around me, almost smothering, and I was happy to sit and do nothing as the light deepened, turned brassy and the heat set in.
I thought about Chloe, the thick rope of feeling that bound me to her, and how, after she was born, I was no longer a separate person. I thought of Raoul, my first lover, from whom I had fled – for a second time. Of Will, my great love. The shapes of our lives and the spaces between them.
When Meg woke, we walked into Fiertino, took a table overlooking the piazza at Angelo’s and ordered coffee. Sometimes, the piazza was almost deserted. Sometimes, summoned by a mysterious force, there was an influx of the puttering vans the Italians favoured, and fumes mixed with the odour of coffee and vegetables from the supermarket next door.
I drank my coffee and worked through my wine books while Meg read a novel or gazed at nothing much. I liked it there, and I think Meg did too – she seemed content. Our only major expenditure of energy was to move our chairs into the shade as the sun shifted.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘Will would like this.’
‘Will?’
‘Don’t you see? He’s never had a chance to sit and do nothing. He has always been so driven. Right from the word go.’ She cupped her chin in her hands. ‘My brother’s a brave man and it’s not his fault that the world is so difficult and awful. Anyway, Will wasn’t going to let it get the better of us.’ The eyelids closed on the dark eyes. ‘See?’
Each day, from either the shop or the market, we selected a different vegetable as the main ingredient for lunch. Tomato or aubergine? Zucchini or big fat mushrooms? I did the chopping. Meg confected the dressings. (She had a knack for balancing the balsamic vinegar, oil and mustard.)
In the afternoons we took a siesta, and in the early evenings we braced ourselves to get into the car and do some sightseeing. More often than not, we drank iced coffee in a nearby village.
I took Meg to the museum in Tarquinia and asked her if she recognized the couple. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘of course I do. The happy couple.’ She peered at the inscription. ‘They died so young that there wasn’t time for hatred and boredom.’
‘No,’ I said.
Then I took her to see the frescos in the Fiertino church. She stared at them for a long time. Finally, she moved away – ‘Too hellfire for me,’ she said.
After that, by mutual agreement, we dropped the cultural trips.
20
Instead, Meg and I were perfectly happy to shop. When the sun dropped behind the hill, and it grew cooler, we browsed through boutiques and markets, tried on neat Italian jumpers, discussed handbags. We bought pretty straw baskets and silk scarves for Meg.
Maria tipped us off about a shoe-shop tucked away in a street behind the church. ‘All the shoes from Rome,’ she said, and winked. ‘But not the prices.’ Meg and I agreed that we had a duty to shore up the local economy.
The shop was in the medieval quarter of the town. Hot, dark and womb-like, its interior smelt pleasingly of leather and varnish – a craftsman’s smell. We spent a good half-hour hunting through the racks. Meg pounced on a pair of cunning high heels and I hovered between delicious red-leather sandals, which spoke to me, and a utilitarian black pair with ‘Stanwinton’ written all over them, which did not.
Meg slotted her feet into her shoes and turned a full circle. She seemed excited, alight with joy, almost a girl again, and I could see why Rob had fallen in love with her. Rocking on the heels, she said, ‘Will bought me my first pair of nice shoes. He took a job stacking supermarket shelves and saved up. He wanted to say thank you to me. I kept them for years.’
Our stay in Fiertino had had an unexpected consequence: it had loosened Meg’s tongue. She had dropped quite a few bits of information into my lap. ‘Take them,’ she appeared to be saying. ‘They are my present to you.’
She was trying to tell me about the unknown Will: the one who had existed before I knew him. Scratch me for the facts, and I could tell you that Will’s favourite breakfast was fried bacon. I knew what kind of shirts he favoured, the way he turned over in his sleep and flung an arm over his head. I knew that he loved his daughter, that he had been unfaithful to me. I knew we had had many years together.
But I was ignorant about the slice of his life when Meg had held the reins in hands that must have trembled often – with fear and anxiety.
I replaced the red sandals on the shelf. ‘It’s too hot in here. Another time.’
‘More fool you,’ said Meg, and paid for hers.
At the end of the week Will rang. ‘Fantastic news, Fanny. Chloe’s got her results. Two As and a B. I phoned her and she was so pleased.’
A lump sprang into my throat. ‘Clever, wonderful Chloe.’
We discussed her university plans and which of her friends had got what. While we were talking, I entertained a vision of Chloe, now properly grown up, graduating in a black gown, getting married, coming home with a trio of grandchildren. Time was slipping this way and quickly, and I had to catch up with it.
‘Did you send her my love?’
‘Of course. How are you both?’
‘Practically comatose.’
‘Good.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The house seems very empty. But I have been in London quite a lot. The flat’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. I’m sorry you were invaded by Meg. I know you wanted a bit of a breathing space. But these last few weeks have been hell.’ He continued in the same vein. Dreadful weather. Tedious boxes. Finally he said, wistfully, ‘You seem a long way away.’
I brushed a dead fly on to the floor. Did I miss it in my cleaning frenzy? ‘Guess who turned up? Raoul. We went out for a marvellous dinner with his friends and talked vineyards and vintages.’
‘How nice,’ he said guardedly. ‘By the way, there’s a stack of papers from the lawyer waiting for you here.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I made an effort. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’
‘The polls are gloomy,’ he said, ‘but perhaps that’s to be expected…’
While Will talked, I stared out of the window at an olive tree which grew precariously but defiantly on the slope above the house. The undersides of its leaves appeared white in the sun.
I heard the rustle of a cigarette packet. ‘Fanny… as I feared, the second-car tax is to be dropped. It’s too sensitive. With an election coming up… so, very politely, I’ve been told to bugger off, keep my head down and someone will fling me a bone if I am very good. End of story. I suppose, after all this, I don’t care very much.’
This would not be true. ‘Then we needn’t waste any more time on it, Will.’
‘I thought you’d be a bit more sympathetic.’
‘I am sympathetic. Very. I’m sorry you’ve been disappointed, but it’s over.’
In the hall of the Casa Rosa, I turned myself round and the telephone cord twisted across my leg, but I wanted to look at the vines the other side of the road. How curious. Why had I had failed to notice that a pylon sat precisely between two cypresses on the hilltop?
‘Fanny, when are you coming home?’
I heard myself say, ‘I don’t want to come back. I feel at home here.’
Meg was not stupid and she had cottoned on that Benedetta did not like her. ‘Look,’ she said, later that evening, as we prepared to walk over to her for a pasta supper, ‘on second thoughts, I’ll leave you two to talk over old times. I’ll have something to eat at Angelo’s. I’d prefer it.’
It was agreed.
Dressed in her best print frock, over which she had tied a lace apron, Benedetta was in a cheerful mood. Radio Vatican provided a background commentary. ‘My son,’ she smiled broadly, ‘he has phoned to say that he is coming in the winter.’ She handed me a knife. ‘Make the salad, please, Fanny.’
Red and luscious, the tomatoes fell away from my knife. I snatched up a piece and crammed it into my mouth. It tasted of sun and earth. I arranged the slices on a plate, and scattered basil over them. The Madonna smiled
