by Jess Foley
And yet with Gentry there had never been the slightest hint of the closeness that had once existed between them. On the few occasions on which they had met following Blanche’s arrival in Sicily – over those days during her visit to Messina and on the two occasions when he had brought Marianne to the villa on the Via Catania – their behaviour with one another had been the model of propriety. They had never once been alone together, and their conversation had been that of distant friends. In fact, Blanche later said to herself, from Gentry’s behaviour now on the few occasions when they met it was almost impossible to believe that there had ever been anything between them. Then, however, looking at Adriana’s dark hair and the set of her eyes, it would all come back. It had not been a dream.
And something else now. She was aware now that Gentry also knew about Adriana.
Though he must have wondered, Blanche had often told herself. He must, surely, in observing the date of Adriana’s birth, have counted back the weeks, and in doing so he must have seen the significance of the dates.
Blanche’s awareness of his awareness had come during the second of the two visits that he and Marianne had made to Palermo, when they had arrived without notice at the villa on the Via Catania. On that latter occasion Alfredo was still absent from the house on a trip to the sulphur mine at Sierradifalco and was not expected back till the evening. Marianne had arrived first at the villa, in a cab, and later during the afternoon Gentry, his business concluded for the day, had also appeared at the door.
On seeing Adriana again Gentry had bent to her, smiling warmly, his hand gentle and light upon her dark hair. Then, conspiratorially, he had whispered to her of a gift, and delving into his pocket had brought out a little necklace made of tiny shells and coloured beads. After Adriana had shown her delight over the gift she had happily allowed him to fasten it around her neck, after which Gentry sat back on his heels and exclaimed on how well the necklace suited her. ‘But you must see,’ he said, and straightening, he lifted her up in his arms and held her up before a glass.
While the little happening took place Blanche and Marianne were sitting over their teacups, Marianne with her head bent as she sewed a button onto her coat, a button which had come off on the journey from Messina. Blanche, however, all observance, had missed nothing. Smiling, watching the little scene with pleasure, her eyes moved from the face of Adriana to that of Gentry as they looked into the glass together, their faces side by side. And then so clearly she saw it, that likeness that was there between them, a likeness about the eyes, the set of the brow. With the sudden realization – she had known it was there, but had never had it so clearly demonstrated – her eyes flicked from one to the other. And then suddenly she had found Gentry’s eyes looking back into her own, focusing on hers in the glass. And so it was that she knew beyond question that he knew also.
And as she watched his eyes left hers and he swiftly and softly kissed Adriana’s cheek before setting her down on the floor again.
And, of course, nothing was said.
Adriana had turned from the pond and was moving slowly away, her attention taken by the activities of a small group of children who played with a ball. She stood on the sidelines, watching them, one part of her wanting to join in, the other part afraid of them and – with their dirty faces, their ragged clothes – of their mystery.
Blanche observed her as she stood on the sidelines. There was a particular loneliness about the child, she had sometimes found. It was less marked now that Adriana was attending school, but even so she still spent far too much time alone. The melancholy discovery of Adriana’s loneliness would strike Blanche unawares when she would come upon the child playing her solitary games, joined only by friends conjured from her imagination.
Ideally, of course, she needed brothers or sisters, but there had been no more children, no more pregnancies – a situation that had caused Alfredo great disappointment – a disappointment which had, in its turn, contributed to their estrangement.
Not that he had ever suspected for a moment that Adriana was not his daughter. Her birth had been greeted by him with raptures of delight, and with his first marriage having been childless he had seen Adriana’s birth as the advent of a succession of children. But it had not happened. The sons that he had dreamed of had not appeared. Consequently, Blanche often thought, any love that he was capable of was invested now in Adriana. And, as he did with Blanche, he treated the child with a possessiveness that brooked few other claims on her affections.
Getting up from the bench, Blanche wandered over to Adriana and took her hand, and they continued on their stroll. Attracted by the sound of music they idled for a while listening as two ragged men played on a mandolin and an old clarinet a melody that Blanche recognized as the Serenade from Bizet’s La Jolie Fille de Perth. When the tune had ended she gave Adriana a few centimes to drop into the clarinet-player’s misshapen old hat which he held out to them. ‘We’ll go on home now, shall we?’ Blanche said, adding, ‘If you like, we’ll go by the pasticceria and buy some pastries. We can have them with our morning coffee.’
Emerging from the park they stopped by the equestrian statue of Garibaldi where Blanche retied the lace on Adriana’s boot and then set off back along the wide Via della Libertà, after a short distance stopping at a small pastry cook’s shop where Blanche bought two little tarts filled with cream and candied fruit. Leaving the shop they moved back towards the main street, as they did so passing a young goat boy who crouched beside an open doorway milking his goat for the customer who stood waiting nearby, the money for payment in her hand. There was no fresher goat’s milk than that bought by the Sicilians.
Reaching the villa on the Via Catania Blanche let Adriana and herself in. As they entered the hall Edgardo appeared with his usual ghostlike silent steps, and Blanche told him to tell Anita the maid that she could serve the coffee now, and that signorina Adriana would have her hot chocolate.
‘Si, signora.’ With a slight inclination of his head, Edgardo turned away. Watching as he moved silently across the cool tiles of the hall floor, Blanche asked herself once again why it was that Alfredo almost invariably left Edgardo behind when he went away on any of his business trips. Did the answer lie in the tangled skeins of Alfredo’s jealousy? Did Edgardo remain behind in his master’s absence in order to keep a watch on her? It was, she felt, in view of what had transpired over the years, more than likely.
Blanche and Adriana sat in a small room overlooking the sunlit courtyard to drink their coffee and chocolate and eat the rich little pastries. As they sat there Adriana rocked in her arms a little golden-haired doll that she had been given for her fourth birthday in May.
Looking out onto the courtyard the thought went through Blanche’s head that she could not foresee any way in which things would change now. Not for the better, anyway. She had made her bed, as the saying went, and now she must needs lie on it. Though the question had often insinuated itself into her consciousness as to whether she had indeed had no alternative but to marry Alfredo. She could have married George Marsh, whose love for her had been tried and tested and shown to be real. But then the thought would come to her of the baby. Could she have married him and allowed him to believe that Adriana was his own daughter? And in her moments of greatest honesty she knew the answer to that as well; had he had sufficient money then the answer was yes. Poverty had wrought enough havoc in her life and in the lives of those she had loved and lost, and with Ernest’s death she had determined that it should have no further power over her as long as she could prevent it. But even so, who was to say that she could not have been open and honest with George?
Sometimes, looking back, she felt that had she told him of her expected child he might well still have married her. He had loved her, she had never been in any doubt of that. Nevertheless, she had chosen Alfredo, the richer man; and in doing so she had chosen to live here in Palermo, Sicily. And, she had to admit in her more honest moments, the thought that not only Marianne but also Gentry
was living on the same island had never been that far from her consciousness.
That evening after Betta had put Adriana to bed, Blanche went up to the child’s room to hear her prayers and tuck her in. Afterwards, sitting on the edge of Adriana’s bed she leaned down and kissed her.
‘Goodnight, darling.’
‘Goodnight, Mama.’
As Blanche straightened, Adriana added:
‘Betta was crying again.’
Blanche sighed and shook her head. ‘Oh, dear.’
‘Has she really got to leave?’
‘Well …’ What could she say? ‘I’ll talk to Papa,’ Blanche said.
‘Yes.’ Adriana’s hand came from beneath the covers, reached up and very gently touched Blanche’s cheek.
‘Your poor face.’
Blanche’s smile was ironic. ‘Yes, I know.’
A pause and then: ‘It was Daddy, wasn’t it? Papa did it, didn’t he?’
Adriana’s words took Blanche by surprise so that her lie – ‘No, no, of course not’ – came too late to be convincing. With a little sigh, Adriana simply said once again:
‘Poor face.’
Blanche held on to Adriana’s little hand, kissed its soft palm. ‘Now, you go to sleep.’
Later, in her own room, Blanche sat before the glass and looked again at her cheek. The swelling had gone down now, but the flesh over the cheekbone and near her upper lip was discoloured by the bruise. The words went through her head: ‘I don’t know how much more I can take’ – and she realized that she had spoken the words aloud.
Sometimes, when she found herself dwelling on her lot, she would tell herself that she had no reason to complain. After all, she had never loved Alfredo. She had used him, used him to escape from the threat of a situation that had promised nothing but destruction – used him to ensure that Adriana had a start in life free from opprobrium and any stigma. Even so, in committing herself to her role as Alfredo’s wife she had tried to be a good wife. A good wife. The words echoed in her mind. But it was true. Her own efforts, however, had not been enough; so swiftly everything had gone sour.
And the reasons, she knew well, were not only due to Alfredo’s jealousies and intolerance. In fact, she sometimes said to herself, they were probably the symptoms of other ills. And she didn’t need to look far for those.
Ever since their marriage the feeling had slowly dawned upon her – she found it inescapable – that Alfredo was being increasingly driven by some compulsion within him. And it was all to do with their financial situation. But piecing together bits of information gained over the period of their marriage she had learned that the money and assets Alfredo owned had all come from his father, an ambitious man who had started with nothing, but who with great imagination and flair had ended up making a fortune from various interests. Sadly, although Alfredo had inherited his father’s money and material assets he had inherited none of his business acumen. As a result – and so creating one of the greatest ironies for Blanche – that financial security she had so desperately sought was now slowly but surely draining away like water through a sieve.
Alfredo, of course, had taken steps to halt the downward slide of his fortunes, but his lack of sound judgement had continued to prove a great disability and he had ended up in a worse situation. Consequently, in desperation, he had sought some other means of turning the tide – and had turned to gambling.
His growing addiction to the gaming tables had taken a disastrous toll and Blanche had seen their finances going steadily downhill. She had watched helplessly as he had disposed of more and more of his assets; already his interest in the sulphur mine at Sierradifalco had gone, as had much of his export business here in Palermo. And the changes, the losses, were continuing, the effects on the lives of those at the villa showing in various ways. Adriana’s young nurse was only one of the servants who had been given notice to quit in recent times. Several of the servants had been dismissed over the past few weeks, and some of them after years of faithful service – and all the dismissals had taken place without any consultation of Blanche.
It was the matter of Betta that had led to the quarrel that morning. Blanche, trying to make conversation, had asked him how his business had gone in Messina. He had replied non-committally.
Covertly she observed him as he drank from his coffee cup. He looked different in many ways from when they had married. He had put on a good deal of weight for one thing, his body having thickened considerably, particularly about the waist and neck. He looked older than his forty-five years. It was not so much the coarsening of his body that she observed now, however, but his expression; there was a haunted look on his face, which, she realized, had been growing stronger over recent weeks.
Carefully choosing her words – aware that the morning was never the best time to approach him on any difficult matter, but necessary in view of his impending departure from the house – Blanche at last brought up the subject of the young nurse. Betta was so upset, she said. Would he not reconsider her dismissal?
No, he replied, he would not.
‘But she’s been here three years, and she’s so good with Adriana, and so trustworthy and obliging.’
‘Adriana’s at school now,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t need a nurse.’ He shook his head and added: ‘Don’t interfere.’
‘I’m not interfering. It concerns me too. I’m not a guest in this house.’
He said nothing to this. Blanche added:
‘Alfredo – Betta has nowhere to go. She has no family. She has no one. Please don’t send her away at a time like this. Couldn’t we at least keep her till after Christmas? Wait till the spring; she’ll find it easier then to get employment.’
‘The decision has been made. The subject is not for discussion.’ He pushed away his half-full plate and got up. Blanche, trying to recover the lost ground, said:
‘You haven’t finished your breakfast –’
‘I’m not hungry any more.’
‘Alfredo, please …’ She rose from the table and moved to him. ‘Reconsider it, please. Let Betta stay – at least till the spring.’
‘I told you – the subject is not for discussion. The girl has to go.’
‘Yes,’ Blanche said angrily, ‘– you’ll send her away, as you’ve sent away the other servants, but Edgardo you allow to cling to you like a leech.’
‘Don’t push me too far,’ he said quietly.
‘Have you no heart? At least let her stay till after Christmas.’
‘The girl is going. She’s an unnecessary expense.’
‘Expense?’ Blanche said incredulously. ‘She eats like a sparrow and you pay her a pittance.’ Then, her growing anger at the injustice driving all her caution away, she added with a sneer: ‘The truth is that the pittance you pay her might finance an hour or two for you at the casino. We mustn’t lose sight of that, must we!’
It was then that Alfredo had stepped forward, hand lifting, and struck her the blow in the face.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was on Alfredo’s return that Blanche learned that they were to leave the house on the Via Catania, that they were, in fact, to leave Palermo altogether.
Alfredo, it transpired, after storming out that morning after striking Blanche, had gone back to Messina. He stayed away for three days. On his return to Palermo he took a cab from the railway station and entered the house tired and irritable after the long train journey along the coast. He was met in the hall by Edgardo who took from him his travelling bag and at once went to run a bath for him and set out clean clothes. Blanche, hearing Alfredo’s voice, went into the foyer as he started up the stairs. He gave her a brief greeting, not meeting her eyes, then brusquely told her to delay dinner until he was ready to eat.
Over dinner he and Blanche sat facing one another across the dining table, waited on by Edgardo and Anita, one of the two remaining maids. They ate for much of the time in silence, when they spoke keeping their conversation to safe matters. When dinner was over
they retired to the library where Alfredo sat smoking his cigarettes and reading his newspaper while Blanche sewed. She was in the last stages of making a dress for Adriana, with coloured threads of silk working on a complex pattern of smocking on the yoke. Pausing in her work, glancing up over her needle, she caught Alfredo looking at her. It was then that she learned about their coming departure.
‘We shall be leaving here soon,’ he said, lowering his newspaper, ‘if everything goes right.’
Her needlework forgotten she said after a moment’s pause: ‘Leaving here? You mean, this house?’
‘Palermo.’
And that was the way it was done. No consultation. Just the bald statement: they would be leaving soon. There was no warmth between them at all now, Blanche said to herself.
‘Leaving Palermo,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘And going where?’
‘Messina.’
‘Messina?’
‘Am I not speaking clearly?’ he said. ‘Must you repeat everything I say?’
She bit back the retort that rose to her lips and said instead: ‘Am I allowed to ask why we’re going?’
He sighed. ‘It’s a matter of economics. It’s pointless to keep this up – this interminable travelling back and forth, dividing my time between Palermo and Messina. I’ve long thought it would be better to concentrate all my interests in one place, and now the opportunity’s here, and I’m going to take it.’
Blanche said nothing. She was sure that his decision had come not as the result of choice but very likely as the result of necessity. At the start of their marriage he had appeared to enjoy travelling between the two cities, overseeing the export and distribution of the citrus fruit, the olives, the soap, and the sulphur that were his stock in trade. Other journeys had taken him regularly to Sierradifalco near Caltanisetta where the sulphur mine was situated. Now, with the mine disposed of, he was left with his depleted interests in Palermo and Messina – whatever such interests were; Blanche did not know; he had long ago ceased to take her into his confidence and there had never been a time when he had discussed with her anything connected with his business that did not directly affect her.