Errant Angels (23 page)

37

Gregorio Marinetti was an unhappy man. His situation was not helped by the early afternoon heat. He was a sensitive artiste whose God-given talent of a beautiful voice obliged him to perform for the pleasure of his audience. It was his duty to prepare himself thoroughly, both mentally and physically, so that his audience might share in the beauty of his talent. He had tried very hard to separate the thought of the screen from his need to prepare for the concert – not that Nicola's news earlier that morning had helped – and had found that the more he tried to do so, the more unsuccessful he became. At last, in a mixture of anger and frustration, he had decided to sort out the screen first. At least he had spent the morning relaxing as best he could: he had had to wait for the mobile phone to charge up anyway, as he would have need of it during the day. So shortly after midday he set off to collect the screen before Francesco went to the lock-up to collect the chair at four o'clock. Instead of a restful build-up to the performance hour, he now found himself at the head of a cloud of dust as he drove along the dirt track that led to his lock-up: he faced the prospect of lifting the heavy screen into the van. The screen would now have to be stored in the van until such time as it was exchanged for the money from his client. As he bumped along the final stretch of the track, his elderly neighbour's wife, who was busy in the adjacent field, stood up from her work on the vegetables and waved at him. Marinetti, who was muttering loudly to himself,
ignored her completely. He was in no mood for social niceties.

He screeched to a halt outside the lock-up and slammed the gears into reverse, executing a three-point turn before reversing up to the front of the garage, leaving just enough space for the door to swing up and open.

‘This is all just so unfair,' he mumbled to himself with extremely bad grace as he fumbled around trying to unlock the padlocks. ‘Stupid mobile!' he snorted, oblivious to the fact that the consequences of having let its battery run flat were entirely of his own making.

As the door swung majestically upwards, Gregorio Marinetti swayed backwards on his heels, like a stalk of ripe wheat caught in a breeze, until he almost hit his shoulders on the back of the van. As he regained the vertical, his mouth hung open in disbelief at what was or – more to the point – was
not
in front of him.

‘Whaat … the … fuck!' he exclaimed, his mouth hanging limply open and his eyes bulging from their sockets. He was prone to the occasional over-reaction – indeed there were those who agreed amongst themselves that at times he could be a typical drama queen. This time, however, it was different and Marinetti had more than enough reason to exhibit this tendency. ‘Whaa…?' he repeated, but he got no further than he had on his first attempt. In a state of semi-comatose shock, he ambled into the garage, banged into the Contessa's chair and stopped facing the empty space against the wall, which had formerly been occupied by the fabric-draped screen. In its place, lying on the floor with a large footprint upon it lay his hand-written note: ‘Take this to the Institute'.

With his mind in turmoil, Marinetti retreated to the chair and sat down, heavily. He stared straight ahead of him – out of the garage door and across the expanse of fields. ‘That bloody idiot, Francesco!' he suddenly shouted as
he reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew his mobile. ‘I tell him to do one simple task and the moron can't even get it right!' He stabbed his finger angrily down on the buttons until Francesco's name and number appeared on the screen and hit the dial button. ‘When I get my ha… Hello!' he cut across himself as Francesco answered. ‘What the hell have you done?' he shouted.

‘
Scusi, Signore?
' answered Francesco as he bore the brunt of Marinetti's unexpected outburst. He had been expecting a call from Maurizio, one of his team mates on the local football team.

‘Where is the screen … you … you idiot! Why did you go to the lock-up so fucking early: I said fucking four o'clock? Why did you take the screen and not the fucking chair? My instructions were clear enough, you … you … fool!' Marinetti was well and truly submerged in one of his ‘diva' moments.

‘What? I collected the items from the Contessa's apartment and then I went to the lock-up early as I didn't want to make the delivery too close to the starting time of the concert. I took what your note said I had to take,' replied Francesco, unsure as to what his boss was talking about. ‘I read it carefully. It said “Take thi–”'

‘I know bloody well what it said!' thundered Marinetti. ‘I wrote the sodding thing.'

‘Oh,' muttered Francesco from the safety of the other end of the connection, ‘but it said to take the thing to the
istituto
,' continued Francesco, chipping in quickly between Marinetti's ranting. He was not
that
slow-witted. ‘So that is what I did and it was very, very heavy,' he continued, seemingly unperturbed by the explosion out at the lock-up, which showed very little sign of abating. ‘The sign was on the floor in front of that big folding thing – with the picture of the lion on it – like they have in Venice…'

‘That
is
the Li…' Marinetti had been about to confirm
the provenance of the screen and then thought better of it. The old saying of ‘pearls before swine' flashed into his mind. ‘So are you telling me that you've taken the screen to the
istituto
and not the chair?' snapped Marinetti, who realized that, in part, it was a stupid question to ask, as he was sitting on the item in question.

‘That's what the note said,' replied Francesco. ‘It said, “Take this to” –'

Gregorio stabbed the ‘disconnect' button on his phone and the call ended.

‘I'm going to have to talk to Nicola about that idiot!' he muttered as he stood up and returned the mobile to his trouser pocket.

He knew that there would be several small deliveries to the
istituto
during the course of the day – there always were on the day of one of the Contessa's concerts. He hoped that the idiot Francesco had not damaged the screen through his manhandling and that it had been safely deposited at the
istituto
, preferably without anyone noticing what it actually was. He had started to feel nauseous. He hadn't eaten much since Nicola's phone call earlier that morning; he never did on the day of a concert, not until after the performance. But today was different. Perhaps, he thought, the unnecessary worry and rushing around had burnt up his reserves of stored energy. That was, however, highly unlikely, given his substantial proportions.

‘Shit! Now I'll have to go straight into town to see if the screen is safe and deliver the bloody chair myself,' he muttered as he picked up the heavy, throne-like chair and manhandled it out to the waiting vehicle. He had suddenly become even more belligerent than before as the realization that even more of his preparation time before the concert had suddenly evaporated. There was definitely no time to go to his yoga session with the lithe Tezziano.

*

Gregorio Marinetti was even more of an unhappy man than he had been before. His usual pre-concert plans for a leisurely build-up to the evening's performance lay in ruins and he was now as tight as an over-wound main spring. The traffic had conspired against him and he had taken fifty minutes – almost twice as long as usual – to reach the
istituto.
By the time he had carried the chair into the auditorium and placed it on the stage he was breathing heavily with exertion. He almost started hyperventilating with relief when he spotted the errant screen, standing at the back of the performing area with a length of heavy blue brocade thrown over most of it in a generous swag.

‘
Bravo
, Gregorio,' said a voice from the wings. ‘You've brought the chair. I can always rely on you – you and all of my angels
'.
The voice had come out of nowhere and had taken Marinetti completely by surprise, so fixed had he been on the presence of the screen.

The Contessa had arrived shortly before lunch. She always spent most of the day of a concert at the
istituto
, setting up the properties, checking the sight lines, making sure that she had brought the correct scores with her and trying out the piano, the action of which she found a little heavy and, if the night was warm and the auditorium full, a little unresponsive to her touch. He spun around to stare into the Contessa's smiling face.

‘And look,' she continued, ‘we have your chair, the little card table and Luigi has even found me the screen we so badly needed.' Marinetti spun his head around in the direction of the Contessa's raised arm. ‘It is a bit dark, so I chose the lighter of the two sides to face the audience. I think that the brocade just lifts it a little, don't you?' she asked.

‘But … that is a very valuable…' blurted out the over-vexed antiques dealer. ‘It should…'

‘That's the strange thing, you know,' she continued,
patting Marinetti on his arm, much as a pleased parent would do to their prize-winning offspring on a school speech night. ‘Luigi said that it came from a storeroom and hadn't been used, but I would say that it has seen a great deal of wear, wouldn't you? It's also a little grand for a hospital, don't you think?'

‘A wha…?' said Marinetti, who was still having the utmost problem navigating his way through the rest of the word.

‘Perhaps he changed his mind and found it in one of the offices. Some of them can be quite grand, you know…'

‘We cannot use th –' but Gregorio Marinetti got no further with his protest.

‘
Scusi!
' called a voice from the floor at the foot of the stage, ‘but there is a telephone call for La Contessa
…
from a lady who is hard to understand and who is talking over a barking dog,' announced
Signor
Orsini, director of the
istituto.

‘Oh dear, that sounds like Elizabeth,' mumbled the Contessa. ‘Would you excuse me please, Gregorio. I had better go and see what she wants.'

For a few moments, Marinetti stood in the centre of the stage with his mouth still half open and his finger half raised in the direction of the screen. In addition to everything else he was feeling, he now also found himself confused. The Contessa had been speaking in English when
Signor
Orsini had brought his message. Marinetti was not sure he understood how the English could ‘see' what somebody wanted by
talking
to them over the telephone. No sooner had the Contessa disappeared with
Signor
Orsini than Marinetti's confusion was interrupted by the sound of footsteps echoing on the polished wooden floor of the auditorium.

‘Where do you want this?' asked a stocky man who seemed to be carrying a screen under his arm. It was a lightweight tubular affair, the panels of which had lengths of
brightly coloured fabric stretched between top and bottom suspending wires. It was a hospital screen and Marinetti thought the pattern of the fabric was one of the most hideous things he had ever seen.

‘Er … over there,' he mumbled, gesturing towards the Venetian screen. ‘No … wait …over there is better,' he added, pointing off into the wings.

‘Right you are,' said the stocky man as he climbed the steps to stage level and deposited the screen in the safety of the wings.

As he did so, it occurred to Gregorio that he might be able to swap the two screens, if the Contessa's telephone call kept her out of the auditorium for sufficient time. He was just about to ask if the stocky man could help him when caution got the better of him. The Venetian screen was, after all, stolen property and the fewer people who saw it, even with the protecting veil of the brocade, the better.

‘There you are,' said the stocky man, removing a pencil from behind his ear and smoothing out a folded sheet of paper. ‘Can you sign the delivery note, please?' he said. ‘I'll just fill in the date and the time.' He looked at his watch, ‘three thirty-three. Better get that right – you know how they want you to account for every second of the working day.'

The announcement of the time had sent a thunderbolt through Marinetti's already over-tired brain. ‘Shit! Three thirty-three! I have to go!'

‘Has he called yet?' he asked as he ran into the refined coolness of
Casa dei Gioielli.
‘It's almost a quarter to –'

‘
Buona sera
,' replied Nicola Dolci from behind the counter, where she was busy dusting a set of seventeenth century Roman plaster medallions in their protective wooden display case. She looked up from the baize-lined box and had to consciously fight to prevent herself from
saying how dishevelled and unkempt her boss looked. ‘A busy day?' she enquired softly, the irony of the question going straight over Marinetti's head. ‘It's been very quiet here … again. Coffee?' she asked, closing the lid of the case and covering it with her duster.

Marinetti crossed to his inner sanctum and picked up the phone. The comforting dial tone did nothing to calm him. He wanted it to ring. No, he didn't want it to ring – not this close to the concert. Yes, he did want it to ring – he had to get rid of the screen, but it was in the wrong place and it was enmeshed in the Contessa's voluminous brocade. He replaced the handset and buried his face in his hands.

‘One lump or two?' asked Nicola as she appeared next to his desk with a cup of steaming
caffe Americano
and a bowl of sugar cubes.

‘What? Er … two,' replied her boss. He was sweating and his shirt was streaked with sweat and dust. She wondered what on earth he had been up to, but thought it best not to try and find out. Instead, she replaced the sugar bowl on the shelf behind the counter, where a small DeLonghi coffee machine stood, then returned to the medallions. Gregorio was busily stirring the bottom out of the cup when, almost to the second of 4.00 p.m., the telephone burst into life. Despite the fact that he was expecting the call, Marinetti got such a fright that he flipped the teaspoon upwards and splashed coffee in several projectile paths across the surface of the desk.