Kid was sticking a postcard in her sketchbook. Places she’d been, her mum’s idea. She turned the pages and a drawing caught Ulysses’ eye and he said, That’s Ginny, right?
Kid nodded.
In the picture, Ginny was holding hands with a boy wearing glasses. Same smiles. Same height. Boy had shaded skin.
And that’s you? said Ulysses, pointing to the smaller figure.
Yep, and that’s Ginny’s— Kid suddenly stopped.
I know she has a boyfriend, said Ulysses. Cress does too.
What’s that? said Cress, walking back into the conversation.
Ginny’s boyfriend, said Ulysses.
Oh yeah. Davy, said Cress.
Kid rolled her eyes. Devy, she said.
Devy? said Cress and Ulysses in unison.
Devyan. He’s the same as Ginny. He’s big but a kid. He lives somewhere else. Mrs Kaur’s his aunty.
Mrs Kaur is? said Ulysses. （And there the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.）
What’s the matter? said kid.
Could I have this picture? said Ulysses.
Why? said the kid.
I want to send it to Peg.
You think she’d like it?
I know she would. We’ll put it in an envelope with a postcard. Show her how far we’ve come.
They all wrote on the postcard. All wrote wish you were here. And Ulysses wrote a little extra note with a bit of context to go with the picture. In Switzerland Ulysses posted the envelope back to Peg and kid got her first pair of sunglasses as thanks. They were too big for her but what did she care? Cress said he’d secure them with string, and kid said, Better be nice string. And they strolled the promenade and watched steamers cross back and forth across the lake. And the air smelt sharp and expensive. Mountaintops cast down piercing light and tourists in fashionable attire stopped to take their photograph.
（Click.） Two men – one in shorts – a girl and a parrot. Now that’s a story to tell.
On the ninth day, they crossed from Emilia-Romagna into Tuscany. Olive trees carried white flowers, swallows and swifts took ownership of the sky. The grass smelt scorched and poppies were abundant. An occasional whiff of rosemary or lavender seeded by the roadside was a heady accompaniment. To Ulysses every smell was a ghost.
They drove south out of a dark haze of cypress trees, and Florence suddenly appeared in the Arno valley, resplendent under golden June light. Ulysses stopped the car and got out. He raised his hat and saluted the city as Darnley had done before. Claude took flight, and the blue of his feathers against the terracotta rooftops was an electrifying sight.
They’d travelled more than a thousand miles, had eaten twenty plates of spaghetti, nine stews, seventeen baguettes, a crop of apricots and a wheel of cheese. They had drunk forty coffees and eight bottles of wine and seven beers and two brandies. Nights in a bed: one. The first. They had seen wild boar and falcons and stars falling across the Alps. And they’d come to rely on one another because they were all they had.
The notary, or notaio, they had arranged to meet was situated in the north of the city, a couple of streets behind the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata, according to the map in Cressy’s Baedeker. Ulysses parked in the splendid square, underneath a large equestrian statue that Cressy said was of Ferdinand the First. Who’s Ferdinand the First? said kid and Cress said he was a man who’d had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. They left Claude to guard the car.
The narrow streets were teeming with bikes and pedestrians, and out of nowhere trolleys would clatter past, piled high with crates of wine or vegetables. The air was a heady mix of garlic and coffee and drains. There was so much to see! To smell! To hear! This way, shouted Cress, marching ahead with his map. And by five o’clock, they were outside the offices of il Signor Massimo Buontalenti. Kid pressed the bell on the brass plaque and the door to the modest eighteenth-century building opened immediately.
The office was on the second floor and Signor Buontalenti was waiting for them at the top of the stairs with a tray of coffee. They liked him immediately. He was a small stylish man, forty perhaps, with an affable smile and a wild sprouting of dark hair that gave the impression he’d just been electrocuted. His English, though, was terrific. Signor Temper! he said. At last! I’ve been expecting you! For two days now, I’ve been waiting.
We got held up in the Alps, signore – a sentence Ulysses never in a million years expected to say.
It was a straightforward transaction, took no time for the paperwork to be signed, and the deeds to the property transferred. Signor Massimo said he would go with Ulysses in the coming days to set up a bank account in which the remainder of the money could be deposited. He replaced the cap on his fountain pen – a distinct and expensive click – and returned it to his jacket pocket. He smiled and said, Allora?