by Leah Fleming
Like many veterans, Roddy found it hard to believe he had survived with hardly a scar. The scars he had were invisible to the eye, but his dreams told other stories.
When the film was over he had a sudden urge to phone his mom in England. How had she managed to survive such an experience and remain so calm all her life? The music score kept drumming in his head like rolling waves. It was a simple well-told storyline of different families coping with the sudden disaster: the fate of the officer in the lifeboat and the women trying to keep spirits alive, the stoicism of the great industrialists as they watched their wives leaving the ship without them, the frustration caused by the absence of rescue boats, resulting in so many unanswered questions.
The whole audience was moved. This was no great Hollywood biopic with stars flaunting themselves before the camera, just ordinary faces, good acting and a convincing enough set that gave a sense of the scale of the ship.
Moviegoers left in silence, deep in thought, moved by the enormity of the disaster. Roddy knew it was going to be a box-office hit.
‘What did you think then?’ he said, holding on to Kathleen’s arm.
‘I want to light a candle for Louise, and Angelo’s poor wife. If what he once believed about his little girl is true, do you think she could be out there watching this, not knowing who she really is? All this time, we just pushed his dream away. It’s not right, is it? We could go to the papers, tell them the story. They would investigate for us.’
‘We have to be sure of the facts first. Papa has accepted that the shoe belonged to someone else. Don’t raise his hopes only to dash them,’ offered Patti. ‘I kept thinking of the young mother and her children, the little boy sleeping through it all, and the look on his father’s face as he waved him goodbye. It makes me never want to go to sea again with the children. How did those men bear to let them go, knowing they’d never see them again?’
Roddy shrugged. ‘You do what you have to do, it’s instinct.’ He shivered, thinking of the sights he’d witnessed during the war, children strafed with bullets, their mothers clinging to them in desperation. Men murdered before their families for helping the Allies’ advance.
‘What got me was that so many lifeboats were virtually empty so many more passengers could have been saved, like my sister, Maria and Alessia. They were the real victims, those in steerage. I’m glad Angelo wasn’t allowed to watch this. That ship was doomed, wasn’t it? Unsinkable indeed! What arrogance in tempting Providence.’
Later they sat in a restaurant, the gloom still heavy upon them. Roddy was trying to lighten their mood, desperate to think of something to cheer them up. It was one of their favourite trattorias in Mulberry Street with pictures of Italian scenes on the walls, familiar scenes of poplar trees, fine churches with hills in the background. How they brought back memories of his escape. Then he smiled. He’d just had the most brilliant idea.
Celeste leaned back in bed, laughing. ‘Just listen to this, Archie. Roddy and his big ideas.
I’ve booked us all a trip to Europe next July. I’ve reserved a big house with room for all the family to share a few weeks under the Tuscan sun. I know it sounds crazy but I want all of you over there to join me. Don’t worry about the cost; I would like to cover that. I mean everyone: Ella and Clare, of course, and Selwyn, if you can drag him out of ‘The Anchor’.
Kathleen, Patti and the kids are dying to meet everyone and see where Grandpa Angelo came from. We hope he will be well enough to fly with us too. Of course we all want to see Frank’s final resting place and meet those dear people who sheltered me during the war. It’s all arranged, flights, car hire, everything. You know me, once I’ve decided it’s a done deal. I can’t wait, this is going to be one hell of a vacation.
She turned to her husband. ‘Do you fancy driving to Italy?’
‘No, I’d prefer to go by train. At least there are plenty of loos. You know my bladder,’ Archie laughed. ‘Do you think Ella will come?’
‘Clare will give her no peace if she doesn’t. She’s such a recluse these days, stuck in that studio till all hours.’
‘It’s what she does. It’s her world, but artists and Italy are a good combination. I think she could be persuaded. I wonder what’s brought this on. Roddy seems very determined.’
Celeste sank back into the pillow, thinking. ‘Guilt at surviving the war. I guess he has a lot of people to thank,’ she sighed. ‘You and I both know about that.’
Ever since the film premiere her dreams had been full of that terrible night; the awful screams and then the even worse silence. They’d got one bit wrong. The Titanic didn’t slip silently into the sea all of a piece. It had broken in two and crumpled before it disappeared, such an abiding memory.
The likeness of Captain Smith had been uncanny. Mrs Russell-Cooke remarked on how the actor had unnerved her at first. She’d been an excellent hostess, taking time to talk to all the survivors, just as charming as her own father was at the captain’s table, Celeste noted.
Ella whispered that not only had the captain’s daughter lost her son in the war but her only daughter, Priscilla, had died from polio as a young bride. It was rumoured her husband was killed in a tragic ‘shooting accident’ in his office six months before her own mother was killed in a road accident. This brave woman was a fine example of British grit sitting round the table that night.
They’d all made new lives for themselves just as so many were having to do after the war. Celeste would have loved to throw a grenade into the table by saying that the striking woman sitting next to her was really an orphan from the ship who never knew her parentage. But she would never break the promise made to Ella to remain silent. How many other secrets would never be told about the passengers on the Titanic? She shuddered, thinking how she’d wished her first husband, Grover, dead that night. Now he too had passed away, just after the war. She no longer felt any bitterness towards him, just pity for his unmourned passing within the family.
Watching the film was like watching the world a lifetime ago, the clothes, the manners, the graciousness of an era that would never return. The Great War had seen to that. She was part of that time, born a Victorian but living in the Elizabethan age, and Britain was prosperous and peaceful once more.
They would take a cross-channel ferry, a train to Milan and hire a car for the rest of the journey to Tuscany. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for them all to be together, with a chance to pay respects too. She was proud of her son for planning such a splendid treat.
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There had never been any choice in the matter once Clare took control. She could be such a bossy madam at times, Ella smiled. ‘This will be my grand tour before university Mummy,’ she announced. ‘I want to see Paris, the Swiss Alps, the South of France, and go round the bay to Florence, of course. And you could show me the galleries and then we can go inland to Arezzo and see the paintings of Piero della Francesca. We can share the driving now I’ve passed my test. I’ve one condition, though. You are going to buy some decent clothes for once. I’m not being seen dead with you looking like a tramp.’
That was the trouble with daughters. They told it like it was, not like Roddy, who cherished his mom and treated her like bone china. Still, it would be good to go away. Selwyn refused to budge. No surprises there. He would guard the house, feed the cats and dog, and see to the garden, or so he said. Ella was curious to meet Patti, a beautiful Irish colleen, judging by the look of her wedding photographs.
Celeste said they were a loving family and Roddy was a very proud father. If Ella felt tinges of envy, she brushed them aside. Each to his own, and Anthony’s clever daughter was all she could wish for, even if she was growing up too fast. Soon she’d be off to university and then Ella really would be on her own, a prospect suddenly filling her with uncertainty and fear. At times she felt cast adrift, unwilling to let go of Clare, but when she started nagging she couldn’t wait to see the back of her.
This time together would be precious.
The funny thing was she’d never had any intention of not going to Italy. Ella was not that bothered about getting there, but driving down French roads together in the shooting brake would be fun. If only Anthony could be by their side. He seemed so far away now. She’d given Clare his letter on her fourteenth birthday and it was always in her bedside drawer under the photo of him in his uniform.
‘I don’t look like him, do I?’ she sighed, looking at her passport photograph. ‘We’re so dark. Why’s that?’
‘I don’t know,’ was the only answer she could come up with on the spot. It had troubled her, this lack of curiosity about finding her true identity. This ambivalence was tinged with fear, apprehension and not a little laziness. What was she afraid of? If she didn’t look, she wouldn’t be disappointed if there was nothing to find, but hadn’t Clare a right to know the truth by now?
Perhaps on the journey down she would broach the subject. It wouldn’t hurt May now. Since the film, more information was coming out about Titanic survivors. It would not be impossible to track down some of the truth. If she was too scared to do it for herself, she ought to do it for her daughter’s sake. It was her heritage too.
The bust she’d made of Anthony for Clare showed him forever young while she was ageing not very gracefully. Her black curls were dusted with grey, but her eyes were still jet-black and her jaw firm, if a bit saggy in the middle.
Perhaps a few new tops and slacks would not go amiss. Clare refused to compromise, insisting Ella bought a fitted swimming costume and decent underwear, two sundresses, some Capri pants and a smart evening dress. ‘You could look really glam, if you just tried a little harder.’
‘I shall stay out of the sun or my skin will end up like crinkled leather after a few weeks in the heat. It did last time.’
How strange to be wandering across Europe again, this time in style and comfort, staying in a mini palazzo rather than some flea-bitten mattress in an attic. Ella smiled, thinking of her old self, free-spirited, fancy free, strolling through the French markets with just a few centimes in her pocket. The young have no fear, no cause to doubt the future, she mused. She’d once been confident, gregarious, so sure of herself, but not any more. She envied her daughter. How beautiful was the bloom on Clare’s young face. She hoped no Italian Lothario would wipe that shine away: war had taken its toll on her generation. It mustn’t scar the next.
War had been exciting and dangerous at first, and Ella had relished living for the moment, her life full of passion and risk, but grief and loss had been its unavoidable consequences. How she wanted to protect Clare from heartbreak. She was glad she was finished with romance and the agonies of being in love, but Clare had it all ahead of her.
123
Italy, July 1959
Roddy stood dumbstruck by the sheer number of white crosses in the American War Cemetery outside Florence. He paced along the granite panels lined with the names of the missing, looked up at the tall stone pylon and saluted his comrades before the hillside chapel. He thought of all the men he had known who were buried here, and with that thought came the inevitable flashbacks to faces, smells and explosions.
Here, everything was so clean, so beautifully preserved, so quiet, so American in its efficiency and detail, and so very moving. Angelo was not up to the long journey so Kathleen wept at her son’s grave alone and Roddy held young Frankie’s hand, praying he’d never have to know such a life-changing experience. He was too young to understand much of it, but the atmosphere touched both his children just the same as they tiptoed round the graves, curious but respectful.
He wanted them all to see what sacrifice looked like. Every one of those crosses was a life unlived, a lighted candle stubbed out before its time. We make death clean and peaceful, clinical and safe here, he thought, but it was not like that the first time they crossed this country. Battle was a filthy business.
They’d arrived in Rome and made as many of the cultural tours as they could. Jetlagged, after many hours of flight, they had stood in St Peter’s Square soaking up the atmosphere of Vatican City, before driving to Florence so Kathleen and the family could pay their respects. Now she knew where her boy lay it would help her to rest her own sadness.
Roddy hadn’t expected to cry to feel the tears running down his cheeks at the sight of such vast fields of the dead. Memories flooded over him and he wondered if such emotion would spoil the rest of their vacation.
‘Why’s Daddy crying?’ asked Tina as Patti held him.
‘Because this is where his friends lie. They never got to go home with him. Your uncle Frank is here too.’
‘Did we win the war then?’ Frankie asked.
‘No one wins a war, honey. They just think they do.’
Two days later they arrived in Tuscany to find an old rambling country house on the edge of the medieval walled town of Anghiari. It was perched high on a wooded slope with a magnificent view over the plain, and the scent of cypresses, pine and herbs perfumed the air, taking Roddy right back to his time on the run. He recalled those fearful nights hiding in the woods by day, and the smell of the farmyard, the sweaty stench of the cattle shed and oil lamps by night.
He couldn’t wait to visit all those outlying contadini who’d sheltered him. Over the years he’d made sure Patti’s Italian relatives and friends received gifts in kind: fresh tyres for their trucks, clothing in parcels. The Bartolinis knew they were coming and he’d brought gifts from Angelo, his old uncle Salvi and his children. They were going to host the biggest party for everyone later on when the British contingent arrived.
He wondered how his mom and Archie would cope with the travelling, and if Ella would turn up late or not at all. They’d not met since Clare was a baby when he had briefly touched down in England on his way home.
Ella was such an unknown to him now. She chose not to come to his wedding, which had hurt, he admitted. She was modest about her success and reputation as a sculptor. Her infrequent letters were full of Clare, never herself. She was the nearest thing he had to a sister and he hoped there would be time for them to get to know each other all over again. He wanted her to like Patti and Kathleen and feel they were all one big family.
She’d always been a loner, an outsider, brought into their midst through the kindness of his grandfather and mother. She had no one but Clare, no family to call her own but his. He hoped she’d soften to the idea of them all mucking in together. He really didn’t understand artists very much, but this was the birthplace of so many and down the road was the very birthplace of the famous Michelangelo. He wanted everyone to feel at home here as much as he did.
Celeste gazed up at Villa Collina with amazement. It was picture-postcard pretty with golden stone, and painted shutters and a terracotta pantiled roof. It stood tall, majestic in a setting of olive groves surrounded by woods with a gracious drive up to the castellated house. Trust Roddy to find the most beautiful spot. They had lunched in the Piazza Baldacci in Anghiari, marvelling at the high walls of the medieval streets, the wonderful ancient buildings. It was all so very Italian and well worth the long journey, even if the dry heat was not what she was used to. It was like a fairytale setting. She expected men in doublet and hose to leap out onto the cobbles and start duelling and to see Juliet sitting on a balcony waiting for her Romeo.
Later, after unpacking in a beautiful bedroom with the most exquisite gilded mirror she’d ever seen, Celeste joined the others who were sipping wine in the shade, watching the sun slowly sinking across to the west.
She watched Frankie and Tina playing games on the sloping lawn. Frankie was all legs, had braces on his teeth, and dark hair, not a bit like Roddy. It was Tina, with red curls like her mother and grandmother, who was going to be the beauty. Frankie reminded her of somebody but no one she could bring to mind at that moment. They were polite but lively children and a credit to their parents. She was going to make the most of her time with her grandchildren and spoil them as much as she dared.
What a mixed bunch th
ey all were. Archie was sitting back with some historical tome on his lap, soaking in the sun. Kathleen had produced her knitting and Patti was rushing round making sure the housekeeper and staff knew that there were other guests still to arrive before they served a candlelight dinner on the terrace.
How would they all get on for three weeks? It was the longest holiday she’d ever had but there was enough land and space for them not to get on top of each other.
Kathleen said there was a lovely shop in Sansepolcro nearby where you could buy local lace. ‘The lace for Patti’s wedding dress came from there but the handmade veil, the Bartolini family sent as a gift. I think it was Maria’s. It has such a beautiful patterns, very distinctive.’
She daren’t let on that she’d never really noticed the motifs or any detail of the wedding dress, being so in awe of the whole event, nervous at meeting more Irish and Italian families and trying to fit into their wedding customs. Patti had looked like a film star.
She glanced at her watch. Ella and Clare were late again. She hoped the journey hadn’t been too much for them. Perhaps they had got lost. This visit had been planned with Forester military precision, down to their itinerary: where to find the best churches, restaurants and overnight stops, route maps and must-see sites. Dear Roddy had set such store on this reunion. She hoped Ella would rise to the occasion and not let them down.
124
There was so much to see and so little time if they wanted to find Villa Collina in time for supper. Ella resented the rush southwards, wanting this time alone with Clare to last for ever. They’d driven slowly down through France and lingered around Florence, taking in all the sites, including the Uffizi with its famous statue of David. It was wonderful to share her old haunts with her child, to see the magic through her eyes, to wander the streets and gawp at all the magnificent architecture. They’d fallen in love with Siena and Arezzo, the food and wine especially, and had relished living off salads and fish and wonderful pasta.
