The Road from Midnight

by Wendyl Nissen

  “Now sip your wine, sit back and prepare yourself for the best pasta al forno you have ever tasted.”

  And with that he kissed me lightly on the head and returned to the stove.

  I would like to say I was relieved, but in truth I was a bit deflated. After months of not having sex and not even feeling like it, suddenly I needed it, and I needed it now. I sipped my prosecco and told myself to calm down.

  As Marco busied himself in the kitchen I came to my senses. He was the sensible one of the two of us and I was not in any state to have a relationship, I needed to keep it simple.

  “You are such an honourable man, Marco, I do love you,” I said forcing myself back into the real world. “And your food.”

  It was the best pasta I had ever tasted. He was right again.

  The next day Marco told me he had invited a friend over for dinner.

  “If you are staying then we need to sort out your visa. You are technically an overstayer here. I think the only reason you haven’t been kicked out is because Agapeto has pulled a few strings but we need to make you legal and I think Gaetano can help.”

  That night I met Professor Gaetano Risso, a gruff, eccentric sort of Italian who spoke heavily accented English and seemed amused by his good friend Marco’s situation.

  “I have never known Marco to have a woman in this apartment for a visit, let alone move in with him,” he confided in me while Marco was cooking.

  “Oh we’re old friends, Gaetano. Nothing to worry about there,” I reassured him.

  “To be honest, dear Jane, I always thought Marco was … you know … a bit … well … gay.”

  “Oh don’t be ridiculous,” I laughed thinking of our long kiss the other night with confidence. “He’s anything but, we did used to date you know. Marco is just one of those guys who is focused on his work, he always has been, which makes me even more grateful that he is giving me the time and energy to help me when I need him so much.”

  “Yes, I am so sorry to hear about your daughter’s disappearance,” said Gaetano. “And I hope that I too, can be of help to you.”

  I poured him another glass of wine and then the three of us sat around the table and hatched a plan which would have me enrolled in the study of Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the Universita Ca’ Foscari which was just around the corner. This would give me a year long study visa, and Gaetano assured me it didn’t really matter if I didn’t turn up much. He would make sure I met the requirements, it was the least he could do for his good friend Marco who had helped him restore his beautiful apartment.

  And realising I had another year in Venice if I wanted it forced me to ring my former PA Christie and ask her to find a rental firm to rent out my house for me. I could do with the income and as long as Charlotte’s stuff was safely in storage it would always be there for her when she came home. I knew that Christie would find someone reliable to pack up and store Charlotte’s bedroom safely, if she didn’t do it herself.

  The first few days after the “kiss” were a little difficult. I lay in bed at night wondering if Marco would come to me and release us from our bonds of righteousness. But he didn’t. Then I couldn’t stop staring at his body when he walked out of the bathroom with just a towel around his waist, or when he reached up to get a plate out of the cupboard and his T shirt rode up to reveal his gorgeous flat stomach.

  “He does look a bit gay,” I thought to myself, Gaetano’s words ringing in my ears. “In fact a lot about him fits a gay sterotype, the apartment, the clothes … oh stop it!”

  But it didn’t really matter because thanks to his kindness and love I was reawakening from the numbness of grief which had clouded around me and my self image. I had been a grey woman in a grey world. Now it felt like someone had opened the curtains and let a glimmer of sunshine through on a spring day. When I looked at myself naked in the bathroom mirror I suddenly realised I had a body, and it wasn’t half bad. The weight I lost had stayed off despite gorging myself on Italian food, my hair had grown a little longer and much wilder, which I thought suited me and my face had lost that tight look it had taken on the night Charlotte disappeared. I still had a worry line between my eyebrows which I accepted as my Charlotte tattoo. A physical mark which would never let me forget.

  After about a week Marco and I were back to normal, fooling around the apartment together, watching bad movies, reading bits of our books out to each other and just being happy in each other’s company. The “kiss” had sealed something and helped us realise that we were both very special to each other.

  “Why don’t you ever go back to New Zealand?” I asked him one night as we were tucking into some of Sandro’s fagarto on the corner.

  “I can’t stand it,” he said with his mouth full of calve’s liver. “The minute I arrive my mother is all over me with a million questions about my life, and when I’m going to get a wife and why I’d rather spend my time in old smelly buildings than living in clean, green New Zealand. You know what I’m talking about.”

  I didn’t need reminding. Marco’s mother had torn us apart and broken my heart. She wasn’t my favourite woman in the world.

  “It’s just too much pressure, and the moment I came to live in Italy I felt as though I had come home, even though I wasn’t born here. I guess it’s a case of genetics over environment. This is where I belong,” he said. “This is where I will always belong.”

  “I have to agree with you. You certainly seem very grounded here and I just can’t see you down the pub drinking pints with your mates in New Zealand while you watch the rugby. There isn’t an ounce of Kiwi about you. Are you sure your father is your real father, because they don’t come more Kiwi than him. You seem so much more sophisticated than that, more European I guess.”

  “I have wondered what genes I share with my rugby, racing and beer swilling father. But there are similarities. We are both very patient men, Jane,” he said looking over the rim of his wine glass with those sparkly blue eyes turned up full to 100 watts.

  “Oh are you Marco, I’m so glad to hear it,” I returned. “I’m also happy that you feel so connected to a place, and one of such beauty and history. I wish I felt like that somewhere.”

  “Don’t worry you will, you just need to connect to yourself first,” he said smiling.

  Daisy was the only person who wasn’t concerned about the fact that I stubbornly refused to come home. She said I was still in the “bargaining” stage of grief and sent me Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s book On Death and Dying and another one about the healing powers of water, called Ripples of Wonder. She reasoned that being surrounded by water in Venice was worth analysing from a natural healing perspective and was interested in my thoughts. I read the grief book, just a little annoyed that Daisy seemed to have accepted that Charlotte was dead, when I hadn’t. But I was interested in the five stages I would be passing through which were just as valid for loss of something or someone such as a divorce or a break-up as for someone dying. I realised that by the time Lawrence left I had been through denial, and was firmly in anger. Now I was indeed at bargaining, which I did daily in church with the saints and my chats with Charlotte. It was quite possible I was stuck with my bargaining, but as long as I felt that awful grey fog that had surrounded me slowly lifting, I figured I was on the right path.

  I heard little from home, from my former colleagues and friends, because Lawrence and Shonagh had seemingly done a good job of assuring everyone I was barking mad and a lost cause. And they probably just didn’t care anyway now I was of no use to them. I was no longer the Queen of the Women’s Magazines, or Queen of the Long Lunch. I couldn’t help anyone be famous or increase ratings for a TV show. I was just this sad woman on the other side of the world pining for her lost daughter. Not a lot of glamour involved with that. Which was fine by me.

  It would be rushing things to say I was moving on from losing Charlotte at six months. I still looked at every five-year-old girl with blond hair I saw and more than once walked right up to a
little girl to have a good look at her, much to the astonishment of her parents. I believed she was still alive with a conviction I couldn’t explain.

  “Tell me why you are so sure she’s alive, Jane,” queried Marco as we sweltered in the mid-summer heat of Venice, wondering if we should take a few days off and find somewhere cooler.

  “I don’t know, Marco. I’d like to say one of those many saints I talk to gave me a vision, or I had a dream. I do have dreams and in them she is always happy. I see her smiling and she is in a very cold place, there is snow everywhere and there is a man, a much older man with his hand on her shoulder,” I explained, pleased to finally talk to someone about my dreams.

  “Well that could just be your subconscious sending you that message. Something in your head trying to make you feel better,” Marco suggested.

  “I know, I’ve thought of that, but why the same dream over and over? Surely my subconscious is a bit more creative than that and would have her at the beach or at a playground or something. It sounds crazy but I’m convinced that dream means something.”

  “Jane, all I know is that if it makes you feel better, then it’s a good dream to have isn’t it? And if you believe she’s alive then that is your belief to have.”

  “Don’t you think I would like to be able to believe she was dead? I could close the book then, move on and finish the grieving. It would make my life so much easier. Instead I’m stuck in this half life with dreams and hope with a good dash of a religion I don’t even have the right to believe in. As long as I see that smile, I just believe she’s alive,” I muttered, feeling tears welling up again. I was so sick of those tears.

  “Come here,” soothed Marco. “ You keep believing and you’re not in a half life here with me, Jane, it’s a real life, and one I think we will look back on one day as being quite magical.”

  And for the first time in a long time I hadn’t heard from Jim Craig. Not one letter, phone call or message. It would seem that the daughter he wanted to claim so badly didn’t mean that much to him after all. Friends in Auckland told me he was a bit of a sad case around town, having become an even bigger drinker and pothead. He’d also hooked up with a woman who seemed more impressed that she was living with the formerly famous Jim Craig than anything else and made it difficult for any of his old friends to keep in touch. I didn’t care. I loved being free of him for the first time in my life. Maybe that was why I couldn’t go home. Maybe Venice was my Jim Craig safe house.

  14

  In Venice you meet a lot of men like Agapeto. He was a common garden blend of macho beef, old wealth and a strident belief that the world was his to enjoy. But he came into my life at a time when I needed to be spoilt and he was a pleasant distraction. I had been in Venice for eight months, eagerly enjoying my new course at the university, still finding peace and serenity in my half life there, still in my bargaining stage of grief and Marco and I had settled back into our strong sense of companionship.

  Agapeto surprised me by asking if I would like to spend a few days in Sicily with him. He was going to stay with his brother and his wife and said he would love to show me the “real” Italy. Where people smile and are friendly just like the old-fashioned Italians, not like the tourist-harassed Venetians.

  I didn’t see any reason not to go, although Marco wasn’t impressed.

  “I know you two have become friends, Jane, but he’s a policeman. On your case. You can’t mix business and pleasure, it’s just not right,” he complained as we strolled down to the campo for dinner.

  “You can be such an old fuddy duddy sometimes. I’m not mixing business with pleasure, we’re not going out or anything. We’re just friends and I’d love to see more of Italy. Come on, be honest, you’ll love having a few days to yourself,” I laughed as I nudged him.

  “No I won’t,” he said, marching ahead. “And Sicily is highly over-rated in my opinion,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  When I finally caught up with him at Sandro’s, already sitting at our table and scanning the menu moodily, I told Sandro he was having a grumpy day.

  “That is not possible, Marco has been the happiest I have ever seen him since you came to live with him,” he said.

  Marco glared at him and then at me.

  “Did you once have a bad experience in Sicily, Marco?” I asked carefully. “You mentioned an archaeologist you knew there. Did she hurt you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that. This has nothing to do with it. I just don’t want you to go. I’ll miss you and I’m sorry I got so grumpy,” he said as he reached out and held my hand with one of his long sparkly blue-eyed looks. “Just watch that Agapeto. I know his type. He’ll be trying to get into your pants the minute you hit the ground.”

  “Shut up! He’s not going to do that. We’re just friends, and besides I’m a grieving mother who can’t handle a relationship, remember?” I teased.

  “Sardines look good,” he said changing the subject. “They eat a lot of sardines in Sicily.”

  A week later I was on the plane to Sicily with Agapeto by my side. When he had called to pick me up he looked completely different. Gone was his leather jacket and loafers. Instead he was in old jeans with a loose white shirt and sneakers. He looked like he had just stepped out of one of those ads in Vogue where the guy has a sweater over his shoulder and is leading a gorgeous young model in a silk sheath along the beach. And I immediately felt like that gorgeous young model on a day out, full of apprehension and excitement which made me realise how secluded and safe my life had become in Venice.

  “This was such a good idea, Agapeto, thank you so much for taking me with you,” I bubbled. “It’ll do me good to get out of Venice for a few days and see some sunshine.”

  Agapeto reached across and held my hand while his eyes found mine.

  “I’m so glad you are coming,” he said in a sultry voice I’d never heard before. And when he failed to release my hand I wondered if Marco might be right about the pants and the hitting the ground. And I felt strangely excited at the prospect.

  As we drove from Syracuse to Agapeto’s family home I couldn’t believe the number of orange and lemon trees littering the countryside and how like New Zealand the weather was. All sunshine and sparkles. When we turned into the driveway of a huge palazzo I forgot to breathe for a moment.

  “Agapeto, this is so beautiful, it’s like, well it’s a palace isn’t it? So beautifully preserved and just look at these grounds. “Who owns it?” I asked.

  “Me,” he said, grinning.

  “What do you mean you? That’s impossible. Why would you live in Venice when you own this?” I said, incredulous.

  “Because I love my work and to live here I would need to be a winemaker, which my brother does much better than me and he actually owns half. So he lives here and looks after it and I can come and use it whenever I like. One day I will live here, when I get sick of working and have the patience to tend the grapes,” he said as he pulled the rental car into the stables.

  As we got out of the car, several barking Labradors came up to greet us followed by three over excited children who threw themselves at Agapeto, obviously very much in love.

  “These are my nieces and nephew,” he managed to get out. In Italian he told them to say hello in English to Jane. Which they did with various degrees of success.

  As we sat at the huge table for lunch with Agapeto’s brother, Stefano, and his wife, Mirella, being served by their staff, I had to stop myself gaping at the huge oil paintings on the wall, the sheer weight of silver and crystal surrounding us. I was sitting in one of the grandest houses I had ever been in and viewing Agapeto in a very different light.

  “I have surprised you, no?” he said after lunch as we walked along the olive tree grove with the dogs and children in tow.

  “How did your family become so wealthy? Here was I thinking you were just an ordinary policeman and you are bloody Italian nobility!” I shrieked.

  “The Leggièri are a very old Sicilia
n family. Our blood line dates back thousands of years and we have always been big land holders,” he explained throwing his arm around me casually. “We made our money selling off the land and eventually stopped with the palazzo, which has been in my family for centuries,” he explained.

  “Surely you don’t need to work then, if there is so much money?” I asked.

  “No I do not. But I happen to be quite good at it, and if I didn’t I would be very bored and I would never have met such a beautiful woman as you,” he smiled and pulled me closer.

  There he was with that look again.

  I spent the afternoon playing with the children and realising how much I had missed being around the simplicity and ease with which children communicate, even if their English isn’t very good. My Italian was good enough to play some games and romp around the garden with them.

  “You are not finding the children too upsetting?” asked Agapeto thoughtfully.

  “No, not at all. At first I started thinking about Charlotte, especially as little Michela is about the same age. It has been very reassuring, I should spend some more time around children I think.”

  As I went upstairs to dress for dinner Mirella explained the sleeping arrangements.

  “I’m sorry Jane, I had thought you and Agapeto were together,” she whispered to me in her halting English. “I was misinformed, mi dispiace. I will have someone come and remove his suitcase to another room. Okay?”

  “Oh no problem, thank you so much Mirella, ha ha,” I replied slightly embarrassed.

  When I got to my room Agapeto was lying on the bed with a huge grin on his face.

  “I told Mirella we weren’t together in that way but we can be if you like,” he said, following me with his eyes as I walked to the window.

  “Agapeto, I don’t know. I think you are lovely, don’t get me wrong. I just wonder how ready I am for a relationship, you know?” I hedged.

  “Oh I think you are ready. Perhaps you prefer your old boyfriend Marco to me, is that it?” he grumbled.