Lucy Foley - The Invitation - Escape with this epic, page-turning summer holiday read

‘They’re not women,’ he says to Fede, watching as the trio explodes into sudden laughter. ‘They’re girls. They’re schoolgirls playing truant.’

‘That’s how I like them.’ Fede pinches the air between thumb and forefinger. ‘Tender as the finest vitello . Look, she’s making eyes at you.’

Hal glances back. Fede is right – one of them is looking at him. Even this look of hers is modern in its boldness. She is beautiful, in the way that green, unblemished things are. Hal can at least see that, but he can’t feel it. It is like this with all beauty for him now. He looks away. ‘You’re vile,’ he says to Fede, teasing. ‘I don’t know why I bother with you.’

Fede raises an eyebrow. ‘Because we help each other out. That’s why.’

Hal’s espresso comes and he knocks it back. ‘Well. Do you have anything for me?’

Fede throws up his hands. ‘Nothing at the moment, my friend. It’s slow at this time of year.’

The biggest and most interesting of Hal’s interviews tend to come through Fede, who works in the city’s nascent institute for culture.

‘Oh.’ Hal finds it hard to disguise his disappointment. There are slim pickings on the interview front all round. His editor at The Tiber has made it quite clear that another whimsical ‘expat in the city’ piece won’t cut it – and he can’t afford to lose this job.

‘ But …’ Fede says, thoughtfully, ‘there is a party.’

‘A party?’

‘Yes. A contessa is throwing one for her rich friends. Trying to attract investment for a film, I heard. I have an invitation, but cannot go. It is next month – I must be in Puglia by then, for Christmas.’ He glances at Hal, sidewise. ‘Unless you are returning to your family, too?’ One evening, when he’d had too much to drink, Hal made the mistake of telling him about Suze, about the engagement. Ever since, Fede has been unremittingly curious about Hal’s former life in England.

‘No,’ Hal says. ‘I’ll be staying here.’ He knows his mother, in particular, will be disappointed. But he doesn’t want to face her worry for him, his father’s pointed questions about when he is going to make something of himself.

‘OK then. Well, I thought you could go instead of me.’

It could be interesting, Hal thinks. ‘How would I get in?’

‘Well,’ Fede says, patiently, ‘you could pretend to be me. I think we do not look all that different.’

Hal chooses not to point out the obvious. Fede is half a foot shorter, with a broken nose and brown eyes where Hal’s are blue. The only similarity is their dark hair.

Now Fede is expounding his idea. ‘And think of all those rich women, looking for a little excitement.’ He winks. ‘Trust me, amico , it’s the best Christmas present I could give you.’

He fishes a card from his bag. Hal takes it, turns it over in his hand, studies the embossed gold lettering. And he thinks: Why not? What, after all, does he have to lose?

He walks all the way from his apartment. He likes walking: there is always something new to see in this city. It seems to shift and grow, revealing glimpses of other lives, other times. There are layers of history here, times at which the barrier between the present and past appears tissue-thin. He might rip at it and reveal another age entirely: Roman, Medieval, Renaissance. This reminder that the present and his place in it are just as transient has a strong appeal. Beside so much history, one’s own past becomes rather insignificant.

Of course, there is a more recent time that must be banished from conversation and thought. The war meant humiliation, tragedy. It meant hardship and poverty too. People want prosperity now, they want nice clothes, food on the table, things. It is the same in England. There was the jubilation over the victory, the hailing of the returned heroes. And then there was the great forgetting.

The address is a little way beyond the Roman Forum, and Hal skirts the edge of it. The stones at this time are in silhouette, backlit by the lights of the city. At this time they appear older yet: as though placed by the very first men.

The place turns out to be a red-brick medieval tower, soaring several storeys above the surrounding rooftops. He has seen it before and wondered about it. He had guessed an embassy, a department of state affairs, the temple of some strange sect, even. Never had he imagined that it might be a private residence.

Torches have been lit in brackets about the entrance, and Hal can see several gleaming motor cars circling like carp, disclosing guests in their evening finery. There are bow ties and tails, full-length gowns. He is not prepared for this. His suit is well-made but old and worn with use, faded at the elbows of the jacket and frayed at the pockets of the trousers. He has lost weight, too, since he last wore it, thanks to his poor diet of coffee and the occasional sandwich. He can’t afford to eat properly. When he first wore it he had been much broader about the chest and shoulders. Now he feels almost like a boy borrowing his father’s clothes.

All day it has been threatening rain, but there have been several grey days like this without a drop, so he hasn’t bothered with an umbrella or raincoat. But only twenty yards or so from the entrance the heavens finally open, like a bad joke. There is no warning, only the sudden chaos of the downpour, rain smoking across the pavement towards him. Instantly his hair, shirt and suit are drenched. If he appeared bedraggled before he must seem now like something that has crawled its way out of the Tiber. He swears. A woman, emerging from one of the sleek cars, darts an alarmed glance in his direction and hurries in through the doorway.

At the entrance he feels the doorman’s gaze irradiate his person, find him wanting. ‘ Cognome, per favore? ’

‘Fiori.’

The man looks at his list, frowns. ‘ E nome? ’

‘Federico.’

He knows even before the man looks back up at him that it has not worked. ‘You are not he,’ the doorman says, with evident pleasure. ‘I know that man. He works for the Ministero. It is my job to remember faces. You are not he.’

Hal hesitates, wondering if there is any use in arguing with the man. After all, if he is confident that he knows Federico by sight … But it is worth a try. ‘ Ma, ho un invito . . .’ He fishes the card from his pocket.

The man is already shaking his head. Hal takes a step back. Only now that he is about to be turned away does he realize how much he has been looking forward to the evening. Not merely as a means to making new contacts, but as a taste of another side of life in the city – the sort glimpsed occasionally through the windows of cars, and the better sort of restaurant. It would have been an experience. The thought of his apartment, cold and dark, depresses him. The long walk back, through the wet streets. He should have known that Fede’s scheme would be useless.

He tells himself that really, he wouldn’t have wanted to go anyway. He doesn’t need to experience that life: it isn’t the one he has sought in coming to Rome. And yet there has always been a part of him – a part he isn’t necessarily proud of – that has always been drawn towards the idea of a party. Perhaps it is because of his memories of the ones his mother used to throw in Sussex: the lawns thronged with guests and lights reflected in the dark waters of the harbour beyond. To be in the midst of this, with a glass of some watered-down punch in his hand, was to feel he had stepped into another, adult world. Funny, how one spent one’s childhood half-longing to be out of it.

‘What is the problem here?’