The Silent Fountain

by Victoria Fox

  Gio was apprehensive. Vivien recognised with affection his charged energy, trying to make it flawless, just as he had on their first date when he had taken her for dinner and dancing at Rococo’s. Isabella’s absence in helping him suggested she left much of the running of things to Gio. It was he who had forged the comforts of this house, the reassurances, the memorabilia; it was he who held down his duties here as well as at work. Vivien resented Isabella for this, though she knew that wasn’t fair.

  She sensed the sheer imminence of Isabella, somewhere upstairs, biding her time, and yet a very real presence here in the room, all around, everywhere.

  It was impossible to pretend it was just the two of them. Vivien was the impostor. Isabella owned this place. She owned her brother.

  ‘Bella!’ Gio exclaimed, so loudly that Vivien thought he was calling his sister from afar, and it seemed uncanny, therefore, that Isabella had already appeared before them in the doorway. She stood perfectly still, and silent. She wore no shoes, hence the quiet ambush, just a plain cotton dress that pooled almost to the floor, revealing a pale frill of white toes, like coral. Her dark hair hung in a sheet, obscuring her face so that only one almond-shaped eye was visible. It was a gleaming, malignant eye, and it surveyed Vivien as if assessing something rotten in a fruit basket.

  ‘Hello,’ Vivien stepped forward, putting her hand out, ‘Vivien Lockhart.’

  She felt stupid, standing there with her hand suspended and wondering when was the right time to take it back. Isabella didn’t move that eye, not a flicker.

  ‘Bella doesn’t speak,’ Gio murmured, patting down her hand. She’d known that; she was only trying to be friendly. Vivien detected annoyance in his voice, as well as the flash of something mean in Isabella’s eye. Amusement? Victory? Vindication? She sensed she had already put a foot wrong but she wasn’t sure where.

  ‘Shall we sit?’ said Gio.

  Vivien wondered how the evening could possibly progress if Isabella didn’t utter a word, but Gio was clearly accustomed to it. It didn’t seem to bother him that she didn’t respond, just a nod here or a shake of the head there. Gio discussed a range of topics that included his sister, either referring to her role in a past anecdote or shooting a question her way that demanded a small movement to reply. He addressed her in both English and Italian; their parents, before they died, had raised them as bilingual. I must learn Italian, Vivien thought, squirming every time the siblings shared their secret code, the lilting fluency that excluded her. And she was excluded. Vivien noticed how Isabella’s gaze fell so differently upon her brother than it did when its laser was trained her own way. Fondness didn’t come close; love didn’t either. There was hunger in that gaze: a relentless appetite, something… insatiable.

  He began talking about how he and Vivien had met. Finally, something she could participate in. Reaching across the table, Vivien took his hand. She saw how Isabella recoiled, and couldn’t suppress the prickle of enjoyment that invoked.

  ‘It took ages to figure the best way of asking you out,’ Gio was saying, that smile she adored playing on his lips. His wild hair met the dark collar of his shirt and she thought again how reckless and handsome he looked. ‘There she was, a movie star, and me knocking off shift at two a.m. in the ER. Hardly what she was used to.’

  ‘But of course I said yes,’ said Vivien, ‘after what you did for me. Anyway, don’t belittle what you do. You’re the finest physician in town.’

  ‘You want me for my brains, is that it?’ Gio teased.

  Vivien squeezed his fingers. A moment of softness passed between them, the calmest he had been all night, but then abruptly he pulled back, returning to his sister.

  ‘You’re not hungry?’ he asked, motioning to her untouched plate.

  Isabella’s expression didn’t move. Just that black sheet of hair, hanging like oil, and her brittle shoulders so roundly hunched that the ends of it brushed the wood either side of the bowl. Vivien felt irritated – at Isabella’s incompetence, at Gio’s split attention, at his guilt, palpable in the air around them – and wanted to shake her until she reacted. Look at the things he does for you! Look at the impact it has on his life! Aren’t you grateful? But she told herself off for having these thoughts. She had to give Isabella a shot, make concessions after what she’d been through.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘we can keep it for after…’

  After she’s gone, thought Vivien, upset at the inference. When we’re alone.

  Without a trace of impatience, Gio cleared the meal from in front of his sister and went to the counter to cover it. Vivien tried to catch Isabella in a moment of quiet, offer a smile and see if it was reciprocated: sometimes when a man was removed from the equation, it made things simpler. But Isabella’s eye was still on hers. Vivien met it and didn’t look away. The smile froze on her face and then, little by little, dissolved. Isabella had no need for words when her stare was so potent. Vivien had never been on the receiving end of such absolute, categorical wickedness; such a pure intention, a clear purpose, and that purpose was vitriol. She recalled what Isabella had been through, the sympathy she deserved. But none of it matched up with that eye. The eye carried intelligence – worse, cunning – and it seemed to say all that words could not.

  He’ll never be yours. He’ll always be mine.

  *

  Isabella went straight to bed after supper. Gio seemed to think the evening had been a success – ‘I know she can be challenging, darling, so thank you. You were wonderful…’ – and Vivien assumed, given his mood, that she would be staying.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said, when they had spent an hour on the couch, kissing and talking, ‘I’m sorry. Bella won’t like it.’

  Vivien sat up. ‘But I’m your girlfriend,’ she said coldly.

  ‘I know,’ Gio was quick to placate her, ‘and this is awkward, I see that. Only it was a big deal for Bella to meet you tonight and I don’t want to throw too much her way too soon. In the long run, it’ll be better for us. You do understand, don’t you?’

  Vivien searched his beautiful face and couldn’t help but nod.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, running her fingers through his hair. ‘But it’s hard for me too, Gio, I can’t lie to you.’

  ‘I know, bellissima.’ He kissed her forehead and pulled her close. ‘But I’m thinking of our future. That’s why I want to tread carefully.’

  Vivien smiled into his chest, solid with warmth and safety. My Gio…

  ‘I want to be friends with her,’ said Vivien. ‘Only I don’t think she likes me.’

  ‘That’s just Bella. She’ll come round.’

  Vivien thought of the sister’s doctors. Wondered if her dosage could be upped, make her into a more amenable person. ‘Does she take anything? Pills, medication?’

  Gio’s voice changed. ‘She has, in the past,’ he said, waiting a moment before continuing. ‘Last time we tried her on medication…’ He trailed off.

  ‘What?’

  He shook his head, and Vivien saw the years of worry scratched into his forehead and around his eyes. ‘Nothing,’ he said. She resented Isabella for causing him such grief and concern. He lost his parents, too.

  ‘Can we talk about something else?’ he asked.

  Vivien snuggled back into his shirt. She needed to cement her connection to him, to prove it, and for Isabella to see that she wouldn’t be got rid of with a few dirty glares. She was here to stay, whether the sister liked it or not.

  ‘I’d like to be with you tonight,’ she said, and kissed him. For a moment Gio held back, and she worried that Isabella had put a kibosh on this too, but then she felt him stir beneath her. His mouth moved round to her neck, grazed her collarbone, her hairline, her earlobes, and he murmured into her ear what he wanted to do to her.

  ‘Make love to me, Gio,’ she groaned, clasping him tight.

  His hand cupped the flesh of her calf and travelled up the back of her leg, finding the band of her knickers. ‘Oh, Viv…’


  Then suddenly, he pulled away.

  ‘You should go,’ Gio said abruptly, moving back. Vivien sat, confused, and pulled down her skirt. As she did so, she was certain she saw a shadow slip past the living room door, so quick as to barely be there.

  A shiver crawled up her spine. Had she imagined it?

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Gio’s expression was closed. The evening was over. ‘I’ll make it up to you, Viv, I promise. Tomorrow. We’ll see each other tomorrow.’

  They said goodbye at the door and she was shut out in the night.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Italy, Summer 2016

  There’s a secret garden at the Barbarossa. I noticed it when I arrived, the outline of a door on russet brick, but it isn’t until Adalina tells me to tend the roses in the Oval that I have reason to explore it. Adalina’s impatient manner can make it hard to ask for clarification, so often I find myself nodding, accepting the task, with little clue as to what she means and with the resolve that I’ll figure it out on my own later.

  The Oval is one such thing. It takes me nearly an hour to discover that there is nothing warranting that name in the castillo’s immediate grounds, and it’s only when I’m by the orangery wall that I spy the opening once more. The handle has chipped off, only a keyhole remains, and I push on the brick and with a good shove it gives.

  Beyond the wall, it’s a broken paradise. I can just about make out the shape of the once manicured gardens, a circle bearing overgrown beds of dead roses, camellia, jasmine, a starfish of long-ago-fruitful plots that are now swamped by wild flowers. There is a savage beauty to it; the peace of this secluded suntrap is its own vacuum, a pocket of time stopped and stilled and surrendering to the bounty of nature. The estate is quiet at the best of times, but this new quiet is profound, disturbed only by the occasional flutter of birds’ wings as they dive into an old dovecote set between two benches. I wonder who sat on those benches, surveying this magical space. Now, the wood is cracked and bleached by years, but the benches continue to watch all the same, facing me, demanding who I am, the girl among the butterflies.

  I remember gardening with Mum, and how I tried to keep things growing after she died. It seemed important to do that. I got my sisters interested in it for a while, picking out worms from the soil, clumping up and down in their oversized rubber boots and giggling as they tried to rig a swing from the old apple tree. Afterwards, I’d helped them brush the earth from their knees, and each morning we’d check on the seedlings in their tiny pots, starting to open up and reach towards the sky.

  ‘You should go home.’

  I jump, startled, my hand flying to my chest. Salvatore is behind me.

  ‘You frightened me,’ I say, turning to where he stands in the entrance, a pitchfork in his hand, its points skewered into the cracked ground.

  ‘You should go home,’ he says again. ‘Before it’s too late.’

  He is bigger than I remember, and not so ancient. I remember him hauling my bags on to his shoulder, the strength of him. He is blocking my exit.

  ‘Too late for what?’ I’m curious that we are conversing in English, before recalling that Salvatore has been here for decades, working to Vivien’s instruction.

  ‘The water will get you,’ he says. ‘The water gets everyone.’

  His green eyes are milky, unfocused.

  He’s not right. Hasn’t been for thirty years. Signora keeps him on out of pity.

  My brain works to join the dots. Thirty years, or thereabouts – that would tie in with La Gazzetta’s report of whatever tragedy befell the castillo. Images flash, of Max, of the skeleton key, of the attic, of the scrawled note, of Vivien’s door ajar…

  ‘You can’t stop it,’ says Salvatore. ‘I tried once. She screamed. She was a wolf, teeth and blood. She wanted to kill me. Never touch it, she said. And they call me crazy but I’ve seen crazy. She wanted to kill me. You should go home.’

  Salvatore’s fingers curl round the handle of the fork, sinking it deeper into the ground. ‘Except you can’t,’ he says, with the shadow of a smile. ‘They say I don’t know top from bottom but I see things. I know things. And I know about you.’

  My lips are dry. The air has turned to menace. A grey bank of cloud bulks towards us on the blue. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I see it in your eyes. They are like hers. You cannot go home. You did something bad, as bad as her, and the water will find you.’

  I try to move past him but he’s in my way.

  ‘I saw her,’ he says. ‘Washing herself in it, out in the dark, washing herself with the water still left in the stone, over her nightgown so it got soaked, and I could smell it, the water, a black smell, black on black, grass and earth, the deep parts of the ground. Washing herself as if she could ever be clean. I saw her. The dead one.’

  I shove past him and dart through the hole in the wall, out on to the terrace, up to the castle, my knees about to collapse. The air hits my lungs; the sky yawns and the ground prepares to swallow me up. The sun clings to the gravel, and it’s only the fountain that sits in a pool of accusing shade.

  *

  At the house, I meet Adalina coming downstairs. She is in a rush, and looks ill.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ I ask, catching my breath. Adalina regards me in that way she has: irritation, affront, endurance. I am like a child caught out, half expecting Salvatore to be at my back, pointing a gnarled finger, picking out my guilt.

  But Adalina isn’t concerned about me. ‘Fine,’ she says. Only I see that it isn’t. The maid’s skin is wan; there are shadows round her eyes. She looks as if she hasn’t slept and I think about Vivien’s pills, the ones that arrived at the door, and how Adalina must be up all night with her. She grabs a coat and bag from the hall.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I have no right to ask questions, and Adalina’s expression confirms it, hardening as she grips the banister.

  ‘Signora is waiting,’ she says. ‘We will be back shortly.’

  The heavy door closes, and seconds later I hear the crunch of gravel as Vivien’s car eases off down the drive. I follow them out. I can decipher Adalina’s tight shoulders in the driver’s seat, but can’t see Vivien. I picture her lying frail across the back, in the throes of her mysterious ailment, forced to surmount her fear of the outside and show herself to the world – or, at least, to a doctor. I struggle to match this image of Vivien with the portraits taken of her years ago. She was a siren, a coveted actress with the world at her feet. What happened to change all that?

  The fountain glares at me, seeming to pulse with an answer.

  Come to me. Come. Come and see.

  My legs carry me there. I splay my fingers on the rough, cold brim, and peer over to meet my reflection. Behind me, in the mirror, amorphous clouds drift across a sky so patient that I could have been looking at the real thing, not a replica, and for a moment it’s not an echo I meet but something true, and I am the echo, the living me no longer living, the real and reverberated world exchanged, so I am gazing through from the other side. I plunge deeper into the impression, hypnotic in its eeriness. My heart accelerates as if something is about to happen. I hold my breath and in that same instant the suggestion of a face appears at my shoulder, shocking and grotesque and savagely, resplendently malignant, mad eyes wild and deranged—

  I stand, gasping for breath, backing up against the stone.

  There is nobody there. I think I hear a child laugh, but there is nobody there.

  *

  Inside, I’m filled with adrenalin, and before I can change my mind I go to the ballroom and reclaim the key. It takes me a few seconds to find it, panicking a moment that I’ve been found out and the key moved, a silent reprimand, before—

  Got it.

  Instead of returning to the attic to lock it, as I know is the only sensible thing, I head for Vivien’s quarters. Her door, predictably, is bolted shut. For a second I doubt if the key will turn, but then, with a satisfying switch, it does.

  I
am inside.

  Vivien’s bedroom looks out on to the gravel and the pointing cypress trees, and is furnished in a way that brings to mind the woman herself: once opulent, perhaps excessive, but now a ghost of times gone by. The curtains, heavy and scarlet, I recognise from my brief glimpse that day we spoke; the rug is ornate (I place it in a Middle Eastern souk, surrounded by jewels) but worn, the gilt-edged landscapes of Italy no doubt painted by masters but now faded by the sun, their rims tarnished.

  The bed is out of place. What should have been a four-poster celebration, something Vivien might have lounged on in her Hollywood days, swathed in furs and diamonds and sipping champagne, is a clinical single on a metal frame. There is a tray table, levered to allow access at mealtimes, and a drinking flask. It looks as if it belongs in a hospital. The mattress has been stripped. There is a smell like vinegar.

  Several marble busts sit in a line by the long-neglected dressing table, bearing a variety of wigs. There is something disarmingly helpless about this array, the lost dignity of a woman once so beautiful. No wonder she doesn’t want us to meet.

  What strikes me about the room is the lack of reference to her past. There are no photographs, no books, nothing to give her away; no clue to her interests, her loves or her hopes. Does she still have hope? All art resolutely avoids people as its subject. I recall the veiled man on the staircase, dead but somehow living. Did he once belong here? Did he stand where I’m standing; did he love Vivien, did he hold her in bed?