What could she say to that? She had no idea which of these two men to believe. ‘Does it really matter now?’ she asked him. ‘It’s all in the past. Isn’t it about time your families put all this history behind them?’
Giovanni laughed. ‘This is Sicily, Tess. And everything matters.’
Right. How often had she heard that already?
Giovanni had composed himself pretty quickly. ‘But what of the villa?’ he asked. ‘Have you decided what you will do?’
Tess hesitated. ‘I’m still reluctant to sell.’
‘I understand.’ He nodded.
Good. She was relieved. She wondered if she’d misjudged him. ‘So I was wondering if you knew of a reliable building
company,’ she said. ‘Someone I can trust.’ She laid emphasis on the last word.
‘Of course.’ Giovanni looked affronted. ‘I can take care of the whole affair for you.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘You only have to ask, my dear Tess.’
‘Yes, but—’ Tess wished she could get him to be a bit less all-encompassing. ‘I want to deal with it myself,’ she said firmly. ‘And I need an estimate first.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘For what?’
Tess sipped the coffee. It was good. Nutty, but not as subtle as Tonino’s coffee. It did, however, have the advantage of being prepared in a pretty hot espresso machine – a pile of gleaming chrome behind the counter. ‘Enough basic building work to make it sound,’ she said. ‘New electrics probably. Decorating throughout. I’m not sure what else.’ She needed to decide exactly what she was going to do with it. ‘I want some advice from someone who knows his stuff,’ she went on. ‘Someone who can speak a bit of English so that we can communicate at least.’
‘Of course, of course,
no preoccuparti
. Don’t worry.’ He waved his hand airily and she noticed again his gold signet ring. ‘
Allora
. We can get advice, we can make the plans, the work can go ahead, I can oversee the builders … ’
‘Whoa, Giovanni.’ Tess put up a hand. ‘I also need to keep a grip of the costs.’
‘Costs?’ His lip turned up slightly. As if costs, she thought, were rather beneath him.
‘I’ll have a budget,’ she explained patiently. ‘But I don’t
even have that until I get a mortgage – or a bank loan perhaps.’
‘You need a loan?’ Giovanni downed his coffee in one, breathed out and wiped his lips with the white paper napkin. He was perfectly clean-shaven. Even his eyebrows formed an exact semi-circle – not a hair out of place. And his hands, as he crumpled the napkin on to the table top, were smooth, the nails neatly manicured; hands that were unused to practical work, she could tell.
‘Mm.’ She needed money from somewhere, that was for sure.
‘That will not be a problem,’ he said.
‘No?’ Tess was confused. ‘Do you think I could get a loan for the project from a Sicilian bank then?’ This was one aspect that had been bothering her. She was a single parent with no job and no obvious assets. She still had a small mortgage on the house in Pridehaven which her parents had helped her to buy eighteen years ago when she was pregnant with Ginny. Even to continue repaying that would be a struggle. It would be quite a while before Villa Sirena started recouping anything she spent on it. So how could she hope to manage another mortgage or loan?
‘A bank?’ He laughed out loud. Put his fingers close to her mouth. ‘Shh. We will keep things more personal, yes?’
What was he suggesting? But before Tess could reply, he glanced up, his fingers moved to her cheek and he was caressing her face, his thumb touching her lips, like a lover.
She flinched. ‘Giovanni …? ’ What was he doing? She
blinked as a shadow crossed the table between them and she glanced up instinctively to see through the open doorway into the narrow street bordering the
piazzetta
, the unmistakable form of Tonino passing by.
Tess made her way slowly back to the
baglio
. Giovanni had offered to accompany her, but she reckoned he’d done enough damage for one day. She couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that it had all been staged. Not Giovanni’s offer of help, if that was what it had been, but that caress on her lips, her cheek.
She touched her face with her fingers. She certainly hadn’t invited it – had she? Or wanted it. Giovanni Sciarra was an attractive man, she couldn’t deny that. But Giovanni had never given her any indication that he … that he …
The market was breaking up now, all the vans and little Apes had been loaded up and driven off, chugging back to wherever, exhausts smoking, leaving a pile of debris – mostly rotting vegetable leaves – behind.
Could Giovanni have seen Tonino coming down the street? Did he know (because he seemed to know everything) that she and Tonino had spent time together? He hated Tonino and would probably do anything to make him angry. But
would
it make him angry? Giovanni’s touch had certainly been intimate enough to make Tonino think that she and Giovanni had some sort of special relationship. And she hadn’t done anything to dispel that. But … She shrugged. What was their feud to her anyway? It
wasn’t her business. She’d had just about enough of both of them.
On the other side of the market square in a side street she hadn’t walked down before, Tess noticed a hotel. Hotel Faraglione. Hotel of the Rocks. It was quite small; pale mauve and stuccoed with mint-green shutters at the windows. Sweet. And yes, from the balconies you’d get a good view of the rocks.
The garden looked pretty, with a palm tree and bougainvillea in deep purple and orange flower, so Tess wandered closer to take a look, still swinging her carrier bag containing her market purchases from her hand.
What did it matter if Tonino had seen them? But – he would have, some voice whispered. And, it did.
The front door of the hotel was wide open, white muslin blowing at the windows and inside, someone was sitting at a reception desk writing busily. The woman from the market. Pixie face. Friendly smile. Red lipstick.
Tess watched her for a moment. She’d guessed she’d turn up again – Cetaria was too small for her not to.
As she lingered, drinking in the scents from the garden and suddenly realising that she was starving and should get herself some food as it was way past lunchtime, the woman looked up.
Surprise registered briefly on her face, and then she gave a half wave, turned to speak to someone behind her, stood up and came to the doorway.
‘Tess isn’t it?’ she asked in perfect English.
‘Er … Yes.’ The place was obviously even smaller than she’d thought. Everyone knew everyone who as much as set foot in the village. ‘You’re English?’ She walked towards her.
‘I am. A Londoner originally. Nowadays trying my best to be Sicilian, of course.’ She laughed. ‘I’m Millie. Millie Zambito. My husband Pierro and I run this hotel.’
‘He’s Sicilian? Tess shook her hand, which was tiny and small-boned, her fingernails also painted bright red, she noticed. Tess relaxed. It was such a relief to speak to someone English here in Cetaria. Giovanni and Tonino spoke the language well enough, but it wasn’t the same. And there were complications. Wasn’t it always the way …?
‘Yes, he is.’ Millie looked back towards reception. ‘Would you like a glass of wine or some juice? Most people are having their siesta around now. I can take a break.’
And before Tess knew it, she was sitting in Millie’s private garden in a canvas deckchair, eating fruit and wafer thin biscuits drizzled with olive oil. Millie had put her carrier bag in the hotel kitchen larder and had already regaled her with the story of how she and Pierro had met at a party in London when he tripped over her as she was sitting on a cushion on the floor, apologised profusely and ended up taking her out to dinner.
‘Typical Sicilian,’ Millie remarked, lighting a cigarette. ‘An apology is never enough. They always go OTT.’
Tess laughed. ‘I shouldn’t say this,’ she said – Millie’s husband was Sicilian after all, and so was her own mother – ‘but I do find them difficult to understand at times.’
Millie shot her a searching gaze. ‘You’ve met Tonino Amato,’ she said. ‘The guy who does the mosaics in the
baglio
?’
Tess nodded. ‘He’s a bit … well, dark.’ And that was putting it mildly.
Millie smiled an enigmatic smile and drew in deeply on her cigarette. ‘That’s the Sicilian inheritance,’ she said. ‘Dark, grim, but very interesting … ’
Well, he was certainly that.
‘Do you like him?’ Millie leaned forwards, a curious glimmer in her eye, but Tess was hesitant. She didn’t know her quite well enough – yet. And besides, it wasn’t easy to explain. Feelings never were.
‘I’d like to know more about him,’ she compromised.
Millie’s lips compressed. ‘Wouldn’t we all,’ she said. She sipped her juice. ‘And you’ve met Giovanni Sciarra?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Millie seemed to be waiting for more, but once again she didn’t elaborate. It was a pretty effective grapevine they had going in their village – she didn’t want to fuel it more than necessary.
‘He hasn’t made a pass at you, has he?’ Millie poured more juice. ‘Some people think he’s a bit of a troublemaker.’
Tess decided not to go there. ‘His family were holding the key to my villa,’ she told her. ‘I don’t know him well, but he’s been very helpful.’
Millie laughed. ‘I’m sure he has,’ she said. ‘And you’re wise to be diplomatic. Giovanni’s family has lived in Cetaria for ever. So has Tonino’s, of course. Pierro’s new in town – only
twenty years.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And of course I’m way too foreign to be accepted. But … ’ She gave Tess another look. ‘When you learn the language and when you live here, you start to realise – gradually – what they’re all about.’ She stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray.
‘Where does Pierro come from originally?’ Tess asked, tucking into another savoury biscuit. She reckoned it would take her a whole lifetime to find out what they were all about.
‘Catania.’ Millie stretched out in her chair. She was small, almost doll-like in her figure; her legs were bare and she had kicked off her shoes. She looked as if she were on holiday herself rather than running her own hotel. ‘Sicily’s been taken over so many times,’ she said. ‘You’ll find in the east there’s more of a Greek influence – democracy and harmony – while here they’re more kind of sultry and brooding.’
‘Mmm.’ Tess thought of Tonino. Sultry and brooding indeed.
‘They say it’s the shadow of Africa.’ Millie plucked a grape from the plate.
Sun and shadow. Oppression. Tess thought of the
baglio
. ‘The place is very Arabic,’ she said. ‘Moorish.’ Yes, in more ways than one.
‘Exactly.’ Millie crossed her legs. ‘And the Arabs didn’t bring only couscous and citrus fruit to Sicily,’ she said. ‘They even brought spaghetti.’ She laughed. ‘Before that, they all ate potato dumplings!’
‘Really?’ So many times Tess had watched her mother,
tipping flour into a heap on the kitchen table, adding the eggs, olive oil and water, and mixing with her fingers into a smooth paste. She never measured the ingredients – she just knew the right amounts by feel.
There were, she realised, so many memories of Muma in their kitchen at home that were integral to her childhood. Perhaps that was why every fragrance of this place seemed familiar to her. It was the dough, the tomatoes, the herbs and spices she’d grown up with, ingrained into her senses just as surely as they were ingrained into Muma’s. They might as well, she thought, have grown up in Sicily – they had certainly taken its food with them. And she wished she had taken more notice, learnt more from her mother in the kitchen.
‘This village was where my mother grew up,’ she told Millie, and found herself explaining Muma’s reticence about Sicily, about how they’d never been back. She decided not to mention Santina Sciarra.
‘And she never told you anything about those times?’ Millie looked sceptical. ‘But why ever not?’
Tess shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’ Even when her Sicilian grandparents died – Tess was twelve – her grandmother outliving her grandfather by only six months, her mother had not gone back. She remembered the pacing of the kitchen, the weeping, the row between her parents. Her father saying, ‘You’ll always regret it if you don’t go.’ Her mother’s voice rising in desperation. ‘I will not go back, Lenny. I cannot.’ Her father retreating to the shed to smoke
his pipe, before at last he emerged and took Muma in his arms and held her. ‘There, my pet. There … Don’t you worry now.’
And gradually things had drifted back to normal. Muma’s eyes became less red as every day went by.
Tess rarely thought of her grandparents. She’d never known them after all. And there were so many other things to think about – like swimming and music and boys …
‘Come to dinner with us on Friday,’ Millie said, when she’d finished the story. ‘Pierro would love to meet you. And it’s such a relief to speak English for a change.’ She glanced at her watch and Tess took the hint.
‘That would be lovely,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
And she walked back to the villa with her carrier bag full of market produce, feeling almost light-headed. Millie was self-confident, glamorous and fun. A friend – maybe. Why not? The idea of finding a friend in Cetaria gave her a good feeling.
She walked through the
baglio
. But what about her mother? What about Santina’s story about the injured pilot and her mother’s broken heart? Tess stared out towards the navy ocean she loved so much. She had wanted to find out her mother’s story, but was she ready to hear it?
It was the end of a summer that had continued into October with an outrageous white heat that left Flavia sapped to the bones.
They had made the traditional salsa – to eat in winter to remember the summer, as Mama used to say – and half the village had come to the terraces surrounding Villa Sirena to eat and dance into the night. It had been a good year for tomatoes – especially the
pizzutelli,
the dark-red, thick-skinned cherry tomatoes that made the best sauce. The cauldron of salsa had cooked continuously for two days, bubbling red lava, the tomatoes and basil stirred and squashed by neighbours and family alike, decanted after hours of simmering into sterilised empty beer bottles. And now? They all longed for rain to break the unbearable pressure.