Jon Tracy - The Rome Prophecy

Maybe it’s the drugs that are making her sleepy.

Or – more likely – it’s the others.

It’s always tiring when they take her. They sap her energy and drain her.

She feels increasingly listless.

She looks across the room for the paper and crayons that the nurses let her have.

No pen. No pencil. You might hurt yourself.

She’s too tired to reach them. Her eyes close for a second.

Cassandra is there.

She’s dressed in a beautiful white intusium topped by a lavishly embroidered white and gold stolla. She looks as pale as moonlight as the soldiers trundle her past in a rough wooden chariot.

Cassandra’s eyes see Anna. She calls to her. ‘Have faith, sister. You and I are strong. I am coming to help you. I will be with you soon.’

Anna can feel Cassandra’s voice penetrating her.

Touching her soul.

In the wall mirror in the hospital room she sees her lips moving, but it is Cassandra’s calm and dignified voice she hears.

She walks to the mirror. Stands before it and sees Cassandra talking directly to her.

‘Mother cannot hurt you. Whatever She does to you, sweet Anna, She cannot harm you.’

Behind Cassandra, crowds are jeering and throwing things at her. Stones. Rotten fruit. Broken pottery.

Anna covers her face for fear of being hurt. She turns from the mirror. She slowly rotates three hundred and sixty degrees.

Cassandra is there again.

Her hand has been cut off.

Blood drips in pools of jelly from the stump.

Her eyes roll back in their sockets.

Anna turns back to the mirror.

Behind the bible, blood pours from her stitched arm while she mouths the words that Mother says most…

You mustn’t tell, Anna.

Mustn’t tell

Mustn’t tell.

For a fleeting second, Valentina has forgotten about yesterday.

Her eyelids blink, her brain tells her body she’s awake, and her first thoughts of the day are about Tom.

But they’re quickly chased off.

Someone has let the bad thoughts out as well.

Suspension, Caesario and court martial.

They’re all there again, banging on her window and pulling faces at her.

Tom’s out for the count, breathing as peacefully as a baby.

She slides from his warmth and goes to the bathroom.

The face peering back at her from the harsh light of the mirror above the sink looks scared and drained and old.

It’s not her.

Valentina determines that she’s not going to be that face.

Not for much longer.

It’s not even five a.m., but she gets dressed and lets herself silently out of the room. There’s something in the boot of the car that she wants.

Her feet make slapping noises and echoes in the deserted car park.

It’s cold enough to see her breath in front of her.

She beeps open the central locking of the Fiat and grabs the carrier bags of personal belongings she collected from her desk when Caesario suspended her.

It hurts to even touch them.

As she walks back to the room, she realises she feels something more today than just anger and frustration.

Shame.

Its icy fingers are digging into her shoulder and won’t let go.

How will she tell her parents that she’s been suspended? How will she break it to friends back in Venice and to her old boss, Vito Carvalho?

Vito might actually understand. She confided in him about her brush with Caesario, so he might not think badly of her.

She lets herself back into the bedroom, trying to be as quiet as possible.

But Tom hears her.

He turns the bedside light on and screws up his eyes. ‘Where have you been?’

She holds up her bags. ‘The car. I wanted to get these.’

He glances at the digital clock near the lamp. ‘So early? It’s not even five.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She climbs on the bed, kisses him and turns the light out. ‘You try to get some more sleep.’

She smells of fresh air and the start of a new day. Her hair and skin are cold and sensual.

‘Not yet. Kiss me awake some more.’

Too tired and drunk to make love last night, Valentina now desperately needs sex. She needs it to renew herself.

Tom drags her clothes off.

He cups her breasts while she straddles him.

Her long hair falls around his face as she bends and covers his mouth and neck in kisses.

It’s an eternity before they’re spent.

They lie together in blissful post-coital slumber. Shafts of sharp winter sunshine arrow through gaps in the curtains and lodge in the wooden floor.

They wake at almost exactly the same second.

Valentina kisses him lightly.

‘Will you order some breakfast while I shower?’ She steps naked from the tangled quilt and escapes to the bathroom.

‘Sure.’ Tom watches her every step. ‘Anything special?’

‘Carbohydrates!’ she calls from the bathroom. ‘Lots and lots of carbs.’ She sets the shower going. ‘And juice. And coffee.’ Her voice becomes more distant. ‘Oh, and maybe some fruit. Berries if they have any.’

He dials room service and orders croissants, pastries, muffins, a fruit platter, granola, some low-fat yoghurt, cranberry juice and a pot of black coffee.

Valentina emerges from the bathroom dressed in a thick white robe, her hair wrapped in a towel.

Tom kisses her as he squeezes past and heads for the shower. ‘Food should be here in a minute.’

He takes a fraction of the time she did, and is already towelling himself dry when he hears the door open. For a second his heart jumps.

She’s in danger.

He rushes naked into the room.

An astonished young man in a white jacket and perfectly pressed black trousers all but drops the heavy silver breakfast tray he’s carried from the lift without spilling anything.

Even Valentina looks shocked

Tom pulls up, only a pace away from throwing a wall-breaking punch.

‘Sorry.’

The word is hugely inadequate, but it’s the best he can manage. He turns as nonchalantly as is possible when you’re naked, and creeps back in agonising embarrassment to the bathroom.

‘He’s very jealous,’ says Valentina as she signs for the breakfasts and adds a generous tip.

It’s enough to restore normality. The waiter smiles and heads off to the kitchen.

‘What was that all about?’ She grins at Tom as he reappears, a towel now around his waist.

‘Sorry. I thought for a moment that you were in danger.’

She moves plates and cups off the tray. ‘I wasn’t. And by the way, don’t you think I know to use a safety chain?’

He glances over to the door and sees the brass slider.

She rubs his arm as he stands close. ‘But it’s nice that you care. You want coffee?’

‘Just juice for the minute.’ He lifts the carrier bags off the bed. ‘What’s so important in here that you had to raid the car at the break of dawn?’

‘Give me the one in your left hand. I’ll show you.’

Tom passes it over.

Valentina empties it on the bed.

Three thick volumes of photocopies flop out.

‘They’re copies of Anna Fratelli’s journals. Her life – or should I say, lives – in her own tortured words.’

Louisa Verdetti sits in Sylvio Valducci’s office biting a thumbnail and waiting for her boss to finish a call.

Finally he clunks the phone down on its cradle.

‘Both the police officers you complained of have been suspended.’ He smiles triumphantly.

Louisa doesn’t say anything.

He gives her another second.

Surely she appreciates his power? What he’s done for her? What he could do for her if she was nicer to him?

It’s a while since any woman’s been nice.

A good session of nice with the not unattractive Signora Verdetti and he could see her as something entirely different from the pain-in-the-ass clinician always nagging for more funds.