Mark Mills - The Savage Garden

He helped unload the crates, then turned down Signore Carnesecchi's offer of a ride back to San Casciano in an hour's time. He said he'd make his own way back.

The city was in the grip of a stifling heat, and he baked himself for a while on the terrace of a cafe in Piazza della Signoria, the tourists pouring past him in weary droves. He dropped off two rolls of film at a photographic shop on Piazza Repubblica and parted with some of the money in his pocket for a crude straw hat and a pair of sunglasses—purchases that might have felt extravagant if the cash hadn't been destined for Harry. God only knew what he would spend it on.

There was no line worth speaking of at the American Express office. The counter clerk relieved him of his bundle of notes and, when questioned, pointed him in the direction of a reputable bookshop.

They didn't have an English language edition of The Divine

Comedy, but a long walk and four hundred lire later he was the proud owner of a battered translation by Dorothy L. Sayers.

He toyed with the idea of settling down with it in some shady corner of the Boboli Gardens, or of visiting one of the many museums, galleries and churches on his list. They were idle thoughts, though. He knew where he was really headed.

He had logged and stored away the name of the fashion house, as well as the district in which it was located. More than that, Antonella hadn't revealed to him. It proved to be enough. A newspaper vendor in Piazza Santa Croce directed him to the street and the building.

It was a large crumbling palazzo. Adam stepped through a small door set in towering wooden gates and found himself in a generous courtyard open to the heavens. It was a world apart, sealed off, immune to the amplified din of the cars and scooters in the narrow street outside. You could even hear the soft fall of water in the fountain. There were other sounds too, snatches of activity drifting through the open windows around the courtyard: the staccato beat of a typewriter, someone answering a phone, the scrape of a chair against a stone floor. If the brass plaques attached to the wall outside were anything to go by, the building was home to a number of businesses.

The fashion house where Antonella worked occupied the entire north wing of the palazzo, although you wouldn't have known it from the ground floor reception area. Cool and cavernous, it was also completely anonymous—no company name in sight, no products on show. A handful of modern leather chairs served as a small seating area, and an ornate rococo desk dwarfed the already petite receptionist behind it.

The rubber soles of his shoes squeaked painfully on the tiled floor as he made his way over. She only looked up from her magazine when the noise ceased at her desk. She studied him with some interest, but seemed to find little to repay her curiosity. When he asked to see Antonella, her manner grew more obliging. She straightened in her chair, requested his name and reached for the phone.

Adam cast an eye around him while he waited. The decor was a self-conscious blend of old and new. The chrome chandelier hanging from the high, beamed ceiling was positively futuristic, and there was an abstract metal sculpture bolted to the wall behind the receptionist's desk—a large circular monstrosity, some five or six feet in diameter, consisting of shards of steel welded together haphazardly. It would have had Harry in raptures.

"Adam . . ."

Antonella appeared at the foot of the stone staircase. She was wearing a navy blue linen dress that hugged her slender figure. Approaching, she kissed him on both cheeks.

"Nice hat."

"All the rage this season, or didn't you know?"

She smiled. "I'm surprised."

"Me too. I wasn't sure I had the right place."

She glanced around her. "Umberto thinks it's good for business. He says it's—how do you say?—enigmatic. The rest is not like this. Come, I'll show you. Do you have time?"

"I'm not disturbing you?"

She dismissed the question with a wag of the hand.

Adam thanked the receptionist as he passed by. "Don't mention it, sir," she replied sweetly, keen to win favor with Antonella.

She wasn't the only one.

The cutters and seamstresses toiling in the run of rooms upstairs all greeted her warmly. It didn't surprise him that she was liked, but she seemed to command a respect way beyond her years. The reason became clear when she pushed open yet another door.

"And this is where I work," she announced. "It's very messy."

Two windows, half-shuttered against the sunlight, overlooked the courtyard. There was a desk, some low bookcases, as well as a large workbench that filled the center of the room. She was right. Every available surface was loaded with clutter: piles of sketches, samples of cloth and leather, pots of pens and brushes, empty cups and overflowing ashtrays.

"I want to say it's not normally like this."

The only remotely clear area was an architect's drawing board against the wall, and maybe only then because it offered an angled surface. There was a half-finished drawing taped to it, a color sketch of a leather handbag. It was quite unlike any other handbag Adam had ever seen.

"It's our new thing. Umberto wants us to do accessories—bags, belts, scarves, maybe even shoes."

The walls were papered with more sketches, dresses mostly. They had loose, flowing lines, and all were cut from the distinctive cloths that were clearly the hallmark of the company: bold geometric designs in vivid colors. They were the same dresses Adam had witnessed taking life next door.

"Does Umberto do anything around here?" he asked.

"Umberto is a genius. I am only his hands." There was no trace of false modesty in her words. "I would introduce you but he's not here now."

"Out with the Americans?"

"Ah, you've spoken to my grandmother. Then you will know that she does not approve of what I do."

"Has she seen it for herself?"

Antonella seemed amused by the idea. "She thinks all fashion is trivial, which of course it is. But she doesn't understand that it can also bring pleasure." She picked up some material from the workbench. "Here."

Only when he took it from her did he realize it was a piece of suede, as soft as silk.

"Imagine that against your skin," she said. "Imagine a skirt made of it."

"That might be asking a bit too much."

She laughed and took the suede from him. "When are you moving in—to the villa, I mean?"

"She told you?"

"Of course."

"Tomorrow."

"You don't have to."

He hesitated. "You think it's a bad idea?"

"I think I haven't seen my grandmother so alive for a long time. But it doesn't mean you have to, just because she asked. She can be very ... prepotente."

"Overbearing?"

"I don't know the word, but it sounds right."

"I want to," said Adam. "It's good for work, I'm near the garden, the library's right there. . . ."

"And is this work?"

She reached for his copy of The Divine Comedy, which he'd abandoned on the work bench.

"No," he lied, "just never read it before."

It was her idea that they sneak off for lunch. Beneath the trees in a small piazza around the corner, they shared a carafe of Chianti and a thick slab of bistecca alla fiorentina done with a light hand.

The restaurant owner fussed around Antonella as if she were a long-lost daughter.

Adam filled her in on Harry's predicament, which had brought him down into town at short notice.

"When does he arrive?"

"God knows. Maybe never. As soon as he gets his hands on the money, anything could happen."

"But you want him to come or you would have told him not to."

"I suppose," he said, surprised that it was so apparent to her.

Her own brother, Edoardo, sounded like an altogether different character—levelheaded, responsible and reliable. "I don't know where he gets it, but he is proof that two negatives can make a positive."