Three Days in Florence

by Chrissie Manby

  Chapter Forty-six

  Back at the house, Henry opened the door that led into the loggia with his own version of the big iron key, but instead of turning into the house, he took Kathy’s hand and pulled her through into the garden.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Just follow me.’

  He led her to the wall that marked where the grounds of the Casa Innocenti ended and the sumptuous gardens of the palazzo began. He dropped her hand to vault over the wall, disappearing into the darkness beneath.

  ‘Henry!’ Kathy exclaimed, as loudly as she could without waking anyone up. ‘Henry. Where are you?’

  She peered down into the gloom.

  ‘I’m here.’ His face loomed out of the shadows. ‘Come on. You do the same.’

  ‘I can’t get over that wall. I’ll break something.’

  ‘No, you won’t. There are piles of compost sacks down here to break your fall. Plus I’ll catch you. You’ve got to come and see this. Trust me.’

  ‘Aren’t we trespassing?’

  ‘No one will know. Actually, that’s not true. The guy who owns this place is a tech nerd. He’s probably got CCTV cameras all over the place. They’re probably so good he can count my nose hairs.’ Henry waved to an invisible camera. ‘Hey there, Mr Nerd!’

  He looked back at Kathy, who was leaning over the wall, still staring down into the darkness, trying to work out just how big the drop actually was, compost sacks or no.

  ‘It’s nothing. Manu does it all the time. And Carla, when she’s had enough of Mamma and wants to run off into the woods for a quick smoke and scream.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Come on, Kathy Courage. Kathy Brave.’

  The sound of her old nickname made Kathy look up in surprise. ‘Did you just call me Kathy Brave?’

  ‘Courage. Bravery. Same thing, right? Though you’re not showing much of either right now. Come on, Queen of Sheba. After tonight, I thought you were all about new experiences, taking chances and living life to the full.’

  ‘Where did you hear that? Not when it involves potentially breaking my neck. Plus I’ll rip the dress.’

  ‘Tuck it into your knickers,’ Henry suggested.

  The suggestion made her laugh.

  ‘I want to show you something really special. If you don’t get down by yourself, I’m coming up to get you.’

  ‘You may have to.’

  Henry shone his phone against the wall. ‘Look, you don’t have to jump. There are foot and hand-holds everywhere. Sit on the wall and swing your legs over.’

  ‘This is crazy.’

  ‘You’re having a crazy day.’

  Kathy took off her shoes. Swinging her legs over the wall as Henry had instructed, she took a deep breath. Henry kept the light on the wall until she found her first foothold. From there, she felt confident enough to drop straight onto the soft compost. Thankfully, the bags didn’t split.

  ‘We need to stay low,’ said Henry, ‘since technically we’re not meant to be here.’ They set off across the lawn. The grass was springy beneath Kathy’s feet. As it was crushed beneath her toes, it released the unmistakable green scent of summer holidays that mingled with the perfume of the jasmine that always seemed stronger at night.

  Henry held tightly to her hand as they dashed across the grass like children. He knew exactly where he was going. Through the trees behind the crooked campanile. Stepping carefully through the grove behind him, Kathy caught her first glimpse of the Palazzo Innocenti, silent as a tomb in the night. The vast pink- and yellow-plastered house – perfect in its symmetry – was dark but for a single light on the topmost floor.

  ‘The security guard,’ said Henry. ‘Probably watching a blue movie on his laptop. He won’t bother us.’

  Henry kept hold of Kathy’s hand to take her right past the palazzo in the direction of another wall. Thankfully, there was a door in this wall and it was unlocked and open. He guided Kathy through.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Sybilla Innocenti’s private garden. She was the daughter of Francesca.’

  Hidden behind the wall was a formal garden of exquisite beauty, laid out in an intricate knot design of low bushes. In the centre was a fountain, with a statue of a woman, standing on a half shell. Kathy recognised her at once as Aphrodite, born from sea-foam and carried into shore on an empty clam shell blown by friendly winds. Yet she was different from Botticelli’s Venus. Her look was less far away and more engaging. Around her feet, dolphins ridden by cherubs played in the waves.

  ‘This fountain is by Bandinelli,’ Henry said. ‘Rival of Michelangelo. The Venus is Sybilla herself.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful.’ Kathy stepped closer. Her eyes had grown used to the darkness now and the white marble seemed to glow.

  Henry hovered behind her. ‘Not a lot of people know this exists. I wanted you to see her because I think she looks exactly like you.’

  In the quiet peace of the garden, Kathy did a double-take. ‘I don’t—’

  ‘She does. She looks like you. You look like a goddess. I thought it the very first time I saw you, playing the piano at the Palazzo Boldrini. The curve of your cheek is exactly the same as hers. The way your hair falls when it’s loose.’

  ‘I … I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. But I wanted you to see this. It’s almost as though you’ve been here before.’

  ‘Like reincarnation, you mean?’

  ‘Something like that. When we first met, I felt as if it wasn’t actually the first time, didn’t you?’

  ‘It was like we’d met before,’ Kathy agreed.

  ‘To see you sitting at that piano, looking so happy and so right at the keys, was really strange. That piano, the piano in the Palazzo Boldrini, is the one on which I learned to play. It used to stand in the music room of the Palazzo Innocenti, until it had to be sold along with just about everything else of any value. Of all the things the family had to give away, that piano hurt the most for me. It felt like giving away a living thing. A dog or a horse. Seeing you playing it felt oddly right. Like you were supposed to be there.’

  Kathy felt a shiver of recognition.

  ‘Then we duetted and it was so natural. After I left you in that room and went back to Florence, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And this little tune started to come together in my head. A tune that was all about you. It tumbled through my head, like a musical notation of the way you laughed when we finally got the “Queen of Sheba” right. I scribbled it down. I was sure it was going to be a song and one day I would play it to you and you would provide the words. All that on the basis of having sat next to you at the piano for an hour or so and thinking you looked like my favourite statue. I didn’t know you at all and yet I felt I knew you very well indeed.

  ‘I was so looking forward to seeing you at that wedding. When your fiancé proposed to you at the end of the dinner, I felt like such a fool. I was jealous. Of course you were there with someone else. A woman as beautiful as you simply had to be in someone’s heart. I knew that. But when we were playing, I put that out of my mind and enjoyed the fact that you were a kindred spirit. Then when you turned up at the house … I was rude. I’m sorry. I was just so surprised to see you there, and embarrassed when I thought about Wednesday afternoon and Thursday night and how I’d practically written you half an opera without knowing anything more than your name.’

  Henry paused and snuck a glance at her. ‘You think I’m nuts,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Kathy. ‘No. Not at all.’

  She knew how brave he must be to have said any of it and how true it all sounded to her.

  ‘In that case, come here,’ said Henry.

  They sat down on a marble bench facing the statue – a bench not much wider than the piano stool – with their hands on the cool seat between them. Silently, their fingers crept towards each other until they touc
hed, jumped apart, then touched again. Kathy turned her face towards Henry’s. There was just enough silver light coming from the moon above and the ambient glow of the city around them for Kathy to see Henry’s soft, enquiring eyes and the slight, uncertain smile on his lips.

  Their fingers touched and intertwined, finally coming together as though magnetised.

  No more words passed between them but a whole conversation took place in those few moments as they leaned their heads closer and closer together. They rested forehead against forehead. Henry lifted his free hand and laid it on Kathy’s cheek. She could hear nothing but the pounding of her own heart. She leaned into his caress.

  In that touch was a thousand questions. Henry’s heart was asking, ‘Do you love Neil? Do you really love him? Or do you feel as I do? Did you feel it when we shared that piano stool, just as I did? Could you throw it all away to be with me?’

  And Kathy’s heart was asking in return, ‘Is this real? Or am I crazy? Is it possible to fall in love like this? This fast? If I jump now, will you catch me?’

  Henry’s hand cupped Kathy’s chin and gently he brought her face forward so that their mouths were millimetres apart. It was going to happen. They were going to kiss. But then …

  Chapter Forty-seven

  An alarm rang, tearing through the peace of the soft, warm night, and the dark walled garden was suddenly flooded with light, as a security system they’d somehow managed not to trigger on the way across the lawn, sprang into life.

  Swearing, Henry grabbed Kathy’s hand again and they ran back in the direction they’d come. There was no time to savour the beauty of the palazzo’s vast lawn now. Its openness was only a problem. They ran and tumbled over the grass. At the wall to the casa, Henry gave her a leg up, lifting her as high as he could. Kathy feared for her knees, for her hands, for Carla’s dress, but close behind them, they could hear barking and not the friendly kind, as the palazzo’s security guards unleashed their dogs.

  ‘Come on!’

  Henry climbed the wall alongside her and, getting to the top first, he hauled Kathy the last couple of feet.

  From inside the Casa Innocenti, Faustino was barking too. As Henry and Kathy fell onto the terrace, rolling onto the flagstones, like two commandos fleeing enemy fire, Faustino came barrelling out through the glass doors. Barking, barking, then squeaking his delight at seeing Henry, Faustino ran to be with his favourite person on earth.

  When Kathy looked back in the direction from which Faustino had come, she saw Carla silhouetted in the doorway by the light from inside the house.

  ‘What’s going on? What’s with the sirens? Is that the palazzo’s security system going off?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Henry, unconvincingly.

  Carla didn’t even pretend to believe him. ‘What were you doing over there, you idiot? Are you crazy?’

  ‘Do I look crazy?’

  ‘Don’t make me answer that,’ said Carla. ‘Amy’s husband will have you put in jail.’

  ‘He’ll have to catch me first.’

  Carla held out her hand to Kathy and helped her to her feet.

  ‘I wanted to show Kathy the statue,’ Henry said.

  ‘In the walled garden? Henry, you’re mad.’

  ‘How was I to know they’d installed some mega security system since I last went over there? They must need a licence for an alarm that loud. It will have woken all our guests up.’

  Carla’s mouth straightened into a moue as she looked at her brother and shook her head. ‘I don’t think they can take responsibility for that. Oh, Henry, you might have got Kathy bitten on the bum by one of the dogs.’

  Henry grinned at the thought.

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  Kathy grinned too.

  ‘If you’ve woken Manu up, you can deal with him being grumpy in the morning,’ Carla told them. ‘How was the gig?’ she asked Kathy then.

  ‘It was amazing.’

  ‘I knew you’d be good.’

  ‘She was magnificent.’ Henry’s eyes twinkled in the dark.

  Kathy knew they shouldn’t be looking at each other like that in front of Carla but she found she didn’t care.

  ‘It’s a shame you’ve got to go home tomorrow,’ Carla said.

  Kathy and Henry were still gazing at one another, as though sharing a private joke.

  ‘Actually, Kathy, while you were out you had a phone call. From your fiancé, Neil. I took it. He seemed quite upset that you weren’t in to talk to him. He says he’s flying out tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s flying out to meet you here in Florence. Tomorrow. He said he’ll come and pick you up so if you could be packed and ready by midday …’

  As she processed what Carla was telling her, it was as though Kathy had stepped off a kerb into a deep, cold puddle. The chill of shame crept through her body. Neil had phoned. The romance of the evening, as fantastical as it had been, disappeared in an instant. She had a fiancé. He was real and he was coming to fetch her.

  Henry at once stood up and dusted down his trousers. He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I suppose I should be going to bed. Come on, Faustino.’

  The little dog followed him inside, leaving Carla and Kathy alone on the terrace. Kathy watched Henry go. Carla watched Kathy watching Henry.

  ‘I’ll never get back to sleep now,’ Carla complained once her brother was gone. ‘Sit out here with me for a bit?’

  Kathy followed Carla to the chairs they’d sat in the night before. They settled down side by side and Carla lit up a cigarette and began, ‘I didn’t finish telling you about Manu’s dad.’

  Kathy felt herself start to sober up as Carla told her about Manu’s father Nathan, an English man, with whom she’d fallen madly in love. Who had made her feel so cared for and so loved. At least at first. As long as Carla was doing exactly what Nathan wanted. Over five years, Nathan went from being caring to controlling and when Manu came along, Carla realized that it was never going to get any better.

  ‘I wanted Manu to have a father in his life but every evening before Nathan got home, I had to make sure Manu’s toys were out of sight,’ she explained. ‘Even when Manu was a tiny baby, I would whisk him out of the way before his crying disturbed his father. I spent so much time making sure Manu didn’t disturb Nathan’s tranquillity in any way. Everything was about keeping Nathan happy.

  ‘Now I know I made the right decision in leaving. Manu loves being here. He can be a child. He was already starting to be affected by the way his father was. He was creeping around like a mouse. No five year old should be afraid to laugh and shout.’

  Kathy agreed.

  ‘But it was hard. I felt embarrassed when I first left Nathan. I felt like everyone was judging me and thinking I was crazy for leaving such a “good” man, when surely I should have been grateful he wanted me. And he had been great at first and I’d invested so much time in him. It was hard to walk away from that. But when I think of how it really was behind closed doors. How I had let him chip away at my dreams …’

  Carla stubbed out her cigarette and plastered on a smile.

  ‘It’s good news, isn’t it, that Neil’s flying out to meet you?’ she suddenly asked. Her eyes searched Kathy’s for the real answer.

  ‘Of course,’ said Kathy. ‘I’m just amazed that he’s going to. Tomorrow is a bank holiday in the UK but he’s probably got an early start on Tuesday and …’

  ‘He did say he wants to make sure everything is sorted out properly for the insurance, with the police. Regarding your bag. And the ring, I expect.’

  ‘I haven’t told him about the ring,’ Kathy admitted. ‘I didn’t know where to begin.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I mentioned it,’ said Carla. Concern wrinkled her brow. ‘But he won’t mind, will he? When he finds out. The ring is just a thing. All that matters is that you’re safe and happy. You don’t need to worry about how he’ll react.’

  Do you? was the unspoken question.

&nbs
p; When Kathy passed through the sitting room, Henry was on the sofa. He had his face buried in a pillow though he couldn’t really have been asleep. Faustino was busy trying to get into a comfortable position, kneading Henry into the right position with his four paws. Nobody could have slept through that.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Kathy said quietly. ‘Thank you. I had the best time.’

  ‘Me too,’ she thought she heard Henry say.

  Up in the attic room, Kathy got into bed but couldn’t sleep. She felt giddy when she considered what had almost happened in the walled garden. It was just a ‘nearly kiss’, fuelled by a night filled with adrenalin and alcohol. It was nothing significant. Nothing to feel guilty about. And tomorrow she would be going back to London. Back to her ordinary life in the house in Fulham. Back to Neil and his children. Back to her job search. Back to planning a wedding. Back to the life she was meant for.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Waking up in the morning, Kathy felt the effect of every single sip of alcohol she’d had the night before. It was as though someone was holding a dance-off in her head. It hurt to open her eyes to the light that insisted on pouring through the window. Kathy was far from ready to start the day.

  Dragging herself from her bed, Kathy looked at her reflection in the foxed mirror inside Henry’s wardrobe, sticking out her tongue to further diagnose that she’d had too much. As if she didn’t know. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had so much to drink in a single evening. And while elements of the previous evening were hazy, other moments shone out in her memory, like loose sequins on a dusty floor.

  Henry’s eyes meeting hers as they finished singing ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ at the party.

  The after-party in the bar. What on earth was in that awful cocktail?

  The face of Venus on the fountain in the walled garden.

  Henry’s eyes so soft and questioning, as he leaned in to kiss her.