The Rome Affair

by Karen Swan

  ‘He’s pretty much finished now. They’ve mapped the tunnels and completed all their examinations – there’s nothing more to do down there so they’re going to start filling in the sinkhole. Supposedly he’ll be done by the end of the week. And I need never see him again!’ She was aiming for brightness, but it came out as a monotonous chant instead.

  ‘Good riddance!’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I guess it should be easy enough to avoid him between now and then.’

  Cesca thought of the thousand-room palace. ‘You’d be surprised,’ she muttered. ‘I might have to start using the tunnels myself, just to avoid seeing him. Did I tell you there’s one that goes into my building?’

  ‘No!’ Alé exclaimed, delighted by the idea.

  ‘Well, there is. Straight from the palazzo to Signora Dutti’s sitting room.’

  ‘Could be useful when it’s raining,’ Alé grinned.

  Cesca straightened up suddenly – remembering something. ‘Signora Dutti.’

  ‘What about her?’

  She squinted, thinking hard, thinking back. ‘On Saturday night, Nico called her Maria.’

  ‘What was he doing with your landlady on Saturday night?’ Alé asked with a cocked eyebrow and a half smile.

  Cesca rolled her eyes. ‘He was getting her to sign off the paperwork for the tunnel, but it’s not that . . .’ She looked at Alé. ‘Elena’s old housekeeper was a woman called Maria.’

  Alé squawked in amusement. ‘Listen, I hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of women in Rome called Maria.’

  ‘I know that, but . . . she lives right across the square from the palace. And she’s been so vociferous about Elena – well, her and Signora Accardo – telling me to stay away from her, calling her a wicked woman and all sorts of things. I mean, why do they care so much?’ Her eyes narrowed in deep thought. ‘Unless Signora Dutti is the Maria who worked there, and something happened?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it must have been pretty bad. You should hear how she goes on about her. It’s as if she thinks I’m going to be contaminated.’

  Alé looked sceptical. ‘It’s a long shot.’

  ‘Is it, though? It seems to make perfect sense to me the more I think about it. Maybe she knows something. After all, Elena is clearly lying about her past.’

  ‘Did you confront her?’

  ‘I tried, today.’

  ‘How did that go?’

  ‘A total disaster. She blanked me. Literally. I could have been a wall. But you can be sure that’s why she’s got me jumping through hoops. I told her outright that I know everything: about her little boy, about her brother-in-law’s mysterious death—’

  ‘Wait, what’s so mysterious about it?’

  ‘The official line is he died in a car crash – but I saw the photos, Alé. It was just a knock; a prang, really. No one could have died in that accident. They’d barely have been bruised.’

  ‘So then, what happened to him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘But maybe Maria does. There’s definitely a secret Elena is trying to keep and if you ask me, as the former housekeeper, she will know something.’

  ‘But how can you tell?’

  ‘Because I’m a barrister, hon. Getting to the truth is what I do.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Rome, November 1989

  The air was sharp, burning the back of her throat and making her ears ache, the ground covered in a thick blanket of crisp brown leaves, which rustled as she walked. Giotto was running ahead on the path, arms outstretched, kicking great plumes of them into the sky. The heavy, pecking pigeons struggled to escape in time, wings flapping wildly as the little boy careered towards them, the string of his woollen gloves disappearing up his sleeves, the bobble on his hat wobbling madly. Like most six-year-old boys, he was both an innocent and a tyrant at once.

  Elena’s stride, behind, was slow. She was tired from another morning of outdoor activities. Her cheeks felt pink from their exertions around the estate, her sheepskin coat bulky and heavy on her shoulders. She had lost weight again recently – losing heart, beginning to give up hope.

  She watched Giotto disappear into the garden room in the west wing, the French door banging dangerously against the wall as he tore into the palace, ready for the hot chocolate Maria had promised on their return.

  She pulled off her gloves and unbuttoned her coat as she stepped through the doors and into the room. Vito was sitting there, the newspaper littering the floor in open spreads at his feet, as though it had drifted there, as though he had stood up without realizing he was still holding it. As though he’d been surprised.

  ‘Darling! There you are!’ Vito said, his eyes enlivened. ‘Look who’s back.’

  As though in slow motion, her eyes slid over to the dark head that was turning to face her. ‘Elena,’ Aurelio said, getting up and staring at her. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

  He had a command of understatement that bordered on mastery.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’d gone out of sight,’ Vito said as Aurelio picked his way past the Lego still on the floor from where Giotto had been playing earlier, coming towards her. ‘We weren’t exactly sure where you were in the garden or we’d have come to find you.’

  Aurelio was in front of her now and he stopped, appraising her flushed cheeks, their colour heightened against the white fur of her hat. ‘You look radiant, sister,’ he said lightly but his eyes burned her, as they always did, as they always would. ‘Motherhood suits you.’ He bent down and gently planted a kiss on each cheek and, as he did, she clasped her hands on his arms, her fingers digging into his flesh.

  Two seconds and it was done. Space settled between them again.

  ‘It’s a shame you’ve waited so long to meet your nephew. He’s a young boy now.’ Her voice sounded brittle and tremulous. Was he really here? She’d waited so long, prayed for this moment, and now, on a quiet Monday lunchtime in November, he was back. And it was as though he’d never been away.

  ‘I hear he’s the image of his father,’ Aurelio laughed. Joked.

  Vito laughed too. ‘Come sit, Elena. You must be exhausted. You’ve been out for well over an hour. Maria’s bringing coffee once she’s dealt with Gio. He was through the room before we could stop him. He doesn’t even know Reli’s here yet, he didn’t see him sitting here.’

  ‘It will be odd for him, to see someone who looks exactly like his father,’ Elena said, taking a seat beside her husband – all the better for gazing at his brother.

  ‘But you must have told him about me, surely?’ Aurelio asked, making himself comfortable again.

  ‘Of course, but the idea of you and the reality are quite different,’ Elena said.

  Aurelio’s gaze snapped over to her. She smiled but an unspoken conversation crackled between them. There was so much to say.

  ‘So. How’s Hong Kong?’ she asked politely. God, but not this. She didn’t want to talk about this.

  ‘Bright. Busy.’ Clearly he didn’t want to talk about it either.

  ‘Why Hong Kong?’ Vito questioned, puzzlement in his eyes. ‘Did you really have to go so far? You could have worked in London, Frankfurt. Places much closer to here.’

  ‘Maybe that was the point?’ Elena smiled, her tone slightly mocking. ‘He wants to escape us, darling.’

  Aurelio studied a fleck on his knee before inhaling sharply. ‘Oh, you know me, big brother, forever restless. I needed a change of scene. Can’t stay anywhere too long.’

  ‘Well, you’ve stayed there long enough,’ Vito said warmly. ‘I think seven years is the longest you’ve ever spent anywhere.’

  ‘Is it? Yes, perhaps,’ he said dismissively, stretching his arms out across the back of the sofa, one ankle over one knee, taking up space, taking up the room. ‘Still, it’s taken that long to build up the company.’

  ‘Why did you even set up a company? It’s not like you need to work,’ Elena
said sniffily. Getting over the initial shock, now, of his return, she was beginning to feel angry. Resentful. Seven years!

  Aurelio fixed her with a hard stare. ‘A man could go mad, Elena, if he doesn’t fill his days.’

  ‘So that’s what you’ve been doing for the past seven years,’ she murmured. ‘Filling your days.’ She wanted to scream at him. To tell him she’d spent the last six of those raising his son, waiting for the moment he’d come back through the door so she could lay him in his arms. But he’d missed it – he’d missed it all: the baby years, the toddler years; and now Gio was six, almost seven, and he was becoming every day more like Vito, losing his little-boy wildness to the importance of standing up straight and remembering his table manners, greeting adults with a handshake and a proper look in the eye. He was being groomed to become the new heir. History was repeating itself. ‘Well, I’m glad it’s gone so brilliantly for you,’ she said icily. ‘You are quite the banking tycoon. We’ve never had one of those in the family before, have we, Vito?’

  ‘Popes. Cardinals. Farmers. Vineyard owners. But no, never a banker.’ Vito shrugged. ‘You’re a first, Reli.’

  ‘Oh, no, I’m very definitely a second,’ Aurelio quipped. ‘You beat me every time. I’m always just slightly too late to every party.’

  ‘Fourteen minutes late?’ Vito chuckled.

  But Aurelio looked at Elena. No, four months. That was how late he’d been to their party.

  Elena felt her desperation build. She couldn’t play this game. She wanted to hate him, to rail at him, to punish him for making her wait so long. It was pushing her to breaking point having to sit opposite him, making jokes and talking about nothing, when all she wanted was to run into his arms, to feel his lips upon hers again and to hear him say her name into her hair.

  ‘Still, we’ll have another banker in the family soon enough and then there’ll be two of us,’ Aurelio continued. ‘Safety in numbers, I say.’

  Elena blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Aurelio is engaged,’ Vito said, patting her thigh. ‘Can you believe it? Finally, he settles down!’ He laughed as he saw the stunned expression on her face. ‘Oh darling, just look at you!’ He looked across at Aurelio. ‘See what you’ve done? She can’t believe that you’ve been tamed at last.’

  But Elena wasn’t laughing. Words were stuck in her chest. Her heart refused to beat. Her brain stopped processing, her nervous system fading to black like a computer switching off.

  ‘Her name’s Ling,’ Vito continued, oblivious. ‘She works with Reli. In the mergers and acquisitions division, wasn’t it?’

  Aurelio nodded, fiddling again with that fleck on his knee. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘When will we get to meet her?’ Vito pressed. ‘Finally, I get to have a sister too!’

  ‘Soon. She wanted to come with me now but she’s leading a deal and couldn’t get away.’

  Vito cleared his throat. ‘And the wedding will be . . . here, I hope?’

  ‘Hong Kong. Her family live there. We were thinking February time.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed that we’re not having a wedding in the palazzo, but your timing’s perfect – just after the couture shows,’ Vito said, squeezing Elena’s thigh affectionately. ‘You must be delighted, darling.’

  She felt as if she was falling off a house, a cliff, a cloud. ‘. . . Congratulations.’

  ‘Thank you. We’re very happy.’ Aurelio’s eyes flickered up to meet hers.

  But it was a statement of intent. Not fact.

  ‘Elena.’ Her whispered name carried down the onyx hall as if on a zephyr, like a fairy on a snowflake. ‘Elena, stop.’ She ran, but his words were faster here, travelling down the gallery with a speed she could not match. It was called the whispering gallery for a reason.

  ‘Elena, wait.’ His hand on her elbow, and then she was spun around, into the chest that should have been hers to lay her head on at night.

  ‘What? What do you want me to say?’ she hissed, angry tears skimming down her cheeks. ‘Seven years you’ve been gone and now you’re back to tell me that?’

  ‘Sssh,’ he said angrily. ‘Do you want him to hear?’

  ‘He’s on the phone, he can’t hear anything. He never hears anything. He can’t even see what’s right in front of him!’

  Aurelio looked up and down the length of the gallery. ‘I’m doing what’s best, Elena,’ he whispered, pleading with her to understand.

  ‘Best for whom?’

  ‘For all of us. You know that. You know there’s no other way.’

  A sob escaped her. ‘How can you say that?’

  He held her upper arms, the fingers almost closing round her biceps. ‘Because we can’t keep doing this, Elena. We have to find a way to stop it once and for all. It doesn’t matter what I do, how long I go for, whenever I see you . . .’ His eyes raked her face. ‘I forget myself. I forget about Vito. And I can’t allow that to happen. I won’t.’

  ‘So you’re just going to keep living on the other side of the world? That’s your plan?’

  He nodded, a pulse in his jaw. ‘It’s easier when you’re not there. I can almost believe . . .’

  ‘What? That it never happened? That I don’t exist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The word drew blood and she shook in his arms. ‘Do you know – every day, when I have looked in Gio’s eyes, all I have seen is you. He’s the image of you.’

  ‘He’s the image of Vito too.’

  ‘No. You. He’s got your spirit.’ She looked up at him blindly, his face obscured in her vision by tears, her hands spreading on his chest. ‘Reli, I’ve missed you so much. There’s another way. I know there is,’ she said, the sobs coming hard now and hitching up her shoulders. ‘We can leave here. Together. Start a new life for ourselves somewhere – wherever you want. Just say it and we can go. Tonight.’

  ‘Elena, no.’ The word was firm but his face was tense, his own eyes filmy. ‘For once in my life, I am trying to do the right thing.’

  ‘Then I hate you for it.’ She tried to step away from him, beginning to tremble, feeling herself lose control, but he gripped her harder, almost lifting her onto her tiptoes.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘I do. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.’ His eyes fell to her mouth. ‘I love you.’

  What happened next was entirely reflexive – his mouth on hers, their arms wrapped so tightly around each other she thought her ribs might crack, her heart burst. And for years afterwards, Elena reflected that one moment had been like a crystal glass falling to the floor, something whole – beautiful and perfect – spinning in the air for several final moments before it smashed into obliteration. Destroying itself.

  He pulled apart from her. ‘Elena,’ he whispered.

  ‘—Mama?’

  Gio ran down the long gallery and took her hand, blinking up at her, a rim of hot chocolate encircling his upper lip.

  ‘D-darling,’ she laughed, an edge of hysteria in her voice as the shock of being discovered made her tremble. ‘Just look at you! You’re covered in chocolate!’ She rubbed her thumb against his velvety skin but the chocolate had dried already. ‘Oh, look. It’s all dried.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Gio asked in a small voice, his eyes staying on her the whole time as he took her other hand, as though pulling her away.

  ‘W-why, that’s Papa,’ she stammered.

  ‘No.’ Gio looked away from her towards Aurelio, but the boy would not – or could not – make eye contact, his gaze stuck shyly on his uncle’s hand, directly in his eyeline.

  ‘But of course it is.’ She felt her heart leap almost clear of her chest. ‘Oh! You big meanie! Are you teasing me?’

  He looked up at her again, big eyes blinking. ‘Why were you crying?’

  ‘Oh, darling. I wasn’t.’

  ‘You were. I heard you.’

  ‘They were happy tears, darling. There’s some wonderful news – Daddy’s brother has come back after al
l these years and he’s so excited to meet you.’

  Gio’s eyes slid over to Aurelio again, this time looking up to take in the face he knew so well, the hair, the clothes . . .

  ‘But you must run along quickly and get cleaned up before you meet him,’ Elena said hurriedly, turning him around by the shoulders and pushing him gently in the opposite direction. ‘We don’t want Uncle Reli thinking you’re a vagabond. Hurry now.’

  The little boy ran down the corridor, his shoes squeaking on the floor.

  Elena waited till he was out of sight and then turned back to Aurelio, wiping her cheeks dry frantically. ‘You need to get changed. Right now.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Rome, August 2017

  It was only the second time Cesca had ever been in the downstairs apartment, the first time being to collect the keys when she moved in. There was no doubt her rooms upstairs were superior – brighter, more open, and of course with access to the tiny roof terrace at the back – but the narrow steps weren’t going to become any easier for a woman of Signora Dutti’s age to navigate.

  Cesca was sitting at the small, square, dark wood table, over which was draped a hand-worked lace cloth. A bowl of oranges sat in the middle beside a stubby red candle, the wax coagulating in beaded drips down the sides. Signora Dutti was hand-grinding the coffee beans, the rich aroma perfuming the dim room, as a light breeze drifted in through the open front door.

  ‘I saw Signor Cantarelli the other day,’ Cesca said, wishing she didn’t even have to say his name. She didn’t want to think about him. Not at all. Ever.

  Signora Dutti glanced over. ‘Yes?’ she said in a meaningful tone, a knowing smile on her lips. ‘So did I. He has been here, looking for you. Last night and again this morning. I told him I did not know where you were.’

  ‘Oh.’ Cesca stalled, wondering why her landlady had such a crafty look on her face. ‘Well, I’ve been staying over with my friend, Alessandra.’

  Signora Dutti nodded, but her eyes danced. ‘He was quite persistent. I had to show him your room was empty.’