The Girl With the Painted Face (19 page)

‘Listen,’ he says, breathing quickly. ‘
Cara
… I meant to wait – at least until after the show – but I don’t think I —’

Breaking off, he takes Sofia’s hands in his. Holding her in close with one hand behind her back, he strokes her hair away from her face with the other. Sofia puts her arms up and around his neck and before she can even draw a breath, his mouth is on hers. Closing her eyes, she breathes in the warm, woody smell of him as, backing awkwardly towards the bunk, still kissing her, Beppe pulls her with him and sits her down next to him on the rustling horsehair mattress. The hanging swag of the pulled-back curtain catches against his head; he pushes it out of his way.

Sofia puts a hand on either side of Beppe’s face, pressing herself up against him, and the little sigh of pleasure she makes disappears into the kiss. She feels him stroke around her shoulder, down her back, down and round, down towards her legs, up over her belly and onto her breast; she gasps and he pulls her in more tightly.

Then the wagon jolts sharply as someone climbs onto the back step and Beppe and Sofia jump apart.

‘Oh – sorry!’ Vico’s face is peering through the gap in the wagon’s back flap. His attempts to smother a frankly lascivious grin are ineffective. ‘Had no idea anyone was in here.’ He coughs, to cover a laugh. ‘I was, er, looking for my spare doublet; it was in the box under the bunk. No matter – I’ll come back later. Um… don’t forget we’re on in an hour or so.’

And he disappears.

‘Dear God in heaven,’ Beppe mutters, staring up at the roof of the wagon and pulling Sofia in against him. ‘Is it not possible to have a single moment’s bloody privacy?’

Sofia is breathing heavily. Her lips are tingling and the skin of her whole body is buzzing, as though she has just scrubbed it hard with a rough cloth. Laying her hand back on Beppe’s cheek, she lets out a breathy giggle and, at the sound of it, his scowl breaks into the familiar tilted grin and he plants another quick kiss on her mouth.

‘Now, if Vico lives up to his reputation,’ he says, ‘this’ll be common knowledge amongst the troupe before we’ve even left the wagon. He’ll be back there this minute, telling them all…’ Hesitating a moment, he adds, ‘Will you mind if he does,
cara
?’

Sofia shakes her head.

‘God, I’d been wanting to do that for days. I meant to wait, I really did, but in the end… I couldn’t.’ He holds her face in both hands and kisses her again, neatly and softly, on her mouth. His lips linger on hers for a second or two; then, with a murmur of pleasure, he tilts her face up towards his and looks hard at her, his gaze flicking from one eye to the other and back. ‘I couldn’t face a whole performance, holding that in. But it’s just as well Vico came in; if he hadn’t interrupted, I’d most likely not have been able to stop and then we’d not have had time to get your face done properly, my lovely girl. Come on, we have work to do.’

Beppe crouches down and opens a little painted door, reaches inside and picks out a soft leather drawstring bag. Pulling it open, he fingers through the contents; then, satisfied that everything he wants appears to be there, he stands and holds out a hand to Sofia.

Together, they climb back out of the wagon. Hand in hand, Beppe holding both the drawstring bag and his mask, they walk quickly back to the tables and benches, where everyone is now much quieter than usual, each intent on their own personal preparation.

Every head turns in their direction as they cross to the far end of the longer table; the new knowledge blazes clear in every face but no one comments. Sofia holds her breath, waiting for the laughter and the jokes, but no one speaks except Agostino, who says quietly but with great authority, ‘You heard what I said just now, Coraggiosi. We have a show to put on in little more than moments. That is what we must concentrate on. Just that. Anything else…’ He pauses dramatically. ‘…
anything
else will wait until the play is over. I’m sure you understand.’

Vico snorts, and Lidia kicks him. Agostino shoots him a look but says no more.

Everyone resumes his or her preparations.

Her cheeks burning, Sofia glances around.

Cosima’s face is complete. Huge-eyed and pink-cheeked, she looks more beautiful than ever, Sofia thinks, watching her pull her hair back into a tight knot. The curled wig she will put on in a moment stands on a head-shaped block next to where she is sitting. Agostino’s face looks bleached and ghostly: the thick white paste is in place, but as yet, his features remain undefined. Contrasting with the bright bluish-white of his face, his teeth now appear discoloured. He is fiddling with a small finger-length stick of something black.

Lidia has resumed outlining her eyes, the tip of her tongue protruding as she concentrates, and Vico has gone back to polishing his leather mask with exaggerated care, teasing out its sheep’s-wool moustache and checking the leather strings with which it will be fastened. There is something deliberate about the overstated tenderness with which he is running his fingers over its gleaming surface and, as he puckers his lips and plants a noisy little kiss onto the end of the leather nose, Sofia puts a hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing. Vico sees her and raises an eyebrow, but Lidia shoves him in the ribs with her elbow and he assumes an expression of great contriteness and continues polishing with extra vigour.

Federico and Giovanni Battista, who are sitting together on a bench at the far end of the longer of the two tables, are both, like Vico, preparing their masks, lovingly shining and tweaking them. Federico is rubbing up and down along the length of the extended – and unashamedly phallic – nose on his mask with a chamois cloth. Pushing his tongue out into his cheek for a moment, he flicks a quick glance in Beppe and Sofia’s direction, then grins and winks, and resumes his polishing.

Beppe shakes his head, laughing silently; taking Sofia’s hand, he squeezes her fingers.

Sofia glances across at Angelo, who is pouting into a mirror, turning this way and that as he inspects his face. His eyes too are huge, dark-rimmed and liquid. He has lost weight – he is thinner than he was when she first saw him, Sofia thinks now, though the new hollows in his cheeks merely make him look, if anything, more handsome than ever. He seems preoccupied, edgy, unrelaxed: one leg is twitching and he seems to be chewing at the inside of his lip as he studies his eyes in his little mirror. Something is disconcerting him. As Sofia watches, he pushes a hand down inside the neck of his doublet and scratches, screwing up his face with the effort. He sees her watching him in his mirror and turns to look at her; dropping his gaze to where her hand is still held in Beppe’s, a scowl further distorts the perfect features. He turns back to his reflection.

‘Well,’ Beppe whispers almost soundlessly. ‘I told you they’d all know. Vico didn’t waste any time, did he? Now sit down, chick, and we’ll start. Look, here.’ As Sofia sits on one end of one of the benches, Beppe pulls a three-legged stool out from under the table and, sitting himself on this, facing Sofia, he takes from the bag two lidded wooden pots, a small glass bottle, a tiny spoon made of horn, a shallow earthenware dish and a wooden-handled, soft-bristled brush like a fat paintbrush. These he places on the bench beside Sofia. He unfastens the lids of the two pots with studied care, showing each to Sofia in turn. In one is a fine white dust, and in the other a powdery iridescence, which glitters in the lantern light. ‘I picked these up in a market in Bergamo, years ago, and I’ve kept them safe all this time. I’ve never used them.’

‘What are they?’

‘This one’s nothing special – it’s chalk…’ He picks up the pot containing the white dust. ‘But this…’ His smile broadens. ‘This is crushed pearl.’

Sofia’s mouth opens.

‘I’m not going to do your face thick-white like Agostino’s; Colombina doesn’t need that – quite often Colombina and the
inamorata
don’t make up at all, other than eyes and lips. But I want you pale and pretty, and I want to lift your eyebrows. I want you to sparkle. We’ll just put the thinnest, thinnest layer of chalk on – if I wanted it heavy like Ago has it, I’d only put a drop of this in’ – Beppe takes the little bottle and waggles it – ‘with quite a lot of the chalk. Almond oil. It makes it like a paste. But for you, we’ll keep it light. Just a little oil and the smallest, smallest amount of chalk.

Beppe then takes the brush and the little spoon and puts them next to where he has placed the two pots.

‘Lidia,’ he says, and his voice is loud in the hushed concentration of purpose. ‘Can I have a couple of sponges?’

Lidia throws them across.

Beppe pours the oil into the dish; then, picking up the spoon, he adds a small scoop of the chalk dust, mixing it into a paste with his forefinger.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘Eyebrows away first.’

Sofia leans in towards him.

Beppe tilts her face up, holding it still. He smears a little of the chalk paste along the line of Sofia’s eyebrow, dips his finger again into the bowl, smears it again. He repeats the process on the other side.

‘Good,’ he says, leaning back and peering intently at his handiwork. ‘Now shut your eyes.

Sofia does what he asks. She feels the pressure of his thumb beneath her chin, his fingertips holding against the side of her head. Then comes a damp softness – it must be one of Lidia’s sponges – along the contours of her face, and the earthy smell of the chalk fills her nostrils. She coughs and opens her eyes.

He is very close to her and, thinking of their intimacy just now, she begins to feel as though she is melting all over again. He says quietly, ‘Now listen: once I’ve finished your mouth, which I’ll do in just a moment, you’re not to kiss anyone until I tell you.’

Sofia whispers. ‘But I don’t
want
to kiss
anyone
. Only you.’

‘Especially not me – you’ll only get carried away and make a mess of all this work I’m doing. Why do you think none of the characters ever actually touch lips on the stage? Now pipe down…’ He kisses the end of his forefinger and presses it onto her lips ‘… and close your eyes again.’

Sofia bites down a smile and shuts her eyes.

The sponge again: cold and damp over cheeks, nose, eyelids, brows, chin. Beppe’s breathing is slow and steady; he whistles softly as he turns her face first to one side, then the other, and his breath is cool against her damp cheek.

‘That needs to dry now,’ Beppe says. ‘And then we’ll do the pearl. When the light catches your face, you’ll glitter and look adorable. Everyone will love you.’

Sofia opens her eyes. The chalk is tightening on her skin as it dries and she is already fighting an urge to scratch.

‘Do you have a mirror? Lidia gave me a metal one, but I don’t know where I’ve —’

‘No. Wherever it is, you’re not seeing yourself till I’ve finished.’ He pauses. ‘Eyes now.’

‘What are you going to do with them?’

‘Niccolò gave me a tiny pot of this reddish powder the other day: prepared with his usual magic from something he scraped off some stones by a stream near Modena, he said. God knows what it is, but it seems to work well – I’ve tried it on the back of my hand. I’ll do your eyelids with it, then we can black in new brows – higher than your natural ones – and I’ll outline your eyes too.’

Sofia cannot help it – she opens her eyes. ‘What’s the black?’

‘Keep them closed. It’s burnt cork. But the pearl needs to go on first.’

The brush lightly dusts the contours of her face: over her cheeks and nose, across her forehead, down under her chin and over her neck and collarbones; a faint, faint smell of brine prickles in her nose.

Beppe stops what he is doing and Sofia opens her eyes to see him rummaging in the drawstring bag. He brings out a small ivory pot, some inch and a half in diameter and three inches in length. Easing out the stopper, he takes from it a stick of cork about the thickness of Sofia’s thumb, blackened and burnt; then, with a short-bladed knife, he sets to sharpening the end of the stick, nipping away carefully with the tip of the blade until he has honed a sharpish point. He wipes his hands carefully – backs then fronts – along his breeches and checks them, rubbing again until he is satisfied his hands are clean.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Now I need you to keep very still.’ He holds her face again, thumb under her chin, middle finger high on her cheekbone. Forehead furrowed in concentration, he puts the end of the cork stick against Sofia’s brow, and, pressing firmly, draws in an arc, high and arched. Crossing hands, he repeats the process with the opposite brow. Stands back. Assesses. Adds to the drawn brow-lines.

‘Look up and keep very still. It might tickle.’

Sofia does what he asks. She feels the stick touch her eyelid and flinches.

‘Try not to move.’

He tries again. Runs the cork along each lid next to her lashes, first above, then below her eye. Then, ‘Look at me now, and let me see,’ he says. His smile stretches as Sofia blinks at him. ‘Oh that’s good. That’s very good. Now, a little treat to finish it off. Wait a moment.’ He crosses to where Cosima is adjusting her wig. Crouching next to her, he asks her something Sofia cannot hear, and she smiles and nods, and points towards a small raffia punnet. He brings this back over and shows it to Sofia: in it is a handful of dark red berries. Picking one out, he lifts it to her mouth. ‘Here – eat this.’

He puts it directly into her mouth, and the tips of his fingers touch her lips. He gives her another. Then, picking up a particularly large berry, he crushes it gently between finger and thumb. ‘Lean forward,’ he says, and he rubs the crushed berry over her lips. The juice is sweet and sticky. ‘Bite your lip between your teeth; work that juice into it,’ Beppe says.

Sofia complies.

‘God, you look lovely. It’s just as well we’re not alone,’ Beppe says quietly, ‘Or I’d be wrecking all the hard work I’ve just done.’ He appraises her face. ‘There’s one last thing.’ He tips a tiny scoop of the chalk into his palm, then adds a pinch of the reddish powder. Mixing them, he dips the tip of the brush into the resultant pink dust and flicks this over the jut of Sofia’s cheekbones.