by Rosanna Ley
Tess felt herself wrapped in her mother’s arms – something that didn’t happen very often. She was almost afraid to breathe in case Muma let her go. ‘It will pass,’ her mother said. ‘It is natural and it will pass.’ She stroked Tess’s hair as if she were a child again. ‘Let Ginny stay with me for a few weeks. Go to Sicily if you must. Maybe it would do you both good to have some time apart.’
Tess swallowed back the tears. She’d felt so many new emotions over the past few weeks, she was in turmoil. The woman inside her was desperate to return to Sicily. Not just to solve the puzzle, but to have an adventure, to enjoy her villa, to live a little. But now that she’d been given permission from her mother, now that she had the means to do it, the mother in her was holding her back. She had taken the responsibility of bringing Ginny up alone and she should see it through.
She sighed. It wasn’t so unusual for Ginny to have stayed out (though she was banned from doing so during exams). Teenagers seemed to sleep willy-nilly round at each other’s houses; it didn’t mean they were all indulging in rampant sex, just that they couldn’t be bothered to come home. And even if she was having rampant sex, Tess told herself, Ginny was eighteen. So long as she was using condoms, did it really matter? (Yes, actually. Of course it mattered.) But she always sent Tess a text to let her know where she was – that was the rule.
And when Tess had finally got hold of her on the home phone this morning, Ginny hadn’t even said she was sorry. Tess knew it was no use getting angry – and getting angry wasn’t her style. But at times like this she wished that David had not been such an absent parent. She didn’t know what to do.
Perhaps Muma was right, perhaps it would do both Ginny and Tess good to have a time apart. Ginny loved and respected her grandparents; there was no way she would misbehave with them. Perhaps Tess couldn’t do it alone after all. She thought of the money her mother had given her. It would certainly be enough to live on for several weeks while she made up her mind what to do next. What to do …? It was a big question. But … She didn’t want her and Ginny to grow any further apart. ‘I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing,’ she confessed.
‘Do not misunderstand me, Tess.’ Her mother was looking her straight in the eye. ‘I do not want you to go. But I see that you have to.’ She nodded. ‘And I see that you need a break.’ She put a hand on Tess’s shoulder. ‘You are not the Wonderwoman, my darling. You have brought that child up alone and you always, always have worked too hard. Now you have no job and a villa in Cetaria. So you can go away and think about it. Whatever it is.’
For the second time that evening, Tess considered how remarkable her mother was. Strong, unselfish and understanding. She felt as if she should still be protesting. But on the other hand …
‘Do not worry,’ her mother said. ‘Just go, sort out your thoughts and then it is finished.’ She opened the oven door where their dinner was bubbling nicely. ‘Now,’ she said, with her first smile of the evening. ‘Call your father and let’s eat.’
CHAPTER 27
So there it was, Flavia thought. Tess wanted to return to Sicily. She needed to return to Sicily. Perhaps it was her destiny.
Flavia sat in the room where she liked to do her writing, because it had a view of the garden and because the afternoon June sun streamed in and warmed her. She watched Lenny in the garden, clipping haphazardly at the hedge. She had known from the first moment she heard the news of Edward Westerman’s death and his bequest to her daughter, that this was only the beginning. She was an old woman – how could she fight the pull of Sicily?
So … She had let her go. And she had made it easier for her. Why? Well, because Tess was her daughter and because she was so stubborn, she would never stop until the thing was resolved. Very well then. So be it. She would try to understand.
She picked up her pen, stretched out her aching fingers. And she would do her part. A little every day. She would get there.
Sicilian cheese: il frutto – the fruit of the milk. This was something Flavia had missed, at first, more than most things Sicilian. She remembered the local shepherd from the mountainside; his craggy face and the wooden staff he carried, his strong thick-soled boots.
Pecorino, the cheese from the sheep, caciocavallo from the cow, goat’s cheese. And ricotta – made from the whey of other cheeses; not a cheese, not really; simply ricotta.
She used to watch the ricotta-making in the village; stand with Mama in the hut with the blackened walls, while the cauldron of milk was stirred and stirred growing hotter and hotter until it began to separate. She could still smell the sweet creamy fragrance of the wet curds, the pungent olive wood smoking and sparking beneath the pot.
There were many recipes with ricotta which Flavia could include. Ricotta complemented the dolce, spinach, red peppers … It could be cubed and served with olives, sundried tomatoes and salad leaves. It could be drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with parsley or mint or black pepper. Most of all, it was a taste of the mountainside, a taste of history, a taste of everyone’s beginning. She wanted to give that to Tess.
Flavia heard him cry out – as if even in sleep her ears were attuned to him.
Soft, like a cat, she slid out of bed, wrapped her robe around her and ran light-footed over the flagstones into his room.
‘Hush. Hush,’ she murmured to soothe him.
‘It’s so damned hot,’ he muttered. ‘I’m burning up.’
Yes, he was sweating. She fetched a cold flannel. Laid it on his brow.
He put his hands over his eyes. ‘It’s the lights. They’re blinding me …’
Sometimes it was the lights, sometimes the noise, often both. Flavia laid a cover over the lamp by the bed. They left it on, because darkness too was a problem. She knew that he was dreaming. He had had this dream many times since he had been with them. It was a dream – a flashback – of the moments before his plane had crashed; she recognised the signs.
‘You are safe,’ she murmured in English, as she always did, so that he would understand. ‘You are here, in the house in Cetaria, with me.’ It was still dark and apart from her whispers, the house was silent.
Over the past weeks he had taught her more English, and she had taught him snippets from her mother tongue so that he could converse a little with her father. This seemed important.
He began to spend time outside – always close to the house. And as he walked around the terraces and the ortos his walking began to improve and his leg grew stronger.
Her father came in to see him every evening before dinner, bringing a glass of wine, asking how he was and looking grave.
‘ Bene,’ Peter would say to him. ‘Grazie, Signor.’
‘But still very weak,’ Flavia would add. Of course she wanted him to get better, but she did not want him to leave. His wound had healed and the shrapnel had all been removed. He was making good progress. But he was not ready to go and she was not ready to see him go. She could not bear the thought of parting.
From his dreams and from what he’d told her, Flavia knew that the English airman’s objectives last July – the aim of the gliders’ mission–had been to seize a bridge outside Syracusa and hold it until troops arrived by sea to capture the town. She knew that he had been carrying a gun and much ammunition (and assumed that Papa and his cronies had taken this – in Sicily you never knew when such things would be useful). She knew that he had flown that night from Mascara in the Atlas Mountains, and that he had been unable to hold his flight position, that he had been blinded by the searchlights and lost sight of the coast.
‘Steady on, old man,’ he muttered now, his voice rising. ‘We’re going too fast. We’re going to—’
She held his hand. She knew what was coming. Crash. Blackness. Oblivion.
‘Peter,’ she whispered.
He gripped her hand. Squeezed it hard. She didn’t flinch.
‘Flavia.’
A different voice intruded from the doorway. ‘Go to bed, Flavia.’ Her father.
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br /> ‘But, Papa … ’ No one else could calm him like she could. No one else could feel what he felt.
‘Go.’ Her father had the look on his face that meant he must be obeyed.
So although she could hardly bear to leave him, Flavia took one last look at Peter, and ran back to her room.
Their voices continued rising and falling way into the night. Once, Flavia crept back and stood outside the door to listen.
‘You will leave the house,’ she heard her father say in Sicilian tongue.
She flinched. Clutched at the stone wall for support. But there was no comfort there. Soon it would be winter. She had known it was coming. But … She didn’t even know if Peter understood.
‘I will give you assistance,’ said her father. ‘But I will not give you my daughter.’
Hot tears ran down Flavia’s face. She wanted to fling open the door and shake her fists and scream at them, but she didn’t dare. She could not be forbidden from seeing him completely. She could not be locked up like an animal that could not be trusted.
‘I love her,’ she heard Peter say. ‘I love Flavia.’
Her heart almost stopped beating. He loved her.
‘No,’ said Papa.
All her life she had heard this. Papa’s ‘no’ which brooked no argument.
Back in her room, Flavia cried tears of frustration. Before Peter her life had been nothing. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to long for, no hope for change. All she could see, the most she could expect for her future, was to find a man who was kind, who would look after her. She would be in his bed, have his children, be tied to la cucina. Like Mama. He would go out with his friends – to Bar Gaviota to drink grappa, to the corso to see the dancing. She would be stuck inside. Entrapped. Church, market, la casa. She would rather die.
What else was there?
‘What else is there?’ She would demand of Santina. But Santina would do what her family required of her. She could not give Flavia an answer.
And then Peter.
Flavia lay flat on her back and stared up at the ceiling. There was a sliver of white-pink light creeping through the half-closed shutters. Dawn. Peter had fallen into her life – literally – like a star from the sky and everything – everything– had changed.
She drew her knees up to her chest and flung her arms out wide. Peter loved her.
It wasn’t that he was alien, unknown, exciting – though he was. It wasn’t that he could take her to another place, a new place, one that she’d already been told about by Signor Westerman, where she knew her life could be different. Though that was part of it too. It was Peter himself. The touch of his skin, the beat of his pulse. Flavia loved him. She loved him with all her heart.
CHAPTER 28
Ginny let herself into the house with a flip of relief. Her last exam finished. The farce was over. Zippedy zebras …
‘Darling?’ Her mother was in the kitchen. What Ginny didn’t understand was why her mother hadn’t been looking for another job. What was she going to do? Parents had to work, didn’t they, otherwise where would all the money come from?
‘Hi.’ Things hadn’t quite got back to normal since the argument between them. It was difficult to know how to be afterwards. Did you pretend nothing had happened? Did you say you were sorry? Or did you sulk for a while to make a point? Sometimes Ginny was just so desperate to reach out to her mother – it had always been so easy before, but now the Ball seemed to pull her back just as she wanted to go forward.
‘How did it go?’ Her mother had opted not to discuss their row at all. She was sitting at the kitchen table. Spread in front of her was a map.
‘OK.’ Actually Ginny had hardly written a thing. The only way, she thought, of avoiding uni and psychology, was not to compete. And it had been surprisingly simple to just sit there, doodling, letting that part of her brain switch right off. It was surreal – almost other-worldly. As if she were somewhere quite different. What did any of it matter? Inside her, the Ball rumbled agreement. What did any of it matter?
‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ Her mother got to her feet.
‘OK.’
As well as not discussing their row, her mother was doing something else lately – this hovering thing, like Ginny was too delicate to touch, too volatile to speak to, on the edge. Ginny hated it. It made her want to jump right off.
‘So – out celebrating tonight then?’ her mother said in a false cheery tone. ‘End of exams … Free at last!’
‘Maybe.’ Ginny didn’t know if she could be bothered, though it was true that quite a few of them would be out and about. Becca would be there for a start. But Becca would be with Harry and Ginny knew how she would be.
She couldn’t deny it, she felt totally derailed by Becca’s obsession with Harry. One minute she had a best friend around all the time and the next, she was never available. As for the Ball … Flunking her exams had not made any difference to the size of It. If anything, it had grown more confident, taxiing round inside her at all hours of the day like A Thing Possessed. (Which was also ironic, when you came to think about it.)
Her mother put a mug of tea on the table in front of her. ‘How’s Ben?’ she asked carefully.
Oh, shit. ‘All right.’ And that was another thing …
Why were relationships all about the balance of power?
Take Ben. In the beginning, he’d had it. Ginny hadn’t known what to do. Then they’d had sex and she knew – just knew – she was in charge. He wanted her – all the time. It was great, exhilarating – not the sex, but being so wanted. Even the Ball kept quiet during sex; it was afterwards it would start screaming.
‘Now that your exams have finished,’ her mother was saying in that bright voice, ‘you’ll have to think about what to do next.’
Ginny scowled at her. ‘You mean, like today?’
Her mother took a deep breath. ‘No … But soon.’
Ginny sat down abruptly. ‘I told you. I want to go travelling.’
‘Then you’ll need money.’ Her mother’s voice was also kind of brisker than normal. Like she’d decided to stop being nice.
Ginny groaned.
‘You’ll have to get a job.’
Ginny pulled a face. Why were parents always so negative? They could never bring themselves to simply say – enjoy …! ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I’m not stupid.’ Work would be better than studying psychology. It had to be.
‘And you’re sure you won’t change your mind about coming to Sicily?’ Her mother jabbed a finger at the map on the table. ‘We’d have such a lovely time.’
Ginny wouldn’t even give her the satisfaction of looking. ‘No way, José.’
‘OK.’ Her mother shrugged and folded up the map. ‘I’m only going for a few weeks,’ she added. ‘A month at the most. Or two.’
‘A month or two?’ Ginny stared at her. So she could afford to swan off to Sicily for a whole month – or two – and yet here she was bleating on about Ginny needing a job. Honestly. And what about Ginny? What was she supposed to do while her mother was in Sicily? Again. She swallowed.
Her mother put out a tentative hand. ‘Is everything all right, darling?’ she said. ‘Ben …?’
Ben was no longer scared. And although he still wanted her – they had sex all the time – it had lost its urgency, and Ginny had lost the power. Just like that. In fact she’d go as far as to say that he took her for granted. And worse, she’d realised that not only was she derailed – because of Becca and the whole exams/uni/psychology thing – she was also bored. Bored out of her mind. And hating just about everything – including herself.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘If you don’t want me to go,’ her mother said, ‘I won’t.’
But clearly she wanted to. ‘Go to Sicily,’ Ginny said. ‘I’ll be all right.’
She felt deserted. Left in limbo. Bereft. What about me? she wanted to wail. She swallowed again. It was painful.
‘Nonna wants y
ou to stay with her and Pops,’ her mother said brightly. ‘It would be a bit like a holiday.’
Ginny snorted. They only lived three roads away. But … ‘OK,’ she said. And then she got up to go to her room because suddenly the Ball was making her head ache and she wanted to cry – again.
Upstairs, she put on her iPod and scrunched up her eyes. She saw a birthday cake with candles and she could hear people laughing. It was her thirteenth birthday party; just the four of them – Ginny, her mum, Nonna and Pops. Her family.
Nonna had made the cake – as usual – but the night before, Mum had iced it, complete with the chocolate buttons and hundreds and thousands Ginny asked for every year.
Pops produced a bottle of champagne from the fridge. ‘Da-daa!’ He grinned and shook it up a bit.
Mum and Nonna backed away, shrieking in unison and Ginny giggled. Pops eased off the cork. Mum, Ginny and Nonna clutched each other by the arm, waiting for the explosion.
Whack! The cork cannoned out in a rush of air and ricocheted from the ceiling. Mum and Nonna shrieked again.
‘Glasses!’ shouted Pops, as the liquid frothed from the lip of the bottle.
Mum grabbed them and held them steady so he could pour. She raised an eyebrow at Ginny. Happy birthday, she mouthed.
‘Thirteen,’ Pops mused. ‘Now your life really begins, my lovely.’
Ginny watched the champagne fizz up the glass like a promise.
‘To Ginny.’ Her mother handed Ginny a glass and raised her own.
‘To Ginny,’ they echoed. Family.
‘You’re a teenager now.’ Mum’s hair was as tousled as ever, but she was wearing a new pink lipstick. She moved around the table lighting the thin waxy candles – blue, pink, white and yellow until the chocolate cake with cream-frosted icing was a beacon of flames.
Ginny looked at the chocolate buttons and the hundreds and thousands and the thirteen candles burning. She felt a weird dip inside. She thought about her life ahead – school, university, career and the biggie – True Love. It was exciting – but scary. She looked from one to the other of them. Pops beaming, Nonna smiling her encouragement, Mum’s face flushed and proud. And she thought of what she was leaving behind – childhood, she supposed. Safety. Ginny gulped the champagne which tasted dry and unfamiliar on her tongue.
