The Italian Matchmaker

by Santa Montefiore

  They found Rosa sitting outside chatting to Fiero. When she saw Romina, Rosa smiled and waved. ‘Buon giorno,’ she said.

  ‘Buon giorno, Rosa. I have someone to see you.’ Romina ushered Fiyona forward.

  ‘My name is Fiyona Pritchett, I’m a journalist for the Sunday Times magazine,’ she said in fluent Italian.

  Rosa was impressed. ‘You speak very well!’

  ‘I do my best,’ Fiyona replied modestly. ‘I like to practise. The only opportunity I get in London is with waiters.’ She looked at Fiero and the young man’s eyes lit up, responding enthusiastically to an unspoken message.

  ‘Coffee, signorina?’ he asked, grinning back at her.

  ‘Black, please.’

  ‘I’ll have one too, Fiero,’ said Rosa. Fiero turned on his heels and disappeared inside.

  ‘So, you’re writing the article about the palazzo?’ said Rosa. ‘Shall we sit down? Breakfast is on the house,’ she added grandly. ‘I know all there is to know about that place. My mother is Alba, Valentina’s daughter. Just ask away. It’s my favourite subject.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Romina, looking at her watch. ‘I have things to do at home. So many people, you know . . .’

  ‘Give us an hour, if that’s okay with Rosa,’ Fiyona suggested.

  ‘You can have all morning,’ Rosa replied. ‘It’ll be quiet today and Fiero is here to help.’ For a moment her face turned moody. ‘I can’t imagine Cosima will show up. She got home at four this morning and she’s still in bed! Such a sudden transformation. She deserves an Oscar for that sort of performance!’

  Romina narrowed her eyes. She had heard the car and her son’s merry whistling some time after that. So that’s who was keeping her son up to that ungodly hour of the morning.

  ‘So, will your mother talk to me?’ Fiyona put the tape recorder on the table and switched it on.

  ‘No, she won’t even go up to the palazzo. She’s furious that it’s been developed. I think she feels it should have been left to rot. She’ll hate me talking to you but she forgets that Valentina was my grandmother. I’m very like her, you know.’

  ‘There are no photographs of her . . .’ Fiyona began.

  ‘But there is a portrait. Wait, I’ll get it for you.’

  As Rosa rushed off to get the picture, Fiero returned with Fiyona’s coffee. ‘Would you like anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d like you to talk to me. It’s important that I practise my Italian,’ she replied with a flirtatious smile. She placed a cigarette between her red lips. Fiero was quick to snap open his lighter. She leaned forward, steadying his hand with her own. ‘You’re very young, Fiero.’

  ‘Twenty-five,’ he replied, disarmed by her predatory expression. She looked him up and down.

  ‘Italian men are more sophisticated than their British counterparts. Are you a good lover?’

  Fiero ran his tongue over his bottom lip. ‘You know how we Italians are. We live for making love. We live for women.’

  ‘Shame I’m only here for such a short time, otherwise we could strike a deal. I’d teach you English if you’d teach me Italian. Get my drift?’ He nodded, his nostrils flaring. ‘Another time, perhaps.’ Rosa returned with the picture of the reclining nude that hung inside, oblivious of the lascivious gleam in Fiero’s eyes. She handed it to Fiyona. ‘No one notices it now. But that is Valentina, painted by my grandfather.’

  Fiyona read the handwriting beneath it: ‘Valentina, reclining nude, Thomas Arbuckle, 1945.’

  ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘Beguiling,’ said Fiyona. ‘Naughty smile. I can see the resemblance,’ she added, grinning at Rosa.

  Rosa was pleased. ‘I’m not that naughty. Sadly, I don’t have the opportunity.’

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘Yes. Three children. Very conventional!’

  ‘Valentina might not have been so naughty had it not been wartime. She took lovers to survive.’

  ‘I don’t think she took up with Lupo Bianco to survive. For her he was a ticket to the high life in Naples. With him she could be someone different.’

  ‘Simple village girl found in diamonds and furs,’ said Fiyona, recalling the newspaper coverage of the murder. ‘Terrible shock for your poor grandfather.’

  ‘They were due to marry that day. So romantic, to be swept off your feet by a handsome foreigner! You know, they say that the statue of Christ didn’t weep for the first time in years, predicting the tragedy.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘Not really. They say it’ll only weep again when all the ghosts are at peace.’

  ‘They still think the old Marchese haunts the palazzo?’

  Rosa turned serious. ‘There was something strange going on. My husband is a policeman. Before Romina bought it there were dozens of sightings. Lights moving through rooms, strange noises. No one dared go up but him. He is extremely brave.’

  ‘Did he find anything?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing. I have been up many times. It doesn’t scare me. There was something beautiful about the ruin. It’s not the same now.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve come face to face with the ghost?’ said Fiyona, exhaling a ribbon of smoke.

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Rosa laughed dismissively. ‘But I wouldn’t rule out a living ghost sneaking about trying to scare people. Romina complains of someone haunting the folly. She told my husband that someone sleeps in there and dragged him up to take a look.’

  ‘She’s eccentric but she doesn’t strike me as superstitious,’ said Fiyona.

  ‘She’s northern Italian. There’s a big difference. People down here are very primitive.’

  ‘So you don’t believe the Marchese’s hanging around, repenting killing the woman he loved?’

  ‘Of course not ! Someone’s just having some fun. Or the people of Incantellaria made it all up to stop anyone buying the palazzo and turning it into a hotel. They like their peace and they’re rather proud of their history. They wanted to keep the place as it was, as a kind of morbid shrine. But they failed miserably.’

  ‘Can I quote you on that?’

  ‘You can quote me on anything you like. You can include a photograph too. After all, I’m the image of Valentina.’

  ‘I can’t use the drawing?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ Rosa gasped, snatching it back. ‘Only if you want another murder in Incantellaria!’

  ‘Is it true that your great-uncle killed the Marchese for revenge?’

  ‘Right there in the palazzo.’

  ‘Do you know where?’

  ‘In a leather chair in his sitting-room.’ She drew a line slowly across her neck. ‘They killed him like a pig.’

  ‘They?’

  Rosa flinched as if stung. ‘I mean him,’ she corrected, blushing. ‘Falco.’

  Fiyona chewed thoughtfully on her cheek. ‘I see.’

  ‘The police never properly investigated Valentina’s murder. They assumed she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the middle of mafia crossfire. They never imagined that it was Lupo in the wrong place at the wrong time, that the Marchese killed Valentina and he just got in the way.’ She leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘In fact, he killed her because he didn’t want my grandfather to take her away to England. If he couldn’t have her he didn’t want anyone else to have her. I think the Marchese was a shrewd old thing. I bet he knew she took other lovers and I don’t imagine he minded. I remember my mother telling me that he collected beautiful things. He was an aesthete. Valentina was simply another one of his beautiful possessions. But when she fell in love with my grandfather, I mean, really in love, he couldn’t take it. So he cut off his nose to spite his face and murdered the thing he loved so that no one else could have her. I’m surprised no one’s made the film.’

  ‘Maybe they will when they read my article. We have a two million circulation.’

  Rosa’s eyes widened. ‘You mean two million people will read abo
ut me?’

  Fiyona pandered to her vanity. ‘Two million people will read about you and your family.’

  ‘Madonna! Imagine that. I can act, you know. I’m a very good actress.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ Fiyona said truthfully.

  Rosa looked wistful. ‘I wish some handsome foreigner would drape me in diamonds and sweep me off somewhere else.’

  ‘You don’t like it here?’

  ‘Nothing happens. I can see why Valentina walked on the dark side. War or no war, she had to make her own excitement.’

  At twenty minutes past eleven Romina arrived to pick up Fiyona. They were still talking. Fiero hovered close, like a moth at Fiyona’s flame.

  ‘Haven’t you two finished yet?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re done,’ said Fiyona, switching off her tape recorder. ‘Thank you, Rosa, you’ve been very interesting.’ She waved at Fiero. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  Rosa looked affronted. ‘You want to interview Fiero?’

  ‘I want to talk to everyone. I don’t like to leave any stone unturned.’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything.’

  Fiyona shook her head shrewdly. ‘Everyone knows something.’ She winked at Fiero. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’

  Back in the car, Romina asked if she had got what she needed. ‘And some,’ she replied happily. ‘Valentina’s star still shines brightly.’

  ‘The naivety of youth. Rosa doesn’t see the sordidness of the story, just the glamour.’

  ‘It’ll make great copy.’

  ‘You should talk to her mother.’

  ‘Apparently Alba won’t speak.’

  ‘Shame. I’m sure she knows a whole other dimension.’

  ‘Rosa implied that more than one person killed the Marchese.’

  ‘I thought it was just Falco.’

  ‘Could have been a slip of the tongue.’

  Romina shrugged. ‘I’ll ask my son. I think he’s closer to that family than I previously thought.’

  ‘It’s important for the article. I like to get my facts right.’

  ‘Leave it to me.’

  That afternoon, when Rosa returned home, Cosima was still in her bedroom. She had been waiting all morning to talk to her, and couldn’t wait another minute. As she reached the top of the stairs she could hear her cousin humming. She didn’t bother to knock, but turned the handle and walked inside.

  Cosima was sitting at her dressing-table, gazing at her reflection in the mirror. Dangling from her ears were the most magnificent diamonds. Rosa gasped, envy and fury rising in an uncontrollable swell.

  ‘You should have knocked!’ Cosima exclaimed, placing her hands over her ears in an attempt to hide the diamonds.

  ‘I’ve already seen them, you fool! Don’t think I don’t know about you and Luca. I saw you together. So, he’s given you diamonds!’

  ‘Yes.’ Cosima braced herself.

  ‘I’m happy for you,’ said Rosa briskly.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I don’t fancy Luca. Sure, I enjoy flirting with him, but I’m married.’

  ‘I’m sorry now that I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘Why should you? I don’t feel obliged to tell you everything.’

  Cosima couldn’t fail to notice the strain in her cousin’s voice. Rosa’s deliberate calm was more than a little disconcerting. Any moment she expected an object to come flying at her head.

  ‘He gave them to me last night,’ she confessed.

  ‘Can I see?’ Rosa sat on the bed. Cosima hesitated a moment before taking the earrings off and handing them to her. She stood up to let her cousin take her place in front of the mirror. Rosa was quick to push the little sticks through her ear lobes and stared at her reflection with childish pleasure. ‘I’ve never seen anything more beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘They must have cost a fortune. As much as a house. He’s obviously a millionaire. Trust you to find a rich man.’

  ‘I never set out to find a man at all,’ said Cosima uneasily.

  ‘I should have been a little more cunning, but I was young and innocent when I married Eugenio. I had no understanding of life. Not like you, with all the wisdom of middle age.’ She sighed. ‘Lovely, but where are you going to wear them? Is he going to take you off to Naples?’

  ‘No! I’ll wear them just for him.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll sweep you off to London.’

  Cosima was horrified. ‘I’ll never leave Incantellaria.’

  ‘Why not? I’d give anything to leave this sleepy little place.’

  ‘I can’t!’ Cosima’s voice cracked.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because I’ll never leave Francesco.’

  Luca spent the morning in bed. Outside the sky was grey; it looked like rain but there was sunshine in his heart. He couldn’t believe his luck, how suddenly his life had turned around, how one woman in a magical little town could transform him. He had left London feeling lost and empty, having walked away from his life of twenty years. He didn’t know what he was going to do; he was floating aimlessly like a piece of driftwood on the sea. Now his life was gaining purpose: loving Cosima and loving his children. That’s what had been missing all along: love. Not the selfish love he had initially felt for Claire and the distant idea of love he had felt for his daughters, but the love that puts itself above one’s own desires: loving another more than oneself. The realisation filled him with energy. Too excited to lie in bed he took a towel down to the little bay for a swim.

  ‘He’s in love,’ said Ma, enjoying a pre-lunch Bloody Mary.

  ‘And it’s not with my girl,’ added Caradoc happily. ‘My money’s on the widow.’

  ‘The one who lost her little boy?’

  ‘Yes. I never thought he’d crack her,’ said Ma.

  ‘Luca’s very handsome and sweet,’ said Stephanie. ‘I’m not at all surprised. The waitress at the trattoria’s mad for him.’

  Caradoc’s eyes lit up. ‘That’s my girl! She’s mad for me too!’

  ‘Pipedreams,’ Ma scoffed. ‘You’re a silly old man!’

  ‘One is never too old to dream,’ protested Nanni, wondering where that naughty little journalist had got to.

  ‘I hope he marries her and gives her another child,’ said Stephanie wistfully.

  Her father patted her knee. ‘Ever the romantic, Stephanoula!’

  ‘Bad blood,’ said Ma darkly. ‘I wouldn’t go near that family if I were him. Imagine, Cosima’s grandfather committed murder right here in this palazzo. The Marchese was slaughtered like an animal! Her great-aunt was murdered on the road to Naples having taken lovers and betrayed all of them. I’d think very carefully before dipping my snout into that trough!’

  Caradoc shook his head. ‘We all have family we’re not proud of. But an individual shouldn’t be judged on the errors of his ancestors.’

  ‘Mark my words, Professor. You heard it here first. Nothing good will come out of that relationship.’

  When Luca came up from the beach, his face red with exertion, his hair standing up in wet tufts, Ma put down her glass, determined to be the first to interrogate him. ‘Now, Luca. We’ve been laying bets on you,’ she shouted across the terrace.

  He shot her a quizzical look. ‘Laying bets on what exactly?’

  ‘Who’s luring you into town all the time? It’s not just the coffee,’ said Ma. He grinned at them all, a schoolboy on the point of announcing he’d won a prize.

  ‘Ah, that smile says it all,’ commented Caradoc. ‘The cat that’s got the cream!’

  ‘You’re in love. The question is, with whom?’ said Ma.

  ‘Don’t tell her,’ laughed Nanni, smoking languidly. ‘A gentleman has no memory.’

  ‘It’s the widow,’ said Caradoc. ‘I’m right, am I not?’

  Luca sat down. ‘Am I that transparent?’

  ‘Happiness is infectious. Your happiness is tickling us too,’ said Caradoc.

  ‘Or making us very envious,’ Ma added dryly.<
br />
  He looked helplessly at Stephanie. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Are you appealing to me for help?’

  ‘You’re a young woman. Would you want your love life discussed by this group of eccentrics?’

  ‘If they said positive things, I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Very well,’ he replied. ‘I am in love. I want to shout it to the skies, but she wants to keep it quiet.’

  Ma narrowed her eyes. ‘Then I should be very worried if I were you.’

  ‘Worried? Why?’

  ‘What does she have to hide? Is she already married?’

  ‘She’s definitely not married,’ said Luca.

  ‘The widow!’ Caradoc clapped his arthritic old hands gleefully. ‘I knew it.’

  At that moment Romina and Fiyona arrived back from town. Nanni straightened at the sight of the redhead. He was sorry to see that she wasn’t wearing fishnet stockings, but jeans. He felt himself grow hot, but the heat was strangely pleasurable. He took a gulp of Martini and leered at her.

  Fiyona was as alert as a fox. She settled her long green eyes on him and licked her lips provocatively. ‘So, Nanni, do you fancy a little promenade before lunch? I’d love to dip my toes in the sea.’

  As Fiyona disappeared inside to change, Ventura emerged with the telephone. ‘Signor Luca.’

  He took the handset, expecting it to be Claire. To his surprise it was Freya. ‘Hi sweetheart, this is a nice surprise!’

  ‘How are you?’ She sounded tense.

  ‘Well. Heaven here. When are you coming?’

  ‘Perhaps sooner than you think.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Do you remember last time we met, you thanked me for being there when you needed me?’

  ‘Of course. That’s what friends are for. You’re not in trouble, are you?’

  ‘Yes. Now it’s I who need you.’

  He felt his head spin. ‘You do? What’s going on?’

  ‘Miles is having an affair.’

  Luca wanted to laugh at the preposterous idea, but she sounded so upset, he maintained his composure. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m certain, Luca. What do I do?’

  Now wasn’t the time to tell Freya he was in love with Cosima. ‘You come out here, now.’

  ‘But what about the children?’