The Silent Fountain

by Victoria Fox

  In future, I will look back at that day as the perfect moment before everything changed. For, by the time Max and I return to his apartment, the sun fading in the pink-streaked sky and the first tentative stars beginning to prick their canopy, we could never have anticipated the revelation that awaited us there.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  It would be easy for Vivien Lockhart to close her eyes and never open them again.

  She is tired, a tiredness close to death. Her bones are weary, her limbs heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the ocean, her mind thick and cobwebbed…

  Adalina enters with her medication. The bottles are lined up on her table, and suddenly Adalina isn’t there any more. Vivien blinks, concentrates hard. Yes, there she is; there’s the maid, smiling at her, younger today than she has been in a while.

  Vivien reaches for her, touches the other woman’s arm before her fingertips trip into thin air.

  Gone again.

  ‘Adalina…’ she whispers. ‘Lili.’ Nothing. Nobody.

  Perhaps the maid will come back later. Perhaps she was never here in the first place. Vivien sighs and rolls over, reaching for her pills. One, two, three, down with water, their hard plastic shells lodging momentarily in her throat before she swallows.

  Alfie…

  Her son’s name swoops into her head.

  Don’t leave me. Come with me. I’m waiting.

  He would catch her. They would be together again.

  Vivien rings the bell at the side of her bed, and listens for Adalina’s footsteps. She hears none, just the sound of birdsong outside her window, that forbidden world she has not stepped into in decades. And then occasionally she will experience a flash of being in a car, driving or being driven, and the Duomo coming into view like a half-marble left on a beach, glinting in the light. She will see the roads and the lemon groves, and it feels a bit like her old life, in America, playing a part and reading a script, and feeling that rich and intoxicating sense of stepping into another person’s shoes, forgetting herself and who she was, embracing another woman for a day.

  Adalina isn’t coming.

  Next to the bell, her fingers touch the card. Max’s aunt says she is sorry. You will know what that means. Vivien knows. And so, clearly, does the girl.

  Vivien lets a thin rasp escape her lips. Finally, it’s out, the secret she has kept buried all this time. Guilt? Perhaps. Sorrow? Most definitely. But at the root of it just an immense, hollow sadness, a sadness that has crippled her all these years and now prepares to finish her off. The pills are a temporary measure; she has always known that, and welcomed it, because what does this life still hold for her?

  If only she could explain it to him. If she could see her husband one more time and tell him she was sorry; that if it weren’t for her selfishness, they might still be living here as a family. Alfie and Gio, her boys, the loves of her life.

  Disappeared, just like the rest.

  The smell of smoke brings her back to the present, a subtle burn emerging through an open window. She remembers a dropped match, a hungry flame, a bright glow… but she cannot place it. Salvatore must be having a bonfire. It’s all he is good for these days, the old habits. She supposes they all are, both are, whatever.

  Vivien sits up in bed. The movement steals every ounce of her energy.

  The girl knows. She knows.

  Carefully, Vivien lowers her legs from the bed. She can do it, one last push. She has to. Pulling on her coat, she gathers her strength. It’s time.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Vivien, Italy, 1986

  ‘This is it, Lili, look.’ The next morning, Vivien thrust the box in front of Adalina. ‘The ring, the note – they were together: Isabella and her uncle!’

  It had taken every ounce of will not to wake the maid in the middle of the night, show her the discovery and share it. She had turned it round and round in the dark, attempting to fathom the impossible truth. Isabella would have been a teenager when they had lived in this house, Giacomo Dinapoli three times her age. Images shot through her mind of Isabella flirting with Gilbert – did the sister possess a weakness for older men? Had she been involved with Dinapoli the whole time? Was this a secret she had kept at all costs from Gio? Vivien soared at the possibility. At last, something Gio didn’t know. Surely, he didn’t know. He thought he knew everything about his precious, flawless, guileless Isabella… only he didn’t know this.

  It was a payoff beyond measure – a treasure she could never have hoped for.

  But now, instead of the gratifying response she had expected from Adalina, the maid put a hand over the ring box and looked directly at Vivien.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  Vivien blinked. ‘What do you mean, what am I going to do? You know full well what I’m going to do. And it’s perfect now – don’t you see? This is as good as a suicide note – we don’t even have to forge anything!’

  Adalina shook her head. ‘There is no “we”, signora.’

  ‘Fine, fine, whatever.’ She waved a hand. ‘It’s a gift. It’s a get-out.’

  Adalina was quiet.

  ‘Lili,’ said Vivien, ‘I’m sorry I lied about my father. I should have been truthful with you but I hope you can understand why I wasn’t.’

  ‘Of course I understand,’ said Adalina.

  ‘Then what’s the matter?’

  The maid released her hold on the ring box, pushing it gently across the counter so that it sat between them, lonely and small.

  ‘Please don’t go through with it,’ she said.

  The wind was snatched from Vivien’s sails. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You cannot. It’s wrong. It’s evil. It’s murder.’

  Vivien gritted her teeth. ‘I’ve explained this to you, Lili. I thought you were on my side. It’s her or me. Never doubt that. You know what you saw – you know she tried to kill me. She tried to kill my unborn child. She made it clear then that whoever acts first wins. This time, it has to be me. I cannot risk my son’s life or my own.’

  Adalina chose her words carefully.

  ‘I wonder if this changes things,’ she said.

  ‘Changes what?’ Vivien said sharply.

  ‘Isabella was a victim.’ Adalina gestured to the box. ‘Giacomo Dinapoli was a man of extremes: he had a fearsome temper and an obsessive insanity. I cannot imagine what he put her through.’

  ‘Then it runs in the family.’

  ‘Please, signora, consider it.’

  ‘I am considering it!’ Vivien stormed. ‘Isabella has to go – and if you’re too weak to help me then I’ll manage on my own.’

  ‘How are you going to explain it to your husband?’

  ‘I won’t have to. The note says it all.’

  ‘To be faced with her suicide will destroy him.’

  ‘He will still have me.’

  ‘She’s his sister,’ Adalina countered. ‘And if he ever found out, he would leave you. He would take Alfie with him. You would never see either of them again.’

  Vivien stumbled, momentarily floored. She thought of Gio’s tears, his heartache. No. She had to be strong. This is for both of us.

  ‘Gio doesn’t know Isabella like I do. He’s in denial.’

  ‘What about your father being alive? What will Signor Moretti say when he finds out about that?’

  ‘It’s her or me, Lili,’ said Vivien viciously. ‘And as long as it’s her then Gio need never know a thing. She’s the only one who’d give me away.’

  Adalina lifted her chin. Brave fear brimmed in her eyes. ‘Is she?’

  Vivien blinked. ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she said.

  ‘I would and I will,’ said Adalina, her voice quaking, ‘if you refuse to back down. You cannot harm Signora Isabella. It is an unforgivable route and I’m sorry that I entertained it even for a moment. I demand that you abandon it this instant.’

  Vivien laughed. ‘You cannot demand anything of me.’

  ‘It will only lead to di
saster.’

  ‘What would you know about disaster? Isabella Moretti is a walking disaster and I cannot allow her to threaten me any longer. Or you, for that matter!’

  ‘Will you murder me as well?’

  Vivien gripped the side of the counter. ‘You betray me, Lili. I thought you were my friend.’

  ‘I am your friend and this is my way of protecting you. What happened on the stairs… the fall… It was a long time ago. Is it possible that she’s changed?’

  Vivien couldn’t believe her ears. ‘She’s got you fooled, too, has she?’

  ‘That girl has suffered,’ said the maid, ‘more terribly than we know. She’s a victim. She was Dinapoli’s prey. Don’t make her yours, too. You must forsake this reckless plan. You alone should be the one to tell your husband about Gilbert, not me and not Salve and certainly not Isabella. You cannot run any more. This is where it ends. Here. Now. In deciding you forgive.’

  ‘I will never forgive what she’s done.’

  ‘You’ll never forgive yourself if you go through with it.’

  ‘At least I’ll be alive to consider it!’

  ‘Do you really think she would hurt Alfie? She loves that boy.’

  ‘Ha! She wouldn’t know love for anyone but Gio if it hit her in the face.’

  ‘She adores your son. I’ve seen her with him – so gentle, so patient.’

  ‘Lili, you’ve lost your mind.’

  ‘I haven’t. It’s you who is not thinking clearly.’

  Vivien’s mouth dried, her arguments like bullets firing into nothing. She felt her ammunition running low, grasping for a refill and finding none. This was meant to be the beginning of the end for Isabella, the perfect storm. What was happening?

  ‘Isabella has more in common with you than you realise,’ Adalina said, as she prepared to deliver the last blast in her arsenal. ‘You’ve both been terrorised by men. You’ve both been crushed. You’ve both been hurt and beaten and damaged. You’ve both done things to survive and you’ve both got scars to prove it. What happened to solidarity? To compassion? Read that note again, Vivien.’ She held up Isabella’s plea. Help me. Save me. I beg you. ‘Read it and tell me you feel nothing. That you’ve never wished for the same. Isabella must have been a similar age to you, when you ran away from home. A despairing girl, fighting for her life – just like you. I wonder whether she hid from him, as you hid from your father. I wonder whether she barricaded her door. I wonder whether she wept at his feet and begged him silently to stop. I wonder whether she dreamed of escaping, but never found the resources to do it.’

  Vivien was stunned. For the first time since her discovery in the fish’s mouth – since Gilbert’s arrival, truthfully – she stopped. She stopped thinking at a thousand miles an hour, plots forming and shifting and growing and changing, never once pausing to measure what it meant, or what had developed. Astonished at the potency of Adalina’s spirit, a potency she would never have attributed to the mild-mannered maid, a leak started to appear, a fissure in her resolve, a crack that melted and spread.

  But I hate her. I hate her.

  Vivien’s shoulders sagged. The battle seeped out of her.

  ‘Oh, Lili.’ She brought her hand to her face. ‘I’m tired of fighting.’

  The maid came round to hold her shoulders, and when Vivien started to weep she held her close. ‘It’s all right, signora…’ She rubbed her back. ‘It will be all right.’

  ‘Will it?’

  Adalina pulled back. She forced Vivien to look at her.

  ‘Do you trust me?’ she said.

  Vivien nodded.

  ‘Then give it to me.’

  Vivien hesitated, but knew she would. She reached into her robe and collected the toxic vial. She handed it to Adalina, who closed it in her fist.

  ‘This is the right thing,’ said Adalina. ‘No harm will come to you. I swear it.’

  *

  Vivien paced between the walls of the Oval. Conversations whirled in her head – with Lili, with Gilbert, the many fights she’d had with Gio. Gio. She pictured kissing him in their early days, his wild hair and his soft mouth – how would she account for her father? How could she defend her invention? She could see no way out – no way that he would ever be able to trust her again. Yes, Isabella had ruined so much of their love – but Vivien herself had sabotaged it right from the start. Right from when she told him that her parents were dead. When Gio had later confided his loss, she should have come clean. She’d had so many opportunities to do the right thing and she had failed. Why did she always fail? Why did everything she touched rot and die?

  The leaves whispered. She’s done it now. Silly girl. Stupid girl.

  The thought of Gilbert inside the Barbarossa chilled her. At breakfast that morning he had torn into croissants, sloshed out juice, slathered butter on toast. She could not stand to look at him, hating him more with every second.

  Desperately, she implored the sky.

  So you’re the God that brought him back to me, are you? How could you? How could you do this to me? Clouds drifted. The sky returned her gaze, blankly.

  At first, the voice seemed to come out of the blue. Then she turned, startled.

  ‘I’ll say it was me.’

  Isabella was standing at the entrance to the garden, beneath a delicate golden arbour. Her hair was braided prettily around her crown, like The Lady of Shalott; she wore no make-up. She appeared young, adolescent, almost innocent. Almost.

  ‘What did you say?’ Vivien’s voice shook.

  The sister repeated: ‘I’ll tell Gio it was me. It was my fault.’

  Vivien stepped back, frightened. She didn’t know what Isabella was talking about. All she knew was that she was vulnerable, here alone, a sitting target.

  ‘I’ll say I convinced you to keep him secret,’ Isabella said. Her expression gave little away. Her almond eyes were black. ‘I’ll say that you were ready to tell Gio that your father was alive – it was just a lie you told because you loved him – but I persuaded you otherwise. I told you it would hurt him. You wanted to give the truth but I was the one who stopped you.’

  The women stood opposite each other, tentative as wolves.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ said Vivien hollowly.

  Isabella was the first to move. She went to one of the benches and sat.

  ‘Because I’m sorry,’ she said, hands clasped in her lap.

  Vivien’s own hands were unsteady. Had she heard right?

  ‘I know what I’ve done to your life,’ Isabella said. ‘It’s been deliberate, I admit. I was jealous. I have been from the beginning. I hate how much my brother loves you. He loves you more than he loves me and I couldn’t – I can’t – bear it.’

  Vivien tried to slow her rival’s words, welcome each one as the sweet, sweet victory it was. How she had longed to hear Isabella confess! How she had longed to hear her grovel! Could it be happening? Was Isabella really sitting before her, ashamed, regretful, desperate to make amends? She couldn’t believe it.

  ‘He always loved me most,’ said Isabella, ‘and it was the only love I knew. Until you, Vivien, there were women, but I always knew he put me first. But when you came along, he didn’t love me in the same way any more. I came second. And why shouldn’t I? I’m only his sister. But if I didn’t have him, I didn’t have anything.’

  Vivien wanted her to say it all again. Say it when Gio was here.

  ‘I know about you and Dinapoli,’ Vivien said, on impulse.

  Isabella’s eyes snapped up.

  ‘I found the ring box.’

  Isabella was silent, as she had been so many times. Vivien questioned if that whole mute saga had been a ruse, a convenience to avoid interaction with strangers, Isabella’s way of coping with what had befallen her under Giacomo Dinapoli’s reign. Vivien knew all too well how a man could pinch out every shred of light and hope.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Isabella, but there wasn’t any conviction in it. It
was a token denial, an obligatory pretence. Empty.

  ‘I know what your uncle did to you,’ said Vivien, and she was surprised at her own soft tone, the sympathy that emerged despite her better judgement.

  Isabella glanced away. The beautiful victim.

  ‘You don’t have to pretend any more,’ said Vivien. And when Isabella met her eye this time, it was a new Isabella. The guard was down; the insolence, the resentment, the mist of antipathy evaporated, and with amazement and no small degree of gladness Vivien realised that Gio, too, had been deceived. Gio had no clue about this part of her life. Isabella faked with him as much as with everyone else.

  Vivien was the only person who had her true confidence. And Isabella, in turn, had hers. Isabella, who knew about the secret she had kept from Gio – moreover, the reasons she’d done it – and was prepared to stand with her shoulder to shoulder.

  It didn’t seem real.

  ‘Will you tell my brother about Giacomo?’ Isabella choked.

  Vivien set her jaw. ‘Will you tell him about Gilbert?’

  Isabella shook her head.

  ‘No, then,’ said Vivien. ‘I won’t.’

  Seconds passed where the women assessed one another.

  Then, as if they had been friends their whole lives instead of enemies, Isabella told her story. She told Vivien about the boat on which her mother and father had died. She told about being sent to the Barbarossa to live under Giacomo Dinapoli’s care. She told about how Gio was the only sane thing in her life during those years, and how she had protected the purity and clarity of that love by refusing to confide in him when their uncle’s attacks started happening. Vivien heard how, beneath the guise of finding Isabella a cure, Dinapoli had instead spent his days grooming his niece into slavery. All those hours in which Gio had imagined them to be working on restoring his sister’s voice, Dinapoli had been up in that attic silencing her. Oh, he had silenced her. He had silenced her with his hand, with his fist, with parts of his body that Vivien didn’t need to be told about. He had silenced her for years and years beyond his welcome death, for Isabella had never felt able to speak about it until now. She had never felt able to speak at all. Silence became her only power.