The Apartment in Rome

by Penny Feeny

  But if it turned out this Gina Raven really was his former girlfriend another conundrum presented itself: was Sasha’s meeting with her a totally random encounter? A trick of fate or engineering? For a while he sat on his daughter’s bed, debating. Then he thought, what the hell, opened his palm to read the number again and punched it into his phone.

  13

  Sasha clicked her mobile shut. She decided to contact Ilse and Renate later, when she knew what she wanted to say to them. She felt lousy, not just because of lying to her parents, or because she’d had to throw herself on Gina’s mercy, or because her head was throbbing so much – but because she was screwed, basically. She couldn’t handle being gawped at, so she couldn’t go out. And now she’d burnt her boats, she couldn’t even go home.

  While Gina had been out on her errands, she had lain on the sofa listening to the clock at Santa Maria marking every quarter hour. At each chime she had thought, there’s time yet, I can make it. She’d had to go downstairs when the taxi arrived from Parioli. She was glad Signor Boletti wasn’t accompanying her suitcase; he’d presumably found it convenient to believe the excuses she’d made to Katya. It would have been easy enough to climb into the cab and ask to be taken to the airport. And then the midday cannon boomed from the Gianicolo and she knew she was too late.

  Gina had not been pleased to find her still ensconced. Sasha prepared herself for a scene but Gina, though tight-lipped, had rallied. She’d even vouched for her when she rang home, which was by far the most difficult step of the enterprise. Once she’d cleared everything with her mother, who was hard to deceive, laying it on for her father was a relative cinch.

  Gina had breezed out again with her equipment, looking almost as if she might be one of the wedding guests, elegant in linen trousers and silk shirt, her hair tied back, her nails perfect. ‘Attention to detail,’ she’d snapped, when Sasha paid her an innocent compliment. ‘And this time, while I’m gone, you’d really better think about what you’re going to do.’ Sasha couldn’t respond with either a woeful or a meaningful look because half of her face was frozen and her good eye was red and raw from rubbing.

  She mooched around the living room, lifting objects, photographs, the funny sculptures, and replacing them carefully. She switched the television on to a bright and squealing game show, then flicked through the channels in search of MTV, which was mainly what she’d watched at the Bolettis. She couldn’t use her laptop because she didn’t know Gina’s wireless code. She pushed open the shutters to the terrace but the light dazzled her, so she retreated. Two matching wooden chests stood either side of the French windows. One was locked; the other opened onto a selection of clothes, mostly men’s shirts, trousers and jumpers in expensive materials – cashmere, mohair, sea island cotton. She wondered why Gina was hanging on to them, whether for dressing up her portrait sitters, or because they had sentimental or financial value.

  She was curious to see what Joe was doing. He had scarcely come out of the second bedroom. He’d used the bathroom once and Gina had gone in to talk to him and take him more painkillers. Sasha assumed, like herself, he’d been dozing on and off, but he couldn’t stay in bed for ever. Besides, the spare room was also a study. It had a desk and a computer in it – a regular PC, nothing fancy – so as long as it wasn’t protected with a password she’d be able to log on to Facebook.

  She put her head cautiously around the door. Joe was propped, bare-chested, in a half-sitting, half-lying position against the pillows. He stirred awake as soon as she entered. The computer was in an alcove beyond the bed. ‘Ciao,’ she said. ‘Come stai?’

  ‘Bene,’ he said, ‘anche tu?’ You too? Their private joke.

  She moved further into the room. ‘Gina’s gone out to work. Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Acqua, per favore.’

  Behind the theatrical swoop of curtain that obscured the kitchen area, she filled a jug with ice and water and set it on a tray with two glasses. She carried the tray to a small chest beside the bed and passed him one of the glasses.

  ‘You haven’t washed that cut properly,’ she said, pointing at a scrape on the span of his shoulder.

  He twisted his neck to try to spot it. ‘Where is? I cannot see.’

  ‘And there’s you with two functioning eyes! Here, let me.’ She broke off a piece of cotton wool from a pad Gina had left nearby and dipped it in the water jug. Very gently she dabbed at the raw flesh. The impact of his fall must have driven the cobbles through his T-shirt, ripping fabric and skin. She’d noticed a blue holey rag on the bathroom floor.

  ‘You have kind hands,’ he said.

  ‘My mother’s a nurse. I suppose I must have learnt something from her.’

  ‘I want to be doctor.’

  ‘You do?’ Was that possible? How would he do the training, take the exams? ‘Aren’t you too old for school?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘When I arrive, I want to go to school, to study. Father Leone, he try to find me place but I must take tests.’

  ‘To see what you’ve learnt already, you mean?’

  ‘No. Bones. Teeth. For my age.’

  ‘What the fuck!’

  ‘Leone, he write many letters, for me and the others, but we wait long time and now is too late.’

  ‘There must be another way,’ Sasha said. ‘These days, it’s easy to be a mature student – like my mum. She’s going to become Dr Mitchell, though that’s philosophy not medicine. Me, I wanted to be a vet, but it’s really competitive and you have to do all science A levels to have the best chance and my Chemistry’s crap. So I’m planning to do Biology, Geography and French, plus Italian maybe, that’s why I came here…’ Why was she nattering like this when he wouldn’t be able to follow her, when most of the time they exchanged simple sentences in a mixture of halting English and Italian? Probably she was nervous because he was staring so steadily at her awful hideous, swollen face.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  ‘Cosa?’

  ‘Don’t look at me.’

  ‘Perché?’

  ‘Because I look a fright. Much worse than you.’

  ‘Non è vero,’ he said, but he dropped his glance to his chest and began counting the bruises.

  ‘You missed one,’ said Sasha. ‘There.’ Her fingers brushed the side of his ribs. He seized her hand. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Did I hurt you?’ But he was spinning the silver bangle on her wrist so it caught the light. She was afraid it might have dented in her fall, but although the silver was scuffed the marks could be polished away. ‘Pretty, isn’t it; it was a post-exam present.’ She really must stop talking about bloody exams, when Joe’d had no chance of taking any. His own wrist, she saw, was almost as slender as hers; she would have offered to let him try it on, but his hand was already moving up her arm, pointing now at a graze below her collarbone.

  ‘Anche tu,’ he said.

  The graze ran under the strap of her vest and it seemed perfectly natural that he should slide it away for closer examination. And perfectly natural that the other strap should slide off too and the vest wind up around her waist so she was sitting in front of him in only her bra. And what was perfectly amazing was that she didn’t feel the least self-conscious. What was the point of being ashamed of her figure when her face already looked like the back end of a bus? Joe was the only person in the world she could countenance right now; the only person she could allow to get this close. So she helped him unfasten her bra and her skirt, and crawled into the bed alongside him.

  They started to caress each other, trying to avoid any wounds or abrasions. It was like the game Operation, which she’d played as a child, in which you had to remove a body’s organs without setting off the alarm. At each accidental wince or tremor they would draw back, gasping, then giggle and begin again. Sasha’s injuries were mostly to her face, but the touch of Joe’s lips on her breast, her stomach, the inside of her thigh, seared. Her fingers skimmed his sternum, travelled lightly to his waist and buttocks, ventured tow
ards his groin, the parts of him that were not damaged. She recalled, two weeks ago, her first sight of his lithe nakedness. She could never have imagined becoming so dangerously intimate.

  ‘Hang on a sec,’ she said eventually, hopping out of bed to fetch her bag from the next room. A packet of condoms was zipped into the inside pocket. They’d been secreted there ever since she and Ruby had first formulated their plans for Italy, when they’d anticipated cruising the clubs and bars and pulling as a pair. When they’d had high hopes.

  She released a condom from its foil wrapper and passed it to Joe to put on while she wriggled out of her knickers. They lay on their sides facing each other because it was the only way to be comfortable. Although he was trying to be tender, she could sense his impatience and did her best to guide his urgent thrusts. She braced herself for the shock of fresh pain, but so many other parts of her were aching and sore she wasn’t aware of any; only of excitement and the rich warm substance of this boy inside her.

  His movements began to increase in speed and rhythm. She sneaked a look at his face; his eyes were closed, his lips were parted, his breathing fast. She drew up her leg and hooked it over his hip, tensing her thigh muscles, feeling the satisfaction of the deep connection between them. Then he bucked and groaned, she assumed with pleasure, and for a few moments they both lay completely still. He withdrew from her with caution and she could feel the heat that had built between their bodies slowly fade. He rested his hand low on her abdomen. ‘Non ti fatto male?’

  ‘No, it didn’t hurt at all.’

  His eyes were open now, looking at her searchingly. ‘Ti voglio bene, Sasha,’ he said.

  She wanted to squeeze the breath out of him, but such an embrace would be far too painful so she contented herself with stroking his face. ‘Me too.’

  He raised himself a little and brushed his lips against her ear. ‘Grazie.’

  She couldn’t smile properly but one side of her mouth curved with happiness. ‘Thank you too, Joe.’

  Gina had had a long day. After her back-to-back assignments, she’d gone to the studio to upload the photographs and check she was satisfied – not a cliché among them. The in-box of her phone was jammed with messages she’d ignored: details of times and meeting places if she wanted to go out that evening. She didn’t. She wanted to go home and lie in the bath with a drink and empty her head of clutter. She couldn’t. The children, as she thought of them, would be occupying her precious space. She could get Sami to come and take Joe off her hands. What she was to do with the girl, she’d no idea.

  She didn’t know whether they’d be hungry, but she called into the alimentari because she needed something to eat herself. She seized a pack of linguine and a tin of vongole – there would have been juicy fresh clams in the market, but she was far too late for that. ‘Meagre rations again,’ she explained to Signora Bedini. Really it was sheer laziness and a reaction, possibly, to the dainty jewel-like canapés at the wedding reception. She’d never pretended to be much of a cook.

  The apartment was oddly quiet when she got in. She looked out onto the terrace, thinking her invalids might be enjoying the fine evening – healing in the fresh air – but it was empty, as was the living room. She noticed Sasha’s bag was gone from the floor by the sofa and, having missed her suitcase under the hall console, supposed the girl had already left. She was glad to be relieved of the responsibility but puzzled too; it didn’t seem in character.

  Then she opened the door to the spare room and found them both spreadeagled, partially covered with a rumpled white sheet, sleeping. The picture they created trumped her indignation; she couldn’t resist. Quietly, soft-footed, she took out her camera and began to click the shutter. The north light was perfect. The images were stunning: these battered, spent bodies, the angles of their youthful limbs, the fall of light on the folds of the bedlinen, the setting that veered between tawdry and romantic. Sensational.

  Sasha stirred, opened her eye. ‘Did you just take my photograph?’

  Gina sat back on her haunches. ‘Did you just sleep with Joe?’

  ‘Is it any of your business?’

  ‘I think if it happened in my house, yes, it probably is.’

  Sasha flushed and tried to cover herself. Joe was quickly awake. ‘What the hell did I tell you?’ Gina raged at him. ‘She’s too young.’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ said Sasha. ‘Anyway, we didn’t do anything. Honest. We were a bit lonely and looking after each other.’

  ‘Like I’m going to believe that!’

  ‘Please don’t shout. Please don’t be angry.’

  The child was so woeful with her distorted, discoloured face, her plaintive voice. Gina decided to dismiss the possible repercussions, decided it was preferable not to know the truth. If she’d made more noise coming home, they might have been alert to discovery, found time to disentangle. She couldn’t forget what she’d seen: after all, she’d captured the evidence and was looking forward to examining it. But it showed the aftermath, not the act, and part of its power would reside in the anonymity of the figures.

  ‘I think you both better get dressed.’

  Realising that no one was going to move, exposing themselves, while she was in the room, she added, ‘Now, I’m starving so I’m going to make a quick meal of linguine alle vongole. Only tinned, I’m afraid. The vongole, I mean, but they’re not bad. D’you want some?’

  Sasha nodded doubtfully. Joe reached for his jeans, some fresh rips in the knee. His top, Gina remembered, was ruined, unwearable. She would have to find him something of Felix’s, from her standby selection. He’d had some beautiful possessions but she wasn’t a hoarder; she only hung onto objects of value because she never knew when she might need to cash them in.

  She left them to it and set a pan of water to boil, poured a glass of white wine, chopped cloves of garlic. She opened the tin and up-ended the clams; the small jellied blobs hit the smoking olive oil with a hiss. She threw her pasta into the pot and the wine into the clams, stirring with unnecessary vigour.

  Sasha and Joe shambled out of the bedroom, more or less dressed. ‘Can I do anything?’ said Sasha. ‘I’d really like to help.’

  ‘Help! What you need is a big placard round your neck that reads “Hindrance”. Just sit yourself down somewhere out of my way.’ She noticed their hands creeping together for reassurance and jerking apart when she banged three dishes down on the table. She drained the pasta, mixed it with the clam sauce and set the large bowl in front of them.

  ‘What are those things?’ asked Sasha.

  ‘Vongole. I hope you’re not one of those teenagers who lives off McDonalds and won’t eat anything else?’

  ‘No… not at all.’

  ‘And you’re not allergic to shellfish?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be fine then. Tuck in.’

  Perhaps Sasha sensed that if she didn’t eat her hostess’s indifferent cuisine, Gina’s tolerance would wane further. She said, ‘It would be brill if I could stay here tonight. I’m just waiting to hear from my dad about my return flight and then I’ll clear out and hook up with Renate and Ilse. They know what happened so I won’t have to do any explaining to them.’

  The girl’s skin was stretched purple and shiny across her cheekbone. Not the best advertisement, Gina had to admit, for a Roman holiday. ‘I suppose what you want,’ she said, ‘is for me to boot Joe out so you can take over Felix’s room?’

  Sasha looked nonplussed. ‘Felix?’ She was twisting linguine around the prongs of her fork, but the strands kept sliding off.

  Joe was shovelling food into his mouth as if it had been a long time since his last meal. ‘Devo andare,’ he said. ‘I go.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Gina. ‘You must.’ She might have to make an exception for Sasha Mitchell but there was no way Joe could stay another night. Such a precedent would be risky and Father Leone was already suspicious of her relationship with the lost boys. She knew he distrusted her motives. ‘It’s a
ctually the nicer room,’ she went on, ‘but I’d been in mine for so long, from when I was his lodger, that I never got around to moving out.’

  ‘His lodger? You mean he was your landlord, like Signor Boletti?’

  ‘No, not at all like Boletti. Felix had a tenancy. He believed in spending his money on art, not property.’

  Sasha had hidden some of the clams under a wodge of stuck-together pasta. She put her fork down carefully. ‘I’m sorry. I thought it was, like, a spare room or a study…’

  ‘Yes, that’s why there’s a desk: he taught at the university. Now it’s my study too.’

  ‘But weren’t you married to him? I mean…’ She was all the colours of the rainbow, blushing through her freckles. ‘Obviously I don’t know anything about him, but…’

  ‘No reason why you should. Only, as it happens, it wasn’t that kind of a marriage.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise…’ She didn’t give up, this girl, she had the curiosity of youth. ‘…I thought there was only one kind of marriage. Apart from civil partnerships of course. But they’re same sex, aren’t they, and –’

  ‘Darling,’ said Gina, ‘You’re going to find there’s a lot you don’t know about yet.’

  PART TWO

  THE YEARS BEFORE

  14

  Five Years Earlier: 2005

  The plastic telephone cord was twisted twice around Gina’s arm. Her head was tipped sideways at an awkward angle, trapping the old-fashioned receiver between shoulder and ear. In her left hand she held a pot of nail varnish; with her right she was painting her toenails a deep dramatic blackcurrant. She thought, if she had an activity to focus on, she could remain detached; she wouldn’t experience the sense of hurtling headlong into pointless confrontation. In Rome it was seven thirty in the morning, already warm as a caress. In Santiago, she knew it would be late, but Phoebe had always been a night owl.