by Rachel Lyndhurst; Carmen Falcone; Ros Clarke; Annie Seaton; Christine Bell
Lora took the bag he offered her and peered into it. A tan and orange shoebox. “You bought me Merrell walking boots? Bloody fantastic! I’ve never been able to afford decent gear like this.” She could hear herself gushing, but this was the most unexpected and delightful gift.
“You’re so strange.” Lorenzo leaned against the hot metal of the car. “I‘ve never known a woman in my life who’d want to wear something like those.”
“I don’t care,” she said and took out a boot to have a closer look. “These are excellent. I never had you down as an outdoorsy type, but you picked the best. I like these even more than your big sparkly car.”
“I Googled Bear Grylls to find out what he wore.” He rubbed the lenses of his sunglasses against the soft fabric of his black T-shirt to clean them. “And then I ordered online–easy.”
“But you did it yourself.” She smiled and blinked into the bright morning sun behind him. “That was very sweet.”
He reached round and smacked her on the bottom. “Glad you’re pleased. Now let’s get going.”
…
Lora was completely disorientated before they’d even left the streets of Taormina, twisting roads heading north, multiple turn offs and a couple of toll roads, had her head spinning. “I’m glad you’re doing the driving,” she said and flinched as a huge truck thundered past them.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be off this busy road soon. It’s the main route to the coast, but the only way out of Taormina. We’ll be turning back on ourselves soon on the E45, but once we hit the exit at Fiumefreddo things will ease off.”
“I trust you!” She laughed. “E45 sounds like a medical form.”
“It’s the longest north-south route in Europe, starts off in Sweden.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No, it’s true. The E45 passes through Denmark, Germany, Austria, and then into Italy where it ends. Here in Sicily, at Gela in the south. It’s about three thousand miles long.”
True to his word the countryside opened out, and, even though they were still on a busy two lane wide autostrada, the views were amazing. Farmhouses with terracotta roof tiles hunched under a bright blue clear sky, their dark, arched windows glowering like angry eyes across the rolling hills and hot fields. Trees and shrubs spilled over the metal barriers, their long spiky leaves in shades of green and gray with white or pink blooms lashing back and forth as the traffic passed. “I’m trying to remember what those shrubs are. It’s on the tip of my tongue.” She pointed as they sped by. “Hibiscus? Or some kind of rosemary?”
Lorenzo glanced to the left and puffed out his cheeks as he thought about it. “Oleander, highly toxic, not for nibbling.”
She hesitated before letting the words that had been on her lips for three weeks tumble out. “So you know a lot about Sicily and volcanoes, but not much about hiking boots and you have an awful lot of money…so what do you do for a living?”
If he’d been eating, he’d have choked judging by the way his eyebrows rose over the top of his sunglasses and his lips pursed tightly.
“Why do you want to know?” he said eventually.
“Because not knowing is making me imagine no end of scary things.”
“What does it matter? In a week, you’ll be jetting back to England with a nice amount of tax-free cash in your back pocket and a big smile on your face. What I do, or don’t do, isn’t important.”
Was it really only a week they had left? She smothered the tiny wrench in her chest that felt dangerously like regret. “Is that a way of telling me to mind my own business?”
“It’s a polite way, yes.”
She dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “Would it be dangerous for me to know?”
He shook his head and smiled. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”
Lora simply smiled and offered him a hard candy from the small tin she kept in her handbag.
He shook his head. “My father started out as a car parts dealer. We were as poor as rats. He got some good jobs and cash in hand work from dubious parties in the Palermo area. The business grew, he got richer, I got my first bike, and he didn’t come home for dinner so often as before. For my eighteenth birthday, he gave me a factory capable of making most of the parts he’d been importing, and I sold them on to him and…other people at a discount. The money came rolling in, and, over time, I diversified and invested in lots of other things.”
“And you paid tax on all of this, naturally.”
He ignored her comment. “In the fourteen years since then, I’ve built up a portfolio that includes aggregates, as you know, real estate, shipping, chemicals, oil, salt, and even a handful of pig farms. There’s more, but it’s quite boring.”
“Impressive.”
“And I gave my father back the factory when he and Mamma divorced, with a check for the interest he could have earned on the capital. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him after that, and the feeling was mutual. He hates me for not following him into the darker side of the business and the networking that is necessary to get on here in Sicily. I’m a source of shame to him and the circles he moves in.”
“Are you saying your father is Mafioso?” she asked quietly, her voice laced with horror.
“That’s the sort of question that could get you killed if overheard by the wrong people, Lora. This isn’t a game, and he’s no longer a part of my life. Let’s change the subject.” He turned off the autostrada, negotiating an ugly roundabout at an intersection, which fed them onto a smaller road flanked by molded concrete walls. The car turned a bend, the concrete disappeared, and a long gray strip of road stretched out into the green of the countryside as far as the eye could see.
“Look!” Lora gestured wildly out of the window. “A volcano, Etna!”
“She looks even bigger when you’re down here, doesn’t she?”
“Very scary. Almost as terrifying as–”
“Carry on. Almost as scary as what?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He chuckled. “You were going to say ‘almost as scary as your mother,’ weren’t you?”
Lora pressed her lips together and hunched her shoulders with embarrassment.
“She’s not that bad when you get to know her,” he said without any outward sign of conviction. “She’s had to become hard and ruthless over the years, like many single women do.”
“If you say so.” She stared out of the window as the road snaked past low walls made of large rocks and to the vast panorama of mountains, fields, and rustic houses.
“We’re coming into Piedimonte Etneo now. The road goes right through the middle.”
“Let me guess: that’s Italian for ‘at the foot of Etna’?”
“Something like that.” He laughed. “We’ll pass you off as a good Italian wife yet.”
A grubby residential street, with no off road parking for the shuttered houses that lined it, steadily evolved into frontages of pink, blue, and yellow with smart black iron railings. Then cobbles and frontages with smart green canopies and palm trees waving in the distance. Black iron lampposts, white railings, and now the houses had three steps and were three windows wide. A grand square appeared with olive trees in large, leaden planters, Italian flags, a street vendor selling oranges, and huge green watermelons.
“Wow, look at that,” Lora said and pointed to an imposing municipal building with red swags over its three sets of huge black doors.
They sped past restaurants, pizzerias, and little shops painted in shades of peach with lemon-striped canopies. And then the streets became grayer, a burst drain and a half naked man brushing debris off the sidewalk into the road followed by a red and white warning barrier across an unprotected railway line. It was like their entrance into the town in reverse until they hit the open road again.
“It’s so green inland,” Lora said when they turned off into a narrower road lined with pines. “It’s like a different island.” They’d been driving for an hour or so, and she had be
en wondering ever since they’d left home where their destination was. “So when are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“We’re almost there.” She remained deliberately silent and fixed him with a hard “tell me now” stare when he glanced over at her. “I’m taking you somewhere I haven’t been in twenty years, deep into the Nebrodi forest, the lungs of Sicily. I didn’t think the girls would be impressed at having to sit in the car for an hour and a half just to see some trees.”
“Oak, beech, spruce, a good mixture,” she said as the road narrowed further and became more of a dried out mud track. She put out a hand to steady herself on the chunky, leather-covered door as the car rocked from side to side over tree roots and up and down through large potholes.
“You’ll see now why we came in this car. It’s tank territory, really, only accessible by foot or mountain bike otherwise.”
“You couldn’t get your helicopter in here too easily either.”
“Exactly, so no medical emergencies today, please.”
“I shall be taking things carefully, don’t you worry.” Panic jolted through her. “And no blasted migraines! There’s no way I can drive this thing, let alone navigate our way back if you conk out.”
He smiled. “I’ve done everything right today: got up after exactly seven hours sleep, which we have now discovered is the optimum amount for me. Hideous hot water and lemon on rising, tea not coffee, and a low GI breakfast.”
“You must be feeling fabulous in that case.”
“Si, on top of the world.”
…
The forest cleared on their right, and everything grew brighter as a mass of water came into view. Lorenzo drew up between two large trees so that they weren’t blocking the track and shot her a grin. “Lago di Maulazzo. My Uncle Bortolo used to bring me here as a boy.”
He swung his large frame out of the car and Lora followed. “Is Bortolo your father’s brother?”
“No, my mother’s, and he was my uncle. He’s gone now.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“He was great to be with as a kid, but he had a gambling and drug habit that led him into bad company and in debt to the wrong sort of people. He was a liability in the end.” He pointed his first two fingers against the side of his head. “Bang bang.”
“Shit…”
“Sorry, inappropriate.” He’d forgotten momentarily about the mess her brother had found himself in via a similar route. He climbed over a hooped branch fence that separated the track from the water’s edge and held his hand out to help her. Her skin was so soft, a necessity in her business. He wondered for the first time if she treated men and the thought made him feel irrational. He hoped she didn’t, but common sense told him that she must, and he was suddenly gripped by a burst of possessiveness. “We used to fish here.”
“Catch much?”
“Some carp, but tench was better to eat. Or, if we were lucky, a trout.”
“You didn’t chuck them back in, then? I always think that catch and release side of things is a complete waste of time.”
Lorenzo snatched up a blade of grass and threaded it through his fingers. “We were probably breaking the law as it was, but we carried our catch deep into the woods so we wouldn’t get seen and cooked them over our camp fire. There was no choice. Bortolo insisted we only ever bring bread with us, some for us and some for bait. But that was the gambler in him, I guess. There was no fun in anything if it wasn’t risky.”
“So you camped out here overnight?”
“Kind of. We had some blankets in the back of his bread van.” He winked at her and the sun made his eyes sparkle like translucent chips of sapphire. “Sophisticated poachers, huh?”
“Sounds like a laugh. What did your dad think of it all?”
“He didn’t know—too busy with the business of men to even notice, and my mother was glad to get me out from under her feet.” He grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s go into the woods and see if I can find the tree I carved my initials into with my first penknife.”
“I want to get my new boots on first. I’m so excited about wearing them.” She turned back toward the car. “I won’t be a minute.”
While she fiddled with her laces, Lorenzo stood and watched a family of coots dart in and out of the shady parts of the water where trees were overhanging. It was almost completely silent apart from the ripple of birdsong from the woods and the scrabbling noise of Lora stamping the ground as she wriggled into her new footwear. This place held bittersweet memories for him, stirring up an irrational longing to revisit the simplicity of being an innocent boy again, and then maybe everything could stand still and there would be peace. He wasn’t sure why he had wanted to bring Lora here so much, but once he’d hit upon the idea there was no erasing it. He had come for a private reason, to put things to rest, to finish this phase of his life and move on. It felt right to include her in the process. Or maybe it was because he enjoyed her company. Then he remembered that he’d better not get too used to that, because their time together would soon be over. When the deal with Pontecorvo was signed, he would have to set her free and there was nothing he could do to change that. They would part and go to their own very different worlds and Lora had made it clear she was looking forward to that.
He turned his back on the lake to face her as she scrabbled to her feet, forest floor debris clinging to the faded denim of her non-designer British high street shorts. “Ready?”
“Yep.” She flexed her ankles in the new boots a couple of times, and he had to take a deep breath at the way her breasts bounced underneath her ditsy patterned blouse. “I’m so happy with these things, it’s like walking on air.”
“Just like an angel.” He let his gaze slip from her feet up the length of her smooth thighs. “An angel who’s developed a stunning tan in the last few weeks. You look great.”
Lora made a derogatory snorting noise. “Fallen angel. And the color of my skin is most likely a fine layer of dirt.”
“A dirty fallen angel, then. I like the idea of her.” He snatched up her hand again. “I could take her home and give her a good scrub down in the bath.”
They walked deep into the forest for half an hour with Lorenzo pointing out the flashing white tails of small deer that fled when they heard them coming. He told her tales of vampires and long extinct wolves as they tramped along.
“You don’t scare me with your crazy Italian myths.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t believe in wolves or fairies any more than I believe in your mad and vengeful gods.”
“Bortolo used to tell me fables about the forest once the sun went down, and they scared me half to death.”
“But you still remember them, don’t you? I think I can remember every single bedtime story my daddy ever told me too. They’re stored up there in my brain for my own children, and then hopefully theirs.”
A hollow formed in his belly. “Kids—they’re part of your grand plan in life?”
“Of course, what’s the point in all this otherwise?” she said and glanced at him awkwardly. “You’ve got your two, and they make you happy, right?”
“Of course they do. But I couldn’t have any more.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“It might sound rich coming from a guy, but my experiences of pregnancy, hospitals, baby units, and infant death aren’t that good. There’s only so much you can put yourself through and, well, two is enough.”
“No hankering for a son? I’d have thought that would be the Sicilian way.”
He smiled and looked up at the sky through the forest canopy. “Perhaps I’m not cut out to be all that Sicilian after all. You’ve not mentioned your dad much before.” He cocked his head to one side, questions popping into his mind like bubbles rising to the surface of a soda. “Did they divorce, your parents?”
Lora let out a sad sounding laugh. “No, just the opposite. They were desperately in love. Mummy outraged her entire American family by marrying him when she got
pregnant with me. They didn’t approve, and they didn’t want her to move to England where they couldn’t control her. They cut her off.”
“Sounds almost Italian!”
“Money and status was certainly their god. They had a nice senator’s son lined up for her to marry apparently. A stinking rich one.”
“And your father, presumably, was deemed inferior to the guy with a Hollywood smile?”
“That must have been the case, although he did have a minor title and a feudal estate to keep us all fed and watered. I was born in a very grand but draughty manor house.”
Lorenzo’s laughter echoed through the forest. “So I’ve been sleeping with a duchess of somewhere and I had no idea?”
“I couldn’t deny or confirm that particular fantasy, Signor Ferrante, because whatever title it was, he never used it, and it died along with him, or that’s what Mummy told us.”
“He died… I’m sorry, it hadn’t occurred to me.”
She took a sharp inward breath. “Not a problem. He killed himself, for what it’s worth. Lost all his money and mortgaged all his assets to finance yet another of a so-called friend’s latest ‘can’t fail’ business venture. It did fail spectacularly, of course, and he didn’t know what else to do. The poor man found it almost impossible to say no to anyone who asked him for something nicely, and the shame of repeated failure destroyed him.”
“That must have left you in a mess. How old were you?”
“I was twelve at the time and away at boarding school when it all happened. The financial abyss he left us in meant I had to be pulled out of boarding school because there wasn’t enough money left to pay the fees for both me and Geoffrey, like I told you before. So my little brother got the pot of educational gold, and I got to stay at home with Mummy in our rented bungalow.” She stopped walking and picked up a twisted stick from the forest floor. “I was delighted. It was almost as if Daddy had sent me a special gift from the other side. He knew I hated that school, but he couldn’t bring himself to deny anything his darling wife wanted, and she wanted children she could present to polite society. You need a posh and expensive education for that, so he made things better for me in that one way at least.”
