The door of Caresse’s room opened and an older doctor came out. Lawyer and daughter both stood eagerly. He passed his eyes between them both, unsure of the correct order of things.
‘She’s stable but the heart is too weak for us to operate. We have given her morphine, but it’s now a matter of time.’
‘I’ll go in.’ Diana started forward.
‘She’s asked to see Signor Mansardi.’ The doctor’s eyes darted between them once more and then down at his notes, as though confirming this fact in writing.
Roberto moved past her and Diana could see the barely concealed effort to stop his mouth curving upwards in triumph.
‘Principessa. You look tired.’
‘That’s another way of saying someone looks awful.’ Caresse smiled wanly. ‘But I appreciate your honesty. Where’s Diana?’
‘She’s gone to meet her lawyer.’
‘Already.’ Caresse smiled, again. ‘Well, I can hardly point fingers there, can I? Though of course you have become far more than that, dear Roberto.’ She turned to him and took his hand. ‘You will help her, won’t you? I know she’s a handful, but we all need support. You must try and work together.’
‘In what way can I help her, Caresse?’
‘In the way you’ve helped me.’ She looked up, eyes shining. ‘The world’s a fickle place, especially for a woman. The Città della Pace will help that. And whether Diana admits it or not, women are the source of peace.’ She smiled. ‘It will be a force for good in this world.’ She closed her eyes and breathed, before opening them again. ‘You will honour her, won’t you?’
‘Signora,’ he sat on the bed, his throat husky, ‘I am a man of my word.’
‘Yes, you are.’ She nodded and smiled but then tapped him on his arm with the back of her hand. ‘But you are still a man.’
‘Don’t forget that the movement will need continued support too.’ Roberto used his lightly warning voice and Caresse squeezed his arm.
‘You need more faith. Where there’s a will there’s a way.’ She was silent then for a moment, so that there was only the noise of the respirator collapsing up and down with slow steady movements.
‘I tried so hard to get it right.’ Her voice was high and distant, a bird arcing through the sky.
Roberto nodded and drew up a chair, a look of concern on his face.
‘You did all you could, Caresse.’
‘Did I?’ She looked at him and there were tears in her eyes.
‘You need to rest. You have done all you could. Don’t worry about all that. It is so far in the past. Remember what you always tell me: all that has passed.’
And Caresse held his gaze, eyes wide, her hand clutching tightly on to his.
‘Good evening, Diana.’ Roberto approached the table where she sat with a group of friends on the rooftop terrace of the Hotel Eden. Behind her, the Roman skyline played across a violet sky that was sinking into darkness, and she sat before a large candle, glittering like an icon surrounded by dark-suited men.
‘Excuse me.’ She got up and the men at the table half-stood as she left. ‘I don’t think I have anything to say to you, Mr Mansardi,’ she said as they walked a short distance away. She wore a black dress that wrapped round her body, falling open in a long gently undulating split. A light wind was blowing her hair slightly, forcing her to half-close her eyes.
‘Diana, please . . .’
‘The whole thing was undignified. She expected more and deserved better.’
‘She gave me no instruction. And really her mind is elsewhere. She is going to another place.’
‘Oh, don’t talk about death in that reverent tone, I can’t stand it. Why was the press there? Scrabbling like monkeys. They could hardly get her through. Jostled about. Women like to be in control of their appearance, you know. And who were all those people? I’d never met, let alone seen, half of them. All those boys of yours crying crocodile tears. Most of them had never even spoken to her.’
‘Please, let’s sit down.’ Taking her elbow, Roberto guided her towards a quiet corner of the terrace. Diana shrugged him off and strode ahead. She sat down at the table and glared up at him.
‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked.
‘Milk. What will you be having?’
‘Due Negroni,’ he said to the hovering waiter, who was staring at Diana with a mixture of admiration and alarm.
‘This is where we came the night before I brought you to the castle,’ Roberto said with a smile.
Diana eyed him for a moment. ‘You’ve known me throughout my adult life, Roberto. We should be friends by now. But I can say with absolute certainty that I neither like nor trust you.’
‘Why, Diana?’
‘You’re a hypocrite.’
‘How?’
‘You alter your behaviour according to your audience. I don’t respect that. I’m not sure you have any beliefs at all, alongside which you have a wife and child whom you never visit and barely mention, while playing the pious husband to my mother.’
Roberto was silent. He had barely thought of his wife recently, secure in the knowledge that she and the child were financially assured and getting along happily in the apartment in Milan. He took a napkin and pressed it to his mouth, then folded it carefully beside his drink.
‘And you are worthy to judge me?’ he asked.
‘I believe so, yes,’ Diana said.
‘You, an animal.’
‘Better that than a vegetable, Roberto.’
‘Tell me, Diana, why do you always refer to these “boys”? There are just as many girls in the Città della Pace.’
‘I refer to the “boys” because that is what I see. You are not their caretaker. It sickens me to see it.’
‘Your mother and I have run a very successful youth movement here for the past fifteen years. If you were only vaguely interested you’d know that many of the children have gone on to university, become artists, are working in the peace corps . . .’
‘And the rest are for ever dissatisfied with the simplicity of their lives in those villages. It will be Milan or bust for them now, I suppose. Did it ever cross your brain that they might have been happy as they were?’
‘You do not know what you are talking about.’
‘Well, we can agree to disagree. The time has passed for entente cordiale.’
‘Let us stick then to the subject of your mother.’
‘What she really needs are her friends, Roberto. Her old friends. Where are they? Why aren’t they coming? Have they contacted you?’
‘Diana, calm down. Your mother is being well looked after.’
‘By you,’ she spat. ‘An employee.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that I did not treat your mother’s departure from her house with dignity,’ he said, drawing himself up coldly. ‘It was not my intention. But she is now under the best possible care.’
‘No one ever intends to do anything undignified, Roberto. No one intends to do any harm at all.’ They glared at each other, their bodies tense. Diana shook her head and opening her small silk bag took out a lipstick. ‘She gave you licence to do as you liked. I’m just . . . surprised . . . that it was the best you could do.’ She clicked the lipstick closed and then got up to leave. ‘I’d like you to set up a meeting for tomorrow morning. I’ll be using my own lawyer, of course. Oh spare me the eyes, Roberto, I need someone clean.’
He spread his hands in acceptance. ‘Of course, Diana. We can discuss the future of the house. There are many . . .’
‘House?’ She laughed and threw back her head, causing a nearby table to look towards her. ‘That’s not a house, it’s a mistake.’
Diana made her way back to her table and smiling quickly at the gathered company accepted a drink from the man sitting beside her. His thick dark eyebrows were raised slightly.
‘Your mother’s lawyer?’ he asked. Diana nodded, once, and took a deep drink from the glass she held in her trembling hand. The table continued to speak, th
e voices around them rising like a curtain on a stage set with a party scene. But the man by her side was silent, watching.
‘What will it mean, Ivan?’ she asked, turning slightly towards him, her dress falling open at her thigh. Ivan turned away from her and, placing his elbows on the table, squared his shoulders, so as to think. Honestly, this woman was like a scrambling device. He was glad she was marrying that artist. He couldn’t afford this type of distraction on a permanent basis.
‘What will what mean? Has he told you something?’
‘If she’s written me out of her will, what will it mean?’
Ivan looked at her. ‘You know what it will mean in legal terms, Diana, I don’t need to tell you that. But as for where it leaves you in the context of your relationship with your mother . . .’ He leaned back and looked her in the eye. ‘Well, that will be for you to discover. Every child has to learn that for themselves.’
‘Mother.’
Caresse’s eyes opened and Diana could see the light was fading. ‘Where’s Roberto?’
Swallowing a reply so sharp that her throat ached, Diana sat down and drew a chair up to the bed. ‘I wish you would move to the hotel. You’d be much more comfortable.’
Caresse smiled tiredly. ‘Yes, I do love my room there. But I’m quite all right here. It won’t be for long.’
‘The nurse tells me you slept very well.’
Caresse nodded. ‘Is Roberto all right? Is everything all right?’
‘Yes, Mother. Everything’s all right. Roberto’s exhausted, that’s all. He’s taking some rest.’ She did not mention that he hadn’t turned up to the meeting. ‘In the meantime, I thought—’
‘He’ll come back, won’t he?’ Caresse swallowed. ‘We need to discuss things.’
Diana hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘He’ll come back. You just rest a while.’
Caresse leaned back, still unsure.
‘Mama, I want to discuss . . . how things stand. We need to decide while . . . while there’s still time . . . what we’re going to do.’
‘You must talk to Roberto. He has all the plans.’
‘Yes, I know you’ve lots of plans. I’m talking about how things stand now.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Roberto’s handled it all, Diana. You must speak to Roberto.’
‘But it’s in my name?’ Diana felt panic begin to lap at the edge of her thoughts.
Caresse was silent.
‘Mama.’
Caresse turned her head slowly towards Diana and she could see that her mother was drifting.
‘I had the nurse read to me last night. It was so lovely.’ She closed her eyes. ‘The window was open and I could see the moon and all the lights of the city down below. This ancient, layered place. I thought of all those people inside all those buildings. The many heads lying down. Those who were alone with only their thoughts beside them and those sharing a pillow; I wanted to reach over all of them and bless them. Tell them all that I’ve done and hear all that they will do. It made me terribly sad that I won’t meet them all. That there are still so many places, full of so many people, I will never know, that will never know me. Perhaps one day I’ll know everyone and see it all contained in one.’ She opened her eyes. ‘That would be best. I would like that. I’d like it all to be held in someone’s capable hands.’
‘And I’m sure they’d all like that too.’ Diana gave a thin, weary smile.
‘I would like to return to my youth . . .’ Caresse said. ‘To Boston and that world of fine smells and long drawn-out hours. The wind pouring down those sandy beaches, taking me back to my mother’s arms. That’s what is happening, that’s where we are going. I will be young again and then will disappear back into the great cosmic egg of abundance. I will go back to that first act of love.’ Caresse looked at her daughter. ‘And it will all carry on.’
‘I was planning to go out to dinner . . .’
‘Go, go, eat a wonderful meal with a delicious man. Giulia is going to sit with me, I’ve lots to think about.’
‘There are many telegrams at the hotel,’ Diana said. ‘The front desk is practically buried. Many people are sending their love.’
‘How kind of them. Are they coming?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Diana lied. ‘I’ll bring the letters and telegrams to read to you in the morning.’
‘One more thing,’ Caresse said, as Diana stood to leave.
‘Yes?’ She turned.
‘Don’t put me in the ground, Diana. I want to burn, like him. I want to burn and then fly free.’
Alderney, 1993
Bay lay in bed with her book, listening to the murmuring sound of her aunt’s voice and her mother’s in the room next door. They’d been sorting through her grandmother’s things all day and though Bay had helped, as soon as it had got dark her mother had sent her to have her bath and get into bed.
Bay was beside herself, she had said. Absolutely beside herself.
Lying under the covers now, Bay agreed; she was hardly able to turn the pages of the book that lay open on her chest, revealing the picture of a house whose side had been cut away so that she could see the open rooms from top to bottom.
When her aunt had arrived that morning Bay had breathlessly shown her to her room, waiting to see what Leonie would say when she saw the single bed with its neat quilt and solitary pillow; the bedside table, prepared by her mother, with a small vase of flowers from the garden and a picture of some holy hands.
‘You have a single,’ Bay had pointed out, but her aunt had only smiled. Sitting down, they had together tested its comfort with a few bounces.
‘Would you like to help me unpack?’ And Bay had nodded, unable to stop looking at her aunt’s simple grey dress that covered her completely, and the matching cloth that hid her thick blonde hair. She still had her face though, and it was as pretty and open as a window.
‘What do you wear in the bath, Aunty Lola?’
‘Nothing,’ her aunt laughed, as she opened her small bag and took out a nightdress and placed it in the chest of drawers.
‘I lost another tooth.’ Bay stretched her mouth so that her aunt could see the castellations of her lower teeth.
‘Our bodies change.’
‘I had blood in my mouth when it came out.’
‘Growing up can be a painful business.’
‘Would you like to hear a joke?’ Bay asked.
‘Yes.’ Her aunt turned and looked at her.
‘What’s the dirtiest piece of furniture in the house?’
‘I don’t know, what?’ her aunt said, as she placed a single book whose pages were edged in gold on the bedside table.
‘The bureau, for it never changes its drawers.’
But her aunt had only smiled, not laughed like her father had. ‘That’s one of your grandmother’s jokes, isn’t it?’
Bay had nodded.
‘Yes,’ her aunt said, ‘she had lots of those.’
‘Do you live in a church?’ Bay asked. She could remember visiting her aunt once, after Inés had died. A quiet green place where Bay had played in a walled garden while her mother cried under the shade of a big tree and her aunt listened. The other women had moved silently around the garden, their heads all covered with simple grey cloths.
‘It’s called a convent.’
‘Grandma said that bed is her church.’
‘Well, no one can accuse her of failing to regularly attend.’
‘Bed is more comfortable than pews,’ Bay pointed out.
‘I prefer a hard edge. Too much padding stops you being able to feel things properly.’
‘I don’t like feelings.’
‘Some are nicer than others.’ Leonie nodded. ‘But it’s important to let them all have a turn.’
They looked at one another for a moment, and Bay saw her mother in the shape of her aunt’s eyes.
‘Are you married?’ Bay asked suspiciously.
‘No.’
‘Are you going to
have children?’
‘I’ve chosen not to.’
‘Do you have a single or a double?’
‘Single what?’ Her aunt looked at her quizzically.
‘Bed.’
‘Ah, a single. With a good, firm mattress. Much better for your back.’
Bay glanced at the door. ‘Do you have lovers?’ she asked quietly.
‘No.’ Her aunt took a little longer to answer that. ‘But I do love, Bay. I am learning how to love.’
‘Thank you for coming, Leo.’ Standing among the boxes in Diana’s bedroom, Elena looked gratefully at her sister, who sat with her hair uncovered on the edge of the large bed. ‘I don’t know if I could have done this without you.’
‘It’s the least I can do, Ele.’
Elena could not meet her sister’s frank gaze. ‘I don’t really deserve that kindness,’ she said, looking down at her bare feet, wishing, as always, that the nervous movement of her heart would calm itself in her sister’s steady presence.
‘Yes, you do. We all do.’ Leonie looked round. ‘What on earth happened here? Her rooms were always immaculate.’
Elena gazed too at the waste of clothes and dust-covered detritus littering the surfaces. The canopy of the bed had been pulled with violence, and now sagged loose of its frame.
‘She wouldn’t let me clean in here.’
Leonie nodded, saying nothing.
‘I’d have been completely overwhelmed, trying to do this alone,’ Elena continued. ‘James is hopeless, hopeless! He just wants to keep everything.’ She laughed and then bit her lip and lapsed into silence.
‘What’s in all these boxes?’ Leonie asked, opening one and looking inside.
‘Paperwork, mostly. From her lawyers. That awful man Ivan Denning.’
‘I thought he was the best of a bad bunch.’
‘Yes, but that’s not saying much.’
‘What shall we do with it all?’
‘Burn it?’ Elena gave a hollow laugh.
‘Bonfire of the profanities?’ Leonie asked with an arch smile that only remained on her face for a moment.
‘We can dance around it like we did when we were children,’ Elena said.
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