The Mermaid Garden

by Santa Montefiore

  “We have a son?”

  “We had a son, Dante.” Her neck began to grow hot and itchy. “A beautiful little boy I nursed for five months, there at the convent, until he was finally taken from me.”

  “Who took him?”

  “Father Ascanio.”

  “So Father Ascanio knew where you were all along?”

  “He arranged everything,” Marina told him.

  “I don’t understand. He said he didn’t know where you had gone. He said he was praying for your safe return.” He shook his head. “He lied to me.”

  “He was only trying to protect you, Dante. He said he feared for our lives …”

  “He feared for your lives?”

  “Yes, he said he couldn’t protect us if we stayed in Italy.”

  “Protect you from whom?”

  “From Beppe.”

  He looked at her askance and rubbed his chin. “It doesn’t add up, Floriana.”

  “You mean, there was no danger?”

  “I’m not saying that at all.” He seemed to dismiss the one piece of the puzzle that wasn’t fitting. “Go on.”

  “Father Ascanio said that the only way to protect us was to give the child up. He sent me into hiding in England, and I don’t know where he sent our son …” Her voice cracked. “I was hoping you might know.”

  Dante gazed back at her helplessly. “I didn’t even know we had a son.” Then his face hardened, and he lost his focus among the statues in the garden. “However, I think I know someone who does.”

  “Father Ascanio? I wrote, but he never wrote back.”

  “Father Ascanio died years ago.”

  “Then who?”

  “You never spoke to anyone else before you went to England?”

  “Only the Mother Superior.”

  “No one else?” She shook her head. “Of course you didn’t. It’s beginning to make sense. After all these years, it’s beginning to add up. Leave it with me.”

  “Who?” she persisted.

  He took her hand. “Leave it with me, Floriana. You have to trust me.”

  Her shoulders dropped. “I do.”

  Suddenly, she remembered Rafa. “Oh goodness, Rafa might be back at any minute.”

  “Rafa?”

  “He’s an Argentine artist who’s come for the summer to teach painting to our guests. My husband wasn’t happy for me to come on my own. I told him to drive into Herba for a couple of hours.”

  “I’ll ask Lavanti to look after him when he comes back. Don’t worry.” Dante called the butler and instructed him to show Rafa into the drawing room. Then, as Lavanti left the terrace, Dante’s gaze fell fondly on Marina again. “When you spoke to my secretary and told her that you had information about Floriana, I realized that although I thought I gave up looking for you long ago, in my heart I had never stopped,” he said. “But I had to cut you out of my consciousness eventually.”

  “Did you marry?”

  “Forgive me.”

  She frowned at him. “What is there to forgive?”

  “I married Costanza.”

  Rafa parked the car and wandered around the town. The air was thick and damp, the evening light turning the old Etruscan walls orange. Pigeons flocked on the cobbles, bony mongrels scavenged in packs, women gossiped on their doorsteps while children played. He reached the Piazza Laconda, where locals sat at tables under umbrellas, drinking Prosecco. He felt the allure of the church and walked inside. Incense still lingered from Mass, and a gaggle of old widows remained in their chairs, chatting quietly. He put his hands in his pockets and stepped slowly over the flagstones, remembering Clementine and their first visit to the house that God forgot. He felt the pain of longing in his heart.

  A young couple stood in front of the table of candles, holding hands. He envied their happiness. The man smiled at him and handed him a taper. Rafa took it and thanked him. The couple walked away, leaving him alone in front of the table of dancing flames. He thought of his deceased father, who must have lit candles here as he was now going to do. Then, as he lowered the burning taper onto the wick, he thought of his purpose and asked God to give him the courage to go through with it.

  Marina felt as if a cold hand had squeezed all the air out of her lungs. For a while she couldn’t speak. She stared at him in disbelief.

  Dante was quick to explain. “Oh, Floriana, it’s not like it sounds. I never set out to marry your friend. It just happened by default because, I suppose, in a way I was always trying to find my way back to you. I couldn’t leave the past alone. Costanza was my only link to you.” He raised his eyes and gazed at her sadly. “Every time I looked at her, I thought of you, Floriana—until it dawned on me that she was a dead end, leading nowhere.”

  “Costanza,” she whispered. “I can’t believe it.”

  “We made each other utterly miserable.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “We divorced after fifteen years of marriage.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She reached out and touched his hand. He squeezed it and smiled sadly.

  “Fifteen wasted years, Floriana. Years I should have spent with you.”

  “I have learned that nothing is a waste, Dante. Do you have children?”

  “Three daughters, who bring me trouble and joy in equal measure.” The fondness he felt for his daughters restored the color to his cheeks. “But mostly joy,” he added.

  “Costanza, a mother,” Marina said wistfully. “I’m happy for her. Whatever became of the countess?”

  “The countess.” He grimaced. “I loathed her, until my loathing grew so great that I could no longer bear to be in the same room. Her husband worked for my father for a while, but he was useless, and finally, when my father retired, I cut him loose. I bailed them out a few times until I lost patience. They live with Costanza in Rome, and she takes care of them. But the countess is old and unhappy, and her disappointment has made her ugly in every way.”

  “She was always going to be unhappy. Materialistic people are never satisfied.”

  “Costanza talked of you constantly. She missed you. I could never let on the extent that I missed you, too. I had to hide my sorrow in my work. I thought if I worked every hour God gave me, there would be no room to think of you.”

  “Oh, Dante.”

  “Perhaps Costanza sensed it and talked about you in the hope of making me happy, but it only made it worse, like rubbing my wound with sandpaper.”

  “The only thing wrong with Costanza was her mother. When I arrived in England, I had no one. I pined for her, too.”

  “I could never have been happy with Costanza, Floriana. I married her to please my father and to maintain some sort of link with you. I’ll never love anyone else but you.” He smiled at her forlornly. “The only one who knew the secrets of my heart was Mother, although we never discussed it.”

  “Violetta. Is she well?”

  “Yes, but in a world of her own. She doesn’t come here any more. She lives in Milan and rarely goes out. Tell me, do you have children?”

  “No.”

  He frowned. “No?”

  “God punished me for giving away the one entrusted to my care.”

  “That’s not true.”

  She lowered her eyes, ashamed. “I turned my back on God.”

  “But Floriana, you had no choice.”

  “I should have fought harder for him.”

  “You were a child yourself.”

  “I begged to be allowed to keep him. I loved him with all my heart.” Her shoulders began to shake. “So I put the bracelet your mother gave me, and the ring, along with a letter from me, in a box and …”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “It’s okay. We’ll find him.”

  She gripped his shirt and gasped for air. “I’ve never told anyone.”

  “Not even your husband?”

  “No one. I couldn’t speak of it. I ran away from myself, Dante—from my guilt.”

  He held her tightly, and she shut her eyes.
She remembered the little baby she had nursed against her breasts. The new soul she had watched as he lay sleeping, humbled by the miracle of his birth. She tried to picture his face but she couldn’t. As much as she tried, his face was veiled in mist, which grew denser the more she tried to lift it.

  As the shadows lengthened and the light grew dim, they talked. She told him about her life in England and how Grey had appeared like a guardian angel to lift her out of her dark pit with love and understanding.

  “I’ve never told him about my past. He doesn’t even know I am Italian. I lived with a foster mother who taught me English and helped me build a new life. I set about learning the language with such dedication that by the time I met Grey, I spoke English so well that he never suspected I was in hiding. I tried to look forward and become a different person. I thought if I left Floriana behind in Italy, I’d leave her pain there, too. I tried to forget our son. I tried to forget you, too, Dante.” She closed her eyes. “But the heart can never forget, and wounds never really heal completely.”

  “So, what made you come back? Why, after all these years, did you choose now to come home?”

  “Because I need help. You always said I could turn to you, no matter what.”

  “You still can, Floriana.” She took a deep breath. But then something stopped her before she could ask. “What is it you need?”

  She wiped her eyes and smiled to herself. “Nothing,” she replied firmly. “I don’t need anything at all.”

  He frowned at her quizzically. “Are you sure? You know I’d do anything for you.”

  She had thought the Polzanze was her life, but suddenly, in that joyous moment of self-discovery, she realized that bricks and mortar could never be more than bricks and mortar. Material things were meaningless without their associations; hence, the Polzanze was nothing without her longing.

  She took his hand and held his eyes in her gaze. “Find our son, Dante, wherever he is.”

  As they walked back inside, Dante put his hand in the small of her back. “Floriana, this has been one of the happiest days of my life.”

  “I should never have left it so long.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to return to England and tell my husband everything.”

  “Is he the sort of man who will understand?”

  “I know he will. He’s a good man, which is why I owe him an explanation for all my irrational behavior over the years. He’s been incredibly patient.”

  “Do you love him, Floriana?”

  She looked at Dante, aware that her answer would wound him. But she couldn’t lie to spare his feelings. “Yes, I do. I love my husband very much.”

  “I’m happy that you found love with a good man, piccolina.” He smiled to hide his disappointment. “Why don’t you stay the night?”

  “Rafa doesn’t even know I speak Italian.”

  “Does it matter?”

  She shrugged. “Not anymore, I suppose.”

  “Then we will have a nice dinner with fine wine and good food, and you and I will not talk about the past. You will rest and recover. You’ve just climbed an emotional mountain. It wouldn’t be right for you to stay in some impersonal hotel on the road back to Rome, and anyway, it’s late.” He grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back. “Please, stay.”

  “All right. We’ll stay. But you have to call me Marina.”

  He looked appalled. “That is too much to ask. I will call you nothing at all.”

  Rafa returned in a somber mood. He had taken a table in the square and sat for an hour over a glass of wine, wondering whether his revelation, when he finally told Marina, would be gratefully received. The butler met him at the steps and showed him into the drawing room. He waited awhile, wandering around the room, looking at all the family photographs. Tanned and glossy people smiled out of silver frames, and Rafa got the impression of a rarefied world where it was always summer and always happy. He gazed at the impressive paintings on the walls, then lingered a long time in front of the large family portrait hanging above the fireplace. It was dated 1979: mother, father, and their three little girls in pretty white dresses and pink satin shoes. He moved closer and scrutinized the man. So absorbed was he in the picture, he didn’t hear the door open as Marina and Dante stepped into the room.

  “Rafa.” Marina’s voice extracted him from his thoughts with a jolt. “Come and meet Dante, my old friend.” Rafa wasn’t surprised to hear Marina speaking fluent Italian; it just confirmed what he had suspected all along.

  But Marina misinterpreted his pallor and felt the need to explain. “I grew up here,” she said. “Dante is part of my past.”

  Rafa took Dante’s outstretched hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “We have agreed that you will both stay the night here at La Magdalena, then return to Rome in the morning,” said Dante.

  Rafa was unable to tear his eyes off him. He was older than the man who smiled out from the family photographs, but he was still handsome, with a powerful charisma that filled the room.

  “I gather you are an artist. Come, let me show you some of the works of art my family has collected over the generations, and then I’ll take you around the gardens before it gets dark. I find this time of day particularly beautiful.”

  Rafa followed Dante into the hall. He caught Marina’s eye and frowned, but she averted her gaze, leaving him to ponder the nature of their relationship.

  He was enchanted by La Magdalena, and felt his fears subside when they wandered out into the serenity of the gardens. Marina hung back, allowing her memories to float about her in the smells and sounds of the place she had loved above all others. Some she held on to while others she let go, but with every recollection she felt a little lighter. They strolled into the mermaid garden, where she and Dante had first become friends, and into the olive grove, where she had tamed Michelangelo the peacock. They walked around the fountain and admired the statues, but they didn’t approach the wall where it was still crumbling. The memories that lingered there were too raw for both of them.

  They dined on the terrace in the candlelight, and Marina told Dante about Clementine and Jake. Rafa went quiet, remembering his clash on the beach with Clementine. He wanted to text her—she’d love to hear that her stepmother spoke fluent Italian—but he couldn’t act as if nothing had happened. He had to come clean and tell her the truth, now that he knew for sure.

  He watched Dante and Marina, the way they interacted with the ease of intimate friends, the way she moved her hands when she spoke Italian, the way she didn’t really have much of an accent at all. Although they included him in conversation, they didn’t pay him much attention, so engrossed were they in each other. Dante’s tender gaze was unmistakable, and she seemed to swell beneath it, shedding the years with each peel of laughter.

  Rafa grew subdued, withdrawing into the background while they basked in the strange magic they generated. How peculiar, he thought to himself, that sometimes when one question is answered, another is raised; and the answer to that question was the very thing he feared the most.

  35.

  Clementine did not go into work. She telephoned Sylvia and in her croakiest voice explained that she was feeling rotten with a mystery bug and didn’t want to contaminate the office. “I think Mr. Atwood is in enough trouble at home already,” she said.

  Sylvia knew she was faking, but she didn’t mind. She imagined Clementine wanted to spend the day with Rafa, and she didn’t blame her. She switched on her computer and wondered whether there was a Rafa out there for her.

  But Rafa had left that morning for Italy, and the hotel echoed with his absence. Clementine wandered through the rooms like a lost dog, aching with longing and loneliness. She took Biscuit for a walk along the cliffs and took her phone out of her pocket more than once to see whether Rafa had sent her a text. She thought of calling him to say she was sorry she had run off without waiting to hear his explanation, but each time she sto
pped herself mid dial, afraid of what he had to tell her.

  She found her father in the library, replacing the books the brigadier had returned.

  “He hasn’t been reading so much since he asked Jane Meister to marry him,” said Grey, climbing the ladder to put Andrew Roberts’s Masters and Commanders back in the military section. “He’s a happy man.”

  “Lucky him.”

  He glanced down at his daughter’s disgruntled face. “What are you so gloomy about?”

  She folded her arms and looked out of the window at the sea. It was a beautiful day, blue skies and the ocean as flat as a mirror. “Dad, do you fancy taking me out in your boat?”

  Grey stopped what he was doing and came down the ladder. “I’d love to.”

  She smiled feebly. “I’d really like to spend some time with you.”

  Grey gently patted her shoulder. This small gesture of tenderness struck Clementine with a sudden wave of neediness, and she threw herself against him. He froze in surprise, not knowing how to respond. It had been many years since he had embraced her; he had forgotten what it felt like. But she didn’t pull away. Tentatively, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He didn’t ask what the matter was, for he sensed that once she was out in the middle of the sea, she would tell him.

  The following morning Marina awoke to the long-forgotten sounds of Italy. The birds chirruped high in the umbrella pines, and the scents of the garden wafted in on a warm sea breeze. She could smell pine and soil, rosemary and cut grass, and the sound of gardeners watering the borders with hoses was a distinctly foreign one. She opened her eyes and let her gaze wander leisurely around the bedroom. It was extravagantly decorated, with tall ceilings and elaborate moldings, delicate antique furniture, and silk curtains in a pale, duck-egg blue.

  Once, she had believed she would live here with Dante and have many golden-haired children to love, but that was long ago—another life. Now, as she lay in the big, luxurious bed with a view over the gardens she had once believed to be paradise, she didn’t feel the old sense of longing or loss, but something different: a contentment of sorts. It was as if she could at last put the past behind her, because now she was back, she realized it no longer had the power to hurt her.