My Italian Bulldozer by Smith Alexander McCall

Author:Smith, Alexander McCall [Smith, Alexander McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humour, Travel, Romance, Adult, Contemporary
ISBN: 9780349142302
Amazon: B01F44ODUE
Goodreads: 30236772
Publisher: Abacus
Published: 2017-04-04T07:00:00+00:00

Dried Leaves, Blown Seeds, the Charity of the Winds

The garage was just inside the town walls. The road on which it stood was barely wide enough to accommodate the bulldozer, and so Paul returned it to the car park; they would seek out the mechanic on foot. The notice was still in its new location, and nobody had attempted to park in the bulldozer’s place. Of the attendant there was no sign; she spent most of her time, he had noticed, at the car park up near the Rocca, where she could talk to her friends and, he imagined, do a brisker trade in parking fines.

Anna had managed to cram most of her possessions salvaged from the car into two cases. A few books, though, would not fit in, and Paul suggested that these could be left in the bulldozer, even if the cab did not lock securely.

He picked up a dark-covered paperback and read the title. “I don’t think anybody is going to steal Caravaggio: A Life,” he said. He put it down and picked up another one. “Or Il Rinascimento a Mantova, for that matter.”

She laughed. “I would.”

He looked askance. “Steal from a bulldozer?”

“No, not really. It was a joke.”

“They’ll be quite safe. I’ll fetch them for you later.” He began to tuck the books away in the compartment where he had found the tow rope, but lingered over Caravaggio.

“Do you like his work?” asked Anna.

“Caravaggio?”

She was watching him, and he felt that he was being assessed. But she was a teacher, after all, he told himself, and teachers assessed…

He flicked through the book once more, which fell open at a sumptuous picture of four young musicians.

“I’ve seen that,” he said. “Not in the original, but a print of it.”

She looked over his shoulder. “He painted that for a patron. For Cardinal del Monte. He spent some time in the Cardinal’s house in Rome. He painted several pictures for him.”

Paul remembered something about Caravaggio. “But wasn’t Caravaggio a bit…a bit wild? Was he a good guest at the Cardinal’s?”

She thought for a moment. “The Cardinal liked a party. He had day-long concerts. Banquets too.”

“Ah.”

“But you’re right about Caravaggio’s bad behaviour. You probably know he had to flee Rome because he’d killed somebody.” She paused, and looked at him. He noticed, for the first time, the colour of her eyes—a flecked green. “People said that it was an argument over a game of tennis. But there’s a theory now that it was an argument with a rival over a woman. Or a boy. It could have been either with Caravaggio, I suspect.”

His eyes went to the picture once more. The musicians were young men, and there was an erotic charge in their gaze from the canvas. They were dangerous.

Anna stepped down from the bulldozer and Paul passed her the cases. “It’s not all that far,” he said. “But if you like, I can go and find the village taxi. You could wait here with the cases.”

She shook her head. “I’ll manage.

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