I shall undress and sunbathe’. Ginia said she would stand on guard but she found herself listening, instead, to the voices and silences from the shore. For a short time everything was quiet on the peaceful water. Tina had stretched herself full length in the sun with a towel round her waist. Then Ginia had jumped down on to the grass and walked around barefooted. She could no longer hear Amelia’s voice which had retreated beyond the others. Ginia, like a fool, imagining they were playing hide-and-seek, had not looked for them and had gone back to the boat.

Penguin Books

TWO

One knew that Amelia, at any rate, was leading a different kind of life. Her brother was a mechanic but she only put in an appearance now and again during the evenings of that summer; she did not confide in any of them but joined in with their laughter for no other reason than because she was in her twentieth year. Ginia envied her her build, for Amelia’s legs showed off a good pair of stockings. She looked rather heavy round the hips in her bathing costume, however, and her features were faintly horsey. ‘I’m unemployed’, she remarked to Ginia one evening when she was having a good look at the latter’s dress, ‘so I have all the day before me to study my pattern. I’ve learnt how to cut out through working in a dressmaker’s shop like you. Can you?’ Ginia thought it nicer to have things specially made but did not say so. They had a stroll together that evening and Ginia accompanied her as far as her house because she felt wide-awake and sleep was out of the question. It had been raining and the asphalt and the trees had been washed clean; she felt the coolness against her cheeks.

‘You like going for walks, don’t you?’ said Amelia, laughing. ‘What does your brother Severino think about it?’ ‘Severino is working at this time. It’s his job to switch on all the lights and generally attend to them’. ‘So he’s the one that floodlights all the couples, is he? What sort of a get-up does he wear – like a gasman?’ ‘Of course not’, laughed Ginia. ‘He sees to all the switches at the Central Electric Works. He stands all night in front of a machine’. ‘So you two are on your own. Doesn’t he ever preach at you?’ Amelia spoke with the cheerful assurance of one who knew all about men’s ways and Ginia felt thoroughly at ease with her. ‘Have you been out of a job long?’ she asked. ‘I have one actually. I’m being painted’.

It sounded like a joke the way she said it and Ginia looked at her. ‘Painted, how?’ ‘Front face, profile, dressed, undressed, I’m what’s called a model’.

Ginia listened with a puzzled expression so as to draw her out though she knew exactly what Amelia meant. What seemed incredible was that she should discuss it with her, for Amelia had never alluded to the matter directly in front of any of them and it was only through the concierge that Rosa had made the discovery.

‘Do you really go to a painter’s studio?’

‘I used to’, said Amelia, ‘But in summer it’s cheaper for an artist to paint out of doors. In winter it’s too cold to pose in the nude and so you hardly ever get a job then’. ‘Do you undress then?’ ‘Of course’, said Amelia.

Then, taking Ginia by the arm, she continued, ‘It’s lovely work; you’ve nothing to do except just stand listening to them talking. I used to go to an artist who had a magnificent studio and when visitors came, they all took tea.