She found the herb shop by San Simone that sold great quantities of dried sage and she bought a smallish bushel for Dotty, who liked to burn it in her studio to clear a path for the muse.
In Piazza Sant’Ambrogio, had she had more of an appetite she would have bought a mid-morning snack of lampredotto （the long queues vouched for the quality）， but she opted for a handful of Francesca apples instead, a tiny ancient variety with the most delicious perfume. Ate one straight away in the doorway of a workshop where she watched a man carving out the body of a violin. On leaving the area, she acquired a button for her cardigan from a beggarwoman. It didn’t match the other four, which were green, but it was striking.
Dotty was packing up her easel when Evelyn turned the corner.
Someone looks happy, she said.
What a morning, said Dotty. Seven studies, I tell you! And a couple of them were rather good. You?
Wandering, mostly. Happily surprised at the speed of reconstruction – the city looks gloriously intact. I bought some postcards. Choose which ones you’d like. Oh, and this … and Evelyn held out the bundle of sage. Dotty stopped what she was doing.
You darling! she said.
Evelyn looked about at the statues that occupied the niches and said, The tre corone fiorentine: the three Florentine crowns. Poets, of course. Dante here, Petrarch over there and Boccaccio. What’s odd about Dante?
Is this a trick question, Lynny?
Not at all.
Go on, tell me.
Spelt his name wrong.
That’s careless, said Dotty.
And the laurels about his head.
Was he never a poet laureate?
No. Boccaccio would have had him as one. Petrarch not.
Bastardo, said Dotty, handing the footstool to her friend.
They moved on through towards the Piazza della Signoria and Dotty said, You’ll never guess who I saw.
Who? said Evelyn.
Hartley Ramsden and Margot Eates.
Good Lord. Did they recognise you?
No, thank goodness. Oh, and Vi Trefusis was with them, she added.
Vi? With Hartley and Margot?
Dotty nodded.
Well I never. That’s a turn-up.
Talking some piffle wiffle about Cimabue’s Crucifix. Had I not been concentrating on the magnificent profile of the young woman from Norwich, I might have launched myself into the river.
Lunch was at a table overlooking the Loggia dei Lanzi and Palazzo Vecchio and consisted of a first-rate spaghetti ai carciofi, followed by tripe and potatoes and a carafe of red wine, then gelati – chocolate and crema – finished with the requisite espresso.
Evelyn turned her attention to the table; how the sun had cast its light and forced shadow across the debris of lunch. The jug of wine, the ashtray, the cigarette nubs with their faint ring of red lipstick. The vase of wisteria clusters, the sticky tidemark around the espresso cups, the image muted by the haze of dust falling from the makeshift trellis. A story of lunch, yes; but also a story of them.
They were the last to leave. Evelyn placed a few notes on the saucer and stood up. Andiamo, cara!
Oh let’s not go, said Dotty. It’ll be cocktail hour soon.
All the more reason, said Evelyn. Come on, Dotty. Up up up.
Dotty picked up her easel and knocked over a couple of flower arrangements as she left.
Keep walking, said Evelyn. I left a nice tip.
They hadn’t got far before a small child stopped in front of Evelyn and screamed, Pinocchio!
Good God, where?! said Evelyn, horrified.
He’s behind you, said Dotty in pantomime mode.
Evelyn turned. The shop had a display of the puppet boy in various guises.
Not a fan? said Dotty as they moved away.
Not as a child, that’s for certain, said Evelyn. I found him to be a maniac. And when he murdered the talking cricket, I was quite affected. For me it was the silencing of truth. Politically speaking, of course.
Of course, said Dotty.
And we know where that leads.
How old were you, darling?
Nine. Thereabouts.
You never were a child, were you, Lynny?
No, not really, Dotty. I was reading Vasari’s Lives of the Artists by then.
The river came into sight. Dotty said, Sweet little film, though, right?
Evelyn stopped.
You didn’t like it? said Dotty.
No, I didn’t, said Evelyn. Pinocchio is a poor provincial Tuscan boy and he was forced to cast off the clothes of his identity in order to wear the same white gloves as Mickey Mouse. White gloves, Dotty. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who notices these things.
That’s because you are, said Dotty and she took her friend’s arm and led her west towards their pensione.
Did you see how that woman back there looked at me? said Dotty.