Birmingham Rose

by Annie Murray

  The inside of the building was almost as austere as its exterior, the floor flagged in black and white marble on which her thin heels seemed to make far too much noise, and a ceiling which was plain except for frescos above the aisle, and even they were in restrained colours. There was very little else in the way of decoration.

  She had evidently arrived just at the end of the Mass. As she entered people were beginning to stream out of the building. A few stayed in their places at prayer or moved to the front to light candles. Others stood round in small clusters talking. She watched those who were leaving bow to the altar and cross themselves and she made an attempt to do the same, overcome with a sudden distaste.

  Bowing and scraping, she thought.

  As she looked up towards the high altar, two figures caught her attention. Long white robes, with black cloaks over them which wafted out behind as they walked, seeming to glide across the floor. For a few dizzying seconds his face was superimposed on each of them. Then she focussed properly. One had white hair and was short and stocky. The other was tall and slim with black hair, but everything else about him was wrong; the nose too long, the eyes, brows, complexion all unknown to her. She stood watching. So this was his life, here, doing this.

  Soon she was almost alone in the church, still standing there in the aisle. The younger priest had disappeared. She knew that if she did not act now she might never find the courage again.

  She walked up towards the altar. The elderly priest was standing to one side in one of the choir stalls, leafing through a book. His thick, white eyebrows were pulled into a frown.

  She wasn’t even sure how to address him and when she spoke her voice sounded too loud.

  ‘Signore? Mi scusi!’

  The priest looked up with an irritated air. ‘Yes. What is it?’

  ‘I – I’m looking for Father Falcone.’

  He stared at her for a moment, then with startling force he slammed the book closed so that dust flew up from the wooden choir stall. He stepped out and began to walk briskly away.

  ‘Father Falcone is not here.’ He spoke over his shoulder with unmistakable dislike.

  Rose followed him for a few steps. ‘Where is he – please?’

  The priest stopped and turned round abruptly, obviously shocked. His first answer should have been enough. She was not supposed to question further.

  ‘Father Falcone is away on retreat – again. Not, as one would expect of a priest in a position as serious as his, in a religious house of prayer, but’ – he flicked his right wrist several times, dismissively – ‘in some place of his own choosing. Where that may be I have no idea.’

  He turned and was gone.

  The impact of the old man’s bitterness left her reeling and close to tears. Only as she was walking back along the black and white flagstones did she know just how consuming was her need to see Falcone. But she was no closer to finding him.

  She sat down on one of the seats at the back of the church. His church, which felt so desolate now she knew he was not here. She stared up at the high altar, shrouded and mysterious at the far end of the church.

  ‘Please. Please help me find him,’ she found herself whispering. Perhaps his God would come to her aid?

  She thought of him kneeling in here day after day. He was in deeper trouble than she could have imagined. He had felt the need – or been sent – to get away and think about things, and not for the first time by the sound of it. And he had even chosen to go somewhere they would not think of looking.

  And then it came to her, making her catch her breath. Of course! If Falcone needed time to think, her instinct told her, she knew the first place he would go. Not even questioning now the need that drove her on to find him, she ran out of the echoing church and across the piazza.

  Less than an hour later she was on the train to Sorrento.

  She might have revelled in being in Sorrento had things been different, but as it was she hardly took in the town at all. By the time she had walked up the road to the Finzis’ house, having several times had to ask the way, it was one o’clock, and though no longer the height of summer it was hot enough to tire her. Her feet were sore from walking in her flimsy, high-heeled shoes.

  The bubble of excitement and eagerness which had driven her on in the early part of the day had almost evaporated through weariness and thirst. She felt very nervous. All the things she had planned to say on meeting him again, the scenes she had so often visualized had vanished, and instead she could only think of flat, lifeless things. The day had gone wrong. And she was only guessing that he was here.

  When she caught sight of the Finzis’ house she slowed down, her heart hammering in her chest. The house had recently been painted in pale green, and the shutters in a darker shade, so that the whole place had a newer, fresher air about it.

  What on earth was she doing here? If he really was here, what could she say to him? But to turn back now would be unthinkable.

  Without waiting to summon up courage she knocked on the door. There was a pause before it opened and she was facing a middle-aged, heavily built man who stared at her in silence. He was chewing hard on something and clearly in the middle of a meal.

  ‘Yes?’ he said eventually.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’ Her heart was sinking. It was all a mistake. The Finzis weren’t here any more. ‘I am looking for Paulo Falcone – Father Falcone.’

  The man nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said abruptly, showing no surprise. ‘Come in.’ And she was stepping back into the Finzis’ house.

  The inside had also been painted, and as she walked through the coolness of the rooms it felt strange, less homely than she remembered. He led her immediately to the kitchen which was little changed from when she had stayed there.

  Before she had time to collect her thoughts the man was saying, ‘Paulo – someone to see you.’

  Not their meeting as she had pictured it at all. She stood in the doorway looking into his face as their eyes met, trying to take in that it was really him. He was sitting at the table, fork in hand, dressed not in the white robes she had seen earlier, but in a shirt and trousers, both black and worn. He looked much the same as she remembered: serious, a little more careworn perhaps. Those large, long-lashed eyes stared back at her, puzzled. Whatever emotions may have been present in him, whether surprise or dismay, did not give themselves away in his face. He put down his fork and pushed the chair back.

  ‘Rosa?’ He stood in front of her, apparently unsure what to do. Then convention took over and he held out his hand. Somewhere in her mind she registered how warm it felt. She tried to smile at him, but her lips barely seemed to obey.

  ‘Er – we were eating,’ Falcone said, quickly. ‘Will you join us and have some food?’ He pulled out a chair for her.

  ‘Thank you. That would be very nice.’ She imagined him with the worshippers at San Domenico Maggiore, measured and courteous.

  He gave her some of the tough bread and a dish of spaghetti with meat and tomatoes.

  At the table Rose was shocked to recognize Clara Finzi. She had aged greatly, her once plump cheeks sunken, her eyes watery and holding an absent expression.

  ‘Clara.’ Falcone spoke to her loudly. ‘This is Rosa – from England. She stayed here once, during the war. When Angelo was still alive. Do you remember?’

  He looked at her then. Rose found herself blushing. He remembered. Of course he remembered. And what else could he have said to the old woman, who just nodded, mumbling something indistinct. Clearly Clara did not recognize her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Falcone said with the same formal politeness. He gestured to the man who had opened the door to her. ‘This is Lorenzo Finzi, the eldest son of the family. He has been living here with his mother since Signore Finzi’s death.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘About Signore Finzi.’

  Both men nodded, acknowledging the comment.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ Falcone asked her.

  ‘With France
sco and Margherita in Pozzuoli.’

  Falcone smiled for the first time. ‘And all their lovely family?’

  ‘My daughter is with them.’

  He looked attentively at her. ‘You’re married.’ It was not quite a question.

  ‘I’m a widow.’

  ‘Rosa . . .’ He stopped. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘They told me you were on a retreat somewhere, and I thought . . .’

  ‘They? Margherita and Francesco?’

  ‘No. A priest. At your church. He didn’t seem very happy at me asking.’

  ‘You went to San Domenico?’

  She nodded, unable to work out his reaction to this. Was he angry? Had she made things even worse for him? He was shaking his head gently from side to side, whether in amazement or displeasure she could not decide. She felt terribly embarrassed and clumsy, and longed to leave. Even her clothes felt wrong. She was overdressed, a stranger even to herself.

  She looked away from Falcone’s face, down at his hands, dark against the red and white checks of the tablecloth. They looked so familiar that the sight of them brought a lump to her throat. Those gentle, loving hands. Incredible that the hands of this stranger beside her had once known her so intimately. She was a fool for coming, for reviving the memories. She would go immediately. She could not even finish the food on her plate. If she and Falcone could have anything to say to one another it was quite impossible here.

  ‘I really have to go now.’ Getting up nervously she said to Clara and Lorenzo Finzi, ‘Thank you both for your hospitality. I’m very grateful.’

  Falcone took her to the door. She felt the lump in her throat again as he walked behind her. She could not have imagined a meeting as dreadful as this. She had visualised conversations where he reinforced to her his priestly vocation, and stood up for his decision to leave her so abruptly: perhaps rejected her all over again and with even more force. Anything seemed preferable to this unreadable formality.

  ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you.’ She was having difficulty controlling her voice. ‘I should not have come here.’

  She turned and began to walk away down the road so he would not see her tears.

  ‘Wait!’

  Almost angry now, she turned to him.

  ‘I . . . You must understand how surprised I am to see you,’ he said lamely, walking to stand closer to her in the dusty road. She stood dumbly in front of him, hardening her feelings. She could not speak.

  ‘I had no idea you were coming, and . . .’ He stumbled over the words. ‘You look so different.’

  He turned aside from her, looking up at the trees on the opposite side of the road. He was breathing in fast, shallow breaths.

  ‘Look . . . I’m sorry. I can’t . . . Every time I speak it condemns me.’ He gestured despairingly with his hands. ‘Seeing you again . . . Could you – would you come back?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow – afternoon? I’ll be walking.’ He pointed up towards the mountain. ‘I often do at that time of day. Lorenzo will not bother us.’ He seemed to recover himself a little. ‘I’m sorry you have come so far and I am unable to – that I can’t be more . . . welcoming today.’

  In a dignified voice Rose said, ‘I’ll come tomorrow, if that’s what you want?’

  He nodded. ‘Please, Rosa.’

  She turned and walked back down towards the town.

  It was a warm, languorous afternoon bathed in rich autumn sunlight which touched the fading leaves with gold. Walking to the house, she saw red blooms still on the geraniums, tiny children watching her from doorways and cats curled sleeping in the sun. She was dressed differently this time, her feet comfortable in flat shoes, feeling the warmth on her arms. She felt strangely calm, as if anything that happened was now up to him. She was here, come what may.

  There were no signs of life at the house and she walked past. As she began to climb the first deep step to the Stations of the Cross, the sense of recognition hit her oddly – those stones, so unchanged. At every other twist of the steep path were the stations she remembered; the crudely painted little pictures each protected by its alcove of brick, which also held their tributes of candles and flowers. She looked fondly at them, though their actual meaning was mostly lost on her.

  Perhaps she had come too early? They had not agreed on any particular time. She sat down on one of the steps and looked back. The town was just becoming visible through the trees, though they had grown and thickened. She thought back to the last time she had sat up here on one of these steps. She had been thinking of Sam, still soaking in the shock of his death.

  She breathed in the smells of the herbs and trees around her. There was a light scuttling sound. A salamander dashed off into the dry grass alongside the path in alarm. Startled, Rose turned her head.

  Falcone was standing watching her. He had come down from the chapel where he had spent some of the early part of the afternoon, thinking perhaps to meet her. As he turned the bend in the path he had come upon the sight of that familiar little figure sitting below him. He stopped, narrowing his eyes to make it out more clearly, as if perhaps it might be another dream. She had come to him many times before, dressed in the old black blouse and skirt, her hair taken up in a coil behind her head. It was an image that had haunted him against all the power of his will for the past nine years.

  As she turned, she heard his voice saying softly, as if unsure, ‘Rosa?’

  She stood up and slowly climbed up to join him. When she reached the step on which he was standing she looked up at him solemnly. It was impossible for either of them not to remember their last time together in this place.

  Falcone looked back at her, then as if in some way defeated by the sight of her, he directed his gaze away at the ground. But in that brief moment of contact the emotions she had seen in his eyes were all she needed.

  Together they turned and began to climb.

  ‘So,’ she asked softly, ‘why are you here up on this mountain instead of getting on with being a priest?’

  ‘Well.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’m in a mess.’

  To his amazement, Rose suddenly grinned. ‘Are you always in a mess, or is it just whenever I turn up?’

  Falcone burst out laughing. The sound startled her. He stopped and leaned up against the rocky wall next to the steps.

  ‘I had almost forgotten,’ he said. ‘How could I forget – how you . . . ? All the time I’m surrounded by earnest, righteous people telling me I’m mistaken, that I must stop speaking my mind because it will threaten the whole fabric of the Church. And then you come along and blow right through the whole thing! But in answer to your question: since I’m no longer allowed to do any of the things that are normally the framework of my priesthood, they can’t think what to do with me. They keep sending me off to “reconsider my position” on various questions. To examine my conscience and so on and so forth. So here I am, trying to do just that.’

  ‘And are you getting anywhere?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Falcone tilted his head back for a moment, wearily, as they walked on. ‘No further perhaps than I should have got if I’d taken more notice of you when we used to argue back then.’

  He turned to face her. ‘I don’t want to go over and over it again. It’s – oh, it drags you down. Rosa, I’m so sorry about yesterday. Your coming here at this time was so extraordinary that I didn’t know how to react. Why did you come?’

  ‘I had to see you.’

  They’d reached the little chapel and sat down together on the top step at the entrance, soaked in warm afternoon light.

  She felt bold because there was no time not to be, but also because the priest figure had gone, and they could talk as immediately, as honestly as ever.

  ‘I saw what had happened to you in the paper,’ she said. ‘There’s a man I work for at home who gives me Italian newspapers. When I saw your name again, real like that suddenly, I knew I had to come. I don’t know if you realize how cruel it was, the way you we
nt and never spoke to me again. Your letter. It left me all ragged at the ends. I could never settle, not really. It never ended for me you see . . .’ She trailed off, her cheeks burning and suddenly wet with tears. ‘I always loved you.’

  Falcone was sitting with his face in his hands. She longed to touch him, but hesitated, before gently laying a hand on his shoulder and stroking him.

  After a moment, trying to control his voice, he said, ‘Oh, Rosa, Rosa. Would you believe me if I tell you that not a day has passed without me thinking of you? Of how I treated you? When I saw Margherita after you’d gone back to England, she let me know very clearly just what I’d done. She was so angry with me. She would never show that she despised someone but she must have despised me then. It was another guilt to add to all the others. But at the time I couldn’t – really couldn’t think what else to do. I wouldn’t have been any good to you, not then. Margherita even told me she didn’t think I had a vocation to the priesthood. It’s dangerous to say such things of course. I’ve had to find that out for myself.’

  ‘Without Margherita I think I would have fallen apart.’

  ‘But you married – your English husband? I knew that. When I heard, it made things easier for me in a way. To think that you were really taken from me. That you loved someone else.’

  ‘No,’ Rose said bleakly. ‘That was my mistake. And I say that more for his sake than mine. I could never give him what he really deserved from me. I had learned what love was before that and I could never forget it. However much I tried not to think of you, you took something from me that I was never able to give again, to him or anyone.’

  He turned to look at her and she saw his eyes were full of pain. ‘Rosa – come here.’

  And they were in each other’s arms, he rocking her gently as she laid her wet face against his chest, his own tears falling on her hair.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he said. ‘All this time you have felt so much . . . And sitting here now I feel so close to you, as if I saw you only last week.’