Secrets in Sicily

by Penny Feeny

  The repetitive nature of physical activity helped to calm her mind. And on Sunday, Marcello had suggested, they might go to the beach. A return to Roccamare was a treat to look forward to. They could take a picnic of bread and salami, along with a basket of big salad tomatoes that they would munch like apples, dipping them in olive oil and salt to bring out the flavour. And perhaps, after lunch, Lily could stroll up through the scrubland to Villa Ercole, a casual visit, to see if anyone was at home.

  The weather was hot and dry – good for the strattu – and the first few evenings, after showering off the dust of the day, they all gathered around the trestle table in the yard: Marcello, Fabio, Gilberto and Lily, the twin babies on their parents’ knees, Alfredo’s father at one end of the table and his deaf uncle at the other. Signora Campione brought out great bowls of pasta and carafes of wine from the neighbouring azienda. After the meal, the signora and her daughter-in-law took the babies to bed and the men and Lily played cards by candlelight until the symbols blurred before their eyes and they lost their concentration. The old uncle nearly always won.

  On the evening of their fourth day, a Thursday, Lily was helping to set out the dishes. The boys sauntered over from the barn, later than usual. It took a few moments for her to work out what was different about them. Fabio, ever the elegant dresser, was wearing a pair of spotless white trousers and a blue shirt in the softest cotton. Marcello’s tee shirt had a discreet Armani label, his tasselled leather loafers were brand new. Gilberto had slicked gel onto his hair, which tended to curl, and was doused in a pungent aftershave. ‘Why are you all so smart?’ she said.

  ‘We’re going out after supper.’

  ‘Where?’

  It was a nightclub, they said, an unofficial one on the outskirts of town, in defiance of the authorities, populated by word of mouth.

  ‘You mean it’s like a rave?’ said Lily. ‘We have the same sort of thing at home. In old warehouses or places in the middle of nowhere that have been abandoned.’ She and her friends would cram into a convoy of cars, follow a muddle of directions and pursue the blast of the music until their ears were popping.

  Alfredo and Daniela appeared, gleaming and polished as silver plate. It turned out they were going too, leaving the babies with their nonna.

  ‘Am I invited?’ said Lily, trying not to sound peeved. ‘Will there be dancing?’

  Marcello shuffled a two-step in his smart loafers, clicked his fingers.

  Signora Campione said, ‘They are teasing you, Liliana. Of course they won’t leave you behind.’

  ‘Of course not,’ echoed Marcello. ‘You can change after we eat.’

  Change? That was awkward. Lily had been living in shorts. She had a pair of jeans with her, too heavy for the heat, and a couple of dresses. One, a sundress, had a rip at the side seam, the other was comfortable but unflattering. It hadn’t seemed so in England, where women wore broad-shouldered dresses that swamped their bodies. But in Italy clothes were shapely; girls flaunted their breasts and hips, they wore high heels to tauten their calves. They wanted you to know they weren’t matrons yet. Even Alfredo’s wife, despite the twins, had a neatly defined waist.

  ‘I haven’t got anything suitable to change into. I was on an educational trip. I wasn’t expecting a night-life.’

  ‘You must have something you can wear,’ said Marcello. ‘I can help you choose.’

  ‘It’s okay. I’ll manage.’

  There wasn’t time to mend the sundress so she put on the baggy frock and added a belt, which helped a little. They piled into the farm Land Rover; Alfredo drove. The nightclub had made a home for itself in an old cinema. Layers of tattered film posters were pasted onto its outer walls, too faded to be legible; inside all the seats were gone. The makeshift bar was on a raised platform, framed with a flourish by rotting silk curtains. A light show was being projected onto the screen behind it. The turntables were also in the projection room, the music bubbling from speakers around the walls. But best of all, in Lily’s view, the roof of the cinema had been cranked open to let in the air. If she craned her neck and looked up, the constellation of stars was more magnificent than any light show.

  Word of mouth was effective: the place was full. It operated from Thursdays to Sundays and no one knew how long it might stay open, so the clubbers were out to enjoy themselves. The Campione party arrived in the middle of a slew of disco hits. Lily whirled herself onto the dance floor to Madonna’s ‘Causing a Commotion’, expecting the others to follow. At first she didn’t notice that they hadn’t; she was too busy imbibing the music and the drama of the night sky, her head thrown back, feet spinning and arms pumping. Then, as the DJ changed records and she refocussed her gaze, she realised she was the only person dancing alone. This wasn’t the free-form free-for-all she was used to in England, where you let your hair down and everyone participated in the rave. Here you were expected to have a partner. She was standing out as a frumpy foreigner and she felt humiliated.

  The boys were at the bar watching her. She re-joined them, chastened – and annoyed they hadn’t stopped her making a fool of herself. Why was Marcello holding back? Why couldn’t he have cut loose and danced with her? Why was it so important for him to preserve his bella figura?

  ‘Would you like a drink now?’ he said.

  ‘A beer would be great, thanks,’ she said stiffly, because she was proud too, and equally determined to keep her dignity.

  She sipped her beer and leant against the flaking wall, not caring about the distemper rubbing off onto her shoulders, surrounded by confident vivacious young people transmitting signals she couldn’t interpret. At one point Marcello did – almost as an afterthought – lead her onto the dance floor. But when they were halfway through a second number another boy tapped his shoulder and he gave her up, in her view far too readily. She saw him return to the side-lines, to joshing with Fabio and Gilberto; attractive girls with hourglass figures were soon fluttering around them.

  Lily couldn’t compete. She became convinced Marcello hadn’t really wanted her to come. She’d embarrassed him at the start and now she was cramping his style and naturally he’d rather play the field with his friends. So she stayed in the orbit of Alfredo and Daniela and, in spite of the fact that she loved to dance, she made excuses to potential partners: her legs ached, she wasn’t wearing suitable shoes, she preferred to watch. She retreated to the edge of conversations, nodding agreement even when she couldn’t hear what was being said, absorbing the spectacle and trying to wish away her bitter sense of disappointment. The evening, which should have been so much fun, dragged.

  On the way home in the car Marcello observed, to her frustration, ‘You looked bored, Lily. I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time.’

  ‘Oh, but I did… I was a bit tired, that’s all.’

  ‘You didn’t dance much.’

  She wanted to yell: Whose fault is that? Why did you act as if you were ashamed to be seen with me? Instead, she muttered, ‘I don’t know, I suppose I felt stupid in this dress, out-of-place, whatever…’

  He let the subject drop until they were back at the farmhouse. In the dark, by the door, when the others had gone inside, he rested his hands on her shoulders and said, ‘Tomorrow we will go shopping. I will help you to buy a new dress.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Really? But we’d have to take the morning off.’

  ‘I think we have earned it. Everyone will be sleeping late.’ Then he leaned forward and kissed her – only once, but lingeringly.

  How long does it take to interpret a kiss? Throughout what remained of the night Lily would snap awake remembering the pressure of his lips. Was it an apology for neglecting her that evening? Was it any different from the kiss she had given him in the olive grove a decade earlier? Were they just good friends or was this the start of something new? For the past year or so, she had dated casually. It seemed a long time since she’d had romantic feelings for anyone. Was she drawn to Marcello simply by nostalgia? Oh, come on, Lily McK
enzie! she told herself. How can you possibly confuse a kids’ friendship with fancying the pants off someone?

  *

  Nobody woke her in the morning. When she staggered into the kitchen, where a large portrait of Pope John Paul II presided over the table, Marcello was there already drinking coffee. He didn’t greet her any differently, nor did anyone else. But once she too was sipping an espresso, he said to Signora Campione, ‘Can I borrow the car to take Lily into town this morning? She wants to go shopping and I don’t trust her to do it on her own.’

  Gilberto sniggered. Signora Campione said, ‘Yes, certainly.’

  Lily said, ‘I’m not totally incompetent.’

  Marcello said, ‘Ah, but I’ll get you a good deal. There will be sales, too.’

  He was treating her as a sister again. She could handle that. She would play it cool, pretend she was shopping with Harry. They took the Fiat Cinquecento that was used for running errands. Marcello was in charge. He led the way into boutiques that had ‘SALDI’ scrawled across their windows; he pulled the hangers off the rails and held the frocks in front of her for size; he engaged in animated discussion with the assistants (something Harry was unlikely to do). In the first shop nothing appealed to him so she didn’t make it into the fitting room. In the second, she tried on a couple of dresses he found fault with and another that was too expensive, despite his advanced negotiating skills. In the third, he waited outside the cubicle until she’d shimmied her way into a close-fitting linen shift. The fabric wasn’t printed with the jazzy patterns of the others she’d tried; it was absolutely plain – and bright orange.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ said Marcello. ‘Is that really you inside? You must buy it.’

  That wasn’t what Harry would say. She could hear him now: ‘Fucking hell, Lily, you look like an Orange Maid!’

  She said to Marcello, ‘You don’t think I look like an ice lolly, do you?’

  ‘Cosa? Don’t be silly!’ He steered her closer to the mirror and, without asking, tugged off the scrunchie keeping back her hair, so that it tumbled onto her shoulders.

  Oh, God, she thought. I really do look like Carlotta now. She felt a sudden stab in her chest.

  Marcello began discussing the price with the sales girl. She offered to include a wide, cinching belt in the purchase to enhance the signorina’s figure. Lily wasn’t allowed to object; the process had moved beyond her control. Marcello came back to her in triumph. She stood passively as he unzipped the dress so she could slip out of it; she didn’t want him to see how the frisson of his touch disarmed her.

  Five minutes later, at the counter, the assistant was wrapping the shift in tissue paper. Lily ruffled through the lire in her wallet. ‘I haven’t got enough money,’ she said.

  ‘I can lend you the difference,’ said Marcello.

  ‘I’d forgotten I’d bought the train ticket. I don’t want to run out of cash.’

  ‘There’s a bank on the corner.’

  The girl didn’t want to lose a sale. ‘If you go there right away,’ she said, ‘I will have this ready for you to collect before we close for lunch.’

  ‘Do you think there’s time?’ She had queued to draw out cash from a bank a week earlier, in Florence. She knew how tortuous the procedure was.

  ‘You have plenty of time,’ said Marcello; he wasn’t going to let her backtrack. ‘The dress is yours and it will wait for you.’

  The bank was a few hundred metres away, a short hop down the street. Marcello took her arm as they walked. There was a bounce in his step and she felt as if she’d grown an extra couple of inches. When they reached the entrance, he bent to murmur: ‘You looked very fine in the dress, but all I really wanted to do was take it off.’

  ‘Oh… Marcello!’ She flung her arms around his neck and pressed herself so close she could feel the pound of his heart against hers. Then she kissed him passionately, until they were forced to pull apart because they were obstructing passers-by. ‘Can we go to the club again?’ she said. ‘Now that I’m kitted out for it? Can we dance together all night, under the stars?’

  ‘All night I shall dance with no one else. Avanti.’ He gave her a gentle shove up the steps to the bank. They stood together in the queue, radiating the kind of joy that drew admiring glances. When she got to the front she presented her cheque and account details and passport and was told to go and wait in another line for her cash. Marcello was starting to fidget. ‘I need more cigarettes,’ he murmured. ‘Shall I meet you outside when you’ve finished?’

  She nodded and they kissed again. She watched him slip away and spent the next ten minutes fantasising about being together on her cellar mattress, getting to know each other’s bodies in the quiet dim space. The feel and the taste and the touch of him. Her childhood companion! Who’d have thought it?

  When she reached the second window, the cashier said, ‘One moment, please.’

  ‘What’s the matter? I’m not overdrawn!’ Her current account was unusually healthy, partly with her unspent birthday money.

  ‘Please, if you would stand aside,’ said the cashier.

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’ Beyond the glass she could see a man on the phone, with her unmistakable stiff British passport in his hand.

  ‘Mi dispiace, the manager will explain.’ The cashier beckoned to the person behind her to come forward and Lily moved reluctantly away.

  She couldn’t leave without her passport, but she could enlist Marcello’s help. She made for the outer doors, but a security guard stopped her. She began to panic. ‘I need my friend!’ She could see Marcello on the pavement, a newspaper tucked under his arm, grinding out a cigarette. She tried frantically to catch his attention. If he would only raise his head, look up… He unfolded the paper.

  Then she saw a police car skid to a halt and two police officers leap out. They entered the bank at the same time as the man who’d been on the phone came towards Lily, still holding her passport. She held out her hand but he didn’t give it to her, passing it instead to one of the policemen. ‘But that’s mine!’ she cried.

  The policeman said, ‘You will come with us, signorina.’

  ‘But why? What have I done?’ Had she broken the law by picking tomatoes without a permit?

  The security guard held the door open and the policeman guided her through it. This time Marcello did see her and blanched. ‘Lily! Why…?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue! I don’t know what’s going on. Can you ask them?’

  The policeman said, ‘E con lei, quest’uomo?’ Is this man with you?

  She nodded. A group was gathering to watch the scene, women weighed down by their grocery shopping, clerks and mechanics taking their lunch break, children and old men at a loose end. Marcello began arguing with the police, the arguing segued into Sicilian and increased in ferocity until they snapped a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists. The two of them were hustled into the back of the car. Fascinated by the arrest, the crowd pushed closer, conjecturing the depraved crimes this young couple might have committed. The driver got into his seat with a superior smile. He switched on the siren and roared down the street to the Commissariato.

  29

  Jess had shut herself up in her studio because she was working on a tender for a commission. The untrained eye would see a mess and a muddle, but she knew exactly where everything was: her paints, her pencils, her pads, her swatches, her silk and cotton threads, the calico she experimented on, the postcards and pictures she used for inspiration. When she closed the door on the outside world, she could lose herself in the act of creation and not mislay so much as a pencil sharpener.

  The commission was for a boutique hotel chain seeking a style more streamlined than the recent fashion for swags and bows and ruching. They didn’t want every window to be dressed for ballroom dancing. Jess was keen to move in that direction too. You had to stay ahead of the game and she was satisfied with the clean simplicity of her new design. After a few refinements, she might be ready to send it off.

 
She’d told Harry not to disturb her. He’d finished his end of year exams and although the summer term wasn’t officially over, he was wandering in and out of the cottage at unpredictable hours. She wasn’t surprised to find, when she went back indoors, that he’d taken over the sitting room. He was listening to The Smiths – for some reason he loved The Smiths – ‘Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before’ and grinding the joystick of the Commodore console that Alex had bought him. He barely looked up from his orgy of destruction to say, ‘There was a phone call from Italy. You missed it.’

  ‘Lily? Did she stay on after all?’ Lily had been due back two days ago, but had warned that her plans might change. She was old enough to make her own travel arrangements.

  ‘No,’ said Harry. ‘It was for Lily. It was Carlotta Galetti.’

  ‘Christ! Why didn’t you come and get me?’

  ‘Because a) you didn’t want to be disturbed,’ said Harry. ‘And b) she didn’t ask to speak to you. She wanted Lily.’

  ‘Did she finally get the letter? And just miss her? What a shame.’ Actually she was ambivalent about whether it was a shame. She’d been pretty certain, when no reply had come, that Carlotta had moved on, which might prove to be a blessing in disguise.

  ‘No, she saw her.’

  Jess felt uneasy, jittery. ‘And?’

  After a spurt of gunfire and other sound effects, Harry withdrew his attention from the screen. ‘I reckon they had a fallout,’ he said. ‘Reading between the lines.’

  ‘What lines? What did she say?’

  Harry sighed, as if to emphasise how patient and obliging he was. ‘She said she was sorry she hadn’t been feeling well when Lily visited and she was sorry she had to rush back to England so she couldn’t see her again. Could I ask Lily to ring her some time? That was it.’