Last Voyage of the Valentina

by Santa Montefiore

  Fitz stepped out onto the quay, his suitcase in one hand, a panama hat in the other. He didn’t recognize the young woman running toward him, calling his name. “Fitz, it’s me, Alba!” she exclaimed, registering the bewildered look on his face.

  “You’ve cut your hair!” he said, frowning. “You’re very brown too.” He traced his eyes up and down her thin dress, imprinted with flowers, and the simple black espadrilles she wore on her feet. She had changed so much. He wondered whether he had been wise to come. But then her smiling face was before him, her eyes bright with happiness, and he recognized the Alba he knew.

  “I missed you, Fitz,” she said, touching his arm, gazing up at him. “I missed you so much.” He put down his suitcase and drew her into his arms.

  “I missed you too, darling.” He kissed her temple.

  “I’m sorry I never telephoned,” she began.

  “No, I should apologize for never saying goodbye. I tried to, but I was too late. You had already gone.” He began to laugh. “Your stupid goat was eating through all Viv’s new plants!” She laughed too. It bubbled up from her belly like a delicious fountain.

  “Was she furious?”

  “Only for a moment. She misses you too.”

  “I have so much to tell you!”

  “And I you.”

  “You must stay at my grandmother’s house. There’s a spare room upstairs. I have my mother’s old room.” She linked her arm through his. He put his hat back on his head and picked up his suitcase. “Come and have a drink. I’ll tell Toto to take over. I have a job now. I work in the family business with my uncle and cousin. That,” she said, pointing proudly to the trattoria, “is it.”

  She found a table for Fitz and brought him a glass of wine and a bottle of water. “You must taste Immacolata’s delicious dishes,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Of course, she doesn’t cook now. She’s too old. But they are all her own recipes. Here, choose one. It’s on the house.” She handed him a menu.

  “You choose whatever you think I’ll like. I don’t want to waste time browsing when I can be talking to you.”

  She leaned forward, her brown face beaming at him contentedly. “You came,” she said softly.

  “I worried that you weren’t coming back.”

  “I didn’t think I could face you.”

  “Me?” He frowned. “Why on earth not?”

  “I realized how selfish I had been.”

  “Oh, Alba!”

  “No, really. I’ve had a lot of time to think and so much has happened. I realized that I hadn’t been very kind.”

  “I shouldn’t have let you go. It was my fault.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, Fitz, but the truth is you deserved better. I only ever thought of myself. I cringe now. There are moments in my life that I would quite happily rub out if I had the chance.” Fatman flitted through her mind, but without the habitual plummeting of the stomach. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “So am I.” He took her hand and caressed her skin with his thumb. “I like your hair short. It suits you.”

  “It suits the new me,” she said proudly. “I didn’t want to look like my mother anymore.”

  “So, did you find out all you wanted to know?”

  “I grew up with a dream, Fitz. It wasn’t real. Now I know the real woman. She was complicated. I don’t think she was very nice, actually. But I think I love her better now, warts and all.”

  “That’s good. Will you tell me about it later? Perhaps we could go for a walk. The Amalfi coast is famous for its beauty.”

  “Incantellaria is lovelier than anywhere else. I’ll show it to you once you’ve eaten. Then you must meet Immacolata, my grandmother, and Cosima, my cousin’s daughter. She’s just turned seven. She’s adorable.”

  “I thought you didn’t like children.”

  “Cosima’s special. She’s not like other children. She’s blood.”

  “God, you sound Italian!”

  “I am Italian. I feel right here. I belong.”

  “But Alba, I’ve come to take you home.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think I can face it. Not after what I’ve learned.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Whatever you have to face, my darling, you won’t face it alone. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  Her eyes, a moment ago so solemn, now lit up at the dish that was being placed in front of Fitz. “Ah, frittelle!”

  After lunch, Alba took him up the path through the rocks to see her mother’s grave beneath the olive tree. “We held a service a month ago to remember her. Before then she hadn’t been given a headstone. It’s nice, isn’t it, the headstone? We all chose it together.”

  Fitz bent down to read it. “What does it say?”

  “ ‘Valentina Fiorelli, the light of Incantellaria, the love of her family, now at peace with God.’”

  “Why didn’t she have a headstone?”

  Alba sat down beside him, drawing her legs underneath her. “Because she was murdered, Fitz, the night before her wedding. She was never married to my father.”

  “Good God!”

  “It would make a good book, so don’t tell Viv!”

  “I won’t. So tell me. From the beginning. What was she like?”

  Alba was happy to tell him everything.

  When Alba had finished her story, the sun was beginning to set, turning the sea to molten copper. The evening air was cool and smelled of dying foliage and leaves. Autumn was setting in. Fitz was moved by Valentina’s life, but more by Thomas Arbuckle’s plight. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about her, least of all share her with their daughter.

  “So you see,” she said gravely. “I can’t go back.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t face my father and Margo. I’m too ashamed.”

  “What utter nonsense. Didn’t you say that you love Valentina more now than you did before, because you know and understand her faults?”

  “Yes, but that’s different.”

  “No, it isn’t. I don’t love you in spite of your faults. I love you because of them. They make you different from everyone else, Alba. Loving isn’t about selecting only the good parts, it’s about taking the whole and loving the lot.”

  “I like it here because no one knows what I was like before. Here, they judge me as they see me.”

  “That means your father, Margo, and I love you more, because we’ve loved you all along.”

  “Now you’re being silly!” she said with a light laugh.

  “I’m not being silly when I say that I want you to marry me.” Fitz hadn’t intended to put it quite like that. He had envisaged a romantic buildup to his proposal.

  “What did you say?” The corners of her mouth curled up shyly.

  He delved into his pocket and brought out a crumpled piece of tissue paper. With trembling hands he unwrapped it to reveal a simple diamond ring. He took her left hand and slipped it onto her third finger. Without letting go, he looked deep into her eyes. “I said, Alba Arbuckle, will you take on a penniless literary agent who can offer you little more than love and an old, smelly dog?” The old Alba would have laughed at him, called him absurd, made him feel like a fool for asking. Or she might have accepted just for the fun of wearing such an exquisite ring. But now she gazed down at the diamond that glittered in the light. “It belonged to my grandmother,” he said. “I want it to belong to you.”

  “If you’ll have me,” she replied. “I would be lucky to marry a man as good as you, Fitzroy Davenport.”

  27

  T hey decided they would spend a couple of weeks in Incantellaria. That would give Alba time to say goodbye to her family. Then they would return to England. To Viv, the houseboat, Beechfield Park, her father and stepmother, and a new life together.

  “We will come back, won’t we?” she said, thinking of Cosima. “I’ll miss them all so much.”

  “You can come back every summer if you like.”

&
nbsp; “What I am going to tell that little girl?”

  “That it’s not goodbye.”

  “She’s already been deserted once by her mother. Now she’ll be left again by me. I can’t bear to hurt her.”

  “Darling, you’re not her mother.”

  Alba shook her head. “I’m the nearest thing to a mother she’s got. It’ll be unbearable.”

  Fitz kissed her and stroked her hair. “We’ll have children of our own, perhaps.”

  “I can’t imagine that.” Can’t imagine loving another child as much as Cosima, she thought bleakly.

  “Trust me.”

  She sighed in resignation. “It’s just that I’ve grown so attached to her.”

  “The world is getting smaller every day. It’s not so far, you know.” But Alba knew that Fitz couldn’t possibly understand her love for Cosima. It was the closest she had ever come to being a mother. Parting would break her heart.

  Alba took Fitz back to Immacolata’s house for dinner. To him it was a pretty building, typically Italian, cozy, vibrant, echoing with the laughter of a big family. Immacolata blessed him and smiled. To Fitz there was nothing unusual about her smile; he could not have known that once it was as rare as a rainbow. Beata and Falco welcomed him warmly in broken English, and Toto made jokes about the differences between Fitz’s normal urban surroundings and the provincial quiet of Incantellaria. Toto’s English was surprisingly good. Fitz immediately liked him. He had much the same easy manner as himself and a dry wit that he understood. When Cosima skipped into the room, he could see why Alba had grown to love her. She ran up and threw her thin arms around Alba’s waist, her curls bouncing around her face like corkscrews.

  When they sat down to dinner Alba announced their engagement. Toto made a toast; they all raised their glasses and admired the ring with enthusiasm. Yet beneath the excitement there lay an undertone of apprehension, for they all realized, except Cosima, that Alba would now be leaving them.

  Alba was quick to sense their disquiet but nervous of speaking of her departure in front of the child. She watched Cosima eating her prosciutto with gusto, chattering about what she had learned at school, the games she had played, and the anticipation of going shopping again with Alba now that the weather had grown colder and her summer dresses were all too thin. Alba caught Beata’s eye. The older woman smiled sympathetically. Alba was unable to communicate what lay at the forefront of her thoughts. On one hand, the prospect of marriage to Fitz made her extremely happy; on the other, leaving Incantellaria and Cosima eclipsed her happiness like a gray cloud floating in front of the sun. She sat in the shade while everyone around her sat in the light.

  After dinner Cosima went to bed, leaving the adults sitting chatting in the moonlight on the terrace beneath the vine. “So, when are you going to be leaving us?” Immacolata asked. Her voice had a hard edge. Alba understood why she felt resentful. They had only just found each other again.

  “I don’t know, nonna. Soon.”

  “She’ll come back to visit,” Fitz said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  Immacolata raised her chin defiantly. “That’s what Tommy said twenty-six years ago when he took her away. He did not bring her back. Not once.”

  “But I make my own decisions now. It won’t be easy for me to leave you all. I can do it if I know that I will return again soon.”

  Falco placed his large rough hand on his mother’s small one. “Mamma,” he said and his voice was a plea. “She has her own life to lead. Let’s be grateful for the part of her life that we have shared.”

  The old woman snorted. “What are you going to say to the child?” she said. “You will break her heart.”

  “And mine,” Alba added.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Toto, lighting a cigarette and throwing the match behind him. “She has all of us.”

  “It’s part of growing up,” said Falco gravely. “Things don’t always remain the same; neither do people.”

  “I’ll tell her tomorrow,” said Alba. “It’s not goodbye.”

  “Why can’t Fitz stay here with us?” Immacolata asked, settling her eyes on Fitz in a silent challenge. Fitz didn’t need to speak Italian to understand what she was suggesting.

  He looked embarrassed. “Because my business is in London.” Immacolata didn’t much like Fitz. He lacked passion.

  “You have made your choice,” she said to Alba, getting up. “But I don’t have to like it.”

  “I’m going to take Fitz to that old ruined castle tomorrow,” said Alba, keen to change the subject.

  Immacolata turned, her face as white as a corpse. “Palazzo Montelimone?” she croaked, leaning on the back of her chair.

  “There’s nothing to see,” Falco protested. He looked shiftily at his mother. Alba’s curiosity was ignited.

  “I’ve been meaning to go since I arrived. It is a ruin, isn’t it?” She tried to work out what silent communication passed between her grandmother and uncle.

  “It’s dangerous. The walls are crumbling. You mustn’t go,” Immacolata insisted.

  “Take him to Naples instead.”

  Alba backed down. Anything to make her grandmother happy. It was the least she could do, considering she was leaving. “Okay. We’ll go to Naples,” she said in English.

  “Naples it is then.” Fitz didn’t care where they went so long as they left the house.

  The following morning Alba borrowed Toto’s small Fiat and set off in the direction of Naples. She was disappointed. She had looked forward to exploring the ruin. It had sat temptingly on the hill attracting her gaze for months. She shouldn’t have told them she planned to go there. She should have just gone.

  “You’re very quiet,” said Fitz, watching her grim face staring at the road ahead.

  “I don’t want to go back to Naples,” she told him. “I’ve seen enough of it.”

  “We can have lunch in a nice restaurant and wander around. It won’t be so bad.”

  “No,” she said suddenly, the shadow passing off her features like a cloud. “I’m turning around. There’s something there, I just know it. Why else wouldn’t they want me to go? They’re still hiding something, I can feel it. And whatever it is, it’s up there in that palazzo.”

  The tires screeched on the hot road as Alba braked and steered the car back down the coast. They were both injected with enthusiasm and purpose, united on a mission, partners in crime.

  After a while they turned off the road that wove down the coast and set on up the hill in the direction of the palazzo. The lane began to grow steep and narrow. After a while it forked off to the right. The forest had almost covered it with shrubs and thorns and leaves, and the cypress trees that lined it cast their shade upon it so that they now drove in near darkness. When they arrived at the black iron gates, tall and imposing though peeling with neglect, she saw that they were locked with a padlock, and the lock itself was brown with rust. They climbed out of the car and looked through the bars first at the overgrown gardens, then at the house.

  An entire wall had collapsed and lay in ruins. Even the fallen stones were being gradually swallowed by ivy and other weeds. It was a compelling sight and one which drew them in. They had come this far; they weren’t about to turn around now. Alba looked about her and saw that if they didn’t mind suffering the odd scratch, they could squeeze through the shrubbery and climb over the wall. Fitz went first, the thorns tearing at his jeans. Then he turned to help Alba, whose short, flimsy sundress was inappropriate for such an expedition. When she jumped down on the other side she felt a surge of triumph. She brushed off her dress and licked her hand where the skin had been ripped.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m just a little nervous as to what we’re going to find.”

  “Perhaps we’ll find nothing at all.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I want to find something. I don’t want to go back to England with so many questions unanswered.”

  “Okay, Sherlo
ck, let’s go.”

  As they walked up the drive toward the house, she was struck by the cold. It was as if the palazzo were situated at the top of a high mountain with its very own climate. It had been a humid day and she had grown hot walking up the hill. But here, in the grounds of the house, there was an icy edge to the wind and she rubbed her arms to keep warm. The sun was high in the sky but still the house was set in shadow: gray, austere, and deserted. There was little feeling of life, not even from the gardens, where she could sense the movement of the bindweed as it crept silently over the grounds like evil snakes, winding its way in possession around the foliage it had already choked to death.

  One of the towers had toppled with the wall and lay across the garden like a fallen sentinel. The rooms exposed to the air were filled with leaves, and ivy climbed the floors and spread across the walls. Anything of any value had no doubt been looted. They scaled the rubble to enter the building and looked about in wonder. The paint could be seen through the leaves and moss, pale blue, like the sky at dawn. The moldings where the wall joined the ceiling were elaborate, the carving chipped in places like a row of old teeth. Alba scraped her foot over the floor to remove layers of dirt and forest, and found the marble still intact. A large oak door was still on its hinges. “Let’s go in there,” she suggested. Fitz strode over the rubble and found that the handle turned with ease. To their delight they walked through into the main body of the house where the forest had not yet trespassed.