The Visconti House (19 page)

All the next day Laura could think of nothing but the letter. As soon as the last bell rang, she grabbed her books, dashed to her locker, and then ran out into the afternoon sun. Leon was already waiting for her at the gate and they set off, hardly aware of the curious glances of the other students following them through the main gates. There was no shade, and Laura could feel little rivulets of sweat running down her back under her schoolbag.
It’s funny how quickly summer comes,
she thought.
Two weeks ago, it was still quite cool.

Miss McInnes’s neat little house was familiar to them now, and the egg-timer doorbell sounded less alarming.

Leon wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and whispered, “I hope she offers us something to drink.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.” Laura dumped her bag on the ground. The back of her dress was
plastered to her skin. “She never offers us anything.”

“Yes, she does. She’s offering us the letter.”

At that moment Miss McInnes opened the door, making them both jump. She unlatched the wire security screen and said, “Come in. Hurry. I don’t want to let the heat in.”

The hallway was oppressively hot, and they raised their eyebrows at each other behind her back, but the kitchen had an air conditioner on a portable stand and was blissfully cool.

“Put your bags over there,” said Miss McInnes, indicating a space beside the back door, “and take a seat. Would you like a glass of juice?”

“Yes, thank you,” they said in unison.

Miss McInnes took a glass jug from the fridge and put it on the table. The jug was covered with a white crocheted cloth weighted around the edges with blue beads, and Laura reached out to touch the beads, making them swing and tinkle against the glass. “This is very pretty,” she said.

“My mother made it. People don’t make things like that anymore, more’s the pity.” Miss McInnes looked across at them, as though they were directly responsible for the lack of needlecraft in the modern world. “They expect to buy everything.”

Since there seemed to be no satisfactory reply to that, neither Laura nor Leon said anything. They sipped their drinks and waited. Miss McInnes went out of the room and returned with an old shoe box tied with a long brown shoelace.

“These are some papers my father kept,” she said as she untied the lace. “They are mostly letters. There is only one that would be of interest to you. Here it is.”

She handed Laura a thin envelope. In the left-hand corner was the crest they had seen on Mr. Visconti’s grave. The stamps had
Italia
on them, and the address was written in flowing letters with a lot of flourishes. Laura looked at Leon for a moment, then slid the letter out and carefully opened it. The crest was on the paper, too. There was an address in the right-hand corner but, as it was written in Italian, it was hard to decipher. They could just make out the word
Milano
and beneath that the date,
14 settembre 1938.
The rest of the letter was in formal English.

“Gabriele,” breathed Laura. “
G.
It is the
G
from the postcard.” She looked across at Miss McInnes, full of expectation. “Do you have the drawings?”

Miss McInnes shook her head. “I’ve never seen them. I don’t believe that my father asked Mr. Visconti’s cousin to send them.”

Laura and Leon gaped at her in amazement.

“Why should he have?” continued Miss McInnes defensively. “We didn’t know Mr. Visconti. My father only wrote to the family because someone had to inform them of his death, and there was no one else to do so. I believe that a representative came out to settle Mr. Visconti’s affairs, but I know nothing of the drawings. After all, I was only a child at the time.”

Laura’s mouth was still dropped open. She could not believe what she was hearing. How could Miss McInnes be so uninterested in everything? So unfeeling? Did she not have
any
imagination?

“Would you mind if we copied the letter?” Leon asked, kicking Laura under the table. “Laura is keeping a record of everything that we’ve found. We could make a photocopy of it in the library and return it tomorrow, or, if you don’t want us to take it away, we could just write down what it says.”

Miss McInnes took her time to reply. “You can keep the letter if you like,” she said. “I don’t have any need for it, and it belongs with the house.”

The reply was so unexpected that it was a moment before either of them could absorb it.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” burst out Laura as soon as she found her voice. Without thinking, she jumped up and gave Miss McInnes a hug.

Miss McInnes turned red. “That’s all right,” she said brusquely, patting Laura awkwardly on the back. “Be careful with it.”

“We will,” they chorused.

They were still saying thank you as they backed out the door into the heat.

“I can’t believe she gave us the letter,” exclaimed Laura as soon as they were on the sidewalk. “I was just thinking what an unimaginative, boring, unsympathetic sort of person she was, and she
gave
us the letter.”

“I know.” Leon nodded. “I thought she had no idea what we were talking about, what we were trying to do.” He turned to Laura. “You know what? I think we should write to the address on the letter. Maybe they still have the drawings. Maybe they would send us a copy of them.”

Laura eyed him doubtfully. “The writer was an old man. He was the same age as Mr. Visconti. He would have died a very long time ago. There might not be
anyone who has even heard of him at that address.”

“On the other hand, there might be,” said Leon. “It’s worth a try.”

Laura looked down at the envelope. “It will be like sending a message back in time.” Her fingers ran over the row of stamps. “As though we are writing a letter to someone who no longer exists. About people who no longer exist.” She paused for a moment, then added, “It’s strange, though; they feel very real to me, all those people.”

“And to me, too,” replied Leon. He swung his bag around onto his other shoulder. “I think we should write the letter right away.”

Laura nodded. “Yes. Come back to my place now. We’ll write it together.”

The coolness in Laura’s kitchen was quite different from the coolness in Miss McInnes’s kitchen. It was the coolness of thick walls and shady vines, of high ceilings and the insulation of rooms above. A coolness that you could sit in for a long time, thought Laura as
she took a bottle of water from the fridge and found some clean glasses in the cupboard — something that was never an easy task. They both sank down onto chairs, and Laura took out the letter.

Suddenly, from the studio, came a series of loud bangs. Leon jumped but Laura hardly stirred. “It’s just Mom,” she said. “She must be moving things around.”

A moment later her father appeared in the doorway, followed by Samson. “Do you think we have a resident giant now?” he asked, shaking his head. “If so, I shall have to talk to him about wearing slippers. He really does need to consider his fellow occupants.”

Laura smiled. “I think he’s just passing through.”

“I’m glad to hear it!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “How are you, Leon?”

“I’m good, thank you,” said Leon.

Laura wondered if Leon was ever going to stop being so polite and formal when her parents were around. She turned back to her father. “Dad, do you have any writing paper?”

“What sort of writing paper?”

“Good-quality writing paper. Very good quality. We want to write to Mr. Visconti’s family in Italy.”

“You’ll need an address, you know. You can’t just
write to the Visconti family, Milan. There are lots of people named Visconti living there. They’re an old Milanese family.”

“How do you know that?” asked Laura.

“I looked it up on the Internet.”

“Oh.” Laura looked at him. So her father had been doing some research, too. “Did you find anything about Mr. Visconti?”

Her father shook his head. “No, nothing. I would have told you if I had.”

“Well,
we
have found something. We have found an address!” Laura sat back to let the magnitude of this sink in.

She was not disappointed. Her father raised his eyebrows and came over to the table to sit down. “All right then, I’m impressed,” he said. “Really impressed. Tell me everything.”

When she had finished, Laura said, “So now you see why we need very-good-quality writing paper.”

Her father nodded. “I do indeed, and I think I have just the thing. Let me go and rummage.”

While he was gone, Laura did a bit of rummaging herself and found some granola bars in the back of the pantry. “I think they’re still all right.”

“They look OK.” Leon took one and peeled off
the paper. “I’ll be the food tester this time,” he said, grinning at her.

Laura smiled back. It seemed like a very long time since that first day when he had come to see the house. “There are some apples, too,” she said, moving the bowl to the table. “I know
they’re
all right.”

When her father came back, he was carrying a gray box and some pens. “This is very fine paper,” he explained, opening the box. “Your mother gave it to me because she liked the watermark.” He held up a sheet to the light so that they could both see the delicate tracery of a rose in the creamy paper. “There are envelopes as well, and I have brought some good pens for you to try.”

Laura threw her arms around his neck. “It’s perfect,” she exclaimed. “We’ll figure out what we want to say and then copy it onto the paper. It will be just right.”

“Well, I might go and see how the giant is getting on while you do that,” said her father. “Have fun.” He headed for the door.

Deciding what to say was not simple. It was late and all the granola bars had been consumed, along with several apples, before they were finally ready to copy what they had written onto the writing paper.

“You should do it,” said Leon. “Your writing is better than mine.”

Laura did not argue; she had seen his untidy scrawl. Carefully, she started to reproduce the words on the paper. Then she copied the address onto the envelope, hoping she was transcribing the Italian correctly and, after looking to Leon for reassurance, sealed the envelope and placed it on the table. “I’ll mail it tomorrow.”

Once they had sent off the letter, all they could do was wait.

The school term dragged on. Everywhere, posters for the dance were appearing, and it seemed to Laura that nobody was talking about anything else. She was having trouble concentrating, too — her thoughts were full of Mr. Visconti and Veronica. Every day she hurried home, hoping for a reply to her and Leon’s letter.

The week before the dance, Laura was walking home with Leon, wondering whether today would be the day when the letter would come, when he stopped abruptly. “I want to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if you wanted go to the dance.”

Laura stared at him. “What?”

“I mean, I was wondering if you wanted to go with me.”

“I thought you didn’t like things like that,” she stammered. This was totally unexpected; not in a million years did she think Leon would ask her to the dance. She felt sick with anxiety. Whatever was she going to say?

“It’s OK. You can say no if you want to.”

“It’s just I . . . I never go to dances.” She felt as though the words were coming out all wrong but she couldn’t stop herself. “I don’t like them. I think they’re silly.”

“So that’s a no, then,” said Leon.

“It’s not that I don’t want to go with
you.
I just don’t want to go.” It was no use. She could see that he did not believe her.

He shrugged and turned away. “Whatever.”

Laura watched him walk around the side of Mrs. Murphy’s house. She felt terrible. It was true, she told herself; she didn’t like dances. At least, she
wouldn’t
like them if she went to them. Yet, somewhere deep inside her, she knew that was not the reason she had said no.

She had said no because, in the end, she would have been too embarrassed to go with Leon, and she felt very, very bad about that.