Unknown (18 page)

She
had been walking aimlessly through the park for some time before she realised that she didn't have the address of the apartment where her friends were staying. She had left it behind in the pocket of the coat she had arrived in. Vainly, she tried to remember what it had been, but being in a foreign language it was all the more difficult to summon up the strange words. Nevertheless, she decided, she was not going back to the Palazzo Manzu. Nothing, but nothing, would induce her to set foot on Domenico's property ever again!

It was raining by the time she reached the Villa Borghese where the buses were lined up ready to take their quota of tourists on their afternoon tours of the different parts of Rome. Someone asked her if she had a ticket and which language she spoke, and although she had no ticket one was pressed into her hand and she was hurried on to the nearest coach with a great many Japanese and a handful of Americans. She allowed herself to be pushed down towards the back, reflecting that at least she would be out of the rain for the greater part of the afternoon.

The girl who sat down next to her announced that she had been born in Holland, was an American citizen, and had just finished doing a tour of duty with the American diplomatic service in Central Africa. 'I shall be going home soon,' she added, leaving Deborah to wonder if she meant by that America or Holland.

It was hard to make her mind a blank and to go along with the herd, but thanks to her chatty neighbour, Deborah almost succeeded. They went first to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, decorated with the first gold to be brought back from South America as the gift of Queen Isabella of Spain. Here they peered at the celebrated relics of the manger where Christ was reputed to have been placed after His birth in Bethlehem. Deborah willed herself to feel some of the proper sentiments, but what with the Confessional being completely dominated by an enormous statue of Pope Pius IX, coupled with her own misery at what Domenico must be thinking of her, she might have well been looking at any bit of old timber and she was annoyed with herself for being so unromantic about something that had been treasured in Rome for many hundreds of years.

In the church of St Peter in Chains, she felt much the same about Moses, one of Michelangelo's acknowledged masterpieces. She put a coin in the machinery that operated the light that spotlit the statue and stared gloomily at the marvellously veined hands and the horns of light on his head. She wished Michael were with her, for he would have put the piece in the history of its time for her and she might have appreciated it better. As it was, it only served to remind her that she was unlikely now to complete the bust she had been going to do of Domenico.

By the time her group had trooped in and out of St John in Laterum, billed as the Cathedral Church of Rome and the world, Deborah was beginning to worry as to what she was going to do next. She had little money with her and only the clothes she stood up in and, if she didn't remember the address she had been given soon, she had absolutely nowhere to go. She barely glanced through the rain at the Holy Staircase that tradition has it Jesus climbed up to the first floor of Pontius Pilate's house in Jerusalem. Instead, she settled back into her seat and gave herself up to misery.

Their guide announced they were now on their way to the catacombs and the Dutch-American girl beside her made an enthusiastic noise of assent.

'I suppose you have seen them before?' she said to Deborah.

'No, why should you think that?' Deborah asked, startled.

'You have an air about you, as though you had lived in Rome for a long, long time,' the other girl said. 'You look completely at home here—not a stranger like the rest of us.'

'Do I?' Deborah was plainly astonished. 'I've only been here a few days, but I do feel at home here. I'd like to live here always.'

The American girl shrugged. 'Why don't you?'

'How?'

The American laughed. 'Marry a Roman! That's how I became an American, though it didn't last very long. He was killed in Vietnam, and I didn't get along with his folks, so I took a job travelling about the world. If I see anywhere I want to live more than America, I shall look around for a native and grab him! It worked very well the first time round, so why not again?'

Deborah found herself laughing. 'I wish it were so simple!'

'But it is!' the American insisted. 'Choose the most likely man for you and ask him to teach you a few words of Italian—and pouf! it's done!'

Deborah tried to imagine herself asking Domenico to teach her to speak Italian, but she could not. The cold misery that had been with her ever since she had started out with her father settled in again round her heart and she could have cried out with the pain of it.

The rain was pouring down by the time they left the city by the gate of St Sebastian, formerly the Porta Appia. The Arch of Drusus stood in splendid desolation guarding the way on to what must be one of the most famous roads in the world. The coach paused by the chapel that marked the traditional site of St Peter's meeting with his Lord as he left Rome to escape the worst of the persecutions of the Christians by Nero. '
Domine, quo vadis
?' (Master, where are you going?) he asked. And the other replied, 'I go to Rome to be crucified a second time.' Overcome, Peter returned to Rome, to be crucified as his Master had been before him, with only this difference, that Peter was crucified upside down.

The Appian Way showed signs of its age. The coach rattled over the ancient cobbles and came to a stop outside the Catacombs of Domitilla.

'Here you will have a guide from the Redemptorist Fathers,' their own guide told them. 'The catacombs are the property of the Vatican and we, Roman guides, are not permitted to take visitors inside what is technically foreign territory.'

They walked through some pretty gardens in the rain, making a mad dash for the entrance. With their tickets clutched in their hands, they were herded down a flight of concrete steps and came out in an underground basilica where their priest-guide was waiting for them. He was very young and fair, and his heavily accented Germanic English was difficult to understand and only a fear of getting lost in the eleven miles of underground passages made Deborah hurry to keep up with the busload of tourists as they snaked their way through the burrows where the early Christians had first buried their dead.

A musty, warm, damp smell pervaded the passages. The flat, horizontal graves on either side were black and mysterious. The larger ones had been used by whole families, but there were others, much smaller, where the pathetic bodies of tiny children had been carefully placed. There were frescoes too, here and there, most of them with Christian motifs still instantly recognisable as being the same as those in use today in the Catholic and Orthodox churches of both the Eastern and Western traditions.

Deborah, already last in the queue, hung back for a moment to take a closer look at a fish carved into a piece of marble that had been let into the wall. Near it was the tomb of a carpenter, the tools of his trade represented beside his name to show what manner of work he had done in this life. A little further on was the tomb of an undertaker, and then a whole lot of vacant black spaces whose occupiers had long since fallen back into dust and complete anonymity.

She felt a hand reach out for her wrist and nearly fell apart herself with fright. 'Let me go!' she ordered fiercely.

'Hey, it's us!' Mary's blessedly familiar voice greeted her. 'Are you doing the same tour? We didn't see you on the coach.'

'I didn't see you either!' Deborah gasped.

John, never very far away from Mary, grinned his schoolboy smile. 'How are you getting on?' he asked.

'I've run away,' Deborah confessed. 'I can't tell you how glad I am to see you both! I forgot to bring your address with me and I was feeling absolutely desperate because I
can't
go back! It was awful—and my father came '

'You look beautiful!' said Mary. 'I do like your hair that way! Wait till Patty sees it! She'll be pea-green '

'Michael isn't with us any longer!' John cut her off.

Deborah's eyes widened. 'Why not?'

John looked uncomfortable. 'Well, you weren't there and I guess we didn't get along too well together. We didn't push him out exactly, but neither did we stop him when he suggested it. He always was the fifth wheel on the coach, wasn't he?'

'Was he?' Deborah didn't know any longer what he had been. 'Does that mean you'd rather I didn't '

'Of course not!' Mary's voice was as warm and sincere as ever. 'We've missed you being round, to tell the truth. Even Patty and Jerry, who never notice anything except themselves, were wishing you were with us yesterday. They'd seen the most gorgeous statue and wanted to know your opinion of it!'

'They should have asked Michael,' Deborah suggested. 'He could have told them exactly.'

'Michael
?' her friends exclaimed in unison. Then John added, 'We've never liked to say before, Debbie, but he doesn't know nearly as much as he pretends he does. If you ask me, you're better off without him. You'd never have done anything great of your own while you let him hang around feeding off your talent.'

Deborah supposed she should have been used to her friends' plain speaking by now, but the fact of the matter was that she wasn't.

'I always thought you liked Michael?' she said.

'No, honey, we
liked
you! We put up with Michael. At least, John and I did, Patty and Jerry used to spike his guns whenever they could for the fun of it. Now, tell us what's been happening to you? I suppose your father arranged for you to be whisked away like that?. You have to hand it to him, he certainly chose the right place in Rome for you to go! Is the Manzu collection as fabulous as everyone says it is?'

'More!' Deborah told her. The knowledge that a bust by her would now never be part of it was like a physical pain inside her and some of what she was feeling must have shown on her face, for John put a comforting hand on her shoulder and gave her a push down the narrow passage to where they could hear the young priest still talking away to the group.

'We'd better catch them up or we may get lost down here for ever,' he advised. 'Are you coming back with us now, Debbie?'

Deborah nodded. 'I'll have to borrow a nightie ' she began.

'Not necessary,' Mary gurgled into laughter. 'Have you forgotten that we still have your suitcase?'

It was like another life, Deborah thought, and her time at the Manzu palace might never have been. Perhaps she had dreamed the whole adventure—but no, she knew she had not. Her imagination would never have been the equal of the reality of being held in Domenico's arms and of being kissed by him. Would he be glad to be rid of her? In the end he would be, but she thought he might miss her a little at first

They almost ran into the people ahead of them and Deborah caught a glimpse of Patty's and Jerry's eager faces as they listened to the almost incomprehensible accents of the priest.

'And now I tell ze joke,' he said.

But Deborah never heard what it was that made the listening group break into polite laughter. Supposing she never saw Domenico again? Would she read
in
the newspaper one day of his marriage to Alessandra and go on living just as though nothing had happened? She didn't know if she could. Her body cried out for the sight and sound of him every moment she was away from him. It had not been like that with Michael, even though she had once thought that she had been in love with him. She hadn't really missed him at all in the last few days. Indeed, it had been rather pleasant to be without him and not to have to concern herself with his endless complaints about the quality of their way of life. She tried to dwell on the good times they had shared together, but all she could bring to mind was Michael telling her to pay for his meals with hers at the canteen; Michael slaying her pride in the work she had done at the art college they had both attended; Michael's bitterness at the smallness of the grants they were expected to live on and his jealousy of the small luxuries her mother had managed to provide for her only daughter.

'People like your mother will never admit it, but it's we artists who give them life!' he had burst out one day. 'So what if they prefer their suburban lives, their brightest hours spent glued to a television set? It's our function to blight their contentment, to make them see what the real world is like!'

She was glad now that she no longer had to look at the world through Michael's eyes—or her father's either. Both saw only what they wanted to see, one reducing everything to nothing and the other everything to money. She had glimpsed a new world, shot through with glory—Domenico's world!

'Come on, we'd better go,' John's voice cut across her thoughts. 'What's the betting that it's still raining?'

Mary smiled affectionately at him. 'Does it matter?'

'Not as long as we're together!' he smiled back at her.

It was raining. The group lingered by the little shop beside the entrance for as long as they could, but in the end they had to dash back to the coaches in the same manner they had made their entrance, splashing through the puddles as they went.

'We'll take our respective coaches back to the Via Veneto,' Mary suggested. 'We'll see you there!'

But Deborah hesitated, still unsure of her welcome. 'Are you sure Patty and Jerry won't mind?'

'Don't be silly!'

Deborah blinked, a little of the cold despair round her heart making room for a warm gratitude to her friends. 'Thank you,' she said. 'And thank you too for not asking questions. I will tell you all about it, but not yet.'

Mary only laughed at her. 'You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to,' she assured her. 'And don't worry about Patty and Jerry—they won't ask you anything either.' She grinned cheerfully, running her tongue round her lips in a cheeky gesture. 'With any luck they won't notice you've returned to the fold! You know what they are!'