I’m angry with Gigi because of this (isn’t it amazing what comes out of your mind when you simply sit down and write—I hadn’t admitted this to myself until I saw the words on the paper in front of me). She’s supposed to be my friend. Supposed to support me. And yet she can’t bring it upon herself to encourage my writing. There are a million books out there, a million more still to be written. Not all of us are meant to become the next Shakespeare, or Keats, or Hemingway. Not all of us will become famous or rich as a result of our work. Although it would be nice, perhaps for a few weeks, but then I know I’d want to run and hide away in a cottage by the sea, where no one could find me, unless I wanted them to.
What is it I’m craving? What is it I want but cannot seem to find? Is this normal, to be so distracted by everything the world has to offer and yet have absolutely no idea how you fit into it all?
It must be this time of year. The countdown to Christmas, when families are supposed to be together, put aside their differences and celebrate with too much food and wine. The Queen’s speech on the radio and backgammon played by the fire. Carols and mistletoe and skies filled with the promise of snow.
Only this year I will be here. Well, not here, in Rome, but with Giancarlo’s family. Gigi has extended her invitation to include me (luckily, Italian families seem to be ever so hospitable and always have an extra seat at the table). All because my father still hasn’t forgiven me for deserting him, for bringing shame to the family name by daring to go against his will. Anyone would think it was the nineteenth century, that women didn’t have the vote, or the right to bear arms, or actually have a brain inside their thick skulls.
But Mum wrote and told me it might be best to wait a little longer. At least until Henry and Bess have got married. (Didn’t take her long to slip into my place, to provide my former fiancé with some love and comfort. Fine friend she turned out to be.)
I know it was my decision to leave. I know I would have suffocated in that place, but part of me is afraid I might never be able to go back. How much longer before Dad forgives me? Because one day there won’t be any time left at all.
I’m trying very, very hard not to regret my actions. To look forward, to focus on everything that I have and I am happy, I am excited about where my next adventure will lead. It’s just sometimes I can’t help but think I might be asking for too much.
Noah wants me to go to him. That’s what the letter was about. He’s still in Italy, working at some fancy hotel until he can save enough money to buy his own boat. Gigi is adamant that I do nothing of the sort. But what if he’s my soulmate? Not all love stories are simple and without disagreement. In fact, aren’t they all somehow tainted and actually tested by the hands of fate? Could it be that Noah and I are actually destined to spend the rest of our lives together?
The end of his letter was like a poem. Just a few lines, but I’m sure he knew the effect they would have on me.
My heart is not as it was, before
You showed me what depth of love was possible.
My body knows not how to sleep, how to
Lie, due to the cold space you left behind.
Part of me wanted to burn his words, destroy his profession of love. For all I know, he’s given the same declaration to all his women. But I find him, the memory of him in bed, with me, so impossible to ignore. For when he is good, he is so very, very good. And kind and funny and he makes me breathe differently. As if he’s changed the way I choose to rise in the morning, drinking in the day. He makes me see the world anew, block out the noise, the modernity of life. Seek out what was there before and what will be long after we are all nothing more than worm food.
Rome is clearly getting to me. Either that or it’s all the pasta and gelato (yes, even in December I will eat my body weight in ice cream, because it is just heavenly). Every morning I hear the church bells, calling me out to the streets. I have ambled through flea markets and spent all my money on antique trinkets that I do not need but hang in the window to catch the light in such a way as to push rainbows onto my notebook.
I love everything about this city. The chatter of women as they hang their laundry from balconies, the shouts of children running up and down the streets. The very history etched into every dusty red brick that makes my heart ache for someone to share it all with.
CMR
16
STARLING
Sturnus vulgaris
Back to the wall Emily sat, legs out straight, with feet turned in, like a rag doll. She felt ragged and bedraggled and agitated and all kinds of other things her mind couldn’t find the words for.
So sure had she been that this was where the next, potentially final, clue would be. Hidden in the very same place her grandmother sent Ophelia at the end of the very last book. In the library where she hid the atlas, ready for the next person to discover it.
It was the exact same library Catriona had sat in, day after day, carving out the beginnings of her second novel. A story of two women living the same life, only three generations apart; one Emily now believed was about the choices her grandmother made and the life she turned away from. It made her question whether her grandmother’s decision to leave had haunted her ever since, and she suspected this journey was, in part, Catriona’s way of showing her how easy it was to accept your existence. Because owning up to your mistakes could be terrifying.
And you can’t escape your past, she thought. The ghosts just never let you be.
“Are you sure this is the right library?” Tyler was looking back at the building, eyes hidden behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, but Emily had no need to see to understand his doubts, his frustrations. She wanted to be gone from here, from him, just as much as he did her.
“Yes,” she said quietly, but she felt like screaming at him. It was the oldest public library in Rome. It was next to a church. Her grandmother’s initials were carved on the underside of the table where she told Emily she had always sat, at the very back, close to the wall, half hidden behind a giant, wooden globe.
“The librarian said so too,” Phoebe replied, kicking her toes against the wall.
The librarian had become rather flustered, rather animated, upon discovering who Emily was and why she was there. He had babbled an apology in broken English about not having a book for her, but asked if she would like to see the desk where Catriona Robinson had sat, written all of her books?
Not all of her books, Emily thought as she shuffled a little to the side, away from Phoebe and those dainty feet. Only one, and I doubt you’ve even read it.
Then there were the questions, the inevitable desire to know whether there was any truth to the rumors. Did it mean that the lost manuscript could be here, in Rome? Did Emily know what was in it? Would she be able to mention the library, and the librarian, by name, if he in some way had proven helpful to her search? Did she know what it was about, or could she, please, give him just one little clue?
Emily had crawled under the desk, traced her fingers over the C and R cut into the wood, had allowed them to venture further, over a scattering of tiny V’s that made her think of a child’s way of drawing a bird. She wondered what had made her grandmother decide to leave a piece of herself behind in so random, so obscure, a place. It gave her some comfort to know that the stories she had been told were true, that not everything in the books was pure make-believe, even if it was proving impossible to use them, to help her figure out what it was her grandmother was trying to show her.
“What about the shop?” Tyler lit a cigarette, smoke twirling into the sky, making Emily think of bonfires, fireworks, blowing through mittens and stamping her feet on frosty ground.
“No.” It felt like she was going around in circles, and nothing in the memories her grandmother had shared was helping.
“Why not?” Tyler took another drag, looked at Emily with slanted eyes. “Surely it’s worth a try?”
“I said no.”
“But the photograph is of them, here, in Rome. You told us i
t’s where they bought the very same locket you’re wearing.” Phoebe yawned, stretched her arms high to reveal a line of unblemished stomach.
Emily crossed her arms over her own torso, pictured the thick, silver line that ran around her left hip.
Phoebe looked down at Emily, then over to Tyler, who stood at the edge of the street, hands on hips and staring at something she could not see. “So not Rome?”
“Apparently not,” he called over his shoulder.
“Then where?” Phoebe said.
Emily groaned. “I don’t know.”
“You must have some idea, surely?”
“I. Don’t. Know.”
Perhaps if she simply stopped talking they would keep arguing amongst themselves, forget she was even there. Perhaps at some point, if she was quiet and still for a long stretch of time, she could meld herself into the fabric of the church wall. Become no more than the memory of someone who once was stupid enough to believe that any of this was a good idea.
So many pictures of imaginary faces and places that swarmed inside her mind. A lake, birds, music connecting it all. She began to hum, nodded her head in time to the music nobody but she could hear. Her fingers automatically reached for a pen, a sketchbook, turning each page over until there was a fresh rectangle of white.
Emily focused on the reassuring scratch of nib on paper as a picture began to take shape on the page. She tried to block out all that surrounded her, concentrating only on the one thing that stopped her from feeling so alone.
Anything. Anything at all to make the demons disappear.
Because she was so far away from what was normal, what it was she had become accustomed to, that she did not trust herself not to fall apart completely if she did anything other than sit on the cold, hard ground and block out everything other than the sound of nib scratching paper.
Emily’s vision was blurred, the lines on the page seemed to be so very far away, and she was trying not to think about what would happen if she couldn’t find the next clue. There were only five more days before everything would end.
“Emily?”
Tyler’s hand was on her shoulder, his face so close to hers, but it was as if she neither heard nor saw him. It was as if she had hidden herself inside a bubble, separating her mind from reality.
“Emily, what’s wrong?”
“No,” Emily whispered, shook her head over and over as she looked down at the picture she had begun to draw. It was of a woman sitting in a chair under the shade of an apple tree, with a child in her lap, whose head was bandaged up with scraps of fabric that wound around and around her body, stretched beyond and into the tree. Imprisoning her in the garden.
Tyler’s arms came around her waist, lifted her high, like a child being carried off to bed. She turned her face toward him, blocked out the view of the city, tried to block out the sound of his voice, telling her it would all be okay.
He carried Emily without knowing where he was headed, knowing only that he had to get her away, to do something to snap her out of whatever place she had locked herself inside of.
As they passed the end of a narrow side street, he paused, sniffed the air, then turned. He stopped in front of a glass door on which was drawn a white cartoon of a girl carrying a pizza while simultaneously balancing a book on her head. Emily wriggled free of his arms, sat down at a nearby table and opened up a menu.
Before long, Tyler and Phoebe were debating where in fact they were supposed to be or, indeed, whether they should go back and ask Antoine, or even call Tyler’s mother, see if she could help or had another clue. This last suggestion resulted in a swift “no” from Tyler as he shoved another slice of pizza into his mouth.
Emily twirled her fork, lifted it to her mouth and bit down on the sauce-laden strings of spaghetti. She chewed methodically, went through the rhythm of eating, but couldn’t actually taste what it was that fell down her gullet.
It seemed so familiar, yet strange, to witness people discuss the best plan of action, to listen as they went through all the possibilities, all the parameters for change, without once stopping to even ask her opinion. But it had always been this way: her taking a step away from reality, allowing other people to decide for her.
Another bite. Another swallow, before she realized Phoebe was talking to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, resting her chin in one hand and staring at Emily as if she were some relic in a museum.
“What for?” Emily moved her fork about the plate, imagined a whirlpool inside of which a mermaid was trapped.
“For not understanding about your scar. The accident.”
“It’s fine.” Perhaps the mermaid could grow legs, like in the fairy tale? Walk amongst others, learn how to blend in, to pretend.
“She really was quite a remarkable woman,” Phoebe said as she pushed her half-finished pizza aside. “I mean, to raise a child alone even now must be tough, but back then?”
Emily was always jealous of all the people who adored her grandmother, of all the people who thought they were owed a piece of the great Catriona Robinson, and she used to wish the stories could have just been for her.
Before the second book in the series was published, Catriona had asked Emily if she minded, if she was okay to share the stories, and her pictures, all over again. For years she wished she had said that actually, yes, she did mind. But now Emily realized how empty the world would have been without those stories, without the one about a boy who was afraid of the dark and so climbed to the top of a cliff with Ophelia and her little gray duck, just so he could see the stars. The two of them dove off the very same cliff to swim with the creatures that lived at the bottom of the ocean, down where the sunshine couldn’t quite reach.
As Antoine had told her, Catriona was a woman always searching for more, always looking out for inspiration that could strike at any moment. Emily had come to understand that her grandmother had written because the desire to tell stories, to share her ideas with the world, was in her blood, it’s what drove her every day. It was never just about Emily.
“There must be something more, something hidden in the book that you haven’t thought of.” Tyler reached over to steal Emily’s discarded olives. It was irritating, his familiarity not just with her, but with everyone. The assumption he could do what he wanted, all the time.
“What do you mean, hidden?” Phoebe asked.
“Don’t you remember? Every book had a treasure trail at the back. Something more for the reader to find.”
“And you think one of these might point to where we need to go next?”
“We?” Emily said.
“She’s trying to help, Em.”
“Why? Why do you care, Tyler?”
She couldn’t shake off the idea that he had never been there for anything other than the money. He lied to her, made her believe she was someone worth caring about, and that’s what hurt most of all.
Phoebe shifted in her seat, crossed her legs toward Tyler as she looked from him to Emily and back again. “You know, Rome isn’t the only city with a Colosseum.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m just saying, maybe you remember it wrong. Maybe they bought the necklace somewhere else. Maybe she made it all up and Gigi never even existed.”
Emily slammed her fist against the table, was aware of her back teeth biting together as she began to stand, then Tyler leant across her for the pepper, pulling her attention away.
“Who came up with the treasures to be found?” Tyler asked as he tapped the pepper pot against the table, made sure Emily was watching.
“She did.”
But then again that wasn’t quite true. At least, not for this story. Emily had been the one to draw Ophelia wearing the necklace before any words were written down. She had found it in her grandmother’s room, in an open shoebox which sat on the window ledge. She had wondered who the lady in the picture was, standing next to a young Catriona with her hair tied up in a scarf and enormous golden hoops ha
nging from her ears.
Her grandmother had looked over her shoulder as Emily sat in her usual seat by the back door, seen the locket she had drawn, hanging from Ophelia’s neck. Then she went to her room, came back with the real thing looped over her wrist, before bending down to fasten it behind Emily’s neck and whispering that it belonged to her now. Emily had worn it every day since.
“She ate pasta.” Emily stared down at her empty plate, but couldn’t remember taking the last bite.
“Who did?” Tyler asked.
“Ophelia,” Emily said as she went through the story in her mind. “She ate pasta made by the girl’s father.”
A man who lived by an olive grove in the mountains and crushed the fruit into oil, mixed it into flour with egg and water, said it gave the pasta an extra-special flavor.
“Giancarlo.” The man Gigi moved to Italy for, who had loved her grandmother’s best friend even more than the food he created.
“Who?”
“The ‘G’ on the dedication has to be for Giancarlo, not Gigi.” It was Giancarlo who had taught Catriona Robinson to toss pizza dough like a native. He showed her how to make it thin enough to see the sky through, to make it extra crispy. Pizza dough she used to toss high, up toward the kitchen ceiling, making Emily giggle with delight.
Burnt edges and melted cheese. Scraps left on the back doorstep for all the birds to feast on when their bellies were fit to burst. All the stories she used to tell Emily, about the people she once knew, but which Emily had never been certain were true, up until now.
“Where is he?”
“Verona.” The city of love. Of Romeo and Juliet. She remembered the balcony her grandmother told her about when she first sat down to study Shakespeare. A place where people left letters of hope, of loss, not only of desire.
“You’re sure?” Tyler was already busy with his phone, no doubt mapping out the next part of their journey. No doubt figuring out how to get it all over and done with, so he could forge ahead with his life.
The Book of Second Chances Page 18
