Chapter Nineteen
Once Daisy had gone, Francesca marched off in the direction of the entrance. I glanced at Aidan as we both adjusted our headsets. I was already wishing that I’d told him not to bother coming.
‘Just us?’ he said.
‘Looks like it.’
‘Reckon you can take video footage in there?’ I asked Aidan.
Francesca, who clearly had ears like a hawk, replied instead, ‘No videos in the museum!’
Aidan caught my eye and raised his eyebrows.
‘Are you still at Holiday Shop? Working for that dickhead, Tim?’
‘Yes. And yes.’
He looked surprised.
‘He’s been promoted to senior producer. My friend Lou is a director now. And I’m still exactly where I was two years ago. For now, anyway,’ I said, thinking about my website idea.
We navigated the security to get into the gallery, an airport-like set-up similar to the one at the Galleria dell’Accademia.
Once we’d had our bags checked, Francesca led us through what felt like the backstage area of the gallery.
A series of corridors painted in white and grey, and lots and lots of stairs.
‘You know, not getting promoted isn’t something to beat yourself up about,’ said Aidan. ‘It’s a tough industry. It’s easy to get stuck.’
‘I guess we can’t all fall on our feet like you,’ I said.
Aidan looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I hadn’t put you down as a Conde Nast Traveller type.’
‘It’s a job, Maddie. And I get to travel the world and write interesting pieces that go onto glossy pages with beautiful glossy pictures. So what if it doesn’t align perfectly with my values?’
Great. I’d made myself sound all bitter and twisted about his success.
‘As long as you’re happy,’ I said, seemingly unable to lose the snippy tone.
It was like I’d turned in to Sophia Mark 2.
‘The Uffizi Gallery was built by order of Cosimo the first, the Grand Duke of Tuscany,’ said Francesca’s booming voice through the headset.
Cosimo again, I thought.
‘It was built on the site of an ancient church. If you look here, inside this glass, you can see the ancient floor and the altar.’
I paused to look down beneath my feet at some stone ruins.
When I looked up, Francesca and Aidan were way ahead and I had to hurry to catch them up.
As we turned to go up another steep staircase, I could hear Francesca huffing and puffing in my earpiece, which was quite disconcerting when I couldn’t actually see her!
At the top of the stairs, I found them again.
‘The gallery was designed by Giorgio Vasari. It is the second most important art gallery in the world. Maddie, can you tell me which is the number one most important art gallery in the world?’
It was like being back at the wine tasting all over again.
I held my hands up: my general knowledge really wasn’t very good. ‘Um, the Louvre?’ I guessed.
‘Correct!’ said Francesca. ‘The Louvre is the most important art gallery in the world and it is in fact twenty-four times bigger than the Uffizi.’
‘Wow,’ said Aidan. ‘No wonder the only thing I remember about it is the Mona Lisa.’
‘Same,’ I said.
‘It is very intimidating, no? Even here in the Uffizi, you cannot see it all in one day,’ noted Francesca.
We were now in the first-floor corridor, which had the most perfect light streaming in through the windows on the right-hand side. On the ceiling were wood panels as far as the eye could see, each containing an ornate set of hand-painted frescoes.
Aidan stood alongside me.
‘I was thinking about you last night,’ he said.
Francesca was telling us about a series of paintings of popes, kings and queens.
‘Were you?’ I asked, keeping it casual, pretending to be mesmerised by the paintings on the ceiling.
His arm brushed against mine and it was as though every single nerve-ending in my body was suddenly standing on end.
We moved around the gallery, stopping to look at beautiful paintings and sculptures, some of them over six hundred years old, with Francesca enthusiastically explaining the fascinating history behind them.
An hour passed in what felt like a split second and part of me didn’t want to ruin the experience by hearing Aidan’s explanation for what had happened in the past. Because whatever it was, it wasn’t going to change anything, was it?
But as we followed Francesca into another room, stopping in front of a painting of seven different women sitting on a medieval throne, I had the feeling that it was now or never.
‘This is the Seven Virtues,’ said Francesca, who was standing just in front of us. ‘Faith, Hope, Charity, Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude and Justice.’
‘I’m not sure I possess any of those,’ Aidan whispered to me.
‘I’m not sure you do, either,’ I agreed, only half-joking.
I’d begun to remember what it had been like to be with him. How funny he was, how naturally the conversation flowed. This was not good.
‘Six of these paintings are by the artist Piero del Pollaiuolo,’ said Francesca. ‘But one is the first work by Botticelli. I will be very happy with you if you can correctly guess which one.’
I stared at them. To me, one popped out immediately. It drew me in. The woman’s dress was so detailed and clear, and her face looked more three-dimensional than the others.’
‘That one,’ I said, pointing at the first panel.
Francesca patted me on the shoulder. ‘You are right, Maddie, well done. This is Fortitude and it was painted by Sandro Botticelli in 1470.’
‘You’re better at art than you are at wine,’ commented Aidan.
‘Seems so. By the way, did you doodle bananas to help me out?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, smiling at me.
I nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any time.’
‘I’ll have to bring Nick’s family here and show them that I’m not as clueless as they seem to think I am.’
Aidan frowned. ‘Is that really what they think of you?’
I shrugged.
‘And Nick used to be married to that overconfident one? Sophia?’
‘Yep.’
‘And he didn’t tell you she was coming?’
I shook my head. ‘Do all men lack basic communication skills?’
‘I couldn’t possibly speak for all men,’ said Aidan.
I took a step closer to Fortitude. There was something very strong and powerful about the 550-year-old woman in the painting.
‘So, are you going to tell me, then?’ I said. ‘About what happened. Why you left.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said softly, standing so close behind me now that I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. His voice was sending tingles down my spine.
Focus, I thought to myself.
‘So I think we got to my mum’s diagnosis?’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘I found out that the disease is usually passed down via the mother and while both men and women can develop the condition, men go on to have symptoms more often.’
I swallowed hard. Was Aidan losing his eyesight?
‘That’s when things started not adding up,’ said Aidan.
‘Neither Mum nor Dad mentioned that maybe I should get a test, and when I brought it up, they brushed it off. Said their doctor had told them it wasn’t necessary, that it was very unlikely I’d have it and that since I couldn’t do anything about it, there was no point in knowing unless I started developing symptoms.’
‘That doesn’t sound right,’ I said.
‘Exactly. Which is why I contacted my own GP and arranged the test myself.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this at the time?’ I asked.
We’d shared lots of things. Our disastrous relationships, our aspirations, our failures. So why not that?
‘I should have said something,’ said Aidan.
’ I wasn’t used to talking about my feelings.
I know it felt like I was, because it came more easily with you.
But that was very unusual. And I went to tell you loads of times, but something always stopped me.
I thought that if I did have the gene, it would mean an end to everything.
You wouldn’t want to have children with me, for a start, would you? ’
‘Aidan, we’d been together a month. Having children wasn’t even something we’d thought about, let alone discussed.’
‘I’d thought about it,’ he said, looking at me in that intense way he had.
I swallowed hard.
‘Now we go to see more Botticelli,’ announced Francesca grandly.
Keeping Francesca in my eyeline, my mind was whirring. He’d seen a future for us. He’d thought as far ahead as children, something I hadn’t dared consider. So what had gone so wrong?
‘This is Primavera,’ said Francesca, coming to a stop. ‘Spring.’
The painting had a dark background but was bursting with colourful details: fruits, flowers, trees and plants.
Francesca explained that in the centre of the painting was Venus, the goddess of love, set back from the others, and above her head, a blindfolded Cupid shoots his arrow.
When the small crowd in front of us dispersed, Aidan and I stepped forward to take a closer look.
‘Quite moving, isn’t it?’ said Aidan.
I nodded. ‘I never realised that you literally have to be standing right in front of these paintings to appreciate them properly.’
Aidan looked at his watch. ‘It’s just gone eleven, you know. We don’t have long.’
I understood. It felt like this would be the last chance for us to speak privately. If I didn’t get the full story now, I might never know how all of this had impacted his decision not to turn up that night.
‘What did the tests show? Do you have the gene?’ I asked gently.
‘No,’ he said.
‘That’s good, right?’ I said, relief rushing through me.
He nodded. ‘But the strangest thing came out of it. When I told my parents about the test, my mum started crying. Balling her eyes out, right there in front of me.’
‘Because she was relieved? Would she have blamed herself?’
‘Well, that’s what I thought, initially. But then came the bombshell. There was something they needed to tell me. Something they’d been meaning to for – well – thirty-one years.’
‘What was it?’ I asked.
‘I’m adopted.’ Aidan laughed hollowly. ‘And they’d decided it was a great idea not to tell me.’
I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me. Adopted? I remembered how close to his parents he’d been. How affectionately he’d spoken of them and how refreshing that had seemed.
‘Fucking hell,’ I said. This was not panning out to be one of the superficial excuses I thought he’d come up with.
‘Yeah. It was a lot to take in.’
‘And that all happened …?’
‘The afternoon I was meant to meet you to go to that exhibition. It was such a shock. Mum and I had never even fallen out, not really. I’d always thought I was exactly like her: we were both sensitive, and we had a sweet tooth and neither of us slept well and we liked being around people in a way that my dad didn’t.
But the stuff you think is in your genes? Turns out that sometimes it isn’t.’
He tried to smile, but I could see from his expression how painful this had been for him.
‘But it is from your mum. In that it’s about the relationship you had. The cues you picked up on, from observing how she was with other people. Which is kind of the same thing, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, as we followed Francesca into the Leonardo da Vinci room.
The light was very low, which Francesca said was done purposely to show his paintings in the best way: meditative and slow. With the stillness of the room, the subdued lighting, it felt like the perfect space for everything to finally fall into place.