A Postcard from Italy: The perfect summer beach read

by Alex Brown

  ‘Are you OK?’ Ellis asked softly, placing his hand on her arm. ‘You look dazed.’

  Grace took a moment, as if to check her feelings, and then on realising that she felt absolutely OK, she nodded and grinned.

  ‘Yes, I am, thanks. Just a few seconds of déjà vu,’ she told him, swiftly adding, ‘but I’m over it now.’ And she really was. As if by magic in the moment, she felt nothing. Maybe a fondness for the memory of that day, but not the aching, crippling yearning that she had felt for months on end whenever she had taunted herself in the early hours of the morning by deliberately letting her mind go back there. She smiled and pushed her hair back over her shoulders and followed the woman towards the glass counter that was crammed full of beautifully dazzling diamonds.

  After explaining in Italian the reason for their visit today, Ellis pulled out his wallet, removed one of his business cards and placed it on the counter.

  ‘Un momento,’ she said, picking up the card and disappearing behind a red velvet curtain.

  Moments later, an older man appeared and gestured for them to come through to a small room behind the velvet curtain and then asked them to take a seat at the table in the centre of the room. Grace glanced at Ellis to gauge his reaction, and on seeing that he appeared quite relaxed, she went along with it too.

  ‘Thank you for coming to visit us,’ the man said in heavily accented English after they had all introduced themselves, Marco being the son of the original jeweller who had opened the shop back in 1923. ‘Your colleague explained in the telephone call from America that you wish to talk about a number of commissions from a long time ago.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Ellis confirmed, and pulled out his phone with all the pictures of Connie’s jewellery on. ‘Fortunately, Grace found the collection in an abandoned storage unit in London.’ Marco shook his head and sighed before taking the phone and swiping through the pictures.

  ‘It is very sad to see these pieces hidden away like this. Such beauty and craftsmanship. I remember my father making this ring, here. I was just a child when it was made, it would have been in the Fifties some time,’ and he tapped the screen and turned it to show Grace and then Ellis, ‘with the finest diamonds sourced from a dealer in Naples. Giovanni was very discerning and it was our honour to serve him right up until he died.’

  Grace’s heart was crushed on having this news confirmed. She knew it was the most likely outcome, but still … it felt like a blow. An avenue closed.

  ‘May I ask when he died?’ Ellis said solemnly, glancing in her direction.

  ‘Ah, it was a long time ago. Some time in the Nineties. Sorry, I don’t remember exactly when. But his wife, Connie, she very sad when they took his body away.’

  ‘Took him away?’

  ‘Yes, he go back to America on an aeroplane. But she say he love Italia. His family, his brothers they no listen to her and bury him there.’

  ‘Oh no, that’s so sad,’ Grace said, thinking how awful it must have been for Connie to have her husband taken away from her and buried thousands of miles away. Her heart must have been broken all over again to not even have his grave to visit. It would have been the same with Jimmy. Nowhere for Connie to go to talk to her trueloves, to mourn their loss.

  ‘It very sad,’ Marco said quietly. ‘This brooch here was the last piece we made for him.’ And he tapped the screen.

  ‘I remember seeing it in the jewellery box,’ Grace murmured, wondering why Connie hadn’t kept it with her, if only as a keepsake to remind her of Giovanni. Why had she stored it away? It’s as if she’d packed up her whole life when he died. Sold the villa – hadn’t Tom said his grandmother had bought the pink villa in the Nineties? Grace guessed that this must have been after Giovanni died. Maybe Connie just couldn’t bear the thought of living in it without him. And Grace swallowed hard as she tried to stifle the surge of emotion within her, her own heart aching for the sadness and loss that Connie, the woman she shared a birthday with, had endured in her lifetime.

  ‘Where is the collection now?’ Marco asked, scrolling some more.

  ‘In the safe at Cohen’s,’ she assured him, then added, ‘That’s the storage company where I work.’

  ‘Good, because the whole collection, it worth lots of money. Near a million pounds,’ Marco told them, and Grace caught her breath as she instinctively went into her handbag to find her phone.

  ‘I had better call Larry and make doubly sure he is locking the safe at all times. You know how he is for leaving it open when he’s topping up the petty cash tin,’ she breathed, panic swirling within her in case something happened to Connie’s jewels.

  ‘Ha, yes I do. But let’s break the news to him when we leave here,’ Ellis suggested, calmly. ‘Uncle Larry is bound to hyperventilate again as soon as he knows the jewels are worth a million pounds.’

  ‘I’m guessing then when your friend phoned Larry, he didn’t give him an exact figure … as in pounds – a million of them, to be precise,’ Grace pointed out.

  ‘Obviously not.’ Ellis pulled a face. ‘But that’s my fault as I asked him not to panic Uncle Larry … I’ll call the London bank where the paintings are stored and make arrangements for the jewels to be taken there too. That way Uncle Larry will only have a few hours or so of being responsible for the jewels before the couriers arrive to collect them.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Grace, her mind still boggling. A million pounds. That was even more than the paintings were worth. Maybe they should call Betty first and let her explain gently to Larry. But then the jewels had been perfectly secure in unit 28 for all these years so no need to panic them just yet, another half an hour or so would be fine. But then, what on earth was Connie thinking, leaving them in the unit with just an ordinary padlock on the door? And without a will to pass them on to anyone? And yet again, as she had done a hundred times or so since opening unit 28, Grace tried to work it all out. Why would Connie do such a thing? Why did she return to London? And why didn’t she sell some of her vast material wealth to make her end of life a little more comfortable? Would she really have had no idea of the value of all the items in unit 28? Surely, she must have done, if she had been with Giovanni to choose the jewels. Or maybe not. Maybe she genuinely had no idea … Grace wasn’t sure, but she was going to have a very good go at finding out. There had to be more to it. And there had to be a living relative somewhere …

  She turned her attention back to Marco, who was still scrolling through the pictures and making comments about each of the items that he remembered. When he paused, she asked,

  ‘Marco, can you tell me about Connie, please? Do you remember her? Did she ever accompany Giovanni when he came to buy the jewels for Connie?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember her well because she was the English lady. So very glamorous and so beautiful,’ he said. ‘Fresh white skin and dots, how do you say in English? Brown dots on her arms? Like you have.’ He pointed at Grace.

  ‘Freckles?’ she smiled, intrigued on hearing this snippet of personal detail about Connie.

  ‘Yes, like an English rose, is how you say, yes?’ Marco checked, and Grace nodded. ‘And so happy. Always smiling when she came to the shop. But then every lady is happy when they come here with their husband to buy a new ring. Or a necklace or a brooch, yes?’ he laughed. ‘But she tell him off too. She say he must not spoil her. Connie was a very gracious lady.’ So Grace had her answer … Connie definitely knew the value of the jewels in the leather case that she had carefully placed on the vintage dressing table.

  ‘Do you remember Connie’s daughter too, by any chance?’ Grace ventured, remembering the words in the diary on VE Day. Connie’s plan was to be reunited with Lara as soon as she and Giovanni were married, so if that had happened then surely she would have lived with them here in Italy. Grace figured Connie and Giovanni might have brought Lara to the shop too, perhaps to choose a birthday present, something special when she turned sixteen or twenty-one.

  ‘Her daughter?’ Marco repeated, l
ooking uncertain as his forehead creased. ‘No, I never see them with a girl.’ Silence followed as he seemed deep in thought for a while before adding, ‘Please, hold on,’ and handed Ellis’s phone back to him, stood up and said, ‘I’ll be back.’

  A few seconds later, and Marco returned with a thick, dusty old ledger and started riffling through the pages.

  ‘I never see a daughter here in Italy but they did buy a necklace for a child. I remember, because my father … he never make one like it before,’ he said, enthusiastically, his Italian accent getting stronger.

  ‘Really?’ Grace held her breath as she leaned forward to the ledger as if this somehow brought her closer to Connie and to finding out the truth.

  ‘Ah, yes. I have it here,’ he tapped the page. ‘A white gold Star of David, diamond tips on each of the star’s six points,’ he read aloud.

  ‘I remember it!’ Grace said, excitedly. ‘Yes, I saw a necklace with a Star of David pendant in the leather jewellery box. Is there a picture of it on your phone, Ellis?’

  They all looked at the phone as Ellis checked.

  ‘Yes, here we go.’ And he placed the phone on the table so they could all see the screen.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one,’ Marco confirmed. ‘See here, it matches the description. It was commissioned in 1952.’

  ‘So it was the same year as the black-and-white picture was taken of Connie by the harbour,’ Grace pointed out to Ellis, ‘and if Lara was born in 1940, then she would have turned twelve in 1952.’

  ‘Yes, the necklace was a gift to celebrate a girl’s bat mitzvah,’ Marco said. ‘I remember it very well as my father had to work fast through the night to finish making the pendant so Connie and Giovanni could take it with them on the boat to America.’

  ‘America?’ Grace was flabbergasted. She swivelled in her seat to look at Ellis.

  ‘Why would they go to America in 1952?’ he asked, creasing his forehead and shaking his head.

  ‘Because Giovanni was American? A GI, remember? American Italian,’ she said quickly, her mind racing with trying to work it all out. ‘To visit his family there … maybe. It’s the most obvious reason.’

  ‘True. But back then it would have been considered a very long way to sail for just a family visit. My guess is that the journey would have had to have been for a very important reason. And why the rush to have the necklace ready to take with them? If the necklace was indeed for Lara, and the timings work for it to be her bat mitzvah, traditionally held for Jewish girls when they reach the age of twelve; but surely Lara would have been living here with them in Italy? And if she wasn’t, then what was she doing in America without Connie, her mother? How did she get there? And why? And …’ Ellis paused, holding eye contact with Grace, who couldn’t wait to hear if he was thinking the same as her, and so blurted out,

  ‘What if she’s still there?’ in unison with him.

  After leaving the jeweller’s and wandering around picturesque Portofino, exploring the narrow cobbled streets crammed with stylish boutiques, Grace had bought gifts for Larry, Betty and Jamie, before they had climbed the steep path up to Castello Brown on the hill. From there they had meandered along the botanical footpath, sheltered from the sun by trellises covered in delicately scented pink roses, while Grace wondered if Connie had ever walked this path too. Then, remembering the dried pink rose petals inside the envelope in the hatbox with Glorious day, Portofino – 1955 written on the outside, Grace was certain Connie had. So she carefully picked up some petals from the ground to have as a keepsake of a wonderful experience too. Inhaling the scent and hoping to remember it always before it faded just like Connie’s petals had.

  Walking on, they were surrounded by olive trees, giving glimpses of the gorgeous gardens belonging to the villas nestled high in the hills. They had sat in stunned silence on reaching the lighthouse, and savoured the view stretching along the breadth of the Italian Riviera – from Punta Manara near Sestri Levante to Capo Noli beyond Genoa – as a man on the next table had pointed out to them while they enjoyed tall glasses of San Pellegrino on the terrace café under the shade of the olive trees.

  Now, heading back to the main square, Ellis’s mobile rang.

  ‘Hi Tom,’ he answered, and then after a quick ‘yes, that’s great, thanks, we’ll see you there in ten’ conversation, he ended the call and turned to Grace. ‘Tom and Georgie are bringing Nonna Maria to the gelato café in the piazzetta. Apparently, the peach ice cream is her favourite and she remembers Connie and Giovanni very well. Connie was her friend and that’s the reason she bought the pink villa. Even though her memory is fading, she was able to tell him all about Connie in very vivid detail right back to when she first arrived in Santa Margherita.’

  ‘Oh, that’s fantastic,’ Grace said, excitement bubbling inside her. At last, she was going to find out about the real Connie from someone who actually knew her.

  *

  Nonna Maria didn’t look like a traditional Italian granny. And certainly not like the image Grace had held in her head since first hearing about her. Dressed head to toe in expensive-looking designer clothes, topped off with a jaunty Gucci logo silk scarf at her neck, lacquered jet-black big hair and enormous Versace shades, Nonna Maria was the epitome of glamorous chic from a golden era. She had an ageless face, which had clearly had many aesthetic treatments, giving her a near flawless complexion and tautness befitting a much younger woman. On the seat beside her was a soft tan leather tote nestling next to a white bichon frise sitting on a little fluffy cushion.

  ‘Hi Grace, Ellis,’ Georgie said, standing up to give them each a kiss on the cheek when they arrived.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ Tom smiled as he introduced them, in Italian, to Nonna Maria and then asked in English if they’d like some gelato. ‘It really is the best you’ll ever taste,’ he said persuasively, handing them each a menu.

  ‘Get the peach cup. Two scoops; they make it from peaches picked on the mountainside,’ Nonna Maria instructed in English, with a very breathy but regal-sounding Italian accent, as she reached a bony, diamond-jewelled hand out to clasp Grace’s forearm.

  ‘Oh, um … yes please. I’ll go for the peach cup in that case.’ She grinned up at Tom as she settled into a seat, not daring to disagree with the formidable-looking Nonna Maria.

  ‘Same for me too, please,’ Ellis nodded, taking the chair beside her.

  ‘I’ll organise the ice cream and leave you all to chat,’ Georgie offered, then dashed off inside the café.

  ‘So you want to know about Connie?’ Nonna Maria said, getting straight to the point.

  ‘Yes please,’ Grace replied, finding her phone inside her bag so she could make some notes.

  ‘Put that away,’ Nonna Maria ordered with such directness it made Grace’s face flush; she did as she was told to right away. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ellis, who was sitting on her left, surreptitiously slip his phone back inside his pocket to avoid a telling off too. ‘You young people with your phones stuck in your hands. No wonder the passion has gone from your lives. No wonder the beauty … you don’t see it. Pah,’ and Nonna Maria batted her hand in the air before giving her dog a reassuring pat on the head. ‘And no wonder you ruin my special rugs with your bacchanalian parties.’ And she gave Tom a withering look. ‘My dear friend, Connie’s rug, I should add. She chose it from a shop in Rome. Handmade. And your friends … they come and vandalise it.’ And Grace held her breath, poised to hear more about Connie.

  ‘Nonna, it was an accident,’ Tom soothed, pulling up a chair close to his grandmother. ‘And we’ve been over this many times – plus the rug is spotless now that it has been expertly cleaned.’

  ‘Nothing is ever an accident,’ she said slowly, lifting a shot glass to her crimson-coated lips containing a liquid (which looked very much like the grappa that Grace had struggled with at the pool party) and chugged it in one without so much as a flinch. Grace widened her eyes in awe. Nonna Maria was certainly some woman, and Grace ho
ped she had even half her panache when she reached old age.

  ‘Nonna, please tell us about Connie,’ Tom said to move Maria on from her angst over the rug.

  ‘Who?’ And she gave them all a blank stare. Grace smiled to stifle a sigh of disappointment.

  ‘Your friend,’ Tom prompted. ‘Connie and her husband, Giovanni.’

  ‘I have a picture, if that would help. But it’s on my phone.’ And Grace tentatively put a hand back inside her bag in the hope that Nonna Maria would agree to seeing it to help her fading memory return.

  ‘Let me look.’ Nonna Maria seemed to have no issue with the phone now. ‘Ah, darling Connie. That’s my friend. The English lady. Everyone knew her when she came to live in Santa Margherita. And they all want to be her friend. The new bride with a dashing American husband. A golden couple. The best socialites. You know …’ she paused to clasp Grace’s arm again, ‘they threw the best parties on board Gio’s yacht. Cocktails and caviar. And dancing. He was a marvellous raconteur and Connie with her fine English manners and gentle warmth … well, we all glowed in their company. Superb.’

  ‘Ooh, how wonderful that you were at the parties. I’ve read about them in Connie’s diary,’ Grace told her.

  ‘Does she mention me?’ Nonna Maria swiftly asked, ‘they used to call me, Cristal.’

  ‘Yes, she did!’ Grace suddenly remembered. ‘She wrote about her new friend … a beautiful, vivacious Italian woman called Cristal.’

  ‘Ah, that’s Connie, always with a compliment. But where did she go?’ Nonna Maria said vaguely, gently tracing an index finger over the screen. Silence followed. Grace wasn’t sure if this meant that Nonna Maria didn’t know her friend had died. She could feel them all looking at her.

  ‘I’m very sorry … she …’ Grace started, but faltered on seeing Tom quickly shake his head.

  ‘Nonna, you told me she went to London, remember?’ Tom intervened, and Grace inwardly sighed with relief, for it was true: Connie had gone to London … when she’d left Italy. Maybe Nonna Maria didn’t need to know that her friend had since moved on to a permanent place of rest.