The Italian Matchmaker

by Santa Montefiore

  Alba introduced him to the family one by one, leaving Cosima to the end. Her face was in plain view, no longer hidden by the black veil. He shook her hand but she refused to meet his eyes. Her lips were very pale, her cheekbones prominent, her skin almost translucent. She wasn’t classically beautiful, but her features had a haunted quality that caused his heart to stall.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Panfilo, pulling out a chair. ‘It’s good of you to come.’

  Rosa handed Luca a glass, enveloping him in a cloud of perfume. They all watched expectantly. He gulped his drink, paralysed by embarrassment. What does one say to a woman who’s tried to commit suicide?

  ‘So, how is it up at the palazzo?’ Toto broke the ice.

  Alba bristled but she repressed her feelings for Cosima’s sake.

  ‘It’s splendid,’ said Luca. ‘It’s got the most magnificent view.’

  ‘Apparently the old Marchese used to spy on the village with a telescope,’ said Rosa mischievously.

  Luca grinned, grateful to her for lightening the atmosphere. ‘I must get one then. He was obviously on to something!’

  ‘You know, Panfilo is going to photograph it for the Sunday Times.’

  Luca had quite forgotten the name of the famous photographer his mother had mentioned so gleefully. ‘Of course. My mother has told me all about you. She says you are the best in Italy.’

  ‘She flatters me,’ said Panfilo with a shrug.

  ‘No, she doesn’t,’ protested Alba. ‘She’s right. You are the best in Italy.’

  ‘She’s thrilled to be able to show it off. It was a ruin when they bought it.’

  Alba was unable to contain her curiosity. ‘Why did they buy it?’

  ‘My father’s an architect, my mother paints interiors. They are both retired. It’s been a project for them both. My mother fell in love with the palazzo on sight. My father found it a great challenge. Now they hold court like a medieval king and queen, though I’m not sure where they pick up some of their guests. They are not all to my taste.’

  Luca was aware that he was talking to Valentina’s daughter, the same Valentina who was murdered on the road to Naples, whose brother took revenge on the Marchese. His curiosity was fired. He took another gulp of prosecco and felt the pleasurable loosening of limbs as it lightened his senses.

  Conversation continued as the sun descended, casting long shadows across the grass. Cosima watched him warily, her eyes full of suspicion. The rest of her family compensated for her hostility with a slick routine they had been practising for three years. Perhaps they weren’t even aware of covering up for her. Cosima’s moodiness was as much part of their home as the shadows.

  Luca saw the little boy from the church. He was standing quite still in the soft amber light while the others ran about him playing ‘tag’. He held a large white feather. When he noticed Luca a smile spread across his face – a smile mature beyond his years, full of gratitude. The boy didn’t look out of place with the other children but he remained detached, as if on an island of his own.

  ‘Are those your children?’ Luca asked Rosa, his voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘Three of them are mine, the others are cousins.’

  Cosima spoke at last. ‘I had a son.’ Everyone turned to stare. She looked steadily at Luca, her voice unwavering. He wanted to drown in her eyes. ‘He was called Francesco,’ she continued. ‘He was six years old. He used to play here in the olive grove with his cousins. He loved toy cars and boats, but most of all he loved butterflies, insects and birds. He would search for them in the grass and try to catch crickets.’ Her voice cracked and two spots of colour flowered on her pale cheeks. ‘He collected white feathers.’ The little boy had disappeared. The children had run off deep into the olive grove. Cosima continued. ‘He carried them around in his pockets because he liked to feel their softness against his lips. He laid them in neat lines on the carpet and left them all over the house. But one blew away and . . .’

  Luca was sucked into her compelling gaze.

  ‘Do you want to see him?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Come,’ she said, getting up. ‘Let me show you my son.’

  13

  Luca followed Cosima through the terracotta-tiled hall and up the stairs. A cool breeze accompanied them and he shivered, sweat gathering in beads upon his nose and forehead. She opened the door to her bedroom. There was a shrine against the far wall. A candle burned in its glass lamp, illuminating the photograph of Francesco.

  He entered slowly, half afraid of the face in the frame. But he had to see. He had to know. He crouched down and stared into the photograph. It was indeed the little boy on the beach, in the trattoria, the piazza and the church – the little boy who had been standing outside in the sunlight holding a white feather. But how was that possible? He looked as real as every other child in Incantellaria.

  ‘Now you see why I want to die.’ Cosima stood between Luca and the door. ‘I cannot live with the guilt. Why did you save me?’ Her voice was an icy wind.

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘How did you know I was in the sea?’

  ‘I saw you run out.’

  ‘But you didn’t follow me, you stayed in the church.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How, then, did you know? Who told you?’ She stood behind him, silently demanding that he turn around and look her in the eye.

  He rubbed his forehead in confusion. ‘I think I’m going mad.’

  ‘You saw a little boy, didn’t you?’ she persisted. ‘A little boy with a feather?’

  He turned and looked at her. He didn’t want to give her false hope, but he couldn’t lie. ‘I saw Francesco.’

  Cosima’s eyes welled with tears and her lips trembled. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered, crossing herself. ‘I want to believe you, but how can I be sure you’re not lying?’

  ‘How do I know I’m not seeing things?’

  ‘No one else saw the child in the church. Only you.’

  ‘I can’t explain it. He looked real enough to me.’

  ‘But my son is dead! You can’t play with me like this! Look into his face. Are you sure it was him?’

  ‘I know what I saw! I haven’t lost my mind. Christ, I didn’t ask for this.’

  ‘Do you see them all the time? Dead people, I mean.’

  ‘Spirits?’

  ‘Yes.’ He took a deep breath. He hadn’t discussed this with anyone, not even Freya. But he could see that she needed some sort of explanation.

  ‘As a child I saw spirits, but I didn’t realise what they were. I’d hear voices. They frightened me. But my mother told me I was crazy and that she’d send me to a place for crazy children, so I blocked them out. Little by little they faded, became less frequent, until I stopped seeing them all together.’

  ‘Why did you see Francesco?’

  ‘I don’t know, Cosima. I can’t explain it. I saw him on the beach the day I arrived here. You were walking and he was beside you, chattering away, but you didn’t seem to be listening. I imagined you were just ignoring him.’ A fat tear dropped on to her thumb. She brushed it away. ‘After that, I saw him at the trattoria with Rosa and in the church while you were lighting the candle. You remember I tried to talk to you?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘He was playing in the square. When you walked off he ran after you.’

  ‘But I was alone.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I’m always alone.’

  Luca put his hand on hers, a spontaneous gesture that might have been presumptuous, but she didn’t remove it. ‘No, Cosima. You’re not.’

  Downstairs on the terrace, Alba and the rest of the family waited.

  ‘What do you think they’re doing up there?’ Rosa asked, bristling with jealousy. ‘How long does it take to show him a photograph?’

  ‘Rosa,’ chided her mother. ‘If they’re talking about Francesco, that’s a very positive thing. I hope they take as long as they need.’

  ‘What’s this abo
ut the feather, Rosa?’ asked Panfilo. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Luca had blanched at the mention of it.

  ‘Nothing really,’ Rosa replied with a shrug. ‘Luca says he saw a little boy with a feather in the church at the festa. That the same little boy alerted him to Cosima wading into the sea.’

  Alba narrowed her eyes as her daughter jogged her memory. ‘Yes, he did say something about a little boy.’

  ‘What of it?’ asked Panfilo.

  ‘Well, no one else saw him,’ Rosa continued.

  ‘Are you suggesting that the child was Francesco?’ Beata asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I mean, no, not really. But if Cosima thinks so, that’s a good thing, right?’

  ‘Good God!’ Alba swore. ‘You mean Luca’s psychic?’

  Panfilo grinned. ‘It doesn’t matter. If he manages to help Cosima he can be whatever he wants to be.’

  ‘No, he’s psychic,’ Alba insisted.

  At that moment Eugenio came around the corner, tired from bicycling up the hill. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked, surprised. ‘What’s going on?’ His children ran into him, wrapping their arms around his legs and waist. ‘Hello, monkeys! Shouldn’t you all be in bed?’ He looked to Rosa for an explanation.

  ‘We invited Luca up so we could thank him,’ she said. He frowned, not recognising the name.

  ‘The man who rescued Cosima,’ explained Toto.

  ‘They’re upstairs. They’ve been up there for ages,’ said Rosa huffily. She looked at her mother. ‘Don’t you think I should go and see if they’re all right?’

  ‘No,’ said Alba. ‘Leave them to it. It’s good for Cosima to have someone to talk to who isn’t family.’

  Cosima hadn’t intended to open up to a stranger. She had been aware of Luca from the first moment he had talked to her in the piazza and had dismissed him as an attractive foreigner not to be trusted. Despite that, she found herself telling him all about Francesco and Riccardo, Francesco’s father.

  Luca listened, intrigued, as she grew animated, telling stories against herself, laughing at her own foolishness in falling for a man who was clearly never going to leave his wife. She was transformed. The colour returned to her face and, although she was wearing black, it no longer sapped the life out of her. ‘You see, Francesco was the part of Riccardo that was totally mine. He filled the hole in my heart Riccardo left when he declared that he wouldn’t recognise my child and wanted nothing more to do with me. I was hurt but I had this baby growing inside that would belong to me exclusively. Francesco loved me. He would never leave me.’

  ‘He hasn’t left, Cosima. You just can’t see that he’s here.’

  She slid her eyes around the room. ‘Is he here now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t reply.’

  She smiled tentatively. ‘Next time he appears, will you please try again?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Thank you.’ They sat in silence for a moment. It didn’t feel awkward. They were bound together by something beyond their control. ‘Tell me something,’ she said finally. ‘When you said that butterfly was Francesco’s, what did you mean?’

  ‘Francesco was there at the trattoria. He was playing with a feather, jumping off a bollard. Then he had this beautiful blue butterfly. He came up to me and it flew from his hand to mine, where it remained until you came out and it settled on your dress.’

  Cosima got up and walked over to her dresser. ‘The Brazilian Blue Morpho,’ she said, showing him a butterfly in an oval glass case. ‘It was his favourite insect. The Brazilian Blue Morpho is native to Brazil,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t exist in Italy.’

  Luca returned to the palazzo with a spring in his step. His head buzzed with images of Francesco; he realised now he had never actually seen other people reacting to the child. He had always been isolated, as if separated by glass from his mother or the children he played amongst. No one else could see the boy but him. It was clear that Francesco wanted his mother to know that he was around her. Now she did, would he appear again?

  Caradoc and Ma were on the terrace with his parents, drinking wine in the fading evening light. Small moths and flies hovered around the hurricane lights, flapping their dusty wings against the glass. Ventura had placed tea lights around the edge of the terrace and they twinkled through the twilight like fireflies.

  ‘So,’ said Ma expectantly. ‘How did it go?’

  Luca took a seat in one of the comfy armchairs and lit a cigarette. ‘Well. Much to my surprise.’ He was unable to restrain the smile that spread across his face.

  ‘Have you saved the damsel?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Luca cagily. His father handed him a glass of wine.

  ‘Well, darling, don’t keep us in suspense,’ exclaimed Romina.

  ‘What’s the house like?’ asked Bill.

  Romina rolled her eyes. ‘Like any other Italian farmhouse, darling. Don’t interrupt Luca’s story! I’m so proud of him!’

  ‘The house is simple but pretty, with a view of the sea,’ said Luca, humouring his father. He looked at his mother. ‘And I met your fabulous Panfilo Pallavicini.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘I did. He’s Cosima’s uncle, married to the famous Alba.’

  ‘Ah,’ breathed the professor. ‘Valentina’s English daughter. Well, you certainly fell into the right nest.’

  ‘What is he like?’ Romina was curious.

  ‘Panfilo?’ Luca shrugged. ‘Handsome, I suppose. Longish grey hair, rugged – as you would expect.’

  ‘When’s he coming?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘But he is coming?’

  ‘Yes, Mother, he is coming.’

  ‘But what about Cosima, Luca?’ said Ma. ‘How did you fare with her?’

  ‘Let’s just say, she’s talking to me now.’

  ‘That’s my boy. Persistence and diplomacy,’ said the professor.

  Ma’s mouth twitched. ‘So, she won’t be rushing off into the water again?’

  ‘I think not,’ said Luca.

  ‘Careful,’ warned Caradoc. ‘Her family has a violent history.’

  ‘And an unlucky one,’ added Ma.

  ‘I’ll make my own history, thank you very much,’ said Luca, gratefully swallowing his drink.

  Romina wasn’t listening. ‘Rewind, darling. Tell me, how is it possible that the most famous photographer in Italy lives in a simple farmhouse?’

  Rosa was fuming. When she had put the children to bed she went to her own bedroom and reviewed the evening.

  Cosima and Luca had finally come downstairs. For a woman who had spent the last three years in misery, she had sure recovered fast. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling, her lips full and pink. The black dress had faded into insignificance instead of dominating her like a shroud. Rosa saw Luca look at her, his gaze as tender as a lover’s. Cosima’s voice was so intimate she could have been thanking him for a night of passion. He seemed to have become a firm friend of the family, and no one remembered that it was Rosa who had found him in the first place.

  ‘Rosa?’ Eugenio closed the door behind him. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘What does it look like?’ she snapped.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Cosima.’

  Eugenio sighed, anticipating another row. ‘What’s the poor girl done now?’

  ‘She’s not a poor girl. She’s in love with Luca.’

  ‘You should be happy for her.’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m the bitch, am I?’

  ‘Isn’t she allowed to love again?’

  ‘Of course she is. Only it was a little hasty, don’t you think? She’s been playing us all like fiddles for the last three years. Can’t you see? Am I the only one in this house who’s not blind? I work my backside off day and night in the trattoria, while she’s allowed to keep the books. That’s a holiday compared to what I do. It’s been three years, three, but she s
till gets special nation status!’

  ‘She does more than keep the books.’

  ‘You’re not around to see, Eugenio!’ Rosa placed her hands on her curvaceous hips. ‘She wanders in looking miserable, oh woe is me and all that theatre, and Mamma rushes to her like a mother hen. When she complains that our children have taken Francesco’s toys out of her room, I get the blame. I swear on my life, our children are innocent! I feel like the outsider in this house. She’s a big black cuckoo pushing me out! If anyone should move out it’s her. Why doesn’t she go and live with Beata, Toto and Paola? They’re her family.’

  Eugenio sat on the bed and patiently removed his shoes. ‘You know very well that Alba’s a mother to her.’

  ‘She’s my mother!’

  ‘She’s a mother to Cosima in everything but blood.’

  ‘Why can’t she bond with her stepmother?’

  ‘Could you bond with Paola?’

  ‘I don’t have to.’

  ‘Neither does she. Look, she grew up in this house. It’s where she feels at home. It’s where Francesco grew up. Face it, Rosa, nothing’s going to change.’

  She started to cry and Eugenio knew he was being pushed into a fight. ‘You don’t love me any more, do you?’

  ‘Madonna! You know I do.’

  ‘Then show me!’ She sat astride him and pulled his head into her bosom. ‘Tell me I’m more beautiful than Cosima. She’s dry and old and I’m young and juicy.’ She began to smother his face with kisses. He was aroused by the warm wetness of her mouth.

  ‘You’re more beautiful than Cosima,’ he repeated obediently. ‘You’re more beautiful than any woman in Incantellaria.’

  He felt her smile as she placed her lips on his. Her hands began to unbutton his shirt, slipping it over his shoulders. She threw her head back and let him kiss her breasts, flicking his tongue around nipples that were hard and expectant. She began to writhe on top of him, teasing him with her body, until he could stand it no longer. He threw her on to the bed, unzipped his trousers and entered her with a groan.