The Italian Girl (6 page)

Eventually, knowing there was no way back, she shook her head slowly in defeat. ‘No. It was a terrible mistake, one night of stupidity.’

‘Which you decided to make
me
pay for too?’ Giulio sat down heavily on the sofa. ‘
Mamma mia
, Carlotta! I knew you were selfish, but I had no idea you were completely heartless. Who else knows of this?’

‘No one.’

‘Give me the truth, Carlotta, please. You owe me that at the very least.’

‘Luca knew,’ she admitted.

‘You plotted together, did you?’ he spat at her.

‘No, Giulio. It wasn’t like that. I was desperate. And I thought that, as I was going to marry you anyway—’

Giulio reached out and gripped her arm. ‘Were you, Carlotta? I thought you said earlier that you didn’t love me, didn’t even
like
me, in fact?’

‘Ouch! Please, Giulio, you’re hurting me. I told you, I didn’t mean those things, I—’

‘But you
did
mean them, Carlotta.’ He let go of her arm suddenly and sighed wearily. ‘I’m not a bad man. I’ve only ever wanted the best for you and Ella. All these years I’ve worked so hard to try and make you love me the way I loved you. And now I discover my marriage was a sham before it even began!’

‘Please, Giulio, please!’ she begged him. ‘Give me another chance. I
will
make it up to you, I promise. Now I’ve told you, we can start again without any lies. A clean slate . . .’

‘No,’ Giulio laughed bitterly, ‘there’s no way back from here, Carlotta. While I was out I walked and did some thinking, and I’ve made a decision. Now that you’ve finally been honest with me, I want you to pack your things and leave. You can tell everyone you’ve left your husband because he was cheating on you. No one need ever know the truth. I’m prepared to take the blame for Ella’s sake. Even if she’s
not
my flesh and blood, I’ve loved her as if she was. And I don’t wish to bring disgrace on her.’

‘No, Giulio, please! Where will I go? What will I do?’ Carlotta moaned in despair.

‘That’s no concern of mine anymore. My company has offices in Rome and I will ask for a transfer there as soon as I can.’

‘But what of Ella? She thinks of you as her father. She loves you, Giulio.’

‘You should have thought of that before you deceived us both.’ He turned from her, still shaking with anger and emotion. ‘I’m going to bed now. I’m tired. You will sleep in here and when I leave for the office tomorrow morning, you will pack your things and be gone by the time I arrive home.’

Antonia hugged her daughter to her considerable bosom. ‘Of course you can both stay with us for a while. You know you need not even ask. Oh Carlotta, my poor child, what is it? What has happened?’ She surveyed her daughter with concern. ‘You look like a ghost. Do you want to lie down? You can sleep in your old room with Ella, and Rosanna can sleep on the sofa in the sitting room.’

A pale Carlotta nodded wearily. ‘Oh Mamma, oh Mamma, I . . .’

Antonia caught sight of four-year-old Ella looking in distress at her mother. She called out for Luca, who appeared at the door. ‘Take Ella down to the kitchen and find her something to eat while I talk to your sister,’ she murmured. ‘God only knows what has happened.’

Luca looked at Carlotta. Her distraught face told him only one story.

Antonia took out her handkerchief and wiped her brow as she bustled her daughter into the bedroom. ‘Dear me, it’s too hot to have such problems today.’

‘I’m sorry. I won’t stay for long.’ Carlotta sank onto the bed and Antonia sat down heavily next to her. ‘Are you all right, Mamma? You look sick.’

‘Yes, I’m fine. It’s only the heat. Please, Carlotta, tell me what’s happened. You and Giulio have had a bad argument, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mustn’t worry.’ Antonia embraced her daughter. ‘All husbands and wives argue. Your papa and I used to do it all the time. Now we don’t have the energy.’ She gave a tight laugh. ‘When you’ve slept a little, you’ll feel calmer. Then you can go back to Giulio and make it up.’

‘No, Mamma. I can never go back. Giulio and me, we are over. Forever.’

‘But why? What have you done?’

Carlotta turned her head away from her mother and began to sob.

Sighing, Antonia heaved herself from the bed. ‘Get some rest, Carlotta. We’ll talk later.’

Rosanna was surprised to find a small lump in her bed when she returned home from choir practice that evening. Her niece, Ella, was fast asleep in it, so she left the bedroom quietly and walked along the narrow corridor to the sitting room. The door was closed but she could hear her parents talking.

‘I don’t know what has happened, Marco. She won’t say anything. She’s downstairs now talking to Luca. Maybe
he
can get some sense out of her. I’ve tried calling Giulio at their apartment, but there’s no reply.’

‘She must return to her husband, of course. It’s where she belongs. I will tell her that.’ Marco sounded furious.

‘Please, leave her alone tonight. She’s distraught,’ Antonia pleaded.

Rosanna pushed the door open. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.

‘Your sister has left her husband and she and Ella will be staying here for a few days. You, Rosanna, can sleep in here on the sofa.’ Antonia’s breath was coming in short, sharp bursts. She stood up slowly.

‘Are you all right, Mamma?’ Rosanna said, going towards her.

‘I . . . I’m fine.’ Antonia stood, staggering a little as she regained her balance. ‘I must go downstairs. I need some air.’ She fanned herself violently as she lumbered from the room.

‘Papa, why has Carlotta left Giulio? I—’

There was a sudden heavy thump from the stairs.

Marco and Rosanna rushed out of the sitting room together and into the corridor. They saw Antonia lying at the bottom of the stairs leading to the café.

‘
Mamma mia!
Antonia! Antonia!’ Marco hurried down the stairs to his wife’s prone body and knelt by it, Rosanna following close behind him.

‘Run for the doctor, quickly!’ her father screamed at her. ‘Get Luca and Carlotta.’

Rosanna hurried through the deserted café and into the kitchen. Luca was standing with his arms round Carlotta, comforting her as she sobbed on his shoulder.

‘Hurry! Mamma’s collapsed on the stairs! I’m going for the doctor!’ Rosanna called before she opened the door and ran off along the cobbled street.

Carlotta and Luca found Antonia lying on the stairs, her head thrown back onto the tiled floor at the bottom. There was blood seeping from a wound underneath her thick hair and her skin was grey, her eyes partially open. Carlotta knelt down next to her and searched for a pulse.

‘Is she . . . ?’ Marco, standing over his wife, could not finish the sentence. ‘Let us try to at least make her more comfortable,’ suggested Luca desperately.

Father and son managed to half-carry, half-drag Antonia off the stairs and into the café while Carlotta fetched a pillow for her head.

Rosanna returned with the doctor an agonising fifteen minutes later.

‘Please tell me she is not gone. Not my Antonia, not my wife,’ Marco moaned. ‘Please save her, doctor.’

Luca, Carlotta and Rosanna watched in silence as the doctor listened through his stethoscope to Antonia’s heart, then felt her pulse. When he looked up, they all saw the answer in his eyes.

‘I’m so sorry, Marco,’ the doctor said, shaking his head. ‘I believe Antonia has suffered a heart attack. There’s nothing more we can do for her now. We must send for don Carlo immediately.’

‘The priest!’ Marco stared at the doctor in disbelief, then knelt down and buried his face in Antonia’s lifeless shoulder. He began to cry. ‘I am nothing, nothing without her. Oh
amore mio
, my love, my love . . .’

The three children looked on silently, each one of them in shock, unable to move.

The doctor packed his stethoscope back into his bag and stood up. ‘Rosanna, go and fetch Don Carlo. We will stay here and make your mamma ready.’

Rosanna gave a whimper, then, clenching her fists to stop herself breaking down completely, she stood up and walked out of the café.

‘What’s happened? Why is Nonno crying?’ Ella appeared on the stairs.

‘Come with Mamma, Ella, and I will explain what has happened.’ Carlotta climbed the stairs to Ella and steered her young daughter gently back up them.

‘Luca, I think it best if you lock the front door of the café until Don Carlo arrives. I’m sure you would not wish for customers now,’ said the doctor.

‘Of course.’ Luca walked shakily towards the front door and turned the key. Marco was now holding his wife’s hand in his lap, stroking it as he sobbed uncontrollably. Luca returned and knelt down next to him, putting an arm round Marco’s hunched shoulders. Tears began to fall down his own cheeks. He reached out a hand and gently stroked his mother’s forehead.

Marco looked up at Luca, the agony visible in his eyes. ‘I have nothing without her, nothing.’

Two days later, don Carlo held a private requiem Mass for the family. Then Antonia’s body lay overnight in the church she had attended all of her life. The following morning, her friends and relatives filled the church for her funeral. Rosanna sat in the front pew between Luca and Ella, her black lace veil obscuring the coffin containing her mother’s body. Marco held Carlotta’s hand and wept inconsolably all through the service and at the burial. They made their way back to the café afterwards, where Luca and Rosanna had worked hard to put on a fitting spread for their mamma’s wake.

Hours later, when the guests had finally left, the Menici family sat in the café, still numb with shock. Marco sat silently, staring into space, until Carlotta gently helped him up from his chair.

‘You two clear up down here,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll take Papa upstairs.’

‘Do we open the café tomorrow, Papa?’ asked Luca quietly as Marco walked slowly towards the stairs.

He turned round and looked desolately at his son. ‘Do as you wish.’ Then he followed Carlotta up the stairs like an obedient child.

When Luca reopened the café a day later, Marco did not come down to help him. He remained upstairs in the sitting room, silently staring at his wife’s photograph, with Carlotta by his side.

‘Another two pizza margheritas and one “special”,’ Rosanna said as she opened the door to the kitchen and slammed the order onto the spike.

‘It’ll be at least twenty minutes, Rosanna. I have eight orders ahead of that one,’ sighed Luca.

Rosanna grabbed two pizzas and put them on a tray to carry into the café. ‘Maybe Papa will come back to work soon. And Carlotta might help us.’

‘I hope so, I really do,’ grunted Luca.

It was past midnight before Rosanna and Luca were able to sit down in the kitchen and eat their own supper.

‘Here, have some wine. We both deserve it.’ Luca poured some Chianti into two glasses and passed one to Rosanna.

They ate and drank silently, too exhausted to speak. When they’d finished, Luca lit a cigarette.

‘Can you open the door, Luca? Luigi says cigarette smoke is terribly bad for my voice,’ asked Rosanna.

‘Excuse me,
Signorina Diva
!’ Luca raised an eyebrow and went to open the back door. ‘Talking of such things, when is your soirée at Signor Vincenzi’s?’

‘It’s in two weeks’ time, but I can’t see Papa coming now. And anyway, what’s the point?’ she said, further despair washing over her. ‘With Mamma gone and Papa unable to work, I’ll be needed here in the café.’

‘If he doesn’t return tomorrow, I must advertise for some help. I doubt I can persuade Carlotta to wait on tables.’

‘Do you know what’s happened between her and Giulio?’ Rosanna asked. ‘With Mamma dead, I would have thought Giulio would have at least come to the funeral to pay his last respects. Poor Carlotta – her husband and now Mamma. She looks like a ghost,’ she sighed.

‘Yes, she’s certainly been punished for making a mistake,’ he replied.

‘What mistake, Luca?’

‘Oh, nothing you need to know about.’ Luca ground out his cigarette underfoot and closed the kitchen door.

‘I wish everyone would stop treating me like a child! I’m seventeen soon. Why won’t you tell me what has happened?’

‘Well, if you wish to act as an adult, then you must think of your own future, Rosanna,’ Luca countered. ‘Mamma’s death changes nothing.’

‘It changes everything, Luca. Papa will never,
ever
let me go to Milan now Mamma’s gone.’

‘Rosanna, one step at a time: let’s first try to persuade him to come and hear you sing. I think it might do him good to get out and take some pride in his talented daughter.’

‘Do you think it’s right to be making plans for the future so soon after Mamma has gone?’ Rosanna queried guiltily. ‘I don’t feel like singing.’

‘Of course you don’t. But you must, Rosanna,’ Luca urged. ‘All these years you’ve been going to Luigi and this is your big chance to make your dream come true. Carlotta can manage the café for one night. I’ll ask Massimo and Maria Rossini to come and help her.’

‘You know, Luca,’ Rosanna confessed quietly, ‘I think I should feel more sad about Mamma than I do. But I just feel numb, here.’ She indicated her chest.

‘Of course you do, it’s the shock. None of us can believe she’s gone. But keeping busy helps, I think. And always remember, Rosanna, that Mamma would want the best for you. Now, I think it’s time for us to get some sleep. We have another long day tomorrow. Come,
piccolina.
’

Rosanna followed Luca wearily out of the kitchen.

6

‘So, you will perform the aria as if you are singing it in front of the audience.’

Rosanna nodded and walked into the middle of the music room. The soft notes of the piano drifted across to her and she began to sing. When she’d finished, she noticed Luigi staring at her thoughtfully.

‘Rosanna, have you a problem?’

‘No . . . I . . . why?’

‘Because your vocal cords sound as if they are constricted by a python. Come, sit down.’

Rosanna crossed the room and sat on the piano stool next to Luigi.

‘Is it your mamma?’ he asked her gently.