Flirting with Italian

by Liz Fielding

  Something classic for evening.

  In black.

  ‘Black is always safe,’ she had agreed.

  Something about the woman’s response suggested that ‘safe’ was not something of which she approved. In fact, translated, she clearly meant ‘boring’.

  ‘No,’ she replied firmly. ‘Classic. Like Audrey Hepburn.’ No one could say she was boring.

  The woman sighed. ‘Of course. You and every other woman.’

  What was this? She’d come into the shop to spend her very hard-earned money on designer clobber and she was being patronised by the sales woman?

  On the other hand, it was true that, however much she paid for an LBD, she was never going to look like the gorgeous Audrey. And she didn’t want to look like every other woman out for a night at the opera.

  She was making memories, not just for herself but for Matteo, and she wanted him to remember how she looked as vividly as Lex remembered Lucia.

  In the end she did choose something in black. Depending on which way you looked at it. Shot silk taffeta, it was black this way, a dark teal-green the other way.

  The off-the-shoulder bodice fitted like a glove, the tiny straight skirt covered maybe half her thighs and a wide black chiffon sash trailed foot-wide ribbons behind her almost to the floor. Definitely not the kind of safely classic dress that she’d be able to take out of the wardrobe and wear ten years from now at a ‘bit of a do’.

  She had rolled her hair into a loose coil at her neck, was wearing stockings that were no more than a shimmer. High heels that were probably suicidal on those cobbles.

  As a finishing touch, she had added Matteo’s earrings, which were so long that they dropped nearly to her shoulder.

  Simple. Absolutely. In the manner of scream-out-loud, look-at-me simple.

  What on earth had possessed her?

  A tap on the door at precisely seven o’clock provided the answer.

  For Matteo.

  For that look as his eyes swept from her head to her feet and then back up again until he met her own.

  For that smile.

  ‘I fear I may have lost the power of speech,’ he said eventually.

  ‘On the contrary, you have said exactly the right thing. And while I will freely admit that your brother is very pretty, he has a lot of growing up to do before he can begin to compete with you.’

  Nothing showy. Just good tailoring, the simplest pleated dress shirt, a hand-tied bow tie. Wide shoulders, a face bone-deep with character, dark eyes that seemed to generate heat, warm her.

  ‘Do you have a coat?’

  ‘Is it cold?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but there are some boys in the street who are nowhere near old enough for the ideas that dress will give them.’

  ‘You would deprive them of your own formative experiences?’

  ‘Absolutely. And it will be chilly later.’

  She fetched her coat. He put it around her shoulders, took her hand and they walked in silence down the hill to the chauffeur-driven car waiting on the roadside. The driver opened the door as they approached and she stepped in, feeling rather like a princess, although she had the sense not to say so.

  There were crowds outside the Opera House. People turned to look at her as Matteo handed her from the car. Several people called out to him, but he merely nodded or raised a hand in acknowledgement and kept going.

  ‘Matteo, if you want to stop and talk, I don’t mind,’ she said.

  ‘The only person I want to talk to tonight is you.’

  A member of the front of house staff greeted him warmly. Champagne was offered. They both refused it. A heavily embossed programme was produced and presented to her with a slight bow.

  ‘Signora.’

  ‘Grazie.’

  Inside the theatre, rows of gilded boxes rose from floor to ceiling around an auditorium filled with the buzz of expectancy. Below them, the orchestra was tuning up.

  ‘How is it so far?’ he asked.

  ‘Amazing.’ Forget the opera, the fabulous theatre, none of that mattered. Just being with him was … ‘Absolutely amazing.’

  The lights dimmed, the overture began and behind them, the door of the box opened and a couple slipped into seats on the far side of Matteo, murmuring their apologies.

  He leaned close, whispered, ‘My cousin and her husband. I’m sorry, I had no idea they were coming tonight. I’ll introduce you in the interval.’

  She leaned forward to acknowledge their arrival but, since they appeared to be conducting an argument sotto voce, neither of them noticed her. She exchanged a wry glance with Matteo, then turned her attention to the stage and let the power and passion of the opera sweep over her.

  ‘Well?’ Matteo murmured as the first act came to a close. ‘Did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nearly ‘pee your pants’.’

  She let out something between a gasp and a laugh. ‘Are you telling me that you sat through a “girl” movie simply to find out what Julia Roberts said?’

  ‘I have to confess that I asked my secretary.’ He continued to look at her for a moment before he said, ‘Sarah, may I introduce my cousin, Isabella di Serrone, and her husband, Nico Bazzacco. Bella, Nico, Sarah Gratton.’

  ‘Sarah of the cryptic postcard!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry for intruding on your evening but Nico arrived home this morning and—’

  ‘—and you thought you’d put in a public appearance to demonstrate the fact,’ Matteo said, cutting her short.

  ‘—and,’ she continued, ‘it’s his favourite opera.’

  ‘It’s your favourite opera,’ her husband muttered. ‘Give me Verdi every time.’

  ‘Behave, children, or I’ll have you thrown out of my box and that will certainly ensure that you make tomorrow’s front page. For all the wrong reasons,’ he added.

  Sarah was only dimly aware of the bickering between the star and her husband. The theatre, the noise of the crowds, even Matteo faded into the background. Only Isabella di Serrone was in focus.

  Her hair, a mass of dark glossy curls, tumbled about her shoulders and Angelo had not exaggerated her smile, but it was her eyes, huge, liquid, almost black in the low lighting of the theatre, that brought her heart to her throat.

  She knew those eyes. Had seen that smile on the torn photograph that her great-grandfather had kept for more than sixty years.

  She was looking at Lucia, but not wartime skinny in a faded cotton frock, sitting on a wall in the June sunshine. This was Lucia well-fed, pampered, make-up perfect, jewels at her throat. Dressed in the finest fashion that Milan could offer.

  Clearly she was used to reducing people to silence because the fact that Sarah hadn’t said a word or made the slightest move didn’t appear to faze her. She shooed Matteo out of his chair and moved into it.

  ‘You are a teacher, I think.’

  ‘Yes …’ Her mouth formed the word but no sound emerged.

  ‘Matteo told me that you met in Isola del Serrone.’ She paused, expecting some response.

  Dimly, in her head she registered the fact that Matteo had talked about her to his family.

  ‘Is our little village going to be the new tourist hotspot?’ Bella prompted.

  Matteo, who’d been talking to Nico, came to her rescue. ‘Sarah’s great-grandfather was there during the war, Bella. A local woman saved his life. Hid him for months.’

  ‘How romantic! Were you hoping to trace her?

  Trace her …

  She was standing right in front of her.

  ‘She should talk to Nonna, Matteo. She’s lived in the village all her life. Nico, darling, it’s like a movie. In fact, it could be a movie …’ She turned to her husband and, forgetting their tiff, began to speak in rapid Italian, no doubt telling him the story.

  ‘I’m sorry about this circus, Sarah,’ Matteo said. ‘If I’d known …’ Then, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You look a little pale.’
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  ‘Do I?’ Well, that was hardly surprising. Seeing a grainy old photograph come to 3D full colour life in front of you would take the wind out of anyone’s sails. ‘I’m a bit warm. Perhaps a glass of water?’ she suggested.

  There was a tray of drinks, glasses on a small table at the rear of the box and he opened a bottle of water, handed her a glass. ‘We don’t have to stay.’

  ‘You’re suggesting we leave before I find out if Tosca can persuade the horrible Chief of Police to pardon her lover? I don’t think so.’

  He said nothing. Instead he reached into his pocket and produced a soft white monogrammed handkerchief and placed it in her hand.

  She didn’t cry. The drama was too intense, the ending inevitable. It was beyond tears.

  Bella and Nico left in a round of kisses, but Matteo held her back.

  ‘Someone will have called in the news that Bella is here and the front entrance will be knee-deep in photographers,’ he said, calling his driver and heading for a side exit.

  Even from there, the scrum was visible as the paparazzi crowded in for close-ups.

  ‘Are all the women in your family so beautiful?’ she asked.

  ‘There aren’t many,’ he said. ‘No one else of that generation. I can’t remember her mother at that age, although photographs don’t suggest that she had that star quality. She was in her late forties when Bella was born. Bella was totally spoilt, of course.’

  ‘And you were not? I thought all Italian boys are spoilt as a matter of course.’

  ‘Nonna tends to the tough love school of child-rearing. Maybe if my grandmother had lived I’d have been as much of a brat as Stephano.’

  It was like a cog dropping into place. A spinning gear catching, the engine moving smoothly on. Nonna was Bella’s grandmother. Nonna—Rosa Lucia—was the girl in the photograph.

  Sarah wanted to shout out, grab him, tell him, but it was a secret that his Nonna had kept for more than sixty years. And she’d seen Sarah in the church. Recognised something familiar.

  Had she known? Been afraid that her secret would be revealed. Had she made an excuse to go away last weekend to avoid meeting her, no doubt hoping that it was no more than a passing fancy? That Matteo would soon tire of her. Move on …

  She had to see her, talk to her, tell her that her secret was safe with her. That no one would ever hear it from her.

  It wasn’t as if Lex was waiting for news. He’d told her to leave it.

  She had only wanted to know that if Lucia was still alive, she was in a good place. Which she was. She’d married a Conte. Lived in that beautiful villa. Had a daughter, a granddaughter. Was dearly loved—not least by Matteo.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ Matteo asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. ‘I was just thinking how dull my family seem by comparison.’

  ‘Except for your great-grandfather and his Italian adventure.’

  ‘Except for that,’ she agreed. Then, looking up at him, ‘How hungry are you?’

  ‘That depends what we’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m talking about going home, right now,’ she said, suddenly desperate to hold him, to be held. ‘Your place or mine?’

  Matteo pulled a face. ‘I have a sinking feeling that Bella and Nico plan to stay at the palazzo tonight. Happy or fighting, they tend to be noisy and I don’t want any distractions when I’m undoing all those hooks,’ he said, running his thumb down her spine in a way that made her forget all about Bella, Lucia and pretty much everything else.

  ‘Have you been reading my blog again?’ she asked.

  He grinned. ‘Why else would you be writing it?’

  Some nights would live in the mind for ever and this was one of them. It seemed endless, as if time was stretching out just for them, their senses heightened so that every touch, every kiss, every part of love was brand new.

  They got up, starving, in the middle of the night, made scrambled eggs and toast, and ate it on the terrace with the city asleep at their feet.

  Then, chilled, ran back to bed and clung to each other, laughing at nothing, at everything, falling asleep as dawn turned the sky pink.

  When Sarah woke it was late and she was alone. Matteo had propped a note beside the bed:

  Al mio amore—I have gone home to change. Pack an overnight bag and I’ll pick you up at two. I want you to meet Nonna. Siete la mia aria—M.’

  To my darling—

  You are my air—

  She held the note to her cheek.

  Siete la mia aria …

  ‘Matteo …’

  He’d showered, changed, was on his way out when Nico appeared at the sitting room door. ‘Can it wait?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  He sighed and, anticipating more marital disharmony, crossed to the sitting room. Bella was sitting, white-faced, in the corner of the sofa, unable to look at him.

  ‘What is it? I thought you two—’

  ‘This isn’t about us.’

  Nico held out the latest copy of his least favourite gossip magazine. The cover photograph was one that had been taken at Bella’s wedding. Nonna, Bella’s mother, Bella.

  The strap-line read: Secrets of the Serrones.

  ‘Is it true?’ Bella demanded.

  ‘What?’ he demanded, wanting only to get back to Sarah. ‘What is this?’

  ‘It says that Mamma was not her father’s child. That Nonna had an English lover in the war, that she seduced grandpa so that he would think her baby was his and marry her. She even named Mamma Alessandra. After him.’

  Matteo did not want to soil his hands with this filth, but he had to know and he opened it, let his eyes skim over the words, the photographs.

  ‘It says that this Englishwoman, Sarah, is my cousin. That you and I are nothing …’

  It was all there. There was a photograph of Sarah’s grandfather, Alexander—Lex—Randall. His war record. His medals. There was even a facsimile of a report in the Maybridge Chronicle dated June nineteen forty-four of his return home to his young wife and baby son months after he’d been given up for dead.

  There were copies of Nonna’s wedding certificate and his Aunt Alessandra’s birth certificate, the dates telling their own story. Much was made of the fact that the child had been named for the lover rather than her grandmother.

  All the little details that Sarah had told him that first evening about how the beautiful Lucia had saved her great-grandfather were there. The months they’d spent together, hidden from everyone in the ruins of the house. How they’d eaten wild asparagus. Found a bottle of wine in the cellars of the villa that had been missed by the soldiers who had destroyed the house. Things that only she could have known.

  And there was a photograph of Rosa Lucia Leone—Nonna, seventeen or eighteen years old. Stunningly beautiful, the image of Bella, sitting on the wall where he’d found Sarah. Her heart in her eyes.

  The only thing they had wrong was her name. She was Rosa. No one had ever called her anything but that. Except, it seemed, her English lover.

  But then she had been his light in the darkness. As Sarah had been his.

  ‘Does Nonna know about this?’ he asked.

  Bella shook her head.

  ‘Call Graziella. Make sure she doesn’t see it, doesn’t speak to anyone until I talk to her first.’

  ‘It is true?’ Bella demanded, anguish in every line of her beautiful face.

  He looked again at the photograph of the young Alexander Randall, posed in his uniform after some medal ceremony. Sarah had his eyes. Held her head in just that way.

  ‘Yes.’

  Nonna had seen Sarah, recognised her. Gone away when he’d announced he was bringing her to stay for the weekend.

  Hoping, no doubt, that it was a nine-day wonder. That he would swiftly tire of her …

  ‘Poor Mamma.’ Then, with a flash of her old fire, ‘She did this? Sarah?’

  He stood there, recalling every moment. His first si
ght of her. That first kiss. His certainty that she was hiding something.

  He had been warned. All his instincts had told him that she was trouble but he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hadn’t wanted to believe anything that Katerina told him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I did.’

  Sarah opened the door wearing only a bathrobe, hair a damp tangle about her face. A smile like warm honey that went straight to his heart, he didn’t want to believe it.

  ‘Matteo …’

  A voice that went straight to his groin.

  He ignored the cues to forget everything he knew, take her one more time—be alive just one more time.

  Her smile faltered as he stepped past her, tossed the magazine on the coffee table, summoned up the steel before he turned to face her.

  ‘Job done, Sarah. I don’t imagine you plan on hanging around, but if you have any ideas of remaining in Rome I suggest you revise them.’

  She was staring at him as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  ‘I’m sure it’s well within your repertoire to create a family crisis requiring your immediate return to England.’

  ‘What?’ she gasped.

  ‘If you are still in Rome on Monday I will see that you never get another job in teaching. Anywhere in the world. That is a promise.’

  She didn’t say anything. She turned to the magazine, picked it up, looked at the cover for a moment, then opened it. She couldn’t understand the words, but the photographs spoke for themselves.

  For a moment he thought she was going to say something, make some excuse, some justification.

  Instead, she lifted her head and looked at him. Straight into his eyes, his heart and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  Sarah didn’t move for a long time after Matteo turned and walked out of her apartment, quietly closing the door behind him.

  Then she found the memory stick that Pippa had given her and looked at all the documents Federico had in a file named ‘Serrone’.

  Most of it was in Italian, but there were emails from England from newspaper archives, documents they’d sent him about Lex. The birth and marriage certificates that had been reproduced in the magazine. Typed notes that she had enough Italian to understand were transcripts from the conversation they’d had over supper. Clearly he’d been recording her.