Married Under the Italian Sun

CHAPTER TWELVE

IT TOOK Vittorio two days to sort out Gino Tradini and get him to double his order at an increased price. As he’d suspected, the man had thought he could cheat Angel because she was new to the business. Vittorio took a bitter satisfaction in making it plain to him just how wrong he was. Then he drove home slowly, trying to decide exactly what he was going to say to her.

He had two speeches alternating in his mind. In one he told her that he agreed with her that they had no chance together. In the other he begged her to forget everything that had gone before, and simply love him and stay with him. He only wished he knew which one he was going to deliver.

But then he realised that he would know the answer only when he saw her.

As he neared the house he found himself looking for her, for she would surely be watching for him, and run to greet him. But there was only Luca, whom he had left here, and Toni. Together they swarmed over him, and he raised his voice to chide them fondly, thinking the sound would bring her out.

But there was no sign of her.

He went straight into the kitchen where Berta was making coffee.

‘I need to talk to the padrona at once. Where is she?’

She stared at him. ‘But-I thought you’d know. She’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘I don’t know. Just gone. She left yesterday.’

‘But she must have told you something.’

‘She just packed her things and left. Wait-’

But Vittorio had already run out, heading up the stairs to her room. There he threw open the wardrobes one by one, finding each one empty. The drawers were also empty. There was nothing to suggest that she had ever been here.

He had returned half prepared to set a distance between them, but now the distance was there and it hit him like a blow in the face.

Berta came in to find him staring around at the bare room, his face ashen.

‘Did she leave me no message, Berta?’

‘She wants you to see this man,’ Berta said, holding out a card bearing the name Emilio Varini, partner in a firm of lawyers in Amalfi.

‘That’s all?’ he asked, aghast. ‘She sends me to a lawyer?’

Berta nodded.

‘I’ll go now,’ he said grimly.

Signor Varini’s office was on the waterfront. He was a small man, precise in physique as well as in manner. Vittorio had met him before when arranging a sale to one of his clients.

‘I’ve been expecting you, Signor Tazzini,’ he said. ‘I have something to give you.’

‘Where is Signora Clannan?’ Vittorio asked without preamble.

‘She did not inform me of her destination. She only asked me to talk to you, and give you this.’

He handed over a large envelope full of papers, which Vittorio spread on the desk. But the words danced before him and at first he could make no sense of them. When they did begin to form a pattern they conveyed a message so monstrous that his mind refused to recognise it.

‘What is this all about?’ he demanded.

‘I think the meaning is clear, signore. The Tazzini estate is yours again. The Signora Clannan has signed it over to you.’

‘What do you mean, signed it over to me?’

‘She has given it to you. The property is now entirely yours once more.’

Still his mind refused to function.

‘But she can’t just-how much does she want for it?’

‘She wants nothing. If you examine the documents you’ll see that you are now the legal owner of the estate.’

‘And you just let her do it?’ Vittorio demanded, outraged. ‘You let her give away everything she had?’

‘I naturally advised caution, but I couldn’t change her mind, and the property was hers to dispose of as she pleased.’

‘But didn’t she explain why?’

‘Yes, she said she didn’t need it any more.’

Now that Sam was dead, he thought with a sinking heart. Why hadn’t he seen this coming?

‘It was an emotional impulse,’ Vittorio said. ‘How can anyone do business that way? Of course I cannot accept. Please contact her at once and tell her that.’

‘But I can’t do that. I don’t know where she is.’

‘Call her mobile.’

‘She has changed the number.’

‘Then send her an e-mail.’

‘She’s changed her e-mail address. I have no way of contacting her at all.’

‘But that’s impossible. What happens if there’s an emergency?’

‘That’s what I said to her. But she said that she was cutting all ties with this place, and then it would be as though she had never existed. And if she didn’t exist, there could be no emergency.’

The phrase ‘cutting all ties’ caused a dreadful sinking in his stomach. To avoid it Vittorio grew angry.

‘Varini, listen to me. I will not accept this, and you must tell her so. You must.’

‘I have no way of doing so,’ the lawyer said with slow deliberation.

‘I don’t believe you. I will not accept that. After today I won’t return there again. Tell her that.’

‘Signor Tazzini, let me make the matter plain to you. If you don’t accept the estate, then it will go into limbo. If nobody owns it, nobody can care for it. Nobody can buy seed or fertiliser, nobody can plant, nobody can harvest. The place will go to rack and ruin.’

‘Harvest,’ he said slowly.

‘It’s about now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, we should be starting soon.’

He thought of the orchard, heavy with ripe fruit, waiting for loving hands to pluck the lemons, waiting in vain, rotting, useless.

‘I’ll take it back,’ he groaned, ‘but only temporarily. Find a way to contact your client and tell her to get back here.’

‘If you’ll just sign these papers,’ the lawyer said.

When the last signature had been completed and witnessed, Emilio Varini reached into his desk and produced another sealed envelope.

‘This is also for you,’ he said. ‘Signora Clannan said it was to be given to you only when you had formally accepted the estate.’

‘Thank you,’ Vittorio said in a dead voice.

Mechanically he put the envelope in his pocket, took his copy of the papers and left the office. He drove home slowly, his mind refusing to accept what was happening. Not until he was in the house and safely alone did he pull out the envelope and sit staring at it.

For a while he did nothing else. As long as he didn’t read the letter it wasn’t true, and with all his soul he longed for it not to be true.

When he couldn’t find an excuse to put it off any longer he opened the letter.

My darling,

By the time you read this the estate will be yours again, as really it always was.

I think we both knew how it was bound to end. I love you, but I can’t live on one side of an abyss with you on the other. Nor can I cross the abyss to find you, because you won’t let me. I can’t reach the enclosed place where you live, and I can’t spend my life beating my head against the wall. I would only end in hating you, and I don’t want to do that. What we had only lasted a short time, but it was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me, or ever will, and it must not end in bitterness.

This way there doesn’t have to be bitterness, only the recognition that we didn’t really have a chance. That’s true, isn’t it? I owned something that was rightly yours, and we could never get past that. I’d gladly share with you, if only you’d let me. But you won’t, so there’s only this way left.

I’ve tried to make you understand that I trust you totally, but you’ll never believe it, and that gives us no hope.

The past few years have left me not knowing who I am. Now I want to go back to the turning in the road, and find my true self again.

I’ve left Toni with you. I can’t take him with me, and I know you’ll love him and care for him.

He crumpled the letter in his hand, turning around sharply as though he could discover a way out. She was wrong, he thought passionately. He knew her true self. It was the loving, generous woman he’d found in his arms, and then been fool enough to throw away.

But, whatever she said, it wasn’t too late for them. Somehow it would be possible to find her, and make her see that they belonged together.

He spread out the letter again, smoothing the creases, and it was only then that he saw the last lines.

My darling, please don’t try to find me. This is something I need to do. I shall love you always. Thank you for everything.

It was signed ‘Angela’. Not ‘Angel’.

As he read the last lines again and again, Vittorio knew that he had no choice. He must give her the peace she asked for. It was the only thing left that he could do for her.

Hardly knowing what he did, he went out into the hall and began to wander through the house, trying not to hear the empty way it echoed around him. A thousand times he’d told himself that he would never rest while the usurper was there. Now she was gone, driven out by harsh words and ruthless pride, and the place was his again in a triumph so total that he could never have imagined it.

He shivered.

The Ristorante Michelangelo stood in a small side street in the northern part of Rome. It was always busy, for the food was plentiful and cheap, and the wine good. To students of the nearby university it was a place to congregate.

To some of them it was also a godsend, providing employment that helped to keep them financially above water, but only the poorest needed to take up the offer. One face had caused a good deal of comment, but to the cheeky lad who had said, ‘Hey, aren’t you Angel?’ she had replied simply, ‘No, I was once. Not any more.’

That had been eight months ago. Nobody asked now.

Tonight it was late, her feet were tired, and she was glad it would soon be time to close. Just one more customer.

‘What can I get you, signore?’ she asked, suppressing a yawn.

‘I’ve found what I came for,’ he said.

She looked up from her pad, and paled. ‘How did you find me?’

‘It took a while,’ Vittorio said. ‘I tried the English universities first, but then I realised you’d still be in Italy. Eventually I found you here.’

Somebody called her. ‘I have customers to see to,’ she told him.

‘I’ll wait for you outside.’

That gave her time to take command of herself. She was furious with him for disturbing her hard-won peace, but she could cope. This was the life she’d chosen, and even found some happiness in it. Now she could demonstrate, to him and herself, how complete was that victory.

Even so, when the time came to leave, she slipped out the back.

‘I thought so.’ Vittorio sounded pleased with himself. ‘It’s exactly what I’d have done.’

He moved out from where he’d been waiting, leaning against the wall. The light from a wall lamp fell directly onto him, giving him an eerie look in the near darkness.

‘You’d have looked silly if I’d gone out the front way,’ Angel said, trying not to let her voice shake. Even with the first shock gone, his impact was stunning.

‘No, I can see the front door from here. You were never going to escape me. You did so once. Not again.’

As if to prove him wrong, she walked ahead, forcing him to hurry to catch up with her.

‘Don’t go so fast. We have to talk.’

‘Maybe it’s better if we don’t.’

‘Angel, wait-’

But if anything she walked faster so he raised his voice and called, ‘Angela!’

That made her stop and turn to face him.

‘What is there to talk about?’

‘Aren’t you curious about why I sought you out? I wasn’t going to look for you at first, but then something happened-it’ll take me a while to tell you about it.’

‘All right, I’ll take you home. Just for a while.’

Her home turned out to be a tiny apartment at the top of a three-storey building

‘It’s a bit untidy,’ she said. ‘That’s my roommates.’

‘You share this little place?’

It was the best she could afford, he realised. He looked around, thinking of the villa she had left, the property that had been hers. And now this.

They looked at each other for a moment, reading the lonely months in each other’s faces.

Just by being here he made it look different, she realised. She’d come to this down-at-heel place when the university had accepted her, determined to make her precious little store of money last. Here she’d fought her lonely battle, jumping every time someone came to the door, half hoping, half fearful, never quite knowing which one she felt more.

There had been temptations, times when she’d wanted to give it all up, run back to him, and forget everything else as long as they could be together, with love. But she’d fought back, using a mind that had received too little exercise, forcing it to expand, bending and hammering it into shape until it became a formidable instrument, and from somewhere she’d rediscovered the joy of learning.

It had proved all she’d hoped. With pleasure she had discovered that what happened inside her head could fight back against the loneliness of her heart and the aching need of her body. Not always, and not with finality. But the weapon, once discovered, could be used many times. With that, she’d made the most important discovery in life. She could cope.

And then he had to return, here where she’d won her battle, dimming it slightly with reminders of things she couldn’t afford to remember, because then the battle would have to be fought again.

As if he could read her thoughts, Vittorio said, ‘You made it, then. University, history of art, the academic life. Everything you wanted. Are you happy?’

‘Yes,’ she said, adding after a moment, ‘Sometimes.’

‘Sometimes,’ he echoed. ‘Yes, I know about that. I’m happy sometimes. I was happy when the harvest came in, the best there’s ever been, the richest, the ripest, the most beautiful. It was your harvest too. Why weren’t you there?’

‘You know why. It was never my harvest.’

‘I stood and watched the trucks rolling away with our produce, that we’d schemed and planned for. But then I realised I was standing alone, and that was the end of happiness. Look.’

He handed her an envelope full of photographs. It was all there, just as he’d said, an abundance of ripeness, beauty and success. Everything they had wanted.

‘I’m glad,’ she said, coming to the last picture. ‘Oh, this one…’

It showed Vittorio standing there with Luca and Toni.

‘Toni misses you,’ Vittorio said. ‘He makes do with me, but he’s still yours, and he knows it. He hates being in that house without you, almost as much as I do.’

‘Please, don’t-’

‘Once that place belonged to me absolutely,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Now your ghost is there, in every shadow. I can’t make her go away, perhaps because I don’t really want to.’

‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she asked helplessly. ‘I was managing-’

‘Yes, so was I. Managing. But it’s not enough.’

‘Why now, after all this time? Why come to find me now?’

‘Because Sam told me to.’

‘Vittorio, please, that isn’t funny.’

‘I’m deadly serious. You once asked me what Sam and I talked about just before he collapsed, and I told you it was about this and that. That was true, but there was more. He’d been writing his will and said he wanted to leave me his most precious possession. He gave me the will, I put it away and then forgot it when he got sick and died.’

‘But Sam didn’t own a thing. He had nothing to leave.’

‘That’s what I thought, but I was wrong. You asked to be left alone, and I was going to honour that-but recently, I was so unhappy without you that I-’he shrugged. ‘I gave in. I decided to put my own need of you before your wishes. Reprehensible, but it’s what people do when they love someone more than they can cope with. The way I love you.

‘Even then I still wasn’t sure. In some ways I’m a superstitious man, and I kept hoping for a sign to tell me what to do. You can laugh if you want to.’

‘I’m not laughing. Sam was a great believer in signs. He said, if you knew how to look, something would always happen to show you the way.’

‘He was right. I remembered his will. I’d put it away hastily and never thought of it again. I had to hunt a long time, but in the end I found it.’

He took out the paper and handed it to her. ‘Read it.’

She took the paper in unsteady hands and read,

Vittorio, I leave you my most precious possession-my darling Angela. You’ll know how to take care of her as she needs. Sam.

‘Oh, Sam,’ she wept. ‘Sam!’

‘You see,’ Vittorio said. ‘His last coherent thoughts were about you. He didn’t die a stranger after all.’

‘No,’ she choked. ‘He didn’t die a stranger.’

He turned her face up to him. ‘Why are you crying?’

‘Because you’ve given him back to me. Oh, my love-’

Then she did throw her arms about him in the way he’d dreamed of on his journey here. He clasped her tightly, like a man holding on to recovered treasure.

‘I’ve come to take you home,’ he said. ‘Our home. Yours and mine together. Without you it isn’t a home at all.’

‘Don’t,’ she whispered longingly. ‘Part of me wants to with all my heart, but-my love, I’ve missed you so much, but at the same time I’ve discovered something that I’ve always wanted. I’m not sure I can give it up now.’

‘Why should you have to give it up? There are other universities. We’ll find one closer to home and you can continue your studies there. I don’t want to take that away from you. I don’t want you to lose anything that makes you you. But I want you to be mine as well. Surely that can’t be impossible? And it’s what Sam wanted. Doesn’t that count for something?’

But in the next moment he backtracked. ‘No, forget I said that. You mustn’t say yes just to please Sam. I don’t want you on those terms. If you’d rather stay here I’ll give you some money to help you complete your education, and then I’ll go away and not bother you again. I can always hope that you’ll come to me one day, but it has to be on your terms.’

‘There’s no need for money,’ Angel said shakily.

‘No need? When you’re working in that place for peanuts?’

‘I don’t have to stay there. I had a call from a magazine-’

‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘You mustn’t take even one step back to that life. If you’ve really found your path you’ve got to stick to it, no matter what. Even if-even if there’s no place for me.’

‘Don’t,’ she said frantically. ‘I gave you up once, but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it again.’

‘I want you willingly, or not at all. So, perhaps I should do it for you.’

Pulling out his chequebook, he sat at the table and scribbled.

‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Don’t be too proud.’ He gave a frayed smile. ‘We both know how fatal pride can be, but you’re wiser than me. Let there be an end to pride.’

She took the cheque between nerveless fingers, staring at the large amount.

‘Your share of the harvest,’ he said. ‘I still want you to come back to me, but if not-goodbye, my darling.’

He kissed her cheek gently, the kiss of a friend, not a lover, yet no kiss he’d ever given her had been more full of love.

Then he walked out of the room.

She didn’t move. She was still staring at the cheque, knowing suddenly that another fork in the road had appeared. And this time she must make the right decision. He had waited for a sign before coming to her, but where was the sign to help her?

His footsteps were on the stairs outside. It was the sound that had haunted her dreams so often, footsteps, fading, retreating out of her life for ever, leaving emptiness behind. She had heard those footsteps so many times, and never understood until now.

The road forked ahead of her, but the footsteps led only one way.

‘Vittorio,’ she cried, coming back to life. ‘Vittorio, wait!’

He had almost reached the street when he heard. He stopped, not sure whether the sound was real or part of his longing. But the next moment it came again, followed by a door being flung open, feet hurrying down to him.

‘Vittorio! Wait for me, my love-my love!’

Only half believing what he heard, he began to retrace his steps. He was dreaming-as he’d dreamed of this so often before.

The next moment he saw her flying down the stairs towards him, her shining eyes full of the answer he sought. He opened his arms wide to receive her, and she flung herself into them, for ever.