Broken Chord by Margaret Moore

accompany him in his games.
    He parked the car in the tunnel under the house, beneath a vaulted ceiling. It amused him to refer to this as his fifteenth century garage. Vanessa’s little car was there and there was room for that and another couple of cars. He stepped out of the vehicle and walked to the end of the tunnel and through the small gate which led into the courtyard garden. Suddenly, all the noise vanished, the car horns, the babble of passing pedestrians and the shouting vendors disappeared and in the cool grassy yard he was transported back through the centuries.
    A small shadow ran silently towards him and brushed against his leg.
    “So you’re still here,” he muttered. He opened the door and followed the little animal who rushed up the stairs and waited for him to reach the door of the flat, where he was again greeted rapturously. He opened the door and let it in. He smiled and said, “You win, but I don’t know what Vanessa will say.”
    The flat was vast and cool. When he had modernised it, quite simply, with the inconspicuous addition of central heating, and two bathrooms, unwilling to desecrate the building unnecessarily, he had also had air conditioning put in and had never regretted it. He threw his jacket onto a chair and went into the kitchen to make himself a coffee, one of the two things on which he admitted he was dependent. The other, of course, was tobacco. He lit up and took a deep drag on his cigarette. Supper was his next thought and while he waited for the coffee to come up he considered which restaurant to go to. He didn’t want anywhere too formal but the cheaper places would be thronged with foreigners. He opened the fridge on the off chance that there might be something he fancied and after a brief inspection of the uninspiring contents closed the door firmly. He didn’t want to eat smoked salmon or mozzarella and tomatoes again and he didn’t feel like cooking. He phoned a small family-run trattoria the other side of the river. “Dragonetti speaking.”
    He was greeted with cries of joy, “Ah Dottore! Of course we have a place for you. On the terrace? Certainly. I will make sure you are not disturbed.”
    He terminated the conversation with a smile. Of course there would always be a place for him. He was part of the legal system of law enforcement and anyone who knew who he was and what he represented would fall over himself to make sure he got whatever he wanted. The kitten sat back on its haunches and mewed. Jacopo had forgotten to buy cat food so he took the smoked salmon from the fridge and opened the packet. He put half of the contents on a plate, cutting it up into small pieces, and replaced the rest in the fridge. “This is wild salmon, my friend,” he told it.
    He threw his clothes off and took a tepid shower. He hated the heat in Florence in the summer. Anyone with any sense left the city during the hot months when the humidity made it so uncomfortable. All his favourite bars and restaurants took on another character in the summer as they competed for foreign customers by lowering their prices and as a consequence, their standards. He shuddered at the thought of the average all-in tourist menu. Things would be better in the autumn and by winter he would feel more at home again. Florence would be returned to him and he would begin to enjoy her once again.
    Later when he sat together with the cat in the armchair watching television, he phoned Vanessa and said, “We’ve got a cat.”
    He didn’t name it. That would be Vanessa’s province.
     
    Marianna came home late after being away the whole day. Ursula heard the taxi stop outside and the car door slam. She waited in the drawing room but Marianna went straight upstairs to her room. Ursula looked over at Guido who said, “Really Ursula, the girl has no manners. She does whatever she likes. Shouldn’t you do something about it?”
    “I already have, my dear. She’s going off to New Zealand with my eldest sister.