The Villa (13 page)

He looked up at her and suddenly she felt self-conscious. It was as if he had hypnotised her and now the spell was broken. She could still taste the coffee like woodsmoke on her tongue. But now she had to find Giovanni and arrange a meeting with Santina. She got to her feet.

‘You must go. Things to do. People to see.’

‘Well, yes.’ She wanted to ask him about his family – about the three Sicilian families – but the right time to do so had slipped by.

He turned his attention once more to his design. ‘And your arm – it is better now,
sì
?’

She’d forgotten about it, it was so much better. ‘Yes. Thank you for putting that cream on it,’ she said. She paused, but didn’t say what she’d half intended to say. Instead, it seemed to hang in the air between them.

He nodded his head. ‘Though it was not the cream that made it better,’ he said with a quick grin, gone almost as soon as she saw it appear. ‘It was the coffee.’

She laughed. ‘I’d better be going.’

‘Back to the mermaid’s villa.’ He smiled.

‘Back to …?’

‘Villa Sirena.’

Suddenly she got it.
Sirena
was Italian for mermaid. And the motif above the front door – the sad-faced woman with the long curly hair whose body divided and encircled her, covered with stars … She was the mermaid in question.

He smiled. ‘There is a story about her too,’ he said. ‘Maybe one day I will tell you.’

At twelve noon there was a knock at the front door. Ginny opened it in her dressing gown. It was Lisa.

‘Just checking you’re OK,’ she said.

‘Hi,’ said Ginny. ‘Look, I’m sorry if we made a racket last night. We didn’t keep you awake or anything did we?’

‘No.’ Lisa folded her arms. ‘But it was a hell of a night in with the girls. Who needs men, that’s all I can say.’

‘Yeah. Well.’ Ginny slouched against the doorframe. Why were your own parties always a let down? She groaned. ‘You won’t tell Mum, will you?’

‘Do I need to?’ Lisa was looking serious. But at least she wasn’t having a go.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ll clear up the house. Mum need never know.’ She hoped.

‘OK.’ Lisa paused. ‘Was there any damage?’

‘Damage?’ Ginny tried her innocent voice. The Ball shifted – a millimetre, just enough to show its face. What kind of damage was she talking about? Some torn raffia on Jack’s leg when two of the boys had pretended to have sex with him (so gross)? Stains on her mother’s cream carpet and sofa? Or her own bruised heart?

‘A bit,’ Ginny admitted. ‘A few er, spillages.’

‘But nothing terminal?’

‘Nothing terminal,’ Ginny confirmed. Though the party had got a bit wild; she had drunk way, way too much and Jack wasn’t the only one to be worse for wear and tear. But no one had died. As for Ben …

After Lisa left, Ginny took a closer look at the damage. She shifted the sofa and picked up bottles and glasses. The suspected scorch mark seemed to be mud. Which was what her name would be if Mum got to hear about this – ha ha. There were stains everywhere. But no, nothing terminal.

By 3 p.m. Ginny had wiped, polished and scrubbed most signs of the party away. She dragged Henry the Hoover out of semi-retirement under the stairs and switched him on. He acted a bit surprised, then rumbled into action and negotiated his way around without regurgitating once. Ginny wondered why people – especially her mother – complained about housework. It was simple. You waited until someone was coming round. Then you cleaned up. Why did people make such a fuss?

Ginny put Henry away and started stacking the dishwasher, since the kitchen was the room her mother would examine first. Becca turned up an hour later as Ginny had guessed she might.

‘Yo, Gins,’ she said. They invariably met up after a night out to discuss and analyse everyone’s movements and motives.

‘Yo,’ replied Ginny. Only this time she wasn’t sure she felt up to it.

Becca wasn’t feeling top dog either. ‘I have THE most massive hangover from hell,’ she complained.

‘Me too.’ Ginny tossed her a couple of paracetamol. ‘Take some drugs then.’

For about half an hour Becca talked non-stop about Harry who she’d been snogging all night at the party, barely emerging for air. Shivering salmon, Ginny was surprised she had a face left. Becca had been having URL (UnResolved Lust) for him for weeks, and at the first sign that he reciprocated, Becca had left Ginny to it. (So much for friendship and girl power.) Now, Ginny learnt that Becca and Harry’d been texting each other all morning. So every word had to be examined, every punctuation mark analysed, every kiss counted.

‘D’you think I should just let it all out?’ Becca asked, breasts heaving. ‘How I feel about him, I mean?’

Ginny was under the impression she’d done that last night. ‘Dunno.’ Though even Ginny knew that instant adoration was unlikely to lead to commitment.

Becca sat back in the chair. She had that puppy look on her face that she and Ginny always took the piss out of when anyone else had it. ‘He’s got a car and everything,’ she breathed.

‘Fabulous.’ Ginny yawned.

Becca gave her a look. ‘What ’bout you?’

Ginny sighed. Ben had arrived after midnight with three
girls and two guys in tow – not a great start, especially since one of the girls was at least a 38E and most of it was on display. He was hammered and Ginny was so nervous that pretty soon she was too. The party got louder and louder and at some point Ben had to break up a fight. Ginny remembered wishing everyone would go home and she must have said this to Ben, because somehow he’d got rid of them all. Then there was just Ben.

‘Did he stay?’ Becca asked.

When there was just Ben, Ginny had started to get scared again. She wished her mum was there. She wished she’d never had this party and that her mum had never gone to Sicily. She wished she hadn’t drunk so much. And she wished the Ball was the kind of ball you could just bounce away from you or throw into the air for someone else to catch.

‘Can I stay?’ he’d asked her.

‘Course,’ she mumbled. She’d wanted him to, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she planned it? Only now all she could think of was when rather than whether she was going to be sick.

‘Yeah.’ Ginny affected a composure she didn’t feel. It had been weird having Ben in her room and in her bed. Because home was just her and Mum and as for the bed bit … Well, she supposed it didn’t feel right. Not yet. At the same time …

‘Don’t worry,’ Ben had said. ‘I won’t come on to you.’

Why not? Why the clattering crocodiles not? What was wrong with her? Boys came on to Becca all the time. Ginny
had said Ben could stay. What further encouragement did he need?

In the event, after a bit of kissing (he was good – very good) and a bit of fooling around – though they didn’t even get to second base, he fell asleep, and after she’d been sick – as quietly as possible in the downstairs loo – Ginny did too. In the morning, despite feeling totally wrecked, she made him a bacon sandwich and he was up and gone. Ginny decided that she didn’t understand boys. Not at all.

‘Nothing happened,’ she told Becca.

‘Yeah, right,’ said Becca, and started talking about Harry again. Commitment or not, a lot had happened with Harry – and Becca was happy to describe it in graphic detail …

‘So are you gonna see him again?’ she asked Ginny, as she was leaving.

‘’Spect so,’ said Ginny. She’d been checking her phone every ten minutes all day. And her optimism was plummeting with every hour that passed.

‘Stay cool,’ said Becca.

Ginny nodded. ‘You too.’

After she’d left, Ginny wasn’t sure what to do. The Ball kept knotting up and tipping towards her throat, so she decided to send a text – to her mother. It might stop her feeling so guilty.

Miss u
, she wrote.
Hope Sicily is fab. Gxx

A text came back almost immediately. Ginny smiled. Her
mother was getting faster.
Miss u 2, Ginny-pie
, it said.
Will call u lata. Much love Mxx

Ginny-pie
… Her mum hadn’t called her that for ages. And suddenly, unaccountably, all Ginny wanted to do was cry.

Tess found Giovanni on the other side of the
baglio
talking to a couple of swarthy-looking men. They sloped off when they saw her.

‘
Ciao
,’ she said.

From the look he shot her, he hadn’t quite forgiven her for speaking to the enemy. ‘Tess.’ He bowed his head.

‘I wondered. Could I come and talk to you and your Aunt Santina soon?’

‘
Sì
.’ He shrugged. ‘Come tonight, for
dolce
.’

‘
Dolce
?’

‘Sweetness. Dessert.’ He made a gesture of kissing his fingers. ‘A glass of wine too. Why not?’

‘I’d love to. Shall I come to the house?’ Though she wasn’t convinced she’d find it again. The village beyond the
baglio
was a maze leading up to the main road out of town and just when you saw one familiar set of stone steps leading up from the piazza on the other side of the stone arch, you spotted another.

This morning, after she’d left Tonino, returned to the villa and got changed, Tess had wandered around, getting a feel for this place where her mother had spent the early part of her life. On the outskirts of the village there were fields and
olive groves to the east and mountains to the west. In the heart of Cetaria itself, the jumble of village houses had been built in stone, now worn and weathered, with faded stucco facades and blue or green shutters, their roofs and guttering made of Mediterranean terracotta. The cobbled streets were narrow and steep, grouped around piazzas with stone benches and old fountains, the occasional tiny Rosario chapel and maybe a fig or olive tree. The scent of jasmine and hibiscus filled the air, and views of the bay could be found, almost unexpectedly, around every other corner. The entire village appeared to be bending towards the
baglio
and the sea.

In the mornings, all the women did their washing, cleaning and shopping. Brightly coloured rugs, sheets and clothes hung out of windows and on lines above balconies, blowing in the wind. The women clustered around food stalls in the main piazza or polished their steps or their windows until they shone, stopping every few minutes for long conversations with other women, mostly old, mostly dressed in black and mostly bent – with a lifetime of drudgery, Tess supposed. And this was what her own mother would have been like if she had not left for England. So who could blame her?

‘I will meet you here,’ said Giovanni. ‘At seven.’ Decisive as ever.

A few hours later Tess arrived for their meeting, dressed now in a sleeveless white linen dress and thonged sandals.

Giovanni treated her to a long and appraising look. ‘
Bella
,’
he said. ‘You are looking very lovely tonight, Tess.’

‘Well, thanks.’ She was aware that her skin had already acquired a golden tan and her hair was bleached blonder by the sun. And she couldn’t stop smiling. Why shouldn’t she? She was in an amazing place. She had just had a lovely conversation with her daughter – for once, Ginny had seemed genuinely interested in what Tess was doing, what the villa was like and what Tess had discovered. Perhaps it was a case of absence making the heart grow fonder. Perhaps her mother had been right and she and Ginny had turned a corner. So Tess was feeling good – despite everything that had happened with Robin.

He inclined his head.

Tess was curious. ‘What do you do, Giovanni?’ she asked him. ‘For a living, I mean.’ He seemed to have a lot of free time for a man of thirty-something who clearly had money.

He shrugged. ‘This and sometimes that,’ he said. And then, even more obscurely. ‘It is difficult, even now, to make a living here in Cetaria.’

Some sort of entrepreneur, no doubt, Tess thought, as he strode ahead and she struggled once again to keep up with him. She could imagine that. Not exactly a crook, but then not exactly honest either. A bit of a chancer. Ruthless, if necessary. She imagined there were a lot of men like him in Sicily.

There were masses of cars and people about, and she mentioned this.

Giovanni barely broke his stride. ‘It is the hour of the
passegiata
,’ he said. ‘People come out to greet each other. It is tradition.’ And sure enough, she noticed that as they walked he lifted his hand in greeting to various individuals. A bit like the Queen, though Tess decided not to mention this. Sicilian men were very macho. And the cars, she realised, were not driving from A to B but rather in a big circle that encompassed main road and village. Then round and round again. So the purpose was not to reach a destination, but to be out and to be seen. Fair enough. It must be the Sicilian way.

They arrived at Santina’s and the old woman greeted Tess as effusively as before, kissing her on both cheeks so that once again, Tess felt the bristles on the old woman’s dark, papery skin. Santina pulled her into the darkness inside the house, along the hall and into
la cucina
, clearly the pulse of the home.

The kitchen table was laden with pastries. ‘
Cannoli
,’ Giovanni said. ‘The classic pastry of Sicily. Made by Roberta in the village.’ There was also a bottle of white wine and three delicate, thin-stemmed glasses.

‘Her best things,’ Giovanni said. ‘She almost never uses them. You are a special visitor.’

‘I’m honoured.’ And she was.

Speaking in a torrent of Sicilian, Santina pointed to Tess’s eyes.

‘What does she say?’ Tess asked Giovanni.

‘Your eyes are so blue,’ he said. ‘Of course, this is unusual in Sicily. She says that your mother must have married a very handsome, blue-eyed man.’

Tess thought of her father and laughed. ‘She did.’

More talk.

‘She asks if you are married, and I told her no. ‘Why not?’ she says.’

‘Perhaps I never met the right man,’ Tess quipped. She accepted a plate and a small pastry from Santina. The outside crust was crisp as she bit into it, but inside it was rich and creamy.

‘Ricotta,’ Giovanni said, ‘With honey and candied fruit. The outside is the
scorza
, the pastry casing.’