Page 57 of Under a Dancing Star

“Come on,” he calls again, his voice a dare, a challenge I don’t want to refuse. Tentatively, I poke my head out of the window and see him scrambling along a broad ledge. There’s a short wall on the other side, but it doesn’t even come up to my knees and on the other side of that wall is a sheer drop down, down, down to the tiny garden below.

With a sigh, and against my better judgement, I haul myself out on top of the ledge, holding my breath and determinedly keeping my eyes away from the wall on my right as I mutter the Lord’s Prayer under my breath.

As I move towards Ben’s voice the roof on my left flattens out into a platform and this is where I find Ben is waiting.

“You made it!” he says, and he holds out his hand for me, helping me to pick my way over the tiles. “There! Now, tell me that wasn’t worth risking life and limb for.”

“Oh, goodness,” I breathe as I turn around.

“I knew you’d love it.” His voice is smug but for once I don’t care. Spread out in front of us like a divine offering is all of Florence, radiant under rose-tinted skies. The sun has almost done its work for the day, and it hangs just above the horizon burning fiercely like a hot ember. The golden light has diffused into something pink and mellow and the river Arno curls around a criss-cross pattern of streets that stretch out for miles; in front of us and a little way into the distance, the Duomo glows softly like a beacon, welcoming us to the city.

I sit beside Ben in silence for a while, too full of it all to speak. It feels so big; endlessly big, I think, as if the sky has grown.

“This is my secret place.” Ben’s voice breaks the quiet. “I used to sneak up here by myself all the time. Mum never knew where I was; it drove her mad. Lili knew, I think, but she never said anything.”

“Will you tell me about your mother?” I ask hesitantly. There’s a pause.

“She was very beautiful,” he says, and his voice is a little rusty, as if he’s trying out the words for the first time. “That’s the thing I remember most, actually – that she looked like an angel. Every day I feel like I remember a bit less, just pieces. How she smelled like lilacs in spring, how she could peel an apple in one long, curling strip.”

He looks off into the distance and rubs his nose. “She was always nervous: highly strung, I suppose you’d say – but who could blame her when she’d been kicked out of her home at sixteen for falling pregnant with me? She loved me.” His voice is so soft now I can hardly hear it. “I remember that, at least.” He clears his throat. “Somehow she got the fare together and we came to Europe. To France first and then to Italy. Someone gave her Lili’s name and she took us in, and then we lived here for a little over two years. It was home, or the closest to it I ever had.”

“Why did you leave?” I ask.

“Sir Hugh came one summer to paint; Filomena was with him,” he says. “He took one look at my mother and said he had to have her as a model. I think Filomena was relieved to get away from him… Looking back, that should have been warning enough.” His hands clench into tight fists, resting against his knees. “He seduced her. I was young still – I didn’t understand. All I knew was that the house felt suddenly less safe, that Mum was shouting and crying a lot, that she was drinking a lot. And then we left with him. Not long after that, he left us. A few months later she was dead,” he says dispassionately, his voice uncannily flat. “They put me in an orphanage. When I was fourteen I ran away, and I came straight back here. It was the first time I had seen Lili and Gert in two years. They hadn’t known where I was. Didn’t know about Mum. We all cried.” He manages a weak smile.

“They scraped together money for me to study art,” he says more briskly. “And then I went out into the world, travelling, painting, doing whatever odd jobs I could to pay my way. Four months ago I got a letter from Filomena inviting me to the villa to stay for the summer, and – well, here we are.” He holds out his hands in a gesture that envelops the scene around us. “That’s the whole sorry tale, or most of it anyway,” he says. “More than I usually like to share.” The smile he gives me is crooked and it cuts straight through me.

“Thank you for telling me,” I manage, though the words feel inadequate. I know what he has trusted me with: a part of himself that he keeps shut away. We sit quietly together, our fingers entwined, my head on his shoulder as the sun dips below the horizon and the first evening star dances overhead.

“You know, when I hid up here,” Ben says after a while, pulling a paper bag from his pocket. “I would bring my spoils with me so that I didn’t have to share them.” He hands me a delicate white sugar mouse. “But I don’t mind sharing them with you.”

Something warm and heavy settles in my chest. I lean against him and he wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me so close that I can hear the steady thump of his heart. “I like that you’re here,” he murmurs.

“I like it too,” I say, and when I reach up to kiss him, he tastes of sugar.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When I wake up the next morning I take a moment to stretch gleefully in my comfortable bed. The dopey smile on my face remains from the night before and I touch my fingers to my lips, remembering the kisses that Ben pressed to them.

Today, we have a very full schedule and I am eager to get started. I dress as quickly as possible and head downstairs. In the kitchen Lili is frying bacon and Ben leans against the counter, drinking a cup of coffee. When I enter the room, he looks up and a smile lights up his face for a second before he gets himself under control. Lili glances between us, a knowing look in her eyes.

“Good morning,” she says, flipping the bacon expertly. The smell of it sizzling in the pan, mixing with the scent of freshly ground coffee, is absolute heaven and I place my hand over my stomach as it starts to rumble.

A deep, growling snore arises from one of the sofas and I look over to find a large, scruffy man who I don’t know is sound asleep there. His legs are sprawled out, crossed at the ankles, and he still has his boots on.

“Don’t mind Boris,” Lili grunts. “He could sleep through anything. I do find most of these anarchists are actually quite lazy when they’re not rabble-rousing.”

“Is it usual for there to be an anarchist asleep on the sofa in the morning?” I ask.

“It is in this house,” Ben says.

“Boris is a harmless dear,” Lili says, cracking eggs into the pan with one hand and making the fat spit furiously. “He hasn’t recovered from the Arditi being broken up.” The Arditi were the anti-fascist organization – I know that much. “God knows, he is right to be frightened.”

“You think Mussolini is dangerous?” I ask. I take a sip of my coffee, leaning against the counter, my arm pressed lightly against Ben’s.

Lili starts flipping the bacon and eggs on to plates. “Look at those young kids out there,” she says. “Head to toe in black and that fanatical gleam in their eye, committing violence in the name of a charming dictator.” She shakes her head. “You tell me that’s heading anywhere good. Nationalism is like a sickness.” Lili hands me my plate. “Italy first, Mussolini says, let’s rebuild the Roman Empire, and they look at him and they see hope for the future, but everyone seems to forget that the Roman Empire was built out of blood and bones.”

And right now, my uncle might be drinking tea with him for all I know. I catch Ben’s eye and I know that he’s thinking the same.