Song Above the Clouds

by Rosemary Pollock

  Afterwards she had a vague recollection of the white-clad Sisters crowding round her, thanking her and congratulating her, and she remembered too that one of the little girls was deputed to present her with a small, neat bouquet—a bunch of hothouse roses. But the only thing she was really clear about was the fact that she had felt completely exhausted and extraordinarily miserable, and that the only person it had been possible to lean on was Michele di Lucca.

  She didn’t know what happened to Caterina—at the time it didn’t occur to her to wonder—but she did know that very quickly she found herself outside in the narrow street with Michele. It was a cool, starlit evening, and somewhere bells were beginning to clang for Benediction. Not attempting to pretend, she leant against the stone wall of the convent, and passed a hand across her forehead.

  “I suppose it was too hot in there ... or something.” She managed a rather wan smile.

  “It was too much for you. Altogether too much.” He was frowning as he watched her. “Would you like to walk a little?”

  “No.” She laughed shakily. “No, thanks. I’m all right, really. I don’t know why—”

  “I do.” Gently, he placed a hand beneath her arm. “Get into the car. Caterina should have had more sense. That—that session in there was a strain for you in every way. I do not blame the Sisters, of course— they would not understand how bad such a thing would be for you.”

  She realized that his car was beside them, and he was helping her into the passenger seat.

  “I don’t think it could have been bad for me...” she began, but he interrupted her.

  “Naturally it was bad for you. For weeks you have been under strain, although perhaps you don’t understand that. Physically and emotionally, this afternoon was simply too much for you.” He glanced at her. “You could ruin your voice through such carelessness.”

  “But I loved doing it,” she said earnestly. “And anyway, I couldn’t have refused.”

  He said nothing, but started the engine, and they moved away along the narrow street.

  “Aren’t you going to wait for Caterina?” she asked involuntarily.

  “No.” She thought his mobile, good-humoured mouth tautened a little. “She has her own car, and besides she will probably stay with the Sisters for a while.”

  “Won’t she wonder where I’ve got to?”

  “She saw you leave with me.”

  Candy hesitated. “I know,” she confessed, “that I shouldn’t have done what I did this afternoon.” She sensed .that he was inclined to be critical of her Italian hostess’s part in the afternoon’s events, and although she knew it was only a temporary annoyance, caused by the fact that he had, after all, gone to a good deal of trouble recently to help with the development of her, Candy’s, voice, she didn’t want to be the means of causing even the smallest rift between them. She didn’t understand their relationship, but it seemed to her obvious that there was something between them, and it would be dreadful if she were to be responsible for any kind of coolness between two people who had done so much to help her. “I know,” she went on, “that I shouldn’t really sing at all without asking you or Signor Galleo what you think. You’ve been so kind—you’ve done so much to help me...”

  She broke off, feeling unhappy and uncomfortable, and after a moment he spoke quietly, Actually, she thought, his voice sounded a little odd.

  “I don’t want you to be grateful to me, Candida—I don’t want you to thank me. If I have done anything for you it is because...” There was a long pause while he negotiated a dangerous roundabout. “It is because I love music,” he finished rather abruptly. “And now I am particularly anxious—” He hesitated, and she glanced at him.

  “Anxious?” she repeated.

  “I should not tell you anything,” he said rather ruefully. “It should be for Lorenzo. But I think he doesn’t plan to tell you until after Christmas, and it is important that you know now so that you can prepare yourself. So that you understand how hard you must work, and how careful you should be with your voice.”

  Candy looked round at him with widened eyes. “What—what do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean...” his voice sounded intense, eager, “I mean that soon now, Candida, your career is going to begin. An opening has been arranged for you—the opening. In Florence, on February the seventh, there will be a performance of Faust. A gala performance—part of the celebrations for Martedi Grasso.”

  Candy felt frightened. “But I couldn’t—surely you don’t mean ... Not that sort of chorus. I couldn’t!”

  “Couldn’t you?” They were in another quiet street now, not far from Caterina’s apartment, and he drew into the kerb and switched off the engine. “I am sure you could, Candida, but you are not being asked to join the chorus.” Unexpectedly, he leaned across and touched her hand. “You are being asked to take the leading part—you will be Marguerite!”

  Candy felt slightly sick. She looked out of the window at the high, ochre-tinted garden wall beside which they had come to rest, and swallowed.

  “Did you say ... Marguerite?” she asked.

  “Yes. I am sorry, I should have prepared you more carefully. It has been a shock.” She knew he was smiling a little at her stricken face.

  “And on—the seventh of February?”

  “On the seventh of February, in Florence.”

  “But I’m not good enough.” She turned to him with a pathetic gesture. Her voice was husky. “Oh, you must know I’m not good enough!”

  “I know that you are certainly good enough. But you must be brave, and work hard. Even harder than you have done, and that is very hard.”

  “I don’t mind how hard I work, but—” She made a little gesture of helplessness, and bit her lip.

  “This is a great moment for you.” The Conte’s voice grew soft, softer than she had ever heard it. “Don’t let it be spoiled by fear. You have a great talent, and a brilliant future. Some time, somewhere, that future must begin. Why not in Florence, in February? Lorenzo is sure that you are ready. He will support you ... I will support you.” He laughed. “If it is necessary we will accompany you on to the stage and stand on either side of you.”

  When they got back to the flat he didn’t wait for Caterina, but merely saw Candy into the lift, pressed her hand and smiled at her. Then he told her that, for the time being, he would say arrivederci.

  “When Caterina returns tell her she is to make you a cup of coffee.” He was still holding her small cold hand, as if to give her strength, and she felt a ridiculous urge to ask him to stay. “Then go to bed early. In the morning I will come to see you again.”

  Caterina, not in the least upset by Michele’s somewhat high-handed removal of her charge from under her nose, was as excited as a little girl when she heard Candy’s news, and she was at a loss to understand why the English girl so obviously didn’t feel as thrilled as she did.

  “It will be so splendid for you, cara,” she insisted, when, after dinner, they sat side by side on a brocade-covered sofa and talked things over. “Such a beautiful opera! And somehow it will suit you—oh, perfectly. Don’t you think so?”

  Candy didn’t know what she thought, beyond the fact that she was still pulverised with fright at the idea of what lay ahead of her. The role of Marguerite seemed to her gigantic, overwhelming, terrifyingly beyond the range of anything she could possibly hope to achieve. She loved Gounod’s unforgettable music, as she loved the work of nearly all great masters of opera, and at different times, for practice, she had sung most of Marguerite’s arias, but she didn’t think she had ever even come near to giving them the treatment they deserved, and the mere thought of coping with the Jewel Song alone made her throat feel dry.

  As she lay in bed that night, it occurred to her that she could refuse to do it. After all, her singing experience was very limited. She wondered how Lorenzo Galleo himself really felt about the idea—whether he shared the enthusiastic optimism of his friend, the Conte di Lucca, or whether he
might perhaps be a little more doubtful about the wisdom of such a thing. She knew she had done well during the past few weeks ... she knew, although he was not a man given to extravagant praise, that he was very pleased with her. But to take the lead in Faust, and with only six weeks left for preparation ... It was all so sudden.

  After Christmas, she supposed, Signor Galleo would speak to her about it himself, and then she would ask him what he really thought. She was sure he wouldn’t force her to go through with it.

  When Christmas Eve arrived she spent most of the day quietly indoors. The night before she had gone with Caterina to a smart cocktail party given by one of the Italian girl’s closest friends, and it had been noisy and decidedly exhausting. Caterina still had some shopping to do, and she was for most of the morning, but Candy had done all her shopping—she had spent a good deal more than she could afford, actually, buying amongst other things an extremely expensive Meissen figurine for Caterina, who collected porcelain—and she very much wanted a few hours to herself. She knew, of course, that as soon as she was alone homesickness and nostalgia would surge over her like a tidal wave—she would, she decided, be a very strange person if she didn’t feel something of the sort—but this she was prepared to face up to, and in actual fact she didn’t feel nearly as bad as she might have expected to feel. Sue and Paul had sent her a magnificent history of opera, accompanied by a card depicting a rosy hearth and a cat of gargantuan proportions, and she put the card among the others adorning her dressing-table and curled up on her bed with the book.

  At one o’clock, she and Caterina had a light ravioli lunch together, and afterwards she took herself for a short walk. It was a day of cool but brilliant sunshine, and her first thought as she stepped over the threshold in the street was that this wasn’t Christmas. Illogical, even sacrilegious as the thought might be, surely this strange, vivid southern capital couldn’t conjure up the seasonal spirit as she knew it. There was no Christmas atmosphere ... there couldn’t be.

  And then, as she walked, she knew she was completely wrong. This afternoon, that elusive feeling that had evaded her throughout her gift-buying expeditions to the busy, brightly-decorated shops was all around her. The streets were quiet, but here and there someone hurried past—a woman with a bag of last-minute shopping, two children giggling and whispering, a man carrying a Christmas tree—and their faces were alight with just the same sort of glow that you saw on people’s faces in Oxford Street or Eastbourne. She encountered a little black-clad priest, who smiled at her, and then she turned a corner and came on an old woman selling mimosa.

  “Quanto costa?” she asked, planning to buy some for Caterina.

  The woman told her, and, just like the priest, she smiled. “You like Christmas in Rome, signorina?” Her English was painstaking.

  “Very much,” Candy assured her. And as she spoke the words, she decided they were the truth. “Molto grazie.” And then she gasped and shook her head at the enormous bouquet of golden blossom being held out to her. “No, no... I can’t take it all!”

  “But yes—si, signorina.” The old woman had pushed her entire fragrant stock into the English girl’s arms, and over the top of it her toothy smile grew wider than ever. “You take it all—please!”

  And in the end Candy was forced to stop arguing. The flower-seller flatly refused to accept a centimo more in payment than she would normally have taken for one small bunch, and when Candy tried to insist she showed signs of becoming so violently offended that the English girl saw the necessity of giving in with a good grace and accepting what amounted to a Christmas present. Obviously the old woman was going home anyway, so it was unlikely that she was being deprived of too much—though Candy was sure she would have been just as generous if she had stood to lose a good deal.

  When she finally parted the Italian woman beamed as if the transaction had delighted her. Drawing an ancient coat around her shoulders, she waved a bony hand in farewell. “Buon natale, signorina!”

  “Buon natale. E mille grazie!”

  When she got back to the apartment Candy took the mimosa to the kitchen, for Caterina to bestow in vases when she had the time, and then she went to her room realizing with something of a shock that in less than three hours’ time she and Caterina were supposed to be at the Palazzo Lucca. The thought of the evening ahead made her nervous and a little uneasy, for it was not just a question of being entertained by Michele, and meeting a few of his friends. Even that, soothing as Michele’s company always was, would have been a little bit alarming, but this was something altogether different. The whole of the palazzo was to be opened up for the occasion, and it would undoubtedly be a glittering evening. More than that, Michele’s mother—Anna Landi—was to act hostess for him. Because of this, Candy’s first, instinctive reaction had been to refuse the invitation, and although she had realized almost at once that this was out of the question she found it quite impossible to free herself from the obstinate shadow that hovered at the back of her mind whenever she remembered that once again she was going to have to spend an evening in the society of the woman who had taken John from her. Perhaps even in the society of John himself.

  As this thought came to her she was sitting in front of her dressing-table, and she actually saw her face, framed by the heavy silver beauty of the old Venetian mirror, turn paler. If she had to see John again it would be dreadful. Surely Michele, tactful and kind as he invariably was, wouldn’t allow...

  Firmly, she took herself in hand, and got up to extract from her wardrobe the dress that she had bought especially for this occasion. It was the first new evening dress she had acquired for quite some time, and she had only purchased it because she had absolutely nothing else that could possibly be considered suitable for a formal dinner at the Palazzo Lucca. It was of white silk, with here and there a touch of silvery embroidery, and its high-necked bodice and graceful, ankle-length skirt had a look of being quite separate from one another; though in actual fact they were not. She hadn’t realized how well the dress suited her until shortly after six o’clock that evening, when she finally stepped into it, and even then, as she stood studying her slim reflection critically in the tall cheval mirror, she had no real idea how breathtaking she looked. She knew that her hair was behaving particularly well, and that: her skin was very clear—she was quite pleased with her make-up, which certainly wasn’t exaggerated, but somehow did just the right things for her lovely, luminous eyes and her soft, well-shaped mouth.

  But what she just didn’t know was that she was ravishingly beautiful—that in the slim, simply cut white dress she looked more like the ethereal shade of a legendary nymph than a flesh-and-blood young woman.

  At half past six she went through to the salotto, and there she found Caterina already waiting for her. The Italian girl was looking strikingly elegant in floating apple-green velvet which suited her better than anything Candy had ever seen her wear, and her beautiful black hair was piled high on top of her head. She looked what she was—a Roman woman from one of the best families, with four thousand years of civilization in her blood. Candy was filled with enthusiastic admiration, and immediately said so.

  “You’re always so composed,” she added a little enviously. “I wish—I wish I could be like that.”

  The other girl smiled at her. “I am different from you, cara,” she said rather quietly.

  The Palazzo Lucca was situated close to the Piazza del Popolo, in the part of Rome that at the time of the Renaissance had been the most fashionable area in which to live. It was a magnificently beautiful stone building, and as Candy’s eyes took it in for the first time through the windscreen of Caterina’s car her breath caught in her throat. It seemed to her fantastic that an edifice which looked as if it might well house a national museum, and which was certainly worthy of figuring as one of the artistic attractions of the city, should in fact be a private dwelling-place—and the dwelling, at that, of somebody she, Candy, knew quite well. Possibly Michele didn’t normally put very much
of the Palazzo Lucca to use, but it was, nevertheless, his house!

  The whole of the narrow street in front of the Palazzo seemed to be jammed with cars, some of them already parked, some still manoeuvring to find a place, and they had to wait for nearly a minute in the middle of the road while the driver of a gleaming white Jaguar tried every way he could think of to squeeze his vehicle into a space better suited to a Mini. Eventually he gave the idea up, and as he leant forward to smile apologetically at the two girls, whom he had only just noticed, Candy saw who it was. It was some time since she had last encountered Michele’s uncle, but he was too much like his nephew not to be easily recognizable.

  He wound' his window down. “Good evening, signorine! Caterina, my child, don’t try to park your car. We should both have come earlier, but now the middle of the road is all that is left to us, and the middle of the road it must be.” He glanced over his shoulder at the place into which he had been trying to manoeuvre himself. “On the other hand, carina, there is a space here just large enough for a bicycle—perhaps two bicycles. For myself I find it is of no use, but that nice little toy of yours might fit.”

  “Bene, I will try,” Caterina laughed, and as the Jaguar glided off to Cruise along the line of cars in search of a more suitable place she succeeded without too much difficulty in easing her own neat vehicle into the space, referred to. Then she and Candy climbed out, and the English girl stood looking up at the facade of the Palazzo. Lines of tall windows that made her think vaguely of the windows at Buckingham Palace were ablaze with light and light was flooding too from a huge central archway above which what she supposed were the arms of the di Lucca family were blazoned for the edification of the passing centuries in ponderous stone. A party of people who had just alighted from a car parked further down the street were moving under the arch, and the two girls followed them. High above their heads an enormous bronze lantern swung, and ahead of them a wide courtyard like a theatrical backdrop gave some idea of the splendours they were approaching.