Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I wish you didn’t have to go back,” she said. “We could just live here, always. I could be one of those Jane Austen daughters who just stays at home and looks after her father.”

  “That would be very pleasant,” he said. “Until you got bored and went off with some romantic Neapolitan.”

  “Then you could marry Signora Sabatino,” she said. “I’m sure she’d accept you. You could help her with her chickens.”

  He laughed at the suggestion, for a moment imagining himself in the vast letto matrimoniale which he had glimpsed in the interior of Signora Sabatino’s house, the one item of comfort so cherished in the peasant household. But the pain of their impending parting cut at him. He knew that this is how it would be from now on; she had become an adult, and his time with her would be as a visitor, in a life that revolved around others. It must be easier to let go, he thought, when you have something else in reserve.

  For the first few days after his departure, it felt strange to her, to be in the house by herself, so utterly alone. She slept badly, frightened by the daytime silences of the house and by the noises it made at night. As the heat of the day died away, the roof creaked and shifted, as if trying to find rest, and at first these noises sounded like doors opening, or windows being forced. But she became accustomed to them, and she began to sleep less fitfully, going to bed early and waking late.

  She was thrilled by the freedom. At school her life had been regimented, with only small islands of opportunity for independent choice. And there had been noise, everywhere; bells, feet in the corridors, the drone of others’ radios, arguments. Now she could make her own decisions; get up when she wanted to; go down to the village for groceries when it suited her; go for a walk, or stay or read. The freedom felt almost tangible, a cloth that one might weave as one wished, into whatever pattern suggested itself.

  She travelled into Siena on the fourth day. There was a bus that ran from the village and the journey took only an hour. She found it strange to be back in a town again, but she knew Siena well and always felt comfortable there. She sat for an hour or so drinking several cups of strong black coffee, watching people walking in the piazza. There were children with brightly coloured flags, in the colours of the contrade, women talking, pigeons fluttering up from the fountain or swooping out from the tower when the bells rang.

  She made her way to the office of the university where arrangements were made for enrolment on courses. She was shown into a waiting room, where she sat on a bench beneath a picture of a man playing a lute, and then, after twenty minutes, was called into an office.

  There was a man behind a desk, a man with a sallow complexion, dressed in the dapper light suit chosen by Italian bureaucrats during summer. He half rose to his feet, gesturing to a chair in front of his desk.

  “You are interested in one of our courses?” He spoke softly, and she had some difficulty making out his question.

  “Shall I speak in English?” he added quickly.

  “There is no need.”

  He explained to her what they had to offer, and handed her several brochures. One of the courses, which lasted three months, seemed ideal – the history of Italian music from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

  “Yes,” he said. “You could do that. That would be a good course for you.”

  Then there was silence for a few moments, and he stared at her. She felt disconcerted by his gaze; by the wide, brown eyes, that seemed be searching for something. Then he spoke.

  “It is so hot,” he said. “I wish that I were away altogether. Down at the coast. Anywhere. Away from here. Wouldn’t you like to be there too?”

  She said nothing, but filled in the form which he had passed her. Then she handed it over, and he sighed.

  “This is all in order,” he said. “The music school will write to you to let you know their decision. But I’m sure that they will say yes. They always say yes.”

  He smiled weakly, as if to imply that he, a bureaucrat, understood the liberal ways of academics. Then, as she arose, he went quickly over to the door and opened it for her, standing too close to her as she passed by. She noticed his hand, the ring, and the tiny crow’s feet about his eyes, and she wondered why they felt that they had to bother, these Italian men. What point were they making?

  The course did not start for another month, which suited her. She could do some reading, she thought – she had bought some books in Siena – and tutor herself in music history before her classes began. She could go for long, aimless walks, and learn from Signora Sabatino how to bake bread; she could write letters. She would not be bored, she was sure of it.

  It was quite clear that her presence in the house had transformed Signora Sabatino’s days. Each morning the caretaker brought a basket of fruit and vegetables for her kitchen, and every two or three days there were eggs, fresh from the hens, dark yellow in their yolks, tasting of the dry countryside.

  They spent hours talking to one another, and she found that as the days passed and the older woman got to know her better, she was prepared to reveal to her much about her life which she would not otherwise have learned. There was the story of the brother who had become a priest and then, to the shame of them all, had suffered some disgrace and had been sent off to a mission in Ethiopia. There was the story of her uncle, who had been shot as communist during the days of fascism. There was the story of her brief marriage, and the sudden, shocking accident that had deprived her of her husband. There was the tale of the distant cousin who had become a prostitute in Rome and whom she had tried to rescue from a bordello in the face of a screaming, threatening madam.

  Emma realised, rather to her astonishment, that nothing, or virtually nothing, had ever happened to her; that when she held the incidents of her own life – such as they were – against the events experienced by Signora Sabatino, there was virtually nothing to say. Life was due to begin, though, now that she had left the cocoon of that school.

  They fell into a comfortable routine. In the evenings, she would make her way over to Signora Sabatino’s house and sit with her in the kitchen as she prepared dinner.

  There was no electricity in that house, and they would sit in the soft light of the oil lamps and eat the pasta which had been boiled over the wood stove. Then, when the meal was over and pots and plates washed, Emma would make her way by torchlight back to the large house and take to her bed and read.

  She wrote to her father: “Everything is going so well.

  The days pass so easily, and I realise that I haven’t really done very much, but that doesn’t matter, does it? Signora Sabatino cooks dinner every evening, and is making a good cook of me. You’ll see next time you’re out here. And I start a music course in Siena soon. It’s terribly expensive, I’m afraid, but you don’t mind, do you? I’m happy, Dad, I really am. But I will come back, sooner or later, don’t worry about that …”

  She went on the walk to the deserted church, and each time she went she put a coin in the charity box. Then she would go up the vineyards before turning and making her way back to the house. When she saw people in the vineyards, they recognised her now, and waved, and once or twice she spoke to them.

  Then, one morning, she was on her walk, at a point just before the track reached the church, when she saw a movement off to one side. She stopped, thinking perhaps it was one of the oxen which grazed on the hillside, but it was a man, a young man, who was sitting on a rock under a tree. He had lifted his face when she approached, and was looking at her.

  She stood where she was for a few moments, surprised rather than afraid, but wondering what he was doing. There was a farmhouse quite close by, a comfortable rather messy place, and she assumed that he lived there. He rose to his feet and began to walk towards her. When he was still some way off, he lifted a hand in greeting and called out to her, at first something that she did not catch, but then: “Where are you going?”

  She looked at him. Now that he was close to her, she was struck by his extraordinary a
ppearance. He was tall, but not at all awkward. His face, which was tanned olive by the sun, had the soft, glowing beauty of bright eyes and high forehead. He was, she thought, a young man from one of the Cinquecento paintings she had seen in Siena, the young man prepared for battle, body sculpted in strength, half way between boyhood and manhood.

  “I’m on a walk,” she said. “I walk over there every day.”

  She pointed towards the church, and he smiled.

  “I think I’ve seen you before,” he said. “You live down there, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “At the moment.”

  There was a silence between them, and she heard her heart beat within her. It seemed as if all her senses were charged with some curious electricity; and that she wanted nothing more than for this moment of contact to be prolonged.

  “Where do you live?” she asked. “Do you come from that farm?”

  He smiled. “Not quite, but I live around here, yes.”

  She looked at him, seized by a sudden, exhilarating recklessness.

  “I was going to have a picnic tomorrow,” she said, adding, rather lamely: “Since it’s Sunday. Would you like to join me?”

  He appeared to think for a moment, and she felt an awful disappointment at the thought that he would say no, but he accepted her invitation.

  “Let’s meet here tomorrow,” he said. “We can go and have our picnic in the vineyard. Would you like that?”

  “I’ll see you then,” she said, and as she spoke, he turned away and went back towards the rock and the tree. She continued her walk, and when she came back there was no sign of him at all. As she approached the house she ran, skipping with sheer pleasure and excitement. She felt intoxicated, and sat down and said to herself: “Calm down. This is nothing special. You’ve met boys before.”

  But the truth of the matter was that she had never met a boy like that, and his insistent beauty, his grace, his extraordinary presence had burned into her very soul and seared it raw.

  She telephoned her father, on a crackling, distant line, but did not tell him about the boy, or the picnic.

  “You sound very cheerful,” he said; and she pictured him suddenly, in his lonely house in the wasted light of London. “What’s going on? What’s happening out there?”

  She found it easy to lie, because the lie was strictly true:

  “Nothing’s happening. I went for a walk to the church today.”

  “You put in a coin for me, I hope?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.”

  They spoke for a while longer and then hung up. She switched out the lights downstairs and went up to her room, alone in the empty house, but unafraid.

  She packed the picnic basket carefully. She took filled rolls, and a fruit tart which she and Signora Sabatino had made that Friday, and wine – a bottle of chilled white wine tucked into a special vacuum sleeve to keep it cool. There was chocolate too, fruit, and panforte di Siena, which she had never been able to resist. Then she put the picnic basket on the back of her bicycle, secured it to the carrier, and set off for their rendezvous.

  He was not there at first, which did not surprise her, as she realised that she was early. So she leant the bicycle against a tree and walked over to the small grove of olive trees that grew on the slope directly below the church. The grass there was dry and brittle from the summer heat, but there was shade where they might sit and the place was quite private.

  She waited, glancing anxiously at her watch from time to time. Now he was late, and he would not be coming – she was sure of it. It had been a hare-brained idea anyway – a picnic with a boy whom she had met once and whose name she didn’t even know: it was absurd. Of course he would not come.

  But he did. Suddenly she looked up and saw him, walking over the grass towards her, and her heart gave a leap. He did not apologise for being late, but lowered himself to the ground, next to the picnic basket, and smiled at her. She reached for the basket, took out the wine and poured two glasses of the delicate, cool liquid. She handed him a glass, and he looked at it curiously, as if he was not accustomed to it, which could not be true, not here, amidst the vines.

  He raised his glass to his lips, and sipped at it, frowning slightly as he did so.

  She studied his face. He was as she had remembered him from the previous day – even more beautiful perhaps. There was a light about him, a chiaroscuro, and with each movement of his hands, or limbs, he seemed to diffuse that light.

  She refilled his glass, and hers too. Then she passed him one of the rolls, and he ate it solemnly, still saying nothing, though this did not matter. She passed him a pear, which he sliced neatly and ate with evident pleasure. She had a piece of panforte, but he looked at it suspiciously, and she did not press him.

  Then he arose, put down his glass, and gestured for her to stand up. She did so, as if in a daze, and he took the few steps towards her, opened his arms, and took her to him. She did not resist, but put her arms around his neck, against child-smooth skin, and held him. She felt the wind in her hair, and there was light, and more light; she was lifted into the air, but she could not see, as the light seemed to have blinded her.

  He set her down, and she lay back, her eyes closed. Then, when she opened them, he was gone – although he had been with her only minutes – and the picnic things were strewn around as if disturbed by a strong wind. The glasses had tumbled, and were lying, unbroken, on the ground; the other picnic things were scattered about, upturned, resting at impossible angles.

  She did not feel surprised that he was not there; in a way, it would have been more surprising had he remained. Nor did she feel abandoned or unhappy; she was too aware of an extraordinary feeling of peace and resolution. She picked up the detritus of the picnic, dusted off the glasses, and set to re-packing the picnic basket. Then she made her way to the bicycle, cast only the briefest of glances behind her, and began the ride home down the white track.

  She went into the house and put the picnic basket on the large kitchen table. Then she went upstairs, stripped off her clothes, and stepped into a cool shower. Her skin was hot, and she let the cold water needle against it, taking off the dust, drawing out the fever. She put on a towelling gown and went to lie down on her bed. She did not think about what had happened, but she knew, intuitively, that she had been vouchsafed a mystery; and she remembered only the wind, and the light that had seemed to be all around them.

  She did not leave the house for the next few days. Signora Sabatino came over to see that all was well, and went away reassured. She read, and sat under the pergola, dreaming. There were letters to write – letters begun, but not finished, and she busied herself with these. But she abandoned them, unable to talk about the one thing which possessed her. How could she? How could she describe the encounter?

  Finally, a week or so later, she walked over to Signora Sabatino’s house and asked her whether she could join her for supper that evening.

  “Of course. We’ll make a special meal together. You come.”

  And so she left the house, at dusk, and entered the comfortable ancient kitchen of Signora Sabatino’s house, where the wood fire was glowing in the range, and where she felt so completely secure. They sat and talked, but her heart was not in their desultory, ordinary conversation, so that in a way it was a relief for her to be able to say:

  “I went for a picnic. There was a boy there, with me, a boy I had asked to come with me.”

  Signora Sabatino looked up from her pastry board.

  “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No.”

  Then she added: “Something happened – I don’t quite know what. I …”

  Signora Sabatino looked at her, and knew, immediately.

  “Where was it?” she asked. “How did you meet this boy?”

  She told her, and then, at the end of the explanation, waited for the words of warning, of condemnation. But there were none – onl
y, gravely, the measured words: “There are angels in those parts, you know. There always have been. My mother sometimes saw them – my uncles too. You are very fortunate. This boy you came across was an angel, don’t you see? Do you realise that? An angel!”

  She was curiously unsurprised by the revelation, largely because she had suspected that, or something like that. Signora Sabatino was right – of course there were angels in Italy, as there always had been. There were paintings to prove it – a whole iconography of angels in that classical Tuscan countryside – the angels of Botticelli, of Fra Angelico. They were there in the sky, on great wings as white as noon heat, on feathered pinions; they were there, in choirs, against the storm clouds, messengers militant; the bright squadrons. There was nothing untoward about meeting an angel, as Signora Sabatino seemed to understand. It may be unusual in other places, but here, there seemed nothing extraordinary about it.

  Then, a short time later she knew that she was pregnant. She did not feel ill – in fact quite the opposite – and it was her extraordinary feeling of well-being, of lightness, that made her suspect her condition. Shortly afterwards, nature provided confirmation, and she took the bus into Siena and purchased, from a chemist shop near the Cathedral, a small self-diagnosis kit. The pharmacist who sold it to her – a woman – looked at her in pity, hesitated and then asked in hushed tones: “Do you need anybody to help you? There are nuns, you know. They will take in …” She paused; a man had come into the shop and was inspecting a toothbrush.

  “Thank you. I am quite all right.”

  “I was only asking. I meant no offence.”

  “Thank you. I know.”

  The colours changed, as the instructions said they might, and she sat down on the edge of the bath and looked through the small window, out over the valley, to the hills beyond. She felt detached, as if the information was about somebody else. In a way, it had nothing to do with her at all; it had happened to her, in the same way as one might be struck by lightning, or chosen in a lottery; or afflicted with the misfortune of an illness. She had done nothing – nothing – and now she was expecting a baby.