The Temptation of Gracie

by Santa Montefiore

  Nothing could have prepared her for the flight. Nothing she had been told about flying compared to the reality. She sat in the squashy leather seat and gazed out of the round window as the aeroplane raced down the runway and then took off. The ground fell away beneath her and the countryside grew smaller, and for a moment she felt as if she had left her stomach on the tarmac. Uncle Hans chuckled, amused. ‘Not regretting you came?’ he asked.

  ‘Not at all,’ Gracie replied and the thought of home and the family she had left behind caused her not the slightest twinge of homesickness.

  Gracie lost her heart to Italy the moment she set eyes on it. It was as if she had always been incomplete, as if she had been missing some vital part of her essence and had only now, at this extraordinary moment of recognition, realised it. She breathed in the warm, aromatic smell of foreign plants and flowers and felt her spirits come alive, like buds opening in sunshine. Uncle Hans’s driver was standing to attention in a navy suit and cap beside a gleaming white Lancia, the kind of car Gracie had only seen in magazines; the kind of car that belonged to film stars. The light bounced off the bonnet and it was dazzling, brighter than the brightest summer’s day in London.

  They motored into the countryside. Gracie sat on the back seat and looked out at umbrella pines and undulating green and yellow hills, soft as velvet, aglow beneath an azure sky, and the Italian her uncle was speaking to the chauffeur grew distant until it was a drone, like the distant buzzing of a bee. Wild poppies grew among emerging crops, pretty farmhouses with terracotta roofs nestled among plumes of cypress trees and Gracie had never seen anything more beautiful. While she had gone about her daily life in grey, smoggy London, this paradise had existed here and she had never known it. It seemed impossible somehow that this great wealth of splendour had been hidden from her, that had it not been for Uncle Hans, she might never have seen it. Her gratitude for him swelled; this magician who had spirited her away to heaven, and she wished her mother, Oma and Joseph could see it too.

  Uncle Hans lived at the end of a long farm track, in a big, square-shaped villa built in the same sandy-coloured stone as the farmhouses Gracie had seen en route, with a tiled roof and large windows with green shutters. It enjoyed a wide view of uninterrupted hills and forests, and was just the sort of place she expected her wealthy uncle to live in. Three men in uniform appeared to take their luggage (to Gracie’s relief her suitcase had miraculously appeared in Pisa Airport) and a young woman with olive skin and shiny brown hair hurried out to welcome her master home. Gracie returned their smiles and said a shy hello, which they understood perfectly. Her uncle put his hand in the small of her back and showed her around the manicured gardens where topiary had been clipped into perfect spheres and borders of lavender saturated the air with their sweet perfume, and everything was set against a chorus of chirruping crickets and twittering birds. There were fig and lemon trees which Uncle Hans told her would bear fruit in September, and olive groves from which he made his own oil. The gardens seemed to swell with fecundity, as if they could barely contain their enthusiasm to grow and propagate. Gracie could feel the energy rising up from the soil like heat on her skin. It made her feel alive, and she was seized by a childish desire to roll about on the grass and laugh out loud.

  Her bedroom was simple but comfortable, with windows giving out onto two sides of the garden. On one side lay a terrace, where there was a table and six chairs, partially shaded by a fig tree, and on the other side a lawn, with a stony path lined with topiary, leading towards a pagoda and an arrangement of garden chairs. Gracie could imagine her uncle sitting there, smoking and reading the newspapers away from the sun.

  It didn’t take her long to unpack, she didn’t own much. When she went downstairs she searched among the rooms for her uncle, airy, comfortable rooms, lavishly but tastefully decorated with tapestries and shelves weighed down with books and objects. The girl who had greeted them on arrival appeared and directed her to a converted barn at the back of the house. When Gracie pushed open the big door it was clear at once that this was the hub of Uncle Hans’s business, the workshop he had told her about. It smelt not as she imagined an artist’s studio should smell, of oils and turpentine, of dusty wooden frames and canvases, but of something else she didn’t recognise. It was immaculately clean and tidy, more reminiscent of the chemistry laboratory at school than the art room. Paintings were displayed on and stacked up against whitewashed walls, easels carried old and damaged pictures waiting for attention, shelves were crammed with bottles of coloured liquids and tubes of paint, shiny jars with brushes and instruments she’d never seen before. There were cupboards and drawers and everything seemed to be clearly labelled. The large windows were blocked with shutters to cut out all natural light and the overhead electric lights and lamps secured onto the easels gave the room a scientific feeling. Gracie noticed a large fan extractor with a long tube which hovered over a small trolley on wheels on which were a tray of paints and small jars of chemicals. The place reeked of toil and industry.

  A man looked round from behind one of the easels. The top of his head was bald and so shiny that the light attached to his easel seemed to bounce off it. The little hair he had was the colour of straw and curled around ears as large as the stroopwafels Oma made for breakfast. His face was kind with an aquiline nose and small eyes twinkling through a pair of round spectacles. ‘You must be Gracie,’ he said in a slow, deliberate voice, lifting his brush off his work. She nodded. ‘Then you are to be my apprentice,’ he added and Gracie noticed that he spoke English with a strong Dutch accent like her grandmother.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she replied, looking round for her uncle.

  ‘My name is Rutger. I have known your uncle for nearly fifteen years. How old are you, Gracie?’

  ‘Nearly fourteen,’ she replied.

  The man nodded gravely. ‘Your uncle tells me you have a fine talent.’

  ‘Where is my uncle?’ she asked.

  Rutger nodded towards a door at the back. ‘He is in his studio.’ Gracie began to make her way towards it, but Rutger stopped her. ‘No, you are not allowed in there. That is Hans’s place of work and he does not like to be disturbed. Why don’t you help yourself to an apron and bring that stool over here so you can see what I’m doing.’

  Gracie did as she was told and sat down. ‘I am restoring part of a Renaissance altar piece,’ he told her. ‘It is my job to restore it to as close to its original state as possible. One can only do one’s best to reach an interpretation of the original work, you understand. To do that, patience and understanding are required, of course, but above everything, the ability to interpret. That is the prime job of a conservator. That is what I am going to teach you to do.’ Rutger began to carefully dab the surface with his brush. ‘When you look at a painting you have to first look beyond the image. You have to appreciate all sorts of things, like when it was painted, what it was painted for, what it is painted on, what is the material of the frame, and you have to have sufficient knowledge of the history of materials and the ageing process to have a good idea of the artist’s intent. To be a skilful painter is only the first step and it is a very small step. You have to be a detective.’ He looked at her steadily and Gracie saw that his eyes were amber brown. ‘And I am going to teach you everything you need to know.’

  ‘Uncle says that you are the greatest restorer in Europe,’ said Gracie.

  ‘He flatters me,’ Rutger replied. ‘But I am not too modest to admit that I am, indeed, very good.’

  At that moment the door at the back of the room opened and Uncle Hans stepped out. ‘Ah, I see you two have met,’ he said, noticing them at once.

  ‘The first lesson has begun,’ said Rutger.

  ‘Good,’ said Uncle Hans. Gracie’s eyes strayed into the room behind him but her uncle closed the door and locked it with a key. There is nothing more alluring than a locked door and Gracie’s curiosity was at once aroused. But she wouldn’t be invited into that room for many years, and when sh
e was, at last, permitted to enter, there would be no going back from what she would see within it.

  Chapter 5

  Italy, 2010

  Heathrow had changed since Gracie had last seen it, but Italy hadn’t. Not really, not in its soul. The beauty was still as arresting as it had been the first time she had experienced it. When she was young it had filled her with excitement and joy, now it was charged with melancholy.

  The journey out had been tense. Carina had spent most of the time at the airport on her mobile phone either talking to her assistant, or reading and replying to texts. Anastasia had barely looked up from her phone either. She had said a vague hello to her grandmother on meeting, but avoided Gracie’s questions by looking busy and complaining of being tired. Gracie was patient. Her thoughts were far away anyhow, returning cautiously to another time, before either Carina or Anastasia were born.

  Gracie had noticed that her daughter had been getting increasingly pale and thin over the years. She was far from the plump girl she had been when she had left Devon and gone to London in search of her dream. The intervening decades had not been kind. She looked harassed and responded to Anastasia’s demands for food and drink with exasperation, as if her daughter was a nuisance. Gracie had managed to make her granddaughter smile by buying her a croissant and a juice while Carina had crouched beneath the escalator taking an important call. But the smile had soon vanished as Anastasia returned to the game she was playing or the friends she was communicating with on social media. Gracie didn’t understand these modern telephones. In her day people had talked to each other.

  In spite of her sulkiness, Anastasia was a very pretty girl. Gracie recognised Rufus’s features, which translated particularly well onto a feminine face. But more than anything Gracie recognised her own eyes, grey-green encircled by a darker shade of grey, and she smiled proudly because it was the eyes that gave her granddaughter’s beauty its uniqueness. She didn’t think the girl was even aware of how lovely they were. Gracie considered Carina, who had her father’s brown eyes, and wondered whether it was through dieting or stress that she had lost her bloom. Anastasia was fortunate, for at her age bloom was something that was given freely, and entirely taken for granted. Then Gracie considered herself and the loss of bloom, and she remembered the saying, ‘Youth is wasted on the young,’ and thought how very true that was. A woman only really appreciates beauty when she is beginning to lose it. But Gracie had never been beautiful like Anastasia. In her little floral dress and pink pumps Anastasia didn’t realise the effect she had on the men around her. Gracie didn’t imagine she’d be able to ignore their attention once she got to Italy.

  Gracie’s prediction was spot on. The moment the three women arrived in Pisa Anastasia was drawn away from her phone by the ill-disguised interest on the faces of the Italian men. ‘Don’t look them in the eye,’ Carina told her as they marched through the airport towards the taxi rank outside. ‘Just keep your head down and don’t give them any encouragement.’

  ‘It’s a compliment,’ said Gracie, trying to keep up.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Carina retorted. ‘They’ll look at anything in a skirt.’ Well, considering they weren’t looking at Carina, that was clearly not true, Gracie thought. As for herself, no one had really noticed her even when she’d been young.

  Castello Montefosco was in a town called Colladoro, an hour’s drive away. Carina and Anastasia sat in the back, giving Gracie the front and allowing her to be alone with her thoughts, for the driver did not expect her to speak Italian, or did not care to find out. Carina had told him where to go in pidgin Italian, but he seemed to know it, nodding enthusiastically. There was a crucifix hanging from the rear-view mirror and a photograph of his wife and children clipped to the dashboard. The sight of the happy family brought a lump to Gracie’s throat. She put her fingers to her lips and turned her head to look out of the window. If she was emotional now, how was she going to feel when she got there?

  The countryside swept her back into the past, to the place where the other life she had lived remained abandoned and ignored. The sight of the acutely familiar veil of dusk that was now settling over the hills, turning them pink, revived her memories, and it could have been yesterday that she was walking across the fields, soaking up the majesty of sunset. It could have been yesterday, and yet it wasn’t. She felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes and opened them wide to keep them at bay. How could something so old feel so alive? It had been over forty years, and yet, her heart was beginning to beat faster and the palms of her hands were beginning to sweat, and she felt the nerves churning her stomach to liquid. Was it rash of her to come? What did she expect? How great would be the disappointment if . . . She reined in her thoughts as they suddenly ran ahead of themselves. No, she wasn’t rash to come, she told herself. She was old. Time was running out; she didn’t want to die without knowing.

  Carina and Anastasia sat on the back seat, busy on their phones, unaware of Gracie’s growing apprehension and the magnificence of the world outside their windows. Occasionally the landscape caught their attention and they turned their eyes to the glass and looked out. But their attention was soon caught again by the buzz of the phone and they pulled their eyes away, unmoved by the splendour of the Italian twilight.

  It was dark when they saw the lights on top of a distant hill. The sky was a deep indigo blue, the first stars twinkling brightly like moonlight catching the waves on a dark sea. Gracie caught her breath and realised that up until that moment her whole body had been rigid with anticipation. She ached all over. ‘There it is,’ she said, and Carina and Anastasia looked up from their screens.

  The town that clustered round the hillside beneath the castle glittered like fairy lights and Gracie thought how little it had changed. It could have been 1955; as if the years that had opened up like a great canyon between then and now had suddenly closed. The silhouette of the hills set against that royal-blue, eternal sky was as it had always been, even before Gracie’s heart had claimed it. ‘Eccoci qua,’ said the taxi driver and Gracie nodded, relieved that it was now dark so he couldn’t see her stricken face. The car motored slowly along the narrow road and then began the climb that meandered gently up the hill. Gracie rolled down the window and inhaled the scent of pine, wild rosemary and thyme, and let the rhythmic sound of crickets soothe her, like a melody, drawing her out of her thoughts and into the still, balmy night. She gazed at the familiar buildings as the road swept round a corner and entered the town. At once the place came alive. Locals sat at small tables outside the trattoria drinking wine and eating pasta, women walked with their arms linked on their way to dinner, children played freely and scrawny mongrels trotted along the pavement in search of supper. The town was busy with activity, the air thick with the smell of cooking onions and grilled meat, and Anastasia switched off her phone and began to look around with interest.

  At last they reached a pair of iron gates held up by ancient-looking stone pillars. The driveway was lined on either side with cypress trees, which stood to attention like shadowy sentinels, and there, at the top, was the castle. Gracie caught her breath. She could see it glowing through the trees. It hadn’t been lit up like that in her day. ‘I’m hungry,’ said Anastasia.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll have a big plate of spaghetti waiting for you,’ said Carina. ‘Personally, I could do with a large glass of wine,’ she added, cheering up at the thought. Gracie was too emotional to speak. She was too stiff to move. She didn’t know how she was going to get out of the car. Suddenly she was paralysed with fear.

  The taxi reached the top and swung round to the right to draw up in front of the big portone. Carina and Anastasia climbed out, happy to stretch their legs, eager to get inside. Gracie waited, gripping the handbag on her lap with pale hands. She turned her eyes to the young man walking towards them from the castle entrance, presumably to fetch their bags, then peered behind him, half expecting to see someone else. Her door opened unexpectedly and she nearly jumped out of her sk
in.

  ‘Ci siamo arrivati, signora.’ It was the taxi driver, smiling at her kindly.

  Gracie composed herself. ‘Grazie,’ she murmured, taking his hand and letting him help her out of the car. ‘Finalmente. Sono stanca morta.’

  ‘Lei parla italiano!’ he said, surprised.

  ‘Si, un po,’ she replied.

  Then her daughter was beside her, looking concerned. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ she asked, feeling guilty for not having been more attentive. ‘You must be tired. Let’s go inside. Shall we eat first or go to our rooms and then eat?’

  ‘Our rooms,’ said Gracie, yearning for solitude.

  ‘I’m starving,’ moaned Anastasia.

  ‘Granny wants to go to her room first, so you’ll just have to wait.’

  Gracie was too distracted to notice her granddaughter roll her eyes impatiently.

  Gracie let her daughter help her up the steps and through the big door. She felt ancient, as if she’d aged a decade in the short time they had been in the taxi. Her heart was beating very fast. She didn’t think it was healthy to be in such a fluster. She gripped Carina’s arm and staggered inside.

  It was apparent the moment they entered the castle that this was not a hotel but a private home, and a rather threadbare home at that. There was no reception desk, no lobby, no formality at all. Dusty old paintings hung around the hall in gilt frames, the red walls looked as if they could have done with a fresh coat of paint and the antique furniture with a good polish, and yet the place vibrated with warmth and hospitality. An enormous shaggy brown dog lay sleeping on the tiled floor and the woman who came forward to greet them had to step over it to reach them.