by Victoria Fox
The hunt is on. But as I listen to the birds in the Italian sky and the distant peal of a bell ringing out over sun-drenched hills, it seems, for the first time, less important than it did. James seems less important than he did. Not so long ago, I would have seized this as an opportunity to speak to him. Now, I’m not sure I want to.
What could he do for me anyway? I hear the exchange, plain as day.
Me: Hi. It’s been a while.
Him: You shouldn’t call.
We need to talk.
What about?
Don’t be like this.
It’s over, Lucy. I told you.
He would give me nothing more. What was there left to give?
There was a time when, in my imaginings, we would have been reunited. James would declare his love despite it all, say how he’d missed me and he wanted me back, and I would have believed every word. I would have believed, too, that nothing mattered except our love. No amount of backlash or criticism, no matter how we’d be ostracised, our love would protect and heal. Now, it’s as if the fog has cleared. It will never be like that. There are too many people to consider, too much hurt and too many memories. Real life. The difficulty of a future, his kids, and the tragedy they would take a lifetime to get over. This perfect picture I’ve been carrying around, refusing to let go or to listen to Bill when she told me the truth, is a farce – a selfish fantasy that put James and me as the central players, when in fact it was never about us. It was about a mother and her children, and the devastation we caused.
He’ll never be yours. He’ll always be mine.
That’s why I need to speak to Vivien.
It’s almost as if she could have worn my clothes thirty years ago – another time, another woman, another heart broken. It’s almost as if Grace Calloway could have written that note especially for me. As if she intended all along for me to find it.
*
That night, we have a power cut. They are common at the Barbarossa, apparently, and Adalina has a supply of candles ready in the store cupboard. She lights one and takes it to Vivien’s room. I am left to sort through the butts of wax with a flashlight, until enough are aflame that I can see by their glow alone. Some look ancient, their wicks buried in wax, shapes molten and deformed, and the thought of them illuminating the castillo all these decades past gives our dark, silent night a pleasing kind of context.
The building appears changed in the soft, flickering light. Every noise is amplified, every crack and bump pronounced. Tree branches brush the windowpanes like fingers tapping to get in. I envisage the cold, pitch-black attic, and shiver.
I’m mounting the staircase when I hear him.
‘I saw you in Vivien’s room.’
The voice causes me such alarm that I gasp out loud. Salvatore is behind me on the stairs, his features lit orange and his expression jumping in the uncertain glow. All around, the shrouded portraits swell like oil in water; the faces behind them are with us, as real as us, for this is the space between light and dark where all other boundaries cease to exist. Salvatore’s face is curious, not accusing.
‘I was sent there,’ I lie. ‘I had to fetch something.’
‘She’s not who you think she is,’ he says. ‘Neither of them is.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You should go. Go home. Go away. Before it’s too late.’
‘Tell me what you mean.’
‘Can you hear it?’ His voice drops to a whisper. ‘I can, if I listen. Shh – listen. There. There it is. Can you hear it?’
And then I think I do. It’s so faint, faint enough to be a trick of the wind or a quirk of the building, to fade in and away from my awareness… but it’s there.
‘Can you hear it?’
He’s mad. Even Max thinks so. Don’t listen to him.
But there it is again, clearer this time but still faded and feeble, obscured by the channels of the mansion but also by some greater distance beyond.
‘That’s the baby,’ he says. ‘The baby never left.’
I stumble back, and almost trip up the step behind me.
‘Only she knows what happened,’ he says. ‘She made me stay because she was afraid I’d talk. That I’d tell everyone what happened. But they’d never believe me. Salve’s crazy, that’s what they say. You would be, too, if you’d seen what I had.’
He advances towards me. I turn to run, and the next part happens in pieces. The candle tips from my hand; I go to steady it and the flame catches hold of some piece of material, its tongue touching black and then racing to fiery red. It goes up in a whoosh. The sheet covering the portrait screams back at us, yellows and blues and all fierce colours of fury, until I begin to see the contours of the painted face behind it, and hear the racing thunder of Adalina’s footsteps as she approaches like the wind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Vivien, Italy, 1984
Time passed, and Vivien had no choice but to tell Gio that she had been trying to get pregnant. No way was she letting Isabella get there first, make out in one of the poisonous notes she scribbled that Vivien was trying to entrap him. Gio might have been livid at the deception were it not for the tempering circumstances. Vivien was in tears. Without him knowing, they had been trying to conceive for over two years.
‘Is it me?’ was Gio’s first question.
‘I don’t know. It might be me. I don’t know.’
Vivien sat on their bed, the scene of their failure. Once, these sheets had been a tangle of passion and promise; now, they wafted disappointment like stale air.
‘Should we see someone?’ she asked helplessly.
‘A doctor?’ Gio frowned.
‘Maybe. I mean, I want this…’ That was an understatement. Vivien thought of nothing else. Each cycle, she convinced herself this might be it, spotted phantom clues where there were none, a brief tummy ache, headaches, dizziness, hot spells, only to visit the bathroom that night and find her dreams crushed.
‘You want it too, don’t you?’ She looked up at him.
‘Of course,’ said Gio. ‘But it’s best we keep this to ourselves. It’s a small community, I’d sooner people didn’t know our business.’
‘I’m not sure how much more disappointment I can take!’ Vivien stood with arms folded, and went to the window. She looked down at the fountain, its stone contours blurring with the tears in her eyes; its fish splurging water was somehow a taunting symbol of abundant fertility, designed to belittle her. She had taken control of so much in her life, but this was something over which she had no jurisdiction. It was a lottery, a stupid fucking lottery where people like her parents could have children and treat them so badly that they ran away from home, and people like her and Gio could live in opulence and have love in their hearts and yet that joy remained perpetually beyond reach. Vivien could feel the weight of a baby in her arms. She coveted it so much it hurt.
Thou shalt not covet, Gilbert had preached from his pulpit.
Look at me now, Daddy, she thought. I’m still a catastrophe.
I’m still the Devil’s child.
‘It’s been years for me, Gio. You’ve only just found out, but for me…’
‘For you it’s worse?’
Vivien couldn’t blame the pinch of antagonism in her husband’s words. She had no right to pitch her frustration against his. It wasn’t his fault he had been kept in the dark. ‘No.’ She turned, swiped the tears away. ‘I’m sorry. I just know what a wonderful father you’d make and I want to be able to give that to you.’
‘So do I. But, bella, there are things we could try…’
His term of endearment strangled her. The same name he called his sister.
‘Like what?’
‘I’ll find out. We can solve this. We’re strong enough.’
Vivien didn’t know if she was. Her desire clouded everything. Every detail was sent to torment her. In the village, children played on the green, their dust-caked knees and tiny elbows and wrists like daggers in her back. She
saw schools run out to play, children’s books in the library, kids queueing for the bus while holding hands with their parents, and she knew she had to possess that bond. It was a closeness she’d never had with her own mother and father. She had to see if she had it in her; to prove that it hadn’t been her with the problem, just like Gilbert always said it was. She was capable of love because she had found it with Gio. She wasn’t the awful girl she had been led to believe, frozen out of God’s heart because she hadn’t obeyed her father.
‘Viv…?’ Gio put his hands on her shoulders. ‘We are strong, aren’t we?’
She glanced away, sniffed, said yes.
‘I can’t understand why you didn’t tell me,’ he said.
‘I’m telling you now.’
‘When you wanted to start trying, I mean. OK, it was a little earlier than we’d planned, but we could have adjusted our expectations…’
‘Could we? What with your work—’
‘To hell with work.’ His face darkened and she didn’t push it. Now wasn’t the time. She needed to see the Gio she recognised, not the haunted, angry version she had come to associate with his job. He could be like two men – the noble, gentle one she loved, and the vicious, unpredictable one she… No, that was silly. She loved him all over. That was why they had to welcome a baby: they had so much love to give it.
‘All right, then, what about Isabella?’ Vivien was careful. Isabella’s name was like the cap holding back a dam of water and it would be so easy to let the whole lot out. ‘You were worried about her. And anyway, the situation’s far from ideal.’
‘What situation?’ His voice took on a defensive edge.
‘You, me, her – the three of us here.’
‘I thought you were content with that. We’ve discussed it enough times.’
‘I am,’ she fibbed. ‘But you must admit it’s not an ideal scene to bring a child into. Isabella’s a confusing person. It wouldn’t be a normal upbringing.’
‘And mine was?’
‘This isn’t about that.’
‘And yours was?’
‘That either.’
‘It didn’t stop you going ahead, though, did it? If you were so concerned about bringing a child into this situation, you should have carried on using protection.’
She was stunned at his words, the malice in them, and at how quickly his temper caught light. The speed and potency of it made her afraid. She stepped back, not recognising the man in front of her. She’s getting to you, she thought; Isabella’s turning you against me. But now she had started, she found she couldn’t stop. She pushed it further, mumbling her next words but fully intending him to hear them.
‘I suppose I hoped she’d have left by now.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said: I hoped she’d have left by now. It’s been four years, Gio. She’s with us all the time – I can’t get away from her!’
‘You knew about Isabella when you married me.’
‘I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, did I? And while we’re on the subject, that’s why I’m telling you now: because if I hadn’t, Isabella would. She blackmailed me, Gio. She’d do anything to come between us.’
Gio snorted. ‘Don’t be absurd.’
‘I’m not. She asked me what was taking so long. She wrote it down.’
‘Let’s see the evidence.’
‘I threw it away. I panicked.’
‘Right.’
‘Why do you need to see evidence anyway?’ she blazed. ‘I’m your wife.’
‘I suspect you misunderstood, that’s all.’
‘What is there to misunderstand? Isabella’s hated me from the start – and, believe me, she’s enjoying every second of this. She walks around with her hand on her stomach, mocking me. My being barren is all her dreams come true.’
‘This is lunacy.’
‘Is it? What about the wedding dress, Gio?’
‘Not this again.’
‘Not what again?’ The dam was gushing. ‘I told you – she did it.’
‘And I told you. I asked her and she didn’t know a thing about it. Come on, it’s not as if you didn’t piss anyone else off in Hollywood. Most likely it was one of those actresses whose husbands you were screwing.’
It was like being slapped. Gio had never shown such spitefulness before. Vivien could taste her dismay. Why was he being like this?
‘How dare you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, turning from her, his shoulders tense. ‘But you don’t understand.’
‘What don’t I understand?’
There was a long pause. She feared he was about to say something irrevocable like: Me. You don’t understand me. But he didn’t. I do understand you, she wanted to scream. But look at what she’s doing to us! Look at who you’ve become!
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said eventually, ‘forget it.’
As if she could.
‘Does the fact we’re married count for nothing?’ she whispered. ‘That you’re meant to be on my side, above all others? You should have written your own vows, Gio. You should have included your sister as a fucking caveat.’
He faced her. But instead of regret in his eyes, there was wrath.
‘Can’t you see it?’ Vivien dared to tread further. She had passed the point of no return; there was no going back. ‘She’s constantly undermining me – at Halloween that first year, on your birthday, the way she steamrollers me with the staff…’
‘How can a mute steamroller? You’ve lost your goddamn mind.’
‘Isabella has her ways. She’s cleverer than you know.’
But Vivien was in no doubt that Gio knew exactly how clever Isabella was – and then some. She was beleaguered by distrust, waking in the night to what she thought was a void where her husband should have lain, hearing whispers through the walls, a woman’s laugh, talking, talking, Isabella talking, the two of them upstairs in her attic doing who knew what, only to surface from the trance and seem to find him on the other side of her sweat-drenched bed sheets, still there, always there.
Is he right? Am I losing it?
Gio was hitting back, but she couldn’t hear a thing. She didn’t want to hear. Every word he uttered was in support of his sister and she couldn’t bear it any longer. She couldn’t live like this. He had to decide.
‘It’s her or me, Gio. I mean it.’
The room plunged into silence. Gio’s expression pierced her heart, their once simple, true love shattered by abominable Isabella. Immediately, she wanted to claw back her words. If she didn’t have Gio, she had nothing.
All she had left was here. He was it. The Barbarossa was it.
‘Don’t do this, Vivien.’
Her mouth opened but no sound came out. He had given his answer.
She opened the door to their bedroom and fled downstairs, out on to the terrace, down the drive, and kept walking, anywhere, anywhere, but there.
*
All week, she stayed out of her husband’s way. It wasn’t difficult: Gio left at dawn and returned at dusk. A couple of times, he tried to approach her – but the wound was still raw. Unless he was about to say, Bella means nothing to me, it’s you I love, and if you want me to get rid of her, I will, it could fix nothing. Even as she thought that, she knew how implausible it sounded. As if they were referencing a mistress.
She’s his sister.
His sister.
The irony was that if Gio had said that, and meant it, she would have ceased to have a problem with Isabella, and, actually, there would be no need for Isabella to go. But Gio had never reassured her of his preference – that, in a disaster, it would be his wife he would save. Was it unreasonable of her to want that? She didn’t know.
She only knew that it hurt.
Vivien left them to it. She let the siblings re-enter the make-believe world they had conjured here as children, let them dine alone at the grand table, let them wander the gardens together after dark, sitting on the old stone fountain
, shoulder to shoulder.
What poison drops did Isabella leave in his ear?
Vivien spent her time in the staff quarters, veering between wild thoughts of returning to Hollywood and those of venturing to far-flung lands alone, taking a trip to India, or Egypt, all the while dreaming about Gio realising his mistake and missing her unbearably. Her dreams turned into elaborate fantasies of Isabella trying to make him happy and failing, or of the sister finally showing her true colours through some despicable act and Gio falling to his knees having been shown the light, regretting so terribly the words he had thrown Vivien’s way. Then he would travel the earth in an attempt to track her down, and when he did she would tell him it was all right, that she had never stopped loving him, and now, at last, they could be man and wife…
Her thoughts came to nothing, as days passed and her fantasies failed to solidify. But the fantasies alone were almost enough. Vivien found that, inside her head, she could fabricate an alternate reality so real and convincing that there was little need for follow-through. She fantasised about hurting Isabella, or about Isabella being in need and begging for her forgiveness. She fantasised about being a person in this house who wasn’t eternally left in the cold, looking in from the outside through a window frosted by the Morettis’ indestructible bond.
Hadn’t she always been like this? The one on the periphery, standing alone, wondering what it might feel like to be drawn into the fold… When Vivien had been young, for years she’d thought the expression was lonely child, not only child.
Adalina and Salvatore were perplexed by her behaviour but discreet enough not to pry. Once, Vivien would have been self-conscious at how her exile must look, but now, she didn’t care. Salvatore was the epitome of courtesy, standing back to let her pass, addressing her formally at all times, and seeming not to notice when he came into the kitchen carrying kindling, only to find her sitting alone, staring into the fire. Adalina, meanwhile, prepared meals for the house and brought Vivien’s to her separately, with no questions asked. On one occasion, seeing Vivien’s meek smile of thanks as she set down the melanzane parmigiana she’d requested that morning, Adalina lingered at the door. ‘Can I do anything else for you, signora?’
