by Karen Swan
‘I . . .’ Elena stared past Vito blindly. She was beginning to tremble, to shake. She couldn’t do this any more. She had thought it would kill her to leave but it was destroying her to stay. She suddenly got off the bike and took off the helmet, the rain slickening her hair almost immediately.
‘Darling, what are you doing? Get back on the bike. We need to get back before the roads are too wet.’
‘I don’t feel well.’ Her voice sounded odd.
‘Again?’ Milana asked under her breath.
A thunderclap in the distance made the others turn to the sky. It was glowing violet. Vito threw the remains of his cone in the bin and turned on the scooter. ‘Elena, come. There’s no time. It’s dangerous driving this thing in the wet. Let’s get you back. You look pale.’
‘No—’ She shook her head.
‘What the fuck is wrong with this bike?’ Aurelio demanded, turning the ignition over, again and again, but it failed to spark.
‘Reli, I’m getting wet,’ Milana whined.
‘What is it?’ Vito asked his wife, as the rain began to drip off the bottom of his helmet and down his shirt collar.
‘I want to walk,’ Elena said.
‘But it’s raining!’ Vito cried, pointing out the obvious.
The pavements were already glistening darkly, the street hawkers out in force, running up to the tourists and offering them cheap umbrellas.
‘I need . . . I just need to . . . to be on my own for a while,’ she said, beginning to walk off.
‘Elena!’ he called after her, just as a sudden bolt of lightning cracked open the sky; seconds later, thunder rumbled.
‘I have to think, Vito!’ she cried, wheeling round, her hands clenched into fists, tears twisting with the rain on her wet face. ‘Leave me alone!’
Aurelio stopped trying the bike.
‘What the hell . . . ?’ Milana muttered.
Vito went to turn off the engine of his scooter to chase after her.
‘No,’ Aurelio said, shooting out an arm and catching him. ‘I’ll go after her.’
‘You? She’s my wife!’ Vito scoffed furiously.
‘Yes, but she clearly doesn’t want to talk to you at the moment, does she? Perhaps I can help.’
‘I doubt that.’
‘Vito.’ Aurelio put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Let me talk to her. She’s obviously upset.’
‘It’s about the baby,’ Vito murmured, watching as she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. ‘We’ve been trying for so long now and . . . I think she’s depressed.’
‘I’ll talk to her,’ Aurelio said. ‘Just get Milana home.’ And then he ran through the rain towards the lightning that was trying, with every jagged stab, to split open the earth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rome, August 2017
Cesca dropped her head in her hands, trying to be objective about what she had just read. As a barrister, she knew she had to see everything in the round before she took the side she was being paid to take and formulated the argument that best supported it. But there was only one side to this. What could possibly support an argument against what these photos clearly showed? she wondered, her eyes falling again to the grainy black-and-white photographs on the screen. There was no plausible explanation that she could see.
Getting up, she began to pace. Focus, Cesca, she told herself. Slow down. Look at the facts. Keep calm.
But that was easier said than done when almost every search she entered came back with a substantially altered story to the one she had been told. Jack Montgomery? He’d been the very definition of not sweet, with a rap sheet providing compelling evidence of an abusive nature towards women, including a lengthy custodial term for the aggravated assault and battery of his second wife. Elena’s parents’ idyllic marriage, meanwhile, was – according to the tabloid headlines – a sham, rocked by numerous affairs on both sides and ending only when George Valentine took his own life after his wife ran off with a Hollywood director. Elena’s beloved Winnie had died destitute and alone in a women’s shelter in Brooklyn; and as for little Stevie . . . she had thought it couldn’t get any worse than that.
And it wouldn’t have done, if she had stopped looking. If she had just stopped right there and allowed herself to believe everything Elena had told her from that point on, she could have pretended that losing Stevie was her rock bottom, the nadir of her life. But it hadn’t been; there was yet further to fall. And as Cesca stared at the lightly dented Alfa Romeo sports car, the bollard not so much crashed into as gently nudged, she understood exactly why – as the newspapers put it – ‘mystery surrounded’ the death of Aurelio Damiani. That crash simply couldn’t have killed him.
But, if the papers were to be believed, someone had.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rome, June 1982
The streets hissed with the sluice of rubber tyres in the wet. People were running, pushing past her, jackets and newspapers held over their heads. She didn’t know where she was going and it didn’t matter. From here on in, all roads led from Rome. She was leaving. Vito wouldn’t understand and she couldn’t tell him, and she knew, in the absence of explanation, he would have to hate her.
She sobbed as she ran, her clothes clinging to her, her shoes slipping off her heels and making her stumble. People stared, moving out of the way as she fell against them. She pushed them away, continuing blindly onwards.
The narrow streets wove in a lacy dance, winding back on themselves in decorative loops, disorienting all but the locals who stood under cover of their doorways, watching the masses run. The air was singing now, the scent of jasmine thronging the alleys as the rain woke everything up. She was awake now too. The dream – the nightmare – was over.
The little road opened up and suddenly the Pantheon stood before her, as fat and round as Ella Fitzgerald’s Santa Claus in the chimney, the ancient stacked wafer-bricks resolute against the storm. The piazza, usually teeming with tourists in entrance queues that snaked in coils, was emptying out, people looking for cosy cafes in which to sit out the rain. In contrast, she headed straight for the historic church, darting under the cover of the colonnaded marketplace and through the massive doors.
Immediately, the acoustics changed: the storm not locked out from here, but locked in, the torrents gushing through the open oculus, down, down the thirteen storeys to the marble floor below. High splashes kept people back but she didn’t care – she was soaked to the bone already. She turned her face to the sky, panting hard and letting the rain mist spritz her skin. She wanted to be washed clean, set free.
‘Elena.’
The word was like the strike of a bell, chiming to the very heart of her.
She didn’t turn. She didn’t have to. He was right behind her, his voice a heat that warmed her neck. ‘Leave me alone, Aurelio.’
She felt his hand on her arm, turning her. ‘I tried that,’ he said, his intense gaze holding her up.
She blinked up at him, at that face which was to be her undoing. ‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered, feeling the tears begin to fall again. She could see only desolation on the one hand, ruin on the other.
‘Stopping you. You can’t go.’
‘I can’t stay!’ she wept, shaking her head.
He held her upper arms with both his hands, gripping her tightly lest she should break away. ‘Leaving achieves nothing. I should know.’
‘But Vito—’
‘I know! Don’t you think I know? He is my brother. My mirror. My shadow. My soul. He is the better half of me. I am my brother – and I am not. You were right to marry him.’ She looked away, crying harder, but he caught her chin with his hand and she felt the universe click into alignment, propelling him to her. ‘But I wish every day that you had not.’
His eyes probed hers – everything that couldn’t be said swimming between them. This was bigger than the two of them and they had no more fight left.
‘Reli,’ she whispered, letting the
truth write itself all over her face. She felt his grip on her loosen as his own will crumbled at the sight of it, and his breath hitched. They were powerless against it.
‘No!’ The word was violent. He let go of her, trembling with the force. ‘Do you think this is what I want? To betray the person I love most in this world? You make me hate myself, Elena.’
‘I-I’m sorry,’ she sobbed.
‘Are you? Or do you like what you have done?’ His tone was angry, disgusted.
‘What?’ she whispered, her eyes black with shock.
‘Maybe . . . maybe you just want what you cannot have.’ His lip curled. ‘Maybe I am the only thing you cannot buy.’
She smacked his cheek, the slap resounding over the rain. She gasped, shocked and stunned by her own action as she saw fury burn in his eyes, but it was done before she had even known it, instinct overriding everything now. The mask hadn’t just slipped; it was on the floor. They were fully exposed.
He caught her by the wrist and kissed her hard. Angry. Resentful. Yearning . . . She felt it all as her mouth finally met his, their wet skin on fire.
He pulled away, almost throwing her arms down, panting from the effort it took to stay there, the effort it took not to leave. ‘Are you happy now? You’ve got what you wanted. Is it worth it? Is it enough?’
His words were a sneer, and he was already walking away from her – but she’d seen the answer in his eyes.
It would never be enough.
The lights blazed in the west wing. Elena sat on her bed in the dark, watching him pace past the windows. A tumbler of whisky in one hand, he was dragging on cigarette after cigarette. He had arrived home late – too late for dinner. That was just as well, for it had been a disaster, Vito attentive and loving as she had simply stared at the plate of food, unable to swallow any of it down. Elena knew that Milana had thrown Aurelio out of her place after another of their rows – the one that had been brewing all day – but she also knew Milana would already be regretting it, plotting ways to get him back, bring him round again. No woman threw away a man like Aurelio. He was addictive. A drug.
He was at the window now, staring straight across at the darkened windows on her side of the courtyard. Did he know she was watching him? Could he sense her stare?
He hadn’t looked at her once upon his return and she had excused herself early, leaving them to a game of backgammon. Her door was unlocked, yet Vito knew better than to knock on it tonight. She was out of reach to him now. He sensed it, even if he didn’t know why.
Eventually, the lights went off opposite, darkness shrouding the building so that the bats could be glimpsed flitting in the moonlight. She remained where she was, her mind replaying every last moment of the afternoon’s interlude – the tautness of every sinew in his body as he fought both to pull her closer and push her away, the hunger of his tongue invading and claiming her . . .
It wasn’t enough.
She threw back the covers and crept from the room. Shadows leapt in the ghost light, her bare feet warm on the cool floor as she ran through the galleries, past the eyes of the cardinals and kings, popes and dukes, her hand on the bannister as she curved down through the palace. At the ground floor, she ran the length of the east wing to the Papal Suite and to the secret door hidden behind an enormous tapestry of the Last Supper. Without even glancing at the back-to-front throne, she slipped from the room, flying down the stone staircase and into the service tunnel. Ironically, Maria and the rest of the staff never used it.
The unremitting blackness was shocking – there were no windows, no lights at all down here – and she felt the damp chill her bones with every step. She walked with her arms outstretched, using the rough face of each wall to guide her in the dark, though she stumbled as she trod on loose rocks, her pedicured feet too soft for this hostile environment. She cursed that she hadn’t thought to put on slippers at the very least, but then, if she’d allowed herself to think, would she be down here now?
A small sound ahead made her stop, her heart jackhammering. What was that? A rat? Rats? She froze. It was as far now to go back as to carry on. And in this darkness, she couldn’t run. If she screamed, no one would hear. She scarcely dared to breathe, waiting to hear it again. If only she could see something, but it was so dark, she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face.
When the hairs on the back of her neck rose, she knew she wasn’t alone.
She knew he was here. And he was right beside her.
‘Aurelio.’ She felt his hand on her right hip, turning her, pushing her back to the wall, his mouth on her neck, grazing her skin with his teeth. She moaned, arching into him, away from the rough surface that stippled her skin as his grip on her tightened. The strap of her nightgown fell off her shoulder and his head fell to her breast, his lips teasing her nipple and making her gasp. She wrapped one thigh around him, wanting more now, unable to wait. This had to be done; it wouldn’t be denied. He pushed the silk night-dress up and grabbed her other leg, lifting her up and onto him.
By the time her feet touched the ground once more, she was lost. And nothing could ever be the same again.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rome, August 2017
Her eyes hurt. Almost eighteen hours spent looking at the screen had left her with a headache and she stretched out her stiff neck as she stirred the arrabbiata. Guido came back down the stairs that led to the roof terrace.
‘We’re out of ice,’ he said, walking to the fridge and filling a small bowl from the icebox.
‘Well timed, this is ready,’ she told him, beginning to spoon out their dinners. ‘Help me with these?’
They took up two bowls each to the roof terrace. Alé and Matteo were already settled at the small table there, chattering away as sparrows hopped hopefully at their feet.
‘Cesca, you become more Italian by the day,’ Alé grinned, pinching a basil leaf between her fingers and sniffing it appreciatively.
‘Not with those freckles,’ Matteo quipped.
‘Hey, if you two had kids together, I wonder what they’d look like?’ Alé mused curiously, looking between them both.
‘Alé! Don’t give him material to work with, Jesus,’ Cesca sighed, tutting.
‘That’s easy. They would be dark, like me,’ Matteo said in a smooth voice, sliding into his seat opposite her. ‘My genes would overwhelm hers, dominating her into complete submission.’
‘Regression,’ Guido corrected, but he was laughing as he said it.
‘Urgh,’ Cesca groaned as they fell about. ‘I can’t believe you can ever get any girl to go out with you.’
He shrugged happily. ‘And yet, somehow, they are lining up . . .’
‘Shame it didn’t work out with the hot dentist, huh?’ Alé asked him, pouring them all another Aperol spritz.
‘For her, maybe.’
‘Matty!’ Cesca chided, chucking a paper napkin at him. ‘God, I can’t believe Nico thought you were my boyfriend.’
Everyone looked at her.
‘What?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
‘Nico? That’s the guy from the bar?’ Matteo asked.
‘The guy from the sinkhole?’ Guido asked at the same time.
‘Sorry? Did you say the guy’s an arsehole? Yes, that’s him,’ she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Eyebrows were raised.
‘I didn’t know you two had a thing,’ Alé said, her fork poised in mid-air.
‘We didn’t. We don’t.’
The eyebrows went higher.
‘So then . . . why are you calling him an arsehole?’ Alé probed, echoing Cesca’s English accent.
‘And if he’s such an arsehole, why are you bringing him up?’ Matteo added.
‘He’s older, right?’ Guido asked.
‘That’s the one. He was pushy as fuck at the bar. Wanting to take you home himself . . .’ Matty added.
‘Ooh,’ Alé giggled flirtatiously.
‘Exactly,’ Matteo said, chewing quickly. �
�Which was why I was having none of it.’
‘He was hot – from what I remember.’ Alé frowned. ‘Am I remembering it right? He was hot?’
‘Yeah, he’s hot,’ Cesca mumbled. ‘It doesn’t mean he’s not an arsehole, though.’
‘What’s so bad about him, then?’ Alé asked.
‘He’s always so bloody grumpy, for one thing. And he always thinks he’s right. About everything. And he never lets anything go. Plus, he just barges in whenever he feels like it. He’s a total nightmare to work with.’
‘Do you work with him?’ Guido questioned.
‘Well, same difference – it’s the same building, it’s hard to escape him.’
‘Yeah, of course – one of the largest private buildings in the city, you must be constantly stepping on each other’s toes.’ Matty winked at her.
‘Don’t laugh at me! I’m beginning to get seriously claustrophobic in that place,’ she muttered. ‘It feels as if there are eyes everywhere.’
Guido glanced up from his food. ‘That’s because there are – Velázquez, Caravaggio, Raphael, Leonardo . . .’
‘I mean it,’ she snapped. ‘The place is creepy.’
‘Well, just remember what she’s paying you,’ Alé said, eyebrows hitched up at the others at Cesca’s sharp tone, warning them off the topic.
‘Oh, trust me, it’s not enough for this shit,’ Cesca said viciously, sinking back into the black mood that had been snapping at her heels all evening.
‘What do you mean?’ Guido asked, reaching over to cover her hand with his. ‘What’s wrong, babe? You’re not yourself tonight.’
Cesca groaned, sliding her arm along the table and dropping her head onto it. ‘Urgh, I’m sorry, I’m just . . . hacked off.’
‘Why?’ Alé asked.
Cesca gave an enormous sigh, as though even breathing was exhausting. ‘Because I don’t like being lied to and it turns out Elena’s basically been feeding me a fairy tale that bears practically no resemblance whatsoever to how her life really was.’