Authors: Elizabeth Buchan
Meg’s curious, hopeful expression faded. ‘Perhaps your behaviour doesn’t bear too much examination either, Fanny.’
Perhaps it didn’t. There was no answer to that.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Point taken. But I’m not promising anything.’ She looked down the valley. ‘I suppose it
is
a very small town.
Very
Dark Ages.’
‘It was just a friendly warning. Benedetta was concerned.’
‘Yes, dear.’ She shot me a look. I didn’t know what it meant – except that I was uneasy, and the knot that tied Meg and me together was as tight as it had ever been.
We patched things up and decided to go to Siena. We swept the floors, brought in the washing from the garden and went round the house closing the shutters.
Meg was wearing a red skirt and a white blouse and huge sunglasses. I put on the dress which I had worn to the dinner in La Foce. She linked her arm in mine. ‘We do credit to each other.’
In the car, she asked me. ‘Did I really interrupt something with Raoul?’
‘I had already sent him away.’
‘But why?’
I glanced at her. Her hands were folded in her lap and she was looking straight ahead. ‘I don’t need a lover.’
‘You don’t
need
a husband.’
‘Ah,’ I replied, ‘but I have one.’
She turned away abruptly but not before I spotted tears running down behind the large sunglasses.
When I married Will, I thought only of him: my hunger to know him, my delight and pride in his ideas and ambition to help, and my excitement that we had chosen to be together. He felt the same. Only later did I understand that I was required to pick up other lives and carry them as well as my own.
We spent the afternoon exploring the city, and wandering the streets to no great purpose. We bought salami, olive oil and raffia mats, and Meg insisted on presenting me with a blue and white plate for the kitchen at home. ‘A corner of a foreign field,’ she said, ‘for Stanwinton.’
We agreed that the cathedral looked like a black and white humbug and decided to give it a miss, heading instead for a café on the edge of the piazza where we ordered pistachio ice-cream and coffee.
‘This is nice,’ said Meg, softly. ‘Pity Will isn’t here.’ I made no comment. ‘You know what I think? I suspect mid-life crisis with my brother. It happens, and Will would never say. He’s not like that.’ She dug down into the frozen mixture: pale green, glossy and grainy with the nuts. ‘I might tackle him.’
At a stroke, the peace and accommodations between us were ruptured. An old jealousy caught me by the throat. No doubt Meg was right. But I could no longer bear –
I could not bear –
her prowling around my life. The inner, intimate life, which, for all its tatters and tears, for all its precariousness, belonged to Will and me.
Meg spooned ice-cream into her mouth and swallowed. The sun had shifted. A shadow lay across the piazza. Birds wheeled around the campanile uttering shrill cries.
‘Meg,’ I said, ‘when we get back to Stanwinton you
must
find somewhere of your own.’
Her spoon clattered against the metal ice-cream bowl. ‘Christ,’ she said, and went pale under her tan.
‘I think it would be best.’
‘I can’t,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m no good at just me.’
‘You don’t have to go far away. You tell me that you’re managing to keep on track.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s not the point.’
Meg stumbled to her feet. ‘I’ve just thought of something.’ She picked up her leather bag, swung the strap over her shoulder and disappeared into the nearest street opening.
‘Meg! Come back.’
Angry with her, furious with my ineptness, yet relieved in the way one feels after a boil is lanced, I sat for five minutes or so, and I thought: this is an end.
I paid the bill and set off in search of her. The via Duomo was lined with boutiques selling beautiful objects – scarves, leather handbags, pearls of a size and whiteness that were startling in the comparative gloom of the narrow street. In one shop I admired a particularly lustrous string. Beside them, there was a large ruby and diamond ring balanced on a velvet cushion. It struck me that it required a home.
And Meg required a home.
On the opposite side of the street there was a shop whose long glass doors were thrown open to reveal rows of shelving stacked with hundreds of bottles of wine. I slipped inside, breathing the familiar smell of wooden crates and the must that grows on the bottles. The wine
was arranged by continent and country: Chile, Italy, the US… The reds glowed with dark greens and browns. The whites reflected a spectrum of pale yellow, gold and amber.
An expert hand had made the selection: Château de Fonsalette Cuvée Syrah, Monte Antico Russo and, incredibly, a Beringer Private Reserve from the Napa Valley in California, a personal, idiosyncratic choice by a wine lover who had honed discrimination to the finest pitch.
I ran my hand along a shelf. Years of thinking, tasting, making mistakes were racked up in these shelves. A lifetime of inching forward towards true understanding, true knowledge, true feeling.
I wanted to do the same.
A movement behind me made me turn round. Leading off the main shop was a second, even more dimly lit room with no window. A woman was holding a bottle – carefully, almost tenderly.
It was Meg.
‘A good one,’ she held it out for my inspection, ‘but not outstanding. I think that is what your father would conclude.’
I glanced at it. A 1988 Pomerol. ‘I disagree. This is outstanding.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Trust me. I
know.’
How can I trust you, I wanted to throw at her, when you step so carelessly on what is mine? My husband, my wine, even my daughter. How can you trust a trespasser?
Meg raised an eyebrow. Even
that was
Will’s.
I turned away. In the street, the tourists plodded up and down, clutching plastic bags with interesting bulges. They
were taking home olive oil and local pottery and, some of the better-off, jewellery. They would take with them the scent and taste of Italy. Afterwards they would go to a supermarket or shop, hunt out inferior oil or
sugo di pomo-doro
, take it home but it would not be the same.
Behind me, Meg was saying. ‘Your father was right about most things. Would he have advised me to find somewhere else to live?’
21
On the way back to Casa Rosa, Meg and I spoke only when necessary. I went to bed early.
After the day’s heat, the sheets were a cool, fresh contrast. I read, I made notes and, occasionally, I glanced up at the wooden casket on the shelf. Would my father approve of what I had done? I wasn’t sure. Maybe he would have felt that you have to hang on to the bits and pieces of a family, whatever the cost.
I put out the light and settled to sleep. I felt the relief of the patient who, after illness and incapacity, has taken a first step.
A noise on the stairs followed by a cautious footstep on the path outside made me sit up. I swung my legs out of bed and pushed open the shutters. ‘Meg?’
Moonlight streamed into my bedroom and illuminated the thin figure on the path below. Meg had twisted up her hair into a sexy caramel knot and she was wearing her new high heels. The light played tricks, for she looked so young and pretty that I caught my breath. She raised an arm and the bracelets on her wrist emitted a faint, high shiver of sound.
I leant on the sill. ‘Don’t go,’ I begged, for I had a good idea where she was heading.
She laughed without humour. ‘Jealous?’
‘I so am jealous.’ I mocked Chloë’s vernacular.
She shook her head. ‘Not convincing, Fanny. You’ll have to do better.’
Her voice was husky with excitement. I clutched at my nightdress. ‘Wait. I’m coming down.’
The cotton flapped round my legs as I ran out on to the path. Meg was searching in her shoulder-bag and I grabbed at the strap. ‘It’s not worth it. Stay.’
‘But you’ve told me to go. You have made… everything quite clear.’
In a final effort, I tugged hard at the strap and Meg swayed a little on her high heels. ‘But it doesn’t mean you have to throw everything away. Don’t be silly. Please, please, stay here. We’ll talk… I’ll listen to you… whatever.’ Meg shrugged and I threw in quickly, ‘Think of Sacha. Think of Will.’
‘I am thinking of them,’ she said. ‘Very much.’
‘I was unkind.’
‘Go back to bed,’ she said, an adult addressing a troublesome child. ‘I’m going out for a little diversion. I know
exactly
what I’m doing.’
‘Do you want me to go down on my knees? I will, you know, if that’s what it takes.’
Meg fiddled with her bracelets. ‘I must make you understand, Fanny. It’s all right. I’m in control. But…’ she seemed to be searching for an explanation, ‘I’m not the only woman to have fallen from grace, and to have inflicted these wounds upon myself. But, at times, I’ve felt so alone. That’s what makes me so crabby and selfish, I guess.’ She nodded her head. ‘I appreciate the knees bit though, Fanny. I know what it would cost you, and I’m tempted to take you up on it.’
I forced Meg back into the kitchen and made her sit down. ‘Talk to me. Come on. You can talk to me.’
She seemed both surprised and gratified. ‘I’ve tried.’ Her mouth tightened and she fiddled with the bracelets. ‘OK. Confession time. I’ve tried very hard to absorb myself in other things. Clothes. Part-time work here and there. An occasional lover. Charity, or whatever those women do who have too much time on their hands. But apart from Sacha, and you and Will and Chloë, nothing burrowed very deep. My mind had been blown.’
‘I’m listening.’ I put on the kettle and the gas-ring glowed and bubbled.
Meg seemed fixated by the glow. ‘But you are right, Fanny, it is time to make changes, and to think differently. When we go home, I will look for somewhere else to live.’
‘Close to us,’ I said.
Her eyebrow flicked up. ‘No need to go mad.’
‘All right, at a decent distance.’
She smiled at me. A car drew up outside the house. Its engine revved, its door opened and shut. Meg gathered up her bag.
‘You’re not going?’
‘Sure, I am,’ she said. She got up, put her hand on my shoulder and kissed my cheek, a light, cool touch. ‘We’re quite good friends really, aren’t we? In the end? I like to think so, Fanny.’
I kissed her back. ‘Of course.’ Then I held her tight, and the breath of her forgiveness stole over me.
‘That’s straight, then. That’s
something
. Go back to bed, my good and watchful Fanny.’
‘Shall I come with you? Why don’t I? Give me five minutes.’
‘No, Fanny. I am on my own now. Remember?’
Defeated, I went back upstairs. I heard voices, doors banging, and the car accelerating down the road.
I opened the shutters wide to let in the night.
I meant to wait up until she returned but I fell asleep and was woken by a light pulsing through the room.
There was an exchange in Italian outside on the path, followed by a knock on the door. I reached for a T-shirt and pulled it over my nightdress. With each step down the stairs, my heartbeat accelerated.
Italian policemen, I noted in a stupefied way, were always immaculate, even at that time of the morning. The male one had a perfect crease on his shirt sleeve and an equally perfect one ironed into his trousers. His belt buckle gleamed and his hair was brushed and beautifully cut. ‘So sorry, Signora,’ he said. His female colleague had long blonde hair and a tiny waist. She stepped forward and took my hands in her tanned olive ones.
‘Where did you find her?’ I asked eventually.
‘Outside the church.’ The policewoman was calm and professional. ‘We think she tripped and hit her head on the tethering stone by the fountain. But we are not sure if that is what killed her. The doctors will tell us.’
The woman paused, then asked, ‘Did the
signora
have a history of illness?’
I bit my lip. ‘In a way, yes, she did.’
Later, about ten minutes or so, when I had brought my knees under control and fought my way into some clothes,
they escorted me down the path and handed me into the car.
A hush fell as I was led through the police station to the morgue at the back. The policewoman touched my arm. ‘Hold on to me if you want to,’ she said.
My nails dug into my skin.
At the policewoman’s nod, the sheet over the figure on the gurney was pulled back.
My first thought was, It’s all right. Meg’s sleeping. Only sleeping.
Her cheek had a faint flush, and her hair fell back naturally on to the rubber sheet beneath her head so that the wound was concealed. Her mouth was peaceful and there was not one line on the smooth, youthful forehead.
The policewoman knew, all too well, the many ways in which the bereaved reacted. One was to refuse to believe.
‘The
signora
is dead,’ she said gently. ‘No doubt.’
‘Don’t bother to grieve,’ those peaceful lips might say. ‘I’ve had enough. Battle over. Eh?’
The policeman consulted his notes. ‘She had been drinking in the Bacchus. Too much, according to the reports, and she was asked to leave at approximately half past two. She was seen walking down the road towards the church and knocking on the church door. The witness said he was worried because she was unsteady and he went after her, but by the time he caught up she had fallen.’
I leant over and touched the untroubled, line-free forehead. Then I picked up her hand and smoothed the fingers with their tiny, pearly nails, one by one. Already they seemed waxen, doll-like. ‘Oh, Meg,’ I whispered, and hot tears ran down my cheek. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
As I left they handed me a packet of her things in a plastic bag with a list. One ring, gold. The bracelets. One leather purse, empty. One cotton skirt. The black high heels. And, finally, one cross, gold. Surprised, I held it up between finger and thumb and, caught in the electric light, the chain glimmered. ‘I can’t stand religion,’ Meg had protested more than once. ‘So bossy. So pointless. So vulgar.’
I returned to Casa Rosa and made the first of many phone calls.