The Vatican Rip (17 page)

Needless to say, an incoming tramp flashing a card and being given an ostentatiously hysterical welcome by the senior captain caused no little stir. You can’t help feeling a right duckegg sometimes. Even people in the alcoves looked up to see the fuss.

I was given a dry sherry as if I’d asked for it. The offered smokes I declined. I was nervous as hell, though I’d washed. The invitation presumably meant I was to dine with the Albaneses, rather than in some quiet corner. But what did one talk about with a bloke like Signor Albanese? And I’m a clumsy sod. I was sure to drop everything or knock his wineglass all over his precious papers. Every portent indicated a really swinging time. I sat miserably listening to the gentle background music and trying to work out things to say.

There are times when even portents get things wrong. This was one of them. A second sherry had just arrived to make me hungrier still. I could hardly remember the pizza I had had at two o’clock. I’d just decided that the invitation had been some kind of elaborate joke when a cough alerted me, one of those directional look-out-we’re-here coughs waiters use. I looked up, and there was Adriana, being ushered towards my table.

I stumbled to my feet, nudging the bloody table so the glasses tinkled dangerously. Calm hands steadied it and trained voices murmured apologies for the habitual clumsiness of serfs, as if it had been them and not me.

‘Good evening, signora,’ I mumbled.

‘Good evening, Lovejoy.’

They say Queen Victoria is the only person in history never to check that a chair was available before sitting down. (One always was, of course.) Well, Adriana did it too, sinking elegantly in the sure conviction that enough kulaks were around to spring forwards with a chair. She was blinding. Her dress was a simple sheath thing in green with a scooped collar. The emerald on her breast seemed out of place at first until she raised her arms to the table and the gold bracelets picked up the emerald’s gold setting. Her emerald earrings shed a million lights. I’d never seen anything so exquisite before. The waiters hurtled about to bring her sherry.

I had to tell her. ‘Look, signora. I’m letting you down, being here.’

She said coolly, ‘I invited you, Lovejoy.’

‘I know. But you’re . . . perfect. Just look at me.’

‘Appearances are unimportant, no?’

‘That is untrue, signora. As your husband will agree.’

‘Signor Albanese will not be able to join us this evening. He’s unavoidably detained.’

Until then I’d assumed he was merely telling the chauffeur where to park that purple Rolls. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Unsuccessfully I tried to suppress my overwhelming relief.

‘You’re very kind.’ While she accepted the sherry I wondered if I detected a certain dryness in her tone but decided I couldn’t have. ‘Lovejoy. I saw Signor Gallinari over the weekend.’

The bloke who’d sold us the lovely Jacobean piece. ‘You didn’t tell him I’m on your staff?’

‘Yes. He remembered you.’

I pulled a face. ‘Pity. He has two luscious early Wedgwoods, both underpriced.’ We couldn’t pull the same lift twice. Gallinari wasn’t that dim. A lift is persuading somebody to sell an antique ridiculously cheap. Dealers are always on guard against other dealers.

Her brown eyes flicked up at me, seeming big as saucers. ‘He called you
that young man who loves things
.’ Lustrous. That’s the word. ‘You rather surprised him, Lovejoy.’

‘How?’

‘When I said you . . . assist me, he expressed astonishment that you had not asked for a special deal.’

‘I don’t do milkers.’ A milker is a trade trick. You claim you’ve had to pay more than the real purchase price. Had I done a milker, Gallinari would have given me two invoices, a genuine and a phoney one. The loser would have been Adriana. ‘Is that what Piero and Fabio expected, too?’

‘Of course. And I.’

‘Look.’ I cleared my throat. Even a perfect woman can be dim. ‘Antiques are valuable to me even if they aren’t mine. They’re not just hard currency. They are love. Some people – kids in slums, men and women slaving in intolerable conditions, dying as they worked – solidified love, welded it into things they made. When you think of it, it’s magical. There’s nothing more valuable than that.’

‘There’s feeling.’ She was watching me again.

‘No there’s not.’ That sort of yap riles me. ‘Feeling isn’t love.’

She waved away a hovering waiter. ‘What are they, then?’

‘Feelings are feelings. Nothing else.’

She was nonplussed. Women hate the cold light of truth. I saw a milliard doubts flicker across her face, to and fro like dappling sun on a stream. She said slowly, staring past me, ‘I’m not used to this kind of discussion. You’ll have to explain . . .’

‘Look,’ I said apologetically. ‘Erm, sorry about this, but could we possibly, erm . . . ?’

‘Oh, certainly!’

She ordered, and mercifully the grub started coming. I just lasted out. Apart from the prawn cocktail being so natty it was practically microscopic, the grub was lovely. I fell on it, desperately trying to maintain a light chitchat till each next lot appeared. The signora kept it coming, thank God. By the time the second lot of dessert rolled up I had slowed to a steady noshing rhythm and only then noticed that conversation had ceased at the adjacent tables. A good number of diners were watching us – well, me. Adriana had hardly eaten a thing. I reddened and glanced up at her but she only smiled.

‘I would like your opinion,’ she said smoothly, ‘on those profiteroles. They are supposed to have quite a name for them here . . .’

‘Oh, er,’ I stammered, wondering if I ought to pretend I was full from politeness. Adriana overrode my embarrassment by interrogating the captain on the cream and insisting on inspecting it herself. Not knowing what the hell profiteroles were I was a bit lost and waited till all our fates were decided. They turned out to be little chocolate things that tended to vanish when you bit.

You have to admire a woman like her. Instead of being mortified by this shabby moron whaling his way through platefuls, she blossomed and funnily enough raised her voice, almost showing off. She seemed to take a curious delight in supervising what was going on. I suspected afterwards she was just covering up so I wouldn’t feel bad on her account, though at the time I was just a bit surprised because I’d never seen her so animated. If I hadn’t known I was a proven liability I’d almost have believed she was enjoying being with me. Like I say, women are odd. Over coffee I tried to apologize in case I’d put her off her grub. I’d just been so hungry.

She smiled. ‘Not in the least.’

‘You never have much.’ As I said it I realized the mistake. It meant I’d ogled her every mouthful whenever she dined. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize. I never really enjoy mealtimes.’

A message to cut and run? ‘Erm, I think I’d better be getting along . . .’

‘I’ve ordered coffee,’ she commanded. ‘I’d like you to try our famous liqueur.
Sambuca
isn’t to everyone’s palate, but I’m told . . .’

She insisted we finish the wine and asked where I was living.

I said, ‘Over in a small street near the Castel Sant’ Angelo,’ but I was trying to work it out. If Piero had followed me to that hotel when I’d visited that lady tourist, and reported back to Adriana, why didn’t she know where I lived?

‘Is it satisfactory?’

‘It’s free.’ Another mistake, possibly implying resentment at being fastened on her financial chain. Her colour heightened. I could have kicked myself. ‘I meant it’s okay.’

She gathered her handbag then, in a glitter of emerald and gold. Dinner was over. Minions panted up, quivering. She said, ‘I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to drive.’

‘Me? That big thing?’

‘No. Something much smaller. The Rolls is . . . in use. Can you manage . . . ?’

She meant was I tipsy.

An army of waiters leapt to drag our chairs away. We processed out of the restaurant, Adriana sweeping ahead and me following.

The car was the same longish low job. Adriana passed me the keys. All fingers and thumbs, I made a pig’s ear of opening the doors, and once in I took a fortnight finding the controls. Adriana said nothing, just laid her head back on the headrest and closed her eyes until we got going. Then she opened her eyes and from then on simply directed, telling me only left or right and saying nothing else.

It came on to rain after some twenty minutes. We were on a major carriageway. Quite a lot of traffic was about though it thinned as we turned off on to a smaller road. I had no idea where we were. She never said where we were heading, though when the city ended and the countryside seemed to rise, and the road with it, I began to wonder. Possibly they had two houses, and her husband had some business out of the city.

Our drive through the rain took maybe an hour or just a little less. We pulled in to the gateway of a villa. It was lit by an outside ornamental lantern so presumably somebody was home and waiting up for her. Lights of a couple of other villas were visible not too far off. I couldn’t see for rain and dark, but gained an impression of palms and paths leading off a patio into a garden.

I waited, thinking, now what do we do? It was a hell of a way back, and by now so late I doubted if a taxi would make the journey out this far.

‘You’ll have to come in,’ she said. ‘No sense in sitting here.’

We ran up the few marble steps into the shelter of the porch. Dashing in the rain always makes me smile. I noticed she used keys instead of ringing. I stood feeling full of doubts while she clicked the door open and went in shaking her hair like they do. She had hall lights on before she realized I was still dithering in the porch. Her shoulders drooped as if with exasperation.

‘Lovejoy.’ She didn’t even turn round.

‘Yes, signora?’

‘You now come
in
.’

‘Erm, thank you.’ I stepped inside. She still hadn’t turned.

‘And
now
you close the door behind you.’

‘Right.’ I did as she said, feeling a twerp. ‘Look, signora,’ I said doubtfully. ‘About my, erm, getting back . . .’

She turned then. I couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. ‘Lovejoy,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe you’re real.’

She said the same thing again during the night. It must have been about three o’clock in the morning. I was across in the bathroom. She came from the bedroom and stood wobbling sleepily in the doorway.

‘Lovejoy. What are you doing?’

‘Washing my socks.’ I’d done my singlet and underpants and was hanging them on the heated rails.

‘You are
what?
’

‘I’ve only one lot.’ It was all right for her. I’d never seen her in the same clothes twice. A set of heated drying pipes was not to be sneezed at. ‘Finished.’

She came against me, apparently snuffling with laughter. I was glad, because I was stark naked. So was she for that matter, but nude women don’t look stupid like we do. A woman like her could make a man forget Maria.

‘I told Fabio to get you fitted out.’

‘He must have forgotten.’

‘I’ll make sure he remembers.’

‘Mind, signora,’ I warned. ‘My hands are wet.’

It was then she said it again. ‘Lovejoy,’ she breathed against my neck, her hands about me. ‘I don’t believe you’re real.’

Her saying that was getting on my nerves. ‘What are you on about?’

‘I mean you call me Adriana now. Come back to bed.’

She meant
cretino
.

Next morning was a right scramble. It shouldn’t have been, but for some reason Adriana was anxious to make a proper breakfast for us, warbling in the kitchen with me gaping at the loveliest of views over a valley. I had her point the places out on the map and was delighted to learn we were near the Tivoli Fountains at the Villa D’Este. She said we would go one day.

She drove quite expertly and probably twice as well as me. Women are mostly better drivers than us. I’ve noticed that. I was thankful, because there was a snarl-up on the main road into the city. We had delayed getting off the bed as well, which didn’t help. She dropped me with money for a taxi.

Anna had not left for the day’s work. We had a brief skirmish, but that was practically par for the course nowadays. She was at her make-up when I came in and she rounded on me. Of course I had no reason to feel guilty but women always put you in the wrong.

‘I suppose you’ve been with that posh whore? The grand signora.’

‘No,’ I lied. ‘If you must know I’ve been looking around.’

‘The rip?’ she breathed, unbending.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m glad, Lovejoy.’ She gave a half-smile. ‘One of us messing it up’s bad enough.’

She was apologizing for that business with the police. I felt a heel but quickly suppressed it. There were too many people not on my side for me to go over and join them.

‘I want you to do something. Can you get hold of a camera? They took theirs back.’ And asked all sorts of awkward questions when I couldn’t produce any photographs.

‘I’ll get one.’

I warned, ‘Legitimate, no stealing. Make sure you get a film that fits. Have somebody do it for you if you’re uncertain. Then photograph the Colosseum.’

‘
All
of it?’

‘No. Go in to the right. The terrace ends about halfway round, where the ancient Romans had a sort of elevator. There are great blocks of stone—’

‘I know the place. Where the masons work?’

‘Photograph the stones, the recess, everything.’ I didn’t say that was where Marcello died. ‘From every angle you can think of. It’s vital, so do it properly.’

‘I’ll do it, Lovejoy.’ She looked at me through the mirror, doing her mouth. ‘And thanks.’

‘What for?’ I’d just given her a monumental load of work to do, one my life would depend on.

‘Just thanks.’ I let it go. I don’t understand birds sometimes.

She came to close the door after me. ‘Lovejoy. I’ve had news. Carlo comes out of hospital tomorrow.’

‘About time,’ I said as levelly as I could. It had had to come. ‘Tell him I want the ambulance on standby in three days. Morning, Anna.’

‘Morning, Lovejoy.’

I started making the winch that morning.