‘Tess.’ Tess struggled up and shook his hand, grimacing. ‘Ouch,’ she said as he gripped her hand.
‘Oh, wow. I’m sorry.’ He looked at her, his dark eyes full of concern.
‘It stings,’ she said, not wanting to sound as though she was making a fuss. ‘Is there a—’ She could hear shouts coming from further down the tiny street and looked up.
‘Hey!’ Peter said, following her gaze. ‘It’s him! They caught him!’
Suddenly a mob—that was the only word for it—of angry citizens appeared, pushing and shoving a young man at their centre, who was being held by the shoulder. ‘Questo! Allora! Carabinieri!’ they were all variously shouting, while the young man wailed, his face a picture of distress.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Tess said. The mob started to fade away. Someone went off to call the police, someone to pick up the bike, and still more people simply just hung around.
Peter stepped forward and asked someone a couple of questions. ‘He’s hurt his arm too,’ said Peter. ‘Bumping into you must have sent him off course.’ He turned to her and smiled. ‘That’s pretty awesome. You caught a thief! Good job.’
Tess looked at him properly for the first time and realized he was really quite—no, extremely—good-looking. He had looked and sounded totally Italian, but he was dressed in a curiously non-committal way—jeans, trainers, a white shirt and a soft grey V-necked pullover. She met his smile, trying to toss her hair. ‘No problems,’ she said, a little breathily.
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ he said, as the sound of the police’s sirens grew nearer in the tiny streets. She wondered if her group, ensconced in their guide books and cups of tea, would hear it, and if they did would ever think she was at the centre of it? No. ‘You on holiday?’
‘I’m—sort of,’ Tess said, rubbing her arm again. She pushed herself away from the wall and shook her head, wishing, not for the first time, that she had long, Francesca-like siren tresses.
‘Signore, questo uomo e il ladro, e vero?’ a voice said from behind them, and Peter turned around and started talking back to the assembled Carabinieri officers.
‘L’eroina, e questa ragazza,’ Peter said. ‘You’re the heroine,’ he told her, as the tall, portly, handsome Carabinieri stared at her appraisingly. ‘They will need to take your details.’
Though she was now convinced that her ladies and Ron would be wondering whether she’d been sold into the white slave trade, Tess had to stand there for a long few minutes still while she and Peter gave their names, addresses, filled out a form, and were questioned variously by several Carabinieri, as well as some of the bystanders who were taking an involved approach to this affair. The accused was in the car, still crying piteously, handcuffed to a morose Carabinieri officer. He was very young, Tess thought, looking at him. What was he hoping to do with the stolen bag? And if she’d been a second later, would he have still crashed and hurt his arm, or would he have got away? She touched her throbbing shoulder, out of some kind of peverse empathy.
‘I have to go, Tess,’ said Peter, as he turned back from the police. ‘But you should go to a farmacia and get something for your shoulder. Some Deep Heat stuff, it’ll freeze otherwise.’ He stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Hey. You have great eyes.’
Tess snorted. ‘Come off it.’
‘What?’ he said, not understanding her. ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘They’re dark blue. Very intense.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s so incredibly—I do not believe I just said that.’
‘Well, you did,’ Tess said, secretly deeply flattered.
Peter looked down at the ground, then up at the sky. He exhaled deeply. ‘Oh, jeez. Look, I was going to ask you something,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I was going to ask—’ He shoved his hands in his pockets, and Tess stared at him curiously. ‘Oh. OK.’ He cleared his throat. ‘So, can I ask you a few questions, some time? How long are you in town for?’
Her face was blank. ‘A few questions?’ She shook her head. ‘Why on earth would you want to do that?’
‘I’m a journalist,’ he said, smiling. ‘I live here. I’m not a psycho, I promise. I’m doing a piece on tourism versus the locals in Rome. This would be great to include. This incident.’
He had a way of saying definite sentences that meant Tess had to listen carefully to what he said each time.
‘Tourism versus locals,’ she repeated.
‘Yeah,’ he said slowly, as if she were a bit stupid. ‘You know what I mean? How a city can survive with its own identity when it’s under siege twenty-four seven. Would that guy make a living stealing bags if there weren’t so many handbags to be stolen, all stuffed with new euros and cameras and all that crap?’
‘Huh,’ said Tess, watching him. ‘I’d say he just shouldn’t be stealing handbags in the first place.’
Peter scuffed his trainer gently against the wall. ‘Sure. But all that stuff about what makes a city great is ultimately what kills it, because it draws the tourists to it. Then they suck the life out of it. Don’t you think? It becomes a shell.’
Tess knew something about this. She had also spent the whole day looking at shells, in the company of a thousand other tourists, and they were the building blocks of modern civilization. ‘I don’t agree,’ she said, though she’d been thinking about this a lot lately. She looked at him. ‘I think a town needs the old and the new to combine. Work together.’
She was thinking of Langford, would it be nothing without its Jane Austen Centre, its funny gift shops, the visitors’ book with Beau Brummell’s signature?
‘That’s crap,’ he said. ‘I think. You have to look forward, that’s how all the great cities were created. Forget the past.’
‘You sound like a dictator,’ said Tess. ‘That’s Albert Speer’s plan for Berlin you’re talking about.’ She clutched her map tightly, and showed it to him in her fist. ‘I’m not saying all cities do it well; I think Florence and Venice, they have too many tourists. But this is a pretty good mix, isn’t it?’
She waved her hand, dropping the map as she did. It fluttered to the ground and he followed her gaze across the Campo dei Fiori as they stood at the far corner. She crouched on the ground to pick the map up, looking around her. The tourists with visors and bumbags—the Americans. The anxious, thin ones striding across the open space with their noses in their Dorling Kindersleys—the British and Swedes, sometimes Germans. The washing hanging in rows from the windows of the rusty-coloured palazzi, the man singing as he folded up his vegetable stall, the women bustling away from Il Forno, the bakery at the other end, bags of warm soft focaccia and pizza bianca wrapped in greaseproof paper swinging by their sides. The smell of coffee and jasmine, always in the air. This was why she loved Italy; it seemed real, all of it, no matter how touristy, crowded, theatrical it might be. She breathed in and out, forgetting who she was with, relaxing, drinking it all in for one brief, total moment.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said at her elbow, after a pause. He bent down, and handed her back the map and something else. ‘Here’s my number. You should give me a call, I really do want to ask you some questions. Human-interest angle, the girl who was caught up in a mugging, that kinda thing.’
‘Weelll—’ she said, not sure how to respond.
‘Come on, it’s only a few questions,’ he said brusquely. ‘It’ll take a couple of minutes and then you can go back to—who are you here with?’
His eyes looked her up and down in his decisive way, which she highly resented. It was as if she were a piece of meat: was she old, young, pregnant, married, up for it, frigid?
‘None of your business!’ she heard herself say.
‘Wow—’ he said coolly. ‘So you’re here on a dirty weekend, isn’t that what you Brits call it?’
‘I’m not telling you,’ she said, equally coolly. ‘Who are you here with?’
‘I’m on my own now,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
‘Really,’ Tess sa
id. ‘You live here—alone?’ She didn’t believe him.
‘Well, I do now,’ said Peter.
‘Ah, Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday,’ she said, smiling. ‘Filing copy late, playing cards with your buddies, living a louche Yankee journalist’s life.’
‘I am now,’ said Peter.
‘“Now”?’ Tess said.
‘Eventually, she gets it,’ Peter replied, amused. ‘You’re not great at taking a hint, are you? I was married. To an Italian. That’s why I live here.’
‘Oh,’ said Tess. He nodded gravely.
‘But she left me. Three months ago.’
‘She left you?’
‘Moved back home to Naples with her ex.’
‘God—I’m sorry,’ said Tess. ‘I’ve been stupid, I shouldn’t have—’
He held out a tanned hand. ‘Hey. It’s OK. Turns out she was a terrible cook. What’s the point of marrying an Italian if she can’t cook?’
‘Er—’ Tess wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, and she was about to ask what he meant, when suddenly a voice behind her called out, ‘Yoo-hoo! Tess!’
She turned round. Jan Allingham was peering around the corner, her hands clutching the wall like the little boy in Cinema Paradiso.
‘Tess, dear, are you all right? Only we heard the sirens, and you’d been gone so long, and Jacquetta said she thought she heard gunshots, so Andrea started to panic and I offered to come and find you.’ she trilled. ‘Here you are!’
‘Oh, man alive,’ Tess muttered under her breath.
‘Ah,’ said Peter, stepping back and leaning against a wall. ‘On tour with your moms,’ he said softly. ‘I see.’
‘It’s not like that,’ Tess said childishly. ‘I’m a Classics teacher, thank you very much, and these are my pupils.’ But this sounded even more ridiculous, somehow. She turned to Jan. ‘Are you all OK?’
‘Yes!’ said Jan, almost wildly. ‘Except Leonora, she—’
Tess started wildly, she always forgot about Leonora Mortmain, the black-clothed viper in the bosom of the group. ‘What did she do?’
‘Told Ron he was a member of a lunatic socialist fringe,’ Jan said briefly.
‘Oh, dear God,’ said Tess. She turned back to Peter, who was standing there with a sardonic look on his face. Her eyes met his, briefly. ‘I have to go,’ she said.
‘Sounds like it,’ and his dark, fathomless face relaxed a little into a smile. ‘Please call me so we can talk some more. Press date’s not till Friday, so I have a few days.’
‘You’re very direct,’ said Tess.
‘I have to be,’ Peter said. ‘It’s my job. Plus, what’s the point in wasting time? If you want something, you should go for it.’
‘Oh,’ she said, considering this. She nodded. ‘You’re probably right, you know.’
‘I am totally right,’ he told her, grinning. ‘You miss the story if you don’t go for it. Of course, I went for it with Chiara, and I was totally wrong about that, but—hey.’ He gestured with his hand, almost laconically. She watched him, transfixed, as did Jan, open-mouthed. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? I could be back in the States writing articles about the steel industry for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It’s not so bad. Gimme a call.’
‘Well—’
‘Or—just if you get bored. You should enjoy yourself a little while you’re here, too.’ He looked at her directly, held out his hand and she shook it. His clasp was strong.
‘Look, sorry again about—er—’ she said. She felt she ought to apologize for being so rude, but she didn’t quite know what for. ‘Sorry about your wife.’
‘I forgive you. You’re not the Bosnian guy who banged her,’ he said, and his handsome face creased into a smile. ‘It’s OK. Nearly OK.’ He nodded at Jan, who blushed, and then nodded at Tess. She stared back at him helplessly. ‘Hey—good police work. I hope your shoulder feels better.’ He glanced at her arm. ‘Speak to you soon, Tess,’ but he was talking to thin air, for Tess had hurried back into the Campo, Jan bustling in her wake.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hi, Tess. Hope you’re having a good time. All good here. Very quiet town without all those people you’re looking after. See you when you’re back. Adam
It probably was quiet in Langford, without all those people. It was certainly very loud here, in Rome, shepherding them around the city all day. Loud, hot, chaotic, relentless, and unsatisfying. In the shower back at the hotel, Tess stood still, letting the cool water run in rivers over her head, resenting Adam intruding here. She didn’t want to think about him. She forced her mind elsewhere.
It was Tuesday; six more days to go. She had never imagined she would remember with any fondness the Fair View Year Ten day trip to Bath, where one of her class had stolen a biscuit from the motorway service station (and been caught by security), another had jumped out at an old lady behind a statue in the Roman Baths (she had angina), and three others had simply disappeared, turning up two hours later insensibly drunk by the bus station (two of them were sick on the coach journey back), but she was wrong. At least that had only been a day long. And teenagers were annoying, but you could yell at them and then it was over. This…oh, dear. The fussing! The amount of time it took them all to cross the road! The incessant questions and faffing around, about the menu, the drinks, the entrance fee, what was happening next! Even the two younger members of the group, Claire and Liz, seemed to be aping the behaviour of their elders: she had heard Claire say to Liz, ‘I must buy some Footgloves when I get back home. They seem so useful, don’t you think?’ Tess had stared at her, almost in horror, and Claire had looked a little surprised when she’d seen the expression on her face. ‘Maybe,’ she’d amended. ‘I’ll try some on.’
Standing naked in the shower, feeling the water run over her body, the dull ache of the muscle pain in her shoulder felt almost erotic, exotic, after today. She stepped out of the shower and dried herself with a towel. Her shoulders and arms were flushed with the sun. She remembered that American man, and what he’d said. ‘On tour with your moms.’ How rude. How annoying!
How right he was.
His card was in her purse. Peter Gray. Such an American name for such an Italian-looking man. She found him vaguely disconcerting; there was something dangerous in his dark, almost hooded eyes, his staccato manner, the very directness with which he conducted himself. Tess was used to a depressing cross-section of English men, who stammered their way through a variety of half-truths, took passive-aggressivity to a new level of art form, who spoke of equality but were mostly terrified of women.
She had talked about this a lot with Francesca, that arch-realist. Standing by the window, rubbing cream into her arms and shoulders, Tess found herself thinking about Adam and Francesca, she couldn’t help it. What was going on in Langford? Were they properly back together? She hoped they were both OK, Francesca especially. She still didn’t understand what had happened with her and Adam on Saturday, but she was realizing, with the benefit of a good night’s sleep and a change of scenery, that that night in London was not the start of something new. It was the line being drawn under something old. A teenage romance—that’s what it was, with all its tawdry, heartbreaking, familiar drama. He had called it a summer fling, and it had hurt her, but he was right. That’s all it was, with a sadder than usual ending. She had never really come to terms with its conclusion: the abortion, the wall of silence afterwards, the start of her new life at university and never discussing it with anyone there, because the one person she would have told about it was the one person she couldn’t talk to.
It was easy to think clearly here. Easy to have perspective. Tess looked round the room, at the mirrored sliding cupboard doors, where the clothes she had hung up fluttered in the evening breeze, at the faded, half-hearted etchings of Roman ruins up on the walls—of the Baths of Caracalla and the Colosseum, at the shiny caramel-coloured linen coverlets on the narrow single beds. It was anonymous, and there was comfort in that anonymity.
She applied t
he Italian version of Deep Heat which she’d bought from the pharmacy, wincing slightly, and as she did ran through, with no enthusiasm, a potential seating plan for the evening. She had quickly learned that her group was like a teenage girl—needing constant ministrations and reassurances, but basically pliant if told what to do in a firm way. Tess sighed at the thought, casting one more look at her phone to see if there was another message, before stopping herself. She was the teenage girl, if anything. They were in Rome! She had prevented a theft! They were in the cradle of civilization, it was spring, anything could happen! She drew out a piece of paper from her notepad, picked up her pen and started scribbling.
They were having dinner that night in a traditional trattoria just off the Piazza Farnese and when they arrived, Tess’s first impression of gloom was quickly overtaken with delight. It was a truly Roman restaurant, from the polished barrels stacked up around them and the black-and-white posters of films and autographed pictures of local celebrities tacked up on the walls, to the simplicity of the dark wood contrasting with the red-and-white checked tablecloths. As the group stood, huddled in the doorway, a woman bustled up to them, gesturing frantically for them to take their seats around the long table at the heart of the low-ceilinged, cavernous room.
‘Sono Vittoria,’ she added, jabbing her finger into her breastbone. ‘Benvenuti!’
There was an awkward pause as each member of the group started to shuffle towards a seat, trying not to look too alarmed at who was next to them. Jan, Diana and Carolyn instinctively drew together. Jacquetta hovered at their edge. Ron, as ever, tried to look remote and forbidding, and succeeded in neither. Leonora, of course, stood at the back, tapping her stick lightly on the ground.
‘Mind out there, Carolyn, excuse me if I squeeze past.’ ‘I don’t mind going in next to Jan, Diana!’ ‘Where are you going, Mrs Mortmain? Oh, right. I’ll just…’ ‘Claire, can I sit next to you?’
‘Stop!’ Tess called out, as Jan had almost edged halfway along the side of the table against the wall, clutching her bag determinedly. ‘I’ve done a seating plan!’ There was total silence. She smiled. ‘I thought it’d be a good idea,’ she continued, not giving up. ‘I’ll do a new one each night. We can chop and change, exchange ideas on what we’ve seen, and I’m going to ask you all what your favourite part of the day was, whether that’s a fact or a sight or just something that struck you! Righty ho!’
I Remember You Page 18
