The Rome Affair

by Karen Swan

‘One of Vito’s goddaughters. He’d known her parents since childhood. I do what I can to keep the connection going; I know it’s what he’d want. In fact, I arranged for her to visit the Valentino atelier for her dress. It was my wedding gift to her. I’m a special client so they are most accommodating. Of course, she looked absolutely beautiful.’ She noticed Cesca was still standing. ‘Please sit, sit. Has Alberto gone to fetch tea?’

  ‘Yes. He said jasmine?’

  ‘Good. I find it a little lighter for times like these—’

  Cesca watched as Elena settled herself into the chair opposite. She looked paler today, somehow more frail, the blue of her veins dark against her papery skin.

  ‘It was a magnificent time, of course, but, my goodness, all those faces and names to put together, all the old stories being dredged up, so much chatter . . . I feel quite drained.’

  Cesca nodded, wondering how well she would fare today, then, having to plumb the depths of her own past. She stretched forward and fanned out the small selection of photographs she had chosen for today’s interview. A stocky, bearded, dark-haired man dominated them. He wasn’t conventionally handsome to Cesca’s eye, but he had an evident charm, with intense lively eyes and a seemingly ready smile. In most of the photos she had seen of the two of them together, Elena seemed to hang off him, her arms draped around his neck, curling up on his lap, piggybacking him or sitting on his shoulders . . .

  ‘I thought we could start today by talking about this man?’ she said, pointing to him and sitting back on the sofa, her digital recorder on.

  Elena leaned forward to look at the images. She was quiet for a long time, nodding slowly, one finger pressed rhythmically to her lips like a pulse. ‘Darling Leo. Such a good man.’ She looked up at Cesca. ‘He was my second husband. We met through a mutual friend in Boston.’

  ‘And when was this?’

  ‘Just after Jack had left me, actually.’

  ‘So you were . . . seventeen?’

  ‘Thereabouts.’

  ‘He looks a lot older than you,’ Cesca said diplomatically.

  Elena shrugged. ‘Yes. It caused quite a stir. My parents weren’t anywhere near as pleased about this marriage. They never quite got over Jack.’

  ‘But didn’t you explain to them about his gambling problem?’

  ‘Of course.’ She sighed. ‘But Mother had made up her mind about him and that was that. He was a good egg and so the blame must be mine. I had been a poor wife. I had let him down in some way—’

  Alberto walked in with the tea tray.

  ‘That’s unfair.’

  ‘It was easier to just let them carry on believing what they wanted to believe whilst I got on with my life. I had grown up a lot during my marriage to Jack. Leo was exactly what I needed and I understood it, even if they couldn’t.’

  Cesca’s eyes fell to the photographs again, lingering on one of Elena piggybacking Leo on a beach. ‘Was he a father substitute, do you think?’

  ‘Well, I would not have phrased it in such an overt term at the time, of course, but I recognized he was safety.’

  Cesca’s antennae pricked up at the word – a hangover from her previous career, her previous life. ‘Why did you need safety?’

  Elena seemed to still, like an animal hiding in the bushes, hoping not to be seen. ‘I was brought up to fear the world, Francesca. I wasn’t like other people. My family’s wealth set me apart and made me a target. I learnt early on how to read people and who to distrust, which also meant I recognized when I had found someone I could trust. Like Leo. And you.’

  Cesca blushed, startled to find herself drawn into the topic, the inner circle. ‘S-so, you saw him as a protector?’

  ‘Exactly. He was already wildly successful in his own right – he didn’t need my money and he had nothing to prove.’

  A sudden shout outside – followed by several others – made them both jump and look towards the windows. Cesca wanted to run over and see what was happening, but Elena showed no such curiosity and she felt obliged to remain where she was. ‘Another bone hairpin, no doubt,’ Elena sighed, bored.

  Cesca nodded and tried to remember what they’d been talking about.

  ‘Did your parents invite him to dinner then?’ she eventually asked.

  Elena laughed. ‘No! I think they knew it wouldn’t work on him. We just slipped off to Santa Barbara, quietly got married and made a phone call after the event.’

  ‘I haven’t come across any of the wedding photographs.’

  ‘I’m not sure there are any. After all the fuss of my wedding to Jack, the last thing I wanted was another big splashy affair. We asked two people off the street to be our witnesses and afterwards we drove up to Big Sur and celebrated with hot dogs and champagne. It was perfect.’ She smiled as she looked down at the images again and Cesca saw a marked difference in her expression from when they’d been talking about her first marriage. With Jack, though Elena had used words like ‘sweet’ and ‘charming’ and ‘freedom’, her eyes had fogged, her voice hollow, as though the memories had detached from her body and were now purely theoretical reminiscences. But with Leo, she still seemed to glow with remembered affection, embers of their love still stoking her from within.

  ‘What was the best thing about your relationship with him?’

  ‘Oh, the lack of pretentiousness, certainly. We lived a largely normal life. We bought a condo on the beach in Malibu and had no staff other than a housekeeper who lived off the premises. We’d have barbecues and friends over. We’d go surfing . . . well, I would.’

  ‘So you overcame your fear of water, then?’

  ‘Yes, Leo taught me, even though he was no water baby himself. I took to it like the proverbial duck to water – I couldn’t believe I’d waited so long – and he preferred to watch. He’d pick out the waves for me to catch.’ She chortled. ‘If I didn’t like the look of one, I’d simply let it go by and pretend I hadn’t heard him.’

  Cesca smiled. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I really can’t imagine you surfing.’

  ‘No, I’m sure not. I hardly look like a beach babe now, do I? This hair—’ She pointed to her sleek, blow-dried bob. ‘Skin that’s been slathered with sunscreen for the past thirty years . . .’

  It was true: her immaculate poise was at odds with the beachy, tousled hair and salted-skin look Cesca imagined for surfers.

  ‘No, I’ve changed a lot since then,’ she sighed. ‘But then, so has the world! This was the end of the 1960s. Malibu was the place to be back then – we had the Beach Boys, that wonderful film The Endless Summer had come out. Oh, it was just glorious. You know, I think I may still have my favourite dress from back then. Leo always loved it. I should fish it out and show it to you.’

  ‘I’d love to see it. Is Leo still alive?’

  ‘No, not for years. He died in a helicopter crash with one of his players outside Chicago in 1982. I was devastated. Just devastated.’ Her eyes were watery, one hand pressed to her bony chest. ‘Even now, I miss him.’

  ‘So you were widowed, then?’

  Elena shook her head. ‘Heavens, no. We had divorced in 1975, a few years earlier.’

  Cesca tried to keep up. ‘But it’s clear you still care very deeply for him, even now, after all these years. What happened between you?’

  ‘Oh, it was the saddest thing and for the worst of all reasons, just so pointless.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Jealousy. He just couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t look at another man. He travelled a lot for work and he . . . tormented himself with exotic scenarios that simply weren’t true. They existed purely in his mind, but he’d get home and do silly things, crazy things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like checking to see if there were two wine glasses on the drainer instead of one; or smelling the sheets for traces of aftershave; going through the laundry to see if I’d worn a sexy dress or lingerie. It was so . . . demeaning,’ she said tightly. ‘I couldn’t bear to see him cutting himself dow
n into smaller and smaller versions of himself, becoming petty and ridiculous.’

  ‘So you left him?’

  ‘I had to, for both our sakes. He wasn’t getting any younger so the problem wasn’t going to go away. It was the only option open to me.’

  ‘Did he ever remarry?’

  ‘No.’ Her mouth became very small. ‘We remained friends – well, as best we could, anyway; we would write occasionally, a card at Christmas. But there was no getting away from the fact I broke his heart. It’s a terrible cross to bear.’

  Cesca blinked and looked away. She knew exactly what it was like to destroy somebody. ‘I’d love to talk some more about—’

  A sudden knock at the door made them both turn. A short, wiry, dusty-looking man in a hard hat and steel-capped boots looked in on them, appearing more startled to see them than they were to see him. Cesca watched the way his eyes rolled over the minimal space, its blankness shocking compared to the riot of colour, pattern and texture preceding it in the long galleries.

  ‘Yes?’ Elena asked, a small polite smile on her mouth but her eyes cool.

  ‘Apologies, Principessa,’ the man said, taking off his hat and holding it in front of himself in a supplicatory manner. ‘But there is something you must see.’

  ‘Must I?’ Elena echoed, clearly disliking his impudent use of the imperative.

  He bowed his head apologetically, eyes still rolling around the room in awe. ‘Signor Cantarelli requests it.’

  Elena sighed. ‘Well, then I suppose if Signor Cantarelli requests our presence, we must oblige.’ She rose, as regal as if she’d been in ermine. ‘Francesca, shall we?’

  Cesca blinked. ‘You want me to go too?’

  ‘I am not so steady on my feet as I once was. I should appreciate your arm, just in case.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’

  The dusty man ran on ahead, almost sending Alberto into paroxysms of indignation as mud flaked off his boots with each step. With Elena resting her hand lightly on Cesca’s arm, they walked slowly through the vaulted galleries of scarlet and emerald, magenta and turquoise, past the unseeing eyes of a thousand marble statues, past vast gilded mirrors bigger than most doors, which were hung at heights too high for them to see into.

  The slow click of Elena’s shoes on the marble floor was the only sound of life as Cesca drifted beside her in silent ease – her height meant she could take one stride to Elena’s two – her brown-and-blue 1970s prairie skirt billowing behind as the breeze gusted in through the open windows.

  ‘Why is that chair turned to the wall?’ Cesca asked as they walked through a particularly ornate room, pointing to a gold chair with heavily flocked brocade.

  ‘This is the Papal Suite and that is the papal throne. It is only ever turned around to face the room when the Pope visits.’

  ‘Oh,’ Cesca murmured, staring at it. How odd it looked, with its back turned to the room like that. ‘And when did the Pope last visit?’

  ‘1873,’ Elena laughed, throwing her head back in glorious amusement, almost as though she’d been hoping Cesca would ask. ‘For a hundred and forty-four years that chair’s been facing the wrong way! It drives me out of my mind! These damn traditions, I always said they’d be the end of me.’

  They glided down the magnificent staircase, the builders’ cacophony increasingly audible as they descended, while the open windows at each level brought in raucous shouts from the square, too. Rabble on one side, rubble on the other, Cesca mused, following Elena and Alberto through the ground-floor galleries of the east wing and out into the garden.

  Cantarelli was dominating the space as usual, his customary frown spoiling everyone’s day as he pointed at people and waved others away. Was it any wonder he’d been so ungracious at being saved? The man was a complete control freak. It must have galled him to be the recipient of her charity.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Cesca settled her features into a scowl too, watching as he put his manners on for the princess and led her towards a ladder that had been propped into the sinkhole.

  ‘You want me to go down there?’ Elena asked in astonishment before firmly shaking her head and taking a step back. ‘No.’

  ‘But Signora—’

  ‘Signor Cantarelli, as you can see, I have needed assistance just to come down here. My navigating a ladder shall not be happening. Whatever it is, surely you can just tell me. Or bring it to me.’

  ‘It is not something I can bring here, Signora. It is a significant discovery. You really should see it.’

  Elena arched her eyebrows, before looking back at Cesca suddenly. ‘Then show her.’

  Cesca’s arms dropped away. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Francesca can be my eyes. I trust her implicitly.’

  Cantarelli didn’t look very happy at the suggestion either, but he shrugged and motioned for Cesca to join him by the ladder. With a frustrated sigh, she walked over and peered into the sinkhole again, getting goosebumps at the sharp drop as she remembered digging at the earth with her bare hands, straining to move rocks and lumps of concrete – for no good reason.

  Handing her a hard hat with a torch, Cantarelli at least had the grace to look away as she accusingly met his eyes before stepping onto the top rung. ‘It’s not another one of those little tiles, is it?’ she asked. ‘Because if—’

  ‘Oh, that dratted map,’ Elena muttered. ‘I sincerely hope it’s not. It’s fast becoming the bane of my life.’

  Cesca didn’t know what Elena was on about but, given she was standing perched at the top of a very long ladder, it wasn’t the time to ask. Tentatively, she began to climb down.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered under her breath once Elena was out of sight. How had she moved from a barrister’s wig to a builder’s hard hat? But she knew exactly how, pushing the question straight back out of her mind again.

  Cantarelli followed quickly after her, scrambling down the long ladder like a fireman before jumping the last few rungs and jerking his head in the direction of a short make-shift tunnel propped up by scaffolding poles and wooden boards, which had been dug out of the side of the sinkhole. It was in the exact same area from which she’d rescued him.

  ‘It is this way.’

  The going was rough and uneven for the first few steps, with large concrete blocks to scramble over in parts, the walls damp and cloying and the roof of the structure erratically low and worryingly crumbly. In which universe did he think Elena would ever have come down here? Cesca wondered to herself as she followed the bouncing beam from his flashlight.

  But no sooner was the thought free in her mind than the landscape changed, tapping into a traversing artery and becoming suddenly tamed and smooth: a human construction. It was the underground tunnel she had glimpsed on Friday when saving his sorry arse.

  The space was narrow enough to make her want to hold her breath; she could easily span it with outstretched arms, the walls rounding up to six-foot-high barrelled ceilings. Intermittent candle niches were set at regular intervals, scorch marks still blackening the walls and small puddles of wax still pooled on the floor.

  ‘Wow,’ Cesca whispered – because, somehow, an underground tunnel called for furtive voices; it reeked of secrets. It was straight out of Enid Blyton, Dan Brown . . .

  Cantarelli offered a hand to pull her through and she took it, forgetting to scowl. ‘Here. You will need to turn this on,’ he said, reaching over and switching on her head torch.

  Cesca, trying not to flinch, went very still instead, keeping her eyes on a space to the left of his head. It was bad enough having to occupy the same space as this man, much less the dark.

  ‘Surely this isn’t what you wanted to show her? You found this the other day,’ she said tartly.

  ‘No. She knows about this,’ he said, ignoring her needling tone. ‘This is just the service tunnel that runs between the east and west wings. But the Principessa says it has not been used for many years now. It was blocked up due to damp.’

 
‘Oh! It’s blocked up, you say?’ she questioned, delighted now as she immediately latched onto the detail – the discrepancy – for this was the same tunnel he had been exploring before the landslide on Friday evening. So then, there wasn’t a back door he could have used? It had been blocked up! He had needed her to rescue him.

  She didn’t need to say the words aloud to know he was reading her mind, for he scowled again. ‘Come. It is this way.’

  Cantarelli turned left towards the east wing and led the way down the service tunnel. Many of the niches were now lit with candles – ‘Partly for the light, but mainly it is an easy way for us to make sure we have enough oxygen whilst we are working down here and the exits are blocked up,’ he said over his shoulder.

  ‘Makes sense,’ she muttered, thinking she wouldn’t want any canaries sacrificed on his account.

  She followed after him, listening to the sound of his foot-steps and breath, having to resist trailing her hands along the rough stone walls. After a minute or so, he stopped suddenly and Cesca had to keep from walking into the back of him.

  ‘What? What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘This.’ He pointed to the ground by his feet and scuffed it lightly. They had been walking on the service tunnel’s dusty, roughly mixed concrete floor but, just at the very edge of the path, she saw the rounded edges of ancient cobbles ingress from behind the wall. ‘We noticed these.’

  Cesca felt a bubble of excitement in the pit of her stomach as she examined them more closely, squatting down to get the beam of her head torch upon them. ‘You think there’s something behind there?’

  His eyes met hers: steady, self-assured. ‘We know there is. We’ve been in there.’

  Cesca stared, dumbfounded, at the wall, trying to imagine the T-junction he was telling her existed here. ‘But . . . how?’ She knocked it, wondering if it would sound hollow with a tunnel hidden behind it, but her bare knuckles made almost no sound on the stone wall. She pressed against it, looking for a line, a cut, a seam, an Agatha Christie-type lever that would make the entire thing fall away and reveal a hidden library with Colonel Mustard in it – but there was nothing. The rock was solid.