by Debbie Rix
She walked back now, towards the house; the sun filtering through the woods. The gate to the garden was closed, but there was no rope holding it in place. No little child to protect, perhaps. The door to the house was shut and it appeared deserted.
Against her better judgement, she opened the gate and walked through the garden, rehearsing what she would say if Tommaso’s wife appeared: ‘I’m so sorry – my car has run out of water…’ or ‘I’m so sorry to intrude, but I’m lost…’
She knocked on the door, her heart pounding, thumping so loud in her chest, the noise filled her ears. There was no reply. She tried the door handle, but it was locked. Feeling instinctively beneath the pot of geraniums, she found the key. Unlocking the door, she turned the handle and the door opened, just as it had always done, onto the kitchen. It was instantly familiar. Perhaps a few more pots and pans on the shelves, but the same sink, the same table, the same painted dresser. The only sign of modernity in the sitting room was the little portable TV sitting atop an old chestnut table, but the furniture was just as she remembered – even the worn sofa where she and Tommaso had made love…
She climbed the stairs to the bedrooms above. Her room… their room had a double bed covered with a lace bedspread. Had his wife made that? The other room where George had slept now had a pink coverlet on the bed. There were pictures from magazines of American movie stars stuck on the walls. So… he had a teenage daughter. She scanned the room for a photograph of the girl, but there were none. Would she look like him, Rachael wondered? Or like her mother? The box room next door was now a bathroom. It pleased her to think he had some comfort.
Over the distant sound of the waves rolling on the shore in the cove, she heard the unmistakable sound of a motorbike approaching the house from the lane. Her heart missed a beat – perhaps it was him? Horrified to be found in his house, she ran downstairs, through the kitchen, and out onto the veranda, turning the key in the lock, just as a woman appeared at the gate. She carried a basket of shopping and was accompanied by a teenage girl. Rachael struggled not to stare at the girl, taking in her strong Roman nose and dark hair – she looked exactly like her father. So, she thought, Tom had a sister.
‘Ah, mi dispiace,’ Rachael began, hurriedly. She fell into her well-rehearsed line about running out of water for her car. The woman nodded, and as she opened the garden gate, Rachael ostentatiously dropped her car keys and surreptitiously slid the cottage key back beneath the pot of geraniums.
The woman seemed not to notice the sleight of hand. She took her own key from her bag and unlocked the door, went inside and brought out a jug of water, which she handed to Rachael. As she carried the jug towards her car, Rachael felt the eyes of the woman following her as she walked up the lane. She went through the motions of opening the bonnet, pouring water into the windscreen washer compartment, rather than the engine, closed the bonnet and then ran back to the cottage, thanking them for the water and wishing them a good day.
At her hotel, she felt ashamed. What had she hoped to achieve? To spy on someone, was so awful, so humiliating. And what would she have done if Tommaso had been there? Fall into his arms? Show him the photographs of Tom that she had brought with her? Tell him how their son was so like him, that he would have been so proud of him? And how would Tommaso have felt? Hurt, distressed – to think he had abandoned her, left her with a child. Guilty about his own family? What was the point of it? What good could it do?
Rachael ordered a bottle of wine over dinner and took it upstairs, where she finished it, feeling more alone than ever before.
The following morning, she paid her bill and loaded up the car. She had decided to catch the next ferry back to the mainland, and spend a few days in Rome. But as she drove past the turning to the cottage, her heart lurched. She fought the inclination to turn off and take one last look. Driving on into the town, she found the square and surrounding streets filled with people. Abandoning the car on the outskirts, she enquired of a passer-by what was going on.
‘Ferragosto,’ the woman told her. ‘It’s a holiday.’
The townspeople were out in force. Most of the shops were closed and everywhere Rachael looked families were milling about, chatting to one another, enjoying the carnival atmosphere. She went into the grocers’ shop – one of the few still open – and bought a little bag of oranges for her journey. As she put them into her straw bag, intending to walk back to the car, her gaze travelled across the square. In the distance, seated at the cafe, she saw him. His dark hair, cut a little shorter now, greying slightly at the temples. Still the same large dark eyes, the strong Roman nose. He wore an open-necked shirt, with the sleeves rolled up. He was playing cards with a friend. His wife was not with him, nor his daughter.
Rachael stood, her heart beating loudly. She felt the familiar jolt of passion, just as she had done nearly twenty years before. What was it between them – chemistry, or a deeper emotional bond? Part of her wanted to march across the square; to speak to him, to kiss him, to find out if that passion was still there for them both. But she didn’t. She remained on the edge of the square, concealed by a crowd of at least thirty or forty people. He looked content, she thought, as if he has a good life. A man at peace with himself – respected by his friends and the community. He had a role, a home, a wife, a child. She should not disturb his life. What purpose would it serve? Her heart slowed to its normal rhythm and she felt a sort of inner calm. As if a chapter in her life could, at last, be closed. They had both survived. More importantly, their child had survived. His birth had been difficult, he might have died. But he didn’t and had grown into a fine strong young man. In so many ways, they had both been blessed. They had been lucky.
The crowds in the town swirled and moved and, for a moment, a path opened up between her and Tommaso. He looked up momentarily from his card hand. There was a flash of recognition as he caught sight of her. He stood up, saying something to his friend. She smiled fleetingly at him, and then was gone. Back into her car, reversing down the little road and onto the ring road around the town, heading for the causeway back to Cagliari, onto the ferry to Rome, then back to London – and to everything that was most dear.
Chapter Thirty
Sardinia
July 2017
Alex drove the hire car from Cagliari Airport to Sant’Antioco, with Angela sitting beside him. Sophie and her Uncle Tom sat in the back seat.
‘How are you doing?’ asked Angela, peering over her shoulder at her daughter. ‘Not car sick I hope?’
‘No… I’m fine,’ said Sophie, ‘as long as I watch the road.’
‘I can swap if you’d like…?’
‘No, Mum, it’s OK.’
It was a sweltering hot day and the road wound over dry, dusty red hills. The turquoise sea came into view from time to time – inviting glimpses of refreshing blue that appeared suddenly and then retreated just as swiftly.
As they drove onto the long causeway that led from the mainland of Sardinia to the island, Sophie felt a growing sense of excitement. To be following in her great-grandfather’s footsteps, to be in a place he had known so many years before. The town of Sant’Antioco nestled at the foot of a low hill – its apricot buildings in contrast to the bright blue of the sky above and the sea below. Little boats bobbed up and down in the harbour.
‘Oh look… that must be Sant’Antioco! How pretty!’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Angela.
They drove up through the little town and stopped next to the basilica on the main square.
‘The tombs are underneath the basilica,’ said Sophie. ‘Can we park over there – I’d love to just take a quick look.’
‘You don’t want to start work straight away, do you?’ asked her mother.
‘No… I just wanted to get my bearings. It’s only three o’clock. I’ll just pop in for a moment – OK? Why don’t you go and have a coffee at the cafe over there?’
Inside, the church smelt powerfully of damp. There were several lurid statu
es of the martyr after whom the island was named – Saint Antioco. To one side of the transept was a wrought-iron barrier, behind which was the entrance to the catacombs. The gate was locked, so Sophie couldn’t go down, but she had arranged to meet the curator the following day and it was useful to see the layout. A sour smell rose up from the deep underground tombs; a mixture of damp cool earth and stale air. It smelt of archaeological possibilities, Sophie thought.
She emerged from the church, squinting in the bright sunshine, and joined her family in the cafe.
‘Coffee?’ asked her mother.
‘No… thanks. I’ve given it up. Along with pretty much everything else.’
Afterwards, they headed towards their hotel, out of the town, following the satnav on Sophie’s phone.
‘Keep going along this road,’ she said to her father. ‘It winds along the coast for quite a way.’
The island was neither lush nor green. The ground appeared sandy and there were rugged grasses sprouting up along the sides of the road. Road signs encouraged visitors to turn off towards the ‘spiaggia’.
‘Looks like there are lots of little beaches to visit,’ said Sophie.
Their hotel was in the middle of a promontory that jutted out into the sea. A lighthouse stood a hundred metres or so from the shore – its revolving light warning boats to beware the outcrop of rocks that surrounded it.
The hotel, painted a shade of dark terracotta, seemed to rise up incongruously from the pale sandy dunes. It had turrets at one end, giving it the air of a Moroccan castle, and bright blue shutters on all the windows.
‘Well, it’s certainly colourful,’ said Angela, doubtfully, as they unloaded their luggage into the drive.
Sophie’s room overlooked the scrubland and the lighthouse. She had a balcony onto which were squeezed two chairs and a table. Once she’d unpacked, she sat down admiring the sun setting over the horizon, watching the waves crash over the rocks surrounding the lighthouse. She had a momentary frisson of sadness that Hamish hadn’t come with her. Since he had moved back, he had been thoughtful and loving and had even begun to talk enthusiastically about another course of IVF. It felt like a new beginning and she was keen that he should join the family on holiday.
‘It will be like a little honeymoon,’ she had pleaded.
‘What? With your parents and Uncle Tom… I don’t think so,’ he’d laughed.
‘Besides,’ he continued, ‘you don’t need me there; you’ll be working.’
‘It’s a holiday too…’ she had pleaded. ‘Please come.’
‘I can’t get the time off – we’re already short-staffed over the summer. You’ll have a good time with your parents. And later in the year, we can go somewhere together.’ He’d kissed her.
But now, looking at the dark navy blue waters against the turquoise sky, she wished she had persuaded him.
Her mobile rang.
‘Hello Mum’.
‘We’re downstairs,’ said Angela, ‘we thought we’d go for a little walk and explore?’
‘The water’s pretty rough here,’ said Sophie, as they approached the rocky outcrop that bordered the sea. ‘That lighthouse earns its keep – look at the waves, they’re smashing right up to the building itself. No good for swimming round here, I think.’
‘Well, there’s a pool at the hotel,’ said Angela. ‘It looks quite nice.’
‘And there are other beaches, Ma… we saw them from the car.’
‘Yes of course,’ said her mother. ‘It’s odd, you know, it all seems rather familiar. It reminds me of Agistri near Athens – don’t you think, Alex?’
‘Oh… Agistri was more wooded,’ he said, ‘all those wonderful pines. But it has the same quality of being slightly deserted, I agree.’
After dinner, Sophie was delighted when Hamish rang her.
‘Hello there,’ he said, ‘how’s it going?’
‘It’s all rather lovely. A bit like… what did Dad say over dinner – oh yes, “Camber Sands in the sun…” We’ve just had a lovely meal, and I had two glasses of wine. I’m feeling a little bit tipsy.’
‘Good…’ said Hamish. ‘You deserve it. You’ll be glad to know the cat and I have bonded. He now sleeps on our bed.’
‘Oh Hamish… no – that’s not good at all. We don’t want him getting into bad habits.’
‘You’re right. I’ll put him back in the kitchen tonight, I promise. I was just lonely.’
‘Why don’t you come out and join us?’
‘I told you… I can’t take the time off. Anyway – only six more days and you’ll be back.’
‘Are you counting?’
‘I am, darling… I am.’
Angela smiled as Sophie put away her phone.
‘Hamish?’
‘Yep…’
‘How is he?’
‘Fine… missing me.’
‘That’s good then. Things going well there…?’
‘Yes, Mum… It’s going really well actually. It’s as if we’ve turned a corner.’
‘I’m glad, darling… really glad.’
‘So am I…’
The following afternoon Sophie went alone into the town to meet the curator at the basilica.
‘It’s so good of you to find the time to meet me,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m writing a PhD thesis on the burial practices of the first and second centuries AD – so these tombs are precisely the sort of thing I’m interested in. Also, I have something of a private connection with them.’
‘Really?’ said the curator, a slight, handsome woman, her brown hair threaded with silver.
‘Yes… my great-grandfather – George Laszlo, who was the Professor of Archaeology at London University in the 1950s – was the person who originally excavated the tombs.’
Impressed, the curator led Sophie down into the catacombs. She pointed out the dark earthen walls smoothed over the millennia, by the hands and feet of thousands of visitors. Protected from the rest by a flimsy metal chain were the Roman tombs.
‘Please – do go in,’ said the curator, unlocking the padlock. ‘I have another appointment – will you be all right alone?’
‘Yes… of course. I just want to take some photographs, make some notes. I promise to be very careful.’
The roof of the tomb was only a few feet high and Sophie had to squat on her haunches. Shining her bright torch around the space, a barrel-vaulted tomb opened up before her. On closer inspection, she discovered it was divided into two smaller rooms, one of which contained parallel burial mounds – both covered with a fine dust of some kind. Sophie ran her fingers through it; she would take a sample, but it appeared, from the smell at least, to be fine limestone mortar. Her torch picked out a number of inscriptions – some in Latin, and others clearly in Hebrew. Sophie was not a Hebrew scholar but recorded the inscriptions for later translation. The Hebrew epitaph was enclosed at either end by two menorahs – the seven-branched candelabra of the Jewish faith. Above one of the tombs, painted in a rich shade of purple – a colour which in classical antiquity was a symbol of royalty – was the Latin text: Beronice in pace ivenis moritur, meaning ‘Beronice buried in peace’.
The second tomb also carried a purple inscription: Virus bonus in pace Bonus. And to one side – a second inscription – Bonus in pace Bonus. Sophie wondered if this was perhaps not a funeral exclamation: ‘good man in peace, good man’, but rather the name of the person buried there.
The layout of the chamber had been planned meticulously, and from Sophie’s previous experience this suggested a married couple had been buried here together. If so, who were they? Was this the grave – as her great-grandfather had originally suggested over seventy years earlier – of the lost queen of the Jews – Berenice? The spelling of the name was different – Beronice was written on the tomb wall and not Berenice. Was this a simple mistake, or did it suggest that the person buried here was not the Berenice of antiquity? And who was the man who lay next to her? If the first tomb did contain the lost Queen, then
the most obvious contender for her burial partner was the man Berenice had lived with for over a decade; the man she had loved and been prepared to leave her country for; the man who had been forced to give her up when he became Emperor of Rome – Titus. Sophie’s mind buzzed with ideas and theories. No one had ever found Titus’s burial chamber in Rome. It was rumoured that he had been murdered by his envious younger brother Domitian, who then succeeded him as emperor. If that was true, how had his body ended up here? Had Berenice, upon hearing of her beloved’s murder in Rome, had his body brought to her on this tiny island? More romantically, had she then committed suicide in order to lie by his side for eternity? Were Berenice and Titus just as tragic a union as Cleopatra and Anthony over a hundred years earlier? There were more questions than answers.
Tired and stiff from scrabbling around on the floor of the tomb, Sophie emerged a couple of hours later. She brushed the dark earth from her trousers, thanked the curator and asked if she might return the following day.
‘I would also like to look at some of the other burial chambers around the island. I know that Sant’Antioco was a significant Jewish settlement in the first century and there are many graves dotted around. It will help to set this extraordinary tomb in context.’
Her work took her three further days. She drew a detailed plan of the tomb beneath the basilica. Each piece of evidence was meticulously recorded in notes and photographs. She visited other Roman sites on the edge of Sant’Antioco, and studied other graves on the island – taking photographs and measurements. When she returned to England, she would be able to assess more accurately what she had discovered.