The Woman in the Painting

Chapter 8

‘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.

Chapter 9

‘She’ll make a good wife,’ her father told me as she cleaned the jugs of wine away and disappeared out the back.

‘God, it’s disgusting out here, Father,’ her voice shouted through. ‘You’ll kill us all off if you’re not careful!’

‘Place wouldn’t work if it wasn’t for our Margarita,’ the short, round baker with red cheeks told me. That he was Margarita’s father was hard to see. The years had not been kind to him.

‘Of course, I can’t leave it to her. All this.’ My heavy eyes followed his hand as it showed me his kingdom. ‘Not unless she’s married. I keep telling her. I won’t be able to hold on to it forever. I could go at any second, feeling a bit strange now as a matter of fact,’ and with that he sat on a bag full of flour propped up against the wall. ‘And then what would she do?’ I had no need to answer. The man rambled on, his voice strangely comforting after the horrors of the day. ‘I’ve got two girls. A blessing and a curse for a father. Her sister’s married. To a barrel maker. The man has a trade, can look after her. He’s no interest in taking over all this. Our Alicia got married at fourteen. Good age for a girl to get wed. Our Margi’ll be too old soon. I keep telling her that. Oh, she’s had suitors. That girl’s a pearl. Always was. Our precious pearl. Who wouldn’t want to be married to that? But that lustre won’t last forever. Oh no! Thinks she’s clever. But it doesn’t do to be clever for a girl. And she needs to be careful because she’s too clever. Soon she’ll be too old and too clever. Then what’s she going to do? A man doesn’t want a clever shrew for a wife. Though her mother was a bit of a shrew, God rest her soul, and I married her soon enough …’

Margarita shook me. I must have fallen asleep. She placed one plate of food in my hand and another in her father’s. We both followed her through to a small room situated at the back of the main bakery where we sat at a wooden table. In the middle was another candle that flickered as we breathed, so close were we to it. We ate in appreciative silence. I was back asleep within the hour, slumped over the table.

*

It was just before sunrise when Margarita woke me the following morning. My bleary eyes looked up to see her smiling down at me, her hair cascading in waves around her face. The ends tickled the tip of my nose. I swept them away and rubbed my eyes. I got up, surrounded by warmth and the smell of baking bread. I looked over towards the oven. It glimmered and bathed the entire room in a deep orange glow. I felt a thin layer of flour beneath my hands. I’d slept on the floor curled up like a cat in the corner of the kitchen. And I could hear singing. It was her father. It was neither sweet nor melodious. But it was confident and heartfelt, which gave it a charm that brought a smile to my face. He pulled a tray of freshly baked bread out of the gaping mouth of the furnace and slid another one in. I inhaled deeply and felt myself transported away on the wings of delight. And the pangs of hunger.

Margarita wrapped the small loaf my eyes had settled on in a cloth she’d taken off a hook. ‘Come!’ She grabbed my hand. ‘I’ll be back in time to help,’ she called back to her father as she stepped outside, pulling me after her. The street was silent and bathed in the deep blue-purple light that was somewhere between night and day. The air was fresh and alive. It licked my face with promise and I lapped it up. That morning was the closest I’d come to heaven. Lost in the moment, memories far away, the responsibilities of life set aside. The world seemed good and I was good in it.

And it was spring.

Spring in Rome is the prettiest season, a time for new beginnings, and so it was for me that April morning. As I walked past sleeping houses, hope surged in my heart.

‘Come! This way!’ Margarita led me down side streets. The countryside all around Rome was so rich and abundant at that time of year that farmers and peasants were already trickling into the city, their heavy carts laden with the season’s bounty. One such cart laden with the most magnificent blooms pushed us to the side. The colours dazzled; the fragrance made me dizzy. I followed on, drinking in the early morning, and watching the sky as it changed to a radiant purple canvas now streaked with flashes of deep pink and orange.

We passed merchants setting up their stalls, boys making deliveries to the taverns. Nobody noticed us as we floated by. It was as if the incidents of yesterday had never been.

When we came to the city walls, the trickle of traders and peasants had turned into a flood. Gateways bulged, not just with carts and beasts of burden laden with every imaginable commodity, but also with monks, pilgrims, adventurers. This was Rome after all. Soon all the streets of the city would be heaving with life. Margarita made her way along the wall’s perimeter. It was ancient and dilapidated, running to only several stones high in places. It was at one of these places that she stopped and clambered over. I did the same, falling into a shaded thicket on the other side. I did not know where we were, nor where we were going, but I did not care.

I looked up at the now blue sky above through wavering leaves and marvelled at the music of the birds. Gold-lined streaks of white now replaced the pink and orange of the breaking dawn.

We proceeded on our way through the trees, dancing over twigs and raised roots as the morning sun dappled the ground beneath. We said nothing. Margarita was lost in her own thoughts while my mind was empty of thoughts and memories of any sort. An overwhelming feeling of peace came over me as I tramped my way behind her through the glowing greenery. We wound our way round and up and over and up some more until she disappeared through an opening. I tumbled after her. New-born into the light.

We’d made it to the top of a hill. Out of the city. Into the countryside. Margarita threw herself down. I did the same. The ground beneath our hands was cool and damp, the air fresh. And there we sat and gazed in wonder at the view before us. A delicate mist lay over the fields that stretched out below, concealing the life burgeoning beneath. We watched, waited, in silent wonder.

The sun’s rays became stronger, the mist finer. Soon we could make out the water in the streams flowing fast, and, as the cover thinned still further, the earth, pulsating with new life after winter, gave itself up to our eyes. Juicy green leaves and blossom as heavenly as angels’ wings burst forth on the trees. They throbbed with life and filled the air with heavenly music. The mist had all but disappeared and the world was now vibrating with hope, life, and colour. So much so that it seemed to me that even the peasants, admittedly no bigger than ants in the distance, were happy. How could they not be?

‘One day, when I’m older, I’m going to live on a big estate in the country. Perhaps I’ll have a vineyard, and space for chickens, and I’ll have dogs to take hunting, and a horse.’

‘That’s a fine dream, Pietro,’ Margarita said to me. Dream? Yes. It was. A beautiful, beautiful dream, I realised. Hope had come back into my life. My winter was over. Spring had arrived.

*

‘You must go.’

When I’d told Margarita about the opportunity to work at Raphael’s studio she was pleased. For me. It was a new experience, to have someone care what I did for my sake. Not theirs. No one had ever wanted me to succeed before without bringing with it untold benefit to themselves. But this girl was selfless, different.

And it hadn’t taken me long to work out that she was not a prostitute, lowborn or otherwise, not even a woman of easy virtue. Indeed, she was a much-loved daughter, and, that most rare of jewels, a clever and beautiful woman much admired by men and women alike. I, by contrast, was an unloved son, and little admired by anyone. Giulio liked me, I told myself. But then, did he? I remembered how he’d tricked me into saying fornicatora … how I’d stammered, how he’d laughed, and then there was that knowing look he’d given me. Then there was Luca. I’d been touched in more ways than one by him. I’d truly believed that something meaningful had passed between us – until I’d woken up the next morning to find him gone, along with most of my silver buttons.

Fate had been kind to her, cruel to me.

The reasons for me not to get on with Margarita were all there at the start.

But against my stronger, if not better, judgement, part of me grudgingly liked her. And besides, I needed her – to feed me, put a roof over my head, and give me the confidence to walk into Raphael’s studio.

Chapter 10

I was fourteen, Raphael was twenty-five, when I walked into his workshop. Yes, you know already that I had Margarita to thank for that. She’d looked after me like the little brother she’d never had, much to her father’s disappointment. He’d wanted her to show a very different type of interest in me, one that would lead to marriage, babies, a secure future. But that was the last thing on Margarita’s mind when it came to me. Instead of blushing every time I entered a room, she took me to a barber’s, patched up my clothes, and, to put a stop to her father’s constant innuendoes once and for all, she got me a room in a nearby boarding house. And on the day I moved in she sent someone to pick up my belongings from my father’s house.

I would never have seen Federico’s message if it hadn’t been for Margarita because I was never going to go back there. Delivered to my father’s house and marked as important, the message had been thrown on top of a small pile of my possessions.

‘Here. You’ll want to read this,’ she said as she handed it to me. I trembled as I took it. I looked at her, my heart flipping between hope and despair. She placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, beamed at me, then nodded. ‘New home, new start,’ she said. I unfolded the message, my breath becoming easier as I read each wonderful word.

Dear Pietro,

My maestro has asked me to discuss terms of apprenticeship with you. Please be at Hostaria dell’Orso next Thursday, at 7.

Federico

But it was Thursday already. Panic replaced my newfound relief. What was I going to wear? What was I going to say? How? Where? Who? When? I walked back and forth, my mind racing. ‘Stop this.’ I looked at Margarita, saw her outstretched arms. I melted into her embrace. I shook. She calmed me. ‘There now. Everything is going to be all right.’

*

It was six o’clock when I heard the knock on the door. I sat up, bleary-eyed. I must have fallen asleep.

‘Time to wake up, sleepy head. Time to leave for the hostaria.’ It was Margarita. I opened the door and she took my arm. She’d come to take me to my meeting.