"It's a very unusual place," the professor said. "Extremely arresting."
"You know it?"
"I did, some years ago. It has never been altered—that's rare— and I know for a fact that no proper study has ever been conducted of it. Which is where you come in, if you want to, that is. Signora Docci has kindly offered it as a subject for one of my students."
Mannerist was bad, a little too overblown for Adam's taste, and he'd have to do a lot of reading up. Italy, on the other hand, was good, very good.
"Maybe a garden isn't quite what you had in mind, but don't dismiss it. . . . Art and Nature coming together to create a whole new entity—a third nature, if you will."
Adam didn't require any more encouragement. "Yes," he said. "Yes, please."
EXAMS WERE UPON THEM BEFORE THEY KNEW IT, AND gone just as quickly. They celebrated, got drunk, punted off to Grantchester with picnics, danced at college balls and hurled themselves fully clothed into the river—memories irreparably tarnished for Adam by Gloria's decision to end their relationship on the last night of the term. The situation was nonnegotiable and, true to character, Gloria made no attempt to feign a remorse she clearly didn't feel. She did manage, however, to offer him one scrap of consolation: as he would no longer be coming to stay at her family's pile in Scotland, he would be spared the maddening attentions of the summer midges.
"Cattle have been known to hurl themselves off cliffs because of the midges." These were her last words to him before he stormed out on her, slamming the door behind him.
The following day everyone trickled off back to their real lives. For Adam, this was a faceless suburb to the south of London, and a Tudor-style villa with Elizabethan yearnings. Thrown up just after the war, the house only existed because a German air crew had taken one look at the lethal hail of flak over the city and promptly jettisoned their payload before running for home.
Adam and his brother had once dug a trench at the end of the garden—the first line of defense against invasion by some imagined enemy force—only to find themselves unearthing the remains of the terraced houses that had previously occupied the plot. Harry had taken those fragments of brick and tile and glass, sinking them in plaster of Paris, producing a mosaic in the shape of a house: the first telltale sign of his calling that Adam could recall.
Adam searched out old friends from the neighborhood. They drank beer together in the garden of the Stag and Hounds, trading stories and trying their best to ignore the inescapable truth—that the ties that once bound them were loosening by the year and might soon be gone altogether.
His mother was delighted to have him home and keen to show it, which usually meant she was unhappy. Whenever she smothered him with affection, he had the uneasy sensation she was using him as a rod with which to beat his father: You see what you're missing out on? His father was more withdrawn than ever, and not best pleased. He had wanted Adam to give the summer over to work experience—a placement with an acquaintance of his at the Baltic Exchange. It was a wise thing to develop a working knowledge of the Baltic Exchange before a career in marine insurance at Lloyd's. It was a wise thing to do, because that's exactly what he himself had done. In the end, though, he conceded defeat.
The arrangements had gone without a hitch: a letter to Signora Docci, her reply (typed and in impeccable English) saying that she had secured a room for him at a pensione in the local town. Aside from rustling up a bit of funding for Adam from within the History of Art Department, Professor Leonard had not needed to involve himself. He did, however, suggest that Adam meet up with him in town before leaving for the Continent.
The proposed venue was a grand stone building close by Cannon Street station in the city. Adam had never heard of the Worshipful Company of Skinners, although he wasn't unduly surprised to discover that the professor was associated with a medieval guild whose history reached back seven centuries. They passed through paneled chambers en route to the roof terrace, where they took lunch beneath an even layer of cloud like a moth-eaten blanket, the sun slanting through at intervals and picking out patches of the city.
They ate beef off the bone and drank claret.
The professor had come armed with a bundle of books and articles for Adam's mental edification.
"Read these right through," he said, handing over copies of Ovid's Metamorphoses and Fasti. "The rest are for reference purposes. You'll find the family has an impressive library, which I'm sure you'll be given access to." The professor was reluctant to say any more about the garden—"You don't want me coloring your judgment"—although he was happy to share some other background with Adam.
Signora Docci lived alone at Villa Docci, her husband having died some years before. Her eldest son, Emilio, was also dead, killed toward the end of the war by the Germans who had occupied the villa. There was another son, Maurizio, soon to take over the estate, as well as a dissolute daughter, Caterina, who now lived in Rome.
The rest of lunch was spent talking about the professor's imminent trip to France. He was off to view the Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux—his third visit since their chance discovery by a group of local boys back in 1940. He recalled his frustration at having to wait five years for the war to end before making his first pilgrimage. Thirteen years on, he felt it was now possible to trace the influence of that primitive imagery on the work of contemporary artists. In fact, it was to be the subject of an article, and possibly even a book.
"Europe's greatest living painters drawing inspiration from its oldest known painters, seventeen thousand years on. If that isn't art history, I don't know what is."
"No."
"You don't have to humor me, you know."
"Of course I do," said Adam. "You're buying lunch."
Later, when they parted company out on the street, the professor said, "Francesca . . . Signora Docci.. . she's old now, and frail by all accounts. But don't underestimate her."
"What do you mean?"
Professor Leonard hesitated, glancing off down the street. "I'm not sure I rightly know, but it's sound advice."
As Adam sat slumped and slightly inebriated in the deserted car on the train journey back to Purley, he was left with the uneasy sensation that the professor's parting warning had been the true purpose of their meeting.
A week later, Adam was gone. He changed trains in Paris, aware that this was as far south as he had ever traveled in his life. On Professor Leonard's advice, he slipped some francs to the guard and was allotted a spare sleeping compartment to himself.
He didn't sleep. He tossed in the darkness, France rattling by beneath him, and he thought (far more than he would have liked) of Gloria and of the look on her face when she had said to him, "I don't know why. I think maybe it's because you're a touch boring."
He might have been less stung if they hadn't just made love. Twice.
"Boring?"
"No, not boring, that's unfair. Bland."
"Bland?"
"No."
"What, then?"