A Funeral in Fiesole

by Rosanne Dingli

  He didn’t say a word, but I had heard him singing in church; a surprising clear, high tenor voice in perfect time, even with canned music coming forth from poor quality speakers at an embarrassing and startling volume.

  Nigel’s face was a picture of horror. He could not have foretold or avoided the atrocious acoustics, but he flapped his arms, frustrated, pushed to some sort of reaction, and I could see Harriet was hoping he would not erupt during the proceedings.

  Luckily, everything went rather well if one omitted my reading, but I expected to be wound up and emotional. I did my best, but could tell from the way Grant sat he was waiting, waiting, for the whole thing to be over.

  Mind you, I was dreading the reading of the will, because I knew Nigel would resent someone like me, with no children, no debts, nothing like the enormous responsibilities he had, would receive an equal quarter of Mama’s estate, same as his. I doubted there would be any surprises. There was the house in Cornwall, the villa up in Fiesole, and all the bits and pieces accumulated during her lifetime. I knew there was some source of private income, whose type and value I was unaware of, but no one discussed it.

  Paola wanted to, at dinner the previous night. Nigel’s face prevented any discussion of the kind. Suzanna and Lewis talked about their boating plans, which was foremost on both their minds. It sounded like a pretty solid plan, and I imagined whatever they inherited would simply make their boat-buying exercise a bit easier.

  I was starting to regret having to sell the villa, and stood at the big back window before we went in for the reading, and gazed out towards the back. It was darkening to pitch black from indigo, with a few twinkling lights in the distance. Left to myself, I used the calculator on my phone to make a few quick estimates of what it would entail to buy my three siblings out. I bit my lip, and imagined Mama in the armchair behind me, bidding me wait. All the calculations in the world couldn’t figure something that, until the reading, was a closed box. It was purely hypothetical, a silly conjecture, and wouldn’t tell me a thing.

  I pocketed my phone.

  ‘I think the funeral went well, Brod.’ Grant came up behind me. He had changed into jeans and sweater, and handed me one of two wine glasses he held.

  ‘Adequately well. Nigel nearly lost it before we all got into the cars.’

  ‘Everyone was wound up. Your older sister was in tears. Suzanna’s husband got a bit teary too.’

  ‘Lewis?’

  ‘Hmm. How well did he know your mother?’

  ‘Well enough. Mama knew us all very well. I think she liked him quite a lot, and thought he was a very appropriate partner for Suzanna.’ This was enough to trigger a memory I had of my twin and her string of weird teenage boyfriends. She adopted their habits, dress, activities, and accents while she was ‘in love’, which either dismayed Mama, sent her into silent shivers of laughter, or made her roll her eyes. ‘I think Lewis was a surprise to us all. Mama did not think it would last.’

  ‘And look at them.’ Grant seemed to think they had a good relationship.

  ‘Hmm. Look at them.’

  ‘Suzanna hasn’t stopped talking about the wall gods. She wants them painted over.’

  Grant’s eyes widened. ‘The frescoes in the hall? You’re joking. They’re magnificent.’

  ‘She says they’re a mess and the whole space would improve if painted pearl grey.’

  ‘No! No – whoever ends up with this house … and I wish it could be us, Brod, I do wish …’

  I smiled. ‘I know you and your wishes, Grant.’

  He elbowed my arm. ‘They usually come true. Whoever gets this house should have the frescoes restored. Properly, by someone talented and patient.’

  ‘And cheap.’

  ‘Hah! Not necessarily. Think of all those back bedrooms. That large space downstairs would make a perfect meeting or conference room … or indoor reception space. There should be a pool at the spot you showed me … and the grassed area above the terrace is perfect for a marquee.’

  ‘Grant!’

  ‘No – true. Think about it.’

  I raked my hair back, seeing he had spent time thinking, considering, and undoubtedly calculating what it would all cost. ‘What – weddings, parties, anything? Grant, all four of us, and our various spouses and children, would never agree about Thing One.’

  He shrugged. ‘So I see. You and Suzanna … never, although she’s your twin. Two more different characters I have never met. You and Nigel … warfare. He’s only just in control, and quite volatile. Not malicious at all, but not totally organized. I doubt he has any financial nous. You and Paola …’

  ‘Yes?’

  We both swivelled to Paola’s voice in the passage.

  ‘Thought I’d find you two down here. Did I hear my name?’

  I spoke quickly. ‘Have you … we were wondering about the reading. Is the notary ready to start?’

  ‘We’re all wondering about the reading of the will.’ Her mouth was a small straight line. ‘There aren’t many alternatives or options. We’re going to be left the awful task of selling everything, paying the inheritance tax, and dividing the spoils. I wish we didn’t have to. I’ve wondered and wondered …’ Her eyes held something I hadn’t seen before. A glint of something. ‘The task should not be left to Nigel, whatever we do – he’s done enough organizing.’

  ‘They did a marvellous job of looking after Mama.’

  Her head swung from side to side in half-agreement. ‘Something tells me the will might recompense Nigel and Harriet in some way.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘They’re all in there waiting. The notary is about to start. Let’s go in.’ She smiled at Grant.

  It made me quite happy to see Paola and Grant get on so well. There was something compatible between them, my partner and my older sister. She was visibly more relaxed in his company, and it was obvious Grant wanted to know and like my family.

  Suzanna

  The people behind events

  The notary, Dottor Umberto Ugobaldi, shuffling papers and peering up at us four in turn, over those dated metal-rimmed glasses, was like something out of a clichéd movie of the eighties. Truly as bombastic and pretentious as his splendid name. When he stared into my eyes I imagined – what a peculiar sensation – I had been especially favoured in the will he was about to read. The thin smile, the subtle rise of his prominent chin.

  Then I saw he gave Paola the same gaze, when she entered, unusually late, with Brod. Grant had wandered off on his own. The notary scanned the room, only to pull back and look directly into Nigel’s face, with a tacit meaningful smile. When his narrow-eyed scrutiny swung round to Brod, there was the ingratiating expression again. By the third time, I saw it was absolutely meaningless, and that he smiled in such an absurd quasi-meaningful way at all his clients, whether they were listening to a will being read, a parcel of land being sold off, or a contract about some factory or other. If he handled the sale of one of my franchises, he would undoubtedly put the advantageous smile to good use.

  There was no need for him to offer condolences, or to launch into a speech, because he had earlier spoken to us outside the cemetery. With the startling statuary behind him, the constant hum of traffic circling the oval burial ground, the lichen on drystone walls, which solidly retained the central mound, and the damp cypresses behind him, he mumbled his words of sympathy, in Italian, with narrow eyes behind glasses sparkling in the watery sunshine. ‘Ecco,’ he said, to finish off, and we all thanked him at once.

  For some reason of Mama’s I shall never fathom, we hosted a quick intimate reception at a church hall not far away, where three nuns in short habits and abbreviated grey wimples inclined their grey heads and smiled at us. There were – of all things – small English sandwiches and tea, which the Italian guests regarded with curiosity.

  ‘Who did the catering, Nigel?’ I had to ask.

  He mumbled something unintelligible and moved away to talk to someone else. Finally, we all climbed into
the cars again and drove up to the villa. I hoped Dottor Ugobaldi would give us enough time for me to get out of the red shoes, which were killing me. The heels had sunk into the damp grass at the cemetery, and I hoped they were not ruined.

  From the passenger window of our car, Lewis and I could see Nigel, animated, talking to Harriet in a way I recognized as his angry mood. It was obvious Nigel had come to the end of his rope, and was allowing anger to drive him every which way! It was funny in certain respects. He hadn’t changed. Tempestuous Nigel, whose fiercest emotion was fury.

  Brod had changed only a bit, since it was easy to see being with Grant had calmed him considerably, but it still took him ages to decide about anything. The agony and long-windedness of what would happen when it came to the division of the inheritance was going to prove painful because of Brod. He dithered and ducked and wove every time there was an alternative, a fork in his path! Dealing with Italian bureaucracy was enough in my opinion. Adding Brod to the mix would be pure murder!

  What could I say about my big sister? Still tongue-tied and woefully introverted, the transparency of her thoughts was as observable as her stubbornness. Insistent in a silent way. She disapproved of everything with scarcely a word. On this occasion, though, I felt there was something pulling and pushing at her. Did she think we were all Mama’s favourites apart from her, and calculated she’d come out the worst in the will? Goodness knew. So calculating, was Paola, I sometimes wondered if she ever glimpsed the people behind the events, behind the figures.

  Something was biting her, and she was not about to tell. Not to me, at least. Definitely not to Harriet. My sister Paola was not the confiding sort, and always felt better with complete strangers, which is why I thought she liked Grant better than any of us.

  She had stood next to him at the reception, rather than talk to the nuns. Now, she sat quietly, nodding occasionally, listening to the notary’s long-winded legal spiel. Such an eager face! Such straight thin lips! Our old maid Matilde used to call Brod and me the greedy twins, but the greediest of us by far was Paola.

  Paola

  A forgotten photograph

  I was surprised, but certainly not disappointed, by Mama’s will. The notary’s English was good, and I was grateful Mama chose him so well. After his initial long-winded introduction in Italian, he lapsed into formal English, so there were no language hurdles to vault. Still, the complication of what he read us was impossible to unravel; and it was plain after the time he spent explaining the complexity of Italian succession law. He said there were two kinds of succession, intestate and ‘testamentary’ succession.

  ‘You are all four of you very fortunate to have had such an intelligent and far-sighted mother. She has left a very detailed testament, which means a lot of time will be saved, because of the clarity and the fairness she achieved by understanding the law.’

  Still, surprises filled the day. I excused myself and left the room when he was finished, making for the far field behind the house in the dark, until I walked into the railing overlooking the lane leading down to the street. It was covered with creepers and weeds. Light from street lamps below helped my eyes adjust to something more than darkness.

  Revelations were the order of the day. First it was Suzanna turning up in a designer batwing outfit in deepest black, accessorized with brilliant red shoes. Mama would have loved her for it, even if it was less defiance or thumbing her nose at Italian convention than a stand for attention, but all eyes went to Suzanna’s feet. Why I kept thinking of those red shoes was not clear. It was more envy than annoyance. She carried it off.

  It was the first time I saw my nephew Tad during the weekend. I did hear his voice, though. He stood at the back of the church in a too-small threadbare school blazer, combing a nervous hand through his hair several times during the service. He disappeared soon afterwards and was absent at the reception, where we all were served tea and delicate English sandwiches, which some Italian guests regarded a bit curiously. Suzanna observed there might be a few Italian funerals adopting the strange catering after today. It was all about trends, she said. She should know, being such an entrepreneuse.

  My reading, and hers, went well. I read first, and when I listened to Suzanna, felt disappointed in my voice, my lack of elegance, and the altogether awkward figure I presented. It was partly to do with my mood, I suppose, my preoccupation about John, and my fear grief would overwhelm me in the middle of a sentence.

  Well, whether he ever existed or not, whether I believed in him or not, it was not my wall god Neptune, but Saint Paul, who was by my side as I read his letter to the Thessalonians, and I did not miss a word or mumble, or have to take a sentence from the beginning. It was when I stopped wondering why Mama had chosen the reading. It was the bit about church traditions, and without a doubt the mention of work ethics. Traditions, traditions – she held them, broke them, respected them, felt they were like anchors in her life.

  I was quite cool in the end, and looked up to see a blur of faces in front of me. The group was intimate, with only a few people there. I was surprised to see our old neighbours from Cornwall, the Edisons, who talked a great deal to Nigel and Harriet outside afterwards. Nigel said later they were staying in Florence and might pop up to the house in a day or two.

  To my utter surprise, Nigel read a long piece from one of my books, which he translated himself into Italian. It was not a great success in my opinion, but seemed well received, and I felt it satisfied him in some weird way, which was, I supposed, the main use for funerals apart from celebrating the life of the departed, and furnishing some sort of elegant, human conclusion to a life.

  Brod surprised me by faltering during his reading. He had to swallow hard and found it difficult to go on. The silence in the space when he paused was not embarrassing, but endearing. He surveyed the scene and seemed to take in the lilies, the candles, and everything he found – because we were all so unused to churches – a bit startling and awkward. I think he too felt the sympathy awash in the church for him. His high voice was a touch too loud, but much more contained and more muted when he continued, and I felt for Grant, in the row of seats behind me, who felt as though he held his breath the entire time Brod was reading.

  Why Harriet wore such a drab coat and a French beret was beyond me. It was as if she went out of her way to make herself dull and dreary, in Suzanna’s words. She didn’t wear her usual lipstick, either, and went for a shade that blurred the outline of her lips to a wine-coloured smudge.

  It was a grey day and we all wore grey and black. If not for the splash of Suzanna’s red shoes, it was bleak and cold and grey, grey, grey; until Lori played her cello, which gave the proceedings a bit of a lift. Harriet had passed around cards printed with the order of readings and music, and I did read Ombra mai fu, but no one said it would be played by Lori. Beautifully done, I did concede, and very appropriate. A difficult piece to play unaccompanied, but she is a talented girl. Handel is always fitting, in a way.

  I closed the card – stiff, and the colour of clotted cream – and folded it, and was startled to find on the front an oval portrait of Mama in black and white, which Nigel must have found in some old album. In remembrance of Nina Larkin. It appeared to have been taken when Papa was still alive, and showed her young and healthy, with eyes almost squeezed shut and untidy hair which meant she was out in her beloved garden. Not one I would have chosen if he’d asked, but I supposed it was quite a suitable choice in the end. I stared and stared at it, and remembered the way she would stamp her feet on those mats before tracking soil onto the tiles in the lower room overlooking the hills at the back. How she would laugh at her own badly-pronounced Italian. How she would gather us together in the kitchen and dole out little errands and tasks, which had to be completed before we could all sit down to some board game or other, or before she would drive us all to the communal swimming pool at Sesto Fiorentino.

  My shoes hurt, and I wished I had worn something warmer. I wished for thick socks. I wished for
a companion I could exchange glances with. Someone to hold my hand. There was no one in the world who could take the role. Unaccompanied, I felt like a maiden aunt, a spinster, despite having emerged – quite in one piece, I suppose – from a long marriage. I was uncomfortable and longed to return home. For the first time in my life … no, it could not have been the first time; I yearned for a daughter. She would have led me home. I swallowed hard.

  Where was home? I was suddenly drifting and had no anchor, no home port. No real mooring. If my home in Melbourne had any meaning left, it was the location from where John had left. Had left me. I was starting to form the unfortunate decision to sell, despite all the thought and love I had poured into the place. Ah – the gorgeous garden, the absolutely perfect rooms. They would now serve only to mock what it was all about. Comfort without warmth, with no sympathy, would be the only thing they would provide.

  Did I only think such thoughts because I was so far away? I needed a home rather badly now, and my old room up in the Fiesole house would have to serve. Nigel would have to ‘turn up the heating a notch’, however, or I would die of cold and damp.

  One of the final clauses in the will left us all perplexed. We were all urged to pay special visits to Matilde, on separate days, in order not to tire her out. Why Mama made it so plain in the will was understandable to a point, but mystifying in another way, since it was inevitable we would visit the old woman who was such a faithful old nurse, cook, maid, nanny and everything else to us in our childhood, for the last time. She and Mama had a special friendship and understanding. Of course we would all go. She did not have to bid us to do so in such a formal, legal way. The notary peered over his glasses at us, one by one, giving Brod’s name three firm syllables, Brod-er-rick, and nodding when he saw agreement in all our eyes.