first Roman morning dawned; it was light, bright and noisy. All the noisy people from the evening before were back in service after their short night’s sleep, back on their feet again and full of vitality, ready to fill out their existence with noise and joie de vivre.
Emily and Agatha rose, a little morning-afterish and flabbergasted on account of the seething Italian daily life going on all around them. Still just as flabbergasted, blinking in the unaccustomed brightness, they found themselves standing two hours later in St Peter’s Square, that majestic Piazza, infused with breadth and beauty, whose colonnades seemed capable of embracing every other square in the whole world.
They entered St Peter’s Basilica, the infinitely high ceiling of which is like a starry heaven, covering over a small self-contained universe, a sumptuous cool world of marble, too spread-out and immense truly to be thought of as an interior space. Neither of them said much: This church surpassed all normal dimensions by so very much that they were perplexed and felt slightly overwhelmed. Agatha gripped Emily’s hand as if for protection and not to get lost in the loneliness of that mighty space - a small speck of dust in a universe bristling with gold and marble.
Once they stepped back out into the open and the balmy waves of humanity and traffic noise broke around them again, of one accord they took a taxi and drove to the Colosseum. A zebra crossing led across to the other side of the road, which Emily wanted to get to, with a view to getting a better overview of that historical amphitheatre. Unsuspecting and trusting they stepped on to the designated crossing: Emily with heavy steps like a Roman mercenary of old and Agatha tripping along lightly beside her, chatting away cheerfully and excitedly.
They hadn’t even reached the halfway point before two cars came racing along the wide street from the direction of the Arch of Constantine and zoomed past so close to their noses that the passing slipstream whistled in their ears.
They both froze and instinctively took each other’s hands: What an unheard-of lack of discipline! Surely the police would soon be on the trail of these criminals! While they were still on the lookout for a police car, a couple more cars sped past at nearly a hundred miles an hour, and came so close that they almost brushed against Emily’s considerable behind. They drove with a sovereign and habitual non-observance of the common precedence given to pedestrians, those poor creatures who at the very least in other European cities are not completely outlawed on zebra crossings.
Agatha gasped for breath: “It’s not fair, no it’s really, really not fair,” she said weakly. The words were ripped from her lips by the next car and went on to flap like an imaginary hood ornament on the sleek nose of an Alfa Romeo.
The righteous anger of the former teacher was awakened in Emily. She positioned herself in all her glory, legs akimbo, right across the zebra crossing, swung the umbrella she had brought with her (despite the cloudless Roman skies) threateningly against the onrushing traffic, and cried out “Stop you rascals” with all the authority of a head teacher.
She cried out with that piercing voice, which had never failed to achieve its desired effect in her schooldays, but what happened now had never happened before throughout her long and distinguished career: she was disobeyed.
Agatha dragged the furious Emily between the cars that whizzed past and finally across to the other side of the road, from where they threw resentful looks back at the Colosseum, which was dozing in sublime timelessness in the midst of the city’s traffic.
Slightly exhausted by the sights and events of the day, by all the things that were so horribly un-English and could only really be encountered on the continent, the two ladies made for a small café near their pension, to refresh themselves with a nice cup of tea.
However the tea was yet another disappointment. The tea bag, swimming dismally in the hot water, gave out hardly any colour, let alone flavour. In England you wouldn’t even administer tea like that to an infant with a stomach ache.
Emily and Agatha gazed out, in between small disapproving sips of that concoction (so unlike tea!), upon the graceful and peaceful square, which was bordered on one side by the eastern facade of Santa Maria Maggiore. They had no eyes for the grace and bold vision of the three part stone staircase - one of many in hilly Rome - which for centuries had plunged down with a broad sweeping movement from the Basilica like a waterfall, whose rushing you are supposed to be able to hear on bright moonlit nights.
No, they were just upset about the bad tea and then about the Frutta di Mare for dinner back at the hotel which was dripping with fat and garnished with all sorts of greasy cold vegetables. Outraged, Emily and Agatha then dragged themselves back to their room, where Agatha took refuge in King Solomon’s Mines and Emily crocheted a small piece of wool in the shape of a petal, which at some later stage - with hundreds of other such pieces all side-by-side - was intended to form a bedspread. Bearing in mind her shortsightedness, this was a heroic undertaking.
The next few days were spent quietly. They took, as it were, careful sips and sampled the continent in small doses, which suited them much better. One particular bright spot was an outing to the Aventine, where amongst so many gardens, they felt content and almost at home. They wandered among the beautiful stone pine trees, whose shimmering green canopies stretched almost to the hill’s summit. It was early summer and the rose garden of the Aventine was in full bloom. They sat happy and joyous among the roses, letting the hours slip through their fingers, and watched peacefully, as the sun sank behind the outline of all the houses of the Eternal City, while the ancient ruins in the depth of the hill slowly drank in the red of the roses and clung on to it as deep glowing phosphorescence ready for the approaching night.
When it got dark, they took a taxi and were taken to the Trevi Fountain, where they both climbed down to the basin of the fountain, along steps that had been soaked by curtains of water, so that they could dutifully throw their coins into the fountain, which would guarantee their return to the eternal Rome. They stood there for a while and looked uncertainly into the fountain bowl, the bottom of which glowed silver with the coins of so many other foolish travellers and pilgrims who hoped, in their child-like optimism and hope which defied their better judgement, to pin down a wavering, wind-blown and uncertain future through one poor tiny coin and to be able to make that future amenable to their own wishes.
That night they slept long and deeply and in the morning Emily announced that it was now high time that they visited the wonderful equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill, which they had been saving up to now, plus Michelangelo’s facade, the long staircase leading to the summit, and the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli which stood at the top. Once again they took a taxi which dropped them off at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. They climbed up slowly and painfully, and took a shuddering look back down the infinitely long and lofty staircase which led further up above them to the facade of the Aracoeli Church on their left in dazzling brightness. No, they couldn’t reach the top of these gruelling 124 steps, either on foot, or on their knees, like penitent pilgrims would have been obliged to do in earlier times.
So Emily and Agatha took a short breather. Above them the huge stone Dioskuri pair, Castor and Pollux, guarded the entrance to the Piazza del Campidoglio. Meanwhile Agatha caught sight of the wolf cage in between the blossoming oleanders and broke out into loud lamentations: “Look Emily, those poor poor animals...isn’t that terrible!”
Emily went over to Agatha’s side and, still panting softly from the unfamiliar exertions of climbing the staircase, they both observed with disgust and pity the skinny, shabby-looking wolves, prowling restlessly along the bars of the cage. The sight of captive wild animals, who had to live deprived of their natural habitat and their freedom of movement, was anathema to them.
And in addition Agatha, during her more active years, for around twenty years had been secretary to the Inspector General of the RSPCA: it was her vocation, so to speak, to be rebellious. It was a miracle that she didn’t sit herself straight down on the stone steps of the Capitoline and draw up a blazing protest letter to her former boss. It would probably however have been useless: the arm of the inspector of the RSPCA didn’t extend that far. And what could you really expect