The Sin of Cynara (2 page)

  When the train drew into the station, they were among the few people to alight. A young porter came running to take their cases, and Carol asked him if there was a nearby café where some breakfast could be had.

  'Si, signora.' He good-naturedly lugged the cases all the way out of the station to the café itself, where the tables were already set out on the pavement, with tubs of oleanders near the entrance. 'We're going to Falconetti,' Carol told the porter, 'Do you know the place?'

  'Si, palàgio del isola.' He smiled, accepted his tip, and left Carol feeling stunned.

  The palace on the island! Oh, he had to be mistaken, or was kidding her. At no time had Vincenzo led her to believe that his family was of the aristocrazia, but suddenly she felt a quickening of her nerves and wondered at her own audacity in coming all this way to confront them with the child ... if they were important, then it would look as if she were trying to cash in on their good fortune.

  And yet why not? There was no disputing the fact that Teri was of their blood, and she wanted nothing for herself. Her marriage to Vincenzo had died before it had begun to live, and what love she now had to give had been transferred to the child which Cynara's affair with her husband had brought into the world.

  'Come along, Buster, sit down at the table and we'll have something nice to eat.'

  His attention was on the doves that strutted around the tables searching for crumbs, but at the mention of food he came and scrambled on to a chair. 'Ice-cream,' he said, with a coaxing smile, 'with chocolate sauce?'

  'Not for breakfast, caro.' And when the waiter came out to them she asked if they could have one coffee, one glass of warm sweet milk, soft-boiled eggs, bread, butter and marmalade.

  Si, they could have all that, and something called marmellata which was made by the monks out of figs and apricots. 'E bella!' he assured her, and he stared at her with bold eyes, for the sun was playing over her blonde hair, braided at the crown of her head and revealing the slim whiteness of her neck where a little silver coin rested on a chain in the pool of her throat. Her dress was of white and grey, and it made her look as sedate as a young novice.

  But cool as she outwardly looked Carol hadn't forgotten how disturbing the eyes of Italian men could be, for there was no shyness or constraint in the way they looked at a woman.

  Carol hadn't bothered in the past five years to have anything to do with men and had devoted herself to Teri. Consequently she had almost forgotten that her combination of very fair hair and grey-violet eyes could have a certain effect on men who were totally opposite in colouring — the last man to tell her she was attractive was Vincenzo, and she had coldly replied that he no longer had the power to turn her head with his Latin flattery.

  But she wasn't the only one to notice the waiter's preoccupation with her hair. 'She's my mummy !' Teri suddenly cried out, and jumping off his chair he ran round to Carol and buried his face against her, hugging her with fierce young arms.

  'What a big bambino,' the waiter scoffed, and quirking an eyebrow at Carol he strolled off into the café to fetch their breakfast.

  'Now don't be silly, Buster.' Carol kissed the top of Teri's head. 'We're going to have eggs and soldiers, and you like those.'

  'That man was looking all over you.' Teri pouted, unaccustomed to men because they very rarely came into the Copper Jug, and already precocious enough to recognize the light of admiration in a rival's eye. He lifted a hand and stroked her hair, which he alone knew was incredibly long and shining when let down out of the thick braids. It came past the curve of Carol's spine, and was her only true vanity. Both she and Cynara had the same hair, but her sister cut hers long ago and wore it in a glossy pageboy style. But there was an element of the old-fashioned girl in Carol and she liked having long hair. Teri loved it and would sometimes brush it for her, and call it her serpent's tail, curling it around her slender body with husky giggles.

  There was a shadow of doubt in Teri's heart and mind that she was his 'mummy', and there were times when Carol grew frightened in case he ever learned the truth.

  'Come on, be my big man and sit down to have your breakfast. We can't be here all day, remember. We have to get that boat, caro.'

  'The boat !' He clapped his hands with anticipation, for boats were one of his passions. Then, after planting a kiss on Carol's neck, he returned to his seat and grinned across the table at her. Such huge eyes, she thought, fringed by lashes exactly like his father's. She sighed deep in her heart ... how different life could have been if Vincenzo had lived up to his promises and her hopes. Instead he had ruined her dreams with all the carelessness of a selfish, half-grown boy, and in so doing he had broken himself on the wheel of pleasure.

  'Don't look sad, Cally!'

  She smiled at Teri, the son of her virginal marriage. 'I'm just a bit anxious, caro. I hope your daddy's people like us.'

  'If they don't, Cally, then we'll go to Rome and live there, near the fountain of King Neptune.' He had very much taken to the bearded old god in the Fountain of Trevi, with his trident and his chariot.

  'That would be nice,' she said, and wondered if it would also be possible. Her small store of cash was almost exhausted, but one thing in her favour was that she could speak good Italian and had a good experience of working as a waitress. There were plenty of cafés in Rome, and no doubt plenty of cheap rooms.

  Yet ... oh, it wasn't what she wanted for Teri. Living from hand to mouth, making do with mended clothes, and never being able to send him to a really good school. Education was so important for a boy, especially one as bright and quick as her little Roman.

  She smiled at him, and hers was a singularly sweet smile for anyone she cared for. 'We'll keep our fingers crossed, caro. Wouldn't you like to live on a real isola, among your own kind of people?'

  He nodded and played with his spoon. 'I shall miss Auntie's fruit tarts,' he said.

  'Yes,' she said wryly, and remembered all those times her aunt had stormed at the boy for poking about in her kitchen and nipping hot tarts off the table.

  Their breakfast arrived and they tucked into the food with good appetite. Their journey to Catalina had been rather a long one, and for the most part they had lived on cheese sandwiches and biscuits. Teri's eggs were nice and runny so he could dip his soldiered bread into the golden yolks. Carol sipped her real Italian coffee with appreciation, and thoroughly enjoyed the fig and apricot jam on crusty bread.

  When the waiter made out their bill, she asked him if there was a local bus to the Lake of Lina, for it would work out a little cheaper to go that way instead of hiring a car. 'Si,' he gave her a bold smile and told her they would be in time to pick up the bus in the nearby square. 'Is the signora taking a holiday in this part of the world?'

  'We're on a visit to relatives,' she said, counting coins into his palm. 'That was a very nice breakfast, grazie.'

  'It has been a pleasure serving you, signora.' He gave her a gallant bow, while Teri tugged at her hand and glared at the man for having the nerve to flirt with his Cally.

  'Your luggage, signora, I will get the kitchen boy to carry the cases to the bus for you.'

  'That's kind of you.'

  'Who would not be kind to a young mother and her bambino?' He winked at Teri, and went off to find the kitchen boy, and Carol wondered if she was going to find the same sort of kindness at the house of the Falcone family ... the palace on the island. Oh, it had to

  be an exaggeration of the porter, who probably re-garded any large house as a palazzo.

  The dusty, old-fashioned bus was already being revved up for its journey when they arrived in the square. Her cases were hoisted aboard and she and the boy found seats about half-way along the bus. The other passengers gave them long stares of curiosity, and she heard a woman mutter something to another one. These were real country people, with sunburned faces and dark shawls and wide-brimmed hats to offset the rising heat of the Italian sun ... the solleone, merciless sunlion of late summer.

  The bus started up and bumped its way out of the piazza, passed the huddling, colour-washed houses and shops and roared merrily over a hump-backed bridge on to a road bordered by sword-leaved cacti, sharply duelling with each other, their sharp points glittering.

  That woman on the other side of the aisle had turned her head and was staring at Teri with sharp eyes. He moved closer to Carol and his hand gripped hers. That look from one of the locals couldn't be malignant, for the child was too obviously Italian ; it could only mean that his looks were recognizable and he resembled the Falcone family. Right away Carol wanted to ask someone about them, but when she glanced around for a sympathetic face she found that unsmiling curiosity of villagers who regarded all strangers as intruders into their close-knit lives. They could see that the boy was one of them, but she wasn't and therefore was a source of suspicion and unrest. When she caught their gaze they glanced away from her and made her realize how wide a gulf she had to cross in order to become acceptable to them.

  Oh dear, would it be the same with the Falcones? Must she really face the wrenching pain of having to part with Teri in order to ensure for him a secure future?

  She glanced down at his dark head and couldn't bear to think of being without him, yet that probability loomed very near. That these Sabine people didn't welcome strangers was very evident, and she could only suppose that the friendly waiter at the café came from Rome where the people were far more sophisticated.

  Teri gave her a quick smile and she forced the pensive look from her face and shared his interest in the passing scenery. Farmhouses spread across the sunlit hills, with massive wooden gates and groves of chestnut trees. The road lifted and fell and curved around the Sabine farms, and she marvelled at the timeless beauty ol it all. These fortress-like farms and olive terraces had been like this in the time of the Roman occupation; they had built the triple-arched bridges and marched in their legions along this very road.

  It was exciting and she couldn't help but respond to the antiquity of the countryside and the fabulous history. Here the soldiers had carried off the Sabine women and their screams had echoed through these hills, and their petticoats of blue or pea-green would have billowed across the saddlebows of their rough and laughing abductors. Would it have been so terrible, she wondered, to be carried off by a warrior, hard, lean and campaign-scarred?

  Her heart gave a tiny flutter in her breast. Was that the kind of man she really preferred, deep in her secret heart? But surely in this day and age such men were no longer existent, daring and dangerous, and riding hard across this sun-cracked land where the wild red geraniums spilled among the swords of cacti and the agaves.

  They arrived suddenly at the Lake of Lina, the road twisting suddenly to give a wide and gleaming view of the lake, with its long harbour wall and rising tiers of colourful houses. The bus came to a halt in the cobbled piazza, and the sun struck hot as Carol and Teri climbed down the steps and were soon left on their own, their suitcases beside them, the rest of the passengers dispersing to their homes.

  Stone steps led down to the shoreline of the lake and there they found a boatman who agreed to take them to the isola, and because Carol was so obviously a foreigner he asked a fare which she knew to be a high one. But she couldn't argue with him. Only by boat could they get to Falconetti, and having come this far they might as well go the rest of the way and discover for themselves what kind of a family she had married into.

  Their cases were stowed into the boat and an excited Teri was persuaded to sit down before he fell in the lake. He chattered away to the boatman while Carol sat in silence and watched the island loom nearer at every stroke of the oars. She was approaching the Falcones with trepidation in her heart, and it grew as the boat circled the island, making for the jetty beneath waterworn walls, where on a stretch of shingle rested a few colourful sailing boats.

  Her gaze slowly lifted from the jetty to where a towering, majestic house hung among a jungle of green vines, sun-burnished and sea-cooled, and exactly like the villa of a Roman governor, white-columned, open to the sun, wide-terraced, there above the water on its own great balcony of rock.

  Carol caught her breath in wonder. So it was true ! The house of the Falcone was a palazzo, and Vincenzo's family did have the means to give Teri a better life than she could.

  'Look, caro,' she directed his attention to the proud-looking place, its walls the colour of champagne, its hanging gardens and terraces suspended as if by magic in the warm air. 'That is the house where your father was born — isn't it beautiful?'

  Teri gazed at the great house with enormous eyes ... it had all the splendour of a painting in one of his story books, there on its very own island, waiting there to welcome the boy, or deny him. 'Is it real, Cally?' he asked. 'Is that where we're going to live?'

  'It's real enough, caro, but I don't know about living there. We shall just have to wait and see how your father's people feel about us.' As their boat glided towards the jetty, she stared up at the house and told herself with some defiance that the Falcones could share some of their good fortune with Teri because they owed it to him. He was quick with life and a certain beauty of face because of Vincenzo, and there had been a time when she would have had the right to come here without feeling guilty.

  But she mustn't feel guilty or it might show in her eyes. For five years she had been accepted without question as Teri's mother, and there was no reason why her claim should be held in doubt by the Falcones. She didn't ask anything for herself, but it would be wonderful if she could stay here with him.

  Her heart beat anxiously, and a wistful eagerness shone in her grey eyes shot with violet. Falconetti was poles from the Copper Jug and its perpetual aroma of baking cakes and pots of tea; its eternal gossip and small-town pretensions; its back-room bickering and penny-pinching by the Aunts who tucked all their profits into a building society and begrudged Teri the occasional strawberry tart.