by Fanny Blake
‘Look’ and ‘quickly’ – two words that Eve would never have put together when it came to Rose’s love of art. However, she followed her towards the altar.
By the time they’d seen the small fresco – ‘Hands like a prizefighter’ was Eve’s response, which earned her a quick glare then a resigned shrug – a crowd was hovering around the brightly lit vaulted side chapel. The guests trooped down the red carpet to the sound of organ music, stopping and chattering, finding their seats. The clamour at the cathedral door increased as the bystanders separated to reveal the groom, a slight young man drowned in a shiny blue suit (‘Bought for him to grow into,’ whispered Rose), his hair greased into place and a look of terror in his eyes. Beside him walked a beaming older woman (‘His mother?’ wondered Eve), who nodded greetings at those she recognised. She led him down the red carpet to the altar, where he stood waiting.
‘Just like a lamb to the slaughter,’ whispered Eve.
‘Here comes the lucky woman.’ Rose nodded in the direction of the bride, who stepped into the cathedral on the arm of her father. Unlike her groom, the buxom young woman was like a well-plumped white satin cushion, a picture of glowing expectation.
‘Look at her shoes,’ muttered Eve as the bride swept past. The hem of the bridal gown was lifted enough to show off a pair of towering heels that raised the bride to a full five foot two or thereabouts. The organ music paused as a medieval-uniformed herald trumpeted her approach. When the fanfare died away, the familiar notes of Handel’s Wedding March struck up. The groom turned, a nervous smile lighting up his face.
‘Little do they know what lies ahead.’ Eve was already heading for the door.
‘Cynic! Where’s your spirit of romance?’ Rose tore herself reluctantly away from the ceremony.
‘Lost in a reality check years ago.’ So many of those early expectations that came with her marriage to Terry had tarnished with age or rubbed away altogether. ‘Don’t tell me yours has survived unscathed. I won’t believe you!’
Outside, despite the shade offered by the narrow old streets, it was hotter than ever. They stuck close to the tall buildings until they entered the loggia at the top of the Piazza Grande. Passing through one busy café after another, they finally spotted Daniel staring across the sloping square where another bride and groom were posing for photos on the steps of the old tribunal palace. Opposite him, Anna was gesticulating wildly as she made a point, minuscule roll-up in one hand, smoke pluming from her mouth. His face was as solemn as hers was excited.
When she stopped, Daniel shrugged, apparently unmoved. He looked around as Rose touched his shoulder, a small complicit smile crossing his face. The speed at which Rose removed her hand struck Eve as unusual.
‘You’ll never guess what,’ he said. ‘Anna’s asked me to support her in her latest plan. She’s going to open a nursery.’
Eve heard Rose’s gasp, although Daniel showed no sign that he thought the idea was in any way preposterous.
‘Really?’ she said weakly.
‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ Anna rounded on them. ‘But I need some financial help to get me going.’
‘Some help?’ Dan interrupted. ‘You’re asking me to finance you to the tune of thousands of pounds.’
‘But Anna,’ Rose protested, alarmed. ‘Have you had enough experience of teaching?’
‘What?’ Her daughter turned on her, her face pinched with irritation. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Opening a school means . . .’ Rose stopped as Daniel smiled broadly, Anna wound like a spring beside him, both their eyes on her.
‘She’s talking about a garden centre,’ Daniel explained. ‘Not a school, darling.’ He sounded as if he was talking to a three-year-old. ‘She wants me to back her . . . again.’
Eve stifled a laugh. This was obviously not the moment.
‘And you won’t? I should have known.’ The ten-year-old Anna revealed herself in the pout, the crossing of her arms and the angry toss of her head.
‘Did I say that?’ Daniel finished his coffee. ‘No. What I said was that I would need to see some proper financial projections that would convince me the project was viable. I need to meet this Rick, if he’s going to be your partner, and listen to what he has to say too.’
‘Exactly. You won’t.’ She reached into her tobacco pouch for her cigarette papers.
‘Anna, listen to me,’ insisted Daniel. ‘No one with half a business brain would lend you the money without them. I’m surprised that you thought I might. You’re asking for a considerable investment, not a packet of sweets. Besides, what about Jess? I’d need to square things with her. No, this has to be a proper business arrangement between us.’
‘That’s just an excuse. You’re against it on principal because I’ve had some bad luck in the past. This time I’ve got the ideas and the support. I’m older and I’ve learned from my mistakes. It can’t go wrong. You’ll see.’ She began to roll another cigarette, her mouth set, her shoulders tense. ‘We might as well go now.’
‘Perhaps we should,’ agreed Rose, wondering when Rick had come into the picture. She would find out later, no doubt. ‘I need to pick up a few bits and pieces for tonight on the way home.’
While Daniel went inside to find the waiter, Anna stood up. ‘I think I’ll go on ahead. He can be so bloody unreasonable.’ She put the shoulder strap of her bag over her head, bangles rattling, and walked off.
‘Can’t you try to talk some sense into her?’ Rose begged. ‘She won’t listen to me. I need to go to the deli; I’ll meet you all back at the car.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ Eve promised, even though Anna was no more likely to listen to her than she was to Rose.
Anna was heading across the sloping square towards the church in the far corner. By the time Eve had elbowed her way through a bunch of Lycra-clad cyclists who’d dropped their cycles where they’d got off them and were showering bottles of water over each other, her quarry had disappeared between the buildings. Wondering whether she wouldn’t be better removing her sandals, which were now rubbing on her other foot too, Eve limped after her, biting the corner of her lip to displace the pain.
She eventually caught up at a row of canvas-covered street stalls. Anna was talking to one of the stallholders who was surrounded by cages of small birds. Eve approached just as her niece handed over cash in exchange for a cage containing two zebra finches.
‘What are you doing, Anna? You’re not taking them back in the car? You can’t. The poor things.’ Having been sent ahead to put matters right, Eve realised that the situation had already slipped right out of her grasp.
Bar a long-suffering glance, Anna ignored her. Not entirely surprised by the lack of reaction (four children of her own meant she knew what to expect), Eve watched as Anna put the cage on the ground, opened the door and reached inside for one of the birds. She held it cupped in her hands. A few passers-by had stopped to see what she was doing, but she ignored them. She held the bird up, looking into its beady frightened eyes, kissed its orange beak then tossed it into the air.
A knot of people gathered round her, cheering. There was a click of a camera as she reached down for the second bird. Playing to her growing audience, she stood, showed it around, then repeated the performance. The second bird flew upwards to join the other where it sat on a tree branch. For a moment they looked down at the crowd before disappearing together through the branches above them into the sky.
‘Freedom, Eve. We’re all entitled to that.’ Anna handed the cage back to the open-mouthed stallholder and wiped her hands on her skirt, looking satisfied with what she had just done.
Eve said nothing. Perhaps this was not the best moment to remind Anna of birds of prey, of nature red in tooth and claw, of the fact that freedom often came at a price.
6
Rose’s harmonious family holiday was in free fall. Experience should have taught her, but she had successfully blanked all those nightmare holiday moments from the past, which now rushe
d unbidden into her mind – trapped in a freezing Welsh cottage, rain battering at the windows, with only one jigsaw that was missing the vital pieces; losing Anna on a crowded beach; Jess burning her hand on a Calor gas light that had been left on the floor during a power cut; the hire boat capsizing when Dan insisted on diving off it – each one a cause for upset or reproach. Back then, an argument could be resolved, a mood transformed, a doctor called, a game begun, the TV switched on. But now . . . now things were very different.
She sat slumped at the kitchen table. How had they ended up with two daughters who, so many years later, could still cause them so much heartache? Was it the way she and Daniel had brought them up? As for Daniel . . . the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that had been lodged there since the previous day gave another roll. If only everyone would disappear so they could talk. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Perhaps she had overreacted and things hadn’t gone as far as she feared.
Jess had still not returned her phone call. Not even a message. Of course, she was busy managing Trevarrick all day, but was that also a convenient excuse not to contact her? Had Daniel finally driven a permanent wedge between them? But surely Jess realised that her father would come round in the end.
Meanwhile Anna, who had endured the drive back from Arezzo without another word to any of them before refusing lunch, was now sulking by the pool. Rose had gone down to try to persuade her to eat something, but Anna’s head was turned away, her eyes firmly shut, her earphones in. The message was clear.
Daniel had been unusually quiet since they’d returned. As soon as he could, he had shut himself in the study under pretext of work that needed to be done. Miss. Love. Come back. The words tormented Rose.
She had noticed Terry’s surprised reaction to Daniel’s departure. When her brother holidayed, he didn’t muddle pleasure with work. Never. His life was organised within an inch of itself with each of its compartments distinct from the rest. However, since they’d been back, Terry and Eve had clearly had some kind of tiff and were now barely speaking. He had retired to the sitting room, where he was glued to Sky Sports, the sound of the excited commentary just audible in the kitchen. Eve had disappeared to their room to sleep off the couple of large glasses of white wine she’d downed at lunch in the face of Terry’s obvious disapproval – again.
Rose picked up her mobile and stared at Jess’s number. She could put herself out of her misery by simply making the call. Her finger hovered, then pressed the home button. Nothing worse than a nagging mother. Nothing. Not that she had had one to compare herself to. Her mother had lived a life at one remove from her children, often retiring to bed ‘tired and emotional’ after too much refreshment or when she was feeling under par. Nonetheless, when Jess got married, Rose had made herself a shortlist of don’ts as a reminder.
Don’t nag.
Don’t worry.
Don’t interfere.
Don’t moan.
Don’t compare.
Don’t be wise after the event.
Don’t treat them like children.
She suspected that she’d failed on all counts already.
She tucked the phone into her apron pocket, and turned her attention to weighing out the flour to make Eve’s birthday brownies for that evening’s celebration. Every year Eve asked her not to make a fuss, and every year Rose took no notice. Eve would be so let down if there weren’t a party, however low key. Besides, having something to do occupied her. Cooking was a great soother of the soul. Breaking the eggs into the sugar, she balanced the bowl on a damp cloth to steady it and began to beat them with strong, regular strokes. Comforted by the rhythm, her thoughts wandered back to Daniel and Terry.
During all the years he’d looked after the hotel’s finances, nothing of Terry’s pragmatic attitude towards business had rubbed off on Daniel. Her husband’s work–life balance was non-existent and always had been. Where Terry could delegate, Daniel hated handing over responsibility for anything, even to his brother-in-law or daughter, the two people he probably trusted the most. As a result, he was on call twenty-four/seven. Rose was used to him disappearing to take care of whatever needed his attention and reappearing when things were sorted. Her own involvement in the business had ended years ago, when she chose to be a full-time mum, and she was grateful that Daniel had embraced so wholeheartedly what her parents had left them. But her recent discovery had thrown his absences into question. For the first time, her trust in him had been rocked.
Rose’s only company was a tiny lizard poised motionless halfway up the wall by the door. She wrapped a couple of handfuls of walnuts in a tea towel and crushed them with the end of a rolling pin. It was hot in the kitchen, despite the sun never penetrating the furthest reaches of the room. The shaft that did enter the doorway acted as a sundial. As it narrowed and slanted more obliquely towards the dresser, she knew it must be nearing five o’clock. She wiped her face with the edge of her apron.
Humming ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’ – one of her old school hymns – she eventually put the brownie mixture into the oven and began to clear up. She wasn’t religious, despite her haphazard C of E upbringing, but there was something soothing about the music of her childhood that she returned to without thinking when she needed a little balm in her life.
‘What is this? A funeral or something?’
Rose looked up at the sound of Anna’s voice. ‘Just singing to myself.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ Anna came over to put her arm round Rose’s shoulders, licking the middle finger of her other hand and wiping her mother’s cheek. ‘You’ve got flour all over your face!’
Her gesture revived times past when, to cries of protest, Rose would spit on the corner of a hankie to clean up the girls’ faces. She lifted a hand to her other cheek and gave it a swift rub.
‘Look, I brought these. Will they make up for my being such a sulky bitch?’ Anna handed over a small candy-striped paper bag.
As Rose opened the bag, she began to laugh. ‘They’re heaven! Where did you get them?’ In her hand lay ten cake candles: ten plump little pink wax bodies on sticks, five of them buxom in salmon-pink basques, white stockings and suspenders and five of them in posing pouches, bow ties and cuffs.
‘One of those gift shops that are full of crap no one needs – except for these.’
‘Eve’s going to love them.’ Rose slipped them back into the bag and put them next to the cooling rack.
‘Can I do anything?’ This was Anna’s way of making up.
Rose could feel her own relief at the return of Anna’s good humour. ‘Not really. But you could dig out the Happy Birthday banner and pin it up.’
‘Are you sure? Isn’t she a bit old for that sort of thing?’ Realising how scathing she sounded, Anna modified her tone. ‘Wouldn’t something a bit more sophisticated be better?’
‘If you can think of something, then by all means.’ But Rose knew that Anna, like the rest of them, relied on these totems from the past. These familiar and well-loved traditions saw them through every year.
Anna had already opened the cupboard at the far end of the room and was rootling about. ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe you kept this.’ She pulled out a broken piñata – a donkey made out of frills of green, yellow and pink paper, one ear hanging off, a useless remnant of her twenty-first party that Rose hadn’t been able to bring herself to throw away, for silly sentimental reasons. As she tried to unearth the banner, Anna spoke again, this time more tentatively. ‘You don’t think the idea of a garden centre’s mad, do you?’
The need for reassurance was a touching reminder of the child Anna had been.
Rose chose her words carefully. ‘No, not mad exactly.’
‘Well if not mad, then what?’ Immediately Anna was on the defensive. ‘It’s exactly what our area needs. Lots of gardens, nowhere to buy plants. It’s just a question of finding the right property.’
‘Really?’ Rose said vaguely as she tried to smooth out the crushed Happy Birthday banner, wishin
g she’d had the forethought to buy a new one. ‘I’m sure you could make it work. It’s just that—’
But Anna didn’t let her finish. ‘Well then, Dad’s just got to help us. You’ll talk to him, won’t you?’
So that was the reason for her apology. Good old Anna, always to be relied on to think of number one.
‘Darling, there’s no need for me to talk to him. All you have to do is produce the paperwork he’s asked for.’
‘I might have known you’d be on his side.’ Anna got up, the heel of her espadrille catching in the hem of her skirt. She righted it with a frustrated tug that ripped the stitching. ‘Shit!’ The bangles rattled.
‘I’m not on anyone’s side,’ protested Rose, but her words were wasted on her daughter, who was already disappearing down the corridor.
Rose sat back on her knees and sighed, closing her eyes and, with her thumbs pressing against her cheekbones, massaged her temples in slow, soothing circles while waiting for Anna to return. Her daughter never gave up that easily. If only she could be more like Jess instead of constantly swimming against the current. They had always been so different. While Jess worked in the hotel bar or as a chambermaid during the school holidays, Anna would be mucking out at the local riding school or working as a track hand at the nearby go-kart circuit. When Jess was at home playing or reading, Anna would escape for hours with their Border terrier, Button, down to the beach or the long wooded valley that stretched inland near the hotel. They had no need of the company of anyone else. Those days were easy in comparison with this.
She didn’t have to wait for long. The smell of the brownies was filling the kitchen when her daughter returned, obviously having composed herself to try again.
‘If it’s being fair to Jess that’s worrying you both, I really don’t think you should.’
‘I suspect that’s not Dad’s main concern.’ Leaving the banner on the table, Rose took the brownies from the oven, plunging a skewer into the nearest.
