The Soul Room (27 page)

I woke to hear
Jacopo starting to fret and burrow at my chest. I sat up and positioned him to
feed. John was still sleeping. I studied his big dear face, so relaxed and
still in the half-light. I reached down and gently traced the line of his jaw.
Unexpectedly he woke up, rubbed at his face and smiled.

‘Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you up.’

‘It’s ok, I’m glad you did.’

There was a gentle knock, the door opened a fraction and Nonna peeped
through. ‘Can I?
Entrare
?’

I smiled. ‘Of course Nonna.’

‘I heard the
bambino
, I thought I would bring you a drink.’ She
came silently into the room with a cup of something steaming in her hand. She
sat on the edge of the bed, nodded at John and grinned. ‘
Buonasera signore.
’
John smiled back, a little awkwardly. ‘I’ve brought you a little warm spiced
wine and water. It is an old remedy, to help you relax, help the milk come.’

‘Sounds good to me!’ I took the cup gratefully, the scent of cardomon and
cinnamon emanated pleasantly from it.

‘Much has happened Maddie,
Tsoro.
’

I put the cup down, ‘It has. Thank you Nonna. I don’t know how to repay
you, to show you how grateful I am.’

Nonna looked troubled. ‘When you hear what I have to say, you may think I
have not done so much.’

John reached over and put his hand on her arm, ‘Of course not, Nonna - ’

Nonna shook her head. ‘I have known some of what was to happen to you
Maddie, and yet I let you walk straight in to the wolf’s lair. I did not stop
you.’

‘You couldn’t have stopped me, you didn’t know I was going to do it! It’s
my responsibility, only mine.’

‘I saw you, I saw you in a room with Dan, an underground room.’

John shot me a look, ‘what does she mean?’

The penny dropped. ‘She means she saw it in her mind. She has a gift,
many of Nonna’s family have, over the years, Sergio had it too.’

‘A gift?!’ John’s face was incredulous.

Nonna looked down at her hands. ‘Sometimes we can see beyond what others
see. What is hidden, or what is yet to come. You do not get to choose though,
what you see, or when. It simply happens. I saw you Maddie, but I didn’t know
how to warn you. I should have called the police then, got them to search the
house.’

‘That wouldn’t have worked Nonna; most likely it would have been one of
Fabrizio’s cronies that you called, and Dan would have been moved within
minutes. I would never have seen him again.’

Nonna shrugged, there were tears in her eyes.

‘I mean it Nonna. It had to happen this way, for us all to come out
safely.’

‘But you could have died! Both of you could have died! If I hadn’t woken
up in time to see your note…’ Nonna started to cry.

I disengaged Jacopo from my breast gently, passed him to John. His face
was alert with questions, but he took him carefully and said nothing. Jacopo
carried on sleeping; blissfully unaware.

‘You did your best Nonna, this wasn’t your fault. There’s something wrong
with Fabrizio, there always has been.’

‘I wish my daughter had never met him! I wish she had never become an…
Amarena
!’
She spat out the last word.

‘But then there would never have been Sergio, there would never have been
Jacopo.’

‘This is the only blessing.’ Nonna kissed me on the forehead. ‘I will
leave you again, you two must talk. You have much to tell each other.’ She
smiled at us, beneficently, like a Mother Superior inspecting a new intake of
novices. She clicked her tongue, as Rosa often did, and crossed the room.

 She stopped at the door, holding it ajar. ‘You promised her.’ She said,
looking at John. He looked puzzled. ‘You promised her you would tell her
everything.’

John’s eyebrows shot up, ‘what do you mean?’

‘You were going to tell her, why you walked out on her that day.’

‘How do you know that?!’

Nonna smiled, shut the door silently and we were alone again.

‘Is she for real??’

‘She sure is. Hey, you’re not going to distract me, it’s me who gets to
ask the questions now, you heard her!’

‘OK, but I don’t know where to start.’

‘Just tell me'

He handed Jacopo back to me, nodded and sat up, rubbed his face with his
hands then laid them on my shoulders, kissed my forehead.

'I'm sorry Maddie, but I need to walk about.' He started to slowly pace
the room, moving in and out of squares of moonlight that patch-worked the
floor. He stopped every now and then to look back at me. 'I spent most of my
life, until I was in my late twenties as a farmer in Hampshire.’ He said
softly. ‘Farming has been in my family for generations. It was all I knew.'
That explained the size of him, the solidity of him.  'It was my whole life, I
was good at it. I loved nothing more than being outside all day - rain, wind or
shine. I became proud of my skills and my strength. Nothing wrong with that I
suppose, on the face of it, but a kind of complacency crept in too.' He checked
himself, brought his hands up to his face. I wasn't sure if he was crying. 'We
had family visiting, it was the Easter Holidays. My sister came with my niece
and nephew. They used to love coming to stay with us, Emily and Huw. They lived
in a terraced house in the middle of Portsmouth, they only had a tiny garden.
They loved climbing in the hay barn, helping to look after the animals. It was
hard work for us, but the farm was a holiday home for them.’ John sniffed and
rubbed at his eyes, my stomach was tightening with anxiety. ‘We always read
them the farm safety riot-act, but they were only little, they forget.’ He was
in a far corner of the room now, blanketed in shadows. ‘One day I was backing
the tractor out into the yard. I didn’t realise that Emily had just come out to
go and see the calves, and she’d stopped to draw in the dust with a stick - ’

'Oh John.' I knew what was coming, felt empathy clutch at me, bringing my
demons behind it.

‘I just didn’t see her.  She wasn't there when I got in the tractor...’

'It wasn't your fault. It was an accident.'

'So everybody said, but I know that if I’d just got out to check behind
me, or had sounded the horn…she’d still be alive. I should have double-checked,
there were kids around.  After that I couldn't stay. I couldn't be around my
family, couldn’t bear to see their faces, even though they never blamed me.
Life became a nightmare.'

'So you joined the police. That was your penance?'

'I couldn't take back what I had done, but at least as a copper I could
stop bad things happening to other people. I was doing well I thought, until
you came along.'

'What do you mean?'

'Because you started to make me think about myself again, to accept that
I was lonely, you opened up a part of me that had been locked away for years.’

'And what was wrong with that?.

'It wasn't part of the deal I'd made with myself.'

‘So you believed that you deserved nothing? No happiness at all?'

'At first.' He looked up at me briefly. Despite his size, at that moment
he looked childlike, a little lost. 'And then you started to soften me. At last
I started to believe I could have some joy for myself, that maybe I'd done my
time. And then that afternoon, in your living room, when we kissed; I burst
open, everything in me was exposed at last. It scared me, but it was
exhilarating too.'

'And then I told you about my step daughter.'

'I saw it as a message. I’d overstepped the mark. How could you love me
after you found out? You'd lost a child because of someone else’s negligence.
You'd look at me in the same way as they did. Maybe not with hate; but at least
with pity and embarrasment.'

'Never.'

'You say that - but do you really know?'

'We're the same John, we've been to the same place. Maybe that's one of
the reasons we were drawn to each other in the first place. I feel responsible
for my step-daughter's death as surely as if I'd been driving that car, but at
the end of the day, it wasn't my fault, it was an accident. Come
here...please!' He hesitated, but eventually came over to me and I pulled him towards
me and kissed him.

I woke up,
feeling disorientated. It took me a few seconds to remember that I was back in
Brighton, back in my Dad’s house. For a moment, I had the crazy notion that
everything that had happened to me over the last year had been a dream. I felt
around in front of me on the sofa for Jacopo; he wasn’t there and my heart
fluttered. The cushion was cool. I sat up, wincing with soreness, blood buzzing
in my head. As my mind sharpened, and I accepted that I had a real baby, and he
had gone; my next thought was that he must have rolled off the sofa. I scanned
the floor with a sense of rising panic.

Dad was sat in a big rocking chair by the French doors that opened on to
the garden. The dappled shadows from the light coming through the clematis
around the door played across his face. Jacopo was peacefully asleep in his
arms, his lips pursing as if dreaming of milk.

'God; Dad, you scared me!' He carried on looking through to the garden,
rocking gently, his cheeks were glossy with tears. 'Dad what is it? What's the
matter?' Still he didn't reply, I started to get up off the sofa.

'No!' He said suddenly, making Jacopo stir. 'Please, stay there. It's OK'

I longed to take Jacopo off him, his presence tugged at me from across
the room. Something didn't feel right.
He's your father, it's OK
I told
myself and sat back slowly.

'I wanted to be with him.'

'That's OK Dad, I understand.'

'He's my grandson after all.' He said in a strange staccato voice,
looking round at me.

'Yes Dad, that's right.'

He held my gaze, his eyes were wide open and unblinking. His grip on
Jacopo seemed to tighten a little. 'That's OK then. Just thought I should
check.'

'What are you talking about Dad? How could he not be your grandson?' Then
I finally twigged. After everything that happened to me in the last few days I
hadn’t properly processed what my father had been through 'I'm so sorry that
you found out about Mum and Dan like this. You must be...'

'The two of you, why did you have to poke and pry? Why couldn't you just
leave things be? It was better that way!'

'Sometimes you just have to know.'

He turned his head away and I could tell he was crying again. Jacopo
started to murmur.

'I think he needs a feed.'

'He's OK

'No really, I should have him now.'

'He's OK, I told you.'

The buzzing started up in my head again, I got up slowly.

'Looking back I think I knew,' he said softly, 'at least I thought she
may have had an affair to get back at me.' There was an edge to his voice that
checked me and I sat back down. 'I'd known things weren't great for a while,
but I pretended to myself we were muddling through. I can't believe I was so
stupid, so cowardly - but I paid the price; and so did she, poor woman! When we
were there on holiday, I could see what was happening, the extra attention he
paid her. Never anything obvious you understand - just little things. But more
than anything I saw how it made her feel; how her eyes shone, how her smile lit
up her whole face again like it had used to. I couldn't remember the last time
I'd made her look that way.'

'Dad she loved you , you know she did.'

'Shush Maddie please!' He rocked Jacopo a little vigorously making him
whimper, soon it would turn to real tears. I couldn't bear it, but I thought
better of trying to stop him, after all these years of repression I suddenly
realised that he could be on the edge of something catastrophic. He had always
been the strong one, the rock, there for us all, to keep us steady. I had to
let him speak. 'I hoped against hope that a little bit of harmless flirting
would give her what she needed;’ he continued, ‘shore her up against the
disappointment of our relationship for a few more years.

I was too scared to confront her, too scared that she might leave me.
When Dan was born I convinced myself that he was mine. We had made love once on
that holiday so it was possible. But there was always that doubt; I looked for
differences, I saw them.  I loved him, maybe just the same as if I had known
for sure he was mine. I've never had it in me to hate a child, he would have
won me over either way. And he gave me and your Mum a second chance. I got to
make things better - help out more - pay her more attention - listen to her
properly, spoil her sometimes. She seemed grateful for it, happier at times. To
find out now the secret she kept for my sake, what it did to her. To be in that
man's house - to have talked to him - sent my daughter to him - now, to be
holding my grandson and know his blood is in his veins it's more...'

'Dad please!' I was sobbing now, 'give him to me please! He's crying, he
needs me!'

Jacopo was screaming, his face screwed up, his fists beating the air. Dad
turned and stared at me, his face wild as if he had just been distracted from
looking at something horrific. He got up and walked over carefully, handed him
to me with shaking hands.

'He's so beautiful, I love him, I would never...' he put his face in his
hands, 'it's just been such a terrible shock.'

'I know Dad, I know, it's OK.' Shaking too, I held Jacopo against my
chest and he nuzzled softly in the nape of my neck. I reached out with my spare
arm and grasped my father's hand. 'You are wonderful, you have loved us all
unconditionally. You made mistakes with Mum, were complacent sometimes perhaps,
but you can't blame yourself for that man's monstrosity. He’s taken enough from
this family already. We can’t let him destroy us Dad – we can’t let him take
our future. That at least we can do for Mum, that’s what she would want, she’d
want us to fight it and keep going as a family.'

He took my hand and kissed it. We stood there in silence for a moment,
listening to a pigeon hooting its soft serenade to the lowering evening sun.