Louisa Young - Devotion

It went down extremely well.

Kitty, pink and fair, saw the tall curly-haired man – the new cousin? – hugging Nadine madly. Kitty was aware that a mother could disappear just like that, and leave one apparently somehow different to other people, so she watched in slight alarm as the only mother she had ever known was engulfed by the stranger. When she had wriggled out of the car, she stared up at him, hoping that he would notice her, and that he wouldn’t. He did. He bent from his great height – and picked her up – something she hated from strangers – and actually – ! – threw her in the air, as if she were two years old. He caught her, very securely, in strong arms.

He said, ‘ Signorina , sorry. You are sweet like a doll. I apologise for loss of dignity.’ He set her down, and crouched a little, and held out his hand, and she had to take it or be rude, even though she was breathless, and his look was so frank and nice that she smiled, and then he kissed her hand and she just laughed, and looked to Nadine, and Nadine was laughing too – so following Tom’s example she boldly took the man’s hand, and kissed it right back. At which there came a stream of Italian like a waterfall down a hillside. It sounded beautiful. Her eyes widened.

The house was very simple, plain and bare-seeming, the furniture dark against white walls. It was the heat of the day – ferocious heat! – and Kitty had never seen shutters before. The dimness surprised her and she blinked. Her English habit was to welcome any available sun, at all times, under any circumstances. Her entire life adults had been calling to her ‘the sun’s out children, do go into the garden and run about’. How strange to block it out!

The English tried to carry their bags, and Aldo made his small boys help even though they were only about six and the bags were far too big. Kitty kept an eye out for Tom: after helping carry and being introduced, he spun off the side of the group, and went back out to look at the river.

Kitty and the girl, Fernanda, eyed each other. Aldo said something in Italian and the girl beckoned to Kitty to follow her up the narrow white age-smoothened marble staircase. In a little room at the back, vaulted and whitewashed, the girl said, unsmiling and careful, ‘Do you like to reading books?’ And Kitty said only, ‘Yes,’ because despite the preparatory Italian lessons they had all taken, she was so utterly excited that she had forgotten the word ‘ sì ’. Nenna fetched one: in Italian, but with pictures. Kitty in turn brought one of hers from her little suitcase: The Legends and History of Rome , retold for children, which Nadine had got for her from the library. Nenna studied it carefully, smiling at the pictures, looking at the English words and working her way through them. Kitty watched her, admiring her face which was not like English faces: bonier, more golden. It was like Nadine’s face though, with the wide eyes. As Kitty watched, a great smile spread across it, and Nenna looked up and thrust the book towards her, pointing at one word: Tarquin.

So Kitty obediently settled in to read about how he had lived and died and how his body was thrown into the Tiber and how – oh – an island – this island? – grew up over his skeleton. Kitty thrilled. Could it be this island?

She looked up at Nenna. Was she being unkind? Was she trying to frighten her? But Nenna’s face was eager. She grabbed the book again, riffled through it, stopped with a look of delight and passed it back, pointing this time to Aes – Aescu – Kitty could not read it.

‘ Esculapio ,’ Nenna said, watching. Kitty read anyway. She was accustomed to names she could not pronounce. Aescu-thingy did perfectly well. This story told of a medicine god arriving on a boat from Greece to save the Romans from a plague, his staff wreathed with a snake because snakes know the secrets of magic herbs, from crawling on their bellies, and the boat turned into an island in the river – this island. Well, it has to be. There only is one island. Nadine showed us on the map.

Nenna sat patiently while Kitty read, and when she had finished took her by the hand, out of the house, across the piazza, and across the road. Kitty was still wondering about how two children could just leave the house, alone, when Nenna nudged her, pointing upwards: above a doorway, a staff, wreathed in a snake. ‘ Ospedale ,’ said the sign, and Kitty could read that. Her skin tingled a little. Skeleton, tyrant, hero, god, snake, boat, hospital.

Nenna stood in front of her, tall, languid, expectant. Kitty narrowed her eyes, blinked, and said sì , three times. Then she said ‘ ospedale ’, knowing from her lessons to say the e on the end. Osspeddarlay.

Nenna pointed at the snake. ‘ Serpente ,’ she said. Serpentay.

‘Serpent,’ said Kitty calmly.

Nenna pointed at the ground and said, ‘ Scheletro .’ Skeletro. There was a naughty look in her eye.

Kitty grinned. ‘Skeleton!’ she said.

Nenna reached over and pinched Kitty’s cheek gently between the knuckles of her two first fingers.

‘ Carina ,’ she said, and Kitty felt both approved and patronised, and that felt absolutely right to her.

Later, Nenna wondered what she would offer the little pink cousin next. Not the river – she was too small for that. That Nenna would save for the boy. Also it was a bit late to go out. So, inside the house … the stairs!

So she showed Kitty how to slide on a cushion down the shining marble staircase. When Kitty cried out in joy that it was like a boat going over the rapids, Nenna recognised the word boat, smiled and sealed her loyalty, because that was what she had always thought about this game, that she was a boat tumbling down weirs and waterfalls, and nobody else, not even Papà, had ever noticed. Nenna and Kitty said to each other, ‘ Barca – boat. Boat – barca .’

It was at this moment that Tom returned: soaking wet, mucky, wildly happy, dripping over the tiled floor in the doorway.

Nenna fell silent, retreated, and watched.

Her mother Susanna, coming into the hall from the kitchen with Nadine beside her, had two hands up in the air, expressing disbelief. She began to shake her head and tut. Her small boys peered out from behind her, interested. Tom gazed at them all with his wide blue eyes.

‘Stop that, Tom,’ Nadine said.

‘What!’ cried Tom, defensive.

‘Charming her!’ she said. ‘Kitty, throw him a towel. Tom – dry off, and either keep out of the river or dry off down there. No dripping on Susanna’s floor.’

Tom towelled his head, hair sticking up. ‘I didn’t know if I was meant to strip off or what,’ he said. ‘So I didn’t. I thought that would be best. I’ll take them off now—’

Nadine took him by the ear and said ‘You’re a little monster,’ then ‘Get upstairs,’ she said, pushing him, and she gave him a kiss as he passed.

Lying that night in bed Nenna listened to the water outside the window, tumbling over the rocks, and felt its familiar chill in the white and patchy plaster on the walls. Kitty, lying beside her, was restless. ‘Nenna,’ she said quietly. She pointed to the high wooden head and tail of the bed, said ‘ Barca! ’ and smiled. Then she pointed up at the vaulted ceiling of the room, made movements with her hands denoting upside-down, and said ‘ Barca! ’ again, pleased and wanting to please. Nenna understood, smiled at her, and said ‘ Buona notte, carina. Sogni d’oro .’ Aldo stuck his head round the door to kiss them goodnight, and Kitty fell asleep with the look of a child who had just discovered that the world was a very strange and potentially glorious place.