Two Women in Rome Read online

  Also by Elizabeth Buchan

  Daughters of the Storm

  Light of the Moon

  Consider the Lily

  Against Her Nature

  Beatrix Potter: The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit

  Perfect Love

  Secrets of the Heart

  Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

  The Good Wife

  That Certain Age

  The Second Wife

  Separate Beds

  Daughters

  I Can’t Begin to Tell You

  The New Mrs Clifton

  The Museum of Broken Promises

  First published in Great Britain in 2021 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Elizabeth Buchan, 2021

  The moral right of Elizabeth Buchan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Hardback ISBN: 978 1 78649 532 7

  Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 533 4

  Australia and New Zealand Trade Paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 443 7

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 534 1

  Design and typesetting www.benstudios.co.uk

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

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  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  For Alexia, Flora and Finian who have brought much joy

  ‘I thought I knew everything when I came to Rome,

  but I soon found I had everything to learn’

  Edmonia Lewis

  Italy

  March 1977

  HE WRAPPED HIS ARMS AROUND HER AND DREW HER EVEN closer. She knew then that he was telling her that he loved her but could not trust himself to say so.

  It did not matter.

  For that moment at least, tender and choked with emotion, they were at peace after the turbulence of longing and desire.

  They were staying in a hilltop town a short train journey away from the big city. The hotel was inexpensive, clean and discreet. The view from the window was of the plain below, where the spring narcissi massed, and a milky-looking mountain in the distance.

  Lying open on the floor beside the bed was her notebook, containing her botanical painting of the narcissi. On the opposite page was a transverse section of its seed head. She had taken her time to select the best specimen and dissected it with the sharpened knife she kept in her bag.

  To keep off dangerous subjects – what had taken place between them, the future – they discussed the two paintings they had seen earlier in the morning, sightseeing.

  The town’s ducal palazzo was run-down and shorn of artefacts. Pacing behind the guide, who was so desperate that he resorted to pointing out the guttering, they had escaped to its museum, which had nothing in it except for the ducal chair and an exquisite miniature painting of Bathsheba bathing.

  The label stated that it had been discovered during restoration work in the palazzo and later authenticated as an original from a book of hours commissioned by the then duchess in 1489 and painted by Pucelle fils, a celebrated master.

  Its subject was Bathsheba bathing in a pool with a fountain playing. It showed her with milky-white, unblemished skin and a slender waist above broadly curving hips and exposed pudendum – a glorious, jewel-like homage to lust. And yet, by placing her in the water, with King David gazing down on her from a distant palace, the painter was cleverly keeping her at one remove. Beware of sensuality was the message.

  She had studied it for a long time.

  Close by, in the church on the piazza, was another medieval painting, this time of the Annunciation. Here, the Virgin sat peacefully in the garden, wearing a cloak of the most intense blue. A rabbit and a mouse sheltered under her skirts. An archangel was winging down, bearing a lily.

  She had stood in front of it, and the colour of the Virgin’s cloak had shimmered, and grown deeper, burning into her vision: the deep, deep blue of peace and certainty.

  Now she stirred in his arms.

  ‘All right?’ His breath fell on her cheek.

  ‘The blue makes the heart sing.’ She was beginning to feel sleepy. ‘It’s remarkable.’

  ‘Made from powdered lapis lazuli. Probably.’

  ‘Is it?’ She looked up at his face. Since their time together was always short, she liked to take an inventory of every expression. ‘How did they convert it into paint?’

  ‘Water and gum Arabic. But it was only applied at the last minute.’ He, too, was drowsy. ‘It would be used for her cloak, and she would be wearing it at every stage of her life as a mother. Annunciation, birth, flight into Egypt, taking Christ to the temple …

  ‘The blue that was used for the Virgin’s cloak, what they called the azur d’outremer, was the most expensive,’ he continued. ‘A fortune. It was specified in the contract. So much, and no more, to be bought by the painter. It was also spelled out to the artist how he could use it.’ The words were muffled. ‘No artistic freedom in those days. The artist did what he was told.’

  While he had been a student at university, he had read up on the subject, claiming it was a relief from the intensity of his main study.

  ‘A fabulously expensive cloak to wear in the stable,’ she said. ‘Crazy.’

  ‘Also worn on the flight into Egypt.’ His voice darkened. ‘Watching him on the cross. Taking her dead son in her arms and draping it over him.’

  ‘Is her cloak ever red or green?’

  ‘Not at that period. Later, perhaps.’

  ‘I bet some of the forgers made that mistake.’

  Their hands entwined and they were silent until he said, ‘In those days, there was an entire language of colours. Each one had its place in a hierarchy. Everyone understood what they implied in a way that we don’t.’

  Later, he sat on the edge of the bed staring out of the window, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. A trace of moisture gleamed on his shoulder blades. She reached out and pressed her finger gently on his spine.

  ‘The early representations of Mary usually show her with a flat skin tone.’ He turned his head. ‘Unless they were taught by a master, the younger painters did not understand that nothing is flat and smooth. But, as they grew older, and if they were not too arthritic, they learned how to extend the colour range … vermillion, yellow ochre and lead white. Pucelle fils was one of those painters.’

  ‘How would you paint me?’ she asked softly.

  He lay down beside her and propped himself up on an elbow. ‘Grey skin undertones and … yes, blue shadows under the eyes, long brushstrokes to convey your silky skin. I would command the white lead to be ground and I would mix it with just a shade of black bismuth to capture the movement in your face.’ He ran a fingertip over her eyelids. ‘Then I could paint the light in your eyes and expose you: both wary and ecstatic in equal measure.’

  She pulled him down to her and kissed him lingeringly and deeply.

  Regrets? They would be hammering inside his skull. And, she suspected, the be
ginnings of hatred for her. Or what she stood for.

  The church bells sounded in the distance with a silvery shudder of sound. Vespers. She felt the ripple go through him. Guilt? Longing? She pressed her head against his chest. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Say what you always say. What you must.’

  He addressed the ceiling. ‘I am … wrong being with you.’

  Her heart thudded a little. ‘But you say you can’t be without me.’

  ‘No, I can’t, but I must try.’

  It came as no surprise, but it still hurt. ‘You’re in danger of sounding like a Desert Father. Women’s bodies are disgusting and sinful.’ She shut her eyes. ‘I’ll never understand why the views were so pervasive for so long. Or why chastity is considered heroic.’

  ‘Listen,’ he replied. ‘While I’m lying here with you, I can think only of you and your warmth. Of your beautiful body. I feel sick at the thought someone else might touch it. That you might turn to another and smile at him in the way you smile at me. It would drive me to madness.’

  She felt herself melting, dissolving with happiness.

  ‘When I’m here with you there’s no room for anything else. That’s the reason why.’

  What a waste of so many lives, she thought. The battle for chastity took up so much energy and the perceived enemy, which was lust and desire, refused to die. Anyway, surely it was possible to lust and to serve God?

  He put his arm across his eyes.

  ‘There are many ways of achieving peace and equality and a good life,’ she pointed out. ‘They may not include God, but they have everything else.’

  He rolled over and looked into her eyes. ‘You’re talking politics.’ His face was magnified above hers. ‘If you are, it suggests you don’t understand about faith.’

  ‘You’re mistaken. I do have a faith. Or rather beliefs.’ She was stung into revealing more than she normally would. ‘But they’re not the same as yours.’

  ‘For the love of God.’ The words were pulled from him.

  She moved away from him and swung her legs to the floor. ‘I don’t think God has anything to do with this.’ She walked over to the window. ‘With you and me.’

  There was a difficult silence and she cursed herself for spoiling their brief and precious time together.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  Still the silence.

  ‘Tell me about the books of hours,’ she tried again.

  She heard him get to his feet, pad over, and she turned to face him and buried her face in his chest.

  ‘They were powerful.’ His voice echoed in his chest against her ear. ‘They told you how to spend your day: when to pray, how to pray. There were calendars, and texts, and special pleas. Women gave them to their daughters when they were sent from home to marry. Legally, it was the only possession they had the freedom to give away.’

  She absorbed the information. ‘If I had been a mother, I’d put in private messages.’

  ‘What would you say?’

  His gaze disconcerted her. Did he know anything? Did he suspect that, although her life had become his, it was also not his? Her secrets could not be for him and would never be for him. ‘I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

  He touched her chin with a finger. ‘I think you do.’

  Her unease deepened. ‘Remember me. That’s what I would say.’

  Remember me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  LOTTIE ARCHER HAD KNOWN FOR SOME TIME THAT HER nature was divided – she put it down to the fact her mother had given her away at birth and her father was unknown from the word go.

  Which life is ever nourished in ideal circumstances? Not many; but Lottie’s had fallen short from the start without anyone to guide or guard her. There had been no flowing, and unconditional, tenderness to weep with her over bruised knees, or to apply sticking plaster to the terrors of growing up. No one to say with total conviction: It will be all right.

  The reasons for her abandonment might have been noble or ignoble but Lottie was never informed, either by the care homes she frequented or by the foster parents who took her in as a teenager and with whom she – sadly – had nothing in common.

  She grew to see that her abandonment was hers with which to cope, and hers alone, and she hugged its whys and wherefores to her inner self, no doubt hampering her emotional development in doing so.

  There had been dark times.

  The scissors.

  The uneaten meals.

  But the memory of the weapons that she had used against herself had been banished to a dark recess in her mind. Useful experience. Never to be repeated – but something that added an edge, a serration, to her character.

  Occasionally, during those years, a counsellor suggested that she unburden herself but, at those times, she was not sure of what she wished to achieve.

  It was sufficient for her to understand that one half of her loved order, procedures and clarity – and she was superb at those. The other, wilder half could, on occasion but not always, take risks and had been known to dance around (the permitted areas) of Stonehenge at midsummer and to climb Mount Kenya without a sensible sleeping bag.

  Three weeks ago, she had accepted another risk by marrying, and now she was lying beside Tom, her husband, in the apartment in Rome in a newly purchased double bed.

  To say she was astonished at herself was an understatement. Marriage had never been part of her plan and, even more astonishing, she had only known Tom for nine months.

  Tom arrived in Lottie’s life on a hot July day. Her close friend Helena, who was getting married for the second time, had insisted her attendants, of which Lottie was one, should wear pink. Neither the dress nor the colour suited her. But, because she loved Helena, she laced herself into it and resolved to avoid the photographs. Tom had spotted her skulking behind a pillar and introduced himself.

  Halfway through their conversation, he broke off. ‘I don’t think you like your dress. Your idea or the bride’s?’

  It was a neat insight and she burst out laughing. ‘Truthfully, I hate it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, though,’ he said. ‘You’re lovely.’

  She looked at him and her stomach did an extraordinary contraction. ‘So are you,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure that we know each other.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘It means there’s something there.’

  They went to bed that night, a glorious, slightly drunken, surprising encounter in an upmarket hotel with a marble bathroom and a stack of white towels.

  The pink dress was abandoned on the floor, never to be worn again.

  Partly, Tom snared Lottie with his gift for listening, which meant he paid as much attention to the unspoken words as the spoken ones. Partly, she loved his body, from which she took as much pleasure as she hoped she gave him. Not handsome, with a nose that was a shade too long, his charm came from his lean and rangy energy and it snared her.

  He was the only one of her lovers who had got her to talk about her childhood, and she found herself telling him about the care homes and the fostering.

  ‘I survived,’ she said.

  He stroked her hair back from her forehead. ‘Not funny, though,’ he said. ‘Not for a child.’

  ‘I yearned for the safeness of a mother – except my mother had been anything but safe. I think I wanted relief from being responsible for myself and I was angry that I had to be.’

  ‘Yearning can be cruel,’ said Tom. He paused. ‘Did you ever try to find your parents?’

  She felt the old anguish stir. ‘Tom, do you mind if we change the subject?’

  He seemed perfectly at ease with her retreat. ‘Fine,’ he said gently. ‘We all have no-go areas.’

  One way or another, Lottie’s love affairs were always conducted at long distance – Freudian, said Helena. Tom lived in Rome and so this affair looked set to conform to the same pattern, but he had other ideas and wooed her with tenderness … and stealth.

  There had been many phone calls between London an
d Rome and those slightly concerning sessions on FaceTime that made her look haggard – ‘Rome has so many things going for it, I promise’ – and weekend meetings facilitated by budget airlines.

  And what of Tom’s previous lover, who had moved out three years previously?

  ‘Clare found someone else,’ said Tom. ‘And she chose to leave. It was bad at the time. I missed her very much. Then one day I didn’t.’ His gaze raked past Lottie’s shoulder into a past – and a no-go area? – about which she knew little. ‘It had run its course.’ He turned his attention back to Lottie. ‘I learned that, at forty, you have to re-educate yourself for the rest of life. Clare’s leaving was my lesson that the ambitions and ideals that were good for the first half of my life needed adjustment. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that it was quite normal.’

  That struck Lottie as profoundly true.

  He took her hands in his. ‘We both have baggage from the past. Let’s just cut off previous labels.’

  ‘Done,’ she said.

  Just before Christmas, Tom phoned Lottie in London. ‘The post of chief archivist has come up at the Archivio Espatriati. Why don’t you apply and come and live in Rome?’

  Why would she? Her work as Principle Records Specialist at Kew would lead to promotion. She was established and enjoyed her good reputation.

  Why would she? The risk-taker asserting herself? Had her feelings for Tom so deepened that a sea change had taken place?

  ‘The Italians are wonderful,’ said Tom. ‘They are so right about many things and you speak good Italian.’ He added: ‘I love you, Lottie.’

  That was the first time Tom had said it and, to her surprise, she experienced pure joy. Normally reticent, she found herself responding – and the words were almost new to Lottie. ‘I love you, too.’

  She got the post and, before she took it up, Tom launched the next phase of his campaign.

  He took her skiing in Austria. Nothing too expensive, but not cheap either. St Anton was less glitzy than many, but it had an old-world charm and the trails and lift networks linked delightful Alpine villages.