A Funeral in Fiesole

by Rosanne Dingli

  ‘Well – you know about the records now, and the chess set, so it’s fair.’ He lifted his chin and thought a bit. ‘So do you think the girls …?’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘Hah – of course. This is Mama all over.’

  I wasn’t sure. ‘Is it like her? I don’t remember her like that at all. Not secretive or scheming.’

  Nigel shook his head again. ‘No – no, not scheming. Just clever, and wanting to make us happy. Planning gifts. She always planned gifts.’

  ‘Some gift! Three precious Persian rugs. Do you know …’ I stopped short of discussing value. I did not want to bring money into it.

  Neither did Nigel. He was circumspect. ‘Ha ha. Shall I tell you what I think? I think they’d be easily as valuable as a vast record collection of every bit of recorded music known to …’

  I laughed. ‘I have to agree. She was so clever.’

  ‘Mama was something else. The girls will either tell us or they won’t, but we can safely say they received something each – something both of them would value as much as you and I value what we got.’

  Grant joined us at this point, so conversation split and diverted to other things. It was nice outside. We suggested a walk down to the iron railing over the street, but Nigel stayed behind.

  ‘I told Nigel about the rugs.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Grant was still intent on his phone.

  ‘We still haven’t discussed the whole business of the inheritance with anyone, Grant.’

  He looked up, and the expression in his eyes was vague. ‘What’s to discuss? Too early, I think. Let everyone get used to things. Let some time pass.’

  ‘But do you think everyone will sign the acceptance this evening?’

  ‘Oh – is it this evening?’

  ‘Grant! The notary’s coming by. He’ll need a witness to the signatures. Will you …?’

  ‘Hmm. Why not? Will the others be okay with it?’

  We reached the wrought iron railing, which was choked with runners and weeds. It was still possible to lean over it to see the narrow street below. Yellow-painted houses with dark green shutters bounded both sides as far as one could see down, and up, to a bend where a whitewashed stone wall brimmed with foliage and flowers from what must have been another walled garden. I regarded at it all with some satisfaction. It smelled wonderful in rainy weather. If I had anything to do with it, Mama’s villa and garden would stay in the family forever. ‘We ought to talk to Paola, though. We must.’

  Grant assented absentmindedly, turned his back to the railing, and lifted eyes to the sky.

  ‘Do you know what annoys me about my brother?’

  ‘Nigel?’

  ‘Hmm. He always assumes a monopoly over music. Like he’s the only one … like his family’s the only family in the world that appreciates and knows about music.’

  ‘His kids are musicians.’ Grant looked up from the little phone screen.

  ‘But I mean, the music at the funeral!’’

  ‘I thought your mother left a list. A playlist.’

  ‘Good thing she did. We’d have had Gounod and Mendelsohn and the entire Verdi Requiem otherwise.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made a big difference to people like me, Brod. A choir’s a choir … you know. Orchestral music is orchestral music.’

  I bopped him on the arm. ‘You great big Philistine.’

  ‘My music taste is more … enough about my music taste. I can see it makes you angry. D’you know who would make this house absolutely wonderful? Do you know who would plan a smashing renovation? Tristan Horsfield.’

  ‘No!’

  He laughed. ‘You know he would.’

  There was a moment’s silence, in which the buzz of a distant motor scooter reached us from below.

  ‘We’re going to be pretty busy, Grant.’

  He shuffled, moved, pushed shoulders back and smiled.

  I didn’t need to say a word of explanation.

  He smiled again. ‘By the time we’re finished with our current plans, Brod, we’ll be so puffed out …’

  ‘Don’t say it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t say you’re growing old.’

  Grant smiled. ‘Ageing is like a neighbour erecting a three-storey house, which obliterates your perfect view of the most beautiful mountain in your country. You know it’s coming. You watch the piling of timbers, the arrival of a concrete mixer, delivery of pallets of bricks. In the same way as you watch the first few wrinkles, greying hairs, diminished agility. You know it’s coming, but the knowledge doesn’t reduce your sorrow. You mourn for the view. You grieve for your youth. You will never again see or photograph the changing colours, the screening of rain, the shafts of summer sun. It was there. You saw it. You will forever grieve its passing. You can’t bring it back.’

  ‘When you put it like …’

  He didn’t say any more.

  I didn’t say anything either. I saw what he was saying. There was no time for a family, least of all small babies. I could have said I’d changed my mind; that I’d thought it over properly, but there wasn’t a real need.

  Something Nigel said made me realize I wanted some of what he had; two teenagers whose successes and futures were an intrinsic part of him and Harriet. I knew I couldn’t have everything. I always wanted what the others had. All my life. Tonight, though, something in Nigel’s eyes had told me he wouldn’t mind a bit of what I had. It was a revelation. No one had ever envied me; I knew that much. His wife surely wanted some of what I had recently inherited.

  Grant pocketed his phone at last. ‘Your niece and nephew … they can come and stay whenever they like. I hope you’ll let them know they can.’

  I would. I seemed to feel they just might.

  Suzanna

  Crystal dishes

  I didn’t know what got into me, but the morning went differently to how I felt it should, and Lewis retreated into himself as usual. It was either Otto’s health, or something else – I didn’t know. When a dog wouldn’t touch his dinner, something had to be wrong.

  Dogs sensed tension. I thought the little creature sensed I had started to think differently about the will! He wouldn’t touch the wet stuff, or the little biscuits I put into a little glass dish on the kitchen floor.

  ‘This,’ Harriet pointed out, without emphasis, without raising her voice, without batting either of her enviable deep eyelids with super-long eyelashes, ‘is Bavarian crystal. It’s part of Mama’s complete set.’

  I looked at the dish. Otto looked at it too. He didn’t touch a single one of the biscuits. ‘I know, Harriet. We’ve been using those glass dishes since we were little. Matilde used to make us custards and things in them.’

  She busied herself with putting cutlery away. ‘All right, I suppose. Okay then.’

  I almost blurted out to her, there and then, that I’d noticed she was not happy about the house. I almost came out with the fact I’d been thinking about the agreement or acceptance or whatever the document was called, and wondered whether I should sign. I almost stated loudly and clearly I knew she was cut up about having to leave the house, and the grounds, and the garden, and the furnishings, and Mama’s complete set of Bavarian crystal dishes. ‘When’s the notary due?’

  ‘What?’ She whirled round, her mouth a pursed oval.

  Surely my question was not so surprising! ‘I mean – we’re all going to start leaving, aren’t we? We all have lives to go back to. Work, and a dozen other things. I have a boat to …’ I stopped. Confusion filled my mind. Everything was in utter disorder – my mind was mush. Paying so much for a magnificent boat would not be easy at all if I didn’t sign the acceptance.

  If one of us didn’t sign, it would be as if none of us signed, and the whole thing would turn into a contestation. A contestation! Something so complicated it would take years to dispute and decide and untangle. Lawyers would end up getting much more than we four could ever hope for. I swallowed hard. The house in Cornwall might be lost
. All those memories of Papa coming home with the wind in his hair, talking about the tide and the way the wind died or rose or blew or turned whatever. Paola was not the only one with memories. I had my share too.

  My ire bubbled up. I told myself I had to be nice to poor Harriet. ‘Lewis is so fed up of me he finally marched out for a walk on his own. He didn’t even take Otto.’

  ‘Oh! Fed up?’

  ‘I’m being beastly. Maybe… I don’t know.’

  Harriet went all funny. ‘Suzanna, it’s grief. We haven’t grieved long or deeply enough. Any of us.’ She seemed close to tears.

  I saw she was struggling with something too. ‘Are you all right, Harriet?’

  ‘Not really. Oh!’

  What a sigh it was.

  ‘If Nigel was here he’d put the kettle on and think he could fix everything in the world – set everything right and tickety-boo – with a pot of tea.’

  ‘Not such a bad idea.’

  She laughed. ‘You Larkins are all so different. Yet you’re all the same. You all speak with the same rhythms. Even Tad is so much like you all. As changeable as the weather. As steadfast as … as … this house.’ She filled the kettle with the silly gooseneck tap, which didn’t go with anything else in the place, and put it on the stove. ‘I think Nigel’s all right with the will. Are you all right with the will?’

  She could be so direct. It was the most annoying thing about her. I peeked inside Nigel’s tin for biscuits. ‘I think both the boys will sign. Paola is a bit of a closed box.’

  ‘A bit of an unknown quantity. Hm. You?’

  I looked out of the kitchen window. ‘Whether I think it’s fair or not, Harriet, signing is definitely the only way to get me my boat, without me having to go into all sorts of financial wrangles. My accountant will cheerfully wring my neck if I ask him anything else this year.’

  ‘But you sold a big franchise or something. It was the very first thing you said when you arrived.’

  I bit into a biscuit and noted the way she made the observation. ‘Yes, we did. It doesn’t mean we’ll see the money before three months are up. The way Mama devised the inheritance means I can do everything so comfortably. It’s pretty close to unbelievable.’

  ‘And yet …?’

  I sat in the spot – my old spot at our table – which gave me a view over the roof of the little house at the back and the line of trees out by the road. It made me feel all of twelve years old, and just as confused. ‘And yet, I hardly feel it’s fair.’

  ‘I thought you might be happy with your division.’

  Ah. I saw what it was. It was a bit of envy, and resentment. She and Nigel were struggling, and here I was, planning the purchase of a very expensive boat. To her it must have seemed like an impossible luxury. ‘My division? It’s perfect. Mama knew it was perfect. You know it’s perfect. Still, I can’t help thinking it’s not fair.’

  ‘How can it be perfect and not fair?’

  ‘It’s considerably more …’

  She started. ‘Oh! You think it’s unbalanced … in your favour.’

  She came around the table, lowered her head to gaze straight into my face, and put her hand on mine. A very unusual thing. Behind her, the kettle was boiling its head off.

  ‘The kettle.’

  ‘Never mind the kettle. I’m not Nigel. Listen, Suzanna – it’s dead straight. Fairer than anything in the world. Mama had it absolutely right. Don’t feel she didn’t. I’m satisfied she did.’ Harriet pulled away, twisted the stove knob and poured hot water into the pot. ‘Do you like it strong?’

  She made what she felt was strong tea, but it seemed pale to me. It didn’t matter. What did matter was her reassurance we were all getting what we wanted in the end. I wished Paola would say something similar! And Brod.

  I couldn’t wait for them to say something without a prompt from me. It would take ages, and Lewis was even now piling things into the car, if I knew anything about him. He liked to be ready ahead of time; organized, organized! He might not be a people person, but he was undoubtedly a things person.

  Paola and Brod had the most to discuss about the contents of the will, and neither of them had said a word so far. I thought it was Paola’s place, as the eldest, to gather us all for a final discussion before the notary arrived to witness us sign the precious piece of paper, which would make it all happen.

  I think it’s what she had tried to do the previous evening, before we all trooped down to the osteria. We all kept talking over what she said, and Nigel came out and said it wasn’t the time. What could he mean? What other time was there? We had no idea when all four of us would be in one place again. He was as maddening as his wife!

  Perhaps it was up to me. Why was it always up to me? Lewis was right. Everyone else had come to expect it of me over the years.

  And what I had to do first, Lewis or no Lewis, siblings or no siblings, was change my shoes and walk down over the uneven paving to the little house at the back. I could leave Otto to his dry kibble in the fancy old bowl for a while. He might work up an appetite on his own. Poor Otto!

  One did not bring one’s gardening shoes to such a reunion, definitely not to a funeral. I had to put on the oldest pair I brought, with the lowest heels. The little house at the back was only a courtyard’s length away. There were slippery patches, because of the recent rain, and a weedy sort of flowering bush erupting in various places through cracks. No doubt Brod would see prettiness in the image. Paola would be distressed and want it all to return to the condition the whole place was in when Mama cared for it. Nigel would consult me, and ask what I thought!

  And I would tell him. I’d say this place was not a patch on any house he cared to mention in Newquay, where the boats were visible from the house, and where surfers carried their boards right into the pubs.

  Memories of this small servants’ house helped, when the paving stopped suddenly at a wall with a tall window in it. Unlike the vast majority of windows in the area, the woodwork here was not the special signature dark green, but a vapid shade of blue. It was evidently sky blue once, but was flaking and faded now. I knew to turn right there and seek the front door down the side. When we were children it was sheltered by an arch covered in white climbing roses. All I saw now was an untidy mass of twigs and thorns, which came close to choking the entire doorway. Someone had cleared an opening very recently, so I could try the handle. The door was locked, but memory served me well, and I reached up as high as I could to the top of the doorway, under the metal lantern, and walked fingers on the narrow architrave ledge, beneath a lethal tangle of thorny twigs.

  The key fell to the paving with a single clang. Brown, rusty, it did show scratches where it had not long ago been inserted and twisted.

  I was in. The massive chimney breast over the fireplace in the front room was as I remembered it, only there were no Faenza plates hanging off the three hooks any longer. Two armchairs, a small table and a threadbare rug were grouped beside the hearth, and to one side stood an armadio; the same white-painted armadio I remembered, whose top I could hardly reach as a child. A dull mirror and a bald clothes brush hung on the far wall.

  The door to the passage stood open, but the one down the end was closed. Oh! It was as Matilde described. Yes. There it was. Thick curtains at the windows and rush matting on the floor meant it was insulated to a certain extent. Yes! My beautiful bookcase, my Chippendale break-front authentic bookcase was in pristine original condition. It was mine. Mine, mine! So Matilde said. Mama had left her secret instructions, and I was to tell no one.

  It was much more beautiful – and larger – than I remembered. The bottom drawer would indeed accommodate a hide-and-seeking child! Brilliant. For some reason it made me very happy. So very content. How could Mama guess I adored it so? It would fit perfectly in our drawing room at home, or the hall, and Lewis would see it stood on level flooring, filled with some of our books. Oh, perfect!

  Footsteps in the front room made me turn.

  ‘I
s this what Matilde was talking about, when your face lit up earlier?’

  ‘Yes, Lewis. Isn’t it beautiful?’

  He put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. ‘It will look fabulous in our house. You were right. It’s quite a piece. What’s such an amazing piece of English furniture doing in an old holiday home in Fiesole?’

  ‘Mama brought all sorts of things from Cornwall. She’d have them crated and sent. She felt nothing in interior décor beat an Italian house furnished the English way.’

  ‘But you preferred it in England.’

  ‘Of course. It’s where Papa … no one even mentions him anymore! It’s like he’s completely out of the picture.’

  He pulled me round and embraced me. ‘This is grieving time for Mama, sweetheart. It’s … they’re …’

  I snuggled into his broad chest, in the way I’d burrow into Papa’s. It stopped the tears, the angry tears, which threatened to come.

  ‘It’ll soon be time to get on our way. We’ll have the bookcase packed and shipped by someone professional, Suzanna – and it will be with us before long. The notary will be here at about noon, and after that, darling, we ought to drive off. For sure.’ He paused. ‘Are you going to sign?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’

  ‘Good. There’s all the stuff with the boat to think of. And Otto.’

  ‘Poor Otto.’

  ‘He’s getting on, Suzanna.’

  ‘We all are. I thought all us four siblings would be just the same…’

  ‘The same as ever? No one ever is. Everyone changes with age. Relationships change people. You said it yourself. You’ve changed – I’ve never seen you so sentimental … my hard-as-nails wife.’

  ‘Nigel’s morphed into another Harriet! Brod still wears awful clothes, and needs a good barber – but he’s calmed so dramatically … if you know what I mean. He’s not so envious any more. Then Paola …’

  ‘She’s still in shock, I think.’