The Medicis. Part II

Giulio Morandi

The Medicis. Part II

WHAT PAPA SAID TO THAT

Dusk fell upon Firenze, making that city even more glorious. The early April sky was of a delicate purple, and, if one was ready to take pains and climb on to the roof of the Casa di Medici, the moon could be seen at its very best. With this Alessandro Mancini was busy, occasionally pausing to adjust his telescope. A praiseworthy pursuit, that.

So Alessandro’s given up his disgraceful shoe-shaking at the Soli Ravioli and Negro Allegro, eh? By no means, and far from it. It is simply that the authorities, deciding that the negro was far too allegro than could be permitted, had shut the place down, hence the melancholy in Alessandro’s manner as he tightened yet another screw. If the chappie Galileo used to do this sort of thing every day, Alessandro found it understandable that the man, finding the strain too hard to bear, woke up one day and started going about the place, assuring people the Earth was round.

Enzo, humming lightly, came on to the roof with a nonchalant step.

‘Buona sera, signorina, buona sera – or rather hi, laddie, or any other way that you prefer it. Anything doing?’

‘My dear fellow,’ said Alessandro, sighting a good prospect of a bit of entertainment on the horizon, ‘don’t you sometimes feel a desire to take a pot at the moon?’

‘As a matter of fact, no,’ said Enzo definitely. ‘But if this brings the roses back to your cheeks – ‘ A loud report rang through the air as Enzo dispatched a casual bullet in the general direction of the celestial body in question.

Giacomo poked his head out of the upper window. ‘Stop it, will you? Can't one get any peace here?’

The man was convinced that the reason why he was losing large sums at poker to Luigi, Riccardo and Leonardo was the inability to concentrate because of the noise, which was contributed to in equal shares by Matteo and Luciano playing billiards, Giovanni practicing his guitar and Vincenzo, who, having found a bottle of champagne that was unfinished, had remedied that defect and was now seated at the window, regarding a passing cat fondly and crooning an old love ballad.

Only in Mother Medici's room one could see peace reigning supreme. The mistress of the still impressive household was lying on the sofa, inspecting a photograph album which she had found in an old chest of drawers brought from the Palazzo. Whoever had initially thought of creating the bally thing and how she had overlooked it earlier, Mother had not a notion, but the fact remained that the above album was stuff too hot to be handled. The sprightly volume, as a matter of fact, contained photographs of the various members of the Medici family in particularly embarrassing situations, and it hardly mattered that most of the pictures had been taken when those photographed were of a tender age.

The potentialities of the thing now resting on her lap for one wanting to attempt blackmail were glaringly obvious to Mother, and what brought a gentle smile to her lips was the discovery of a certain snapshot taken during a particularly frolicsome holiday in Naples some 20 years ago. It showed her cousin Beatrice exquisitely dressed in a laurel bush and could not have turned up at a more fortunate moment (there were one or two favours Mother wanted Beatrice to do, but had not to date found what could stimulate this relative into swift action). Her own photos Mother burned without hesitation, for personal safety is what we are all increasingly often urged to ensure.

A small hip of charred paper had already formed in the ashtray, and Mother was about to place the last match where it would do some real good when this action was broken off by the entrance of Giovanni, who had the gift of appearing in rooms when his presence was the least thing required.

Mother put the match out and hurriedly shoved the album under a cushion.

‘Yes, Giovanni dear?’

In response to which Giovanni, whose aim in visiting the parent was to demonstrate his skill at the guitar, whipped out the instrument and proceeded to play La Serenata, Ideale and Non ti amo più without even as much as pausing to let Mother deduce what was the cause for the curious swimming sensation in her head.

‘Ah, simply wonderful!’ lied Mother Medici at length. ‘You're improving greatly, dear.’

And, lifting the champagne bottle only to discover it was empty, turned her attention to the selection of a new spirit from those in her cupboard, by this trivial action enabling Giovanni to lift the cushion, snatch at the album and withdraw with a hasty buonanotte.

When we say that in a week after the events recorded above all those in residence at the Casa di Medici suffered an abrupt and involuntary change of mood, we are obliged to exclude from that list, however, one magnate of the name of Fabio Callucci (who, if you inquired after his frame of mind, would have responded that he, being a pretty unfastidious sort of person, was ‘adequately pleased with the conditions Giulia could offer’), his son Marcello Callucci, who, though equipped with the countenance of one who has been careless enough to swallow a couple of frogs, also found himself in excellent spirits, and Giacomo Esposito, who, on beholding the unbidden guests enter the house, had retired through the window and gone to ground at the Paradiso hotel. (And Leonardo found it not a little trying when the blighter had thrown pebbles at his window at five o'clock in the morning and informed him in a few derogatory words how he personally felt about the family’s inability to handle the situation.)

Fabio and son, who had totally unexpectedly infested the house, were by way of being Mother's distant relatives. And, with a high possibility that when the old buster ceased operating (the sooner, the better, Mother thought), she would be among the few lucky recipients of his inheritance, Mother had to put up with it.

This Fabio, it is worth mentioning, had done quite a bit of travelling in his day, managing to provoke sick headaches in France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, and England. In the latter country he had apparently been bitten by Sir Winston Churchill himself, and it was since then, the gang had worked out, that Fabio had become ‘easily satisfied with the very best’. This preference ranged from rooms to cooking, and the only thing that exercised such a powerful spell over Mother so as to make her smile sweetly and tell Fabio that the matter of the pasta being not up to scratch would soon be fixed (instead of going down to the kitchen to add something beginning with the same letter as pasta to the ungrateful blighter’s glass of wine) was the thought of all those millions in the old oak chest.

A nice bit of box fruit, thought Mother sardonically. She had hoped Fabio could do something about the degrading state of the family finances, while what old man Callucci appeared to be putting his life and soul into was speeding up this degradation.

And even that, as Mother Medici was inclined to suspect, was only the tip of the iceberg. To make matters worse, all the evidence pointed to Fabio plotting to link his offspring and herself in holy matrimony (even though it was Mother’s firm belief that using the word ‘holy’ in describing a union with Marcello Callucci would be pure blasphemy). So, Mother was at a crossroads how to have her cake and eat it, too.

This, in a nutshell, is how things stood as regards Mother’s frame of mind.

And she was not alone in her concern. Had Mother been less Callucci-conscious, one of the foremost things she would have noticed was the singularly unusual conduct of her late sister’s son Riccardo. His sullen air she attributed, as anyone in her place would have done, to the presence of the Callucci duet on the premises. In reality, things were far more serious than that. By some intricate way (or, as so often is, another), the bloke had got into his bean that he was ancient and – he was not quite sure about that yet – very probably ill, too. It was enough to take one look at the man to see where Schopenhauer got his ideas from. Although it is highly likely that even Schopenhauer, on hearing some of Riccardo’s thoughts on Life, would have said that there, to put it mildly, stood a gloomy sort of chap that was best avoided.

Not that Riccardo didn’t have some jolly good reasons for acting in the above manner, mind you. His famous wine cellar, for one, had turned into a no-go zone. For fear of detection, the owner had been compelled to hide the key, and kept assuring Fabio, who had wanted to get in many times, that storerooms could not be of any possible interest to him. Better, Riccardo said, to go and have a look at the old tapestries. Fabio, who was sick and tired of all tapestries, either senile or new-born, cursed freely, called Riccardo names and, giving up the attempts as fruitless, withdrew.

***

On the Tuesday of the third week the situation in the Casa di Medici was further worsened by Mother’s announcement that signor Callucci had decided to buy the antique furniture in the house for his personal residence, so might as well get ready for the arrival of an interior decorator.

Mother’s subordinates, needless to say, groaned in spirit. In the past fortnight the gang’s mental health had deteriorated to such an extent (Alessandro once claimed to have found a grey hair on his person, Vincenzo developed nervous tic, and Enzo was taking out his pistol even more frequently than before and giving it a long, wistful look) that an interior decorator would be too much.

The gang vividly recalled the last time one of those specimens was introduced into the household. Things almost turned out catastrophically. The man was quite a lad for Modern Art upon which he used to deliver long lectures in a voice that clearly revealed him as a lucky possessor adenoids and, as for the actual makeover he had nearly carried out in the house… it was only by resorting to the application of some mild poison that Luigi, who was the initiator of Operation Good Riddance, had been able to send the fellow away in good time to save the historic landmark.

Matteo looked at his watch. It was now a quarter to eleven. Well, he meant to say, what? If the decorator chappie had taken the four-thirty from Rome, he ought long to have arrived and should be snugly tucked up in beddy-bye, dreaming about Functionalist furniture or any other rot of that kind. And so should he, Matteo, instead of waiting here like a total chump just because Mother had instructed her chicks to make the new arrival feel welcome.

‘Well, I’m going to bed,’ announced Giovanni, throwing the door open. ‘It might be an hour before the blighter decides to show up.’

‘Very sensible of you, me lad,’ said a good-humoured voice, and the gang perceived a figure in a trench coat standing in the doorway. ‘But, as a matter of fact, the blighter is already here. And, I may add, with his hair in a braid.’

That, strictly speaking, was perfidy of the first water. Their visitor could not have done his hair in the way he had outlined even if he had wanted to. It was arranged in a cut of considerable taste, in colour being a blend of ash brown and ecru.

The chap regarded the mob scene ironically through a gold-rimmed monocle. ‘The red-carpet treatment, what? Yes, Guilia told me to expect something special as regards company. Most frightfully thrilled to meet you and all that, if you follow me. Especially,’ he said significantly, ‘seeing that you’ve got everything for an after-journey refresher.’

‘You’ve come to the right shop,’ said Luciano, rising in a business-like manner. ‘What’s your poison?’

The fellow released Alessandro’s hand, which he had been shaking with a vigour indicating he had not yet met Fabio Callucci, and fixed Luciano with a pleading eye.

‘Skip the cyanide,’ he entreated. ‘Pass lightly over the arsenic. Somehow – can’t tell you why exactly – I don't find them palatable enough.’ He decanted his trench coat on the sofa and accepted the glass. There was a short silence and then he spoke again.

‘By the way, is the ghost yours or did it come with the place?’

‘What ghost?’ inquired Alessandro in tones really meaning ‘Are you feeling all right, my dear fellow?’

‘The one that met me in the corridor. It mumbled something about somebody being late – which he is, of course, – gave a groan or two, and then gawped at me – well, like ghosts do. Its air struck me as that of a ghost about to address L. Martini as ‘my good girl’.’

The bottle of vermouth fell from Luciano’s nerveless fingers.

‘Girl?’

The gang eyed each other in wild astonishment. There are few things an assembly of eight male persons dislikes more than being made collective asses of with no apparent reason, and, while the gang’s affection for Mother Medici was too strong to make them comment on the situation, the feeling prevailed that the parent could at least have told them that they were playing hosts to a dark horse.

‘Exactly,’ said the dark horse, obviously pretty pleased with the effect she had produced. ‘The L., if it’s of any interest, stands for Lassie.’

‘Great,’ said Alessandro in a curious voice, picking up the vermouth that Luciano had dropped. ‘A gawping ghost, you say? That must be Riccardo you are talking about,’ he proceeded, somewhat fortified.

‘Signor Riccardo Medici, who is at present with us as a result of a duel that didn’t come out quite right in 1523?’

‘Oh, Riccardo’s alive all right. It’s just that he is under the impression that he's a septuagenarian.’

Lassie blinked.

‘Eh?’

‘He's about fed up with life,’ translated Enzo.

‘Oh, you mean he’s got the pip? Try to be more intelligible, me lad,’ said Lassie with a touch of severity. ‘Septuagenarian, my left eyeball! I don't believe there's even such a word in the language. What have you been doing to the poor sap?’

‘It doesn’t have anything to do with us,’ protested Giovanni. ‘Mother thinks it’s that bally bird, who’s staying with us now. And his bally son.’

Lassie, up to then propped against the sofa in an attitude of easy repose, leaned forward, interested. ‘Go on, old top. You interest me strangely. Who is this ominous bally bird?’

‘Fabio Callucci, the second son of –’

Lassie waved an empty glass. ‘From what I gather, of a whatnot. But pass lightly over these facts, old companion, as you did with the arsenic. I mean, it’s all right to call a fellow a bally bounder- I myself frequently do it – but what has the man actually done?’

‘He’s called me an impudent young shrimp,’ complained Giovanni.

‘That was a week ago,’ whispered Luciano, ‘and the young shrimp’s been cut up about it ever since.’

‘You don’t know half the things he called me,’ remarked Alessandro. ‘And neither do I. That is, unless, you can tell me what a popinjay is.’

‘I can’t,’ said Lassie.

Alessandro sighed. ‘Well, that’s life for you, what?’

‘Absolutely,’ acknowledged Lassie. ‘But are words everything, old companion? I once knew a chap who, after spending the whole day doing acts of kindness, used to come home and say ‘Golly! Am I fed up with you ruddy perishers!’

Alessandro shook his head. ‘Even if Fabio Callucci does acts of kindness, which is in itself hardly probable, he doesn’t do them here.’

‘Yeah,’ said Enzo. ’If it’s like you’ve said, we always get the second part.’

Lassie shook her head earnestly. ‘Sinister, me lad, sinister. And what steps have you taken?’

‘Oh, nothing works,’ said Luciano bitterly. ‘He’s been bombarded with wires urging him to come to Rome on business, and he doesn’t seem to be the least bit bothered by it. I doubt if an earthquake could have got the old boy out of here.’

‘What old boy?’ A cove of middle height with a pencil moustache had manifested himself in their midst.

‘One of those old boys, don’t you know,’ clarified Luciano quickly. ‘Marcello Callucci, Lassie Martini. And you’ll be wanting to meet our other guest, of course?’

‘Oh, naturally,’ replied Lassie. ‘After the things you’ve been telling me about him, it’ll be a shame if I don’t. Shift ho, then. Pip-pip, my jolly old bird.’

‘Tinkerty-tonk,’ replied Matteo civilly, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking how the words Shift Ho (preferably in letters of fire) would look carved on Fabio Callucci’s door.

Lassie threw open the window with as little sound as possible. At the other end of the street a singularly heated argument between two street-cleaners had broken out, which was what had woken her up.

A soft smile played over Lassie’s features. The phrase she had heard, while far from suitable for mixed company, would fit at least half a dozen people she knew like the paper on the wall. The street-cleaners of Firenze knew their stuff well, felt Lassie. The only pity was that one could not take that silver-tongued chap's correspondence course.

A breeze floated into the room, and Lassie shivered not without a certain enjoyment. The air was fresh, invigourating, and almost made one forget that one was sharing it with Fabio Callucci. Just exactly invigourating, in fact, to empower her to nip to the dining-room, get the lemonade which she had observed there in abundance yesterday, and go to sleep again.

As it turned out, Lassie was not the only one up at such an early hour. Scarcely had she deposited the last ice cube into the beverage when someone behind her said ‘Hey!’

‘Eh?’ echoed Lassie courteously.

In the middle of the room stood an athletic-looking bloke of about her own age in a Bahama shirt who had apparently come in via the window.

‘Who are you?’ interrogated this bloke.

‘Absolutely no one of importance,’ said Lassie insouciantly, groping behind her back for a vase of Oriental design which she had at once docketed as something suitably heavy. ‘By the way, you’re a bit late, don't you think? It's almost daytime already, if you catch my drift.’

(Lassie had been wanting to add ‘And don't you usually say ‘Hands up’ or any other rot of that kind?’ but, logically feeling the obvious answer would be ‘We'll come to that’, decided not to.)

'What are you doing here?’ queried the chap once more.

‘If you'll pardon me for saying so – and I'm sure you will – says you.’

‘I live here.’

‘You can't,’ protested Lassie. ‘This is the dining-room.’

The bloke saw the justice of this.

‘Not here. As it were -’ he indicated the place with a swooping gesture, ‘here.’

‘Oh,’ said Lassie. ‘Here. Yes, I see what you’re driving at now. So it means, I presume, that you are not a burglar. And I – to my genuine pleasure – shall not have to bean you with this vase. Good of you to tell me. Solid object, that vase.’

Lassie weighed the thing contemplatively and put it back on the table. ‘You wouldn't have enjoyed it. Care for a spot of lemonade?’

The visitor, who had plainly found the recent conversation trying, quaffed silently for a moment and regarded Lassie suspiciously once more.

‘Golly!’ said Lassie suddenly. ‘You aren’t, by any chance, Giacomo Esposito, the enterprising bird from the Paradiso?’

‘I am.’

‘Then for Heaven’s sake, me dear Giacomo, don't be coy. Come here and give your Aunt Lassie a nice, big explanation of this odd behaviour. When did you first realise that you belonged to the Aves class, namely, the Early Bird family? Caught any good worms lately? Good God,’ she went on, as Giacomo opened his mouth. ‘Don't start chirping! You'll wake the whole house up.’

‘The house,’ observed Enzo, strolling in, ‘is up. Or rather, will be if you don’t stop that dashed crosstalk. Why, Giacomo! What brings you here, laddie?’

‘The very thing I wanted to ask,’ agreed Alessandro, diving out from behind Enzo’s back. ‘And the same question, without a doubt, is bothering Matteo here.’

The question bothering Matteo here was why the dickens couldn’t the rest of the household get back to bed, but he let it go.

‘Giovanni Fontana,’ hissed Giacomo, making the word sound like an expletive that the street-cleaner whose linguistic skills Lassie had so much admired might have used to describe his adversary in that morning's debate.

‘What about him?’

‘A matter of the utmost delicacy,’ clarified Giacomo, shooting a meaningful glance at Lassie.

Lassie gave him a reassuring pat on the back. ‘Have no anxiety, Giacomo old man. Our good Enzo is about to say ‘Lassie Martini is my closest confederate. You may speak freely in front of her.’ Pray proceed.’

‘The man’s a bally blackmailer! He blew in last night and said I should get him a room at my hotel, or else he’d show you some pictures of me when I was 4 years old…er, well, extremely damaging pictures.’

‘And what do you want us to do? Pinch them from him and get a good laugh out of the whole project?’

Giacomo laughed hollowly. ‘Oh, it’s not me I’m thinking of. There’s a whole album of them, he tells me. With Vincenzo and Luciano and Luigi and Matteo…’

‘Oh, dash it!’ exclaimed the last of the potential victims. He could still vividly recollect the time when, a mere lad of three, he had been playing in a sandbox with a girl who, in a moment of wrath when he refused to give up his sand molds, had struck him over the head with her shovel. Dashed unpleasant, the whole project, aggravated by the fact that the episode had been captured from beginning to end by his uncle Giorgio, who had a passion for amateur photography.

Blast Uncle Giorgio and confound his camera, thought Matteo bitterly. If only the old paparazzo would stop nosing about in things that were no affair of his, the world would be a far safer place to live in.

Mother Medici observed Marcello Callucci closely. His moustache was quivering, suggestive of a strong emotion.

That was undoubtedly the case. Signor Callucci was struggling with himself. There, he thought, was he, goggling at as corking a sunset as one could wish and dreaming of the sum he would shortly get into his pater’s ribs for, and there was the same pater, spoiling the whole enjoyment of their visit by urging him to propose marriage to Guilia Medici. A rotten bit of business, Marcello held.