Urban Venus

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Hi, Evie, how are you?’ I enquire of my big sister. Unsociable as it might sound, I was a little loathe to call as I know Evie is desperate to come and see me out here, and ringing her now might just push her into booking a date to come over. Much as I’d love to spend some time with her and show her the sights, I don’t need her – or any other member of my family – descending on me just yet; not until I’ve found out more about Maria and resolved the issues coming at me in the dreams. I could see myself blurting it all out to her if she came now, and I don’t think this is something my family needs to know about for the moment.

I know my Dad’s sister, Aunt Sarah, has been into family tree research for the past few years, since she retired, and that is my true reason for calling Evie. She’s always been very close to Sarah, who took Evie to her heart just as much as my Dad did when he and Mum got together, and I’m kind of hoping that she will be able to wheedle some information out of Sarah, without me having to ask and therefore posing the question as to why I need it. I manage to convince Evie that it’s for a project I’m working on, that I need some links between art through the ages and my own personal history, and she doesn’t take too much persuading to approach Sarah. It would just save me an awful lot of time and effort, and give me some kind of starting point, if I had some pre-researched stuff to be going on with.

Of course Sarah’s research will only cover my Dad’s side of the family, so what I do if my link to Titian is via my maternal side, I really don’t know. And I can’t believe for one minute that it will go back more than a century or so, but I have to start somewhere, and if Evie can email me Sarah’s files then it’s something, I suppose. Although ‘needle in a haystack’ would be a very appropriate term right now; what chance have I really got of stumbling across anything relevant, when there are so many centuries to trawl through? It’s all quite daunting really. I don’t know what I’m looking for, when, where or why. It’s an unsolved puzzle on a monumental scale.

So far today I’ve managed to put last night’s events out of my mind and apply myself to the job in hand. But now I sit at my open window, smelling those roses and breathing in the warm air, and allow myself to think back over the whole evening. What a fabulous night! Kissing Vincenzo aside, what a place Monteriggioni is, and that shop, that restaurant – wow! I suppose I was an easy conquest in the face of all that seduction of a material and aesthetic nature, and Vincenzo probably didn’t have to try too hard to make me swoon and fall into his arms. It was not only him I was seduced by but the whole package. In any case, it was only a kiss – it wasn’t like I’d jumped into bed with him or anything, was it?

My phone beeps with a message. Without even glancing at it I guess it will be Vincenzo, checking up on me and making sure I’m OK after last night. We’d both snoozed all the way back – how unromantic – so we hadn’t talked about what happened, and I didn’t stir until we were outside my apartment, at which point he’d woken me up with a light kiss on the cheek.

‘Siamo arrivati, bella Lydia,’ he’d said. ‘Ci vediamo domani.’ I remembered how he’d said the same to me after that fateful meal out, months ago, when I’d first arrived. This time I get the feeling he really does want to see me tomorrow. After all, I mystify him, don’t I? Instead of being the mad girl with the dreams, I am now mystifying, which has to be an improvement on crazy. I quite like the idea of that.

The message is from Vincenzo; just a quick one to check I’m OK (as expected) and asking if I can meet him for coffee later. I’m planning an afternoon in the library – after all the distractions this week I need to get on with some coursework – so I reply to say that I’ll pop in on him at the end of the day and then we can go for a drink somewhere. With his tutor’s hat on, hopefully he’ll appreciate my dedication and not see it as a snub, as it isn’t meant to be. I don’t feel I need to go rushing over to see him right away; what happened last night was lovely, if unexpected, and I am surprisingly OK with it (which I also inform him of to put his mind at rest, adding a little smiley face to the end of the text). But I am behind with my studies and I can’t afford to be.

The ancestry files from Aunt Sarah, via Evie, have just pinged through on my laptop – boy, she’s a fast worker – so I resolve to spend what’s left of the morning looking through those, and then knuckle down to some serious work in the afternoon, away from here and all distractions. Vincenzo will have to wait a little longer for the pleasure of my company. I’m sure he’ll cope.

There’s so much here to wade through. I’ve just spent the past couple of hours barely scratching the surface of Aunt Sarah’s database, and I have to say what I’ve seen so far looks fantastic. She’s managed to trace some branches of the family right back to the eighteenth century; I can’t begin to imagine how long she must have toiled over it. I know I can’t really expect to stumble across something that might lead me to Titian so early on, it would be naïve of me to think that was likely, but I can’t help myself from hoping. This first glance doesn’t throw up any obvious names that might link through; nothing sounds remotely like it might have come from Italy, or from anywhere beyond the UK, come to that.

I just need to stumble across some little gem of information which will spark off a link. If only it were as easy as all that…

An afternoon in the library finds my coursework sufficiently caught up on and the nagging guilt for my lack of attention to my studies this week appeased, so I pop across town to meet Vincenzo as promised.

‘Bella Lydia,’ he says, greeting me enthusiastically with a kiss on the lips, his hands gently stroking my arms. His kiss doesn’t linger though, and although he is smiling, his eyes give away the uncertainty he obviously feels, despite my reassurances by text this morning that I was fine about last night.

‘Lydia-the-mysterious at your service,’ I joke, kissing him again to try to dispel that uncertainty.

‘You liked that tag, didn’t you,’ he replies, relaxing a little in the knowledge that I’m not about to tear him off a strip for pouncing on me last night. In any case, there was no pouncing involved, and for once I hadn’t fought him off; I’d kissed him back. I suppose he imagined I’d only done that because I’d had too much to drink, and that in the cold light of day I would come to my senses and give him the boot. But no, he needn’t worry. I’m happy to be at this point with him; at the start of a new relationship – possibly?

I must be turning native; what has happened to my complete disapproval of tutor-student relationships? I was so adamant at the start of the year that I’d never get embroiled in any such situation, and I’d still like to think I’m not doing anything morally wrong, but it does seem to be more acceptable over here, doesn’t it? I find I don’t have to try too hard to convince myself – and I’m amazed at just how easy it is to do that.

We decide to go for an aperitivo and then see how the mood takes us afterwards. I find myself really hoping we can spend the rest of the evening together; now that my wariness of his reputation seems to have miraculously deserted me, I really would like to get to know him better, on a personal level. I feel I know him pretty well in the academic sense – we’ve spent a lot of time together over the past few months – but this is different. I want to know more about him the person, not the tutor, all the usual sort of early-date stuff. So is this a date? I suppose it has to be.

‘Come to Bologna with me the weekend after next,’ Vincenzo proposes as we linger over our desserts. We moved on post-aperitif to a little trattoria in the centro. It’s a gorgeous little place; trattoria yes, but cheap and cheerful, no, in true Vincenzo style. It’s what I’d have called ‘authentically Italian’ in the days before I came over here and knew any better; proper Italian food, not just pasta and not a pizza in sight, and fully staffed by Italians, not Eastern European students trained to sound Italian. It’s also one of those rare places in Florence which isn’t full of tourists. One of the advantages of going out with a local I suppose; they know where to go. Stefano and I used to go to some great places – in a lower price bracket, but still lovely. That’s the first time I’ve thought about him for a while and it hits me with a bit of an icy blast. I wonder what he’d have to say about my dining companion this evening…

‘I have to go up there and finalise the details for my commission this summer,’ he continues. ‘Come with me? Please?’

Bologna would be great, I have to admit. I’m not sure about spending a whole weekend with Vincenzo so early on in our relationship – if that’s what it is turning into – but the opportunity to walk the same streets as Maria once did, see the churches, arches and palaces that she also set eyes on, is too much of an opportunity to miss, so I quickly agree to Vincenzo’s proposition. He will be in meetings for a significant portion of the weekend, anyway, which will leave me free to wander around and do the tourist trail, get a real feel for the place where Maria spent her youth. Sounds too good an opportunity to miss.

‘Yes, please,’ I reply.