young secretary?'

There was so much sex in the word secretary that Lara had to look down at her feet. ‘I'll wait out in the garden,' and still clutching the jumper she turned and walked back out.

Lara meandered around the rose garden, scooping up the fallen petals, thinking how as a child she used to sprinkle them with sugar and leave them out on the window ledge all night, hoping that by the time she woke they would have crystallised into sweets. She could even taste their odd half-mouldy sweetness, and remember how they never quite looked like the picture in the book.

Beyond the rose garden was a gate, and a path that swept down and then up into the hills. There was a statue at the top of it, a figure with wide-open arms, and unable to resist she walked through. She was in another garden, scattered with trees, thick with the smell of pine and acorns, of dust and dried-out streams. She walked slowly at first, not sure if she was allowed to be in here, and then, the longer the path ahead of her stretched, the faster she walked until she broke into a run. Maybe this was the path that led back to Caroline's? Or one of the smaller paths that opened off it, and she stepped into the undergrowth, shielding her eyes for fields, for hills or a distant, familiar road.