“In Florence?” Pat asked.
“Oh yes. Because it’s in Florence I want to work. People keep building new houses around about. Suburbs. And they’re like the suburbs here. Between here and London it’s all suburbs. And you’ve seen Flora’s house. Somebody needs to be designing small houses for ordinary people to live in that are beautiful. I have the aesthetics, but I don’t have the technical qualifications. This is what I want to do.”
“You’ve found your passion at last,” Pat said, looking at Jinny’s face.
“I really do think I have,” Jinny said.
“Can you still get student loans or will you need some money?” Bee asked.
“I’m going to need some money. But I’ll pay you back.”
“Pay it forward,” Bee said. “Pay for your own children to follow their passion. Or for other friends you know who may need help.”
Pat was working on a guide to Trieste that summer. She missed Michael acutely whenever she worked with a different photographer and had to explain exactly what she wanted. She was also updating her Florentine guide and refused to change any of the photographs. “None of those things have changed,” she insisted to her editor.
“What about this gelateria?” he asked, pointing to a picture of Perche No! “Is that still there?”
“Exactly the same,” Pat assured him. “Just as wonderful as ever. The best gelato in the world, just as it says in the book.”
She took Ragnar and Sanchia around and was delighted to see them fall under the enchantment of Florence.
“They did this,” Ragnar said. “As well as the music. All this at the same time.”
“It’s possible,” Sanchia said, leaning back against Philip as she ate a gelato and stared at Orsanmichele, as Pat had done on her first visit to Florence. “I have to come back.”
“I’m so glad you see it this way,” Pat said. “Not everyone does. My daughter Flora’s husband just said how pretty it was. And some Italians just take it for granted.”
The next year, 1987, Bee retired. “I’ll keep on with my own research at home, but I’ll have done with all the going in to college and keeping office hours and marking,” she said. They had a ceremony for her retirement and gave her a specially designed electric wheelchair with tractor treads for use in the garden. “So much nicer than a gold watch,” she said.
Flora had another baby in March 1988, Cenk Michael. “It’s pronounced Jenk,” she said. “It was Mohammed’s father’s name.”
“It’s lovely,” Pat said, diplomatically. “So easy to say.”
Philip had composed a piece of music for baby Sammy, and he composed another for Cenk. He graduated and began a life of standing in for people in orchestras while working on his compositions. He and Sanchia and Ragnar continued to live together as best they could with their careers, and to come to Florence for at least part of every summer.
Jinny qualified as an architect. Her senior year project for a small but beautiful house won a European design award. She immediately became a junior partner in a firm in Florence. Her designs went into use almost at once. “Ginevra could make a lot of money if she went into designing for our richer clients,” a senior partner told Pat at a party.
“It’s not what she wants,” Pat said, proudly. Jinny now lived at the Florentine house permanently and paid the property taxes on it. Pat and Bee still came out every summer, and Philip and his household for part of every summer. Flora and Mohammed had only been there once since their wedding.
“We should make a new will and give Jinny the Florentine house,” Pat said. “We haven’t made wills since they were tiny and we were worried about social workers.”
“And dear old Michael promised to marry whichever of us was left,” Bee said, smiling.
They made new wills. “We want to leave the Florentine house to Jinny and the Harston house and the remainder of our estates to the other two equally,” Pat said.
“That’s not possible,” the solicitor explained. “You own these properties between you, and that makes it more complicated.”
They eventually decided to give Jinny the Florentine house now and leave the Cambridge house to whichever of them survived the other, and then divided between the other children. “Are you sure that’s fair?” Bee asked.
“They’ll sell our Harston house and use the money. Jinny will live in the Florentine house,” Pat said. “That makes it fair, even if it is worth more.”
“There will be death duties,” the solicitor said. “There wouldn’t be if you were married, but as things are.”
“It makes my blood boil,” Bee said.
They also filled out powers of attorney in case of incapacity, naming each other, remembering how they couldn’t sell Pat’s mother’s house. “These wouldn’t necessarily hold up,” the solicitor said. “Not if anyone challenged them.”