by Penny Feeny
‘Would it matter if I did? Some people would think physical contact was normal, between husband and wife.’
‘We don’t live together anymore.’
‘True. And didn’t we only get married in the first place to annoy your parents? Because I wasn’t Johnnie Winthrop of the many acres and the hunting fraternity. Or was it because you’d done a deal on those matching suits in the Portobello Road and wanted us to show them off?’
‘Stop it, Alex,’ said Jess. ‘Stop fishing. And for God’s sake put your pants on.’ She rose and grasped the window sill. ‘Hell, did that sound as though I was talking to Harry? I’m sorry. But if you want to have a proper discussion about things now, we should act like grown-ups.’
‘I undressed because I was hot,’ he said and she heard the snap of elastic at his waist. ‘You can turn round, Jess. Don’t act martyred. Anyhow, this is crunch time. To start with, here’s some news that might interest you. I’m thinking of buying the flat.’
‘What flat?’
‘The one in Highbury, of course. You know old Cooper died? His son’s planning to emigrate. He wants to sell up and go to Australia.’
‘So?’
‘We’ve been rent-controlled for years, but if we get another landlord it could go sky-high. And the son’s offered me first refusal. He wants to do a deal and avoid all the hassle with estate agents. I think it’s a good opportunity.’
‘We don’t believe in ownership,’ she teased.
‘Socialism’s taken a beating, but we haven’t lost yet. This doesn’t make us Thatcherites. I’m being practical. And it would even up any divorce settlement.’
The moist air was suddenly chilly on her skin. ‘Now you want to get divorced?’
‘Don’t you? We can’t go on in this kind of limbo.’
She left her spot at the window. He was running the tap in the basin, splashing water on his torso to cool down. They’d fall over each other if they weren’t careful. ‘I guess not, but what’s brought this on all of a sudden?’
‘It’s hardly sudden.’
In the five years since their parting, which had never quite acquired official status, they’d danced around this conversation on a number of occasions. Then one or other of them would dive away, neither ready to draw a line nor reopen a wound that might otherwise have a chance to heal.
‘I suppose there wasn’t any point until one of us wanted to marry again… Jesus! Is that why you’re here?’
‘No, it isn’t why I’m here. And nobody’s talking about marriage.’
‘Oh,’ she said, deflated.
He looped a damp towel around his neck. ‘So there you have it. What do you think?’
‘About divorce? It seems… very final…’
‘Look, I never wanted us to split in the first place. But I accept now that I wasn’t pulling my weight. I was making things tough, whereas Toby…’
‘Toby was a port in a storm, when Lily was going through that difficult patch, partly brought on by what you did. And when my father was ill… and you were never around.’
‘You asked me to stay away!’
‘Only while I was trying to sort out my head. Do we have to hash all this up again? Anyhow, it’s more than a question of physical distance. It’s a question of trust. The knowledge that somebody is 100 per cent on your side…’ She tailed off.
Alex had folded his arms and was gazing at her with almost forensic analysis. His face, his collarbone and the prow of his nose had caught the sun in Romania; the rest of his body, still sinewy and disconcertingly familiar, was pale. ‘As it happens, I’m not here because I want a divorce. I’m here because I want us to get back together. Don’t you know how much I’ve missed you?’
She sank onto the bed again because there was nowhere else to sit. She pulled one of the pillows close to her chest and rested her chin on top of it.
He went on, ‘You know I genuinely believed that what we had could transcend everything…’
‘Oh, Alex, the great deluded romantic!’
‘It might be misguided to keep to your ideals, but isn’t it better than being a total cynic?’
‘We did have something special,’ she admitted. ‘Losing it was heart-breaking.’
His voice was low and coaxing. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I know exactly what we threw away. But maybe we can reclaim it. Give it time, you said. Haven’t we done that now? Come back to me, Jess. Please. The sights I’ve seen recently, the grimness of everything…’
‘The orphanages?’
‘They wouldn’t let me in. Officially. But what I found out is frankly horrendous – and it concentrates the mind. I’ve experienced enough, to know what matters to me, what I value, and I’m not interested in anyone else but you.’
She laughed at this. ‘Not your typical mid-life crisis,’ she said.
‘We’re not your typical mid-lifers.’
He joined her on the bed, his restless eyes seeking hers, the corner of his mouth lifting wryly. ‘I think you should move out of the Whispering Pines and in with me.’
‘But I like my little cottage! Suppose I want to stay in the country?’
‘In your sister’s pocket? Really? Your opportunities will be much better in London. We spent so many good years in the flat, didn’t we? And I thought, if we could buy it, if it was really ours, we could get some of that back.’
‘You forget Harry’s still at school.’
This was a minor obstacle to Alex. ‘He’ll leave next year. Not long to wait. The main thing is that we can be comrades again, we can share and support each other as we always used to. So there you have it, Jessa-mine, my cards on the table.’
‘Are you serious about this?’
‘Look me in the eye,’ he said. ‘Tell me you haven’t missed us. We belong together, don’t we, you and I? We always have.’ He began to hum, inaccurately, the Bill Withers song, ‘Just the Two of Us’.
She didn’t look at him. She covered her face with her hands. One of the cats in the yard yowled. They could hear the vegetable seller trundling his cart along the street: ‘Carciofi, melanzane, zucchini, pomodori… Carciofi, melanzane, zucchini, pomodori…’
‘I’ve been too busy,’ she said. ‘I’ve been a single parent with demanding relatives, trying to build a career in the poorly paid creative sector, while you’ve been pursuing your ideals. Swanning around forbidden territory – no excuses because you like worming your way into dangerous places – glorying in your mission to call the world to attention!’
‘I don’t travel all that much.’
‘That isn’t the point…’
‘No, the point is, it’s all a bit meaningless without you. Can’t we give it a go?’
‘I don’t know if the timing’s right.’
‘If you wait for the timing to be right,’ said Alex, ‘you wait forever.’ As if he were pulling a rabbit out of a hat, he produced a bottle of Grillo from beside the bed and waved it at her. ‘I bought this while I was out. Fancy a lukewarm white wine?’
‘Have you got a corkscrew?’
‘Sweetheart, have you ever known me to travel without a bottle-opener? Promise me you’ll think over what I’ve said.’
She flipped the pillow she’d been cradling behind her back and leant against it. The range of vegetables in the seller’s melancholy cry was expanding: ‘…zucchini, pomodori, cipolle, fagiolini…’
Alex rinsed a dusty glass (there was only one) poured in some wine and offered it to her. They sipped it in turn.
‘Okay, I’ll think about it,’ she said.
34
Lily was following Tina Roselli through a forest of white marble: arches and pillars and domes, angels and virgins and crucifixes. The paths were narrow and the graves very close. People wanted to be interred together, stacked on top of each other for companionship in the afterlife. Fresh flowers adorned recent burials but most of the bouquets were plastic, their colours bleached to pastel by the strength of the sun. Tina stopped and laid a singl
e white rose next to a pot of artificial pink ones. She took a tissue from her bag and rubbed some smudges of dirt from the headstone. She took another tissue and dabbed her eyes. ‘My poor mamma,’ she said. ‘My poor papa. My poor little brother.’
She’d apologised that she had only a couple of formal photographs of her parents, kept in her flat in Palermo, and none at all of Francesco or his daughter. Lily pictured him slim and dark and handsome, a bit like Marcello, but it was impossible to know for sure and the features of Carlotta-known-as-Carlottina Roselli (formerly Galetti) didn’t give her much of a clue. Signora Roselli was matronly, like Dolly, but more formidable. She had a helmet of black permed hair and jangling gold earrings. She was wearing a kingfisher-bright dress because her husband’s aunt’s funeral was now over. She’d insisted it was no problem to take Lily to the cemetery to pay her respects to the souls of her family.
Lily regarded Catholicism as a fascinating but alien doctrine, a bizarre conspiracy, with its emphasis on ritual and sacrifice, to keep people downtrodden and miserable. Not that the Catholics she’d met in person were particularly miserable – and the Roselli family, despite three days of sitting around a dead person’s coffin, had been both cheerful and hospitable to her. She had been received with great warmth and a combination of excitement, disbelief and curiosity. Might she really be their niece?
‘Anybody can see she’s from nostro paese,’ Tina’s husband, Guido, had declared, meaning specifically their neighbourhood, the Belice valley, rather than the entire island. Guido was a plump avuncular man, with feathery tufts of speckled hair above his ears. He wore glasses with clip-on dark lenses. When he raised them, he looked like an owl.
‘Veramente?’ Lily said, marvelling. ‘Really?’
‘Even if you are not of our blood,’ said Tina graciously, ‘you are welcome.’
Gerald was acting as interpreter, explaining Lily’s situation, smoothing the way. ‘You don’t barge in with a demand,’ he’d warned. ‘That would be crass. You have to build up gradually to what you want. We invite them to take a drink with us. We exchange complimenti. We find out who else and what else we have in common. Though it’s probably best not to mention the other Carlotta.’
Dolly had stayed with Agnese. Gerald and Lily had gone with the Rosellis to a nearby bar, newly-furbished like their bit of the town, where rows of neat modern houses sat cheek by jowl with the abandoned ruins. They chose a table inside because it was too hot on the pavement, despite the shade of the awning. A fan revolved on the ceiling and another smaller one whirred on the counter without much effect. Lily felt, as usual, under-dressed, but nobody looked critically at her. She ordered a Coke; the older generation chose coffee and grappa.
Carlottina apologised that her own children had left directly after the funeral. ‘They would be nearer to your age,’ she said. ‘Company for you. Sandro, our youngest, is twenty-six.’
Cousins, thought Lily. I could have actual cousins!
And then it turned out that Tina was a nurse, so a blood test was no problem for her and she would be willing to oblige. This result came a good way into the afternoon. Lily had finished her Coke and another round of coffees had been ordered. Gerald had covered a number of topics until he’d found mutual acquaintances. These included a doctor in Palermo, an electrician who turned out to be Guido’s cousin, and a con-merchant at whose hands they’d all suffered. Finally, he broached the subject of Francesco – which the Rosellis had been expecting all along, because of the message from Agnese Fantoni.
Tina was enthralled by the idea of acquiring a long-lost niece, who was also inglese, and her cheeks flushed. That was why she agreed to the DNA test. She fanned herself with a scarf she kept in her handbag. It was one of the most capacious handbags Lily had ever seen. It was mottled green and shiny, as if it were made out of crocodile skin. She knew it couldn’t be, and it wouldn’t bear scrutiny among the elegant bags in the di Monza boutique in Rome – though Tina was not the sort of person to be intimidated by glamorous sales girls.
They’d left Guido in the bar, watching sport on the television suspended from the ceiling. Tina had agreed to direct them to the family grave. Gerald’s car, unusually for Italy, had a retractable hood, which he had lowered so they could enjoy a breeze. She’d sat regally in the front seat, in her smart clothes, soaking up intrigued glances. ‘This is a small town,’ she’d said to Lily, with the satisfaction of one who had escaped its boundaries.
Lily’s feet were now filmed with white dust from the marble chippings. She was standing six inches from (potentially) the bodies of her grandparents and her biological father. And the pitiful remains of an infant, thought to be Serafina Galetti. She added a white rose of her own to Tina’s and stood awkwardly to one side. Her reactions were so muddled and confused she couldn’t disentangle them.
Tina was still wiping her eyes and blowing her nose; Sicilians were never afraid to show their emotions. She embraced Lily and said solemnly, ‘We can’t argue with the will of God.’
‘No,’ agreed Lily, thinking: Francesco didn’t get beyond twenty, younger than I am. He didn’t grow old enough to betray or disappoint or fail. The pathos of this hit her hard. She might be the only thing he had left behind – which was a breath-taking responsibility. It must be the same for Alex; he must have the same little voice whispering in his ear: are you up to it?
Tina let Lily go and dropped to a crouch to alter the position of the two white roses. Then she shook her scarf from her green crocodile handbag and tied it over her head and made a sad clucking noise. ‘I am going into the chapel to pray,’ she said. ‘Do you want to come?’
What was the correct answer? Would she be aghast to hear Lily wasn’t a practising Catholic? Before she could speak, Tina was flicking invisible grains of dust from her bare shoulders and giving her an affectionate pat. ‘But no, you have nothing to cover yourself.’
The chapel would be cool and dark and tranquil. Lily was exposed to the blast of the sun and dazzled by the glitter of the marble, but she said, ‘It’s okay, I’ll stay outside.’
‘Va bene.’
Gerald had taken refuge by a line of cypress trees; he was smoking a cigarette and keeping his distance. She went to join him.
‘How goes it?’ he said. ‘With the aunt?’
‘She’s gone inside to pray. I don’t know who for. She doesn’t seem bothered about Serafina. Whoever she was.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, I am! Poor mite. She must have had family searching for her. They must have been driven wild when they couldn’t find her. That’s so sad! And what will the Galettis do if the DNA comes back positive for me? Dig her up? Which would be horrific.’ She was struggling to cope with the scale of the tragedy, her emotions churning. She could have been the one in the grave, instead of the unknown infant who surely deserved her own memorial.
Gerald said, ‘They won’t dig her up.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Because they won’t want to disturb the dead. Who knows what fragments the coffin contained anyway?’ Lily flinched and he consoled her, ‘Mourning goes on a long time in this country and the souls of those who passed on are revered. That child won’t be forgotten, wherever her actual remains may lie.’
A prickling sensation ran down Lily’s spine. ‘You say she won’t be forgotten, but look at my case! I’d have been stuck in that orphanage, wouldn’t I, if it hadn’t been for Jess and Alex?’
‘That’s not the Rosellis’ fault. They’d have had their own kids to look after and no spare cash. It would’ve been the same for any other relatives – even if they did start to suspect a mix-up.’
‘I’m not blaming them, but I don’t understand why it took Carlotta nearly ten years to show any interest. That’s not the way a mother behaves.’
‘Why do you say it was ten years?’
‘Okay, so I know she told Alex she’d come back from America to find me and didn’t get here in time. But that sounds awfully convenient, doesn
’t it? I don’t believe her.’
Gerald lit a fresh cigarette from the tip of the old one. He seemed nervous. ‘She may have been telling the truth,’ he said.
‘I don’t think she ever comes clean about anything.’
‘Look, I can see that’s how it might appear to you, but you shouldn’t be too hard on her. I hope you won’t be too hard on Dolly either.’
‘What’s Dolly got to do with it?’
‘Quite a lot. Shall we go for a walk while your long-lost aunt is saying her Hail Marys?’
‘This is what Toby does,’ said Lily.
‘What?’
‘Takes me for a walk when he has something serious to say so he doesn’t have to look at me. It must be a family trait—’ She broke off. She hadn’t previously been able to claim any family traits of her own, but, if the DNA results were as expected, in future she could compare herself to all the other Galettis. How freaky was that?
Gerald didn’t notice her unfinished sentence. ‘Dolly was brought up in an orphanage too,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t talk about it much. It was during the war, so conditions would have been harsh.’
‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Lily. ‘It wasn’t…?’
‘Your convent? No, though she wasn’t keen on you going there either. You should know that Alex brought you over to us and she tried to persuade me to take you in. I hope you won’t hold this against me, but it wouldn’t have been appropriate. A middle-aged man and a little girl… So you were placed with the nuns, but Dolly was determined to get you out. She didn’t want you to endure what she’d been through. You’d rather captivated her.’
‘She wanted me to be adopted?’
‘Not by just anybody, dear girl. I once had a bit of a soft spot for Alex, I’ll admit, but the fact is, if it wasn’t for him, you wouldn’t be here today. Dolly felt the same. And she felt this justified some string-pulling. Do you know much about bureaucratic procedures in Italy?’
‘They’re slow?’
‘Pace is infinitesimal – even back then when adoption regulations weren’t so strict. Cases are batted from pillar to post for months; years. And for a foreign one, you can double it. Not yours. Yours was remarkably smooth and swift thanks to the intervention of Father Rondini.’