Читать книгу The Woman in the Painting - Kerry Postle - Страница 17

‘Tell him he needs to come and get it himself. I got extra sacks for Easter for him and I did my back in while I was loading them onto the cart. I can’t afford to make it any worse. Have to be careful how I move. And if he doesn’t come out soon I’ll take it elsewhere. It’s as valuable as gold these days, tell him, and if yer father doesn’t want it, I knows of a hundred other bakers who do. And the rest. So he’d better be quick. The fancy man’s gone now and so he’s got no excuse.’

‘Good day, Giorgio.’ Margarita breezed up to him with a wave of her hand and a long-suffering smile – she’d heard his complaints before.

‘Come, let me do it.’ She wrapped her arms around a large sack and propped it on her hip before struggling with it to the doorway.

I followed suit while the gallant Giorgio said to her, from a seated position, ‘Stop! It’s no job for a girl like you.’ She breathed heavily and carried on. Giorgio didn’t move. Margarita didn’t moan. And I barely managed, dragging two sacks to Margarita’s four. I was relieved when we’d lugged all six sacks off the back of the cart. But we’d created a pile two sacks wide and three high and if the intention had been to go inside the bakery we’d scuppered our chances by blocking the way.

‘Thank you, Giorgio. You’ve performed miracles, getting us this much flour. These are hard times, but my father appreciates all you’ve done for him.’

‘He hasn’t paid me.’

‘He’s just coming.’

Margarita smiled patiently and turned. ‘Father? Father?’ she shouted. ‘Giorgio needs paying.’

A cross voice with a Roman accent as rough as Giorgio’s boomed loud from the other side. ‘How can I when his flour is blocking the way?’

Margarita went on tiptoes and peered over the top of the sacks.

She issued instructions to a small red-faced group of men congregated inside. Within minutes the sacks had been taken in and stored away. Her father had no choice but to come and settle up with the sedentary Giorgio. He sniffed and waved a purse around. It looked expensive: black velvet and decorated with fine pearls. It also happened to be bulging.

‘There!’ The baker hurled some coins into the back of the cart. ‘You’ve been paid.’ His churlish tone gave the impression that he could barely afford to settle his debt; the black velvet purse told a different story. Giorgio’s mouth opened, and not to say thank you. He gave me one last cursory glance before looking back at Margarita.

‘Goodbye, girl. You’re a good’un.’

Her father humphed.

‘He’s gone, boys,’ he said, returning to his friends.

I stood behind Margarita near the entrance. I swept back my hair anticipating an introduction. Instead, Margarita went to fetch me something to eat.

I peered inside the baker’s shop. The space was small and cramped, the ceiling low. There, squashed inside, Margarita’s father was deep in the conversation he had been pulled away from.

‘That poor sinner who got pulled from the river. You’ve got to feel sorry for the lad,’ he said, now cradling the fat purse like a distended stomach.

My hand felt for my nose, a body memory of what Giulio had told us at Sebastiano’s studio.

‘What?’ an indignant voice cried. ‘Sorry for a lad who likes to plunge his uccello in arseholes?’

‘Messy business!’ Margarita’s father replied. The group erupted into fits of raucous laughter. ‘That’s not what I meant, you dirty bastards. It’s hard … no, that’s not what I mean. Calm down, calm down … when you gets your extremities cut off for preferring peaches to figs, it don’t seem fair. It’s all fruit after all!’

‘Yes. Our Orlando,’ one of them continued, ‘found the poor bugger—’ titters bubbled up again ‘—not two hours since.’

So there had been another killing.

‘’Orrible, ’e said it was. Worse than before. This time the murderer had tried to flay the unlucky lad.’

I played with the silver button on my jacket. When I let it go it dangled by its thread.

‘Orlando said that whoever had done it couldn’t have wanted to rob him as the boy still wore some flashy pendant around his neck, I think of St Bartolomeo, if I remembers right.’ The man paused for the briefest of moments but it was enough to make me miss a breath. ‘And clutched in his hand,’ he continued, ‘he had hold of three silver buttons.’

My hand went to my chest, enveloping the only button I had left. My blood ran cold. It flooded my mind. Luca! For a while he was all I could think of. It had to be him. I turned and twisted the button over and over again. Luca had been murdered. The thread broke. The button fell to the floor and spun round and round like a coin. I picked it up to stop it. But it was too late. Suspicious eyes had already turned towards me.

‘Here. Something for you to eat and drink.’ Margarita was back.

‘Who’s this?’ her father asked, not waiting for a reply. ‘Who would leave a pendant?’ he continued, his fascination in the murder outlasting his short-lived interest in me. ‘They could have got decent money for it.’

The baker’s eyes grew round and greedy. Until they met the critical gaze of his daughter.

‘Stop your staring now, girl.’ He shifted the purse up level to his heart.

All faces were now set on the baker’s daughter.

‘Where did you get that?’ Margarita pointed to the bulging purse.

‘Now don’t you go all accusing on me, my girl.’

‘Where did you get that?’ she repeated.

‘This is from him.’ He stroked the velvet. ‘Came today. Has a right high opinion of you, he does.’ I wondered at what I was hearing. Rome was full of prostitutes, and the better ones came from almost illustrious dynasties. I’d heard of mothers training their daughters in music, poetry, and in some cases philosophy, as well as other essential womanly skills to please the eye, heart and body. Then they rented out their girls to men. Wealthy ones. Even cardinals sought solace in their arms. This girl knew Cardinal Bibbiena – that much I knew already. Was this what the baker had done? Accepted the purse of money to rent out his daughter?

Margarita’s father lifted the velvet purse in front of him and dropped it on the table. It made a dull, heavy thud.

‘What have you done, Father? I told him I didn’t want to do it anymore.’

‘Well, you won’t agree to accepting any of your suitors, and I can’t keep on looking after you forever …’

At this a low titter burned through the room; mutters of ‘you look after her?’ and ‘more like the other way around’ smouldered away at the edges.

Margarita clenched her fists. ‘Father!’

‘Lawless daughter!’ He banged his own fists on the counter in retaliation. He would not be shamed; flour flew up to prove it.

‘Isn’t she the most lawless daughter?’ he appealed to those present, his palms held high, his head cocked to one side. No one replied. ‘Where’s your respect for your old father?’ His voice wavered in the air, the bullish confidence gone.

‘Did he come here himself?’ she asked.

Her father looked sheepish.

‘He didn’t, did he? He thinks himself so high and mighty that he couldn’t bear to sully his fine clothes by coming here and asking for me in person.’ She was accusing.

‘He sent the money.’ Her father would not be deterred.

Margarita inhaled deeply. She closed her eyes and opened them on the outward breath, staring at her father with the most uncomprehending of expressions.

‘The lad he sent,’ he blustered, his eyes wandering over to me, ‘he was well dressed. Very well dressed.’

‘I will not be bought.’

Ah. The moment the words fell from her lips I remembered where I’d heard her use them before. And to whom: Sebastiano Luciani. So it was his messenger who had delivered the purse of money.

A tut of exasperation gave way to a sigh of the deepest disappointment.

‘But, Marg …’

‘Father, don’t you see? He sends someone as his errand boy because he sees it as beneath him to come and barter with someone … like you … like us. For pity’s sake. He may be able to afford to buy up whatever he pleases but it matters little to me how rich he is. He will never be able to buy me. Nor will anyone else for that matter.’ She looked deep into her father’s eyes. He ran flour-tipped fingers through flour-covered hair. White powder fell like snow on his shoulders.

‘There are more important things in this life than money. You taught me that. Or have you now forgotten?’

‘You’ll be the death of me,’ her father tutted as the look of shame that passed across his face showed he accepted the rebuke. No one said a word, though disturbing noises emanated from deep within each of them. Whether caused by hunger or emotion it was difficult to tell. Although as they belched, farted, and whistled their thoughts through sucked-in cheeks I deduced it was most likely a combination of the two.

‘Do virtue and good name count for nothing? Self-respect? Honour?’

Human once more, now that I’d let the pain back in, I was a confusion of emotions. Part of me was moved by the force of feeling in her voice and inspired by her beautiful words. But the greater part of me envied her deep sense of self because, after my long night of the soul spent down by the banks of the Tiber, I wondered if I still had one.

I played with my button some more. Thought about Luca. Remembered his words about fine clothes and fancy morality.

I possessed nothing other than the rags I was dressed in. The velvet purse was bulging and plush. My stomach rumbled like loose cartwheels over stony ground. What was the point in feeding my soul with words when my stomach cried out for food? I was starting to tire of my saviour’s show of self-satisfaction. I shook my head, dragged my thoughts to a better place. What was I thinking? I owed this girl my life. I coughed.

Margarita gave me a pat on the arm. Her father grimaced. He could not say of me that I was well dressed. He pulled his daughter to him and whispered something in her ear.

‘Fine!’ she said as she reared back like a wild horse. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll let him finish his painting of me. But when he’s done there will be no further transactions between us.’

The rumbling stomachs in the baker’s shop, mine included, breathed out as one, relieved at this compromise. Margarita pulled me after her. ‘I’ll light the candles,’ she said.

She sat me down on a stool and hummed a pretty tune while she poured me some watered-down wine.

‘Over here, girl!’

She shared it round as she lit the tallow candles. Their gentle light lifted her beauty from the natural to the heavenly; it made her father’s flour-dipped appearance seem soft, and refined.

‘You’ve made your father a happy man.’ He pulled Margarita to him and gave her a hug. His eyes were dancing with delight. Her father was not like mine.

‘Who’ve you dragged home now?’ I gave a start. It was time for introductions at last. I swept my hand over my hair again – it was still gritty but I hoped the candlelight would be forgiving.

‘My father, Francesco Luti. Baker,’ Margarita said to me. I stood up and bowed.

‘Pietro … Aaartist’s apprentice,’ I replied, managing to sink my stammer in one deep sound. The warmth from the ovens was starting to envelop me like a comforting blanket. The candlelit room felt inviting. I was glad to be here.

‘My Margarita’s brought home with her an artist’s apprentice,’ the baker said to his friends.

‘A young one, Margarita,’ he said to his daughter.

‘Are you shaving, boy?’

His friends laughed.

I fiddled with the button in my hand. The candlelight caught it. Margarita’s father scrutinised me as if calculating the weight of an invisible purse. His eyes ran over what I was wearing: dark green velvet jacket, white shirt and once brightly coloured hose. Creased, stained, ripped, and smelling of the river maybe, but in the gentle light some quality was still discernible. As I looked around at the attire of Signore Luti’s local customers I hoped that, even dishevelled, he might see me as a cut above. He did. I glimpsed a squint of appreciation in his eyes.

‘These two loaves are for you,’ he said to me.

I sensed hackles rise all around.

Sensing it too, Margarita intervened. ‘There’s enough bread for all of you. Take it and get yourselves home to your families.’ Her voice was authoritative but not unfeeling.

‘But I’ve not finished my …’ one of them started to say but the baker’s daughter was having none of it.

‘Come, Alessandro,’ she said, taking the cup from the man’s hand and replacing it with a loaf. ‘Olivia won’t thank me for letting you return home smelling of the grape, but she’ll be happy when you’ve come back with the grain. It’s as precious as gold in the city these days and you know it. Here.’

‘But they haven’t paid.’

Margarita went over and tapped the black velvet purse, immediately silencing her father.

‘Now isn’t this nice,’ he said, throwing a warm arm around my shoulder when the last of his friends had gone. ‘Just the three of us. No special woman in your life?’ Margarita glowered a warning at her father. I cast my eyes to the floury floor.