Secret of the Song

by Cathie Hartigan

  ‘It sounds the perfect place.’ Salvo laughed. ‘I wouldn’t mind being ruled by a woman one little bit. Although …’

  ‘Although what?’

  ‘I’d want to get my own way some of the time.’ He reached towards me but I jumped down from the wall and ducked away.

  ‘Signors Carlino and Pace must be very happy with your success. Does it mean that they have a lot of printing work as a result?’

  ‘Much too much to do by themselves. Since I have been sending them work they have employed three more boys.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s good.’

  But the news didn’t make me feel good. Salvo had been sending work back to Napoli quite regularly it seemed. Why had he not written to me? We walked a little further and I heard all about the wonderful cities that he had visited, the deliciousness of their food, wines and something called grappa, that he liked particularly. It occurred to me that I was hearing how it came about that Salvo was nearly twice the man he was.

  ‘Why didn’t you write to me?’ I interrupted another tale.

  He stopped dead. ‘But I did.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘And you never replied.’ He looked aggrieved.

  I didn’t know what to say. Certainly I had never received a letter and I always looked when Laura brought the letters to my mis … I groaned. Laura. Had she kept it from me?

  ‘Well, Salvo, you are here now.’ I couldn’t help smiling when I looked at him, for I was very happy to see him. ‘But I have to be getting back to the convent soon, and I have yet to go to the merchant’s. If I’m much later, the sisters will begin to wonder where I am.’

  ‘Yes, and I have to meet with Signor Pace before the morning is over,’ said Salvo. ‘So let’s walk back together and on the way we can make some plans.’ Before I could protest, he had taken hold of the edge of his cloak and cast it about my shoulders so that like children playing amongst curtains, we were both trapped inside. I felt his heart beating as he pulled me to him and when I looked into his eyes, the world outside our velvet tent fell away.

  ‘Oh Salvo, I—’

  ‘Shh …’ he said.

  If the sting of a nettle could be a sweet and pleasurable thing, then that was how I felt the tingle of his whisper against my lips. The soft warmth of his kisses, the shivers of delight. The power of them. I felt … oh, what did I care about the time or the place?

  I don’t know how long we remained by the wall at the far end of the harbour, but it was a sudden squall that eventually interrupted our enjoyment. We huddled together a while longer but the wall was no shelter at all, so we ran back, jumping over the ropes that fastened the boats, until we reached a stall that sold succulent boiled crab and squid.

  ‘Can I see you later today?’ Salvo asked.

  I thought of how my days had been in all the months he had been away. The early days of terror, how Sister Caterina had been so kind, how I was looking forward to embroidering the altar cloth.

  ‘Tomorrow, Salvo,’ I said. ‘I have things to do today.’

  He was taken aback at this, I could see. But I was resolved, even though inside, I could feel much of me would have liked to say yes! As soon as possible!

  ‘Silvia Albana! How is my favourite seamstress of all? I haven’t seen you for a while.’ The cloth merchant’s broad smile revealed that he had lost yet another tooth. Even though he was old enough to be my father’s father, and I’d had to put up with his being a little too friendly at times, I’d always been glad of his kindness and his appreciation of my skills.

  ‘I have some beautiful silks for you,’ he went on, pointing at the bolts of cloth stacked one on top of another. ‘All colours. A ship docked from the Orient only last week.’

  Seeing such riches, I sighed a little, and told him I was living with the sisters at San Domenico. ‘So now you know why it isn’t silks I need anymore, Vitore.’

  ‘What? You are wasted there. Didn’t the Carafas want to keep you?’

  ‘Not after what happened. It isn’t surprising to me, but I did wonder whether any of the other families who value their clothes might have employed me.’ I shook my head. ‘But I suppose they think I might be unlucky, or worse I had some part in … in—’

  ‘Oh nonsense! Now, now, don’t upset yourself. Tell me what I can do for you today instead.’

  I didn’t tell him exactly what I wanted the linen for, but he was happy for me to choose, and I went back to the convent with two pieces that I could make into samples to show the sisters. On the way back the rain fell relentlessly and I arrived at San Domenico wet through. When I took off my clothes all the little hairs on my body stood up. The sight of them on the back of my bare arms reminded me of the afternoon with Salvo in the lemon grove. I’d had the same reaction then, but for quite a different reason.

  I wondered what it would be like to be with Salvo. Really be with him. His travels had broadened not only his girth, I was sure. When he took me in his arms it was with a surety he had not had before. A shiver went through me and, even though I was sure I really did love him, it wasn’t one of pleasure. It seemed to me that strange things happened to people when they became lovers. I thought of Donna Maria and her three husbands. I thought of my own mother and father. His absences and her struggles without him. Salvo’s father was unknown to him. The act of love changed people, and not always for the better.

  The sisters began singing at the mid hour of night. It was a devotion they undertook once a month, and as I lay somewhere halfway between sleeping and waking, I found that my heart was full of both joy and sorrow. I turned from side to side until the pillow was wet through with tears of one sort or another.

  I was sure that at our next meeting Salvo would ask me to marry him. He’d be sure that I’d accept. Certainty abounded. A simple yes, that’s all I had to say. It would be madness to say anything else.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I almost knocked over the postman on my way out of the block.

  ‘Quick getaway, is it?’ he said. ‘Hope he’s not a big bloke.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Or is it a dog?’

  ‘A dog? Oh … no. I’m in a rush, that’s all.’

  He handed me a couple of fliers and the sort of envelope that can only be a bill. I shoved them in my bag and gave him my best non-invitational smile. Another time, I might have stopped for a chat.

  At the school gate I pressed the bell. It was nearly a quarter past twelve. Don’t go to lunch. Don’t go to lunch … I willed the secretary to be in her office, to answer.

  Crackle … crackle … ‘Hello?’

  Phew.

  ‘Hello, Lisa,’ she said, once I’d got in. ‘We weren’t expecting you today. Mollie said you were still recovering.’ She frowned, her gaze flicking from one side of my head to the other, as if checking for something unsavoury. I wondered what else Mollie had said. Mum’s bang on the head had turned her into a nutcase?

  ‘She’s been at her dad’s,’ I said, all syrup and smiles. ‘So not quite up to speed.’

  Worry turned to relief. ‘Oh, I see. Miss Price will be pleased,’ she said. ‘They’ve badgered her into taking choir practice, but she’s not at all keen.’

  ‘Umm… I was wondering,’ I said, my voice higher than usual, ‘if I might have a word with Mollie first. Do you think that would be all right?’ I kept nodding, hoping she might get a subliminal message.

  ‘I’ll fetch her for you. No problem.’ The secretary nodded back. Ah, body language, subtle as a wall.

  ‘Brilliant. I’ll go and start setting up.’

  Fortunately, the hall was empty. I’d put out the first row of chairs when Mollie appeared. She stood at the door, clearly anticipating the need for an escape route.

  ‘I thought you were still ill,’ she said.

  ‘Did you?’ I said, brightly. ‘Well, you’ll be glad to hear I’m better. Especially as that means I can take choir practice.’ She didn’t say anything. ‘I could do with a hand with th
ese chairs though.’ I went on. All the nodding in the world wouldn’t move Mollie if she didn’t want to, but slowly she dragged herself across the floor and picked up a chair.

  I looked at the clock. There wasn’t really time for the usual negotiations.

  ‘Listen, Mollie.’ Urgency put an unexpected vibrato in my voice.

  She stood still, holding the chair to her chest.

  ‘Daniela dropped us all in the sh—’ I checked over my shoulder. ‘Right in the shit. She’s going back to Milan.’

  Inscrutable is my daughter’s middle name, I swear. It must be written in invisible ink on her birth certificate in between Mollie and Susan (Michael’s mother). She looked straight at me, eyes like moons, and said nothing.

  ‘You already know, don’t you?’

  Still silence. I knew the answer anyway.

  ‘Have you been in touch with Jon?’

  There. The tiniest of nods.

  ‘And did he say you could sing with us instead?’

  Damn. That surprised her. The chair hit the floor with a bang and her jaw dropped almost as far. I regretted saying it at once, for the next second, I caught sight of a familiar gleam in her eye.

  ‘We’ll have to talk about it when you come home,’ I said, as the rest of the choir jumbled through the door.

  I was completely knackered afterwards. My intention had been to phone Jon the minute I left the school, but couldn’t raise the energy for an argument. At home I sprawled on the sofa with a cup of tea and plumped for the comfort of junk mail. The postcard dropped out of the free newspaper from Lidl. A picture of the Colosseum. It fell just too far away for me to reach and my mobile rang before I could pick it up.

  ‘Lisa?’

  Oh God. ‘Jon.’

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry …’

  Perhaps he thought I was going to interrupt. I definitely thought I was going to interrupt and opened my mouth to do so, but I don’t know where the words went. My anatomy was all over the place – heart performing a drum solo somewhere in front of my vocal chords.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ he went on, in the silence where I should have been, ‘that Mollie knew about Daniela before you did. I didn’t mean that to happen.’

  ‘Oh?’ I managed a sound at last. ‘And what did you mean to happen? You know what Mollie’s like when she’s got the bit between her teeth. She’ll be hell.’

  ‘Then let her do it.’

  ‘What? That’s madness. She’s a child.’

  There was a short silence, then a sigh. ‘It isn’t madness, Lisa, it is our best option by a very long way.’

  ‘We … we could get someone else?’

  I heard the clatter of crockery and Jon cursing. ‘I don’t think so. There’s not enough time … and besides, we’re not going through all that palaver again.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ My voice sounded thin and whiny, almost like Sneery Demon’s.

  ‘You know exactly what I mean. Noteworthy didn’t work with Daniela. She probably showed the rest of us up and not just in the voice department. Come on, Lisa, we both know it.’

  My heart jumped about even more loudly. Worse than any stage fright I’d ever had. Jon wasn’t only cross. This was a moment of decision and it wasn’t about the concert, it was about us. Him, me, and the mammoth. I shut my eyes. Perhaps it wouldn’t be there when I opened them. I took a deep breath.

  When I did open my eyes, the first thing I saw was the Gesualdo madrigal. It lay on the table, open at the frontispiece and facing me. I didn’t leave it like that, I was sure. Mum hadn’t been back. There was only me in the flat …

  ‘Lisa? Are you still there?’

  ‘I’m frightened, Jon.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m frightened.’ The faces on the frontispiece leered at me. ‘It’s the frontispiece. I’m sure it’s cursed.’

  I heard John groan. A small sound, like the drawing back of a bow. The arrow wasn’t far behind. ‘Oh, no no no, Lisa, what the bloody hell’s got into you? I know you’ve just had a bash on the head, but even before that you were being really weird.’

  ‘It keeps changing. I see different things.’

  ‘Give me strength—’

  ‘And now it’s open on the table and I know I didn’t leave it there like that. I know it.’

  Perhaps he heard the fear in my voice for there was an abrupt change in his. At half the previous volume he said, ‘Okay, I’m coming over.’

  I kept gazing fixedly at the frontispiece. There was much I remembered that didn’t seem to be there at all. I could have sworn I had seen a row of hanging bodies, but now the gibbets contained only the bones. Worse things drew me in, especially a child being buried alive. I shuddered but couldn’t stop staring.

  It wasn’t long before I heard him. The car door slammed, feet on gravel. Up the steps, two at a time and then the bell. Its jarring buzz broke the spell and I stood up.

  ‘God, Lisa’ Jon said, examining my face as if he’d never seen it before. ‘Whatever the hell is up? You look absolutely bloody terrible.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I felt my chin begin to wobble. Just like Mollie’s did before she cried. I couldn’t stop it – wibble-wobble, chin-jelly.

  And the next thing, Jon reached out, pulled me close and put his arms right round me. That’s when I did cry, the horrible, heaving hiccupy sort that sticks eyelids together and leaves plague-like blotches all over your face. Jon rocked me like a baby, crooning nice soothing things like, it’s all right, you have nothing to fear, I’m here now.

  Eventually, I calmed down.

  ‘Okay now?’ he said, peering at my hideous face.

  I nodded.

  ‘Good. Now show me the frontispiece and tell me everything about the curse. I promise I’ll listen, although …’ he looked at his watch, ‘I have a six o’clock deadline and so far all I’ve got is two chords and a duck call for the vitamin pills ad.’

  I managed half a smile. ‘Have you quack to health in no time?’

  ‘Ha! That’s brilliant!’ Jon hugged me tightly. ‘See? That’s my lovely Lisa. You’re better already.’

  I did feel better. How could I not? But the frontispiece still sat open on the table. That hadn’t gone away. Jon sat and listened while I made my case.

  ‘Ever since we started singing this,’ I jabbed my finger towards the Gesualdo, ‘things have been going wrong. We’ve been at odds—’

  ‘Robert and Sophie haven’t.’

  ‘No, but you and I have. And there’s been so many bad things happening. The boy drowning—’

  ‘But that hasn’t got anything to do with us.’

  The knot of anxiety at the back of my mind flared into pain just then. I still hadn’t told anyone about the HIV test. The result would come any day. The temptation to say something was huge but the temptation itself felt malelovent, the same feeling I had when I looked at the frontispiece. It was as if it wanted me to distract Jon.

  But I wouldn’t. After the result came was the time for revelation, not before.

  ‘Sophie’s fire and her arm, your toe, the whole tree thing, then there was the nightmares – both Mollie’s and mine.’

  Each of the elements: water, fire and air had been roused, that seemed to me. Would we have an earthquake next? I knew there was precious little hard evidence,

  ‘Look at it carefully,’ I said. ‘Try the bottom right hand corner. Just sit and look at it. I’ll make tea.’

  Jon grabbed the madrigal, sat back and got comfy. I left him to it. What I hoped for, I wasn’t quite sure. Vindication that I wasn’t seeing things was one thing, but equally, who in their right mind would wish for any sort of curse to be true?

  I hadn’t said anything about Daniela. Except that without the madrigal, we’d never have met. But not talking about her made me realise how much she’d occupied my thinking. As I squeezed the teabag between finger and spoon, I realised I could put a name to Sneery Demon. Jealousy. And he wasn’t a demon; he was a horrible monster. Ouch …I threw
the teabag in the bin. And he’d burnt my finger.

  Jon was still staring at the frontispiece when I took him his tea and only when I put the mug down did he look up. His face was strained.

  ‘I don’t know, Lisa,’ he said. ‘It’s weird.’ He snapped the copy shut and threw it on to the table. ‘God knows, we’ve all seen enough grim pictures to last us a lifetime. Why should this one have such an effect?’

  ‘So you noticed something, did you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Something, yeah. But difficult to describe. I’m looking at it, thinking, oh, that’s not very nice and God, that must be painful, when all of a sudden, I’m sort of anxious … scared even. I’m actually feeling bad and I don’t get that when I’m looking at real horror on the telly.’

  ‘But you didn’t want to stop looking?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. But I reckon I’ve sussed why you think it keeps changing. Look …’ He pointed at a figure being squashed in something like a mangle. ‘Keep your eye on it.’

  Gradually he turned it round, until, by the time it was upside down, the figure looked completely different. When part of a bigger scene, legs became horns, and the mangle disappeared into the coil of a snake.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, and I kept on looking at the snake, following the coils round and round and somehow down and down …

  ‘Mmm.’ John sat back suddenly, and I jumped. He nodded then took a slurp of tea. ‘The thing is, it’s so interesting. All those little hands reaching out for help and all the time they’re trying to pull you in … brrr!’ He shivered all over. ‘Whoever did it was a genius.’

  ‘That’s what Signor Pace said. It’s by Salvo Carlino, one of the finest engravers of the Renaissance.’

  ‘Poor guy, he must have had a very bad day.’

  I nibbled my way though half a choc-chip cookie while Jon put away three.

  ‘But …’ I hesitated, ‘can you see why I’m worried?’

  He sighed. ‘Yes and no. I’ll grant you it’s creepy, but I don’t see why this has anything to do with Mollie singing in the concert.’