‘Sergio! Sergio! Entra!’
‘Vengo!’ Sergio shouted back, smiling and pulling me towards the house. The sun was directly behind us and sent a great square beam of light into the little kitchen ahead. It lit up the shiny back of what looked like a Macbook, propped up on the table amongst a pile of onion skins. A small dark-scarved head looked up from behind the screen, showing a pair of twinkling black eyes peeking through deep brown wrinkles. She studied me carefully.
‘Sergio! My favourite boy!’ she said in almost accent-less English, ‘Vieni qui! I have just been talking to your poor aunt Karina in LA. She has had her hip operation. The silly woman never ate enough, no wonder her bones are like bread sticks.’
‘Buon Giorno Nonna!’ He went over and gave her a hug. She held him tightly, burying her wizened face in his neck. He was clearly a favourite. He disengaged himself. ‘Nonna, this is Maddie, you remember Maddie?’
She came over and took my hand. She barely came up to my chest and my overwhelming impression was of some kind of Mediterranean Beatrice Potter character - a mole or hedgehog in rough dark cotton. She held my hand tightly and gave me a shrewd look.
'It is good to see you again Maddie Armstrong. Do you remember me?'
‘Yes, I think so. You were a little different then though.’
‘You are being very diplomatic. I am old now, and you have grown tall e bella!’ She let my hand go at last and went over to her fridge. It was one of those huge American affairs with double doors and a drinks dispenser and it dominated the small rustic kitchen. She caught me looking at it. 'I am an anacronismo my dear. As you get to know me better you will find out why. Now I know it’s not quite lunchtime but you will join me in a little spritzer si? My neice, she brought me some Aperol last time she visit from the North.’ Taking our silence for acquiescence she poured a little Sonnetto into three tall glasses, added a little sparkling water and a shot of the bitter red Italian aperitif – which turned the drinks into liquid sunsets.
Nonna, or Edera as she was called, was a singular woman; half Gypsy Rose Lee and half Anita Roddick. Her talk switched seamlessly from the movement of the planets to how her shares were performing on the stock market. Not prepared to be left behind by technology, she had gone off to Rome to do an intensive IT course, and was now so good that she did many of the accounts for the Amarena estate and had even developed her own programme for the automated on-line ordering of essential materials like fining agents and preservatives. She was also a wonderful cook, and after a lunch of thyme-marinated chicken, and a couple more spritzers, we sat, sated and contemplative, on her quarry-tiled veranda listening to the singing of the crickets. I felt myself nodding off so shook myself and started to stack the plates.
‘No, no.’ Sergio jumped up and took the dishes from me. ‘You rest. I’ll clear up.’ He went off into the house and we heard the tap start running. Edera leant across the table very suddenly and took my hand.
‘I know you must leave him. It is OK, you don’t need to be scared. It really doesn’t matter Tsoro. You have changed him and that is enough. You have helped him taste freedom and his right to live his own life and that is a gift he will not lose. I also know your heart is bruised – perhaps it still bleeds fresh in some places – for example I see a bambina about ten years old. This girl makes you very sad.’
Angrily I tried to pull my hand away. She had clearly picked up a lot of information from Sergio over the last few months. However, she just held me even tighter, and transfixed by her little ebony eyes I couldn’t speak.
‘She is singing to you – I don’t know it – a French song maybe - and you are laughing. But now I see a road, there is blood on it and you are crying and there is a man, he is silent, he stands at the window his hands by his side. And I feel your guilt. It is a demon on your back. I wonder that you should carry him about for so long. He must be very heavy.’
Some kind of convulsion wrenched my hand away. ‘How dare you!’ I felt violated. She looked at me, a little dazed.
‘My dear! Don’t be afraid!’ She reached over and stroked my face. The skin of her hand was soft and floury. ‘There is no need to be afraid of what has gone! Why do you hold on to it?’
‘You have no right.’ I said tightly. ‘Don’t touch me.’
She took her hand away and smiled at me. There was something wonderfully motherly about her shrewd, kind little face, and I was reminded with a jolt of how much I missed my own mother. There was a hissing in my ears like the sea as it sucks back across the shingle, and then a great pulse of sorrow convulsed me and I retched and then started to cry. She stroked my back, I hid my face in my hands.
‘Sometimes when you look at the sky, or the sea,’ she said softly, ‘you feel so overwhelmed by the beauty of it that you find you can’t breathe. When you were a bambina you crawled after a friend’s tortoise that escaped from their garden and your mama and papa couldn’t find you for an hour. Sometimes you rescue worms from the pavement and put them on the grass because you chopped one up as a little girl and still it makes you feel bad’.
I looked up at her, I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I felt light-headed, insubstantial, as if everything that had previously anchored me to the world had suddenly lost its mass and disintegrated.
‘You don’t get angry very often,’ she continued, ‘but when you do it is devastating and you are scared of it. Once, a little boy who had got lost in a shopping centre came to you to ask for help because he said you had the kindest looking face. When you were a young woman you trained yourself to listen to people by counting in uno, due, tre in your head before you spoke.’
I sat up, she’d shocked me out of crying, but my face was still slick with tears.
‘I could tell you a hundred things my dear – un mille even, and it wouldn’t help you in the task ahead. All you can do is look inside and be as strong as you can be. You can only learn by living.’ She paused and looked up at the throbbing topaz sky. ‘He is a wise boy,’ she said at last, under her breath.
‘I know.’
She looked at me strangely, but then the wise boy himself came out onto the veranda and the spell was broken.
‘Amore, perche piangi? Have you been crying!’
Nonna patted Sergio’s arm. ‘It’s all right. We were just talking about Maddie’s mama. I am sorry my dear that it has upset you.’
Sergio set about getting our things together and then put his arm around me protectively. ‘Come Maddie. It has been a long hot day. Let us go home now.’ I leaned gratefully, exhaustedly into his shoulder. Edera dashed back into the house (very energetically for a woman of her age) and returned with a wonderful long plait of onions and garlic. ‘Here my dear, from my own garden.’ She took my hand. ‘Ciao Maddie. I will see you again.
Brighton 2006
Just a week after our lunch with Nonna I returned home to Hove on a sparkling October day. I leant my head against the window of the train and watched daggers of sunlight move across the rolling downland of Haywards Heath. I was still in a kind of dream-state. England felt alien and ethereal. I’d had a call from my Dad saying they still hadn’t heard anything from Dan. He was trying to sound like he wasn’t distressed, but I knew all of his vocal ticks and mannerisms too well to be fooled. Dad was still trying to hope Dan’s absence was no different to all the other times, but although he had taken a small suitcase, his laptop and some clothes, on this occasion he hadn’t had a row with his boyfriend, Nicholas, and that was often the catalyst of his short disappearances. On top of that, his thirtieth birthday was coming up and he wasn’t one to miss out on a birthday, especially a big one. After a few days of no contact Dad had called the police.
I felt nauseous with worry for my brother, but also resentful at being dragged away from Sergio and beautiful Terranima; and that made me feel guilty. The only consolation was that I seemed to have come back to a clear, sunny Autumn.
Walking into my flat heightened the disorientation. I wandered through the vague
ly familiar rooms, trying to suppress the sensation that I was trespassing on somebody else’s life, like a detective inspecting a crime scene. At times like these necessity is your salvation. The need to restock your fridge, to unpack, to open windows, to sort through your mail and messages. I busied myself for a few hours, then made myself a cup of coffee and remembered that I had promised to call Sergio as soon as I was settled.
My flat was on the third floor of a huge detached Regency mansion house on a grand but now slightly shabby avenue. They had managed to get 12 generous flats out of the one house, and I often marvelled at what on earth even a very wealthy early 19th century family could have done with all these rooms. The lucky people on the ground and first floors had squares of garden, but the extent of my outside space was a small ledge above a bay window from which, if you sat out and craned your neck, you could see the sea. I sat there now, next to a charming roof Gargoyle, my coffee sending little puffs of steam out into the rapidly cooling evening air. It was strange to hear Sergio’s rich warm voice in the one ear, and feel the cold English October air on the other.
‘Already I miss you.’
‘I miss you too little prince.’
‘You are going to come back to me Maddie?’
‘Of course, as soon as we find out where Dan is, and can be sure that he’s ok.’
‘Because I’ve been thinking about it mio Tsoro, you love Terranima, we love each other, and we can have a future.’
‘But what would I do Sergio? I couldn’t stay in the big house with your family, it wouldn’t feel right, and your father will be renting out the farmhouse soon.’
‘This is part of what I’ve been thinking about. We could rent a little house in the village, there are some beautiful ones.’
‘Owned by your father?’
‘Well yes, but my famiglia really.’
‘But what would I do with myself, my time? Now I feel better I want to be useful, no more moping around, I want to make a difference, to do things.’
‘And you could. The garden you do at the farmhouse is so wonderful, people will want you to do their gardens. We would just need to advertise.’
‘But my Italian is still awful.’
‘I can help you with that, you will soon learn.’
‘But what about, you know, what I told you about myself. What if I can never give you a child?’
‘And I told you, I don’t care. Perche ti amo, Maddie, that is all that matters.’
‘Well I care, even if you don’t.’ I put my coffee cup down and pressed my fingers to my eyes, I felt like I might cry. It was so confusing to be home, I was almost afraid of it, of what it could bring. We didn’t say anything for seconds, then Sergio broke the silence, his tone attempting to be light.
‘What is that screeching Tsoro?’
I laughed. ‘It’s the Herring Gulls.’
‘Erring Gulls?’
‘Herring Gulls. They’re like seagulls but twice the size. They can be aggressive too, especially when they have babies.’
‘They sound scary!’
‘You get used to them. But they do make a hell of a mess when the bin bags are put out.’
‘We have that problem with goats.’
Later that evening I collapsed onto the sofa, put my feet up and decided to reacquaint myself with the marvellous quality of British TV. Italian television simply isn’t worth watching, even if you learn the language. It’s an example of all that is bad and cheesy about macho traditional culture. After ten-o-clock all the channels switch over to banal porn. I once watched three women inexplicably do an identical strip routine, next to a fire engine. The only variety was the women’s hair colour. Perhaps that partly explained the effect I had on Sergio. I would pass young women ten times more beautiful than me in the village every day – but somehow for him I think I embodied a freedom, a cynicism, a humour that many of the young women around him felt unable to express. That was probably why he was so close to his Nonna. She obviously saw in him a humility and gentleness that wasn’t often encouraged in young Italian men, especially the sons of successful businessmen. He saw in her a free spirit, who as soon as the children and husband had left in their various ways; grasped her remaining decades with great energy and wit.
I suddenly felt very far away from the life I had led for the last five months. At least in physical terms I seemed to have slotted back in seamlessly in less than 24 hours. Even the neighbour’s cat had materialised within five minutes of my return, meowing behind my door. Now she had sprawled across me, her purr rumbling comfortingly against my ribs. But even in her blissful sleep, she was still aware of her temporary status, and my dad’s knock sent her flying into a corner of the room as if she’d been discovered ‘in flagrante’.
I was unprepared for how I felt, seeing him after all those months. I hadn’t realised how much I missed him until I hugged him. He smelt exactly as I remembered, of warmth and rolling tobacco, but I was shocked by the tiredness that left a smudge of darkness under his eyes; he clearly hadn’t been sleeping well. We both cried a little, and he said how well I was looking. I realised (and not with displeasure, even in the circumstances) that I must have looked a damn sight better than when I’d left him.
‘Well Dad,’ I said ruefully, ‘you lose one, and one comes back.’
He sat down and rubbed his face. ‘Maddie. Don’t ever be a parent. It can be agony.’
‘No need to worry on that score Dad.’
‘Sorry Maddie, I didn’t mean...’
‘Don’t be daft.’ I went over and rested my hand gently on the shiny warmth of his bald head. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes thanks love. I would.’
I went to the kitchen, the little cat following and emitting hopeful staccato mews. I gave her a saucer of milk and went to get a bottle of wine. I rested my forehead against the fridge for a moment, comforted by its cool solidity. Did having a child make you braver? Did your drive to protect them give you some kind of superhuman strength? How else could dad have survived my mother’s illness and death, my brother’s irresponsibility and my depression? And not only did he survive, he kept living. He still wrote short stories, and played cricket. He still went on holiday. He still laughed and hoped and planned, even though he hadn’t chosen to have a new partner. Perhaps the very thing that made his life hard was also the very thing that kept him going. I felt sad that it was something I’d never get to experience for myself.
I went back into the living room and handed Dad his drink. He took a deep gulp and sank back in the chair. The cat immediately jumped up neatly and settled on his thighs. ‘This wine’s nice. Is it Amarena’s?’
‘Yes, the Sonnetto. I allowed myself one case as excess baggage. God knows what I’m going to do when it runs out!’
‘I’m sorry you had to come back. I know it was doing you good.’
‘I could have stayed there for ever if this hadn’t happened. But now I’m back, I don’t know, I’m beginning to think it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.’
Dad rolled a cigarette expertly, his arms resting gently on the cat’s stripy back. ‘Why is it so ridiculously hard to allow ourselves to be happy?’
‘It’s not that so much. It was exactly right for me at that time, but maybe all that sun, and perfection and quiet is ultimately somebody else’s vision of happiness and not mine.’
‘So here you are back to the pebbly beach, the drug addicts, the tourists and the family crisis.’
I laughed. ‘Well if you put it that way…’
‘It’s so good to see you laugh Maddie, so good. I didn’t know whether or not to tell you about Dan. I knew you were getting yourself back together and I didn’t want to land you with something you couldn’t handle. You know the last thing I’d ever want to do is…’ He trailed off.
I leant forward in my chair and touched his arm reassuringly. He smiled, a tired but tender little smile. ‘I think to be honest Fabrizio wanted me gone anyway.’
‘Why on earth do you think that?’
‘Because of Sergio, I don’t think I’m the kind of woman he has in mind for his one and only son!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You must remember from the past, how important the Vineyard is to him, the family name, that it’s respected. I know he wants Sergio to be the one to take over from him, and I also know that Sergio desperately doesn’t want to step into his father’s shoes.’
‘And you weren’t going to encourage Sergio to capitulate?’
‘No, not like some local girl would. Most women in Terranima would give their right arm to get into that family. That’s the kind of daughter-in-law Fabrizio wants.’
‘I always got the impression Fabrizio liked feisty woman. He always seemed to be drawn to it in your mother.’
‘I think it’s ok from a distance, something he can admire, as I know he admires me for my skills, but I don’t think it’s a quality he wants within his family, I get the impression he likes to be in control.’
‘I never did understand why your mother suddenly turned on the Amarenas.’
‘I think someone must have said something to her, something that pricked her pride. About money, or about you.’
‘I can’t imagine what.’
I shrugged. ‘Look Dad, you and Terranima saved my life. And now it’s saved, and I’m still here I want to keep going, to fight.’ I stopped for a moment, floundering, ‘Dan’s my brother. I love him and I’m going to help find out what’s happening. It’s my duty too.’
Dad lurched forward in his chair spilling the cat and scattering the contents of his ashtray. ‘For god’s sake don’t Maddie!’
The Soul Room Page 4