She’d gone to work immediately at the headquarters of the Superintendency, which had relocated to the Palazzo Pitti. The Superintendency had overseen the evacuation of the artworks in the first place, and she made notes of works found, works looted, works damaged. She began the repatriation of statues and paintings to their sacred ground. Occasionally, she collaborated with the art historian Berenson and his cabal, but mostly, she kept to herself. By then, something had happened to her, to her soul. She had been eroded by war. An all-consuming weariness she could find no way back from. Nights were spent quietly drinking in the Hotel Excelsior, watched over by Enrico, who knew when to bring her another drink long before she knew she needed one herself.
Dotty lit them both a cigarette and said, That soldier you met.
Ulysses?
Yes. What was it about him?
Evelyn thought for a moment.
I don’t know. I’ve often asked myself that. His kindness? The scar on his lip? His eyebrows, his smile?
You sound a little in love, my darling.
Hold that thought, said Evelyn and she raised her glass and drank. She said, Two years after Gabriela died, I was in Rome looking after Aunt Maria. When Maria died, it was as if Gaby had died all over again. Ulysses’ enthusiasm for life was a panacea. His optimism, his surety that he wasn’t going to die. As if everything that mattered to him, he’d somehow protected from war. How was that possible? He was invincible, Dotty. Marvellously so. I wasn’t. I had escaped Margaret and was waiting on the roadside for what? Death, I think. A way out, no matter how permanent. And then along came life. That priceless, life-affirming moment with a Renaissance masterpiece would have been nothing without him and the good captain. It was about the complete moment. Was I in love with him? Maybe a little. When the bombs fell overhead, and he held my hands and shouted against the tumult, Not today, Evelyn! It’s not going to be us today. His faith was compelling, Dotty. I was young again. I felt young again. I will be forever grateful.
You could look for him, said Dotty.
Why on earth would he remember an old woman like me?
Because you’re unforgettable, Evelyn Skinner.
The following day brought departure. Dotty sketched across the morning and was thoroughly worn out by twelve, so came back to the pensione for a nap. Evelyn left Dotty asleep in the room with a note on the dressing table weighted down by an apple. Evelyn had packed and wanted one last look at the city before the train journey down towards the sprawl of Rome and its raucous heart.
She walked out into the glinting light and slid her sunglasses onto her face. She wasn’t quick to her destination, sidetracked, as always, by trails of wisteria cascading over the walls of private villas or the shy splendour of a magnolia tree on the verge of blossoming. Art and life intertwined. The predominance of blue-mauve flowers in and around the city astonished her, a compelling stream from February to May. Violets, wisteria, iris … not forgetting the summer cornflower, which had often been a noble bed for her and a her, in some secluded meadow, in some secluded decade. The blue against a burnt umber or ochre wall, the blue against lush grass, against a white linen shirt unbuttoned and splayed, a blue of such staggering intensity, the memory too easy to find in the opaque past. Flesh and love always next to blue.
Such a precocious display of spring.
Evelyn knew where she was going. Had always known where she would end up the moment the trip had been planned – the two soldiers never far from her thoughts. She wondered at times if they were alive or dead, and always settled them firmly in life. The other was unthinkable.
In the cool dark of the church, frankincense pricked her nose, and her skin reacted to the fall in temperature. On her right, the Capponi chapel and the painting that undid the years. The faces of the two men by her side. Darnley saying, Ulysses Temper, Miss Evelyn Skinner, I’d like you to meet Pontormo’s Deposition from— Do you want to go in?
Evelyn turned, surprised by the question delivered to her in English. Behind her stood a girl wearing a railwayman’s cap. Nine? Ten, maybe? Dark hair, high fringe and a sweet, intense face full of questioning. Her sunglasses were hooked in the neck of her T-shirt and she was holding a scroll of tinted paper that looked ever so familiar to Evelyn.
How did you know I was English? said Evelyn.
Because you didn’t cross yourself when you came in, said the girl.
Oh, well spotted!
So what do you say? I have a key.
How fortuitous, said Evelyn. And do you also have a name?
Sometimes kid, sometimes Alys. You?
Always Evelyn.
Alys looked about before unlocking the gate. Come on then, she said. Stick close, and Evelyn did as she was told. She went towards the painting and closed her eyes.