I woke a little after three and swore so extravagantly that the tourists turned to stare. How could I have been so stupid? Struggling to my feet, I found that I could barely stand. In my exhaustion, my head had lolled to one side and the right side of my face and neck had the familiar tightness that precedes sunburn. I stumbled, then sat once again on the hot bricks. Three hours! Three hours in which I felt almost certain they had passed me by. I had a perfect image of Albie stepping over me, collapsed here like some drunk. My mouth was dry while my clothes dripped with perspiration — I had left a damp patch on the ground where the bricks had drawn the remaining moisture from my body — and my head throbbed with what surely must be sunstroke. Water, I must have water. I tried to stand again, resting on my toes a moment then staggering up the sides of the sun-baked terracotta bowl, like Lawrence of Arabia clambering up a dune.
In a kiosk at the edge of the square I paid an extortionate amount of money for two bottles of water, draining one and half of the other before stopping to take in my reflection in the mirrored wall. A vertical line divided the crimson half of my face and neck from the white, while across my forehead the shade of the baseball cap had created an equator. My face had been stencilled by the sun into something resembling the Danish flag. I touched the skin — the tenderness told me there was worse to come — and laughed, the kind of laughter that precedes great sobbing tears, and stepped out into the heat.
I felt faint, nauseous, irrational. Returning to the cauldron of the piazza was inconceivable, but there was no hotel room to lie down in and only twelve euros in my pocket, not even enough to get me back to Florence where my wallet and passport were even now accumulating fines. Instead I staggered through the crowds, water bottle in my hand, dizzy and deranged, clinging to the shade like a vampire, with scarcely a rational thought in my head, until the street opened up into a courtyard, the ornate candy-striped façade of the Duomo rising up vertically. A sudden clamour of bells from the
I waited until the final chords before I stepped forward and threw my arms around her. ‘Kat Kilgour!’ I said, through cracked lips. ‘I am so, so pleased to see you!’
‘Jeez, Mr Petersen,’ she said, recoiling a little. ‘You look completely f***** up.’
Yes, it was an emotional reunion on my part, but I still wish the police hadn’t got involved.
I’m loath to throw around terms like ‘brutality’. It was all a misunderstanding, or perhaps an overreaction on their part, and mine too. If I’d been more level-headed I’d have handled the situation differently. Nevertheless …
‘Kat, you have no idea what I’ve been through.’
I was undeniably pleased to see her, a great deal more than she was pleased to see me, because she was already launching into her next number, an anthemic ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. It’s a demanding vocal so I waited patiently until the instrumental, then:
‘Kat, I need to see Albie. Is he with you?’
‘Can’t talk, Mr P.—’
‘No, quite, but I need to know if he’s all right. Maybe later?’
‘Can’t talk, Mr P.—’
‘Oh. Okay. Okay. I’m sorry, you’re playing your solo, but if I could just know where—’
‘He’s not here.’
‘But nearby? Yes? Yes?’ She began the next verse, and it seemed only fair that I should drop my coins into her bowler hat. ‘If you could just point me in the right direction?’ A five, a ten euro note followed, the last of my cash all gone. I began to search my pockets for more coins. ‘Kat, I’ll leave you alone, but I’ve travelled a very long way and …’
The song ended, but she embarked immediately on ‘Riders on the Storm’, and if she started that then she might never stop.
‘Kat, I am actually paying you to stop playing!’ I shouted, and here I put my hand into the bellows of the accordion, which was too much, I concede now. Certainly, Kat’s response was violent, the song abandoned, a finger jabbed in my face.
‘Do NOT touch, Mr P.! If your son wants to hide from you, then it’s none of your business—’
‘Well, it sort of is—’
‘I know all too well what it’s like to live with an oppressive, overbearing father—’
‘
‘… and even if your son’s not my favourite person at the moment, I would never split on him. Never!’
‘Not your favourite … why, have you argued?’
‘I think that’s a fair assessment.’
‘Have you … have you split up?’
‘Yes, we’ve split up! Try to conceal your glee, Mr P.’
‘When?’
‘Last night, if you must know.’
‘So, so where is he? Where did he go? Kat, please tell me …’ And here I put my hand on her arm, which was also a mistake.
