Alex Preston - In Love and War

‘It’s beautiful. Why the dodos?’

‘Reminder that we’re all dying and all stupid. It’s why I built the pool. Attracts the young, or used to, until they buggered off back to London. Important, when you get to my age, to surround yourself with young people. You must come and swim here when the weather improves. It’d make Alice happy.’ He pauses. ‘D’you enjoy the service?’

‘Yes. It’s a funny little church.’

‘Funny priest, too. Goad tell you about Bailey?’

‘No.’

Colonel Keppel glances over his shoulder.

‘Confidentially, he’s a spy. Intelligence Corps during the last war and now reporting back to Whitehall on Musso.’

‘He’s not a priest?’

‘Oh, he’s an amen-wallah all right — it’s his cover. He got me to carry a few packages to London when we went to heave Violet, that’s our daughter, down the aisle. Very hush-hush.’ He touches his nose. ‘Disappears for days in that sports car of his. Up to the mountains. Giustizia e Libertà, I shouldn’t wonder. Now, not a word of this. Scout’s honour?’

‘Scout’s honour.’

Alice Keppel comes down the path from the house. Goad, on her arm, looks shrunken, doll-like. The four of them face over towards the hills of the Sienese Clavey that billow up out of the mist.

‘I hope I didn’t embarrass you at lunch, young man,’ she says, without turning. ‘Out here, one assumes that every one knows every thing .’

‘It’ll take more than your youthful indiscretions to make Esmond blush.’ Colonel Keppel pats her buttock. ‘Hasn’t heard about me and dear old Victoria yet. Not for nothing were they called the naughty nineties.’

Over lunch, leaning closely, Mrs Keppel had told Esmond how dreadfully sorry she was for Wallis. The problem was, she said, Mrs Simpson didn’t know what she wanted. When she, Mrs Keppel, had been the mistress of Edward’s grandfather, she’d been very clear. She wanted money. Money so that she might live in the style that her ancestors had enjoyed. Money so that she might take her husband away to a place like this — she’d waved her hand across the dinner table, the plates of food and silver candlesticks. And when the King had come to stay, George had gone shooting, or riding, and the King had ridden her. Here she laughed breathily.

Now, on the terrace, she wraps a heavy arm around his shoulder.

‘It’s divine to have you here, Esmond. I’m always saying to Harold that he must get Fiamma and Gerald, when he’s over, to come up and swim, but I’m afraid he disapproves of us.’

Goad clucks. ‘Not at all, Alice. It’s just that — hum — young people—’

‘But the young are what George and I live for. I insist that Esmond come up to bathe soon.’

Goad looks doubtfully at the water below.

‘I’d love to,’ Esmond says, aware of the weight of her arm.

A gust of wind rattles the pines around the house. Mrs Keppel finally lifts her arm and begins to shiver. Father Bailey crunches down from the house with a shawl, which he wraps around her shoulders.

‘We should leave you,’ Goad says.

‘Oh, do stay a little longer.’

The mist begins to clear beneath them. Gradually, in little plots and then in larger pools of light, Florence reveals the dome of San Lorenzo, Santa Croce to the east, the Badia Fiorentina, Santo Spirito. As the sun strolls from rooftop to rooftop, rusticated brickwork and cool white facades appear, the huge teal egg of the synagogue, and villas like a loose necklace across the hills.

‘It must be difficult, at moments like this,’ Goad says, ‘not to believe in God.’

‘Amen,’ says Bailey.

Esmond feels weightless, as if he could sail down over the currents of air.

‘Harold. You and your sublime,’ Colonel Keppel says, turning and leading them back to the house. Esmond takes a last look at the pool, the city beyond, and follows.

In Bailey’s car on the way home, the priest leans over his shoulder and speaks to Esmond, who is perched in the cramped rear.

‘Did you realise that your host was a holy man too?’ he says.

‘Colonel Keppel?’

‘Your real host, Harold here.’

Goad looks out at the landscape. ‘Oh, come now.’

‘I’m entirely serious. If he hadn’t been so taken with politics, he’d have made a sparkling priest. Is that not so, Harold?’

Goad shakes his head. Esmond sees a half-smile on his lips. ‘I wanted to find a way of — hum — doing some good.’

‘He’d cut his tongue out before telling you this, but he used his inheritance to found an orphanage at Assisi. Eighteen years old. A year in a Franciscan monastery in the Apennines after that. He’s done more good than most saints I know.’

‘You’re too kind, Father Bailey.’

‘I just want young Esmond to know what sort of man he’s living with.’

‘I do,’ Esmond says. ‘Really.’

The next day, just before lunch, Esmond is in the library with Goad. The older man sits in a high-backed armchair reading Browning. Every so often he rolls out a warm chuckle, or mutters ‘Yes, yes,’ to himself. Esmond watches dust riding the beams of light from the windows. They hear the front door clang and footsteps on the stairs. Goad looks at his watch and stands, Esmond with him.

‘Here she is,’ says Goad, as a woman, mid-twenties, Esmond guesses, with a hard, grown-up air, walks in. Her knotted hair is deep red, the colour of Mary Magdalene’s in the triptych. Goad crosses to kiss her. As he reaches up to take her by the shoulders, on tiptoe, and place a kiss on each pale cheek, she stoops a little to meet him, and Esmond sees how thin she is, barely filling her tunic and slacks.

‘Harold,’ she says. ‘I’m late.’

‘Not at all. Ada Liuzzi, Esmond Lowndes. Ada’s father, Guido, edits the Florentine edition of La Nostra Bandiera. ’

Esmond takes her hand and notices a mole, a dark moon in the orbit of her left eye.

‘Pleasure to meet you,’ he says.

Gesuina places a tray on the table beside Goad’s armchair. Goad picks up the teapot and fills three china cups.

‘From England,’ he says. ‘One simply can’t get good tea out here. Milk?’

Ada looks from one of them to the other. She raises the tea carefully to her lips and sips. There is something almost manly about her face, Esmond thinks. She is not beautiful. Striking perhaps, even startling, but never beautiful.

‘I told Ada about Radio Firenze. I knew, you see, that she was at a loose end, and I thought she might be a good person to have aboard.’

‘I studied English in Bologna,’ Ada says quietly. ‘I have been looking for a job here in Florence, but with the sanctions and the war in Spain — I thought, perhaps, of America. But for the moment, I would be very happy to help you.’

‘That’s excellent, Ada. I’m sure you’ll find it terribly easy. Some research, some translation with Carità, the wireless man—’

‘I know Carità,’ she says, and Esmond feels a momentary curdling of the atmosphere.

‘Splendid.’ Goad rubs his hands. ‘And I wonder if you might come along for a drink here on Thursday night, for the Coronation. We’ll take the opportunity to halloo those Brits who have — hum — persevered. A bottle of Asti spumante or two, a picture of the new King in the hallway. You’d be very welcome.’

‘I should be delighted,’ Ada says, her face softening. Esmond finds himself grinning back as he and Goad walk her to the door. She kisses him; lavender in her hair and on her pale skin. The two men stand at the top of the stairs, watch her descend and turn out of sight.

Back in the library, Esmond smells the lavender, thinks of her cat’s eyes, her heavy jaw.