The Apartment In Rome Part 12

Realising that no one was going to move, exposing themselves, while she was in the room, she added, 'Now, I'm starving so I'm going to make a quick meal of linguine alle vongole. Only tinned, I'm afraid. The vongole, I mean, but they're not bad. D'you want some?'

Sasha nodded doubtfully. Joe reached for his jeans, some fresh rips in the knee. His top, Gina remembered, was ruined, unwearable. She would have to find him something of Felix's, from her standby selection. He'd had some beautiful possessions but she wasn't a h.o.a.rder; she only hung onto objects of value because she never knew when she might need to cash them in.

She left them to it and set a pan of water to boil, poured a gla.s.s of white wine, chopped cloves of garlic. She opened the tin and up-ended the clams; the small jellied blobs. .h.i.t the smoking olive oil with a hiss. She threw her pasta into the pot and the wine into the clams, stirring with unnecessary vigour.

Sasha and Joe shambled out of the bedroom, more or less dressed. 'Can I do anything?' said Sasha. 'I'd really like to help.'

'Help! What you need is a big placard round your neck that reads "Hindrance". Just sit yourself down somewhere out of my way.' She noticed their hands creeping together for rea.s.surance and jerking apart when she banged three dishes down on the table. She drained the pasta, mixed it with the clam sauce and set the large bowl in front of them.

'What are those things?' asked Sasha.

'Vongole. I hope you're not one of those teenagers who lives off McDonalds and won't eat anything else?'

'No... not at all.'

'And you're not allergic to sh.e.l.lfish?'

'No.'

'Well, you'll be fine then. Tuck in.'

Perhaps Sasha sensed that if she didn't eat her hostess's indifferent cuisine, Gina's tolerance would wane further. She said, 'It would be brill if I could stay here tonight. I'm just waiting to hear from my dad about my return flight and then I'll clear out and hook up with Renate and Ilse. They know what happened so I won't have to do any explaining to them.'

The girl's skin was stretched purple and shiny across her cheekbone. Not the best advertis.e.m.e.nt, Gina had to admit, for a Roman holiday. 'I suppose what you want,' she said, 'is for me to boot Joe out so you can take over Felix's room?'

Sasha looked nonplussed. 'Felix?' She was twisting linguine around the p.r.o.ngs of her fork, but the strands kept sliding off.

Joe was shovelling food into his mouth as if it had been a long time since his last meal. 'Devo andare,' he said. 'I go.'

'Yes,' agreed Gina. 'You must.' She might have to make an exception for Sasha Mitch.e.l.l but there was no way Joe could stay another night. Such a precedent would be risky and Father Leone was already suspicious of her relationship with the lost boys. She knew he distrusted her motives. 'It's actually the nicer room,' she went on, 'but I'd been in mine for so long, from when I was his lodger, that I never got around to moving out.'

'His lodger? You mean he was your landlord, like Signor Boletti?'

'No, not at all like Boletti. Felix had a tenancy. He believed in spending his money on art, not property.'

Sasha had hidden some of the clams under a wodge of stuck-together pasta. She put her fork down carefully. 'I'm sorry. I thought it was, like, a spare room or a study...'

'Yes, that's why there's a desk: he taught at the university. Now it's my study too.'

'But weren't you married to him? I mean...' She was all the colours of the rainbow, blushing through her freckles. 'Obviously I don't know anything about him, but...'

'No reason why you should. Only, as it happens, it wasn't that kind of a marriage.'

'Oh, I didn't realise...' She didn't give up, this girl, she had the curiosity of youth. '...I thought there was only one kind of marriage. Apart from civil partnerships of course. But they're same s.e.x, aren't they, and '

'Darling,' said Gina, 'You're going to find there's a lot you don't know about yet.'

PART TWO.

THE YEARS BEFORE.

14.

Five Years Earlier: 2005.

The plastic telephone cord was twisted twice around Gina's arm. Her head was tipped sideways at an awkward angle, trapping the old-fashioned receiver between shoulder and ear. In her left hand she held a pot of nail varnish; with her right she was painting her toenails a deep dramatic blackcurrant. She thought, if she had an activity to focus on, she could remain detached; she wouldn't experience the sense of hurtling headlong into pointless confrontation. In Rome it was seven thirty in the morning, already warm as a caress. In Santiago, she knew it would be late, but Phoebe had always been a night owl.

'A wedding?' Her voice floated astonishingly clear and girlish across the thousands of miles that separated them. 'You mean, yours?'

Gina was almost certain she could hear the ice cubes cracking in her mother's gla.s.s: testimony either to the quality of satellite communication or of Phoebe's determination never to be further than six inches from a drink.

'Yes.'

'Oh darling, how marvellous!' Phoebe was of the generation who believed spinsterhood to be a curse rather than a pleasure which was why she had collected three husbands.

'I'm afraid this isn't an invitation.'

'Oh, but why shouldn't I come? I haven't been to Europe for years.'

'It's for information only.'

'Go on then, tell me about him.'

'You won't like what you hear.'

'I see...' The wheedling tone pulled itself together, became waspish. 'You're not getting mixed up in anything foolish, are you? It's not that old boyfriend of yours who nearly went to prison, is it? Gun-running or drugs or something.'

'Black market cigarettes, actually.' As if Phoebe cared; as if, dancing from one sugar daddy to another she'd given a rat's a.r.s.e what Gina got up to. Gina had never come first in her mother's life. 'Of course it isn't him.'

The ice cubes clinked together. 'So who is he?'

'His name's Felix Raven.'

'Felix and Eugenie! What a splendid combination. I've not met him, have I?'

Gina spoke to her mother about twice a year, rarely saw her more than twice a decade. 'It's possible. We've been friends a long time.'

'Oh, you know that's quite common,' said Phoebe. 'I've seen it a lot. People who've known each other for ages, or childhood sweethearts who've diverged and met up again. They realise in middle-age how much they've got in common, how nice it would be to spend the rest of their lives together. A second chance doesn't have to mean second best.'

Gina's hand was shaking, smudging the varnish. She reached for a wad of cotton wool to wipe it off and start again. Knowing already that her marriage would be short, this happy-ever-after talk was excruciating. She couldn't help snapping, 'We are not sweethearts. It's not a romance, okay? It's convenience.'

'Convenience?'

'You've already reminded me how old I am, and he's a good deal older. Perhaps when you get to thirty-nine you stop looking for love.'

In fact Gina relished the thrill of a new relationship, never knowing when it might arrive and soar into flight. She sometimes wondered if she was addicted to the first flush: the glorious beginning that could go to your head and make up for all the misery that came later. None of this, however, was anything to do with Felix.

'I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean it's to do with money? Because...'

Because you'd know about that, thought Gina grimly. Hunting down the money, shoring yourself up against troublesome inconveniences. Like a daughter. Aloud, she said, 'I don't expect you to understand. It's complicated. But I'm getting married this afternoon to my very old friend and I thought you should know.'

'Today! You didn't say it was today!'

'Didn't I? What difference does it make?'

'Well, I can't possibly come, can I?'

'It's a very low-key do. I can guarantee you won't be missing out on anything.'

Gina knew she never managed these infrequent conversations well and it was with relief that she restored the receiver to its cradle, cutting off her mother's protests and the faint chirruping of crickets in the South American night.

The shutters to the terrace were half open, beckoning, promising another glorious day. Gina wasn't usually up so early unless she had an a.s.signment which required her to capture this particular fragile light. She had planned to spend the morning making preparations, but there wasn't much left to do. Later their friends would come to help Felix down the stairs and into Mario's cab. Then, slowly, very slowly, they'd mount the steps of the Campidoglio to the Sala Rossa to take their oath. They were going to have the wedding breakfast in Pierluigi's so she only needed to chill some champagne and perhaps buy some fruit. Although, as it happened, visitors kept bringing fruit. Torrents of grapes, figs, nectarines flowed over the shelves of the fridge.

She replaced the cap on the nail varnish and threw away the smeared pieces of cotton wool. Felix was sleeping. Barefoot, wearing a long baggy T-shirt, she edged around his bedroom door. He was covered up to his neck with a sheet woven from fine cotton lawn, its touch the most he could bear. A pair of embroidered Moroccan slippers lay on the floor at the end of the bed, neatly positioned for his feet those long thin feet with the prominent ridge of bone rising to the ankle. On the pillow, his large, apparently disembodied, head with its high brow and imperious nose, resembled a bas-relief of a Roman emperor Augustus perhaps. His eye sockets and cheeks were sunken shadows; she could make out the bones of his skull beneath the taut skin.

The empty slippers, his inert body, the thick sweet air of a sickroom, induced a crashing wave of grief. It disturbed Gina that the pain of loss was so acute, that she could be knocked breathless this way. He must have heard her enter the room or perhaps he noticed the strong almond smell of nail polish overlaying those other smells of medication, disinfectant and decay. He opened his eyes but didn't move.

'Are you okay?' whispered Gina. 'Can I get you anything?' He smiled but didn't speak. 'Hey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have woken you.'

He found his voice, lurking somewhere at the back of his throat. 'What time is it?'

'Eight o'clock.'

'What have you been up to?'

'Pretty disagreeable stuff actually. Phoning my mother. I'd left it to absolutely the last minute to tell her, but I don't know why the h.e.l.l I bothered.'

'Ah, the dreaded Phoebe.'

'Do you want me to help you up?' She delved beneath the sheet, supporting his armpits, and gently raised him into a sitting position. She thumped the feather pillows one by one and bent him forward so she could mound them against the bra.s.s bedhead. Through his thin vest she could identify each vertebra: a row of k.n.o.bs descending his spine like organ stops. He leant back against the pillows with a sigh.

'Breakfast?'

'Tempt me.'

'Peach and banana frullata?'

'I'm not really hungry yet.'

She patted his leg beneath the sheet and his lips compressed in a small grimace. 'I thought whoever gets here first could help you change into your suit, make sure the fit's okay.'

The white suit, collected yesterday from the cleaners', was hanging on the wardrobe door, glinting under its layer of polythene.

'The fit will be lousy.'

'I think you'll get away with it. Especially if you wear the fedora.'

'It's not a fedora. It's a panama.'

'That's what I meant. Anyway, you'll look cla.s.sy.'

He smiled. 'And you, dear heart, how will you look?'

She twirled, thrust forward her pelvis, let her hands rest on her hips. 'Devastating, darling.' Gina was not planning to wear white. She had a short, tight, black silk dress which flattered her minimal curves. She liked the idea of breaking with tradition. Weddings were so over the top these days, she craved austerity. She blew invisible dust from the panama hat and returned it to its hook. She rummaged in the chest of drawers until she found a red silk handkerchief to adorn the pocket of the white suit; the crimson rosebud for the b.u.t.tonhole was still wrapped in its damp coc.o.o.n. A heavy watch and a couple of rings lay nearby: Felix hadn't decided yet whether he would wear them, whether the watch might chafe and rattle like a manacle instead of a functional timepiece.

'Tell you what,' she said. 'I'll make the frullata anyway. You don't have to drink it but it's going to be so creamy and delicious you won't be able to resist.'

'I need to shave.'

'We've plenty of time.'

A sudden surge of activity from outside: the clatter of iron shutters rising, of awnings unfurled, the screech of a television advert, the buzz of a bell.

'Was that the door?'

Gina went out onto the terrace and hung over the railings. She had a foreshortened view of a man's hat and a bicycle. Should she pretend it was the postman? Or no one at all.

'Well?' called Felix faintly.

She came back inside. 'I think it's the Lion King. He seems to have his bike with him.'

'He can leave it downstairs.'

'I don't know what he's doing here. We agreed not to invite him.'

'Did we?'

'It's a civil ceremony. Secular guests only, we said. People who are on our side.'

'Leone's not our enemy.'

'Well, I know he's not yours.'

'Anyway, I didn't invite him. If you let him in I don't suppose he'll stay long.'

The priest wasn't a frequent visitor, although he had been calling more often in recent weeks, as Felix became confined to the apartment. In the beginning he'd been a shadowy person Gina only heard talk of. Two years before, when Felix first took on English cla.s.ses for the asylum seekers, he always went to the crypt; he never brought anyone home. By degrees she'd noticed his wardrobe emptying, the clack of the empty hangers as his clothes disappeared. She pictured his linen jackets and cashmere jumpers on the younger fitter bodies of other men, who wouldn't take care of them shrinking them in the wash or snagging them on nails but she never said anything.