Secrets in Sicily

by Penny Feeny

  Villa Ercole was an hour’s drive away and thus, for Marcello, another hour back. ‘You didn’t have to do this,’ she said.

  ‘It’s okay. It makes a change from the labouring.’

  ‘But it’s Saturday. Don’t you have the weekend off?’

  She didn’t ask what he was doing that evening. She guessed the boys would go to the cinema-nightclub again. They’d be flirting with pretty girls and getting into fights with their boyfriends. That was what people did on Saturday nights and her dreams of dancing with Marcello under the canopy of stars was just that, a dream. Nipped in the bud. She glanced at his profile: set and stubborn. She was stubborn too. The business at the bank wasn’t her doing. She was as much a victim of random bureaucracy as he was. They both stared straight ahead, casting about for a topic that was neutral.

  ‘It’s a long time since you have been to Villa Ercole?’ said Marcello, with the detachment of an acquaintance making small talk.

  ‘Yes, though Toby keeps in touch.’

  ‘Who is Toby?’

  The question gave her difficulty. Toby was her father’s best friend and had for a while been her mother’s lover. That was peculiar, wasn’t it? ‘Very Bloomsbury,’ she’d overheard someone say once, in a snide tone. Lily reckoned all three of them would have hated the connotation.

  ‘He’s Gerald’s nephew,’ she said. ‘And a friend of my parents.’

  ‘They haven’t seen you since you were a child?’

  ‘No.’ She was going to add: Nor had you – as a way of reviving the good, fun things about the past week. But it was too pointed a remark, as if she were begging and no way was she going to beg. Instead she said, carelessly, ‘They’re a strange couple, aren’t they, Gerald and Dolly? I wonder why they never married. I suppose it’s a class thing, which is a bit mean when you think how hard Dolly works for him.’

  Marcello had been crouching over the steering wheel, flooring the accelerator until the Cinquecento gathered speed on a downward slope. He relaxed his foot. ‘You’re surprised l’inglese hasn’t married that woman?’

  ‘That bloody woman!’ she corrected him.

  ‘Is it possible you don’t know?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t know what?’

  ‘That he is finocchio? He goes with men.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness.’ She squirmed. How stupid she was! But how could she have known? She’d been a child and, even though her parents wouldn’t purposely keep anything from her, they didn’t waste their energies dissecting other people’s sexuality. Any general allusions would have gone over her head. Gerald had often sought the company of young men, but it hadn’t seemed noteworthy. He’d gone out to Italy in the sixties when homosexuality was illegal in England, but he’d’ve had other motives too: the climate, the wealth of art and history, the low cost of living, which meant he could lead a life of hedonism while that bloody woman did all the work.

  ‘I’m an idiot,’ she said. ‘I thought it was one of those situations where she masquerades as the housekeeper. Where she sneaks into his bed at night, but he’s too much of a snob to marry her.’

  ‘No,’ said Marcello, overtaking a tractor with very little space to spare. ‘That’s what happened with the priest.’

  Lily’s eyes popped. ‘What priest? Tell me! Did you know this before? I mean, in the days when you came to Villa Ercole to play with me? Because if so, why didn’t you say?’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Not when we were ten. I discovered later that Addolorata was first the housekeeper for Father Rondini. Did you know him?’

  ‘I think maybe I did once…’ Father Rondini was the name of the priest who’d been involved in the process of her adoption. He must have visited the convent; she could picture a long black soutane but she couldn’t fill in the features of its wearer.

  ‘The rumours were very strong, about their sexual relationship. The reason he didn’t marry her was because he couldn’t. Priests don’t like to give up their job or lose their power.’

  ‘Poor Dolly,’ said Lily.

  ‘It happens a lot,’ said Marcello. ‘The Church pretends not to see. But if there’s too much talk, they have to show an example and punish the sinner. The sinner is Addolorata, naturally, and not Father Rondini, because she tempted him.’

  Dolly, with her solid bosom, stout legs and hair like iron filings, a temptress! Lily would have laughed if she wasn’t already boiling with resentment on Dolly’s account. The hypocrisy of it! ‘Is this really true?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s what people say.’ He went on, ‘Father Rondini gave references for her cooking, her cleaning and so on, but there aren’t many jobs in this region. She couldn’t find anyone to employ her. Also her reputation made it difficult to find a husband. She was going to leave for the mainland, my father said, and then she learnt that Villa Ercole was being renovated and the owner wanted a housekeeper. L’inglese employed her when no one else would. I think she’s grateful.’

  Lily digested this slowly. Gerald and Dolly’s relationship wasn’t exploitative. They were equal beneficiaries: Gerald, because he had someone to attend to mundane and tiresome tasks while he pretended to be the great intellectual; Dolly, because she had a roof over her head and a bed of her own, an abundance in the garden and total control in the kitchen. Lily understood better now the power play between them. She’d sometimes been a little scared of Gerald, because of his moods and his sarcasm and the way he blew through his moustache, though he’d tried to be kind. Now she saw him as someone who’d done something gallant and principled. There must have been other women queuing up to keep house for him, but he’d chosen the one who was a reprobate. Just like himself.

  She’d half hoped Marcello might suggest they stopped at a bar en route for a drink and a game of table football. If they could vent their frustration on the rods of metal players, spinning the handles, walloping the ball, it might unite them again. She could also make an advance phone call to the villa. ‘I’ll check they’re going to be in,’ she’d say. But she couldn’t bring herself to suggest a break – or confess that neither Gerald nor Dolly had any idea she’d be turning up. She’d have to bluff it out.

  And then the road became suddenly familiar: it was the route into Roccamare. When she snapped her head from side to side to take in the view, she was encouraged to see how little it had altered: a mere handful of new villas presiding over half-dug swimming pools and clusters of low-rise apartments blending into the landscape. And there, ahead of them, was the sea, shimmering on the horizon. Marcello circumvented the resort and climbed along the track that led to Villa Ercole.

  Lily’s stomach was all over the place, struggling to confine a surfeit of butterflies. This was worse than going to meet Carlotta because that would have been a new chapter, whereas this was a place that held memories. Happy memories were delicate and fragile and she didn’t want to damage them. ‘You can drop me here,’ she said to Marcello.

  Afterwards she was mortified that she’d been so churlish. He was undertaking a two-hour journey and she was dismissing him without even offering a glass of water. Dolly would have welcomed him, would have linked arms with them both and marched them indoors for lemonade and amaretti. She would have exclaimed over the coincidence of their meeting on the train and finally they’d have been able to laugh over the embarrassing police incident. And then Marcello would have kissed her again. Or Lily would have kissed him.

  Except she didn’t know if Dolly would be there. She didn’t know if she would recognise her, how she would explain everything, including the Carlotta business. After all, her family had left on bad terms eleven years ago. She couldn’t be certain Dolly wouldn’t bear a grudge.

  She got out of the car. Marcello had to get out too, to open the boot so she could fish out her bag – another obstacle between them. If she put it down and tilted up her face, would he get the message? This time yesterday he’d wanted to undress her. Had she become such a nuisance in the interim?

  ‘You’ve been so goo
d to me,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘You’ve gone out of your way to help and I’ve been nothing but trouble.’

  ‘You picked many kilos of tomatoes,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Alfredo will say you earned your keep.’

  He took her outstretched hand. If either of them had given a slight tug, over the barrier of the bag, they might have fallen into each other’s arms. Instead, after a brief handshake, Marcello dropped back into the driving seat. Shingle spurted beneath the tyres as he reversed. His window was open and he waved goodbye through it – a cheerful, no hard feelings, amicable sort of goodbye.

  Lily began to chase after the car. ‘When will I see you again?’ she yelled.

  She thought she heard him say, ‘In Roccamare, one day,’ but she couldn’t be definite about it.

  32

  The villa, so imposing in the image that Lily had clung to, looked faded and diminished. Its distemper was patchy and the trees around it had grown taller, as she had herself. She knocked at the front door but wasn’t surprised to get no response; it was seldom used. She skirted around the side of the house. Would she see Gerald lounging on the terrace with a black Sobranie and a glass of Marsala? Would Dolly be gathering rocket and radicchio for one of her bitter salads? No one was visible, but the door to the kitchen was ajar. She couldn’t not enter.

  The kitchen instantly took her back to childhood: the laden shelves, the deep sink, the stone chimney breast. And the combination of aromas that was Dolly’s own: nutty and spicy and fragrant and fruity all at once. She caught her breath. There, on the table – same table, same position, same bench – was a bowl of peaches, the glorious rose-flushed golden peaches of her earliest memory. In addition to the peaches, under a cover to keep off the flies, was a dish of flaky pastries filled with ricotta and raisins and dusted with sugar, just as Lily liked them, just as if Dolly were expecting her. Momentarily she was swept into a fairy tale: Goldilocks in the house of the three bears, or Alice in Wonderland reading a label that said ‘Eat Me’.

  The fantasy evaporated. Oh, how she regretted sending Marcello away! They could have had such fun reacquainting themselves with the villa and its land. They could have raided the huge old fridge and demolished the plate of pastries in no time. Her treatment of him had been pathetic. As childhood friends they’d fallen out occasionally, but they’d always made up. If it hadn’t been for yesterday’s kiss, he’d have come in with her, as he used to do. Was that the result of kissing somebody? When you stepped over the boundary, when everything between you became sexually charged, you didn’t gain a lover, you lost a friend. How had she managed to make such an unholy mess? She sat down at the table, laid her head on her arms and sobbed.

  Her sobs were noisy so she didn’t hear a footfall. In any case, he was wearing his favourite rope-soled espadrilles. But she sensed another person and looked up to see an elderly, stooping man in a loose linen shirt with a pair of half-moon glasses balanced on the end of his nose. Why didn’t she recognise him sooner? Gerald had always been effete, but there’d been a toughness behind his languor; he used to give the impression of a lion, napping but capable of arousal. This man had an air of vulnerability and she’d need to explain herself without startling him.

  He shuffled into the room, blinking and smiling. ‘You came, my dear.’

  Was his sight poor? Was he expecting someone else? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘I did knock, but I don’t think you heard me. I shouldn’t have barged in though. It’s a bit much to spring myself on you like this. It’s Lily, by the way, Lily McKenzie.’

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, gosh.’ She rushed forward and took his hand and kissed his cheek. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t have a clue who I was.’

  He indicated the fruit and the pastries on the table. ‘Dolly’s been busy. We hoped you would come.’

  ‘It’s so lovely to see you! Where is she?’

  ‘She’s having her hair done. She’ll be back soon.’ Dolly patronised Tonella, who operated the oldest of the salons in Roccamare. Other stylists had come along to challenge her and she wasn’t especially skilful with her scissors, but she was the best source of gossip. Her regulars wouldn’t go anywhere else. ‘Why don’t you help yourself to a drink? There’s wine in the fridge. You can pour me one too.’

  When Lily opened the fridge for the wine, she saw it stacked with her favourite treats: a salad of artichoke hearts and sweet marinated onions, baby stuffed peppers, a wedge of snowy pecorino, soft pillows of home-made ravioli ready for boiling. She was overcome. Dolly and Gerald had no quarrel with Harry or herself – they’d been hapless children – and it was silly to have thought she’d be turned away. They weren’t like Carlotta; they had missed her!

  ‘Lilianina!’ Dolly was in the doorway. ‘It’s true! You have arrived.’ She held out her arms and Lily wished she were small enough to be enfolded into her embrace, like a chick with a mother hen. Dolly’s newly styled hair was now more like cotton wool than wire wool, white and fluffy. Her black dress strained at the seams as it had always done and her gold crucifix jiggled up and down on her chest. ‘You will be hungry,’ she said, and began pulling plates out of the fridge and piling them onto the table. She set out a basket of bread and lit the gas under a pan of minestrone.

  ‘You’ll stay with us?’ said Gerald. ‘There’s a Dutch family in your old quarters. I think they’ve gone down to the beach. Dolly doesn’t cook for guests – it’s all self-catering these days. But there’s spare bedrooms here in the villa and she’s made up the beds.’

  ‘Really? But how… I mean, I don’t understand how you knew I was coming?’

  ‘Your mother telephoned,’ said Gerald.

  For one crazy moment, she thought he meant Carlotta. ‘But I didn’t tell her either.’

  ‘You sent her a postcard. That’s how she knew you were in Sicily. She got it yesterday and rang to see if you were here. We hoped you’d turn up. Dolly, as you can see, could hardly wait.’

  ‘I should have called you earlier,’ said Lily. ‘I’m really sorry. I wasn’t sure how I’d be received. I haven’t been here for so long.’

  ‘I remember when you were a little thing,’ said Dolly huskily. ‘Una piccolina. With all your curls cut off. Your father bring you here and we always eat the peaches. You love the peaches.’

  ‘You ought to ring your mother,’ said Gerald.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘It would be a good idea. While the soup heats up. She didn’t say, but I got the impression she was worried.’

  He wasn’t reproaching her, but she felt sheepish all the same. ‘Can I use your phone?’

  He nodded and she took her glass of wine into the entrance hall where the phone, the familiar two-tone grey plastic, sat on its marble-topped table. In ten years, she thought, nothing has changed here. It was a place frozen in time, but it was becoming down-at-heel: the rug on the tiles was worn thin in places, the mirrors had more rust spots, the china ornaments more chips. Cobwebs drifted in high corners: in earlier days Dolly would have banished them, but they’d escaped her notice.

  Lily lifted the receiver. It was such a relief when Jess answered her call that she nearly burst into tears again. Jess’s voice was young and girlish, with a faint hint of West Country that she’d cultivated so as not to sound like her sisters. ‘Oh, my darling, I was so worried about you!’

  ‘You didn’t need to be. I’m fine.’

  ‘Why did you stay on in Italy? Was it because of Carlotta Galetti?’

  ‘Sort of.’ She had to bite back the tears. ‘It was awful. I found where she worked and they told me she’d moved to a new flat, but when I got there she couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. I think it was because she has another kid now. And a man. She always has a man in tow, doesn’t she? And she doesn’t want them to know about me.’

  ‘Actually she rang to speak to you,’ said Jess. ‘That’s what alerted us. Harry took the call. I think she wanted to apologise.’

  ‘Apol
ogise for not wanting to find out if she was related to me? Well, tough.’

  ‘Darling, it’s not surprising that she has another family. It would be more unusual if she didn’t.’

  ‘I know.’

  After a beat, Jess said, ‘Why did you go to Sicily? Was it on a whim?’

  ‘Yeah, and you’ll never guess who I met on the train!’ That was when it all came out about Marcello and the tomato picking and the police. And it was when she got onto the police that Jess’s soft and tender tone struck an odd note.

  ‘You were arrested?’

  ‘It was nothing important. They had to check my passport details for some obscure reason. But it backfired because then I couldn’t stay on to work at the farm and Marcello tried to stand up for me so they took it out on him and he got into a sulk… Though it doesn’t seem so bad now I’m here and Gerald and Dolly are pleased to see me…’

  Jess had gone very quiet at the other end of the phone. Lily heard her murmur, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault!’

  ‘I shouldn’t have said anything to Dinah.’

  ‘Why, what did she do?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Jess. ‘She didn’t consult me. But before I got your postcard she talked about Johnnie having contacts who could find out where you were, through the Home Office or Foreign Office or something. She means well and she was only trying to help but you know how interfering she is.’

  ‘Dinah!’ said Lily. ‘Bloody Dinah!’ She, too, was shocked into silence.

  Jess said, ‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that hassle, but there weren’t any serious consequences, were there?’ Lily gave a non-committal grunt. ‘Now, listen: we’re going to come out and join you.’

  ‘You are? You and Harry?’

  ‘Harry’s off to Cornwall with the Robinsons, surfing. But I’m working on Toby because he hasn’t seen Gerald for ages. I’ll keep checking Teletext for last-minute flights and when a bargain comes up, I’ll nab it. When I was talking to Dolly yesterday it seemed ridiculous to have stayed away for so long. I mean, there’s rivers of water flowed under the bridge in the past ten years… So, yes, I’m coming.’