With a feeling of impending doom, he opened the Instagram app. His mouth dropped open when it defaulted to La Scuola Rosa’s profile, and not his own. The profile info was dotted with red notifications markers and he clicked the heart button to find a viral mess. And there, he saw that the first post on the school’s feed was Lucia’s mask and costume photo.
‘No. No . . . no!’ he said over and over again, as if doing so might relieve him of the burden of mayhem he was about to confront. ‘Cazzo!CAZZO!’
Suddenly, his phone rang.
‘Pronto? Mariella?’ His harried voice cracked into the receiver.
‘Francesco, where the hell have you been?’
‘My phone was on silent. I’ve only just—’
‘Do you haveANYidea what you have done?’ Her tone snarled and twisted.
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Come now to Santi Giovanni e Paolo.’
‘The hospital?’
‘Yes. Lucia’s in trouble.’
Nothing could have prepared Francesco for what awaited him in that small, featureless room. But the look on the exiting nurse’s face said it all. He steeled himself with a breath, ready to enter, but Mariella caught him before he could do so. She mimed a whisper with a finger across her lips, and directed him further down the corridor and out through double automatic doors to a small courtyard. The breeze was bitingly cold.
Francesco made to speak, but Mariella cut him off. ‘Stop. It’s my time to talk.’ He waited as she got her temper under control. ‘You have no idea what Lucia has been through,’ she began. ‘Noidea. You can sympathise and try to understand, but you will never know, truly know, the pain, the torment . . . the humiliation and heartbreak she has known. So, consider yourself very lucky that this isallthat happened.’ She took a breath to compose herself, as the welling tears were fast rising to the surface. ‘Lucia is a pillar of strength, in spite of everything. She is stronger than you and I put together. But today, Francesco, you have brought her to the brink of shatter.’
While Francesco understood that somehow the Instagram post and Lucia’s current state were linked, he needed more information.
‘What happened to her? Why is she here?’ He was itching to push past Mariella and rush to Lucia’s side.
‘This morning she awoke to a sea of paparazzi, journalists, TV crews, all camped out on Calle del Leone waiting for her. The street was full of them. No one could move. They were even climbing the palazzi to get a shot of her.’
Wide-eyed with concern, he asked, ‘A shot?’
‘Cameras, phones. Everywhere, Francesco.’
Suddenly, he knew how triggering this would have been for her. ‘Oh no. Did someone hurt her?’
‘No. She came down the stairs to send them away, but when she opened the door she was so overcome by flashbacks to her past traumas that she passed out. She hit her head on the corner of the window display’s ledge – that damn sharp, metal-edged kickboard – and landed awkwardly on her left shoulder. No breaks. No dislocations. Just very badly sprained. A few days in a sling. And a minor concussion for her troubles.’
‘I have to go in there. I need to talk to her.’
But Mariella pressed a firm hand to his chest. ‘She told me that she explicitly asked you not to use social media in her search for this masked man. Explicitly! But you did it anyway.’
Lowering his voice, Francesco said, ‘I know. And I am not proud of it. I meant to post it to my private account. Just our friends. My family. Not ourten thousandfollowers from across the globe!’ He shook his head and released a defeated sigh. ‘You know I would never do anything to hurt Lucia.’
Mariella held her breath a moment, then gave a conceding nod. ‘Go. Tellherthat.’
quattordici
Lucia, who had been sitting up in bed facing the window, turned when she heard footsteps approach. All she could do was cry. She wasn’t at liberty to fly into a rage; her securely slung left arm prevented much movement, and the throbbing pulse behind the bandages across her forehead intensified with the beating of her heart.
‘Lucia . . .’ Francesco began, but she looked away. ‘Please.Ti prego. I never meant—’ But Francesco was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.
‘Con calma,’ came the directive from the tall grey-haired doctor who was exiting Lucia’s room, observation folder in hand.
When the doctor was out of earshot, Lucia whispered, ‘I asked you not to post anything on social media.’ Her eyes were fixed unseeingly on the garden outside her window, which was a mere blur of green foliage and golden rendered brickwork, her vision still not entirely clear from the concussion.
‘I can’t think of any other way to apologise, Lucia, other than to beg for forgiveness. It was a . . . I never meant to . . . YouknowI would never ever do anything to hurt you.’
