‘No problem.’ Giovanni picked up Lisa’s case and manhandled it into the back seat waiting for Will to follow suit.
With both cases wedged in the back there was only room for one passenger to squeeze in next to them.
Giovanni held open the driver’s seat and indicated to Will that he should get in the back. Will glanced down at his long legs; Giovanni grinned and held the door wider. Lisa almost giggled.
‘You’re kidding,’ said Will with a scowl.
‘It’s not far.’ Giovanni gave him a cheerful grin.
Lisa bit back a smile as Will climbed into the back, resigned disgust written all over his face.
The traffic was every bit as chaotic as Lisa had been led to believe. Cars zipped in and out of lanes with gay abandon, heedless of blaring horns, leaving eye-wateringly negligible gaps between bumpers. She crossed her fingers tight under her thighs and wondered whether she might have been better in the back. Being back on the plane was almost preferable to this. Giovanni’s jerky, rapid-braking style of driving made her feel slightly sick as did his habit of turning to talk to her as he drove. The car didn’t have any air conditioning and when Giovanni opened all the windows as they came to a stop in grindingly slow traffic, the car filled with hazy exhaust fumes.
‘This is the main road into Rome. It’s usually a lot busier than this,’ said Giovanni, before changing lanes with startling speed, squeezing the car into a gap in the next lane, which was moving fractionally quicker than theirs. Two seconds later he whipped the car back into the original lane, which had started to edge forwards more quickly. This constant lane-changing, trying to second-guess the traffic queues, interspersed with a running commentary on the other drivers, didn’t help the queasiness dancing in her stomach.
‘We have a whole week. Are there any places that you would like to visit? We have a wealth of sights. The tourist season is very busy now.’ He grinned at Lisa, and she smiled uncertainly. She wished he’d watch the road instead of turning her way like that, but she was grateful he hadn’t said anything about looking for her father.
For some reason, she didn’t want Will to know the real reason for her visit.
While looking out at the houses beside the road, and the streets beyond, it struck her rather forcefully that this could be a wild-goose chase. It had seemed quite simple when she was at home. Now the practicality and the enormity rocked home. Rome was a big city. The photo and address were very old. Anything could have happened in the intervening years.
‘I … the usual places, I guess.’ She’d fully intended to read her guide book on the plane, but with Will sitting next to her she’d been reluctant. An organised person might have planned and prepared much earlier. In fact, he made her feel like a grubby, unsophisticated schoolgirl on her first trip abroad. Flying by herself, while absolutely terrifying, had also felt grown up and glamorous and ever so slightly daring. Will made it look like hopping on a bloody bus.
With a fixed smile, she focused on the sights around them, which looked rather industrial and run down, although every now and then they’d dip below an ancient viaduct running over the road. As they neared the city, the buildings started to become more interesting, the juxtapositions decidedly odd. There, next to a modern square electrical department store was an ancient bridge, the worn pointing making the bricks look as if they might tumble down at any moment. A huge many-tiered church towered over a square, the white marble making it look like an elaborate wedding cake. The numbers of pedestrians increased, gaily taking their life in their hands as they sauntered through the traffic, which had once again begun to back up.
Despite the touch of a headache from the liberal use of horns and the fumes, Lisa was fascinated by the good-natured chaos. Cars seemed to join the main arteries of roads from every side road, opening like tributaries flooding evermore into a river already threatening to burst its banks. Drivers threw their hands up in the air, tooting with exasperated exuberance, and it seemed like a contest as to who could toot loudest and longest. Giovanni seemed completely unconcerned about the early-evening cacophony around them, with the window open and his arm resting on the opening, he tapped along to the Europop blasting from the car’s radio. Most of the songs seemed to be English, to be fair, but the stream of Italian between, spoken at the speed of light, was yet another reminder that she wasn’t in Leighton Buzzard any more.
She squirmed in her seat, itching to get out and walk along the streets in the balmy air, along with the early-evening crowd, who all looked as if they had somewhere to be. It was infectious, that sense of a city on the move, heading somewhere important. Were that couple, arm in arm, going home to eat pasta? Was the handsome man with the briefcase heading to a rendezvous with a gorgeous brunette, already waiting with a double espresso in a café? Lisa sighed.
‘You okay?’ asked Giovanni. ‘We’re nearly there.’
‘I’m fine. Is the traffic always like this?’
He let out an uproarious laugh. ‘No, this is good. This is tourist season, remember. No one stays in Rome in the summer unless they have to.’
With a sudden lurch, Giovanni hauled the car into a side street, hurtling along the quiet road, racing through the gears before dropping back down, with equal drama, to throw the car around another corner, before screeching to a halt outside a gate. With a quick toot, it rolled open with slow grace.
After a short drive along a winding foliage-bordered road, Giovanni pulled up with a flourish, throwing his arm out of the open window to indicate the building nestled right between one of the ancient arches of the aqueduct.
‘Wow! This is the apartment?’ Lisa gasped. It reminded her of some crab or snail which had taken up residence in someone else’s shell.
‘Very nice. I wasn’t expecting this,’ murmured Will, as he clambered out of the back of the car, stretching as he did so. Lisa averted her eyes from the flash of stomach and dark-blonde hair above the waistband of his very low-slung jeans, irritated by the rapturous appreciation of her hormones. Since when were they in charge?
‘I didn’t know they were allowed to do things like this.’ Thinking about bricks and mortar was a good distraction. The planning departments at home wouldn’t let someone build within spitting distance of this type of ancient monument, let alone use the walls of it as part of the structure.
Will laughed. ‘Welcome to Italy. I think they take their history in their stride because there’s so much of it.’
‘Si, si.’ Giovanni pulled her case out of the back of the car and carried it to the door, before opening up with a large, old-fashioned key.
The entrance led into a high-ceilinged, cool, dark hall, tiled in black-and-white marble stone. To their left, an ornate wrought-iron railing edged a wide staircase, which curved up and around two sides of the room, the stone steps worn in the middle, smoothed away by many years of footsteps treading up and down them.
‘We are on the first floor,’ Giovanni announced with pride, leading the way upwards.
At the top, directly opposite the last step, was a rather imposing doorway, with highly polished and embellished brass knobs on each of the double doors.
Lisa had visions of the Lord of the Rings again, arriving at some Middle Earth palace. Giovanni opened both doors, throwing them wide and stepping back like Sir Walter Raleigh, ushering Lisa in.
After the dark hallway, they were bathed in light,
