A tram rattled past and Evelyn turned to watch it. Children were squealing and hanging off the platform at the back.
You couldn’t have heard me, Miss Skinner, said Mr Lugg. Shall we travel to the Simi together?
Oh, let’s, said Evelyn and she handed a generous gratuity to the porter （Far too much, said Hugh Lugg） and strode towards a bored cabman. In unconfident but charming Italian, she said: We would like to go to the Pensione Simi, 2 Lungarno delle Grazie, if you please.
They wound down tight streets that echoed with the cries of men selling wares. Handcarts were laden with sacks, and baskets from windows were being lowered to hawkers. Wine, vegetables, fruit, live chickens – look, a chicken! – But Mrs Lugg didn’t want to look at a squawking chicken, she was huddled over her handkerchief and having quite a turn because of the smell. It was of both human civilisation and lack of it. So different to Kent, thought Evelyn.
The horse turned left, and suddenly the Arno and bridges came into sight. Oh my, said Evelyn as they clattered alongside the green water. A young man on a bicycle rode next to them, weaving in and out, laughing.
Make him go away, said Mrs Lugg.
Shoo shoo, niente, niente, said Mr Lugg, having consigned to memory Baedeker’s advice on how to deal with importunate beggars.
Evelyn said, He’s not a beggar, Mr Lugg.
What is he then, Miss Skinner?
Evelyn turned back towards the cyclist and smiled. He’s alive.
When the cab eventually pulled up outside the Simi, the horse released a torrent of hot fumy scat, which sent Mr and Mrs Lugg running towards the entrance of the building. Trunks were carried in next and Evelyn could hear the impatient ring of the desk bell. She followed swiftly behind the luggage, eager to acquaint herself with what would be her home for the next twenty-eight days.
Evelyn veered off to the drawing room where her sight was arrested by Empire mahogany furniture and an ugly chandelier. Queen Victoria was still on the wall, sandwiched between two stained Hogarthian prints. A couple of silent elderly women and a white-whiskered clergyman looked up from the Chesterfield without acknowledging her. It was a room of melancholy, she thought. More like a funeral parlour than an authentic Italian boarding house full of conversazione that she had been expecting. The piano in the corner had acquired a thick layer of dust as insulation.
Evelyn got to the reception desk just as the landlady bustled down the stairs.
Scusi, scusi, she said. Me ’Enery’s ’ed got stuck in the back ov a chair.
（And a cockney landlady at that!）
Welcome, dearie, she said.
Evelyn heard ‘dreary’， and said, Yes, it is a bit.
Her bedroom was a lot more agreeable – a lot more Italian, come to think of it – than the rooms downstairs and after running her hand across the exquisite bedcover, she went to the window and threw open the shutters. The late-afternoon light journeyed across the red tiled floor and rested warmly on her feet. Below, trams rattled along the lungarno and the river slapped against the stone walls. The cypress trees appeared black against the golden haze of the sky. I have a view, she sighed.
When Evelyn entered the drawing room later that evening, she was not surprised to find the drink du soir was sherry, and not a quina-vermouth or the bright red bitters associated with aperitivo time.
The silent women whom she had noticed when she had first arrived were sitting side by side on the same sofa, tête-à-tête with the same clergyman. On closer inspection, Evelyn realised that the two women were twins, quite elderly, with an outlook of similar bewilderment.
They are the Brown sisters, said a stout middle-aged woman suddenly at her side. Their wardrobe seldom veers away from their name, so you can’t forget them. The one on the left is Bernadette. The other is Blythe. We may presume someone in their family had a sense of humour. The clergyman is Reverend Hyndesight. Take from that what you will. He is a protestant. The man in heated discussion with the Russian is Mr Collins. He will fight any cause. He’s a socialist. And I am Miss Constance Everly. I noticed you when you first walked in and I said to myself, this young woman may yet be our saviour. As you can see – and she turned to the room – not the liveliest bunch ever encountered at the Simi. Death hovers above the chintz, Miss— Oh. Skinner. Evelyn Skinner.
They shook hands.
You are welcome, Miss Skinner. So lovely to have you on board.
And with that, the first rule of pensione life – that of scrutinising a guest for a day or two before conversing – was swiftly abandoned.
Suddenly, the creeping waft of overcooked brassicas corralled everyone to dinner. Massacre of the Innocents, intoned Miss Everly, as she raised her arm aloft and directed the troops towards the battlefield next door.