Precious Things (29 page)

One of the curators in the adjacent office looked up from her desk sharply, and stared. Seeing the distress on Francesca's face, she looked down again quickly.

Maggie held Francesca's shaking shoulders as she wept. Looking over at Archer, she saw his face was stricken.

‘I'm so sorry,' he said. ‘I didn't realise this would be so . . . difficult.'

‘It's not your fault, thank you so much for helping us, it means the world.' Maggie lowered her voice. ‘But it really is her, isn't it? Her mother, I mean.'

Archer nodded. ‘I thought so as soon as I laid eyes on Francesca. The resemblance is uncanny. The timeline's also right. And her memory of the coronet. Francesca is Isabella's abducted daughter. She simply must be.'

‘How . . .?' whispered Francesca, attempting to gather herself, ‘How could it have happened? How did I lose you, Mama?'

Pressing the pad of her thumb against the paper, she brushed the pencil line of the woman's face. All three of them stared at what lay beneath Francesca's hand. The portrait was of a woman – maybe in her late twenties or early thirties – dressed only in a slip, balancing a child on her lap. They looked serene and calm. The warmth of the mother's love was obvious in the way Isabella's arm curved around the little girl's hip, and the ease with which Francesca leaned into her mother's curves. Apart from the hair – which was longer and curlier, bouncing just above her shoulders – Isabella looked almost the same as Francesca. And if that weren't enough, there it was, perched just atop the child's head: the coronet.

Francesca looked up at Maggie, her face contorted. ‘And why did Uncle Christian have the coronet? What does it mean?'

Maggie shook her head. ‘I don't know.'

Francesca looked back down at the portrait. ‘May I?' she asked Archer, who nodded. Francesca slipped it off the table and into her bag, then stood up. ‘Maggie, Archer, please excuse me. I thank you both, but I . . . I think I need to go.'

Clutching her bag to her chest, Francesca walked down the hall unsteadily, back the way they'd come.

‘I'm so sorry,' said Archer, turning to Maggie. ‘So, so sorry about this . . . I didn't realise . . .'

‘It's not your fault,' Maggie said, squeezing his outstretched palms between hers. ‘I didn't either. Thank you so much. For everything,' she said quickly. ‘I'd better . . .'

‘Yes,' Archer nodded, turning back towards his desk to shuffle his papers and zip up the offending portfolio.

Maggie hurried down the corridor, calling, ‘Francesca – wait!' Turning the corner, she saw that Francesca was feverishly pushing the lift button, tears coursing down her pale cheeks. Maggie reached out a hand to touch her, and felt the woman's arm shake beneath her fingers.

‘I – I don't know what to do!' cried Francesca, clutching her bag to her side and wringing her hands. ‘What am I supposed to do?' It felt like a risk, but Maggie took a step forward and put her arms around Francesca.

‘I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I've gone and made things worse,' Maggie told her, deeply moved by Francesca's tears.

‘No,' cried Francesca, pulling away. ‘I just didn't expect to feel so, so . . . awful. I told myself that I couldn't possibly love a mother and father I never knew. But now I remember my real mother, and I remember the pain of losing her . . . She loved me. How could I forget that? It feels like such a betrayal – both towards her
and
to my parents who raised me. But did they keep me away from her deliberately? Why would they do such a thing?'

The lift arrived but both women ignored it. Maggie searched for the right words of comfort. ‘You don't know that. Hunt knew her, but you don't know that your parents had any idea . . . They sound like good people, Francesca. I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted to hurt either of you.'

‘I keep telling myself that, but that woman – Isabella – it destroyed her. That's what Archer said.'

Maggie thought about the delicate relationship between mother and daughter, and the weight of expectation that always seemed to define it. What a burden it was . . . and given her recent scene with Valerie, Maggie thought she understood how Francesca felt. It was nearly impossible to separate one's self from the shared emotional bond, however twisted.

Maggie remembered the very first time she saw Pearl as the midwife had handed the tiny newborn to her, and Pearl's instinctive way of nestling against Maggie's bare chest, mouth opening in need. Just then it had hit Maggie with a sudden searing clarity: never again would she have only herself to worry about. She would always, always love Pearl. And that would be both a wonderful and frightening thing. It was something that could never fade, no matter what happened to either of them.

Francesca may have forgotten, but her mother hadn't. Sad as that was, it was also somehow beautiful – achingly poignant. Maggie felt almost envious in that moment, for the love surrounding Francesca. She wished she felt that, too, from her own mother. Perhaps that was why she'd jumped into finding out more about Francesca's story, when she so steadfastly avoided trying to resolve her own.

FRANCESCA: Rome, 1957

It was bustling and loud, with a cacophony of voices all shouting to be heard over the din. Market day. The little girl – maybe three or four years old, at most – threaded her way through the crowd at Campo de' Fiori. All were intent on their shopping, rushing to get home before work. Fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers popped with technicolour brightness, catching her gaze and filling the stalls all around her with colourful abundance. Clutching her mother's hand tightly, Francesca danced by her side, trying to avoid the cracks in the pavement. It was her regular game – Mama didn't mind, even if it meant making little detours sometimes.

It was just the two of them in the tiny apartment. No father to speak of. But never having had one, she never thought of what was missing. The neighbour's son was nice to her; he was like a father, she supposed. Although Mama whispered he was ‘not quite right in the head', she trusted him to look after Francesca when she needed to work. ‘We must be kind to the less fortunate,' Mama had told her, and Francesca had nodded solemnly, although not quite understanding.

The little girl looked up to see her mother's thick curls bouncing against her shoulders, light filtering through the dark chestnut tresses and reflecting their lustrous shine. In her own she wore the princess crown – her mother's gift. Noticing her glance, her mother smiled down and squeezed her fingers tighter in her own. Standing in front of a stall, Bella drew her in close and stroked her hair, slightly rearranging the crown on her head. The little girl sighed with contentment as she curled into her mother's thigh.

‘Ciao, Bella, anything for you today?' called the old woman in Italian, beckoning to get her mother's attention. ‘And the little one, how she grows. How beautiful you look,
cara
.'

‘I am a queen, and this is my crown,' Francesca said proudly, touching the coronet above her head, fingers rubbing over the beads possessively, lingering . . . She loved the way they felt.

Her mother and the old woman laughed indulgently, then the stallholder motioned for Bella to look at the heaped wooden boxes and their tissue-packed contents. The little girl knew her mother would be there for ages, poring over the different types of mushrooms – the chanterelles and the cremini, and the dark cloud ears. . . . Mama would sigh over the truffles and count her change. Occasionally, just occasionally, the old woman would slip in a woody brown nib, the size of thumbnail really, to the bag holding the others, and Mama would whisper excitedly that they would ‘eat like baronesses tonight, my darling'.

Mushroom risotto – it was Mama's specialty dish. She had a knack for coaxing the cheap arborio rice to a rich, creamy texture and teasing out its depth of flavour.
My mama can do anything
, Francesca thought proudly. She could make risotto and Napoli sauce for pasta, and create the most delicious treats from the simple crushed biscuits they kept from the saucers of coffee her mother bought in the piazza. Stale biscotti and mandorla, or leftover cannoli cases. Vittorio felt sorry for them and slipped them a few extra in a crumpled white paper bag now and then, after he realised they were saving them for later, but only when his boss, a gruff, frowning Milanese, wasn't watching.

The little girl became bored. Mama was taking too long again. Checking her mother's face, she could see how absorbed she was, exclaiming at the many different varieties as the stallholder showed her this morning's freshest pickings, enticing her to test the abalone cap and bear's head fungus between her fingers.

She kicked a pebble, just to see how far she could nudge it with her toe along the gutter before running into someone. It rolled a little way, then stopped, invitingly close. Letting go of her mother's hand, she kicked it again, and again, and followed the pebble along the gutter,
weaving between the stallholders, who were busy serving customers all perusing their ingredients for tonight's supper – pale green artichokes and aubergines with rubbery black skin, zucchini flowers and cherries, and ripe, ripe tomatoes. Suddenly, the pebble rolled out of sight and the little girl found herself outside the market, away from the crush and noise and the smell of rotting food.

Surprised at how far she'd come, she turned around to get her bearings, but couldn't see Mama anywhere. Retracing her steps, she ducked under the arm of a man with a red bulbous nose; he seemed to peer down at her sharply and with too much interest. Heart beating faster, she ignored his shout, ‘Come back, try a grape, try an apple, here you are, little girl,' and kept running forward. Checking over her shoulder to make sure he wasn't following, Francesca came up against something hard and stopped, startled. Rubbing the side of her head where she'd made the collision, she felt confused and dazed for a moment.

‘Well, hello there,' said the man, tall and austere in his fine winter coat. He knelt to the ground beside her, one knee settling on the asphalt as he removed a pair of kidskin gloves from his hairless, tanned hands. She saw a flicker of an emotion she couldn't recognise in his face before he smiled at her warmly, his teeth very white in his tan, well-fed face. ‘Aren't you a pretty one? And what's that you have there?' he asked, touching her lovely crown.

‘Where's Mama?' she blurted, feeling panicked all of a sudden. The man was staring at her keenly with his piercing blue eyes, the same colour as the eyes of those fierce northern hounds, the colour of glacial ice. He was staring at her as if he knew her already, but she couldn't quite remember ever meeting him before.

‘Mama? Well, she's just over there,' said the man, dipping his hand in his pocket and holding out his palm to her. Inside was a compact metal cricket, the size of a button.

‘Tell me, have you seen one of these?' he asked.

Enthralled by the tiny contraption, Francesca shook her head vigorously. The toy was a bright, iridescent green, with tiny eyes the colour of amethyst painted on its shiny head.
How did it work?
she wondered.

‘Here, I'll show you,' he said, seeming to read her thoughts. He pressed down in his palm with an index finger and the toy let out a bright, tinny chirrup, loud enough to make her jump back. Francesca's eyes widened in delight.

‘Can I try?' she asked, already reaching inside the man's hand for the toy.

‘Why, certainly. Keep it. You can show it to your mother when we meet her,' he said.

‘You know my mama?' the little girl asked, thoughts focused on the cricket, which clicked again and again in her small fingers.

‘Of course I do. Let me take you to her,' the man said as he straightened up, smoothing the front of his woollen trousers which were ironed to sharp, crisp points.

Tickled with her new toy, the girl pressed the metal button again and again, enjoying the way it yielded to her touch, but missing the slight shadow of annoyance that passed across the man's face.

Dodging the cracks, she worked the cricket in her free palm and let him lead her. There were shouts back in the market, some sort of commotion, but it receded into the distance behind them. Feeling the man tense at her side and quicken his step, she stopped to look up, but he kept pulling her, firmly and resolutely now, on ahead. Didn't he know the game, she thought, as he made her stumble onto a crack?

The man's jaw was clenching hard high above her – he was tall – and Francesca realised with a start that the market was far behind them.

‘Wait! Where's Mama?' she cried, realising he would not stop. Still, he kept tugging her forwards.

‘This way,' said the man, his voice odd and high all of a sudden – not the honeyed, rich tones he'd first spoken to her with. The narrow blue eyes refused to meet hers.

The little girl looked longingly over her shoulder at the market, fear rising in her chest. Choking down a sob, she felt very scared. Where was Mama, where was she?

Francesca struggled to keep up with the man's long strides. She hoped Mama wouldn't be angry with her. The man was muttering to himself, but Francesca heard snatches of words. None of them made sense. ‘Thought she could keep you from me . . . I'll show her . . .' Was he mad, like the neighbour's son? Perhaps Mama would want her to trust him. Her bottom lip wobbled, but she tried to be brave.

Francesca shut her lips tight and kept up with the man's quickening steps. The cricket fell silent in her fist, held too tightly to make a sound.

‘I don't know what I was expecting when I first approached you. And now, well . . .' Francesca shrugged. ‘I feel like I only know part of the story. It's frustrating, but at least I learned something. And regained a mother, I suppose.' She flashed a crooked smile at Maggie, who had a sudden vision of Valerie, seething, and felt a stab of loneliness and a deep, unquenchable sadness. She pushed down the feeling and sat patiently, waiting for Francesca to continue.

‘I had to find out, though. I knew there was something in my past that was not quite right.' She tapped the table and stared sightlessly ahead. ‘And I also knew before I set out to find the truth that it might not make me happy. But I felt like it was, I don't know . . . necessary,' she sighed, lifting her glass of red wine to take a sip. ‘What's that phrase? You can't always get what you want, but if you try . . .'

‘You get what you need.' Maggie nodded. ‘And are you happy now?'

Francesca tipped her head to the side, considering. ‘Happy? I'm not sure. I feel more certain in some ways, and more uncertain in others.'

It was five o'clock, and Maggie and Francesca were sitting in a little hole-in-the-wall bar called Lovers & Peddlers, which Maggie had stumbled upon one day off Bond Street. Its surprising interior was decked out like the inside of a wonderful travelling Spiegeltent. Coloured glass lamps twinkled like jewels, and parachute silk hung from the ceilings. Old sepia-toned pictures of circus folk from the late 1800s to early 1920s adorned the walls, and even the staff seemed to be following a burlesque theme. The waitress wore a structured satin leotard beneath her apron
and high-waisted jeans, and her lips were sinfully red in her hipster-pale face. Maggie and Francesca sunk deeper into velvet wingback armchairs in the corner and cradled their wine glasses.

‘You know, I've been trying to look on the bright side . . . I know it's an odd thing to say, but perhaps Isabella – my real mother – wouldn't have become such a brilliant artist if she'd had to raise me. I keep thinking that . . . And would I be the person I am without everything that happened? I don't think so. I wouldn't have grown up with my parents, who loved me and always made me feel wanted. I suppose I should be grateful . . . Perhaps it happened for the best. Out of terrible darkness comes light.' Francesca let out a small, mirthless laugh.

It had been a few weeks since their visit to the National Portrait Gallery, and Maggie had been thrilled when Francesca had called to suggest the meeting. She had been so worried about her, but Francesca seemed to be dealing with things incredibly well.

‘I still don't understand what happened. Did Christian Hunt take me, and if so, why? Did my parents know? I just can't get my head around it.' Francesca sighed. ‘It's strange, seeing that picture of her, of us, me with the coronet on. I can't believe it brought everything back. It makes me wonder what else I've forgotten.' The older woman looked at Maggie, her eyes far away. ‘I remember so vividly now when she did that drawing. She called me over and put the coronet on my head. It was scratchy, I remember, and heavy. I lay on her lap, and I could smell her scent, her perspiration.' Francesca straightened in her seat and her eyes cleared. ‘But I can't remember anything else. My therapist says that it's not unusual for children who've undergone traumatic events to block them out, as a sort of safety mechanism.'

‘So there's nothing there, no recollection of your father?' asked Maggie.

Francesca shook her head. ‘No, not yet . . .'

Both women fell silent and looked at the coronet, which lay on the rosewood table beside them.

‘You know, I still can't believe we were able to piece together even this much of its past,' Maggie said, sitting up straighter in her chair.
‘Do you know how unusual that is? Provenance and proof are one of the trickiest aspects of my job.'

Maggie looked up at the sepia photographs on the wall: long-dead circus folk with formal, stern expressions that seemed totally at odds with the mad costumes they were wearing. An Indian elephant in a mirror-studded leather saddle stood behind a couple posing for the camera. The tiny woman with her pretty, heart-shaped face and sequinned skirts balanced on her tiptoes, reaching up to loop her arm through the circus strongman's as he towered, darkly, beside her. Maggie felt a little shudder pass through her.

‘Mmm,' said Francesca. ‘You know, I actually found out some more about the coronet. We might be able to trace it back further still.'

Maggie tore her eyes away from the photograph, her mind still lingering on the slight curve of the woman's lips, and her shining head of platinum hair. She turned back to Francesca. ‘Really?'

‘Yes, I've been reading about Christian in Mr Sitwell's book, and – hope you don't mind – I spoke to him after our meeting . . .'

‘Of course not,' Maggie said, nodding for Francesca to go on.

‘Apparently Christian's stepmother was a dancer. She travelled all over the world with a troupe called The Blue Moon Company, with her twin sister – they were Eurasian. I think his real mother was from the Far East, too. There are pictures of his father's weddings somewhere . . . Archer said he saw them when he was putting the monograph together, and he seems to remember Christian's stepmother wearing the coronet when she was married. Perhaps Christian bought it for a prop, which wouldn't have been unusual for an artist to do, but don't you think it's also possible it could once have belonged to his stepmother? Doesn't it look like something a dancer would wear, as part of her costume?' Francesca's eyes glowed in her face and she looked transformed for a moment. ‘Sadly, I don't think Christian's stepmother ever danced again, after they were married – his father was very religious. She retreated into the church. In the letters she wrote Christian over the years, she barely spoke of anything else.'

It was just then that Maggie realised, with a start, that Francesca didn't necessarily look Italian . . . With the force of a blow, Maggie understood suddenly that Francesca's dark good looks could just as well be attributed to a Eurasian heritage. There was a definite suggestion of a slant to her eyes. Just like Christian Hunt's.

‘That's . . . fascinating . . .' Maggie murmured, her mind leaping all over the place. Could Christian possibly be Francesca's father? It was certainly possible – artists slept with their muses all the time. But then to abduct a child? How might that come about? Maggie felt dizzy at the possibilities, and opened her mouth to speak. But something prevented her and she stopped abruptly. Maggie lifted her wine glass to cover her confusion.

Francesca kept talking, but Maggie hardly heard. Something Francesca had said earlier had started to sink in, too . . . Maybe she was right. Perhaps you
did
need to look positively upon whatever forces made you. Both good
and
bad. Things always felt so hopeless between Maggie and her parents, but maybe it wasn't them she needed to repair things with at all. Maggie thought of Jean, who'd felt more like a true mother than her own, and felt a flash of deep regret. Kate's mum had always treated her like one of her own . . . Maybe family wasn't simply the people you were related to by blood, but the circle you created yourself. In that moment, Maggie made a silent promise: she would apologise to Jean and try to fix things with her . . . How long could Maggie keep punishing herself for things she'd done when she was young? Yet in her heart she ached at the thought of how long she'd left things, and that it might just be too late.

‘I'm so grateful to you, Maggie,' said Francesca hesitantly. ‘You helped me lay something to rest. My mother took a turn for the worse recently – she has no idea who I am any more. But while I feel like something's ended, I also feel that what we found out has created a space. For a fresh start. Life is so precious . . . We don't know how long we have with the people we love.'

‘That's so true,' Maggie said, her vision blurred suddenly with tears. ‘I'm just so glad I could help. Also,' she said, faltering, ‘I want you
to have this.' Maggie picked up the coronet from the side table and held it out to Francesca. ‘It's yours, you should have it. It belongs to you.'

A muscle in Francesca's cheek spasmed. ‘I . . . Thank you, but no. I don't want it,' she said, waving the coronet away.

‘Oh okay, I just thought . . .' Maggie said, feeling a little hurt. She wrapped the coronet back up and put it inside her handbag. On some level she understood Francesca rejecting an item so connected to her pain, but it was beautiful, how could she not want to keep it? Lily had behaved the same way too. Maggie wondered whether she really should just get rid of it herself, and felt a prickle of superstition. But no . . . there was still something about it. Something seductive. If she was honest with herself, she hadn't really wanted to give the coronet back to Francesca. It was captivating. Francesca's refusal had brought relief as well.

‘If you ever change your mind, you know where it is.'

‘Thank you,' said Francesca, looking at Maggie with genuine warmth. ‘You are kind. But I don't think I will.'

Together they sat in companionable silence. Customers came in, shaking off drops from their shoulders and rubbing their hands together. Summer was over and autumn was well underway – it would be winter again soon. Maggie thought about what Francesca had said,
You can't always get what you want
, and shivered involuntarily. She thought of Michael and their recent dinner, which she had failed to mention to Tim. It hadn't been difficult – they were still barely connecting with one other – but even though she and Michael had only talked about work in the end, Maggie had still felt a slight twinge of guilt. There had definitely been a spark between them. Maggie couldn't help it – the fact that Michael clearly found her attractive was flattering, and felt in stark contrast to the decidedly chilly feelings between her and Tim of late.

Perhaps sometimes
, Maggie thought, lingering on an image of Michael sitting across from her at the table, so perfect in his tailored Italian suit,
you do get what you want. But what happens then?

Her hand brushed her bag, holding the coronet inside.

She would just have to wait and see.