Three Days in Florence

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘I will be back,’ she promised herself, snapping a couple of pictures. Perhaps even on honeymoon.

  As she thought that, Kathy looked at her ring. She gave it a quick polish on the leg of her chinos. Then she turned it so that the stones faced into the palm of her hand, where they would be hidden from unfriendly eyes. Yes, she decided. She would tell Neil that she wanted to honeymoon in Italy. If he really wanted to marry her, if they were really going to get married, he couldn’t deny her that. Not after everything else.

  For now, with the Duomo in front of her and a whole day ahead of her, Kathy was sure that coming into Florence was the best idea she’d had in a long time.

  There was so much to see and Kathy wanted to see it all. The taxi driver had given her a paper map from the wodge he carried in his glove compartment. She unfolded it now. She was aware as she did so that she was drawing dangerous attention to herself, marking herself out as someone who wasn’t a local, but she figured her bright blue wheelie case and the fact she kept taking photos were already doing that.

  With her finger, she worked out a route from the Duomo to the piazza della Signoria. Not that she really needed to do so. All the tour groups were heading in the same direction, like vast shoals of exotic migrating fish in brightly coloured shorts and backpacks. It wasn’t long before Kathy caught up with the snap-happy Germans, who were pausing in a narrow street to admire – and take pictures of – a nondescript-looking window, while their guide chattered an explanation Kathy wished she understood. She took a mental note of the name of the street and promised herself she’d look it up later.

  The narrow streets on all sides of the piazza del Duomo were clogged with slow-moving tourists, who parted with the leisurely bemusement of cows in a British country lane when a scooter or a taxi made an effort to get through. Kathy had no hope of making the crowd part for her, so she joined the flow and followed at a pilgrim’s pace, clinging tight to the handle of her wheelie case. Her handbag was safely strapped across her body. Her passport was tucked into the breast pocket of her shirt. Her engagement ring was still turned inwards so that it looked like a very ordinary silver band. There were plenty of tourists an enterprising thief would target before he targeted her, Kathy thought.

  The crowds slowed again to pass a roadblock caused by a man who had set up a portable card table and gathered a group of American tourists to watch the classic three-card trick. How did anyone not know that was a scam? Had Neil been there, Kathy was sure he would have told the gullible crowd that, while they were concentrating on the unwinnable game, the card sharp’s accomplices were probably going through their bags.

  A trinket seller waved an armful of colourful necklaces in Kathy’s face. ‘Necklace? Sunglass? Umbrella?’ he asked.

  There was definitely no need for an umbrella in Florence that day unless you were a tour guide.

  Kathy shook her head and didn’t make eye contact. The trinket seller moved on to a more likely customer. Kathy could hear Neil’s voice in her head as the man walked off: ‘You feel sorry for those guys but if you give them any money for that crap, which isn’t even made in Africa, all you’re doing is supporting the drug trade.’

  Kathy did not want to support the drug trade. All she wanted right then was to sit down and have a drink. After the excitement of seeing the Duomo, she was beginning to feel a little dizzy. The caffeine and sugar high she’d got from the espresso and pastry at the airport had long since worn off and she was tired and hot. A late night and an early start were catching up with her.

  Kathy promised herself she would sit down outside a café at the very next opportunity, so she was delighted when the stream of tourists and traders turned a corner and the vista suddenly opened up again.

  ‘La piazza della Signoria,’ the German tour guide announced, with a flourish of her brolly. While the guide’s followers went into a frenzy of photography, Kathy slipped around them and headed straight for the centre of Florence’s most famous square.

  And there he was. The enormous white marble replica of Michelangelo’s David looked out over the tourists, implacable and timeless. Kathy drew breath. Though the piazza was heaving with visitors, she could imagine her parents in front of the statue. Her mother posing for a photograph. Her smiling face as she waited for her new husband to take the picture. She could imagine her father doing his best to get the perfect shot, then asking a passing stranger to take a picture of the pair of them. How happy the newly-weds had been.

  But though David drew the eye like nothing else, everywhere Kathy looked there was something to catch her attention. She did a slow circuit of the whole L-shaped piazza, dragging her bag behind her. Behind David was the red-brick Palazzo Vecchio, with its distinctive tower. Eyeing Michelangelo’s best boy from the corner of the palazzo was the equally impressively muscled Neptune, standing four metres high atop Bandinelli’s fountain. Beneath a colonnade opposite Neptune and David – the Loggia dei Lanzi – were yet more replica statues. Cellini’s Perseus held aloft the head of Medusa. The Sabines gracefully suffered their fate.

  So much art and beauty! And how lightly the city wore its treasures, Kathy thought. She really couldn’t see how Neil had failed to be moved, though plenty of the city’s visitors that day seemed similarly unexcited, casually eating sandwiches with their backs to the statue of Judith finishing off Holofernes with a slash of her flashing sword.

  Perhaps they weren’t seeing it for the first time, as Kathy was. She couldn’t quite take in the magnificence of it all. Was this what they called ‘Florence syndrome’ or ‘Stendhal syndrome’, after the nineteenth-century French author who’d had a funny turn when he visited the city? There were no words to describe how she felt. In that piazza, in the city she had wanted to visit for so long, she felt breathless with happiness. Overwhelmed with joy and – if she was honest – pride that she’d actually made it.

  She was in Florence at last.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As in the other piazzas, the cafés in the piazza della Signoria were busy already. Kathy knew that, in the very heart of tourist Florence, the cafés would not be the best value, or even the best at anything, but she decided she would choose one all the same. There was safety in numbers. Neil would be happy with that. And this had to be the very best place in Florence to watch the world go by. Quite literally, the whole world. Kathy heard snippets of every language she knew and a great many she didn’t. She felt she had at last scored an invitation to a party that had been going on without her for too long.

  A waiter caught Kathy’s eye and gestured with a flourish to an empty table right on the front of his terrace, which was opposite the Palazzo Vecchio. It was a great table. A couple making a beeline for it were clearly disappointed when Kathy was given preference. She let the waiter pull out a chair for her, and settled down with her wheelie case alongside her. She took off her cross-body bag and placed it on the table, where she could keep a close eye on it. From time to time, a system of pipes attached to the café’s canopy puffed out a cooling mist. Kathy let it settle over her face, which she was sure must be as red as a tomato after the morning she’d had.

  The waiter brought Kathy’s water and some breadsticks with the menu. When he asked her if she would like something else, she surprised herself by asking for a glass of wine. Pinot Grigio. It was the only Italian wine she could think of right then. The waiter smiled.

  This was perfection. Well, it would have been perfection if Neil were there too, Kathy thought. Though, honestly, if he had been, he would have complained about the noisy American family on the table to the right. And the noisy Spanish family on the table to the left. And the noisy English family who were settling at the table behind, the mother assuring the children that there would be pizza with ham but none of that funny foreign ham they’d been so upset about the day before. If they ate their pizza, of course there would be gelato. Of course.

  Kathy smiled to herself, reminded of previous holidays with Neil’s children, who were very fus
sy eaters. Oscar wouldn’t eat fruit. Amelie wouldn’t eat vegetables. Sophie was a ‘vegan’. Except when she got in late from the pub and the only thing she could find in the fridge was the Waitrose pepperoni pizza that Neil liked as a weekend treat. The rest of the week, Neil wanted plain grilled fish and vegetables. Food for him was about nutrition. That was all.

  Kathy thought that good food nourished the eyes as much as the stomach. The beauty of that moment in Florence wasn’t limited to the high art that dotted the piazza as casually as recycling bins dotted the high street back home. When the waiter returned with her glass of wine, he brought with him a little wooden tray, which was loaded with miniature snacks. A tiny golden breadstick wrapped in a curl of prosciutto as fine as silk. A lump of Parmesan, with the crumbly grainy texture that you never found in the plastic-wrapped Parmesan bought from British supermarkets. An oval slice of crisp bread topped with a delicious concoction of delicately chopped tomatoes and olives, mixed with fragrant herbs. It looked like enough to make a whole lunch but by the time Kathy had finished the little platter, she was hungry for more. Which was the idea, she supposed.

  Could she have another glass of wine? Should she? And a bowl of pasta? She knew what Neil would do. He would say that one glass was enough and she should buy a sandwich from a supermarket rather than waste more money at such an overpriced spot. The prices on the café’s menu were pretty hefty – that was true – but Kathy watched with envy as the waiter brought out the food the Spanish family had ordered. It looked delicious. They looked delighted. She ordered a small dish of pasta and a side salad. And another glass of the pale yellow Pinot Grigio, which tasted as innocuous as water flavoured with white petals.

  If this was to be the only day she spent in Florence for a while, she was going to make the most of it.

  Kathy had just finished the pasta when her phone rang. It was Neil. Kathy rushed to pick up the call before it clicked through to voicemail. Neil went straight into a rant.

  ‘We circled over the airport for half an hour. It was an absolute shambles. I shall be writing to the head of British Airways. What’s happening with your flight? Have you managed to get yourself on one today?’

  ‘No,’ said Kathy cautiously. ‘I thought you were going to get Melanie to do it.’

  ‘I still expected you to be trying in the meantime. Tell me you did try. You didn’t let yourself get fobbed off again, did you?’

  ‘No—’ Kathy began to protest.

  ‘You can’t let your fear of confrontation hold you back, Chicken.’

  ‘It’s just sometimes there doesn’t seem to be any point in getting confrontational. You know the people who work on the desks at the airport can very rarely do anything.’

  ‘That’s what they’d like you to think. They want you to think they can’t do anything so you’ll go away and end up being someone else’s problem. Chicken Licken, you’ve got to stop being such a pushover. Do you want to have to stay in Florence until Monday?’

  Kathy declined to answer that. Because, really, would it be such a bad thing to have three days in this town? Looking out over the piazza della Signoria towards the statue of David, dazzling white in the sunshine, she thought she would have been perfectly happy to stay for the rest of the year.

  ‘Where are you now?’ Neil asked. ‘Go back to the ticket desk and hand them the phone so I can talk to them and tell them what you need.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I took a taxi into the centre of Florence. I’m in the piazza della Signoria. I’m just looking at the statue of David and—’

  ‘Wait. You’re telling me you’re not at the airport?’

  ‘No. Because when I thought about it, it just seemed silly to sit there in the terminal all day. And I’ve always wanted to see Florence, as you know.’

  ‘But now? Seriously, Chicken? Now? While we’re supposed to be trying to get you back to London? I asked you to stay where you were for a reason. Get another taxi back to the airport as soon as you can. Melanie will get you onto the BA flight this evening.’

  ‘What time does the flight go?’ Kathy asked, heart sinking just a little.

  ‘Nine o’clock, but the sooner you’re at the airport the better. Melanie may be able to get you onto something earlier going via Hamburg or Amsterdam.’ Neil continued to tell Kathy about all the things he had planned to do that were going to be compromised or made impossible by the fact she had been stranded in Florence. Kathy listened and made the appropriate noises of contrition.

  While Kathy was on the phone the waiter brought her a little glass of limoncello on the house. She sipped it surreptitiously, as though Neil would be able to tell she wasn’t drinking water.

  ‘I do not have time to deal with flight cock-ups …’

  As Neil detailed exactly why he didn’t even have time for this particular conversation, Kathy fiddled with the ring on her left hand. They would have to get it made smaller or she would lose it. Even with the heat, which was making her sandals feel tight, the ring twirled freely. As Neil spoke about the inconvenience of having to spend the weekend without her, Kathy decided she should probably take the ring off before it came to any harm. Still making the appropriate noises, she tucked the phone under her chin and slipped the ring into one of the zip-up pockets in her handbag – an interior one. Now there was no danger that it would fall off her finger and be lost in the cobbled streets. That would be a disaster.

  ‘So get a taxi straight to the airport and wait for Melanie to call you with further details,’ Neil concluded. ‘Try not to get lost.’

  Neil hung up, leaving Kathy feeling thoroughly told off. She could understand, though. She was in a sunny piazza, having just had a pretty wonderful lunch. He was on the Gatwick Express with three sulking teenagers, drinking too-hot tea from a plastic cup. And he was worried about Kathy being on her own in a foreign city. Of course he was. When Neil was worried, he often came across as brusque. Kathy didn’t suppose his hangover was better yet either.

  It was time to say what she hoped was a temporary addio to her Italian dream. Resignedly, Kathy put her phone into her handbag and turned in her chair to signal to the waiter that she was ready for her bill. And it was in that exact moment that the thief who had been lurking nearby saw his moment to strike. By the time Kathy had caught the waiter’s eye, the thief had snatched Kathy’s bag and made a run for it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Help!’ Kathy leaped to her feet. ‘Help! My bag! Stop thief! Help!’

  She attempted to give chase but was hampered by the café tables, which had been packed in more tightly than tuna fillet in a tin, and though the other customers were interested in the commotion, no one seemed to understand that they needed to get out of the way.

  ‘Someone took my bag,’ Kathy explained, as she stumbled over chair legs, actual legs and other people’s luggage. By the time she got out of the café terrace confines into the piazza itself, the thief was well on his way.

  Though on some level she already knew she’d never catch him, Kathy ran in the direction he’d taken. The crowds didn’t help. The thief seemed to have a magical ability to slip through the unrelenting sea of people that poured into the piazza from every corner. He was well camouflaged too. Kathy was only able to keep track of him at all because her bag was a particularly bright shade of purple.

  Her heart pounded as she ran, from exertion and adrenalin. She found uncharacteristic brusqueness as she dealt with the tourists who milled about so aimlessly – though she did manage to say, ‘Excuse me,’ every time she gently encouraged someone out of her way.

  When she wasn’t saying, ‘Excuse me’, she was yelling, ‘Thief!’ but while that certainly made people turn to look, it didn’t encourage anyone to stop the little bugger for her. His ability to part the people ahead of him was like some kind of magic trick. Without questioning why he was in such a hurry, the tourists moved aside, only to close up again, like water, when Kathy tried to fo
llow.

  Though she and the thief must have passed hundreds of people, only one other person reacted in any helpful sort of way. It was a woman. She must have heard Kathy shout and put two and two together with the young man who was moving against the human tide, carrying a purple bag that wasn’t an obvious accessory for a bloke otherwise dressed in scruffy camouflage pants and a filthy black T-shirt.

  ‘Thief!’ the woman called in Italian. ‘Stop that man!’

  She even made a swipe at the thief’s stomach with her own bag but it didn’t slow him down for a second. Still the brave Samaritan took up the chase while, finally running out of energy, Kathy stumbled, having failed to see a gap in the uneven paving stones. She landed badly, skinning the heels of her hands on the pavement, having stuck them out to try to break her fall. With her hands stinging and her head ringing from the jolt, Kathy pushed herself up and collapsed against a wall, chest heaving. The thief and the Good Samaritan finally disappeared into the distance. It was time to give up.

  Kathy swore extravagantly. Her bag, her phone, her wallet. All gone.

  Unable to hold back her tears, Kathy stumbled on to the piazza del Duomo – the direction in which the thief and the Samaritan had run – and sank to the ground in the shade of the cathedral, with her back against a wall. She could not have felt more differently from when she’d arrived full of wonder just a couple of hours before. Now she sat with her hands covering her eyes as she caught her breath. If anyone had seen the chase, no one but the Good Samaritan seemed to care. The tourists carried on around her. Most were utterly oblivious. Those who saw her gave her a wide berth in case she asked them for money or help. Kathy certainly looked like she needed help. Her hands were filthy from where she’d planted them on the cobbles as she fell. The knees of her chinos were dirty too. One was actually ripped open, showing a nasty graze. She could not believe her bad luck.