Urban Venus

Chapter Sixteen

‘So how many are coming?’ I ask Sophia. She and Leonora have decided we need a New Year’s Eve party. Our apartment is probably the largest out of all the friends’, and the most central, so, with one day to go, bravely we decide to go ahead with it, contacting everyone via the networking sites we all use, and texting those we know are still out of town to see if they can get back in time to join us. Thank heavens for technology – within half an hour it’s confirmed that we have enough would-be partygoers to make it worth the effort.

‘Last count, forty-two,’ Sophia replies. ‘Plus us lot, of course. More than enough to make a party, and there are bound to be loads more that just show up. Everyone is going to bring food and booze – we said we were happy to provide the venue if they could do that, so there you go, looks like we are having a party!’

Leonora, who has been head-down, quietly doing the sums, suddenly shrieks: ‘Let’s make it fancy dress, a masked party! Like the Venetians, all those mysterious masks and painted faces! Everyone can get their hands on a mask, can’t they, it’s not like they need to get a whole costume or anything? I’ll send another message round again now – No Mask, No Admittance!’ She’s off on a roll now, in full-on party-planner mode. She is doing so well, she has really come through this miscarriage episode brilliantly, and having a project like this to focus on is perfect for someone who, when in good health, is the world’s biggest party animal.

It’s weird seeing all these people in their masks, right here in our flat, so soon after dreaming about the Carnevale. I almost feel as though the dream has come to revisit me in my twenty-first century life. Of course not everyone has a fabulous glass (or even fake plastic) Venetian mask to hand which they can produce in time for a party with just a day’s notice, but there are a fair few nonetheless, dragged out from the backs of cupboards, or brought back from the family home in time to wear tonight.

Some people are wearing those little half-face black eye masks – my Gran used to wear something similar when she had her daytime naps – only with holes for their eyes, obviously, but most have gone in for the full-face version, so it is actually quite difficult to work out who’s who. And I don’t know all of them, which adds to the air of mystery and general excitement for me.

The party is just about in full swing when Leonora emerges from her room, quite unintentionally making a very dramatic entrance. She was so busy getting everything ready earlier that she simply didn’t have time to change, instead disappearing into her room as soon as the first guests arrived, to make her transformation.

Wow, I cannot imagine where she pulled a costume like that from at such short notice. As she stands in the doorway to her bedroom, back-lit in a golden ball-gown of epic proportions, I do a double-take as I realise how similar she looks to Maria in my Carnevale dream. I’m glad no one can see my face under my own mask as I’m sure I must have turned bright white. Her long, dark hair has vanished, swept up into the twisted organza back of the golden mask, and her face is completely hidden behind the gold-painted façade of the frontispiece. I only know for sure that it’s her from her body language and the fact that I recognise the shoes she’s wearing.

I wander over to her to compliment her on her costume. ‘No wonder you wanted to have a masked party,’ I joke, trying to calm myself down after the shock of seeing her. ‘If I had a costume like that stashed away I might have come up with that idea too!’

‘I went to the Carnevale with my parents a couple of years ago, and for some reason the dress ended up here, in a box at the back of my wardrobe,’ she explains. ‘Truthfully I’d forgotten about it – I knew I had the mask here but finding the dress was an added bonus.’

‘You look fabulous,’ I say. ‘Amazing.’ I still feel a bit like I’ve been transported back five centuries, and also wish just a little bit that I had a costume like that to wear too, instead of just a cheap mask from a costume shop. But the jeans and casual clothes sported by the bottom halves of most of the other partygoers prove that she’s in a minority, dressed like she is; it’s just a bizarre coincidence that she chose this theme and looks so like Maria. I’m not caught up in some kind of strange cross-century conspiracy after all.

Stefano hasn’t arrived yet and I’m starting to wonder where he has got to; I need him here to get me into the party spirit. I’ve never been a great one for New Year’s parties. I can appreciate that they are the perfect distraction from either the fact that another year is over, during which time we may or may not have achieved what we set out to do – with all the resulting emotions stemming from that – and a new one, full of hopes and dreams and as yet unfulfilled ambitions, is about to begin. But for me the festive season has always been about Christmas and nothing else, so New Year might just as well be any other day. I’m glad we are having a party, but if the girls hadn’t suggested it first, then I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to propose it. As New Year’s parties go though, it looks like it has all the promise of being a good one, as the atmosphere is buzzing already – but I need my man in tow before I can really start to enjoy myself.

Over in a corner of the room, one of the guests has taken control of the iPod, and the music has increased both in volume and liveliness. We’ve borrowed Lanzo’s docking station for the night – he has one of those enormous testosterone-fuelled ones with boomers and bashers and woofers and tweeters and whatever other blokey technical terms might be needed to produce an industrial strength sound for a residential party. We’ve invited our neighbours from upstairs, downstairs and side-ways, and I think they are all here already, so hopefully we have covered our backs and no one will feel the need to put in a complaint about the noise pollution levels on Via de Ginori.

Finally Stefano arrives, looking gorgeous in his trademark tight black jeans. I would recognise that bottom anywhere, which is just as well as his face is completely hidden by a black, slightly scary mask, changing his appearance quite dramatically from the lovely, kind and smiley man I know into something from one of those teen-horror novels. I make my way across the room to him and pinch him hard on the bum.

‘Owww, you! Hello gorgeous!’ he shrieks, squeezing me affectionately around the waist, seeing as he can’t get near my face to kiss me. I think both our masks might be coming off later – I can’t survive a whole party without kissing him.

‘You look scary,’ I say, and he growls at me in full teen-horror spirit.

‘You look gorgeous,’ he replies, slightly muffled under that monstrous mask. ‘Or at least I have to assume you do. Can’t see your lovely face, can I? But you look gorgeous from the neck down so I have to assume the rest is up to the usual standard!’

‘Cheeky!’ I say. ‘Actually I’ve got no makeup on, I’ve got a massive spot on the end of my nose and my eyebrows need plucking – joke!’

‘Well I might just have to drag you off to your room later to check,’ he says. ‘Actually, no one’s looking, let’s go now.’ He casts a conspiratorial eye around the room before leading me by the elbow in the direction of my boudoir.

‘Stefano, you are incorrigible,’ I protest, very lamely, as I am more than happy to be dragged off to my room for a while and don’t feel in the slightest like a party pooper; the night is yet young, with all these masks no one will notice we’re gone, and we will be back soon. Better lock the door though…

Several hours in, the music is more subdued in deference to the lateness (or earliness) of the hour, the old year has been well and truly sent on its way, and the new one welcomed in, toasted and drunk to profusely. The pace has slowed significantly when a pair of new arrivals comes through the door. No masks for these two, and given the hour we will let them off, as they’ve clearly been elsewhere first, our party obviously not at the top of their agenda for the evening. Probably half-way down a list of several, given the time they’ve arrived here…

‘Nice of them to show their faces,’ I chuckle, pleased with my masked-party pun, as Vincenzo and Stéphanie join us.

‘Sorry we’re so late,’ Vincenzo mutters, slurring his words a little as he uses the unbelievably pert Stéphanie to prop him up. She looks as sober as the day she was born (which, let’s face it, wasn’t that many years ago), and I feel for her with Vincenzo draped across her shoulders – although with that inane grin on her face you’d quickly jump to the conclusion that actually she doesn’t mind too much.

I hadn’t realised anyone had invited Vincenzo, but clearly they have and that’s fine by me. He must know so many of the people that have passed through here tonight, so it’s no wonder that word got round, even if it wasn’t a direct invitation. I’m fine with him being here, anyway. I’m secure in my relationship with Stefano now; seeing Vincenzo out and about with his latest flame doesn’t bother me, why should it? Stéphanie is doing very well – she seems to have managed to hold onto him for quite a few weeks now, which has to be something of a record. I haven’t seen him with anyone else recently or heard any rumours about the next girl on the list, so presumably they are monogamous, or at least to the extent that Vincenzo ever is monogamous. Good luck to her…

For an old bloke – well, old in comparison to the rest of us, I still have no idea what age he actually is – Vincenzo can certainly party hard. Within moments of arriving, he has commandeered the sound system and rejuvenated the music, dragged Stéphanie up off the sofa to dance, and the two of them are currently gyrating around like a couple of teenagers. Well, she still is a teenager, but it must be a fair while since Vincenzo sported spots, a bum-fluff moustache, and raging hormones. Oh I forgot, he still has the hormones, but at least his complexion and hirsuteness have caught up with his age.

In the name of goodhearted, New Year’s forgiveness and all things nice, Stefano appears to have buried the hatchet when it comes to his feelings about Vincenzo. I suppose it’s largely due to the fact that he and I are now an item, and secure in the knowledge of that, he is no longer threatened by the presence of his perceived rival – if Vincenzo ever could be classed as a rival, which I’m not sure he could. He sits amusedly observing Vincenzo in action, without the usual peeved expression the sight of my tutor seems to put on his face.

‘Bella Lydia, Buon Anno!’ Vincenzo squeaks drunkenly, as he drags me from my comfy spot on the sofa, where I’ve been quite happily watching events unfold before me, snuggled sleepily into Stefano’s arms. As he pulls me up onto the dance floor, abandoning the sober Stéphanie to the crazy dance antics of a couple of male students much closer in age to her than he is, he plants a big, wet kiss on each of my cheeks.

‘So, how was your Christmas, dear Lydia?’ Vincenzo asks, as he holds me unnecessarily close for a fast dance, alternately gripping me firmly by the waist and spinning me round with some force. I can tell he’s not really interested in my reply – he is just using it as an excuse to get close to me. Stefano is trying so hard to pretend he isn’t watching us, let alone feeling jealous, so when I see him look my way I pull one of those ‘get me out of here’ faces just to show him I’d much rather be back on the sofa with him. Just then Sober Stéphanie pulls Stefano to his feet and he too is up with us, a reluctant dancer who’s already done all this several hours earlier and is actually looking forward to the party wrapping up, so that he can spend the night alone with his girlfriend.

The music switches to a slowie, and I decide it’s time to make my exit and reclaim my man from Stéphanie. But before I can release myself from his clutches, Vincenzo whips me tightly to him, his hands roving up and down my back as he makes small grunting noises in my ear. With the closeness of him I detect a presence in his trousers that really should be reserved only for his girlfriend, not for me, so I give him the biggest shove I can muster without completely unbalancing him, and plead needing the loo as my reason for escape. As I dash off I send eye-signals and a nod to Stefano to follow me, and we reconvene in the sanctity of the kitchen.

‘What is that man like!’ I say to Stefano, although I don’t go into detail on just how much Vincenzo was enjoying our little dance, for fear of Stefano going back in there and giving him a piece of his mind – or fist. He might be doing a good impersonation of someone who has his feelings under control, but for how long that control might last, I wouldn’t like to speculate.

‘È viscido, Lydia,’ he replies. ‘I thought you’d shaken him off now he knows we’re together, but he just has to keep on trying, doesn’t he? I wish to God he wasn’t your tutor, I really do.’

And then, quite bizarrely, I find myself leaping to Vincenzo’s defence. ‘But he’s a great tutor, and, you know, he’s never tried anything funny with me.’ Apart from tonight of course, but then he is very drunk and it is New Year.

‘Come on, let’s leave them to it and call it a night,’ Stefano suggests, leading me quickly to the safety of my room and away from Vincenzo’s lasciviousness. He can stay and party until there’s no one left to party with if he really wants to, but we’ve had enough, we’re off.

‘Ow, my head hurts,’ Stefano moans as I throw open the shutters the following morning. ‘Whatever did I do to deserve a girlfriend who likes to get up soooo damned early.’ He pulls the duvet back over his head and disappears with a sleepy groan.

I leave him to snooze and park myself at my desk, window open and chill, new January air streaming in, with Signore Di Girolamo’s tome on Titian. Up until now I haven’t got very far with reading it, and I need to, and want to; there are still so many things I need to find out about Titian and Maria, so many gaps to fill in the jigsaw puzzle of their lives.

‘Wow, this man writes like he almost knew Titian,’ I mutter, more to myself than to Mr Sleepyhead in the bed over there, who grunts in reply, aware probably that I said something vaguely stimulating, but not so interested in hearing what it was to bother waking up.

Di Girolamo has a fantastic style to his writing, but then he would have, given how riveting his lectures are. He writes more as though he wants to convey the personal side of the artist to the reader, instead of all the factual stuff, which is already well-known and well-documented and we can read in any old history book. So there are surprisingly few references to dates and conventional historical facts in Titian’s life, and it reads more as a story book – and a gripping one at that – than a work of non-fiction. And it’s huge; at over fifteen hundred pages, it’s going to take me ages to get through it, but that’s fine, as every tiny morsel is as riveting as the next and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Aside from the knowledge of that era that my dreams have given me up until now, I don’t think I’ve ever learnt so much about an artist and his way of life.

One factor that I find really interesting is the detail Di Girolamo goes into about the patrons that Titian worked for. I knew he was well-connected and that these people were wealthy aristocratic types – they would have to be to afford a commission – but what is outstanding is the way Di Girolamo manages to convey the working relationship between master and artist as though he were actually there. Reading this book feels more like watching a film on the life and times of Titian, and short of documenting conversations between them – which of course would have been ridiculously impossible – he manages to show how their friendships grew, in particular with Federico Gonzaga, for whom he painted loads of pictures, and who, along with his brother-in-law Francesco Maria della Rovere, became a very close friend and confidant. Until now, those names to me were synonymous with the ugly mugs flanking Venus in the gallery, but Di Girolamo’s writing brings these characters to life, and makes their scowling expressions excusable when I discover how kind and supportive they were to Titian.

I know that many of the paintings Titian produced for Gonzaga have not survived to the present day, so I am amazed when he goes on to describe some of them in great detail. They seem to float off the page and into my head as fully formed images, and I can almost see the brush strokes and nuances of shading. He mentions a painting called ‘The Virgin and Child with Saint Marguerite’ which sounds like a particularly intriguing one, infused with radiance and using a lighter technique than some of his earlier paintings, so Di Girolamo says. I’ve never heard of it before, and even with an extensive internet search I still can’t track down any mention of it. There’s one with Saint Catherine, quite a well-known painting, and Saints Anthony and John too, but no mention of this Saint Marguerite as far as I can see. Di Girolamo hasn’t reproduced the picture in his book – how could he if it no longer exists? But presumably his references must be genuine, or they wouldn’t have survived the scrutiny of all those other historians out there who also write about Titian, would they? I’m baffled.

I flick to the bibliography at the back of the book and am surprised to find that there are very few references to other works. So where does Di Girolamo get his information from? To me it almost feels as though he has taken the bare bones of recorded history, padded them out with a multitude of fascinating facts, and turned this book into a work of fiction. But he can’t have done, surely? He’s a respected, published historian, one of the most revered in the art world.

I am so engrossed in my reading that I almost jump out of my skin when Stefano comes up behind me and puts his hands gently on my shoulders, planting a kiss on the top of my head.

‘Breakfast,’ he mumbles. ‘Need breakfast.’

‘Good morning to you, too,’ I reply. ‘Feeling any better now?’

‘Fine. Nothing some good strong coffee and carbs won’t fix. How’s your research going?’ he asks.

‘Good thanks,’ I say. ‘This book is amazing, it’s almost like he was there. I don’t know where he gets half his stuff from. Might have to go and talk to him about it, I think.’

‘Great,’ says Stefano, still too sleepy to share in my enthusiasm. He saunters off, yawning, stretching and scratching his armpits in true bloke fashion, in the direction of the kitchen, and I hear him greet Sophia. A few moments later a more livened up version of him pops its head round the door. ‘Grab a quick shower, Lydia,’ he says. ‘We’re all off to Epoca for breakfast.’

Given the choice I think I’d rather stay here with my head in my book and grab a quick coffee and a bowl of muesli from the kitchen, but I am made to feel like that isn’t an option which is open to me. It is New Year’s Day, and therefore still officially part of the festive season, which means I have to be sociable. Apparently, for the Italians, the whole shenanigan carries on until Epiphany on the sixth of January, so it looks like we could still have a few days of this enforced celebration left before everything returns to normal. Right now I could do with a bit of normality – I’m all partied out and I’d quite like to get back to my dreams, my research, and of course my studies, given that they’re the reason I’m actually here. Maybe I’m just tired, but I can’t help the Bah, Humbug feeling that’s trying to take me over.

Each of us a couple of coffees up, and the crumbled remains of a plate of pastries before us, we are all starting to feel slightly more human. We compare stories from the party, and there are plenty. Over all we must have had about a hundred people passing through the apartment during the course of the evening, and there are some interesting snippets of gossip to exchange. The general consensus amongst us is that the party was a huge hit, and everyone had a great time. The downside of such a huge party is that now we are saddled with the mess to clear up – no wonder everyone wanted to go out for breakfast, as the kitchen has disappeared under enough bottles and rubbish to warrant its own personal recycling plant.

We stroll back at a leisurely pace across the Piazza della Signoria as morning turns to afternoon, idly window shopping on the way. No one is in that much of a hurry to get back to the dishes and tidying up, but at least no one has shirked off with an excuse of somewhere else they need to be. At some point today it will all get done and our apartment will be our own once more.

Hands to the glass, I peer into the murky gloom of a closed gallery window as I wait for the others to catch up. It’s one of the more upmarket shops on the square, still catering for tourists, but aimed at the upper echelons of this market, those with a few more Euros in their pockets, who want to take home with them something longer-lasting than the plastic models of the Ponte Vecchio or snow domes with tiny David statues inside. I spot a print I recognise: it’s one of Vincenzo’s, one of his modernist landscapes – not a nude, for a change – but it is quite unmistakeably a work by Tizzaro, that up-and-coming young artist and tutor of mine.

‘Do you like that one?’ Stefano asks, coming over to see what I’m looking at and throwing his arm around my shoulders. ‘Why don’t I get it for you, for your room, when they open up again? Call it an extra Christmas present,’ he says.

‘It’s one of Vincenzo’s. Good, isn’t it?’ I reply. But instead of waiting for my answer to his offer, he bluntly removes his arm, grunts something unintelligible and wanders off to join the rest of the group. So maybe I won’t be getting it as an extra Christmas present after all; suddenly it’s not such a great painting as far as he’s concerned. His issue with Vincenzo is still ongoing then, by the looks of it.

I walk back the rest of the way with Sophia, whilst Stefano skulks at the back of the group. I’ll cut him some slack and put it down to tiredness for now.