Aphrodite's Hat (13 page)

‘Excuse me.' Apparently ignoring Alice's beseeching look Mr Job was holding up a big, cracked, earth-impregnated hand. ‘We had a deal, me and your daughter, Mrs, herahm, Armitage. See, I've had my arthritis come on badly and I might have to give up the allotment. But your daughter here has kindly said she'll help me out with the weeding. Now, that's unusual in a young girl. Kind and thoughtful she's been brought up, I can see that, Mrs, ahm, your doing I can tell. But it's only right she should have something in return. Otherwise,' his hand waved imperiously at Rosemary as she tried to break in, ‘
otherwise
if I don't keep my word she might get to think words can be broken and helping other people out's not worth much, if you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean?' He was smiling again – ‘almost leering', Rosemary was later to describe it to her husband – showing a hideous row of broken, tobacco-stained teeth. An eavesdropper might have fancied they detected a faint menace in his tone.

‘Yes,' said Rosemary Armitage, crumpling her forehead further. ‘Perhaps.'

‘There's injections you can have for allergies now,' continued Mr Job, confidingly. ‘My sister who was allergic had them. Total success. Total success, Mrs, ahm, well.'

‘Well,' said Rosemary. ‘Maybe. We'll have to see.' She turned aside to move towards her beans but Mr Job stepped in front of her, almost barring her way.

‘See, we had a deal, me and Alice. And I don't know if I'll be able to manage this allotment without I get some help.' He looked with a child's impeccable innocence into Alice's mother's eyes.

‘I really had to agree,' Rosemary Armitage complained later to her husband. ‘I mean, we should be glad she's so socially well inclined, I suppose. Strange, because Alice is so fastidious and he smells of drink. Quite definitely he smelled of something today.'

‘Not to worry, old girl,' her husband said. ‘I daresay I could have those injections. It's not too bad anyway, my allergy. Just a bit of a runny nose and sneezing. You mind it more than I do.'

‘But you always make such an issue of it,' his wife said, furious at this further example of the fickleness of the male sex.

Alice went with Mr Job to collect her kitten. ‘Do you have another name?' she asked him once she had the tiny orange-and-white scrap safe in the basket and under her supervision.

‘Alfred. Go by the name of Alf mainly. Alfie to the chosen few.'

‘I don't think that's a girl's name,' Alice said. ‘But I'll call her Alfie for her middle name. Her first name is Aurora, after the Sleeping Beauty,' she explained. ‘But she can be Aurora Alfie Newscastle for long.'

‘You know what,' Mr Job said. ‘It's a nice idea, but I would cut out the Newscastle. That's between us. We had a deal. But what it was precisely's nobody's business but yours and mine. Right, partner?'

‘Right,' Alice said, squinting into the basket. ‘Look, Aurora Alfie's gone to sleep.'

She packed with special care for this was a special occasion: her silk nightdress, her black pearl earrings, small enough that they need not be removed in bed, the scent he liked her to wear.

She had taken a taxi from Rome's Termini station and she pursed her lips a little when the driver, assuming in her the innocence of a foreigner, took a circuitous route to stack up a bigger fare. Never mind! It was foolish to worry about money now.

Reaching the hotel, she paid the driver, registering her recognition that he had over-charged with a slight raise of her eyebrows and by insisting, in her still fluent Italian, that he carry her single suitcase inside.

The hotel, he had said to her, all that time ago, was like her, ‘elegant and discreet'. They had stayed there when he took her first to Rome. Of course, the management had changed: the dark, rather poky, lobby had been transformed into a chapel of glass and light, and the old dining room, where they had never eaten, had apparently been revamped. She caught a glimpse of it as she stood at the reception desk, a dazzling vista of mirrors and chandeliers.

The elderly concierge was respectful over organising her luggage to her room. The same room, because she had described it when she booked – the one with its own small staircase leading up to it. It had also been refurbished – but not too crudely. The bathroom was now a gleam of white, with a modern shower. She didn't much care for showers. The old claw-footed bath – capacious enough for them to have shared – had been done away with. The modern replacement was only big enough for one.

She ran a bath now, and undressed, inspecting her body in the steamy mirror. It wasn't bad, considering.

Afterwards, she dressed with care, putting on her pearl earrings and the scent, then decided to take a walk before finding a suitable venue for her evening meal.

‘I hope the room is all right,' Greg said. ‘Is the bed big enough? I asked for a double.'

‘It's lovely,' said Sophie. ‘I love the private staircase. And the bed is plenty big enough,' she reassured, adding, ‘I don't want to be miles away from you.'

He squeezed her arm. It had been his idea they should come to Rome. He had found the hotel through a last-minute cancellation site on the Internet. They didn't know each other well. They had met at the wedding of a friend in common and for both there was a sense of excitement, which they'd not openly shared, that their meeting might be the beginning of something beyond the ordinary.

This could be love, Sophie thought, as she undressed for a bath. He was shy with her and she sensed that he was not usually shy and that the shyness in this case meant something.

‘Would you like to go for a walk before dinner?' he asked. He hadn't quite liked to watch too closely while she was dressing, though he had wanted to.

‘Shall I change my shoes then?' She had put on her new heels.

‘That would be a shame. I like your shoes.'

They strolled past the Pantheon, she holding on to his arm, ostensibly to keep her balance in the heels, and he translated the Latin inscription over the portico stating that Marcus Agrippa had built it in 27 BC.

‘It's funny to think that people have been visiting it for over two thousand years. All those people coming and going,' Sophie said. ‘Do you think they are here still?'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Do you think people leave a part of themselves behind in a place?'

‘You mean like ghosts?'

Sophie considered this. ‘I mean, do you think we rub off on places the way places rub off on us?'

A woman on her own couldn't be sure of getting attention so she inspected several restaurants. She settled finally on one of the restaurants in the piazza overlooking the Pantheon. They had gone there together, and he had explained to her how the great domed roof had been cast in concrete in one piece. It was once a temple to all the Roman gods, he had said. What ever happened to those old gods? What happened when you were no longer wanted or believed in?

The waiter was grey-haired and respectful over where she might like to sit and she was grateful for his taking trouble. She read the menu, relishing the prospect of a proper Italian meal again. It seemed a long time since she had eaten and she was hungry and looking forward to it. In the end, she settled for anchovies followed by
osso bucco
and a bottle of good Chianti. It didn't matter if she didn't drink all the bottle. This was a special occasion. She had come here to remember all that had transpired those many years ago.

They had eaten outside, then, but in a side street. She doubted the restaurant existed now. The waiter had shown a certain tact, registering – it was hard to say quite how – his awareness that they were a couple who were not husband and wife, and that the circumstances were possibly delicate. He had tipped the waiter extra. And, in an enchanting gesture, bought her a spray of white roses from a small Italian boy with beseeching eyes. The boy had offered the flowers so winningly that she had leaned down, sweeping him to her breast and kissing his forehead. It was not the way she behaved as a rule but everyone and everything seemed beautiful that evening.

A drunk, who had been sitting quietly by the fountain in the centre of the square, suddenly began to shout wildly and throw bits of rubbish, orange peel and soggy newspaper. Presently, he moved on to plastic water bottles discarded by tourists, which he hurled with fierce imprecations and roaring yells. She watched his anger mount as the diners all round the square pointedly ignored him. She understood the rage. He had been cast aside, made to feel of no account, worthless. The drunk, furious at the lack of impact he was having, now advanced towards where she was sitting with a Coke can in his hand and chucked it with a sudden surge of savageness into the crowd of diners.

Her waiter, busy taking another order, swore under his breath, went inside the restaurant and returned with a heavily built man who walked across to the drunk and exchanged words with him.

‘Oh dear,' Sophie said, watching the scene from the other side of the piazza. ‘I do hope he isn't being nasty to the poor man.'

‘He's drunk.'

‘I know, but you know …' she let the implication drift.

‘What?'

‘Well, we might be like him, one day.'

‘You could never be like him. An old drunk. Don't be silly.' He laid his hand he hoped reassuringly on hers. ‘How about some Prosecco? It's cheaper than champagne but it's really quite drinkable.'

But she was still watching the small drama by the fountain. ‘I could, you know. Be like him. We never know when we might be down on our luck. Anything could happen.'

He laughed a little disconcertedly. ‘What sort of “anything”?'

‘Oh, you know, ill health, poverty, abandonment … There's no telling how life may go.'

‘I can't imagine anyone abandoning you, Sophie.' He looked at her with earnest eyes and her heart jumped.

‘Can't you?' But at that moment the waiter arrived and they ordered, she a salad and shellfish, and he soup and the lamb.

‘This is nice,' she said. The drunk had calmed down and a small boy had appeared in the gathering dusk to play the violin to them. He did not play well but none the less she gave him five euros because she was glad to be alive.

Afterwards they strolled through the cobbled streets enjoying the warmth of the evening and their own warm closeness, watching the bats flit like lost souls through the old city where so many lovers had strolled before them.

In the night he woke and felt for her body and then heard sounds from the bathroom. He stood outside the door and called, anxiously, ‘Are you OK?'

‘I'm being sick. It must have been the shellfish …'

‘Oh, poor you. Do you need anything? Water? Shall I come in?'

‘No, no. I'm better left. You go back to sleep, if you can.'

‘But I feel badly leaving you like this, Sophie …'

‘No, please leave me, I'll feel worse if you don't sleep too …'

He lay for a while worrying about her, but in the end he must have drifted off because later when he woke he felt her beside him, warm and scented. He rolled towards her. ‘Darling. Are you OK?'

He felt her body turn towards his. ‘Hold me. Hold me tight.'

Of course he was glad to. ‘Darling Sophie.' He held her close as close. ‘I am so happy that you are here with me in Rome.'

And she must have been happy too, because they made love, wildly, passionately; he did not remember ever making love like this before. Almost as if it were for the last time. And yet, they had only just begun. Or he hoped they had only just begun …

He woke early to the sound of the door and, thinking at first it was the maid entering prematurely, he shouted, ‘We are still in bed. Room not ready yet!' Then he realised he was alone. He called out, ‘Sophie?' and went to the bathroom, but it was empty save for a silk nightdress on the floor. He picked it up. The nightdress, now he looked at it, seemed oddly old fashioned, not what he would expect Sophie to wear. Though, to be honest, last night he had not noticed what she was wearing because she had turned off the light to undress. Perhaps she had changed into this after the episode of the shellfish. But where was she now?

He lay in the bed, recalling the wild lovemaking. He wished she were there beside him. He would have liked to make love to her like that again. Perhaps she had woken early and had gone out for a morning stroll?

The door opened and Sophie came into the room. She couldn't have been out as he saw she was still in her dressing gown.

‘Greg, I'm sorry. You must have been worried but I was so sick after the shellfish I couldn't sleep.' Seeing the look of puzzlement on his face she continued, ‘I went to see if anyone in the hotel was up, to give me a Lomotil, or something, to soothe my stomach. The concierge was downstairs and made me peppermint tea. I think he was grateful for someone to talk to and, really, I couldn't have risked lying down. Do you know, he's been here since he was a boy? He told me all sorts of stories about the hotel.'

‘What stories?' What had happened in the night? Had he dreamed that passionate exchange?

‘It was the scene of a terrific drama fifty years ago. A woman killed herself. Her lover had brought her here, but it was to tell her that he was not, as she had hoped, going to leave his wife after all. He left and she was found dead in the bed from an overdose. It was the concierge's first job, and he remembers it as if it were yesterday. He couldn't remember which room, though. I hope it wasn't ours.'

‘So do I.' He felt suddenly as if a goose had walked over his grave.

‘Apparently, the man – he must have been quite insane to do this – brought his wife here, to the same hotel, a year later and she got sick and died, quite suddenly, in the night.'

‘What did she die of?'

‘The concierge didn't know. But it started rumours of the place being haunted and in the end the owners had to sell the hotel. It's been sold a few times since. It's under new management again now. Of course, he shouldn't really have told me anything … Greg, are you all right?'

‘Sophie, what are you wearing under your dressing gown?'

‘My T-shirt. Why? Don't worry, he didn't mind. I was quite respectable.'

‘But you have another nightdress, no?'

‘I thought I wouldn't really need one. I'm sorry last night was a bit of a frost on that front, but we've got tonight to make up for it.'

‘Sophie!'

‘Yes?'

‘Sophie, you're – you're very pale.'

‘I feel a little odd still but I expect I'll soon return to normal. Do you know, I'm so tired, I could sleep for fifty years? I think, if you don't mind, I'll sleep now …'