The Woman in the Painting. Kerry Postle

man has a trade, can look after her. He’s no interest in taking over all this. Our Alicia got married at fourteen. Good age for a girl to get wed. Our Margi’ll be too old soon. I keep telling her that. Oh, she’s had suitors. That girl’s a pearl. Always was. Our precious pearl. Who wouldn’t want to be married to that? But that lustre won’t last forever. Oh no! Thinks she’s clever. But it doesn’t do to be clever for a girl. And she needs to be careful because she’s too clever. Soon she’ll be too old and too clever. Then what’s she going to do? A man doesn’t want a clever shrew for a wife. Though her mother was a bit of a shrew, God rest her soul, and I married her soon enough …’

      Margarita shook me. I must have fallen asleep. She placed one plate of food in my hand and another in her father’s. We both followed her through to a small room situated at the back of the main bakery where we sat at a wooden table. In the middle was another candle that flickered as we breathed, so close were we to it. We ate in appreciative silence. I was back asleep within the hour, slumped over the table.

      *

      It was just before sunrise when Margarita woke me the following morning. My bleary eyes looked up to see her smiling down at me, her hair cascading in waves around her face. The ends tickled the tip of my nose. I swept them away and rubbed my eyes. I got up, surrounded by warmth and the smell of baking bread. I looked over towards the oven. It glimmered and bathed the entire room in a deep orange glow. I felt a thin layer of flour beneath my hands. I’d slept on the floor curled up like a cat in the corner of the kitchen. And I could hear singing. It was her father. It was neither sweet nor melodious. But it was confident and heartfelt, which gave it a charm that brought a smile to my face. He pulled a tray of freshly baked bread out of the gaping mouth of the furnace and slid another one in. I inhaled deeply and felt myself transported away on the wings of delight. And the pangs of hunger.

      Margarita wrapped the small loaf my eyes had settled on in a cloth she’d taken off a hook. ‘Come!’ She grabbed my hand. ‘I’ll be back in time to help,’ she called back to her father as she stepped outside, pulling me after her. The street was silent and bathed in the deep blue-purple light that was somewhere between night and day. The air was fresh and alive. It licked my face with promise and I lapped it up. That morning was the closest I’d come to heaven. Lost in the moment, memories far away, the responsibilities of life set aside. The world seemed good and I was good in it.

      And it was spring.

      Spring in Rome is the prettiest season, a time for new beginnings, and so it was for me that April morning. As I walked past sleeping houses, hope surged in my heart.

      ‘Come! This way!’ Margarita led me down side streets. The countryside all around Rome was so rich and abundant at that time of year that farmers and peasants were already trickling into the city, their heavy carts laden with the season’s bounty. One such cart laden with the most magnificent blooms pushed us to the side. The colours dazzled; the fragrance made me dizzy. I followed on, drinking in the early morning, and watching the sky as it changed to a radiant purple canvas now streaked with flashes of deep pink and orange.

      We passed merchants setting up their stalls, boys making deliveries to the taverns. Nobody noticed us as we floated by. It was as if the incidents of yesterday had never been.

      When we came to the city walls, the trickle of traders and peasants had turned into a flood. Gateways bulged, not just with carts and beasts of burden laden with every imaginable commodity, but also with monks, pilgrims, adventurers. This was Rome after all. Soon all the streets of the city would be heaving with life. Margarita made her way along the wall’s perimeter. It was ancient and dilapidated, running to only several stones high in places. It was at one of these places that she stopped and clambered over. I did the same, falling into a shaded thicket on the other side. I did not know where we were, nor where we were going, but I did not care.

      I looked up at the now blue sky above through wavering leaves and marvelled at the music of the birds. Gold-lined streaks of white now replaced the pink and orange of the breaking dawn.

      We proceeded on our way through the trees, dancing over twigs and raised roots as the morning sun dappled the ground beneath. We said nothing. Margarita was lost in her own thoughts while my mind was empty of thoughts and memories of any sort. An overwhelming feeling of peace came over me as I tramped my way behind her through the glowing greenery. We wound our way round and up and over and up some more until she disappeared through an opening. I tumbled after her. New-born into the light.

      We’d made it to the top of a hill. Out of the city. Into the countryside. Margarita threw herself down. I did the same. The ground beneath our hands was cool and damp, the air fresh. And there we sat and gazed in wonder at the view before us. A delicate mist lay over the fields that stretched out below, concealing the life burgeoning beneath. We watched, waited, in silent wonder.

      The sun’s rays became stronger, the mist finer. Soon we could make out the water in the streams flowing fast, and, as the cover thinned still further, the earth, pulsating with new life after winter, gave itself up to our eyes. Juicy green leaves and blossom as heavenly as angels’ wings burst forth on the trees. They throbbed with life and filled the air with heavenly music. The mist had all but disappeared and the world was now vibrating with hope, life, and colour. So much so that it seemed to me that even the peasants, admittedly no bigger than ants in the distance, were happy. How could they not be?

      ‘One day, when I’m older, I’m going to live on a big estate in the country. Perhaps I’ll have a vineyard, and space for chickens, and I’ll have dogs to take hunting, and a horse.’

      ‘That’s a fine dream, Pietro,’ Margarita said to me. Dream? Yes. It was. A beautiful, beautiful dream, I realised. Hope had come back into my life. My winter was over. Spring had arrived.

      *

      ‘You must go.’

      When I’d told Margarita about the opportunity to work at Raphael’s studio she was pleased. For me. It was a new experience, to have someone care what I did for my sake. Not theirs. No one had ever wanted me to succeed before without bringing with it untold benefit to themselves. But this girl was selfless, different.

      And it hadn’t taken me long to work out that she was not a prostitute, lowborn or otherwise, not even a woman of easy virtue. Indeed, she was a much-loved daughter, and, that most rare of jewels, a clever and beautiful woman much admired by men and women alike. I, by contrast, was an unloved son, and little admired by anyone. Giulio liked me, I told myself. But then, did he? I remembered how he’d tricked me into saying fornicatora … how I’d stammered, how he’d laughed, and then there was that knowing look he’d given me. Then there was Luca. I’d been touched in more ways than one by him. I’d truly believed that something meaningful had passed between us – until I’d woken up the next morning to find him gone, along with most of my silver buttons.

      Fate had been kind to her, cruel to me.

      The reasons for me not to get on with Margarita were all there at the start.

      But against my stronger, if not better, judgement, part of me grudgingly liked her. And besides, I needed her – to feed me, put a roof over my head, and give me the confidence to walk into Raphael’s studio.

       Chapter 10

      I was fourteen, Raphael was twenty-five, when I walked into his workshop. Yes, you know already that I had Margarita to thank for that. She’d looked after me like the little brother she’d never had, much to her father’s disappointment. He’d wanted her to show a very different type of interest in me, one that would lead to marriage, babies, a secure future. But that was the last thing on Margarita’s mind when it came to me. Instead of blushing every time I entered a room, she took me to a barber’s, patched up my clothes, and, to put a stop to her father’s constant innuendoes once and for all, she got me a room in a nearby boarding house. And on the day I moved in she sent someone to pick up my belongings from my father’s house.

      I would never have seen Federico’s message if it hadn’t been