Errant Angels (2 page)

‘Yes, it will have to be the lock-up,' he repeated.

3

Meanwhile, back at
Café Alma Arte
, business was as brisk as ever. Gianni picked his way through the tables, his hands full of small round trays bearing the delights on which the establishment's reputation was built.

He reached the far left-hand corner of the café, the place where the Contessa always sat to take her tea – yes, her
tea.
Since before he had been born, she had appeared at the counter every Thursday afternoon, to be ushered to her usual table to drink her afternoon cup of tea. In a country awash with all kinds of coffee this English woman, who was considered by some to be more than just a little eccentric, always had tea. He took a cloth from his apron pocket and wiped the top of the little table. There was no one sitting at it, despite the covetous eyes from the crush of customers who regularly cast questioning and envious glances at its free space. Nobody had been allowed to sit at it since earlier that afternoon, when Gianni had removed the chairs to ensure that it remained available for the Contessa. That was the Italian way – valued customers were always well looked after. For a moment the noise and movement that filled the café vanished and Gianni smiled again as he stood back and looked at the ornate round table. Puccini himself, Robert Graves and a whole host of other luminaries had sat in the café over the years (possibly even at this very table) but from the middle of the afternoon onwards, every Thursday it was
her
table – the English Contessa, to whom the family
would be eternally respectful and to whom Gianni would always be grateful.

‘I'm telling you, she's not coming,' muttered Anna, as Gianni once again resumed his position behind the ornate mahogany and bevelled glass counter, ‘and you've got cream down the front of your apron. Here, use this,' she said, passing him a damp cloth.

As he looked down the burgundy apron to where the name ‘Alma Arte' was embroidered in large white letters, he stopped, his hand poised in mid-wipe. Several splatters of cream made a confined, intricate pattern across the upper part of the apron. Some of the letters had been masked so that, as he stared down, what Gianni saw filled him with sudden apprehension. Even looking at the letters upside-down, those which were still clearly legible spelled out most of a word: ‘
- - M - - RTE
'. The second ‘A' of Alma had been filled in with cream, so that it resembled the letter ‘O'. Suddenly uneasy, Gianni crossed himself quickly with the damp cloth. ‘
MORTE
'
–
death. He turned and glanced back down the length of the café to where the solitary, empty table stood lost in a sea of animated and contented faces. The sound of cutlery clashing on crockery and the din of international conversation did nothing to banish Gianni's sudden mood of pending doom. That could also be the Italian way; superstition and reality often walked together as equal partners. He glanced up at the large wall clock.
It is getting late
, he realized as he wiped the cream from his apron.

4

At about the same time as Gianni was looking at the clock and contemplating the possible hidden significance of the word ‘
MORTE
' on his apron, the 3.50 p.m. train from Pisa was pulling out of Lucca's station and was already disappearing up the track on its way towards the interior. It had deposited an assortment of passengers on the platform, most of whom were locals returning from a day in Pisa; any tourists, who were not part of an organized coach party, would have arrived at the latest by mid-morning. There were several youths – students from the university in Pisa – who had completed their lectures for the week and were returning home with their laundry and to benefit from a couple of days of their mothers' good home cooking. In the middle of the platform, next to the entrance to the station building, a little knot of people were clustered around a young couple, both of whom carried large backpacks.

‘We bought the tickets in Pisa … at the airport … not an hour ago,' said the young man in a heavy Australian accent.

A flood of Italian washed over him in return, delivered quite loudly by a uniformed official of
Ferrovie dello Stato
, the Italian State Railways. He held the two tickets in his hand and was waving them about, as if conducting an orchestra.

‘You have not cancelled them! You must cancel them before you get on the train,' said the official, pointing to the tickets. He was becoming more and more animated.

The young man stared at him for a second and then looked at his companion, a young woman of his own age,
which couldn't have been more than twenty-four. She shrugged, not having understood a word the official had said, and attempted to point to the tickets as they scythed through the warm afternoon air. This was a near impossible task, as their movement was unpredictably erratic.

‘We don't know what y're saying,' she said calmly, ‘but we've done nothing wrong. As Jez told ya, we bought the tickets in Pisa this afternoon before getting on the train.' She smiled rather sweetly at the official, who, for a moment at least, seemed to be taken aback by a pretty face wearing a rather skimpy T-shirt. Then he recovered his officiousness and started waving the tickets about again.

‘This is a return ticket from Pisa. You have used the outward part, but have not cancelled it. That is an offence and there is a fine.'

‘What do ya think he's on about, Vic?' asked the young man quickly. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. He also kept his eyes firmly engaged with those of the railway official, who continued to talk and wave his hands about with a look of near exasperation on his face.

‘Buggered if I know, Jez,' replied the young woman. ‘Did we get into the wrong class carriage or something, d'ya think he means?'

‘Excuse me. Can I help at all?' asked a voice from behind them in English. ‘Don't mind Alessandro. He quite likes getting on his high horse, but he doesn't usually mean any harm by it.' An elderly lady, short and smartly dressed in a style from an earlier age and wearing a pair of pointed-frame glasses, suddenly appeared at Jez's elbow. ‘Alessandro! How are you today? What seems to be the trouble? Have they done something wrong?' she asked in fluent Italian, a disarming smile on her lips.

An instant change came over the railway official, as he bowed slightly towards the newcomer. ‘The Contessa is too kind to enquire. I am well, thank you,' he replied politely,
‘but they have not cancelled the outward part of their tickets…'

‘Well, are the tickets valid?' asked the elderly woman. Her voice was also polite but possibly even firmer than Alessandro's – and without the aerobics of the waving arms.

‘Yes, Contessa … issued in Pisa … today, but they have not cancelled them and…'

‘…and I'm sure that you can do that for them, can't you, Alessandro?' she said, smiling in that affectionate way everyone admires in their favourite grandmother. ‘We want them to take away many good memories of their visit to our beautiful Lucca, now don't we?'

A few minutes later the four of them – the two tourists, the elderly lady and her small white Maltese poodle – emerged from the railway station into the bright sunshine and walked slowly across the
Piazzale Ricasoli
, the combination of garden and car park in front of the station. The small dog was trotting behind his mistress at the end of his leash. He was happily playing a game of nipping at the flapping hem of her skirt, which had come undone at the back. He growled softly as he did so.

‘They do sometimes tend to get a little power-crazy with responsibility, you know,' said the elderly woman. ‘It's probably something to do with wearing a uniform. Alessandro is a good sort and doesn't mean anything by it. His bark's usually worse than his bite.'

Victoria, once again a beast of burden to her backpack, eyed the elderly woman's dog, which had been growling almost constantly since the business with the tickets. She wondered if the same could be said of this angry little beast.

‘You see, the ticket is valid for several months, but you have to insert it into one of the yellow machines on the station before you board the train; that cancels it, but it's really validating it within its time period. All very confusing,
really … to us foreigners,' she said, smiling. Her two companions nodded, as if reluctant to admit their confusion.

‘So we just have to remember to shove the ticket into the yellow machine and that's all there is to it? Not like being back home,' Victoria added.

‘And where might
home
be, my dear?'

‘Perth … Western Australia.'

‘Do you know, I went to Australia,' said the elderly woman. ‘Yes, just once … to Sydney. But that was
many
years ago.' The elderly lady seemed to lose herself in some fond memory. They walked on in silence, apart from the contented growls from the dog, who continued to chase his mistress's flapping hem, which was now beginning to disintegrate. On reaching the busy
Viale Regina Margherita
they turned left and walked slowly towards the
San Pietro
entrance gate in the massive city walls. Out of thoughtfulness for the elderly woman's age, both Victoria and Jez had kept in their bottom gear, ambling along at a pace that was within her capability, which they thought was probably arthritic.

‘Did you enjoy y're day at the museum?' asked Victoria, above the noise of the passing traffic. She pointed to a large bag the elderly woman was carrying, which had ‘Pisa Museums' written on it in very large letters and in several languages.

‘The museum, my dear?' repeated the elderly woman, smiling back at her. ‘Well, you'll find the Puccini one quite interesting, but it needs a bit of a facelift I'm afraid. He was born here, you know. Yes, indeed. It was a very musical family, going back many generations,' she continued, ‘right here in Lucca … on the
Via Calderia
.'

Victoria raised her eyebrows at her companion. ‘Who's Puccini?' she mouthed at him silently. Jez shrugged.

‘And you can walk around the city walls, which are quite
massive, as you can see,' continued the elderly lady. ‘You'll enjoy strolling around Lucca because most vehicles, apart from those of the residents, are prohibited. So it's not like London or Pisa.'

The action of turning her head to reply to Victoria's misunderstood question caused an earpiece to fall from the elderly woman's ear. As she made a fumbling grab for it she inadvertently tugged the dog's leash, which was draped over her left wrist. The animal stopped harassing the flapping hem and responded with several loud yaps, which made Victoria jump. Then the animal started to run around his mistress's legs, entwining her in the leash. From the look on the animal's face, Jez got the impression that this was a regular occurrence. With another couple of yaps – a kind of a victory howl – the dog sat down on the pavement. The woman's retro glasses slid off her nose and dangled limply from their chain against her chest as the little procession ground to a halt. With considerable sympathy, Jez looked at what he had mistaken to be one of a pair of hearing-aid earpieces, given this woman's obviously advanced age. Then, as he watched her fumble to catch it, he saw that it had ‘Sony' stamped on it in tiny letters. As far as he knew, Sony did not make hearing aids.

‘You bad, bad boy!' said the elderly woman, pointing an accusing finger at the animal, which now sat on its hind quarters, despite the insolent smile on his face, every inch the cute model for an animal charity fundraising poster. The growling continued softly. She slid the leash off her wrist, unwound herself with practiced ease and replaced it.

‘I'm sorry about that,' she said, as they moved off again to cover the short remaining distance to the gate. ‘He can be quite cantankerous at times.'

Victoria and Jez glanced at each other, but said nothing. They just nodded, but more in sympathy than agreement, Jez tapping the side of his head under the cover of shielding
his eyes from the afternoon sun.

‘I was actually asking about the Pisa Museum,' continued Victoria, pointing to the bag for a second time, as they reached the welcome shade of the gate. ‘I assumed y'd been there for the day.'

There was a sudden peal of laughter from the elderly woman, as she moved her left hand to pat the large bag. The dog growled again.

‘Good lord no, my dear… Oh, no. This is my general purpose holdall,' she chortled. ‘Well, to be more accurate, it is Carlo's general holdall actually.' She gestured towards the little white dog, who seemed to glare resentfully back at her. ‘Water bowl, water, of course, a few treats, his ball, just in case he feels like a game; you know what they're like.'

The young Australians smiled tolerantly, but said nothing.

Passing through the
San Pietro
Gate, the small dog and his owner led the visitors up a side street, towards the much larger
Corso Giuseppe Garibaldi
. The conversation, apart from the occasional huffling growl from the dog, had all but dried up.

Jez took this opportunity to look around at the buildings of the town, now that they had come within the embrace of the city walls. With the freshness of youth, he exclaimed, ‘Ya know, Vic, we have actually made it into Lucca. At one point, I didn't think we were going to get off the railway station, what with all that shouting and arm waving. If it hadn't been for this lady here … well I dunno what would have happened to us. It was very good of you to come to our rescue like that. Back there at the railway station, I mean … all that fuss about the tickets.'

‘Yes, I'm afraid it must have sounded more serious than it was… Storm in a tea cup, really.'

The conversation dried up again.

‘We're staying at a hostel called…' There was a pause as
Jez slung his backpack around and fished in one of the side pockets. He took out a folded fistful of papers, sorted through them with some difficulty and extracted one. ‘
Benven-u-to Mon-do
in the
Via dei Fi-ta-ro-li
,' he said with some difficulty. ‘I don't suppose you'd happen to know where that is in the town, would ya?' he asked, hopefully.

The only map they had was a very small-scale affair printed inside the back cover of their even more uninformative guidebook to Tuscany.

‘First of all, don't let the
Lucchese
hear you referring to their pride and joy as a town,' she replied, a smile on her lips. ‘We have a cathedral here, so we are a city.'

‘Oh,' replied Jez.

‘
Via dei Filatori…
we don't need a “the” before
Via
, my dear. Now let me think…' She paused in thought, but did not stop walking.
‘Via dei Filatori
,' she corrected his mispronunciation kindly as she recalled the position of the road. ‘I am sure
Via dei Filatori
is on the other side of Lucca. Yes, I remember now; it is near the Guinigi Museum. They were a very important family you know. As I recall, they ruled Lucca in the fifteenth century.' The Contessa's love of history made it easy for her to remember such things. ‘Yes, a very powerful family. The museum is full of sculptures and the like. They also have the 1529 inlaid choir stalls from the cathedral… We call it
duomo.
That same family also built the Guinigi Tower with the oak trees growing on the top.'

Victoria looked first at the elderly woman and then at Jez, her eyebrows raised. She wondered how they had drifted on to this topic of conversation and where this woman was getting all this useless information from.

‘You get a splendid view of things from the top, under the shade of the trees,' continued the Contessa. ‘It's over there. You can see it from anywhere in Lucca.' She stabbed a finger of her leash-entrapped hand in the general direction of the tower. ‘Well, maybe not quite from where we are at
present, but it is there, nonetheless.'

The dog muttered under its breath as silence once again descended on the little group.

‘So, how do we find this
Via dei Filatori
?' asked Jez once again, pronouncing the name correctly. In fact, he was becoming quite adept at pronouncing it, considering the number of times he had just had to repeat it.

‘Just keep walking to the east,' replied the Contessa, ‘and when you meet the city wall, turn left.' She suddenly stopped. ‘I tell you what you should do; after you've made your way to your hotel and settled in, you should take a walk and visit Roberta.'

Victoria chortled at the suggestion that their back-packers' hostel could be as luxurious as this woman's suggestion of a hotel implied.

‘Oh, thank you. Who's Roberta?' asked Jez.

‘I think it would be easiest for you to simply retrace your steps back here and then go straight back the way we came in, through the
Porta San Pietro
, and make your way back towards the station. Off to the left you will see a white building in the shape of a wedge … a little like a door stop. That's your best bet,' she concluded.