The Mermaid Garden

by Santa Montefiore

  She got up and pulled open the curtains. Gazing into the sunshine, she let the breeze brush her skin with soft caresses. She viewed the grounds with detachment and realized how much she had changed. She wasn’t Floriana anymore. She was Marina, with an English husband and an English life. Although there had been a moment last night when she had believed Marina to be the mask, she now realized that she was Marina, and Floriana no more than a memory she gave life to in her thoughts. The past was gone, and she could never get it back.

  But she didn’t want it back. She inhaled deep into the bottom of her lungs and closed her eyes. She didn’t want the past back, only the son she had left there, and she yearned for him with all her heart. The early days of her exile, when the gray English skies and cold, penetrating rain had sent her into a frenzy of homesickness, were long gone. The hours pacing the beach in frustration while she waited for news of her son from Father Ascanio were gone, and the old priest was now dead.

  The trauma of beginning again in a strange country, learning a new language and remaining in isolation because her heart was too broken to make friends, had also gone—and, like a tree in winter, she had remained frozen until spring had revealed little green shoots and finally blossoms, and she had grown strong. She now knew that she could survive anything, even the loss of her beloved Polzanze, because she had lost her son and yet she still had the capacity to take pleasure in life, and love.

  She gazed into the azure sky, where a bird of prey circled silently on the wind, and felt an expansion in her chest, a sense of something greater than herself: a sense of God. Closing her eyes again and feeling that warm presence on her face, she let Him back into her heart. And she sent up a prayer for the only thing that really mattered now: her child.

  When she stepped out onto the terrace, she found Dante and Rafa already enjoying a hearty breakfast. They were chatting away like old friends. Rafa noticed at once the change in Marina. She had a lightness of being that made her look younger, almost girlish.

  After breakfast they returned to the car. The butler had put their bags in the boot and now stood holding the passenger’s-side door open. Dante suggested they drive into Herba, but Marina refused. She had seen enough.

  She took his hand and quietly, so Rafa couldn’t hear, she whispered to him softly, “I’m not that girl anymore, Dante.”

  His eyes grew foggy, and he squeezed her fingers. “But I’m the same boy who loves you.”

  Rafa watched them embrace. They held each other tightly and for a long time. He turned away and cast his gaze into the coppice of pine trees, where a couple of squirrels were chasing each other up a skinny trunk, disappearing into the thatch of green needles. He felt a stab of jealousy and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

  Dante did not want to let her go. She still looked the same, in spite of her honey-colored hair. When she had stepped out that morning, he had caught his breath at the sight of her, and had gripped the table as he was suddenly whisked back forty years. He regretted not having the courage to elope when he had had the chance all those years ago, and he regretted not trying harder to find her. He watched her climb into the car and waved as it motored slowly down the drive. He could still smell her scent on his skin and feel her soft body in his arms, and his longing surprised him, for surely too many years had gone by for him to yearn for her in that way. Fate had intervened and taken her from him once; now it took her from him again. But this time she wasn’t lost—and they had a son. He rubbed his chin. How he had ached for a son.

  With a purposeful stride he climbed back up the steps into the house. “Lavanti, I’m going back to Milan,” he shouted to his butler, then disappeared into his office.

  Marina glanced back one final time as the car swept through the gates of La Magdalena. She watched them close behind her, shutting on the past, relegating it to the attic of her mind to be boxed up and put away with the rest of Floriana’s life.

  “You seem happier today,” Rafa commented, a little bitterly.

  “I am,” she sighed. Rafa chewed on her words pensively. “But I didn’t get what I came for. I never asked.” She looked out of the window, at a mother with two small children wandering slowly down the road. “If I lose the Polzanze, so be it. It is only a house. I can take all the important things with me.” Because all the important things have been within me all along.

  “I don’t suppose Grey knows that you speak fluent Italian.”

  “No, he doesn’t. I have a great deal of explaining to do.”

  “I suppose it would be presumptuous to ask you to explain to me?”

  “It would, Rafa.” She looked down at her ring. “It is only fair that I come clean with my husband first. Then, I will come clean with all of you. I don’t want to hide who I am anymore.”

  He frowned at her, feeling an odd sense of rejection. After that, neither spoke. They both stared out of the window, alone with their thoughts.

  They arrived back at the Polzanze that evening. Grey, Clementine, Jake, Harvey, and Mr. Potter were all waiting in the conservatory to hear whether she had saved the hotel. Marina suddenly felt the heavy weight of responsibility, as if she had just donned a cloak of lead. So many depended on her and the Polzanze, and she had failed them. She looked at their eager faces and was suddenly deflated.

  “I need to talk to Grey,” she said.

  “Did you get it?” Clementine asked, unable to contain her impatience.

  “No, I didn’t,” she replied.

  The air sank around them like damp snow. She wanted to reassure them that it didn’t matter. But it did matter. It mattered terribly, to them.

  Clementine pulled a sympathetic smile. “We’ll be okay,” she said, fighting tears. She hadn’t realized until now how much the Polzanze meant to her. She looked at Rafa, but he was unable to meet her eye. He looked so sad, as if the night in Italy had piled on a decade. She wanted to shake him. Didn’t he know by now how much she loved him?

  Marina looked at her husband. “Grey, will you walk with me? There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Grey had known right from the beginning of their courtship that she was keeping something secret from him. The recurring nightmares, when she cried out in her sleep then sobbed in his arms, hinted at something dark and terrible that she was unable to share. He hadn’t ever asked her what it was, for he had trusted that, in time, when she was ready, she would tell him. He hadn’t expected it to take so many years. Now she took his hand, and they walked down to the beach where she had spent so many hours gazing out to sea, mourning her inability to conceive. They strolled up the sand, and Marina took her time.

  “Will you promise me one thing, Grey?”

  “Of course.”

  “Will you try not to judge me?”

  “I won’t judge you, my darling.”

  “Yes, you will. It’s only natural. Please don’t think less of me because I hid this from you. It was the only way I could cope.”

  “All right.”

  “And you know that I love you.” She stopped and took both his hands in hers. “I love you for your patience, your compassion, and for the fact that you have always loved me, in spite of knowing there was a depth in me that I never let you reach.”

  “Marina, darling, whatever it is, I’ll still love you.”

  She took a deep breath, and without being aware of it, she gripped his hands tightly. “My name is Floriana Farussi. I’m Italian. I was born in a little seaside town called Herba in Tuscany. My mother ran off with a tomato seller from the market, taking my little brother with her, leaving me with my inebriated father, Elio. I was as good as an orphan, but I always dreamed of something more.”

  She was so intent on telling her story that she hadn’t noticed her husband had gone as gray as a carp.

  She talked at length, and she told him everything. They sat on the sand, and she described the summer she fell in love with Dante, the time she nearly killed herself jumping off the high cliff into the sea, and the moment he
had made love to her. She told him about Good-Night and Costanza, and the wickedness of her mother, the countess.

  As she told him about her pregnancy, her hopes for her future with Dante, and the loss of her child in the convent, Grey began to understand her more profoundly. He realized now why she had paced the sand, mourning the loss of her child whom she had nurtured for such a short time, and why her later inability to conceive had nearly destroyed her. He understood why she had suffered night terrors, and why she had, at times, seemed so haunted by loss.

  “So, when I finally saw Dante, I realized that I couldn’t ask him for money. I just couldn’t.”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her temple. “Of course you couldn’t.”

  “It would have reduced everything else to dust. He would have thought it a cynical ploy to exploit him. But what we had was precious, and the son we made together is out there somewhere and so much more important than the Polzanze.” She turned round and smiled at him. “You see, it all became very clear to me in Italy. You are important to me, Grey. You, Jake, Clementine, Harvey, Mr. Potter—you are my family and I carry you in my heart wherever I go. So, it doesn’t really matter whether we continue on here, or start again somewhere else. As long as we’re together we’ll be okay.”

  “But your son, darling.”

  “I might never find him.” She turned away and her eyes glittered in the reflection of the sea. “I hope he’s happy. I hope he knows nothing about me.”

  “I know it’s late, but I think you should tell Jake and Clementine,” he said as they walked back up to the house.

  “You’re right. I hope they are as understanding as you are.”

  “I’m glad you told me. You make more sense to me now. I think you’ll find you make more sense to them, too.”

  Clementine and Jake reacted very differently to her confession. Clementine was fascinated by the romance and tragedy of it. She felt every bit as desperate as Marina as she described her love affair and the loss of her son, while Jake found the emotions hard to comprehend. As a man who had never been in love, who had never suffered, he failed to grasp the enormity of it all. The fact that she had withheld it gripped him far more than the story itself. It seemed little more than a great adventure. However, he admired her for not asking Dante for money, and vowed that wherever Grey and Marina chose to begin again, he would go with them and support them one hundred percent.

  Rafa paced his room while Biscuit lay uneasily on his bed, watching him stride back and forth as if the floor were made of hot coals. Suddenly, he was unsure. When he had set out from Argentina he had been so certain of the validity of his quest. He had set about his search with the enthusiasm and curiosity of a young detective on his first case. But he hadn’t considered the emotional consequences of the truth, once discovered. He hadn’t imagined he would fall in love with Clementine; he hadn’t considered that he might love Marina, too. He hadn’t anticipated the terrible fear the answers would expose.

  He wanted to call his mother. He wished he could speak to his father. He wished he had never set out in the first place. The cowardly part of him wished things could go back to the way they were, before his head had grown muddled and confused, before his heart had taken it upon itself to get involved.

  He began to toss his clothes into his suitcase.

  The following morning he awoke late. He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. He hadn’t slept that long since his university days. He showered and dressed and began to finish what he had started the night before. He’d make up some excuse and leave as quickly as possible; that way he could put this whole business behind him. When he thought of Clementine, he felt a sharp pain in his chest—the thought of never seeing her again was unbearable.

  He was interrupted by a soft knocking on the door. He glanced at his case lying open on the bed and then back at the door. He was left no alternative but to open it. There, standing on the landing, was Clementine.

  “Do you mind if I come in?”

  He shrugged. “You might as well, now you’re here.”

  She was surprised to see that he was packing. Her heart lurched with panic. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  She gazed at him, horrified. “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “But I thought you were going to stay the whole summer?”

  “My plans have changed. It’s complicated.”

  “Not as complicated as the story Marina told us last night. Or should I say Floriana Farussi from Italy.”

  He sat down on the window seat and rubbed his temple.

  “Did you know?” she asked.

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Everything.” She sat beside him and hugged her knee against her chest. “I had a lot of time to think while you were away. I’m sorry I ran off up the beach and didn’t give you time to explain. It was cowardly of me. I’m ready now, if you still want to tell me.” She looked at him intensely. “Why are you running away, Rafa?”

  Marina was gathering herbs from the trough outside the stable block when the shiny black Alfa Romeo pulled up in front of the hotel. The engine stopped and footsteps could be heard on the gravel, but her attention was on the job at hand. There followed a brief conversation in low voices and then the footsteps grew louder. She looked up to see Grey striding towards her with Dante. Her heart leapt in surprise, and she dropped her secateurs.

  “Dante?”

  “Floriana. I couldn’t wait, and I didn’t want to tell you over the telephone,” he said in English. “Besides, I wanted to be here with you when I told you.”

  “Told me what?” But she knew, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Our son.”

  Her fingers shot to her lips. “You know where he is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s here.”

  She felt her head spin. “Here?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “His name is Rafa Santoro.”

  Marina was speechless. Her emotions rose in a great tidal wave, and she let out a loud wail. Both men rushed forwards to catch her as her knees buckled. But Dante saw her reach out to Grey and caught himself. He stood back as her husband helped her inside and settled her in the sitting room on the sofa.

  “I’m fine,” she said as he released her. “Please go and get him. Bring him to me.”

  Grey strode out, his own head whirling as the final piece to the puzzle had now snapped into place.

  She patted the sofa. “Dante, how did you find out?” He sat beside her. She took his hand and smiled, although her eyes were streaming.

  “When you told me that Father Ascanio had sent you to England because he feared for your life, it suddenly occurred to me that this was not my father’s doing. You see, my father would never have involved a priest, and his ways of dealing with problems such as ours were way more brutal. If my father had promised to look after you, there would have been nothing to fear. You wouldn’t have been sent away, and our son would never have been adopted. So, it got me thinking, if not my father, then who? Father Ascanio would never have had the means to set you up in England and arrange for your passport and change of identity. The only man I know capable of all that is Zazzetta.”

  “Zazzetta?”

  “I took the helicopter straight back to Milan and confronted him. All these years he kept the secret, surreptitiously sending money when needed to an old flame of his who had agreed to look after you here.”

  “Katherine Bridges was an old flame of Zazzetta?”

  “She worked as a governess in Milan when Zazzetta first started working for my father. You owe your life to him, Floriana. When my father received the letter from Elio, blackmailing him, he told Zazzetta to make the problem go away. He told him to make it look like an accident.” Marina blanched. “But Zazzetta is a religious man, and it was more th
an he could do to kill a young girl and her unborn child. So, he arranged everything in utmost secrecy with Father Ascanio, whom he knew he could trust, and sent his own brother to fetch you. You see, Floriana, they couldn’t tell you the truth, they couldn’t trust anyone, because their lives depended on it, too. Were my father to find out that his most trusted aide had betrayed him, he would have done away with the lot of you. He would have tracked you down, and he would have buried Zazzetta without so much as a backward glance.” He lowered his eyes. “I cannot begin to tell you the wickedness of that man. I’d like to say that money and power corrupted him, but I think he was just born wicked.”

  “Don’t tell me, Dante. He’s dead now. He can’t hurt anyone ever again. And you have found my son. Our son.”

  “All the time you were looking for him, he was looking for you.”

  “And he found me. I just didn’t know it.”

  Dante grinned. “There is a small slice of justice, however.”

  “What’s that?”

  “My father entrusted his whole life to Zazzetta. He did everything for him. Therefore, it was easy to take money from my father to pay Lorenzo Santoro in Argentina and Katherine Bridges in England. So, you see, my father financed your new life and our son’s without ever knowing.”

  “And here we are, after all these years, reunited. That is justice, God’s way.”

  36.

  You’re Marina’s son, aren’t you?” asked Clementine. Rafa nodded. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure it was her. The only information I had was a letter signed ‘Floriana,’ a bracelet, a ring, and the box of personal items belonging to Father Ascanio, my father’s brother, sent out after he died.”

  “Father Ascanio was your uncle?”

  “Yes. I’m Italian Argentine, don’t forget.” He walked over to the suitcase and pulled out a file. “Here are the letters. There are countless ones from Costanza in Rome, written to my uncle in Herba, begging to know Floriana’s whereabouts, and letters to Floriana which she asks him to forward. Of course, he never did, for here they are, bundled up with a half-written letter to Floriana that he wrote but never sent.