Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers

the self-same pale blue as her brother’s.
    Julia Garnet had taught twins and the experience had not been comfortable. For the whole of one fraught year the Stevens twins had reduced a class to chaos by answering in unison when either was asked a question or (worse) singing in a peculiar toneless syncopation when neither was. There was a brazenness and self-sufficiency about twins which challenged her composure. Instinctively, she made as if to depart.
    â€˜Would you like to see round?’ Again it was the girl who spoke while her brother only watched silently. His lashes, Miss Garnet noticed, were long and fair.
    â€˜How kind of you but I must—’
    â€˜If you want, you can come up on the platform and see Himself.’ It was the young man speaking and he had also pulled off his woolly hat to reveal long blond locks and an earring.
    â€˜Himself?’ Julia Garnet found her face was reddening. How provoking that she should blush so easily before these young people.
    But the young man, who appeared to have forgotten his former discontent, was not looking at her face but was extending a gloved hand. ‘Here, it’s quite safe.’ And to her own surprise Julia Garnet found herself being gripped by the elbow and swung up and onto a wooden-planked platform along the building’s side. ‘Look,’ said the young man, and then as if by way of introduction, ‘the Angel Raphael.’
    Surrounded by scaffolding a serene face cut into stone smiled out at her. Whatever did one do when faced with the smile of an angel?
    â€˜He’s great, isn’t he?’ The young man spoke with enthusiasm; his earlier antagonism had apparently melted away.
    Reassured, Julia Garnet asked, ‘How do you know he’s a he?’
    â€˜It’s a convention.’ It was the young woman, Sarah she had called herself, who had swung her own way up and had now joined them on the platform. ‘They’re sexless, angels. Look,see the face is quite androgynous.’ And inwardly Julia Garnet observed that the young woman herself, and her brother, were, like the angels, also somewhat androgynous in their appearance.
    It was a strange encounter, she thought a little later, as she left the twins eating ciabatta with tomatoes and the elongated rubinous onions she had seen on the street market stalls. Their legs had dangled over the edge of the platform. But a feeling like the warmth of Nicco’s cousin’s brandy crept through her: she was pleased with herself. She had made another acquaintance.
    *    *    *
    â€˜Two, really,’ she said that evening. ‘Though somehow one thinks of twins as one.’
    Carlo and she were eating near the Arsenale. Julia’s previous diet had consisted of the plainest fare. On the rare occasions they had entertained, Harriet had cooked a chicken using a spoonful of dry sherry in the gravy. After Harriet’s death Julia had shopped at Marks & Spencer—dinners for one, compartmented as to meat or vegetables and encased in cardboard and foil. The experience of coming to Venice had not only opened her eyes—it had challenged her appetite. She was learning to enjoy food—especially with Carlo.
    â€˜And they are restorers? I must go and look.’ A jug of prosecco was smacked down on the table. ‘Some prosecco? They serve it quite flat here without the sparkle, but very refreshing.’
    Later, after they had eaten tiny clams and slabs of polentacooked in sage and garlic, she asked, ‘It’s a chapel they are restoring?’
    Carlo had taken a silver toothpick from his wallet. Watching him Julia thought, How funny that I am not revolted!
    As if he had read her thoughts Carlo put the toothpick away. ‘Yes. It was known as the Chapel-of-the-Plague because it was built for a child—though others say it was for a mistress—dying of the plague.’
    â€˜Is that why the angel is there?’