The Villa (20 page)

Ginny returned to Ben’s bedroom and began locating her clothes. She dressed quietly, one eye on the lumpen frame in the bed that was Ben. Still comatose; he would be for another hour, she guessed.

She hadn’t stayed round at Ben’s since her mother’s return from Sicily, but last night she didn’t text her mother and she switched off her phone. That would show her. Sometimes Ginny wondered if it was the Ball that made her behave so badly. Sometimes she wondered if it was her bad behaviour that had created the Ball in the first place. Sometimes all she wanted to do was hug her mother and burst into tears. But the Ball (or something) stopped her.

When she was dressed, Ginny went over to the bed and stared down at Ben’s face. Even when he was asleep he was great eye candy. But, she had come to a conclusion during the night.

Ginny left the room and crept down the stairs. She let herself out of the front door, feeling different from the way she’d felt when she’d come into the house last night. Everything had changed and yet nothing had changed. She was still the same person, wasn’t she? But she would never be the same again.

The row with her mother had been the catalyst. Why should she play games? Why shouldn’t she say what she felt? This reminded her a bit of the conversation she’d had with Becca the day after the gathering that had turned into a party, and this in turn made her sad, because Becca was hardly ever around anymore. She was superglued into her relationship with Harry. Still, Becca had said what she thought.

So Ginny had done the same.

‘I like you, Ben,’ she said when they’d gone – as usual – up to his room. ‘I like you a lot.’

He stared at her. ‘Yeah, well, I like you too.’ He laughed. ‘Obviously.’ He slumped on to the bed. ‘Siddown.’

She stayed standing. ‘It isn’t,’ she said.

‘Huh?’

‘Obvious.’

‘Oh.’

He looked down then, and that’s when it hit her. Power. It surged through her. Because she realised the truth. Amazingly unbelievable as it seemed, he hadn’t properly come on to her because he was scared. Not because he didn’t fancy her or he wanted more time or any of that other shit. He was just scared.

So she got down on the bed beside him and showed him he didn’t need to be. Scared.

And now? As Ginny walked back home she thought about her night-time conclusion. It was that sex was hugely overrated. And she felt the glow of relief, liberation … And regret.

‘So, tell me, love. How was your week in Sicily?’ Her father gave her a hug, and deep in his arms, held fast, Tess felt as though she was relaxing for the first time since she’d got back. Already Sicily seemed a lifetime ago; since then, there had been Work, Robin and Ginny.

She smelt the comforting, familiar smell of her father and his cardigan. Shaving cream and old wool. And burrowed a bit deeper. When she was young, it was her mother’s attention she craved. Dashing to and fro from the flat above to the restaurant, always preparing food and cooking, washing and ironing, pausing to advise or to scold, her mother had been a hurricane. And in her eye was the same sort of fiery temper … How could anyone get close?

Her Dad though … In his late seventies, he was still a fit and wiry man. He had energy. He could make Muma laugh and cry. He would tease her, comfort her, dance with her. He was the calm after the storm. A rock. He was as reliable as Muma was unpredictable. As Tess grew older she had come to appreciate what before had always been there. And right now, a rock was about what she needed.

‘Interesting,’ she said, catching her breath, and reluctantly allowing herself to let go of him.

Her mother shot her a sharp look over her shoulder. They had spoken on the phone when Tess arrived back home, but briefly, both of them giving nothing away, Tess thought now.

‘You never told me it was such a stunning location.’ Tess went over to kiss her mother on both cheeks. She was looking tired and kind of tense, but that was Muma’s modus operandi. And when she was tired or tense she simply did more cooking.

‘You make it sound like a film-set,’ her mother said. ‘It is just a place.’ She gripped hold of Tess’s arm with a bony hand, reminding her fleetingly of Santina Sciarra.

‘A beautiful place.’ Tess grinned at her father who was shaking his head behind Muma’s back. Why did he let her get away with so much, Tess wondered. Didn’t he want to see the village where his wife had grown up? Didn’t he feel shut out sometimes by her secrecy?

Her mother let go and shook a courgette at her. She was making something complicated in layers with fish and tomatoes and courgettes. No doubt it would be delicious. ‘Beauty is only skin deep,’ she said darkly. ‘Beware it doesn’t charm and trap you.’

Tess laughed. ‘Is that what happened to you, Dad?’ she teased. ‘Did Muma charm and trap you?’

‘Of course.’ He began to lay the table. Forks, napkins, a small dish of
parmigiano
. ‘She used all her powers. And by God, she was a beauty. Dark, flashing eyes, black curly hair … ’

Flavia whipped at his arm with her tea towel. Tess laughed. Her mother’s hair was still thick and wavy but white as cotton wool these days, and always pinned back and up so it wasn’t in the way of the cooking.

‘Your mother could be pretty persuasive, you know, love,’ he added.

‘Ha.’ Flavia turned her back on him, but Tess caught her smile.

Her father had always been tall and lean with very dark blue eyes – the eyes which Tess had inherited and which had so fascinated Santina. When she was a child and he used to put her on his shoulders on the beach on summer Sundays, she used to dream for a moment she’d bang her head on the sky. And now? She didn’t want either of her parents to get older; she couldn’t bear to think of losing them.

‘What about you, love?’ He twinkled at her. ‘Did you meet anyone nice in Sicily?’

‘Hmph.’ Her mother snorted and muttered something unintelligible into the tea towel now draped across her shoulder.

‘Actually,’ Tess said, ignoring her, ‘I met two very personable men.’

‘Single?’ quizzed her father.

‘Definitely.’

‘Sicilian, I suppose,’ said her mother disparagingly. ‘Sicilian men are like bees round a honey pot when they see an attractive woman. Not to mention a woman who has
property. And trust me; they are all the same – they expect too much and they live in the past.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Tess helped herself to a slice of tomato. Though thinking about the longstanding Sciarra and Amato feud now inherited by Giovanni and Tonino, perhaps Muma had a point.

‘Be off with you.’ But her mother laughed. It was a family tradition to pinch her ingredients before they made it to the pot.

Tess chewed the tomato slowly round the edge. She knew that her mother would have to ask.

‘Tell me then.’

‘What?’

Her mother clicked her tongue. ‘What were their names?’

Tess hid her small triumph. ‘Giovanni Sciarra. That’s your old friend Santina’s great nephew. And … ’ She hesitated. ‘Tonino Amato.’

‘Hmph.’ Her mother snorted again.

‘I suppose you know Tonino’s family too?’ Tess kept her voice casual.

Her mother opened the oven door, transferred her main course from table to middle shelf in one fluid movement. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Alberto Amato was my father’s closest friend.’

Tess tried to hide her excitement. Muma was talking about Sicily. ‘Wasn’t Alberto a fisherman?’ she asked. A spear-fisherman, Tonino had said. She recalled the pride in his voice as he’d spoken of him.

‘Yes, he was.’ Her mother sat down heavily, and Tess saw her father throw her a concerned glance.

‘He was Tonino’s grandfather.’ Tess poured out the wine she had brought into three glasses. Her parents always insisted they didn’t drink and then knocked it back anyway. ‘Tonino’s father was a fisherman too. He worked for the tunnery at Cetaria.’

Flavia nodded again. Her dark eyes were faded and milky with age, but still alert. She was, Tess reminded herself, a remarkable woman. ‘I remember him,’ she said. ‘He was not much more than a child when … ’

‘When …? ’ Tess tried not to look too eager.

‘When I left.’

This was the most her mother had ever talked about Sicily and the people she’d known there. Tess was almost afraid to breathe in case it broke the spell.

‘Alberto and Papa used to spend hours in the village bar drinking
grappa
and putting the world to rights.’ She chuckled at the memory. ‘And I often used to loiter outside and eavesdrop. Until … until … ’ The dreaminess in her voice seemed to snap. ‘Things change,’ she said.

Tess’s father went to her side and patted her hand. The skin was wrinkled and marked with liver spots. It was a hand that had always worked, even now when she suffered from arthritis in the joints of her fingers.

And you?
Tess wanted to shout.
What did you do?
But she didn’t. It would only make Muma clam up completely. ‘The two families seem to hate each other,’ Tess said, trying
to sound casual. ‘The Amatos and the Sciarras.’ Perhaps her mother could tell her more. Perhaps she would know about the theft and betrayal, the debt and the murder – or the secret ‘it’ that Giovanni seemed to be looking for.

‘They always did,’ Flavia said. ‘Their fathers too and their grandfathers before that.’ She turned to Tess almost accusingly. ‘That is what it is like in Sicily,’ she said. ‘Who would wish to be involved in that sort of life?’ She got to her feet again and started busying herself with putting the cooking pans in hot water to soak.

Oh dear, Tess thought. Another no entry sign.

‘And what of the house, love?’ her father asked diplomatically. ‘This villa – your unexpected inheritance. Did you like it?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Tess sipped her wine. She had liked it all right. ‘I’ve taken lots of photos.’ She watched for her mother’s reaction. ‘I’ll bring them round when I’ve downloaded them.’

Her mother shot a dismissive glance across at her. ‘You have placed it with an agent?’ she said. ‘It is quiet there, but pretty enough for tourists, I suppose.’

Tess ran her finger along the rim of the glass. ‘Actually …’ she said.

‘Tess!’ Her mother sat down again – more abruptly this time.

In a second, her father was once more at her side. ‘Flavia? Sweetheart?’

She waved him away. ‘I am fine,’ she said. She glared at Tess.

‘I thought I’d keep the villa for a while.’ Honestly. Why was she letting them make her feel guilty? What was wrong with her? What was wrong with her family? Tess got up, switched on the tap and began to run water to wash up the cooking pots. The last thing she wanted was to upset her mother. But the house had been left to her for a reason – there was some purpose to all this; there had to be.

‘What for?’ her mother asked bleakly. ‘What would you keep it for?’

‘Holidays?’ Tess didn’t dare say what she’d hoped – that she, Ginny and her parents could all go there together. Happy families, she thought bleakly. Some hope. Especially after last night. She squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl and let the water fill it with soapsuds.

Her father was clearly struggling. ‘That’s an idea, love,’ he said.

‘A bad idea,’ said her mother. She got to her feet. ‘I knew no good would come of it,’ she muttered.

Tess and her father shrugged at each other.

The phone rang and with unmistakable relief, he moved towards the door to answer it. ‘That’ll be Joe,’ he said to nobody in particular as he left the room.

‘He hopes … ’ said Flavia, with a conciliatory smile.

‘He certainly does.’ Tess smiled back and piled the pans into the washing-up bowl. Truce. She thought of the trip to Segesta, the shot she had heard. ‘Did you know anyone in Sicily, Muma,’ she said, ‘who was involved with the Mafia?’

Her mother was opening cupboard doors to get out the
plates for supper and slamming them again with rather more force than necessary. She snorted with exasperation. ‘Involved with the Mafia?’ she repeated. ‘Oh, Tess. Many people paid protection money.’ She took plates and dishes over to the table. ‘It is the way things were in Sicily. It was a system that worked. People paid it like a tax. They would be looked after. Many people did not see it as a bad thing.’

Tess frowned. ‘But did the system carry on like that during the war?’ Her mother was only a teenager back then, but knowing Muma she would have had a good idea of what was going on – even if she wouldn’t say.

Flavia shrugged. ‘Some. The Mafia as an organisation was driven underground by Mussolini. But they got their power back towards the end of the war.’ She sighed as she placed plates in position on the table. ‘Rest assured, Tess, they will always retain their power.’

And now? Tess scrubbed the frying pan clean. Did they still have power now?

Her mother was moving around the kitchen, picking up a teacup here, a cloth there. It was as if she couldn’t be still. ‘Naturally they regained power when the fascist government fell,’ she said.

‘How come?’

‘Because the Allied forces handed over administrative control of Sicily to local men who they knew to be anti-fascist.’ She laughed.

‘And these men were …?’ Tess was hoping for names.

‘Mafia who had been lying low under Mussolini,’ her
mother replied. ‘Many of them considered men of honour.’ She straightened up, but did not look her daughter in the eye.

Tess was sceptical. Surely her mother didn’t believe all that she was saying? ‘Who were they, Muma?’ she asked. ‘Were there any particular families in Cetaria?’ She wiped her hands on a tea towel and began to dry the pots and pans.

‘Hush now.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘It is better not to know these things.’ She busied herself with tidying the kitchen counter, but Tess couldn’t accept that the subject was closed.

‘Isn’t that a bit head in the sand?’ One by one, she put the pots away. In her mother’s kitchen everything had a precise home.

‘Sometimes the sand is the safest place for the head to be,’ her mother replied.

‘But—’

She whirled round pretty fast for an old lady. ‘Don’t involve yourself, Tess,’ she said. ‘Not with Sicily and not with those kind of thoughts either. Sicily is a dark place for me – and for others too. But it is the past. I broke free long ago. I am here. This is my life. I no longer need to look back.’