‘For to make tea in!’ said the Signora, pointing at the teapot. ‘Sorry, I forget it.’
Julia herself had forgotten that she had ever felt the lack of such a thing. Signora Mignelli stayed and talked, resting her behind on the arm of the sofa. Her husband had had an operation for a ruptured hernia and dramatically the Signora enacted how he had been carried off in the ambulance boat in the dead of night to the hospital. She refused tea but stayed to recount a war between the fishmonger and the local priest. The fishmonger, Julia inferred, had a reputation for favouring other men’s wives and the priest had attempted to discuss the matter with him. ‘He is a Communist–so he not like,’ the Signora explained. ‘He say he go to another church.’
‘But if he is a Communist why is he going to church at all?’
‘Of course he go to church,’ the Signora said, dismissive at the suggestion of other possibilities.
Concerned lest she had affronted her landlady Julia diverted the conversation. ‘Do you know the Chapel-of-the-Plague?’
Signora Mignelli nodded approvingly. ‘Very old,’ she said, ‘and very holy. Much miracles there once. Now, no more.’ She shrugged. ‘It is the TV, I think.’
Nicco was not making much progress with his English. Carlo, who had called to tell her he had been as good as his word, and been by the chapel and spoken with the twins, narrowly missed one of the English lessons.
‘Do excuse me.’ Julia Garnet hastily cleared away a pile of books. One of them, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-duck, made her feel embarrassed: it betrayed the fact that she had bothered to bring it with her from England. She had not quite got over her tendency to become unnerved by Carlo’s presence and the children’s book added to the feeling of immaturity. ‘It’s the boy I give lessons to.’ She shoved Jemima Puddle-duck under a copy of Hello magazine donated by the Signora.
Carlo’s manners were exemplary. If he had spotted the story about the credulous duck and the predatory fox, which Julia had preserved since childhood, he gave no sign. He seemed to want to ask questions about Nicco but she was more interested in hearing what he had to say about the restoration.
‘So, I have met your friends.’
But this she felt she must correct. ‘Hardly friends!’
‘It is fascinating,’ ignoring her protests. ‘As always the problem is the salt. Venice has its feet for ever in water, you see, and they must refashion the floor. The boy is doing this, on his knees, while the girl is perched above him, working as stone mason. Modern youth, eh? They were most charming, I should say. They allowed me to look.’
‘Did they show you Himself?’ Julia felt slightly jealous. It had felt free up on the scaffolding.
‘Himself?’ Carlo looked puzzled.
‘The Archangel. Raphael.’ More than the humans she had met at the chapel, the angel seemed her friend.
‘Oh indeed. This is where the restoration must be most delicate. The girl is trained by a most marvellous man from your V & A who came over in ‘66 after the great floods. I know him a little. There is nothing to match you English with the chisel.’
‘Such a beatific smile.’ Julia was thinking of the angel.
‘Indeed. She is most charming, your young friend,’ said Carlo, politely misunderstanding.
Julia Garnet, calling to collect a parcel of linen, met Sarah outside the launderers. Sarah was not wearing her goggles or her woolly hat–but she still wore the blue overalls.
‘Hi! Isn’t it absolutely glorious?’
And indeed the day had turned into a painting of apricot and blue. Brilliant pillars of light were almost tangibly striking the enclosed corner where they stood.
‘Glorious.’ Julia Garnet agreed, weighing the brown parcel. (She wanted to offer some reciprocal hospitality and was simultaneously weighing in her mind how to accomplish this.) ‘I don’t suppose you would like a cup of tea?’
‘That’s sweet of you. I get dry with the stone dust and if you breathe near a café here it costs an arm and a leg.’
‘Don’t you take a flask?’
‘Too lazy!’
The girl had a seductive giggle. Julia, as the two of them made their way towards Signora Mignelli’s, speculated that with a laugh like that one might get away with murder. So it turned out to be quite easy, she reflected further, Sarah chattering away at her side: you asked someone to tea and they answered; as simple as that. She thought of the years through which she had asked no one (except occasionally Harriet–whom, she now saw, she had tended too much to consider in the light of ‘only’ Harriet) anything at all. Fearful of rejection she had presented to the world a face of independence which was a sham. Had she been capable of formulating the words to herself during those dull years she would probably have opined that she was too unattractive for anyone to want to be friends with her. Yet nothing in her appearance had, in fact, altered: any difference in Julia Garnet’s demeanour was a consequence of other changes.
In honour of the apricot-fingered sun Julia served tea on the balcony. Although the temperature was within a hair’s-breadth of being too cold she took a pride in being equal to it. The blue enamel teapot which had superseded the saucepan was brought out and christened. Julia, in fact, rather missed the saucepan which had given substance to her own sense of a daring relaxation of standards. Her father could have made no objection to the teapot which burned her hand and was hard to pour from.
‘Sugar? Milk?’ she asked, and was pleased when her guest requested lemon for it provided just that slight extra trouble with which to prove herself the part of hostess. They sat looking over towards the church.
‘So that’s the Angelo Raffaele. D’you know, it’s awful, but although I can see the towers from the scaffolding this is the first time I’ve seen it properly. By the end of the day I’m pretty sick of churches–say it not in Gath!’
‘Tell it not…’
‘Eh?’ Sarah had screwed up her eyes, which made her look less attractive. What is it, Julia wondered, which makes one woman attractive, another not? Sarah’s face when you analysed it was rather weasel-like, yet one knew for certain she was attractive to men.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, it’s being a teacher!’ Julia, blushing at the unthinking correction, hurried to explain. ‘I was brought up, unfortunately, on the Bible, which sticks when all kinds of other things don’t. I believe the quotation is Tell it not in Gath…Most people get it wrong.’ This would never do–it was socially inept, as well as impolite, to correct one’s guest. Trying to bring the conversation to safer ground she said, returning to the subject of the Angelo Raffaele, ‘It has some rather lovely Guardis,’ then felt abashed at her own cheek, for until lately she had never even heard the name ‘Guardi’.
If Sarah had minded being corrected she did not show it. ‘Oh yes, the disputed organ panels. I should really look at those.’
Frustrated in a chance to show off her freshly acquired knowledge Julia tried to think of some new topic but her visitor, perhaps picking up her hostess’s disappointment, said, ‘Remind me what’s on the Guardis. I ought to know…’
‘It’s an Old Testament story. There I go again–you’ll be imagining I’m an expert on the Bible but actually I’m stupidly ignorant. (Would you like some more tea?) My friend calls the story “Tobiolo”. I think we call it “Tobias and the Angel”.’
‘No more tea, thanks. Your friend?’ Sarah shaded her eyes. Her funny hostess appeared to be blushing.
‘You