'Prego.' He responded with an extravagant flick of the white napkin, which he spread carefully on her lap.
'Grazie, signore.' Lilian snapped the menu shut and the waiter turned away. Grace was left to deal with her own napkin.
Last night she had woken suddenly. In the dim light she could make out the shape of someone sitting on the bed facing her. She heard breathing and had opened her mouth to scream, when Franco's voice came out of the darkness. 'It's me.' She reached out and snapped on the bedside light. Franco's shoulders were hunched, his head bowed. He was leaning forward on his elbows, his hands dangling between his knees.
'Whatever's the matter?' she asked.
He looked up at her then, and she saw what he held in his hands. It was her contraceptive pills.
Grace struggled to sit up. She drew the duvet up to her chin. 'Franco, let me explain.'
'You promised.'
'I know I did.'
'I go to England, you say. We have baby when I get back.'
She put her hand on his arm. 'Let's talk. I need to explain—'
'Talk. Explain. It's all about you. What you feel. What you want.' He banged his hand down on hers as if her touch stung his skin like a mosquito's. 'You don't care about me.'
'Of course I do. Because I'm not ready to have a baby doesn't mean…'
She watched Franco lift his arm. His hand was almost touching his shoulder. She saw the flash of his wedding ring. What was he doing? She felt the rush of air and pain as his fist slammed into her jaw.
She sipped the prosecco while the waiter placed their food on the table. Nothing compared with the taste of a Naples' pizza and this one might be her last. But still she picked up her knife and fork hesitantly: chewing was bound to hurt.
'So, what's new?' she asked.
Lilian dropped her cutlery as if she'd been dying for Grace to ask the question. She clapped her hands and her frizzy hair quivered. 'I'm going to the States.'
Thank goodness. Once Lilian picked a topic, she was off.
'Walt, my American professor—I must have told you about him—has gone home. His six months' sabbatical was up and he's invited me to visit him.'
Had Lilian told her? Grace couldn't remember. 'Really? Is it… you know?'
Lilian laughed, a loud trumpeting laugh that made the people at the next table look round. 'I know old witches like me shouldn't expect lust. That's for you young things. But…' she paused to shovel in another mouthful of pizza, '… he lives in Boston and I can manufacture lust for a month in Boston. Nathan went loads of times when he was in the diplomatic corps, but somehow I missed out on the trips.'
She reached down to the floor for her leather holdall. She fished around inside and found her diary. 'Let's make a date for lunch when I get back. What about July? I know it's busy for you but—'
'Lilian…'
'Shall we say the fourteenth?'
'I won't be here in July.'
Lilian licked her finger and turned over some more pages. 'Problems with your mother again?' she asked, almost absently. 'We'd better make it August, although lord knows how I'll keep my news until then.'
'I won't be here in August either.'
Lilian looked at her. 'Oh?'
'I'm leaving Ischia.'
'That is a surprise. I was talking to someone only the other day and they'd been over to your restaurant. Couldn't praise it enough.'
'It's not that—'
'It makes sense, I suppose. Franco could do bigger things in Rome or Milan. I always said he was ambitious. Mark my words—that husband of yours will go far.'
'I'm leaving Franco.'
Grace looked down, but she could feel the shock coming across the table. Lilian clasped Grace's hands in hers. 'My poor child,' she murmured. One of her rings bit into Grace's palm, but she didn't take her hand away. The discomfort gave her something to concentrate on.
She gestured to the waiter who was passing their table. 'Un litro rosso, per favore.'
Grace shook her head. 'Not for me.'
'It's not for you! I'm the one who's had a shock.'
Grace tried to smile, but the movement trapped her face in pain. She pulled her hands from Lilian and cupped her chin in her hand. The cool palm was a comfort, but more than that, she wanted to conceal the bruises she could feel developing.
She accepted the large glass of red wine Lilian poured. It wasn't as if she had to worry about the ristorante that evening. She intended to stay in Naples until the last ferry left. She'd already sent Franco a text to say he should get Carolina to help him this evening. She didn't think he'd be too surprised.
Lilian drank her first glass almost in one go, her head thrown back. Grace stared at the necklace of lines circling her throat. Lilian poured a second glass and removed one of her thin cheroots from a silver case. She tapped it on the table. 'Don't worry. Just my comfort blanket.'
Grace noticed her initials had been engraved on the lid of the case. 'Is that new?' she asked. 'I don't remember seeing it before.'
'A parting gift from my swain,' Lilian said. 'But I'm more concerned about you. What's happened?'
Grace shrugged. 'Nothing, really.' Lilian was fun to be with, but the humiliation of Franco striking her was too raw to confide. 'No one thing, anyway, more an accumulation.'
'Tell me.'
Where to begin? Grace thought. 'There's the whole baby thing for a start,' she said.
'Still not sure about wee ones, eh?'
Grace remembered their earlier conversation when Lilian had told her how much she'd longed for children. She didn't want to hurt her friend, but she couldn't deny the way she felt. 'I feel pressurised. Franco, his parents, especially his mother, his brothers, even his sisters-in-law, all seem to think they've got a say in whether I have a baby or not.'
'The Italians are big on families. You must have known that when you married him.'
'I thought I loved him. It was all that mattered at the time.'
Memories of that first summer with Franco filled her mind. She'd been besotted. There was his wide easy smile, chocolate-brown eyes, the endearing halting English. Mostly there was his lean tanned body. She'd had several lovers, even lived with someone for a while when she was teaching in Suffolk, but nobody had been able to make her body ache with sexual pleasure like Franco. He'd arrive at her apartment on the second floor of the palazzo about midnight when he finished work in the pizzeria. Her windows would be wide open to catch what little air there might be. Waiting for him through the evening, she'd feel it was too hot to breathe, but the sultry atmosphere only intensified their passion. They'd cling together, slippery with each other's sweat.
'Grace, are you all right?'
Grace forced herself back to the present. 'I was remembering.'
'Is it only the baby?'
'Yes. No. He wasn't there for me the night my dad died, Lilian.'
'We all let each other down, child. It doesn't mean you can't still have a life together.'
'Somehow my dad dying so suddenly changed things. I've realised how short life is. I love Ischia. But I want more.' And would you want to live with a man who hit you? It would be a relief to ask the question. To see shock on Lilian's face. Feel her sympathy. But Grace couldn't. Saying the words would make it real. 'First though, I need to go home to be with my family. There are things we have to sort out.'
Lilian poured more wine. Grace had always joked that Lilian's capacity for alcohol was limitless, but now she tried to keep pace.
'Why don't you talk to Franco?' Lilian asked. 'Perhaps you can go back to England for six months.' Her face brightened. 'He could come with you. Didn't he always dream of a restaurant in London?'
'That's not what I want,' Grace said. 'I want to travel. I'm going to go to America. I wanted to years ago, but Dad stopped me.'
Lilian touched her hand. 'You seem different.'
'In what way?'
'Harder somehow. Is it only Franco?''
The side of Grace's face throbbed. Perhaps Franco had broken
her jaw. It had been a pretty violent blow.
'Grace?'
She looked across at Lilian, at her weather-beaten skin, the knowing expression. What things had she witnessed? 'It turns out Dad was not my youngest brother's father.' She hesitated. 'George is my half brother.'
'And you didn't know?'
'No idea.'
'How did you find out?'
'I had a letter from an old friend of my dad's. And it seems Mum told Isabel the day Dad died.' Grace screwed up her napkin and flung it on the table. 'It means Mum had an affair when I was a baby.'
'These things happen.'
'If you'd known my parents… they worshipped one another.'
'You never really know what goes on in a marriage.'
'The worst thing is…' Grace stopped. What she was about to say, she'd hardly admitted to herself. 'I've spent all these years wondering if my father truly loved me. But now I don't seem to love him any more.'
'That's a bit harsh, child. If he loved George as his own, isn't he the good guy in this?'
'I know. If I blame anyone, it should be Mum.'
Lilian didn't reply and the silence stretched between them. She stood up. 'Let's find a table outside. I need some nicotine.'
The early summer sunshine felt warm on Grace's face, but the breeze was cool, and she pulled her jacket tight. They sat down at one of the tables on the pavement in front of the pizzeria. The waiter followed them out with the remainder of the wine and their glasses. Lilian lit her cheroot and her eyes narrowed against the thin column of smoke.
'Nathan had a child,' she said.
The announcement jolted Grace. 'I didn't know he'd been married before you met.'
'He hadn't. It was an affair.' She stared at the cheroot as if she was surprised to see it between her fingers. 'He confessed the day of our silver wedding.'
'How awful for you.' She'd always had the impression that Lilian and her husband were devoted.
'It was only a fling. Probably one of many, if the truth were known. The diplomatic life opens the door to that sort of thing. But this time there was a baby boy, Justin. He'd be about twenty now.'
'What happened?'
'It was in Yugoslavia, as it was then. His mother was a typist at the embassy by all accounts. I wanted to adopt the boy and bring him back to England, but she wouldn't hear of it. Nathan used to send money at first, but then she stopped writing. He went out there when the trouble first started in Serbia, but he couldn't find them.'
'Were you able to forgive him?' Grace was trying to imagine what it would have been like for her father when he found out about George.
Lilian shrugged. 'What could I do? I'd stayed behind in Scotland on that trip. My mother was ill and I didn't want to leave her. Nathan said he was lonely. I couldn't give a damn about the woman. I've never thought love is about sex anyway.' She stubbed out her cigar, squashing it into the ashtray. 'But the baby hurt. Nathan had a son and I didn't.'
'How did you cope with that?'
'I told myself providing the sperm doesn't make you a dad. It's the long haul—broken nights, the first day at school, cold football pitches on a Sunday morning—that's what makes you a dad.' Lilian started pulling on her jacket. 'Don't be too hard on your mum and dad. They probably had all sorts of reasons for not telling you.'
All at once Grace saw her father's face clearly. Since his death it had been impossible to get a picture of him in her mind. He was there, but out of focus. Now she saw his broad jaw, his slow smile, his eyes, which none of the family could agree on. She and George thought they were hazel, but Rick and Isabel insisted they were green. Whatever their colour, she'd thought they were the most honest she had ever seen. You could trust him utterly.
Lilian bent forward to kiss her cheek. 'Look after yourself, child.'
Grace walked down the hill and rounded the bend. The ristorante was in darkness. It wasn't even eleven o'clock and she'd never known Franco shut before midnight. In the stillness the only sound was the slap of her sandals against her feet. She could smell the heavy scent of pine from the wood on the hill above. To her left, the dark mass of sea was striped with lines of golden yellow from the castle lights. She wouldn't let herself look back at the bulky outline of the castello. Her eyes had sought it, first thing in the morning and before she went to bed; part of the daily ritual, like cleaning her teeth or kissing Franco goodnight.
She expected the front door of the restaurant to be locked, but it swung inwards with that familiar creak of the hinges. For most of the day and evening, it stood open, apart from in the middle of winter, and she and Franco kept forgetting to oil it. It was strange to think such things wouldn't be her concern any more. She stepped inside the restaurant and leaned back against the door, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Only the swishing sound of the electric ceiling fans disturbed the silence.
'You're back.' Franco's voice made her jump. She reached up and turned on the wall lights. He was sitting at the far end of the restaurant. Grace always chose a table near the window so that she could see the sea, but Franco liked this one tucked away from public gaze. She walked between the tables, picking up a stray spoon that had been forgotten, until she was standing beside him.
He was hunched over, his chin in his hands. A coil of smoke drifted from a cigarette sitting in the ashtray in front of him. She counted three more stubbed out ends besides. He'd given up smoking when they got married. She hadn't asked him to, but he'd said, 'You always smell so fresh and clean, I can't do it any more,' and he hadn't smoked again. Until now. He didn't look at her and, not knowing what else to do, she sat opposite.
'You're late.' His voice was husky.
'I met some friends.'
'I thought you weren't coming back.' He looked up and their eyes met. His were puffy and red. She'd never seen him cry.
'How's your face?' he asked.
'Sore.'
He lifted his hand to her hair and stroked it back from her face. She heard his intake of breath.
'I'm sorry, carissima.'
'So am I, Franco. Sorry it's come to this.'
'I can make it up to you.' He caught hold of her hand. 'I didn't know what I was doing. I am tormented.'
She pulled her hand free. 'I'm leaving you.'
'For how long?'
She felt sick. Her head was spinning from all the wine and a hard knot had formed in her stomach. 'Forever.'
'Please. No.'
'I've made up my mind.'
'I know I've gone on about a baby.' He stretched out and she thought he was going to touch her again. She folded her arms across her chest.
'It's not only the baby. I can't do this any more.'
'Do what?'
'This.' She gestured to the room behind her. 'Us.'
'We'll change things. I'll change.'
Grace didn't answer. What could she say? She couldn't tell him that his pleading only made things worse. The Franco she'd fallen in love with had been vibrant, extroverted, always ready to laugh. That night when he'd arrived in the courtyard of the palazzo with the pot of bolognese sauce, it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her. Where had all that fun gone? Sexual attraction is a trap. Before you know where you are, you've tied yourself for life to someone you hardly know because of the way his hair curls or the little kisses he plants all over your body when you wake in the mornings.
Perhaps that was what happened to her mother when she met George's father. Their desire had been impossible to resist. In a way Grace hoped so. She couldn't bear to think of George being the result of some sordid fling like Lilian's husband's child.
'Please give it another chance.' Franco's voice came from far away. 'I love you. I'll do anything to make you happy.'
Grace shook her head. 'It's no good. It's over.'
'Please.'
Grace stood up. The chair crashed behind her on to the tiles. She glanced round. She remembered how she'd agonised over the exact colour for the floor. Franco had wanted pale marble, b
ut she'd insisted on dark green, and she'd got her way.
'I'm sorry,' she said.
Franco looked up at her. She could see the yellow flecks in his eyes that caught the light and made them glow.
'Don't leave me. I'll tell Mamma to—'
'Franco… it's no good.'
He buried his head in his arms.
Grace ached to touch that funny wave at the nape of his neck. She knew exactly how it would feel. She went upstairs to pack.
Twenty-eight
The bedroom was darker. Grace turned on her side and felt for Franco. He was usually curled into a ball, his back a smooth curve. In the early days she'd snuggled up to him, pressing her breasts against his warm skin. Gradually he would stir, roll to her and take her in his arms. Now she was more likely to pretend to be asleep until he got up to go to the fish market. This morning something made her stretch out her hand to see if he was still there. And then, she remembered.
She wasn't in her light airy bedroom in Ischia. She wouldn't be able to throw open the shutters, step out on the balcony into a morning where the sun would bathe her bare arms and legs, where her eyes could feast on the castello.
'This is a record,' George had said the previous night as they climbed the steep narrow stairs. 'The third member of my family to stay in this room in the past year.' He laughed as he heaved her suitcase on to the bed. 'First no one visits me. Now I can't get rid of you all!'
Grace tried to smile, but her lips stuck to her teeth. All she wanted was sleep. Sleep would block the memory of Franco's sobs. Block thoughts of Maria, Vincenzo and Alphonso standing in a sombre line outside the ristorante when the taxi arrived to take her to the ferry, Franco inside, nowhere to be seen.
'Are you okay, Sis?' George had said. 'I've never seen you look so bad.'
'I need a good night's rest. I'll be all right in the morning.'
Now the morning was here. Outside the gulls shrieked. Rain pattered against the window. And she wasn't all right. A throbbing pain attached itself to her head and was spreading down into her neck. The weight lodged in her stomach was worse. The single bed felt constricting and she was cold. Franco would be up by now, drinking his first cup of strong sweet coffee. She turned on her side and pulled the duvet over her head.
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