The Truth About You (32 page)

‘Was the little girl . . .’ Lainey cleared her throat. ‘Are we talking about Alessandra now, my mother?’

Marco nodded. ‘
Si
, this is Alessandra. Because of what happened to her son Melvina insisted to everybody that Alessandra was the daughter of Aldo. As Alessandra grows up she spends much time here on the island with her grandparents, who adore her. It is easier for them to keep her safe from Valente’s wife and her curses when she is here, and this they must do because Melvina continued to be the mistress of Valente.

‘Signor Donata says that all the years of Alessandra’s childhood Melvina was often travelling with Valente, or staying with him at his villa when his wife was away,
maledendo la sua anima immortale con i suoi peccati.
Damning her immortal soul with her sins, was what he said.’

Knowing how offensive this conduct would be to a man of Signor Donata’s generation, Lainey couldn’t help feeling ashamed of her grandmother’s behaviour.

‘I think, from what else Signor Donata has told me,’ Marco was saying, ‘that Alessandra was like her mother in many ways, in that she was very beautiful and spirited. She was a favourite here on the island, but when she was fifteen, maybe sixteen, she returned to Tuoro to live with her mother. It is said by the people of the island that her grandmother, Maria, died from a broken heart after what happened to her beloved Alessandra.’

Feeling herself tensing, Lainey said, ‘So what did happen to her?’

Marco shook his head helplessly. ‘I have tried to persuade Signor Donata to tell me, but he either doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to say.’

Turning to the old man, Lainey begged, ‘Please will you tell me what happened to my mother? It’s very important for me to know.’

His eyes stayed on her as Marco translated.

A moment or two passed before Signor Donata explained to Marco his reasons for not going any further.

‘He says,’ Marco told her when the old man had finished, ‘that he doesn’t want to believe what he was told. He thinks some people were wrong in what they understood and that he hopes for your mother’s sake, and for yours, that they were.’

Feeling her insides starting to liquefy as a terrible suspicion formed, Lainey said, ‘Can you ask him,’ hoping she wasn’t about to offend Marco – or Signor Donata, ‘is he saying that Valente could be both my father and grandfather?’ In other words, it was possible that her mother had slept with her own father.

Looking as worried by this as she was, Marco said, ‘Are you sure you’re ready to know the answer to that?’

Actually, she didn’t think she was, but how could she possibly leave here without asking?

‘What he says,’ Marco began after Signor Donata had spoken at some length, ‘is that we should talk to Carlotta Calduzzi?’ He glanced at the old man for confirmation of the name and received a nod.

‘She was your mother’s friend from a very young age,’ Marco continued, ‘and Signor Donata is sure that she is still in Tuoro. He says if anyone can tell us the real truth of why Alessandra left and never returned, it will almost certainly be Carlotta.’

As they took the ferry back to Tuoro Lainey stood gazing at the village on the hillside, a sleepy, benign-looking clutter of old houses at the centre of a careless modern sprawl. It was as though the younger generations were tumbling away from their roots, pulling themselves free of the past, making new stories for the future of this valley. Yet they were still connected to the heart of the community, as though not wanting to flee too far, which wasn’t so very different to how it had been for Melvina and Alessandra.

Until Alessandra had left, never to return.

‘Are you OK?’ Marco asked as she let go of a sigh.

‘I think so,’ she replied, ‘though learning that I could be the daughter of incest . . .’ Even saying it was stirring its horror inside her; that it might be true was making her feel sick to her soul. ‘It would explain why my mother would never tell me who my father was.’ She was gazing at the village again, and wondering if her mother’s ghost was watching her from a hidden window. Melvina’s too, and Aldo’s. Perhaps even Valente’s.

‘We do not know this for certain yet,’ Marco reminded her. ‘It could be that Aldo was your grandfather.’

Appreciating the reassurance, she turned to him, saying, ‘According to your grandmother Aldo and Melvina left Tuoro many years ago. Do you think she might know where they went?’

‘We can always ask,’ he replied, taking out his phone.

A few moments later he shook his head regretfully as he said, ‘She is not able to tell us. They had already gone by the time she came to the village, and she never heard that they came back.’

‘But she knew about the rumours. She told Adriana about them, though she wouldn’t say what they were.’

He was frowning as he thought. ‘Incest is a very grave sin,’ he declared, ‘it would be hard for anyone to speak of it, particularly those of my grandmother’s and Signor Donata’s generation. But if Carlotta Calduzzi was your mother’s friend, she will be younger, and perhaps she will not find it so difficult to tell us what we need to know.’

Touched by the ‘we’, Lainey nevertheless felt compelled to say, ‘It’s hard to imagine anything worse than what we’re suspecting, but just in case it does go that way, perhaps now would be a good time to say I’ll understand if you’d rather not continue. Heaven only knows what we’re going to uncover . . .’

His hand was up. ‘Without a translator,’ he came in gently, ‘you will not uncover anything, and I am not such a faint heart that I cannot stand a little scandal.’

She almost smiled. ‘It’s not so little,’ she reminded him. ‘As you said, it’s a very grave sin, and with you being Catholic . . .’

‘Do not let that trouble you,’ he insisted. ‘I am . . . What?’ he said as she suddenly regarded him curiously. ‘Did I say something?’

‘No, I did. I’m thinking about the way my mother turned her back on the church. For years, right up until the months before she died, she’d never set foot in one . . . If she’d been party to incest, either knowingly, or unknowingly, the shame would be terrible, but I thought God forgave everything if you confessed.’

His eyes were teasing as he said, ‘A few Hail Marys and you’re all pure again? But you are right, He does forgive our sins if we confess them. Perhaps your mother was so ashamed that she could not bring herself to tell anyone, even the priest?’

‘I don’t suppose it’ll help us if we try to find the priest who was in Tuoro at the time,’ she reflected. ‘Even if he’s still alive, he won’t break the seal of the confessional. Perhaps he refused to grant her absolution and that’s why she’d have nothing to do with the church again.’

Marco was looking doubtful. ‘A priest will only refuse absolution if he believes the person is intending to sin again,’ he told her.

‘Which would mean that she was a willing party to the incest, presuming she knew that Valente could be her father, and she might not have known. Perhaps it’s why Melvina rejected her. She was jealous because Valente preferred Alessandra and Alessandra refused to give him up.’

‘But she did give him up, because she went to England.’

‘After Melvina told her the truth, that he was her father?’

‘If it was the truth. And then we must ask ourselves, why did Melvina and Aldo also leave Tuoro?’

Realising they still had a long way to go in their search for answers, Lainey sighed heavily and took his hand as he helped her off the boat.

‘I will try to find out if Carlotta Calduzzi is still in the village,’ he said, as they walked back to his car. ‘I think, as your mother’s friend, she is going to be our best bet from here.’

‘Wow, there seems to be a bit of a recurring theme going on here,’ Tierney commented, pausing in the critical task of painting her toenails blue. ‘I mean first your granny gets herself knocked up before marriage, then your mother, then you.’

Lainey eyed her meaningfully. ‘Please don’t feel free to carry on the tradition,’ she retorted archly, making Skye laugh. She hadn’t mentioned the possibility of incest yet, and wasn’t sure she would even if it turned out to be true. She’d have to discuss it with Tom first. Apart from Stacy, who was currently on the phone, he was the only one she’d feel remotely comfortable confiding in. However, he hadn’t called yet this evening and though she wanted desperately to speak to him, she didn’t feel right about ringing him.

Thank God her mother had never told Peter her secret, if it really was as bad as Lainey feared.

It could hardly be any worse.

Could it?

Unable to imagine it, she picked up her wine and watched Stacy pacing up and down the lawn in the twilight, making plans with Adriana for how they were going to structure their day together tomorrow concocting a column on Umbrian cuisine. This would be for the new magazine’s first edition, and regular foodie features from various parts of the globe might follow. Thinking selfishly, Lainey just hoped Adriana’s contribution would enable Stacy to stay on after the weekend, because she wasn’t much relishing the thought of being here without her.

She had Marco and Adriana now though, and at least she was making some headway with her search.

‘So how come you two are here this evening?’ she asked Tierney and Skye. ‘Where’s Max?’

Skye shrugged as she said, ‘He’s gone to watch some Led Zep tribute band, but don’t ask me where.’

‘Castiglione del Lago,’ Tierney sang out with a dramatically Italian flourish. ‘Sad, if you ask me, but then Dad and Max’s taste in music always has been.’

‘Talking about music,’ Lainey said, ‘I saw the disco down at the lake earlier, and it looked like a strip club to me. Please tell me I’m not right.’

‘You’re not right,’ Skye responded, not even looking up from the butterfly tattoo she was carefully pasting on to her ankle.

‘Like as if we’d go to a strip club,’ Tierney snorted in disgust. ‘What are you on?’

Lainey watched as she snatched up her phone to read a text.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she muttered, and slammed the phone down again. Her face was so pinched and pale that Lainey asked, ‘Who was that?’

‘No one,’ Tierney snapped.

Skye looked up at her.

Lainey glanced at Skye, and back to Tierney. ‘If it was Dad,’ she said, ‘maybe you ought to have a chat with him.’

‘It wasn’t Dad, OK? And even if it was, I don’t want to speak to him. He’s got another daughter he can have a chat with if that’s what he wants.’

Hearing the hurt behind the anger, Lainey said softly, ‘She’s not taking your place.’

‘Oh, right? So that’s why he’s there now, and not here?’

‘He won’t be seeing it that way.’

‘Well, too bad, because I am, and anyway, I don’t know why you’re sticking up for him, when it’s
you
he’s really cheating on like you’re nobody now.’

Feeling the hurt, Lainey lowered her eyes.

‘Oh God, Mum, I’m sorry,’ Tierney cried, coming to hug her. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, it just came out, but I didn’t mean it, honest. You’re not nobody, you’re the best mum in the world, even Max says so, and you’re not even his. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please say you forgive me?’

‘Of course I do,’ Lainey replied, leaning back so Tierney could sit on her lap.

Skye said, ‘When my dad walked out on us, my mum got her revenge by going out and finding someone else. I reckon that’s what you ought to do, especially if he’s loads richer than Tom. It really hacked my dad off when he found out my mum had got herself a multimillionaire.’

Before Lainey could respond, Stacy, having joined them and overheard the last part of the conversation, asked, ‘Ah, but did it make him come back?’

Watching her sit down, Skye said, ‘He definitely wanted to, but my mum wasn’t interested any more. She’s happier now than she’s ever been.’

Why, Lainey wondered, was she getting the impression that Skye didn’t believe her own words? Or perhaps she resented the fact that her mother was happy.

‘Well, that’s good,’ Stacy remarked, ‘but I expect it took her a while to get there.’

Skye rolled her eyes. ‘Tell me about it. She was really broken up at first, couldn’t stop crying, or anything. She was like so depressed. What seriously used to get to her was the way he kept avoiding seeing or speaking to her. He was kind of worried, obviously, because he knew she was in a state, but rather than come round or ring her to find out how she was, he’d ring me instead. She used to hate that. She’d say it made him a coward and a hypocrite, but I didn’t mind. At least it meant I got to talk to him, not that he was ever very interested in me.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Lainey protested.

Skye merely shrugged, and turned to watch Zav and Alfie coming out on to the terrace.

‘Are you OK?’ Lainey asked. Zav nodded, and looked askance at Tierney on her lap.

‘You’re such a baby,’ he told his sister.

‘Yeah, and you’re such a grown-up,’ she shot back.

‘Glad you noticed,’ he replied, with a little swagger of his hips that made everyone laugh, including Tierney. ‘Mum, is it OK if we go for a swim?’

‘I don’t see why not. Just make sure the lights are on down there, and don’t forget to bring the wet towels back up with you.’

‘OK, will do. Come on Alfs, race you!’

As they shot off across the lawn, Lainey was about to top up her and Stacy’s wine when Zav shouted back, ‘By the way, Mum. Dad just rang and said to tell everyone goodnight.’

As Lainey’s heart sank, Skye said, ‘God, that’s exactly what my dad used to do. Tell Mum this, tell her that so he didn’t have to speak to her himself.’

‘Actually Tom does ring me,’ Lainey told her, trying not to sound defensive.

Skye merely shrugged. ‘I’m just saying, that’s all, but if I were you I know what I’d be doing now and that’s getting it on with Marco. He’s totally drop-dead and rich, I reckon, and it definitely looks like he’s got the hots for you . . .’

‘Skye, for God’s sake,’ Tierney cried, ‘this is my mother you’re talking to and no way is she interested in Marco, even if he is interested in her . . .’

‘Which he’s not,’ Lainey quickly added.

Skye wasn’t fazed. ‘That’s because you don’t want her to be interested,’ she told Tierney, as though Lainey hadn’t even spoken, ‘but I’m telling you . . .’