The Night Falling (21 page)

‘He’s working? Oh, that’s wonderful! Fantastic, Ettore! I’m so pleased you’ve come around,’ says Marcie, so loudly that Ettore winces. He looks questioningly at Clare, and she takes a quick breath.

‘She’s happy you have agreed to work,’ she tells him in Italian. Ettore frowns, and looks down at the table. He nods once.

‘Oh dear – he doesn’t seem too happy about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything – me and my big mouth! Well, let’s change the subject. How’s the hand, Filippo?’

‘Oh it’s fine, really. Thank you for asking. Just a bit sore,’ says Pip, but it’s his right hand that’s bandaged, and he’s struggling to eat breakfast with his left.

‘Shall I spread that jam for you?’ says Clare, reaching for his plate, but he shakes his head vehemently.

‘I can do it, Clare.’

‘All right.’ She sits back, stung.

‘What happened to his hand?’ asks Ettore, nodding at Pip. The sun makes him squint until his eyes are the narrowest slits, the skin around them scored with lines; his irises are a glimpse of iridescence between his black lashes. When he speaks he has the same slow intonation as Clare, each word considered and chosen. She has to remind herself that Italian is not his first language any more than it’s hers.

‘He was playing with the dog and it bit him,’ she says.

‘With what dog? With the dogs here in the
aia
?’ He shakes his head when she nods. ‘Lucky it did not kill him. I have seen one kill a boy before. It took him by the throat,’ he says, and grasps his neck to demonstrate. His hands are nut brown, rough with scars and calluses; the nails are wide and broken off. Clare’s own hand goes to her throat, mirroring him involuntarily.

‘These dogs here? It happened here?’ she says, breathlessly. Ettore nods.

‘He was coming to ask for a mattock to use. The mattock he had was broken. He didn’t know … where to walk.’

‘I simply
must
know what you’re saying,’ says Marcie brightly.

‘He says … he says that the dogs have attacked somebody before – somebody who went too close by mistake. That a boy was … killed.’ She looks at Pip as she says this, not sure if she should translate it. He fiddles with the frayed ends of his bandage, tucking them in, and there are knots in the corners of his jaw.

‘
What!
Oh, I’m sure he’s mistaken – I never heard of anything like that happening here! Wouldn’t I have heard about it? He must mean on some other farm,’ says Marcie.

‘He says this one,’ says Clare.

‘You’re only making it up to scare me, and stop me going near them,’ says Pip.

‘I am not,’ Clare says quietly, shocked. ‘Pip, please—’

‘All right! I get the message!’ He struggles up from the table, hampered by his injured hand, and stalks away towards the stairs.

‘Oh,
Filippo
, honey,’ Marcie calls after him, but he carries on out of sight with his head down and his right arm tucked in to his midriff.

‘He is scared now?’ says Ettore. Clare shakes her head.

‘No. He is angry with me. It’s my fault we are here – he thinks so. He was trying to make the dog his friend.’

‘He must choose friends more carefully.’

‘He hasn’t many to choose from, here.’

‘Why are you here?’ he asks, and she can’t tell if he’s curious, or if he resents their presence. She wants to explain but doesn’t have the right words. She doesn’t know the Italian word for
hostage
.

‘I do not know,’ is all she can say. ‘Only your uncle can say.’ At this Ettore nods slowly and looks at her steadily.

‘You are honest,’ he says, and Clare has nothing to reply.

‘Now, what we need is to lighten the mood around here a little,’ says Marcie. ‘Ettore, do you think Paola would come for tea, and bring her little boy? I’m afraid I can’t ask your father – Leandro would hit the roof.’ She doesn’t wait for Clare to translate or Ettore to answer before she carries on. ‘Music, that’s what we need. An evening of music and a bit of fun, to cheer up poor Pip and stop you worrying so, dear Clare. I’m going to find a gramophone if it kills me. Where shall I find one? There
must
be one in Gioia we could borrow, or buy. And we could make the doctor bring his wife and daughter, and have dinner with us. What do you think, Clare? How old is Pip? I think their daughter is sixteen, or is she older than that now? Anyway, far closer to Pip’s age than any of us. They could dance together! Do you think his hand would be up to it? Perhaps in a couple of weeks when it’s had more of a chance to heal. Music! I haven’t heard any for the longest time. I used to sing as well, you know; as well as acting. I could sing us some show tunes if only there was a piano or something to accompany me …’

Marcie talks on while Ettore drinks his coffee cut almost half and half with hot milk, and eats slices of fresh white cheese on crusty bread. He eats more slowly now, without the panic and fixation of when he first arrived. Clare is suddenly reminded of something.

‘Marcie, has Pip said anything to you about the collars that the calves wear?’ she says, interrupting the vocal march of Marcie’s train of thought.

‘About their collars? Oh, aren’t they just
vicious
? I do hate the sight of them. Of course, they get taken off sometimes during the day, so they can drink, but not within three hours of milking or something like that. Poor little darlings! But no, Pip never said anything. Why?’

‘He said he might, that’s all. I told him it wouldn’t be up to you, necessarily.’

‘Oh, it isn’t up to me at all. Ludo is the man with the power, and he reports right to Leandro. Tell Pip not to look – that’s my advice. If you can’t bear to see it, don’t look. Ludo, Ludo – I do love the sound of that name, don’t you? Tell Pip not to go near the cattle, if it upsets him. I’ll tell him.’ She waves a hand. When she says the name Ludo, Ettore’s gaze hits her in an instant. Marcie looks over at him and smiles, but neither she nor Clare understands the black expression that fills Ettore’s face. He looks so bitter and so hard that nobody speaks for a long time afterwards.

Later on in the day, after Pip has had his acting lesson, or rehearsal – Clare isn’t sure which it is – with Marcie, Clare goes to find him in his room. He’s lying on the bed, on his side, reading. She sits down on the mattress near the small of his back, and knows he’s still angry when he doesn’t roll over or sit up, or turn his head to look at her. She isn’t sure what to say to him, so for a long time she says nothing. From outside the window comes the clanking of the cow bell, and the muted clatter of cloven hooves as the herd come in for the afternoon milking. Eventually Pip lowers his book and sighs.

‘It’s hard to concentrate with you sitting there,’ he says, making a play for an offhand tone of voice.

‘Sorry, Pip,’ she says. After a moment he turns his head and looks at her, and then props himself up on his elbows.

‘Are you all right, Clare?’

‘Yes. I … I just wanted to see whether you were. Are you angry with me about the dogs?’

‘It wasn’t your fault. You told me to stay away from them and I didn’t. You don’t have to keep checking up on me, you know. I’m not a little boy.’

‘I know you’re not, but … you’re not the only one who’s lonely here, you know. I wanted to come and see you,’ she says. At this, Pip frowns in thought.

‘Marcie was talking about having a music evening, and inviting some other people,’ he says.

‘Yes. That could be fun, couldn’t it?’ says Clare. Pip shrugs.

‘James has gone camping in the Alps with all his cousins, and with Benjamin Walby from school.
That
would have been fun.’

‘I know. There might still be time for you to go and do something like that with your friends when we get back. I think your dad has nearly finished the designs for Mr Cardetta.’

‘I bet he hasn’t. I bet there isn’t.’ They’re both silent for a while, and Pip fiddles with his bandage again.

‘Do you think Emma would have liked it here? What do you think she would have said about the poor calves, with those awful collars?’ says Clare. Pip sighs and rolls away from her, opening his book again.

‘My mother’s dead, Clare. I have no idea what she would have said.’

The next day, Clare is far from the
masseria
when the sky begins to curdle. Clouds fill the sky from the north and west; indigo blue and deep, deep grey, the colour of fresh bruises. Lightning flickers in amongst them, and the breeze is suddenly cooler, so much so that after two weeks of the constant heat, Clare shivers. The change is so dramatic that she climbs onto a low stone wall and stares up at the spectacle, letting the air stream through her fingers and the full brooding power of the storm steal up on her. Her feet are sore, the skin rubbed raw from walking in her sandals, which let in the dust and grit. There’s an ache between her shoulder blades, a hard knot of tension that has turned the muscles hot with exhaustion. When thunder rolls, echoing along the empty ground, Clare remembers what Marcie said about the water running like a river when the rain finally came. She’s tempted to stay out in it, and see it, but the growing darkness is alarming, and she turns her back on the storm, turns towards the
masseria
. Without the hard Puglian sun everything suddenly looks dead, flat, unreal. Her eyes have got so used to the onslaught of light that she blinks repeatedly, and can’t focus. She can feel the storm rearing up behind her, and now she almost wants to run from it.
It’s only weather, you fool
. There’s another roll of thunder, louder, closer. She walks faster.

The olive orchard is the only other place for her to shelter before the farmhouse, but though she hesitates, she carries on through it, thinking she can make it. When the first drops of rain land on her arms they are surprisingly cold – she’d imagined a tropical rain like bathwater; imagined tipping her head back to let it run into her eyes and sluice the dust out of her hair. But the rain feels like splinters, and the next bolt of lightning is so bright it seems to bypass her eyes and sear the inside of her head, and it makes the air smell burnt; the thunderclap comes almost at once, and goes deep into her bones. With a gasp, Clare grabs at her shoulder as something hits her, hard. Hail is falling – hailstones the size of walnuts. One lands square on her head, and the pain is a shock. Clare runs. Head down, heedless, she runs for the nearest shelter as more nuggets of ice hit the ground all around her, and one catches her face, on her jaw to one side of her mouth, making her cry out in alarm. She sees the gates, held open for her, and an open doorway beyond, and she aims for it, careering inside to stand, gasping, in sudden darkness. Her hair is hanging in wet rats’ tails around her shoulders, her legs are spattered with mud, her shoes are ruined. She wipes her hands across her face and winces – there’s a small cut on her jaw where the last hailstone hit her. Then she realises she’s not alone in the hut and turns to find Ettore grinning at her, and she laughs, slightly hysterical with relief.

He takes off his hat and flaps ice from it onto the floor. For a minute they stand side by side, looking out at the storm. She has run into the guard hut by the main gates, and the roar of the hail on the stone roof drowns out thought, and any possibility of speaking. The ground is turning white with ice, the air is a grey blur and it’s dark, dark as though the sun has set, and darker still inside the hut. The storm is the only thing in the sky – clouds like vast sculptures carved into it, filling it. Then Clare feels Ettore watching her and her heart seems to convulse in her chest. She turns to him; he puts his thumb to the cut on her chin, and she feels salt from his skin stinging in the wound. It’s a small gesture, but it breaks her. It erases the last doubt she has about what she feels, and any possibility that they will not be lovers. She knows herself at last, and whoever she believed she was before, she was wrong. That woman seems like a stranger. She wants Ettore in her bloodstream. His gaze is intent but she can see that he’s waiting, and it makes her throat tighten. She takes his hand and lifts it to her mouth, and tastes her own blood on his thumb. Ettore leans forward and puts his mouth over the graze, pressing his tongue into it, and the heat of it is incredible. The sensation sinks through her like a stone through water, to settle low down in her body. Her heartbeat there, between her thighs, is louder and harder than in her chest. She throws her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips, and kisses him. The kiss is hard, bruising. Not loving but something visceral, an embodiment of need and want. Her weight throws him off balance on his lame leg; he stumbles and turns, jarring her back against the wall so hard that the breath rushes out of her chest, and he’s inside her so quickly that there’s pain before the rush of pleasure, felt in her bones like the thunder, like the hail. She can’t help shouting out, but the sound is lost in the roar of the hailstorm, and she can only tell from the rumble of Ettore’s chest, from the vibration where his mouth is locked on hers, that he is shouting too.

The quiet when the hail stops is so profound it rings in their ears. Clare straightens her clothes and waits to feel ashamed, or guilty. She waits to feel afraid of what she’s done, but she feels only happiness. She feels safe. She knows that Marcie and Pip will be worried about her being caught out in the storm; Marcie might even send men out to look for her now that the onslaught has stopped. Ettore stands close to her, facing her with his head resting on her shoulder, the bridge of his nose tucked into her neck. She isn’t sure if his posture is one of tenderness, or if he doesn’t want to look at her. The smell of him is instantly familiar, instantly beguiling and desperately dear to her. The parts of her he’s touching are warm, the parts he isn’t are chilly.

‘I didn’t know it could be like that. It’s never been like that,’ she says. Ettore says nothing. Gently, reluctantly, she pushes him back. ‘I should go inside. They will want to know where I am.’

‘No. Stay,’ he says, in English. He takes her hand and holds it, and she smiles.

‘I must go. I’m sorry.’ And she is. She wants to stay with him. ‘Ettore,’ she says, just for the feel of his name on her tongue.