The Villa Page 5

  ‘I’ll be thinking of you,’ Flavia had told Tess before she left. And of Sicily.

  She sat down and opened the notebook. You have to tell the story in order to let it go. Well, she was going to give it a try. She would try to write what she couldn’t say. Tell the story about the girl called Flavia who seemed now so distant, so lost. It was time.

  My Darling Tess, she wrote. Where to start? From the beginning, she supposed. From that day when it had happened, when it had all begun.

  It was July. And hot, very hot. She remembered the heat of the sun on her back, burning into her neck as she stooped, sticking the thin white blouse to her skin. She remembered pushing back her thick hair with the back of her hand, the hand stained from the tomatoes …

  July 1943

  Flavia had woken this morning feeling that something had happened. When she got out of bed and peered out of the window, everything outside was pretending to be just the same. The rose of dawn was already darkening into something sensual and strong. But she knew, just knew. She had woken in the night – just once – and been aware, through the blackness, of sound; a crash not far away. And lights – searchlights maybe – that seemed to rip through the night sky.

  Out in the field later that morning she squatted to pick the ripe tomatoes from the next plant in the row. Sweet Madonna, she thought. She had only just started picking and already her back was aching and her fingers were green. Another July, another harvest; tomatoes and olives, apples and plums. Pick, pick, pick, all day long, so Mama could pulverise and strain, sterilise and bottle and make her tomato sauce (‘the most important domestic task of the year, child’) her jam, her olive oil, her … Eugh! Flavia pushed back her hair which was heavy and thick and making her sweat even more. She wanted to scream …

  Enough. She straightened. Over the land for as far as she could see, over the green and rust mountainous plains beaded with pines and cypress trees, olive groves, vineyards and the occasional limestone hut, hung a haze of heat. It had a colour – purple-grey – and it had a sound – hummm. She stood hand on hip and called it out loud, back to the landscape. ‘Hummm.’ The drone of the insects; a never-ending buzzing; enough to drive you mad.

  There was not a cloud in the sky and all she could smell was the harsh, dry greenness of tomato. There was no sign that anything had changed last night.

  ‘Hey!’

  Flavia flinched.

  ‘You are in the land of the daydream,’ her sister Maria threw across at her. ‘Again!’ She clicked her tongue in that superior older sister way she had perfected over the years and pointed at Flavia’s half-empty basket. ‘Come on. Hurry!’

  ‘Come on, hurry,’ Flavia muttered under her breath. Another harvest, another year of working and waiting. And what was she waiting for? Some young man from the village to lay claim to her?

  She moved on to the next plant. Carelessly plucked the fruit from the bristly stems. Like an old man’s beard, she thought. Like old Luciano who looked after the goats up on the mountain slopes. The dry, sun-sticky tomato scent had sunk into her nostrils, her throat, her belly.

  There weren’t more than two or three to choose from. Young men, that was. Not that she would be allowed to choose. And who would choose her, Mama demanded, ‘if you do not learn to curb your tongue, my daughter.’ She was too independent, too headstrong. ‘Save your fire,’ Mama said. For after you are married, she meant. For when – as the matriarch – you take control. Sweet Jesus … Unaware, her fingers gripped the fruit too tightly and she felt the skin burst, the pulp ooze into her fingers. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and sucked, threw the skin to the dusty ground.

  ‘Tch!’ Maria didn’t miss a trick.

  Flavia pouted back at her, moved to the next plant with a careless flounce of her shoulders. She knew who her sister wanted. Leonardo Rossi. She knew because she understood the language of the eyes – perceptible only to a self-trained observer like Flavia – which passed between the two of them in church. Because where else was there? It was the only place you would see anyone. And even then the gaze must be downcast; you must be modest above all things. Pah!

  She stretched. She was only seventeen; her back and shoulders were still young and supple, but she could see what made the old women so grey-faced, bent and worn. Picking tomatoes for one …

  She allowed her gaze to rest on the dusky-pink Villa Sirena that stood high above the ancient walled square of the baglio and the bay; the villa owned by Edward Westerman, the eccentric English poet, who also owned the olive trees that they harvested, the tomato plants that her mother and father tended, even the stone cottage that they lived in, situated just behind the villa he’d had built nine years ago when he arrived in Sicily. Back then, Flavia was just a child. Back then, this war was far away, not dreamed of. Now, Palermo – the most conquered city in the world, some said – had been entered by Germans and Americans both. It had been ‘conquered’ and yet it welcomed its conquerors with open arms and wholesale prostitution, she had heard. Truth was, Flavia didn’t know what to think. She wasn’t even sure whose side they were on. Once again she pushed the hair from her brow, not caring about the stains on her hands. What did it matter? Who would see?

  Flavia’s family looked after Villa Sirena, the land and Signor Westerman as well. It had been that way since 1935 when, only twenty-one years old himself, he had first turned up with an inheritance and employed her father to help him build the villa. Papa had been grateful for the work, he’d said that often enough, and Signor Westerman – though young – was a good employer. So much so, that Flavia’s mother had applied for the position of cook and housekeeper and obtained it too. Along with a full-time job as caretaker for Papa, who’d had nothing (‘nothing child … ’) before Signor Westerman came along. Papa, whose children ‘would have eaten dirt just like so many others in the village, who might have died on the streets like them, if not for the kindness of l’inglese, Signor Westerman. Madonna be praised.’ Flavia had heard her father’s words so often. ‘He has saved us. He would not let us starve.’

  Indeed, Signor Westerman had always been kind to her, and sometimes, when she was supposed to be helping Mama, he had called her to him, told her stories about England and read her poetry. He read it out loud in a language unfamiliar to her, but she could hear the way the words danced and she could close her eyes and let herself dream.

  He spoke about England in a mixture of English and Italian which was also hard to understand. But she could understand enough to see that life was different there, so different that it was impossible to imagine. But Flavia did imagine. Where girls went to dances – such dances – and talked freely and walked out alone, or with men even. And lived. Sweet Madonna, how they lived.

  Maria, she noted, was almost at the end of her row. ‘Come on, Flavia. You are so slow,’ she shouted.

  Flavia’s mind wouldn’t rest. What had happened last night? What was going on? Why the lights? The noises? Something was afoot. She’d seen Papa meeting with the other men from the village early this morning at Bar Piccolo in the piazza and had noted the earnest faces, shaking heads, serious whispers and large quantities of espresso being consumed. Despite loitering outside, Flavia had found out nothing – although she suspected it was to do with this war; everything was to do with this war. It did nothing for them, mind (so Papa said). Just took away and killed their young men. Flavia sighed. So there would be even fewer to choose from.

  She let her fingertips trail across the tight, swollen skins of the tomatoes. The fruit had absorbed so much sun, it seemed pregnant with it. Now the war had taken away Signor Westerman too. It was, everyone said, too dangerous to stay in Sicily; these were turbulent times. Who could predict the actions of Hitler and of Mussolini? And who even knew which were worst – the fascists or the Nazis? Swiftly, Flavia crossed herself.

  The Signor had returned to England – until the war was over. Who knew when he would be able to return to claim his beautiful villa, his land, his olive groves?r />
  And in the meantime … Flavia watched Maria: bending, picking, bending, picking … there was a smooth rhythm to her sister’s movements. Maria was content, she realised, with a jolt of surprise and frustration. How could she be, when so much was uncertain, when Leonardo was God knows where and their family had no livelihood – and perhaps no future – with Signor Westerman away? When they could be killed, victims of a senseless war, at any moment? Was her sister mad?

  Maria didn’t look mad; rather as if she knew something Flavia did not. Flavia sighed. Perhaps it was the centuries of destruction by earthquake or volcano, or of being conquered by some other marauding tribe, that made Sicilians so sanguine, so content with their lot. Was it a coincidence that in Sicilian, there was no future tense? They were a people who could only look back – never forward, with hope.

  Flavia turned her face up to the hot sun. No future? It was said that in Palermo there were fascist slogans in windows – Better a day like a lion than a hundred years like a sheep. But Papa said such words were wasted on Sicilians. They knew about honour – none better. But what did they care about the war? It was not their war. They cared more about survival. Besides, her family liked the English and were loyal to Signor Westerman, who had given them so much. They had hidden all Signor Westerman’s things from the house – at least everything of value. Including il tesoro which was – she had heard Papa telling Santina’s father, when he didn’t know she was behind the curtain listening – in a place where no one would ever find it, no one would even dream to look.

  Flavia shrugged. So what? What was it to her – all this intrigue, all the whispering about enemies and valuables that must be kept hidden?

  ‘Let me look.’ Maria was at her side now, inspecting her basket. What would she do now that her boy had left the village – not to go to war but to hide in the mountains, so people said. Some called them deserters – those men sleeping in local cottages and caves, living off the profit from black-market grain and stolen cattle. Most didn’t blame them. But what if he didn’t come back?

  And when the war ended? What then? Even if you were chosen by any of the young men who had survived the war, what sort of life would be yours? A life like Mama’s – if you were lucky. Cooking, cleaning, having babies. Drudgery. Confined to the house for evermore. Apart from church and the market, that was. Eugh …

  ‘Your mind is always in another world,’ Maria scolded. ‘What is wrong with you? This is our food, our life.’

  Flavia swung her basket. Our food. Our life. Was it so wrong to want more …?

  After lunch, Flavia couldn’t settle to her siesta. The white light of the early afternoon bore into her eyes and temples as she tossed restlessly on her bed. What was it? Was it just the heat of July? Or …? She got up, splashed cold water on her face and went downstairs. All was quiet. The world was sleeping, but it was the kind of sleep that came before a storm.

  Shielding her eyes from the sun, she stepped past the limp netting and out of the door. The earth of the kitchen garden was dry and hard, but the fava beans, artichokes and peas were all doing well – Mama made sure of that. While they had land, they would eat. And the harvest would provide seeds for the year to come.

  For a moment she hesitated, intending to move towards the sea where she might step perhaps into the cooling water, but drawn instead in the other direction, towards the distant fields and olive groves on the lower mountain slopes. She squinted into the distance. For a moment she thought she saw something – the reflection of light on metal in the field of tawny wheat between the olive groves. She waited, motionless, beads of sweat collecting at the top of her spine and on her brow. Sì. There it was again. A flash, like a signal, a sign.

  Flavia spun on her heels, ran back into the kitchen to fetch a flask of water and in moments was out again. She looked around. There was no one in sight, everyone was inside, trying to escape this oppressive heat. A lizard basked for a moment on the bare white stone rock, then flashed like quicksilver away.

  She walked down the path towards the first olive grove. She walked through the trees, shimmering grey and silver in the sun, their gnarled branches now heavy with olives. The earth beneath them, once red, had dried to a pale dusty salmon. The land was throbbing and mercilessly the cicadas screamed. In the distance the horizon was like liquid violet to her eyes.

  At the end of the first grove, Flavia paused under a tree to take a drink from the flask. It tasted like nectar, cool and sweet. She kept looking around her, beyond the field of honey-coloured wheat framed by wild poppies and clover that seemed to be vibrating in the heat of the afternoon. There it was again, the flash of light. Just beyond the ridge. Within reach.

  Once again Flavia set off across the field and the next olive grove. By the time she got to the ridge she was gasping for breath and her heart was hammering. She stood for a moment, motionless. The air was heavy and still, so still.

  She stepped forward, looked down, and there it was. A plane, half broken, with wreckage all around. ‘ O dio Beddramadre,’ she said, hand over her mouth. Oh, Holy Mother of God … And not twenty metres away, white-faced, holding his leg and in obvious pain, lay a man; a foreigner. An airman. ’O dio Beddramadre… ’

  Flavia put down her pen. She was as exhausted as if she had been through a mangle. And still it felt not enough. She had been mistaken; she could see that now. But there was time to redress the balance, she felt. She could give her daughter something more from her homeland. And then she realised what it must be.

  CHAPTER 8

  Tess collected the hire car from Palermo airport and drove to Cetaria, all thoughts of Robin boxed at the back of her mind. Right now she was keeping the lid on. She didn’t need him. She wouldn’t let herself. And Sicily, she could see, would be the ideal distraction. It was hard to tear her gaze from the green-grey mountain slopes, the rusty earth studded by pine and birch trees on one side, and the glimpses of a late sun shimmering over an azure sea to the other. But she had to concentrate on the road. This was Sicily, this was a hire car and she must remember to drive on the right.

  It was early evening and still light when she saw the village an hour later, a cluster of terraced streets huddled below her beside the sea. The road to Cetaria wound down steeply from a belvedere at the top. She drove past a chapel with an apricot stuccoed facade, and before she could get her bearings the streets had wrapped themselves around her. Tall, shuttered buildings sandwiched the cobbles on either side and narrow stone steps descended to the level below – occasionally opening out into a piazza or a brief flash-view of the sea. It was a maze.

  She parked in a side street, got out and stretched. It was warm, she fancied a stroll and it would be far easier to find the house she was looking for on foot. She’d been told to collect the key from a Signora Santina Sciarra who lived in via Dogali, number fifteen, and who was a friend of the family. Which family, she wondered. Hers? Was this someone who had known her mother?

  ‘Is the villa very dilapidated?’ she had asked the solicitor dealing with Edward Westerman’s will on the phone before she came here. She was determined to be practical. What had promised to be an adventure with Robin might prove daunting when faced with it alone. But he had assured her it was just old, tired and in need of some TLC. Old and tired, Tess could cope with. Crumbling ceilings and leaking pipes, she could not. She was trying to be strong. But her relationship with Robin had reached a cliff edge. And she wasn’t sure whether or not to jump.

  Leaving her bags in the car, she walked to the corner. It was dinnertime. She could smell the fragrances of tomatoes, herbs and roasting meat drifting through open windows, down from balconies and terraces. In the next street, she saw an old woman dressed in black, sweeping her front step, her back bent.

  ‘Scusi,’ Tess said. Was that right?

  The woman peered up at her with black, inscrutable eyes. She did not speak.

  ‘Sera. Er …’ That was most of her Italian used up. And besides, Sicilian was a completely di
fferent language – one that her mother hadn’t chosen to share with Tess when she was growing up. ‘Via Dogali?’ She showed the woman the slip of paper she’d written the address on. Sicilians were bound to understand Italian; no doubt most of them spoke it to the tourists who regularly invaded their island.

  The woman grabbed the slip of paper from her with brown knobbled fingers, peering and clicking her tongue. She was clutching a thick black shawl around her head, despite the warmth of the evening. She let loose a torrent of Sicilian, in which Tess thought she caught the name Santina.

  ‘Yes,’ Tess said. ‘Santina. Sì.’

  The woman placed a bony hand on Tess’s arm and gripped. Hard. She was speaking very fast. Was she asking who Tess was? She thought so.

  ‘I am Flavia’s daughter,’ she said clearly. ‘Flavia. Figlia.’ Was that right?

  Another torrent. The woman turned and beckoned. ‘Sì, sì,’ she muttered. ‘Come, come.’

  She hobbled quickly along the skinny street, her heavy black shoes clomping over the uneven cobbles. Tess scurried behind. How old was this woman? Seventy? Eighty? A hundred? It was impossible to tell. She was bent almost double and her skin was lined, brown and weathered by the sun.

  They couldn’t be far away from Santina’s; nothing was far away. And this was where her mother had grown up. Tess felt a thrill of excitement. Had her mother walked down these same streets, smelt these same smells – delicious cooking, yes, but interlaced, she had to admit, with a more dubious smell of stale sewage, or rotting food perhaps; a scent of decay. The steps of the houses they were passing were clean enough, but the walls were grimy, the paint peeling to reveal the underbellies of the houses themselves – the stone core. Had it been like this back then, she wondered. For Muma? Everyone probably knew everyone in this town. And their business. This woman had, no doubt, lived here all her life. She would know everything that Tess wanted to find out – if Tess could only talk to her ….