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conscientious Cub
Scout ticking off badges achieved.
    • SAN GIMIGNANO ’ S COBBLED STREETS ?
    Wandered.
    • TUSCANY ’ S TALLEST TOWER ?
    Conquered.
    • GIOTTO ’ S FAMOUS FRESCO CYCLE OF THE LIFE OF SAN FRANCESCO ?
    Seen. (And that was enough religious paintings to last a lifetime!)
    • THE EXCITEMENT OF THUNDERING HORSES ’ HOOVES IN SIENA ’ S PALIO SQUARE ?
    Available only on two specific days of the year.
    • A RELAXING APERITIF ON THE FAMOUS FAN-SHAPED PIAZZA ?
    Consumed, despite the extortionate price of a gin and tonic.
    ‘How was Pisa?’ I asked that evening, as we waited for menus in an expensive restaurant with beams and bare brick walls that gave it the feel of a medieval banqueting hall.
    ‘Bigger than you’d think.’ My father put on his reading specs although he already knew exactly what he was going to choose.
    ‘The Leaning Tower was smaller than I thought it would be,’ my mother said.
    ‘They should sort out their queuing system,’ my father announced, from which I gathered that they had not been able to climb the monument, and could not therefore deem it a mission
accomplished.
    • THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA .
    Photographed but unclimbed.
    It was not an entirely satisfactory conclusion to the holiday.
    ‘There are lots of other buildings,’ said my mother.
    ‘Cathedral and whatnot. Jam-packed with tourists, obviously.’
    Nothing in their description gave me a reason to say that I’d like to go one day, and if I had, it would only have reminded my father of the wasted place on the coach, so I said
nothing.
    ‘Ah, yes,
buona sera
to you too,’ said my father when the waiter arrived to take our order. ‘We’re going to have the Florentine beefsteak.’
    The best place to sample this ‘most famous typical dish’ had been a project from the start of the holiday. Dad had sought the advice of the driver who met us at the airport on our
first night and all the receptionists at the hotel. We were now sitting in the restaurant recommended by a majority of five to one.
    Priced by the kilo, a
bistecca alla Fiorentina
was not just a meal, it was a spectacle performed on a raised platform within the dining area of the restaurant. First the rib of beef was
held aloft by a chef in a tall white hat; a large knife was sharpened with swift, dramatic strokes; then a very thick slice of meat, a chop for a giant, was severed and weighed before being placed
on a trolley and wheeled over to the table for approval. My father swelled with satisfaction as the other tables oohed and aahed obligingly at each stage of the ritual. I didn’t begrudge him
this small pleasure, but my insides squirmed with embarrassment.
    ‘What did you get up to?’ my father asked, as the meat was trolleyed off to the kitchen and we had to talk to each other again.
    ‘Walking, mainly. I went to the Boboli Gardens.’
    Silence.
    ‘I saw this heron, actually.’
    ‘Heron? We’re too far inland, aren’t we? Sure it wasn’t a stork?’ said my father.
    ‘It was kind of weird, because I thought it was part of the statue at first, then it just took off, as if the stone had come alive.’
    My parents exchanged glances. ‘Fey’ was the word my mother sometimes used to describe me. ‘Airy-fairy’ or ‘arty-farty’ were my father’s expressions. In
the shorthand descriptions that parents give to their children, I was the one with my head in the clouds.
    I made the mistake of extemporizing.
    ‘It was the sort of thing that might make you think you’d seen a vision, you know . . . I mean, maybe all those visions of St Francis actually have a neurological explanation? Maybe
there was something different about his brain . . .’
    I realized, too late, that ‘brain’ was one of the words we didn’t say any more. Certain words triggered inevitable associations. Over the last few months our family’s
spoken vocabulary had shrunk dramatically.
    Now my parents were both staring into the middle distance.
    My