The Woman in the Painting. Kerry Postle

had pulled up, sacks piled up on the back of it. A stocky man with a round belly was standing as if on guard, arms crossed, before his precious cargo. He pulled up his belt. It slipped back down.

      I nodded at the portly fellow. He smiled at Margarita. He looked me up and down. I’d been expecting deference from this working man. As I followed his eyes over my ripped, bloody shirt, my mud-stained hose and my wild hair I understood why on this occasion I hadn’t got it. I looked as if I’d been dragged along the bed of the river, rolled along its bank, then given a good beating. His eyes lingered on the button dangling by a thread from my jacket that I held in my arms. He wouldn’t be describing me any time soon as a fancy man, though he was attracted by my one remaining shiny button.

      ‘We’re here,’ Margarita said to me. We were at her father’s bakery.

       Chapter 8

      ‘Tell him he needs to come and get it himself. I got extra sacks for Easter for him and I did my back in while I was loading them onto the cart. I can’t afford to make it any worse. Have to be careful how I move. And if he doesn’t come out soon I’ll take it elsewhere. It’s as valuable as gold these days, tell him, and if yer father doesn’t want it, I knows of a hundred other bakers who do. And the rest. So he’d better be quick. The fancy man’s gone now and so he’s got no excuse.’

      ‘Good day, Giorgio.’ Margarita breezed up to him with a wave of her hand and a long-suffering smile – she’d heard his complaints before.

      ‘Come, let me do it.’ She wrapped her arms around a large sack and propped it on her hip before struggling with it to the doorway.

      I followed suit while the gallant Giorgio said to her, from a seated position, ‘Stop! It’s no job for a girl like you.’ She breathed heavily and carried on. Giorgio didn’t move. Margarita didn’t moan. And I barely managed, dragging two sacks to Margarita’s four. I was relieved when we’d lugged all six sacks off the back of the cart. But we’d created a pile two sacks wide and three high and if the intention had been to go inside the bakery we’d scuppered our chances by blocking the way.

      ‘Thank you, Giorgio. You’ve performed miracles, getting us this much flour. These are hard times, but my father appreciates all you’ve done for him.’

      ‘He hasn’t paid me.’

      ‘He’s just coming.’

      Margarita smiled patiently and turned. ‘Father? Father?’ she shouted. ‘Giorgio needs paying.’

      A cross voice with a Roman accent as rough as Giorgio’s boomed loud from the other side. ‘How can I when his flour is blocking the way?’

      Margarita went on tiptoes and peered over the top of the sacks.

      She issued instructions to a small red-faced group of men congregated inside. Within minutes the sacks had been taken in and stored away. Her father had no choice but to come and settle up with the sedentary Giorgio. He sniffed and waved a purse around. It looked expensive: black velvet and decorated with fine pearls. It also happened to be bulging.

      ‘There!’ The baker hurled some coins into the back of the cart. ‘You’ve been paid.’ His churlish tone gave the impression that he could barely afford to settle his debt; the black velvet purse told a different story. Giorgio’s mouth opened, and not to say thank you. He gave me one last cursory glance before looking back at Margarita.

      ‘Goodbye, girl. You’re a good’un.’

      Her father humphed.

      ‘He’s gone, boys,’ he said, returning to his friends.

      I stood behind Margarita near the entrance. I swept back my hair anticipating an introduction. Instead, Margarita went to fetch me something to eat.

      I peered inside the baker’s shop. The space was small and cramped, the ceiling low. There, squashed inside, Margarita’s father was deep in the conversation he had been pulled away from.

      ‘That poor sinner who got pulled from the river. You’ve got to feel sorry for the lad,’ he said, now cradling the fat purse like a distended stomach.

      My hand felt for my nose, a body memory of what Giulio had told us at Sebastiano’s studio.

      ‘What?’ an indignant voice cried. ‘Sorry for a lad who likes to plunge his uccello in arseholes?’

      ‘Messy business!’ Margarita’s father replied. The group erupted into fits of raucous laughter. ‘That’s not what I meant, you dirty bastards. It’s hard … no, that’s not what I mean. Calm down, calm down … when you gets your extremities cut off for preferring peaches to figs, it don’t seem fair. It’s all fruit after all!’

      ‘Yes. Our Orlando,’ one of them continued, ‘found the poor bugger—’ titters bubbled up again ‘—not two hours since.’

      So there had been another killing.

      ‘’Orrible, ’e said it was. Worse than before. This time the murderer had tried to flay the unlucky lad.’

      I played with the silver button on my jacket. When I let it go it dangled by its thread.

      ‘Orlando said that whoever had done it couldn’t have wanted to rob him as the boy still wore some flashy pendant around his neck, I think of St Bartolomeo, if I remembers right.’ The man paused for the briefest of moments but it was enough to make me miss a breath. ‘And clutched in his hand,’ he continued, ‘he had hold of three silver buttons.’

      My hand went to my chest, enveloping the only button I had left. My blood ran cold. It flooded my mind. Luca! For a while he was all I could think of. It had to be him. I turned and twisted the button over and over again. Luca had been murdered. The thread broke. The button fell to the floor and spun round and round like a coin. I picked it up to stop it. But it was too late. Suspicious eyes had already turned towards me.

      ‘Here. Something for you to eat and drink.’ Margarita was back.

      ‘Who’s this?’ her father asked, not waiting for a reply. ‘Who would leave a pendant?’ he continued, his fascination in the murder outlasting his short-lived interest in me. ‘They could have got decent money for it.’

      The baker’s eyes grew round and greedy. Until they met the critical gaze of his daughter.

      ‘Stop your staring now, girl.’ He shifted the purse up level to his heart.

      All faces were now set on the baker’s daughter.

      ‘Where did you get that?’ Margarita pointed to the bulging purse.

      ‘Now don’t you go all accusing on me, my girl.’

      ‘Where did you get that?’ she repeated.

      ‘This is from him.’ He stroked the velvet. ‘Came today. Has a right high opinion of you, he does.’ I wondered at what I was hearing. Rome was full of prostitutes, and the better ones came from almost illustrious dynasties. I’d heard of mothers training their daughters in music, poetry, and in some cases philosophy, as well as other essential womanly skills to please the eye, heart and body. Then they rented out their girls to men. Wealthy ones. Even cardinals sought solace in their arms. This girl knew Cardinal Bibbiena – that much I knew already. Was this what the baker had done? Accepted the purse of money to rent out his daughter?

      Margarita’s father lifted the velvet purse in front of him and dropped it on the table. It made a dull, heavy thud.

      ‘What have you done, Father? I told him I didn’t want to do it anymore.’

      ‘Well, you won’t agree to accepting any of your suitors, and I can’t keep on looking after you forever …’

      At this a low titter burned through the room; mutters of ‘you look after her?’ and ‘more like the other way around’ smouldered away at the edges.

      Margarita