Three Days in Florence

by Chrissie Manby

  Leaving the piano for a moment, he opened a painted cabinet in a corner of the room, as casually as if he were in his own house, and pulled out a sheaf of sheet music. Kathy watched as he flipped through it, setting aside a smaller pile of pieces he must have been interested in playing. His profile was serious but rather beautiful. It was a cliché to say it of an Italian, but there was a hint of Michelangelo’s David in his straight nose and generous mouth.

  ‘Do you ever duet?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘I …’ Kathy began. ‘I mean, I haven’t had the opportunity. Not since Dad …’ The words tailed away.

  ‘Would you like to duet now?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m good enough.’

  ‘You’re good enough. I’ve been listening to you play.’ Henry pulled a book from the pile. ‘This is easy enough on a first read-through. You probably know it already. It’s one of the first I learned. You take the right hand and I’ll take the left.’

  Henry moved the Chopin waltzes from the music stand and replaced them with Hungarian Rhapsody, No. 2 by Franz Liszt. Kathy gawped at the busy staves. If she did know this piece, she couldn’t tell by looking.

  Henry searched around for another stool or chair he could put at the keyboard. Finding none he said, ‘Move up.’

  Kathy hesitated.

  ‘I can’t play standing. Well, I could but …’

  Kathy duly shuffled to the right-hand side of the stool. It wasn’t a big stool. It would have been cosy for two friends. For two strangers, it was extremely intimate. Sensing Kathy’s discomfort, Henry perched one buttock on the left-hand edge, so there was still a little gap between them. All the same, he was now close enough that Kathy could smell his aftershave, which had hints of sandalwood. Luckily she liked it.

  ‘Comfortable?’ he asked.

  In all sorts of way, no, Kathy thought. Out loud she said, ‘I think so.’ When she shifted to give him a little more room, the sleeve of his white shirt touched her bare arm and brought her up in goose bumps.

  This was all very strange. Was Henry paid to play piano with the guests? Was he the musical equivalent of a tennis pro or one of those chaps who lurk by the edge of the dance-floor, looking for lonely women to partner in a samba?

  ‘Good,’ said Henry. ‘Your part goes like this.’

  He reached across her to play the first few bars at her end of the keyboard. His hands were large – which fitted his height – but somehow still elegant, with long, strong fingers. His nails were neat and clean. The backs of his hands and his forearms were sun-kissed and lightly hairy.

  ‘I think I do know it,’ said Kathy, hugely relieved.

  ‘Then have a go.’

  ‘What? Now?’

  Henry nodded. This was really happening.

  Leaning close to the music, as though that would make it easier to understand, Kathy pecked out the notes that Henry had played with such ease.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said, though Kathy knew her rendition had been far from that.

  ‘Now we’ll try it together. We’ll take it slow to begin with. One, two three …’

  He counted them in, tapping his foot on the floor in lieu of a metronome.

  They managed two whole staves before Kathy made a mistake.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, stopping instantly.

  ‘No need to stop when you make a mistake. Just carry on.’

  They started again. This time, Kathy was slightly too slow and the side of her hand touched the side of Henry’s as he played up the scale while she was playing down. Kathy whipped hers away.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘From the top,’ said Henry.

  When it happened again, Kathy blushed magenta.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Henry assured her. ‘This is meant to be fun. If it isn’t fun …’

  ‘No, no, please,’ said Kathy. ‘It is fun. Let’s carry on.’

  Henry had Kathy play her own part alone so she could get past the phrase where she always seemed to stumble. His suggestions and instructions were expert. ‘I sometimes teach piano to children,’ he explained. ‘I know what it’s like when you keep making the same mistake. It feels like it becomes automatic – ingrained somehow – and then it’s harder to fix than ever. So slowly now … You’re going to get past that bit this time. Break the spell.’

  Kathy tap-tapped her way through the sticky part.

  “Excellent. Wrists a little higher,’ Henry suggested. ‘And keep breathing, please. Keep breathing all the time!’

  Kathy laughed at that. ‘What do you mean? I am breathing.’

  ‘Really? You look still as a statue to me.’

  He leaned back a little to get a better look at her. He seemed about to say something but decided against it. ‘Take a deep breath,’ he said instead. ‘Relax, relax! Shake your arms out.’

  Kathy wriggled her wrists.

  ‘More vigorously,’ Henry said. ‘We’ll do it together.’

  They both stood up and shook out their arms.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ said Kathy.

  ‘What? Playing the piano? Stranger things have happened,’ Henry assured her.

  They sat down again, carefully preserving the tiny distance between them.

  ‘Good! From the top,’ Henry said. ‘Faster, this time. And louder. Come on. This bit is meant to be forte. Fortissimo! Louder! Loud!’

  What am I doing? Kathy asked herself, as they played. Really, what am I doing? She was squished up on a piano stool with a man she didn’t know. She felt hotter and hotter. She was sure her face must be bright red. She was making a fool of herself.

  ‘I should leave you to play on your own,’ she managed to say, when they finished the piece for the second time.

  ‘No way!’ said Henry. ‘Do you know how rarely I meet someone I can play with? You’re staying here.’

  ‘This is not how I expected to spend my afternoon.’

  ‘It’s better, though, isn’t it?’ he said.

  Kathy gave a curt nod.

  He was right.

  They played the Liszt five or six times over before they got it absolutely spot on. When they did, Kathy assumed that would be the end of their duetting, but Henry said, ‘I know exactly what we should play next.’

  ‘No,’ Kathy tried to say. ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time.’

  Ignoring her, Henry went back to the painted cabinet. ‘You’ll know this one.’ He frisbeed the music across to her.

  ‘“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”?’

  ‘You can Handel it,’ Henry punned. ‘Ever played it?’

  ‘I used to play it with my father.’

  ‘Then this will be great.’

  Henry sat back down and soon they were hammering on the keys again. Since this strange man was not going to let her off easily, Kathy decided she should just forget to be self-conscious and play. She should simply enjoy the ride. She’d forgotten the joy of playing with someone else. She’d forgotten the pleasure of those perfect moments when four hands were exactly in time. To be so in tune with someone she’d met only half an hour earlier was, in an odd way, exhilarating. It was like dancing. It was like running down a hill, holding hands. It was bonkers. It was the best fun she’d had in a long time.

  When she’d played the last note on a perfect run-through, Kathy rocked back laughing with adrenalin and joy, her hands still on the keyboard. Henry carried on playing a jolly ad lib on the last phrase of the piece, then played his way right over Kathy’s fingers to finish with a sonorous dong on the low C.

  With their hands still in place, their wrists crossed on the keys, they looked at each other. They were both breathing hard. Henry’s brown eyes were crinkled at the edges. Kathy nervously dropped her gaze.

  ‘Well, that was fun,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ said Henry. ‘Excellently well played.’

  When she looked up again, his eyes upon hers were so genuine and kind that Kathy allowed herself to be convinced he had enjoye
d playing with her just as much as she’d enjoyed playing with him. Slowly, they took their hands from the keyboard. While they’d played, they’d moved closer together on the stool too, until their thighs were actually touching. Henry stood up, breaking the connection and the spell, and Kathy smoothed her crumpled linen skirt. Then they both went to speak at the same time.

  ‘I should be getting ready for tonight,’ said Kathy, just as Henry said, ‘I should be going.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to play,’ Henry continued. ‘You can practise your part for next time.’

  ‘I wish … I don’t know when I’ll next get the chance to play,’ Kathy admitted.

  ‘You should make it happen. Thank you. I enjoyed our duet.’

  ‘As did I.’

  ‘As did the piano,’ said Henry.

  Kathy laid her fingers on the keys again.

  ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here, Queen of Sheba. Remember to keep breathing.’

  Henry gave the polished lid of the piano an affectionate pat and wandered off, humming. Kathy watched him go. What a strange but perfectly wonderful encounter.

  If Kathy had wanted to carry on playing, it was too late. The clock on her phone said that she and Henry had been playing together for more than an hour and now it was six o’clock.

  When she stood up, she saw from the music room’s long windows that the coach carrying the stag party from their day of paintballing in the woods was already back. Soon she heard voices echoing round the hallway. They were loud and excited, lots of joshing going on. At any minute, people would come upstairs to their rooms to change for supper. Kathy didn’t want any of them to catch her at the keyboard.

  She slipped out of the music room and ran along the corridor to the suite she shared with Neil.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Neil asked, when he found Kathy in their bedroom. She was sitting in the chair by the window pretending to read one of the hotel magazines and she knew as soon as she saw him that he was in a bad mood. ‘I didn’t think the women were back from the shops yet.’

  ‘I don’t think they are. I didn’t go with them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I had a headache,’ she lied.

  ‘So you just hung around here all day? Chicken Licken,’ he sighed, ‘people will wonder where you got to.’

  ‘How was the paintballing?’ Kathy asked, to change the subject.

  ‘Bloody painful. I’m not sure paintballing should be called a bonding activity. Too many grudges get played out with what are frankly dangerous weapons. People kept going for the head. Jeff nearly had my eye out. There’s no way that shot was an accident either. He was a clay-pigeon champion in his youth.’

  Kathy was glad Neil wanted to talk about his day. It saved her having to talk about hers. She didn’t think ‘I played piano duets with a handsome Italian’ would go down awfully well. She felt as shy about it as she might have done had she and Henry had actually spent their time dancing the tango and discovering that their bodies were a perfect fit. That there was a chemistry that might just quickstep off the dance floor …

  Chapter Seven

  The minibus from the outlet returned shortly afterwards. Amelie and Sophie were laden with bags and hyper with excitement about the contents. Shelley, stepping off the bus right after them, looked haunted.

  ‘We found these great dresses in Gucci,’ said Sophie, ‘that will look so much better with Shelley’s wedding dress than the things we got from Pretty Little Thing.’

  Never mind the bride’s plan.

  ‘We’ll make it work,’ said Shelley.

  That evening, dinner was another buffet on the terrace but this time, instead of music from Dave’s iPhone, the guests were entertained by a proper DJ – a man in his twenties, with long floppy hair and a multiple piercings. That seemed to cheer the girls up. Maybe Tuscany wasn’t so boring, after all. In fact, Amelie and Sophie started the dancing, vying for the handsome DJ’s attention. Margaret, sitting with Neil and Kathy, complained endlessly about the volume. Oscar kept his eyes on his phone.

  After a word from Neil about the age range of the people present, the DJ put on some music more suitable for the older crowd. Amelie and Sophie sat down in disgust. Shelley and Dave took their place, dancing to the eighties and nineties hits that never seemed to get old. Kathy tapped her feet in time until she couldn’t bear to sit still any longer. When a song she loved – Deee-lite’s ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ – came on, she reached for Neil’s hand and asked him to join her in a spin around the dance-floor. ‘Show off your best dad dancing,’ she joked.

  ‘Someone’s got to stay with Mum,’ he said, as though getting up to dance would mean having to be a mile away from his mother. Kathy recognised an excuse when she heard one. Margaret would have been perfectly happy to sit at the table with her grandchildren, pursing her lips as they played on their phones and generally ignored her. It would give her something else to complain about later.

  But Neil still would not dance. Instead he got up to fetch drinks for himself and his mother, and Kathy went to dance alone. By the time she got onto the floor, the song had changed. Now it was ‘Tainted Love’, which seemed about right.

  As she twirled around on her own, conscious of the eyes of Sophie and Amelie upon her – critiquing her style, no doubt – Kathy remembered a time when Neil had danced because she wanted to and her wanting to had been a good enough reason.

  It was early on in their relationship, when they were still ‘courting’, as Neil liked to call it. They’d gone to a Spanish restaurant and drunk too much Rioja as they gazed at one another across the table. A live guitarist was playing. When several of the regulars got up to dance, Kathy reached for Neil’s hands and pulled him up onto the makeshift dance-floor. He didn’t protest. He wasn’t a natural dancer but right then he just wanted to make her happy. He held her in a slightly awkward pose and grinned over her head as they rocked from side to side. But that was fine. Kathy was delighted to be in his arms.

  Kathy’s eyes prickled as she remembered the Kathy and Neil who had spun around to the music on that long-ago date. When was it? Only five years ago? It suddenly felt so much longer. He would have done anything to make her smile then.

  When Neil got back to the table with drinks for himself and Margaret, Kathy caught his eye. She tried to persuade him to get up one more time, miming reeling him onto the floor, like a fisherman bringing in a salmon.

  ‘If he gets up to dance,’ Kathy said to herself, ‘there is still a chance we can salvage this. We can still make it work. All relationships go through their challenging moments …’

  But Neil shook his head and stayed resolutely seated.

  Then Uncle Tony fell arse over tit into a rosebush and the dancing and the evening were brought to a close.

  Chapter Eight

  Neil was not Kathy’s first, second or even seventeenth Internet date. Shortly before they met, she was beginning to lose hope. She had run into all the usual Internet romance problems. The men who lied about their age, their height, their being in gainful employment. Not to mention the men who lied about their marital status. She had come to recognise that when a man posted a picture of himself that had obviously been cropped, the missing section usually contained a girlfriend who wasn’t quite an ex. If a man said he would rather exchange photos privately, that was an even worse sign. It was inevitably because he didn’t want his wife’s friends – or even his wife herself – to stumble on his secret dating profile.

  The week Kathy met Neil, she’d already had a date with a man who claimed to have been single for three years but had a tell-tale indent on the ring finger of his left hand. Surely after three years of separation it should have gone. He also spent an inordinate amount of time in the loo. Probably calling his wife to say he would be ‘late home from work’.

  So when Neil turned out to be exactly as he had described himself – forty years old, properly divorced for two years already, in possession of all his own teeth and so
me hair – the first thing Kathy felt was relief. Here at last was someone nice and honest and normal.

  He wasn’t immediately her type. Raised on the Brontës and Jane Austen, Kathy would have said she liked her men to be artistic and dramatic. But Kathy’s type had not got her very far. For a start, they were thin on the ground outside the literary world and it was time to get real. She had just turned thirty-five. Most of her friends were married. Many were starting families.

  When Kathy first moved to London in her mid-twenties, there was always somebody to go out with on a Friday or Saturday night. Lately, she’d spent whole weekends alone, talking to no one but the chap in the corner shop or her mum on the phone.

  So, Neil was not her type but maybe that was a good thing. Exciting was good but exciting couldn’t keep you warm in front of Strictly on a Saturday night. And Kathy wanted that Saturday-night comfort now. She wanted to step off the merry-go-round of dating and join the contented, settled women who posted about their bliss on their contented, settled women’s blogs. She wanted to be with someone with whom she could make plans. She wanted a family of her own. Most of all she wanted to feel safe. For all sorts of reasons, she wanted someone else to take charge of her life for a while.

  ‘I think that went quite well,’ said Neil, as their first date at a coffee shop near his office in the City drew to a close.

  Kathy didn’t know then that he wasn’t leaving to go back to the office but was actually going on to date number three. ‘Yes,’ said Kathy. ‘I think it did.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll see each other again,’ he said.

  ‘I’d like that,’ Kathy agreed.

  But Neil didn’t suggest another meeting straight away. Later, she would discover that he’d waited until he’d met all three women he was scheduled to see that day to decide which acquaintanceship to take forward. Kathy won. Neil was very honest about it. He told both the other women they hadn’t got the position of probationary girlfriend the very next day by email. Then he quickly booked a second date with Kathy. This time it was a proper evening date. They went to a Chinese restaurant and Neil kissed her lightly on the lips as they said goodbye in the ticket hall at Embankment. It was a polite kiss. There was something old-fashioned and charming about the way Neil operated. Kathy found she was intrigued and excited about a third date.