nove
Following their lunch of Miro’s prawns, Mariella, Francesco and Lucia headed downstairs to open the school for the afternoon’s lessons.
The air was crisp and cool despite the sun, which had managed to break through the morning’s overcast and gloomy skies. Even Foscari was keen to explore outside, looping around the ankles of the students who were gathered out the front.
‘Non hai freddo?’ asked one, dropping to give him a little pat.
Lucia smiled. ‘He just wants to play.’
The same student bundled him into her arms and carried him inside. ‘Come and play with me upstairs,’ she said.
The quiet palazzo suddenly burst into life as the students trooped in, half of them thumping up the stairs. Some stopped on their way through to peruse flyers and brochures at the bookcase and a few collected reading materials, registering their entries in the borrowing log by the welcome desk. Others dropped staple grocery items into the wicker basket by the door, ready for Lucia to donate to the parish office every Sunday morning for Venice’s most needy. One student posed for photographs, hanging from the bookcase ladder and bursting into song, sending the chorus of ‘O Sole Mio’across the room. Other students made their way directly to the mahogany tables, simply eager to get on with their lessons.
Lucia watched as Mariella embraced two of the newer arrivals, a couple from Berlin, welcoming them in from the cold and offering the woman her handkerchief. Then there was Francesco, who was relieving an elderly student from Dorset of her coat and umbrella, then leading her to her seat, their arms locked securely together. Foscari had found playmates for the afternoon in a trio of students from Adelaide, and took great joy in darting between them for attention and caresses.
La Scuola Rosa was no normal school. It was something special. Unique. A support for those in need as much as a place to learn, discover and grow. Lucia looked on with pride, beaming at what she had managed to sustain and strengthen in her parents’ absence.
Her eyes flicked to their family portrait on the wall behind the welcome desk. Where her usual melancholy might have taken over, this afternoon it didn’t. What she felt instead was a passionate and burning desire not to give up. To find the money. To try her best to keep Gatti away and the school in her name alone. It manifested in her clenched jaw and rising chest, inflating a little more with each determined breath.
Surely, someone out there across the lagoon – other than Vittorio Gatti, of course – might find some use in supporting the school?
Use.
Support.
Or,benefit?
The words began to penetrate the layers of worry that had stockpiled in her mind over the past week.
Who could benefit from supporting us? And how could that work?
It was at that moment that Francesco flitted past the welcome desk to collect his class roll and photocopies. Lucia swooped on him, grabbing his shoulder.
She whispered, ‘Cosa significa benefattore?’
His face twisted with confusion. ‘Cosa?’
‘What’s a benefactor?’
With an air of uncertainty, he said, ‘Someone, or a group of people, who support others or organisations. With money.’ He shrugged. ‘Is that what you mean?’
A benefactor.
It was the most delicious glimmer of hope she could have asked for that afternoon. It whet her appetite and curiosity in equal measure.
With a nod and a grateful squeeze of Francesco’s arm, Lucia quickly collected her things and darted up to her class on the second floor. It was only once she had neared the top of the spiral staircase that she found the printed tickets to the masked ball Francesco had left for her among her lesson notes. Like a flash of lightning a name came to mind. It caused her to stop mid-step and she let the thought simmer there, considering the possibilities.
‘I know I have it somewhere . . .’ Lucia had given up rifling through papers in her desk drawers and had now taken to removing the drawers completely, emptying them onto her bed. ‘I just know I would have kept that paperwork.’
Francesco and Mariella watched on, both perched against the kitchen bench, each with an espresso in hand. Foscari’s little head darted with astonishing speed, tracking Lucia’s erratic movements.
‘I can make some calls,’ Mariella offered.
‘Eccolo!’ Lucia announced, launching a stapled A5 booklet into the air. ‘The names and numbers of all the members of the Venetian Arts Council Trust. Those years spent on the advisory committee weren’t in vain after all.’
Francesco guffawed. ‘You hated being on that panel. You used to complain after every sitting.’
‘I know,’ she said, crossing the room. ‘But now I feel like it was all worth it.’ She opened the booklet to the contacts directory and flattened it on the benchtop between Mariella and Francesco. ‘Now, where is he?’ Her finger ran up and down the columns of names.
