Chapter Eleven #3
It was good in some ways, that Rocco had begun leading them deeper into the back streets, or she just might. Though she didn’t think he’d mind. He had a kind of smug assurance about him. A certain swagger in his walk, radiating superiority.
She should hate it. Instead, it made her want to jump him in a darkened doorway and tear at his clothes. Was this finally the fun pregnancy hormones she’d read about? The ones that increased your libido?
Good grief. She and Rocco were bad enough as it was. Any more, and Lily was sure they’d never survive it. Though they’d sure have fun as they died trying. She suppressed a laugh which turned into a little snort instead.
‘Everything okay?’ Rocco asked. They were in a particularly dim street and there were a few people who seemed to be loitering. Rocco loomed over her, his warning to the strangers clear. The loiterers sensibly turned their backs.
‘Fine, fine.’ Lily didn’t want to admit she was fantasising about committing acts of public indecency, or how she finally understood the attraction of those dim alcoves in the walls at the Venice ball … ‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going?’
‘Don’t you like surprises?’
She wasn’t sure anymore. Overhearing Richard calling her dull, the shock of her pregnancy. They were surprises she hadn’t enjoyed. But Rocco’s marriage proposal overlooking the Colosseum, her engagement ring. She was right on board with them.
‘I’ll stay on the fence about this one since I have no idea what it is.’
He grinned at her, as if he was happy for the first time in a long time. Something about him in that moment appeared almost boyish. As if he’d been weighed down before and was now suddenly lighter.
Rocco slipped his phone from his pocket and checked it. ‘This way.’
‘Are you sure you know where we’re going?’
‘Would I lead you astray?’
‘Absolutely.’
He chuckled, a deep, throaty sound. Almost wicked in its intent. ‘Do you trust me?’
Something expansive seemed to take root and grow in her chest, solid and sure.
‘Yes. I do.’
‘Then round this corner is where you’ll see another part of my life. One few know of.’
Intrigued, she followed as he guided her into a poorly lit street. Men in workmen’s gear milled around as someone was spray-painting on a wall. She screwed up her nose at the pungent smell.
‘What’s happening here?’ she asked, whispering. The man with the spray paint was dressed in black, face covered, blending into the shadows. The whole scene appeared illicit, except for a few men in high-vis vests that lent it an oddly official air.
But what caught her attention was the mural being painted on the wall’s surface. Her breath snagged in her throat. Taking shape was a life-sized winged man, falling from the sky.
‘Icarus?’ she asked.
Rocco shook his head. ‘A fallen angel.’
One of the men in high-vis turned, raised a hand in greeting, and walked towards them. ‘Medici,’ he said in a kind of acknowledgement, then he and Rocco spoke briefly in Italian. Strange, but Rocco didn’t introduce him. When the man left, Lily quirked an eyebrow.
‘It’s better not to know the name of anyone here,’ he said.
‘Do you know them?’
‘Of course.’
‘Is what I’m watching legal?’ she asked, as a flock of trembling butterflies seemed to take roost in her belly. Nerves or excitement, it was hard to tell.
‘It depends on your perspective. He is one of the finest street artists in the world.’ Rocco nodded to the man finishing up the mural with a flourish. His tag perhaps?
The graffiti was painted with astonishing skill, in black on the white wall.
The winged creature plummeting to earth, arms outstretched, feathers fluttering down round him.
Face twisted; in agony or perhaps ecstasy, she wasn’t sure.
Some words seemed stencilled above the figure’s outstretched palm.
From here, she couldn’t see what was written.
The stranger packed up a backpack and simply melted into the shadows without acknowledging anyone.
‘Now it’s our turn. Come.’
Rocco led her to a man standing next to a box.
Inside were carved wooden feathers, the size of her forearm.
She bent down to look at them. The workmanship was exquisite.
The wood making up the vane appeared paper thin, delicate.
Finely etched with barbs, it looked almost real.
On the shaft in tiny letters was a signature.
Medici.
‘Guerrilla art? This is what—’ she waved her arm, motioning towards what was going on in front of her ‘—you’re all doing here?’
‘Sì. Although there’s a festival coming this weekend in Rome, so permission for the piece was possible, had we cared to ask. We didn’t. So what we’re doing is not strictly legal.’
She noticed then that there was something changed about him standing there. Like he was looser, less standoffish. The slightest of smiles now teasing his lips.
‘Who are you?’
‘We are Gli Invisibili. The Invisibles. Scattering beauty or social commentary around the country.’
‘Why these?’ She gently picked up one of the feathers. Ran her finger over it. Admired the workmanship.
‘Help me lay them out and you’ll see.’
Rocco didn’t have a plan for placement of the feathers like she’d seen for some pieces Max had shown at the gallery.
They worked together, putting them on the narrow footpath, some on the roadway, underneath the winged man on the wall.
When they’d laid the last of the feathers they stood back.
Lily, admiring the artistry and imagination of the combined works.
Rocco, with a critical eye, walking back, adjusting a few feathers. His care almost reverent.
Lily began to understand the intent of the arrangement: the painted body frozen just prior to impact, the wooden feathers loosed from the figure’s wings, scattered across the earth beneath.
It was beautiful. Powerful. She was sure it had deeper meaning.
Standing closer now, she could see the stencilled words. Non ci sono santi.
‘What do the words say?’
‘The literal translation? There are no saints. But it means more. Speaking to inevitability. No excuses, perhaps. The face on the figure is that of a revered politician who lived a secret life. He was beloved,’ Rocco said. ‘And yet he fell and was punished. Disgraced.’
The way he said the words, the way he looked at the art, it seemed to her like he was telling her something personal. If only he’d confide in her what that was.
‘Have you ever been caught?’
‘No. But others have. I pay their legal fees should they need representation.’
A few of the men in high-vis came forwards, took photographs. The flashes of their phones startling in the dim light of the street.
‘Some patron you are, Medici.’
Rocco smiled and it was brighter and more blinding than anything from the phone cameras. The privilege of being shown this side of him. It would take time for her to come to truly understand it.
‘How long will this last?’
He shrugged. ‘The feathers are designed to be taken. People are entitled to keep a part of it. The mural itself might be painted over, although the artist’s recognisable style tends to preserve it because of his fame. Otherwise, the piece is designed to be fleeting. Ephemeral.’
She looked at him, arms crossed, surveying the scene. All the hours it must have taken to create those fragile feathers. He plucked up the closest one up and handed it to her.
‘Here. You’re the first. Each person after will change it in their own way.’
She took the feather from him. In many ways more precious than the ring he’d just placed on her finger.
The workmen seemed to be packing up and moving on. Lily wanted to stand and absorb the artwork some more.
‘Come. We should go,’ Rocco said. ‘You’re not a citizen and I don’t want you to suffer for my sins.’
‘Would you bail me out if I did?’
His dark eyebrows lifted. ‘Of course.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘For my ring. For showing me this part of you.’
She placed her left hand against his cheek, rose on her toes, and kissed him.
The kiss in the jeweller’s had been for show.
But here, before the mural’s outstretched wings, this moment held something far deeper.
The beginning of understanding. A pull between them, a connection that was almost palpable.
Something momentous was happening, unstoppable as a freight train bearing down on her.
This all-consuming sensation of need, desire, and the aching wish to make him happy.
And in that moment, Lily began to realise: Rocco was a man with whom it would be very easy to fall in love.