The Villa

ROSANNA LEY

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by

Quercus

55 Baker Street

7th Floor, South Block

London W1U 8EW

Copyright © 2012 Rosanna Ley

The moral right of Rosanna Ley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eBook ISBN 978 1 78087 505 7

Print ISBN 978 1 78087 504 0

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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THE VILLA

Rosanna Ley has worked as a creative tutor for over twelve years, leading workshops in the UK and abroad, and has completed an MA in creative writing. Her writing holidays and retreats take place in stunning locations in Italy and Spain. Rosanna has written numerous articles and stories for national magazines. When she is not travelling, Rosanna lives in west Dorset by the sea.

To Caroline with love

Tess didn’t open the letter until later, when she was sitting on the beach.

In a hurry to get to work that morning, she’d barely glanced at the envelope, just grabbing it from the mat before kissing her daughter Ginny goodbye.

Now, Tess plucked the letter from her bag. Read her name…
Ms Teresa Angel
, and her address in bold confident typescript. Franked and postmarked London.

Ginny had left for college – an unruly streak of long legs, jeans, red shirt, dark hair and eyes – while Tess had set off for the water company, where she worked in customer information. A euphemism for Complaints, since who really needed information about water? (Turn on the tap, out it comes; better still drink the bottled variety.)

This was her lunch break and she’d come – as she often did – to Pride Bay, five minutes away by car, to eat her sandwiches by the sea. It was an early spring day, and breezy, so she too was sandwiched – between a row of pastel-painted beach huts and the high mound of tiny ginger pebbles of west Dorset’s Chesil Beach. This gave Tess some shelter and she could still just see the waves. She didn’t have to be back in
the office till half two. She stretched out her legs. Flexitime. What a wonderful invention.

Tess eased her thumb under the seal of the envelope and tore it open, sliding out a single sheet of white paper. It was so thick and creamy she almost felt she could eat it.

Dear Ms Angel
, she read.
We are writing to inform you
… her eyes scanned over the text …
following the sad passing of Edward Westerman
. Edward Westerman? Tess frowned as she tried to make sense of it. Did she know an Edward Westerman? She was pretty sure she didn’t. Did she even know anyone who had just died? Again, no. Could they have got the wrong Teresa Angel …? Unlikely. She read on.
Concerning the bequest
… Bequest?
On the condition that
… Tess’s mind raced … Hang on a minute.
Sicily …?

Tess finished reading the letter, then immediately read it again. She felt a kind of nervous fluttering like moths’ wings, followed by a rush – of pure adrenalin … It couldn’t be true. Could it …? She stared out at the sea. The breeze had picked up and was ruffling the waves into olive-grey rollers.

She must be dreaming, she thought. She picked up the letter and read it through once more as she finished her sandwich.

Well. What on earth would her mother say …? Tess shook her head. There was no point thinking about it. It was a mistake. Surely it had to be a mistake.

It was clouding over now and Tess felt chilly despite the woollen wrap she had slung over her work jacket when she left the car by the harbour. She checked her watch, she should
go. But if it were true … If this wasn’t some sort of joke, then …
Sicily
…

Tess tucked the letter back into her bag and began to put the jigsaw pieces together in her mind. Her fierce and diminutive mother Flavia was Sicilian – though she had left her home and her family when she was in her early twenties. Tess just wished she knew why. She had tried often enough to find out the full story. But Muma had never wanted to talk of her life in Sicily. Tess smiled as she got to her feet and picked up her bag. She loved her dearly, but Muma was stubborn and Sicily was out of bounds.

Tess thought back to the few details she’d managed to glean over the years. Her mother’s family had lived in a small cottage, she’d once said, in the grounds of a place called the Grand Villa. That had been owned by an Englishman, hadn’t it? Could that be the Edward Westerman mentioned in her letter? She did the sums. Edward Westerman – if he was that man – had lived to a ripe old age.

But why would he …? She paused to empty her shoes of tiny pebbles; it wasn’t easy to negotiate Chesil Beach in heels, even though Tess was used to it. She headed back to the harbour, past the bright, tacky kiosks selling fish ‘n’ chips, candy floss and ice cream, and past the fishing boats with their nets hanging out to dry, the scent of the gutted fish ripe and heady in the air. Pride Bay, despite its name, had little to show off about. But it was part of her childhood, and it was home. Best of all for Tess, it was by the sea. And the sea was in her blood – she was addicted to it.

She mentally replayed the contents of the letter on the way back to the car, and as soon as she was sitting in the driver’s seat of her Fiat 500, she retrieved it, smoothed it open and reached for her mobile. One way to find out.

‘This is Teresa Angel,’ she said to the woman who answered. ‘You wrote to me.’

Tess drove back to work on autopilot, the still-fresh phone conversation running through her mind. This was the kind of thing that could change your life, wasn’t it? But … She paused. She was thirty-nine years old; she wasn’t sure she even wanted change. Change could be scary. Her daughter’s life was changing fast and she found that hard enough to handle – after all, what if Ginny went to university hundreds of miles away and then emigrated to Kathmandu?

But on the other hand … What would happen if her life stayed the same? What if her lover Robin never left his cold and fragile wife Helen, as he kept promising to? What if she had to work for the rest of her life dealing with complaints at the water company. It was inconceivable.

Tess drove past Jackaroo Square – decorated with pots of red and white spring geraniums – and the deco Arts Centre. The town centre was a little shabby, but it came to life every other Saturday with the farmers’ market and the Morris dancing. The town used to be a rope-making centre, but now most of the old factories had been converted into flats, offices and antique warehouses.

Sicily
… She shook her head in disbelief as she took a right and parked behind the water company building. She walked round to the front entrance. The person she should call first was her mother. Hmm. Tess pulled out her mobile, selected
Robin
. Telling her mother must be done face to face. But she had to tell someone.

‘Hello, you … ’

Tess loved the intimate way he spoke to her. As if he were about to take off every item of her clothing one by one. She shivered. ‘You’ll never guess what.’

‘What?’ He laughed.

‘I got a letter this morning. From a solicitor in London.’

‘Oh, yes? Good news or bad news?’

Tess smiled. She was due to see Robin after work because on Thursdays Ginny stayed late at college. Twice a week was
the average, three times was good, four unprecedented. All their time together was snatched. If she wasn’t on flexitime, Tess sometimes thought, she and Robin would never be able to see each other, never have late Monday lunches (making love) or early Thursday evenings (ditto). What would they do then? But she wouldn’t dwell on that now. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I think.’

‘I like good news,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘What is it?’ She could imagine him doodling on today’s diary page, maybe drawing a fish face with bubbles. He’d started doing that when she signed up for her first diving course. It told her that actually he was a bit jealous. Which she quite liked.

‘I’ve been left a house,’ she said. She could say it out loud now. She went to sit on the wall by the hydrangea bushes. There was a sharp edge to the breeze that she liked – a sort of
hey, it’s spring
, wake-up call.
Something’s got to change
…

‘What?’ he said.

‘I’ve been left a house,’ she said again. ‘In Sicily.’ Yes, it was really true.

‘Sicily?’ he echoed.

She couldn’t blame him for being surprised. She was still trying to get to grips with the thing herself. Why would Edward Westerman have left her his house? She didn’t even know him. And what would she do with a villa in Sicily? It wouldn’t exactly fit into her lifestyle. Her life was in Dorset – wasn’t it? With Ginny. With Muma and Dad, who lived only a few streets away from her Victorian
townhouse in Pridehaven. And with Robin – at least, when possible.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A villa in Sicily.’ The Grand Villa … Just how grand was grand …?

‘You’re joking, Tess.’

‘I’m not,’ she replied, the truth finally sinking in now. ‘I know it’s weird. But someone’s left it to me in his will.’

‘Who on earth …?’ he asked. ‘Some ancient admirer?’ Robin was ten years older than she. Was he an ancient admirer too? Ginny would think so. If she knew.

‘A man I’ve never met. Edward Westerman.’ His name was rather romantic. She explained some of the background to Robin – at least the little she knew so far.

‘Bloody hell, sweetie,’ he said.

‘And that’s not all.’ Tess shifted her position on the wall. Thought reluctantly of her in tray. ‘There’s a condition.’ It was, she’d been told by the solicitor, a stipulation of the bequest. Always in life there was a catch. Have a child with a man you trust and he will leave you and emigrate to Australia. Meet someone gorgeous, sexy and funny and fall in love with him, and he’ll be married – to someone else.

‘What’s that?’ Robin still sounded as shell-shocked as Tess felt.

‘I have to go there.’

‘To Sicily?’

‘Yes. I have to visit the property. Before I can … ’ She hesitated. Dispose of it, was the way the solicitor had put it. ‘Sell it,’ she said. How much would it fetch anyway? Enough to
pay off her mortgage? Enough for a holiday or two?
Enough to change her life …?

Sicily … It almost seemed to be calling to her. That might not seem surprising in itself, to be drawn to a warm and sunny landscape, but Tess had been brought up by Muma, whose eyes darkened in pain or anger, or both, if you asked her about her home country, her childhood, her parents, her life there. Until finally you accepted the fact. Sicily was off-limits. The thing was though … what Tess realised now, was that she had never really accepted the fact. And already a thought, a hope, an idea, was winging through her brain. She felt the surge of nervousness return, that moth-wing excitement, that thrill.

‘Wow,’ said Robin.

Tess watched a bee heading purposefully for the yellow cowslips grouped in front of the hydrangea bushes. It dived in head first. She understood how it felt. ‘I know.’ It was mind-boggling. And then there was the mysterious undercurrent. The stipulation. She had to go and see the villa – before it was truly hers. But – why?

‘So you’ll be off to Sicily then?’

‘Mmm.’ There was nothing to stop her going – apart from what Muma might say, of course. She was owed holiday from work, and Ginny … Well, Ginny would probably be glad to have the house to herself for a week. For a moment she thought of Ginny’s music on full volume, Ginny’s friends invading the house and Ginny going out when she liked and for as long as she liked – when she was supposed to be
revising. Her friend Lisa next door would keep an eye on her though. With Lisa and her parents close by, nothing too dramatic could happen, could it?