by Liz Fielding
‘I expected to see a ruin …’
A ruin? And, like a slipping cog finally engaging with a wheel, the niggle at the back of his brain that had been bothering him since that Saturday finally slotted into place.
‘… but then I found the wall and there it was. Rebuilt. Surrounded by flowers. Beautiful.’
When Sarah had been talking about chance, consequences, she had said that if his grandfather hadn’t survived, the house would ‘still be a ruins’. For that she had to know that it had once been one. Long ago. Before either of them was born.
‘Who is Lex?’ he demanded, no longer detached or calm.
She blinked at his fierceness. ‘My great-grandfather.’
‘Great?’
The waiter arrived with the wine and he waved impatiently at him to leave it, not bothering to check the label, the temperature.
It was left to Sarah to smile her thanks.
‘He’s your great-grandfather?’ he repeated. ‘How long ago was he there? In the village? At the villa?’
‘It’s been a while,’ she said. ‘He’s ninety next birthday, although he’s still active. He plays chess online. Takes the occasional cruise. He likes to tease my mother. He tells her that he’s looking for a merry widow—’
‘How long is a while?’ he demanded, cutting her short.
He saw her take a steadying breath and knew the answer a split second before she told him.
‘It was nineteen forty-four.’
‘He was a soldier?’ One of the liberating army who had been welcomed with dancing in the streets.
‘No. A pilot. Flying reconnaissance missions. Taking photographs from the air. His engine failed and he had to bail out. A young woman found him, frozen, starving. She took care of him, kept him safe for months until the Allies arrived.’
Months?
‘I have never heard this story.’
‘I grew up with it. She hid him in what was left of your house.’
‘That must have been grim,’ he said.
‘Better than the alternative. And I don’t suppose everyone would have been happy to know they were sheltering an enemy in their midst.’
‘By then we were fighting the same enemy.’
‘Even so. If you had a husband or son who had been wounded or killed, who was a prisoner …’
He thought about it, as she clearly had.
‘You’re right. The fewer people who knew he was there the better. But this woman was risking everything. She must have had a heart as big as a house.’
‘And she had that ageless beauty. Lex had a photograph of her sitting on the wall exactly where you found me.’
‘You said her name. When I kissed you. Lucia …’ Now it made sense. Sarah’s passion, the shadow that had crossed her face when she learned that Lucia was dead.
‘She felt so close.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t describe it but for a moment it was as if I was her. Saying goodbye to him. Knowing that she would never see him again.’
‘You were thinking about her,’ he said, attempting to rationalise it. ‘Thinking about them both.’
‘Yes.’ She shook her head. ‘Lex didn’t want me to come. He said it was a mistake to stir up old memories. Maybe he’s right.’
‘No. We must remember, always.’
‘He remembers. He kept the photograph she gave him hidden away. He only showed me when I said I was coming to Rome.’
‘They were lovers,’ he stated.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Amore vietato. Forbidden love is often the sweetest. Will you tell him what you have found?’
She shook her head. ‘No. It would make him unhappy to know that she’d died so soon after he’d left her. He sent money after he’d got back, but he would feel guilty that he hadn’t done more. He was studying to be a doctor when the war started.’
‘Did he finish his studies?’
‘Yes. He had his life. A wife, a family. All the things she was denied.’
‘You’re right not to tell him,’ Matteo said, aware that a massive weight had been lifted from him. His instincts about Sarah had been right.
Sarah was an English schoolteacher who had been digging into the past to find a story that involved her own family. That it had touched his, over sixty years ago, was pure chance. She had blundered into his life in one of those happy accidents that occurred when everything came together in one place.
As Lucia had found Lex, he had found Sarah and his fingers folded around hers.
‘What is indisputable is that without her, amore mio, neither of us would be here,’ he said, lifting her fingers to his lips. ‘When you come to Isola del Serrone again, we will light a candle. Per amore. Per luce. For love. For light.’
Sarah could not have said what she ate, only that they sat for a long time, talking about nothing and everything. Her childhood. Her older brothers who, unlike her, had flown the nest at the first possible moment, working abroad. Settling in Canada and New Zealand. About her mother’s garden. Visiting the bees to tell them she was leaving.
‘You talk to your bees?’ he asked, smiling.
‘Of course. They are family. You have to tell them everything or they’ll desert you.’
‘Will they?’
‘Maybe it’s just stroppy English bees.’
‘No, I don’t think so. Nonna always visits the hives when she has something on her mind. Sits with them,’ he admitted.
‘Lex does that, too. He says that they listen.’
‘It’s a family thing? Bee-keeping.’
‘Oh, yes. Lex started keeping them after the war. Because of the shortages, rationing, I suppose.’
‘Do you want anything else, or shall we walk for a while?’ he asked.
He settled the bill and his hand in hers, they headed into the street.
‘Tell me about you, Matteo. Same deal. Three things that I don’t know about you.’
‘My father was a Formula One racing driver,’ he said. ‘Or maybe you already know that from your friend’s web searches?’
‘I do, but not from Pippa. Francesco di Serrone’s name came up when I was looking for the village. He was named after his grandfather? The man who took to the mountains?’
‘Certo. It is traditional to be named for your paternal grandfather. Francesco, Matteo, Francesco, Matteo …’
‘And your first son? Will he be Francesco?’ she asked. Then, ‘I’m sorry, I’m assuming you have no children already.’
‘No children. I have never been married, Sarah.’
‘Not even close?’
‘I have never asked the question.’
Which didn’t mean he hadn’t considered it, she thought, but didn’t press it.
‘I read about your father,’ she said, returning to her question. ‘His death on the track. It was only when you said you’d come home when you were six that I made the connection.’
‘It’s impossible to keep a secret these days. Everything you want to know is available on the internet, at the press of a button,’ he said wryly.
‘Actually, it was the village I was interested in. Once I read that you lived in Turin I didn’t follow it up. You told me that your mother took you home. Not what happened next.’
‘No.’ He looked at her. A long considering look, then said, ‘My mother was in no state to do anything. She and my father had a terrible row the morning he was killed.’
‘You heard them?’ she asked, horrified.
‘Everyone in the street heard them.’
She tried to imagine him as a small boy, listening to his parents fighting. How frightening that must have been.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a long time ago. My father was a playboy who’d had a string of affairs. He drove as he lived, Sarah. Recklessly. His machismo made him a hero, the darling of the gossip-writers. They adored him and my mother suffered a great deal of unkindness in the press—she should have been grateful to be his wife, not made such a fuss about him being a m
an, that sort of thing. When he died, they blamed her.’
‘How cruel.’
‘He was out of control in every area of his life, Sarah, but she loved him.’
‘Of course. If she hadn’t loved him she wouldn’t have cared.’
‘No. Thank you.’ And, when she glanced up at him, ‘So few people see that.’
‘Poor woman.’
‘It was relentless, Sarah. Terrifying. They camped out on the doorstep until we became virtual prisoners. My mother was on the point of a breakdown by the time Nonna and my grandfather came to fetch us home. Once there, the village threw up a protective cordon. Any stranger was given short shrift. No one would give them the time of day, let alone a cup of coffee.’
‘I got some curious looks myself.’
He smiled. ‘I doubt that had anything to do with the fact that you were a stranger, cara.’
‘Flattering, but you weren’t there. They are still protective of you and your family. With good reason.’
‘We are never going to make the tourist brochures that way.’
‘Do you want to?’
‘No.’
‘A result. What happened to your mother, Matteo?’
‘She recovered, resumed her modelling career, eventually remarried. Happily, I am glad to say. So often people repeat the same disastrous mistakes.’
‘But you stayed with your Nonna?’
‘My grandfather was still alive then. He insisted.’ He glanced at her, catching her disbelief that his mother could have left him. ‘My mother was never a country girl, Sarah, and she travelled a great deal.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m doing it now. Judging her.’
‘Unnatural wife, unnatural mother. They gave it to her with both barrels. Not that they would have approved if she’d dragged me around the world with her.’
‘A lose-lose situation,’ she agreed.
‘She kept her head high, worked hard, kept away from the places where photographers hang out and eventually married Stephano’s father. They’re both in the fashion business, but so far behind the scenes that they don’t make the papers.’
‘And then it started again when Bella became famous,’ she commented.
‘Before then. They never forget. The minute I was old enough to be interesting I became a target.’
And a target for the kind of girls who wanted their photograph in the gossip magazines. He’d learned very early not to take adoration at face value. Until Katerina. ‘I’ve had to live a very boring life to sink below their radar,’ he said.
‘It requires a serious threshold of boring for gossip magazines to lose interest. And I’m sure with Stephano in Rome under your care, life has its excitements.’
That, finally, tempted him to a smile. ‘For “under my care”, read all the benefits of home without parents around to cramp your style.’
‘As I said, exciting.’
Matteo was, Sarah thought, very protective of his family. Not just of Stephano, but Bella, too. And it was easy to understand why he’d had his fill of intrusive journalists.
‘Tell me something else,’ she prompted. ‘Something happy. Tell me about the first girl you fell in love with.’
‘It’s not the first girl that matters—’ he hailed a passing cab ‘—but the last.’
‘Tut-tut …’ Then, ‘I thought we were going to walk.’
‘We can walk back.’ He spoke to the driver and then joined her in the back of the cab.
‘You are not going to get out of it that easily. This is an in-depth job interview,’ she teased.
‘You want references?’ he asked, laughing. Job done. The cloud lifted from his face. His eyes lit up with amusement. ‘Very well. The first girl I fell in love with was called Elena. She was a model. A six-foot goddess.’
‘Why does that sound totally feasible?’ she asked. He shrugged, all innocence, and she laughed. ‘Okay, where did you meet her?’
‘I’d gone to Milan to spend my fifteenth birthday with my mother. I called at the office. Elena got into the lift with me.’
‘And?’ she asked.
‘She smiled at me and I damn nearly came in my pants.’
‘Oh …’ She tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it, spluttering a desperate, ‘I’m sorry,’ from behind her hand, before she gave up and giggled.
‘Now it’s your turn.’
‘My first love?’
‘Not your first love. Your first kiss,’ he demanded.
‘Oh, no … Really?’ she said.
‘This is your game.’
‘Is it? I thought you started it, but if you’re quite sure? It’s rather shocking,’ she added.
‘In that case, I want every detail,’ he insisted.
‘Okay. Well, it was at the school Christmas disco. I’d had a crush on Darren Michaels for months, but he was a year older than me so I was totally beneath his notice.’
‘I find that hard to believe,’ he murmured.
‘I promise you. Anyway, in a desperate attempt to get his attention, to prove that I was totally cool and worthy, I let Ashley Carpenter kiss me under a bunch of plastic mistletoe he’d brought with him.’
‘Plastic mistletoe?’
‘It was a school disco. The real stuff was banned.’
‘I sense this did not end well.’
‘It was horrible—all clashing teeth and noses. I pushed him away with rather more force than necessary. He fell over and everyone laughed. I fled and Ashley, poor boy, turned tail and ran in the opposite direction whenever he saw me after that.’
‘And Darren?’
‘He hit puberty, developed acne and totally lost his charm.’
‘Puberty? How old were you when all this happened?’
‘Ten,’ she admitted. ‘I think it might have been the braces on our teeth that caused the problem. We were both wearing them and there was a certain amount of … entanglement.’
‘I don’t suppose there is a clip of this on the internet?’ Matteo asked hopefully.
‘Oh, please. Can you imagine the fun my students would have had with something like that?’
They were both laughing as the cab drew to a halt and Matteo helped her out.
‘Where are we?’ she asked, looking around.
‘The one place in Rome that every visitor has to see.’
He took her hand, led her around a corner and there, before her, floodlit, was the vast marble edifice that was the Trevi Fountain.
Dozens of people were gathered around it, taking photographs, tossing in their coins.
‘You did not have a photograph of it on your phone so I think perhaps you were not ready to make a commitment to Rome. That your heart was still in England with Tom.’
She swallowed. It was unnerving how easily he read her. But he was right, she had avoided this most famous of all Rome’s monuments because, until now, Rome had been a place of exile. Despite its many attractions, it was a place to leave, not to come back to.
‘You know the legend?’ he asked.
‘That if you throw a coin in the fountain you will return to Rome.’
He turned to her, drew her close, looking down into eyes. ‘Do you want to return, Sarah?’ he asked.
Right at that moment, with Matteo’s arm around her waist, she never wanted to leave. She didn’t say that. Like the kiss in her apartment, it was too intense for a first date. This was supposed to be light, fun and she said, ‘Who would not want to return to Rome?’
‘That was not what I asked, cara.’
‘No …’ A bit like his answer to the marriage question. It was an answer. But not the whole answer.
‘Maybe you need more time to think about it,’ he said, taking a step back.
‘No!’ He waited. ‘I want to come back to Rome,’ she said, with the emphasis on the ‘I.’
Matteo nodded, reached into his pocket and produced a coin which he offered to her. Warm from his body. Warm from his fingers …
‘Isn’t that cheating?’
she said. ‘Shouldn’t it be my own coin?’
‘It works twice as well if the coin is given to you by your lover.’
‘But we are not …’
‘To make love is more than sex, Sarah. It is a journey of discovery and we have only just begun.’ He took her hand, placed the coin in her palm, wrapping her fingers around it. Wrapping his fingers around hers. ‘It has to be over your shoulder.’
‘With my back to the fountain?’
He nodded, stepped back to give her room.
Never taking her eyes off Matteo, she raised the coin to her lips, then tossed it high over her shoulder.
‘Brava! You reached the very heart of the fountain.’
‘Is that good? Maybe I should do it again,’ she said, suddenly anxious that it should work. ‘Just to be on the safe side?’
He smiled as he leaned forward, kissed her cheek. ‘Once is enough,’ he said.
His breath was warm against her skin. His skin smelled faintly of something she could not pin down. A scent so subtle that it could not possibly have come out of a bottle. And he was right. Once was more than enough.
One look, one kiss, one touch …
‘What happens to them all?’ she asked, glancing back as he took her hand and led her away from the throng of tourists. ‘The coins.’
‘They are removed by the city. Given to charity.’
They walked in silence towards the Piazza del Quirinale where the city, dominated by the dome of St Peter’s, was spread out before them.
‘Have you been to the Vatican?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but there’s so much to see. I’ll have to go back.’
‘Wait until the tourists have gone. Another month and the city will be ours.’ He glanced at her. ‘You did not write about it in your blog.’
‘There’s a lot I don’t put in my blog.’ She looked up at him, remembering the furious tirade she’d written, finally deleted. Remembered wanting to be able to delete memories, feelings as easily.
Not this memory. This was one she would take out and treasure when she was old.