by Penny Feeny
‘Oh well then…’
Gina pushed her plate aside. ‘This situation is not of my making. I want you to be absolutely clear that if there is any fallout of any kind it’s your call. Not mine.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Vicki’s expression showed a combination of remorse and relief. She called the waiter over to ask for coffee. Gina took pleasure in adding a cognac to the order and savouring it while Vicki waited for the bill. Their parting was amicable if a little strained.
‘Must rush or I’ll be late for the twins. Where are you going now?’
‘Oh, the studio probably. I think I’ll walk.’
‘We should meet up again before the holidays.’
‘Sure.’
‘And I’ll… you know… keep my ears open. Check everything’s okay…’
‘Not my problem, darling.’
7
The photo shoot was to take place at the weekend, at Roma’s training ground, along the Via di Trigoria. This was decided by Antonio and arranged by Roberto. He had a contact who could organise the access they needed. The pitch wouldn’t be in use. But it wasn’t a problem.
‘I’m not a sports photographer,’ Gina pointed out. ‘Action shots, you know, they require a different technique. With portraiture the shutter speed is slower, the lens lingers because you’re trying to probe deeper…’
‘Like a lover?’ suggested Roberto.
‘If you want to put it like that.’
‘So you cannot do what my son asks?’
‘I can do anything. I thought you were after the classic studio portrait, but if he wants to be the football star that’s fine by me.’ She could foresee a clash of opinion. She would go out of her way to avoid the hackneyed, yet the triumphal pose was probably exactly what father and son were after; along with an excuse to parade on ground trodden by heroes.
Roberto agreed to collect her from her apartment on the way to Trigoria, a half hour drive out of town. There had been talk of the Signora joining them, to watch her son’s performance for the camera. The prospect had made Gina uneasy, so she was relieved when other commitments intervened and Bertie told her his wife had changed her mind.
He hooted at the base of her building from the family saloon, a silver Alfa Romeo. He didn’t get out of the car. Antonio was sitting beside him in the passenger seat, his hands loosely clasped around a new leather football. His quick smile at introduction betrayed a mixture of pride and trepidation. He didn’t much resemble his father. He had limp, mousy hair and a sly, narrow face. His kit – the Roma shirt, the pristine boots – were fresh from their packaging.
Gina opened the car door and slid into the back seat, which she found occupied by another female passenger. Not, fortunately, either of the Signore Boletti.
‘You have met before, I think?’ said Bertie, roaring down Viale di Trastevere. ‘This is the English guest we have staying with us.’
‘Hi again,’ said Sasha.
‘Yes,’ said Gina curtly. ‘We met some days ago.’
‘She needs to see that Roma is not all ruins and museums and il Papa. We have another important culture too, davvero?’
Sasha shifted a fraction to make room for Gina’s camera bag. ‘It will give my dad a laugh when he hears about this trip. But I’m going to watch from a distance; I promise I won’t get in your way.’
‘Don’t worry. When I’m concentrating nothing gets in my way.’ Making a stab at normal conversation, she added, ‘How are you enjoying your visit?’
‘I’m having a terrific time,’ said Sasha, also with careful politeness.
Although Gina and Roberto mostly spoke Italian together, his English was good. He would understand the girl’s answers.
‘You’re on a language course, right? How’s it going?’
‘We all speak English outside the lessons,’ she confessed. ‘We’re more than halfway through now, but I’ll probably just be getting the hang of it when I have to go home again.’
‘Oh, when’s that?’
‘The end of next week.’
There was reluctance in her tone, as if she were starting to enjoy herself. Gina was pleased. Even after so many years of living in a place which combined acres of red tape with sublime indifference to rules and regulations (whoever filled in a tax form truthfully or obeyed a no-smoking sign?); even though the streets were clogged with litter and services frequently on strike (24/7 internet access – when did that ever happen?), she couldn’t imagine anyone coming to her adopted city and not falling in love with it.
They were cruising through the wide boulevards of EUR. The business district’s monumental marble edifices were beginning to look seedy and weather-beaten, diminished in scale now that so many glittering efforts of glass and steel were joining the party. Gina had seen these changes in England too, on rare return visits, but unlike London, Rome would always be low-rise, would never resemble a computer-generated matrix of skyscrapers. Better to be scruffy than soulless.
Suburbs thinned and fields took shape; hedges, trees, birdsong. Eventually they reached the entrance to the training ground. Roberto showed his pass at the gates and swung into the car park. Antonio got out and began jogging on the spot, bouncing the ball with each upward thrust of his knee.
‘See,’ said Roberto proudly, ‘how well he controls it?’ In a lower voice he murmured to Gina as she screwed her lens onto the front of her Nikon. ‘We will have eyes watching us, cara.’
‘I know that!’ She edged away from his touch. ‘Isn’t this going to be a bit of a drag for you?’
‘Not at all,’ he protested. ‘I love to watch a skilled operator. I mean yourself, naturally, as well as my son.’
Antonio was dribbling the ball towards the goal mouth. Alone on the pitch he looked small and insignificant. She raised the camera to her eye and lowered it again. She’d need to get close to create Antonio the magnificent striker. He was too tense; he should play for a bit, relax.
‘Sasha,’ she called. ‘Let him kick the ball to you.’
Sasha, in a pair of round sunglasses and cut-off jeans that were a little too tight, was leaning against the body of the Alfa, unwrapping a piece of chewing gum. ‘But I don’t play football!’
‘All you have to do is kick it back. Why else are you here?’
Sulkily the girl stuffed the gum back in her pocket and moved off. She walked the way Mitch did, Gina noticed, that roll on the balls of the feet, surprisingly erect for a self-conscious teenager. Perhaps she’d had ballet lessons: dancing was known to improve the deportment. Phoebe had stories of walking in a circle for hours with a dictionary on her head.
‘Brava!’ said Roberto. ‘Also, I have another proposal for you.’
‘An assignment, you mean?’
‘No, no. Something to make your life more comfortable.’
Was it possible that at last he was going to make some improvements to the apartment? Had he been frustrated once too often by the airlock in the pipes and the erratic dribble of the shower? Did he envisage her cooking dainty meals for two in a new efficient oven? No, wildly unlikely: he knew she didn’t cook. Though a fridge plumbed in with an ice dispenser, that would be worth having.
‘You see, I know how to make you happy.’
‘Bertie, you’re all promises, promises. Jam tomorrow.’
‘What is jam tomorrow?’
‘Tell me what you’re thinking of. Go on, give me a clue.’
‘No, later. When we are alone.’
‘Papà, che cosa fai? Sono pronto.’ Antonio was flushed with exertion, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and clavicle, a glow to give a portrait life and depth.
‘Adesso vengo,’ Gina called, moving forward. The sun might be a problem, bleaching the colours, but she should be able to compensate. As soon as she began to stalk the boy she lost all sense of time. Occasionally she called orders – Sasha’s job was to return the ball whenever Antonio kicked it out of shot – but she didn’t want to interrupt his focus. She wanted to capture the inte
nsity of his frown, the set of his jaw, his shining pride in a well-aimed goal. When he played out his fantasies he was no longer a spoilt rich boy with too many possessions he didn’t value, but as determined and defenceless as any of the migrants she’d come across, pursuing their dreams.
Initially Roberto played at being coach, shouting instructions, stamping earth that was so hard the ball sprang effortlessly into the sky. His pima cotton T-shirt was the palest pink, but it didn’t feminise him; he was tanned, robust, exuding prosperity and self-satisfaction. He was a man always likely to be on the winning side. It was what had attracted Gina to him in the first place, but it was a mistake she shouldn’t have made: letting herself be drawn into a relationship without negotiating an escape route. At this point in her life, she didn’t imagine she could ever do away with the exit clause.
She concentrated on Antonio’s performance, disporting herself in all kinds of frankly ridiculous positions to keep pace. She tried to ignore any other distraction, including the curious onlookers peering through the fence, so it took her a while to notice Bertie had given up. She saw him greeting an acquaintance, presumably the official who’d facilitated this visit, sitting on a bench at the touchline, making phone calls. Then he stood and began to semaphore. ‘Basta, basta ragazzi!’
Antonio slowed to a halt. There were large dark patches of sweat under his arms and across his shoulder blades. As footballers do, he pulled off the shirt and wiped his face. Gina’s shutter clicked rapidly. This was not the picture the Boletti parents would choose, but she loved the way he looked so spent, wasted, enveloped in exhaustion. She thought of Sami holding his pose for hours on end without a crack disturbing his ivory make-up. Or Yusef, finding an illegal day’s work on a demolition site, every muscle coated in a film of grey dust so that he, too, resembled a ghost. That was true stamina.
As a special privilege, Antonio was to be allowed to shower in the team’s changing rooms. This was the sort of perk a useful connection could set up. His father and the official accompanied him into the clubhouse. Roberto tossed Gina the car keys so she could dismantle and pack away her equipment, and Sasha followed her. They opened the car doors to reduce the furnace-like heat and sat on the baking leather seats with their legs in the sun. Sasha’s freckles climbed from ankle to thigh. She’d tried to blot them out with fake tan and spotted Gina looking.
‘I hate the smell of that lotion,’ she said. ‘And it isn’t as simple as it says on the bottle.’
‘You’ve not done a bad job,’ Gina allowed. ‘You have to look twice to see the streaks. It’s a question of practice, that’s all. It comes easily to me because I got plenty when I was modelling.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘What?’
‘Being a model.’
‘Some of the time. It wasn’t planned. I fell into it.’ There were elements she had liked: the money for a start, the praise and attention, the feeling of family when the girls bonded together. She’d experienced that at boarding school too, but the sense of warm inclusion, being part of a gang, could be dangerous. It was safer not to depend on other people.
‘Were you, like, scouted?’
‘I answered a dodgy ad. Luckily it led to better things. I was at a bit of a loose end because I’d been thrown out of sixth form and I needed to find work before my stepfather, Monty, stopped my allowance.’
‘Really? What had you done?’
‘Oh, the school was one of those pricey penal institutions where anything could get you into trouble. Smoking, wearing jewellery, ignoring curfews. I mean, I did all that stuff, but the reason they gave was that I cheated in an exam. I didn’t, as it happens. The girl sitting next to me copied my maths paper, but they assumed it was the other way around because they wanted rid of me anyway.’
‘Wow, how totally unfair. Didn’t you complain?’
At the time she’d been glad to leave, but it had given her a jaundiced view of justice. ‘Actually I learnt two useful lessons: trust no one; cut your losses.’
‘Oh,’ said Sasha with a sharp intake of breath. ‘That’s so bleak.’
‘Lesson number three,’ said Gina. ‘Enjoy the good times. Shit, you’re making me sound like a walking book of clichés. Drop the subject, shall we?’ She couldn’t risk letting something out of the bag about Mitch.
Sasha scuffed the toe of her trainer against the tarmac. After an interval, she said, ‘I don’t get why we had to come all the way out here so Antonio could run around with a football. I mean, all pitches look the same and no one’s going to be able to tell, are they?’
Privately Gina agreed with this, but she said, ‘Well, this is his team, so it must be like treading on hallowed ground or whatever. He probably thinks it will bring him good luck.’
‘But you’ve been taking portraits, right? You can’t even see the background.’
‘In some of the distance shots I can make it look like he’s scoring a goal.’
‘It could be any goalpost,’ Sasha persisted. ‘Who’s to know?’
‘He knows, so that will make it valuable to him. It’s not always what you actually see that’s important. A particular location can create a mood. Maybe I’ll find it reflected somehow in his face.’
‘Can’t you tell?’
‘Not until I get to the studio and run everything through the computer.’
‘Is that where you’re going after this?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t decided.’
Roberto and Antonio emerged from the clubhouse and approached the Alfa in ebullient good humour. Driving back they chatted with much laughter and gesticulation, as if they were alone in the car. Gina resented this, although she was perfectly aware she was only the hired photographer. Antonio wouldn’t expect his father to treat her any differently from the way he treated Katya, the maid. She kept her gaze fixed out of the window so she wouldn’t have to make any more small talk with Mitch’s daughter. She considered mentioning Vicki’s name as a possible contact, but decided against it; Bertie seemed to be looking after the girl.
They re-entered the city walls at the Pyramid, the landmark tomb of Caius Cestius. Addressing her for the first time since they left Trigoria, Roberto said, ‘Do you want me to take you home, Gina?’ She answered without thinking, her decision taken on the spur of the moment, ‘No, drop me here.’
‘Managgia la miseria!’ He was trapped in the central lane of traffic. ‘Why didn’t you say so earlier?’ The inconvenience didn’t deter him however. He crossed three lanes at speed and swerved to a stop behind a bus. His eyes met hers in the mirror and she saw that they were sorrowful. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I should have understood. You want to visit him.’
‘I… I…’ She stopped. She did visit Felix’s grave regularly; often she brought flowers. As she squatted to arrange them in their little brass pot she would talk to him, conjure his responses: wise, sardonic, sometimes impossibly pompous, and feel comforted. But in July, although the Protestant Cemetery was awash with roses, cut blooms shrivelled in the heat. They would have no life at all. She hated to see the petals browning, limp stalks failing to bear their weight.
‘Anche tu, Sasha?’ said Roberto.
‘I’m sorry?’
He switched to English. ‘You have visited this cemetery before?’
‘No, why?’
‘Why? Because it’s important to your culture, no?’
‘You see,’ said Gina, amused by Bertie’s solemnity, ‘the Romans, they like films and music and football and racing rallies. And technology – anything that’s up to the minute. Whereas we Brits are into art and archaeology and dead poets.’
He pounded the dashboard in mock annoyance. ‘Che cazzo dici?’
‘I’m explaining the historical reference. Keats and Shelley,’ she told Sasha helpfully, ‘are buried by the Pyramid. Signor Boletti thought you’d be interested in a visit.’
‘What, now?’
‘Certo,’ said Roberto.
‘Oh, sure, great.�
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Gina was lumbered: the girl was already getting out of the car.
‘Afterwards,’ said Roberto, ‘be sure to send her safely back to us. And I’ll call you about those photos.’
‘I’ll email you the proofs as soon as I’ve sorted through them,’ said Gina, striving to sound as formal as possible in front of the two teenagers.
The lights changed; the Alfa sped off. As they waited at the busy intersection, Gina said, ‘I’ll point you in the right direction but it’s not actually convenient for me to be a tour guide. Bertie got the wrong end of the stick. I’m sorry he threw you out like that before I had a chance to explain.’ She started to cross and Sasha hurried after her. ‘Still, you should see it – it’s such a wonderful peaceful spot, given it’s in the midst of all this clamour.’ She windmilled her arms in the centre of the road and trucks and scooters darted around her. Sasha looked scared.
‘Don’t dither,’ said Gina. ‘You’ll get yourself killed.’
When they were both safely on the opposite pavement, she veered down the quiet side street that led to the cemetery. She pointed through the aperture set into the wall. ‘If you look through that you can see Keats’ grave. The main entrance is a little further on.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Oh, it’s a business matter. I’m going to see the Lion King.’
‘Do you mean the film?’
‘God no! He’s a priest called Leone, who has a church not far from here. But you’ll be fine.’ She wasn’t a babysitter; the girl was none of her business. Anyway, what could go wrong?
8
The Protestant Cemetery was closed. Sasha pushed fruitlessly against the lock before thinking to study the timetable screwed to the heavy gates and cursing. Just her luck! She took out her phone and sent a text to Renate. She and Ilse had gone with some boys they’d met on a trip to the beach. Sasha wished she’d muscled in, instead of letting Signor Boletti persuade her she shouldn’t miss a rare and privileged opportunity: every football fan’s dream. She should have made it clear she wasn’t a football fan. It was at times like this she could have done with Ruby, whose resistance to being pushed around was super-human.
