by Rosanna Ley
Giovanni looked really angry now. But also confused – as if someone had out-guessed him at poker. ‘You cannot do anything without the money, Tess,’ he said.
She leaned in close to him. ‘Watch me,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘No one else will lend it to you. I can guarantee that.’
Tess opened her purse and put a few coins on the table to pay for her coffee and cannoli. ‘I don’t need the money,’ she said.
He grabbed her wrist. ‘What do you mean, Tess? Why don’t you need the money?’
She winced. ‘You’re hurting me, Giovanni.’
But he didn’t let go.
She saw the waitress hovering – one look from Giovanni and she disappeared behind the counter and out back. The only other customers got to their feet and left, without seeming to notice anything out of the ordinary. Great. Tess might as well be invisible.
‘You think you know the story, Tess.’ Giovanni’s voice was a soft purr. ‘But ask your precious boyfriend where all his family’s money came from. How a poor fisherman’s son finds the money to buy business premises in the baglio at Cetaria.’ He got to his feet, still holding her wrist, and clamped his other hand on her shoulder.
‘What are you saying?’ She tried not to sound scared. She looked out of the window, but suddenly there was no one around.
‘How convenient for that family to come into such a large sum of money at the same time as the disappearance of il Tesoro,’ said Giovanni.
Tess decided she’d had enough. ‘None of this has anything to do with me,’ she said. ‘He has nothing to do with me.’ But even as she spoke, she felt a dart of betrayal. Tonino.
‘Let me tell you something else, Tess.’ Giovanni’s face was close to hers now. Too close. ‘It isn’t only the money. My grandfather Ettore Sciarra disappeared just after the war too. Just disappeared. At the same time as Il Tesoro. What do you make of that, eh? Eh?’ His voice was rising.
Jesus. The plot thickened. Was Giovanni suggesting someone had murdered his grandfather? Certainly, he looked almost fanatical now; close enough for her to smell his sweat, to see the red veins in the whites of his eyes. ‘I have no idea,’ she said firmly. If she could only keep calm, she wouldn’t enrage him further. And he would let go of her wrist and shoulder. She would give him another minute, she thought, and if he still wouldn’t let her go, she’d kick him in the goolies. Hard.
‘But I will tell you who knows,’ he snarled. ‘I will tell you who knows what happened to him.’
Somehow, Tess wasn’t surprised at this juncture, to see Tonino come strolling into the baglio, looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. She saw him glance towards the bar, glance away, glance back again.
In three strides he was in the doorway. In three more, he was by her side. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ He wrenched Giovanni’s hands away.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked Tess.
She was. Nevertheless, she wanted him to wrap his arms around her and she wanted to cry. Which was a bit pathetic, so she just nodded.
He grabbed Giovanni by his very slightly lipstick-stained collar. ‘Keep away from her,’ he growled.
For a moment their eyes locked, and for the first time, Tess tangibly felt the force of that old family rivalry; she saw and felt the hatred. It was as black as the land they came from, as dark as the shadows of Sicily. Giovanni clenched his fists and Tonino tensed, both men ready to fight. But instead, as Tonino let go of him, Giovanni staggered slightly and made for the door. When he reached it, he turned.
‘Do not imagine you have heard the last of this,’ he said, addressing Tess, and then he spoke very fast in Sicilian to Tonino.
Tonino swore softly in reply.
‘Sì, sì, sì. Scopilo …’ With a final curse, and a gesture that looked worryingly like somebody’s throat being cut, Giovanni slammed the door and strode away and out of the baglio.
Tess turned to Tonino. ‘Thank you,’ she croaked.
He nodded stiffly. ‘Stay away from him,’ he said.
‘Tonino … ’
But already he had crossed the bar to the door and was gone.
* * *
She followed him out of the building and across the baglio. The sky had turned leaden while she was in the cafe, the swell of the sea was like rolled steel and the line of the horizon was a heavy purple. Even the air seemed to be pressing on her shoulders, her head. It was an effort to move, to drag one foot after the other.
‘Tonino,’ she said, to his retreating back.
The rain began to fall then, slow thick drops, and in that instant there was a tangible release of pressure as a jagged crop of lightning streaked the sky. Almost immediately, the thunder rolled like a drum.
A storm. The grey sky was illuminated by another dazzling fork of light; it reflected, glaring and gold on the surface of the sea. It was as if something that had been simmering below the surface was now coming to the boil.
The bar and cafe owners were rushing around retrieving chairs, tables, parasols – dragging them under cover. People were huddling in doorways, pulling up hoods, donning scarves, holding their hands ineffectually over their heads. Running for shelter, for home.
At last he turned to face her. ‘Go back, Tess.’ He looked tired. ‘Go back home to England.’
She stood her ground, though the rain was still falling and inside, she was weeping too. Not that she’d let him see. ‘Why?’ she countered. ‘Don’t I have a right to be here? Don’t I have the same right as anybody else to be here?’
She had raised her voice, but still her words were halfdrowned by a gust of wind and the roar of the waves crashing on to the rocks in the bay. She could hear the undercurrent too dragging them back as the tide receded.
Tonino shook his head. ‘Bad things happen here,’ he shouted. ‘And it is not yet finished. If you stay … ’ He let this hang. ‘I cannot always protect you.’
Tess was stung. Had she asked for his protection – had she? She could have dealt with Giovanni alone if she’d had to. He wouldn’t dare hurt her – would he? And besides, all these things had happened so long ago. They had nothing to do with her, with the present. What was wrong with them all?
The rainstorm was so complete, it seemed to drown everything. Already the cobblestones of the baglio were awash and the buildings had taken on a sad and derelict air.
Tess was soaked to the skin. But still she stood there, while Tonino sighed, shrugged and started taking all his things inside. He was working on a much larger design now, she could see, made up of turquoise and sea-green glass. The pieces of glass and stone were shiny and jewelled from the rain, glittering like treasure.
‘I am keeping the house,’ she yelled. ‘And no one can stop me.’ Who was she telling? Herself? Tonino? The whole of Cetaria? ‘I’m not frightened of Giovanni Sciarra.’
‘You should be,’ Tonino muttered as he went past, flinging open the door of his studio.
Well. She was angry with him. He’d given up, hadn’t he? ‘And where did the money come from?’ she yelled. ‘Tell me that.’ She just wanted to get his attention, that was all. But she knew immediately that she’d gone too far.
He froze. ‘What?’
She should have kept quiet. And yet he infuriated her with his withdrawal, his refusal to face up to the past, face up to her and whatever it was between them. ‘Your grandfather’s money. Your money. The money for your business.’ She couldn’t look at him. ‘You told me the Sciarras had taken all your family land.’
He swore softly. Came towards her. And as another streak of lightning seemed to strike the ground behind him, he lifted her chin and shook his head sadly. ‘Not you too, Tess,’ he said. ‘Not you too?’
She met his gaze. ‘How am I supposed to know,’ she said. ‘What’s true, what to believe? You and Giovanni … You’re so damned dark and mysterious all the time!’
Once again, he sighed. His hair was damp now and clung to his forehead, he blinked the rain o
ut of his dark eyes. ‘I told you it was an inheritance,’ he said. ‘An uncle from another village who worked hard and died childless. That is all. Because it happened at the same time as … ’ He hesitated. ‘The rest of it, everyone assumed there was a connection.’ He looked at her. ‘There was no connection.’
She nodded. She believed him. She would probably always believe him, always trust him, infuriating though he was. But, ‘A man disappeared too,’ she whispered.
‘Yes. A man disappeared too. Ettore Sciarra. A man with so many fingers in so many affairs, who could guess how many had reason to murder him … ’ He was very close to her now. As he bent towards her, as she knew for certain that his lips would touch hers, as she felt the sweet anticipation … She also felt a shiver in the earth beneath her, like a vibration passing through the very cobblestones of the baglio.
As one, they took a step apart. She heard some glass tinkling in Tonino’s studio as if a giant hand was shaking the shelves. And while she watched in disbelief, a crack split a pathway up the stone wall beside them.
Tonino was motionless. He seemed to be listening, waiting for something to happen. The sea in the distance was still wild and rolling, but the wind was abating now; the storm had shifted and was moving away down the coast. Once again, the earth shivered as if it were stretching after a long sleep, and then all was quiet, all was still. From somewhere in the village, a church bell tolled.
Tonino visibly relaxed. He took her arm. ‘Do not worry,’ he said. ‘Go back to Villa Sirena now.’
Tess could hardly conceal her bitter disappointment. ‘What was it?’ she said. ‘Was it the storm?’
He shook his head. ‘An earth tremor,’ he said. ‘They are not uncommon. But it is finished, I think. Go.’
The steps up to the villa had never seemed so steep.
At the top, Tess turned and stared out at the rocks, il faraglione, at the lonely fishing boats there in the harbour, at the faded and disused tunnery. Could you love a place and a man and be scared of them at the same time? Could you be drawn to them – half against your will? If you could, if it were possible, then that was how it was for her.
CHAPTER 61
About six months after that visit, Peter sent her a letter. Flavia examined the neat handwriting on the blue envelope and somehow knew it was his. It reminded her of all those other letters that she hadn’t received. What had her father done with them? Thrown them in the brazier probably. He must have read them first though, otherwise how would he have known that Peter was coming to Sicily to get her? And since Papa spoke no English, he must have shown them to someone else, someone who translated for him Peter’s words, Peter’s love letters to Flavia.
Even now, this fact made her burn with anger and shame. Who else had read them? Enzo? She thought of Enzo’s dark, cruel face and she shivered. Should she have warned Tess about the Sciarras?
This wasn’t a love letter and Flavia was glad. It began, ‘My dear Flavia,’ and ended, ‘Yours, Peter.’ Though of course, he wasn’t. In between, he asked after her health and the cafe, told her where he was living (alone), that he had found a job selling insurance and that he saw his boy once a week on Sundays.
Once a week on Sundays … It wasn’t much, for a man who had been so proud. She remembered. I have a son, Flavia. His name is Daniel.
He hoped, Peter wrote, that she might find time to write to him one day – as a friend. And if she ever needed anything … He had let the words hang.
As a friend … Flavia had never imagined when she came over to England that Peter would be her friend. Her lover, yes. But friend …?
Still, she was touched that he cared enough to make the gesture of friendship. So she replaced the letter in the blue envelope and put it in her bedroom, in her stockings drawer.
A few weeks later when Lenny was due to visit his mother one Sunday, she made her excuses and stayed home. In the afternoon, she replied to Peter’s letter. She told him how the Azzurro was doing and how good her English was getting. She told him about Pridehaven and told him that Lenny was a nice man, one of the best. ‘I too,’ she wrote, ‘will be your friend.’
It was an erratic correspondence, but Flavia received perhaps four or five letters every year. When he had a problem, when his ex-wife found someone else and Peter was worried about the effect this might have on Daniel, or when something went wrong at work and he wasn’t selling as much as he should, he wrote to her and told her. Sometimes he mentioned another woman. There was a Katherine, whom he took out for some months, and an Audrey whom he was seeing for quite a while. But he didn’t remarry and he continued to live alone.
Was he waiting for Flavia? Waiting – for all these years? He never said, and she tried not to think about it. Still, she made it a habit to look out for the postman – just in case.
Her life was good, though she and Lenny had to work hard. Flavia made all her own dough for fresh pasta and pizza and they had bought some nursery land so that they could grow tomatoes too, big beef tomatoes and small tasty cherry tomatoes under glass.
They were a team. But what of love? Lenny was not a romantic – he never had been, and now with the Azzurro, there was little time for romance in their lives. But he was a good man, a kind man, and for this, Flavia was grateful. Romance though … That was for the girl she had once been; she had left that girl behind.
She knew that Lenny wanted children, but it didn’t happen for them, and in a way Flavia was glad. There was so much work to do, and she had never felt herself the maternal type. She was too ambitious; she had never wanted the Sicilian way of womanhood – house and children.
When it did happen, she was in her early forties and didn’t believe it at first. It couldn’t be. Not after all these years … But it could be, and it was, and it seemed like a small miracle when Tess was born, a tiny bundle of life and warmth, already squalling as if she knew quite well what she wanted. Flavia smiled. And as if she would fight for it.
‘Do you want to hold her now, Mum?’ the midwife asked Flavia.
Mum. Flavia wanted to laugh. She would never understand the English, they were a strange race indeed. But, ‘Yes, please,’ she said meekly. ‘I would like to hold her.’
They called her Teresa Beatrice.
Now, even more than before, life with Lenny was not just life with Lenny and the Azzurro. They became a family, a real family at last.
Yellow for the durum wheat glowing in the sunshine, yellow for saffron, yellow for lemons and yellow for golden, warm, runny honey.
Honey, known to the most ancient civilisations, has been produced in Sicily for thousands of years, but its flavour has changed over the centuries. The flowers have changed and the honey known as millefiori (‘thousands of flowers’) reflects this heritage. These days, most Sicilian honey is made from orange blossom or eucalyptus nectar.
Flavia’s favourite honey was Sicilian orange blossom. She put it in all her dolce, she told her daughter. It was light and fresh and tasted of spring. Of hope and of new beginnings …
CHAPTER 62
Tess was glad when she received a surprise invitation to go to Millie and Pierro’s for lunch. She’d just received a text message from Ginny too. Nothing earth-shattering, but Tess was trying to give her some space – to be there, but not obtrusively there. And it seemed to be working. Ginny was communicating.
Lunch was laid out on their private terrace – a small spread by Sicilian standards, but it looked delicious. There was a simple green bean salad with bread and various seafood antipasti artfully arranged on white plates.
Pierro was darting about doing jobs connected with the hotel: one minute dealing with a difficult customer; next, finding a pair of pliers for a workman; then, taking a phone call …
Millie, in contrast, was relaxed as ever. Her ‘girl’ Louisa was on reception and Millie was happy to take a couple of hours off. ‘I deserve it,’ she told Tess. ‘Come here and let me look at you.’
Tess obliged, and Millie reached to kiss her
on both cheeks, the Sicilian way. Today she was dressed in a fuchsia-pink top, with black cotton culottes and black pumps with a tiny fuchsia bow. Her lipstick though, was as bold and red as ever – a clash that only Millie could pull off so successfully, Tess thought.
‘How are you both?’ she asked. ‘How’s business?’
‘Good.’ Millie waved her to a chair. ‘And your father? I hear he’s doing well.’
Tess was faintly surprised. ‘Well, yes. Though according to my mother, his superman days are definitely over.’
Pierro came over just in time to catch Tess’s quizzical look. ‘What?’ He too bent to kiss her.
‘Just that in Cetaria everyone seems to know what’s happening to everyone else.’ Tess shrugged and tried to laugh it off. After all, they were her friends and it really didn’t matter …
‘They do.’ Pierro sat down in a chair opposite her. ‘And my wife is the biggest gossip of them all.’
Millie pulled a face. ‘Don’t listen to him,’ she said. ‘Good news travels fast, that’s all.’
‘And bad news travels faster,’ said Pierro.
Tess smiled. He was right there. She remembered something. ‘This morning, I could have sworn someone was watching me when I left the villa,’ she said. It was the strangest sensation; she had almost been able to feel the scrutiny, like the beam of a torch on her back.
‘They probably were.’ Pierro poured out three glasses of iced lemonade from the jug on the table. ‘In Sicily someone is always watching you.’
‘Really?’ That was worrying.
Millie clicked her tongue and told him to shush. ‘He’s kidding you,’ she told Tess.
Tess wasn’t convinced. But who was always watching? And why would they watch her? She thought of Giovanni Sciarra and she shivered.
Pierro passed her a glass. ‘How were the builders yesterday?’ he asked. ‘Did they give you a good quote?’
Tess sipped the lemonade. It was home-made – from Sicilian lemons, no doubt – and delicious. ‘Not bad,’ she said. This builder had taken a lot more trouble looking around the villa, had commented on her plans in comprehensible, though pidgin, English and had given her some useful advice. Oh, and then there was the minor point that his estimate was ten grand less than Giovanni’s outfit’s.
