by Joanna Hines
He pleaded with her, but she was adamant. ‘I want to live with you always,’ she told him. ‘Isn’t that what you want too?’
‘But we can’t live together until we marry.’
‘Then let’s marry.’
‘I can’t support you.’ But Francesca, as he knew already, had no idea what having no money meant. Her parents claimed to be poor but lived like lords. She accused him of being mercenary, then she took a heap of jewellery from her bag and said they could sell it and live on the proceeds. Mario knew even less about jewellery than Francesca did about being poor, but he guessed that what she had was worth more than he could make in a year. Eventually, worn out by arguing and misery, they fell asleep in each other’s arms on his narrow bed. They had never yet made love and that was the only night they spent together. Mario was traditional enough to want his wife to be a virgin when they married and one day, when he was a qualified doctor and his debts were paid off, he intended to marry Francesca. Until then, he had no alternative but to wait.
Her father, hammering on the door at four o’clock in the morning, had his own interpretation of events. Seeing the rumpled sheets, his precious daughter and a stranger both in their underclothes, he was not inclined to be charitable. He called Mario every vile name he could think of, and then, when it became obvious that Mario was unlikely to hit back, he punched him on the jaw and dragged his daughter, still protesting violently, outside to the car.
Mario did not see Francesca again for three years. At first he wrote to her every day, but then, getting no reply, he went to her home and waylaid one of the maids as she went shopping. He was desperate for news. Where he came from in the south, unmarried girls who brought dishonour to their family were treated harshly, sometimes even killed. And he’d heard enough from Francesca about her parents to know that in their own way they were quite as ruthless as the most primitive village family. At first the maid was too frightened to speak at all, but eventually he won her over. She told him Francesca had been sent away to America. To college, she thought it was. Or some kind of school. At first Francesca had refused to go, but then she’d fallen ill. She was shipped off while she was too weak to put up any resistance.
Mario was frantic. He refused to lose Francesca without a fight. It must be possible to persuade her family they’d misjudged him. After the way Signor Bertoni had insulted him, Mario decided to concentrate on Francesca’s mother. From what Francesca had told him before she vanished, her father’s bravado that night had been quite out of character: the real power in the family lay with her mother.
Mario happened to meet Signora Bertoni at a fund-raising function. She knew who he was at once, but was less hostile than he’d expected. She was gracious, even welcoming after a while, but far too wily to let him know where Francesca was. Quite by chance, one afternoon when he was visiting and she was called out of the room, he happened to notice a letter concerning Francesca written by the director of a place called Maple Grove in Connecticut. Not a finishing school at all, as her mother had implied, but a psychiatric clinic. He was horrified: he’d thought the days when daughters who disobeyed their parents were diagnosed as mentally ill were long gone. He memorized the address and, as soon as he got home, he wrote to her there. Two months later, he received his reply. He also made discreet professional enquiries which eventually led to the director of the clinic reluctantly agreeing to let her come home.
When Francesca finally returned to Italy, in December 1966, just over a month after the flood, it was Mario, now a fully qualified but still very junior psychiatrist, who met her at the airport. He drove her home, but refused to come in and meet up with her family again. He loved her as much as ever, but he was realistic enough to recognize it was going to take time for them to get to know each other again. Just as she had changed during her years in the States, so he’d changed from the diffident young medical student who had first found her on the park bench in Padua. While she’d been away, he’d learned that a good-looking young doctor is particularly attractive to middle-aged women with neglectful husbands and too much time on their hands.
He was more confident now; his debts were starting to be paid off and he was at last in a position to propose. But after her restricted life in the clinic she was desperate to spread her wings for a while, and, though it cost him dear, he knew he had to bide his time. He visited Francesca once or twice in Verona and they talked frequently on the phone. Always, so far as he was concerned, there was the unspoken understanding that in time they would be together. Then, in the middle of January, Francesca disappeared. After all the work he’d put into convincing her family he was a suitable prospect as a son-in-law, she ran out on him. He believed she loved him as much as he did her, but he was afraid that the clinic might have made her phobic about being tied down. He felt himself caught in an impossible situation: if he put pressure on her, he could drive her away. If he kept his distance, she would think he no longer cared. But first, he had to find out where she was.
It took him less than two weeks to track her down. He was disturbed when he saw that she’d joined the international flood volunteers. Francesca, always so elegant and well groomed, was wearing filthy jeans and a man’s shirt. Already the young foreigners were getting a reputation for wildness and loose living. Mario might be prepared to wait while Francesca had some fun before they settled down together as man and wife, but hanging out with a bohemian group of foreigners was more than he’d bargained for. And a situation without clear boundaries was, in his professional opinion, precisely the sort Francesca was least equipped to cope with.
He’d tried to make her see reason, but reason and Francesca were not always the best of friends. As Mario drove away from Florence that night, it occurred to him that just as he’d had to make friends with her family in order to stay close to her in the past, he might now do well to get to know her foreign friends.
He could start with the dark-haired girl who’d flown at him in the street, her eyes blazing with rage as she thought she was coming to her friend’s rescue.
He laughed at the irony of the situation. If she’d only known how wrong she was.
Chapter 14
Bar Donatello
KATE HAD GOT USED to being followed. Italian youths seemed to regard it as a question of national pride not to let an attractive foreigner pass them on the street without some attempt at a pick-up. Sometimes it was tiresome, but so long as both sides understood the rules of the game it was not a problem, and she certainly didn’t feel threatened by it. But this time it was different. This time she had that being-looked-at feeling which made the back of her neck tingle, but there was no ‘Ciao, Mia,’ or ‘’Ello, I am your Latin loverrrrr,’ to identify who precisely was doing the looking.
For once she was alone on the streets of Florence in the middle of the morning. Her period had arrived two days early, catching her unprepared. Usually one of the other girls could help out, but not today. She had to go back to her lodgings near Santa Croce.
It was a sunny morning. Almost for the first time since she’d arrived there was a scent of spring in the air, a fledgling hope that the trauma of the flood would one day have an end. There were a few more Florentines out and about than there had been a week before, people going about their business, trying to do normal things like shopping for food and talking to neighbours in the street.
But Kate couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was being followed. It made her uneasy. Instead of their usual short cut, she kept to larger roads. Only when the front door had closed behind her and she was going up the narrow stairs to the flat where she shared a room, did she breathe easy.
By the time she emerged back into the sunshine, ten minutes later, she’d forgotten all about being followed. She pulled the door closed behind her, turned to go down the street, and found her way blocked.
‘Signorina, momento.’
Shock made her angry. ‘Leave me alone!’ Then she recognized the thin, serious face of the man who was standing
in front of her. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been standing under the hazy glow from a street light and watching as she took Francesca away from him. Away from danger.
‘Mi scusi, signorina,’ he said. ‘I must talk with you.’
‘I don’t want to talk. You’re the man who was hassling Francesca, aren’t you?’
‘’Assling?’ He looked perplexed at the word. ‘Sorry?’
‘You and she—the other night.’
‘Francesca and I talk, yes.’
‘Didn’t look to me like she wanted to talk to you.’ But even as she said it, Kate remembered how they’d both joined in laughing at her, when she’d leaped to Francesca’s defence. Surprise was replaced with curiosity. She said, ‘Why are you following me?’
‘You are friend for Francesca.’
‘So?’
‘I am friend for Francesca too.’ He spoke quietly.
Kate had the feeling that he might be a more subtle adversary than she’d first thought. She said, ‘Bully for her, having so many friends.’
‘Bully?’ He looked even more perplexed than before. The expression suited him. With his dark eyes and round, thin-rimmed glasses, he was unlike the Italian men Kate had encountered so far. If he’d been wearing a greatcoat, she thought, he could have passed for one of those idealistic Russian revolutionaries circa 1913, the kind who spends all his money on books and forgets to eat.
She said, ‘Francesca’s family have sent you, haven’t they?’
He looked shocked. ‘Francesca—she want to be secret from her family. I do not—hm—betray my friend.’
Kate told herself to be on her guard. In daylight, he did not look the least bit threatening. In fact he looked surprisingly attractive. And Kate hadn’t talked to a man wearing a suit, apart from the British Consul, in a long time. ‘If you’re not here to spy on Francesca, what are you doing?’ she asked.
He looked serious. ‘Francesca, yes. Hm. She is reason I yam worry.’
‘You are worry?’
‘Yes, I yam very worry.’
In different circumstances, Kate realized she could easily have been won over by the way he spoke—‘I yam worry,’ and the little ‘hm’ that went with his search for the correct English phrase. As it was, she was merely curious.
‘I’ve got to get back to work,’ she said. ‘You can walk back with me, if you want.’ He fell into step beside her. Before he had a chance to say anything, she said, ‘Francesca doesn’t give the impression that she wants to be your friend right now. Is that what the two of you were arguing about the other night?’
Kate wasn’t sure how much he had understood. He said, ‘I yam friend also to her family. Hm. They do not know where is she. She make me—hm—la promessa…’
‘The promise?’
‘Si, la promessa—that I not speak them where is she. But they are—hm—very concern for her.’
Kate was enjoying herself. Obviously, he was on the side of Francesca’s parents, and therefore fair game. She said teasingly, ‘So, not only are you very worry but also very concern.’ He nodded his agreement, and his sincerity made her feel bad about the teasing. ‘Look,’ she said, as if to make it up, ‘it’s time for my mid-morning break. We can talk about this over a coffee if you like.’
‘Yes, I like,’ he agreed happily.
Don’t be taken in, Kate told herself firmly. Find out what you can, then report back to Francesca. Maybe you can learn something that will help her. He stopped outside a small bar and stood aside to let her go in before him. Among the volunteers, only Hugo had old-fashioned manners, and was frequently teased for them. Kate decided that espionage, while it involved Francesca’s mysterious friend, might have unexpected bonuses.
The Bar Donatello was on the corner of the next street. Two old men were having one of those shouted conversations with the bartender that sound like matters of life and death, but are probably to do with the weather.
When Francesca’s worried friend had ordered them two tiny cups of espresso coffee, he pulled out a chair for Kate at one of the little zinc-topped tables and then held out his hand. It was a remarkably clean and scrubbed-looking hand compared with everyone Kate knew these days, each nail clipped tidily short. Kate shook hands with him quickly, then put her hands out of sight, on her lap.
‘Mario Bassano,’ he said, with a formality that made Kate half expect to see him click his heels together.
‘Kate Holland.’ She smiled.
He remained serious as he sat down. ‘Kay-teh ’Ollander?’ Despite dropping the ‘H’ he seemed to have added a couple of extra syllables to her name. She decided it sounded better with an Italian lilt, less fixed and aggressive.
‘Kate is short for Katherine,’ she explained. ‘Caterina in Italian.’
‘Yes. Of course.’ With the emphasis on the ‘of’. ‘You are American?’
‘English. We’re mostly English working in the Uffizi team.’
‘Hm,’ He looked puzzled. Kate wondered if it was the word ‘team’ that had defeated him.
‘Group,’ she said. ‘It’s an English group.’ And then, hazarding a guess she said, ‘Gruppa.’
‘Gruppo, yes,’ he said. ‘I yunderstand—hm—even though I speak not good. When I study many books are from English. But I yam not good to talk.’
‘You talk just fine.’
‘Thank you. You are very kind. I yam ’appy Francesca has good friend for you.’
No doubt about it, Mario Bassano was an unusual charmer. He had none of the usual flash and dazzle of the Italian male on the offensive, but a kind of integrity and lightness of touch. All the same, despite his protestations, he must be allied with the family Francesca was trying to get away from. She said firmly, ‘Francesca and I have become very close. She’s a lovely person.’
His expression cleared. From behind the round glasses his eyes looked directly into hers for the first time. It was a distinctly unsettling experience.
He said simply, ‘Francesca is beautiful—hm—like the morning.’
Kate was at a loss. She didn’t know how to respond. Either this man was the most pretentious she’d ever met, or…
‘Well,’ she said eventually, and the ‘well’ came out rather croaky. ‘She’s very pretty. But there’s no reason for you to worry about her, Mario. We might look like a bunch of scruffs but we’ve all got hearts of gold really. She’s just having a good time like everyone else.’
‘Yes, but Francesca is not same like other people.’
‘Well, yes, not everyone is beautiful like the morning, obviously, but apart from that…’
‘Signorina, you do not understand the worry. Francesca is special person, very different—fragile.’ He said it the Italian way, stretching it over three syllables: fra—gee—lay.
Kate checked, ‘Fragile?’
‘Yes, sometimes in her mind she is fragile. Then—hm—she need the care of the family and the friends.’
‘The friends like you?’
‘Yes. I yam medical dottore. I have the psychology specialism.’ The way he said it, a lot of extra syllables seemed to have crept into the last two words, making them sound wonderfully exotic.
Kate pondered what he was saying. She remembered Francesca’s face behind the glow from the cigarette lighter in the restaurant that night when Jenny wouldn’t let her pay for the meal, that strange intentness which, now she thought about it, went beyond the normal. She said lightly, ‘Are you implying Francesca’s unbalanced? A nutter? A fruitcake?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You think she’s not right in the head?’
He frowned. ‘She is sometimes too much sensitive. She ’ave the big and generous ’eart and she is very serious. Sometimes for her the simple things they are complicated. Life it is ’ard. Then she need the support.’
‘So she’s not mad?’
He looked shocked. ‘Certo, non.’
‘That’s a relief then.’
‘But sometimes she do the crazy thing.�
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‘Not so good. Like what, for instance?’
Mario hesitated, then said, ‘E difficile per me. Is difficult. I yam in the middle. I respect Francesca—hm—her want to be free with new life and also I know her parents how worry they are.’
‘And you’re worried about her too, right?’
‘No. Because now I ’ave talk with you. You are trust. I give you telephone from my ’ouse and work and ask that you will telephone to me when any worries.’
Kate had never been told she was ‘trust’ before. She quite liked it. Then she remembered that this man was not ‘trust’ yet. She said, ‘I’ll tell Francesca we’ve talked.’
‘Signorina, no.’ He looked anguished. ‘I do not like to ’ave the secrets, but it is not good for Francesca she know. She maybe do crazy thing. Like run away or—or…’
Or throw herself off a bridge. Kate found herself finishing the sentence he’d left in mid-air. She felt trapped. She wasn’t at all happy about keeping her meeting with Mario secret from Francesca, but in the circumstances she didn’t feel she had much choice. He was a psychiatrist, after all, and had clearly known Francesca for longer, and better, than she did.
‘Okay, then,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘I won’t say anything right away.’ The deception felt uncomfortable, all the same.
‘Is good.’ His face relaxed into a smile. ‘Now I give you my telephone numbers.’ He took a notebook out of his jacket pocket, wrote down some numbers in neat black writing and tore the sheet out. ‘’Ere is ’ouse and ’ere is work. You must promise you telephone to me if you are worry.’
‘I promise.’ Kate felt obscurely pleased to have merited his smile of approval. She wondered if perhaps she’d given too much ground without finding out anything that could be of help to Francesca. Perhaps when she talked to Mario again, she’d be better prepared to get something from him. She said, ‘Maybe we should talk again quite soon. You know, if Francesca starts acting strangely or I’m worried about anything.’
‘You will telephone to me,’ he said firmly.
