That Summer in Ischia

by Penny Feeny

  ‘It was . . . I don’t know . . . the way everything happened – very quickly. We have . . . I think we have a lot in common.’

  Fabrizio was silent. He was examining her closely, as if registering each eyelash, each freckle, the angle of her bones beneath her skin; as if making sure there could be no doubt. As if he hadn’t known, from the first moment of their encounter, who she was.

  ‘How is your mother?’ he asked at last.

  Right, thought Allie with a measure of gratitude. No more beating about the bush, thank goodness. ‘She’s fine, thank you.’ She hesitated. ‘Actually, she doesn’t know I’m here.’ He was inspecting the back of his hands, hands that must have held her as a baby; he wore no rings. ‘It was just that Max invited me, like he said, when we met on Ischia.’

  ‘You have been in Ischia?’

  ‘I don’t believe I need anyone’s permission to go anywhere.’

  ‘This is true.’

  Did she imagine a softening of the lines that ran between his nose and mouth? Maybe he liked the idea of a grown-up daughter. He had several years on her mother and it was the sort of thing men of his age could get sentimental about.

  ‘I admit I realized there was a possibility, once I’d met him, that I might meet you too. But I only got into Rome yesterday and I don’t feel I’ve completely woken up this morning. It’s all a bit sudden, a bit overwhelming . . .’

  ‘For me also.’

  She wasn’t going to apologize. ‘Obviously my head is . . . is full of questions . . .’

  ‘Elena had difficult times,’ he said. ‘I have tried to help her.’

  Not tried hard enough, Allie would have said – if she hadn’t known too well the steel of Helena’s resistance. As a reaction, Allie had gone through life allowing people to think they were being useful. She’d noted the flush of pleasure that often results from a minor good turn.

  ‘I suppose things were different in those days,’ she mused, as if a lack of tolerance at the time – for illegitimacy, for disability – could excuse his behaviour. ‘Is that why you used to be a communist?’

  This startled him. ‘Comunista? Certainly not.’ He rolled his eyes in an expression of contempt. ‘Political extremism is the curse of our country.’

  ‘Oh . . . right.’ This confirmed what she’d already suspected, from Liddy’s information, that her mother had been trying to throw her off the scent. Holiday villas, nannies and ransom demands don’t figure in the lives of the penniless. She couldn’t help wondering what it might have been like to have grown up with some of that affluence. Helena claimed she’d left Rome because it was preferable to be a single parent in England, but why hadn’t she forced him to support her? Perhaps he’d done something unspeakable. After all, Max’s mother had left him too. Might he be a violent man?

  ‘I don’t know where she got that from. Actually, she told me practically nothing about you. Not even your name.’

  ‘You have done some detective work, if you have found my son.’

  ‘Don’t say anything to him,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve been trying to tell him, but I haven’t quite worked myself up to it yet. I’ll do it at lunch. But if you’re worried it puts you in a bad light . . .’

  Fabrizio’s laugh vibrated through his body. ‘He knows my weakness.’

  ‘Weakness?’

  ‘Women . . .’

  This made her angry – as if being a philanderer was something to be proud of. ‘I wasn’t talking about sex! I’m talking about dumping a girl and leaving her alone to get on with it.’

  ‘What do you mean, Allegra?’

  He was leaning on the counter and steepling his fingers as if in prayer. His glasses had slipped further down his nose. She sat erect; she would not be daunted. ‘I mean bringing up a baby on her own!’ Her eyes smarted and she blinked. ‘You have to believe me when I say I don’t want to get all emotional about this. I never really expected to meet you, not face to face. Max said you were in Perugia and I wasn’t intending to hang around until you came back or anything. But now that it’s happened – you can hardly blame me for wanting some answers.’

  ‘We are talking of blame?’

  ‘Well, yes. Like I said, I haven’t been told much, but the little bit I do know . . .’ What did she have to go on? Lies from Helena, guesses from Liddy. ‘Let’s just say you don’t come out of it very well.’

  ‘I have done what I could,’ he said. ‘Your mother’s mistake was very expensive for me.’

  ‘Mistake? You mean me?’

  ‘Also she did not take good care of Massimo.’

  ‘Is that why you let them arrest her? Because you were angry with her? You couldn’t possibly have believed she had anything to do with his abduction! And once he was found, if you’d acted faster . . . I mean, why didn’t you rush over and get her released? Make them investigate properly what happened?’

  ‘My position was compromised,’ he said. ‘It was not so easy.’

  ‘Last weekend,’ said Allie. ‘I stayed in an agriturismo run by a woman called Cristina. Max told me she was the one who drove him away from the beach. She was as much at fault as Mum, so why didn’t she get into trouble?’

  ‘Cristina?’ He paused. ‘Ah yes, Cristina. At that time she was a girl young in years, but not so much in other ways. She knew things she should not have known. She knew how to make problems and there was my wife to consider. Gabriella was greatly upset. In a small community one must think of the family’s reputation and the business of the drugs was unfortunate. Elena made it hard for me to help her. But in the end I paid for her freedom. I paid for the hospital. I paid for her rent. Is this not generous?’

  She gave him a probing look but he didn’t flinch. Did he really not feel any remorse? ‘It wasn’t enough though, was it?’

  Someone called out from a neighbouring balcony; staccato heels clicked across the courtyard; the radio burbled. I’m in this high-gloss apartment, thought Allie in wonderment, bawling out a stranger. Though at one time he must have known her quite well. She might have clutched at his finger or the flap of his tie. He might have stroked her dimpled knee, or the curve of her downy head. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t cowed by her accusation. ‘You knew how tricky things were. Because that was how you recognized me, wasn’t it? From my arm?’

  He stalked outside and back in again; his movements were restless like Max’s, but his shoulders were more stooped. If she were being clinical about it, she would say he was a man past his prime.

  ‘Not only your arm,’ he said, ‘your name. Your’ – he described some indefinable shape in the air – ‘comportment.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever think that one day this might happen? You’d open the door or pick up the phone and there I’d be, confronting you? Isn’t it the sort of thing men who abandon their children worry about?’

  ‘I abandoned no one,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that’s a matter of interpretation. I know it was Mum who ran off and shut you out of her life or whatever, but she must have had a reason. And chances were I’d find you eventually, so this isn’t exactly a surprise, is it?’

  ‘What do you want, Allegra?’

  ‘I don’t want anything. I already told you, my coming here, meeting you, it wasn’t planned.’

  ‘You must think I am very stupid.’ His face darkened. ‘But I have to tell you, the wealth of the family was Gabriella’s, not mine. And we divorced many years ago. An architect cannot succeed unless he is also good at business. So, I have some success, but I am not a rich man.’

  ‘Money?’ said Allie in incredulity. ‘Why would I want your money? I have an inheritance. I have my own house.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Was he relieved? ‘That is good.’

  ‘But, since you’re asking, what I do want, what I would like to know is what you did to drive her away, what happened between you?’

  ‘A relationship is a private thing. If Elena has not already told you, it is not my place.’

  ‘I suppose it was
because you were already married. I suppose she gave up waiting for you.’

  ‘She was free to do as she pleased.’

  ‘And you didn’t try to stop her leaving? You didn’t care.’

  ‘I loved your mother, truly.’ He repeated: ‘But it was not my place.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He approached and took hold of her left hand. He uncurled her fingers and studied her palm as if he might read something there. She resisted the impulse to pull away.

  ‘Because, my dear,’ he said calmly. ‘You are not my daughter.’

  25

  Liddy disposed of the paraphernalia in the bin. She’d already held the indicator up to the light and examined it from all angles to make sure there was no mistake. Then she washed her hands several times. She brushed her hair, wondering whether she could detect an extra bounce. She ran a fruit-flavoured lipgloss over her mouth and decided her lips looked fuller, redder. She pressed the electronic button that operated the toilet door and almost expected it to crank open on to trumpets and bunting, a flock of dancers, trapeze artists and circus acts. Instead the Cheshire countryside rolled past. She pressed another flashing button and settled back into her seat.

  Half of the carriage was declaring: ‘I’m on the train.’ The other half was trying to block them out: a low level buzz, insistent and monotonous as bees preparing to swarm, filtered from their ear-pieces. Liddy had switched off her phone. She needed to focus, to analyse exactly what she was doing here, in forward-facing seat 32A en route to Euston. Her presentation had been cancelled at the last minute, but she was the only person who knew this. Michael was expecting her to spend the day in London; so were her colleagues. She would have to pretend she hadn’t received the cancellation email, that it was still hurtling around the ether. She’d earn sympathy – ‘Oh you poor thing, all that way for nothing’ – and would accept it graciously. The fact was she’d already bought her ticket and arranged the other meeting before she’d set out this morning.

  She’d arrived early at Lime Street Station and hadn’t been the least bit tempted by giant muffins or a cardboard cup full of sugary froth. Instead, she was drawn to Boots. For the past week, she’d been extraordinarily patient; she had developed the art of not-hoping to an advanced level. But she hadn’t been able to contain herself any longer: curiosity overcame her and she bought the pregnancy testing kit that she’d just taken into the train loo. And (she was trying not to get over-excited about this) it had come up with a blue line. A blue line. Could this finally be the beginning? Could you have a final beginning? Well, why not? They’d have to cancel the myomectomy operation and that alone was a relief. The young man opposite, whose earphones were sending out thumping bass rhythms like coded messages, turned to stare at her and she wondered if she’d spoken aloud.

  This was not where she wanted to be, trapped in a train when she could be outside turning cartwheels. But she’d have to go through with it now: the other meeting. How was she going to justify it? Because it was technically work-related? Because, as she’d claimed to Felicity, she couldn’t brook unfinished business? Because, when you’ve been waiting over twenty years for a contact you don’t turn it down when it comes? (Even though, strictly speaking, she’d initiated it.) Anyway, she wasn’t going to see Jake himself. She was going to meet his business partner, the one who’d recently opened up the London office. She’d kept the correspondence brief, signing herself Helen Rawlings. The name would mean nothing to Jake, who was probably still in Australia where the production company had begun. And, if at some point, she put work his way and they got to talk on the phone he might be amused to find out who Helen Rawlings actually was. She’d done well for herself and this would be proof that she bore no grudges for the way he’d treated her, for not loving her enough. If she were about to enter a new phase of her life, she wanted to tie up loose ends, leave all the messy complicated stuff behind.

  ‘Any drinks or snacks?’ The trolley attendant was hovering over her with a hot water jug. The trolley itself crackled with packages in Cellophane and foil, as bright and garish as Christmas decorations. Liddy ordered a green tea and took a banana from her briefcase (she had brought sheaves of work with her to collate and annotate, which she might address on the way home if it suited her mood, but not now, not in this state of suspended animation). Eating healthily was important, everybody knew that. Michael, her loyal beloved Michael, had murmured something about dinner being bland but she hadn’t explained. When it was his turn to cook, when he conjured a red-hot curry, she might have to say something, but it was too early yet. She shouldn’t be tempting fate.

  The train arrived on time at Euston. She dawdled along the platform and across the noisy concourse to avoid being too early – and because her legs were curiously reluctant. The address she’d been given was on the border of Islington and Hackney, an odd location for a film production company – she’d have expected a more central office. She had a suspicion (confirmed when the taxi dropped her off) that the business was operating out of someone’s front room. The terraced street was at various stages of gentrification. Fresh paint, gleaming brass and potted shrubs predominated, but there were pockets of resistance too: corroded gutters, cracked doorsteps, peeling woodwork. The house she faced had vertical blinds drawn across the front window. Liddy gave a tentative ring on the doorbell. She wasn’t encouraged when the gaunt man who responded seemed surprised to see her.

  ‘I have an appointment,’ she said. ‘To discuss training material? I’m Helen Rawlings.’

  He clapped his hand to his high forehead in a theatrical gesture. He was more faded-looking than she’d expected of an Australian. ‘Oh, sure, come in. We’re still getting settled, as you can see.’

  She followed him into a room which was a shambles of boxed equipment. ‘This is only a temporary office,’ he said, leafing through a desk diary. ‘Until we’ve sorted out the lease downtown. I know I have your name here somewhere, but my PA’s on leave this week and I’m so falling behind.’ He gave an unexpected smile, which illuminated his face and caused Liddy to think twice about turning around and walking out and chiding herself for her misplaced curiosity. She would stay and see it through. ‘I hope you haven’t had far to come.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she lied.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here to find out. First, though, you are the person I’ve been corresponding with? Grant Fielding?’

  ‘That’s me.’ He was very thin, she couldn’t help noticing. Like a pipe-cleaner. He wrapped his pipe-cleaner arms around some box files and shifted them so she could sit down. She supposed that he, too, had been an actor. He had an ethereal, androgynous quality; his accent was indeterminate, unplaceable. ‘Can I get you something to drink, Helen?’

  ‘Tea please, no milk.’

  ‘Kettle’s next door. I’ll only be a jiffy.’

  A photograph frame lay face down on the desk and when he left the room she turned it over. Two men, windblown, their arms flung casually around each other’s shoulders were grinning at the camera. The exposure was grainy; the light so bright it bleached the detail from their faces, left their complexions unmarked by age or worry. One of the men was Grant Fielding; the other, scarcely different from the way he’d looked all those years ago, was Jake. Until this point, she’d had no certainty. All her evidence was circumstantial. She wouldn’t have been surprised if her search had yielded no results. Now that her hunch was proved correct, she was torn between elation, excitement and the anxiety that perhaps, after all, sleeping dogs should not be provoked. She heard the clatter of a teaspoon falling and a mumbled curse. The phone rang three times and was diverted to an automated message. She replaced the photo upside down.

  One of Liddy’s private tests for a well-run office related to the quality of the china. Chipped and mismatched mugs were as much an indicator of sloppiness as scuffed shoes. The test wasn’t foolproof – people who were more than competent at a trivial level could be incapabl
e of focus and efficiency on a larger scale – but it was useful to file away in the process of information gathering. When Grant handed her an elegant white cup and saucer, he rose in her estimation, even though the tea itself was far too strong.

  He sat at the other side of the desk and toyed with a pen. She tried to look relaxed. ‘So, you’re expanding your operation into the UK sector. Have I got that right?’

  ‘That’s the aim,’ he said. ‘Though if we do well enough in London we may close down the Sydney branch. For various reasons we’d like to focus our resources here. I think we have a lot to offer.’

  ‘You realize you’ll be up against extensive competition?’

  ‘Have you seen our work?’

  ‘I came across it by chance,’ she said. ‘But I was impressed. I’d like to see more.’

  He pushed a DVD across the desk towards her. ‘Be my guest.’

  She picked it up and glanced at the cover. Unable to identify the face she sought among the medley of images she tucked it into her briefcase. ‘Why don’t you show me an excerpt while I’m here? Talk me through it.’

  ‘The new premises will have a screening room,’ he said. ‘I would set up a temporary one out back but it’s chock-full of clobber right now. Next week, when Mandy’s here . . .’

  Liddy prickled with annoyance at the spectacle of yet another man unable to function without his sidekick. She waited in silence while he booted up his laptop and fed in a disc. It was possible that within minutes she would see Jake on screen, performing some absurd role-play, pretending to be a useless middle-manager. He’d never made extravagant claims for his talent – he admitted he’d been on the bottom rung at Cinecitta – but surely this cannot have been the career he had in mind? Surely he had more ambition?

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said, as the title music started up. ‘I need my glasses.’ Fumbling for them gave her an excuse to look away from the screen. She should not have put herself in this position, flushing with shame on Jake’s behalf. It was a fantasy scenario that had misfired and she needed to extricate herself swiftly and politely. She heard the beginning of a voiceover and was relieved not to recognize it. For the next nine minutes she sat twisting her wedding ring as Grant pressed pause and play and talked about camera angles, and split-screen techniques, the importance of snappy script editing and taking a holistic approach. There was no sign of Jake.