The Whirling Girl by Barbara Lambert Page A

that the daisies were set out in honour of the seven-hundred-and-tenth anniversary of the return of the holy Santa Margherita to the city.
    In the window of an antiquarian bookstore, the saint herself appeared, though not as Clare thought the real saint would have looked. The holy apparition had just raised a local boy from the dead; her face was uplifted in reverence, mouth half-open, eyes rolled back, as if that was all there was to being really holy. Surely the real saint, the woman who had so gloriously erred, would not have worn such a soppy, cow-like expression.
    How would a person look, though, if they’d just raised another person from the dead? Lean, determined? Awestruck? Terrified at the responsibility of what it turned out they could accomplish if they set their mind to it? How would an artist show that essential quality? A physical sensation fused up from Clare’s toes along the inside of her legs and through her gut. A sudden flare-up of desire:
That’s what I want to show, even in a flower, something revealing as all that
.
    LATER, IT SEEMED TO Clare that the rest of the day had the inevitability of one of those dreams in which things repeatedly slip sideways, yet some not-quite-understood quest leads you onwards.
    She returned to her car with the mission of driving to the top of the town where the basilica stood, where the actual saint lay in her glass casket, the woman so flawed and determined that she had ripped away her beauty in sacrifice to transcendence.
    The guidebook said getting there was easy, yet immediately she got lost in the labyrinth of streets. After many wrong turns she found herself on a narrow track outside the city’s upper wall, with a teetering view over roofs and towers. An impatient driver right behind forced her through an archway into a tiny piazza with a playground, a bright red phone booth, houses with flowered balconies all around — and seemingly no exit but to drive down a shallow set of steps, then along the narrowest of twisting alleys, until she faced a wall with a barred gate.
    The gate held a sign. This was where Santa Margherita had entered the city all those centuries before.
    Did Clare get a chance to reflect on this? A Land Rover was right behind her, and behind that yet another car, the driver leaning on the horn.
    The man in the Land Rover got out, came forward, bent in her window, controlling his expression with some difficulty as he told her that a footpath marking the Stations of the Cross led up to the basilica from here, certainly something that would be very interesting for her, he was sure. What she should do to clear the traffic, at the moment, however, was to carry on down the steep diagonal track to her right. Yes, it was a proper road, despite the cobbles. She should not worry about the policewoman in the piazza below, just drive slowly into the throng of pedestrians and reverse through them into the area with the statue of Garibaldi. There she would be able to find a parking spot. This was the way it was always done.
    Today he was wearing faded jeans, a tan shirt with rolled sleeves. But she had recognized him, immediately, from the first glance in her rear-view mirror.
    BY THE TIME SHE managed the tricky turnaround in the Piazza Garibaldi, he’d spun his Land Rover into a position ahead of her, blocking her exit and keeping all other traffic stopped. He sprinted over, still with that marvelling look on his face.
    â€œSomeone is pulling out. There, see! You can back into that spot.”
    The policewoman raised her baton threateningly at him and laughed, while Clare did back into the spot.
    THE MAN FROM THE autostrada, yes, though driving a different car.
Italy is dangerous
. Dangerous indeed. Now she knew who he was. She’d spotted an enamelled badge above his licence plate showing a rearing unicorn, exactly like the labels on the dangerous and delicious garnet wine. This was Federica Inghirami’s brother, the one