The Villa (17 page)

Tess nodded. She was unwilling to say anything to break the spell.

‘They stay for breakfast, and someone comes in a van to sell Sicilian sausages and buns.’

She had to laugh at the incongruity of this.

‘What?’

‘A hot dog van always gets to the unspoilt locations sooner or later.’

‘Hot dog?’ He frowned.

‘Sausage in a bun.’ And no, she didn’t know why they were called hot dogs either.

A busload of people had arrived in the car park below them and was now moving in convoy towards the theatre where they sat. ‘Time to go,’ said Tonino.

They jumped on to the scooter and rode down the winding road towards the solitary temple. They parked the Lambretta, climbed a path bordered by agave and myrtle trees. And there it was. Even bigger than she’d realised. Even older and even more beautiful. The honeycombed stone was weathered and wild flowers were growing in the nooks and crannies of the giant pillars.

‘The swallows nest here now,’ Tonino said. As he spoke some goat bells chimed in the distance.

‘How old is it?’ she asked him.

‘Fifth century
BC
. They say it was never desecrated because it was never finished. It is still waiting for its roof, you see?’

‘Mmm.’ She could see. And now it would have to wait for ever …

He smiled at her. ‘It is peaceful, yes?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’

‘For bringing you?’ He shrugged. ‘It was nothing. When you live in a place … It is good to remind yourself of what is there sometimes.’

‘For not letting me miss it,’ she said.

He acknowledged this with a small nod and gestured her towards a wooden bench by a fig tree.

She sat. It was a sheltered spot, but she was still surprised to see him pluck two plump green figs from the tree.

He passed one to her. ‘An early crop,’ he said. ‘It has been a good spring. This is San Pietro. Normally she must be ready for the feast day at the end of June.’

She bit into the velvet skin; felt the red pulp inside – grainy, sweet and indiscreet on her tongue.

‘Still, the first of the season, I think,’ he said.

Tess thought of how different these two men were – Tonino Amato and Giovanni Sciarra. Giovanni a businessman; Tonino an artist. Giovanni taking her to restaurants where he could be assured of the best food and service; Tonino bringing her to a ruined temple, singing to her and feeding her ripe figs fresh from the tree. Very different …

‘Why does Giovanni Sciarra hate you so much?’ she asked, before she could stop herself.

His expression changed, a deep frown furrowing his brow. He muttered something that sounded like ‘
bastardo
…’ ‘It is an old quarrel,’ he said, his fingertips just touching his scar. ‘And we are not the first. Why do you concern yourself with it, Tess?’ His voice was cold. ‘What is it to you?’

She got to her feet to stand beside him. ‘I’m just curious.’ And she still was … How could she know who to trust when she hadn’t even heard his side of the story? ‘Giovanni told me some of it …’

Again he swore under his breath. ‘Long ago they took our land. They knew who to serve and who to punish. That is one thing. But murder,’ he growled, ‘that is another.’

‘Murder?’ Tess stared at him. ‘Not Giovanni …? ’

‘No, not him.’ He turned away from her. ‘His family, the Sciarras. They caused my uncle’s death. They have no scruples. They will stop at nothing.’ Again, he traced the line of his scar with his forefinger.

‘But what happened?’ Tess couldn’t leave it there. ‘What about the police? Wasn’t there an enquiry? Why would they—’

She stopped short because Tonino was laughing, harshly, without humour. ‘This is Sicily, Tess,’ he said. ‘We are talking about the Sciarras.’

‘But—’

She got no further. He had taken a step closer and held her by the shoulders. ‘Leave it, Tess.’

She turned her face and his mouth seemed to brush against her hair. There was something about the curve of his jaw that was familiar to her. It reminded her of something – or someone. He smelt of wild mint and lemons. Tess touched the scar on his face and felt him flinch. ‘This scar …’ she said. Suddenly she knew.

‘Yes.’ He bent his head. ‘When we were teenagers. We always fought. It was in our blood; our forefathers were the same.’

She traced the length of it. Giovanni. But why had this uncle been murdered and how had the Sciarras got away with it? Who did they serve and who did they punish? It was all too confusing. A debt, a theft, a betrayal – and now this. Murder …?

She let her hand move to his shoulder. She wanted to put it on the nape of his neck where the dark hair curled enticing and warm. But … It was this place, she supposed. It must be this place.

‘You haven’t yet,’ she reminded him softly, ‘told me the story of the mermaid.’

Their faces were only inches apart. ‘But I will do,’ he said. He bent slightly and she felt just the briefest touch of his lips on hers. He tasted sweet, of ripe figs and musk. ‘You will come back to Sicily, I think,’ he said. ‘You will come back here to Cetaria, yes?’

‘Yes.’ The nape of his neck was as warm as she had expected it to be. For a moment, she didn’t think of Robin, Ginny or Muma and Dad. She thought of nothing, not the Sciarras,
the Amatos and the Farros of Sicily, not Villa Sirena nor the secrets it held. She didn’t even think about her mother’s story. She didn’t know when, but, ‘I’ll come back,’ she said. ‘I promise.’

A table without bread, they say, is a day without sunshine. Bread, the Sicilian staple. Fresh and golden, thick and chewy on the tongue. Religion and ritual. Plaited loaves, crossed loaves, upside down loaves; black bread, nutty bread, unleavened bread, seed bread. Cooked in brick ovens fired by olive wood
.

As far as Flavia knew, the tradition of decorative ‘votive’ bread had been popular in Sicily for centuries. Paschal (Easter) bread and other religious feasts gave Sicily’s more creative bakers a chance to reveal their sculpturing talent. There was the
ferro di cavallo
or horseshoe, the
pesce
or fish, and the
mafalda
, twisted in form.

It is not simple … The right amount of yeast must be used to make the bread expand perfectly while baking.

Would Tess ever bake her own bread? Probably not, Flavia had to admit. Nevertheless the art would not be forgotten, not while she had breath in her body and strength in her hands. Flavia began to write down the recipe; her recipe, handed down from Mama and from her mother before her.

Bread, the symbol of all that continues. Bread, the staff of life …

Tending to the airman brought a sense of purpose to Flavia’s existence. She became more disciplined, more selfless. She no longer tried to
avoid chores or daydreamed the hours away. She worked hard in the house and in the fields, so that she could run back to nurse him. She knew that she surprised them – Mama, Papa and Maria – with her vigilance. But, after all, he had fallen from the sky, and she had found him.

So she laid claim to him. To touch him, to bathe his wounds, to feed him, to help him sit up and, later, to support him as he stood for the first time, unsure, like a kid goat; this brought her satisfaction. For the first time in her life, someone needed her.

He was surprised that a Sicilian family should care for him. ‘Why?’ he asked her through parched lips on one of those early days, once the worst was over and they knew he would live. ‘Why do you care? I’m awfully grateful. But why have you helped me?’

Flavia wiped his face gently with the flannel. His cheekbones were high and prominent, his brow wide, his skin stretched and white. And his mouth – the bottom lip was full and sensuous, the upper lip slightly crooked, slightly off-centre. It was that imperfection that caught at her, that made her want to stare at him for hours.

‘My family – we like the English,’ she told him. ‘We work for Englishman.’ And haltingly, she told him about Signor Westerman, about the grand villa, and the poetry he had read to her, when, as a girl, she had flown around his
casa
with her cloths and her polishes.

‘So where is he?’ The airman looked around as if he expected Signor Westerman to materialise from the stone walls.

‘He returned to England,’ Flavia told him. ‘It was too dangerous here.’

At that he nodded, his gaze drifting away from her. She knew he
was thinking about the raid that he had been part of. The raid that had brought him here. ‘Bloody war,’ he said. ‘It’ll have us all, you know.’

He was a good listener – he had nowhere else to go, did he? So at other times, Flavia talked – in whispers if need be – about her family and her life. She told him things she had only ever said before to her best friend Santina. ‘I do not belong here,’ she said. ‘I never have.’

‘Where do you belong?’ he teased.

But she didn’t want him to laugh at her. ‘I belong where I can live,’ she told him. ‘Where I can breathe. Where I can be me.’

He nodded then in understanding. ‘You’re a wonderful girl, Flavia,’ he said. ‘I hope you get everything that you want, I really do.’

‘I will – if I fight for it,’ she said, braver with him now than before. He had told her his name – Peter – and sometimes she whispered it to herself, at night, when there was no one to hear.

‘Still,’ he said, ‘your people are good people. They saved my life. You all did, dammit. And maybe when you’re all grown up you’ll feel differently.’

‘I am not a child.’ Flavia drew herself more upright. ‘I am seventeen.’

‘Seventeen, eh?’ But he only looked at her and smiled.

Seventeen, Flavia realised, was not enough.

‘Maybe, Flavia,’ he said to her one day, ‘this other life, the one that you long for, is not as good as you expect it to be.’ He was watching her with a strange intensity in his blue eyes. ‘Our dreams always seem so perfect. But maybe the other man’s grass is no greener.’

Flavia listened to the words
. The other man’s grass …?
‘Still, I would like to see it,’ she said. She could only imagine the kind of life where there was choice, where your pathway was not mapped out for you by another. But how could he understand? He knew so little of how things were in Sicily.

Gradually, she relaxed even more with her airman. They began to laugh together. He always seemed to be waiting for her, and his expression had changed when he watched her moving around the room, tidying his things or bringing fresh water to his bedside. He began to tease her, to tell her stories, to talk about England. And when he spoke of England, there was a longing in his eyes that made her jealous.

Then one day she darted into the room in a hot fury – Maria had made her clean out the brazier, even though she had done it already and it was perfectly clean. Just out of spite. Just to stop her … Coming to see him, she almost said.

He was sitting up in bed and she sat down beside him.

He smiled. Patted her hand. ‘Perhaps I should take you back to dear old Blighty,’ he said. ‘Show you what it’s really like.’ And his expression darkened. ‘When this damned war is over.’

She didn’t realise he was joking. ‘Would you?’ she pleaded.

There was a long pause. He stared at her and said nothing.

‘Would you take me?’ She lifted her face to his and he let out a small groan. Bent his head closer.

When he kissed her, it was like nothing she had dreamed of. His touch, the graze of his lips on hers … She felt something inside her turn to liquid, a hot liquid that burned her.

When he pulled away, she wanted him to take her back, to kiss her again, to hold her – so close that nothing could ever prise them apart
…

But he wouldn’t even look at her. ‘Go, Flavia,’ he said. ‘Please go.’

Flavia put down her pen. She needed to rest. She needed to think. She was old and the memories were almost too vibrant and alive for her to deal with. She had half-expected the story to be dry as dust in the telling. But she hadn’t expected this, this … torrent of sadness.

When did she fall in love with him? Who could tell? Was it the moment she found him in the valley, torn and bleeding and lying amid the shrapnel of his plane? Was it when he almost died and she thought she had lost him? Or was it perhaps when he kissed her?

Once more, Flavia lifted the pen. She must keep the writing – if not the emotions – under control. She must remember for whom she wrote: Tess. Her beautiful daughter Tess who needed to hear this story. And yet … Not just Tess.

‘What is it?’ she asked him the next day. ‘What have I done?’ Again, he wouldn’t look at her.

‘Nothing,’ he said. He looked sad. Gently, he brushed her hair from her face, his fingertips smooth on her cheek.

Flavia closed her eyes. How good it was – the touch of this man.

‘It was wrong of me,’ he said, ‘to kiss you. A chap shouldn’t take advantage of a girl like that.’

‘You did not.’ And this time, she moved forwards to kiss him.
This time she held his face and she parted her lips and she felt his taste on her tongue like nectar. Flavia was not afraid to show her passion. All she wanted was to be held in his arms. All she wanted was to kiss him. Again and again. She would drown in him if she could.

But she was getting ahead of herself now.

Flavia closed her eyes for a moment. It was too painful. Which was why …

It was so far away, Lenny said, and of course this was true. But distance – whether in time or in geography – didn’t always lessen the pain. And she could feel it now, after all these years, deep in her gut, just as she could feel his soft lips on hers that first time.

She could see now that she had been vulnerable, even ripe for the picking, some might say. Although it hadn’t been that way. It really hadn’t been that way.

She had been almost the same age as her granddaughter Ginny was now, she realised with a start, although Ginny had celebrated her birthday in early spring and Flavia would not be eighteen until wintertime. And yet … There were worlds between that young Sicilian girl and her English granddaughter, whole worlds.

Help me find the words, she whispered. She had to tell honestly how it had been.