The Invitation(72)

‘Yes, yes.’ She waves a hand, to show that it doesn’t signify either way.

Hal has remembered the incident with the bedrooms. Here, out of context, she seems no longer a lofty movie star and more like any young, arrogant nineteen-year-old. And he finds that the alcohol has loosened his tongue. ‘I do think that you are spoiled, though.’

‘Excuse me?’ But she has heard him. Something flashes across her expression – but it is not outrage, as might be expected, but something else, almost like excitement.

‘You think that I am spoiled.’ She speaks slowly, as though trying the words out for size. ‘You know … no one ever say that to me before.’

‘They probably didn’t dare to.’

She considers this. ‘No, perhaps that is true. I find it … I find it amusing.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Do you know how hard I have worked to get here?’

‘No doubt extremely hard.’

But she is not finished. ‘Yes, but that is only something you are saying, to placate me. I do not think you understand the whole thing. I am not like …’ she gestures, dismissively, ‘oh, your Signora Truss, married to a rich husband who will provide for her. I could have that – but I do not need it … or want it. When I might have needed it, there was no chance. Shall I tell you a story?’

He seems to have little choice in the matter. ‘All right.’

She takes a delicate sip of her spumante. And then she begins.

‘There were ten children in my family. My mother was a shell of a woman: old before her time. You have never seen such an ancient-looking thirty-year-old. But that is what it does to you, that sort of life: to have a new baby every year and to care for the others at the same time. My father left her, in the end, because she grew so tired and ugly. She was like … an old husk of wheat, when the goodness has been removed and left is the dry part – not good for nothing. Once upon a time she was beautiful, I think – maybe almost as beautiful as me … though her figure was never so good, and her nose was not such a good shape as mine.

‘The war nearly was the end of her. We were put in a camp – where my littlest brother died … though he was always sickly, so perhaps he would have died anyway.’ She says it almost matter-of-factly, as though she is talking of someone she hardly knew.

‘Why were you put there?’

‘We were Romani. I am Romani – it is where I get this face.’ She lifts her chin. ‘Romani women are the most beautiful. But they don’t like me to talk of my background. It is bad for my image.

‘Once the war ended it was better – we could make our living once more. And the tourists began to return. We lived near the city of Firenze, a beautiful place – but to us that didn’t mean very much. It was simply where we worked, in the shadow of the Duomo – you know it? – helping my mother.

‘When we grew old enough, you see, we could be useful to her. We stop being like little maggots, hanging off her, asking for feeding. We were a team: my three older brothers, my sister and I. When the piazza was full of people it was easy to move amongst them and take things from them: wallets, bags, cameras, watches. We did this so we could eat, not because we were greedy.’ She gives a quick, sly grin. ‘But I kept a pretty thing for myself sometimes: a watch, a bracelet.

‘My mother felt badly about letting us do it. She went to her grave feeling badly about it. But she have no choice.

‘Then I grow older, and I turn from being a little toothpick into someone who men stop and stare at. It was even easier, then. I, you know … open my blouse a little, bat my eyes like this … and while they were looking, looking,’ she gives a slack-jawed impression, ‘one of my brothers would sneak up behind him like a monkey and fish everything from his pockets.

‘One day, there was a man who kept looking. Normally, they would stop – they’d get embarrassed, or their wives would appear. But this one … he would not stop. I begin to have fear, because I thought that he could be a policeman – something like that – trying to catch me out. And then he start walking over to me. I panic, and turn to walk away. He follow me, up towards the mercato and when I went faster he come after me faster, too. By the time I got to the market I was nearly running, but my shoes were poor and in the end he caught me.

‘I could tell that he was an American, but he spoke Italian all right. “I’ve let your brother – your boyfriend, your pimp – whoever he is … take my wallet, my camera and God knows what else. The only thing he hasn’t taken is my goddamned watch – do you know why?” I said that I didn’t. “Because I don’t wear one.” Then he said that the least I could do, after his trouble, was to come and have a drink with him.’

She looks at Hal, frankly, and says – without any apparent embarrassment, ‘I decide that I will at least go with him, and see what sort of hotel it was. I wanted to know how much money a man like that might have. And I was curious … I had only ever seen hotels from the outside, you know. I wanted to see what one might be like inside.’

‘And what was it like?’

‘To me then it was a palace. Now, of course, I know that it was not of the best sort. But I had nothing to compare it with, you know?’

Hal nods.