The Girl with the Painted Face Read online

  Sebastiano sees colour rise in her cheeks and feels the familiar anger swell in his chest. ‘Have you just come from his bed?’ he says in a voice like a gob of spit. ‘I hate the thought of you doing that.’

  Maddalena’s eyes widen and she takes a further step away from him. ‘Caro, he is my husband, after all.’

  Da Correggio hears a catch in her voice.

  ‘It was a chair, not the bed, anyway. You know he can’t… can’t… get it up any more, but he does seem to like…’ Running the tip of her tongue over her lips, she hesitates. ‘Well, apart from making me feel slightly sick, a quick pompino doesn’t take too much effort. And if it pleases him, and gives us a few hours to spend together, then can you not allow me to…?’

  The vulgarity is shocking in her mouth, but even the thought of her performing that whore’s act makes him greedy for her. He looks at where her breasts are pushing up against the top edge of her bodice, imagining with an unpleasant twist of his guts Paolo di Maccio’s bony old hands fingering them, and says coldly, ‘I don’t like to feel I’m trespassing on damp ground that still bears the proprietor’s footprints.’

  ‘I only do it for you – you know that. To give us time. God, having that limp and flaccid old slug twitching away in my mouth makes me feel quite ill! I wouldn’t do it by choice, would I? Do you want me to wash first? I will if you want.’

  ‘Don’t bother – don’t waste the time we have. Come with me. We’ll go straight to bed.’

  ‘Has it been delivered?’ Her voice is trembling.

  ‘Yes. You can have some as soon as we’ve finished. Not before – I don’t want you falling asleep.’

  Sebastiano da Correggio only just hears Maddalena’s soft sigh of relief. He takes her wrist – small as a child’s within his grasp – and leads her back up past the sala, straight up to the front bedchamber. It’s dark: no fire or candle lights the room; but the shutters are unfastened, and there is just enough light to see.

  Sebastiano begins to unfasten Maddalena’s laces, all but pulling her off balance in his haste. He jerks the sleeves from her shoulders, pushing the dress down so that it puddles around her knees in great creased swags. She steps out of the skirts and Sebastiano crouches to grasp the hem of her shift. She puts her arms up as he tugs the chemise over her head. She wears no other undergarments. The grey light from the window picks out the curves of her body, highlighting the rounded outlines of shoulders and breasts, the swell of her buttocks; she looks, Sebastiano thinks, like a voluptuous ghost. His fingers go to the laces of his doublet, but then he stops.

  He likes it when he is dressed and Maddalena is not.

  ‘Go and stand in the light,’ he says, and, without a word, Maddalena crosses to the far side of the room, where the light lies in a distorted, pewter-coloured square on the wooden boards. She stands in the centre of the square, holds her arms high above her head and turns slowly as he watches.

  Maddalena knows Sebastiano likes to watch her caress her own body. Head back, mouth slightly open, she moves her hands over and around her shoulders, arms and breasts, then, as her fingers stroke across the skin of her belly, she feels again that small domed swelling beneath the skin – hardly more than a vague denseness of flesh – which has risen and rounded there over the past week or two. Turning away from Sebastiano’s fixed gaze, she arches her back and slides her hands over her buttocks.

  She must at all costs keep him from noticing the inevitable, for as long as possible. A sick feeling of dread rises in her throat as she imagines how he will react when he finally discovers the truth – and she pictures her impotent husband hearing the same news. There is no doubt, after all, that it is Sebastiano’s child. Facing him once more, she sees that he has seated himself on the carved chest at the end of the bed.

  ‘Here!’ he says. ‘Come here. Since you began the evening with a cock in your mouth, you little whore, why don’t we call that a rehearsal? And now you can perform. Show me what you’ve learned.’

  She moves away from the square of light to stand in front of him, and he takes her hands. Tugging downwards, he pulls her into a crouch in front of him, between his splayed knees. She reaches for the fastening of his breeches; her mind is on the little bottle on the table and she is grateful for the darkness.

  Several hours later, Angelo da Bagnacavallo stands in the street looking up at the dark bulk of da Correggio’s house. A wave of nauseous anger swirls down through him. Straightening the neck of his doublet, he runs a hooked forefinger around inside the collar, pulling it loose; the single part-empty bottle he has been allowed – allowed! – to take with him shifts against his thigh inside the pocket of his breeches, and he puts a hand into the pocket to steady it. His fingers toy with the protruding edges of the cork.

  Oh, so you’ve decided to grace us with your presence after – what – seven hours, have you? Da Correggio’s sneering voice is as clear in his head as it was in the sala a moment ago. I’ve been thinking, he says. I’ve been thinking – seeing that you tell me you are unable to pay for them just now, that perhaps I should hold back a couple of the bottles. We can discuss what to do with them at Franceschina in a few weeks. Hopefully, you’ll have the scudi by then.

  Angelo hawks and spits; the gob of spittle lands in the dust and is trodden under his next step as he turns to leave the house. ‘You bastard, Correggio,’ he mutters. ‘You bloody bastard. Who the hell do you think you are? One bottle! And it’s not even full! I’d have paid – you know I’d have paid. I’ve never let you down before.’

  He almost believes his own untruth.

  The dawn is still more than an hour off and the streets of Bologna are softly dark. Not having thought to bring a lantern, Angelo’s progress towards the piazza where they performed yesterday – where he left the troupe – is tentative, running a hand along the front walls of houses, eyes stretched wide, placing his feet carefully. As so often happens after a dose, his thoughts are jagged, fractured, fragmented; they whirl unchecked around his head like scraps of rubbish in a sudden breeze: da Correggio’s sneering face; a glimpse of a woman on the stairs as he left just now; the pretty girl in the ragged dress after the show; the proprietorial expression on Beppe’s face as he looked at her. God – that girl! He all but promised her that he would be joining her for the meal this evening. Judging by the colour in her cheeks as she looked at him, he has a chance with her – if bloody Beppe doesn’t get in there first. As he contemplates this possibility, he finds that he is unsure whether or not the resultant swirl of anger he feels is at the thought of losing the girl, or of Beppe gaining her.

  Heading back towards the Piazza di Porta Ravegnana, he walks for half an hour or more, and by the time he reaches the piazza, there is a glimmer of silver between the buildings; although it is still no more than half light, Angelo can see quite clearly that the stage has gone – the piazza is empty. The horses and wagons are nowhere to be seen.

  The troupe has left.

  A scrawny dog lopes out from between two pilasters and sniffs the air; after pissing up against a pillar it disappears.

  Other than this, the square is quite deserted.

  Angelo stands in the middle of the piazza, staring stupidly around him. Where the hell are they? The whirling-rubbish thoughts spiral more tightly and a general sense of ill usage begins to overwhelm him – da Correggio’s condescending presumption; the Coraggiosi’s continual dismissal of his abilities; his father’s refusal to give him any more money – the injustice of his situation is intolerable.

  Then he remembers.

  Just before he left after the show – an invitation. An invitation from some well-to-do audience member. The troupe was to spend the night… God, where the hell was it to be? He scours his mind, trying to recall what Agostino told him after the show; he had been so focused on getting to Sebastiano’s in time, he had barely taken it in. Sinking to sit on a stone step, he puts his face in his hands and tries to remember.

  Bloody Sebastiano, why had he let him t
ake a dose straight away? He, Angelo, would have been back with the troupe… with that girl… with a dose ready to hand, if Sebastiano had refused him. If he’d told him to wait. Bloody man.

  The heels of his hands press against his eyeballs, and bright giddying patterns erupt. Into the swirling colour comes a name. He remembers. The name of a road – the name of the house where the troupe will even now be sleeping. Angelo looks up, blinking away the black blotches which quickly replace the vivid colours. It is nearly dawn: too late (too early?) to knock on the door of a private house. No, he’ll go to a tavern, and join the troupe in a couple of hours.

  Angelo strides away across the piazza. As he reaches the colonnade on the north side of the square, however, the toe of his boot catches on a cobble and he sprawls headlong, banging his hip and knee on the pedestal of a pillar as he skews sideways and falls.

  A crack of glass.

  Swearing profusely, Angelo gets to his feet and, as he straightens up, he treads on something brittle, which snaps beneath the sole of his boot. He scuffs it away. Brushing the dust from his doublet and breeches, though, he is dimly aware that something feels infinitesimally different about him. He runs his hands down the sides of his breeches: his pockets are empty.

  A cold space opens up behind his face. ‘Oh God, please, no…’ he mutters and, squinting in the poor light, he crouches down to examine whatever it was he had kicked from under his boot. The last of the syrupy brown liquid is soaking away into the ground and only shards remain of the bottle – though the cork is still intact in the broken-off neck. Gasping out his helplessness, and fighting a frantic desire to dip his fingers into the rapidly diminishing puddle and suck them, Angelo gazes in dismay as twenty scudi’s worth of relief disappears into the dust of the piazza.

  10

  Sofia stares wide-eyed as Beppe clasps Lidia’s hands in both his own. Pulling her in towards him, he makes as though to kiss her; she resists for a token second, but then, sighing loudly, tilting her face up towards his and closing her eyes, she puckers her lips into a pink-painted rosebud. Beppe’s kiss is noisy, theatrical, and planted in mid-air an inch from Lidia’s mouth.

  For a brief second they stand thus, hands clasped, eyes tightly shut, lips almost touching, while Sofia, who is sitting on the bottom step of the smallest wagon, half-hidden beneath a ballooning pile of crimson silk, swallows uncomfortably, hardly able to breathe. She cannot take her eyes from Beppe’s face. Her insides flip over. Her mouth has opened slightly and she has frozen with needle in hand.

  ‘Putting you off your work, are they, those two lovebirds?’

  Angelo has appeared from the other side of the wagon. Leaning against the wooden boarding, he picks up a handful of the crimson silk. ‘I see you’ve made a start on this rag of Cosima’s,’ he says, fiddling the fabric between finger and thumb. ‘That hand of yours better at last?’

  Startled, Sofia pricks herself with the needle and smothers a gasp. Squeezing the tip of her finger, she stares as a bright bead of blood swells, round and perfect as a crimson jewel. Lifting her finger to her mouth and sucking it, she tastes warm iron. Face flaming, she nods. ‘I’ve been working on this for a couple of days.’

  ‘Let’s have a look.’ Angelo reaches down and takes Sofia’s hand. She drops the needle, which falls to the ground. Angelo seems not to notice this, but makes as though to examine the damaged finger, which is still darkly bruised. He strokes her palm with his thumb, but Sofia pulls her hand away.

  ‘The swelling has gone down now, and it hardly hurts. It’s still a little stiff, but at least I can sew again.’

  ‘And you’re making a good job of it too, it seems.’

  Sofia starts and looks around as she hears Lidia squeal and Beppe laugh. Angelo turns too. Beppe is shaking his head, grinning, while Lidia has her hands on her hips, glaring in open-mouthed mock-outrage at Vico, whose face is a studied picture of wide-eyed innocence.

  ‘Piss off, Vico, you lecherous toad!’

  ‘Ooh, such delicate language, cara…’

  ‘Shut up! Beppe and I have to get this right before Friday, and I can do without you creeping up and grabbing handfuls of my bloody backside every five minutes.’

  ‘But it is such a delectable backside…’

  Angelo snorts softly and turns back to Sofia. ‘Vico is undemanding. I’m not sure a woman of Lidia’s age can ever be said to have a… delectable backside, are you?’

  Sofia does not reply.

  ‘Just give us a few moments more, will you, Vico, then her backside is all yours.’ Beppe pats his friend’s cheek with the flat of his hand; then he and Lidia resume their positions.

  Angelo runs the tip of his tongue along his upper lip. Sofia finds herself watching him, despite herself intrigued by the perfection of his symmetrical features; then, catching his eye, irritated with herself, she looks away quickly, leaning down to search for the dropped needle. Fiddling in the dust at her feet, she frowns in concentration as she scours the ground.

  A glitter of silver – the metal catches the light. She picks it up.

  ‘Yes,’ Angelo is saying. ‘She must be – what? – well into her thirties by now.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Lidia. More a matron than a maid now, I think anyone would agree, and Beppe, her would-be on-stage lover, not more than… ooh, he can’t be more than twenty-two or -three, can he?’

  Sofia says nothing. Angelo’s comments embarrass her. She has no wish to be sharing these confidences with him but does not know how best to extricate herself. She does not want Beppe to see her in conversation with Angelo, either. Feeling her face burn, she nips the tip of her tongue between her teeth, trying to banish the blush she knows is glowing in her cheeks. Something about Angelo’s sculptural good looks and air of experience discomfits her and drags fierce colour into her face whenever he talks to her – though this is much against her will, for it has been many days since she has realized that Angelo da Bagnacavallo is not a kind man.

  ‘I think Lidia makes a lovely Colombina,’ she says now, gathering up the red silk skirts. ‘If you will excuse me, I must put this away. I’ll finish it tomorrow.’ And, with a covert glance at Beppe, who is now hopping from foot to foot, bent-kneed and gesticulating wildly at a now furious-looking Lidia, she turns on her heel and scrambles up the wagon steps, pushing her way through into the dimly lit interior. Holding the dress up by the shoulders and shaking out the skirts, she lays it out across the little truckle bed at the far end of the wagon and neatly in-and-outs the needle near the neck of the bodice. She wraps her long length of leftover thread around and around two fingers, then tucks it behind the needle.

  It feels good to be earning her keep at last, and her fears of being seen as an unproductive burden – even of being asked to leave – are beginning to recede. These unspoken anxieties haunted her for days as she waited for the hurt finger to mend; she tried not to admit to herself that alongside the genuine fear of being once again on the streets, friendless and grubbing for work, her main worry has been the thought of losing Beppe.

  Losing him?

  But surely, she says to herself now, you can only lose something which belongs to you. And Sofia can no more imagine Beppe ‘belonging’ to anyone than she can contemplate picking up a bead of quicksilver in her fingers. The stern little voice in which Sofia argues with herself has been telling her in no uncertain terms, ever since the evening of the scelta ceremony, that she is behaving like a child. Yes, it’s true that Beppe has held her hand and invited her to sit close to him on numerous occasions – he has even put his arms around her a number of times – and she is sure that she has seen him watching her covertly when he thinks she is unaware. At those moments, her heart lifts and she convinces herself that he might indeed be interested in her – but then she sees him with Lidia and Cosima and the girls who work at the market stalls and the taverns; he smiles and laughs with them too, bending in close to them, touching their sleeves and holding their hands – and Sofia knows he
means nothing by it. Nothing at all. He is not trying to seduce – Sofia firmly believes seduction is not in his nature – it’s simply as though Beppe needs to touch whoever he’s with, to reassure himself that they are really there. As if he wants to prove to himself that whoever it is is not just a figment of his imagination.

  She is beginning to wish that she were a figment of Beppe’s imagination. That way she would belong especially to him.

  Sitting down on the truckle bed next to the dress, Sofia thinks through the past days. Two hectic weeks have passed since the day of the scelta. Niccolò Zanetti, who travelled with the Coraggiosi as far as Ferrara, has finally headed off, after many fond farewells and promises of meeting again soon, making for the mountains and his much-missed daughter. The troupe has been working hard – they have performed eleven times in the towns and villages of Emilia-Romagna – and not once have they faced a hostile crowd, which is, as Cosima has several times pointed out, something of a departure from the usual. In jubilant mood, Agostino declared earlier this morning that, seeing as the money-bags are now bulging, as soon as the next few secured performances have been successfully completed, a rest may be taken. The Coraggiosi will spend two nights in a comfortable tavern; somewhere, he says, with nothing to do other than eat, drink and sleep. Giovanni Battista has suggested that they go to an inn he knows in the tiny hill-hugging town of Montalbano, a couple of miles north, as the ale there, he seems to remember, is well worth the journey.