Alex Preston - In Love and War

‘Goad.’ His voice is a whispered quiver. Esmond can feel his breath — peppermint — on his cheek. ‘And I don’t believe we’ve met—’

‘Esmond Lowndes,’ Goad says. ‘Reggie Temple. One of our two Reggies. The other is Turner.’

‘How confusing,’ Esmond says.

‘Not at all, my dear,’ says the nearer Reggie. ‘Other Reggie looks like a Turner. All washed out. And I’ve still got hair at the temples.’ He gives a dry giggle. ‘Going to the Keppels’ later? Lunch?’ The organ grows louder and his head retreats. The congregation stands and heavy footsteps sound in the aisle.

‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.’

The priest is tall, in a black cassock with a white lace smock on his shoulders. He is handsome — narrow black moustache, sharp blue eyes, a heaviness around the jowls, the creeping solidness of age. His voice is deep with a faint Scottish burr.

‘Welcome, all of you. Jolly good to see so many here. Those that have gone, go with our blessing, of course, but while there’s a single one of you left in Florence, I’ll be here every morning, twice on Sundays.’ He gives a sad smile. ‘I’m afraid Walter Goodwin was among the latest exodus, so I shall need a new sacristan. A Reggie, perhaps?’

Turner looks at Temple. ‘You wouldn’t be able to reach,’ he whispers sharply, rising to walk down the aisle.

‘Thank you, Reggie. Now, we’ve had an approach from Holy Trinity to combine services. Father Hywell-Jones wishes to take his family back to Wales. Given that their congregation has held up rather worse than ours, we shall welcome all eight or nine of them next week. Remember that they are more sombre in their worship than we are, and be kind.

‘In better news, and against the general trend, we have a guest with us. I’d like to welcome Esmond Lowndes, who is staying with Harold Goad at the British Institute. He’s over here to set up, of all things, a radio station, with the aim of building bridges between the British and Italians. All I can say is jolly good luck to you, Esmond, God bless, and if there’s anything any of us here at St Mark’s can do to help, then do let us know.’ Everyone turns to look at Esmond and he raises a shy hand towards the priest and nods. ‘Now let us pray—’

There is no service sheet and Esmond has trouble remembering the words. At school he’d spent his time in chapel looking at the backs of the younger boys, soft blond napes that shimmered in the stained light. Sometimes he’d humour baroque sexual fantasies of the barmaid at The Wykeham Arms, so that he’d have to struggle his erection into place before walking up to receive his blessing. Here, though, he can’t drag his eyes from the triptych. He feels the pressure of Mary Magdalene’s desert gaze, the heft of the russet hair that tumbles down over her back like a pelt. She holds her arms across her chest as if, were she to let go, she’d burst forth, ruptured by the weight of her sorrow. John’s eyes, deep in sallow cheeks, peer up to his crucified God in appalled disbelief. Their bodies are chicken-thin and painful to look at. When he goes up to the altar rail beside Goad and bows his head, he shudders at his nearness to the painting.

After the service, Goad prays for a long time. Colonel Keppel and his wife stride down the aisle, nodding sternly at Esmond as they pass. Other expatriates step away, pausing only to genuflect broadly. The women are artistic and nervous, hanging onto the last vestiges of girlhood, or rather finding them again, turning up in their late-life bodies something gamine, playful, fragile. Their husbands march stiffly behind them, hands behind their backs. Finally Goad shakes his head and stands. The priest, who has taken off his smock and cassock and stands in a grey suit, is extinguishing candles at the back of the church with a brass snuffer. When he sees Esmond and Goad coming towards him, he puts it down and rubs his hands together, smiling.

‘Now then, Esmond.’ His palm is smooth and cool. ‘Harold, good morning.’

‘I thought we might show Esmond the room, if you have a moment,’ Goad says.

‘Of course. Perhaps I could drive you up to Bellosguardo afterwards.’

They make their way back through the entrance and follow Father Bailey up the dark stairwell. The priest takes the steps two at a time and Goad is soon panting, reaching for the support of Esmond’s elbow. Bailey stops to wait for them.

‘Here we are.’ Bailey turns through a bunch of keys, selects one and opens the door onto a corridor, dimly lit by a window at the far end.

‘It was the Machiavelli family palazzo,’ Bailey says. ‘He was born in one of these rooms. Amazing, isn’t it?’ He throws open doors as he passes, showing empty rooms thick with dust. They come to the end of the corridor. ‘Now tell me what you think of this.’ He opens the last door on the left and they step into a large, white space. It reminds Esmond for a moment of the ballroom at Aston Magna. Four French windows open onto a narrow balcony overlooking the church of Santo Spirito. He can see young men playing football in the piazza, doves in a gossipy cluster on the tiled roof.

‘I spoke to Father Bailey,’ Goad puffs, ‘about a studio. He suggested you might use this. For a small contribution to the upkeep of the church, of course, but—’

‘You’d be welcome to have it for nothing, Esmond. Far too quiet around here recently and what you’re doing is more good than harm. If Harold’s behind you, that’s endorsement enough for me.’

Esmond can see fingers of damp creeping up the walls, patches of mould that fur the far corner. Parquet tiles are chipped, missing in places. Dust covers the stone mantelpiece at the far end. He breathes the smell and lets out his breath in a low whistle.

‘This is smashing.’

‘Glad you approve. Now, oughtn’t we get going? I’m ruddy terrified of Alice Keppel.’

With a last look at the room, Esmond follows Goad and Bailey back along the corridor, down the steps and through a side door into the garage and Bailey’s old, rather dazzling, red Alfa Romeo. They drive out into the misty square, along streets so narrow that rugs touch as the women shake them from high windows. Finally, with a careless roar from the car, they wind up into the hills and out of the city.

The Villa dell’Ombrellino takes three terraced steps down the hillside. The uppermost has a gravel path between lemon trees, plumbago and gardenia. There is a vegetable garden further down growing beefsteak tomatoes. Fountains babble in the shade of umbrella pines. The house is large and symmetrical with a loggia running the length of the ground floor. Most of the lunch guests are sitting here smoking and sipping sherry.

Esmond is at the front of the upper terrace with Colonel Keppel. His hand rests on the metal pole that supports the brass parasol, the ombrellino , and they look down across the mist to the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and beyond it the plump dome of the cathedral. Otherwise Florence is obscured.

Colonel Keppel is smoking a pipe, nestling the stem under his moustache and drawing deeply. He steps forward to the stone wall that marks the edge of the uppermost terrace.

‘Have you seen the pool?’ he asks, pointing downwards with his pipe.

Esmond joins him at the balcony and looks over. A camphor tree grows at the top of a rocky grotto where a shadowy swimming pool crags under ferns and hostas. Over the shallow end are bronze statues, two dodos, covered in verdigris. He thinks of Philip floating star-shaped in the pool at Emmanuel College, misquoting Byron, paddling with his hands.

‘Modelled on the Roman baths at Caracalla. Same chap who did the garden, Cecil Pinsel.’