Maria’s funeral would be Bella’s first debt to him.
There was the sudden call of a name and they both turned.
‘Bella!’
The nurse who had been sorting out her mother’s IV called for her to come quickly and as she stepped into the room Bella understood why, for Maria was taking her last breaths.
Bella cuddled her mother as she left the earth, thanking her for her love and letting her go with grace.
And afterwards she sat by her, knowing in her heart that her mother would understand why she wouldn’t be at her funeral.
‘If I go back now,’ Bella said, ‘that will be it.’ She knew that much. Malvolio kept his girls too tired to think straight and if they were too tired to work, well, there was always a little something he might slip them to perk them up for that.
‘I love you so much,’ Bella told her mother, and she gave her one last kiss and took off the little gold and ruby ring her mother wore and slipped it onto her own finger. ‘I’ll do everything I can to keep it,’ she said, though she would sell it if she had to because apart from the clothes she stood up in she had nothing.
The money Matteo had given her had run out—three months living in a chair by her mother’s bed, eating from the canteen and buying Maria little luxuries, had taken care of that.
‘Bella...’ The nurse came in, Bella assumed, to tell her that they were moving Maria now, but instead she had a message for her. ‘Your friend asked how much longer you might be.’
‘My friend?’
Bella stood as the door opened further and there stood Malvolio. She had assumed he’d gone home, or rather, with her mother dying, she’d simply forgotten that he was there.
‘Come on, Bella,’ Malvolio said and she saw that Dino stood behind him. ‘Let’s get you home.’
The nurse had gone but, Bella knew, even if she were here, there would have been little she could do.
The cries she made as Dino walked her down the hospital corridor the staff assumed were for her loss but it wasn’t just Maria that Bella mourned.
There was one road out of Bordo Del Cielo and Bella sat silent on the same road back.
Another chance for freedom had gone.
* * *
After three months’ absence Bella stepped into the home that she had shared with her mother.
Maria’s friends had been in and tidied and there were fresh flowers from the garden on the table.
Sicilian funerals were rapid affairs.
That evening a mass was being said for her mother and tomorrow morning she would be buried.
And by tomorrow night Bella would be expected to show up at work.
The only person who might be able to help her was Matteo but she had no idea how to contact him—all she knew was that he had gone to London with Luka.
But then she thought of her mother and how, instead of waiting for Dino to come and collect the rent, she would sometimes call Matteo.
Bella went to the hall table and to her mother’s little black book and there, in her mother’s handwriting, was his name.
With a shaking hand she called his number but when nothing happened she tried again and then again.
It took a few moments to realise that in her absence the phone had been cut off.
There was a knock at the door and it was one of her mother’s friends, Sylvia, who said she would walk with Bella to mass.
‘And I’ll be here at seven tomorrow.’
‘Seven,’ Bella checked.
‘It’s going to be a busy morning for you, Bella. I’ll cook tonight and then we can get the house ready to receive guests.’
Bella thanked her and went into her bedroom to get changed. She wore black and then went into her mother’s room to borrow the veil Maria had worn for funerals. She’d had weeks to get used to the idea that her mother was dying but now that she had it felt surreal.
Stepping into her mother’s bedroom, Bella could not understand how everything looked the same—her clothes hung in the wardrobe, the photos were out, her silver hairbrush and perfume bottles were all there, and Bella truly felt as if her mother was still with her, as if she might turn and see her lying in the bed.
‘Bella,’ Sylvia called, ‘people are starting to walk over to church.’
The church was full and the wives all greeted her with their lips pursed and their husbands didn’t meet Bella’s eyes, knowing how many times she had seen them come through her mother’s door.
It was a long mass and Bella sat through it, too numb to cry and too scared of tomorrow to mourn her mother yet.
As the congregation spilled out Bella stayed and said more prayers but once back home, instead of cooking for tomorrow, she lay on her mother’s bed, with Matteo’s phone number in her hand, waiting for darkness. When it came she headed down the street and walked towards the call box.
‘Bella?’
She jumped when she heard Malvolio call her name. She had hoped that by now he would be in the bar.
‘Where are you off to?’
Think on your feet, Bella. She could almost hear Matteo telling her what to do.
‘Just walking...’
‘I could walk with you.’
‘I was going to go to the church again,’ Bella said. ‘I want to sit with my mother and say some more prayers for her soul. She will need them...’
Bella saw Malvolio’s tense blink.
God still scared him.
And with good reason, Bella thought as he told her that he would pray for Maria’s soul too and then walked off.
She spat at his back.
It fell to the ground silently but he briefly turned at the slight T sound Bella’s mouth had made, but she stood there, innocent to look at, dark in her thoughts, and he carried on walking.
Bella sat in the church for a suitable time, shaking at the enormity of what she was about to do, while sure that she had her mother’s blessing, and then she gave her a kiss and left her.
Into her small house she went.
Bella knew Malvolio would still be watching her.
She would be seen on the train platform and if she hitchhiked... Bella thought of Matteo and his fear when that red car had pulled up alongside him.
There was only one way out.
Bella took her mother’s silver hairbrush and one of her heavy perfume bottles and, with the ring she had taken from her mother today, it was all she had.
She filled a bottle with some water and took some pastries that Sylvia had brought and then, after one last look around, Bella left her home, though tonight she went through the kitchen window.
* * *
Alongside the road out of Bordo Del Cielo ran the ocean but to the other side was the forest, and from long days and nights spent exploring while her mother had entertained, Bella knew the land well.
The dark did not scare her.
She embraced it because now it acted as her friend, hiding her as she ran through the night, the giant holly trees serving as her shield, and finally she made it to the ancient baths.
Bella stopped and had a drink and ate one of the pastries and took a moment to breathe and admire her beautiful surroundings.
It was her favourite place on earth and Bella looked up at the arches and columns and then down towards the deep stone baths, and she imagined them alive and beautiful again. She could only smile when she thought of the drunken, delicious debauchery that would have gone on there. ‘You were born in the wrong time,’ Bella said out loud to her mother, because she would have been revered back then. ‘I’m sorry I won’t be there to say goodbye...’
She said it here and then on through the night she went. The moon was sinking and the darkness would soon be gone but Bella knew where she was heading.
Fi
nally she stepped out from the forest and there, in the distance, she saw the lights of a gas station ahead and Bella knew that she was on the edge of the next town.
Her mother had told her about this place.
It was here her mother would come if she needed money that Malvolio didn’t know about.
The sun was up by the time Bella walked in and she headed straight for the pay phone. Dialling Matteo’s number, she fed in coins.
A woman answered.
‘Can I speak with Matteo?’
‘No,’ came the breathless reply, ‘because then he’d have to stop what he’s doing.’
She could hear sounds in the background and it was painfully clear what was taking place as the woman ended the call.
Bella rang again but this time there was no answer, and as she put down the receiver her shoulders sagged and she just leant against the wall, not knowing what to do.
‘Mi dica?’
A man asked if there was anything that Bella wanted.
‘I’m trying to get to Rome.’
‘I’m going as far as Messina...’ he offered.
‘Now?’ Bella checked.
‘Now.’
They headed out to his huge truck and Bella climbed in and turned to thank him but then she saw that he had opened his zipper.
‘First, though...’ he said, and Bella turned to get out, to run back into the shop, but then, in the side-view mirror, Bella saw a red car pulling up.
It was after seven.
She had been running all through the night, only for Malvolio to catch her here.
‘Drive,’ Bella said. ‘We can pull over a little further up.’
‘In a hurry?’ he checked, and Bella nodded. She could see Malvolio striding into the shop and she turned and gave the driver a smile.
‘Go, now,’ Bella said. ‘If you do I’ll make it up to you soon.’
And she did.
To her eternal shame she did.
What had happened between her and Matteo had never in the least shamed her but now she understood what her mother had meant about stigma. Bella would never tell another person about this, not even Sophie, but from that morning on and to this very day Bella considered herself a whore.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘SALUTE,’ SAID SOPHIE, despite the early hour, and they chinked champagne glasses as the plane carried them home.
Luka was sitting, going through his phone, Paulo was being shown to the bedroom, and soon Bella would move behind a curtained area and carry on with the final details that would complete Sophie’s dress.
‘Are you okay, Bella?’ Sophie asked. She could see, despite her smile, her friend’s swollen eyes and she knew she had been crying.
‘I will be.’
‘Luka just told me that Matteo isn’t bringing Shandy,’ Sophie said. ‘If that helps.’
‘It makes no difference to me.’ Bella shrugged and lied a little. ‘I’m not upset about him. I feel bad because I always swore that when I came home it would be to give my mother a decent stone for her grave.’
She knew that Malvolio had seen that her mother had got a pauper’s funeral.
‘I have a little saved but I don’t think it’s going to be enough.’
‘I feel terrible for using your savings...’
They had spent nearly all they had between them so that Sophie could walk into Luka’s office feeling proud but there was no need for Sophie to feel guilty and Bella shook her head. ‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘We were always going to bring your father home.’ They had thought it would be for his burial. ‘At least we get to do it together, with champagne and with Paulo still alive. It has been money well spent.’
She smiled again but Sophie still didn’t believe that was all.
‘Bella, why do you still let Matteo think you’re...?’ Sophie glanced over and saw that Luka was still reading from his phone, but Bella knew what she was referring to and so answered without Sophie needing to elaborate.
‘Because I don’t want him to ever know how I really feel about him.’
‘But why?’
‘There’s no point.’ Bella shrugged.
‘Because of Shandy?’
Because of me, Bella wanted to say, but held in her words.
She knew Sophie didn’t get it—after all, she had no idea what had gone on during that trip from Sicily to Rome.
It was easier to act hardened in front of Matteo, to taunt and to tease than to reveal to him her truth—that she utterly loved him but, by his rules and her shame, Bella knew they could never be.
‘Hey!’ Bella, ever the chameleon, really did smile this time. ‘Maybe he isn’t bringing Shandy for a reason—even if we can’t have a relationship, perhaps I might make enough money for my mother’s stone!’
‘Bella!’ Sophie gave a shocked grin.
‘Why not?’ Bella sat there and laughed and actually warmed to the idea.
She hoped Luka didn’t jilt her friend, not just to save Sophie the shame but also because the best man and bridesmaid would dance and she wanted just a few moments with him, to be held in his arms again before she somehow got on with the rest of her life. ‘One night, no strings...’ she said, but then she shook her head.
She couldn’t do it to herself.
And, anyway, those hours spent last night crying bitterly about the past had served her well.
She wanted a better future.
‘After the wedding, and after I have given my mother a decent headstone, I am going to save up again...’
‘For?’
‘For me,’ Bella said. ‘I am going to apply one last time to design school and if that fails then I am going to have business cards made up and start a proper business. I’m going to make something of myself,’ Bella said. ‘I’m going to make the Gatti name something every woman wants to have in her wardrobe...’ She laughed as she stood. ‘Rather than what every man wants in the bedroom.’
She left Sophie laughing and moved to another seat and got on with stitching the tiny buttons onto Sophie’s dress. Last night’s reminiscing had put her behind but it was still all coming together beautifully.
When they got to Bordo Del Cielo she would remove the tissue paper and add a few final touches, then it would be gently hand-washed.
Bella had no modesty where her dressmaking was concerned, she knew it was going to be beautiful.
Sophie might just be about to become Sicily’s most beautiful jilted bride!
* * *
Bordo Del Cielo brimmed with memories—some painful and some so beautiful that they brought a different kind of agony. As they drove along the street that would take them to Paulo’s home, there was the welling of tears in Bella’s eyes and love in her heart for the land she missed every day.
At every turn of her head Bella wanted to let out a cry of recognition.
There was the river, where Matteo had got to on the night he had tried to escape.
A little further and there was a small lookout, where tourists stopped to take in the valley of forest, often missing the shaded path that would take them down to the baths.
On they drove and as the hotel came into view Bella remembered not the hours she had worked there or her fear in the bar but a night being made love to by Matteo.
Only from the beach would she be able to see the window of their room but as they turned off the main road Bella craned her neck for another glimpse, because, for her, true love had been found there.
Even the air tasted better, Bella thought as they stepped out of the car and took the path to Paulo’s old house.
‘We’ll go to the beach, to our secret cove...’ Bella said, as excited as a child on their holidays, but for now Sophie had to sort out her father, for the journey, albeit lux
urious, had depleted him.
Luka declined coffee and said that he was heading to the hotel and Bella’s ears pricked up when he said that he was meeting with Matteo.
He must be here.
She showered and changed into a short black skirt and a pretty top that she pinched from Sophie then added earrings and did her make-up with care.
‘You look lovely.’ Sophie smiled.
‘Thank you, but it isn’t for Matteo.’
She would walk the streets of home with pride.
‘I might go for a walk,’ Bella said. ‘I would like to look at my old home, even if there are others living there.’
She soon found her home and it looked as if it was vacant. The flowerbeds that her mother had so carefully attended to were full of weeds and the windows were dusty and she had to wipe them to peer in.
Bella frowned because, though the furnishings seemed covered in sheets, it looked as if little had been moved or changed. It made no sense because Bella knew that property prices had soared since Malvolio’s death. Bordo Del Cielo was a tourist destination yet her old home seemed untouched.
She had left the place in haste. She hadn’t even spent a full night there since her mother’s collapse and she knew what she wanted to do.
She headed back to Paulo’s and there was a note from Sophie saying she had gone to the cemetery and Bella had the house to herself for a little while. She took the tissue paper out of the dress and used Rosa’s ancient sewing machine to sew two last blind seams and then, hearing them come back, Bella bundled the dress into a bag.
‘Are you going for another walk?’ Sophie smiled when she again headed out.
‘Who knows who I might bang into.’ Bella smiled because she was a tease, even with her friends.
She always did her best to keep things light, even if her heart was heavy.
Yet it wasn’t heavy today.
It was starting to heal.
Bella managed the kitchen window easily and was soon climbing in and she was home.
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