In the doorway Luisa had said nothing, just clucked despairingly at the sight of Anna, pale and exhausted, and shushed her into the bedroom, closing the door softly behind them.
Sandro had heard tentative sounds from the kitchen: Giuli trying to make herself useful, nervous of putting things away in the wrong place. But he hadn’t gone in, he had stood in the dim hall, between the coats hanging along one wall and the ugly landscape Luisa’s mother had given them at their wedding on the other, for the moment not ready to move.
There was information in his head but unfortunately it hadn’t come in the shape of facts arranged in useful, neat columns: more like a swarm of wasps, circling and scattering, forming and reforming.
In no particular order: Liliana, seller of oranges; the old woman behind the reception desk at the Loggiata; the Russian girl; Josef: Albanian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Romanian — which was he? Did it even matter? The apartment he was planning for his little family, with its nursery. How had he got his hands on such a place?
And, incidentally, the apartment with a long, rusted balcony and a view of the hills that he and Luisa (too old to be newly-weds) would almost certainly never move into. And the more impossible it seemed, the more angry it made Sandro, that he was such a failure, that he had not provided for this eventuality.
The Banca di Toscana Provinciale too. Why had Anna’s fiance chosen that bank of all banks? How had he come up with that name, Claudio Brunello?
And apropos of nothing, apropos of the dead man in the morgue who no longer had anything to do with Sandro, now that he turned out not to be the father of Anna’s baby, he had thought of a smear on a man’s pale-leather shoe, in the white glare of a forensics tent in the August sun. He thought of the dusty earth under the trees.
What was the connection?
Now Sandro dialled Pietro’s number, and it went straight to answerphone. Damn: was he being screened out? Or being paranoid? Slowly he hung up. Think.
Folding his arms, Sandro frowned, remembering the bank’s gloomy interior, Claudio Brunello’s bank. The dusty marble flooring. And that faded, cheesy poster on the walclass="underline" a man in a suit holding out his hand and in the background a cartoon of people in a bank queue, dreaming of a house with a garden. Look ahead! Get in line! It was something from another age.
‘Sandro?’ Giuli called from the kitchen, her voice high and anxious.
‘Coming,’ he said.
She was standing behind a chair, hands resting on its back.
Sandro’s frown deepened. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, fidgeting. ‘Just — wondered what you were up to out there.’
‘Something’s up,’ he said.
‘It’s just the heat,’ Giuli said, and let out a sigh.
‘It’s not the boyfriend? He hasn’t — let you down, or anything?’
To his relief she smiled, broadly. ‘No. No! He’s great. Enzo’s great. Luisa said she wants him to come over.’ She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it again. She smiled.
Sandro pulled out a chair and sat, heavily. Giuli was right: everything seemed more of an effort in this heat, even sitting down. ‘Wants to inspect him, you mean. Sure he’s ready for that?’
Still she looked relaxed. Not that, then.
‘So, what?’
She pulled out another chair and sat. Sandro could see food ranged along the kitchen counter, a Russian salad, some cold fried veal cutlets, peperonata. He realized he didn’t even know what time it was: the clock said one-forty. They must have stopped at the rosticceria en route for this stuff.
‘She should eat,’ said Giuli, and the anxiety was back on her face.
‘Luisa?’ Sandro felt a lurch. Had she looked ill?
‘Well, her.’ She caught his expression. ‘No, no, not Luisa. You should have seen her out there this morning, she’s a killer. Knocking on doors. Giving them hell.’
Sandro smiled faintly. His Luisa, a killer.
Giuli went on earnestly, ‘But Anna, I meant. Doesn’t she have to eat?’
The heat gathered in the room, stealthily. Sandro could see the oppressive afternoon hours awaiting them; any kind of activity, even animated discussion of anything seemed inadvisable, lest it raise the temperature. Sandro put his hands through his hair, feeling the sweat at his temples, and leaned back.
‘I’m no expert,’ he said. ‘I think she needs rest, more than food. She needs peace and quiet and nothing to worry about.’ He grimaced. ‘Fat chance.’
Giuli nodded thoughtfully. ‘Tell you what,’ she said, ‘I can get down to the Loggiata. Tell them she needs looking after, she can’t do their beds any more. Well,’ and she compromised, seeing him pull a doubting face, ‘for the time being.’
Something occurred to Sandro. ‘Pass us a plate,’ he said, nodding towards the side.
‘We’re not waiting for Luisa?’
‘Well, we can lay things out, can’t we? We can manage that.’
Giuli smiled, impish. Meaning, not even that.
As they were putting the plates out, wondering why they didn’t look right, Sandro said, ‘And you could have a word. While you’re over there.’
‘With the Russian. Dasha.’
‘Her, yes. But how long’s she been there? Was she there when Josef first came on the scene?’
Giuli frowned. ‘Maybe not.’
‘Could you maybe talk to the old lady, too? The owner.’
Luisa appeared in the door, looking weary. She puffed her cheeks and sighed. ‘Poor kid,’ she said. Then frowned at the table. ‘You two,’ she said, gently shoving Giuli aside and going round, straightening, setting mats, getting out napkins. She laid an extra place, for Anna.
‘So she knows she’s welcome,’ she said, when Sandro looked at her. ‘So she knows she’s staying.’
‘Have you two been talking about this?’ He shook his head in mock disapproval. ‘She’s moving in, is she?’ It was the only thing to do: he could see that. Luisa had got there first, as usual.
‘There’s the spare room,’ said Luisa.
‘Just as well we’re not living on a building site in San Niccolo yet,’ he said. She said nothing, but he knew she’d noticed that ‘yet’.
‘I’ll ask,’ he said. ‘About a loan. I will.’
‘OK,’ said Luisa comfortably. Not pushing it. ‘And what was that you two were plotting when I came in? Something about the old lady?’
‘The old lady at the Loggiata. Your mother’s pal. Apparently, she didn’t make Anna’s beau too welcome, when he first put in an appearance. That’s what Anna said.’
Luisa pursed her lips, pulling out a chair, and as she sat down Sandro saw her shoot a glance at Giuli.
‘Just being protective, perhaps,’ she said. ‘Looking out for her kid’s interests. It sounds like she more or less took that girl in when she had nowhere else to go.’
Sandro nodded. ‘She’s not — it wouldn’t be that he might not be Italian?’
‘Is that what you’re thinking?’
‘It’s a theory,’ said Sandro cautiously. ‘In that he told her his name was Josef, to begin with. Does that sound Italian to you?’
‘And the old lady not welcoming him with open arms would confirm that, because she’d be likely to — have her prejudices?’ Luisa seemed merely interested. ‘Well, I don’t know. I would guess that, like any older person — like us maybe,’ giving him a sharp glance, ‘she probably wishes that everything was as it was when she was young. But to be honest, I don’t know her that well, she might be a — a member of the Greens, for all I know. She was just one of Mamma’s friends.’
‘I don’t see any harm in Giuli talking to her, anyway,’ said Sandro warily. ‘Asking her what she thought of him. Old ladies — you know. They have sharp eyes.’
‘And sharper tongues,’ said Luisa. ‘I’ll come too.’
‘I can manage.’ At the sound of her voice — quiet, calm — they both turned to look at Giuli. ‘I can talk to her, Luisa. I’ll say you sent me, if you like. But you should stay here.’ Sandro saw her eyes shift to him. ‘What if Anna wakes up, and there’s no one here? She needs you.’