Angels of the Flood

by Joanna Hines

  For Kate’s first couple of weeks in Florence money had played almost no part in their lives. She and the other volunteers lived for free at the hostel and were fed three times a day. The only cash they needed was for cigarettes and drinks. Once they got work with the Uffizi team, this prelapsarian state of affairs came to an end. They were now waged, so they’d moved into lodgings and had to start buying their own food. However, thanks to the Uffizi’s eccentric payment methods, they never had any cash: they received their wages on a Friday afternoon but the man who paid them left for the weekend at Friday lunchtime, so as often as not they returned with nothing. An elaborate system of debts and loans and counter-debts had grown up to deal with this situation. Many of these revolved around Hugo, who was paid regularly by the British Consul. He looked like an untidy choir boy, brimming with enthusiasm but horribly accident-prone. Also he was so generous that on pay day he invariably took someone out for a blow-out, then lent what remained of his wage packet and ended up with less than anyone. The prospect of a meal where only one person was going to be responsible for the bill was nearly as attractive as the food. Jenny’s birthday dinner was going to be a special occasion.

  Jenny was a dancer, now ‘resting’ between jobs. She had shaggy dark hair and moved with an almost feral grace and exuded languorous sexuality. Hugo confided to Kate that she terrified him, but Aiden and Larry were obviously attracted from the start. For her part, Jenny looked on her weeks in Florence as a kind of working holiday, and was clear that she wanted to avoid any emotional involvement. She was fascinated by the Florentines, mostly poor, who had remained in the city, and took endless photographs of their suffering, but as she sent the films straight back to London to be developed, no one ever saw them.

  By the time Kate and Francesca arrived at the restaurant, Jenny was already looking overwhelmed. ‘I never realized how many friends I had here,’ she commented, looking round the room at the twenty-odd people who’d shown up on the rumour of a free meal.

  But after the first few carafes of cheap red wine had been consumed, even she stopped worrying about the bill. Between courses Aiden played a heartfelt version of ‘I’m a man of constant sorrows’ on the guitar, gazing meaningfully at her through his floppy yellow hair. Kate and David re-enacted the spaghetti-eating scene from Lady and the Tramp. Ross, a New Zealander who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Francesca since she arrived, wanted to sing ‘Waltzing Matilda’, but no one would let him. Dido and Jenny had a whispered conversation on penis size and whether bigger was always best. The few diners in the restaurant who weren’t mud angels were soon looking as if they wished they’d gone somewhere else.

  But when it came to paying the bill, there was a problem. Jenny’s money wasn’t enough. Hugo instantly emptied his pockets and produced two banknotes of gigantic size; Jenny took one and made him put the other back. Kate, Dido and Ross each contributed some coins, as did a few of the people who’d turned up on the offchance of a free meal. Aiden had no money at all and looked depressed. Several others who had no money didn’t seem bothered at all. The restaurant owner, who had been all smiles at their arrival, now looked stern.

  Kate and David offered to wash up. The restaurant owner changed from stern to contemptuous.

  Francesca fidgeted, then spoke to the patron in rapid Italian. Kate caught a few words, but her grasp of the language wasn’t yet up to following complicated negotiations. Whatever Francesca had said, it worked like magic. His face was wreathed in smiles in an instant and he went away to get liqueurs.

  ‘How did you manage that?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘Did you offer him your body?’ asked Hugo wistfully.

  ‘I told him I’d pay the whole lot,’ said Francesca with a smile. ‘It’s my pleasure, Jenny. After all, it’s your birthday.’ She pulled a fistful of notes from her bag and there was a general sigh of relief.

  Jenny frowned and pushed the notes away. ‘Thanks, Francesca, but no thanks.’

  ‘What?’ Francesca was bewildered.

  ‘This is my party and I said I’d pay.’

  ‘But you don’t have enough money and I do.’

  ‘I’ll pay it somehow.’

  ‘Let me pay half, then. That way it’s still your party.’

  Larry and Aiden, agreeing for once, said that sounded fair.

  ‘No,’ said Jenny.

  Francesca appealed to Kate. ‘Why’s she being so difficult? Make her see sense, Kate.’

  Kate was on the verge of doing so, but she held back. The little silver phoenixes were brushing against her cheeks and she had the uncomfortable feeling that her support was expected, not because Francesca was in the right, necessarily, but because Kate owed her. She said, ‘It’s up to Jenny to decide,’ and avoided Francesca’s horrified expression by rolling herself a cigarette.

  Francesca shoved the heap of money across the table. ‘Take it,’ she said.

  Jenny shoved it back. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want your money.’

  Francesca looked stumped. She shook a cigarette out of a packet lying on the table, clicked her lighter once, but let the flame die down before the cigarette was lit. Removing it from her mouth, she ground it to shreds on the table in front of her. She glanced warily at Jenny, then at the pile of unwanted money on the table. A flush spread across her face.

  ‘You really don’t want it? You’re sure?’

  Jenny nodded.

  ‘I’ll have it,’ said Ross, but Francesca didn’t seem to have heard.

  She picked a note from the pile, then twisted the control of her lighter, and this time when she clicked the trigger, the flame shot up like a blow torch. The corner of the banknote floated into the edge of the flame.

  Kate reached across the table. ‘Francesca, don’t be such an idiot,’ she said, trying to pull the banknote out of her hands, but Francesca whisked it out of reach, holding it aloft until the flames were about to touch her fingers, then she released it to fall in a curve of ash. No one moved. She picked up another, let it catch the flame, then another, until all her money had been reduced to a drifting pile of ash. Without another word, she stood up and stalked out.

  Jenny lit up a cigarette.

  ‘Wow,’ said Aiden. ‘Heavy trip.’ He began strumming his guitar. ‘Nobody loves you when you’re down and out.’ Singularly inappropriate, Kate thought.

  ‘She’s crazy,’ said Dido. Her mother, the wife of the cabinet minister, had been in analysis for years, so Dido was an expert on crazy.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ross, ‘and I reckon we were pretty crazy to let her do it.’

  ‘Why didn’t you want her to pay?’ asked David.

  Jenny looked baffled. ‘I don’t know, exactly. Just something about Francesca and money—I didn’t feel comfortable with it.’

  ‘You didn’t want to owe her?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Jenny gave up the attempt to explain and went to negotiate with the patron about owing him the balance of the bill for a few days.

  The evening continued as before, but Kate was no longer enjoying herself and decided not to wait for the others. She’d been feeling bad about Francesca ever since she stalked out of the restaurant and now she wanted to be on her own. She promised Jenny to help with the bill as soon as she got paid, and left.

  She walked slowly, savouring the solitude and the strangeness of the Florentine night: its rich smell of damp and dirt, wet plaster and sewage. Battered and forlorn, the city possessed a quality she knew it would never have again.

  This is my city, she thought, stepping carefully to avoid yet another hole in the ground, yet another heap of rubbish and muck. If she ever came back, the place would be buzzing with tourists and traffic; it would be bright and confident again, but now it was deserted. This wounded, suffering city felt as if it belonged, just for a little while, to her and the others who had come to help save it.

  That evening the only people still on the streets were two or three prostitutes, each one immac
ulately turned out even on a chilly January night, and surrounded by acres of mud. There was one in particular they’d come to recognize who usually stood with her little dog two streets away from their lodgings. They’d dubbed her the duchess because she had especially aristocratic bearing, even for a Florentine prostitute. There’d been some thought of clubbing together and giving Hugo an hour with her as an early nineteenth-birthday present, but he admitted to Kate that the prospect alarmed him as much as it excited him. Kate smiled at her as she passed. ‘Buona notte.’ But the woman ignored her.

  On the corner of the next street, under one of Anna’s fuzzy dandelion lights, stood a prostitute who seemed to be having trouble with a punter. It looked like they were arguing. Kate saw the woman gesture, as though turning him down, and start to walk away, but he moved quickly after her, out of the circle of light, and grabbed her by the arm. She spun round and struggled to shake herself free, but he was too strong for her. She was yelling at him, but still he didn’t let go.

  Kate wavered. Her instinct was to run and help, but the world of the Florentines was foreign to her, especially the world of the prostitutes.

  And then she gasped. Not a prostitute. Not even a stranger.

  Francesca.

  Kate broke into a run. She was furious. Italian men could be a nuisance sometimes, but she’d never come across one as persistent as this. How dare he! Her feet skidded on the slippery surface of the street. She was trying to remember the Italian for ‘Go away!’ but her mind was dulled with anger, so she yelled, ‘Leave her alone!’

  Startled, the man released Francesca’s arm.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ she shouted again. ‘Go away!’

  Francesca and the stranger turned, their faces blank with surprise. Then the man asked Francesca a question in Italian. She answered in English, ‘Kate is my friend.’ He nodded, and peered at Kate curiously. On closer inspection he looked much more studious and good-looking than the kind of youth who usually hassled them.

  It occurred to Kate that the situation might not be as straightforward as she’d imagined. She asked, ‘Are you okay, Francesca?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  The man started to talk to Francesca rapidly, but Kate said firmly, ‘I’ll walk home with you.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks.’

  Kate put her arm round Francesca’s waist, but the stranger had not given up entirely. He caught Francesca’s wrist and forced her to face him. That was when Kate remembered her limited Italian. ‘Va via!’ she shouted at him. ‘Bastardo!’

  She was totally unprepared for his reaction. He broke off in mid-sentence and stared at her, then turned questioningly to Francesca. Suddenly the two of them burst out laughing. Kate felt like a fool.

  ‘What’s going on, Francesca? What’s the big joke?’

  ‘Oh, Kate, my dear Kate. You are wonderful. I love you, truly I do.’

  As explanations go, it wasn’t much help.

  ‘Who is this man?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’ Francesca turned to the stranger and spoke to him in Italian. It sounded like they were making some kind of deal. He looked serious, checked one or two points with her, but this time when she and Kate started to walk away, he made no attempt to stop her.

  ‘Who was he?’ asked Kate again.

  ‘Just a friend of my family’s,’ she said. ‘My parents aren’t too happy about what I’m doing so they got him to make me come home. But I won’t. Florence is my home now, with you. Do you realize, Kate, this is the second time you’ve rescued me? You must be my guardian angel.’

  When they reached the end of the street, Kate turned. The stranger was still standing where they had left him, under the fuzzy cone of light, like a single figure in a spotlight on the stage. Even at this distance, his whole way of standing spoke of utter desolation.

  But Francesca offered no further explanations. Kate knew better than to question her. No one could clam up faster than Francesca when the questions got personal. But when they got back to the room they shared with Anna, she found one of Francesca’s phoenix earrings was missing.

  ‘It must have fallen off while I was running to help you,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll go back and hunt for it.’

  Francesca smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Kate, it’s a phoenix. It will rise from its own ashes, you’ll see.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I can always have it copied,’ said Francesca.

  Chapter 13

  The Doctor

  ONE GOOD THING ABOUT the flood, the roads round Florence were still much emptier than usual. As he drove away, Mario Bassano tried not to worry about what would happen if his little Fiat broke down. He’d only had it six months, almost the first thing he’d purchased for himself since he qualified as a doctor, but it was elderly and temperamental. Money was in short supply, even though he’d qualified: he had his younger brothers to support as well as a pile of debts to pay back. It would be years before he’d be in a position not to worry about repair bills, let alone afford to buy a car that was new.

  But his mind was too full for him to worry about his little car for long. He was thinking back, as he so often did after seeing Francesca, to the first time they’d met. If she hadn’t been crying, he would probably never have plucked up the courage to introduce himself. Four years ago he’d been in his final year of medical school, more at ease with cadavers than with attractive young women. His natural reticence was compounded by his poverty: with no spare cash even to invite someone for a cup of coffee, he’d learned to make do without female company, most of the time. Until he saw Francesca.

  She’d been seated on a bench in the sunshine in a little park the middle of Padua, not far from the medical school. It was a warm afternoon, sprinklers were turned on in the flower beds and the air was sweet with the scent of freshly clipped box. People were criss-crossing the park on the gravel walks, casting curious glances at the girl seated on the bench, tears streaming down her cheeks. She was completely still in her grief. Mario recognized the relaxation of utter despair.

  He was not the only man to have spotted her. Like sharks scenting blood, half a dozen off-duty Alpini from the nearby barracks were circling her bench at a slight distance, tossing vacuous remarks in her direction to see if she was interested. She didn’t notice them at first, but when two passed within a couple of feet, leaned in her direction and both said, ‘Ciao, bella,’ she jerked back her head, appalled at the invasion of her privacy.

  Mario went straight over and sat down beside her. ‘Pretend you are pleased to see me,’ he said. ‘If they think we are friends, they will leave you alone.’ Then he added simply, ‘You are unhappy.’

  His voice must have reassured her. Without turning to look at him, she said, ‘I don’t have a handkerchief.’

  He fished one out of his pocket and handed it to her, then stretched his legs in the sunshine, leaning back as though he’d just joined an old friend. Or a girlfriend. He tried to look relaxed, but his heart was thumping. She dabbed at her tears, then turned to thank him. That was when he first noticed her amazing eyes. It felt like a revelation, though what was being revealed, he had no idea. Later, he often wondered if he’d known in that moment, when she’d handed back his threadbare, much washed and ironed handkerchief, that his life had been changed irrevocably. Maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe he simply recognized great beauty when he saw it.

  He couldn’t remember what they talked about. She was obviously confused and vulnerable, so he spoke calmingly as if she were a child facing painful treatment or a relative bracing themselves to hear bad news: those situations he knew how to deal with. He learned she’d left her home in Verona the day before, after a row with her parents. She told him she was twenty-one, though later he discovered she was only seventeen. He told her he was from a village in the south, which was true, and that he was twenty-four, which was not, but he wanted to make their ages seem closer. In fact he was twenty-seven.

  When Francesca
finally stood up, she swayed like someone about to faint.

  ‘Are you ill?’ This was something he could deal with.

  ‘No, just hungry, I think.’

  Apparently she’d spent the previous night wandering near the bus station and hadn’t eaten for over twenty-four hours. She’d left her Verona home in a hurry and without any money, so he took her to a nearby restaurant and watched while she ate pasta followed by steak and green beans.

  ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ she asked, when he ordered her single meal.

  ‘My landlady will have food waiting for me,’ he said.

  She accepted his explanation, never guessing his landlady was a fiction and that her meal was taking up all the money he had for the entire week. But for once being prudent, which normally absorbed so much of his energy, was no longer important. He’d have happily starved for a month just to see the way her lips curved into a smile when she thanked him. By the time they stood up to leave the restaurant, Mario Bassano was in love for the first time in his life.

  He persuaded her to go back to her parents by promising to meet her again on his afternoon off the following week. Through that summer they met twice every week. As Mario slowly came to understand what had driven her to run away from home in the first place, he was appalled: it had never occurred to him that wealth and misery might be such close bedfellows. He planned a future in which they might be together always. But Francesca was not prepared to wait. One afternoon she turned up at the house where he was renting a small room. She had a suitcase.

  ‘I’m never going back to my parents,’ she told him. ‘From now on I want to be with you.’ He took her in his arms, then made the hardest decision of his life and told her she must go home.

  ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you love me?’ she demanded.

  ‘You know I love you. I will always love you, but this is impossible. You must go back to your parents.’

  ‘I’d rather die.’