Shadows of the Past

by Blake, Margaret

  ‘I can’t deal with this,’ she murmured to herself. The girl was nineteen but she was so mixed up … the man had to have some control over her. It was not love; he was using her, that sad and vulnerable young girl.

  Regaining control of herself, she stood, her hand still shaking, even as she picked up the telephone. She would sack him, order him from the property. Yet had she the right to do that? Would she be believed anyway, would it be a case of a trusted employee’s word over hers, collaborated doubtless by Renata?

  The telephone seemed to screech out to her, its bell thundering in her mind. She picked it up. ‘Pronto.’

  ‘Ciao, cara, how are you?’

  Luca!

  ‘Are you all right? Are you not speaking to me?’

  The words would barely come out, she felt herself choking. ‘Luca, I need you to come home.’

  ‘Well, that is why I am calling. I shall be home tonight. What is it?’ Suddenly his tone changed, becoming urgent.

  ‘I’m all right but I need you. I really need you, Luca.’

  ‘Something is wrong. I’m on my way, I should be there. There was a moment’s silence as he checked his watch. ‘In about two hours, I can take a private jet.’

  ‘Please do that, Luca, please.’

  All thoughts of going to the psychiatrist had gone from her mind by the time Renata bounced into the room. Her eyes were wide and sparkling, she had that giddiness that Alva had recognized yesterday.

  ‘He called, he has had to cancel,’ Alva lied.

  ‘Damn him. The stupid man, he has made a mess of my day.’

  ‘I can’t see how that can be, Renata, I think you can find lots to do.’

  ‘You think? I’ll go to find Antonio; he can take me to the mainland.’

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because your father is coming home, in fact he’ll be here in two hours.’

  ‘So? Why should I care, he only wants to be with you.’

  ‘That’s not true, Renata.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Well I’m still going to the mainland.’

  ‘You can go but you will have to ask Carlo to take you. Your father has something for Antonio to do, Renata. He especially asked me to make sure he was here.’

  ‘Oh, well, he’ll have to be here then, won’t he.’

  Renata turned and bounced out of the room, following her, Alva was relieved to see the girl running up the stairs. She waited at the bottom until she heard the bedroom door slam.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Luca was staring at her. Her insides shrivelled, it was as if someone was pouring icy water down her spine. She knew that in a moment she would crumble and start to tremble. She knew that look, remembered it from another time — but why he had looked at her like that she could not remember? He was at once the Conte Luca San Giovanni Mazareeze. He was not her husband, or the man she loved. He was someone she did not know and — more important — did not want to.

  But she was wrong, the hard stare was looking through her; she saw her mistake immediately because he came to her and pulled her tenderly into his arms, holding her to him.

  ‘You looked so pale, I thought you were going to faint,’ he murmured.

  ‘No, I’m fine, I just find it … ’

  ‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘Thank you,’ he added. ‘Sit down … ’ He led her to the sofa and gently made her sit, then he crossed to his desk and lifted up the telephone. It rang out a long time and then must have gone to voicemail for he said, in a voice so level and smooth. ‘I need to see you right way.’ Then put down the phone.

  ‘He has his mobile switched off. I wonder what he is up to,’ Luca’s eyes narrowed.

  He was holding himself in check; she could sense that and even see it in the stiff way he held himself.

  ‘What are you doing to do?’

  ‘I think I am going to kill him.’

  ‘Luca?’ Fearfully she looked at him, was half out of her seat when his shaking of his head made her sit back down.

  ‘Not literally, although my ancestors would have cut his throat without a second’s thought.’

  ‘And Renata?’

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I am going to try to persuade her to go into the clinic. She desperately needs help, if these mood swings are as you say … ’

  ‘They are just a little more than the usual girl thing.’

  ‘She should be past the girl thing, as you call it, she is almost twenty. When I think of how vulnerable she is … per Dio, Alva, I cannot wait here; I must find that pezzo di merda.’

  ‘I’m coming with you; don’t say no, I need to be with you, Luca.’

  ‘You want to prevent me doing something bad to him. Cara, you could not stop me even if you tried, but come then … if you will feel better … ’

  The last place they went was the storage room. No one had seen Antonio — Luca even sent Guido to look for the man in the village. Inside the storage room they saw that the door to the steps that led to the cellar was open. Luca crossed to it, staring down.

  Glancing around the area nervously, Alva saw that the black plastic bin bags had gone. Luca pulled on the switch and the stairs were illuminated.

  He called down. ‘Antonio … Antonio … ’ His voice bounced back to him. Standing close to him Alva could smell a damp mustiness wafting up the stairs. Luca started to descend.

  ‘Stay here,’ he commanded to Alva, ‘these steps are dangerous and you could easily fall … ’

  Nervously, Alva stood on the top step, watching as Luca descended carefully. There was no handrail and the stairs were steep and spiraled down, rather than went straight.

  She could hear his footsteps striking each stone step. Then the darkness was illuminated some more so she guessed he had reached the cellars and the passageway that Claudia had told her about, and put on a light.

  ‘Luca, you aren’t going to the shore, are you … Luca?’

  ‘Of course not, why would I do that? There is nothing there but a grim passage to the fort, no one would be there. There is no one here. Besides as I told you it is dangerous, it could collapse at any moment.’

  She heard him coming back up. She stepped back, nervously glancing around the empty space. This place gave her the creeps. It was not just her fear of rats. She knew the creatures had to be there as there was poison in every corner, but it was something more. It was an irrational fear but a fear nevertheless.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said, when he came back. Taking up his hand she urged him across towards the door.

  ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of,’ Luca said reassuring her.

  ‘I’m scared of rats.’

  ‘There are no rats here, why would they be here. There is nothing to eat.’

  ‘But there’s rat poison, there in the comers … ’

  ‘I don’t know why that would be,’ Luca said. ‘Come, I know how you feel about such things.’ He put an arm around her, going at her pace to leave the room. They emerged in the weak sunlight to see Guido coming back in the Fiat. ‘He is not in town, Conte. No one has seen Antonio.’

  Just then, Luca’s mobile phone rang out. He put it to his ear

  saying. ‘Pronto?’ He nodded at Guido and then said into the phone. ‘I need to see you right away, Antonio, come to the house … no, wait a minute, can you come to the storeroom by the old pool house?’

  After instructing Guido to go back to whatever he was doing, he slipped the mobile into the pocket of his jacket. ‘He is coming; he says he was down at the boat, that he had his phone off by accident. As if I would believe that.’

  ‘We looked at the boat,’ Alva murmured.

  ‘Yes. Perhaps he was with Renata.’

  ‘In the house? But he could not have been in the house. Renata would have told him you were coming back and surely he would not risk being caught?’

  ‘He need not have been caught,’ Luca said. ‘My daughter’s room has a passage. It runs be
tween one of the guest bedrooms and her room.’

  ‘My God! I heard voices one night, I thought it was the television. I’ve been so stupid.’

  ‘No, cara, I am the stupid one.’

  *

  Renata was hysterical, shouting and screaming. Had her father not held her wrists Alva knew she would have struck him. Words spewed out of her mouth that made Alva’s blood run cold. Her stepdaughter was out of control.

  ‘I love him, I love him!’ she cried. ‘You bastard, doing that to me, taking him from me.’

  ‘He doesn’t love you, Renata. He was using you.’

  ‘He wasn’t, you have no right, I’m not a child!’

  ‘Then stop behaving like one. Where is your self-respect?’

  Wrong thing to say, Alva thought, she doesn’t know what that is just now. Her opinion of herself is so low she would not care even if she understood. Yet she could not bring herself to condemn him. Luca had to be in shock and feeling shameful, too. This was his daughter and he had not known what was going on. Yet how could he have known anything? Obviously Renata was adept at deceit, and her lover was a past master at it as well.

  ‘Now listen to me!’ Luca urged. But she screamed over his calm words, blaming everyone but Antonio himself.

  Her angry words rang down Alva’s ears, she put up her hands to stop them — her head was starting to spin, it was as if her brain was an out of control traffic light — she actually saw lights before her eyes, flash, flash, jumbled memories colliding inside her head.

  She cried out, above their din. ‘Stop it, please, both of you I … ’

  *

  She was lying on the bed; the room was semi-dark and there were murmured concerned voices. She opened her eyes, aware of the pain throbbing away at her head.

  There was Luca, whispering with a man. Squeezing her eyes, she saw through the dimness that it was Alfredo Martino, the kindly doctor. Luca must have brought him from the mainland.

  As she struggled to sit up she made a rustling sound, and both men turned and hurried to her side.

  ‘Alva?’ Doctor Martino smiled at her, taking her wrist in his hand, feeling for her pulse. ‘How are you now?’

  ‘I’m all right, what happened?’ she a ran a hand through her tousled hair. ‘I was downstairs and then … ’

  ‘You fainted, more than that, you passed out. Cara, I’ve been so worried about you.’

  Luca sat on the bed.

  ‘It was the noise … Renata yelling, you shouting — it was like an explosion in my head.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I am so sorry, cara.’

  ‘No, not just you, not just you and Renata, there was a noise in my head, voices, rushing sounds, pictures … as if I was going insane.’ Eagerly she looked at Alfredo, wanting a medical answer.

  ‘You are the sanest person I know, Alva,’ he murmured quietly. ‘Tell me, what do you know, Alva, what have you seen?’

  She bit her lip, breathing deeply. ‘I’m not sure if I’m dreaming, I don’t know what’s real or not … I think it’s real,’ she looked at Luca. ‘San Remo,’ she said. ‘The bougainvillea was out, purple and scarlet; it hung down the walls, close to our little balcony. We drank champagne, just the two of us … it was our honeymoon. I was a spring bride.’

  ‘Cara, cara … ’

  ‘I will wait outside; I think you have things to share.’

  ‘Go and have a drink, anything you want Alfredo … I will send Guido to you … ’

  ‘Don’t worry, Conte, I know where you keep the best Scotch.’

  Alva moved her legs restlessly against the silk sheet, unsure of feelings and thoughts and long buried memories. It was all there but jumbled somehow. She remembered the past but it was out of order. Inside her head was like a damaged DVD that played well and then jumped and you missed a whole section. She said as much to Luca. He said nothing, just watched her carefully as if unsure what she would say or do. Hardly surprising because she did not know that either.

  ‘Where is Renata?’

  ‘In her room, don’t worry. Alfredo gave her a calming draft. She isn’t sleeping but resting, she’s very quiet but she’s all right. One of the maids is sitting with her. I also locked the passageway from the other side. Just in case she decides to run away.’

  ‘This has been a terrible day,’ Alva muttered, realizing that it was an understatement.

  She didn’t want to think about the scene between Renata and her father. It was too painful. Her mind slipped back to Antonio, she could see his smirking face. His arrogance, out in the open now and not hidden. He blamed Renata, said the girl had come on to him. Renata, having so little self-confidence, Alva thought, was hardly likely to come on to anyone! Believing herself worthless, the girl would not have thought anyone would love or like her. Of course now Alva knew even more than that initial thought. Things had come storming back to her.

  It was not a recent thing, this affair with Antonio; it had not started when Renata had come back so damaged from university. She had seen them before; years ago … her eyes filled with tears. Alessandro, I should have taken more care of you, little one, there in my tummy, feeling you were safe.

  ‘Cara, what is it?’

  ‘It was my fault, the stairs … everything!’ A huge sob choked its way out of her. Luca was there, holding her soothing her. It was all in the past, he said, and it was gone now.

  ‘But it will never be gone, Luca. It was my fault but not the way you think … ’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, Luca.’ Letting the tears fall was a relief of sorts. Had she cried for Alessandro when she discovered what had happened? But no, Luca and what he believed had driven all that out of her. Inside she had felt cold and bitter and wanted only to put as much distance between them as she could. She had thought, at that moment, all those years ago, that she hated him, truly hated him. She loathed Renata and as for Antonio, she had no words. How could his daughter not have told Luca? She had to have known what had happened.

  Antonio, so cocky then in the past, just as he had been only that very afternoon. There he was, coming out of Renata’s room, boldly swaggering in front of her and knowing that she had seen where he had come from. Maybe he even knew what she had seen, in the summerhouse — the summerhouse that place again that held so many dark, bitter secrets.

  ‘How dare you!’ That is what she had said, challenging him instead of letting him go, not even thinking of finding Luca. Why not? The answer was simple and at the same time pitiful: she had not wanted to alienate Renata even more and yet what a wrong decision that had turned out to be.

  She had been standing just at the top of the stairs. ‘Get out of my way, bitch,’ he had dared to say, in fractured English. ‘You won’t tell him … or else.’

  ‘You think not? You’re very mistaken … ’

  And then he had raised his hand, she had watched it, almost hypnotized by the slowness of the movement and then it hit her chest, only lightly but she went down, down and down her head striking the cool marble, knocking her unconscious, not even able to try to stop herself, having no ability to grab the banister … down, down, down …

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You won’t believe me,’ she said, and felt the tears start to tremble against her lashes.

  ‘I will, I swear.’

  She shook her head. ‘You believed Antonio before; you took his word against mine.’

  ‘Cara, you told me nothing. You would not talk about what happened. There was no option but to believe Antonio and — ’ He hesitated, a hand went out and gently brushed back her fringe of hair, his fingers cool against her overheated forehead.

  ‘You see, I did not want to cause trouble when you came back but, forgive me, you see Renata also confirmed his story.’

  ‘Renata! But Renata was not there, she was in her room, she did not see anything.’

  ‘You believe she lied for Antonio, but why would he say such a thing? You can see how difficult it was for me.’


  ‘Yes and no. I don’t remember not telling you what happened, maybe I did not remember … was that the start of my memory going, that push down the stairs? Had I already started to forget things then?’

  ‘What push down the stairs? Cara, you must tell me what you mean! What is it you have remembered?’

  ‘Oh, Luca … Renata and Antonio, it was not a new thing, it was going on when I was here first. I caught him coming out of her room. I … I had seen them in the summerhouse, making … ’ Making love? No, she could not describe it like that, more like having sex, she thought, but she added the softer version for his benefit. ‘He pushed me down the stairs because I said I would tell you. It is as simple as that. Antonio killed our baby.’

  She recognized all the words he used, and turned her head away from the violence that spilled out of him, flinching from the anger, afraid as he paced the room.

  ‘It’s all come at the wrong time,’ she said, trying to soothe him. ‘So many things happening all at once, I’m sorry Luca.’

  ‘You have nothing to be sorry for. But one consolation, please … Renata was not part of the pushing; you swear she was not there?’

  ‘No, it was just him and me. I swear it. Maybe he told her I threw myself down the stairs, asked her to collaborate his story. She was a young girl, who imagined herself in love, whatever he told her she would believe. And it was easy to believe wasn’t it? I was so miserable; I was out of control myself.’

  ‘And that is something else. Maybe you were feeling so ill through no fault of your own, have you thought of that?’

  ‘You mean Antonio put something in my food to make me so ill? Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, to keep you tied to the house. Afraid that you would find out about him and Renata. If you remember, I was away a lot. I had a problem with some properties on the mainland.’

  ‘I don’t remember that … but I will … now that my memory is opening up, one day it will settle down and I will remember everything … ’

  *