The Villa (27 page)

One morning Papa and Mama were whispering together, but they stopped abruptly when Flavia entered
la cucina.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘We are planning a lunch,’ Papa said, ‘for All Souls’ day. You will cook, sì?’

‘For how many?’

Flavia didn’t mind. She enjoyed preparing food and the more she was catering for, the better she liked it. Planning the menu – with their limited resources – distracted her, while the washing and peeling and chopping of vegetables, or the rhythmic rolling of the dough for
pasta sent her into a hypnotic state that allowed her to dream. She liked to dream.

Flavia put more coffee on the stove. She still dreamed of Peter. Something told her that he would still come for her – even though it was almost six years since his promise and she had heard nothing. She sensed that he was her only hope of escape. And since he had not come, then she was sure there must be a very good reason. But how could she find out what the reason might be? How could she decide the next step?

‘There will be five of us,’ Papa said. There was a strange glint in his eye.

‘Just five?’ Flavia was disappointed. All Souls’ Day, or the Feast of the Dead was important to Sicilians
. Il giorno dei morti.
Traditionally, it was a day of celebration; one on which to pray, go to the cemetery and remember family and friends who had passed away. But there was only one man Flavia would be remembering. She would never forget him.

‘And we want something special,’ Papa went on.

Flavia’s ears pricked. ‘Who is coming?’ She was already planning. Perhaps they would start with
melanzane
and peppers – she had a special way of preparing these with a dash of balsamic and olive oil that was rich and would lift the
melanzane.
And at summer’s end they had a glut of both vegetables; Flavia’s mother’s thriftiness had worked its way down to her – it had to, times had remained hard and much food remained unavailable
.

‘Enzo,’ Papa said. ‘With his nephew Rodrigo. Ettore’s boy.’

‘Enzo?’ Flavia was surprised. She fetched the small white cups for espresso. Enzo wasn’t special. Papa saw Enzo most days. Since the
big falling out between Papa and Alberto Amato, Enzo Sciarra had become his closest crony, but Flavia still didn’t like or trust him. As for the drama concerning Alberto … The village had never recovered from the shock. And poor Alberto – well, Flavia couldn’t believe that he had done what they accused him of. He had always been kind and gentle with her. Enzo though … He rarely came to the house. He and Flavia would always be awkward with one another, despite her friendship with Santina.

Mama nodded. ‘We have much to thank Enzo for,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ But Flavia understood. Every family must have their alliances. Every family must be protected. Flavia worried over it, but Papa was only looking after his own. ‘And is Santina not coming for the lunch?’

Papa looked shifty. ‘Santina has other family business to attend to,’ he said. ‘Sadly she cannot join us.’

That was a shame. Flavia still loved her childhood friend. It was just that Santina was content with the old ways; Flavia was not.

Perhaps they would follow with
pasta con le sarde
with pine nuts and raisins, a sweet–sour taste of the sea. Sardines were always plentiful. And only yesterday Papa had been given a parcel by one of his contacts, containing lots of good things for the kitchen – dried fruit, chickpeas, lentils and nuts. Had Papa had to give anything in exchange? Flavia hoped not. There would be olives too, already being harvested from trees heavy with fruit.

For
dolce
perhaps
cassata –
dense with candied fruit, the lightest ricotta. And on the terrace were some ripe
zibibbo
grapes – palest green and sweet as honey. She would serve them with coffee and some of Papa’s liqueur. It was traditional too to make
biscotti,
flavoured
with cloves and called the bones of the dead. Children would receive such goodies – prepared for them by
I morti
during the night. Flavia smiled to herself. An unpretentious lunch. But special enough. She nodded to herself. Special enough
.

At the market Flavia bought herself a lemon ice from the ice-man to quench her thirst. She’d come to buy ingredients, and these days there was more food available; the scent of suckling goat and chickpea fritters frying hung greasily in the air. Big-eyed cats wound their tails around table-legs as they hung around hoping for scraps. She finished up the last of the yellow ice chips from the pot. It was still warm, but soon it would be winter. Another winter.

She nodded at the fishmonger loudly proclaiming the freshness of his swordfish, red mullet and octopus, and chose from the blue sardines laid out on a marble slab. She smiled and greeted her acquaintances – the women hunched in their black dresses and shawls, the men in black berets and baggy trousers. Everyone was thin, after the war. Everyone looked weary, still.

As Flavia prepared the lunch she began to formulate a plan. For some time now, she had been doing tasks for Signor Westerman – mostly secretarial jobs like writing and posting letters, but also fetching shopping and often cooking for him when he had visitors. He always paid her well and she had been saving this money.

‘For your bottom drawer,’ Mama said. But Flavia had other ideas. If Peter Rutherford would not come to her, then she, Flavia Farro, would go to him.

She could still picture Peter’s face – and especially how he looked
that day when she had found him in the valley, his glider crashed into pieces around him, bits of fabric stuck on the jagged metal and billowing in the faint breeze coming from the mountains. His white face, the way he bit his lip. And his eyes … She could still see his eyes. In her head. In her heart. Always.

She sliced the aubergines, getting into a good rhythm with her favourite knife. Its serrated edge dealt neatly with the glossy purple skin and carved through the spongy centre of the vegetable without mess.

As she worked, she let her thoughts drift to what Peter had told her about his life in England. For Flavia it had become a litany – a way of remembering; she would not lose these nuggets of Peter, no matter what happened and no matter how much time passed.

Peter had told her about the place his family lived – Exeter, in the south-west of England. It sounded pretty – there was a river and a cathedral, trees and small thatched cottages, and it was close to the sea.

She turned her attention to the red peppers. His family probably had less money than Signor Westerman, but they were not poor; she knew this. Flavia was certain that England could not be as poor as Sicily. And they had won the war. So why shouldn’t Flavia leave Sicily and go to get a job there, in England? She could read and write – English too. She could cook – ‘like an angel’, Signor Westerman said, and she was quick-witted – too clever for her own good, Papa often remarked. Flavia assembled ingredients and began to make the vinegar.

Peter’s father worked in a bank, he had said, which sounded grand, and his mother looked after the house. No, he had told her with a laugh, they didn’t have servants, just a daily woman who came to do
the cleaning. Well, that was a servant, wasn’t it? Peter had one sister who was called Lynette and one brother called William. He was the youngest, the baby of the family.

Flavia cleaned her knife and washed her hands. So far, so good.

It was surprising, Flavia thought now, that these memories of a distant past could be so clear in the mind – clearer sometimes than what had happened yesterday. She put down her pen for a moment and sighed. When she emerged from her writing, she was almost surprised to see them – Lenny and Ginny, chatting together or poring over the computer. It took her a moment to adjust, to come back to the present. To remember who they were – and who Flavia was too. It was as if her young life had been so rich, so vibrant, that it was ingrained into her very soul. And the food of her country echoed this.

The picking and preserving of tomatoes had coloured and punctuated Flavia’s childhood and adolescence. The pungent scent of fresh tomatoes in the sun, the cauldron of bubbling fruit to make the bottled salsa … But could she transfer it to paper and make it live …?

In Sicily after the salsa, there is the
strattu –
the paste that is laid out on wooden boards to harden and darken like blood under the burning sun. It is a concentration, an aftermath of the salsa, a purée that becomes like putty before it is kneaded and packed into glass jars and covered with olive oil
.

It is no coincidence that red is the colour of blood and also the colour
of passion. In Sicily it is also the colour of the earth and it is the colour of the setting sun. Salsa is the life-blood of Sicily.

For the salsa, you need ripe tomatoes, fresh basil and sunshine. Warm the bottles in the sun. Wash the tomatoes and leave to dry outside. Start up the cauldron. Remove the seeds and cook the tomato pulp, stirring and mashing as you go. Remember the warmth and the passion. Add the basil and cook to thicken. Fill the bottles and leave in the sun under a blanket to cook some more. Add family and neighbours, music, dancing and a feast of food and wine.

This is the base for every tomato sauce. Add garlic and onion cooked in oil and a pinch of sugar to make the sauce still sweeter.

The
pranzo,
the lunch, was more successful than Flavia had expected. She had no doubts concerning the food – it was the company she’d been worried about. However, Enzo was more pleasant to her than usual, complimenting her several times on her appearance and the lunch dishes. ‘This spread reminds me,’ he said ‘of my poor wife. God rest her soul.’

Flavia remembered his wife, Santina’s mother, who had died several years before. She was a thin, scraggy woman, old and bent before her time, worn out by Enzo’s cruel treatment and constant demands.

Enzo’s nephew was from a neighbouring village, but Flavia had often seen him around. His father Ettore, Enzo’s brother, had spent much time in Cetaria with Enzo – they were as thick as thieves – until he mysteriously disappeared some years ago. As far as Flavia was aware, no one knew now if he was alive or dead. Enzo never followed it up – so maybe he knew more? Anyway, since Ettore’s disappearance, Enzo had more or less taken over his brother’s paternal role, and
Rodrigo now seemed to spend much of his time in Cetaria too. He also – in Flavia’s opinion – had something of his uncle Enzo’s arrogance. Most Sicilian men were arrogant as peacocks, but those with certain connections were more so than most. They had too much power for their own good. They would not be denied.

The talk meandered between the men and was of politics as usual. They referred to an article published in the newspaper
, Sicilia del Popolo.
There was a sense of post-war disillusion and discontent, it said, and there had been some demonstrations in and around Palermo; peasants and young Communists, a brass band, the cry of ‘land for the workers!’

‘Idiots!’ Enzo, she gathered, disapproved. ‘They do not know what is good for them.’

Her father nodded his agreement. There were bandits and gangs in the countryside, he informed them; many people were challenging the old ways of the landowners, many people wanted to make their voices heard.

Flavia cast a glance towards Rodrigo Sciarra. Did he want his voice to be heard? Or was his voice simply the echo of his powerful uncle’s?

Over
dolce,
Flavia noticed that Rodrigo Sciarra was paying her more attention than strictly necessary. He was praising her culinary skills to the heavens, while Papa sat back stroking his beard, with a contented look on his face, as if he alone had been responsible for tutoring his daughter in this area of her expertise. And at one point, when Rodrigo poured her some sweet dessert wine, he placed three fingers of his hand on her wrist in a gesture of intimacy that set alarm bells pealing.

Papa, she saw, had noticed the gesture. And was smiling. No … She scraped her chair back and began to clear plates.

‘Stay where you are. I will do it,’ Mama fussed, taking Flavia by the shoulders and pushing her none too gently back into her chair.

Flavia cast a look of hopeless desperation her mother’s way, but her mother took no notice. It had been decided then. She could do nothing.

Papa and Enzo got slowly to their feet on pretence of fetching liqueurs. And Mama disappeared into
la cucina –
to make the coffee, she said.

‘Flavia.’ Rodrigo grasped her hand. He smelt of cologne.

‘Please do not say more,’ she begged.

‘But for so long I have watched you from afar,’ said Rodrigo.

Flavia sighed. She was sure this wasn’t true. This was something cooked up by Enzo and Papa. Clearly they wanted the two families to unite – this would be the final rift in Papa’s friendship with Alberto Amato, and it would show everyone where their loyalties lay. Hence the obvious: Rodrigo and Flavia. This then was why Santina and Rodrigo’s mother Francesca had not been invited to the lunch; it was not a family lunch at all. It was a conspiracy.

‘No,’ she said.

‘Admired you,’ Rodrigo said.

‘No.’

‘Dared to hope.’

‘Please do not.’ Flavia tried to extract her hand, but his grip was of steel.

‘I can offer you a good life.’

Flavia looked into his dark eyes. Perhaps he could. Yes, perhaps he could. But it wasn’t the life she wanted.

‘I have not encouraged you,’ she said carefully. ‘I have given you no reason to think that I hold you in special regard.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Rodrigo persisted. ‘I think you could grow to love me
– no?’

Flavia didn’t want to hurt his feelings. ‘It is not so simple,’ she began.

‘Our families – they are close,’ he said. ‘They are
simpaticu.
Why should we not get on – you and I? It is natural. It will cement the union.’

All very well, Flavia thought. But what about love?

Rodrigo was now stroking her arm. He was very persistent.