Three Days in Florence

by Chrissie Manby

  ‘Is he a Shih Tzu?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Depends who you’re talking to,’ said Carla, gently moving Faustino along with the tip of her toe. ‘He’s a Pomeranian. And I can see he’s had a wash today. Probably with my hair conditioner.’

  Faustino continued to bark at the stranger in his domain until Carla picked him up and held him so he could inspect Kathy more closely. His legs wheeled furiously in the air. He clearly did not appreciate having been lifted straight off his feet. It was undignified. Carla sniffed the top of his head. ‘Definitely washed with my conditioner. See? See, you evil fluffball?’ She held the dog towards Kathy. ‘Nothing to bark at. Be kind.’

  Carla put Faustino back on the floor, whereupon he promptly peed on a nearby flowerpot to underline his frustration at having been humiliated when he was merely trying to defend the family home.

  Satisfied that he’d made his point, Faustino was soon leading the way back up the stairs, like an enchanted pom-pom escaped from someone’s winter hat.

  The staircase was very grand for a ‘gatehouse’, as Carla had put it. The polished wooden balustrades were carved with all manner of creatures, some recognisable, others not. Meanwhile the ceiling of the stairwell was painted with fantastical scenes to complement the extravagant stairs.

  ‘In their defence, my ancestors had only ever seen a stuffed elephant,’ Carla explained, as she pointed out something that Kathy had assumed was a grey cat with a trunk. It had big ears but it also had whiskers. ‘If you visit the stuffed animals in the natural history museum here you’ll understand.’

  Kathy remembered the comment in the guidebook she’d found at the wedding hotel. ‘It’s still amazing to me. All the work that must have gone into it …’

  ‘This is just the fourteenth-century equivalent of Ikea,’ said Carla. ‘Lots of the houses round here are painted with the most incredible stuff. I’ll show you more later. Come on. Mamma will be waiting for us.’

  Indeed there she was, at the top of the stairs.

  Kathy looked up to see a woman who seemed to have come straight from Central Casting for ‘Italian mother, early seventies, glamorous’. She was standing with her arms open in a theatrical gesture of welcome. She was wearing a floral silk day dress with pleated skirt and padded shoulders, and a pair of neat gold-coloured Ferragamo pumps. Over her shoulders, she had draped a cardigan that picked out the bright pink in the flowers on her frock. Her hair was neatly waved. She wore a pair of rhinestone spectacles that gave her the look of a punked-up owl. She might have been Gina Lollobrigida’s even more glamorous sister and yet, when she opened her mouth, to say, ‘Kathy! You poor little thing. I am glad you’re here,’ the voice that came out was pure Essex.

  Here was the reason why Carla’s English was so good, above and beyond her years in London.

  ‘My mother Roberta,’ Carla said.

  ‘I’m from Brentwood,’ said Roberta, reading the surprise on Kathy’s face. She was an Essex girl, just as Kathy was. ‘Come in, come in. Let’s get you sorted out.’

  Kathy was ushered further into the house to a sitting room on the piano nobile, as Roberta called it, which had a surfeit of furniture that spoke of better days and much bigger drawing rooms. Though this room was big enough … There were three sofas facing a fireplace, in addition to several chairs and at least half a dozen occasional tables that seemed to have proliferated like mushrooms. An old mahogany upright piano stood next to a cabinet stuffed with beautiful porcelain. The walls were hung with a jumble of paintings. Landscapes, portraits and lurid scenes from Greek and Roman mythology jostled for space and attention.

  A boy, aged around eight, sat on one of the brocade-covered sofas, scuffing his feet against the polished floor as he played a game on a tablet.

  ‘My son,’ Carla explained. She didn’t need to. He was her mini-me in boy form. He had a younger version of that same friendly face.

  ‘Oi! Manu,’ said Roberta. ‘Please put that down and say hello to our guest. Now, my little dumpling, please.’

  Manu stood to go through the formalities.

  ‘This is Emanuele …’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Manu said.

  Faustino, the Pomeranian, seeing his chance, quickly nipped into the cherished sofa spot the boy had vacated. Manu was outraged at the takeover and a tussle ensued over the most comfortable cushion.

  Kathy was duly seated in a rather grand high-backed chair that seemed to force her to sit up properly.

  ‘You need a drink,’ Roberta announced. ‘And something more than tea, I’m guessing.’

  Carla was dispatched to find a bottle of Prosecco. Prodded by his grandmother, Manu followed Carla and carried back a tray of delicate snacks. More curls of prosciutto and slivers of cheese were served with tiny pristine white cocktail napkins.

  ‘Not for the dog,’ Roberta warned her grandson, as he dangled a piece of ham over Faustino’s nose. Carla put a glass into Kathy’s hand and poured out a generous slug of fizz.

  ‘Now tell me exactly what happened, dear,’ Roberta said, after they’d toasted Kathy’s safe arrival at the house. She nodded along as Kathy replayed the tale of the piazza della Signoria, with Carla adding details about the dénouement of the chase and the subsequent trip to the police station.

  ‘The little sod,’ Roberta said. ‘It’s such a big problem in the summer. Wherever you get that many tourists in one place, you get people waiting to take advantage. But don’t you worry, my love. Florence isn’t all bad and we’re going to make sure you know it.’

  Roberta, Carla and Manu – if not Faustino – had given Kathy such a warm welcome that she was soon decided. She would stay in their hotel, no matter what it cost. She told Roberta, ‘If you have a room here, at your hotel, I can arrange for my fiancé to call you with a credit-card number.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid the hotel is full, dear,’ said Roberta.

  Kathy’s face fell.

  ‘But we’ve always got room for a little one. Carla, shall we put Kathy in the attic?’

  ‘Not like a mad woman. It’s my brother’s room,’ Carla quickly reassured her.

  ‘But where will Uncle H go?’ Manu asked.

  ‘He’ll have to sleep down here on the sofa,’ said Roberta. ‘With the dog.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Kathy. ‘I won’t put anyone out of a bed. I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  ‘On a Friday evening, my son doesn’t always make it up the stairs,’ Roberta assured her. ‘He won’t mind a couple of nights down here.’

  ‘He will,’ muttered Manu. ‘He definitely will. Don’t you remember when—’

  Roberta and Carla both shot the boy a shut-up-sweetheart look.

  ‘Your uncle will sleep down here,’ Roberta told Manu. ‘I’ll text to let him know not to go up to his room when he gets in tonight. Now, Carla, will you find fresh linen for the bed?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Manu, you can take Kathy’s suitcase up the stairs.’

  Manu’s mouth dropped open. ‘But, Nonna—’

  ‘And then we’ll forget all about what I heard you say earlier,’ Roberta added. Whatever he had said, Manu clearly didn’t want his mother to hear it. He disappeared with the case forthwith.

  To Kathy, Roberta said, ‘You will stay here for as long as you need to. Our house is your house, as they say around these parts. You’re at the Casa Innocenti now. Nothing bad can happen here.’

  Looking at the kind face of her new Italian-British friend, Kathy began to believe it.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  When the room was ready, Kathy followed Manu up the stairs, which grew narrower with every flight, so that by the time they reached the top, she felt like Alice after she’d eaten the cake that made her bigger. The door to the attic room was, like the door in the gate, built for a much shorter person. Kathy ducked her head but not quite enough the first time.

  Manu said, ‘Nonna says that banging his head on the door is what must have knocked the sense out of my uncle.’


  Kathy pressed her hand to the top of her head until the sharp pain of the knock subsided to a throb.

  ‘Did you really chase a robber?’ Manu asked, as he manoeuvred Kathy’s bag into a corner by the wardrobe.

  ‘Yes. And your mum helped.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Manu. ‘But what if he’d had a knife? It’s probably a good job you didn’t catch him.’

  ‘Manu.’ Carla was at the low door now. ‘There was no knife. Now, please leave our guest to relax for a little while. She’s had a very difficult day.’

  Suddenly Kathy knew she was on the verge of tears. She felt the old ache around her eye-sockets. Maybe it was only from having knocked her head on the doorjamb, but this kindness, from total strangers, it was more than she had ever imagined or expected. She didn’t know quite what to make of it. Seeing the tell-tale glitter in her eyes, Carla patted her arm and handed her her mobile phone.

  ‘Call your fiancé again and tell him you’re safe.’

  Once Manu and Carla had left her in peace, Kathy was able to take in her new surroundings. The attic room was small. There was really only space for a single bed but a double had been wedged in. Apart from that, there was an old wardrobe, with a badly foxed full-length mirror on the door. A small desk with a spindly chair was positioned beneath the window. It was covered with sheet music that Carla had hastily shuffled into piles to give Kathy somewhere to put her belongings. Seeing that, Kathy felt doubly guilty for having turfed Carla’s brother out of his room. He’d doubtless left the house that morning expecting to come back to find everything exactly as he’d left it. Kathy hoped there wasn’t some sort of method to the mess that Carla had destroyed when she’d piled the music willy-nilly.

  The single window to the bedroom had the green-painted wooden shutters that were typical of the region. Kathy leaned across the desk – doing her best not to disturb anything more – to see that the window looked out onto the street and a row of other houses. Not the beautiful garden, as Kathy had hoped, but just as lovely right then. On one of the terracotta-tiled sills across from the Casa Innocenti, someone was growing pots of herbs and a bright red geranium that seemed to have been planted purely for the purpose of making a perfect picture. It seemed to glow in the late-afternoon light that had turned the yellow-painted walls behind it the deep rich gold of egg yolk and late buttercups.

  Looking up and beyond the buildings immediately opposite, she could see the bell-tower of a church and the crest of an umbrella pine. There were no modern buildings to spoil the view. Was there no corner of Florence that wasn’t photogenic? Certainly not that Kathy could see from where she stood now.

  She stepped back from the window and looked at the paintings hanging on the walls inside. Like the sitting room, this attic bedroom contained far too many pictures for such a small space. Kathy supposed they, too, must have come from the palazzo Carla had talked about. Remnants of those bigger rooms again.

  Above the bed was a view of the city from the hills. That oil painting was flanked by two white ceramic cherubs, wings tipped in gold, which must once have held candles in their chubby little hands. From one cherub’s hands hung three festival passes. Kathy took a closer look. The passes – each from a few years before – said their holder was a performer with ‘Access all areas’.

  Having examined all the passes, Kathy unzipped her suitcase. She pulled out a white linen dress she hadn’t worn at the wedding because in the bright Italian sun it had looked too old and too scruffy. It was now the only clean thing she had left. She shook it vigorously but it still looked like a rag. Opening the wardrobe for a hanger, she found photographs and pictures cut from magazines pinned to the inside of the wardrobe door, like in a teenager’s room. They were of musicians. Not rock musicians but jazz musicians. Pianists especially. Kathy recognised Nat King Cole and Ray Charles.

  Despite his love of older music, Carla’s brother must have been a teenager at around the same time as Kathy, guessing from the haircuts and clothes of the young people in the photos. They were frozen in the late 1990s. Kathy leaned in close to a picture of six kids posing by the fountain of Neptune to study their faces. She spotted Carla. Another had one of those crazy round-the-head tooth-braces. While she was gawping at the photos, Kathy suddenly felt self-conscious. She would have hated a stranger to see her childhood pictures. She closed the wardrobe and hung her linen dress from the hook on the back of the door to the room instead. It felt a little less presumptuous.

  With her bag unpacked, Kathy was about to dial the landline in London when Neil called Carla’s mobile. Kathy answered instantly.

  ‘Chicken? Is that you?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on? Why am I ringing an Italian number? Where the hell are you now?’

  He didn’t draw breath between questions.

  ‘It is me,’ said Kathy, when at last he could hear her. ‘I’m OK. I’m being looked after. Everything is fine.’

  ‘But what happened? Why are you on an Italian phone?’

  Kathy took a deep breath. ‘Someone stole my bag.’

  ‘What?’ Neil spluttered. ‘Where from?’

  ‘From the café table. It happened right after I finished speaking to you.’

  ‘Chicken! Did they hurt you?’

  ‘No.’ Kathy elected not to mention the chase and her fall.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘Then what on earth happened?’

  ‘A kid just snatched my stuff. I’d just put my phone in the bag and—’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake.’ Now that he knew Kathy hadn’t been injured in the incident, Neil’s tone of concern was immediately replaced by irritation. ‘That phone is only covered for accidental damage, not theft. You’re not supposed to go anywhere it can get stolen. It’ll cost a fortune to get it replaced.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I told you to keep an eye on your bag. In fact, I told you to stay at the airport, where you would have been safe. Do you think I say these things for the sake of hearing my own voice?’

  It was a phrase he often used on the children.

  And because she had heard him use it on the children, Kathy knew Neil wasn’t in the mood to hear of any mitigating circumstances. Still, hoping he would be mollified to hear she’d done everything right since then, she told him about Carla and the police station. And the Casa Innocenti. She thought he would be pleased to know she was somewhere safe, awaiting further instructions.

  ‘You’re telling me you followed some random woman back to her house? Are you drunk? Was that what you were doing at that café? Drinking wine all afternoon?’

  ‘No. No,’ Kathy insisted. ‘Well, maybe one glass but I certainly wasn’t drunk.’

  ‘Who is this woman?’

  ‘She seems nice. Her mother is English. She’s from Brentwood.’

  ‘What? In Essex? Is that supposed to be a recommendation?’

  Neil was often rude about Kathy’s home county.

  ‘Chicken, you are too trusting. Why didn’t you just do as I asked?’

  ‘I was going to. I was calling for the bill when the thief struck. I was going to go straight back to the airport. Have I missed a flight?’

  ‘No.’ Neil sighed. ‘No, you haven’t. Melanie didn’t manage to get you onto the late flight. I shall be writing to British Airways on that matter after the bank holiday. For now, you’re still on the flight back on Monday.’

  ‘Then it’s a good job I didn’t go to the airport.’

  ‘Except that this whole handbag-snatching thing might have been avoided if you hadn’t left the airport to begin with. You’d be safe in a hotel there by now.’

  ‘I’m safe here.’

  ‘What’s the name of the hotel again?’

  ‘Casa Innocenti.’ She began to spell it.

  ‘I can spell it,’ said Neil. ‘And it doesn’t have a website. What a surprise. You’ve let yourself get picked up by some scammer. I’ll have to sort this out—’

  �
�Did you spell it with two ns?’

  ‘Of course, I— Ah. It does have a website. It looks like an old people’s home.’

  ‘It’s very comfortable.’

  ‘We have to find you somewhere closer to the centre. A proper chain hotel. If I pay from here, all you need to do is turn up. If you can manage not to get lost on the way.’ Neil continued to chat as though he were only talking to himself, thinking out loud. ‘As if I don’t have enough to think about without having to worry about you. There was nothing in the fridge when I got back.’

  ‘I was planning to go to Waitrose. Did you—’ Before she asked the question, Kathy heard a sound that answered it. It was the sound of the fridge door being slammed, followed by the voice of Sophie complaining, ‘There is literally nothing to eat in here. I’m starving. Doesn’t she normally get Waitrose to deliver on a Friday?’

  She? Charming, thought Kathy.

  ‘Tell Sophie there’s a lasagne in the freezer,’ said Kathy. ‘It’s vegetarian. It will only take about forty-five minutes in the oven.’

  ‘I had that for lunch,’ said Neil.

  ‘Really?’ That lasagne was big enough for six. In Kathy’s mind, at least. She’d certainly intended it to be big enough for six. It was meant to be a dinner for Neil, his children and herself, with just a little bit left over in case any of them particularly liked it. Which, if they did, they never admitted.

  Pre-empting Kathy’s dismay, Neil said, ‘I was hungry. I had to skip breakfast. And as I was so late getting through security because of your plane ticket, I didn’t have time to get anything at the airport and they don’t give you anything on the flight any more. The standards on BA these days … Might as well be flying Ryanair.’

  ‘OK,’ said Kathy, mentally going through the freezer drawers for a Plan B. ‘There should be some soya Bolognese sauce in the bottom drawer. If you put it into the microwave on defrost for five minutes …’

  Before she’d even finished the instructions, Kathy knew it was going to be too much bother for Neil or any of his children. Though Sophie was nineteen and the twins would be turning eighteen later that year, they all needed spoon-feeding.