The Apartment in Rome

by Penny Feeny

  ‘That was Lake Bracciano,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you made such an almighty fuss at the time. You wanted to visit the aeronautical museum, but we’d dallied so long it was closed. You were so pissed off. You hardly spoke to me on the way back into Rome.’

  He remembered now. The sound of the museum had intrigued him – a twentieth-century history of Italian aviation – and he did, hazily, recall the disappointment of finding it shut. But, if pressed, he would have attributed it to a separate trip, a different compartment of experience. He wouldn’t have connected it to their swimming or love-making. ‘Christ! I’m sorry.’

  ‘What, sorry that you sulked and spoiled what had been a brilliant day?’

  ‘I don’t sulk.’

  ‘Yes you do. I mean, you did. We’ve both had to grow up since then.’

  A duck rose from the rushes with a squawk and skimmed the surface of the lake. The scent of mimosa wafted towards them. The spot was both tranquil and painful. Better, he thought, if they didn’t linger. ‘Thank you for bringing me here. Let me know when you’re ready to leave.’

  She uncoiled herself. ‘Whenever you are.’

  He doubted he would ever come this way again, nevertheless the trail they followed had an aspect he seemed to recognise, as if it were ground he’d covered many times before, every lake he’d ever visited rolled into one. He wasn’t likely to forget it.

  He smelt charcoal burning. The three fishermen had got a campfire going to griddle their catch.

  ‘Are you hungry, Mitch?’

  ‘Starving.’ His stomach was grumbling. Gina was whip thin, too thin really. When he’d embraced her he’d felt her hip bones grind sharply against his own. ‘You must know some restaurants around here. You wouldn’t let me take you out last night, so what about lunch?’

  She could hardly refuse; they were forty minutes from Rome and he was in charge of the bike.

  ‘There’s a trattoria I’ve heard recommended,’ she said. ‘Halfway up the road to Rocca di Papa. It shouldn’t be crowded today. It’s not high season yet.’

  The restaurant appeared to balance on an overhanging spur. The view through the wide glass windows of the dining room was astonishing, like flying low in a glider. But the view didn’t interest him. Sitting at the table with its linen napery, condiment set and dainty vase of anemones, put them once more on a formal footing: two old friends who’d happened to bump into each other but didn’t have enough in common to meet again. He wanted to recapture the way he’d felt when they touched.

  Gina was ordering mineral water and wine. ‘Actually, you shouldn’t drink, Mitch. Not when you’re in charge of the Monster.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to.’

  ‘I’ll get a half carafe for myself then, to relax me on the way back.’

  ‘Fine. Go ahead.’

  The waiter scribbled on his pad and handed them two menus with a flourish. The body of the text was in Italian, but underneath were some erratic English translations that made Mitchell smile. ‘Have you seen this, Gina? Contorni della terra?’

  ‘Root vegetables?’

  ‘No, darling.’ The endearment slipped out; he couldn’t take it back. ‘According to this they’re contours of the heart. Shall we order some?’

  Her feet shuffled beneath the table and the look she flicked at him – quizzical, amused, a little flirtatious – told him she was remembering the kiss.

  As the waiter returned with the drinks, Gina’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen and took a long draught of Frascati.

  ‘Don’t you need to answer?’

  ‘It was an unknown number. They can wait.’

  Later, when their starters had arrived the phone trilled again. ‘I’d better take it. It might be business. Sorry.’

  ‘Sure, go ahead.’

  ‘Who is this?’ said Gina, and he was surprised to hear her speaking English. ‘Ruby?’ He laid down his fork. ‘Hang on a minute.’ She covered the mouthpiece and hissed, ‘Is your phone working, Mitch?’

  He’d thought it was, though he’d been glad enough not to receive messages for the past few hours. He pulled it from his pocket, depressed the switch a couple of times but couldn’t connect. ‘Shit, it’s out of charge.’

  ‘Has Sasha been trying to get hold of him?’ Gina asked Ruby. ‘Oh, I see. Okay, well, as it happens, yes, he is here with me, but we’re not in Rome. We’ve been on an… excursion. Do you want to put her on the line?’

  ‘Let me talk to her,’ said Mitchell, mentally deploying his excuses.

  Gina shook her head. ‘Apparently it’s me she wants to speak to.’

  ‘Really, what about?’

  ‘How on earth should I know?’

  29

  As instructed, Sasha and Ruby were waiting in Piazza San Cosimato. The market was closed. The wheels of cheese, crimson cross sections of tuna, ruddy slabs of meat were locked into their refrigerated units. The stalls heaped with golden zucchini and purple artichokes, clusters of tomatoes and pyramids of fruit, had been packed away. Children had taken over the piazza. They were drawing hopscotch squares, riding tricycles, chasing pigeons, blithely ignoring their purpose-built play equipment. Around the edges were benches to sit on so you didn’t have to buy a drink in a pavement café. This was just as well because the girls had no money left.

  Yesterday afternoon Sasha had bought some cheap tat from a street vendor in the hope that her father might be convinced it had cost a lot more. That morning they had returned to the Madonna of all Mercy. As they entered, the American woman, Annie, had raised her head and given them a dirty look, as if she’d discovered they were imposters – though she could hardly complain about imposters who’d joined in the work effort. ‘She should be well grateful,’ said Ruby. ‘Ignore her.’

  Sasha, however, was consumed by a need for urgency. ‘We’ve come back,’ she said to Annie, ‘because we’ve raised some funds. We’d like to give them to Father Leone personally.’

  When Annie smiled, her face crumpled into folds that squeezed her eyes into raisins. ‘Well, honey, the organisation has a treasurer who deals with receipts, you know. Father has enough on his plate… That’s to say, you don’t need to bother him with extra coinage.’

  ‘It’s quite a lot,’ said Sasha, feeling the roll of notes in her pocket, ‘180 euros.’

  Annie gave her a doubtful look and then made a show of hunting for the whereabouts of the priest. As if I’d nicked it, thought Sasha in indignation.

  Aloud, Ruby observed, ‘She’s trying to protect him, right? Mother him or something. See off the troublemakers. Or maybe she fancies him, but she’s wasting her time.’

  ‘Why, because he wears a frock?’

  ‘Yeah, partly. Anyhow I have a nose for these things. I should be a truffle hound, me, sniffing out the best matches. You and Liam were never going to work. Even if you had made the effort.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait a while, I’m afraid,’ said Annie, returning.

  ‘We don’t mind.’

  They went to sit on two unforgiving chairs pushed up against the wall. A nervous young man sat nearby chewing at his thumb. He looked as though he’d been waiting a long time. His feet were bare and blistered; he had no toenails.

  Sasha spotted Father Leone before Annie could intervene. He must have come down an internal staircase, one that led directly into the church. He came towards them, pausing first to speak to the youth.

  Then he said, ‘The good friends of Yusef? Good morning.’

  ‘We want to help,’ said Sasha anxious to get to the point, ‘with his legal fees. We’ve brought you some money.’ She held it out. Foreign currency never seemed real anyhow. It might as well have come from a Monopoly set.

  His glasses glinted in the artificial light. ‘You are certain?’

  ‘Yes, please take it.’

  ‘As a donation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To our cause?’<
br />
  ‘Can you use it to help Joe with his expenses? You said that if he could hire a lawyer he might get a better result. Quicker anyway.’

  ‘There is a difficulty,’ said Father Leone. He indicated the shadowy figures hunched in pockets of the crypt, leading their half-lives, waiting for some minor improvement in their lot. A new jacket. A mattress. A few hours’ work. ‘We believe in spreading our resources as equally as possible. For the basic essentials. It could be a problem to divert funds to a legal case that may bring no result.’

  ‘But Joe shouldn’t have been picked up in the first place. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. The money he had on him was his. And you said that Gina – ’

  ‘Esattamente. It is Gina who is trying to raise the fee. Perhaps you should give it to her.’

  Sasha let her fist close over the euros and drop to her side. He had a way of making you feel a jerk, this man – something to do with his faith, she supposed. She herself no more believed in God than the tooth fairy, but the Lion King was sincere and unshakable.

  She didn’t see how she could give the money to Gina. She might ask where it came from and then her father might find out and remember the photographs and put everything together. ‘I already gave Sami my bracelet,’ she said. ‘Was that a stupid thing to do, too? I thought if he could somehow get it to Joe, either as a keepsake or to sell… I don’t think it’s worth much, but it is silver and… I don’t know… I hoped it might help…’

  Ruby had told her at the time it was mental, that she was acting like some medieval knight and next thing she knew she’d be camping outside all the detention centres in Europe like that page of Richard the Lionheart who went singing in search of his master. ‘I believe Sami will try to help his friend and yours,’ said the priest. ‘Loyalty can be a difficult concept for many refugees because they feel so threatened. But when you have close ties as those boys do, it is different, I think.’

  Ruby broke in. ‘You’re saying we should give this dosh to Gina, not you?’

  ‘I’m sure she would be grateful.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. She’s not too keen on us. She thinks it’s our fault someone broke into her apartment. Because we didn’t lock the door properly.’

  Leone said, ‘The thief would have known what he was looking for. Twombly’s work is very distinctive. You have seen it perhaps?’

  ‘Don’t think so. What does it look like?’

  Sasha couldn’t understand why Ruby was getting off the point until the priest answered her. ‘He is famous for what some people call his scribbles or graffiti. My preferences are more old-fashioned, but Felix, who originally owned the work and was a great friend of mine, was an admirer, and I understand that –’

  Ruby gripped Sasha’s elbow and hung onto it tightly. ‘When you say scribbles, you mean if you didn’t know any different, you could think it was a kid’s drawing?’

  He laughed as if at an excellent joke.

  Sasha gaped. Then she found herself raising her arm again and pressing the notes into Leone’s hand. ‘It doesn’t matter if you can’t use it for Joe,’ she said. ‘We’d like to make a donation to the hostel anyway.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  They’d left before he could ask them any penetrating questions and before they could change their minds and wish they’d kept it to blow on something exciting. Sasha didn’t know how long the warm glow of generosity would last and, anyway, there was no mobile phone signal in the crypt.

  Ruby had made the call and now the pair of them were sitting on the bench in San Cosimato sharing a cigarette. They’d bought a packet of Marlboro to steady their nerves. Her father wouldn’t approve but she didn’t care. He’d gone off with Gina Stanhope so he had plenty of explaining to do himself.

  ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ said Ruby, inhaling deeply. ‘What you’ve done isn’t half as bad as what she did to you. You gave her a fright, that’s all. She deserved it. You thought it was just some random scrawl when you picked it up. Put it in your bag accidentally.’

  ‘She’s with my dad,’ said Sasha who’d been mulling over this ever since the phone call. ‘What if he takes her side?’

  ‘He’s not going to be a party to this. It’s none of his friggin’ business. It’s between you and her. You’ll have to get rid of him.’

  ‘How can I do that? What are they doing together anyhow? Like she’s got some sort of hold over him.’

  ‘Oh Sash, you don’t even see what’s under your nose!’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘They’ve got history, haven’t they? And old people, that’s what they’re after.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wanting to recapture when they were young and carefree. Trying to turn back the clock.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ snapped Sasha. ‘Anyway, they’re not old.’

  ‘Middle-aged. Whatever.’

  Ruby stamped on the cigarette stub and they sat in a grudging truce until a child playing with a ball bounced it in their direction and the mother hastened forward to apologise. The girls, glad to be distracted, tried to practise their Italian on her. The child ran off with the ball into the path of a motorbike which stopped abruptly. The mother screamed and whisked the boy to safety. Instead of continuing on his way, the driver parked the bike a few feet from the bench; its gleaming exhaust cocked in their direction like a double-barrelled gun. Then he and his passenger dismounted and took off their helmets and Sasha identified them with a jolt.

  ‘Jeez!’ said Ruby. ‘What the fuck!’

  ‘It was his idea,’ said Gina, strolling towards them with her helmet under her arm.

  Mitchell followed. There was something odd about him, Sasha thought, a vague unfocussed air, like he couldn’t tell you what day of the week it was. Nevertheless, she was aggrieved. She and Ruby had been abandoned without explanation while he and Gina had disappeared into the wide blue yonder – on a motorbike, for God’s sake.

  ‘Where have you been, Dad?’

  ‘I thought you two would be glad to be rid of me,’ he said. ‘You’d made the apartment so cosy and you knew I was going to find somewhere else. When I rang you last night you couldn’t wait to get me off the phone.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell us anything? Like where you were staying, or planning to have your breakfast or lunch. What were we supposed to do?’

  ‘I’d given you plenty of money, Sash. You weren’t going to starve.’

  ‘Like, not even a text!’

  ‘That’s not true, you weren’t answering this morning. I’d left the charger in the apartment, which was stupid, I agree, and I didn’t realise I’d run out of battery. But you’re okay, aren’t you?’ He tried to clasp her but she shook him off. ‘When you were little you used to get so worried when I was flying. Especially after the attack on the Twin Towers. Mum kept having to reassure you that planes generally got back in one piece. In the end you learned that I did too.’

  Sasha wanted to tell him to shut up, that wasn’t the point. She and Ruby hadn’t minded getting shot of him, diverting themselves. But she did mind, gravely, that he had spent those missing hours with Gina Stanhope. ‘Where did that bike come from?’ she demanded.

  ‘I think it’s awesome,’ said Ruby. ‘Can I sit on it?’

  ‘Sure, if you want…’

  She’d already hopped astride the warm leather seat and was leaning forward over the handlebars. ‘Go on, Sash,’ she called. ‘Take my picture on your phone.’

  Sasha obeyed, but as she clicked on the button she noticed a silver Alfa dawdling past. Kerb-crawler, she thought, what a wanker. Then, with a shock, she recognised the car. Had Signor Boletti recognised them? Perhaps, after all, he wasn’t ogling Ruby’s bare legs, the grip of her thighs. She lowered the phone. He was wearing sunglasses so she couldn’t be certain, but he seemed to be looking past her. She turned. Gina had looped her arm through her father’s, in a display of affection that to Sasha was totally unnecessary, and
was brushing a lock of hair from his forehead in an intimate gesture. They made a striking couple, she had to admit. She glared.

  Mitchell disentangled himself, clearly unaware of the context. ‘I suppose you girls want a ride too,’ he said with forced jollity. The Alfa slipped away.

  ‘Yes please!’ crowed Ruby.

  ‘I can’t take you both at once but I’ve hired it for twenty-four hours so there’s plenty of time left, and…’

  ‘Go on,’ said Gina. ‘Give the girl a whirl. Head up the Gianicolo. You can hammer those hairpin bends and show her the view.’ She followed up this suggestion by giving Ruby her helmet to put on.

  Ruby fastened the strap around her chin and made faces through the visor, indicating that Sasha should take some more shots on her phone.

  Mitchell was reluctant. ‘I didn’t mean right away. We’ve only just got back.’

  ‘So? You can see she’s itching to go for a spin.’

  ‘What about Sasha?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after her, take her to the flat.’

  ‘Please, Paul,’ came Ruby’s muffled voice.

  ‘Okay, Sash? I’m not deserting you, sweetheart. You’ll get your turn.’

  Why was he looking so anxious, as if he didn’t want to leave her alone with Gina? Of course, she’d rather have Ruby by her side, but since they had to get him out of the way that wasn’t possible. Ruby was doing her bit and Sasha had to man up to this confrontation by herself.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ said Gina. ‘Get a move on. Go!’

  As Mitchell kick-started the engine back into life and Ruby gave a regal wave, Gina grabbed Sasha’s elbow as if she wouldn’t let her go and steered her down the street. ‘We have some talking to do, you and I.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve got it with you, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gina seemed to unbend a little then. She released Sasha, bounded ahead of her up the staircase, breezed into the apartment and flung open the shutters to let in the daylight.

  The sitting room had an even more dishevelled air than usual, the chairs disarranged, a sheaf of loose papers tottering on the sideboard, but to Sasha it was still a significant location. She’d been holed up here with Joe and it wasn’t a period she was likely to forget. She sat down on the sofa where she had tried to sleep, where she had lain listening to the chimes of the clock on Santa Maria, and clutched a cushion to her chest like a shield.