Always With Us

My grandmother-in-law used to carry the keys tied around her waist under her skirt (long, black, ankle- length). I keep them in the dresser drawer owing to inadequate quantities of material. At first I kept unoccupied parts of the house locked but my strategy now is to leave all internal doors openable; I need to get in there quickly to catch what's on the other side.

What do you do about ghosts? They're here, undeniably, and I didn't believe in ghosts. Feelings have begun to run high now I'm here all the time. Mine, incredulity followed by fear, and theirs, unknown, have resulted in a stand off - I'll not be intimidated, they were here first.

Preparing lunch, noon, sunlit kitchen tra la tra la, and the main door slams. Footsteps, male, heavy, mount the stairs, accompanied by the undertones of serious male discussion. I'm fooled no longer; this is not someone coming in for lunch, it's them. Continue with the battuta, listen to them heading up to the next floor, and good luck to them, they're always doing that one.

During an after dinner game of scala quaranta a perfectly decent hand has to be abandoned as gigantic thumps and crashes cause fears that the roof is coming in at the piazza end. We hustle outside and survey a silent square, street, townhall, church, and shuttered, sleeping neighbours. Upstairs dust covers rooms undisturbed and closed.

Local people murmur of clanks and chains, dug up suits of armour with buried ladies resting their feet on them, and blessings administered; visitors ask who is hurrying through the room near the church end, face averted with baby in her arms, ignoring them as they lie in bed amazed.

'What is la ronda?' I ask. It's sort of sentry duty; that'll be the heavy pacing after nightfall but what is going on at midday? Last weekend I came back from Florence to find that things were settling into a live and let live mode. Sounds from the gallery turned into a cinema had suggested a making themselves comfy in the armchairs, adjusting of the furniture activity; noise levels are falling and furniture merely being rearranged rather than hurled.

'None of us were here for a long time, but they wouldn't hurt us; they are our past.' remarks Mr HG.

'Am I one of us?' I ask. Mrs Thatcher would be proud of me.