The Silent Fountain

by Victoria Fox

  ‘He didn’t succeed,’ said Vivien.

  ‘His methods grew dark,’ divulged Gio. ‘His colleagues say he lost his way towards the end. He became obsessed. Isabella was a private torture – he was desperate to hear her speak before we left for America… but she didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t or wouldn’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t. Not then.’

  ‘But now she can. Just like that.’

  ‘Not just like that, no.’

  ‘That’s what it looks like. Strange how I’d think that, isn’t it, Gio? Yesterday she was quiet as a stone and today, the first day of the fucking year, she’s talking? Only it wasn’t like that for you. You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I was sworn to secrecy. I’m sorry. I wanted to.’ His eyes brimmed with feeling and she believed him, even though she tried not to. It was easier not to.

  ‘What methods?’ she demanded.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Dinapoli. What methods was he using? What is this about?’

  Gio ran a hand over his tired face; it pained him to talk about it. Pained him to discuss anything that hurt Isabella, precious Isabella…

  ‘Shock treatment,’ he said. ‘Chemically induced seizures. Hysteria therapy.’

  It brought to mind Victorian asylums; poor women strapped to beds and having the brains torn out of them. Vivien remembered that the Barbarossa had once been a hospital. She grappled between pity and fury.

  ‘He was so kind to us as children,’ said Gio. ‘But his work took over – he became insane. Isabella told me what she’d been subjected to. She trusted our uncle and so did I. We were wrong. But before Dinapoli lost his mind, he set out the groundwork for her recovery – groundwork my team and I have toiled on. His theory was that the water Bella took on that day our parents drowned damaged her throat, so that it wasn’t just a psychological but a physiological cure we were looking for. All the therapy in the world wasn’t going to get us anywhere – we needed to examine Bella’s lung tissue, her raised voice box, and work towards training her up, like a singer with a contamination. We were sceptical at first, but there’s something in it, Viv. This could mean big things for patients like Bella. If it’s a true thing we can fix, just think of the places my studies could take me, the treatments we can uncover…’

  He trailed off at her expression.

  ‘You lied to me,’ she said.

  ‘It’s been a journey. Bella was the only patient who agreed to these tests – the same tests Dinapoli set up when he was alive – and it’s through them that we’ve had this breakthrough. But until the success rate is proven, it carries too much risk.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to shout it from the rooftops, Gio. I’m asking you to tell your wife. I don’t know, maybe I think that kind of honesty’s important in marriage.’

  ‘It is. That’s why it’s been so hard for me.’

  ‘For you?’ She snorted. ‘Enlighten me. I’d love to know what’s been so difficult.’

  ‘Seeing Bella in pain,’ he said, without skipping a beat; Vivien wished she hadn’t asked. ‘These trials are invasive: cameras down the oesophagus, medicines and side effects – not to mention dragging up all those memories. If she hadn’t stressed again and again how she wanted to do it, I’d never have let her. The lab wanted us both back, but they never thought Bella would agree. I didn’t, either. But months on and look where we are… It worked. She’s back. My sister.’ Gio’s face lit up, then dimmed again as he met Vivien’s unsatisfied one. ‘Do you think I didn’t want to tell you?’ he murmured. ‘It took everything I had for me not to. It was impossible.’

  ‘Not quite impossible.’

  ‘Come on, Vivien, please. Can’t you see the bigger picture? Bella’s talking.’

  ‘So now she can tell me to my face how much she despises me.’

  He stood back, a quick, controlled movement to let her know she had overstepped the mark. ‘I know you can’t abide my sister,’ he said. ‘I know you’ve never tried. But can’t you find it in you to celebrate this news?’

  ‘Who did she speak to first?’ said Vivien.

  ‘What?’

  ‘At the trials – when she finally spoke, to whom did she direct it?’

  He blinked. ‘I was there,’ he said. ‘So were a couple of others.’

  ‘How convenient.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Of course it would be you. You cured her. She won’t credit any of those other professionals who helped her – you do realise that, don’t you? You saved her.’

  ‘I’m not following.’

  ‘Are you really this gullible, Gio?’ Never mind overstepping the mark – Vivien was about to dive over it and sprint to the finish. ‘Isabella will do anything to drive a stake between us – she’ll have loved every moment of this secrecy between the pair of you. I bet she encouraged you to keep it from me, and I bet she relished dropping her bombshell just now, causing us this fight, making me feel like the leftovers from your feast for two. That’s all she’s ever wanted and now she’s got it. Who helped her get there? You. Isabella has taken advantage of you since day one – of your guilt at the accident, knowing it can secure her anything she likes, and the thing she covets most in the world is exclusive rights to her brother. Making out like a helpless maiden rescued by her hero: from this day on you’ll be the one who gave her a second chance at life. How do you know she hasn’t been able to speak all along? That this wasn’t an elaborate ruse to pin you to her side for evermore? Can’t you see? At every turn, she has twisted this situation to her advantage. All those years in America, holding you hostage, suffocating your relationships, keeping you prisoner to regret. Then here, playing the victim through your work. And now, well, now she’s champion. Queen Isabella. I’ll wager you think she’s marvellous, am I right? The most extraordinary woman you’ve ever met?’ Her hands shook. ‘More extraordinary than me?’

  Gio’s mouth was parted.

  ‘Well? Say something!’ Vivien was about to burst into tears. Isabella had her in a corner. This kind of meltdown was exactly what the sister would have anticipated and here was Vivien, handing it to her on a plate. She hated herself and she hated Isabella, and she wasn’t sure in that instant who she hated more.

  ‘After everything I gave up for you,’ she stormed on. ‘I gave up my career, my fame—’

  ‘You loathed all that.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You loathed Hollywood. Don’t pretend that you didn’t. You wrecked your life there, some might say deliberately. You’ve always been on self-destruct, Vivien.’

  ‘Maybe I did loathe it. But do you know what? I loathe this more.’

  ‘I think you need time to calm down.’

  He didn’t sound like himself – harder, colder, as if she were calling to him across windswept mountains, an unfeasible distance between them now that she had spoken her heart. He would never understand where she was coming from. He was on Isabella’s side. He always had been. Vivien felt her baby kick inside her and she had to stop herself from shaking her husband until he hurt and screaming in his face that they were his future, she and his unborn child, not Isabella, never Isabella.

  ‘Perhaps I need time full stop,’ she said, and left him standing alone.

  *

  Winter turned to spring, and Vivien’s bump bloomed as fast and fruitful as the cherry blossom that grew on the trees in the Oval, ready to drop and carpet the grass. The atmosphere at the castillo sagged and sighed in sympathy, with Vivien doing all she could to avoid the dreaded sister, and only just coming to terms with her forgiveness of Gio. As the weeks passed, she saw she had no choice. Where would she go, and how? What would she say to her child in a year, five years, ten, about why she had left his or her father? He helped your mute aunt to speak again. Hardly the crime of the century – and while Vivien knew the layers of his deceit ran deeper and more complex than that, those bare bones remained, gleaming amid the rubble.

  She was uncomfort
able in the late stages of her pregnancy, struggling to sleep and ungainly as she pushed herself out of chairs and puffed up the stairs, stopping to catch her breath. Meanwhile, Isabella glided through the Barbarossa like a weightless water nymph, showcasing her svelte contours with the lightest of gossamer dresses, a wisp of dandelion dancing on the wind. In contrast, Vivien felt like a whale.

  She had been convinced that Isabella would goad her at every turn with her newfound voice, unable to resist delivering that long-preserved venom whenever she could. Surprisingly, she didn’t, and Vivien was disconcerted. Where Vivien chattered with neither focus nor direction to Gio or Adalina, Isabella remained in dignified silence, able to restrain her throat after so long unused, and so, when she did speak, she still had the power to command her listeners into a sort of hypnosis.

  Vivien couldn’t stand it. The quieter and statelier Isabella appeared, the more Vivien gabbled and spouted, angry at herself but unable to stop.

  ‘I thought you had expected this,’ said Adalina one day, as she weeded the front porch. Vivien stood next to her, wishing she could smoke a cigarette.

  ‘Yes,’ she said tightly, convinced that she herself spoke like a crone.

  Of course she had expected it. She had long been certain of Isabella’s game, and it was a slow and patient one indeed. In finding her voice, Isabella might have relinquished her mystery. Not so. She continued to leave with Gio twice a week for the lab. She would ensure that she gave them just enough to needle their interest; to make them believe in their progress but not yet be satisfied by it. It was fake, all of it.

  She tried to soothe her nerves. With every door handle that turned or step that echoed, she was convinced that Isabella was at her back. She lived in mesmerised fear of hearing the sister’s voice, which words would cast her blow. Never before had she been so afraid of language. Sticks and stones… But words could hurt her, and hurt her horribly. Words were free, they didn’t need a licence and they attacked with deadly discretion, able to pounce at any time and slay her with their force.

  Shall we tell her, Gio?

  Vivien would never forget the sister’s arch satisfaction. How she had savoured every note, every syllable; the sheer pleasure she had taken in dispensing this shock. Shall we let her in on our secret? Can she be a member of our club, can she really?

  She had to stay calm for the sake of her baby. Her doctor had warned her against high blood pressure, and Vivien’s was creeping up by the day. She longed for Gio’s touch, his affection and his kiss. But he kept those things from her.

  What did she expect? He was civil to her – occasionally even warm, and would put an arm round her shoulders or touch her stomach and in an instant she felt secure and loved. But, most of the time, he shut her out. After all, he had tried to let her in and she had refused; she couldn’t pretend to like Isabella, not even for him. So he left in the week earlier than ever, and returned as late as he could. In his eyes, she saw a wounded animal. She had hurt him, not just through her hatred of his sister but through her rejection of everything he had laboured for since their move to Italy. Her rejection of his past, his family, and the trauma they had suffered. Vivien saw all this, understood that this was what he was feeling, but she couldn’t change her stance.

  If she could apologise, there might be a way back. But the word sat on her tongue as squat and immovable as Isabella’s vocabulary for the last two decades.

  Adalina stopped what she was doing. She did so abruptly and with purpose, so that Vivien was pulled from her thoughts and compelled to meet the maid’s eye. What Adalina said next required a great force of will: Vivien could see it rising in her.

  ‘I expected it, too,’ said the maid.

  Vivien heard her own heart beating. She waited.

  ‘I expected Isabella to speak.’

  Conviction held her in thrall. Vivien didn’t dare interrupt, for fear she would halt Lili in her tracks. She sensed the maid had more to say – and, boy, was she right.

  ‘I can no longer ignore my conscience,’ said Adalina in a fierce whisper. ‘The day you fell down the stairs… When Signora Isabella came to alert us, Salve and me, it wasn’t right. Her appearance. The way she told us. She looked energised, happy, more alive than I’d seen her. It wasn’t normal. She was excited, there was light in her eyes: she could scarcely write her note, her hands were shaking with adrenalin.’

  Vivien’s mouth was dry. ‘You believe me,’ she said thickly, ‘don’t you?’

  Adalina nodded. It felt criminal, this exchange – scandalous and wrong and deliciously gratifying. Vivien hadn’t imagined it. Isabella was a killer.

  ‘I pretended I hadn’t noticed,’ said Adalina. ‘I told myself I was wrong… but I knew that I wasn’t. Isabella wasn’t a woman in despair, she wasn’t frightened, she wasn’t any of the things she should have been. She was pleased. Triumphant. Delighted. Oh, signora – I believe she wishes to destroy you!’

  Vivien reached to touch the wall behind her: she had to hold on to something.

  ‘Lili – you must tell Gio—’

  ‘No!’ Adalina had never spoken with such force. ‘I will not.’

  ‘But don’t you see? This is the only way! Gio trusts you—’

  ‘I would do so much for you, signora, but I will not do that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘As you said before, we have no evidence – only our word. If Signor does not believe you, he will certainly not believe me. He will think you convinced me.’

  Vivien could see it now, the accusations flying. Though she hated to admit it, Lili was right. Gio would charge her with poisoning the maid against Isabella. He would tell her she had lost her mind once and for all. Who knew – perhaps his precious associates at the lab would take an interest in her, then, for a change?

  But this proved it. This proved that the sister was a malevolent force. It wasn’t just Vivien – she wasn’t crazy, she wasn’t all the things Gio said she was. Lili saw it too.

  ‘Lili,’ she said, gripping the maid, ‘we have to do something. We have to act.’

  ‘Signora, please, you must keep calm.’ But Vivien couldn’t. She felt the fever escalating, thoughts and plans chasing each other towards infinite horizon. Something in her shifted, a leap off a cliff. At first she thought it was relief, but then—

  ‘Signora? Signora, look at me. You’re not well. You’ve gone pale.’

  Vivien realised she was dizzy. She sank to the step.

  ‘I, uh…’

  ‘Signora?’ Adalina dropped to Vivien’s side.

  Vivien clutched her stomach. A tide of pain rose and fell, her insides clenched by some awesome fist. The baby was coming. Black spots dazzled her eyes.

  Don’t panic.

  ‘It’s time,’ she groaned. ‘Get Signor Moretti. Quick!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Italy, Summer 2016

  Vivien remembers it as if it were yesterday: the tightening sensation in her abdomen, the pressure and the promise. Her baby on its way, all those months of waiting and finally here they are, about to meet. The fear and excitement, and, at the heart of it, the certainty that everything will be OK. Her body can do this. It was made to do it.

  She hears the girl finish up for the day, the final wheeze of the vacuum cleaner followed by a series of closed cupboards. The girl is so young, so optimistic, with the most interesting part of her life still ahead of her. How must that feel? One day, she might experience the joy that comes from having a child: from keeping, nurturing and loving a child, with no one to wreck it or blow it away. A girl like her has never known what it is to lose – not to misplace or squander, but to lose, absolutely and irretrievably, to have something snatched away like a ghost in the night, what should have been hers forever. The thing Vivien has lost is solid still in her arms, an invisible weight she recalls as precisely as if she were carrying a basket, right in this moment, and looking down at the bundle within. His cheeks, so red, and his little pink nose…

  Ti
me heals all wounds, except this one. She thinks of him every day, every minute. Over the years the pain has dulled, but perhaps it is worse for that. She used to be able to feel it; it used to hurt. Now it nags and sighs, a ceaseless ache. Like her child, her pain is preserved, a fossil in a jar: an insect suspended in amber.

  Downstairs, a door opens and shuts. Vivien goes to the window. Light is seeping out of the day and the sky is a brushstroke of orange, white crests chasing each other on a blue sea. She hears the girl’s footsteps, watches her walk past the fountain and keep on walking, until she vanishes down the drive out of sight. Oh, to walk out of here, to be able to leave. The fountain looks back, that horrid unseeing eye, its lens stagnant and its belly full. Bulldoze it, Adalina has told her. Get rid of it. Why do you want it staring you in the face every day? She cannot. It’s all she has left.

  It’s why she cannot let it run dry. Each week, the containers are filled and the water poured into the stone. Adalina used to question it, but she doesn’t any more.

  A knock at her bedroom: ‘Signora, your pills?’

  Vivien blinks: the maid’s voice is a whisper on the wind. She turns.

  Adalina sweeps in and sets out the stall, just as she has for years. Admittedly, there are more these days, bottle after bottle after bottle. Vivien watches her shake the tablets out and count them on her palm, before setting them straight on the wooden side table, a perfect concoction. On cue, Vivien starts to cough. Damn! The cough is bad, hacking and dry, like ants swarming in an unreachable part of her throat. Always when Adalina is here, prompting the maid to fuss and fret. ‘I’m fine,’ Vivien croaks, which only makes it worse, and she has to turn her back to cough into a ball of tissue, and when she pulls it away from her mouth she sees those tiny specks of blood. Quickly, she stuffs the tissue into the pocket of her robe. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Do you need anything else, signora?’

  Adalina’s expectant face, always so ready to please, reminds her of the nurses that day at the hospital. They had been kind to her, ushering her into a private room and she had gripped the midwives’ hands as she gave birth to her baby; it was possible to excavate their soothing assurances from the deep pool of memory, as comforting to her now as a mother’s hand across a fevered brow. She hadn’t wanted Gio with her – a man’s place was outside. She doesn’t know if he ever forgave her for that. He thought her reasons were personal: their fight had banished him in the cold. Had he been right? It had been a buried punishment, muffled beneath a preference that need never be justified. You denied me the birth of my son. Or so he said.