Free In Love and War by Alex Preston Page A

him a firm embrace, clutching him to her chest. The Colonel comes and seizes his hand.
    ‘Do you the deuce of good to walk. Too many soft young chaps – no disrespect, Esmond – think a taxi’s the only way to move. In my day, we’d walk to Bristol to get an appetite for lunch. Now, how’s the old man?’
    ‘He’s fine, sleeping. He and Gesuina are heading up to Bagnidi Lucca tomorrow. A few weeks’ rest and he’ll be back to his old self.’
    Mrs Keppel presses a Negroni into his hand and he drinks it, puts his jacket over the back of one of the chairs and begins to unbutton his shirt.
    ‘I hope you don’t mind, Esmond,’ he says, shrugging off his shirt and beginning to lower his trousers. ‘I have never worn clothes to swim and I don’t intend to start now.’ He takes off his socks and stands in his undershorts. Mrs Keppel looks at him as she looks at the rest of Florence.
    ‘I remember you swimming here, oh, you must have been thirteen. Length after length, utterly tireless. Mesmerising to watch your skinny body plunging through the water like a merprince.’ Gerald drops his white undershorts, makes his way to the steps and lunges forward. He arrows beneath the surface, a trail of bubbles fizzing behind him, shooting up from the far end with a roar.
    ‘Oh this
is
the life! Come on, George, come and have a swim. It’s bloody exquisite.’
    With a slap, Colonel Keppel throws himself into the pool and, thrashing the water, swims in a fierce crawl to where Gerald is stretched out on his back in the leafy light. Esmond looks across at Fiamma, who watches them both with faint amusement.
    ‘We came here all the time as children, Gerald and I. Sometimes we’d swim in the Arno, up past Pontassieve. You think this is hot now, you’ll see in the summer. People drop dead in the street. The tarmac bubbles.’
    Gerald comes up and begins to splash Fiamma. They swim off together, and Esmond is left looking down over the trees on the terrace below. He paddles to the shallow end, walks up the steps, and pours himself another Negroni. Fiamma and Gerald and Colonel Keppel are having races in the water,Mrs Keppel watching, laughing and clapping her hands. A few clouds appear over the hills of Fiesole as the sun sinks lower. Church bells toll and, behind them, the tinkle of goat-bells. Esmond watches an aeroplane cut through the sky to the west, extraordinarily high above the mouth of the valley. He downs his drink and looks at the pool. Gerald is balancing Fiamma on his shoulders and turning, both of them shrieking with pleasure, Colonel and Mrs Keppel cheering as they circle. Finally Gerald stumbles, topples, and they disappear with a howling splash under the water.

16
    That evening, they step out for dinner as the city’s clerks and secretaries are leaving their offices, calling to one another across the via Tornabuoni, heading for their trams, swinging their briefcases and satchels, laughing and talking.
    ‘Norman Douglas is the finest mind I’ve met,’ Gerald says as they walk down the hill from L’Ombrellino, their hair still wet, still humming from the Negronis but changed and scented. ‘He’s coming to Piccolo’s,’ he adds, pointing ahead. ‘I just wish I’d known him when he was younger. He’s nearly seventy, you know. Orioli is bloody good value, too. Pinorman, we call them. Inseparable.’
    The sun has dropped below the rooftops and Fiamma has her shawl around her shoulders. Esmond watches her hair flow from shop window to shop window as they pass. Gerald is in his suit, pink handkerchief spilling from his breast pocket. He stands aside to let two
carabinieri
march by, their swords clacking, capes puffed out by the breeze off the river.
    They take the swaying tram to the Piazza Costanzo Ciano,Fiamma wishing the driver a
buona
sera
as they descend. Children are noisily playing, someone is listening to a wireless in one of the apartments above, windows and shutters open to the evening.
    ‘It’ll