Alchemy (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Serena Fairfax

  As Fabio let himself into the small presbytery, his black Labrador puppy hurled herself at his feet. It was just such a pup that Salvatore had given to Fabio all those years ago that had unlocked the door to Luca’s mind. Playing and chatting to his canine friend, the image of his pet clubbed to death by the gunmen in Mogadishu, he gradually started on the road to recovery. Soon proving themselves as reliable and trustworthy, Jabril and Luca were allowed to bed down on mattresses in Fabio’s garage. Waiting for Luca to be admitted to primary school, Fabio gave him lessons, only to discover that with his laser-sharp mind and talent for math, he was soon humbling Fabio at chess. But the horrific incidents had branded him and he suffered from flashbacks and recurring nightmares from which he’d wake screaming and sweating, even as he consistently shone in school.

  Fabio got to his feet and unlocked the desk drawer with a small key that he always kept hidden. The ritual of checking was ingrained in him. Here were those other things about Luca, about Luca’s Italian side—secrets written down, secrets whispered to Fabio by penitents in the confessional that he was duty-bound to keep confidential, that he could never betray, that would go with him to the grave.

  The memories of yesteryear flooded back. As Maurizio Sr.’s chronic arthritic condition worsened, Fabio recalled how he’d deployed Jabril to the villa to relieve the man of gardening and other heavy duties. Impressed by Jabril’s hard work, when Maurizio’s disability cut short his working life, the Leopoldos employed Jabril full-time, accommodating him and Luca in two small rooms in the servants’ quarters.

  Four years on when Luca turned eleven, Jabril was overjoyed when his wife in England sent welcome news that he was permitted to join her on a permanent family reunion visa. But Luca was excluded, not being a member of Jabril’s family. Jabril longed to see the loved ones he’d kissed good-bye to all those years earlier and, desperate to leave, turned to Fabio for help.

  “Of course we quite understand, Maria.” Fabio placed a comforting arm across her shaking shoulders. Crying, loving the little Luca as they all did, her hands were full caring for her ailing husband and several small grandchildren whose parents had abandoned the countryside to seek better-paid work in the city. He realized why she couldn’t assume any additional responsibilities.

  At his wits’ end, Jabril turned to Salvatore and Catarina for their help and influence to place Luca in one of the better orphanages. Time was running out for Luca, unaware of his fate. Watching the bright, engaging little boy, singing at the top of his voice, marching off to school with his friend Vincenzo, Salvatore and Catarina opened their hearts and home to him. With the blessing of their daughters, blissfully married with several kids of their own and wanting for nothing, Il Principe’s application to the Family Court to adopt Luca was a formality and the appropriate order swiftly issued.

  * * * *

  A few days later, Luca saw Tamsin off at Milan airport, the prospect of parting a powerful trigger for sex that sent them bolting to the roomy disabled-persons lavatory. To her dismay, though, he said nothing, not even lying weasel words, about keeping in touch, and she had a hard time keeping it together. I’ll never drink Prosecco in high summer or eat wafer-thin prosciutto without thinking of him.

  Chapter 4

  The deep bells of St Mary Maggiore tolled eight times as if they were marking off the number of years that had passed since Tamsin had last connected with Luca.

  Solemn, soft music flowed from the organ as she, Ruby and Gareth, still penning his blockbuster novel, watched the entry of the flower-laden coffins. Tamsin shivered, as she looked again at the old shapes in the church so familiar from her childhood, lit by the bright, clear light of an early May morning streaming through the windows.

  Fabio had called three days earlier, his voice choked with emotion, to give her the devastating news of the head-on collision with a drunken lorry driver that had killed Eve, who’d always scorned a seat belt, instantly. In a state of shock, they’d rushed to the bedside of an unconscious Patrick, to whom Fabio had administered the last rites, but were too late to say good-bye.

  Luca sat in the same row on the other side and, glancing at him, Tamsin’s heartbeat sped up. She closed her eyes and mustered her defenses as old memories of shared history dredged up. They’d not set eyes on each other since they’d fooled round all those summers ago. There was still that arrogant sensuality about him. The face was perhaps harder, the line of the mouth firmer, but he was still lean, still a polished, sleekly muscled pagan predator in a dark, designer-label suit. Even from across the aisle he smelled of something virile and earthy. Beside him, Catarina, her head bowed in prayer and covered by a black lace mantilla, drooped frail and sad. The pews were awash with many faces she recognized from the village, conversing in low voices, paying their last respects to la coppia inglese, the English couple, they’d known, liked and were often infuriated by.

  Dad and Mum were gone. Her wonderful, super, understanding father. Her forever friend. And crazy Mum. Tears splashed down Tamsin’s cheeks and Ruby’s head dropped on the shoulder of Gareth, who was holding himself stiffly.

  Luca had made no move to reel Tamsin in as they navigated their different paths and she, oddly diffident to initiate contact, had fallen in and out of love with a succession of other guys, none of who had sizzled in the bedroom. But that hadn’t stopped her from graduating with a respectable honors degree in Italian studies, where she’d spent the third of the four-year course in Rome on a work placement with a bookbinder, restorer and conservator that inspired her to sign up to a similar one-year post graduate diploma, thereafter landing a job in this specialist field and renting a tiny flat up three flights of stairs in a grungy district of London. She’d not occupied it for long when her maternal grandparents were transferred to a care home and Patrick and Eve decided that Ruby should move in with Tamsin. Long, lazy summer holidays in Italy became a distant memory and visits to the casa were fleeting. Patrick and Eve were still open to guests, keen to tap their creative potential, but occupancy rates had fallen dramatically as the competition was fierce.

  From cautious feelers she put out, Tamsin learned that Luca had, after excelling at business school, embarked on a brilliant career in America, naming his price when headhunted by a top New York investment bank. Cut off from Salvatore and Catarina and the villa he loved, he was still haunted by childhood memories that had left him deeply scarred. He visited often to seek the solace of their unswerving, softening comfort, but could seldom stay for long. Maria hung up her apron for the last time, passing the rolling pin to Mirella, the wife of her son, Maurizio.

  When he hit thirty, Luca was appointed to the Board of the investment bank, the youngest ever director in its one-hundred-and-fifty-year history, but the satisfaction of this was tempered by the death of Salvatore later that year. Luca inherited the Leopoldo fortune and assets while Catarina, who’d always enjoyed a significant private income of her own through her parents, was left a life interest in Salvatore’s estate that would automatically vest in Luca on her passing. Executing some fancy footwork, Luca beat off rivals, power-moving back into Milan to spearhead the bank’s new operations and, from Monday to Friday, occupied the retained family apartment in the palazzo, spending weekends at the villa.

  Stuck in the past, Patrick and Eve were unable to throw off the habits of a lifetime and were fractured by dwindling numbers. The competition was slick, cookery superb, from Italian and French classics to seafood platters, offering a pool, luxury accommodation, power showers, laying on shiny buses seamlessly to ferry guests around, impressive excursions led by experts, professional tuition by bestselling writers and award-winning artists and, with even spiritual guidance on hand, could not be beaten on price. Only a few diehards, ageing hippies like themselves, still chose the casa, rather like old style Marxists who’ve failed to recognize that the golden age of the cause has turned to dust.

  * * * *

  The service passed in a blur, and then Mirella and Maurizio were min
gling with drinks and trays piled high at the post-funeral reception held at the casa. After the last mourners had polished off the refreshments, shared reminiscences, retold, with gentle laughter, old tales and some new ones, embraced them and trooped out, Tamsin and Ruby burst into tears and Gareth looked stricken.

  Luca whispered an aside to Maurizio, who gently escorted Catarina, wrapped in her memories of her husband, home. He slid his eyes over the girls. Tamsin was somber in a black status piece, a color he’d never seen her wear, but it suited her. Physically she hadn’t trimmed down, although now she was no longer gauche and celebrated her curves with stylish aplomb. And the little sister—what was her name—at seventeen, with her pale blonde hair, porcelain skin and Bambi-length eyelashes, was entering the realm of serious sex appeal and would be fighting off the boys. They walked into the circle of his arms, pressing their faces against his crisp white shirt, and sobbed.

  “If there’s anything I can do, you’ve only to say.” He held them tight.

  Tamsin gulped. Up close, he looked somehow more remote, inaccessible. The same deep tone of his voice that had haunted her every waking moment still did perilous things to her. Fuck me, Luca. I just want you to fuck me. She’d fallen in love with him without hope, and that was another loss.

  “Thanks,” Gareth muttered grudgingly, his eyes red with grief. He missed Eve more than he’d ever thought possible.

  “It was good of you to get Mirella to do this. It made it so much easier for us. We weren’t up to organizing anything and it would have been ungracious to send all those nice people away un-fuelled.” Sniffing, Tamsin detached herself.

  “It was the least I could do.” Luca’s voice was warm. “ Now, I expect you want to be left on your own so I’ll be off, but remember, I’m here for you, just a phone call away, anytime.” He wished he could do more for them, make the pain go away.

  Gareth pointedly turned his back on him as Tamsin nodded and blurted “thanks” as she saw Luca out. He pecked her on the cheek and, immobilized, she stood staring after him, her heart pinched into frost as he didn’t look back as she hoped he would as he negotiated the crumbling path down to the rough lane. She grappled for normalcy then drifted back indoors where Gareth, tieless and jacketless, slumped in a chair, asking Ruby to pour him a stiff brandy. Reaching for the last pickings, Tamsin flopped down on the sofa.

  Patrick and Eve had made no secret of the fact that they would leave the casa to Gareth and Tamsin in equal shares, on the understanding they would look after Ruby.

  “We could continue the courses.” Gareth jumped in excitedly. “There’s still a fantastic market for this sort of thing that panders to the deluded who pay a fortune to kid themselves they’re going to be the next best thing since the invention of the world wide web.”

  Tamsin wondered if she’d heard right. “You can’t be serious. Have you seen the accounts? Anyway, if you think I’m going to run this place you’ve another think coming, but you’re welcome to try.” She knew he wouldn’t.

  “Well, what about us renting it? We’d derive a fantastic income.” Gareth glanced up from texting his new girlfriend.

  Tamsin regarded him for a moment in silence and exploded. “It’s a dump that needs a helluva lot spent on it. Money we don’t have. No one in his right mind would want to stay here.”

  “Mum and Dad did,” Gareth sharply reminded her, seeing only money signs.

  “They weren’t in their right minds,” Tamsin said bitterly. “They were amateurs who were way out of their depth and ought to have sold up years ago when buyers were still splashing the cash and rural wrecks sold for dizzying sums.”

  Downing his drink, Gareth stood up and opened a bottle of Chianti, giving no sign of having heard her. “I vote we dip a toe in the rentals market. After all, it’s common knowledge Luca has cashed in and earns a phenomenal revenue stream from the estate properties he leases out.” He envisioned himself opening sealed bids from numerous contenders.

  Tamsin threw up her hands. “It may have escaped you, dear brother, that the difference is that he has flipped his into top-to-tail upgrades, luxury vacation homes that are taken up by movie moguls and oligarchs, not an awkwardly constructed ruin like ours.” She paused and poured herself a glass. “But by all means go ahead and see if we get a nibble.”

  Satisfied he was winning, Gareth’s mouth twitched in the prospect of success. “We’ll have to tidy up first.” By “we” he actually meant Tamsin, because Ruby was expected back at school at the end of the week, Tamsin having arranged for her to lodge temporarily with Isla until she returned. Gareth couldn’t wait to get back to London where he’d charmed his way into the heart of a professionally successful, twice-divorced literary agent into trapeze yoga who he was confident would give his languishing magnum opus the kiss of life.

  But Tamsin was having nothing of it. “You mean you will. If you don’t, I won’t agree to a tenancy.” She was fed up with being put upon. He’s not getting a green light from me.

  He looked aghast. “Maybe Mirella and Maurizio would lend a hand.”

  “Try them. I bet they won’t even consider the pittance you offer. Anyway,” she added tartly, “they’ll need Luca’s consent and I can’t imagine you’ll seek that.”

  Damned right, Gareth told himself. I’m not groveling to that scrot. Oblivious to the sea of empty wine bottles and dirty plates, he heaved himself up and lurched towards the stairs. Standing under a cold, dribbling shower staring at a patch of damp the size of Maine on a peeling wall, he told himself they could probably defer the tidying up until he’d explored the mileage in the rentals market.

  With a certain satisfaction, Tamsin let him sweat it out. Over the next few days, he uploaded the casa’s details onto the Internet, describing it with all the creativity he hadn’t lavished on his writing. The few who were seduced by the hyperbole and expressed a tepid interest demanded visuals and Gareth knew that images would be a strong deterrent. Had he been computer-savvy enough, he’d not have hesitated to doctor the photos but as it was, he couldn’t. So nothing came of it.

  * * * *

  “I’m here to say thanks for being so supportive and coming to the funeral,” Tamsin said. Did she imagine it, or did Catarina’s soft gray eyes suddenly sharpen?

  Smelling of something deliciously floral and wearing a silk dress, with a long string of pearls round her neck, Catarina reclined, somewhat melancholically, on a brocade chaise longue in the morning room, listening to Paganini on the radio.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” It was a relief to see Catarina had not gone to seed. Her cinnamon-brown hair had turned a pearly gray, her wrinkle-free ivory complexion, a paean to ceaseless care.

  “Not at all, Tamsin dear,” she sighed, “but perhaps I’ve attended far too many Requiems recently. A kind of funeral fatigue. But it’s so very nice to see you after all these years. What a lovely surprise. Come and sit down.” She patted the chair next to her. “Mirella will bring coffee. Now tell me all about you.” She turned the volume down. “I’ve been re-reading the letters sent to me by my husband over fifty years ago.”

  Tamsin described what she’d been doing and Catarina nodded. “You’ve found yourself an interesting career. There can’t be too many of you doing the same thing. But you’re not a wife and mother?”

  “I’m not married. Never have. Haven’t been foolish enough to!” She’d had boyfriends but knowing Luca, like one of those alpha heroes in romantic novels, had meant they’d not measured up. She’d tasted the difference. “But I’m in no hurry.”

  “That’s what my Luca says, but before you know it you’ll be an oldie like me.” She reached for Tamsin’s hand. “How I miss my beloved Salvatore and long to see him. I feel as though I’m now in God’s waiting room and I console myself it won’t be long before we meet again.”

  “You mustn’t talk like that,” Tamsin reproved her gently. But she knew how she felt, as Patrick’s sudden demise had affected her deeply and, although the shoc
k had receded, the ache seemed to be growing. Tears pricked her eyes and she dragged her thoughts away from him, concentrating on Catarina’s sparkling diamond ring.

  “That looks rather loose. Be careful it doesn’t come adrift.”

  Catarina glanced down. “My fingers seem to have shriveled up in old age. And here’s a story. Once upon a time, I did misplace it. It went missing for five years when I was planting out seedlings and I was heartbroken, as it was so precious to me. It sparked a massive hunt, but there was nothing. It had vanished. Then one day when dear little Luca was helping Jabril with the weeding—Jabril occasionally also did a few odd jobs for your parents but you were very young so you won’t remember him—he plunged his hand deep into the ground and up came my ring, encrusted with earth. He raced in to me with his grubby shoes and muddy hands, bless him. ‘Signora, signora, look, look! It is the Koh-in-noor.’” Her face broadened in a smile. “Such a good, honest boy. From that moment, we knew he was special.”

  “And that’s when you decided to adopt him?” This was getting interesting.

  “Oh, heavens no, that was much later.”

  “Did Luca ever get to know the Italian side of his family?” she said lightly, blundering on. The thought had been darting through her mind like an ant. Dad and Mum, in the usual flap keeping their heads above water, had been rather hazy about what had gone on at the villa.

  Catarina paused and punched the cushions with a surprising degree of ferocity. I’ve steered home a shot, Tamsin thought. Catarina’s mood seemed suddenly to have darkened and her eyes veiled, and Tamsin saw something like a shadow, instantly pegged back, cross her face. “We’ve been so happy together,” she said obliquely, gripping her handkerchief. Then she’d quickly switched back to her old self. “And of course, you’re quite right, I must have it re-sized. I couldn’t bear to lose it again.”