Part 6 (2/2)

'Why do you hang out with him?'

'For one thing, I didn't choose him as my landlord. He's in a property consortium who bought out the previous owner. And two, I can't afford to turn down work.'

Sasha wasn't convinced. Why would she give the guy a pet name if he wasn't a friend, if their relations.h.i.+p were purely professional? Not that she could ask such a question. She tried another: 'Couldn't I stick around anyway? Maybe I could do something to help?'

A pair of volunteers were sorting through the donated clothes. Sasha didn't like the look of the job, but no one who's mucked out stables could describe themselves as squeamish.

'You're a good kid,' said Gina, which infuriated her. 'But the Lion King's got to take another Ma.s.s soon and this isn't really the place for you. You'd be better going to find your friends.'

Sasha responded stiffly, 'Okay, I didn't mean to ha.s.sle you. I'll go.' Perhaps, by the time she'd retraced her route, she'd have heard from Renate which train they were on.

Gina nodded absently, but then looked concerned. 'Are you sure you'll find the way? This isn't the most salubrious neighbourhood and you do stick out like a sore thumb.' She fiddled with her phone. 'Reception's poor down here. Hang on a minute.' She disappeared through the door and up the staircase, a streak of red.

Sasha thought, why do I need an escort? Why do people always a.s.sume dreadful things are going to happen because you're a girl? All the same, she was wary of taking a wrong turn, making a fool of herself again.

When Gina returned she had a young man in tow. He seemed familiar but Sasha couldn't place him until Gina said: 'You remember Yusef? I started calling him Joe and he rather likes it so I expect you can do the same. He's agreed to take you back to the Pyramid so you can meet your friends. Spend a few months living rough and you know your way around better than most of the locals and that includes me.'

'Ciao, Joe,' said Sasha.

The youth held out his hand. He was not much taller than her, which was good because she hated to be towered over. He moved with a delicate grace and would have been remarkably handsome were it not for the crook in his nose which gave him a piratical air. She wondered whether he found the memory of their first meeting as disconcerting as she did.

'His Italian's not bad,' said Gina, 'and he knows a bit of English, so you should be able to understand each other.'

Joe was an odd mixture of the deferential and the streetwise. He treated Sasha with immense old-fas.h.i.+oned courtesy; helping her across the road as if she were blind or lame; he'd also curse and gesticulate at careless drivers, as excitable as any local.

Sasha said, 'Actually, Joe, I don't want to get to the station yet.'

'No?' When he frowned his eyebrows met. It made him look as though he were thinking hard, as if the slightest deviation from his orders could have serious consequences.

'No,' she repeated. 'It's too early. I'm waiting for a text.' A few metres ahead, a bar s.h.i.+mmered in the heat rising from the pavement. The two small tin tables under the striped awning were unoccupied; a gumball machine stood sentinel. 'Why don't we get a drink? Qualcosa da bere?' When he hesitated, she added. 'I have money. I'll buy you one.'

They sat with two c.o.kes poured over ice. 'G.o.d, I get so thirsty here!'

His skin was a deep glowing coffee colour. Next to his forearm, hers looked pasty and anaemic. When their hands touched by accident his flesh felt so hot she expected a scorch mark.

'Da dove sei?' she said, since it was what people asked her all the time, part of the currency of vocabulary in a place where so many people were in transit. She wasn't being nosy.

She asked her questions by degrees and by degrees he answered. He was from Afghanistan. He was eighteen. He'd left his country two years earlier, spent months travelling across mountains on foot, hiding in containers, clinging to the cha.s.sis of trucks, gambling with his life. He was applying for his official papers. He had no family.

'What, none at all?'

His eyes were extraordinarily large and luminous; she was afraid he might be about to cry. He'd been her age when he set out she couldn't imagine it. After fending for himself and depending on charity for so long, wouldn't he have wept himself dry?

With a circular sweep of his arms, he mimed an explosion, blew out his cheeks. 'Not living,' he said.

And the horror and simplicity of those two words chilled her. She could only ask, feebly: 'A bomb? But you survived?'

'I was not there.'

'G.o.d, that must have been so awful, to come back home and find...' She sucked noisily through her straw as if the action could blot out such an atrocity. He didn't say anything. The only way to break the silence was to change the subject. 'Gina,' she began. 'E una buona amica?'

It worked. 'Come madrina,' he answered, with a smile that sparkled.

Relieved, Sasha pretended to click a shutter. 'She takes your photograph for magazines?'

The charming smile broadened. 'Si.' He squared his shoulders so she could see his pectoral muscles ripple under his s.h.i.+rt. 'I make exercise,' he said. 'Is important. Also...' He tapped his thigh and she remembered the scar she had seen there like a fork of lightning. 'I walk. Always walking.'

'Where do you live? Is it far?'

He jerked his head, gesturing behind him. 'I have room with Sami. Cognosce?'

'Sami who was Caesar?'

'Si.'

Sasha drew up her legs, resting her heels on the lip of her tin chair and her chin on her knees. Was it peculiar to Rome, all this dressing up? Antonio and his football kit, Sami and the living statues in Piazza Navona, tour guides disguised as senators, Roman centurions presenting photo-opportunities, monks in cowled habits, priests in dog collars. Like the whole place was a stage or a filmset. And added to the mix were all these thousands of refugees desperate for new ident.i.ties.

The warmth of the afternoon folded itself around their bodies. The ice melted in their drinks. Joe said, 'You are student, yes?'

'Yes.'

'England is very fine country.'

'It's okay.'

'I want come to England. E migliore.'

'Better for what?'

'Per tutto, non? Everything. Every person have place to live, to work...'

'No, not everyone has work. And, like, for me it's really difficult. No one wants to employ you till you're eighteen. And we live in the middle of nowhere, so all the kids who are nearer to town than me get any Sat.u.r.day jobs going in the shops and stuff...' She broke off; he'd probably only have caught half of what she'd said. 'Plus you'd have to speak the language.'

'When I have papers,' he said, 'I go to England, find job...'

'One day,' agreed Sasha, finis.h.i.+ng the dregs of her c.o.ke. 'Yeah, you'll get over to us. Course you will.'

'Where is you?'

'You mean where do I live? I'm in the country, outside Manchester.'

'I can visit?'

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