The Girl With the Painted Face (22 page)

‘Oh, just start, I think, don’t you?’

Beppe runs a covert hand along Sofia’s thigh below the table before getting to his feet and edging out to stand in an empty space on the tavern floor. Sofia touches his fingers as he goes. Vico passes Beppe the wood and the cup, and Beppe begins to flip everything up into the air and catch it again deftly.

The room falls silent.

Beppe sends the objects up one by one, then in pairs, flips one higher than the rest, passes one behind his back. Vico, meanwhile, having seated himself cross-legged on the table nearby, now swings his legs around and stands. Affecting to look unconcerned, and whistling softly between his teeth, he edges nearer and nearer to where Beppe is standing, casting deliberately shifty glances in his friend’s direction; then, so swiftly that a blink might have hidden his movement, he darts out a hand and snatches one of the plums from the whirling circle.

An old man claps loudly, and several other drinkers murmur their admiration. Somebody whistles.

Beppe manages to continue juggling with the rest of the objects, though with a wild look of aggrieved annoyance on his face – as though it’s impossible for him to stop, despite Vico’s pilfering of his plum; as though the things are sailing through the air of their own volition. He chatters nonsensically at Vico, who now holds the plum up before a wide-open mouth, as if about to bite into it; he admonishes Vico, gesturing with jerks of his head to ask for the return of his fruit. Vico refuses, plum still held up ready.

The tavern drinkers are laughing now.

Beppe demands again more loudly, and this time Vico shrugs and, turning away, flips the plum over his shoulder back to Beppe, who incorporates it immediately into the cascade of thrown objects, with a nod of smug satisfaction.

More laughter and a spatter of applause. A couple of drinkers bang their mugs on the table.

‘He’s very clever, is he not?’

Sofia starts as Angelo seats himself in the space next to her on the bench, vacated by Beppe.

‘Yes, he is,’ she answers politely, inwardly cursing as she feels her colour rise. She flicks a glance at him before turning once more to watch the performers.

‘You seem to have been spending a great deal of time with him recently.’

Sofia glances sideways at Angelo again. ‘Yes, I suppose I have. But then you know that Beppe’s been teaching me what I need to know for playing Colombina,’ she says, uncomfortably aware of the way in which Angelo’s gaze is continually flicking downwards to the upper edge of her bodice.

‘Of course.’

A moment’s heavy silence.

Angelo speaks again. ‘And much of that teaching has had to take place in private, in the backs of wagons, so I understand.’

Sofia grits her teeth and says nothing. Her heart is beating faster.

‘It’s probably not the best idea to get too close to him.’ Angelo runs the tip of his middle finger along Sofia’s wrist and down the back of her hand.

She snatches her arm away, fully intending to ignore this remark, but a little cold wire of anxious curiosity winds itself around her until she cannot bear to remain silent. ‘Why do you say that?’

Angelo twitches down an unpleasantly satisfied smile. ‘Ah, well, I shouldn’t wish to affect your work with such an effective…
teacher
… but…’ He tails off.

‘But
what
? What are you trying to say?’

Raising both hands, palms forward, as though to pacify her, Angelo says, ‘Oh, just that it has to be said that one cannot ever fully escape one’s parentage, and —’

‘Parentage? What do you mean?’ Sofia stares at Angelo. His expression is calculating, and his eyes are unnerving her. Close to like this, the whites seem reddened and the pupils huge – he looks ill, she thinks now. His breath, too, is stale and sour, and his hands, still raised, are trembling slightly.

‘Has he not told you?’ Angelo says.

‘What? Told me what?’

A volley of applause from the watching drinkers drowns Angelo’s muttered reply. As Vico and Beppe come back to sit once more with the troupe, Angelo stands up, wincing as he does so. Bending towards Sofia, he says softly into her ear, ‘I knew his father, years ago. It was not an acquaintance I valued – Signor Bianchi was not an admirable man. I just think you might one day come to regret your choice, that’s all.’ He pauses. ‘If you ever do – regret it, that is – let me know, won’t you? I wouldn’t hold it against you.’

Open-mouthed, Sofia stares at him. Angelo raises an eyebrow; then, edging his way sideways between the jumble of tables, he leaves through the door to the upstairs rooms. Sofia cannot tear her eyes from where he has vanished.

Beppe sits back down on the bench seat next to her. Reaching out, he picks up a large cup of ale and takes a long draught. ‘What did you think?’ he says, smiling and taking her hand under the table. ‘
A bit of nonsense
, as Vico said, don’t you think?’

Sofia has no idea what to say.

‘What? What is it?’ Beppe is frowning, clearly aware of the change in her demeanour. ‘What’s happened?’

Sofia looks back towards the tavern door, unsure what to say or do. She feels the pressure of Beppe’s fingers on hers, sees the newly anxious look in his eyes. ‘I… er… it was… it was Angelo. He…’

Beppe’s expression darkens. ‘What’s he said?’

‘I don’t really know… but…’

Beppe stands. ‘Come with me.’

He leads her out of the tavern, out through the side door, past the big barn where the horses have been stabled and on into the sudden silence of a steep lane which leads away from the town up into the heavily wooded hills beyond. The night air is chill on Sofia’s face and the road is treacherous with loose stones which turn and scuff under their shoes as they walk. A fox barks into the stillness. Turning to look at her, Beppe stands with both her hands enfolded within his own. ‘Now: what has he said that’s so upset you?’

‘Something about you – about your father… He said he knew him. Years ago.’

Beppe says nothing.

‘I didn’t know what he meant by it.’

Staring up into the branches of the nearest tree, Beppe mutters, ‘God, he must be very drunk to bring that up.’

‘Please, Beppe, what is it? What was he talking about?’

Beppe lets go of Sofia’s hands and runs his fingers up into his hair. He stands there for several seconds, elbows winged wide; then, suddenly dropping his gaze to his boots, he folds his arms over his head for a moment, each hand holding the opposite elbow. The gesture gives him the look of a frightened little boy, and Sofia is struck by a fierce desire to hug him. But she stands still and waits.

After several endless seconds, Beppe straightens and starts to speak in a flat voice quite unlike his own. ‘My father used to work in the kitchens in the great house owned by Angelo’s family. The Castello dei Fiori, a few miles outside Bologna. He and I lived in a couple of rooms on the estate with some of the other kitchen staff. It was just the two of us – my mother died when I was little. Angelo and I were not far off the same age and – God, it’s hard to believe now – we liked each other. We spent most days together. We’d fish in the streams, set traps for rabbits, try to teach the estate dogs tricks, practise tumbling… things like that.’ He looks up at her for a moment. ‘Angelo’s father knew nothing about our friendship, mind. He’d have forbidden it if he had – wouldn’t have wanted the son of the second cousin of the Duke of Ferrara messing about with the… the unwashed offspring of a widowed kitchen drudge.’

Sofia stares, saying nothing.

Several long seconds pass.

‘My father drank pretty heavily. He’d always been partial to his ale, but it got much worse when my mother died. He’d get into easy rages when he had had a few too many, and he was a big, heavy man. I became used to dodging out of the reach of his fists. He never meant anything by it, but after he broke my nose one time, I decided it was safer just to keep out of his way when he was in his cups. It eventually reached the point where Papa was sodden with ale more often than not. I don’t know how he managed to keep his job, to be honest.’

He pauses again, and examines his hands for a moment. He is breathing deeply with long, slow, measured breaths. He looks up at her. ‘Angelo and I were in the kitchens one afternoon. I was about twelve, he a year or so older. We’d been out all day and were hungry and I had suggested that we try to wheedle some food out of my father rather than wait until the evening meal. He would often find stuff for us. We were lurking in a corner together, laughing at nothing, waiting for him to cut us some slices from a leg of ham, when a fight broke out. This other man – no one I knew – said something derogatory about Papa’s drinking – as well he might have done, to be honest – and Papa swung round and lashed out at him. Caught him hard on the jaw. It must have hurt – he staggered backwards, but stayed on his feet. And, even as Angelo and I stood there and watched, he hit back. He was clearly a capable fighter – far better than Papa. Papa tried to keep his end up, but he was very drunk and before long the other man was wasting him. It was awful. Everyone in the kitchen was shouting and yelling, spurring the fight on, goading them both as if it was a bloody cock-fight or something – and then the other man pulled a knife.’

Sofia’s hands are over her mouth.

‘They both fell to the ground and rolled over and over and that knife was flashing in the torchlight, and then it got dropped and picked up again, and I don’t know exactly what happened, but someone cried out – this terrible, animal howl – and I thought it was Papa. I thought he’d been stabbed. But it wasn’t. It was the other man, and Papa had knifed him.’

Beppe swallows and draws in a long, trembling breath.

‘He died – that other man – died in a lake of his own blood. There in the castle kitchen. And they took Papa away and said that he had murdered him.’ He shakes his head. ‘But he wasn’t a murderer. He was trying to save his own life. I saw it all.’ His voice cracks as he adds, ‘And Angelo saw it too, and he knew what the truth of it was, and he could have spoken up – I still think he could have stopped what happened. I couldn’t do a thing, but him, with his father being who he is, he could have stopped it. He didn’t, though. He said nothing.’

‘Oh, Beppe.’ Sofia’s voice comes out as a cracked whisper. ‘What did happen?’

‘They locked Papa up. There was some sort of trial, I suppose, but it was all behind closed doors and I had no idea what was said. First I heard, they were talking about hanging him, but right up until the last moment, the rumours were rife that they were planning on commuting the term to banishment. A couple of other people had been banished instead of hanged, and I thought it would be the same for Papa. I had our bags packed and I was ready to meet him and leave the area. I didn’t know where we’d go – I just wanted to get us both away. But whether they changed their minds, or whether it had been planned that way all along, the moment came and… rather than release him, they hustled him out, past where I was standing waiting, to the outskirts of the city where they’d scrambled together a makeshift gibbet. And they hanged him there. In front of me. They didn’t do it very well… and he took most of the morning to die.’

Beppe looks upwards and swallows. The undignified jostling of the howling crowd as they pushed and barged along the short road to the gibbet is as clear in his head as the day it happened: his father all but insensible with terror in their midst, panting and whimpering, his feet dragging in the dust. Beppe clutches the bags he has packed, watching helplessly from the side of the road. And then come those terrible, sickening jerks and twitches as his father hangs, pissing and shitting himself, his face darkening, his neck stretching out beyond the believable – on and on for what seemed like hours.

‘I struggled to reach him, pushing at the crowds, trying to get through. God, it sounds so terrible, but I wanted to tug down on his legs to finish it all quickly, but they fought me back, kept me away from him. I was only twelve – there wasn’t much I could do. I couldn’t bear to look but couldn’t make myself turn away. And Angelo was there. He stood there and watched it all. I saw him, a little way off. I know he could have stopped it. He could have gone to his father.

‘They left his body up on the gibbet… for nearly three weeks,’ he says to the sky. ‘Food for crows, they told me he’d be. An example to everyone. And they grinned at me when they said it. He stayed there until finally he was unrecognizable even as a human being, and then – only then – did they let me cut him down.’ He hesitates, trying to push from his mind the truly unbearable image – the worst one of all. This one he cannot describe aloud.

Nausea is thick in his throat and he retches as he climbs onto an upturned barrel he has dragged from a nearby tavern. The body turns slightly in the breeze – this thing that was once his father – and the eyeless, shredded, dark red face glares at him for a moment, sighing out a smell of rotting meat. His breath coming in short, sickened gasps, Beppe screws his eyes shut and reaches up above the body, grabbing hold of the rope in one hand. He holds a short-bladed knife in the other, and with this he begins sawing at the rain-stiffened rope. It takes several minutes, longer than it might because he has to keep stopping and turning away to breathe, not wanting to inhale the foul odours of the body, but after what seems a lifetime, several strands of the rope give way at once and the body lurches downwards.
 

Beppe smothers a sob.
 

Crying openly now, he resumes his work with the knife; the final strands are severed and the body drops to the ground, flopping against the side of the barrel and almost knocking him backwards.
 

He wipes his eyes and nose with the heel of one hand.

‘Poor Papa. He had many faults, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.’

Her face now glazed with tears, Sofia puts her arms around him and holds him tightly. His cheek on her hair, they stand close-clasped for several minutes.

‘I had had to leave the castle, of course, as soon as my father died,’ Beppe says into Sofia’s hair. ‘There was no job there for me – God, I wouldn’t have stayed if there was! I couldn’t wait to get away from the place.’