‘Paolino, you have nothing on.’
‘Exactly!’ he called, dipping under the surface and spraying up again beside me, treading water and holding on to the side, gentle enough not to rock it too much.
‘You didn’t say we were going swimming.’
‘See – you’re thinking about it. Come on, tesoro. Before it gets too dark.’
I looked at him. His eyes were so wide and inviting. The water lit up all around him. I rose to my knees and did the unimaginable. I let my skirt drop to the floor of the boat. I reached my blouse up and over my head. I unhooked my brassiere then eased away my underwear. I looked over to him. He had swum to the far edge and found a small ledge to rest against. Now half his torso was above the level of the water. I knelt, across from him, swaying on the blue.
I felt alive.
‘You are the most beautiful creature on this planet, Santina.’
I felt the air blow over my bare breasts. Before I could think any further I stood up and let myself jump into the deep. Water rushed over me, an effervescence of bubbles. The blue quiet enveloped me. For a split second I was engulfed by the liquid silence of those muffled days after my mother died. Then from the cool deep I rose to the surface, propelled by sheer exhilaration.
I spied Paolino a little further ahead and swam toward him. My breath grasped at the surface, giddy and frothing with laughter. I reached his rock edge. He leaned over and pulled me to him.
Our wet skin met, skittish, childlike. His fingers wrapped around my face.
‘Yes, Santina. All of you. Just like this. Bare. No hiding. I want all of you inside me.’
I think I was crying. My salt mixed with the ocean’s.
His lips found mine. Soft, confident, bare. His hands traced my wet back.
Then, the slosh of another boat.
We froze.
Human stalagmites.
His eyes slit to the opening of the cave. The silhouette of two small boats stretched across the azure.
‘Wait here!’ he said, just before leaping into the water. I watched his outline glide toward our row boat. The sting of vulnerability replaced giddy liberation. He climbed into the boat and with fierce strokes rowed over to me. He clambered back onto our rock. I started to shiver.
‘You lie inside. No one need see you. Cover yourself with your clothes.’
I did as he asked. The sound of the echoing waves made me feel as if I were being pulled under water, losing the strength to return to the surface.
That’s when we heard the voices. At first, an indistinct garble of echoes. Then a familiar sound reached me. Every fiber of my body rose to attention, each minute sound reaching me like a dart. The sound of rowing slushed through into the cave. Paolino steered us behind an indent in the rock edge, clasping a crag to keep our boat unseen. My heart thudded against my ribs. I prayed I wouldn’t become the ridicule of tourists. I imagined their sun-red faces gawking at my naked body. Shivers crawled over my body.
Three voices. Men. My breath snatched. The words were watered down. A few poked the surface. Cavaldi. Drop-off.
I noticed Paolino catch them too. His back stiffened, the top of his head rising like an antenna. I lifted my head so that my vision skimmed the rim of the boat. Around the edge of the rock I could just make out the figures.
That’s when the familiar silhouette pierced into focus.
My brother handed over a large packet to two men in another boat. I couldn’t see his smile but could hear it in the sardonic twist of his voice. They shook hands. A further exchange. Their tone was clipped. Then Paolino and I watched them row away in opposite directions.
‘It’s all right, tesoro,’ he cooed after a while, ‘they’ve gone.’
I sat up, clutching my clothes, cramped by my nudity.
‘I recognized one of those men,’ he said, running a hand through his wet hair.
I stalled, not wanting to face the current of unanswerable questions: why on earth was my brother rowing out here alone? Who did he meet? What did he hand over? How would I ever ask him? I shouldn’t even be here, naked in Paolino’s arms, swimming like a child. Or worse. Anyone could have seen me.
‘Now,’ Paolino purred, moving over toward me, ‘where were we?’
My body was cold. I shook him away. ‘I should get back, Paolino. I shouldn’t even be here. I don’t know what we’re doing!’
He could hear my panic simmering. I snatched at my clothes, pulling them over me with a jerk.
‘Tesoro – there’s still time before it’s dark. Please, let’s not rush away this special place.’
‘It’s not special any more! Three strangers nearly saw me utterly naked like a common—’
‘You think that’s what I think of you?!’
‘No! But strange men? Come on!’
‘You care what strange men think, or me?’
I looked him square in the face.
‘Take me home,’ I said, plain, our romantic escapade all at once childish, clumsy, pointless.
We rowed in silence.
Our town rose before us, dipped in violet dusk, a half-hearted invitation.
A distant yet familiar feeling swelled: who was that stranger acting like my brother?
CHAPTER 24
I closed the heavy door of the villa behind me, careful not to make too much noise. My hair was still a little damp, despite the temperate air. A tease of breeze flew up from the sea. A solitary trickle of saltwater traced the back of my neck.
‘You had a gentleman caller this evening, Santina.’
I turned in the direction of the Major’s voice. He was sat in his favorite spot, at the end of the lemon trees where the medlars replaced the citrus, alongside several peach and cherry trees. My feet crunched across the cooked earth. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late. I had no idea I would be gone so long.’
‘Please, no need to apologize. Though I would appreciate an explanation of why a very dishevelled older man rang my bell after dinner?’
The description pointed to one man only.
‘What did he want?’ I asked.
‘To see you. When I told him you were out he was quite insistent I give you this.’ He reached out his hand, holding a tired piece of paper.
‘Did he tell you his name?’ I asked, pretending I didn’t know the answer.
‘He said you would know.’
His expression made me feel uneasy.
‘Is everything all right, Santina? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘That’s how I feel.’
He shifted in the deck chair. ‘He didn’t look like the sort of person I would have necessarily liked you to be meeting at night. If you need my help – in any way – you know to ask for it, don’t you?’
He sighed a half laugh in the pause. ‘It feels almost ridiculous to reassure you now.’
My eyebrows creased.
‘You know, after everything.’
I nodded, distracted, wondering what my father would have scrawled on that dirty-looking piece of paper.
‘I’ll stay out here a little while longer, I think,’ he said.
‘May I bring you something?’
‘Please don’t worry, I’m quite happy to do that.’
I took the note.
‘I’m sure it’s not important,’ I said, forcing myself to reassure him, but with little success.
‘Goodnight, Santina.’
I turned to return toward the villa steps.
‘I’m glad I was able to be here tonight,’ he said.
I turned back.
‘So you could begin your marriage preparations in earnest. I was flippant earlier. I’m sorry. You deserve every happiness. You will make a fine partner for that young chap. He’s no fool. Knows a bright, strong woman when he sees one.’
I felt awkward, craving solitude. He intuited it without hesitation.
‘My words are stifling. I’m sorry. Please let me hold you up no longer.’ A wry smile now, but his eyes were full of warmth.
I sat on the edge of my bed and unfolded the note. My father’s clumsy scrawl scratched across the surface.
We need to talk. It’s Marco. I know things. I wait for you at Fornillo beach.
10’ o clock tomorrow. Don’t be late.
Papa
His written Neapolitan was as slurred as his spoken. The letters were big and round, not dissimilar to that of a child’s. But the content I could not ignore. Why of all evenings did he turn up tonight? He wouldn’t know that I had just discovered my brother floating with other shadows. That I’d narrowly escaped being discovered frolicking naked where neither of us were supposed to be.
Sleep evaded me. I twisted and turned in my darkened room. When I slipped into a light slumber my dreams were fitful; I was back on the mountainside, my mother’s elusive silhouette slipping out of sight.
It was no mean feat to reach Fornillo at that time of day with Elizabeth in tow. I made sure I took the longest route to avoid Paolino and his mother. Much as I liked to second-guess my father’s ability to keep time, I didn’t want to run the risk of missing him. It sickened me to be at his beck and call, but I couldn’t chance not knowing what he was compelled to tell me.
By nine o’clock the sun was already beating down, but Elizabeth insisted on halting at the weeds sprouting between the rocks along our descent, as we took the hidden back steps weaving parallel to the main road. It was a shortcut I had taken many times but never one I’d done at such a brisk pace. The only way to navigate our town was at a measured climb or descent. Galloping like the tourists tired a person quickly. This morning, however, I longed for Elizabeth to learn the nebulous art of cooperation, a talent that had eluded her.
At the start of the ascent beyond the main drag of boutiques we took a sharp left and traced a very narrow alley that ran behind a curve of houses. To our left the deep gorge tumbled down toward the shingle and the vicolo curved inward. To our right a high wall rose to meet the main road. The fauna beside our walkway was lush and green, for within the crags it remained in the shade for most of the day. Ferns spread their leaves up toward the light, bougainvillea trailed down from the rear terraces of the homes above. It was a small oasis hidden from most visitors and a passageway used by locals. At this hour, the only sounds were our footsteps and the steady crescendo of the cicadas, vibrating their impassioned announcement of incoming trespassers.
The bells of the church of San Maddalena just above us struck ten. Elizabeth flashed her bright blue eyes toward me, round, inquisitive and alert, just like her mother’s used to be.
My head was full of my father. Once again his mere presence in my life, however sidelined, unsettled me to the core. I hauled her up onto my back and negotiated the steps down toward the beach, two at a time where I could, running the wider ones, deafened by the pounding in my ears and the ricochet flip-flop of my soles against the stone walls.
At last we arrived at the beach. I let Elizabeth slip down, but she was in no mood to leave my side just yet, grabbing my leg instead, urging me to lift her into my arms.
I caught my breath. Her clam-like attachment on me began to loosen.
That’s when I saw him.
He was sat at the far end, his brown-grey pallor the perfect camouflage against the rocks. We walked toward him. As I drew closer a familiar wet cold trickled through me. He glanced over and nodded, an awful knowing look in his glassy onyx eyes.
I sat Elizabeth down on the shingle. She seemed happy to stay close by for the time being. When I reached him, his grin broadened to a sickening smile.
‘So you decided to show up at last,’ he croaked.
‘What do you know?’
‘Is that any way to greet a father?’
‘I’m not here to discuss you or me.’
‘You’re so full of fire for a young woman. Doesn’t suit a girl like you. Besides, thanks to me you met your husband, no? This the thanks I get?’
I had even less patience for his slithering through facetious arguments than usual.
‘What do you want to tell me about Marco?’
‘I don’t want to tell you anything. But I have a duty as a father.’
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t tell him that he wouldn’t know how to behave as a father even if he tried.
‘How much do you love your brother?’
‘More than you ever will.’
‘You want to leave the angry young woman act at home and talk to me adult to adult, or we going to waste my time with recriminations again? You came here because you want to know what I do, but you’re going the wrong way about it if you want me to spill.’
I looked toward the emerald-green sparkle of the waves. Somewhere out there was the calm I needed to face this man. Trying to grapple it was like scooping seawater into my fist.
‘Is Marco in trouble?’
‘Could be,’ he said with a half-hearted shake of his head. ‘You try to teach children how to be good people and this is how they repay you.’
I didn’t reply.
‘You’re not much better. Living like a princess up at the villa, marrying a jumped-up grocer. Quite the set-up. Spare a moment for your father any time? You wouldn’t have had any of that if it wasn’t for me!’
It was like being spat at. I stood motionless. All feeling cracking at the surface – a drying smear of caulk.
‘That’s it, silent treatment like your mother. You women are all the same. But you listen to me, Santina – that perfect brother of yours is in deep. Very deep. Police hunting for him as we speak. He’s a dangerous man, Santina. I’ve warned him more than once that I can’t live with what I know and keep quiet. But he threatens me too. What am I to do? And now the police are pressing down on me. Marco and I will be behind bars if I don’t spill.’
‘What do you mean, dangerous?’
‘Read between the lines, Santina. What do you think? Pretty handy in the line of work he does to be working at the cemetery, don’t you think?’
‘You’re not suggesting—’
‘No. I’m telling. And I can’t live like this any more.’
It was impossible for me to tell if his bitter ramblings were that of a sorry drunk. My instinct urged otherwise.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ I asked.
‘Because I don’t want to send my son to jail. But I can’t live like this either.’
I let the pause hang.
‘Here’s the thing, Santina: you help me, or I talk.’
‘Talk?’
‘The police expect me to talk tomorrow afternoon. Made a deal. I talk and they don’t send me down. I don’t talk and they’ll be after me before I can say buon giorno.’
The idea of my father locked away sparked a flicker of relief, but at the cost of losing my brother it was unthinkable, and he knew it. It made me hate him even more.
‘Why would they send you down?’
‘Nothing you need worry your pretty little head over.’
‘You said we’d talk adult to adult.’
His eyes slit to the sea, then flicked back to me. ‘Small stuff. Didn’t hurt anyone. Misplaced some things. Debts made and left unpaid. Let’s just leave it at that.’
I looked at his wan face, his skin tawny with drink, and felt the icy realization that he and I shared not only the same features but the same hostile privacy. The same steel stubbornness. I was looking into a warped mirror and the sensation was uglier than any I’d ever felt. Worse than knowing Paolino’s love may not penetrate the surface of what the Major and I had experienced, worse than the bitter taste of betrayal, or shame.
He took my pause as acceptance of my defeat. ‘So, Santina. You either pay me to skip town, support myself till I find my feet down south, Sicily maybe, or Greece – hell, I might even sail down to Africa whilst I’m at it.’
‘Or? Aren’t threats normally an ultimatum?’
‘Or, I go spewing to the awful pigs who are threatening to take me away from this paradise.’
‘You expect me
to believe these lies?’
‘Can you take that chance?’
I bolted him with my stare.
‘Send daggers with your eyes, but the fact is, you help me or I tell the police the truth about my son.’
‘What’s he done?’
He gazed back out to sea. From a distance I’m sure we looked like a young woman and a wizened fisherman, knotting his net of tales, of his life on the sea, of the perils and the triumphs. The conversation felt like quicksand.
‘Terrible things, Santina. I wouldn’t have imagined it possible. He was such a sweet child. Feeble maybe. But good.’
‘What have you done? Why do the police want you?’
‘I’ve said all that needs to be said.’
‘You call me out here, scratch a note to my employer, get him worried about what’s going on – you don’t think he read that note before me? I run here to see this sorry state of a man, only to be told I’ve heard all I need to know!’
I watched him tighten. It fuelled my fury.
‘You can let those filthy dreams about me bailing you out of your sorry state fly in the air, because that’s all they are. Silly little pictures from a greedy man who never loved me, and now crawls back for his own good. You disgust me!’
‘You ever think how I felt, Santina? Up in the hills with two starving children to look after? Not knowing whether we’d survive the next winter? I chose to grieve for the rest of my life, giving up the two most precious things I had left in it, but you punish me again and again. What’s wrong with you both? I gave what I could. Your escape!’
‘No! Yours!’
‘I did what I could do.’
‘You treated my mother like a rag! I cannot forgive you for that.’
‘And she me.’
‘Grow up!’
He shook his head. Sudden tears shuddered through him.
I watched him wrinkle into his sorrow. I didn’t know how to feel. I was so invested in my guarded numbness or fury at this man that there was no space for anything else. I watched him, like the replaying of a worn-out strip of film flickering onto a canvas screen, jerked motion pictures of a person I once knew.
The Secret Legacy Page 28