The Girl With the Painted Face Read Online Free PDF Page B

guilty or not, how are we going to prevent the whole show breaking down?’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that – we’re all capable improvisers, aren’t we? Look at Sofia – the least experienced of all of us, and she managed to keep going on that stage when I turned up and left her almost speechless. Unexpected things have happened in performances before, haven’t they? Remember that pig in Ravenna?’
     
    The stage is set. The banqueting room at the merchant’s large villa in Borgo San Lorenzo is wide and long, low-ceilinged, with deep, brightly painted parallel beams like the vividly coloured ribs of some giant creature. The walls are lined in bright tapestries, rushes cover the wooden floor, and dozens of dribbling candles are filling the room with a shifting yellow light. The three dozen or so members of the audience – seated nobles, and servants standing in groups at the sides of the room – are eagerly awaiting the start of the performance and an anticipatory hum of murmured conversation is filling the air. Sofia, who has peeped out at them from behind the backdrop, is anxious, reminded all too forcefully of the scene at Franceschina moments before the start of that ill-fated show. Their host here, though, is a very different prospect to Sebastiano da Correggio: heavy-bellied, grey-haired, red-faced and widely smiling, the wealthy merchant is sitting in the front seats with his equally plump wife and their several children, beaming out at his guests, gesticulating and pointing out features of the stage with a thick forefinger, clearly delighted at the prospect of the evening’s entertainment.

‘Oh God, Beppe, I hope we are doing the right thing,’ she mutters as Beppe, standing beside her, runs his finger down the pinned canovaccii.

He does not reply directly, just says, ‘Look, there – remember this. It’ll be just after that moment there…’ He points to one of the scraps of paper. ‘… just after Vico has crept away from Cosima and Angelo, and just before you and I are due back on for this scene here, look.’

Sofia nods. Her chalked and pearled face is itching again, but she resists the temptation to scratch.

‘It’ll just be you on the stage with Cosima and Angelo, then Cosima will go off there , see, to find Vico, and I’ll be there, ready in Fosca’s mask and hat and a long black coat. Vico won’t need to be on stage until then ’ – a finger on the relevant scrap – ‘and he’ll be waiting behind the backcloth to come on and react to Fosca’s announcement.’

Agostino appears, costumed, his face now thickly white-painted. ‘All ready?’ he says cheerfully.

Sofia swallows awkwardly as she assures him that she is looking forward to the start of the performance.

‘Not too anxious – after last time?’

‘Just a little.’

‘Good, good. Just a little is just what we want – a performance is never as good without that flutter of fear in the belly beforehand, I always say, don’t I, Beppe?’

‘You do – and you’re quite right.’

Appearing from the room behind, Federico nods to Agostino. ‘Shall I blow the trumpet? Are we all ready?’

‘Yes, I think so, don’t you?’

Federico smiles, then slips out between the two halves of the backdrop. Sofia hears the reedy notes of his trumpet, heralding the beginning of the play. As they have done each time, her insides begin to squirm.

Beppe squeezes her hand. ‘All will be well,’ he says, bending and planting a swift kiss on the top of her head.

Cosima and Lidia are there, ready to go on with Sofia. Cosima is as beautiful as ever in one of her most sumptuous dresses, mended and rebeaded by Sofia last night; Lidia looks pink-cheeked and pretty, and Sofia wonders again – if only momentarily – about the reason for the slight thickening of her friend’s waist.

Over to one side stands Angelo. A muscle is twitching in his jaw, and he is chewing at his lower lip, but otherwise he is still and silent, his arms