by Alex Brown
‘Don’t be upsetting yourself, love. We must look on the bright side now that we have this information,’ Larry said, getting up to give Betty a hug.
‘How is this a bright side? It’s so sad,’ Betty said, patting Larry’s arm.
‘Because we now know that Connie stored the contents of unit 28 for her daughter, Lara, to inherit,’ Larry said, ‘and Ellis told us that something in writing from Connie to this effect would be very helpful in proving this. Plus Connie specifically mentions the paintings and jewellery, so there’s no doubt now that they were indeed Connie’s to bequeath and that Lara is the heir.’
‘True,’ Grace spoke this time, and stood up too. ‘Thank you so much for bringing the letters to us,’ she said, looking first at Lady Bee and then at Mr Conway. It felt good to know that they knew for sure now that Connie had carefully stored all her beautiful, treasured possessions for her only child, Lara, but there was something missing. ‘It’s just such a pity that we still don’t have an address for Lara. When you handed me the bundle I was hopeful, but this is Connie’s address here on the airmail envelope so I’m assuming her mother just returned any letters that Connie sent to Lara. And this envelope has only Lara’s name on it … I wonder why Connie never posted it?’ Grace thought aloud as she tapped the front of the cream envelope.
‘Ah! Yes, I didn’t think of that,’ Larry sighed, and Betty gave him a look.
‘Maybe Connie died before she could post it,’ Lady Bee said in a stoic, matter-of-fact manner. ‘She had a fall in the street, remember, and the woman who works in the post office in Blackheath Village did tell me later that Connie had only been in there a few days before asking how much the postage was to send a letter to America. She remembered because she said that dear old Connie was confused and unsure about where exactly in America she wanted to send the letter, managing only to say Manhattan as she fumbled in her purse before saying that she would have to come back later as she had left the letter in the kitchen at home.’
‘Oh no,’ Grace gasped, on realising that even right up to the very end Connie had been caring for Lara, wanting to do the best for her … it was just such a pity the same kindness and consideration had never been shown to Connie, firstly by her own mother and then by the universe, fate or whatever, towards the end. Because, if Lara had somehow received the letter, then maybe she would have come to England … maybe she would have been with her mother when she died. Then maybe Connie wouldn’t have been all alone and would have got her happy ending after all.
‘There is one other thing,’ Mr Conway said, standing up and rummaging inside his blazer. ‘The decorator chap found this too, just a moment before we left to come here this morning.’ He glanced at Lady Bee who leaned forward to see what it was. ‘Ah, here it is … not sure it will be of much use, though, as it’s dated November 1946.’
And he handed a postcard to Grace.
A picture of the breathtakingly beautiful Italian Riviera on the front and Connie’s handwriting on the back next to an address in Manhattan. Grace felt her pulse quicken as she held her breath.
‘I need to call Ellis,’ she said, her fingers shaking as she fished inside her jeans pocket to pull out her mobile.
He answered right away.
‘Hello, Grace … this is a nice surprise, or am I dreaming?’ he laughed, sounding sleepy, for it must be early morning in New York, she thought on glancing at the clock on the wall and swiftly counting back the hours in her head. But this was too important, as time could be running out for them to find Connie’s daughter.
‘No, you’re not dreaming … it’s really me, and I have some news.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I know where you need to go to start the search for Lara. I have an address right here … on a postcard from Italy.’
EPILOGUE
Santa Margherita, Italy … Three months later
Grace buckled her seatbelt and gazed out of the aeroplane window, barely able to quell the swirl of delight that was building within her. Not long now and she would be back in beautiful Italy with her boyfriend, Ellis, for a wonderful weekend together. Pushing her sunglasses up – she had treated herself to a pair of tortoiseshell Versace ones, just like Nonna Maria’s – not real, expensive ones, but near enough. Grace’s shades were fake and therefore a fraction of the price, from a stall in Greenwich Market. One of the places she liked to wander around on a Saturday afternoon on her way back from an art gallery in London or a dance class at the famous Pineapple Studio. Yes, she loved going out on her own now. She loved the freedom of it. The feeling of doing exactly as she pleased and whenever she liked. Because it had turned out that Cora wasn’t as immobile as she had led Grace and her three siblings to believe.
While Grace had been away, her brother Mikey, outraged and egged on by a still fuming Bernie, because Grace had had the temerity to leave Cora and go to Italy, had installed a secret camera in her bedroom. Mikey had never liked Jamie, his macho ego uncomfortable around ‘gayness’, as Mikey ignorantly called it, and so the camera was installed with the intention of spying on Jamie. Or, to put in Mikey’s words, ‘to make sure the staff aren’t slapping the old dears around like you see on those undercover documentary programmes on the telly’ as he had said that time before in the phone conversation when Grace had called him asking him for help caring for their mother.
But an altogether different scene had met their eyes on watching the film back. Jamie had told Grace all about it when she had first arrived home the day after Ellis had made love to her all night long.
‘There I was, dashing around, making her ladyship a mug of warm milk with a pinch of nutmeg sprinkled on the top, just the way she likes it, when your Mikey, Sinead and Bernie burst through the back door into the kitchen and near scared the life out of me,’ Jamie had said, clutching a hand to his chest at this point. ‘Then the next thing I know, there’s this almighty palaver with Mikey running up the stairs and yelling for Cora to get up. To get her, and I quote, “lazy, selfish, conniving backside out of the bed at once”. Well, obviously I elbowed my way round them and into Cora’s bedroom with the intention of putting a stop to it all, thinking Mikey had seriously lost the plot, figuring all that financial wheeling and dealing he does had addled his brain. And I know your mother can be extremely difficult and controlling but … well, she was in my care and Mikey was absolutely livid. Who knew what he was capable of? But there he was, ripping a camera and a bundle of wires from the top of the wardrobe while Bernie was shoving an iPhone screen into my face! “Watch this!” Bernie had instructed, you know, in that bossy way she has. And so I did. Bold as brass your mother was, Grace, mooching around her bedroom without a care in the world. The camera had caught Cora practically springing out of bed every time I left the room. And to think they installed a camera to catch me out. Flaming cheek. But … and if that wasn’t bad enough … the proverbial cherry on the top of the very mucky cake that Cora had cooked up, was a film clip of her wiggling her ample hips and doing a shoulder-shimmy in time to the Countdown theme tune!’
At this point Grace’s eyes had almost popped right out of her head, barely able to believe what she was hearing, before she had then confronted her mother too, demanding a full explanation, and remembering that time when she had wondered how things had moved themselves around in Cora’s bedroom. Well, now she knew! Cora had been playing her daughter for all that time.
After Grace had watched the film too, Cora had broken down; it had been awful seeing her hard, bitter façade crumble so pathetically as she had admitted that she was scared of her own increasing frailty and what would become of her as she got even older. But rather than be angry, Grace had felt an overwhelming rush of relief, as the revelation had set her free. She was no longer tied to caring for her mother, who no wonder had refused to consider a care home, for she would have been found out to be a fraud right away. So Grace had listened as her mother explained that she knew all her children hated her, but she was lonely, a
nd that, ‘I suppose I wanted you to stay with me when you came back home’, to which Grace had told her mother that she would have done so anyway if she had just been honest.
But that was in the past now. A week later, Cora had had a modest win on her scratchcard and so given Grace the money to enrol on a part-time performing arts teacher-training course to make up for having used her as an unpaid carer for all that time. And after many evenings of chatting things through, Grace had come to understand that her mother was scared and lonely, and so they had organised some things to do together, too, and had already enjoyed cinema visits and trips to the garden centre café. Cora had also taken it upon herself to join a slimming club in a bid to lose some of her bulk and had already teamed up with a couple of other ladies her age and now that she had the mobility scooter, she regularly went to the bingo with them.
Grace smiled to herself as the lush mountainous terrain came in to view. The pine trees and sunshine glittering over the Ligurian Sea as the aeroplane landed at Genoa Airport. She couldn’t wait to see Ellis, who was arriving from New York a few hours after her and coming straight to the powder pink villa to meet her there. Having kept in touch with Tom and Georgie, they had squared it with Nonna Maria for them all to be allowed to stay in the villa for the weekend. And Grace couldn’t wait to see inside the home where Connie had lived and had been so happy with Giovanni.
Stepping out of the taxi that Grace had hopped into at the airport, not fancying another long, hot walk up the windy mountain road to the powder pink villa, with a suitcase in tow, she was happy to see that Georgie and Tom were already here.
‘Hi Grace,’ Georgie smiled, looking radiant in a white floaty sundress as she walked towards her with Gypsy tucked under her arm.
‘How was your journey?’ Tom said, kissing her on each cheek and then taking her suitcase from the boot of the taxi and wheeling it off towards the metal gates at the entrance to the villa.
‘Hi Georgie, it’s so good to be back here in Italy,’ Grace said, giving her a hug. ‘And the journey was fine, thanks, Tom,’ she added, walking alongside Georgie as they followed Tom down the long driveway and up three stone steps to the door of the villa that was framed by an array of exotic vermilion red begonias.
‘You can take it from here,’ Tom said, opening the door and placing Grace’s suitcase inside.
‘Aren’t you coming in too?’ she asked, baffled that they were leaving her on her own when she had only just arrived.
‘Oh, we have some things to do in Portofino,’ Georgie said vaguely, fiddling with Gypsy’s little collar before kissing the cat on the head.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Tom chipped in, putting his arm around Georgie. ‘But you’ll be fine. Ellis will be here before you know it and so why don’t you go and have a look around and make yourself comfortable. There are drinks in the bar off the dining hall and snacks in the kitchen if you’re hungry.’ And then, before she could ask more, they had both practically scarpered back down the driveway and disappeared out of sight. How odd, Grace thought, but in her anticipation to see where Connie had lived, she let it go from her mind.
Inside, and Grace was completely overcome as she imagined Connie closing the huge oak door behind her and walking across the marble tiled floor and into the vast sitting room which had two sparkling chandeliers and an array of sumptuous patterned silk sofas dotted around. Magnificent floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto a wraparound veranda that gave a panoramic view of the dazzling Italian Riviera. Then, leading off the sitting room, was a dining hall with a long table that could seat twenty people, at least, comfortably. An opulent mural covered the whole of one wall – beautiful Renaissance women draped in fabric and lounging around a table laden with food – grapes, cheeses, bread and flagons of wine. Grace stepped closer and saw Giovanni’s initials in the bottom right-hand corner. She crouched down to gently touch an index finger there, knowing that Connie would have done exactly the same for sure.
Standing up, Grace closed her eyes for a few seconds and imagined Connie and Giovanni, in happier times, Frank Sinatra music playing, or Dean Martin, or Pavarotti perhaps, as they entertained their friends in here with fabulous feasts followed by cocktails on the veranda, for there was another veranda just through the opened wooden doors. She could hear voices floating in from outside and went to investigate. Maybe Georgie and Tom were still in the grounds.
As Grace walked down the path, tilting her face up to the gloriously warm sun, inhaling the scent of frangipani, the sound of birdsong all around, she could hear a man’s voice. Ellis. And her heart lifted in anticipation of seeing him. But what was he doing here already? And she could hear female voices too. Three of them, if she wasn’t mistaken … laughing and then shushing covertly as if they were embroiled in some kind of conspiracy. She kept on walking and, as she reached the little rose garden in the far corner, with the pine-tree-clad cliffs for a backdrop, Grace could see Ellis. Her pulse quickened as she ran towards him, keen to give him a big hug as she had missed him so much. They had spoken every day since they were last here in Italy together, but it just wasn’t the same, and as she reached him and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close, she could feel tears of happiness bubbling up inside her.
‘Hey, darling,’ he said softly, as he pulled back to see her face. ‘This is supposed to be a surprise, a happy one I had hoped … please don’t cry.’
‘And it is,’ she laughed, wiping her eyes, ‘I’m just a bit overwhelmed, I guess. I thought you weren’t arriving until later. I’m so pleased to see you …’
‘And me you. Let’s have a proper reunion later when it’s just us,’ he grinned, giving her a kiss on the lips.
‘I can’t wait,’ she grinned right back.
‘But first … come on, there’s someone else here who can’t wait to see you.’
‘Who?’ she asked, intrigued as she glanced over his shoulder.
But Ellis didn’t say … instead he took Grace by the hand and led her over to where three women were sitting in the shade underneath a pergola, a flurry of yellow butterflies floating around the nearby honeysuckle.
‘Grace,’ he said, stepping forward towards the oldest of the three women who was standing up now, the two younger women on either side of her. ‘This is Lara.’
‘Lara?’ Grace couldn’t believe it and her mouth dropped open and her eyes nearly popped right out of their sockets.
A short silence followed as she stood, dumbfounded.
Then after quickly recovering herself, she swallowed and blinked and took another look at the woman, as if checking for real that she was actually here. Grace saw the impish green eyes, like emeralds … just as Connie had described. Her hair was still curly, but a silvery grey now with age. And there it was too, a look of Connie, when she was standing by the boats in the picture taken in Portofino back in 1952. Grace could actually see Connie, Lara’s mother, looking back at her. And she caught her breath.
‘But how? How did you find her?’ She swivelled her head to look at Ellis and then back to the woman standing before her. ‘And why did you keep her a secret until now?’ she said, half laughing and half chastising as she batted his arm with her hand.
‘Your boyfriend knocked on my front door,’ Lara said, in a refined New York accent, smiling as she took both of Grace’s hands in hers. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for giving him my address.’
‘Your address?’ Grace echoed, laughing harder as she tried to figure it all out.
‘That’s right. The one on the postcard from Italy,’ Ellis grinned.
‘You still live in Aunt Rachael’s house in Manhattan?’ Grace asked, still stunned. The address on the postcard was where she had asked Ellis to start the search, imagining someone there might, by some miraculous chance, have known where the previous occupants had moved to, or a neighbour perhaps might know of Aunt Rachael and her relatives from England and what had happened to them … if the young girl who had moved to America all those years ago
was even still alive? But what were the chances of Ellis actually finding Connie’s daughter, Lara, living right there … in plain sight for all this time? It was truly remarkable.
‘Well, it’s my house now,’ Lara said. ‘My Aunt Rachael died when I was a child and left the brownstone to my parents and—’ She paused, abruptly. ‘Oh dear, please excuse me,’ she then added, and turned away as she tried to correct herself, ‘the house was left to my, um … grandparents, I guess, and then in turn to me. I’m so sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. Not here in this wonderful place …’ she finished, fishing in her bag before pulling out a hanky and dabbing her eyes.
‘It’s OK, Mom.’ One of the other women moved forward to put her arm around Lara as she steered her towards a white wicker sofa, then introduced herself to Grace. ‘I’m Patty, Lara’s daughter, and this is Ellen, my sister,’ she said, and Ellen gave Grace a hug, and then after settling their mum in the seat, Patty explained, ‘It’s been quite overwhelming for her; you see Mom didn’t know …’
And so as they sat in Connie’s picturesque garden, drinking ice-cold lemonade, Lara’s daughters told Grace what had happened all those years ago. It turned out that Lara had indeed grown up believing that Connie was her older sister, and with only a faded memory of seeing her occasionally during the war in England, so she had no real recollection of her. Although Lara did remember her bat mitzvah party ending abruptly when Connie turned up in the middle of it and a very strained atmosphere ensued. Lara remembered being told to take her beloved dog, Lady, out into the garden and to stay there with Aunt Rachael and all their friends. It stuck in her mind as she had been allowed to eat chocolate cake before tea and that was never normally allowed. Lara didn’t recall ever seeing Connie again after that day, and her instinct, at even such a young age, had told her not to ask about Connie or indeed mention her name ever again … and so through the mists of time her ‘sister’ had faded from her thoughts completely.