Suddenly, she put her head down on her arms and began to weep.
“Mummy!” said J.J., reverting to her childhood name for her mother. “What on earth’s the matter?” She put her arms around Tosca’s shoulders as her mother continued to sob. She took some tissues from the box on the table and gave them to her. Finally, Tosca stopped crying and raised her head.
“Oh, J.J., you’re crying, too. I’m sorry to worry you. It’s the lawsuit, of course. It really is getting me down.” She passed the box of tissues to her daughter. “Stuart says in his email today that it’s far more serious than we thought.”
“I’ve never seen you cry before,” said J.J. “It frightens me.”
Tosca tried to laugh. “Here we are, two modern women people think are so tough, you on the race track and me out there bashing the mighty monarchy, and all we can do is sit here and bawl like babies.” She stood up. “Tea. That’ll do the trick. No, forget the tea. Dry your tears,
keresik.
I am determined to beard the professor in his den and ask about those rocks I dug up.”
She hurried up the spiral staircase to the two small attic bedrooms under the arched roof. Light and airy, their windows offered a glimpse of the main channel that connected boaters to the back bay, but like all the other houses on Isabel Island, J.J.’s home sat cheek-by-jowl with its neighbors, huddled together with only inches, it seemed, between the narrow lots.
As Tosca changed clothes her soprano voice filled the air.
“Mother!” J.J. shouted up the stairs. “I told you. Do not burst into those arias of yours while you’re here, especially not that screechy
Madame Butterfly.
You can be heard all over the island. You know how closely together we live, and we’re very respectful of each other’s privacy.”
“How can you say that about
Madame Butterfly?”
Tosca shouted back as she broke off in mid-note. “Cio-Cio San was the sweetest, gentlest lady in the history of opera. No one can possibly object to hearing ‘One Fine Day.’ Besides, it’s not considered truly grand opera, so why the fuss? Just be glad I don’t like that tyrant Wagner.”
Ten minutes later she floated down the spiral staircase wearing an ivory and blue flowered silk dress, her long, dark hair gathered into a bun at the nape of her neck.
“I still wish you wouldn’t go bothering the professor,” said J.J. “I don’t trust you an inch when you get that look in your eye. You must stop studying Americans as if they were prize specimens, and must you carry that ridiculous parasol? This is the twenty-first century, not the eighteenth.”
“It just doesn’t feel right to go outside without an umbrella. I never did in England.”
“Everyone needs one there. It’s always raining.”
“I love this parasol. Its little Chinese cherries are so cheerful. Of course, I could wear my red hat instead, the one that perches over my right eye like the ones Kate and Pippa Middleton wear, although now that Kate’s married to Prince Wills she has to keep her hats off the face, like the queen.”
J.J. groaned.
Tosca raised her hands in silent defense.
“All right, no hat. Now look, that man needs my help. The poppies are falling over, and those hollyhocks are far too tall for the size of his garden. It’s a complete shambles.” To say nothing of someone’s finger bones in a rock, she thought.
“I hope you’re not taking any of that god-awful mead with you,” called J.J. as her mother slammed the front door behind her.
Letter from a Lonely Outpost.
Hello, dear Reader. My favorite actor, John Cleese, is living along the California coast in Santa Barbara so I’ll be seeing him soon, such a delicious man…reading the newspapers here is a revelation in modernity, so many vowels simply tossed away in favour of brevity (all the ‘u’ letters have disappeared)…impossible to find mead anywhere, blank stares when I ask...very odd that Americans haven’t caught on to the metric system yet so one must endlessly convert measurements and degrees. Rather confusing…All for now, dear Reader. Toodle-oo till next time.
Tosca snapped the parasol closed, hooked it onto her arm, pushed the white picket gate wide open and entered Professor Whittaker’s garden. Overgrown crimson hibiscus vines and wild roses intertwined the latticework of the arbor leading to the front door. Scarlet bougainvillea, not yet in full bloom, cascaded from the home’s low roof. Who grows flowers on his roof? she wondered. Crazy Californians.
Two pygmy date palm trees stood sentinel as Tosca picked her way carefully along the narrow flagstone path edged with purple and canary-yellow pansies that nodded gently in the warm Pacific breeze. When she reached the rock garden she picked up the broken stone and approached the front door.
White plantation shutters partially shielded the front windows from the morning sun. Between the half-open slats Tosca could easily make out the bulky form of the professor completely filling an oversized, high-backed, red leather armchair. It was turned toward the bay and the twin jetties that marked the harbor entrance. Behind him, angled to his right, she saw a grand piano and sheet music on its holder.
Tosca hesitated as she noted he was still in his bathrobe, engrossed in reading a newspaper. His head was bent down to reveal strands of gray hair carefully combed and judiciously spaced to cover the bald spots.
It’s simply got to be done, Tosca told herself as she found the bell and pressed it firmly. Judging the music professor to be a sensitive soul, she kept her eyes modestly away from the sight of him in his chair in case he jumped up in fright at the shrill sound of the bell that reverberated through the glass-paneled door. She turned toward the bay to take in the full beauty of her surroundings. By now she was used to the splendor of the yachts tied up to docks that extended like spokes in a wheel around the perimeter of the peaceful island, but she still marveled at the variety of lilies, irises, roses, dahlias and geraniums that bloomed, it seemed, all winter.
“Yes?”
She whipped around at the professor’s terse greeting.
“Ah. Yes. How charming of you to answer the door. I’m terribly sorry to disturb you on a Sunday morning, and isn’t it gorgeous, but I did want to catch you in, you see.” Barely pausing for breath while the man’s frown lines deepened as he glanced at the rock in her hands, Tosca continued. “I know we haven’t been properly introduced, but being neighbors, one can’t help but notice. I’m Tosca Trevant. I’m visiting my daughter, J.J.,” she pointed, “two doors away.”
Whittaker looked at her blankly but offered no reply. Tosca plunged on. “You must have seen or at least heard J.J. driving madly around in that little red sports car of hers? Not the Porsche. I mean the British one, the 1953 Austin-Healey BN1 open top. Quite rare. Her father left it to her when he died, and she shipped the dreadful old banger over here. Imagine owning three cars. How American! She keeps the Porsche for rallying next to the Healey in the garage, and her NASCAR race car is with the team, of course. I do ask her to slow down on these one-way streets, but being a race car driver, she won’t listen to anyone. I wish she’d get a proper job. She drove like a maniac in England and does the same here. Our London traffic, of course, is dreadful, but we have such wonderfully frequent trains and buses. Very clean they are, too. In fact, some are actually immaculate, especially the Orient Express from London, and ...”
“What do you want?” The voice was high-pitched and querulous. He stroked the bristly, meticulously barbered mutton-chop whiskers that book-ended his cheeks.
“This is a most peculiar request, but can you tell me about your, um, beautifully kept garden?” She indicated the area where she’d found the broken rock and wilting plants. “I realize that terraced part of the garden has been there for quite some time, judging by its condition. Was it in place when you bought the house?”
Thud. The glass panels quivered as the door slammed shut
.
Well, outrageous! And extremely rude, decided Tosca. Here I am in my Sunday best, as polite as could be, and he slams the door in my face. Before she could turn away the door swept open again.
“Sorry, Mrs. Trevant. My wife’s death, you see ...”
Professor Whittaker’s fleshy cheeks puffed out in a smile that radiated insincerity. He extended a pale, plump hand.
“Please accept my condolences, Professor, and do call me Tosca,” she said, resting the rock against her chest with one hand and shaking his hand with her other, quickly rescuing her crushed thumb. In spite of a flabby appearance, Whittaker’s grip was iron.
“I am a widow myself,” she said, “so I can appreciate how you feel. If I’m a bother, just let me know. However, there is definitely something wrong in your garden. Here, I’ve brought you the culprit.” She held up the rock.
“My garden?” Whittaker took a few steps down the path and glanced around to the back corner.
“Ah, yes, you think so, too. Your eyes went straight to the problem. So I am right. It’s those interesting stones on top. Take a look at this one.”
“Let’s talk inside.” The professor’s black silk bathrobe flapped around pudgy ankles as he turned abruptly back into the house, his short, quick steps revealing matching pajamas.
Tosca followed him, thinking she had rarely encountered a more globular man. He seemed to be made up of a series of circles. Head like a Halloween pumpkin topped with strands of hair like wet string, sitting on a neckless spherical torso, and a rotund belly that Tosca guessed must be attached to fat, bulbous legs.
Yet, she realized, his face had once been handsome with velvety brown eyes, a well-defined Roman nose he held slightly up in an arrogant tilt, and wide, sensuous lips. But the heavy jowls almost enveloped his chin, and his lower cheeks had long since drowned in a river of indulgence.
Haiden Whittaker’s long living room was crowded with 19th century antique armoires; mahogany side tables, and a red velvet Victorian sofa pushed against the far wall, all genuine pieces except for the red leather armchair, guessed Tosca, who was familiar with Buckingham Palace’s magnificent treasures. There seemed no plan to the room’s arrangement, as if someone had simply removed the furniture from their packing boxes years ago and left them where they stood. Only the ebony piano shone with polish.
Scattered over almost every surface and much of the floor were stacks of sheet music, blank score pages and CDs. Tosca was not totally surprised to see several sheets ripped to shreds. She figured that the professor, like other composers, often tore up his ideas in rage and frustration.
Lined up along the mantel above the brick fireplace was a collection of nine small, crudely fashioned sculptures resembling different sizes and shapes of what appeared to be animal paws. What on earth are those? wondered Tosca, comparing their clumsy design to the rest of the room’s elegant décor.
Whittaker cleared a space on the sofa. “Sorry about the mess. Please call me Haiden.”
She noticed that like many large people, he barely moved when he talked, keeping gestures to a minimum. Tosca sat down, careful not to knock over the piles of magazines and books at her feet. She placed the rock on top of a newspaper on the coffee table.
“Now, tell me how I can help you,” Whittaker said. “Your first name intrigues me, I must admit, being an opera lover.”
Whittaker’s brown eyes flicked from Tosca’s face to her feet, to the piano and back to Tosca’s hands.
He hasn’t even glanced at the rock, she realized.
“My name? It’s simple,” she said. “My mother’s relatives were all from Malta, and several of the men were opera singers. Two became members of the Carl Rosa Opera Company in England. My father was a Cornishman from St. Ives, but my mother insisted on naming us after opera characters. My name should really be Floria, as you know, not Tosca.”
“Of course. Tosca was her last name.”
“When my father went to the registry office and explained about the opera, he thoroughly confused the registrar, who made the same mistake as most people and mixed it up.” Tosca smiled self-consciously.
As the professor’s ponderous head nodded slowly in agreement, she wondered if the aroma of sandalwood she smelled was from incense, though Professor Whittaker hardly seemed the type. Had he been burning candles? If so, their fragrance failed to cover the fusty staleness in the room.
“In fact,” he continued, “your name should be La Tosca, that’s the title of the original play. But you’ve dropped your family’s tradition of using an opera character’s name for your daughter?”
“Not at all. J.J. was christened Joan after Verdi’s heroine in his opera,
Joan of Arc
. It was his seventh and, as I’m sure you’ll agree, one of his least popular compositions. I was willing to overlook the fact that Joan of Arc defeated the English, as we in Cornwall consider ourselves, even though we are a duchy, because I fell in love with the overture’s woodwind solos and, of course, I admire Joan of Arc’s incredible courage.”
“Which your daughter now displays on the race track, as my late wife told me,” said Whittaker. “However, what’s all this about the stones in my front yard?”
Tosca looked out of the window at the shimmering bay where sea lions clustered on the platform around the huge main buoy, sunning themselves. On the sand dozens of families sat under blue and white beach umbrellas, enjoying their Sunday. At the water’s edge a young couple, the girl in a yellow neon string bikini, laughingly toasted each other with champagne in red plastic glasses, spilling drops over their tanned bodies as they emptied the bottle.
“Yes, those two huge, round stones on top of your rock garden. There’s something wrong with one of them. Surely you’ve noticed these four stick-like things here inside the broken-off part? They could be human bones. Four fingertips.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.” The professor’s eyes held hers. “Probably some animal. You’re obviously not familiar with our desert kangaroo rat or the kit fox. Really, you’re letting your imagination run away with you.”