The Villa (2 page)

‘Soon?’ Robin sounded different, as if he were suddenly taking her more seriously.

She wondered what he was thinking. ‘I suppose.’ A couple of smokers had emerged from the entrance of the building. They lit up.

Tess glanced at her watch. She was unwilling to go back to her desk and the complaints. And she was also tempted by that new seriousness in Robin’s tone. ‘Is there any way …? ’ She let the words hang. If your lover is married, he can’t go away with you – not without copious amounts of planning and lies. She knew that. If your lover is married you can’t share your life with him. He shares his life already – with someone else. He’s never yours – not even in those brief, exciting moments when you think he is. And if you think otherwise, you’re fooling yourself.
Aren’t you?

‘Maybe there is,’ Robin said. ‘Maybe I can come with you.’

Tess’s heart jumped. ‘It would be perfect,’ she said. She couldn’t keep the thrill out of her voice, and one of the smokers glanced at her curiously. She turned away, facing the hydrangea bushes. ‘Just perfect. A villa in Sicily, Robin. Imagine. To see it with you would be so special.’
Careful, Tess, you’re gushing
. Mistresses must remain cool at all times. That was the deal. Still …

‘It would be fabulous, sweetie.’ Robin’s voice was low again. ‘There’s nothing I’d like more.’

Tess waited for the
but
. It didn’t come. ‘So could you?’ She held her breath.

She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him. They’d first met in the cafe in the square where the coffee was strong and the pastries to die for. She’d registered him because he was attractive – if dressed a touch conservatively for her taste – and because his voice, when he spoke to the waitress, was low and sexy. But she wasn’t in the market for a relationship. She was an independent woman with a daughter to care for and Ginny was her number one priority; she always had been. Tess was the only parent she had. Tess had seen friends try to introduce a new man into their equation of single mother and children and witnessed how impossible it was to juggle everyone’s demands. When Ginny left home … Well, perhaps. But until then, Tess had dates and she had male friends. But serious relationships …? No thanks.

Even so, twice a week she went to the cafe in the square for lunch and it seemed that he did too. She always had a book, he a newspaper. Twice she caught him looking at her when he was supposed to be reading, once he smiled.

One day there were no spare tables and he appeared at hers with a cappuccino, a panini and an apologetic grin. ‘Would you mind? I shan’t disturb you.’

He had though. Pretty soon they were swapping work stories – he worked in the finance company two buildings away – and discussing whatever was in the news. He didn’t mention his wife – not then. But he did suggest another lunchtime meeting in the pub further down the street on the
following Friday. Why not? Tess thought. She had enjoyed his company. And it was only lunch.

After that, he’d suggested a drink one night after work and after the drink he’d kissed her. Sometime later, after she’d cooked him a meal – chicken with pistachios, she wasn’t her mother’s daughter for nothing – and he’d seduced her on the couch (Ginny was staying with a friend), he’d told her he was married.

By then, she was already half in love with him. He had kind of crept up on her. And it was an old cliché, but she couldn’t turn back even if she wanted to.

Tess watched the smokers throw down their cigarette butts and grind them underfoot. Still chatting, they disappeared through the glass swing doors. Tess brushed some water from a budding hydrangea with her fingertip. Earlier, it had rained, a sudden burst, a mad shower over almost before it had begun; a rinse of the sky, it seemed like. She checked her watch again. She should go in. But something told her this moment could be the one she’d been waiting for.

‘Why not? Why shouldn’t I come to Sicily with you?’ he said again.

Tess caught her breath.

She was grinning like an idiot as she blasted her way into the building and leapt into the lift. It was really going to happen. She had been left a villa in Sicily. And she was going there.
With Robin. Her smile faded as the lift went
ping
and the door started to slide open. Now she just had to break the news to Muma …

‘I don’t understand.’ Flavia sat down heavily. She had always had so much energy, but these days it sometimes swept away from under her without warning and she was scared by how weak she felt. She was getting old, of course. She was, in fact eighty-two, which was quite ridiculous. Because she didn’t feel old. She didn’t want to have to struggle to remember things. She wanted everything to be clear.

She tried to order her thoughts, but with Tess looking at her in that probing way she had, it wasn’t easy. She steadied her breathing. So, Edward Westerman was dead. That in itself was not surprising. He must have been well into his nineties. He was the last. First Mama, then Papa, and then Maria, two years ago. She had lost touch with Santina; had no choice but to let her go. And now. Her last link with Sicily gone. She put her hand to her head. There were beads of sweat on her brow. The last link. She felt a wave of panic.

‘Are you all right, Muma?’ Suddenly Tess was all concern. She came over to where Flavia was sitting in the old wooden kitchen chair by the table, and bent forwards, a gentle hand on Flavia’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would upset you so much. Were the two of you close?’

Flavia shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ He had
been an Englishman – her employer. She was a young Sicilian girl. And it was so long ago. Though there had been a bond … Edward had been the first man to speak to her in English and he had made it possible for her to come to this country when she was twenty-three. Like her, Edward had felt an outsider in his homeland and so he’d gone to live in Sicily – though it was years before she understood why. Puzzles were like that – you could have all the pieces in front of you and yet still not see the overall picture.

‘What then?’ Tess said.

Flavia smoothed her apron with the palm of her hand.
Iron out all the creases and all will be well
… She couldn’t exactly say what had floored her. The mention of Edward perhaps, the memories, the fact of his death.

Then she realised with a jolt what it was. ‘Why did they contact
you
about his death?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t understand. What does it have to do with you?’

Tess stood next to her, all long legs and blonde-brown unruly hair, looking like the child she once was. ‘He’s left me his house, Muma.’

Flavia blinked, frowned. ‘What?’ She struggled to get her bearings. ‘Why would he do such a thing? He, of all people … ’ He’d understood how it was for Flavia. He himself had broken with England, hadn’t he? Well, hadn’t he …?

‘I don’t have the faintest idea,’ Tess said. She hooked her thumb into the belt loop of her blue jeans. ‘But I thought you might.’

Flavia rose slowly to her feet. There was supper to cook – a distraction. She was not too old to cook – never too old for that, though these days she stuck to the one course and the occasional
dolce
. She and Lenny now lived in a modern house on an English estate of identical houses, and it was very different from Sicily. But
la cucina
was still the most important room. Her kitchen, her food … That could always make everything safe again.

‘Well, now,’ she said. Every time in her life that she’d imagined herself free of Sicily, something from that place snapped at her heels. Now it was Edward and Villa Sirena, house of her childhood. Not that Flavia’s family had lived in the Grand Villa itself, of course, but … What could she say? ‘He had no children,’ Flavia began. ‘Perhaps he felt …’ What had he felt? Responsible? Had he left her daughter the villa to make up for some imagined wrongdoing? She shrugged, aware that this wouldn’t satisfy Tess. Tess had been born curious; she never let things go. Now this. It was as if Edward had known how Tess would be.

Sure enough … ‘But he must have had relatives, Muma.’ That innocent blue-eyed gaze …

‘Maybe not.’ His sister Bea had died some years ago and she too had been childless. Thanks to Bea, Flavia and Lenny had run the Azzurro restaurant in Pridehaven; run it until they retired just over ten years ago. She missed the place – but everyone had to slow down sometime.

‘Or friends?’

‘Who knows?’ Flavia began to slice the aubergines, the
knife cutting smoothly through the slick greasy skins and pulpy flesh. They needed time to de-gorge otherwise they would be bitter.

Edward had – of course – had friends. Arty friends, but more especially, men friends. Sometime later she’d understood why, as a girl, she had felt at ease with Edward, even when alone with him. It was significant too, she realised, that she had been
allowed
to be alone with him. These days, naturally, his homosexuality would not mean so much, but then … In England, the activities he indulged in would have been illegal, but in Sicily, in a small village in a grand villa, it was easy to hide and be safe. Easy to have lots of house guests, lots of parties. English eccentricity was accepted, even while it was not understood. And Edward had inspired great loyalty in his staff by giving them a living and treating them well.

‘Perhaps he became a recluse,’ she said. Perhaps he had been lonely. She could imagine that. ‘It happens. Especially to artists and poets.’

Tess – on her way to fill the kettle – shot her a disbelieving glance and flicked a tangled curl from her face. ‘What about the people who cared for him at the end?’ she said. ‘What about whoever took over from Aunt Maria?’

Maria … The knife hovered above the purple skin. Her sister’s death had been sudden and shocking for Flavia. They had not been close and this made the loss even sadder. It was too late now. Maria had come to England only once in her lifetime when Tess was just eighteen, and the visit
had not been easy. Their lives had been so different, she supposed; they had travelled in such opposite directions. Flavia had become anglicised long ago; she even thought in English now.

Maria was timid – dark and vigilant as a rat. She was shocked at the way Flavia was bringing up her daughter …
You allow her to go out alone? Dancing?
She was distrustful of the relationship Flavia had with Lenny – their casual teasing, the way Flavia cheerfully left him to get on with the washing up after supper. And she found it hard to accept that Flavia had become a businesswoman – running her own small restaurant, managing her own accounts, her own staff.

‘England is different from Sicily,’ she said to Maria – over and over, it felt like. ‘If you stayed for longer you would find out. There is a freedom here that you have never dreamt of.’

‘Perhaps so, perhaps so.’ And poor Maria would sigh and frown and wring her hands. ‘But Signor Westerman is alone. He needs me.’ And Flavia suspected that, truth be told, Maria wouldn’t want such freedom. Her sister had not been blessed with children and she had lost her husband many years ago in a traffic accident in Monreale one night. ‘What was he doing there?’ she’d moaned to Flavia on more than one occasion during her visit to England. ‘I shall never know.’

Perhaps, Flavia thought, it was better not to know. They were talking about Sicily, after all.

‘Our family looked after Edward for many years,’ Flavia said now, throwing the rounds of sliced aubergine into a
colander for salting and keeping her voice level. First Mama, Papa and Flavia, then Maria and Leonardo. ‘This must be his way of showing appreciation.’ Was that how it was? Or had Edward Westerman known how it would tear at her? She suspected that he would.

Tess dropped teabags into two cups, looking enquiringly at Flavia as she did so. ‘Muma?’

‘Please.’ Tea was an English taste that had taken Flavia twenty years to acquire. It would never get you going like an espresso, but it had its uses.

‘But why not leave the house to you?’ Tess persevered. ‘You knew him, at least. I’ve never met him.’

‘Pshaw.’ Flavia dismissed this notion. ‘I am an old lady. No doubt he thought I was dead.’

‘Muma!’

Flavia shook her head. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. She had tried to put Sicily behind her. Since leaving for England she’d never gone back there. At first, because to go back would mean too much pain, too much compromise. And then … because she’d wanted to punish them, of course – her father whom she had never forgiven, her mother who in her eyes had betrayed her almost to the same degree and even poor Maria – because she was just like them, because she could never understand that the only way to make things different was to fight …

‘Muma?’ Tess’s arms were around her. Flavia could smell her daughter’s honeyed perfume and the faint orange-blossom scent of her hair. ‘You’re crying.’

‘It is the onions.’ Flavia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘You know they always get me that way.’

‘It’s not just the onions.’

Such intensity she had, this daughter of hers. Flavia closed her eyes for a moment, the better to drink her in. Wild, beautiful Tess, who – like Flavia – had also been let down badly in matters of love. Who loved with too much passion, who always expected too much … And who had an irrepressible young daughter of her own. But not a man to share her life with. Flavia discounted Robin. She didn’t even want to think about him. When she thought about Robin she wanted to crush the life out of him with her bare hands.

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It is not just the onions.’ It was the past, always the past. Sicily was a dark country. And when it was in your blood it never quite let you go.

‘Did you like Edward Westerman?’ Tess moved away, long-limbed and elegant even in jeans, to pour boiling water on the tea.

Flavia went on chopping onions, garlic and chilli. She was making a tomato sauce for
melanzane alla parmigiana
, one of her granddaughter’s favourites. ‘Yes.’ She had liked him, yes, because he embraced the unconventional. And because he had shown her what was possible.

‘Only, you’ve never talked about him much.’ Tess’s sly look from behind a wisp of hair suggested that Flavia hadn’t talked much about any of them.