‘Tell me everything,’ I said, ‘and don’t leave out the slightest detail. If we are to keep this secret, there should be no discrepancy in what we say.’
‘She hates me anyway,’ Laura sulked. ‘Why should I care if Don Carlo does find out?’
‘Laura! Are you mad? Don’t ever say such a thing. Would you put your hand in a fire and not expect to be burnt? You would be turned out of this house in a trice. Imagine,’ I pointed to the door. ‘Imagine walking through there with nothing but your own possessions. No food, no roof when it rains …’
She began to cry, so I think she got the idea.
‘We went to Chiaia.’ She blew her nose wetly into her handkerchief. ‘The Duke had found somewhere for them to go – the pavilion in Don Garzia’s garden.’
The name wasn’t entirely unknown to me but I couldn’t place the man in my mind. ‘Who’s he?’
‘He’s a Spaniard. That’s why there’s nobody there. I heard the Duke say he’d gone back to Toledo.’
‘That’s something to be thankful for, I suppose. I wish Don Carlo had gone with him.’
It wasn’t until the following week that a further visit to Chiaia was made. A servant of Don Fabizio’s was the go-between and we set out in the carriage with a view to inspecting the gardens that Donna Maria was so enamoured with. I persuaded my lady that Laura should accompany us, although neither was keen, but I was determined that I shouldn’t be left alone in a strange garden with no one but the carriage driver and Don Fabrizio’s servant for company.
I’d heard all about Don Fabrizio by then for Donna Maria could think of nothing else. He was fierce but tender, the way he undressed her, so slowly, he too shivering with the sensation of silk against flesh. She’d never known a man whose whole body was so sensitive.
Where did my thoughts go when she carried on so? There was only one place. Salvo. I had not seen him since we came back from Gesualdo even though he promised he would come and visit.
‘Is it not a fine garden, Silvia?’ Donna Maria said, hurrying us through the scented groves and past a group of stone cherubs frolicking in a water trough.
‘Yes, my lady. It would merit a gentle stroll rather than a run.’
‘You may both stroll all you like, for the next hour at least. Just as long as you do not stray from within site of the pavilion. It would not do for us to be disturbed.’
The pavilion was a much grander place than I had imagined, and the pillars across the front gave it the appearance of an ancient temple.
I was to enter first to check that all was well. I did not question this, but had a moment of hesitation when my hand pressed against the door. Perhaps Don Fabrizio was not the god I had been led to believe but, in fact, a demon. I had to push hard for the door was heavy and the hinges stiff but then, with a loud creak, the handle flew from my grasp and I fell forward into the arms of the handsomest man in the whole of Italy.
Even in the sudden gloom and even though I had already had sight of Don Fabrizio at the feast, it was a new wonder. For here, close to, was a man with apparent and considerable expectations. At that moment, had my lady not been with me, I might have found myself in danger, for I am not made of stone.
He lacked Salvo’s sweetness of expression, as the broad brow and downward gaze spoke only of authority and power, but the air about him was as if he were bathed in honey and I was an unfortunate fly. Later, I thought it must have been the quality of his gaping doublet. The gold threads shining so; I must have been dazzled.
When Donna Maria entered behind me, the air fairly shook with anticipation and quickly I left them, imagining their greeting almost as if two great forces were joining in battle rather than love, for both were formidable.
Laura and I did stroll about, but there was no settlement in the heart for me. Even the sweet scent of the frangipani could not please me, for we were party to a folly of colossal proportions and I was more afraid than ever in the moment when Don Carlo had pressed his cold fingers about my neck. For then the real fear had been brief, and if my demise had been the outcome, a few people might have been sad for a while, but no household would have been upset, no marriages torn asunder, no revenge sought.
‘We must never speak of this, Laura,’ I said. ‘Do you understand how important it is that we keep these meetings to ourselves?’ She merely shrugged and I had to take her by the shoulders in order to give her a little shake. ‘I mean it,’ I said, trying to get her to look me in the eye. ‘This is the biggest secret you will ever hold and if you’re not careful, it may even be your last. That’s how important it is.’ She looked at me stupidly and I reached into my pouch for a handkerchief. As far as I could tell, that time I’d only managed to make myself cry.
I lay awake at night listening to Laura. The familiarity of her snoring now something of a comfort rather than a trial. The only thing to look forward to was a visit from Salvo. The note from him, which Pietro had delivered, was in the hand-sized fold I had stitched into the seam of my skirt. I’d made it especially for the little kitten that Salvo had carved for me. I liked that both were hidden away, although the contents of the note I couldn’t keep secret. Donna Maria depended on my presence more and more. There was no one of her ilk that she could confide in, and I prayed hard every day that when Father Strozzi took confession he would be as blinded by her beauty as every other man in Napoli. Not that she considered her love for Fabrizio sinful at all, although she knew its danger.
It seemed to me that love was the worst of illnesses. If only she would come out in spots or be raging in a delirium then we could all have a little peace.
‘Yes, yes,’ she murmured when I asked if I could go and see the street singers that were to perform on the quay. ‘Don’t be long though.’
‘I may be some hours, my lady.’
She looked up from her book of poems. ‘You’re not going alone, are you?’
‘No. Salvo Carlino has asked me to accompany him.’
‘Salvo?’ A frown creased her forehead, then cleared. ‘Oh, yes, that boy. I remember. Very well. Make sure you are back by evening prayers.’
I saw him first. We had arranged to meet on the steps of San Domenico and he was sitting near the top. My heart lifted at once and I couldn’t stop smiling. The stretch of it felt quite strange. I ran up the steps almost laughing, for I had been set free! What a relief it was to be out from underneath the roof of San Severo. The day was fine, the sky blue and when he saw me, Salvo looked so happy I nearly cried.
‘There you are,’ he said, catching my arm beneath the elbow and leading me across the piazza. ‘I was worried you might not come.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘There was an argument about who should refill the pillows. I didn’t want Laura to do it as it will only make her ill.’
‘Laura Scala? I’m surprised that cough hasn’t been the death of her.’
‘It might be one day, and soon if she has to deal with all those feathers, but the cook didn’t want the kitchen girl doing it either.’
Salvo squeezed my arm. ‘That’s very kind, Silvia. I remember you being rather impatient with Laura.’
‘Yes, I was, but now I think she’s my only friend,’ I said, miserably. ‘Oh please, let’s not talk about her. I don’t want to think about any of them at all this afternoon.’ I waved my arm in the direction of the palazzo.
‘What? Not even the illustrious Donna Maria?’
‘Especially not her, Salvo. For I swear she will undo us all. Don Carlo is not a man to be easy and forgiving, is he? I began to be afraid he wished me harm after that day with the singing. Then I thought Donna Maria might protect me, but … but—’ I broke off, as the true terror of my situation became too much.
Salvo pulled me close to him for we were in a narrow and crowded street. There were many people going to the quay for the entertainments and they came on wagons, donkeys and by foot in great numbers. Groups of young men with too much wine inside them. Sailors from foreign lands with black faces, old women i
n black with sticks, cursing at being jostled by noisy children dressed in costumes: a fox, a bear and a small duck girl. We were all pushed along past stalls with bright blue and yellow awnings selling everything to fill the stomach with deliciousness, judging by the aromas. There was shouting of names and news, both good and bad, and then a scent of flowers and for a coin, Salvo bought a sprig of mimosa and lavender. We slipped into a small pool of sunshine between two high walls, just to one side of the crowds, and he tucked the stems into my bodice.
‘Listen, Silvia,’ he said. ‘I want you to promise me something.’
Perhaps it was the perfume that made me feel a little lightheaded. The touch of Salvo’s fingertip and his nearness, the scent of him. I was reminded of the bright clean smell of the cedar linen chests but there was something spicy about it, exotic and compelling. I didn’t want to draw away. For a moment, when I looked up into his face I thought he might be about to kiss me but his expression was earnest and there was much anxiety in his tawny eyes.
‘Yes?’
‘If there’s any trouble or you feel in danger, I want you to go straight to the nuns of San Domenico. Don’t stop to go back for anything. They will be kind. I will mention it to Sister Caterina when I go there next.’
‘No, don’t,’ I said, alarmed. ’Don’t say anything. Nobody must suspect anything is wrong.’
‘It’s too late for that, my dearest, there are already little voices in the air that Donna Maria is behaving as badly as her husband is strange.’ His hand flew about in a flapping, chattering gesture till it dived towards me, opened out and gently stroked my cheek. ‘Promise me?’ And he leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips.
I might have promised him almost anything then for the whole of me lit with pleasure. ‘Yes,’ I said, my voice catching, ‘only …’
‘Only?’
‘Only if you kiss me again.’
At prayers, I could only think of Salvo and our afternoon of freedom. In my hand I cradled a small carving of a swan, with its neck curling behind to rest on its feathery back, a companion for my little kitten.
‘Once you were as jumpy as a kitten,’ Salvo had said, when he gave me the parting gift, ‘but now you are a beautiful swan. Don’t forget to fly, Silvia, if the water becomes dangerous.’
He had carved the swan in olive wood such that a tiny knot appeared like a small eye that followed wherever you looked, and I thought that in some way I might be looked after if I kept it with me. The singers we heard down on the quayside sang of a gentle white swan: Il bianco e dolce cigno, by Signor Arcadelt, about how it died singing. It was beautiful but gave me the shudders. They sang of dying repeatedly, but I knew your body can’t die more than once. They really meant the peak of pleasure that happens in the act of love. Everyone knew it, but nobody said anything.
I thought of Salvo again and my heart skipped a beat. Loving was dangerous, it seemed to me. Whatever the singers meant, love and death were far too intertwined for my liking.
Chapter Seventeen
It wasn’t silenzio the man kept saying, but I couldn’t quite hear correctly because of the truck that had mounted the pavement in order to overtake on the inside. It thundered past the entrance to the alley, over the exact spot where I’d been standing only a second ago.
‘Attento! Stia attento!’ The grip on my arms fell away and I turned to find an elderly man shaking his head with an expression full of concern.
‘Stia attento,’ he said. Be careful – a phrase I’d learnt from the woman in the tourist office.
I thanked him profusely and he escorted me to the crossing and made sure I was safely across. He smiled then disappeared into another of the alleys whose mouths seemed so menacing, but perhaps acted as refuges more often than not. Okay, I was on the right side of the road and apart from feeling a little shaken, it was time to get my bearings.
From the summit of Vesuvius, the city of Naples had appeared as an unfolded map. Lucky for me that it had been a clear day, because I could also make out Sorrento at the far point on the opposite side of the bay. And what a difference a stretch of sea made. When we were lounging in the first class luxury of our hotel, I kept thinking of the old song, Come Back to Sorrento – especially as I couldn’t decide between the languid and sexy Dean Martin recording and Mario Lanza’s, the more authentic and spine-tingling operatic rendition. Who wouldn’t want to come back? Everywhere was beautiful, scented with citrus blossom, stylish and clean.
The only thing I had in my head once I left the broad road on my way to Piazza San Domenico Maggiore was ‘See Naples and die!’ My understanding of the phrase was that Naples was so beautiful, your life was fulfilled by the mere fact of seeing it. But if you died before you’d seen it, well … your life was a poor thin thing. I was sure that bits of Naples must be beautiful but with the ribbon of blue sky above the high buildings getting ever narrower, and graffiti becoming the decoration of choice on every door and wall, in spite of the heat, I didn’t feel warm towards the city.
I’d been glad to leave Mum with Charles, thinking that I wouldn’t have to keep an eye on her, but began to wish she was here to keep an eye on me. Both of them would have been even better. Whiney two and three-wheeled scooters zipped about and I clutched my bag to my chest. At a fork, I dithered and thought to look at the map, only to have two men appear from the gloom of a doorway and approach. I set off with renewed purpose and a prayer, having no clue whether I was going in the right direction or not. But lo! Out of the dark and into a dazzling sun-lit piazza with a sign on the wall that read Piazza San Domenico Maggiore. Hallelujah!
It wasn’t exactly a square of grace and beauty. The frontage of San Domenico Maggiore, which took up the whole of one side, was the most peculiar mishmash of styles, as if a child had been in charge of works, and had stuck together bits of other churches and thrown in a few castellations and a cinema hoarding. At the bottom of the steps, cafe tables huddled in the shade of half a dozen large brollies. I put on my sunglasses, pulled my hat down almost to my nose and thought I’d risk a cappuccino.
All Italian waiters are handsome and all cappuccinos drunk under an Italian sun are actually intoxicating. Some things are self-evident. On the table next to me a couple of elderly women sipped espressos and talked rapid incomprehensible Italian, all the while gesticulating acts of what appeared to be murder. I felt very safe in their vicinity and rummaged in my bag for the photocopies from the book about Gesualdo that I had brought with me.
The Palazzo Sangro di Sansevero, where Gesualdo and Donna Maria D’Avalos spent so much of their time, isn’t obvious. But when I looked at the picture – an old blurry photo – I realised I was sitting only a couple of metres from the front door, which was just round the corner in a narrow street. Every single window in the palace looked onto a blank wall, although I supposed that behind the tall but closed doors under the arch, was the usual courtyard. A tranquil haven away from the busy street. I wondered if San Severo was ever tranquil. Like so many of the grander houses, it had been converted into a hotel.
There was no mention of Gesualdo anywhere, which rather surprised me. I would have thought a gruesome tale would make a good tourist attraction. I’d read one account that said the bodies were thrown down onto the church steps and a little later, walking into the church, I checked the steps but there were no four-hundred-year-old blood stains to be seen. I looked over my shoulder too for some reason, perhaps thinking of A Room with a View fleetingly, but nobody was being stabbed. Just as well, it would have been more than freaky if they were.
San Domenico Maggiore wasn’t exactly the Tardis, but I did get a hell of a surprise when I went in. Rather like splitting a rock and finding it full of sparkling crystals; the interior made me gasp. Not that it really sparkled, but it was of cathedral proportions and glowed with gold. I was beginning to get neck ache from admiring the gold-framed bosses on the ceiling above the nave when I bumped into something. A somebody, actually.
‘I’m so sor�
��’ I began. A man. Older than me by quite a bit, not a great deal of hair and with a corduroy jacket and a stick, but a nice face. Or at least, not a face that appeared hostile.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘My fault entirely.’
Thank goodness. ‘English!’ I blurted for some reason. It felt like such a relief.
‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ He laughed. ‘I’m from the wrong side of Hadrian’s Wall to be called English.’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. There was no mistaking the Scottish burr. ‘But I’m still sorry, it wasn’t your fault at all.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of arguing with such a pretty lady,’ he said, so very charmingly that I couldn’t help blushing.
We were both whispering and suddenly there was an awkward moment. It was rather like meeting an acquaintance walking towards you in Sainsburys and realising that you’re going to keep meeting them in every aisle after that. Would this man be round every pillar in San Domenico Maggiore?
‘I wonder though,’ he said, looking almost embarrassed, ‘would you mind if we had a chat? Can I buy you a wee coffee or something to eat?’ He said it so earnestly I took a step back, but then he smiled. ‘Don’t get me wrong, but it’s such a joy to be able to talk to someone without the dreadfully exhausting effort of translating it into Italian. The name’s Duncan. Duncan Grant.’ He held out his hand and I shook it.
‘Lisa Barr.’
‘Oh, a Barr. There’s a few of them in Scotland.’
‘Aberdeen, I’m told. My ex-husband’s family.’
We did a tour of the church first. I was still slightly fizzing from the cappuccino and also didn’t want to get too distracted from my quest.
‘I have only heard of Gesualdo,’ said Duncan, when I told him why I was there, ‘and know nothing about him.’
Secret of the Song Page 11