Coming of Age

by Valerie Mendes

  “When?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  Is that all it was? I feel as if I’ve had that card all my life.

  She runs a hand through her hair. It is burning hot. “Before then, I hadn’t heard of you.”

  “So Lauren . . .”

  “She never spoke of you.”

  “Ah.” Sharply, he turns his head away, as if she had stabbed him in the neck. The card falls to his side. “I hoped she’d have told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  The blue-green eyes meet hers. “She was planning to live with me.”

  “What?”

  “And to bring you with her. She said she would only come if you came too.”

  “To live here? At the Villa Galanti?”

  “Where else?”

  “I don’t believe you.” Tiny pinpricks of diamond light begin to sparkle in the shadows closing around her.

  “Ah, Amy. It is the truth. Your mother . . .”

  “I thought you killed her!”

  He spreads his arms in a gesture both passionate and pathetic. “She was the love of my life.”

  The sunlight has completely disappeared. Amy’s legs give way to the darkness. Marcello springs towards her. The scent of Blue Grass fills her head.

  He catches her before she falls.

  She hears him say, “Che succede? It is the heat. Come, lean on me. Let me take you indoors.”

  Twelve

  Afterwards, Amy could not remember crossing the garden, only that the cool shade of the hall came as an immediate and welcome relief.

  As they walked through the loggia, she became aware of Marcello’s arm around her waist, the taut muscles of his back. He was shorter than Dad, a smaller man, and younger; perhaps even ten years younger. Younger than Mum.

  The loggia opened on to a long terrace whose high arched windows overlooked the valley. A table had been laid for coffee. Marcello made her sit. She dipped her head between her knees, trying to get the world into proper focus.

  Marcello vanished. He came back a minute later with two elegant curved glasses. “Here, drink this.”

  The brandy stung her throat. She coughed. He swallowed his in one easy, practised gulp. He stood over her, watching while she emptied her glass. Then he poured the coffee, added brown sugar, stirred, and handed her a cup.

  “Thank you.” It was an effort to speak.

  He sat beside her, near enough for her to notice the dark hair covering the backs of his hands, his manicured fingernails, the immaculate crease in his white trousers. The dark aroma of coffee rose into the air.

  Marcello’s blue-green eyes locked into hers. “We have much to say to each other.”

  She nodded. The hot liquid gave her strength, cleared her vision of the diamond sparks dancing across the floor.

  “Will you have lunch with me? Spend the afternoon here, so we can talk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Amy, Amy.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I did not kill your mother. I do not know what happened that morning. I was not there. Please, you must believe it.”

  Amy forced the question out of her mouth. The words emerged slowly, as if they walked towards Marcello in a funeral procession. “Are you telling me the truth?”

  Marcello reached out for her hand, his fingers amazingly cool. He lifted her hand to his lips but they did not touch it. She wanted them to. She wanted, more than anything, the reassurance, the touch, of his mouth. His eyes flickered at her, making her heart lurch.

  “Only the truth,” he said.

  “Everything began six years ago, on 14th April.” He leaned against the stone balcony, facing her.

  “I was flying to London that afternoon for a sale at Christie’s. Claudia and I quickly checked the post. There was a letter from Lauren Grant. She’d seen a feature on my gardens in a magazine, asked whether I would grant her permission to use the photographs, how much they would cost.

  “I told Claudia to ring her and suggest we meet at my hotel in London the following afternoon.” He gave Amy a wry smile. “For your English afternoon tea. I said I would bring with me some more recent photos. When I reached Browns Hotel, there was a message saying she would meet me. I thought no more about her.

  “Next morning, I went to Christie’s. I bought nothing. I had lunch alone. It was badly cooked. It was raining. The traffic was a nightmare, there were no taxis. I was tired, soaked to the skin. All I wanted was a hot bath and to be on my plane home.

  “Lauren was waiting for me in the lounge, in one of the armchairs by the window.” Marcello turned away to gaze out at the valley. His hands clenched by his sides, his voice softened. “I shall never forget that moment. I thought: Good God, she is the one I have been looking for.”

  Amy was astonished at the surge of jealousy that enveloped her. Lucky Mum! To have Marcello fall headlong in love with her, just by sitting in an armchair!

  Marcello looked round at Amy with a fleeting smile. “I gave nothing away. We smiled politely, I ordered tea. I took out the photos I had grabbed from my office. I discovered to my dismay they were the wrong ones, taken of very early work on the gardens. They were useless for Lauren’s purposes.

  “I apologised. Lauren was charming. She wanted to see the early photos. She said the project would make a marvellous book. We began to talk about the Villa Galanti. I told her of its history.”

  Your famous “introduction”. Mum must have been spellbound, gazing into your eyes. Imagining this valley, this villa . . .

  Marcello sat, staring into space, locked in his memories. He went on talking, but Amy only half listened. What did the details matter now? All the explanations in the world weren’t going to bring Mum back.

  Amy and Marcello ate lunch on the terrace. At first she did not think she could swallow anything. But the food was light and succulent: gentle, slippery pasta; pink rack of lamb with aubergines; pungent, grainy cheese.

  Marcello told Amy how Lauren and Julian had paid him a surprise visit at the villa that August. Marcello had persuaded them to spend the rest of their stay with him.

  How he and Lauren had walked and talked. They had planned a book about the Villa Galanti they would write together, during the autumn and into the winter months.

  “We kept it secret, that we were writing a book together. I had all the photographs. I could tell Lauren how I had restored the villa and created the gardens from a thousand olive trees. She put it all into better English than mine.” The blue-green eyes smiled at her. “Much better.”

  Amy said awkwardly, “But your English is excellent.”

  He brushed aside the compliment. “I wrote this card,” he stroked it with his thumb, “the afternoon she left with Julian. I took them to the airport. Then I drove into Florence and paced the streets trying to find her a gift: something to show her she had captured my heart. Scarves, perfume, pottery – they all seemed so ridiculous. So I bought this haunting image and spelt out what I felt.

  “It was the only written message I ever sent her. We had to be careful. I telephoned her at times we had arranged. She wrote to me: long, wonderful letters. I still read them. I shall keep them always.”

  “After she left, where did you meet?”

  A cloud of sadness had settled over Amy. Talking about Mum in ways she never had before – as if she were a stranger from a long-distant past – stabbed her with pain.

  “I came often to London. From the moment she arrived at the villa we were deeply in love. I saw it in her eyes. She saw it in mine.”

  “And Julian?”

  Where on earth was my poor brother in all this?

  “He did not like me. He was jealous. He noticed his mother’s happiness. Children are quick to see such things.”

  Amy thought of Dad and Hannah. “They sure are.”

  Marcello, deeply meshed in his own story, did not notice her bitterness.

  “When did you decide to live together?”

  The enormity of her question struck her afresh.
She could not believe she might have spent the last six years of her life here, separated from Dad, Jules, Ruth, high in this villa, among these gardens. She’d never have met Chris.

  “In early December. Our book was complete. I had closed the villa to the public. Alone here, with only the staff – we were restoring some bedrooms – I pined for Lauren. Each time we met, it became harder to say goodbye.”

  “But she was married!” A wave of anger flooded through her.

  “I know. She loved your father, Amy. For her, it was a most difficult decision. She had to leave her family, her English life, everything.”

  “And you think she’d have done that for you?”

  “She had the date set for the middle of January, when the villa would be finished.” He looked at her. “One suite was specially planned for you.”

  Amy flushed, outraged. So much had happened without her having an inkling. To hide her anger, she asked, “How did you find out . . . ?”

  “About the accident?” Marcello clasped his hands until the skin turned white. “I rang Lauren one morning in Grayshott, as we had arranged. There was no answer. I had a black feeling in my heart. I caught the first plane to London. At Browns, I rang her again. Another woman answered. I asked if I could speak to Lauren. The woman said, ‘No,’ and the line went dead. I spent a sleepless night.

  “Next morning I hired a car. I drove to Grayshott in the snow. The traffic was terrible. I was frantic. I reached your village around midday. I bought a newspaper. The headlines . . .” His voice trailed away. “I sat in the pub, listening to the gossip.

  “I wanted to see you, talk to you, although I knew you couldn’t . . . I drove past your house, parked a few houses away. I felt – how you say? – numb. As if someone had chopped out my heart and thrown it into the snow. I wished they had. In that car, then, I also wanted to die.”

  “How long did you stay in Grayshott?”

  “I drove back to London that night.” He spread his hands. “I was powerless, useless. I could do nothing . . . Except grieve.”

  When it grows cooler and the last group leave, Amy and Marcello walk in the gardens. He takes her down the hillside, shows her the spectacular views, the trees, the glory of roses and geraniums, the places they will plant in the autumn.

  He falls silent, silhouetted against the Florentine valley. Shadows have deepened beneath his eyes. “You haven’t asked me one important question.”

  “You’ve told me so much.”

  “Certo. I have wanted to meet you for so long. But think, Amy. What drew your mother and I so quickly together?”

  Amy frowns. “The villa? Your photos? . . . Of course, your book.”

  “Exactly. You haven’t asked me where it is.”

  “It was published?”

  “I only wish . . .” He presses his lips together. “But if you like, I can show you where it is. Your own private view . . . One nobody else has seen.”

  They walk up the steep luxuriant slopes towards the villa, then beyond the porch to the left-hand side of the house, where a narrow pebbly path winds into the hills.

  They start to climb. To their left, cypresses herald the edge of the forest. Its density of trees towers over them, casting monumental shadows.

  I wouldn’t want to spend the night alone in there!

  Amy watches Marcello stride ahead of her, intent, purposeful, suddenly reminded how she had watched Dad that dawn, jogging through the garden.

  Marcello swerves to the left. A narrow, half-hidden flight of steps struggles into the trees. He scrambles up, brushing aside the overhanging branches for Amy to pass. The forest clears on to a brief plateau.

  A small chapel hunches in front of them. Its stone walls, faded pink and yellow, are battered by wind and rain, burned by the sun. Ivy clambers between the stones, along the narrow windows, caking the dome of roof. A splintering wooden door, beaten by time, closes a weary mouth against them.

  Marcello fumbles for a key. He swings open the door and beckons.

  Amy steps inside. The cool, damp air lingers over her skin, making her shiver. The floor, rough, unkempt, bulges unevenly beneath her feet; the walls crumble apologetically behind matted cobwebs. The roof looks as if it will fall on her shoulders if she so much as raises her voice. She can smell mice and wild garlic – and the darker, insidious odour of neglect.

  A wooden chest stands in the centre of the chapel, like a shrine. On it perches a candlestick. Its slim, white candle has never been lit.

  Marcello stands against the furthest wall.

  “This little chapel was built by Franciscan monks in the seventeenth century. And on this wall –” he sweeps his arm up to it – “the experts tell us, is a fresco of Christ’s Last Supper by Nicodemo Ferruci.”

  Amy stares up at it, at the mass of dingy, swirling colours, patchy fragments of paint. She can make out the heads and shoulders of men at a long table, and the central figure of Christ, but their faces, the vital details, are lost. Flashes of paint – gold and aquamarine – wink among the Apostles like dragonflies in amber.

  “In the chest,” Marcello gestures towards it, “lie the manuscript and photos of our book. When your mother died, I hid them there. Umberto and I, together we carry the chest from my villa to this cappellina.”

  Amy looks down at it. She remembers standing in the Surrey graveyard in the biting wind, clutching Dad’s hand. Now it feels as if Mum lies buried here, high on this hill, hidden in the beauty of this crumbling sacred space.

  “If Lauren had lived and the book had been published, we would have spent the money on restoring this chapel and the fresco. I had a contract with a publisher in Rome . . . I cancelled it . . . My cappellina will stay like this until it crumbles entirely into dust and the wind blows it away.”

  Later, they stand looking at each other on the villa’s porch.

  “Tonight, I have an engagement,” Marcello says. “Mi dispiace. Umberto will drive you back to your hotel in my car.” He flicks his handkerchief across his forehead. “You leave for Grayshott on Saturday?”

  Amy nods.

  In less than forty-eight hours, I’ll be home.

  “Tomorrow . . .” Marcello’s eyes search her face. “You have a free day, no? You will come again here?” His voice drops. “You will read our book?”

  Amy hesitates. The thought of another lonely day in Florence fills her with dread. She longs to open the chest, to touch the book – to hold a part of Mum in her hands. And she wants to see Marcello.

  He reads her thoughts. “I will take only yes for an answer. Umberto, he will pick you up from your hotel at ten o’clock.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Prego. And Amy . . .” Marcello looks thinner, haunted. “May I keep the postcard?”

  She feels blood rising to her face. “Of course. It belongs to you.”

  Marcello gives a little formal bow. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  “Yes. Until tomorrow.”

  Thirteen

  Amy slithered out of the Mercedes, thanked Umberto and walked up to her room.

  It puffed a stifling heat.

  She perched on the bed, trembling with exhaustion and, unexpectedly, on the verge of tears. She refused to let herself cry.

  Mission accomplished, she told herself sternly. I’ve achieved what I came here to do. I should be celebrating.

  She kicked off her sandals. The pillows felt warm and dusty beneath her head.

  The morning’s anticipation, the heady feelings of achievement and success, had dwindled to disappointment. Talking about Mum had stirred the old pain into a potent, fresh brew. She realised how little she’d known about Mum’s life – and that she’d opened a Pandora’s box of secrets. What might come exploding out of it?

  Could she really trust Marcello? He was so handsome, so seductive. If he wasn’t Mum’s killer, who was? Had she come searching in quite the wrong place? Could the culprit – assuming there was one – be much closer to home? What other clues might there be, maybe r
ight under her nose in Grayshott, that could have led her, long ago, to the truth?

  Amy stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. She shut her eyes, letting the cool water stream over her body.

  The answer to everything is in my head. In that memory of mine that won’t unlock itself, however hard I try.

  She wrapped herself in a towel, flung open the window and stood on the balcony. The sky had lost its radiance. Surly banks of cloud swirled up from the horizon, yet the heat had not abated. Perhaps those drops of rain on the terrace were the prelude to a storm?

  I haven’t solved anything. I’ve scraped at the surface of the truth. I’m terrified of what I’m going to find. But I’m not giving up.

  The sounds of early evening drifted towards her: children bickering; a baby crying; a woman’s voice singing a lullaby. Tinkling scales plodded up and down a piano. A dog barked. Amy longed to be home.

  Perhaps if I stop trying so hard to remember that ghastly morning, stop being so furious that I’ve blanked it out, it’ll come back to me. Just like I found my voice again, from out of nowhere.

  She pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a pale pink cotton shirt. Not a breath of air stirred in the room.

  I need to walk. Into the city, anywhere. Out of this furnace. It’s got to be cooler outside.

  Amy slips out to the Via Guiccardini, over the Ponte Vecchio, past the Uffizi and into the Piazza della Signoria. Crowds sit on the street steps or at café tables. The square buzzes with voices, the chink of cutlery on china, the clink of glasses on tabletops.

  She walks towards the Café Rivoire. It sprawls elegantly on a corner, framed by low iron railings and interwoven terracotta pots bright with geraniums and laurel.

  She decides to have a fruit juice and a sandwich at the Rivoire before going back to her room. She scans the crowd of drinkers, trying to find a space.

  Two pairs of eyes look up at her from a nearby table.