Power to Burn Read Online Free PDF

spilling against me. It was like drowning in pillows.
    I took a long whiff of her cheek. She smelled like damp talcum powder mixed with roses. Holding my face in her hands she looked into my eyes and suddenly I felt as if I’d known her forever. I knew those eyes, so black and lively. Maybe it was going to be all right.
    We climbed into one of the yellow taxi cabs waiting outside. The air was startlingly cold and I huddled up beside Nonna.
    â€˜The worst winter in history, this has been,’ she told me. ‘Imagine, snow on the streets of Roma.’
    Now I could see great patches of white on the footpaths and men in coats sweeping the snow from the gutters. It felt so strange to think I was wearing boardshorts and a singlet only twenty-six hours ago.
    â€˜Take us to the Pensione Suisse, on Via Gregori-ana,’ Nonna told the taxi driver.
    â€˜I thought we’d have a few days’ holiday in Roma together before we go back to the apartment at Firenze. Nonno is away in Padua, he had some business to do there. But you’ll see him later on. So, it’s just you and me and the ancients.
Va bene
, Roberto?’
    I told her it was perfect, and as I looked out at the faded ochre buildings the colour of flesh, and the narrow cobbled streets, I felt my anxiety gradually dissolve and the magic of the city stream into me. Great arches, tall enough for the carriages and cavalry to ride through, slipped past our window. It was like seeing a movie set centuries ago. I wanted to reach out and stroke the stone where hands had touched, thousands of years before.
    Instead I hung onto my knees to make sure they were real, and Nonna looked at me and smiled.
    â€˜
Bella Roma
, eh?’ she said, as if she were showing me a secret she’d saved up for years.
    The cab driver tooted his horn every two minutes (like all the other drivers) and then we swung into Via Gregoriana. At the top of the street was a church with two tall spires. I craned my neck to see the Spanish Steps that flowed like a frozen waterfall down to a piazza below.
    We climbed out of the cab and I was so busy looking that I tripped over the bags that the cab driver was hauling onto the footpath. Nonna laughed and told me to stare all I liked, while she fixed up the driver and called the porter.
    I’d never seen such elegant people. Men in long overcoats with silk scarves stood talking in huddles, their breath mingling like smoke clouds in the sharp air. A woman trailing a coiffured poodle lingered idly at a shop window. Little outdoor cafes lined the streets that led off the square and people clustered around them, their hands deep in their woollen coats, their collars turned up.
    Eat your heart out, Virginia Westhead. I just saw a pair of
neon
red socks under that man’s trousers.
    I decided to drink a cappuccino at one of those cafes lining the Piazza di Spagna. But before that I’d buy a wool coat (I wonder if you can get them second-hand?) and maybe a poodle.
    Our hotel room had French doors that opened onto a small balcony, looking over the Spanish Steps.
    I stood gaping at the view, and I heard Nonna chuckling behind me. She squeezed my shoulders and held up a tiny packet of hotel soap.
    â€˜You know what I like about hotels?’ she grinned. ‘All those neat little packages. Soap and shampoo and shoe cleaners and shower caps, wrapped up as small as buttons – like things in a doll’s house! And in the morning, butter and marmalade in little plastic packets and fresh rolls still warm from the oven.
Come mi piace!
Oh, I love hotels!’
    Nonna’s face was alive and cheeky like a girl’s and for a moment I saw my mother’s face in hers. But Mum didn’t know how to laugh like that, or maybe she’d just forgotten.
    That night we strolled to a restaurant around the corner. Nonna poured me a glass of red wine, dark as blood, and we ate
gnocchi alla Romana
while an old man with a moustache like a