I suppose I never thought I’d complete it, she realized. After all, she had never been taught what was now called “creative writing.” Camilla had attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Birmingham, a dark, failed industrial city in the English Midlands, and her salvation had been that she was taken under the wing of Sister Agnus Dei, stern Sister Agnus, her sixth-form teacher, who had recognized her intelligence and championed her cause. It was Sister Agnus who had insisted that Camilla sit for A levels—the all-important testing that got British schoolchildren accepted to university.
No one in Camilla’s family had been to university. Well, in point of fact, all of them had left school at the earliest legal opportunity. Camilla’s father had been a lorry driver until an accident resulted in a bad back that ended his days behind the wheel. Her mother, not to put too fine a point on it, had been what once was referred to as a “char.”
Perhaps that was unfair. Camilla, walking over the cobblestones, reconsidered her words and edited her thoughts. Well, if Mum was not as little as a cleaning lady, she certainly was not as much as a housekeeper. She had been the “daily” whom the Beveridge family had called in as needed, and she had spent a good part of her life cleaning up the messes of those she still referred to as “her betters.” In fact, it seemed to Camilla that her mother had always been more interested and more willing to clean and cook and listen to the children of the Beveridge family than to her own. The Clapfish flat was messy, ill-managed, overcrowded, and damp. Mrs. Clapfish rarely bothered with housework at home—”Don’t get paid to do it, now, do I?” she’d ask. Thinking of their home even now, under the warm Italian autumn sun, made Camilla shiver. Her three younger brothers had been in a constant clamor, their noses always wet, as were their socks and vests. When they weren’t shouting at one another they were being shouted at by their mother, who was just as often being shouted at by their father. Camilla sighed, her loneliness deepening. No point in writing to them, telling them she had finished a novel, Camilla thought. Her mother would only ask, “Whatever for?”
As she continued walking toward the center of San Gimignano, she decided that she certainly wouldn’t tell Lady Ann Beveridge about her novel. But maybe she would write to Sister Agnus Dei tomorrow and give her the news. Sister Agnus, despite her name, wasn’t the least bit lamblike. She’d be fiercely glad. In the meantime, Camilla would enjoy this day, the Italian sun, and the beauty of the stonework, being responsible for no one but herself.
She did not have to guide anyone through either of the two main churches, or point out the Roman ruins, or wait while calculatedly naïf souvenirs were purchased. Camilla had spent the last year and a half in Firenze, first studying and then supporting herself there as a tour guide. All of her higher education in art history in New York—which her parents had neither understood nor approved of—had, in the end, come down to this: She was a tour guide. Because, only after Camilla had struggled through college and graduated, only after she’d finished her dissertation, did she realize that—without connections in either the art world or academia and without any particular personal charm—she would never get one of the few and highly coveted museum or teaching jobs. So, adrift, she had left New York and wound up in Florence, giving guided tours and, in her loneliness, writing fiction in her spare time.
She liked giving tours, but only to Americans. They were used to standing in groups and were eager to improve themselves. It seemed almost a religion with them. British tourists never would stand together—they were always wandering off or directing their gaze somewhere else, while the French were absolutely impossible—rude and arrogant, the lot of them. Camilla had never finished a tour without one of them walking but on her while she spoke. Yes, Americans were nicest, most grateful. And although she became frozen with a paralyzing shyness if they asked her to coffee or lunch after a tour, Camilla spoke with authority during her stint as docent. She could guide people more easily than be with them.
Camilla lived frugally, watching every penny, but she’d already had a lifetime of experience with that. She also had to put up with the occasional condescension of wealthy visitors who wanted their art predigested and their history reduced to four-hundred-year-old scandal. But she persevered. She was actually rather well-suited to the job. She had a surprisingly strong voice, physical stamina, and a good memory for details. If at first speaking to groups was difficult, she found, in time and with good notes, that it was easier than talking to people one-to-one. Although hers was by no means a glamorous or lucrative life, she had at least managed to live among the splendors of Italy and have her evenings free. Free for Gianfranco and, on nights he couldn’t see her, for her novel.
Along with the writing, the fresh flowers she always kept in her room kept her loneliness at bay. A solitary life did not mean a lonely one, and it comforted her to recognize flowers in the Firenze markets, just the same as the ones she bought at The Angel tube stand and at the Korean greengrocers in New York—the delphiniums, tuberoses, and gladioli, all as familiar as old friends.
Now she walked into the flower-bedecked square that opened before her. The sun was just beginning its slanting descent. One side of the square was already in shadows, while the other was illuminated by a golden light. The old stone buildings, gilt by the sun, glowed as if lit from within. The air was so clear that each lintel, each doorstep, each window mullion showed a line as clean as a pen stroke. Geraniums, nasturtiums, and ivy exploded from window boxes, breaking the austerity of the stone with their riot of color. For once she wouldn’t have to stand against a building, her calves aching, the expense of a café out of reach. No. Tonight she’d splurge and enjoy the view in comfort. Boldly, Camilla walked toward a café table beside the well in the center of the square, ready to take a seat. She would have an aperitif here and, in doing so, pay for the rental of a comfortable chair. It would allow her to watch while the sun set and the square emptied, as it did each evening at this time.
Camilla had made her life—such as it was-—on such small pleasures. Snatched hours with Gianfranco, walks among the splendid architecture, hours spent in museums. It had always been so. While her classmates back at the Sacred Heart looked forward to Country-house weekends, Christmas gifts from Harrods, and, later, cordon bleu classes in Paris or a stint at what passed as the season in London, Camilla had comforted herself with small, sometimes even tiny, pleasures but ones that deeply satisfied: a good library book and a bag of boiled sweets; hot toast spread with Marmite eaten alone in her room; a long afternoon visit to the Birmingham Museum, or a special program on the telly that she could watch undisturbed while the boys were out playing football. Even a hot hath with a rare dollop of scented bath oil was a treat to be looked forward to.
Then later, when she was older, there was the wider world of art—the hours she could spend at the Tate staring at—no, devouring—the Turners—her favorite artist save for Canaletto. The Van Huysum at the National Gallery. Taking the Wallace Collection one lush room at a time. Whole days whiled away at the V & A. Then there was New York, mooning around the Frick, sitting in a quiet spot at the Cloisters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art gave particularly good value—for the investment of looking there was so very much to see. And now there was today, when she would enjoy her comfortable seat and the beauty and activity all around her in the square.
But as she approached the table, the chair at the other side was appropriated by a pale, ginger-haired man who helped an older woman into the seat. Camilla’s hand was already on the corner of her own chair, and as the stout woman slid her bottom onto the metal seat, Camilla’s hand brushed the man’s. She pulled back as if burned. He must have seen that it was her seat, her withdrawal, because he immediately began to apologize.
“I’m so sorry. Are you sitting here? I didn’t mean to …” He paused, and in the silence Camilla tried to bite back her disappointment and come up with a plan B. AH of the other tables were taken, so she would have to sit inside the café, away from the quiet beauty of the piazza. She shook her head and was about to leave, but he continued. % “Mother, we’ve taken this young lady’s table.”
The older woman looked up. “What?” she asked. “I don’t think so. I think this table was free.” The older woman glanced at Camilla. “Sit down, Frederick,” she told him. She was flushed, with a round, heavy face in late middle age. But despite her weight she had a good haircut and discreet but excellent makeup.