Song Above the Clouds (6 page)

CHAPTER SIX

LORENZO GALLEO was a small man—at least, he wasn’t tall—and at first sight Candy thought he looked rather insignificant. But that was before she had had time to notice the; magnetism in his brilliant dark eyes, and to feel the full effects of his boundless, dynamic energy. After half an hour in his company she felt very much as if she had been caught up with a hurricane, and the experience had left her decidedly shaken. He said at once that he was anxious to hear her sing, and she was hardly given time even to decide whether she was nervous or not before her coat and gloves were whisked away from her, and his accompanist was leading the way into her favourite
Caro Nome.

She sang well, she knew, though she couldn’t imagine why; and when she had finished the maestro’s gratification was obvious. He was silent for several seconds, and then he came over to her and squeezed her hands.

“My friend Giacome Maruga did not lie to me,” he remarked. “You have a talent,
signorina.
Just now it is only a little talent—a very little, a tiny talent! But if 'you will work hard, and give your heart to your work, it will grow
... Let me look at you, please.” He stood back, studying her critically. “For a
cantante,
you are very small and slim. And you look not strong. Are you strong enough for such a life
?
”

“I’m very healthy,” she told him quietly. “I’m quite strong enough.”

“
Bene, bene.
Then to-morrow we will begin to work.” But something in her face still seemed to trouble him, and when his accompanist had been dismissed he passed a hand thoughtfully over his thinning black hair and gave her another very penetrating look. “You know, of course, the story of the opera
La Traviata
.”

“Yes, of course.”

“As you know, it is a love-story—a sad and a dramatic story. When you take the part of Violetta you must put everything you have into your voice, for unless the au
di
e
nce are made to feel the power and the tragedy of her love your performance will be empty.” He paused for breath, spreading his hands in aft extravagant gesture. “When you are on the stage you must always remember that it is not you who are singing, but that other woman—the woman you are representing. Your music is very important—it is almost everything—but your music will be dead unless you realize this. You must try very hard to understand and to live everything that woman is supposed to be feeling. Joy, misery, anger, relief, boredom, contentment
.
..
love. Love, perhaps, is
the most important of all. But
...
” For a moment he
paused again, allowing his square-tipped brown fingers to drum a little on the top of the piano. “But in your own life,
signorina,
for the moment at least, there must be no thought of love. As I told you, all your heart must be in your singing. You have been unhappy, one can see, but that is almost over, I think. Lose yourself in your music, Signorina Wells, forget everything else—for a time, if not for ever. A brilliant artist cannot be an ordinary human being, remember that.”

She said nothing, and he walked over to one of the wide windows, beckoning to her to follow him. The windows commanded a panoramic view of the city—a view so staggering that she caught her breath a little when she saw it.

“Rome is a great city,
no e vero
?
One day, if you work hard—if you work very hard—it may be that you will become the fine singer I think you could be, and then
.
.. and then perhaps all that great city down there will be at your feet. And not only that city, but many others also, around Italy and around the world.”

Candy followed the direction of his eyes. “I want to work,” she told him. “Not because I think I might become famous”—she smiled rather enchantingly, causing
him to relax and smile back—“but just because
...
”
Her voice trailed away, and she finished abruptly: “I want to work more than anything else in the world.” When she emerged from the elegant dimness of Signor Galleo’s audition room she blinked a little in the unexpected brilliance of the winter sunlight, and it occurred to her that before she did anything else she was going to have to buy herself a pair of sunglasses. For a minute or two she stood hesitating on the well
-
scrubbed doorstep, wondering in which direction to start walking—for a taxi had delivered her to Signor Galleo’s door, and Caterina Marchetti wasn’t with her—and then, as she stood there, a man’s voice suddenly spoke her name, and she jumped.

“
Mi disp
i
ace
... I’m very sorry.” The owner of the voice stood before her on the pavement, and she saw that it was the Conte di Lucca. He had just emerged from an expensive-looking low-slung white Fiat which was parked beside the kerb, and in his beautifully cut light grey suit and immaculate shirt, his dark hair gleaming in the sun, he looked the most perfect example anyone would be likely to meet of a well-dressed and startlingly good-looking modern Italian nobleman. Candy hadn’t realized before that he was so good
-
looking, and briefly and in a detached sort of way she wondered why.

“I am sorry,” he said again. “I startled you. Caterina asked me to meet you, in case you should become lost ... but perhaps you would prefer not to be met?”

She smiled at him, crinkling her eyes a little against the glare. “Thank you—it’s very nice of you to take so much trouble. But I don’t want to be a burden to anyone. I can easily wander around by myself for a while, and then just take a bus or a taxi back to Miss Marchetti’s flat.”

He hesitated, looking for a moment as if, having salved his conscience by making his offer of assistance, he were now going to remove himself and let her do exactly as she suggested. And then he shook his head. “In Rome it’s too easy to be lost. Tell me where you wish to go and I will take you there.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t do that,” she protested rather vaguely. She would have liked to wander off by herself, for she was feeling, tense and suddenly exhausted after the morning’s ordeal, and she thought that finding her way alone through the sunlit, crowded streets would have been curiously relaxing. “I want to buy some sunglasses, she added, as if this admission might induce him to give her her freedom.

“
Then first I will take you to a
farmacia,
and you may select a pair.
”
He was holding the car door open for her, and she had no option but to climb inside.

They drew smoothly out into the mid-morning traffic, and reacting to the gentle warmth of the sun on her face, and the superlative comfort of the Fiat, Candy gradually began to feel more relaxed. After about five minutes they came to an excellent chemist’s shop, where a smiling Italian girl helped her choose a pair of sunglasses from a range so varied and bewildering that by
the
time she emerged into the street again she was feeling almost dizzy, and the glasses she had chosen suited her so well that no fewer than four members of the male sex turned to give her an interested second look as she made her way from the shop doorway to the car.

But her escort hadn’t entered the shop with her, and by the time she rejoined him he had got back into the driving-seat and was staring broodingly through the windscreen. He got out with courteous alacrity to open the car door for her, but he made no comment
on
the newly acquired sunglasses, and his sudden air of abstraction made her feel uncomfortable. She decided he must all at once have recollected some sort of engagement which made being burdened with her rather tiresome, and she quickly apologized for keeping him waiting outside the shop.

“If you haven’t got time to drive me back to Miss Marchetti’s flat I could still do what I intended to do,” she assured him. “If you drop me here—”

He looked at her. “I have all the time in the world,
signorina
.”
And then after a moment he added: “Well, if
n
ot quite that, at least I can offer you to-day.” The car increased speed a little, and he looked at his watch. “Do you take pleasure in hot chocolate?”

She was a little amused by his way of phrasing the question, but she answered
:
“Yes. Very much.”

“Then I will take you to a cafe where one may see the whole of Rome pass by, and there you will taste chocolate which is worthy of the name.”

For another two or three minutes they wound their way through the crowded, sunlit streets, and then the Conte found a suitable parking space, and when he had manoeuvred his sleek white car into it they both got out, and he guided her across the busy street to a place where, despite the fact that it was November, a few white-painted tables were already being arranged on the wide pavement. The cafe proprietor obviously knew the Conte well, and as they sat down amid the cheerful morning bustle of Rome he pulled their chairs out for them himself. He also looked at Candy as if she were quite the most delightful thing he had seen for months, and she was relieved when he disappeared to attend to the hot chocolate.

“I’ve never seen a pavement cafe before—not a real one, I mean,” she told the Italian beside her. He had put on dark glasses himself now, which made him seem more detached than ever, and when she spoke he glanced at her abruptly, as if he had temporarily forgotten all about her.

“No?” he murmured. Politely, he added: “Do you like it?”

“Yes. But it’s rather a strange sensation ..
.
sitting here, almost in the middle of the traffic.” As if to make her meaning clearer, a Vespa rushed past within a few feet of them, and he smiled but didn’t answer. After a moment she went
on: “I think it’s stimulating, somehow. It gives you a feeling of involvement—of being caught up with everything that’s going on around you.”

“And you find that soothing—just at the moment.” It was a statement of fact rather than a question, and this time it was she who said nothing in reply. “To lose oneself in things that don’t concern one, to fill one’s ears with sounds that don’t matter,
so that one cannot hear the sounds that are important
... there can be a great peace in that, sometimes.”

Candy
looked across at him with surprise and a touch of confusion—how much
had
he guessed about her?—but by this time the caf
e
proprietor had arrived with the chocolate, and he was engaged in paying for it. When the man had gone he smiled at her, and urged her to try the steaming beverage while it was still hot.

“I am waiting to hear what you think of our
cioccolata
,”
he remarked. “And when you have told me that, you must also tell me how you enjoyed your singing this morning.”

She tasted the chocolate and burnt her tongue, but blinked the tears out of her eyes and told him it was delicious. “It really is. I didn’t know it could be like that. In England it isn’t very interesting.”

“But here it is a speciality of the country.” He stared across the road at a group of American tourists who were clustering round a jeweller’s shop. “How did you find Lorenzo Galleo?”

She took another sip of the chocolate, and put her cup down slowly. “He was very kind,” she said truthfully. “He gave me confidence.”

“He would do. You pleased him?”

“I don’t really know. Perhaps—I think perhaps I did.” She hesitated for a moment, and then repeated what Signor Galleo had said. “He told me I must work very hard—that’s what I want to do. And he said...” She broke off.

“Yes? What did he say?” He was still watching the American tourists as if their apparently unending debate on the question of whether or not to buy a souvenir interested him far more than she did, and she felt suddenly relaxed.

“He said I must give my heart to my work ... that I must lose myself in it. He said that if I wanted to be an—an artist I couldn’t be an ordinary human being as well.” She stopped, colouring slightly, and wondered why she had had to say so much. Whether or not she gave her heart to her work, it was nothing to do with the Conte di Lucca.

The American tourists had moved away along the street,
and his attention having been released he looked across at her.

“That is excellent advice,” he remarked.
“
Have some more chocolate.”

“No, thank you. It was absolutely delicious, but I’ve had enough.”

“You are not—what is the word—slimming?”

She laughed. “Oh, no.”

“I am relieved. In such an insubstantial person it would be alarming, I think. You might disappear
altogether.” A half smile played around his lips, and he seemed to study her consideringly from behind the dark glasses. “You will not be homesick in Rome, I hope.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Good.” He hesitated a moment. “You know of course that your friend John Ryland is here?”

Afterwards Candy was not certain whether or not she had actually started. All she did know was that suddenly the light breeze that had been stirring the tablecloths and playing with the ends of her hair was almost cold, and the lively bustle of the colourful Roman street irritated her a little. Some of its strength seemed to go out of the sun, and hurriedly finishing the cold dregs of her chocolate for the sake of something to do she decided that they tasted bitter.

“No,” she admitted, “I didn’t know.”

'For several moments the Conte didn’t say anything, and she felt that his eyes were penetrating her soul. And then he shrugged. “You will see him soon, I expect.”

A short time later they got up to go, and he asked her if there was anything she would like to do or see during what was left of the morning.

“There is scarcely time for St. Peter’s, but we could perhaps go to the Piazza
di Spagna. It is near here, and
there will be flower-sellers
...”
He hesitated, waiting
possibly for her to betray some sign of enthusiasm. “On a bright winter morning
there is nowhere more pleasant.”

“I’m taking up too much of your
time...” She
felt dazed, as if the information that had just been passed on to her about John Ryland had had almost the effect of a physical blow. She scarcely knew what the man
beside her was talking about, but she did understand that he was offering her a choice between remaining in his company for a while longer and being taken back to Caterina Marchetti’s flat, there to be left to her own devices, and she suddenly knew that whatever happened she didn’t want to be alone. Not just at the moment.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’d love to see—to see...
”

“To see the Piazza di Spagna? I am glad.”