The Savage Garden. Mark Mills

       Has the Englishman arrived yet?

      No, Signora.

       When?

       Tomorrow.

       Tomorrow?

       That’s what he said in his letter. The twelfth.

       I wish to see him as soon as he gets here.

       You’ve already said, Signora. You won’t forget?

       Why would I forget? Move a little to the side, please.

       Gently. Don’t push.

       I’m sorry. Turn over, please.

       You don’t have to do this, Maria.

       I know.

       I’m happy to hire someone else.

       You really expect me to cook and clean for someone else?

       You’re a good woman.

       Thank you, Signora.

       Just as your father was a good man.

       He had the highest respect for you too, Signora.

       There’s really no need to be quite so formal, not when you’re giving me a bed-bath.

       He had the highest respect for you too.

       You know, Maria, I believe you’re in danger of developing a sense of humour in your old age.

       Turn over, please.

      4

      They left Florence through the Porta Romana, heading south to Galluzzo, where they wound their way up into the hills past a sprawling Carthusian monastery.

      The climbing road was flanked by olive groves, neat rows of trees laid out in terraces, their foliage flashing silver in the sunlight. Vineyards and stands of umbrella pines studded the hillside. Every so often, an avenue of dark cypresses indicated a track leading to some isolated farmhouse, which invariably was also guarded by a small cohort of the tall, tapering conifers. Apart from the tarmac road along which they were travelling, there was little to suggest the passing centuries had wrought any meaningful change on the tapestried landscape.

      Adam lounged in his seat, taking in the view, the cooling breeze from the open window washing over him, ruffling his hair. The taxi driver was still talking nineteen to the dozen despite Adam’s earlier confession that most of the words were lost on him. Every now and then Adam would catch the man’s eye in the rear-view mirror and grunt and nod his assent – an arrangement that seemed to work to the complete satisfaction of both parties.

      When the road levelled out he turned and peered through the rear window, searching for a glimpse of Florence. The city was lost to view behind the tumble of hills rolling in from the south. Somehow it seemed appropriate; she was hiding herself, even now.

      All morning he had walked her streets, the stone chasms hacked into her, grid-like. Her buildings were no more welcoming – the palaces of rusticated stone, modelled on fortresses (or so it seemed); the churches with their unadorned exteriors, many sheathed in black-and-white marble; the museums housed in all manner of forbidding structures. And yet, behind those austere façades lay any number of riches.

      Adam had chosen carefully, almost mathematically, limited as he was by the short time at his disposal. There had been disappointments, acclaimed works which had left him feeling strangely indifferent. But as the taxi worked its way higher into the hills, he consoled himself with the knowledge that it had been a first foray, a swift reconnaissance. There would be plenty of opportunities to return.

      San Casciano sat huddled on a high hill, dominating the surrounding countryside. Its commanding position had largely determined the course of its history, apparently, although the entry in Adam’s guidebook made no mention of the last siege the town had been forced to endure. Even as the taxi approached, it was evident that the ancient walls girdling the town had not been constructed to withstand an assault by the kind of weaponry available to the Allies and the Germans.

      These weren’t the first scars of war Adam had witnessed. Even Florence, declared an ‘open city’ by both sides out of respect for her architectural significance, had suffered. As the Allies swept up from the south, the Germans had dug in, blowing all but one of the city’s historic bridges. They may have spared the Ponte Vecchio, but this consideration came at a price. The buildings flanking the river in the vicinity of the bridge were mined, medieval towers and Renaissance palaces reduced to rubble, the field cleared for the forthcoming battle. As it was, the Allied troops had simply crossed the Arno elsewhere on makeshift Bailey bridges and swiftly liberated the town.

      Years on, the wound inflicted right in the heart of the old city remained raw and open. If efforts had been made to restore those lost streets to their former glory, it was not evident. Modern structures with smooth faces and clean sharp lines stood out along the river’s southern frontage, like teenagers in a queue of pensioners. The very best you could say was that the space had been filled.

      In San Casciano that work was still going on. The town was pockmarked with the ruins of bomb-damaged buildings left to lie where they’d fallen. Impressively, Nature had reclaimed what she could in these plots. Young trees sprouted defiantly; shrubs had somehow detected enough moisture in piles of old stones to put down roots and prosper; weeds and ferns sprang from crevices in crumbling walls. The bland new concrete edifices that studded the historic centre were further evidence of the severe pounding the town had taken.

      The Pensione Amorini had been spared. One part of the ancient vine clinging to its scaling stucco façade had been trained over a pergola, which shaded a terrace out front, overflow for the bar and trattoria occupying the ground floor. Signora Fanelli was expecting him – he had phoned ahead from Florence – and she summoned her teenage son from a back room to help with Adam’s bags.

       ‘Oofa,’ said Iacopo as he tested the weight of both suitcases. He left the heaviest – the one containing the books – for Adam to lug upstairs.

      The room was far more than he had hoped for. Large and light, it had a floor of polished deep-red tiles, a beamed ceiling and two windows giving on to a leafy garden out back. It was furnished with the bare essentials: a wrought-iron bed, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. As requested, there was also a desk, though no chair, which brought a sharp rebuke from Signora Fanelli.

      Iacopo skulked off in search of one, his parting glance holding Adam to blame for this public humiliation. He returned with the chair and disappeared again while Signora Fanelli was still demonstrating the idiosyncrasies of the bathroom plumbing to Adam.

      Adam declared the room to be ‘perfetto’.

       ‘Perfetta,’ she corrected him. ‘Una camera perfetta.’

      She relieved him of his passport, flashed him a smile and left. Only her perfume remained – a faint scent of roses hanging lightly in the air.

      He hefted his suitcase on to the worm-eaten chest at the end of the bed and began to unpack. She must have had the boy young – seventeen, eighteen – though you’d have said even younger judging by her looks. For some reason he’d pictured an elderly woman, small in stature and of no mean girth. Instead, he was being housed by a stringier version of Gina Lollobrigida in Trapeze.

      It was a pleasing thought.

      Another image from the same film barged its