up the stones. The vice around my middle tightened. I wiped away the pictures of my father that bludgeoned my mind. Marco disappeared around the corner. I turned back toward the sea. The wind tussled gentle waves toward the shore. Do people, like water, always reach their natural level?
I made several feeble attempts to stay calm on my return to the villa. I simmered a small pan of water, infusing it with a fistful of chamomile flowers. I tried to allow the earthy steam of porcini mushrooms wilting with garlic and parsley to ground me in the kitchen and the tasks at hand. I stirred the tagliatelle around the tall pot of boiling water but, hard as I tried, my thoughts tumbled across one another like those fierce salty bubbles racing to evaporation. Elizabeth banged her spoon on the counter of her wooden high chair. The sound irritated the Major but usually left me unruffled. Today it percussed my noisy thoughts with increasing irritation. I grabbed the spoon from her and she burst into tears. The Major walked in.
‘Is the child not getting her own way once again? Or is this some personal vendetta that’s escaped me?’
His sarcasm smarted. Off my look he retracted. It wasn’t something I was accustomed to witnessing. The turn toward genuine concern caught me off guard. For a moment I thought I might let myself cry.
‘Sorry, sir. I was impatient. It’s been an unusual morning.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, running a hand over Elizabeth’s head. The small act of tenderness caught both of us by surprise. ‘ . . . the buttercups, the little children’s dower, Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower.’ He looked between the two of us, left muted by his poetic interruption.
‘What on earth did Robert Browning understand about the great beauty of Italy, Elizabeth?’ he asked, running a finger under her chin. ‘Fancy comparing a melon flower, full of the promise of delicious fruit, to the blasted buttercup!’
My heart raced. Was the Major careening toward the same kind of breakdown as his wife? His behavior was peculiar, even for him. Any doubts about leaving disappeared in an instant. The sooner I left, the better. Elizabeth fell silent.
‘Lunch is almost ready, sir. Am I to call Adeline?’
‘But of course, Santina. You will find her in agreeable spirits this afternoon. Have you not noticed the marked changes in her? Her energy is returning little by little, a sapling of herself. Owed in a huge part to your tender care. Of the both of us.’
The expression in his eyes made me feel uncomfortable. There was an unfamiliar streak of sorrow, different from when he spoke of Adeline. I turned to leave.
‘Santina?’
I looked back at the Major. The sunlight streamed in behind him like a halo.
‘Take this note, please.’
I reached out for the small vanilla envelope, expecting him to bark out instructions for delivery, though in the past ten months I could count on one hand the number of people he’d conversed with in town. If he carried on in this manner the gossips would have a field day concocting elaborate fictions about him and the wife imprisoned on the third floor of this merchant’s palace.
I looked at the addressee. It was my name.
‘It is rather unorthodox perhaps, but it struck me that writing my thoughts to you would allow you the space and privacy to consider my proposition in the most honest way you can. I’m loath to put you on the spot. Goodness knows I’ve had a lifetime of that from my seniors. It’s excruciating. In every way.’
I still hadn’t learnt how to mask my frown.
‘Excruciating: painful, embarrassing.’
A pause. Elizabeth looked from me to him and back again.
‘So there we are. That is all. You’re to read this tonight. Sleep on it. I would hate it to ruffle your day any more than is necessary. You’ve obviously been challenged enough already. That much is clear.’
His thoughts were rambling again. He lifted Elizabeth out of her seat and took her outside with him. Had he fallen in love with his child at last? I could see the feeling terrified him. That’s why he tripped over the words. Where was the man who used the vast spectrum of language with such confidence, throwing descriptions into the air like puffs of Adeline’s vibrant paint powders?
This was a man who had been grieving for his disappearing wife. As her life force made a quiet return, he allowed Elizabeth in. Before today, he would have rather cut himself off than risk the pain of losing another woman. He’d have said something to the effect that the very existence of children reminds us of our own fleeting fragment of time . . . That the new person entrusted to us to love must leave . . . How this is the very nature of nurture, the truest test of love.
Such was his poetry I had learned.
I watched him place her down and take her chubby hand in his. They walked toward the steps into the garden. Perhaps she would feel the tender attention of her father after all. The thought uncorked a deluge of silenced memories. What pain must my father have been in to inflict so much on us? The tiny flame of compassion flickered but faded at the picture of my mother’s bruised face. Marco replaced that painful recollection. I left the kitchen in case the Major should turn back and see my tears.
Rosalia rang the bell just after lunch. She knew better than to do so; the Major had told me several times that any visitors, business or otherwise, were to call mid-morning or not at all. Trying to impart this stringent guideline to the local fishmonger, butcher and woodsman elicited nothing short of sighed laughter, a nod at best, terse irritation at worst.
‘You’re incorrigible, Rosali – be quick and go,’ I said, poking my head round the side of the door. ‘He’s in a strange mood today as it is.’
‘What’s new?’
‘I’m serious.’
‘My sisters and I are going up to Nocelle for a spuntino later this afternoon. It’s our youngest one’s saint’s day. I want you to come.’
I grew suspicious.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Santina, it’s just for some fresh air, why the look?’
‘You’re meddling, and I can’t put my finger on what.’
She straightened her blouse over her middle, revealing a little more cleavage. I loved how at home she felt in her skin. Perhaps I envied it a little. Her hair waved down her back, lifted away from her face in bold quiffs.
‘And also,’ she carried on, ‘the new folks who moved in two houses down are looking for occasional help. They’ll be doing lots of entertaining, they said, over this coming year. Two sisters. German, I think. I told them I could gather a list of some girls. Thought you’d like some extra money before you leave?’
‘And Elizabeth?’
‘I can look after her.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’ The thought of floating the suggestion to the Major made me uneasy.
‘Suit yourself, Santi, I’ll call for you in a couple of hours.’
Before I could reply she sauntered up the steps toward the alley that ran the length of the back of the villa leading to her
