The Rome Affair

by Karen Swan

  ‘“As stiffe twin compasses are two / Thy soule, the fixt foot, makes no show / To move, but doth, if the’other doe.”’ Cesca smiled.

  Elena raised an eyebrow, impressed. ‘John Donne. “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” if I remember correctly. One of my favourite poets. You are very well read, Cesca.’

  Cesca decided not to remind her new employer that she had a degree, post-graduate qualification and three years’ pupillage to her name. It wasn’t education she was short on – not that she wanted to reopen that conversation – but as her gaze fell back to her notes, her barristerial instincts were kicking in regardless. She was practised in interviewing people – defendants, witnesses – and she knew when she was being told lies; and if not lies, then at least not the whole truth. What was the whole truth here, when there were fewer than ten photographs of a young Elena with her mother in the entire box of almost a thousand? In practically all the images, Elena was shot with Winnie, on occasion her father too. Cesca suspected that the two women had always been emotionally distant from one another. Had her mother somehow viewed Elena as a rival for George Valentine’s affections?

  The sun had moved around a little, the shade edging across her lap, and she now caught sight of her favourite photograph of George Valentine, Elena’s father, arranged on the tray on the low table between her and Elena. It was upside-down from where she was sitting, but no less impressive: he was sitting astride a magnificent horse in tan jodhpurs and a tweed hacking jacket, a cream silk cravat at his neck. He had been caught side-on by the photographer, the moment snatched from a casual glance to the camera. His hair was swept back, his cheeks deeply flushed, and his lips were parted either in speech or by the onset of laughter.

  ‘Let’s talk a bit more about your father. The impression I’m getting is that you were a daddy’s girl. Would that be a fair assessment?’

  Elena preened like a cat in the sun. ‘Most definitely. We were the world to each other. He used to call me his little lamb.’

  ‘That’s so sweet.’

  ‘He truly was the sweetest man.’

  ‘This is my favourite image of him so far.’ Cesca reached forward and tapped the photograph to which she was referring. ‘I think it’s definitely a strong option for the first edit.’

  Slowly Elena leaned forward and picked up the photograph. ‘I’ve always loved this one of Daddy. He looks especially golden, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think “golden” is a very apt description of him.’

  ‘Of course, sunburns were all the rage back then. They didn’t call them suntans, you understand, and Daddy couldn’t be doing with anything as fussy as tanning lotion. It wasn’t a question of vanity; he was just always such an outdoorsy person. Of course, everyone else would be desperately frying themselves in a bid to look good whilst Daddy would be larking about on the polo field or playing golf.’

  ‘Do you think he knew how good-looking he was?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he must have done, but he wore it very lightly.’

  ‘Did the ladies love him?’

  ‘Well, if they did, it was from afar,’ Elena replied crisply.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—’ Cesca’s voice trailed off. It had been too forthright a question, she realized, her tone too direct. She reminded herself that Elena was not one of her defendants: she was not a police suspect with a rap sheet and no alibi. There was no ulterior story here beyond the facts as Elena presented them, but old habits die hard. She softened her stance: ‘So he was born into a dynasty?’

  ‘Yes. Tobacco and coffee originally, which had been diversified into print media and telecoms by the time my father was born. As the first son, he inherited the business and the lion’s share of the family portfolio; something for which I’m not sure my aunt ever really forgave him.’

  ‘I guess that’s sort of understandable, really,’ Cesca said without thinking. When she caught sight of Elena’s frozen expression, she added, ‘I mean, from the perspective of this day and age.’

  There was another icy pause. ‘Well, these laws have stood for generations for good reason,’ Elena said quietly. ‘I’m all for equality, but things are quite different when you get to estates and fortunes of this scale.’

  Cesca’s mouth parted in immediate, hot disagreement. Was Elena seriously suggesting women couldn’t be trusted with vast sums of money? And what if Elena herself had had a little brother and he had inherited the lot from under her? Would she think it quite so fair then, or were her judgements rooted in the safety that comes from being the only child, the sole heir? But there was ice in Elena’s eyes and Cesca held fire, sensing her new employer wouldn’t respond well to an intellectual debate on the topic. In fact, she was getting the distinct impression Elena didn’t like to be challenged at all. Ever.

  Elena visibly relaxed, like a cobra recoiling from an aborted strike, as Cesca bit her tongue. ‘Besides, it wasn’t my father’s fault that that was how things were,’ Elena continued stalwartly. ‘He was a product of that age and was brought up in the expectation of heading the family trust from birth; he knew nothing else and he made sure my aunt was well provided for. My father was generous to a fault.’

  Cesca nodded, trying to muster her reserves of diplomacy. She remembered how ‘generous’ the Valentines had been when compensating Winnie for her abrupt termination of employment and estrangement from the child she had loved as her own, and had even put before having her own: a good reference. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she murmured.

  ‘Are you?’ Elena asked, her voice bristling. ‘You sound unconvinced as to my father’s good character.’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’

  ‘What, then?’

  Cesca bit her lip, wondering how hard she could press this button without getting fired. ‘It’s just that, well, to be honest, I’m struggling to get a handle on your relationship with your parents, full stop. On the one hand, it seems like they had eyes only for each other, to the exclusion even of you. But then, I sense a . . . distance between you and your mother which I wondered might be down to your closeness with your father, so that perhaps she felt the odd one out? But then that doesn’t seem likely given she remarried within a year of his death. I can’t seem to find a continuum.’ Cesca’s voice quietened to a mumble as she saw the flint in Elena’s eyes. ‘Added to which, your parents feature in hardly any of the photos of you as a baby or young child.’

  Elena blinked. ‘Well, I should imagine my father was the person who took most of the photographs.’

  ‘But wouldn’t it have been more usual for Winnie to take the photographs? Why would your parents want so many snapshots of their child and her nanny? I mean, I’m not trying to imply anything, but I just don’t . . . understand yet. I’m trying to get an insight into the dynamics of your family setup, that’s all.’

  There was a long silence. Elena’s face had set into a frozen mask. Inanimate. Lifeless. Mortified. ‘My parents adored me. I wanted for nothing.’

  Cesca nodded, even though that hadn’t been what she’d asked.

  ‘Did you see the photos of my horses? Miss Midnight, there—’ Elena pointed to the selected photo of herself in full show-jumping kit, standing beside a young black mare, a rosette on its bridle. ‘—Was sired by a three-time Olympic champion. It was like riding a rainbow, sitting on her back. I was only eleven.’

  ‘Goodness. How lucky,’ Cesca murmured, looking down at the photo as Elena clearly desired her to do. But perhaps the set of her expression wasn’t pleasing enough, for in the next moment Elena stood up.

  ‘That’s quite enough for now. I’m tired,’ she said abruptly. As she straightened up, the photograph of her father on the horse fluttered from her lap to the floor. She let it lie there. No doubt, someone else would pick it up. ‘I need to rest. I have plans for later.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Cesca said, staring up at her, knowing that – in spite of her best intentions – she’d still gone too far. She’d been too frank, her ques
tions too searching. ‘I’ll keep going through the boxes. Perhaps we can meet again in a few days.’

  ‘Yes. Perhaps,’ Elena said enigmatically, gliding towards the door. ‘I’ll send Alberto in with some fresh tea.’

  ‘Oh really, that’s not—’

  ‘Good evening.’

  Even after she’d gone, Cesca continued to watch the space Elena had left behind her, adrenaline coursing through her veins at the subtle contretemps. She looked back down at the photographs on the floor – George Valentine, dashing on horseback; eleven-year-old Elena standing proudly beside her rosette-clad mare – wondering why Elena, who until now had been understated to the point of diffidence, had resorted to bragging. Did she think Cesca’s head would be so turned by the horse’s Olympic pedigree that she would forget the thread of what they had been discussing: her father’s love?

  Stop it, Cesca told herself as she picked up the photographs and shuffled them back into the pile of preliminary edits. Why couldn’t she just see what Elena was telling her about those images? That she had loved her parents and they had loved her. She’d been the luckiest little girl in America.

  But Cesca couldn’t help it: she couldn’t take off her barrister’s hat. She knew when she was being fed an angle.

  ‘Honestly, it was the weirdest thing. She just stormed off.’

  She and Guido were sitting on the small, square, flat area at the top of the steps outside her front door, a beer in their hands and the sun on their faces. A jazz trio on bass, sax and acoustic guitar was playing under the ancient olive tree in the middle of the little square. Free entertainment for the night.

  Cesca stared at the shuttered side end of the palazzo as she drank. She still felt deeply unsettled by Elena’s tantrum. She wasn’t sure how they could work together if this was going to be Elena’s attitude. Elena had talked about needing to trust her, but it cut both ways. How could she do her job if a gently expressed enquiry could escalate to Elena cutting short the interview and leaving the room?

  ‘I don’t get it. What’s her problem?’ Guido asked. ‘I thought that was the point of employing you – a brilliant brainbox, completely over-qualified to be writing the memoirs of a silly old socialite.’

  ‘Stop it, you’ve made your point,’ she said, slapping his arm lightly. ‘And anyway, she didn’t know I was a barrister when she hired me. She thought I was a writer.’

  ‘Well, you’re clearly far more than she bargained for,’ Guido said with a grin. ‘These socialites are all the same – self-absorbed, selfish, entitled. They don’t think about anything beyond the edges of their own shadows because they’ve never had to. She’s not used to having her opinion questioned.’

  ‘You should have seen her face when I questioned the issue of primogeniture. She probably thinks I’m some militant feminist now.’

  ‘She’s the sort who thinks anyone who misses a leg wax is a raging feminist.’

  Cesca half-laughed, half-groaned. ‘Oh God, it’s not good. That was only our second interview for the first chapter.’

  ‘How many chapters do there have to be?’

  Cesca shrugged. ‘Judging by the number of boxes of photos still to go through? Five hundred? I swear there’s not an hour of that woman’s life that hasn’t been documented.’ Guido squeezed her leg as she dropped her head in her hands despairingly. ‘Guido, I can’t lose two jobs in one week. I just can’t.’

  ‘You’re not going to lose your job,’ he consoled her.

  ‘Aren’t I? How can I interview her if I’m stepping on egg-shells all the time? If she flies off the handle at something like that, how will I know what’s going to set her off next time?’

  ‘She’s just sensitive. Maybe she felt you were judging her.’

  ‘I was trying to be honest about what I felt was contradictory information. It’s supposed to be a collaboration, after all. I’m on her side!’

  ‘Yes, but I suppose it cannot be easy to hear your own life being examined like that. What if her father really did love the ladies? Or her mother married him for the money?’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is more hard than she thought, having to do this.’

  Cesca nodded. ‘I guess.’

  ‘I would certainly not want to be under your scrutiny.’

  ‘There are no skeletons in your closet, surely, Guido?’ she teased.

  ‘We all know I smashed down my closet years ago,’ he laughed.

  ‘That’s true!’

  ‘Just, whatever you do, do not get fired before you see her jewels.’

  Cesca frowned. ‘I really hope that’s not a euphemism,’ she quipped, putting the beer bottle to her lips and swigging again.

  He laughed. ‘No. She’s got one of the most important collections in the world. Rumour has it that she was the anonymous buyer of most of Elizabeth Taylor’s collection when it was auctioned after her death.’

  ‘Really?’ Cesca made a mental note. That would make for a great chapter in the book – or possibly the exclusive on the blog that she was angling for.

  ‘Yes. One of the necklaces alone was worth $18 million.’

  To their right, she watched Signora Accardo bustle amongst the tables, plates balanced on each arm. Her white hair was pinned back with a green-and-orange printed headscarf, her navy-blue dress covered up by the long apron that fell almost to her ankles. As plump as an apple, she walked with a pronounced limp – a legacy of contracting polio as a child – but it never seemed to affect her ability to balance several full plates down the length of her forearms; and there was certainly nothing wrong with her voice, which often echoed around the square as she scolded her husband for one thing or another.

  ‘So, what’s Matteo up to tonight?’ she asked, changing the subject.

  ‘He’s got a date,’ Guido replied.

  ‘Of course he has.’

  ‘No, this is a third date.’

  ‘Good God. It must be serious,’ Cesca deadpanned.

  ‘And Alé?’

  ‘Off with her mystery man again. The one she keeps pretending doesn’t exist.’

  ‘How do you know he does?’

  ‘Because she jumped a mile when she got a text from him while we were having dinner the other night. She practically threw her phone in the gazpacho to stop me from seeing the name on the screen.’

  ‘Which probably means he’s married,’ Guido said with a tut.

  Cesca sighed sympathetically, remembering that Guido had experienced his own bruising entanglement with a married man a few months earlier. ‘How about you? Have you seen that Swedish film guy again? You really liked him.’

  ‘Hans? He was the second grip in the unit . . . Oh, and what a grip he had!’ He winked, before his face fell. ‘Tragically, no, he cruelly used me and then left me, never to be heard from again.’

  ‘Oh, shame.’ Cesca pulled an exaggerated sad face.

  ‘It’s not like I wasn’t expecting it. They were moving on to Tunisia for the next location. Still, a few more days would have been nice.’

  ‘You never know, he might finish filming in Tunisia and come back here looking for you . . .’

  Guido laughed as though the very idea was incredible. ‘I don’t think so. He got what he came for. Why go back?’

  Cesca winced dramatically. ‘Oooh! Such cynicism in one so young!’

  He patted her hand. ‘We cannot all be romantics like you.’

  ‘Me? A romantic? Are you kidding?’

  ‘Cesca, you are the definition of a romantic. Look at you, with your vintage petticoats and tea dresses and camisoles, your wild flowing hair, that poor, poor hat . . .’

  ‘Listen, don’t be fooled,’ she laughed, protectively stroking the hat resting on her knees. ‘I wore nothing but men’s clothes for eighteen months at the height of my Patti Smith phase, and I spent three years wearing a wig and gown at work. Clothes are disguise, not identity.’

  ‘So what are you hiding from then, dressing as Lady Chatterley in her wilderness years?’ Guido asked.

>   Cesca pulled an indignant expression. ‘How very dare you. I object!’

  He laughed and Cesca dropped her head back against the umber-coloured wall. She felt happy, sitting here in the amber light of a long summer’s evening, hanging with a friend as cheeky brown-capped sparrows hopped at her feet, pecking for crumbs from their crisps. It was all a long way from the grey rain of Hackney and the blue lights whirling in her face, the static of radios in her ears and the sight of that zipped-up body bag being wheeled out of the house, feet first.

  In moments like these, she could almost believe that it was someone else’s story, someone else’s fault.

  In moments like these, she could almost pretend it had never happened at all.

  Chapter Eleven

  She had heard it. Felt it too. Deep in her sleep, the vibration had echoed through her body, but not enough to wake her. While eating breakfast on her small roof terrace, she had dismissed the melee of voices, echoing from just out of sight in the Piazza Angelica, as a coachload of tourists. But then she had rounded the corner by the jasmine hedge and seen all the small vans parked on the pedestrianized section of the square outside the palazzo, the carabinieri patrolling with stern expressions. Unusually, the front door of the palazzo was wide open, people standing by curiously and peering in as officials (of what organization, she didn’t yet know) hurried up and down the steps in hard hats and hi-vis vests. Alberto, who was watching proceedings from the top step and looking stressed, had been pleased to see her for once and had bustled her past the police into the building, much to the fascination of the gathering bystanders.

  ‘Alberto, what’s happened? Is it Elena? Is she okay?’ she asked breathlessly as he strode, always half a step ahead of her, through the long galleries, past the priceless artworks on the walls which she had already started not to notice, and past her office too.

  ‘The Viscontessa,’ he said pointedly, ‘is very well, if a little shocked. It’s a miracle no one was killed.’