Errant Angels (17 page)

‘Yes, in a manner of speaking she does go away…' he replied, the emotion in his voice threatening to overwhelm him. ‘She dies.'

The silence returned once again to engulf the room. She turned from the score to look at the professor.

‘Mimi is ill from the very beginning … even when the lovers first meet. It is as if fate is playing a cruel game with their emotions.'

‘Oh … I see,' she said, taken a little aback by the revelation.

‘I hope I have not upset you,' he said, reacting immediately to the colour of her tone, ‘but that is life. This kind of opera plot is called
verismo
, which means “realistic”. There are no gods and goddesses to the rescue at the eleventh hour … no cavalry to rescue you from the Indians, as happens in those American western films. There is just the bleak, ugly reality of the hand of fate that life sometimes deals out to us.'

She turned her head back to the score, but said nothing. He had become very emotional during his description. Perhaps he really was affected by the tragedy of the plot. She had heard people say that the Italians were far more passionate about things that the English took for granted. And yet it occurred to her that there must be something really deep-seated in this man, which provoked such feelings of deep emotion – feelings of loss. Her curiosity now came into play and she once again toyed with the idea of asking him, but was foiled by her inability to phrase so delicate a question in such a manner as to make the asking of it not sound blatantly impertinent. After all, this man – as handsome and charming as he was – was almost old enough to be her father. Her fingers caressed the keys once again as she started the Waltz Song from the beginning. She had a photographic memory and an excellent ear, both attributes affording her the extraordinary gift of being able to look at a piece of music once and then forever have it cemented in her memory.

‘Is all of Puccini's music like this?' she asked, turning her head to look at him again. ‘I should very much like the opportunity of getting to know it better.'

‘And so you shall, Miss Strachan. Please do not think me presumptuous in any way, but would you care to accompany me to the opera? Covent Garden has a production of
La Bohème
, this very opera, opening at the end of next month. My position here at the Royal Academy affords me easier
access to the performances than most. I would be honoured if you would accept.'

For an instant, Penelope Strachan's pulse raced all over her body and she felt as if her head was about to spin right off her shoulders. She wanted to shout out,
Yes, of course I will
, but her upbringing restrained her from such a common course of action.

‘Er … well, yes. That would be very pleasant, but I really think that I … that is to say…' She suddenly felt very stupid and childish, as the words refused to come out the way she wanted them to. She felt herself going quite red – not so much from embarrassment as from anger with herself for her lack of control.

‘Please do not concern yourself with any thoughts of impropriety. I ask you as one musician to another.' He paused, smiling that smile at her once again. ‘And there
is
no Mrs Professor, if that is what concerns you.' His smile deepened as he raised his eyebrows in anticipation of her reply. How handsome he looked, with his white teeth and blue-grey eyes.

‘That would be lovely,' she said, reaching up to the piano's music stand, misjudging the distance completely and sending the score tumbling down onto the keys with a loud discord. ‘Oh … how very clumsy of me!' she blurted out, wishing that she could disappear straight down into the academy's basement. ‘I am so sorry… I'll pick it… Oh, no, I've torn the cover… I really am most…'

‘My dear Miss Strachan, it is only a book. A little piece of brown tape and some water and it will be as good as new again. Please do not concern yourself over it.'

In the confusion of her retrieving the score from her lap, where it had finally landed, he had reached out to help her. They both had hold of the score by its long sides, their fingers touching, and she felt the sparks of attraction fly between them.

‘Thank you, Professor, I would love to accompany you to the opera, but please understand that I must ask my parents' permission first.'

‘But naturally you must,' he beamed. ‘That is only right and proper.'

She smiled at him and then started to play the Waltz Song again. He sat next to her, playing the same music an octave lower. The room filled with the sonorous melody and harmonies, which engulfed them.

As she played, she became increasingly aware that the richness of the doubled parts gradually decreased, until she was once again seated in front of her own piano, her fingers, released from their arthritis by the music, moving with consummate ease over the keys as they caressed the composer's genius.

‘Himself is here,' snapped a gruff voice, ‘so shall I be after puttin' her in the kitchen on alert to make more for dinner?'

The Contessa turned towards the source of the question, without stopping her playing. ‘Luigi's come to visit?' she asked. ‘Where is he?'

‘Gone to do what only himself can do,' replied Elizabeth as she stomped past the piano and started to close the shutters on the two large windows. ‘Himself will join yourself when himself's finished … and washed his hands,' she added, admonishingly. She still thought of Luigi di Capezzani-Batelli as the little boy she had helped to rear all those years ago, back in the time when Mister Giaco (that was what she had insisted on calling the Count, for she had never managed to get her tongue around any more of his name than that) had still been with them.

‘He's probably come to tell me about his screen,' said the Contessa as she swung effortlessly into a passage from Cimarosa's comic masterpiece,
Il Matrimonio Segreto
. That
extract, together with the Humperdinck and the Mozart, were the items on the programme that called for a screen.

Having closed the shutters, Elizabeth was crossing back to the door when the full meaning of the Contessa's last remark – at least, as the maid interpreted it – sank in. She stopped in her tracks and fixed her beady eyes full on the Contessa. She had still not been told what it was that was wrong with her mistress, what it was that had created the need for this cream – which did not smell – in the first place. The music swelled, so she thought better of bringing up the subject again.
When herself is that involved in her playing, 'tis a waste of time asking her anything at all
.

As she reached the door, she caught sight of Luigi crossing the lobby towards her.

‘Himself's here,' she called over her shoulder as she marched past him.

24

Round about the same time that Elizabeth was pouring boiling water into the teapot and onto the worktop around it, an old, but well-maintained Fiat slowed to a halt at the order of a red traffic light at the top end of
Via Matteo Civitali
– the road which led to Lido di Camaiore. The two occupants never went as far as the beachfront delights of the Lido; that was a dream their finances would ensure remained just that – a dream.

‘The girls have made plans for us on Friday evening, so you'll have to look after the kids,' said the woman in the passenger seat. She spoke in a clipped, aggressive way, as if issuing orders to an underling. She sat twisted in her seat, facing out of the car window, and she had addressed her remarks to the driver without even looking at him.

‘But you know that I have my concert with the Contessa on Friday night,' replied Tito Viale as he fought desperately to avoid being drawn into the spiral of hopelessness, which was all too painfully familiar to him. The light still glared at him, as red as his frustrated, impotent anger – as red as a bloodstain.

‘So what do you expect me to do about that? I'm going out with the girls, so you'll have to sort the kids out. That sounds quite straightforward to me. Besides, all the time you spend with your singing hasn't done you any good; you're still tied to your office desk with no hope of a singing career, so why bother?' She spoke spitefully, looking down at her expensively manicured hands, admiring the new
shade of nail varnish as she did so. ‘I don't know how you keep your self-respect, expecting me to exist on the pittance you bring home each month. And you call yourself a man?' She raised her glance and studied a large hoarding advertising cheap Ryanair flights around the world. Her eyes narrowed as she changed the angle of her attack. ‘And I haven't been able to afford a holiday in years,' she added with a heavy sigh.

‘But that is unfair; you know I give you everything,' replied Tito in a feeble attempt to stand up for himself. ‘There is nothing else to give.'

‘And I'm supposed to be comforted by that, am I?' she snapped, turning her head and glaring at him with a look that barely disguised the loathing she felt for him. To her,
he
was the reason she never had enough money;
he
was the reason keeping up with the rest of the girls was always such an embarrassing problem;
he
was the reason she was cemented into the level of society from which she so covetously desired to graduate. She hated
him
for all of that.

‘But … I made an excuse to get off work early so I could come and collect you … just as you asked,' he answered feebly, looking at the back of her head. She was gazing longingly at the hoarding once again. ‘And I do more than my fair share with the children and around the house…' He faltered, wondering if he had already said too much. ‘And my singing is only once ev –'

‘And that is once too much!' she snorted, without even turning to look at him.

Tito Viale, who was kind-hearted and gentle by nature, was no match for the corrosive vitriol which bubbled up from his wife in an unstoppable flow. Rather than being drawn into an argument, which is what Letizia would have liked, he gripped the steering wheel firmly and, gathering some inner strength from his newly acquired sense of purpose, stated quietly and firmly, ‘I shall be singing with
COGOL on Friday night. It is a long-standing arrangement. If you feel you have to go out as well, then we will have to organize a baby-sitter for our children. I will ask our neighbour.' Inwardly, Tito was shaking and he knew if he continued his voice would break and he would retreat back into his shell. Before any reaction could erupt from his wife, he became aware of the chorus of blaring car horns behind him: the traffic light had changed to green and the expectation was that he should move forward. Despite his continuing insecurities, something deep down – something that he was not yet ready to fully accept – had started to formulate. As he released the handbrake to start driving away, it occurred to him that
maybe the road ahead is starting to clear.
He also wondered if Letizia had actually heard him!

25

Riccardo Fossi lay on his bed in the darkness, thinking back over the previous few hours of the evening. His muscular, tanned form was covered only by the lightness of a fine silk sheet. At the beginning of the evening he had hoped to see Renata, but his plans, which had caused him to be aroused on more than one occasion that afternoon, had disintegrated into disappointment when she had phoned and told him that slipping away from home that evening would be impossible.

‘
Amore
, I cannot, not this evening,' she had whispered into her mobile.

She had gone for a stroll around the olive trees outside the
Villa Legge
, the better to make the call without the chance of being overheard. The fact that it might seem a little odd that she had gone for a stroll in the near blackness of the early evening and a question or two might arise as a result had never entered her head.

‘…yes, and I need to feel you, too, but not tonight. Benito is having some of his colleagues over for dinner… He says it is the pleasurable side of business.'

Riccardo had made some lurid reply involving a detailed description of his interpretation of the word ‘pleasure', which made her stop walking and shiver with suppressed anticipation.

‘Stop it!' she had whispered into the mobile. ‘You are cruel to entice me so, when I cannot get away.'

She had returned to the house looking a little flushed and entered through the large kitchen. Tabita Agostini looked up from the food she was busy preparing. She paid little attention to the flushed cheeks and the slightly desperate look of disappointment that hung about her mistress's face. She had seen it often enough over the years.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,' Benito di Senno had said as she entered the formal sitting room. ‘I was wondering where you had got to. You look lovely, as always. Our guests will be with us in about an hour. Does Tabita have everything under control, as usual?'

Renata had nodded and mumbled some incomprehensible reply as she took a seat.

‘Are you quite well, my dear?' asked her husband, noticing the flush in her cheeks, which had not quite faded back to normal.

‘Of course,' she had replied, smiling. ‘Absolutely fine.'

Despite his legal training, Benito di Senno was not as astute a judge of human nature as was his cook-housekeeper.

That telephone conversation had scuppered the plans for the early part of Fossi's evening. Suddenly finding himself at a frustrated loose end, he had decided to go out to
La Cucina d'Oro
for supper. The food at the Golden Kitchen had, as usual, been delicious, as had the bottle of Barolo, but it had done very little to lift his mood of frustration. He had left the restaurant quite early by his usual standard and had walked back to his home. With only the first part of the evening gone, and unable to settle down to anything even remotely resembling either work or relaxation, he had turned in. With his head full of the vision of an aroused Renata and of the erotica he had planned for that evening, he found sleep impossible. Now, shortly before midnight, he flung off the single sheet under which he had tossed and
turned, and slowly started caressing his chest and nipples. His other hand slowly traced its way down the hairy path of his chest, towards the object of his pleasure, which had risen up to welcome it. In the coolness of his air-conditioned bedroom, he slowly and rhythmically began to satisfy his frustrated desires. As he did so, for some reason which he was beyond the point of being able to either fathom or control, Renata's face had slowly changed. It had become thinner, younger and the features had become finer – much finer, like a fine china tea cup, like an English Rose, ripe for the plucking. By the time he reached fulfilment, the face of his object of desire – Renata di Senno – had been replaced with that of the new COGOL member, the English teacher who lived in Pisa – Yvonne Buckingham.