The Villa
Page 6
They came to a road that descended steeply towards the sea. Tess caught sight of what looked like a small bay surrounded by rocks, a brightly coloured fishing boat pulled up on the quay. But even as she craned to see more, another tall stone building obscured the view. The woman was still muttering to herself and she caught the name again – Flavia – then l’inglese, then Maria and Santina. At one point her unlikely guide even crossed herself. What could her mother have done?
Tess nodded vaguely in response to her words. But her mind was in top gear. She couldn’t wait to find out. And maybe Edward Westerman had wanted her to discover her mother’s story, which was why he’d made coming here a condition of the bequest. Though … How would he know she hadn’t been told the story already? She hurried to keep pace with her guide. Still. He wanted her at least to … she hesitated … get involved with the place. For some reason.
The old woman was still nodding and beckoning and scuttling over the cobbles like a black widow spider. Tess nodded back at her and smiled encouragingly – it was all she could do. There must be a puzzle; otherwise why would Muma not talk about those days? The puzzle was a part of her journey. And the past was here – in the grey cobbled streets and high shuttered houses. The past. Sicily, she was beginning to realise, was the kind of place that could haunt you.
They stopped outside a door with a rusty iron grille. Number fifteen. The paint was flaked and green. The woman knocked three times, still muttering.
Tess smiled weakly and waited.
After a few minutes, another old woman – also dressed in black, Tess noted – answered the door, cautiously, peering round first, before opening it a bit more. She nodded to Woman in Black mark one, but her eyes widened when she saw Tess.
Tess smiled again and nodded energetically. It probably looked mad, but it seemed to be the way forward.
The two elderly women greeted each other warmly, carrying out a rapid conversation accompanied by much clicking of tongues, shaking of heads and looking at Tess as if she were an interesting specimen in a zoo. Didn’t they have English tourists here? Was Tess different – a house-owner, a potential new neighbour? Or was it because she was Flavia’s daughter?
After a few more minutes of this, she began to grow exasperated. She had come so far and she was so near. Dusk had crept up behind her and the light was beginning to dim. She wanted to see her house, damn it. She didn’t want to be standing here on some stranger’s doorstep listening to endless prattle she didn’t understand. ‘Please,’ she said.
They both looked at her; both stopped talking as if they’d been switched off at the mains.
‘Do you have the key?’ She addressed this to the second woman. ‘For Villa Sirena?’ She made a gesture of turning a key in an imaginary lock. ‘Please? Grazie.’
The second woman gripped her arm in much the same way as the first woman had done earlier. Then the other arm. She pulled Tess forwards, and Tess, taken off balance by her surprising strength, was propelled into an unexpected embrace. She felt the woman’s bristly chin as she kissed her resoundingly on both cheeks. Goodness.
‘Santina,’ the woman said, pointing at herself.
‘You have the key?’ Tess asked, not willing to be deflected from the task in hand. The name meant nothing to her – why would it?
At this, Santina practically dragged her over the threshold into a dark, dingy hallway, painted blood-red and covered in framed photographs and religious paraphernalia. Santina said her goodbyes to Woman in Black mark one and, maintaining a firm hold on Tess’s arm, led her into the kitchen. This was dominated by an ancient stove above which various iron cooking implements hung from hooks on the smoke-stained whitewashed wall. There was a small square window with a net curtain and an assortment of wooden chairs placed around a stained, pock-marked table in the centre of the room.
‘Espresso?’ Santina demanded. ‘Caffè? Biscottu?’
Much as she was desperate to see the villa, Tess had the feeling that her hostess was not to be deflected from hospitality. And besides, it had been a long time since lunch at Gatwick, she realised. An espresso might just hit the spot. ‘Sì, grazie.’ She sank on to the chair Santina had indicated. She was tired. She felt as if she’d been strung out with tension for days – since Robin’s announcement that he couldn’t come away with her, in fact. How was the weekend with Helen’s parents going, she wondered. Where were they now? At dinner? At the theatre? Anyway, something in this kitchen had just cut the rope. Her shoulders slumped and she let herself relax. She was here now. She had made it.
Santina nodded, retreated to the kitchen doorway and started shouting up the stairs. ‘Giovanni! Giovanni!’
Who would this be, Tess wondered. An ageing husband perhaps? Another face from Muma’s past who would expect Tess to have at least heard of him?
But no. Two minutes later, a Sicilian man – probably in his late thirties, Tess guessed – entered the room. He wasn’t tall, but even so, he seemed impressive as he paused in the doorway. Posed almost, she found herself thinking. His thick black brows beetled together when he saw Tess. He rattled out something to Santina and she rattled back. Like a couple of old-fashioned trains hurtling down a track.
‘You are Flavia’s daughter?’ he asked abruptly in English.
‘Yes.’ It was beginning to sound like a TV series. Tess didn’t know whether to be offended by his tone or relieved that here was someone she could communicate with at last. ‘I’m Tess. Tess Angel.’ She got up and held out her hand. ‘And you are …?’
‘Giovanni Sciarra.’ He said the words with some pride. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, eyeing her from under his dark lashes. ‘At your service.’
Hmm. Tess wasn’t sure about that. The last thing she needed right now was male attention – of any kind.
Santina poured water from a jug in the white enamel sink and scooped some coffee into a small metal percolator which she placed on the stove. She hovered by Tess, beaming and nodding, before letting loose a stream of unintelligible words.
Giovanni smiled (a cruel smile, Tess decided, a bit like a tiger who’d spotted a kill). ‘I must apologise,’ he said. ‘Your visit – it is una sorpresa – a surprise. We thought Flavia’s daughter to be of a greater age.’
Tess raised an eyebrow. ‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ she said.
‘No, no, you do not disappoint.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘But … ’ He drew up a chair and mounted it by swinging one muscular leg over, so that – weirdly – he was facing her over the back slats. Tess tried not to giggle. His new position only fuelled the tiger fantasy – only now the tiger was behind the bars of a cage.
‘My great-aunt Santina,’ he gestured towards the elderly woman, ‘and your mother, Flavia, were childhood friends,’ he said. ‘As you must know.’
Tess shook her head. She might as well come clean. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know that.’ She smiled at Santina who smiled back.
‘Ah, yes. She talks about it often,’ he went on. ‘They played together as girls. The families … They were very close.’ He made a gesture, the little fingers of each hand linked. She noticed that he wore a gold signet ring initialled GES.
‘Oh, I see.’ Hence the effusive greeting. Tess smiled again at the old woman.
‘So … ’ He shrugged. ‘My father was a good age when he married my mama.’
Ah. ‘Right …’ At over forty, her mother had given birth to Tess late in life – at least by Sicilian standards. Giovanni would have expected Flavia’s daughter to be a bit younger than his father. But in fact Giovanni and Tess were of a similar age.
Santina was talking again. Giovanni cocked his head to one side as he listened to her, a slight frown on his handsome face. His skin was a dark olive, his eyes brown. Handsome, but maybe a little cold, she guessed.
‘My aunt wishes to enquire after the health of Flavia, your mother?’ he said, rather formally, when Santina was done.
Tess nodded. ‘She is well. Grazie.’
‘It’s good,’ she said. And it was. ‘Bene. Grazie.’ That had to be all her Italian used up. But at least if she could smile and nod and thank people, she wouldn’t be thought impolite, just stupid perhaps.
Giovanni fetched a black jacket from a hook outside the kitchen door and pulled it on. ‘When you are ready, Signurina,’ he said. ‘Or signura?’ He looked pointedly at her left hand.
‘I’m not married,’ said Tess. They certainly got quickly down to the nitty-gritty around here.
‘Bene,’ he said.
Bene?
‘I will take you to Villa Sirena.’ He held out one hand, palm up, and looked expectantly at his aunt. Santina produced two keys from the pocket of her apron, one big, one small. She placed them reverentially on his palm.
His fingers closed around them and he nodded. ‘Allora, andiamo.’
‘Great.’ Tess swallowed the last of the coffee and got up. ‘Grazie.’
Santina stepped forward to take Tess’s hand, holding it as if she wanted to say something or as if she didn’t want to let it go. Then Giovanni spoke once more and she kissed Tess on both cheeks, squeezed her shoulders and finally released her. But as Tess followed Giovanni Sciarra from the house, she was aware of the tiny woman in black watching them from the doorway. She seemed kind enough, though it was hard to believe her a contemporary of her mother’s. Tess sighed. If only Muma had given her some clue about the people in this place. She didn’t know who had been her friends, who her enemies. She had no idea whom to trust. But she wasn’t in any kind of danger here, was she? She’d only come to look at a house. Her house.
Once alone with Giovanni, she felt a little self-conscious. ‘Is it far?’ she asked, ‘only my bags are back there in the car … ’
‘No.’ He pointed down some steps, towards a piazza. It was almost dark now, but she could make out a stone archway and some benches. ‘It is down here, beyond the baglio. I will take you there and come back for your things.’
Oh. ‘There’s no need … ’ she began, but he raised a hand to silence her. She followed him meekly down the steps. Here in Sicily, men clearly accepted their right to unquestioned authority. So perhaps she wouldn’t challenge it. Not today anyhow.
‘The baglio,’ he announced, as they went through the deep archway that sheltered a huge panelled timber door with iron bolts and a high fan window overgrown with vines. Two cacti sentries stood erect either side.
Even in the almost-dark, Tess could sense the beauty of the place, the history embedded in the large cobbles flattened by the tread of centuries, and the weathered, porticoed buildings. The baglio was an ancient walled square, part inside, part outside; a sort of courtyard, now lined by little shops, galleries and a restaurant. An Arabic legacy, she assumed. She had read in her guide book that Sicily – especially in the west – had many Arab influences.
They crossed the baglio, past a tall, elegant eucalyptus tree with dappled bark and past an old stone drinking fountain. Tess wanted to ask more questions, but she also wanted to get to their destination. She was itching to see the villa.
On the far side of the square, they passed some sort of craft studio. Tess stared in fascination: the window was full of glass, gemstones and mosaics, lit up by tiny firefly lights that skirted the perimeter of the display. ‘What’s this place?’
Giovanni barely glanced round, though his bearing seemed to stiffen. ‘Tourist stuff,’ he said dismissively. ‘How do you say? Crap. Do not bother your head with it.’
‘Really?’ It didn’t look like crap to Tess. It looked magical, like another world. And was it a case of miscommunication due to the language barrier, or was Giovanni Sciarra already telling her what to think? But she had no time to dwell on this; she had to practically run to keep up with him.
Beside the workshop some steps descended towards a rocky beach and the sea. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured. The sky had darkened to indigo, the sea polished with the sheen of a full moon. Several rocks stood outlined against the sky.
Even Giovanni paused. ‘The finest view in Europe,’ he said, as if he were in some way responsible for it. ‘And it is yours.’
For a moment she didn’t understand what he meant. Then she looked up to where he was pointing. More steps – a spiral of them – led up to a building crouched on the cliff top. A villa. 1930s style, as far as she could make out in the semi-darkness. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘This isn’t …? ’
‘Villa Sirena.’ He nodded. ‘Come.’
Tess almost stopped breathing. Could this really belong to her?
She followed him to the top of the steps where a black wrought-iron gate was set into the high stone wall. It was marked Privato, and Tess watched as Giovanni unlocked it with the small key. The gate opened with a creak of rusty hinges and she followed him through, under a swathe of foliage that had grown around it. They were at the side of the house, she realised, as they walked round to a wide expanse of pebbled terrace which led to the front door. Above the door was a fanlight, to the right an old unlit lamp, and above the fanlight and the stucco, she could see a motif built into the external rendering. But she couldn’t make out what it was.
Giovanni brushed off a bit of flaky paint, inserted the big key and opened the door with a flourish. ‘Villa Sirena,’ he said again.
But he blocked the doorway and she detected a slight twist to his mouth.
Envy perhaps? For the first time she wondered what sort of a welcome she might have in this place. She was after all, a stranger and a foreigner. They might consider she had no right to be here. And then there was her mother’s story – whatever that might be … She straightened her back and stood tall.
‘Did you lock your car?’ he asked.
‘Well, yes.’
He held out his palm in much the same way as he had to his aunt. And like Santina, Tess groped in her pocket for the key and placed it there. She didn’t remember the name of the street where she’d parked it and he didn’t ask. He just nodded, brought his heels together as if in a salute and was gone.
Tess took a deep breath. And stepped inside.
CHAPTER 9
Tess slept so soundly that when she awoke, she didn’t know for a moment where she was. Her mind flitted – to Robin, to Ginny, to her mother. And then she heard the silence and she knew. She was in Villa Serena; her suitcase opened and abandoned at the foot of the broad chestnut bedframe.
She climbed out, padded over to the big, wide window where a large square of dimpled muslin fluttered in a faint breeze. The room was warm, the air muffled. She pushed the muslin aside and flung window and shutters open wide.
Wow … Giovanni had been right about the view. To her left, rocky crops, olive groves and tamarisk decorated the mountainside. Small, wispy cloud curled in tendrils around the peaks, delicate and delicious against the pale-blue morning sky. A winding road led from mountains to village; the cluster of houses creating a jigsaw of bright faces, the ancient stone walls and archway of – what had he called it? – the baglio they’d walked through last night, and the steps leading down to the bay. And what a bay. In daylight it was even more beautiful.
Nestling in the bay, below the baglio, were some derelict buildings and maybe a boathouse with three big arches – because it led to the jetty. Rusty anchors were lined up like soldiers in front of painted and peeling walls the colour of pale sand, and there were grilles at the windows above stone troughs of white oleander. In front of the building stood a lone fig tree, its branches spread as in welcome.
The finger of the stone jetty stretched into the turquoise water. Tess shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun. Further out to sea a sequence of rock formations jutted; beige and white, streake
d with rusty tears. Not a soul was on the tiny beach; all she could hear was the lonely cry of a distant gull. This was her view, Tess reminded herself. Her view. For a moment, she thought of Robin. She felt a twinge of regret. And then. Bugger it. He’d made his choice. She was here, that was what mattered. Alone, but here.
Tess had explored the villa briefly last night after texting Ginny to say she’d arrived safely, but she had been so tired, and the lights so dim, that she’d decided to wait till morning for a proper tour. Now, she realised that the house – her house – was on two floors, and built in a semi-circle. The master bedroom, where she had slept, sat on the centre of the arc – hence the great views. Tess went from room to room, making straight for the window every time. From the front three bedrooms she could see the ocean; from the back, the fields and the mountains. There was only one bathroom, but it was a surprisingly modern one. Tess was ravenous, so she soon made her way down the winding staircase with iron balustrade.
The kitchen was large and untidy, with a flagstone floor and a long, oak farmhouse table in the centre. Last night she’d noticed a general air of chaos: cupboards left open, their contents scattered around. Not ransacked exactly, more as if someone had been looking for something. Also on the table was a basket of bread and some wine, which she’d assumed to be a welcoming gift for her. But no. According to Giovanni they’d been left by Santina for the spirits of the house. Right …
Giovanni had brought her car round to the front of the house and through the big wrought-iron gates.
‘You have electricity,’ he informed her. ‘And there is an electric water heater.’ He showed her this and the fuse box before bidding her goodnight.
But this morning she also found coffee, fresh rolls, fruit and jam. Someone (Giovanni? Santina?) was looking after her – not just the spirits of her house.
She ate her breakfast at a weather-beaten wrought-iron table on the terrace overlooking the bay. From here she could see a few people wandering through the baglio, and the intriguing sight of the mosaicist’s shop door flung open to the world.