Season of Storms (25 page)

Both dogs, as one unit, erupted into motion, bounding uphill at a breakneck pace that blurred them into shadows. Alex called out a command that stopped them just shy of the pines.

They waited, whining and impatient, till we joined them.

There was nothing there, no danger in the pines that would seem to have warranted such a great show of alarm. But looking down at my own feet I saw that someone had dropped a cigarette end—it had rolled to the edge of the path, still smouldering, the filter stained bright red with lipstick.

Seeing it and knowing that Daniela had been spying on us made my temper surge. She could watch all she wanted, and think what she liked, but I hadn’t done anything wrong. I’d come down to the theatre alone, for some privacy—Alex had come after
me.
And as for thinking she could threaten me with tales of poisoned dogs . . .

Max and Nero whined again, and, “False alarm,” said Alex.

I didn’t tell him differently. It wasn’t up to me to tell him what sort of woman Daniela was—I was not at all involved in their relationship.

He smiled a faint apology. “It must have been an animal.”

“A cat, perhaps,” I said, and ground the cigarette end underneath my heel as we walked on.

xiii

POPPY
met us as we came in from the terrace. From the way she knelt to greet the dogs, I gathered she’d been waiting more for their return than ours. The girl was mad about the greyhounds. And they, in the face of so much adoration and affection, consented in an almost lordly manner to be petted, standing patiently with long tails moving slowly side to side, the greyhound version, I suspected, of the royal wave.

“They like you,” Alex told her with a smile.

“I used to have a dog,” said Poppy, rather wistfully. “I’d like to have another one, but Mummy says we can’t while I’m at school, because there wouldn’t be anyone home to take care of him.”

Alex agreed that dogs needed a lot of attention, companionship. “These two are angry with me now, because I’ve been away all day.”

Caressing Nero’s neck, Poppy said, “They don’t like being left in the kennels.”

“No, you’re right, they don’t,” said Alex. He tilted his head as though thinking. “Perhaps next time I need to go out for so long, I’ll let you look after the dogs, keep them company. How would that be?”

“Would you really?” Her eyes glowed. “Oh, that would be brilliant, I’d love to. D’you hear that, boy?”

Nero’s response was subdued—just a tolerant twitch of one ear—but it seemed enough for Poppy. She gave him a passionate hug. And then, with the ease of a twelve-year-old, changed from a child to an adult in one breath. Straightening, she looked at me. “We saved you some dinner. Shall I heat it up for you? Rupert showed me how to work the microwave,” she said.

She looked so keen to please that I found myself nodding in spite of the fact that I still had no appetite. “I’d like that. Thank you.”

“And afterwards, maybe,” she said, “we could play Snakes and Ladders? You said that you might, after dinner. Unless there’s another game you’d rather play . . .”

“Snakes and Ladders,” I assured her, “will be fine.” And even preferable, I thought, to sitting round with all the others going over the details of Giancarlo’s death. Having witnessed the event, I had no great desire to speak of it. I wanted to forget.

I had the feeling Alex understood. He said, “I’m not much good at games,” and with a quiet nod to both of us excused himself and walked off down the corridor, with Max and Nero padding at his heels.

Poppy’s obvious pleasure at having me all to herself was quite touching. Seating me rather decorously in the dining room, she went off to reheat my meal in the kitchen and returned bearing my plate before her with such proper form one might think she was serving the Queen. I was careful not to smile because I still remembered how, at Poppy’s age, I’d been in awe of my headmistress; how I’d longed for her to see me as an equal, not a little girl. Remembered, too, the day I’d served her tea, and just how desperately I’d tried to play the perfect hostess. Everything that could have gone wrong did—the tea was far too strong, the biscuits stale—but my headmistress hadn’t once let on. She’d endured the whole thing graciously, and in so doing had made my twelve-year-old self feel wonderfully special.

She was very much in my thoughts now as I swallowed a mouthful of chewy cold pasta and assured Poppy that it was lovely, just right. My reward was a shy smile that made me at last understand why my headmistress had not only suffered through my awful tea, but had asked for a second cup.

She brought me wine, as well, that she had poured into a pitcher, and a buttered roll. And then, at my insistence, took the seat across from mine.

From her look of concentration I guessed she was trying to think of something suitably grown-up to say to start a conversation. “It’s terrible what happened to Teresa’s husband, isn’t it?” When I agreed it was, she carried on, encouraged. “Alex said she’d better stay with relatives the next few days—you know, until after the funeral. He said he’d find somebody else to cook till then. That’s really nice of him, I think, don’t you?”

“I do, yes.”

“Very rich people aren’t always so thoughtful with their servants, are they?” she said, in a tone that had travelled the world and met hundreds of very rich people. “But Alex is. And he’s like that with everyone, too. Even us.”

“He’s a very considerate man,” I said, spearing another forkful of pasta.

“He was really worried about you.”

“Oh, yes?” I glanced up, keeping my expression casual, and Poppy nodded.

“Yes, at dinner, when you didn’t come. Rupert tried to tell him that you sometimes liked to be alone when something had upset you, but Alex said finding a body was more than upsetting and that someone ought to look for you to see you were all right.”

She had, I thought, a parrot’s ear for dialogue. I made a mental note to watch what I said in her presence in future.

“Mummy said she’d go and look, but Alex told her no, he’d go himself.” And then she added, as an afterthought, “Daniela didn’t like that.”

Reaching for my wine to wash down a largish lump of noodles, I said, “No, I don’t imagine that she did.”

Poppy studied my face for a moment with eyes that were very adult. And then, in the tones of an ally, she told me, “I don’t like Daniela. I don’t like the way she talks to Mummy. And she’s nicer to men than to women. Some women are like that, I know, but I think that it’s stupid.” She frowned. “Men don’t notice it, though, do they? Nicholas doesn’t.” She stopped there; caught herself as though afraid she’d said too much. I couldn’t help but wonder what the girl had seen, how much she knew about whatever had been going on between Daniela and Nicholas. She was clever for her age. I had the feeling that she didn’t miss much. Sitting up straighter, she tossed back her hair. “Nicholas,” she said, “is such a jerk. I don’t know what my mother sees in him.”

I shrugged, careful not to offer any opinion that might find its way back to Madeleine. “They’ve been together a long time,” was all I said.

“Not really. Only since last summer. And only because Nicholas was being thrown out of his flat for not paying the rent. He didn’t pay too much attention to Mummy till then,” she said. Her exhaled breath was cynical beyond her years. “He’s just like all the others. He doesn’t want Mummy at all, only what she can give him.”

Astute as well as cynical, I thought. I was trying to think of what comforting bit of advice I could offer when she carried on without me.

“Den’s not, though. He’s rather different, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “Quite different from Nicholas, yes.”

“I like Den.”

I could have told her that I thought her mother liked him, too, but I kept my observations to myself. No point in getting the child’s hopes up, I thought. Besides, given Poppy’s own powers of observation I had a feeling she’d start noticing things herself, before long, if she hadn’t already.

Forcing my last bite of food down with wine, I pushed my plate away. “That was very good, Poppy. It did hit the spot.”

“It’s really only the first course, you know. There’s ham still, and vegetables . . .”

Holding my stomach with a protective hand, I shook my head and smiled. “No, honestly, I’m full.”

“I’ll just make the tea, then,” she said, jumping up to clear my plate, “and we can start our game.”

Her tea, to my relief, was infinitely better than the stuff I’d served my poor headmistress all those years ago. I took a long sip while she set up the game board between us. It was an older board, well-creased and scuffed with use.

“There’s a whole cupboard full of games, under the stairs,” Poppy said, when I asked her where she’d found it. “Teresa showed Den, after lunch. She said she didn’t think that Alex would mind if we played them. This one’s a baby’s game, I know,” she put in, a bit self-consciously, “but all the others were Italian, and I didn’t know the rules.”

“That’s all right. I quite like Snakes and Ladders.” I touched the board and tried to picture Alex as a small boy, playing this—an English game . . . a present, perhaps, from the mother he couldn’t remember.

“Den isn’t very good at this,” said Poppy. “He kept landing on the snakes this afternoon.”

Which was appropriate, I thought, considering that the snakes were all associated with human vices, things I fancied Den O’Malley had his share of.

Poppy said, “He lost most of the games. But he said if we’d been playing the
American
version he’d have beaten me every time.” She didn’t appear to have taken him seriously. “He comes from New York, in America. Have you ever been to New York?”

“No, I haven’t.” I rolled the die, advancing my game piece a measly two squares.

“Too bad. One more and you’d have had a ladder.” Rolling six, she slid up a ladder herself and went on, “Mummy’s been to New York, with a play. She says it’s nice there. Not as scary as they make it look on television. Mummy travels a lot with her acting.” She glanced at me, tentative. “I’m going to be an actress, too,” she said, watching carefully for my reaction. When I didn’t laugh or make a patronizing comment she relaxed. “Den thinks I’ll make a good actress—he says I have the memory for it, and with luck I’ll have the genes.”

“Well, Den’s been in the business a long time,” I told her, encouragingly, as I slid up a ladder for doing good deeds. “He knows what he’s talking about.”

She looked pleased. “What did he mean, about me having the genes?”

“He probably meant that you’ll have inherited some of your mother’s talent.”

“And my father’s,” she reminded me. “He’s an actor too, you know.”

I knew. I’d have preferred to forget, but . . .

“I don’t take after him much, though,” she said. “I’m glad of that. He broke my mother’s heart.” Her words were solemn, with the ring of something she had heard repeated fairly often through her childhood. “He left her for another woman, when I was a baby.”

“Oh,” I said lamely. She didn’t know, then. Didn’t know I was the ‘other woman’s’ daughter. Not feeling able to look at her, suddenly, I bent my head and shook the die as though my life depended on it.

“
She
was an actress, too. She still is,” Poppy said, and named my mother with distaste. “But she didn’t stay with Father. She went off to live with someone else. Doesn’t matter, though, she’s still a bitch,” she said, revelling in her use of the grown-up word, “and I hate her.”

I let go the die. It skidded off the game board and went halfway down the table. Poppy leaned over to read it. “Five,” she announced. “Oh, bad luck. That’s a snake.”

For my vices,
I thought, as I slid my game piece down the laughing serpent.
For my vices.

xiv

WE
came off book the next day at rehearsal.

This was always the most terrifying time for me, the time when I felt certain I was the worst actress ever; when I felt certain even Rupert, having witnessed my ineptness, would politely send me home, recast my part. Even though we’d been rehearsing the play for two weeks now, my memory, as usual, seemed to have failed me completely. Deprived of the script in my hands, I was hopeless—remembering one speech, forgetting the next, and then faltering on, stopping every few minutes to ask for a prompt.

I felt the panic starting now within my chest as I wheeled to face Madeleine, whose character was poised to have mine ushered from the ‘room.’ “No, please, you mustn’t, I—” Oh, damn, I thought. I’d lost it. “Line,” I said.

Den supplied it. “You are my final hope . . .”

Oh, right. “You are my final hope, the only person who can bring me peace.” How on earth, I wondered, could I have forgotten something so simple?

She fixed her lovely eyes on me and said, “I cannot change the past. If he is dead, he will remain so.”

“But I have heard that you can give the dead a voice.”

Considering, she crossed a step in front of me, confusing me a little as I tried to remember whether I was meant to move in response.

“The price will not be small,” she warned. “Are you prepared to pay it?”

My thoughts still on the blocking, I looked at her blankly. “Line.”

Den, in his clear level voice, said: “I have money.”

“I have money.”

Rupert stopped us there, whether from pity or because he couldn’t stand it any longer I didn’t know. “All right,” he spoke up from his corner, “that’s fine, let’s leave it there and take ten minutes, then pick up again with—”

Den leaned over, interrupting him with a low comment, and Rupert glanced down at his watch in surprise. “So it is. Right, change of plan then, everybody. Celia and Maddy, your first wardrobe fitting is scheduled for three o’clock, and since it’s nearly that now we’ll take a full hour and start back at four o’clock with scene . . .”—he flipped a page back in his script to check—“scene three. All right?”

Freed from my torture, I was about to apologize to Madeleine for making such a mess of our rehearsal when she met my eyes conspiratorially, raising one hand with a sigh to massage her neck. “God, I do hate this,” she said. “I feel like such an idiot without my book—I never can remember my lines properly. And age only makes things worse.”

“But you were perfect,” I protested.

“Hardly. Den,” she asked him, turning, “how many times did I ask for a line?”

Strolling over to join us, he grinned. “I lost count. You were both keeping me pretty busy.”

Madeleine sent me an ‘I told you so’ look.’ “You see?”

Den raised an eyebrow. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Celia thinks that I’m perfect.”

Den winked at me. “Don’t worry, honey, no one’s ever perfect when we take their scripts away. There are some stories I could tell you . . .”

“Darling,” Madeleine broke in, using the endearment rather naturally, I thought, “I don’t suppose you’d be a prince and bring us both a cup of tea? We won’t have time to fetch our own before the fitting.”

“Tea it is. Where are they doing the fitting, in here?”

“Yes, I think so. I haven’t heard otherwise.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He’d forgotten, I think, that Teresa was no longer in the house, and her replacement—a dour-faced woman on loan from a hotel in Mira del Garda—was neither as efficient nor accommodating. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d had to make the tea himself. At any rate, it was nearly twenty minutes later by the time he reappeared, by which time the wardrobe mistress had arrived with a bright-eyed assistant in tow who had cheerfully pinned us both into our half-finished costumes and was fitting a wig on my head to assess the effect.

I didn’t like the wig, myself. The style was all right—a close-fitting sweep of tight waves with small curls on my forehead—and the colour was necessary. Galeazzo had written
Il Prezzo
for Celia the First, after all, and there were any number of references in the script to the blondeness of the widow’s hair. The problem was that the hair in this wig had turned out to be spot on the same shade as Mother’s. It didn’t matter that her colour came from a bottle, or that our facial features weren’t at all alike—when I looked in the mirror I saw Mother’s hair, and it bothered me.

If Madeleine saw the resemblance as well, she was too gracious to say so. She looked lovely herself, in the close-fitting costume of lavender silk that moved lightly each time that she shifted position, her arms held out gracefully, like a dancer’s, to allow the wardrobe mistress to achieve a proper fitting of the sleeves. Madeleine looked, in fact, so very lovely that I didn’t think Den would be able, or inclined, to take his eyes from her. So it came as a surprise when I looked up to find him staring straight at me.

Madeleine noticed him, too. “Oh, our tea. Dennis, thank you so much. You can put the cups there, on the table, if you don’t mind.”

He looked at the cups in his hands, as though surprised to find that he was holding them, then set them on the table as requested before lifting his gaze once again to my face, rather strangely, as if he were looking right through me at somebody else.

“Do we look all right?” Madeleine asked.

“What? Oh, yes, you look gorgeous, the pair of you.”

The wardrobe mistress straightened like a warden; shooed him off. “No men,” she said firmly, in accented English. “You go now and close the door.”

“But surely—”

“
No
men.”

Defeated, he turned, pausing once at the door to look back. In my blonde wig, I decided, I must have looked more like my mother than even I had thought. Den—who had worked with her once, he’d said—seemed to be seeing a ghost. I half-expected him to comment on it, but then his faint frown disappeared, and “Blonde hair suits you, Celia” was the only thing he said before he passed into the corridor and shut the door behind him.