‘I spoke to Amber only last week,’ she said. ‘She told me she’d be happy to have you back whenever you’re ready.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t interfere.’
At the other end of the phone Lynnette exhaled slowly. ‘Liv, it’s not interfering. It’s just that …’
‘You know what’s best for me?’
‘No, no …’
‘I’m not a baby, Lynnette. Do you know how that makes me feel? You talking to my boss behind my back? Making excuses for me?’
‘No, Liv, it’s not like that, I just …’
‘You’ve always thought I was incompetent.’
‘Liv, that’s not fair.’
‘Life isn’t,’ I said. ‘And I should know.’
‘Listen to yourself,’ said Lynnette. ‘You sound like—’
But I never found out what I sounded like. I put the phone down.
Angela called me. She sounded strained. She asked if I was all right. I told her I was fine. She asked me, casually, if I had seen Marc lately. I told her not since the time at Marinella’s. It didn’t feel like a lie at all. The man who came to my flat three or four times a week was not the same man who lived with Nathalie in the flat above Marinella’s.
‘Why do you ask?’ I asked.
‘No reason,’ she said, with a tight little laugh.
Marc invited me to Marinella’s for a family dinner on Easter Sunday. I told him I thought it was a very bad idea. He said it would be a worse idea if I didn’t come because people would wonder why I had stayed away. They would wonder if I had something to hide.
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘It’ll be fine,’ said Marc. ‘Stefano and Bridget are flying up from London and they’ll be horrified if you’re not there. Pop told Angela that she would be letting Luca down if you weren’t made welcome. If she can make the effort then so can you. You must come. If not for yourself, then for Luca.’
‘For Luca?’
‘Yes.’
There were only a handful of places to eat out in Portiston, so even though Marinella’s never served traditional roast Sunday lunches, it was a popular venue with locals and tourists alike. Eating there on a Sunday was always a pleasurable experience. The food was relaxed and hearty, the ambience warm and friendly. Easter Sunday always used to be particularly busy – the first big family calendar occasion of the year, and also the date which unofficially marked the beginning of the summer season, and therefore a day to celebrate.
It was a tradition for the Felicone family to all muck in together on bank holidays. Sons, daughters-in-law, even the grandchildren as soon as they were old enough would help out behind the bar, in the kitchen and restaurant. It made for a great atmosphere, and after the lunchtime rush was over and the last guest had left, Maurizio would lock the doors and the family would settle down to enjoy a meal together. These were always wonderful occasions, even for a black sheep like me. Maurizio knew how to throw a party, he was a generous and congenial host, and he adored his family.
But now things were different. Luca wasn’t there. I had never really fitted in and my position was more tenuous than ever. I had been invited to the family party, so I knew that I ought to offer to help out with the lunches. In the end, I decided to call Maurizio to see if he needed an extra pair of hands in the kitchen or the restaurant. I didn’t want to turn up in the evening to find that Nathalie and Angela had been run off their feet all day pausing only to bitch about my thoughtlessness in omitting to offer to help. Despite this, I sincerely hoped he would turn me down.
Maurizio was the epitome of kindness.
‘How sweet of you to offer, Olivia,’ he said. ‘But it’s a while since you’ve done any waitressing for us.’
‘I could wash up,’ I said cheerfully, knowing full well that he wouldn’t let me do that.
Maurizio gave a little cough, and said, ‘Excuse me, Olivia,’ and then I heard a brief exchange in Italian with Angela which I couldn’t follow although I picked out the words ‘bambini’, ‘Nathalie’ and ‘poveretta’ (poor girl). Angela’s voice was shrill, Maurizio’s deep and calm and reassuring.
Then Maurizio came back on the line. ‘What would help us the most would be if you’d look after the children so that Nathalie could come down and work in the restaurant with Marc,’ he said. ‘Would you mind doing some babysitting?’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know how Nathalie would feel about that.’
‘Leave Nathalie to me,’ said Maurizio.
I put the phone down, wishing I’d never picked it up. The black dog, who had been sitting at my feet listening to my side of the conversation, gave a meaningful sigh and jumped up on to my shoulder. My spine curved, my shoulders collapsed towards one another with the weight of the beast, yet I was soothed by its chin on my clavicle, its deep breathing. Without Luca, I would be the only person at the party who was not linked to the family by parents, siblings, living spouses or children. I didn’t really qualify to be there at all.
Easter Saturday night in the flat proved interminable. The good weather had been replaced by a storm of Atlantic proportions.
I had registered at the Watersford Central Library and taken out a clutch of books as I was so tired of TV, but I had overestimated my capacity for concentration. I should, I realized, have stuck to easy-to-read page-turners. A crime novel perhaps, or a friendly chick-lit romance. But I had shied away from detective novels in case I inadvertently happened upon a forensic description of the kind of injuries Luca had suffered, and didn’t think I could cope with a happy-ever-after-type plot that featured multiple misunderstandings and orgasms.
Instead I had picked up improving, literary books, which I had neither the energy nor the desire to read.
The books were intended to be an alternative to alcohol as well as TV, but by 9.45 p.m. on Saturday, that ‘now or never’ time when I either went to the off-licence or I didn’t, I put on one of Luca’s big old waterproof coats, went out and bought a bottle of Merlot and a litre of gin to replace the one I’d emptied down the sink that very morning in response to a murderous hangover. The woman behind the till recognized me and tried to strike up a conversation. I was appalled that she regarded me as a regular. Surely, surely, part of her training should have been to instil in her a polite blankness when dealing with people who were clearly alcohol-dependent, no matter what their excuses. To shut her up I asked for a bar of mint Aero.
I don’t know what was wrong, but I wasn’t OK. The flat was, as Marc had pointed out, untidy. Because of its size, it didn’t take much to tip it from cosy to claustrophobic. I couldn’t open the windows because of the rain and the wind, yet I felt asthmatic and constricted.
Like Sylvia Plath, I am of the opinion that there are few complaints in life that a hot bath can’t cure, so I lit half a dozen tealights and arranged them in the tiny bathroom, poured a gallon of lavender and camomile oil into the bath and then turned on the hot tap while I searched for a CD of something guaranteed to relax me. I put Sigur Ros into the machine, but when I tested the temperature of the bath it was icy cold. The pilot light in the boiler had blown out.
By now I had finished the wine and was on to my first glass of gin and lemonade. I caught a glimpse of myself in the window and I looked like a madwoman, a ghost, my hair unkempt, my clothes dishevelled, shadows under my eyes so dark that they reflected in the steamy window glass – oh God, I was a mess. I paced the flat. I drank my drink. I could bear my own company no longer.
For the first time, I felt a bitter anger. It was directed at my husband.
There was nothing else for it but to put on my coat and boots and go to the cemetery. Outside, the wind whipped round my legs, and the knees of my jeans were soon soaked from rain running off my coat. My hair stuck to my head and face and all my exposed skin felt icy, but I didn’t care: inside I was burning. I strode through the black streets, yellow streetlamps reflected in puddles rippled by the wind and the wet tarmac reflecting moonlight in explosive fragm
ents. A stream of water ran down the hill from the direction of the cemetery and burbled in overflowing drains which spewed up the water, and as I reached the cemetery boundary the trees were being lashed by the weather, creaking and groaning as if they were being flayed alive.
The gates, of course, were padlocked, bound by a thick metal chain, yet even they rattled and clanged in the wind. I was not deterred. The surrounding wall was six feet high and a little further along the road was a bus shelter, with a bench. It was easy for me, given my anger, to climb on to the back of the bench and from there pull myself up on to the top of the wall like somebody climbing out of a swimming pool. I didn’t even notice the shards of glass concreted into the top of it.
There was a drop on the other side, and then I was in the cemetery. There was a light on in the top floor of the lodge. The superintendent and his wife were preparing for bed. Maybe they were brushing their teeth, maybe about to have sex. I wished them well, and scrambled over the graves in the area between the wall and the main path, then jogged up the hill towards Luca’s grave, shouting and screaming at him, confident that the noise of the storm would drown out my voice.
‘You bastard!’ I yelled. ‘You said you’d never leave me! You promised, Luca! You promised me! You selfish bastard! You said you’d look after me and now look at me! Look what you’ve done to me! Look at me!’
There are no lights in the cemetery. The dead need no lights. Yet I could see where I was going quite clearly. From time to time the wind blew the protective sheathing of clouds away from an icy half-moon illuminating the path. And as I walked up that hill, so I began to lose my anger. The further up the hill I went, the calmer I felt. I swear I could feel the dead around me. I was surrounded by them, the kindly, concerned dead, in the air like whispers I couldn’t quite catch and glimpses I couldn’t quite identify. There are 130,000 people buried in Arcadia Vale and the dear wraiths had been disturbed by my nocturnal ravings and had come to show their solidarity with me. I found it immensely calming.
I held out my own hands as you would if you were walking into a warm, still sea and were trailing your fingers in the water. I walked amongst the dead people; they walked beside me to my husband’s grave.
Luca was one of the dead. Luca was not alone.
The alarm, when it shrilled on my phone the next morning, was brutal. I leaned over the bed to turn it off and hurt my hand on the bedside table. There was a maggot of a migraine burrowing away in the optic nerve behind my right eye and I found it hard to open my eyes to locate the phone, which I’d knocked on to the floor.
I hurt my hand again when I picked it up. Squinting, I realized there were ugly gashes on the palm. It was the same on the other hand. The gash on my right hand was so deep and angry it probably should have been stitched.
There were blooms of blood on the pillows. There was blood on the sheets. At the side of the bed, my soaked, torn, muddied and bloodied clothes lay in a filthy pile on top of my wet boots. So the previous night hadn’t been a dream. I didn’t remember coming home, but I must have found my way back somehow. I must have climbed over that wall a second time. And in less than two hours I was supposed to be at Marinella’s to look after my nephews and nieces.
I lit the pilot light in the boiler and ran a bath while the kettle boiled. I took two ibuprofen tablets with a pint of water and bathed, cleaning up my hands as best I could and then sealing the wounds with antiseptic spray. My knees were a mess too but I could hide them beneath a long pink and white gypsy skirt. I put on a washed-out old T-shirt under a cotton shirt with sleeves so long they dangled over my hands, and a pale blue cardigan on top of the shirt.
I dried my hair and used straighteners to tidy it up a bit. I covered the little scratches on my face with foundation, brushed on a healthy pink, artificial complexion, concealed the dark shadows around my eyes, used eyedrops to brighten the whites, curled my lashes, polished my lips and teeth, freshened my breath, scented my wrists and neck, and put on a pair of silver earrings threaded with tiny glass beads and a boho necklace. In the mirror I looked less like the crazy woman of last night, more like Olivia Felicone used to look. I promised myself there and then that I would never let anything like that happen again. Luca was with the dead and I had to leave him be.
Before I left I swallowed a diazepam to stop the trembling and the incipient feeling of panic.
I listened to a broadcast of an Easter service at some cathedral or other while I drove to Portiston. The steering wheel hurt my hands, so I drove mainly with my fingers, changing gear with my fingertips, sometimes forgetting and grabbing the stick, which sent shooting pains from my palms right to the middle of my brain. I practised speaking in a normal tone of voice.
‘Please would you pass me the butter, Maurizio? When is it you’re going skiing, Carlo? Let me give you a hand with that, Angela.’
On the seat beside me was a bunch of rather sad-looking lilies which I’d bought the day before and forgotten to put in water, and a Happy Easter card for Angela and Maurizio in a yellow envelope. I hadn’t signed the card because I couldn’t bear not to write With love from Luca and Olivia, which is what I always wrote on cards. So I just wrote Hope you have a lovely day and three Xs.
At Marinella’s, fortunately, everyone was so stressed preparing for the influx of lunchtime visitors while simultaneously coping with an abnormally high number of morning guests that very little attention was paid to me. An Easter Sunday magical mystery tour bus commissioned by a branch of the Watersford WI had turned up unexpectedly. The tour organizer had not thought to call ahead to check that Marinella’s could provide refreshments for fifty-four tourists at the drop of a hat but because it was a bank holiday, and because Angela and Maurizio hated turning people away, they had welcomed the visitors with open arms.
Marc was taking an order from a table of twelve as I went through the door into the restaurant, a napkin dashingly flung over his shoulder as he scribbled on his little pad. My stomach gave a little lurch of desire, which took me by surprise. I recalled the hundreds of times I had come to work at Marinella’s as a teenager, and seen both Marc and Luca waiting on tables, just like this. Marc was heavier now, stockier and hairier; he had the profile of a man, not a boy, thicker wrists and a bulge above the hipbone and his hair was receding slightly, but he was still Marc, twin of Luca. He was somebody I had known for such a long time. He caught my eye as I walked past, and I tried to give him a smile, but am not sure if I succeeded.
I went through the bar into the back rooms, smiling hello to Maurizio and Fabio in the kitchen, and up the stairs to the flat. I tapped on the door and it was opened by Stefano and Bridget’s daughter, Emilia, who was six.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Hello, Auntie Liv,’ said Emilia, reaching up to kiss me. ‘What have you done to your hands?’
I gave a self-deprecatory little laugh. I had been practising for this question. ‘I slipped and fell down the steps at the entrance to my flat,’ I said. ‘What an idiot!’
‘Poor you!’ said Emilia. ‘Were you drunk?’
‘Emmie!’ said Nathalie, coming out of the living room, her face flushed and tight. She had lost a little weight. Well, that wouldn’t hurt, I thought.
‘But Aunt Nat, you said …’
‘Enough!’ Then to me: ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’
‘Of course,’ I said, smiling and shrugging off my jacket.
‘If anything happens …’
‘You’re only downstairs,’ I said in a reasonable voice.
Nathalie narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m only tolerating you being here for Maurizio’s sake,’ she said. ‘Don’t think for one minute this means anything more than that.’
I sighed and stroked Emilia’s hair.
‘If you don’t want me in your home, Nathalie, I’ll just go.’
‘I certainly don’t want you here,’ she said in a voice that was almost a hiss. ‘Nobody else does either. Did you know that? Even M
aurizio doesn’t like you, he just tolerates you out of pity.’
I bit my lower lip hard and gave a little shrug which I hoped conveyed the fact that I didn’t much care. It occurred to me how satisfying it would be to let the miserable cow know that I was sleeping with her husband, but I didn’t. Of course I didn’t.
Nathalie turned away from me and straightened her hair in front of the mirror before crouching down in front of her niece.
‘Emilia, if anything goes wrong, you come and fetch me straight away.’
Emilia nodded solemnly.
At the door Nathalie turned to me again for one parting shot.
‘Just for the record, Liv, Marc can’t stand you either. He thinks you’re a mess. He despises you.’
‘That’s what he says, is it?’ I asked sweetly.
‘Yes,’ said Nathalie. ‘That’s what he says.’
I closed the door behind her and resisted the urge to make swearing gestures at it. This was fortunate, because when I turned to Emilia she was looking up at me anxiously as if she was worried I might do something erratic.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Come on, Em, let’s find your cousins.’
For a pleasant few hours, I sat on the carpet in the living room of Nathalie and Marc’s flat, playing Headache with the children while Ben toddled about being cute and funny and trying to join in the games. I began to feel quite relaxed. The diazepam had kicked in nicely and I thought that maybe the day would turn out OK after all.
We ate reheated pasta for lunch and the baby slept for a while in the afternoon while the children and I watched Shrek on TV. From time to time, one or other member of the Felicone family put their head around the door, presumably to make sure I wasn’t drinking or murdering the children. At dusk Nathalie came back up to the flat, looking frazzled, her hair wisped out of its bun, her apron soiled and her hands sticky, and headed straight into the bathroom to wash and clean up in preparation for the family meal. Behind her was Marc, who swooped into the living room growling at the delighted children before kneeling down in front of me, turning over both my hands to inspect the damage. (Nathalie must have been telling tales.) He looked into my eyes and I gave a little shrug.
The Love of My Life Page 7