The Villa

by Rosanna Ley

  Tess nodded. She had already learnt that in this country you had to earn money where you could. She unzipped the top of her wetsuit; she was beginning to feel a bit clammy.

  ‘There is a wreck out to the west, completely submerged. We arranged to dive together. I had … ’ He seemed embarrassed. ‘A prior engagement. He did not wait.’ He paused. ‘My friend, he died out there.’

  Tess stared at him. God. Death and destruction. Darkness. Sicily seemed positively ingrained with it. ‘When?’ she whispered.

  ‘Two years ago.’

  Despite the heat of the sun, Tess shivered. ‘What happened?’

  ‘It seems almost certain that he got caught up in some old fishermen’s nets. He was found with some netting still tangled around his wetsuit.’ His eyes were darker than ever. He wouldn’t look at her. ‘What else could have happened? He was an experienced diver and the fishermen – they throw their nets into the sea sometimes when they are torn. They do not care.’

  ‘And you think that he couldn’t break free?’ she asked him.

  Tonino shook his head. ‘He must have untangled himself enough to get to the surface eventually, but not enough air was left, I guess. There would have been no time for decompressing. He must have died in the boat alone.’

  Tess was silent. She knew what he was saying. Decompression sickness. The bends. It could happen when the gases in your blood had not had enough time to adjust to the change in pressure and bubbles formed. That was why when you dived more deeply you had to organise your time to allow for decompression stops on the way back to the surface.

  Fishermen’s nets. Divers scuba-diving alone. Now she understood his anger with the fishermen that morning. And she understood his guilt – for not being there for his buddy the only time that it mattered.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  ‘I had the knife that would have cut him free – just like that.’ He made the gesture of a knife slicing through the air.

  ‘But you can’t blame yourself,’ Tess said quickly. ‘It was his decision to go alone.’ She was about to add that these things happened. But it would sound trite and anyway, he wouldn’t agree.

  He looked at her and shook his head. ‘They say it is a bad place.’

  ‘Cetaria?’ She gazed around her. Her mother had said much the same and yet to Tess it seemed like paradise. The ancient stone baglio with its piazza, stone fountain and gnarled and silvery eucalyptus tree. The turquoise bay with il faraglione – the rock tower crags jutting from the sea. The maze of narrow streets and pastel stuccoed houses. Villa Sirena. The underwater grotto of the natural reserve. Not to mention the sunshine. How could it be a bad place? Bad things could happen anywhere.

  He nodded. ‘It is lovely, yes,’ he said. ‘But it is not always a happy place.’

  ‘No.’ She felt that. There was some sorrow – almost secreted in the very stone. She looked up towards his studio. ‘And what about the serpent?’ she asked.

  ‘The serpent?’

  She gestured towards the studio. ‘The one wearing the crown.’

  ‘Ah. Prince Scursini,’ he said.

  ‘Probably.’ Tess wriggled the wetsuit down a bit further. The sun was warm on her face and arms. She’d go back and get changed in a bit.

  ‘A queen longs for a son,’ he said, ‘even if he should be born a scursini.’

  ‘Which is what exactly?’ She watched him. It was as if he could slide into another world, a bit how she felt when she was diving. It was a good way to forget.

  ‘A serpent,’ he said. ‘In Sicilian folklore a serpent is dangerous. If you look into his eyes, you will be paralysed.’ He glanced up at her and Tess promptly looked away. She wasn’t taking any chances.

  ‘Sure enough, the son is born a scursini,’ he said. ‘By day he is a prince, by night a serpent. And in time the serpent wants a wife. He rejects and destroys two women of low birth who are brought to him.’

  ‘Like you do,’ murmured Tess.

  ‘But the third woman uses her wits as well as her beauty. She releases him from the spell and gets her just reward.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘Marriage to the prince? Happy ever after?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  Tess frowned. ‘But don’t you find it a little, well, archaic? For this day and age, I mean?’

  He gave her a sly glance. ‘You do not think the beast/ bridegroom story can be applied to these days – no?’

  ‘We … ll.’ She laughed.

  ‘And you do not think that woman is the healer …? And can have brains as well as beauty?’

  He seemed to have all the answers. ‘OK, I’ll give you that one too.’ This man was still a mystery. And she wasn’t sure whether to trust him – or not.

  ‘So.’ He shrugged. ‘The stories are symbols.’

  She nodded. ‘I see what you mean.’ Powerful symbols too. She got to her feet. ‘I must get out of these wet things,’ she said.

  ‘You should, yes.’ And again there was one of those odd moments between them. Nothing and yet not nothing, she thought. Seeming to mean more than it did. A bit like his stories really.

  CHAPTER 31

  Ginny was stretched out, hands folded behind her head, staring at the ceiling. In this position she could make the Ball lie low, almost float out of sight, and pretend – for a while – that it wasn’t there.

  This ceiling was different from the dirty-white ceiling in her bedroom at home, which had deep, decorative cornicing, the odd cobweb (housework was not Mum’s number one priority) and a stained-glass lampshade. She and her mother had bought it at Pridehaven market yonks ago. Mum had spotted it first, alerted Ginny and then they’d circumnavigated the table, pretending to be interested in other stuff so that they could seem more casual when Mum began to barter.

  When had they stopped doing stuff like that together? Ginny stared at the lampshade in her memory’s eye, as if it could answer this question. It wasn’t like she’d chosen not to, not really. Reds, blues, yellows … She could – and had – stared at it for hours when she was in her room revising.

  This ceiling at Nonna and Pops’s was different. Stark, staring, stippled-bright-white. And no spider would dare spin a web for fear of the orange feather duster which Nonna whisked around ceilings and walls every day – more as a warning, Ginny thought, than to dislodge any dust which might have settled there during the previous twenty-four hours.

  This lampshade was chocolate brown and exactly matched the curtains; the carpet was what Nonna called ‘oatmeal’ – the type that didn’t show the dirt. Not that there ever was any. And for some odd reason – because Ginny had never cared about housework either – this was reassuring.

  When her mother had left for Sicily this second time, Ginny’s sense of derailment had increased. To prevent this, she had divided her life into manageable compartments. There was college – over as far as Ginny was concerned, leaving more of a gap than she had expected. She closed her eyes. Murky grey with orange highlights – a top-dog discussion in the refectory between a random group of friends, a band called Prickly Pairs playing in the gym, a club night in Dorchester in the Christmas holidays. All things, she realised, that had zilch zebras to do with studying. What she missed about college was the social life.

  In an adjoining compartment were Becca and other friends, some of whom had gone off to Ibiza on a post-exam jolly and most of whom she didn’t feel she could relate to any more. They all seemed to know where they were going – uni – and what was expected of them there – to meet people and get a degree. Meantime, they were preparing to launch into Stage Two of their lives without question, without a hiccup, without ever seeming to wonder … Why? What the hell am I doing? Where the hell am I going? Or even, Who the hell am I? (Questions which plagued Ginny daily.) These friendships were silver-blue. The ones that had already half-disappeared were almost opaque and Becca was royal. Ginny opened her eyes to see a fly dare to land on the ceiling. Nonna would have a fit …

/>   Becca was the only one of her friends who was on Ginny’s wavelength. Which was why – Ginny supposed – they had got so close this year. Which was why … She screwed her hand into a fist. It was so rancid now that Becca had Harry. Not the fact that she had Harry, but that she was obsessed by Harry.

  Becca had understood about the uni thing, perhaps because she had never expected to do it herself. ‘You don’t have to go,’ she had said. ‘They can’t make you.’ This faceless ‘they’ featured in a lot of their conversations. It could refer to Ginny’s mother, Becca’s parents, friends and relatives over thirty, tutors and other staff at college, shop assistants, anyone in authority, or any mixture of the above.

  Becca had also said, ‘What’s the point? We might as well just start working and get some dosh together. Do you want to be saddled with a twenty-grand debt at twenty-three?’ And other such reassurances which had fuelled Ginny’s resolve to flunk her exams and thus avoid the whole uni rigmarole altogether.

  She fidgeted into a more comfortable position in the bed. Only now she had flunked her exams, she was more terrified than ever. Like, what would her mother and Nonna and Pops say when the results came through? How would she deal with the fact that she’d disappointed all the people in her family who mattered to her? And what exactly would she do?

  She sighed. And that wasn’t all. You weren’t supposed to be jealous when your girlfriend got a boyfriend. But she was. She couldn’t help it. Royal blue was growing green overtones.

  As for Ben … His square was red and unsettling. She didn’t want to keep seeing him, but she had to. She had to because she wanted it to be different, him to be different, her to be different even. She wanted to be confident, to be clever, to be funny. She wanted to be loved; or at least looked up to and fancied like crazy. But somehow – it wasn’t working out that way.

  Square four was home life. Even as it drifted into her mind, a calming coverlet of pale lilac (with her mother it had always been yellow), she heard her grandmother calling up the stairs.

  ‘Time to get up, Ginny dear, it’s eight o’clock.’

  Ginny smiled. Nonna was a well-oiled machine. She said the same thing every morning, like a mantra.

  ‘OK, Nonna,’ she called and pushed back the bedcovers.

  The home square had become tranquil, rather than edgy and bitter. Now she was no longer perched on a lemon precipice, she was lying on a heathery plain.

  She went into the bathroom for a shower. It was white. White wall tiles, white washbasin, white bath, white loo. White ceiling and white floor. It was like being in an igloo. She pulled back the – white – shower curtain. For Nonna, white meant clean. And clean was the way she liked it.

  The thing about living here, Ginny thought, as the hot water rained on her shoulders, was that Nonna believed in structure. So she would get up at 8 a.m., she would help with the chores and she would come home by eleven at night.

  Nonna and Pops’s day was one of routine. They did chores till coffee time (11 a.m.) and then Nonna prepared food until lunch (1 p.m.). After lunch, Pops had his rest and Nonna secreted herself in her ‘quiet room’ to read. She always took a book in there with her. She wasn’t reading though. Ginny had wandered past the window and had seen her writing in a notebook, writing in a fast and fevered un-Nonna like way that seemed to be making her exhausted. Riveting. Whatever could it be …?

  At 3 p.m. they had tea and then went shopping or for a walk or into town. At 5 p.m. they returned for coffee and a sit down and at 6 p.m. Nonna began preparing dinner, which was served at seven. At nine they settled down in armchairs in front of the TV and at 10.30 it was hot cocoa and then bed.

  Ginny soaped her body all over. She had thought the routine would drive her crazy. But in fact you could rely on it. Structure provided boundaries. And within boundaries you could be safe. You could get back on the rails. Maybe.

  When she had rinsed all the lather from her body, Ginny stepped out of the shower and enveloped herself in one of Nonna’s fluffy white towels. She liked feeling safe, especially when all the other boxes felt wobbly and precarious and were losing definition somehow. She worried that one day the Ball would start rolling and eventually all the colours would merge into a sludgy, unrecognisable mess.

  Downstairs, Nonna was washing up, wrinkled hands deep in suds. ‘Now, my girl,’ she said, when Ginny appeared. ‘What are you going to do today?’

  Ginny wasn’t sure. She had intended to wander round to Ben’s as she usually did. But she had the feeling that Nonna might have decided otherwise.

  ‘Dunno.’ She helped herself to cereal. (‘What do you mean you don’t eat breakfast; how can you start the day without breakfast? Whatever is your mother thinking of? Tsk. Tsk.’)

  ‘A gap year,’ Nonna said, out of nowhere, speaking slowly and carefully as if this was a language that was foreign to her (which in a way, it was, of course), ‘is a good idea.’

  Ginny was relieved. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It gives you time to decide what you want to do with your life.’ It was fluent and well-rehearsed, but from the expression in Nonna’s dark eyes as she turned to look at her, it failed to convince.

  ‘Experience of other cultures is important, I agree,’ Nonna said. ‘And it is very pleasant to have a long holiday, without committing yourself to living there.’

  Ginny eyed her curiously. Was she being sarcastic? Or … ‘Is that what you would have chosen to do, Nonna?’ she asked. ‘When you left Sicily to come to England?’ If gap years had been invented, she meant.

  Her grandmother paused in the act of rinsing a plate. She paused for so long that Ginny began to wonder if she had heard her.

  ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I wanted to commit. I wanted it more than anything.’

  She turned her attention back to the washing up and Ginny shook in a few more Rice Krispies. More than anything …? That was an awful lot.

  ‘But,’ her grandmother went on, ‘a gap year is also a luxury that has to be paid for.’

  Uh-oh, thought Ginny. She sensed something unpleasant approaching. And with Nonna, the unpleasant couldn’t be avoided with emotional blackmail the way it could with her mother.

  Her grandmother dried her hands on her apron and turned to face Ginny. ‘You must find a job,’ she said decisively.

  ‘What kind of job?’ Suddenly the Rice Krispies were difficult to swallow. The Ball was in the way. Of course she had looked for a job, but it wasn’t easy in Pridehaven.

  ‘Any job,’ said Nonna. Her face was kind but stern. ‘And I think you should find it today.’

  CHAPTER 32

  After Tess had dried out from her dive, she had a cornetti with crema and caffè latte in the piazza of the baglio. Delicious. Tonino was nowhere to be seen. Like most Sicilians she’d met so far, he seemed to make up his own hours of business on a whim. She bit into the soft cornetti covered with icing sugar, her teeth and tongue meeting the sweet, thick vanilla crema. She thought of Ginny. There were some things about Cetaria that her daughter would have loved.

  From the other side of the stone archway, she could hear the hustle and bustle of the market and the buzz of voices; Sicilians often sounded angry – or at least on a volatile edge, when they were probably just having a normal conversation about the weather. Beyond the baglio she kept getting glimpses too of the colours, while the smells – of fresh fish, spices and fruit were wafting through. There was nothing like a market. She amended this as she stepped through the archway right into the middle of it. There was nothing like a Sicilian market.

  Market day was apparently a social occasion, as men and women stood around in clusters, chatting; the men smoking and drinking espressos from mobile coffee vans, the women armed with shopping bags and determined expressions. And at the stalls, vendors held out loaves of pane or a purple cauliflower for inspection, while the women frowned and questioned, argued and haggled, before eventually deciding on whether and how they should part with their money. Carciofio fresci … Funghi bella … Tutt
o economico … The calls rang out; the market traders vying for custom.

  At the fish stall there was a queue (of sorts), though in Sicily, Tess noted, this meant pushing your way to the front, while apologising profusely, and trying to catch the fishmonger’s attention before the woman next to you did, by talking to him very loudly. This was followed by the performance of more gracious apology and discussion about who might have been first, with everyone insisting that the other be served before they were. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Tess. Ah well, she thought. Social etiquette was very rarely rooted in logic. She lingered to enjoy the show and to gaze at the white, flaccid squid (she wouldn’t know what to do with it) plump, speckled cuttlefish (ditto) and great slabs of tuna laid out on marble loaded with ice.

  She had decided to visit Santina and Giovanni today to (a) try to get the old lady alone, and (b) ask Giovanni’s advice about getting estimates for doing up the villa. It was common sense – she needed someone who spoke both Sicilian and English fluently. He was a businessman, seemed to have time on his hands and had already been given the responsibility of key holder of the villa. He was the obvious choice. But she would make it plain that she was in control and that she would not be harangued into selling up. If he could live with that, then she would be grateful for his help.

  She paused by the stall selling herbs and spices, inhaled the fragrance of dusty, drying clumps of oregano, thyme and wild fennel. Behind the stall were sacks of chickpeas and lentils with metal scoops and an ancient pair of scales for weighing. In some ways – in the traditions of the ordinary folk – Sicily was probably still much as her mother had lived it. Cetaria certainly hadn’t entered the new millennium, let alone the twenty-teens.

  Tess ducked to avoid the bruised purple garlic, plaited and hanging in ropes from the canopy of the stall. And came to the fruit and vegetables … courgettes with golden flowers, shiny peppers of flame and yellow, lacquered red chillies and fuzzy yellow peaches. She picked up a melanzane and stroked the slick skin with her thumb – the aubergine was sleek, dark and yet luminescent – the colour of Sicily perhaps, she thought with a smile.