The Girl With the Painted Face (9 page)

A few moments here should not make too much difference, though. He will introduce himself, see how long the girl is likely to be around; then if it seems likely she will be there later on, he can head over to Sebastiano’s city rooms and buy what he needs. Edging past a teetering pile of boxes, he walks up to where the apothecary is holding one of the girl’s hands in both of his own. Everyone is staring at him and the girl, their gazes flicking from the girl’s face to her clearly damaged hand, to the apothecary’s frowning expression. Angelo says nothing, but stares at the girl, quickly registering her taut prettiness, the swell of her breasts against the edge of her undeniably filthy bodice, the wildness of her curly hair. He runs his tongue over his lips. She is small and slight and almost edible.

She looks up and sees him, and a deep flush rises in her cheeks.

Pleased with this reaction, he smiles at her, allowing his gaze to dip to her mouth and back up. Then, lifting his eyebrows and inclining his head in the smallest of bows, he says, ‘Who have we here?’

Agostino and the others turn his way. Angelo sees with some satisfaction a scowl rise on Beppe’s face at the sight of him.

Agostino says, ‘Angelo, you remember Niccolò Zanetti?’

Angelo, who has vaguely recognized the apothecary, has no recollection of the man’s name, but he lies smoothly. ‘Of course. Signore, how are you?’

‘Well, thank you,’ the man called Zanetti says with a swift smile.

‘And this’, Agostino says, patting the girl’s shoulder, ‘is a young lady named Sofia Genotti. Sofia, this is Angelo, our
inamorato
. Sofia has just seen the show, Angelo. Niccolò has brought her to us because… because, thank the heavens, she is gifted with a needle.’ He beams. ‘We are hoping she might have a stab at mending some of the costumes. Just what we need, do you not agree?’

‘Oh yes. Indeed. We’re a sadly scruffy bunch at present.’ Angelo flicks a dismissive glance over towards Beppe in his torn shirt, then looks back at Sofia. The colour deepens in her cheeks as she meets his eye and she drops her gaze to the ground in confusion.

Happy that he has had the initial effect upon the girl that he would have hoped for, Angelo stares for another second or two at Sofia’s mouth, then determines to make his way over to Sebastiano’s to effect the all-too-necessary purchases. He will not be able to concentrate on this girl later on unless he does.

‘I hope’, he says, ‘to make your acquaintance further later this evening. Will you be eating with us? I have an errand to run, but shall return shortly.’

‘Yes, Sofia and Niccolò will be eating with us, but where are you go —?’ Agostino begins, but Angelo has already turned away. Scratching at the back of his head, he walks off, through a confusion of narrow streets towards a wide piazza, behind which sit Sebastiano da Correggio’s city rooms.

By the time he bangs on Sebastiano’s door, Angelo has begun to feel an uncomfortable tightness in his chest: a puckering, like a drawing in of purse-strings. Sweat beads along his upper lip and when a salt drop slides into the corner of his mouth, he wipes it away irritably with the side of his thumb. The ground beneath his feet slopes suddenly away from him, dropping downwards and then pitching back up to rock him as though he were on the open sea. His stomach churns. Closing his eyes, he swallows, tasting a sharp sourness. He leans forward, putting his hands on his knees, and stands bowed, trying to will the earth beneath him to stand still.

The door opens.

‘Signore? Are you ill?’

Angelo turns his head sideways and looks up, hands still on his knees. Frowning, he tries to focus. A young man is regarding him with obvious concern. For a moment there are two of him, and then the paired images slide together into one. Straightening, Angelo blinks several times, and rubs his eyes. ‘Da Correggio,’ he says. ‘I need to see Signor da Correggio. Tell him I’m here. Angelo da Bagnacavallo. He’s expecting me.’

‘Please, come inside.’ The young man holds the door open for him. ‘I will tell Signor da Correggio that you’re here.’

Angelo sits down on a carved stool. His pulse is racing. The giddiness which engulfed him just now is still swirling around him, and the wooden boards beneath his feet are bucking and heaving. A terrible sense of urgency is threatening to overwhelm him now – that increasingly familiar sensation which always seems to hover somewhere between exhilaration and panic; he can never seem to determine which, nor whether or not he enjoys the feeling.

Footsteps on the staircase overhead. One flight, then another, then another, growing louder. Heavy and quick.

‘God, how much bloody grappa have you had?’ Sebastiano da Correggio’s voice is scornful.

Angelo shakes his head. ‘Not much. Not enough.’

Sebastiano clicks his tongue against his teeth and rolls his eyes. ‘Come with me,’ he mutters. Taking Angelo by the elbow, he steers him towards the stairs.

The
sala
is long and low-ceilinged. The heavy rafters are thickly painted in detailed patterns, and yet, despite the cheerful colours, the place has an unsettling air. Despite the elegance of the furniture, the walls are bare and no ornaments or embellishments can be seen. Several large wooden crates stand piled at one side of the room. A general lack of love is obvious. Even though a fire is burning, none of the many lamps or candles have been lit, so the light is dim and flickering, and on the table is a row of bottles, each corked and sealed; the firelight catches on the facets of the glass and glitters there, giving the bottles a strangely animated air, as though the substance they contain is moving. Each bottle is full of what appears to be a viscous, darkish brown syrup.

Angelo stares at the bottles, fighting nausea. He pushes his fingers up into his sleeve and scratches the skin of his forearm, then scratches too down inside the neck of the doublet, elbow winged high, face distorted as he pushes his fingers down inside the wool, unable fully to reach the source of his discomfort. ‘Do you have a glass?’ he says, turning to Sebastiano.

‘What? You want some now? Do you have to?’

Angelo struggles to keep his face impassive. ‘I’d prefer to. Will you join me?’ he says, trembling slightly. ‘I have to be back with the troupe for the evening meal, but I should like…’ He tails off.

‘I’ll take a grappa with you, to keep you company, if you wish,’ Sebastiano says. ‘But I’d rather keep a clear head as I’m expecting a visitor.’

He leaves the room, returning a moment later with a bottle of grappa, two tiny glasses and a spoon, all of which he places on the little table. He pours a couple of fingers’ depth of grappa into each glass. Then, drawing the cork from one of the bottles with a faint ‘pop’ and holding the spoon over one of the glasses, he tips a small amount of the sticky brown liquid into it. Tilting the spoon – slowly, slowly – he allows the liquid to fall into the glass. It swirls for a moment in the grappa
,
then fans out and dissolves, staining the clear liquid a pale honey colour. He puts the cork back into the bottle, pushing it in firmly with his thumb.

Angelo pulls one of the chairs over and sits down. Making a dome of his two cupped hands, he holds them around the glass like a protective cave, not touching it; then, staring down into it, he leans down and breathes in the sharp sweet scent of the syrup. The anticipation is almost as good as the dose. Almost. He closes his eyes. After a moment, he picks up the glass with the tips of his fingers, tilts his head back and swallows the contents.

8

Niccolò Zanetti holds Sofia’s hand in his and rubs the broken finger gently with the ball of his thumb. ‘Mmm. Looking at it now, I doubt this finger is broken, after all, but it’s clearly still painful.’ He looks up at Agostino. ‘There is little possibility she could do more than cobble basic stitches together right now.’

Wiping her eyes and nose with her knuckles, Sofia sees Signor Zanetti hesitate. Then he says slowly, ‘But here’s another thought for you.’

She glances from Zanetti to Agostino and back.

‘How about this? Might she not travel with you on to – where do you go next? Ferrara? That hand will be healed and back to normal in possibly as little as a week. If you keep her with you, she can start work as soon as she’s fit. You’d have yourself a resident costume mistress.’

Agostino frowns, tapping his teeth with a fingernail, apparently considering.

‘What’s the matter,
caro
?’ comes a soft voice, and Sofia turns to see the beautiful woman from the play coming over from the wagons, no longer wearing the sumptuous red dress, but clothed now in an unfussy brown woollen bodice and skirt, which still, Sofia thinks, seem to accentuate her lovely features. ‘What is all this?’

‘Oh, good – Cosima. You can decide.’ Agostino takes Cosima’s hand and holds it against his cheek.

‘Decide what?’

‘On whether or not we take this child with us when we move on.’

‘Take her with us? Why? Why should we want to do that?’

Sofia swallows uncomfortably at this, but when she risks a glance at the woman’s face, she sees that her expression is mild.

In a jumble of unfinished sentences and interruptions, Agostino and Niccolò Zanetti explain. Cosima listens carefully. ‘What did this man in Modena say you had stolen?’ she says to Sofia.

Sofia hesitates. She decides on the truth. ‘Money, Signora. A purse of money.’ She shakes her head. ‘But I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t.’

‘Who was he? Why would he have —’

Agostino interrupts. ‘Oh, Cosima, does it really matter?’

‘It might.’

Sofia says, ‘I don’t know his name. He was just someone who… who…’ She pauses while she tries to put what happened into words, staring at her own hands, which she is twisting together in front of her. ‘Well, he wanted more from me than the mended seam he had paid for, and… then he became angry when I refused.’

The rent in the linen was long and ragged: Sofia suspects that it might have been torn in a fight. Slit with the blade of a dagger, perhaps. But her stitching is almost invisible. She hopes the gentleman will approve of her handiwork. Perhaps he will recommend her to others of his acquaintance.
 

The door opens.
 

‘Ah. So it’s you. I saw you in the workroom at the signora’s, the day I delivered the shirt for mending. I asked if she might send you. Did you do the repair yourself?’
 

‘I did.’
 

‘Let’s have a look then.’ The man who is blocking the doorway to the
sala
is tall and bulky, with dough-coloured skin and hands like hams. His head is almost hairless, but a thin line of dark beard outlines a glistening mouth. Sofia is surprised at the width of his neck – it is, she thinks, nearly as big around as her waist. His doublet hangs unfastened, and the shirt beneath strains over a belly like a sack of grain.

She passes him the mended shirt.
 

He casts it a perfunctory glance, then throws it to one side, his gaze fixed upon Sofia. The shirt catches for a moment over the arm of one of the chairs, then slips and falls to the floor. The man does not pick it up.
 

‘Neat work. I thought as much. You’re clearly… good with your hands,’ he says, running his tongue over already wet lips. He steps towards Sofia, who backs away. ‘Let’s see what else you can do with them, shall we?’
 

Sofia’s eyes widen. She shakes her head. ‘No, signore. If you please, I —’
 

‘Oh, I do please, you’re quite right. You please me. In fact, I think you’ll please me very much.’
 

Sofia backs right up to the wall and presses herself against the tapestry. The man pushes up against her, fumbling for her breast, one thick knee pressing in between her own. He smells of sweat and ale, and his breath is foul.
 

‘Bloody get off me!’ she says, indistinctly. ‘Piss off, you bastard!
Vaffanculo!
’

The man tilts his head sideways, trying to kiss her; Sofia shoves upwards under his chin with the heel of her hand. The man’s teeth click together; his head jerks back; he grunts in pain. Sofia lifts a knee. The man doubles over and a high-pitched, wheezing groan spews out of his open mouth.
 

Sofia scrambles past him and makes for the door. The servant is standing just outside, but Sofia knocks him off balance as she runs out of the room.
 

‘What the —?’
 

‘Stop her!’ comes a hoarse voice from the
sala
. ‘Little bitch! She has my purse!’

‘Stop!’ The servant starts down the stairs after Sofia, but she is too quick. She reaches the front door and is out on the street before the servant has even made the foot of the stairs.
 

‘Come back here, you thieving bitch!’
 

Cosima watches Sofia for a moment. ‘And you can sew, can you?’ she says.

‘When my hand is working properly, yes. Yes, I can. I was working for one of Modena’s best seamstresses. I made this dress, signora.’