‘You thought you had her then. A pretty fish on the hook,’ the professor said shrewdly.
‘Let’s just say she was warming to me.’
‘Then what?’
‘I mentioned her son and she looked at me with such venom.’
Caradoc frowned. ‘Now, why would she do that?’
‘I can’t imagine. Then she muttered “foreigner” under her breath and stalked off.’
‘You’re not entirely foreign. You were speaking to her in Italian, were you not?’
‘Of course. What she meant was that I’m not from here.’
‘She doesn’t trust you. That’s the problem.’
‘She doesn’t know me,’ Luca complained.
‘Girls have noses for men like you. Don’t deny it, Luca, my boy. I know you. Takes one to know one. Why do you think we get along so well, you and I? Because we’re the same underneath. We like pretty girls and in my day they liked me. I got into a fair bit of trouble. Then I grew up.’
‘What made you grow up?’
‘Love. Love changed everything.’
‘Myrtle.’
‘My Myrtle. I won’t love again.’ He looked at Luca with affection. ‘You’ll know what I mean one day.’
Luca shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I’m designed for love.’
‘That’s just when it hits you. When you don’t think you need it. Then, you can’t believe you lived so long without it. Now going back to that delightful girl . . .’
‘Rosa.’
‘And she was fayr as is the rose in May. Fancy taking tea with me at the trattoria?’
Luca shook his head. ‘I’ve had enough of that place for one day.’ When the professor looked disappointed, he relented. ‘We’ll have lunch there on Monday. They do cook a good red mullet, I recommend it very highly.’
That night they ate on the terrace. The candlelight drew moths and midges, and crickets rang out from the undergrowth; the moon hung low and heavy in a sky full of stars. Luca couldn’t stop thinking about Cosima. How dare she rebuff him when he was only being kind?
‘I read in my guidebook that it’s the festival of Santa Benedetta next week,’ said Dizzy. ‘Maxwell and I would love to stay for it.’
Ma caught the professor’s eye and pulled a face of mock horror.
‘It’s very dull,’ said Romina. ‘The statue never weeps and everyone goes home disappointed.’
‘Don’t you think it’ll be interesting from a cultural point of view, to see how the locals celebrate religious festivals?’
‘Not at all,’ said Romina. ‘They are very primitive.’
‘Actually, I think it is very interesting,’ interrupted Bill. ‘Ignore Romina! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
‘Darling, even you found it dull.’
‘Disappointing, not dull. It’s in celebration of a miracle that happened some hundred years ago. The descendants of Benedetta still live here in Incantellaria. They lead the procession . . .’
‘Then they have a jolly good party afterwards, in spite of their disappointment,’ said Romina scathingly.
‘They continue to celebrate the original miracle,’ corrected Bill patiently.
Romina rolled her eyes. ‘Italians love a good party – and we love fireworks. It’s all very noisy and over the top.’
‘You sound like an old woman,’ her husband teased.
‘I am an old woman. I like a little peace and quiet.’
‘Well, I think we should go,’ said Maxwell.
‘It’s dangerous,’ interjected Ma. ‘Pickpockets.’
‘Here?’ said Dizzy.
‘They look out for people like you. People who don’t blend in. You’re too blonde.’
Dizzy looked at her husband. ‘I’m sure Maxwell will protect me,’ she said with a little-girl smile. Maxwell took her hand.
‘But why risk it?’ said Ma darkly.
‘Indeed,’ added the professor.
‘We’ll think about it,’ said Maxwell. ‘Perhaps if we all go together?’
Ma scowled into her wine glass.
That night Luca slept fitfully, disturbed by conflicting thoughts of Cosima. On one hand she had bruised his ego. He found her attractive but she had rebuffed him. On the other hand, she was rude and he didn’t care for women like that. He wished he could just forget about her, but somehow she had got beneath his skin.
He awoke with the residue of ill-feeling. At first he couldn’t remember what caused it then, little by little, the memories of the day before came flooding back. He was contemplating what he was going to do with his day, when a butterfly fluttered in through the open window, the same species as the one from the day before: uncommonly large and vibrant blue. It fluttered about the room, then alighted on his hand. It was as if the butterfly knew him. He raised his hand to get a better look. The butterfly had closed its wings and was tasting his skin with its proboscis. Luca went to the window and threw open the shutters. He half expected to see the little boy on the terrace below, or in the garden, watching him with his big brown eyes. But it was empty except for the odd bird hopping about in search of worms.
Luca held out his hand, willing the butterfly to fly off, but the creature remained in the room while he brushed his teeth and turned on the shower. Finally, he copied the little boy and blew at it. The butterfly saw sense and fluttered into the air, disappearing into the garden.
After breakfast he lay by the pool reading his book. This time he was able to concentrate and was grateful for the distraction. He had promised Caradoc he’d accompany him to the trattoria for lunch the following day. After having written off the professor and Ma as two old eccentrics, not worth his time and effort, he was growing fond of them; they were life-enhancers. He resolved that if Cosima were there tomorrow he would not acknowledge her. He had twice made an effort. He wouldn’t make another.
Caradoc sat in the shade reading poetry while Dizzy sunbathed, her walkman plugged into her ears, her right foot tapping to the beat, while Smidge lay sleeping in her Birkin handbag. Ma detested swimming pools. She was too fat to swim herself and resented those like Dizzy with beautiful bodies. She remained on the terrace with Porci, embroidering a pair of slippers for her nephew, trying to work out how to get to the festa without Dizzy and Maxwell muscling in to ruin their party.
After lunch, the professor retired for his siesta and Ma challenged Luca to a game of Racing Demon. Dizzy and Maxwell returned to the pool to lie in the sun and ‘fry like a pair of slugs’, as Ma put it meanly.
‘I don’t see the point of Dizzy,’ she added, shuffling the pack.
‘Does there have to be a point?’ Luca asked, lighting a cigarette.
‘A person without a point is like a pencil without a point. Useless. She’s pretty enough, at least that’s something.’
‘She’s not so bad.’
‘I haven’t heard her say a single interesting thing.’
‘Some men like women like that.’
‘What do you like, Luca?’
Luca took a long drag. ‘I like a pretty girl, too.’ Ma rolled her eyes disdainfully. ‘Okay, I like intelligence, wit, I want to be amused and challenged. I like a woman to be independent and confident.’
Ma snorted. ‘That’s all very dull, Luca. What you need is a woman who fascinates you and who goes on fascinating you until the day she dies. As soon as you feel you know her, she shows you something you haven’t seen before. That’s what you need. Otherwise you’ll get bored with her.’ She dealt the cards. ‘Yes, find someone fascinating and she’ll always be a challenge.’ They played Racing Demon all afternoon. Ma was a shrewd opponent who seemed to go at a slow, thoughtful place, but somehow finished first.
‘You’re a dark horse, Ma! What’s your secret?’
She tapped her temple with a finger. ‘It’s all in here and I’m not sharing it. If we were playing for money, I’d be a very rich woman by now!’
‘If we were playing for money, I’d have quit long ago,’ Luca
retorted. ‘I’m not one to toss away my fortune.’
‘No, you had a wife who did that for you. What on earth inspired you to marry Claire?’
‘She was a challenge,’ Luca replied.
‘Was she fascinating?’
‘Not fascinating enough.’
‘What happened?’
‘I spoiled her.’
‘They change once they get the ring on the finger. If I were a man, I’d never marry.’
‘You’re a woman and you’ve never married!’
‘Marriage is like a pencil without a point, Luca.’ She leaned over and hissed the word with relish. ‘Pointless!’
When the professor reappeared at four he recruited Bill for a rubber of bridge with Ma and Luca. They played until dinner. Romina and Dizzy returned from a brief visit to town. Later, Dizzy could be heard through the upstairs window arguing with Maxwell. They came down to dinner, only to sit at opposite ends of the table, ignoring each other. Ma found this rather compelling and itched to know what the argument was about.
The following day the sky was grey and overcast. As promised, Luca accompanied the professor into town. The streets were quiet, the air cooler, a storm brewing on the horizon where purple clouds gathered like a congregating army. The professor’s enthusiasm was in no way dampened by the inclement weather. ‘We’ll eat inside,’ Luca suggested as he parked the car as near to the quay as possible. As soon as he spotted the little boy again, playing among the boats, he knew Cosima must be at the trattoria.
‘That poor child is always on his own,’ said Luca disapprovingly.
‘What child?’
‘Cosima’s son. He follows her around and she barely acknowledges him. It’s all very well mourning her husband but she mustn’t forget the living!’
‘I wouldn’t mention it, if I were you,’ said Caradoc, making his way slowly across the terrace to the restaurant.
‘Don’t worry. I’m through and out the other side. Where’s the lovely Rosa?’
Inside, the trattoria was old-fashioned with small tables and simple chairs. The floor was tiled, the air sweet with the smell of dried lavender and herbs hanging from the walls above rows of framed photographs. There were bowls of lemons on the sideboard and bottles of wine in tall racks. A few tables were taken but the weather seemed to have kept people away. Rosa appeared in a green dress that clung to her body like seaweed. Her hair was up, exposing her long neck, and her lips were scarlet to match her nails. Luca noticed her toenails, painted like her fingers, peeping out of a pair of very high heels. He wondered how she managed to walk on them all day.
‘We’ve come back for the red mullet,’ said Luca with a smile.
Rosa smiled back. ‘I thought you’d come for me,’ she replied.
‘I have come for you, pretty Rosa,’ interjected the professor.
‘Well, one out of two isn’t bad. Would you like some wine?’
‘Greco di Tufo, chilled,’ said Luca. ‘It looks like there’s going to be a storm.’
‘And a very dramatic one, too,’ said Rosa. ‘You might be trapped in here all afternoon.’
‘I can’t think of a nicer place to be trapped,’ said the professor.
‘Who are all those photographs of?’ Luca asked.
‘My family.’ Then she pointed to a sketch of a reclining nude, placed high up on the wall. ‘That is a portrait of my grandmother, Valentina, painted by my grandfather. Wasn’t she beautiful?’ Rosa’s eyes glittered. ‘I’m told I’m very like her. Sadly, my life is rather uneventful by comparison.’
‘I hope you live longer, my dear,’ said Caradoc. ‘And come to a better end.’
In the middle of lunch the skies opened, thunder shook the hills and rain pounded the quay. Cosima, if she was in the kitchen, didn’t appear. Luca resented her all the more for not giving him the opportunity of ignoring her. He looked out at the storm, at the dark, tempestuous sea, and hoped the little boy was safe at home.
10
Luca didn’t go down to the trattoria again. He took to visiting a caffè in the square instead, where they made a good, strong coffee and served brioches, and tried not to dwell on Cosima. The professor and Ma plotted against Dizzy and Maxwell and managed to convince Romina to encourage them to stay at the palazzo and avoid the famous Festa di Santa Benedetta altogether.
‘I’ll give them a nice dinner,’ she said. ‘I’m rather bored of Max and Dizzy myself. They contribute nothing. Surely, they have something they have to get back to. Can he really do all his business over the internet and on the telephone?’
As fortune would have it, the day of the festa Maxwell suffered a migraine and spent all afternoon in bed while Dizzy, bored and bad tempered on her own, lay in the shade reading a novel. Ma crowed with glee, while Luca anticipated the festa with some foreboding. Surely Cosima would be there?
At dusk the three of them set off into town. Ma only just managed to squeeze her large bottom through the door of Romina’s car and wound up sitting on the gear stick so that Luca had to ask her to move every time he changed gear.
‘If I had known we’d be squashed into a baked bean tin I wouldn’t have come,’ she complained.
‘Courage, dear lady,’ said Caradoc from the back. ‘Ring in the valiant man and free, The large heart, the kindlier hand.’
‘The large behind, the wandering hand,’ said Ma as Luca reached under her trousers for the gear stick. ‘Now is not the time for Tennyson, professor. They shouldn’t make cars so small, it’s insulting.’
‘Why don’t you hire a big car, Luca?’
‘Laziness, I suppose, or just the need to be free of all belongings.’
‘Being free is having a nice big car to spread out in,’ said Ma. ‘Hiring a car won’t impede your spiritual quest, I assure you. And it’ll certainly enhance mine!’
‘Spirituality isn’t giving up material things, it’s not giving them undue importance. Don’t let money be your god but your slave.’
‘I hope you’ve taken all that in, Luca,’ said Ma. ‘Caradoc’s a little cranky but he’s a wise old bird. I’m just an old bird. Now what are we to expect tonight, I wonder?’
‘Entertainment,’ said Luca. ‘At least, I’m hoping for something spectacular.’
‘A weeping statue that hasn’t wept for half a century,’ said Ma. ‘I’m not putting my money on that.’
‘A town in the grip of religious madness,’ said Caradoc fruitily. ‘Mass hysteria, I suspect.’
‘Thank God we haven’t got any hangers-on,’ said Ma. ‘With you, Luca, speaking the language so fluently, we can blend in.’
Luca glanced at her to check whether she was serious. Ma wasn’t the sort of woman who blended, ever.
They parked the car near the quay and walked up the narrow streets to the square of San Pasquale where the people of Incantellaria gathered in front of the chapel holding small candles. The air was thick with the smell of wax and incense and charged with anticipation as they waited impatiently for the great doors to open. Luca saw Rosa immediately; her red dress and shawl stuck out of the crowd, shouting to be noticed. Children clustered around her and she was with a man who was presumably her husband. Then he saw Cosima, dressed in black, her face obscured once again by a lace veil. She was too far away for him to make out her expression. She stood beside a tall man with long grey hair and a kind face. Occasionally, he put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close, bending down to whisper something in her ear. Luca’s fury melted to make way for pity that a woman so young and pretty should waste away for love.
Rosa couldn’t stand still for the excitement. There was nothing she enjoyed more than a ceremony followed by a party. If Christ didn’t weep they’d celebrate anyway, in remembrance of the original miracle. She looked around her; she knew most people. Then she spotted Luca staring at her cousin and Panfilo and felt her excitement ebb away. Cosima was a compelling sight in her mourning dress and veil. He must have felt her eyes for he shifted his gaze to look at her. She
smiled jubilantly and gave a small wave. Luca waved back.
‘Who are you waving at?’ Ma demanded to know.
‘The waitress from the trattoria.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘She’s married.’
‘That never stopped anyone.’
‘Luca’s a man of honour!’ said Caradoc. ‘Though her beauty could launch a thousand ships.’
Ma squinted and identified Rosa. ‘By the expression on her face I’d say she’s already launched a fair few.’
The great doors opened with a loud clank and the people hurried inside, eager to find the best seats. Ma linked arms with the professor, who leaned on her gratefully. He liked full-bodied women. Luca noticed that they had begun to attract attention. He sensed the locals knew they came from the palazzo and were both fearful and intrigued. Children were less subtle, pointing and whispering behind their hands.
The little church was ablaze. On every ledge and surface there were clusters of ivory candles, their yellow flames flickering in the dusk. The smell of incense filled the air. The gold leaf glittered and the statue of Christ glowed eerily as if lit up from inside. Luca found three chairs together near the back, beside the aisle, and stood aside as Ma and Caradoc settled themselves. Cosima was at the very front with Rosa and the rest of her family. The children wriggled on their chairs and looked around to wave at friends, except Cosima’s son, who was playing in front of the altar using a white feather as a sword, stabbing the air. No one seemed to mind that he wasn’t sitting. The townspeople continued to file in, crossing themselves before the altar and ignoring the little boy.
A hush descended over the congregation, a buzz of anticipation straining the silence while they waited, barely daring to breathe. The little boy sat at the foot of the altar, running the smooth feather across his lips. Suddenly the doors reopened and three women dressed in black walked in like a coven of witches, their faces illuminated by the candles they held. One walked a little in front of the others, her chin raised, her eyes fixed upon the altar. Behind them walked the priest, reciting prayers in a deep monotone, and a little choirboy in red, waving a thurible of frankincense.
The Italian Matchmaker Page 10
