The Mermaid Garden (18 page)

She shook her head, big eyes gazing at him in astonishment. She

had expected his admiration, not his fury. He swam angrily to a place in the rocks where it was safe to climb out, and she followed slowly, wishing she could disappear to the bottom of the sea and never come up

again.

“She’s okay,” he shouted up to his sister, who retreated from the edge

with relief.

“What an idiotic child, showing off like that,” said Gioia furiously.

“She could have led Dante to his death.”

“I don’t think she meant to do it,” Damiana defended her. “She didn’t

know.”

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Dante and Floriana dragged themselves onto the rocks and sat side

by side.

“I’m sorry,” Floriana said in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to

frighten you.”

“You frightened me more than I’ve ever been frightened in my en-

tire life.” He shook off his rage with a brisk toss of his head and put his arm around her. His face softened into a forgiving smile. “Promise me

you’ll never do anything like that again.”

“I promise,” Floriana replied. Her chin began to tremble. She felt

her heart revive, like a punctured tire filling again with air, and she began to cry.

“Don’t cry,
piccolina
.” But her shoulders shuddered, and she let out a violent sob. “Come on, my little friend, I’m sorry I shouted at you. I was scared, that’s all. I thought you were dead.”

Floriana couldn’t stop herself. She rarely let herself cry, but now her usual tools of defense failed to work. She stuck out her chest and raised her chin, but her emotion was too strong for such clumsy fortification.

It wasn’t his fury that made her cry, but his concern. She had forgotten what it felt like to be valued.

After that, the summer no longer felt like it was going to last forever.

Every moment of pleasure with Dante was paid for with a sharp sense

of loss, as if a little less sand remained in the hourglass to warn Floriana that time was running out. She no longer existed in a limbo of endless

summer, for a cloud of gloom hung over the horizon to remind her of

its transience, edging its way a little further inland each day, eating up those blissful summer days until the rain came at last to sweep him

back to Milan.

“You’ll look after Good-Night for me, won’t you?” he asked of her as

he said good-bye.

“I shan’t come into your garden if you’re not here,” she replied, struggling to control her sorrow.

He swept her into his arms and squeezed her. “But you’ll spy from

the wall, won’t you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you will.”

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“When will you come back?”

“Soon,” he replied, but he couldn’t be sure.

“I’ll miss you every day.”

“No you won’t. You’ll forget about me as soon as I’ve gone.” He put

her down. “Be good now. No more diving off rocks. Promise?”

“Promise.” He grinned, and Floriana smiled back weakly. Inside, she

felt as if her heart were filling with cold concrete.

Damiana tried to reassure her by promising that she would be back

soon with Giovanna, who was very keen to meet them. Then she hugged

the little
orfanella
and found a lump had formed in her throat, prevent-ing her from saying anything else.

Costanza felt the warmth of their goodbyes but knew it wasn’t

meant for her. She was just Floriana’s companion—and Floriana had

become a sister to them.

The two girls walked slowly back to the town in the rain. They barely

said a word to each other, so heavy was Floriana’s heart and so full

of envy was Costanza’s. Finally, as they reached the fork in the road,

Costanza asked Floriana if she wanted to come back to her house to

play, but Floriana shook her head. She wanted to run down to the

beach and cry her sorrow into the sea. So Costanza hurried home, to

the warmth of her hearth and her mother’s embrace, while Floriana

wandered down the path to the lonely, cold beach.

The wind had picked up. It was gusty on the shore. The waves pounded

the rocks and raced up the sand to snap at her feet. Her hair flew about her head and whipped against her cheeks. She stood broken and alone,

and allowed the rain to wash away her tears. Now she understood love,

in all its pain and glory. She understood that it never came alone, that it was always accompanied by its inseparable companion, sorrow.

She knew instinctively that it couldn’t be any other way, as a coin is

bound to its duality, but she didn’t mind. The agony was worth the ex-

quisite feeling of love, for even though Dante had gone she loved him

in her heart and that feeling would never go away. She’d carry it always and forever. And she’d wait for him. She’d stand at those big black gates come rain or shine and, like a faithful dog, she’d wait. And there would be pleasure in her waiting, for it would be tempered with hope. Hope

that he would come back. Hope that he would remember her.

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10.

Devon, 2009

On the last day of May Rafa Santoro arrived at the Polzanze. A bright

sun welcomed him as he stepped out of his hired Audi, and a cool sea

breeze raked careless fingers through his hair. He took a deep, satisfied breath and ran his eyes over the house with an air of fondness, as if to say, “Home at last.”

His arrival had been much anticipated at the hotel, and the small

wood-paneled hall was crowded with staff. Jennifer and Rose had left

their desk, Bertha her duties, and Heather was hovering by the door to

the dining room, her lips an unusually provocative shade of crimson.

Jake stood in the middle of the hall in front of the round table, which labored beneath the weight of a lavish display of lilies, while his father positioned himself beside the open fireplace, hands in pockets, a be-mused look on his face. Tom, a young Cornish lad who worked with

Shane, was already outside offering to carry bags.

This being Sunday, Clementine was not at work, but she felt it was

beneath her dignity to hang around the hall like a desperate groupie, so she remained alone in her bedroom, challenging herself not to sneak a

peek at the new artist from behind the curtain. Having not seen him,

she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Marina had joined the brigadier for breakfast, concealing her excite-

ment behind a large cup of coffee, but now Shane hurried across the

dining room to tell her that Mr. Santoro had arrived.

“Thank you, Shane,” she said, getting up. “Is Jake in the hall?”

“Along with everyone else,” he replied with a snigger.

“Who else?”

“Jennifer, Rose, Bertha . . .”

A shadow of irritation darkened Marina’s face. It was Jake’s duty to

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make sure everyone was doing his or her job. She smiled despairingly at the brigadier. “I’d better go and set the cat among the pigeons.”

“I’m rather curious myself,” he replied. “Would rather like to be a

pigeon.”

“I don’t imagine there’s a spare inch in the hall—even for a very dis-

creet pigeon such as yourself.”

“Then I will wait here, and you can introduce me later. I think I’ll go and read the papers in the library.”

“You’d have thought they’d never seen a handsome man before.”

“They’re all too young to remember me,” he added with a chuckle.

“In my day I was what they called ‘a dish.’ ”

When Marina stalked into the hall, she found only Jake and Grey,

and guessed correctly that Shane had warned them all to return to their jobs. Tom was coming through the doors with a couple of bags, followed by Rafa, casual in his brown suede jacket and jeans, his silver-

buckled belt glinting on his hips. Marina greeted him warmly, and he

settled his brown eyes onto her with the familiarity of an old friend.

She could see Jennifer and Rose in her periphery vision, craning their

necks round the corner like a couple of geese. But her smile did not

falter, nor did her gaze. There was a brightness about him that seemed

to light up the whole room and reduce all her fears to superfluous par-

ticles of dust. It had been so long since she had been able to breathe

without tension in her chest. She couldn’t wait for Clementine to meet

him; she knew her stepdaughter would approve her choice and that

thought made her smile even broader.

“Let me introduce you to Jake, our manager, and my husband, Grey.”

“Father and son?”

“Yes,” said Grey.

“You look very alike.”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” said Jake with a grin.

His father rolled his eyes. “No respect from the young these days!

Welcome.” He extended his hand.

Rafa’s handshake was firm and confident. “It’s lovely to be here,” he

said happily. “I hadn’t forgotten how beautiful the house is.”

Marina beamed with pride. “I’m so pleased you like it.”

“I will paint it, for sure.”

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“And we will hang it up somewhere prominent,” said Grey.

“I can see we’re going to have a whole gallery,” Jake added, not with-

out an edge of sarcasm.

“We’d be so lucky,” added Marina. “Would you like coffee, or to see

your room first?”

“I’d like to see my room,” Rafa replied. “Any excuse to see more of

this fantastic house.”

He smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back with girlish

enthusiasm. She noticed how his mouth turned up at the corners, caus-

ing the skin on his cheeks to fold into leonine creases, and wondered

why Clementine hadn’t surfaced to meet him.

“Come, let me show you.”

They walked past reception, where Rose and Jennifer stood in sus-

pended animation, their mouths frozen into inane grins. Rafa broke the

spell by shaking their hands and introducing himself. They were caught

off guard by his confidence and good manners—most people talked to

them only when they wanted something.

“He’s gorgeous,” sighed Rose as he disappeared upstairs with Ma-

rina, Grey, and Jake.

“They don’t make them like that in this country,” said Jennifer.

“I don’t know a single Englishman who has his easy charm.”

“And his accent. I’d like to listen to
that
on my pillow.”

“Oh Lordie, so would I.”

Their dreaming was interrupted by the loud ringing of the tele-

phone. Jennifer was quick to pick it up. When she heard the familiar

voice, she looked mildly irritated. “Oh, hello there, Cowboy. You know

you shouldn’t call me at work . . .”

Marina led Rafa to the top floor, where a bathroom, bedroom, and

sitting room made up a cozy suite. “Is this all for me?” he asked, sur-

prised.

“Well, you’re going to be here all summer, and you need space to

paint.”

“Qué bárbaro!”
He wandered into the bedroom, where Tom had

placed one bag on a rack and the other on the floor beside it. There

was a dark wood-framed super-king-size bed and elegant lamps on the

bedside tables where piles of books were neatly stacked.

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“Grey chooses the reading material,” she said, noticing his glancing

over the spines.

“Edith Wharton, Nancy Mitford, P. G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen,

Dumas, Maupassant, Antonia Fraser, William Shawcross.”

“Do you think you’ll have any time to paint?” Grey asked, smiling

proudly as Rafa read out his favorite authors.

Rafa rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure. I might never leave my room.”

“How lucky then that you have the whole summer.”

“I think I’m going to like it here,” he mused, grinning at Marina.

“You have very good taste,
señora
.”

“Thank you. I had great fun doing it. It was a challenge to keep the

best of the old and bring in the best of the new without changing the

feel of the place. This used to be the children’s floor when it was a private house. There’s a heavenly view of the sea from here.” She walked

over to the bedroom window, kneeled on the window seat, and peered

through the little square panes of glass set in lead. “You wouldn’t be-

lieve the amount of glass panes we had to replace.”

Rafa put a hand on the wall beside her and leaned over. “I love the

sea. Having been brought up on the pampa, I find the sea is a great

novelty for me.”

“It’s nice to drift off to sleep listening to it crashing on the rocks.”

“Have you always lived here?”

“No, we bought the house eighteen years ago, but I love it like a

person.”

“It has so much character. I felt that the minute I first walked in. It must be very demanding, like another child.”

Marina didn’t bother to correct him. Most people assumed that

Grey’s children were hers. “It’s somehow more helpless,” she said softly.

Once again she felt the weight of foreboding fall upon her heart as she was reminded of why Rafa was here and how much depended on him.

“Let me show you your sitting room,” interrupted Grey, and Rafa

followed him down the corridor, leaving Jake and Marina in the bed-