by David Hewson
Women seemed to hold little attraction, though there were worrying times when Capulet caught him casting a sly glance towards his daughter. Nothing had happened there, as far as he knew. Perhaps the military might work as a last resort, an admission of failure on Capulet’s part. He doubted Tybalt would return alive from any engagement that entailed fighting. The youth was never able to let a quarrel go, nor were his skills with a sword as impressive as he liked to think.
‘Someone has to look out for you,’ Tybalt said, with a scowl. ‘The rest of them are just drinking your free wine and downing your food. They’re laughing behind your back–’
‘For once in your life try to enjoy yourself. Look at those girls over there.’ The pretty specimens were mostly taken but a few of the awkward ones remained. ‘Why not try talking to them instead of storming round with a face like thunder?’
‘This house’s honour is my principal consideration. That and the health of our enterprise.’
‘What’s the point of money if you can’t enjoy it? Ye gods. Sometimes I think you were born fifty years old.’
There was a bandage on Tybalt’s right hand from the morning skirmish. No blood seeping through. No obvious hurt. The wound was more to his pride than his person. ‘A Montague’s here. Sidled in with his face behind a white mask. He thinks I didn’t see him.’
Paris was watching them across the room. Capulet saw his wife dashing to and fro among the revellers. She looked frantic.
‘And this, amidst all our jollity, is what makes you mad?’
His nephew glared at him. ‘Uncle. This is a Montague. Our foe. He’s come here to scorn us. To laugh in our faces.’
‘Which one?’
‘The son. Romeo. I’ll fetch my rapier–’
Capulet took his arm and dragged him further down the corridor, behind the long drape that kept out winter draughts. ‘Leave him alone. From what I’ve heard he’s a decent-enough lad. Hasn’t caused half the trouble you’ve brought me–’
‘He insults us. In your palazzo–’
‘Yes. My palazzo! I won’t have violence against him here, beneath my roof. What would people think? The shame of it–’
‘I cannot tolerate him!’
Capulet pushed the youth hard against the wall and pinned him there with an elbow.
‘You will do what I say. Am I master here, or you? You cannot tolerate him? By Christ, you try my temper. Start a mutiny among my guests, will you? Be gone. I’ve heard enough.‘
Tybalt’s face creased in an ugly, coarse snarl. ‘He disrespects us.’
‘Respect? How much do you show me? None. Nothing but contempt. For all I’ve done. The years, the money I’ve spent…’
The curtain shifted. His wife was there. ‘What is this, husband?’
‘A frank discussion, somewhat overdue. Have you found her?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve been all over the place. Count Paris seems a patient man but even saints have limits.’
‘Keep looking,’ he ordered. Then, when the curtain parted for her to leave, he bawled at a passing servant, ‘More lights, Pietro! More food! Get those musicians playing louder!’
The drape fell. Tybalt had that insolent, arrogant look Capulet hated. ‘The young. The bloody young. You think you know it all.’
‘I know a Montague when I see one.’
Capulet let go and nodded down the passageway, out to the back. ‘You’re an impudent little cur. What love I owed your father’s long expended.’
‘And my mother? What love did you owe her?’
A good question, well-aimed. It hurt. ‘That foul temper of yours will come back to haunt you, nephew. Mend your ways. Or one day those ways will decide to come and mend you.’
Tybalt laughed then, a rare, unpleasant sound. ‘I don’t know what that means. But since it pleases you I’ll leave. Be happy. As to that Romeo bastard–’
‘Forget him! You heard Escalus this morning. The next time there’s mischief in these streets there are hangings on the way.’
‘I bid you goodnight,’ he said with a short bow.
‘Get you to the warehouse and stay there. Don’t show your miserable face here until I ask for it. Which may be never.’
Tybalt hesitated, taken aback by that. ‘Very well. I hope this Montague enjoys himself. His little jape may seem sweet to him now. Tomorrow–’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake… just go. You ruin my mood.’
What was that look on him then? Hatred? Scorn? Or simply a cold sense of disappointment? The slim black figure vanished down the corridor. Capulet followed his every step.
‘Even the child of my brother fails me now,’ he whispered. ‘As I fail him.’
* * *
Romeo returned with wine as she’d asked. Juliet peered into the goblet and pulled a face. The moon had cleared a narrow bank of cloud. The garden felt like a little twilight world of its own. Just the two of them, the trees, the night.
‘You said you only wanted half a glass. So that’s what I brought.’
‘A woman doesn’t always say precisely what she wants. She expects a man to appreciate that.’
Again, he felt lost and hopeless. And he wouldn’t wish himself anywhere else on earth. ‘Sorry.’
‘You apologise too much.’
‘Sorr–’
She raised an eyebrow. He took her hand again. They talked idly, randomly, of home and study, of art and history. He told her of Catullus and Petrarch and Dante and how much he’d come to love them.
‘Poetry,’ she said and nothing more.
‘What’s wrong with poetry?’
‘Well.’ She withdrew her hands and placed her fingers together. ‘The thing that connects them all is loss as much as love, isn’t it? I’m not allowed to read Catullus. Mother says he’s unsuitable. But didn’t he spend his life pining for someone?’
‘The sun may set and rise, while we contrariwise, sleep after our short light, one… everlasting night.’
Juliet nodded. ‘Very good. Petrarch had this thing for his… Laura, if I recall…’
‘The breeze that moves her blonde and curly hair is softly stirred by her in turn–’
‘Fine, fine. And Dante… er, Beatrice…’
‘Beatrice Portinari. Most glorious lady of my mind…’
‘Point taken!’ she cried. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’m sorr–’
‘No.’ She clapped her hand across his mouth. ‘Poetry’s all well and good. But don’t you see?’
Juliet removed her fingers but stayed close to him. He could hear her breathing, feel it fall like a warm and gentle zephyr upon his cheek.
‘See what?’
‘They lost. Catullus his Lesbia. Petrarch his Laura. And as for Dante… if I remember rightly he only ever met the woman twice. She was quite horrible to him then upped and died.’
For the first time since he’d entered Capulet’s palazzo he thought about Rosaline, who now seemed a shadow, little more than a vague and vapid illusion.
‘I am aware of this,’ he whispered, watching her take a sip of wine. ‘You drink your wine so beautifully.’
‘Do I really? So, what were they truly in love with? Not a woman. Just the idea of her. The scent. The illusion. The convenient way her picture fitted a gap in their imagination. Here I am miserable, they whine. And why? Because I’m rejected.’ She snorted and it was a delicious sound. ‘That may be all well and good for a purveyor of verse but it’s a pretty poor recipe for life.’
‘I think I’ll pass on poetry for a while.’
She appeared lost in herself.
‘That’s how he sees me,’ Juliet murmured.
‘Who?’
‘Paris. This count… this bearded count I’m supposed to marry. I’m just a thing he wishes to own. A possession. He probably feels much the same way towards his favourite horse.’
‘Refuse him then.’
‘Fine words. Easier said than done.’
He let go of her fingers. ‘Wo
rds are all I have. I hold your hand and I’m not worthy of it. Let alone a kiss.’
She snorted. ‘Pah! What tosh!’
‘Tosh?’
‘Who are you to say you’re not worthy? Just because you think I belong to another?’
‘No. You belong to no one but yourself. You’re too good. Too perfect…’
Her laugh then was a throaty, tempting chuckle. ‘You do not know me.’
‘Juliet of the House of Capulet.’
‘My Montague enemy. If I’m to be thrown into the cell of matrimony with that man I’ll be damned if I go there before I kiss another.’ Tongue-tied, he hesitated. ‘That was an invitation, Romeo.’
He moved closer, lips pursed. This was something unfamiliar to both of them. Neither knew who should take the lead and who the passive part. Very slowly they closed on one another. A brief meeting. Two sighs, two faint whispers, hands to heads. And then, embarrassed, they both retreated.
She laughed. He did the same.
‘You’re very… proper.’
‘Proper?’ he asked.
‘I mean. That was how I imagine a kiss reads in a book. Or a poem.’
‘So…’ He pulled at his hair. ‘How should I kiss you?’
‘As if it was the first kiss we’ve ever shared. And the last. Before that bearded ogre steals me away.’
‘I won’t let him.’
’We’ve barely met…’
‘I’ve been waiting for you all my life. In my dreams…’
‘This isn’t a dream. Far from it.’
‘Then… I will save you.’
‘How?’ she whispered, wide-eyed, suddenly pleading.
‘Um…’
That was all. She blew out her cheeks and frowned. Then held up her empty goblet. ‘Fetch a little more wine, please. I’ll think about it while you’re gone.’
Romeo leapt to his feet.
‘Mask!’ she cried.
He fumbled the volto back in place.
She sat, hands on her lap, staring into the darkness. The garden was not hers alone. Moths and mosquitoes buzzed everywhere. Mice and rats and rabbits scuttled all around. Then there was a hoot and a sudden flap of heavy, powerful wings. An owl launched itself, a ghostly grey shape flying through the trees, falling to the bare earth by the wall. It seized a mouse there, took the thing to a corner. The night was briefly rent by the tiny beast’s screams as the bird’s sharp beak set about its work.
‘Poor thing,’ she said. ‘You should have run.’
* * *
Finally Capulet reached Count Paris and offered to refill his glass. The man was less put out than he expected. Perhaps more magnanimous than the occasion merited.
‘I didn’t come here for drink,’ he said simply.
‘No. Well, I’m afraid she’s… indisposed. You know young girls. Hot flushes. Hot tempers. Sheepish with strangers…’
Paris lost his smile. ‘So tell me. Is she fierily shy? Or shyly fiery? Which is it now?’
Capulet helped himself to some passing wine. Under pressure Paris agreed to do the same.
‘None of this is easy,’ said Capulet. ‘It never has been with her. It’s a brave task. For any man–’
‘My ancestors fought at the side of Caesars. I like brave tasks.’
‘Just as well. I hope you don’t mind my mentioning this. But… the beard.’
The count stroked his perfect whiskers. ‘What about it?’
‘The thing is… as you may have noticed looking round this room… in Verona the current fashion is for a man to be clean-shaven.’ He laughed a little nervously. ‘Fashion. What does it matter in the end? But the young do pay inordinate amounts of attention to what they deem fetching. Or not. Would you consider perhaps shaving it–?’
‘My father had a beard. His father before him.’
Capulet took a sip of wine. It was a very good year, as Arturo had mentioned. ‘My father had one too. I didn’t feel a lesser son for failing to follow in his lead.’
The count stared at him and asked, ‘Do you know Florence well?’
Capulet had been there twice of late, trying to drum up business after the fall of Savonarola. He was of the opinion the place fared best with the Medici at its helm. The so-called Democratic Republic that was now in charge seemed to embrace all the inner bickering of old with none of the firm grip the bankers brought.
The last time he was there, six weeks before, he’d learned Montague and his son were in the city, too, chasing the same prospects. He’d travelled alone and come back with nothing. Word was they suffered much the same indignity. The Florentines liked to choose the people they worked with and make them grateful. The count, he judged, was cut from that same cloth.
‘Well enough,’ was all he said.
Paris embarked upon a story about a painter Capulet dimly recalled. A man named Botticelli who’d been one of the favourite artists of the last two Medici princes before the house fell. For them he’d produced bright and colourful canvases: the birth of Venus, rising naked from the ocean in a giant scallop shell; the goddess with a sated Mars, satyrs blowing trumpets in his ear to rouse him; Primavera, an allegory of Spring, a series of enchanting mythological figures gathered in a mystical wood.
‘Art is largely a mystery to me,’ Capulet noted.
‘It’s not art I’m talking about,’ Paris retorted briskly.
The woman Botticelli portrayed in many of his canvases, the count said, was Simonetta Vespucci, acclaimed as the greatest beauty in Florence in her time. Wife to a lord, mistress to at least one Medici, she was equally adored by the companionless Botticelli. When she died at twenty-two he was heartbroken. Years later, after Savonarola came to power and demanded bonfires of all the citizens’ vanities, the artist burned many of his own canvases of her in the Piazza della Signoria at the lunatic priest’s behest.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I watched. I know, too, that this is what happens when a man becomes solitary. When his life belongs to him and him alone. That way lies the road to misery and destitution. Botticelli followed it himself. He’s now a ruined man, pleading for pennies for canvases when once he worked for princes, begging more than anything for one thing alone: that when he dies he’ll be buried in a hole at Simonetta Vespucci’s feet. In her church in Ognissanti.’
Capulet looked thoughtful. ‘We’ll get you married. I will speak with my daughter–’
‘I tell you this because of the beard. A few months ago when I was in the city I took such pity on the man I paid him a pittance for a portrait of myself.’ He stroked his whiskers. ‘As I am today. As I shall be all my days. Can you imagine?’
‘Imagine what?’
‘We are married. That picture stands in pride of place in my hall. And all the men and women who see it ask… who is that fellow? That bearded man. It can’t be Paris since he’s clean-shaven. So… who?’
It occurred to Capulet that a portrait from a pauper was a small obstacle to stand in the way of a wedding. But that was not the true impediment here. It was the man’s self-importance. Juliet’s duty was to bend her ways to him. There was no other solution.
‘I take your point, Paris. It was ably and gently made.’
The count finished his drink and placed the cup on the silver tray of a passing servant. ‘You’re her father. Tomorrow we decide matters. I will treat her well though, if I’m honest, your station in society is somewhat lower than my own. If she will not marry me I’ll find another, a true aristocrat this time, not a merchant’s daughter. I’ll love her just the same.’
‘Tomorrow…’
‘Or never. Goodnight.’
* * *
Romeo came back with another glass and a revelation. Mask on, he’d edged close to Juliet’s father and heard him speaking to the bearded count.
‘About me?’ she asked.
‘No. It seemed to be about Florence. And painting.’
‘My father hates painting!’ She took her wine, leaned back and looked at the m
oon. The evening had moved so quickly. Romeo’s brief absence had given her room for thought. ‘That’s why he wouldn’t take me to Florence the last time he went. There’s a place called the Brancacci Chapel. It has a pair of frescoes: Adam and Eve before the Fall and then after when they are expelled from Paradise into the world we know. I said I wanted to see them.’
Juliet looked around the garden. The noise indoors was diminishing. Soon the banquet would be over. She’d have to return to the palazzo and meet her parents’ wrath.
‘Why?’ he asked.
Because of what she’d read. So much of life seemed to be about obedience. Do what your father says. Follow the words of the priest. When you transgress confess to your sins, always. Prostrate yourself. Do penance. Apologise. Whatever you do… never ask the obvious, heretical questions.
Where would we be without sin? Without that choice what point would life have at all? How can there be light without dark? And what if some sweetness lies in wait there? Why invent temptation if no one can ever touch it?
Her books said those frescoes hinted at these nagging, awkward conundrums. A perfect couple in Paradise on one side, naked, ignorant of themselves and their physical existence. On the left the fallen pair, stricken with grief for tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge, cursed with God’s punishment. Miserable but enlightened, entering a world – a new world – as full of delight as it was of danger. And ultimately… the sentence the Almighty had delivered upon them. Death.
She looked straight at Romeo and asked, ‘Which is best? To exist forever in ignorance? Or to choose a life that’s brief but… full and real? Where you can feel the blood pulse through your veins? Can love someone with all your heart and never mind the consequences?’
‘Here’s to full and real and loving,’ he said and raised his cup. ‘Always. I’d rather live a single day in your sweet presence than countless lifetimes without it–’
‘That’s very poetic. Yet you kiss so very properly. As if I’m your aunt or something.’
