Dreaming of Florence Read online

  ‘Buongiorno.’ She was determined to practice her Italian.

  ‘Buongiorno, signorina. Ben tornata.’

  ‘You remember me?’ She was impressed. Ben tornata meant welcome back.

  ‘A tall, beautiful English girl who speaks Italian – of course I remember you.’ He gave her a cheeky grin and she smiled back, trying not to blush.

  ‘This is probably going to sound like a silly question.’ She was delighted to find the words coming out pretty easily in Italian and to see comprehension on his face. ‘But do you know of another spot like this up here somewhere?’

  He looked a bit puzzled. ‘You mean another café?’

  ‘No, a place like this with roses and benches, with a view over the city.’ She decided to tell a little white lie. ‘A friend of mine was telling me about it.’

  He hesitated, resting on the back of the chair beside him. ‘Roses, you say? What about the Giardino delle Rose? That’s close by.’

  A place called the Rose Garden? Debbie nodded eagerly. ‘That sounds perfect. Where’s that?’

  ‘Have you just come up the steps on foot?’

  She nodded again. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you’ve walked right past it. It’s just down the hill from us. Go back to the steps, start going down and you’ll see it on the right. Big iron gates.’ He hesitated. ‘It might still be closed at this time of day, but you can try.’

  ‘Thank you so much. That’s wonderful.’

  She hurried off back to the steps and started descending, delighted her Italian had been up to the task, and excited that the friendly waiter might have actually pointed her in the direction of her special place. Certainly, the name was auspicious.

  Before long, she came to a pair of rusty iron gates on her right. Earlier, she had been concentrating so hard on climbing the never-ending steps on the way up that she must have trudged right past without noticing. Attached to the gates was a transparent plastic sign, clearly marked Giardino delle Rose. The bad news was that the gates were secured with a chain and a padlock and the sign indicated that the garden would only be open to the public from 10 a.m. on Sundays. Debbie glanced at her watch. It was still only just after eight o’clock.

  She peered through the bars of the gate and immediately noticed two things. First were the numerous plants, among them rose bushes, and second, two solid wooden benches. The closer of the two, set in the shade of a clump of trees, was empty, but the other looked as though it had somebody sitting on it. From behind, it looked like a man wearing a funny, flat-topped hat. After a moment’s hesitation, Debbie called out to him.

  ‘Buongiorno. Posso entrare? Can I come in?’ It was a long shot, but he might just be able to open the gate. There was no response from him, so she tried again, a bit louder, still without any result. Then, to her surprise, there was the sound of footsteps and a woman appeared from the right, holding the end of a hosepipe.

  ‘Can I help you?’ She looked friendly enough. By her accent, Debbie reckoned she was local to these parts.

  ‘Yes, I’m very sorry, but I’ve come all the way from England to see this garden and I’m only here today. I don’t suppose you could let me in, could you?’

  The gardener dropped the hose and walked across to the locked gate, glanced around, then shook her head. ‘We’re closed until ten, and I’m afraid I don’t have the key to this padlock.’ She hesitated, checking once more that Debbie was on her own. ‘Listen, if you go on down the steps, you’ll come to a door set in the wall, right at the corner. That’s the way I came in and I’ve a feeling I may have forgotten to lock it behind me.’ She gave Debbie a wink. ‘I suppose if you were to find it open and wander in, nobody would blame you. Just don’t tell my boss I let you in.’

  ‘That’s terrific. Thank you so much. I promise I’ll be very quiet and I won’t say a word. After all, I’m foreign and I don’t speak Italian, do I?’

  ‘Of course you don’t.’ The lady smiled and then lowered her voice. ‘Actually, you speak very good Italian. My compliments. Now don’t hurry. I’ll need a couple of minutes to go down and check that I did forget to lock it.’ She grinned at Debbie. ‘And, by the way, when you come in, close it behind you, would you?’

  ‘You’re really, really kind. Thank you so much.’

  Debbie watched the gardener turn and set off across the cobbles and on down a narrow path until she disappeared from sight. She waited by the gate for a minute or so, breathing in the atmosphere, increasingly convinced that this might finally be the place of her dreams. Then, after a bit of time had passed, she set off down the steps and easily found the sturdy wooden door set in the stone wall. She pushed it with the palm of her hand and it opened. After going in, she pressed it closed behind her until she heard it click, and then climbed up half a dozen steep steps into the garden.

  She walked slowly up the path towards the benches she had seen. The path led her through the rose garden and along the side of a lawned area, surrounded by trees, shrubs and flowers. The scent of roses filled the air and she could hear the twittering of birds in the branches. It felt peaceful, relaxing and somehow very, very familiar. As the path levelled out onto the cobbled area, she found herself confronted by two statues. The first was a massive metal outline of a suitcase, complete with a handle that formed a frame through which to view the roofs of Florence below.

  The second was more unsettling. There, right ahead of her, was the wooden bench she felt increasingly sure she had seen so often in her dreams. But sitting on it was the man in the funny hat she had viewed from the gate – only it wasn’t a real man. In fact, it wasn’t necessarily even a man. Like the suitcase, this was also a statue, this time of an androgynous being, made of what looked like bronze. The figure was sitting on the bench, with its left arm resting along the back of the bench, as if waiting for somebody to sit down alongside. She found herself gawping as she approached it.

  She stood for a good few minutes, just staring down at the figure, before slowly, almost reluctantly, taking a seat on the bench. The feel of the sun-warmed wood beneath her was unmistakable, as was the scent of roses in the air. She raised her eyes and looked straight ahead, the panorama of the rooftops of Florence matching up exactly with her mental image formed over so many years. She relaxed against the statue’s bronze arm running along the back of the bench, and her right hand quite naturally landed in the statue’s other hand, resting on its bronze knees. As she took hold of the metal hand with her fingers, she distinctly felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

  This was it. This was her spot, her special place.

  She felt her eyes burn and first one, and then a flood of tears began to run freely down her cheeks. Years of pent-up emotions spilled over and she sobbed her heart out. The disappointment she had felt as a teenager, when her mum and dad hadn’t been able to scrape up the money to send her on the school trip, rose up and was washed away. Even as she wept, she knew that she wasn’t weeping out of sadness. Instead, she was crying with relief, with joy, with a sense of belonging she hadn’t felt before.

  ‘Are you all right, signorina? I couldn’t help noticing that you were crying.’

  Debbie looked up, reaching into her pocket for a tissue with her free hand. It was the gardener from before, standing in front of the bench, looking concerned. After blowing her nose and wiping her eyes, Debbie took a big breath before replying.

  ‘Thank you, but I’m fine.’ She took another deep breath. ‘I’m sorry about this. It’s hard to explain. I’ve been dreaming of this place ever since I was a little girl and now I’ve finally found it, it’s had more of an influence upon me than I expected.’

  She glanced sideways at the bronze figure. She was still gripping the hand tightly and it felt comforting. So comforting, in fact, that she felt the beginnings of a smile forming on her face.

  ‘I’m fine, honestly. Thank you so much for your concern.’

  The gardener didn’t look convinced.

  ‘You’re not the fi
rst person to have a funny turn with this statue, you know. We had a lady here a month or two ago who grabbed hold and wouldn’t let go. We almost had to prise her away.’

  The image made the smile on Debbie’s face broaden. With sudden decision, she released the hand and stood up. To her relief, there was no sense of loss and the feel of the warm metal against her palm stayed with her even after she had thanked the kind gardener and made her way back down through the garden and out onto the steps once more, remembering to pull the door closed behind her.

  She walked slowly back across the Ponte Vecchio, which was already filling up with people, and through the backstreets to the pensione. All the way home, she could feel the smile still on her face.

  * * *

  After an exhausting walking tour of the sights that day, and a whistle-stop tour of half a dozen English language schools that didn’t really produce much more than the recognition that they existed and that they boasted signs screwed to the walls of buildings advertising their presence, Debbie and Alice took the number 7 bus to Fiesole. This was on the hill, the other side of town from Piazzale Michelangelo, but the bus driver, a woman this time, demonstrated the same racing and rallying skills as her colleague the previous evening.

  As the bus climbed the hill out of Florence and they were thrown from side to side round the corners, the views got better and better. Debbie saw that the hillside was peppered with magnificent villas, most surrounded by imposing cypress trees, presumably planted centuries ago to provide some shade against the heat of the sun. Some of the villas were the size of small castles and no doubt cost as much. For a moment she found herself wondering if Pierluigi came from somewhere as opulent as this. The realisation that he and she were from very different worlds struck her yet again.

  The bus came to a halt in the main square of Fiesole and the doors hissed open. This paved area was just about the only relatively flat space they had seen since beginning the climb up from the outskirts of Florence. Over to the left was an imposing church, and the square was ringed by what they now recognized as typical Florentine buildings – sturdy façades, the plaster a creamy, light ochre colour, with green shutters and pink terracotta roofs. There was what looked like a craft fair going on and the centre of the square was full of stalls offering handmade objects for sale.

  As they strolled through the crowd, admiring the paintings, pottery and woodcarvings, Alice returned to the subject that had occupied both of them on and off for most of the day.

  ‘You say yourself that you’ve read lots of books about Florence and you’ve spent hours on the internet, researching the place. That postcard you’ve got only shows the view, not the place from where it was taken. That rose garden is something you’ve dreamed up – you most probably saw it in a book somewhere and, although you don’t remember, the image must have lodged in your head.’ Alice glanced across at her. ‘Or are we talking something supernatural here? You don’t really think you were there in a previous existence?’ Debbie could hear from her tone what she thought of that idea and she agreed with her.

  ‘Nothing like that. I’m not totally bonkers, you know.’ She remembered Pierluigi asking her if she had been a Medici princess in a previous life and discounted it now, as she had then. ‘I’m sure you’re right. I must have seen a photo or something and it affected me subliminally.’

  ‘And your reaction to it, crying your eyes out?’

  ‘I invented, or found, or remembered, this special place years ago when I was a girl at school. Sitting there today with that statue’s arm round me brought back memories, that’s all.’

  Alice nodded approvingly. ‘So it all goes back to when you were a teenager. It’s probably all tied up with hormones and sex and stuff like that.’ She grinned. ‘So, talking of sex, did the hand you were holding remind you of anybody? Like a certain tall, handsome doctor, by any chance?’’

  ‘I don’t know if it reminded me of him, but I certainly thought about him.’ Debbie felt another little stab of regret that he wasn’t here with her, but the joy of having found the solution to her longstanding mystery more than compensated for his absence. At least for now. ‘Anyway, now’s the time to reveal where we’re eating tonight. It’s a little restaurant that got great reviews on the internet and, unless I’m mistaken, that’s it over there.’

  They were shown to a table outside on a roof terrace, with a stunning view over Florence. From up here, the whole city was laid out before them and Debbie could easily make out Piazzale Michelangelo, with the hills towards Siena beyond. It was too far away for her to spot her rose garden, but she didn’t mind. Now that she knew the place was real, she intended to return as often as she could.

  Once Debbie had overcome her fear that this restaurant might turn out to be too pricey and pretentious, she began to enjoy herself. It certainly wasn’t pretentious. Yes, most of the other diners most probably had more money than the two of them put together, but it didn’t matter. They were all there for the view, and the food – and both were excellent. Quite a few of the tables contained children alongside the adults, and a number of the kids spent the evening running about and playing. The waiters and other diners didn’t bat an eyelid and Debbie found herself comparing their reaction to similar places in the UK, where she felt sure a very dim view would have been taken.

  They started with glasses of Prosecco to celebrate Debbie’s birthday then moved on to Chianti Classico while they ate ham, fresh pasta, and then wonderful little lamb chops, cooked over a charcoal grill. At the end they were too full to manage dessert, but the waitress brought them some cantuccini – rock-hard almond biscuits that they dipped in their red wine to soften before nibbling them. It was a memorable meal.

  By the time they finished, the sun had set and darkness had fallen. The lights of Florence twinkled down below them in the distance and a light breeze had brought the temperature down to a comfortable level. Debbie felt very full, very happy, and very pleased that she had accomplished what she had set out to do.

  ‘So, how does this birthday match up to others you’ve had?’ Alice sounded equally content.

  ‘Brilliant. Yes, I know it’s all been a bit of a mad rush, but I’m so very pleased I came. And I’m pleased you came with me, Al.’

  ‘I’ve enjoyed it as well. I really have. So, can we say Florence has lived up to your expectations?’

  Debbie nodded decisively. ‘Very much so.’

  ‘And when are you coming back again?’

  ‘Just as soon as I can.’

  Chapter 6

  When Debbie went into work on Tuesday, she found that Simon had called a staff meeting for that afternoon. The announcement he made took a lot of people almost totally by surprise. Although Debbie had been half-expecting it, it still came as a shock to the system. After a brief preamble, he very rapidly came to the point. And it didn’t make for pleasant listening.

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you that the school’s in financial trouble. Although we’ve had a good number of students here this summer, enrolments for the autumn and winter terms are dire. The way things are looking, we could go under, unless we do something about it.’

  The teachers and admin staff looked around nervously. Most of them had been aware that student numbers had been dropping over the past few years, but after a busy summer, they had been hoping things were improving. Clearly, however, this was not the case.

  ‘Anyway, the situation dictates that we cut costs as soon as possible. I’m hoping we can do this without any of you having to lose your jobs, but if anybody feels like resigning, we’ve put together some pretty good redundancy packages, so do give it some thought, please. We’ll be very sorry to lose you, but if you’re interested, please come and speak to me.’

  That evening Debbie called Alice, who came over for a council of war. Debbie had been at the school for most of her working life, she loved her job, and she was saddened at the thought of losing it. Alice, as always, was determined to look at things positively and remin
ded her of their recent discussions.

  ‘This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for, Debs. Surely this is the moment for you to make that change we were talking about. Like I told you, I wouldn’t want to lose you, but the universe could hardly be making it any clearer. I reckon you need to think seriously about Florence.’

  Debbie had been thinking the same thing, ever since returning home. ‘I know. It’s almost as if it’s a sign.’

  The previous night, when they got back from their trip, she hadn’t slept particularly well, her mind still filled with images of her special spot and the wonderful city of Florence. She knew she wanted to go back and she had been feeling quite bereft at the thought that it would be months, or maybe even years, before she would be able to return. The three days in Italy had seriously depleted her savings, such as they were, and she knew it would take a good while to find enough to allow her to go back again. And from what Pierluigi had said, he might well be off to the States before long and it would have been so good to see him one more time first. If she could find a job there…

  ‘So how do you go about getting a job, and what about the Brexit thing? Might they sling you out again in a year or two?’

  Debbie shook her head. ‘I doubt it. I imagine there’ll always be a need for English speakers. As for finding a job, I’ve been looking on the internet and it’s like I said – there aren’t many jobs on offer. But I’ve just come across this. What do you think?’

  She opened her laptop and handed it across. The advert, on a TEFL website, was short and to the point.

  Wanted, native speaker to teach English as a Foreign Language at reputable, long-established school in Florence, Italy. Must be well qualified and experienced. Flexible hours. Good salary. To start early October. Apply with full CV to Box 1472.