The Silent Fountain

by Victoria Fox

  Vivien looked into the bowl. She could think of a million things that needed to be done, but none within Adalina’s power. The aubergine turned her stomach.

  ‘Oh, Lili…’

  She couldn’t be bothered keeping up the pretence any more. No, she wasn’t fine. No, she wasn’t OK. No, she wasn’t just spending time away from the castillo because she found it draughty this time of year in some of the bigger rooms. For so much of her life, she had pretended a carefree disposition, as if by repeating one’s wellness to oneself the invention might actually come true. She was tired of it. Since her argument with Gio, she was tired of everything. She woke in the morning in the Lilac Room, forgetting then remembering that Gio wasn’t next to her, and she felt such bone-crushing tiredness in body as well as spirit, that it took every ounce she had just to get out of bed. Adalina’s kind words brought it crashing down.

  ‘I love him so much,’ she told the maid. ‘But I…’ She thought how to say it then decided on the truth. ‘But I hate her. I know what happened to her and I’m sorry for that but I can’t pay for it with my marriage. She’s made my life a misery since the moment she stepped into it. I’ve tried, Lili. You do believe me, don’t you? I’ve tried. I know how important she is to Gio. But I can’t do this any more – I can’t!’

  Adalina sat next to her. The maid had worked for many a mansion in which the secrets were as multiple and varied as the chambers themselves. It was true that all the money and standing in the world could not secure happiness. The lady of the house was a film star. She was also a human being.

  ‘He feels the same about you,’ she said kindly. ‘We see a lot, Salve and I.’

  ‘Then you’ll have seen what a fool she’s made of me!’

  ‘You are no fool.’

  ‘Aren’t I?’ Vivien swiped her tears. ‘I should never have let her into our lives. I should have said no from the start. No, Gio, I can’t do it. I can’t share you with her!’

  ‘Have you tried talking to your husband?’

  ‘Yes.’ Vivien sobbed. ‘That’s why I’m here. He can’t bear to look at me after I made him choose. He chose her, of course.’

  ‘He said that?’

  Vivien gulped. ‘He didn’t need to.’

  Adalina was quiet for a moment. ‘May I speak frankly, signora?’

  ‘That’s all I want right now – the truth.’

  ‘I think you need to realise the power you have in this house. You are Signor Moretti’s wife. He chose you when he married you. You are the most important woman in his life and, if I might risk speaking out of turn, you should start behaving like it, instead of hiding here with us. In doing that, you are letting your rival win.’

  Your rival…

  ‘You agree, then?’ Vivien turned to her. ‘You agree she’s out to get me? I’m not imagining it? Gio thinks I’m mad, that I’m making it up!’

  ‘I think this is about you and your husband. Why make it about her?’

  ‘Because she’s got it in for me,’ Vivien said bitterly. ‘She’ll do anything to tear Gio and me apart. She can’t wait to see us fail.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you are showing her now?’

  Vivien thought about it.

  ‘Go to your husband,’ counselled Adalina. ‘If you have each other’s love, the rest will follow. Your love has nothing to do with anyone else.’

  Vivien looked again at her lunch. It no longer made her feel sick. She took a spoonful and it tasted slightly strange in her mouth, but not unpleasant.

  ‘Better?’ asked Adalina.

  ‘I think so,’ whispered Vivien, and she smiled at the maid.

  *

  Vivien returned to the castillo that night, having spent the afternoon in reflection. Adalina’s words gave her confidence not just to reclaim her position as lady of the Barbarossa, but also the conviction that she had acquired a firm female ally who was prepared to stand in her corner. Adalina was the friend she’d always wanted: she was wise and generous, patient and intuitive. Vivien could let her guard down completely. She didn’t find that easy to do, but with Lili, she could. Now, she had to reconcile with Gio. Kiss him, hold him, and tell him all she must.

  An odd sensation overtook her as she was approaching the fountain. She stopped, put a hand on the stone to steady herself, and swallowed hard.

  The fish with its open mouth stared back at her, choking silver. It had always bothered her that the water didn’t quite run smooth from its fossilised pout, a slush and gurgle, as if the wretched creature had something caught in its throat. She felt dizzy, the ground tipping before righting itself. Bile rose in her chest then receded.

  After a moment, it passed.

  Instinctively, Vivien rested a hand on her stomach. The sun emerged from behind a drift of cloud and illuminated the water, making it sparkle.

  She knew.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Waiting for Gio to return to the castillo was excruciating. She tried to distract herself with tidying already immaculate spaces, writing letters or finally brushing the dirt off a set of paints he had given her last Christmas, and sketching a twist of roses from her bench in the Oval garden. Nothing worked. She was counting down the minutes.

  At six p.m., earlier than usual, Vivien heard his car on the drive. She rushed downstairs to greet him, saw the glimmer of relief that crossed his face when he saw her, surprise that swiftly turned to pleasure. The old Gio; the one she fell for.

  He forgives me. He loves me.

  It was all she cared about. Even seeing Isabella emerge from the passenger side, when she’d thought the sister had been upstairs in her attic all day, couldn’t dampen her spirits. Vivien ran into his open arms. Gio stroked her hair.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ he murmured. ‘So much.’

  ‘I’ve missed you, too.’ She looped her arms round his neck and kissed him. Over the roof of the car, Isabella’s glare bored into her and she kissed him harder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Gio whispered into her shoulder.

  ‘So am I.’ Vivien caught Isabella’s eye. ‘But none of that matters now.’

  As she led him inside, she asked, ‘How was your day?’ She wanted to keep things light, afraid that if she didn’t, she would simply blurt her news. It had to be special, just the two of them. It took some effort to focus on Gio’s reply, partly because it constituted his usual litany of non-specifics but also because she was reliving the moment earlier today when her whole world had changed. Already she was savouring it, as if it had happened years ago, a golden moment of nostalgia. She had relegated the tests to the back of the cabinet, having been faced with bad news too many times, and she’d had to check they were still in date. But it wasn’t with the customary nerves that she set about the process – today she was calm, decided, focused, because in her heart she’d already been sure of the answer. A minute, maybe two, and there it was. An explosion of sheer happiness, the bubble of anxiety that had enveloped her these past weeks burst in a single flare. I’m pregnant.

  The thought of the life growing inside her was as bizarre as it was magical. Apart from a niggling sickness that came and went, she felt just like herself. What had she expected? Some integral shift, perhaps, a moving of the earth’s axis or a tilting of the stars, but it was all the more incredible for its normality. She imagined the cells multiplying into life, settling into their bed for the next nine months, a daughter or a son, the baby she had longed for. Her heart swelled with love and promised a prize she’d thought was beyond her. Hope blossomed inside her as certain as her child.

  ‘… Bella came with me. I thought she could do with getting out of the house.’

  Gio concluded his account, and the abruptness of this final statement regained Vivien’s attention. She looked about her and Isabella was gone.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘I have something for you.’

  Once in the bedroom, Gio threw her on the sheets. ‘Is this it?’ His hands roamed her body, her breasts and her legs, t
he mistake and misery of their time apart renewing his appetite. ‘Perdonami, Viv, I’m sorry for what happened. I never want to upset you – it’s the last thing I want. We’re OK, aren’t we?’

  ‘We’re better than OK.’ She took his face and held it so she could see into his different-coloured eyes. ‘Gio, do you know why I married you?’

  ‘I like to think I do.’

  ‘Then I don’t need to say it. But what I will say is that I married you for better or worse, all of you, all that’s important to you, including your family.’

  Gio put his lips to hers. I love this man so much, she thought.

  ‘And our family,’ she whispered.

  He pulled back. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, we have a family now, too.’ Vivien guided his fingers to her stomach.

  His eyes widened, one black, one green – would their child have the same?

  Vivien nodded, her joy brimming over, sheer, untempered joy for the first time in years, and Gio kissed her again, this time with a refreshed, ravenous hunger that said so much more than words ever could. Everything was going to be fine.

  *

  The next morning, Gio woke her with breakfast in bed, a tray bursting with delights: sugary pastries, zesty orange juice, cappuccino and a single rose in a vase.

  Vivien pushed herself up on the pillows and gave him a sleepy, grateful smile.

  ‘I’m taking you for lunch, as well,’ said Gio. ‘Zeferelli’s, just us.’

  Zeferelli’s was her favourite. ‘That sounds wonderful.’

  ‘Well, there’s the both of you to feed now.’ He set down the tray and kissed her lips. ‘You’ve got to keep your strength up.’

  The smell of the cappuccino made her queasy. ‘I’ll have Adalina bring up some tea instead,’ said Gio, moving to go, but she stopped him.

  ‘Let’s enjoy this a moment longer,’ said Vivien. And so he sat with her while she ate the pastries, and they talked about whether their child would be a boy or a girl, who it might look like, whether it would inherit Vivien’s creativity or Gio’s scientific mind, her blonde or his darkness, Gio’s height or her petite frame.

  ‘I can’t wait to meet them.’ Vivien beamed.

  ‘Them?’ Gio feigned alarm.

  ‘It could be twins…’ Vivien teased, and Gio started to tell a story about the identical twins he had been to school with, and the incredible bond between siblings.

  ‘That reminds me,’ he said, ‘I told Bella. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought, with things as they are, it might be best coming from me. And the thing is, Viv,’ he lowered his voice, ‘she’s so happy for us. She told me she was pleased because she knew we’d been trying and how much of a strain that had been putting on you.’

  Vivien’s voice was tight. ‘She said that?’

  ‘I can show you – she wrote it down for me. I think this proves how the two of you can get along, don’t you?’ His optimism stung. ‘I really think this whole situation has got out of hand. Bella wants to be your friend. In time, she’d like to be your sister. And she can’t wait to become an aunt to this little one.’

  An aunt. The idea of Isabella being in any way related to Vivien’s child was horrendous. But what could she do? Isabella had her brother so tightly wound round her finger that he no longer knew which way was up. Vivien resolved to keep her lips sealed, determined not to let their conflict disrupt her happiness. She would simply have to accept that Isabella’s place in her husband’s life would never change. All she could do was ensure that her own place, and her child’s, was ultimately more important. She could do that by embracing her role as doting wife and mother.

  Vivien swallowed her misgivings. ‘I can’t wait for that, too.’

  *

  Isabella, it transpired, was determined to make herself useful. ‘She wants you to know she’s thinking of you,’ said Gio, ‘because she can’t tell you herself.’ Having spent most of her time at the Barbarossa in exile, Isabella was now set upon helping around the house, sweeping floors and cleaning bedrooms, all the jobs that were customarily Adalina’s domain. Vivien watched the charade with some amusement, unsure what to make of it. She found herself enjoying the maid’s quiet exasperation; Lili was far too professional to let on, but Vivien saw her annoyance grow by the day.

  In the third month of the pregnancy, she and Gio went for a private scan. Despite the reassurance of her morning sickness, Vivien couldn’t quite believe the wonder of her circumstances until she saw that tiny bean on the screen. Immediately, she fell in love with it. Hello, she thought, as she squeezed Gio’s hand, I know you. The whole thing still felt like a fantastic dream from which she could at any second wake up. But no, there it was, in black and white, definite: their incredible baby.

  Back at the castle, Gio kissed her goodbye: he was due at the lab at midday. ‘You take care of us,’ he said before he left, placing a hand on her belly. She had never felt so intimate with her husband, as if a sheltering force surrounded them.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘I mean it, bellissima. I wish I could stay home and look after you myself. Let Adalina and Isabella do the work. You have to rest, all right?’

  The intensity of his concern was endearing – doubly so for making partners of the maid and the sister. Isabella had finally been demoted, and Vivien could at last assume her rightful role in his eyes, as one to be protected and revered.

  Vivien was in such a good mood that she called hello to Isabella when she walked into the hall, peeling off her aubergine-leather gloves and dropping them on the telephone desk. It gratified her that Isabella was cleaning the floor, swishing her mop back and forth, the gentle phish and whoosh as she moved across the tiles, leaving a slick of slippery water in her wake. Adalina had been right – all she’d had to do was assert herself, and she had done so in the most effective way possible. Vivien was the woman of this great castle, its joint custodian, and her precious child would soon be heir. The pregnancy put her in an untouchable state. Isabella could only go so far in her demands. She had nothing against the imminence of her brother’s offspring.

  Isabella gave a gentle nod. She extended to Vivien a shy smile – at least it might have been a smile, or as close to one as Isabella could get.

  ‘You don’t need to do all this,’ Vivien tried. ‘That’s what the staff are for.’

  For a second, she thought the sister might speak. But no – just an echo of that strange half-smile, before Isabella resumed her task and continued towards the stairs.

  Vivien swept up to her quarters to change. She hoped that Gio wouldn’t be too late tonight as she was hoping to cook his favourite meal, with help from Lili for the chocolate tiramisu. Then they would fall asleep, safe in each other’s cocoon.

  So wrapped up was she in these thoughts that, on returning to the corridor and hurrying to meet the steps, she felt her foot meet something hard and round at the very top that, for a moment, seemed to support her weight before escaping from beneath her. There followed a brief, sliver-thin moment of panic, coupled with something like disbelief that this should happen now, on such an ordinary day, when she was doing nothing more unusual than wandering down to the kitchens while listening to the rain pattering on the windows, before Vivien tumbled forward, the stairs coming to meet her, and when her head hit the tiles she lost consciousness.

  The last thing she saw was Isabella, halfway down, the dripping mop in her hand. Her black eyes gleamed, glittering and triumphant.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Italy, Summer 2016

  Adalina finds me on the floor. I must have fallen backwards, back against the banister, and Salvatore has gone. Perhaps I passed out, because all I remember is the painting going up, bright, bright orange, and then this. Now. Adalina’s scream…

  ‘No!’ she howls. ‘No!’

  There is no getting past the flames. They are solid heat. Get up, I instruct myself, move. Then I’m staggering down the stairs, the fire like a wall behind me, threatening with e
ach second to spread to the panels, the mahogany chest, devouring all in its path. Into the kitchen, where by the pale light of the moon I fill a basin with water, back up the stairs, into the fire and it fizzes, waning, so I do the same again. It doesn’t sound like only Adalina screaming; it sounds like another woman, maybe two more, and a high, urgent, reedy cry that ricochets at angles across the vaulted ceiling. As I stumble with the water, I’m reminded of that Northern Line station and the cacophony of cries that followed me into fresh air, all those varied pitches and every one accusing.

  The blaze at last extinguished, Adalina sinks against the wall. Her skin is blackened and slick with soot, her hair untied from its usual severe bun. Her features wear an expression of such sadness that the anger I’m expecting is delayed for a while. For a moment, she reminds me of someone; just a glimmer of a suggestion and it’s too hazy to pinpoint. A woman I saw once, someone I think I knew…

  ‘Adalina…?’

  My voice doesn’t sound like my own. I go towards her.

  ‘What have you done?’ she rasps.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I’m in shock. ‘It was an accident.’

  She drops to the floor, and the victim of the crime. The portrait is scarcely recognisable as a person any more. The frame has melted and the canvas is smeared with black, curled up round the edges like hardened glue. One of the sitter’s eyes remains, a green, piercing glint of light that shimmers out like a jewel on the ocean bed. That eye seems to watch me, and I place it immediately. It’s the same man I saw when I first arrived at the Barbarossa, the man I believe to be Vivien’s husband.

  ‘As if it wasn’t enough to lose him the first time,’ Adalina whispers.