‘We’ll move out if you wish,’ Rosa said sulkily.
‘Don’t be silly. And leave me with Cosima?’
‘She looks like a witch dressed in black all the time.’
‘She’s in mourning. It’s her choice and her right.’
‘Well, it’s very dull for those who have to live with her. You know, my children call her la strega behind her back.’
‘If they call her witch, darling, it’s only because they’ve been listening to you. Have some compassion.’
‘It’s wearing thin. As you said yourself, it’s been three years.’
‘That kind of loss stays with you for ever,’ Alba said fiercely. ‘By God’s grace it won’t happen to you. Now take them their coffee – you’re here to serve, not to flirt.’
‘I wonder who I take after?’
‘Don’t be cheeky.’
‘Papà said you took some taming.’
‘Rubbish, I was his from the moment I saw him on the quay.’ Alba watched her daughter walk provocatively across the terrace. She saw the young man’s eyes linger a moment on her cleavage before returning to her face. Alba shook her head resignedly. He was very good-looking. She was reminded of Fitzroy Davenport, the man she had nearly married – might have married had he had the courage to follow her. She recalled their adventure at the palazzo, sneaking into the ruins in search of the mysteries surrounding her mother’s death. What fun they had had searching for clues in the damp rooms overrun with ivy and mildew. Then they had met the emaciated Nero, smelling of alcohol and decay, rotting in the palazzo the Marchese had left him. Why had Nero finally chosen to sell the place? She was angry that he had. It should have been left a ruin. Nature would have devoured it in the end, swallowing the past and the darkness that shrouded her mother’s secret visits there, when she had let the Marchese make love to her in the folly. The thought of strangers building over the past without a care and erasing the history with paint and wallpaper was an insult to her mother’s memory. Nero should have allowed it to crumble, leaving it to the spirit of the Marchese who most certainly walked those corridors in a hellish limbo of his own wickedness.
And what of Fitz? She had loved him; but she had loved Cosima and Italy more. She often thought about him. Wondered what he was doing, whether he still remembered her. She had broken his heart. She had left England and started a new life. She had never regretted it. Two of her children had moved north to Milan, but Rosa remained with her own three small children. They were a constant joy. If it wasn’t for Cosima and her tragic past, Alba would have said that she was totally content. She remembered her grandmother, Immacolata, and the shrines she had built to Valentina and the son she had lost in the war. She could still smell the candle wax in the house, infused into the fabrics of the home she had inherited. Immacolata had nearly died of grief, as Cosima was in danger of doing. Alba kept her niece busy with accounts for the trattoria, tried to keep her mind occupied so it didn’t dwell on her loss. But Francesco had meant the world to her: the sun, the moon, the stars. Without him Cosima’s days were heavy with sorrow and guilt. If she hadn’t taken her eyes off him he might not have drowned.
Rosa took the seat the professor pulled out for her. ‘Professor Caradoc Macausland,’ he said, extending a gnarled hand. She took it with the tips of her fingers as if his arthritis were contagious.
‘Rosa Amato,’ she replied. Luca didn’t offer his hand. He didn’t want to encourage her, lovely as she was. Judging by the rings on her finger she was married, and her rounded stomach indicated that she was also a mother.
‘Luca,’ he said simply and added hot milk to his coffee.
‘So, gentlemen, what’s it like up there?’ Her eyes were wide with curiosity.
‘It is a wonder,’ said Caradoc. ‘Luca’s mother has beautiful taste.’
‘My great-uncle Falco knew the Marchese,’ volunteered Rosa. ‘He took lovers, both male and female, the old pervert.’
They were distracted by a gust of wind as a flash of black swept furiously past their table and into the trattoria. ‘Oh dear, that’s my cousin, Cosima. She doesn’t look very happy.’
Luca recognised his mystery woman from the church. ‘She’s related to you?’
‘Yes, my grandmother and her grandfather were brother and sister. Don’t we look alike? Though black really isn’t my colour.’ She stood up. ‘I’d better go and find out what the trouble is. I’m sure it’s my fault again!’ She left the two men straining to hear what was being said inside.
‘I wonder if she’s married,’ said Luca.
‘Rosa’s definitely married,’ replied the professor with a smile. ‘Go, lovely Rose! Tell her, that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.’
‘Not her. The cousin, the one in black.’
‘Ah, Edmund Waller. Do you know his poetry? What a genius! The mysterious woman in black, eh? A widow, I would assume. That’s why she’s in mourning.’
Luca raised his eyebrows hopefully. ‘You think so?’
‘Ah, my boy, you’re looking for an opening.’
‘She’s fascinating.’
‘Only because she won’t talk to you.’
‘She will.’
The professor shook his head. ‘It’s that kind of arrogance that will ensure you never get the woman you really want.’
Cosima spoke so fast her words were like a round of machine-gun fire. ‘They’ve taken his things again. They’re all over the house!’ Her arms flew about, agitating the air around her. ‘Do I have to lock my door against my own cousins? How many times do I have to tell them not to come into my room? Not to disturb his things. They are all I have left of him. If they are all over the house they will get lost and then I will be lost. Don’t you see? Doesn’t anyone see?’ She began to cry.
‘Sit down, Cosima,’ said Alba gently, helping her into a chair. Rosa appeared, her shoulders already tense with irritation.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, trying to sound concerned.
‘The children, they’ve taken Francesco’s things again.’
Rosa’s face darkened defensively. ‘That’s not true. They know not to go in there.’
‘Then if they haven’t, who has?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rosa, crossing her arms. ‘But it wasn’t my children. I swear it.’
‘We’ll ask them when we get home,’ said Alba diplomatically.
‘Fine. Ask away. But I know I’m right. You can’t go on blaming my children every time one of Francesco’s trinkets appears in the sitting-room.’
‘Well, darling, we can hardly blame your father, or Eugenio or Toto.’
‘I don’t like the way you’re always accusing me.’ Rosa’s eyes glittered. ‘I skulk around the house, terrified of doing something wrong or saying something wrong. Terrified my children might offend you or cause you pain or worse, blow out the candle you have burning all the time. It’s three years, Cosima.’
Cosima stared at her cousin. ‘Three years?’ she said slowly. ‘You think three years is long enough? You think I shouldn’t feel pain after so long? Well, let me tell you that every day is an effort to live through. Every second is torture. Every moment of my pitiful life I feel his loss as if I am without my limbs. I wish I could end it and join him wherever he is. But I’m afraid. Because I don’t know if anything comes after.’
‘Oh, Cosima,’ Alba sighed, pulling her head against her stomach. ‘Francesco is with God.’
‘I’ve had enough!’ Rosa snapped. ‘I’m fed up of being accused. We’ll move out and find a house of our own. It’s too ridiculous all living together. We’re like a tin of sardines.’
‘Rosa, don’t be silly,’ Alba began, but Rosa stomped off into the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry, Alba,’ Cosima sniffed. ‘But she doesn’t understand.’
‘She’s young, my love. She hasn’t experienced death like you and I have. We all go in the end and I promise you we go t
o a better place. Your Francesco lives on in another dimension.’
Cosima wrapped her arms around Alba’s waist and sobbed. ‘I wish I had the courage to end it all.’
‘It takes far more courage to live.’
Luca and the professor remained on the terrace until late afternoon. The restaurant began to get busy. Rosa appeared, looking strained. She seemed not to want to discuss the palazzo any more. Luca smiled sympathetically as she brought them the bill and he made sure he gave a generous tip. She nodded at him gratefully before returning to her other customers. After a while Cosima emerged. Her face was red and blotchy from crying, her skin pale against the hard black of her dress. If she saw Luca she ignored him. ‘There goes your beautiful widow,’ said Caradoc. ‘Grief for a while is blind, and so was mine. I wish no living thing to suffer pain. That, my boy, is Percy Bysshe Shelly.’
As they got up to leave Luca noticed the little boy standing in the doorway of the trattoria, staring with eyes as round as saucers. Luca helped Caradoc with his stick and waited a moment while he shook out his legs. When he looked up, the little boy pulled his hand slowly out of his pocket and opened his fingers to reveal, sitting in his palm, a beautiful blue butterfly. It extended its wings and quivered with pleasure as the sun shone directly on to them. Luca smiled at the sight. This startled the little boy who seemed to want a reaction but was surprised when he got one. Luca wanted to talk to him, but the child slunk around the corner into shadow, making way for Rosa who emerged with a tray of steaming dishes.
There was something strange about the boy. He seemed very much alone; or lonely. Luca found that he occupied his thoughts all the way back to the palazzo.
‘So what have you discovered, professor?’ asked Ma, putting down her needlepoint and looking at him over her sunglasses. ‘Or should we call you Holmes?’
The professor took a chair at the table that was already laid for dinner. The terrace was deserted, except for Porci the pig who trotted over the stones in search of a cool spot to lie on. ‘Nothing that surprised me.’
‘How dull,’ said Ma. ‘I much prefer surprises.’
Caradoc grinned like a schoolboy. ‘Only a couple of murders, an illicit love affair and a ghost.’
‘Not so dull. Go on.’ The professor told her what they had found out. Ma listened, enraptured. When he finished she gave a little sniff. ‘I don’t think you should tell Romina. She’s already over-excited at having discovered someone’s been sleeping in her folly. She accused Bill, but he’s protesting his innocence. If she thinks there’s a ghost up here she’ll expire.’
Caradoc chuckled. ‘Well, that would be most inconvenient considering I’m just beginning to feel at home here.’
‘Me too,’ Ma agreed, shuffling on her sun-lounger, her sparkly blue kaftan spilling on to the stones like water. ‘But remember, she’s Italian and, although she claims to think nothing of the primitive superstitions of the natives, it’ll be in her blood. By the way, she tells me there’s the famous Festa di Santa Benedetta next week. Some sort of religious festival in the church. The marble statue of Christ apparently used to weep blood to ensure a profitable harvest. It hasn’t done so for fifty-seven years, not that it seems to have affected the olives or lemons. They are flourishing as far as I can tell. I’m going to go just to see what it’s all about. You might like to be my date, Caradoc, if only out of curiosity.’
‘I would be honoured,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring young Luca as our translator.’
‘Don’t mention it to anyone else. I can’t bear the sight of Dizzy’s ridiculous dog. It looks like a powder puff and what sort of a name is Smidge? Soppy or Rat-in-Rabbits’-Clothing would be more appropriate. Dizzy is aptly named, though. I’ll tell her where she can put all those carbohydrates she goes on about. If she gets any thinner, she’ll disappear altogether.’ She ruminated a moment. ‘Not a bad idea, actually. I can’t see what Romina sees in them. Anyone whose conversation revolves around first-class airport lounges and short cuts deserves a medal for banality. No, we’ll go just the three of us. Don’t breathe a word.’
‘So, which one of you took Francesco’s things out of Cosima’s room?’ Alba looked sternly at the three little faces. There was seven-year-old Alessandro with his chocolate-brown hair and silky brown skin; five-year-old Olivia who had inherited her mother’s beauty and her pale grey eyes, and three-year-old Domenica who was as brown as her brother and as mischievous as a squirrel. They stared up at their grandmother, their eyes wide and innocent.
‘You see,’ said Rosa. ‘None of them is guilty.’
‘Then who took them?’
‘How do I know? Cosima probably did it herself and doesn’t remember.’
‘You know you are not allowed into Cosima’s room, don’t you?’ Alba reiterated. The children nodded, then skipped off outside.
‘You’re going to have to decide between me and Cosima,’ Rosa said gravely.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can’t continue to live in the same house as her. She’s like a living ghost. It’s depressing watching her wander about half dead.’
‘Don’t say such things!’
‘Come on, Mamma! Do you want your grandchildren growing up in this soup of misery?’
Alba walked over to the window and gazed out on to the garden. The scent of eucalyptus and jasmine wafted in on the breeze as the sun sank into the sea. ‘When I first arrived here I was only a little older than you,’ she said wistfully. ‘Your great-grandmother, Immacolata, was like Cosima, dressed in black like a little squat crow, her face pinched with grief. She had lost her daughter, my mother, and one of her sons in the war. She dwelt in a limbo between life and death, just like your cousin. She had two shrines, illuminated by candles, and she prayed there every day. The house felt heavy and unhappy. But she wasn’t alone. She had her son Falco, Beata his wife and their son Toto, and her great-grandchild, Cosima.’ She turned to her daughter and took her hands. ‘The point is, darling, Cosima needs us. We’re her family. We are the strength she lacks. If every day is a struggle, we must make that struggle easier to bear. One day she will move on. She might even fall in love again. She’s not too old to bear more children. Things won’t be like this for ever. But you have to be patient. Imagine if you were in her shoes.’ Rosa lowered her eyes. ‘Imagine if you had suffered the same loss.’
‘It’s too terrible to imagine.’
7
In the farmhouse on the hill that had belonged to her great-grandmother, Cosima painstakingly replaced every one of Francesco’s knick-knacks. She brought each object to her nose and sniffed it like a pining dog. Sometimes she felt that she’d find him asleep in her bed as if the last three years hadn’t happened. She could almost hear his breathing and feel his presence in the room. But she’d turn to look and he wouldn’t be there, just the memories that lingered like ghosts. She felt so alone. So abandoned. Closing her eyes, she willed herself to die.
Alba sat on the terrace with her aunt Beata and watched the sun set slowly into the sea. The place hadn’t changed much since Immacolata’s day. Back then there hadn’t been a road to the house: they had had to park beneath the eucalyptus tree on the hill above and walk down a narrow path. Alba and her husband, Panfilo, had built a proper drive and added to the house to accommodate their growing family. Toto, Cosima’s father, had married again and taken his wife to live with his parents, a few hundred yards through the olive grove in the house where he had grown up, leaving Cosima with Alba, where she felt most at home. Cosima’s half brother and sisters had married and had children, buying houses nearby so the once quiet hillside rang with the happy laughter of young people. The place still smelt the same, of jasmine and viburnum, eucalyptus and gardenia. The wind swept in off the sea, bringing with it the scent of pine and wild thyme, and, in the evenings as the air grew cooler and the light more forgiving, crickets rang out with the flirtatious twittering of roosting birds. ‘I worry about Cosima,’ Alba said, watching the children rag about on
the grass. ‘She’s thirty-seven. She should be enjoying marriage and motherhood. She should focus her thoughts on those who are living and who love her.’
‘I know,’ Beata agreed. ‘The children play around her and she barely notices them. Little Alessandro follows her like a lost dog, as if he senses the reason for her unhappiness and is trying to compensate, but she ignores him. It’s the guilt, you see. She blames herself for Francesco’s death.’
‘They say those who drown don’t suffer.’
‘How can they know?’
‘I hope it’s true.’
‘I wish she had faith.’ Beata put down the shirt she was mending and a frown drew lines across her smooth forehead. ‘Then she would know that Francesco is with God and that God is looking after him as He is looking after Immacolata and my dear Falco.’
‘And Valentina,’ Alba added gently. Her family still had trouble saying her mother’s name, as if to mention it was somehow sacrilege. ‘But she has lost her faith. Death often brings a person closer to God, but Francesco’s has taken her away from Him.’
‘One has to accept what comes. How can we presume to know God’s plan?’
‘Do you know what Rosa said to me today?
‘That she wants to move out? Don’t listen to her, Alba. She’s headstrong and passionate, just like you were at her age. Rosa’s quite a handful. It’s no surprise that she doesn’t like her cousin getting all the attention. After all, it always used to be Rosa everyone talked about. She was the noisy, excitable, vivacious one in the family, and so much younger than Cosima. We all spoiled her terribly. Now she’s having to watch while Cosima steals the limelight, wandering about dressed in black, weeping and wailing.’
‘Do you think Cosima’s self-indulgent?’
‘I would never say such a thing about my granddaughter. How can I pass judgement on a young woman who has lost her world? My heart goes out to her.’ Beata crossed herself.
‘It’s the Festa di Santa Benedetta next week. I’m going to encourage her to come with us.’
The Italian Matchmaker Page 7
