‘Yes, I heard, it’s a shame, but we’ve had a lovely time haven’t we.’ I know this is only the first of many many lies that I am going to have to tell from now on. I feel like a part of me has died.
Brighton 1992
I look through the hall window out at the street. It’s raining hard, the sky is impenetrable and dark, raindrops play the roofs of the parked cars like drums. Dan comes out of mum’s room. His face is tight and pale.
‘How was it? What did she say?’
Dan shakes his head vigorously. His mouth is clamped shut. He seems squashed, as if there’s something heavy on his shoulders that I can’t see.
I lay my hand on his arm. ‘Come on, what is it? She was really sweet with me, just told me how much she loved me, that I had to follow my passions…that kind of thing.’
‘I can’t tell you Maddie, not for ages. Please leave me alone.’
Dad shouts up the stairs, his voice ragged, ‘Come on kids, lunch is on the table, this is the third time I’ve called you.’
A month later we find out Mum’s got pneumonia. They said it might not be the cancer that gets her in the end, that something might sneak in before it, and it has. Mum’s hands lie limply, either side of her, on top of the old Habitat duvet cover with the little pink roses on. Her head is almost bald, just the odd wisp of hair. Her face is sunken and gaunt, the skin waxy and slightly yellow in the warm light of the lamp on the bedside table. Her eyes are slightly open, but the Macmillan nurse says the pneumonia has starved her brain of oxygen, so we don’t know if she’s aware that we’re in the room or not; her iris’ look out blankly from underneath her lids. A drip is going into her right arm, she’s had a big dose of Morphine. Her breathing fills the room, fills all of us, and the space around us. It’s regular but laboured, each breath seems like a life’s work and there’s a faint rattle behind it.
Dad has hold of mum’s right hand and I have hold of her left. Dan is laid down beside her, his head in the crook of her arm, face on her narrow bony chest. His masculine teenage bulk makes her look tiny and fragile in comparison. It’s hard to believe that he once came out of her. We talk in whispers, sometimes we chat to her, stroke her face, tell her how much we love her. It’s difficult to pin down how I feel. It’s all too real, too raw, it’s taking all my energy and concentration just to exist in this moment, to deal with what’s happening. The nurse has told us that one thing we can do for mum is wet her tongue, it’s blackened and dried as she’s not been able to swallow properly for ages, her mouth slackly open. I gently stroke inside her mouth with a wet cotton wool pad held in tweezers. ‘There you go Mum, is that better?’
Mum’s breathing suddenly changes, calmer, slower, deeper.
‘She sounds better! Maybe she can get through the Pneumonia after all?’ Dad looks hopeful, almost excited, like a little boy. I know what it means though. I can feel it deep inside me. I’m right. She does one last, deep breath, about four seconds in and four seconds out, and then she’s silent.
‘No mum, No!’ Dan’s wail fills the room then spills out into the house.
Dan’s gone over to a friends for a sleepover, he says he can’t bear to be in the house tonight. Dad’s sat out in the garden, on the bench by the patio, staring into dark spaces. His knees are drawn up under his chin and he has a half-pint glass in his hand, full of what looks like red wine. He moves his head unsteadily and turns to look at me. His face is puffy, his eyes half closed with crying.
‘You’re drunk Dad.’
‘Of course I’m fucking drunk.’ He says quietly.
I don’t feel like drinking myself but I don’t want him to finish what I can see is a second bottle, all by himself. ‘I’ll go and get a glass.’
When I return he is sat on the edge of the bench, his face in his hands. It’s not that warm tonight and I shiver as I pour myself a glass of wine from the half-empty bottle. ‘Are you all right Dad?’
‘I did love her you know Mads.’
I put my hand on his back. ‘Of course you did.’
‘When I first met her I couldn’t believe my luck. Couldn’t believe that you could find someone who was beautiful and funny and clever and kind. In the early days I kept thinking she’d leave me, that I wouldn’t be enough for her…’
‘Oh Dad!’
‘Shhh!’ he raises his hand, but doesn’t look at me. ‘Please, just listen. I don’t know if I can do this if you talk. Please.’
I feel a sudden sick tightness in my stomach. I say nothing.
‘I didn’t really believe she was happy with me until we had you. Then I knew she was staying. She loved you so much, she loved being in a family. She’d never got to do that as a girl, an only child, her dad off working all the time. And she learnt to love me a bit more, as a father. It rounded me off in her eyes. But after a few years I started to feel anxious again, to feel that she wasn’t satisfied. We talked, she said there was something missing in her life but she wasn’t sure what it was, swore it wasn’t me.’
He wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his hand, smeared it unthinkingly on the leg of his jeans. ‘And then we went to Italy, do you remember?’ He looked up at me, I nodded mutely. ‘It was a beautiful summer, you loved it there; and she, she was a different person, lively, vivacious, full of fun. I thought perhaps we’d reached a crossroads, that all we needed was a bit of adventure every now and then. I vowed that I’d try to give that to her, I’d make sure we had some weekends alone, we’d travel. I’d surprise her with a trip to Paris on her birthday…’
He stops for a moment, tries to suppress a sob, which turns into a horrible kind of gagging in the back of his throat. He shakily refills his glass, I down the last inch of mine so I can re-fill my glass, finish the bottle, and stop him being able to have another.
‘But when we got back from Italy it was even worse. It was like she was mourning something. And then she found out she was pregnant with Dan, and we were thrown back into the relentlessness of looking after a baby. Paris never happened, at least not for five years. Life just seemed to slip through my fingers.’
‘But you and mum seemed fine,’ I say pleadingly, ‘me and Dan have always felt so safe.’
‘Oh God.’ Dad groans and his head sinks deeper into his hands. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’
‘You’re scaring me Dad, please just tell me. Whatever it is I’ll still love you.’
‘I had an affair Maddie.’
‘What?!’
‘How can I get you to understand? You’re so young, you see everything in black and white.’
‘You had an affair? With who? When? How long did it go on?’
‘You say we seemed fine, but we weren’t always. Not underneath. I felt lonely Maddie, deeply lonely. After we got back from Terranima it was like your mum switched off.’
‘How do you mean? I never felt that.’
‘She didn’t with you, it was in a way only a husband would know.’
‘You mean she didn’t want to…’
‘More than that, it was like the intimacy went. That she was holding something back.’
‘I don’t know that I want to hear this Dad, why are you telling me this?’
‘I have to tell someone, I have to tell someone who loved her, I don’t think I can go on if I don’t.’
‘Why me? Isn’t there someone else you could tell? I just want to remember the good things. I want to remember her for being loved!’
‘I did love her! That’s why it hurt so much that she switched off from me. That’s why I couldn’t resist it when someone showed me some affection and desire, why I had to take it!’
‘I’m sorry Dad, I love you and I know you’re a good man; but I can’t hear any more of this.’ I get up jerkily, knocking over my glass, it smashes on the patio, releasing its deep-red contents over the stone like a blood-spill. It feels like the world has ended and I am lost, floating in nothingness, full of pain and totally alone.
Italy 2007
I stagger
ed down the cool narrow hall into the bathroom and threw up. I had always felt wary of Fabrizio. Now I knew I was right to, he was a dangerous, arrogant man. He had raped my mother and now he wanted my child. Even being in the same country as him filled me with disgust, let alone being in his home. How could I possibly let him touch me or talk to me now I knew the full extent of his self-interest and need for control? My poor mother. What must it have done to her? To hold that secret in. I knew what it had done, the realisation crashed inside me; it had given her cancer. And now I had real suspicions that somehow, Fabrizio was behind my brother’s disappearance.
I wiped the bitter bile from my mouth and looked up into the blemished old mirror above the sink. I saw a new face. My lips were pressed together tightly, my eyes clear and bright, my skin pale in the moonlight. It was a determined face, a face that said that living with fear was no life at all. It was clear now that Dan had come to Terranima to confront Fabrizio. That he had read Mum’s diary, read that the mother he had worshipped had been used and discarded in the most repellent of ways. I could only hope that Amarena wasn’t capable of the most terrible act of all, and that somehow Dan was still alive. I felt that he was, I felt in the core of me that he was still in the world.
I was going to play Fabrizio at his own game and find my brother. I was going to shame him and revenge my mother and I was going to make sure that he never, ever had any control over my son. Fabrizio was already using the claim of blood over his grandson, but as far as I was concerned my boy only had the Italian blood of his wonderful father and grandmother, with all the mysteries and heritage that gave him; and the blood of my kind, intelligent father and sensitive and creative mother, and the blood of his uncle – my dear irascible, wry, talented brother. The brother I was going to get back. But not right now, the revelation in mum’s diary had overwhelmed me on every level, processing it had left me wrung out and suddenly unable to keep my eyes open. I collapsed back into bed, the diary still open on the bedside table beside me.
My descent was a little quicker this time, as if the quality of the darkness had changed, lost some of its viscosity. He ran up to meet me and we were both dangerously close to embracing, but he managed to stop just in time and teetered at the edge of the circle of tiles that marked the end of the descent.
‘Oh Mum’ he beamed. I’ve missed you! I thought maybe you wouldn’t come again!’
‘Of course I will always come, I’ve just been so tired that I think I’ve been sleeping in the wrong way – too lightly or too deeply. I’m always here, remember that, always thinking of you.’
‘Come Mum, come and see what I’ve found.’
‘OK sweetheart.’
He looked at me keenly. ‘Are you ok Mum?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look OK, something’s happened, something really bad, something that changes everything. You know now don’t you?’ He looked grave, his smooth forehead temporarily creased.
‘Yes.’ I faltered. ‘But another time, I can’t talk about it right now, I’m sorry. I really am OK. What was it you wanted to show me?’
He gestured happily and skipped off to the far side of the gallery. I was touched, and strangely sad to see that he had created a little nest for himself in a corner – cushions pulled off the sofa, the pile of the story books I had loved as a child. I had often wondered what he did when I wasn’t there – did he emerge like a genii when I slept or dreamed, or did he wander around by himself, waiting? The nest made it look like the latter, but for some reason I didn’t want to ask him. I hated the thought of him here, lonely, filling the hours and days between our dream visits.
‘Look Mum, look at this.’ He sat down cross-legged in his pile of cushions and opened up a book. ‘This book is all pictures.’ He signalled for me to sit. He bent the book so I could see it – like parents do when they are reading to their children, looking at me earnestly as he turned the pages. ‘Look, they’re all different.’
They were photographs, vivid, detailed, luminous. There was one of a seascape – tall black jagged cliffs outlining a huge bay of sand, struck white by moonlight. There was a ginger kitten, caught mid-wash, a tiny tongue sticking out from impossibly thin pink lips. There was a close-up of a man's hand, his fingers thick but shapely, his long veins casting shadows across his skin like a mountain range glimpsed through an aeroplane window. There was a sleeping child’s face, breathtakingly sculptural and luminous in the half light, eyelashes resting on his cheeks. There was a panoramic sunset; an oak-leaf skeleton crystallised with ice; an ancient brass sword handle, inlaid with the tiniest jewel-like pieces of semi-precious stones. Some of the things and people I recognised, others I didn’t.
‘I think…’ I stammered.
‘I think it’s the most beautiful things in your life. Only some of them have happened and some of them haven’t.’
‘Yes – yes I think you’re right.’
He flicked back to the page with the little boy’s face. ‘So d’you think that’s me?’
When I woke up in the morning I felt strangely calm. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Mum’s diary again just yet, although I was brimful with agonising curiosity as to what had happened next. Had she told Dad in the end? Or Rosa? Had she ever seen Fabrizio again other than that time he had come to the house after her diagnosis? What had he come for then? Had she wanted a final confrontation? To shame him? But he wouldn’t have come just for that, he would have stayed away as he had all the years before. There must have been something, something that she had used to get him there.
I thought back to my childhood, to see if I had any memories of the holiday that would suggest anything, give any clues, but there was only a vague memory of the sudden departure on that first trip, and of my constant, undefined unease around Fabrizio.
I shook my head – she couldn't have told anyone, or Dad would not have recommended me to Fabrizio in the first place. I imagined some modicum of friendship must have been maintained – Christmas cards and the occasional call – even if it was pretence on my mother’s part. How else could she have concealed that something had happened? Or perhaps, once Fabrizio raped her, possessed her in the way he wanted (I shuddered as I thought of it) his interest in my family had waned – though he had gone along with the minimum amount of involvement so as not to have raised suspicion.
I could hear Nonna singing to herself as I headed downstairs, and that, accompanied with the smell of fresh coffee and steamed milk instilled an unavoidable sense of contentment. However, my mind was busy, debating and weighing up - a slightly feverish layer of activity below my surface calm. I found Nonna bent over the stove, I went over and kissed her on the cheek. As I straightened up she turned, took my face in her hands and looked at me keenly.
‘Much has happened.’ She said. At times her black eyes were as benign as a hedgehog's, today they were as shrewd as crow's. ‘Yes much has happened indeed – but you are looking well, Maddie, and you are strong. Remember you are strong.’ She clucked and raised her eyebrows light-heartedly. ‘There I go again! Sit down, Tsoro, and I’ll get you some breakfast.’ She started to busy herself; little sweet cakes, and plates of thin ham and fruits appeared on the table. I felt my stomach grumble and the baby kicked in approval.
‘Nonna, that first time that my family holidayed here, back in about...’ I made some mental calculations, ’...1977, 78?’
Nonna looked up as she put a dish of butter in front of me. ‘Only un poco. I didn’t live here then. I lived in Rome with my husband.’
‘So you remember nothing, nothing at all?’
‘I remember meeting you as a bambina, you were a very lovely little girl. Sergio loved you. But I was here only a couple of days. Until I inherit this place I was a city woman though you wouldn’t believe it now! As I get older I see myself slowly returning to the soil.’ She inspected her brown and gnarled hands. ‘One day when my time has come, I will go out and..’ she gestured with her hands, ‘poof! I will turn into
a pile of red earth.’ She smiled and folded her hands again and put them in the capacious pocket of her apron. ‘My father was a lot older than my Mamma but he outlived her by fifteen years. He left me this house and I move here twenty years ago, and I would stay here when I visit. I never felt comfortable in the big house.' She looked up, crossed herself and laughed. ‘My Papa, he was a hundred and one when he died.’
The Soul Room Page 16