Under A Dancing Star

by Laura Wood

  “Is that how you know Filomena?” I ask.

  Ben nods. “She was a friend to Mum when she really needed one. And she taught me about art. She was the one who encouraged me, who told me I had talent. It was a wonderful time living with them. We were so happy. At least, for a while.”

  “And Sir Hugh?” I ask quietly. “Is that when you met him as well?”

  I’m sure I feel him tense beside me, but his voice when he speaks is neutral. “Yes. My mother modelled for him.”

  I sense that’s all he will say on the subject and we sit quietly for a moment.

  “So this is like going to visit family for you?” I say finally.

  Ben nods again. “Lili and Gert are probably the closest thing I have to aunts.”

  “Is Gert Lili’s sister?”

  Ben smiles. “No, not her sister. Gert is Lili’s … lover, I suppose you would call her. But a partner, really. They’ve been together for over twenty years.”

  “Oh, right,” I say, reminded again of how far away I am from my parents’ world. I find myself smiling, thinking about it.

  “What?” asks Ben.

  “I just can’t imagine my parents’ reaction to such a set-up,” I explain.

  “But you’re not shocked?” he asks dryly. “Not that I should be surprised. It seems that shocking you is an impossibility.”

  “Thank you,” I say, pleased. “And no, I’m not shocked. I’m not quite as naive as people seem to believe. I’m looking forward to meeting Lili and Gert.”

  “There are plenty of people who really don’t like it. Lili and Gert move in bohemian circles where people won’t bat an eyelid, but outside of their friends it can be different…”

  “Yes, I can imagine,” I say. “It must be difficult, especially with what’s going on politically. The fascists aren’t precisely welcoming of anyone they consider different. Though my uncle seems quite excited about his meeting with Mussolini,” I add dryly.

  “I’ve heard him say that fascism is the future,” Ben says.

  “I’m sure he believes it,” I say, “but I don’t think he understands the real cost. Look at what’s happening in Germany. Look at Ursula and Klaus. If you ask me, Mussolini is a dangerous man.”

  Ben leans back in his seat. “You may be right,” he says. “You’ll meet plenty of people in the next couple of days who share that opinion.”

  I glance over. “But not you?” I ask.

  Ben shrugs. “I care about my work,” he says. “I’m no fan of Mussolini, God knows. But I know plenty who are, and some of those people are likely to be the ones who can help me work.” He frowns briefly and then his face clears. “All of this political fuss will probably come to nothing; the world will go back to normal. It’s the work that will last.”

  The rest of the journey passes companionably enough. I ask Ben about some of the art we will see, and his face lights up as he describes the colours and textures, the genius of the old masters and the startling, vibrant works of the new. I like listening to him talk about it; he makes it all come alive for me. In return, I pull out the detailed itinerary I have made of all the museums that I want to visit, detailing the collections at the natural history museum, telling him about the plants at the botanical gardens.

  “It’s the third oldest in Europe,” I say excitedly. “It was established in 1545 by a Medici, Ben… A Medici!”

  “Everything in Florence was founded by a Medici,” Ben says. “And you’ve missed off some of the best places.”

  “How will we do it all?” I ask despairingly.

  “We’ll manage,” Ben says. “I promise, you won’t miss anything on your preposterous list.”

  When we reach the station Ben climbs down the steps and hold his hands up for the bags. Our eyes meet, and I grin, remembering how we first met. Ben grimaces, which I think means he is remembering it too.

  No one has come to meet us, but Ben says there would be no point – he knows where he’s going and they’ll all be waiting at the house anyway. The station is heaving, full of people shouting and shoving at each other. Parts of the impressive new structure are still covered in scaffolding but above us soars a great glass roof.

  “More of Il Duce’s improvements,” Ben says, gesturing around us.

  “It’s certainly very modern,” I say, looking around at the imposing building.

  I’m constantly distracted by the noise, the crowds, all there is to see as we walk out of the station and into a bustling piazza. Another explosion of sound greets us, as hawkers try to sell their wares from various stands.

  “They used to hold chariot races in this square,” I say. “Right up until the end of last century.” It’s easy to imagine: the square hemmed in by tall stone-faced buildings, a sense of timelessness exists hovering over it all as if we are both now and then, as if the line between us and the past is suddenly less certain. I can see it all here in front of me, and this nearness to history is dizzying, like walking straight into the pages of the sort of book I would read at home.

  “Santa Maria Novella.” Ben points to the church on the other side of the square. “Always my first stop when I get to Florence. Come on.” He hitches the bag on his shoulder again and grabs my hand, weaving through the crowd. “This was one of my mother’s favourite places,” he says.

  We push through the wrought-iron gate cut into the high walls and around the small, neat cloister behind. When we walk into the church there’s an incredible feeling of space and light. The high stone arches meet gracefully in a vaulted ceiling. The floor is laid in a checkerboard of black, grey and white, rubbed smooth by a million footsteps. The muted colours of the walls and ceilings tangle with the brilliant stained glass windows. Despite there being so much to take in it leaves me feeling serene, as if the quiet and the beauty speak to something right at the core of me, as if I feel it right in my bones.

  We go back through the cloister and enter another chapel, one that feels a million miles away from the huge white space we’ve just been in. Here, the walls and the ceiling are painted in earthy jewel tones crowned by a midnight-blue sky filled with saints. It’s joyful, noisy, clamouring: a riot of colour.

  “It’s incredible,” I murmur, feeling suddenly a little shy. “I can see why your mother liked it so much.”

  Ben returns my smile and reaches for my hand again. I like the feeling of his fingers around mine. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s go and find Lili.”

  We wind our way down narrow cobbled streets and it seems that every corner we turn in this beautiful maze leads to another scene so picturesque that even I, with my lack of artistic eye, am moved. The light here is golden, and it brushes lovingly against every surface like a kiss.

  Finally, we come to a stop in front of a tall building with a terracotta roof. There are peeling grey painted shutters at the windows. Ben bounds up the three wide steps that lead to the front door and pulls enthusiastically on the bell which I can hear clanging distantly inside the house.

  “Open up, Lil!” he calls. “The prodigal son has returned!” He looks younger all of a sudden, and I can imagine him running up these steps as a small, scruffy boy.

  A second later the door flies open and Ben is being waltzed around by a lanky woman in a loose white shirt and slacks. Her bobbed hair is a light brown peppered with grey and her tanned face is wrinkled and laughing.

  “Ahhh! My boy, my boy!” she exclaims, pulling Ben’s face down and kissing him on the cheeks. “You’ve grown another foot at least.” She slaps him on the shoulder as though she’s telling him off for it.

  “And you must be Beatrice.” She turns to me, her expression welcoming, her arms open. Her voice is warm and sing-song American and she pulls me into an enthusiastic hug.

  Behind her I see a pretty, slightly round lady who looks like a Dutch porcelain milkmaid.

  “Gert!” Ben manages before he’s pulled into another smothering embrace. When he’s released Gert has wet eyes which she dabs at ineffectually with a large wh
ite lacy handkerchief.

  “Come in, come in!” she says, standing aside so that we can move through the doorway. “Let’s not give the neighbours any more to talk about!”

  I step through the door into a dingy hallway. The carpet is worn and there is a row of brass hooks piled at least three deep with coats and hats and scarves in various states of disrepair. Ben chucks our bags down at the bottom of the staircase and dives through a door on our right. I follow behind and catch my breath.

  The whole bottom floor on this side of the house has been opened up to make one huge room. The walls are painted burgundy and the floorboards are stripped and polished. At one end of the room is a makeshift kitchen with a couple of counters and an ancient-looking stove. Copper pans hang from the walls beside a tall window that looks over a small green strip of garden. Fragrant, dried herbs hang in bunches from the ceiling.

  At the other end of the room are several squashy sofas and some battered armchairs clustered around an incredibly long coffee table which is in turn groaning under the weight of books and newspapers and magazines and dirty wine glasses. There’s an ageing piano in the corner, and the top of that is also covered in books.

  The thing that takes your breath away, though, is the art. Jostling for space on the walls and illuminated by the beautiful light that spills through the windows are dozens of paintings in different styles. It’s like the most ridiculous jewel of a museum. There are huge landscapes in heavy frames and there are napkins with ink sketches on them pinned up carelessly with gold tacks. Depictions of classical mythology rest alongside geometric shapes in bold colours and the effect is dizzying.

  “Let me give you the tour,” Lili says, taking my arm. She guides me around the room pointing to different pieces and telling funny stories about the artists that painted them; how they hogged all the hot water when they came to stay, or how they would only drink a particular vintage of wine and ate raw vegetables for a week. There are names that even I recognize, names like Picasso and Matisse. We stop in front of one painting. A white road curves through a trembling blue sky, full of arcs of light, and Lili says, “This was always Ben’s favourite.”

  Ben comes to stand beside me. “Balla. This piece is genius. See how he captures the speed and urgency of it, the way the light crashes like waves across the canvas, pulling you along and through it.”

  I am distracted then by a portrait of a beautiful woman whose face looks faintly familiar.

  “What about this one?” I ask. Ben’s face stills, the enthusiasm dies from his eyes.

  “That is a genuine Sir Hugh Falmouth original,” he says.

  “It’s a portrait of Susie, Ben’s mother.” Gert wraps a plump arm around Ben’s waist and squeezes hard. “That is why we keep it here. She was a real beauty.”

  “She was,” I murmur. She looks like she fell out of a renaissance painting, all golden hair spun like a halo, and delicately flushed skin. Still, there’s something about the picture that I don’t like. Her eyes look hunted, and her head is turned slightly away, as though she longs to escape the canvas. It’s like seeing a butterfly pinned down to a board.

  I shiver, telling myself I am being melodramatic; but even as the others continue chatting cheerfully about the friends who will be calling in to see Ben, even as I accept a cup of coffee and settle into one of the sofas to hear stories of Ben’s childhood, I still feel as if those eyes are watching me, crying out for help.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  After we have been sitting for a while, chatting and dunking biscotti into bitter black coffee, Gert shows me up to my room, which is small and papered with tiny yellow roses. There is an old brass bedstead and an ancient-looking travel case that acts as a nightstand. Gert bustles around, checking that I have all I need.

  “We’re so happy to have you here,” she says at last. “We hardly ever get the chance to meet Ben’s friends.”

  “I know Ben was excited to come and see you,” I say. “He says you are his family.”

  “Oh, we are close,” she nods. “He was such a lamb as a boy. So inquisitive.” Her voice is soft and affectionate. “He was already painting and drawing when he came to us, but the way he flourished here…” She shakes her head. “He’s got real talent.”

  “And you would know,” I say. “Judging by all that beautiful work downstairs.”

  “It’s true, we’ve seen it all,” Gert says. “And Ben is capable of great things. We’re both very proud of him. His work changed, of course, after his mother died.” She looks up, her face open, her wide blue eyes guileless. “Has he spoken to you about her?” she asks.

  “Not really,” I say. “Just that she was very young when she had him.”

  “He will,” she says certainly. “That poor boy has needed someone to confide in for years. Lili and I tried, but…” She smiles at me. “I’m so glad he’s found a nice young lady at last.”

  “Oh, we’re just friends,” I say awkwardly.

  Gert smiles serenely. Her expression is innocent, but I think she sees a great deal more than she’s letting on.

  When Gert and I head back downstairs it’s to find that several more guests have turned up to see Ben. In fact, over the next few hours a sort of rolling cocktail party takes place in Gert and Lili’s living room. The bell jangles and jangles and people stream in, starting conversations right in the middle as though they’ve been here for hours. Lili reigns from one of the battered armchairs and people buzz around her like worker bees around their queen.

  Sometime after a delicious dinner of bread and stew has been handed around in chipped and mismatched plates and bowls, I am in the corner, deep in conversation with a beautiful man with dark brown skin, a French accent and long-lashed, dancing eyes, about the medicinal uses of lavender, when Ben squeezes through the crowd towards us.

  “Excuse me, Alphonse,” he says, patting the man on the shoulder, “but I wondered if I could steal Bea away for a moment?”

  Ben takes me by the hand, just as the scrape of moving furniture is heard and the wheeze of the record player begins. “Come on,” he whispers, “quick!” and he tugs me through the crowd. As we dodge through the doorway I look over my shoulder to see Gert and Lili leading the charge to the makeshift dance floor, their arms wound tightly about one another.

  It’s a bit of a relief as we make our way up the stairs, past the crush of people sitting in small groups, smoking and having intense conversations. As the crowd thins the temperature cools and the noise recedes a little.

  “This is quite a party,” I manage when we make it to the top landing.

  Ben laughs. “Gert and Lili wouldn’t call this a party, Bea. This is just an average Tuesday night for them.” He gestures back towards the crowd. “This house is always absolutely full of people, so you’d better get used to it. Friends of friends, like-minded folk. They all find Lili and Gert… People are just drawn to them, I guess. They’re like the flame that all the moths gather around.”

  “I can see why,” I say. “They’re so open, so friendly. They remind me of Filomena.”

  “Well, she spent a lot of time with them too,” Ben says. “Come on. I’ve got something to show you.” He reaches up to a cord that hangs from the ceiling and pulls open a trapdoor with a rickety ladder that slides noiselessly down. “Follow me,” Ben calls over his shoulder as he starts to climb.

  I hesitate for only a second before following. When I stick my head through the trapdoor I see that we’re in an attic room, dark and poky and seemingly used for storage. There are lots of bulky objects covered in dust sheets. Ben is fiddling with the latch on the small window and once he manages to get it open he starts to squeeze through.

  “Ben!” I gasp. “What are you doing?”

  “Come on,” he calls again, his voice a dare, a challenge I don’t want to refuse. Tentatively, I poke my head out of the window and see him scrambling along a broad ledge. There’s a short wall on the other side, but it doesn’t even come up to my knees and on the other sid
e of that wall is a sheer drop down, down, down to the tiny garden below.

  With a sigh, and against my better judgement, I haul myself out on top of the ledge, holding my breath and determinedly keeping my eyes away from the wall on my right as I mutter the Lord’s Prayer under my breath.

  As I move towards Ben’s voice the roof on my left flattens out into a platform and this is where I find Ben is waiting.

  “You made it!” he says, and he holds out his hand for me, helping me to pick my way over the tiles. “There! Now, tell me that wasn’t worth risking life and limb for.”

  “Oh, goodness,” I breathe as I turn around.

  “I knew you’d love it.” His voice is smug but for once I don’t care. Spread out in front of us like a divine offering is all of Florence, radiant under rose-tinted skies. The sun has almost done its work for the day, and it hangs just above the horizon burning fiercely like a hot ember. The golden light has diffused into something pink and mellow and the river Arno curls around a criss-cross pattern of streets that stretch out for miles; in front of us and a little way into the distance, the Duomo glows softly like a beacon, welcoming us to the city.

  I sit beside Ben in silence for a while, too full of it all to speak. It feels so big; endlessly big, I think, as if the sky has grown.

  “This is my secret place.” Ben’s voice breaks the quiet. “I used to sneak up here by myself all the time. Mum never knew where I was; it drove her mad. Lili knew, I think, but she never said anything.”

  “Will you tell me about your mother?” I ask hesitantly. There’s a pause.

  “She was very beautiful,” he says, and his voice is a little rusty, as if he’s trying out the words for the first time. “That’s the thing I remember most, actually – that she looked like an angel. Every day I feel like I remember a bit less, just pieces. How she smelled like lilacs in spring, how she could peel an apple in one long, curling strip.”