by Alex Brown
‘Yes, I’ve got a copy of Constance’s marriage certificate right here,’ Maggie said, patting her iron-grey bob and lifting a pair of glasses that were hanging on a colourful beaded chain around her neck, up on to her face, before unfolding a long piece of paper. ‘Married in January 1946, so shortly after the end of World War II. She married Giovanni di Donato in Marylebone Register Office in London.’ Maggie showed Grace the marriage certificate with the words written on in old-fashioned swirly cursive handwriting. Grace touched an index finger to it, imagining Connie doing likewise with the original certificate. ‘I wasn’t able to find a death certificate for Giovanni …’
‘Oh?’ Grace said hopefully.
‘Ah, but don’t get your hopes up as he might very well have died in Italy,’ Maggie surmised.
‘And Lara?’
‘The same, I’m afraid. If she died in Italy too, then it isn’t impossible to find out, but may take me a little longer. I’m sure you’ll be able to find out more when you visit as there’s bound to be someone there who knew Connie, and if she did take Lara to Italy after the war, then she would have gone to school, had friends, hung out in cafés eating gelato. You must leave no stone unturned, so I expect to hear that you’ve visited and sampled every gelato shop within a ten-mile radius of the powder pink villa.’ They all laughed. ‘Now, getting back to the certificate – the most interesting thing on it is Giovanni’s profession and address. See here.’ And she pointed to the piece of paper where it said that he was a soldier and living at an address in Woolwich. Repository Road, to be precise.
‘Could it be the American soldier she met at the Red Cross dance?’ Grace suggested hopefully, thinking how wonderful it would have been if Connie had found happiness to help ease her pain on being parted from Lara when she returned to London to do her bit for the war effort.
‘Yes, it very well could be,’ Maggie nodded. ‘Perhaps an Italian-American GI, given his gorgeously romantic name. They were very popular with the British women during the war,’ she chuckled saucily.
‘But hadn’t the war ended by then? If Giovanni was an American GI, then would he have still been in Britain in 1946?’ Grace checked.
‘Oh yes, it’s quite possible … some GIs weren’t demobbed until well into 1946,’ Maggie assured her. ‘And we may be able to find out more from his army records.’
‘Is it really possible to do that?’ Grace asked, thinking about Jimmy too. She would like to find out how he had met his fate, as a mark of respect to honour the sacrifice he had made.
‘Yes. I can certainly try.’
‘And Ellis is extremely excited.’ Larry dipped into the conversation. ‘He’s now convinced that Giovanni is the artist who painted the pictures we found in the unit, plus the ones discovered in the attic of the house in …’
‘Repository Road in Woolwich!’ Grace exclaimed in unison with Larry.
‘And if he was an American GI, then that could explain the other paintings that surfaced in America – Ellis told me about them too. Maybe Mr Donato painted them before he came over to England during the Second World War,’ she said, processing all the pieces to see if they fitted together, and so far they certainly seemed to. It was too much of a coincidence for the address in Woolwich near the army barracks to crop up twice with a link to the paintings.
‘Well, it’s certainly an exciting mystery … like something out of one of those true-crime documentaries on the telly,’ Betty chimed.
‘I certainly hope not!’ Larry puffed. ‘Nobody has died.’
‘Apart from Connie, that we know of,’ Jamie chipped in, stating the obvious.
‘And Jimmy. And his mother too, she died in the Blitz,’ Grace added, remembering the poignant passage that she had read in Connie’s diary, written when she had first arrived back in London to work in the factory.
I went to Jimmy’s home today in Deptford for old times’ sake and … well, I don’t really know why, but I guess I was hoping to see his mother, to pass on my condolences to her and maybe tell her about Lara, her granddaughter, for I feel certain she would be overjoyed by the news of her. It would have been so nice to talk about Jimmy and to feel close to him again. But I was met with the most dreadful sight. Rubble piled up high where Jimmy’s home once stood. The whole of Franklin Street has disappeared. A man was there, rooting through the debris, trying to salvage whatever he could, and he told me the street took a direct hit. Poor Maureen at number 27 didn’t stand a chance as she never made it to the shelter in time after doubling back to fetch her tabby cat, Mischief. It was such a sorry sight and I came away with tears in my eyes but took comfort in knowing that Jimmy will have his mother, Maureen, with him now. I then went over to the hilly field section of Greenwich Park and picked a big bunch of wild flowers, just like Jimmy did for me when we were courting. After tying a jolly yellow ribbon from the haberdashery shop around them, I went back to where Jimmy had lived and left the flowers there, saying a silent prayer as I placed them in the rubble. A flash of bright colour in amongst all the grey, from Lara and me, for the father and grandmother that she will never meet.
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ Betty said, bringing Grace’s thoughts back to the present day, ‘it’s like the bit where they try to work out how everything happened … anyway, our Grace is going to have a terrific time in Italy being our very own Miss Marple. And that’s the main thing.’
‘Let’s not get carried away, dear. Grace isn’t going to investigate a murder!’ Larry shook his head with a worried look on his face and then, after pondering momentarily, he looked at Grace and added, ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea. I won’t live with myself if anything happens to you out there, my dear.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ Jamie said keenly. ‘Grace will have the time of her life and come back feeling all refreshed and wonderful, and with a glorious tan to boot. Plus she’ll have Ellis with her, so it’s not as if she’ll actually be properly on her own …’
They all looked at Grace as if waiting for her to sanction the trip. She took a deep breath and after breaking into a big grin, she gave her verdict.
‘Yes. A 100 per cent yes! And thank you,’ she said, with far more conviction than she actually felt inside, but the thought of going to Italy for six days was just too wonderful an opportunity to miss out on. When else might she get the chance? And her mother was only going to get older and more dependent, and so this could very well be a chance of a lifetime, certainly for Grace during Cora’s lifetime. And, in all honesty, Grace had been feeling for a while now that enough was enough. Bernie had been on the phone again last night complaining because Cora had called her ‘in a right state’, saying that Grace was ‘threatening to leave me all on my own just so she can have a dirty weekend with that poor man of hers’. So Grace had had it up to here with being the family doormat, taking care of their mother single-handedly, and had told Bernie so. She had no idea how Jamie had managed to persuade Cora, though he had always had a knack of appeasing her, but what Grace did know was that she would be eternally grateful to him.
It was time.
Time for Grace to move on.
Time for Grace to take back a bit of life for herself.
And time for her to stop punishing herself for feeling that she was to blame for what Matthew did. That he slept with another woman in their bed because Grace wasn’t enough. Not sexy enough. Not perky enough. Or interesting enough. Funny. Cute. Or clever enough. No, he chose to cheat on Grace, shatter her love for him in the worst way possible. And that was wholly down to him. Some time away would give Grace the chance to properly clear her head and cement her new view of her life. So she was going to call her counsellor and talk through some practical strategies for the trip and then focus on packing her suitcase and feeling excited … because Grace Quinn was enough.
And she was going to have new knickers.
And she was going to Italy.
Fantastico! As they say in Italian …
Two weeks later, and Grace could
barely believe her own eyes. The view before her as she stepped out of the aeroplane in Italy was breathtaking. On the horizon, rising majestically over the rooftop of the airport, were lush green hills dotted with traditional white brick houses nestling amongst cypress trees and olive groves. The warmth from the dazzling morning sun as it drenched the bare skin on her arms was like a balm for her soul, instantly uplifting and lightening her mood as she near glided down the staircase and onto the tarmac.
And it was incredible how she had stopped counting steps. She had first become conscious of this as she walked to the departure gate at London’s Heathrow, having stopped off in duty free to treat herself to some new make-up, a pair of sunglasses, a couple of bikinis and a divine, coconutty-smelling sun cream especially formulated for redheads with fair, freckly skin, figuring she might get to do some sunbathing … when she wasn’t busy searching for Connie’s relatives, of course. Her counsellor had said this might happen: that once she was distanced from her everyday life and away from what her subconscious detected as constraint – in other words, caring full time for a controlling mother was grinding her down – then she might flourish and no longer seek the security of counting steps. And so she was delighted to discover that he had been entirely right in his prediction.
Grace felt unencumbered and free for the first time in a very, very long time, certainly since she had moved back into her childhood home after the break-up with Matthew. But that was in the past and she was determined to focus on the here and the now in glorious, sumptuous, romantic and stunningly beautiful Italy. She was here for six days and fully intended on making the most of this wonderful, generous gift that lovely, kind Larry and Betty had given her. Not to mention the generous gift that Jamie was giving her by minding Cora – which reminded her, she must call him to make sure all was OK. Or should she? Jamie had been adamant last night when he came round to wish her a good trip that she should not call, saying he wanted her to have a proper break and would be in touch if disaster struck, which was extremely unlikely given that he was an experienced nurse. And, well … ‘I could always confiscate her telly remote control if she gives me too much grief,’ he had added to lighten the mood when Grace had wobbled and very nearly started unpacking her suitcase, worried that Cora would just be too much for him with her continuous calls for attendance throughout the nights.
After collecting her suitcase, Grace headed to the arrivals section of the airport where she was due to meet Ellis before travelling with him to the little Airbnb townhouse they were to share whilst here in Venice overnight. Betty had told her all about it being right next to the water with a tiny balcony, and Grace couldn’t wait to get there and see it for herself. Then tomorrow afternoon they were going to take the train to Santa Margherita to see where Connie had lived in the powder pink villa on the hillside. Betty had said the train trip looked like the nicest way for them to travel, as they’d get to sit back and enjoy a picture-postcard tour of the Italian scenery along the way.
The rest of their time in Italy would be spent talking to neighbours and going to the jeweller’s in Portofino too. She had also stumbled upon the name of the powder pink villa from a photo of Connie standing by the majestic front entrance where there was a ceramic name plaque mounted on the wall. Casa di Donato. So they would ask around until they found somebody who knew exactly where the villa was. And there were still lots of diaries that hadn’t been read yet, which Grace had painstakingly copied onto her laptop, so a long train journey would provide the perfect opportunity to read through them.
Walking through the crowd, Grace experienced a moment of anxiety when she couldn’t see Ellis, but then her face broke into an enormous grin of relief on spotting him looking every inch like a suave local in shades, chino shorts, loafers and an open-necked striped polo short with the sleeves rolled up, accentuating his caramel-coloured tan. Somehow, he looked different, standing here in the airport in Italy. Sort of radiant and more handsome, but then Grace supposed somewhere as beautiful as Italy would make everyone and everything seem more attractive and airbrushed. Plus she was relaxed and happy and that always had a wonderful effect on her perception.
Ellis was holding up a piece of black card with the words Grace Quinn Benvenuta a Venezia printed on in purple ink.
‘You made it, Grace,’ he said, his American accent sounding even stronger when mingled with the lyrical Italian language being spoken all around them as the other travellers greeted their loved ones. Waggling the card in the air, Ellis stepped forward to embrace her with a kiss on each cheek. Grace reciprocated, liking the quick burst of citrusy lemon scent that emanated from him and filled her senses. It was rejuvenating and upbeat, and much like her current mood.
‘I did, and thanks for the lovely welcome,’ she said, touching the card in his right hand, thinking what a sweet gesture it was.
‘Ah, this! Well, I figured … when in Rome—’
‘Do as the Romans do,’ she said, laughing, and then added, ‘but we’re not even in Rome.’
‘Sure, I know that, even if I do spend most of my time in the auction house peering through a magnifying glass authenticating valuable artwork,’ he laughed along, making his shoulders bob up and down and his hair flop into his toffee-coloured eyes. ‘But we are near enough to Rome; it’s the same land mass at least.’ And as he tilted his head and gently tapped her arm with the piece of card, Grace couldn’t help seeing and thinking how attractive he was, and it made her stomach do a little flip. Do I fancy him? But then she quickly pushed the thought away for she wasn’t one of those women. The Perky Yoga One had been one of those women. Matthew had told Grace that he had ‘been honest’ with the Perky Yoga One right from the start, telling her that he was in a relationship and engaged to be married, but it ‘hadn’t put her off’. For crying out loud. And Ellis has a girlfriend, a very confident, trusting one, as I’m not sure how I would feel knowing he was having a holiday with another woman in Italy, aka quite possibly the most romantic place in the world. And as if to confirm this, a man strumming a ukulele strolled up to them and started singing.
‘Per gli amanti’ and then translating in English, ‘for the lovers’, at which point Grace felt her whole body flush, right from the tips of her toes up to the top of her head, even making her scalp tingle. Especially when Ellis played up to the man’s assumption by swiftly taking her in his arms and tilting her backwards into a classic embrace, making her left leg pop up like they do in the old movies she loved so much. And for one breathtaking moment, Grace indulged herself in a teasing role-play by smiling and laughing to the clapping crowd, who clearly thought they were a properly loved-up couple.
‘Come on, you,’ Ellis grinned, his face mere millimetres from her as he eventually let her go. Then, after hoisting her suitcase onto a nearby trolley, the moment vanished, leaving Grace feeling discombobulated … Ellis might be out of bounds, but there was no harm in a little flirtatious fantasy inside her head, was there? ‘Let’s find the speed boat.’
‘Speed boat?’ Grace gasped, feeling another frisson of excitement. She’d never been on a speed boat. The ferry from Holyhead to Ireland as a child one cold Christmas was the extent of her sailing experience, and so there really was no comparison.
‘Yep, that’s right. The water taxi will take us from here to Venice. The dock is at the end of that covered walkway over there.’ And he indicated with his head in the direction they needed to take.
‘Well, fancy that!’ Grace beamed, popping on her sunglasses and falling into step alongside Ellis as he led the way through the crowds.
‘What an amazing place,’ Grace yelled excitedly to Ellis, as the boat chugged to a slower pace, in deep contrast to the breakneck speed they had reached coming across the lagoon from the airport. Or ‘water motorway’, as the captain of the boat had said it was called in English.
As they sailed into a narrow canal, she could see rows of beautiful tall buildings, some of them six, maybe eight storeys high on both sides with painted sh
utters in pastel pink, blue and green, and geraniums in a glorious array of bright orange and red cascading from wooden window boxes. The canal was crossed with a succession of low arched bridges, and with the warm wind wafting all around them and the water frothing up in the back stream of the speedboat like prosecco fizzing from a shaken bottle, Grace felt as if she had actually stepped inside a glamorous old Hollywood film. Or one of Connie’s diaries perhaps. Grace imagined Connie must have felt much the same way as she did right now, when she had sailed from Portofino to the bay of San Fruttuoso. Energised and alive. What a wonderful experience it must have been for Connie, and now for Grace too.
‘It sure is,’ Ellis said, leaning forward on his bench seat. They were sitting opposite each other, him travelling backwards and her forwards. ‘Is it your first time here in Venice?’ he asked.
‘Yes, and I hope it won’t be the last because it’s just so incredible, I don’t think you could ever tire of a place like this,’ she said, gazing around in wonderment at the sights, keen not to miss a thing. Canopied cafés with people basking in the sun drinking coffee and wine. Gondolas drifting past as they sailed underneath an ancient-looking arched bridge, everyone instinctively ducking just to be sure they didn’t hit their heads, even though there really was enough space, just about. The air as they cruised into another narrow waterway was filled with the scent of fresh pizza drifting towards them from a nearby pizzeria. As the boat passed by the open kitchen door, Grace glanced in to see a man in a long white apron throw a floppy lump of dough up in the air and then deftly catch it on one index finger, to spin it around before slapping it on a work bench and giving her a wave. She waved back enthusiastically, drawing in a giant waft of basil mingled with rosemary and garlic. Next, her senses were met with music, a Latin tarantella-style sound of guitars and tambourines and maracas and she swivelled her head to see where it was coming from.
