Deep and Silent Waters

by Charlotte Lamb

  ‘You mean he’s going to die?’ She knew her voice sounded raw, as if torn out of her. Domenico glanced at her sideways and sighed. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, darling, but somebody had to. The doctors weren’t sure for a while, but now they are. Carlo isn’t going to live beyond a year. We must get a specialist nurse for him. But, more than that, he’ll need you, Toria. His physical needs are easy. It’s the emotional side we have to deal with. We must put off our marriage. I can’t ask you to marry me and walk away from your dying brother. That would be too cruel.’

  Vittoria was rigid with despair. Time stretched ahead, bleak and grey and empty. But she didn’t argue. There was no point. Domenico had made up his mind. In some ways he was as obstinate and immovable as her father, and she was afraid of losing him. Her instincts told her he was looking for a way out of their marriage; she mustn’t give him the chance. She had to hang on, by this tiny thread that still bound them together. She wasn’t letting go of him. She never would.

  Her life became a ceaseless round of work and anxiety. She couldn’t have managed without Antonio. They employed a nurse for a while but Carlo disliked her; he couldn’t speak but he made his feelings clear enough, growling in his throat like a dog whenever he set eyes on her, and glaring at her. After a month she gave notice, and when she had gone Antonio did most of the physical work involved in caring for Carlo. He lifted him in and out of bed, washed him, dressed him, fed him, unless Vittoria was at home when she took over, and kept him in touch with whatever was happening at the factory, in the offices. God alone knew if he understood it all, but she felt he listened keenly. He blinked replies. One blink for yes. Two for no. Three meant, I don’t understand, explain. It took an age to communicate in blinks and long pauses but she often needed Carlo’s advice before she made a decision concerning the firm.

  She was working long hours every day, continuing with her university course, sandwiching her studies between working at the company in Carlo’s role. Normally, she did a morning at the college, had a quick lunch then spent the rest of the day at the firm. Exhausted, pale, at the end of her tether, she would return to the house each evening. Antonio would meet her at the front door and make her sit down. Then he knelt, took off her shoes and massaged her hot, throbbing feet. He gave her a glass of wine, then left her relaxing while he got her meal – melon and Parma ham, soup or bruschetta, heaped with roast peppers or tomatoes, then pasta or risotto or some fresh grilled fish.

  While she ate he told her how her brother was, and asked how her day had gone. ‘Another glass of red wine, for your blood. You need it, you’re so pale,’ he would insist.

  ‘I shall get fat.’ She sighed, but drank the wine, although she wouldn’t have any dessert or coffee.

  ‘You’re too thin.’

  ‘They say a woman can never be too thin.’

  ‘Whoever said that wasn’t an Italian.’

  ‘It was that American woman, the Duchess of Windsor.’

  He made a face. ‘Oh, her. She isn’t a woman at all. More like a man, with that hard, ugly face.’

  They no longer talked like employer and servant, they were friends. He knew her better, was closer to her, than any other friend she had ever had, including Olivia.

  After she swayed one evening and fell downstairs out of utter exhaustion, Antonio got into the habit of coming upstairs with her, his arm around her to support her. They would go into Carlo’s bedroom and if he was awake, as he often was, drifting in and out of consciousness, day and night, she would talk to her brother for a little while, then she would go to her own room. Once she was so tired that she collapsed on her bed fully dressed and slept there all night. After that Antonio insisted on helping her change into her nightdress. He would lift her between the sheets before turning out the light and leaving her to sleep. At first she had protested, been embarrassed, but when you were almost dead with weariness such intimacies no longer seemed to matter.

  It was like a marriage, she often thought. Without the sex, of course. Antonio never once touched her that way. She would never have let him. Antonio was necessary to her, though. He became her other half, who stayed at home while she left to work at a dozen different things, driving herself until she was almost crazy.

  In the summer of 1954 she took her exams and passed although not as well as she and her tutors had hoped. She hadn’t given her work the necessary concentration. At least leaving university meant she had less to do each day. She decided to put off the accountancy course for a year, to spend more time with Carlo, but he died in the early hours of a frosty Christmas morning. Outside, Milan was still and calm until first light, when the bells of the churches and the cathedral began calling people to Mass. Vittoria and Antonio knelt beside the priest, praying silently, while he gave Carlo Extreme Unction, murmuring the ritual in a sleepy voice. Carlo hadn’t spoken since the car crash. He lay with eyes shut, breathing faint – it was impossible to say whether he was listening or understood.

  Vittoria had not slept for thirty-six hours. She was past responding to anything, couldn’t even shed a tear when Carlo stopped breathing. Antonio made her go to bed while the body was prepared, and the undertaker came to take it away.

  She slept right through Christmas Day, and woke in the evening to hear the bells ringing again for Benediction, the last service of the day in the cathedral. Remembering at once that Carlo had died, she thought, It’s over. It’s finished. I’m free. She couldn’t even be sad for him. It had been a release for him, too. He had scarcely been living, more waiting to die.

  Her body was light and cool, as if she was floating. Domenico. The name sang in her head, in her heart. At last they could be married.

  When she came downstairs Antonio told her Domenico had rung from the States to wish her a happy Christmas. ‘I told him your brother had just died and I didn’t want to wake you, you were so tired.’

  Disappointed, she cried, ‘You should have put the call through to my bedroom! How dare you!’

  Antonio paled, his mouth tight. ‘I’m sorry. I did it because I was worried about you. You don’t know what you looked like, white as a ghost. You’ve been through a terrible ordeal. You needed that sleep.’

  ‘I know you meant well but I would have wanted to talk to him. I shouldn’t have shouted at you, Antonio, after all you’ve done for me. I’m sorry.’

  He bowed his head in acknowledgement of the apology. ‘The Count said he would fly back at once.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Did he? When is he leaving?’

  A shrug. ‘He said at once. Who knows if that meant today or tomorrow? You could try ringing him now while I get your dinner. I have a special meal for you – I had planned it for Christmas. Will you eat now?’

  ‘I’m starving! Yes, please. What is it?’

  He smiled indulgently at her. She loved food like a little girl. ‘A lentil and chestnut soup, with bay and marjoram and basil, I’ll bring bruschetta with it, and then lepre in salmi.’

  ‘Jugged hare? Where did you get the hare?’

  ‘A friend of mine shot it up in the hills. I had it marinating for a couple of days in red wine and spices. It’s very rich, and so tender it’s falling off the bone, you’ll love it. You need—’

  ‘The wine for my blood!’ she finished, laughing on the edge of hysteria. ‘I know. What are you serving it with?’

  ‘Polenta.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’

  It was. Most of the staff were off for Christmas evening, for family parties, and as she didn’t want to eat alone in the big, cold dining room, she ate in the kitchen, which the staff had decked with coloured paper chains.

  ‘And you must eat with me! I don’t want to eat alone tonight, of all nights.’

  They turned off the electric lights and had candles on the big deal table. Antonio brought across the iron pot of soup, and placed beside it an earthenware platter of hot bruschetta smelling of garlic. Before they began to eat Antonio poured her red wine.

  ‘Your
happiness,’ he toasted, lifting his own glass towards her.

  She smiled at him. ‘And yours.’

  His black eyes had a wet shine, as if he was almost crying. She understood how he felt, she felt that way, too. She would miss him when she went to Venice, even though she couldn’t wait to go, to be married. It was a pity she had to say goodbye to Antonio, though. They had been through so much together.

  Then it hit her. Why shouldn’t he come with her to Venice? A good servant was hard to find in any city.

  Vittoria was married in the spring of 1955 in Milan cathedral, with Olivia as her matron-of-honour. A very large Olivia, who was expecting her first child any day and looked, in her pale lime dress, like a green barrage balloon.

  ‘Cara, don’t have a baby right away. Take my tip, it ruins all your fun and you look hideous – well, just look at me!’

  ‘You look wonderful, Olivia. And I am dying to have a baby.’

  ‘Stupido!’ But Olivia hugged her. ‘We’re sisters now. You must be my baby’s godmother. Promise?’

  ‘I’d love to.’

  The reception was enormous: hundreds of guests crowded into the hotel, the press outside snapped the famous faces of industry and high society who came. It was the wedding of the year in Milan, the talk of Venice. Vittoria had drawn up the guest list for Milan, while the one for Venice came from Domenico. Before she sent both to the printer Vittoria slid an eye down the Venetian list and stopped dead at one name.

  ‘Canfield? I don’t want him at my wedding!’

  ‘He’s my friend. I want him,’ Domenico said, quietly.

  ‘But, Nico …’ Her head was exploding with images of her mother, lying white and still on her death-bed with Canfield’s dead baby on her breast. She met Domenico’s hard, dark eyes, and gulped. She had never told him about Canfield and her mother, had no idea if he knew, what he knew, and hated the thought of talking about it, even with him.

  ‘He is my friend. You will be seeing a lot of him. You must learn to like him,’ he said.

  She could – should, perhaps – have told him the whole story then, but she didn’t. It was all too painful to talk about. Oh, well, she told herself, she wouldn’t even notice Canfield among so many other people, and she would be too busy on the day to care about him being there.

  All the society columnists featured the wedding at great length, with pictures of Vittoria in her wonderful dress, the bridesmaids, people arriving at the cathedral. Vittoria enjoyed it all, the white and gold solemnity of the nuptial mass, emerging to the peal of bells, her long veil blowing behind her, crowds outside applauding, smiling, throwing rice, the reception afterwards, eating the wedding breakfast, listening to the toasts and speeches, and afterwards dancing and talking to people she only half recognised. She even managed to smile at Canfield and hide her hatred, because she was counting the moments until they were alone, she and Domenico. She was half dazed with happiness: she had been so afraid they would never be married that she hardly dared believe she was finally his wife.

  They spent their honeymoon in the Caribbean – Domenico’s choice, of course, just as he had decided they should marry in Milan cathedral, with a full nuptial mass, and a heavenly choir of boys in lace-decked white cassocks singing the Latin liturgy; he had chosen the five-star hotel, in the centre of Milan, for the wedding breakfast and spent some time discussing with the manager what food would be served and with which wines.

  Oh, he made much play of discussing everything with her, but it was always Domenico who made the decisions. She told herself it was natural to him, he was used to authority, both in his home and at the university, with his students. Vittoria still felt afraid to argue with him in case the wedding was called off, so she always said yes to everything he suggested.

  ‘The West Indies are wonderful,’ he assured her. ‘I’ve been there a couple of times. I love the hot colours, the light is so brilliant and the local people are fun. The place has natural drama – everything is explosive, exciting. You’ll love it, too.’

  Looking down from the plane as they landed she did love it. It was so green, the sea so blue, the sands white as spilt sugar. The hotel was luxurious, with a pool set in tropical gardens full of astonishingly bright flowers and feathery, blowing palms, and smiling waiters in white coats served delicious drinks and food. Outwardly that honeymoon was blissful. It should have been the happiest time of Vittoria’s life. It wasn’t.

  Domenico slept with her each night, but much though she wanted to believe he enjoyed it, she couldn’t persuade herself of that. His lovemaking was brief, reluctant, she almost felt he had to force himself to touch her. Was he shy? She thought at first, incredulously. Or was it just that he did not enjoy sex?

  Vittoria did. She had always known that she would. Her body had ached for it, and now she discovered how sensual, how passionate, her body naturally was. ‘I love you,’ she groaned that first night, holding him between her open thighs, her naked body hot and eager. She felt the shudder that went through him but misunderstood, believing he was as desperate for satisfaction as she was, and moaned, ‘Darling, darling …’ as she arched up towards him, her hands touching, stroking the lean, smooth body on top of her, able at last, at long, long last to do what she had been dying to do for years.

  She explored his body hungrily, fingered along the deep indentation of his spine, down under his buttocks, caressed the curly black hair from which his cock sprang, pressed her face into his chest, kissed with open mouth the faintly sweaty skin, sucking at his nipples, holding his back while he rode up and down on her, and went into orgasm long before he did, crying out, hoarsely, almost in agony, her body jerking wildly, as if in a death throe.

  Domenico came as she finished, and she lay there with exhausted contentment, holding his body tightly as his seed leapt up inside her.

  ‘I want to have a baby right away,’ she whispered, kissing his hair.

  He rolled off her. ‘I’d like that.’ Yawning, he lay on his side, face turned away. ‘You must be very tired. Goodnight, Toria.’

  Next day, after a breakfast of fresh fruit, rolls and coffee in their elegant bungalow, he went off to paint down on the beach below the hotel grounds.

  She lazed by the pool, in the sun, swam, put on brief shorts and a skimpy top bought in the hotel shop, then walked down to see Domenico’s painting and tell him to come back for lunch.

  Wearing black swimming trunks, his tall figure gleaming golden, oiled, in the sun, he barely glanced at her, too intent on the brilliant seascape he was painting: blues so bright they hurt the eye, girls half naked on the yellow sand, umbrellas fluttering in the breeze. Life burst out of the canvas and Vittoria was breathless with admiration for his talent.

  ‘Lunch?’ he muttered. ‘No, I don’t eat much in the middle of the day. I brought some fruit down here with me. You go back and eat lunch. I’ll see you later.’

  She stood there, staring at his profile, a chill stealing up her skin in spite of the hot sun.

  ‘But … we’re on our honeymoon. Please, Nico, don’t leave me alone on our first day here. After all, there will be plenty of time for you to paint, later.’

  He didn’t even look at her and his voice was curt, indifferent. ‘I have to finish this, I have to work fast, before the light changes. Off you go, have fun, enjoy yourself.’

  She couldn’t make a scene in public. People were watching, listening. ‘See you later, then,’ she said flatly, and walked back up the sands to the hotel garden.

  That first night, first day, set the pattern for their weeks there. She had suspected that Domenico didn’t love her the way she loved him; now she knew it, and learnt, too, that when you love someone who doesn’t love you life is agony. Pain became her constant companion, walked with her in the tropical gardens, beat in her head, in her blood, slept beside her every night.

  At dinner on their last night in the Caribbean, Domenico said, ‘Have you decided what you want to do about your firm? Are you going to continue run
ning it, put in a manager or sell it?’

  They had discussed all three options before they got married but she hadn’t, then, been able to make up her mind. Now she had.

  ‘I’m going to sell the firm and the house. Now that we’re married I can’t be in both places at once, and you can never trust other people to run a company for you if you don’t keep an eye on them. I won’t rush into it, I’ll go on as I have over the past year, waiting for offers, and make sure I get the best price I can. I’ll spend the weekends with you at Ca’ d’Angeli, and four days during the week in Milan at the factory.’ She smiled at him, her dark eyes passionate. ‘It will be hard – I hate the thought of being away from you so much – but with any luck it won’t take too long to find the right buyer.’

  ‘And if you find you’re pregnant?’

  ‘Then I’ll think again.’

  Next day they flew home. Vittoria was sick with excitement and nerves at the thought of reaching Ca’ d’Angeli. She found it hard to believe that she would walk into the palazzo as its mistress; the schoolgirl who had not been thought good enough to go into the house all those years ago, who had been permitted into the gardens only on sufferance, and given haughty looks by the maidservant who had brought them a tray of food and drink. Did that girl still work there?

  If she does, I won’t get rid of her, thought Vittoria. No, that isn’t the way to get your own back. I want her there every day, waiting on me, jumping when I give her orders. I’ll rub her nose in it.

  They were met at the airport by one of the servants in the family’s motor-boat and arrived in style at the landing-stage in darkness. As they docked, somebody inside switched on the electric lights over the front door.

  Domenico helped Vittoria out of the boat and she turned to face Ca’ d’Angeli. The front door was open and, framed in the yellow light, Vittoria saw a woman so beautiful she almost thought she was imagining her. Hair of Titian red, swept up on top of her head, wearing a sleek black dress that clung to every curve of her slender body, large, glistening pearls around her pale throat.