Not me, for one, said the kid. Pinch me, I’m dreaming.
See? mouthed Cress. She’s OK.
Golden light edged around the dark grey clouds and Cress used the phrase ‘unconscionable beauty’ in describing the garden. Cress was becoming poetry. On the way down, he asked for a moment by himself in the limonaia, just him surrounded by citrons and sentiment. A nice sentence, one of Cressy’s specials. Said he’d meet them later back in the square.
He sat down on a wooden chair and Claude drank from a flowerpot nearby. From there, Cressy’s roots passed deep through the labyrinthine dark, down to ancient quarry stone and the rhopography of long-gone lives. He felt the rise of those who had gone before. The poets Browning, Everly, Shelley. In time, Cress hoped to lose his fear of poetry, especially the stuff that didn’t rhyme. Cress was a facts man, and facts were stone. Poetry, though, was sand. Ever compared to stars in its granular infinity. Ever shifting.
Kid dragged Ulysses away to play hide-and-seek in the cypress avenue and she stayed hidden for half an hour. A rumbling atavistic fear possessed him and he realised this fear now sat at the core of his life and would remain there evermore. He looked so hard and he couldn’t find her. Right in front of him she was, but he couldn’t see her. It was his worst nightmare and eventually it was her giggling that woke him from it. She’d climbed into a bush like a bird and stayed so quiet. So pleased with herself she was, he overly congratulated her just to stifle a sob.
They walked hand in sweaty hand to the isolotto and stood in front of the sculpture of Perseus on horseback, galloping up through the water.
I’d like to do that, she said.
Me too, he said.
And he thought they’d been so unprepared for summer and vowed it would be the last time they were. I’ll find us a swimming pool, he said. Promise? she said. Promise, he said and they sat in the shade and watched the ducks and shared a piece of chewing gum he found in his pocket.
I reckon your mum would like it here, he said.
I’m not sure she would, she said.
（Hard as nails, he thought.）
Do I look like her? she said.
Not so much. When you smile, you do.
Who do I look like then?
Eddie, I suppose.
Do you know him?
No.
I don’t either, she said.
You sure you’re OK?
Yep, said the kid. This is a good day.
I want them all to be good days, said Ulysses.
That’s unrealistic. You don’t have to make up for Peg.
He laughed. Is that what I do?
Relax into the job, I’d suggest.
Anything else?
Maybe get a girlfriend.
Really?
Someone like Signora Giulia. Or Signora Giulia herself.
She’s with Michele.
He’s got high blood pressure and angina. He could die any moment.
How d’you know all this?
Kid tapped her nose.
Anything else?
You’re doing all right, she said.
Thanks.
And I don’t want to be anywhere else.
Good to know, he said.
They left when the gates began to close. People outside cafés smelt soapy and evening fresh. In the square, they stopped to listen to a man play guitar on the steps of the church. I’m going to do that one day, said the kid. I know, said Ulysses. You want to grow up quick.
Is that a bad thing?
Only for me.
There’s Cressy! said the kid, pointing to the terrace. Cress had been watching through the telescope for their return. Kid waved.
Cress knows a lot, doesn’t he, Ulysses?
Cress knows everything.
Cress never went to school.
I know. But imagine if he had.
Two days later, the postino cycled by Michele’s and flicked a postcard onto their table. It landed picture up, revealing a view of a fortress and a walled Tuscan village. Ulysses turned it over. It was from Massimo.
The main news was that Massimo had got a haircut, which had taken three inches off his height and had plunged him into a pit of self-consciousness. It had been necessary after his nephew had infected him with lice. He said his mother’s kidney stones had returned. But what can you expect? She doesn’t drink water. He said he missed his new friends and told Ulysses to call him immediately and left a number at the bottom.
Giulia placed another round of coffee and biscotti on the table. Kid said in Italian that the postcard was from Massimo and she showed her the picture. Ah, Giglio! said Giulia and she asked how Massimo’s mother was.
The kidney stones have returned, said the kid. But she doesn’t drink water so what can you expect? and kid shrugged disparagingly and sipped her coffee.