The previous evening, after an interminable week of boredom that increased in intensity every day, Jacopo Dragonetti had driven home impatiently and stepped out of the car with a feeling that he couldn’t quite define although he recognised one of the components as excitement. The cat had rushed to greet him as usual and he bent to caress it and pick it up before walking up the stairs. He could hear Vanessa moving about in the kitchen and felt a familiar thump somewhere in the region of his heart. She was back. Deep down he knew he was always just a little afraid she wouldn’t return. He was never quite sure why she loved him and felt an uneasy sense of unworthiness. He stood in the doorway holding the cat.
“Vanessa, what’s that wonderful smell? What are you cooking?”
Vanessa Albright turned at the sound of his voice, “Out of the kitchen, both of you, I’m busy,” she said sternly.
She was looking very business-like. She’d swept her hair away her face and tied it high up at the back of her head. She was wearing a huge apron and wielding a large wooden spoon. An enormous saucepan was bubbling on the hob and Drago could identify the ingredients from the perfume that assailed his nostrils.
“And you didn’t say welcome back,” she added crossly.
“Did I need to? I can come in and kiss you if you like.”
“No way. I know it’s only a ruse to look in the saucepan.”
He laughed. “Alright. Can I get you a drink?”
“No, you can lay the table and choose a wine.”
“Ah, well, to do that I would need to know what we’re eating.”
“Uh uh. I’m not telling you that, but we’ll have white wine.”
He smiled. He’d already identified the principal smell as fresh fish. He hoped it was going to be one of those amazing fish and sea food soups that she sometimes made. He went down to the cool cantina and chose a Soave from the north of Italy. It was dark and cool down here and he enjoyed the contrast to the heat of the day. He lingered a moment looking over his store of wine. Vanessa liked wine as much as he did and he had a good stock.
When he came back he set the bottle to cool even further, laid the table and then lit up another cigarette. His efforts at stopping smoking were as frequent as they were unsuccessful. He was forty-seven and in good health, but his smoking was cause for concern. The strange thing was that whenever he thought about stopping he landed up smoking even more, a reflection of the tension he suffered at the mere thought. Then he would become extremely virtuous and stop completely, chewing frantically on mint chewing gum all day until his jaws ached. This phase could last for up to three weeks but he always succumbed again. At the moment he was nearing the moment when he would try stopping. Consequently, his consumption had abruptly increased.
When Vanessa brought the rich sea food soup to the table he nearly swooned with delight. Shell fish were popped open and heaped on a bed of bread rubbed with garlic. The first spoonful confirmed exactly the right amount of parsley, garlic and red chilli pepper.
“This is wonderful,” he murmured.
“My mother’s recipe.”
“I must meet the woman who taught you how to cook this.”
Vanessa made no reply.
He put his spoon down. “Don’t you want me to meet her?”
“She lives in England,” she replied.
“I know. What’s that got to do with it.”
“Nothing, I suppose.”
“What’s she like?”
“Ah, and she wouldn’t approve of me.”
“No, nor of me,” she said briefly. “Can we not talk about my mother. I’m sorry I mentioned her.”
“Well, if it’s going to put you off your food, we’ll postpone it.”
“Good. Pour me some wine and I’ll tell you all the gossip from the Festival.”
He named a prominent opera singer and asked, “Well, tell me, is it true that she eats young men for breakfast and spits out the bones.”
“Absolutely. You know she’s got to be fifty and some of the men are so young. You have to wonder why they go for her.”
“Adulation, trying to further their career, notches on their belts?” he suggested.
“Notches on her bedpost, more like. I suppose they’re flattered and it is true that she looks years younger. She’s very attractive. She’s also very powerful.”
“And rich.”
“That as well.”
“I bet she can’t cook as well as you.”
“Flatterer.”
“No, it’s the truth. This food is divine.”
“There’s baked fish to follow.”
“What brought this on?”
“You may remember I’ve been staying at the sea and I wanted to carry on eating sea food and I know you love it.”
“I do. So you enjoyed the Festival.”
“I did, very much. Tell me what’s going on in Lucca.”
“Nothing much. A few squabbles among the immigrants, a bit of drug dealing, and a far too efficient air-con system. I’ve been having to wear a jacket in the office. Actually, I’ve been bored out of my mind, longing for a juicy murder, and with Bruno away it’s been pretty abysmal.”
“Still, he’ll be back soon and before you know it, we’ll be on holiday ourselves.”
“Eating fish.”
They smiled at each other and tucked into their food.
Vanessa looked down at the cat who was sitting on the floor watching them and remarked, “By the way, I’ve decided to call him Rossini.”
Later that evening he talked to her about Lucca, which despite his boredom he was beginning to appreciate. “Perhaps you could meet me there one evening, come on the train, and we’ll have time to have a look round a bit before eating.”
“Alright. I’d like to. I don’t know Lucca well. I have covered a few concerts but that’s about it.”
With the arrival of Tebaldo, his wife, Isabella, and their two girls, Ursula’s family was complete. As always every summer, she liked to have them all under her roof as though in affirmation of her public image as a good mother and grandmother.
Marianna had not come down to breakfast. Tebaldo’s small children ate quietly, perhaps somewhat cowed by so much adult company. Ursula beamed her approval on them. “I must say Teo, the children are becoming quite civilised.”
“They’re growing up.”
“Which makes me an old Granny.”
“Don’t be silly, Ursula. Of course you aren’t old,” said Guido diplomatically.
“It’s all subjective anyway, old as opposed to young, or just comparatively older, in which case older than whom?” asked Lapo, gazing at his mother and then letting his eyes settle on Guido’s face.
Ursula glared at him as though about to protest, but managed to overcome what would have been an ill-advised rebuttal. Knives were sharpened early in the day in her household. She saw Isabella hide a smile behind her serviette and felt a savage desire to slap her face. She made do with giving her a withering glance and took a deep breath. Before she could speak, Tebaldo asked, “Can I use your car this morning, Ma?”
“Yes, I won’t be going out. I have a million phone calls to make this morning.” She looked at them all and added, “You do realise I’m getting married! There’s still so much to decide on. You’ve no idea.”
Isabella said, “I thought you said it was going to be a low key affair.”
“Low key, but I want perfection. I think you’ll agree, Isabella, that quality is far more important than quantity, in every sphere.” Her eyes raked Isabella’s dress which was adamantly floral and frilly.
“Of course.” Isabella fingered the frills that crossed over and failed to conceal her ample breasts.
Ursula gulped her coffee and stood up abruptly. “I must rush. See you later Guido, my love.”
“Where are you going, Teo?” asked Isabella quietly after her mother-in-law had left the room.
“I just have one or two things to do; you know the bank and so forth. I’m leaving you our car.”
“Thank you. How kind. Will you take the girls?” Their eyes locked. This was almost a declaration of war.
“No, not this morning. Can you manage?”
“It looks as though I’ll have to since you saw fit to send the au pair off on holiday.”
“Not again, Isabella. It would have been awkward to have her here. Don’t you remember last year?”
“Well, it’s awkward without her.”
“I’ll try not to be too long.”
“Oh, don’t rush things for me. Take all the time you want.” She grabbed the girls by the hand and left the room.
“Oh dear, Teo, can’t you do all your marital bickering in the bedroom?” remarked Lapo in a bored tone.
“Lapo, mind your own business.”
“If only I could, but you always seem to make it other people’s business. You woke me up this morning having a shouting match but I would’ve thought you’d manage to hold off during breakfast.”
“Well, I’m sorry, that wasn’t my intention. At least have the decency not to talk about it.”
Guido who had sat through all this in silence now crowned the conversation with a remark that had all the grace of a club over the head, “Well, they say that marriage is the tomb of love and I must say from what I’ve seen this morning that sometimes seems to be true. However, I’m sure that won’t be the case for me and Ursula.”
“Ursula and I,” Lapo corrected him, and bolted from the room before he burst out laughing. Teo looked over at Guido and said, “If all you can do is make unfortunate remarks you’d do better to keep your mouth shut,” before he too left the room.
Dragonetti drove to work through heavy traffic. It was going to be very hot again. The sky was an amazing clear blue and the sun was already hot. He was in a good mood today. Vanessa’s returns were always marked by an excessive sexual indulgence and, after an excellent meal, the previous night had been no exception. It had relieved his feeling of boredom and isolation. How much he missed her when she was away on her frequent trips! How lucky he was to have her! His children seemed to like her too which was a blessing and a relief because they were at a difficult age and could have made his life hell.
He turned off the motorway at Lucca and spent a frustrating ten minutes edging round the roundabout which was always jammed with traffic and was a compulsory passage to everywhere. An impatient driver gave him the finger while another, who’d narrowly missed hitting him, screamed abuse at the top of his voice. Apparently, he was a cuckold several times over. Roll on another ordinary day.
Piero collected the morning post and rifled through the letters, sorting them into different piles. His hand halted and hovered over one envelope. He immediately recognised the writing, and the way the address was scrawled. He opened it.
‘I warned you but you took no notice. Don’t think you can come here and live among decent people, lording it over us, after what your country did to ours. You have to pay the price and I’ll make sure that you do.’
He sighed and picked up the phone, he had no choice. This letter was menacing, and not to report it would be negligent. Two letters within a month were too much to ignore. He would deal with it himself and leave Ursula out of it for now, for as long as he could, and if the police could help, then maybe she would never need to know. Perhaps there was an unstable old man in the village afflicted with a phobia for Germans. Perhaps he had done it before, was well-known, and could be discretely defused.
When he put the phone down he didn’t feel any happier. There was an air of tension in the house like an intangible miasma. It couldn’t be attributed to any one thing, rather to the sum of several. The arrival of Tebaldo and family a few days earlier had brought things to a head. Isabella was causing as much trouble as she could, grumbling about the food for the children, expecting Marta to look after them while she went to have pedicures, manicures and the like, and generally stretching Marta’s patience to the limit. It was not a good moment for the family. Marianna had more or less withdrawn to her bedroom in a deep depression after Roberto’s accident the previous week. He had been taken to hospital with a fractured skull as well as internal injuries and a fracture of the femur. He was still on the danger list. Marianna had come home from the hospital on the day of the accident perhaps expecting some kind of sympathy, but there had been none. The next morning there’d been the row, a monumental disgusting row when Ursula had told her daughter what she thought about her liaison with Roberto and had forbidden her to see him again. Her Aunt Felicity had already been called in for duty to escort her to New Zealand, a month’s tour. They were due to leave the following week so that she would be back well in time for the start of the school term and her last year there. He had made the travel arrangements for her. Marianna was throwing scenes and refusing to go. Not that she had much choice in the matter. She was not yet eighteen, and totally dependent. The family was mustering its soldiers and making its battle plans despite the fact that Roberto’s accident and his subsequent injuries made it all superfluous. Piero remembered the screaming match between Ursula and Marianna. Words had been hurled into the air, threats of injury and desperation. Young people were always so prey to violent emotions, he thought. They saw things in a very black and white way, used words like freedom as though they had a meaning, and they were generally so pitiful that one wondered whether crossing the magic line of the eighteenth birthday was going to make any difference at all. In some cases it made things more difficult, because as adults they could be held responsible for their actions and their crimes, whereas as minors they were treated quite differently. And they were always so dramatic about things. It was all life and death. They didn’t understand that time heals all wounds, no matter how terrible, as he knew himself. For a moment the memory of his own son, who had lived such a short time, flashed into his mind. He shut his eyes and willed the vision to go away.
Ursula’s plans had subsequently been backed by Tebaldo, who had been apprised of the situation as soon as he arrived. Her emphasis on the cocaine use had been a determining factor. Since his rehab from what had been a very heavy drug dependency, he had become extremely self-righteous, ultra respectable, and like so many of the redeemed, totally intolerant of other people’s weaknesses, perhaps because he was more aware of the dangers than others. Whatever the reason he was solidly behind his mother on this and Marianna had retreated to her room defeated, at least for the moment.
After fixing a meeting with the local Chief of Police, Maresciallo Spadaccia, Piero had finished the rest of the morning’s chores. He could hear Isabella’s strident voice in the garden. It was pretty obvious that Tebaldo was getting tired of her. She was not a Signora, a lady, and never would be. Piero had very strong feelings about class and blood. Tebaldo’s blood was old blood. He came from good stock. Isabella was a peasant with the manners and breeding of a pig, the language of a fish wife and the most appalling taste. Whatever Guido was, at least he had the charm of a gentleman and exquisite taste. The problem with Guido was his insistent pushing to take over some of Piero’s duties. The way he had he had actually snatched the post from his hand on more than one occasion and checked it all, before grudgingly handing it back, still rankled. Something would have to be done about it and soon.
He ruminated on Ursula’s forthcoming marriage, her fourth. This was a strange liaison, but perhaps no stranger than her affair with the awful Carletto and others like him: her first unfortunate marriage to a neo-Nazi, her second to a spoilt pasta king and her third to a racing driver, who had sadly died in a spectacular crash at Monaco during the trials. She seemed doomed to make unfortunate liaisons.
Guido had cleverly managed to make himself indispensable to Ursula who had been once again at a loose end and desperately needing a man. She could never seem to get along without one for very long, which was why she had formed so many disastrous relationships. At least now there was no chance of further pregnancies. Three children by three different fathers and one of them probably a cuckoo in the marital nest was more than enough. Why she felt she needed to marry Guido was something no-one could understand. He must be satisfying her on all levels for her to give in and say yes, because that was what it amounted to. It would be interesting to find out exactly what Guido was going to get out of this marriage, on a material level.
Piero contemplated the changes that might come about with Guido’s change in status, something which Guido had already hinted at. There was no way he was ever relinquishing his control. Apart from anything else, he’d earned it. It was his right and Ursula would never take it away. As indeed she’d be well-advised not to. He’d always put her welfare first and he doubted that Guido would, at least not in quite the same way. He’d have to make things clear before the wedding. There would have to be a discussion, without Guido’s presence. He would pick the time with care, soon.
Marta was helping Ursula with the preparations for the relatively small wedding reception, just for the family and a few selected friends. The wedding was to be intimate and private, in the local Town Hall which was, fortunately, a fabulous eighteenth century Palazzo in the historical centre of the medieval town. It was essential that nothing should happen to upset Ursula on her happy day and this was why he’d decided to go to the police about the letters. If there was a madman out for vengeance because of an old grievance against the German race, then he must be found and stopped. He might decide the wedding was a suitable moment for some kind of revenge for whatever wrongs he attributed to her and her countrymen.
He listened to the crescendo of voices rising from the garden. Isabella was at it again. She hit a high note with, “Then go and fuck yourself, you bastard!” after which the sound of a car door slamming and the vicious scrunching of the gravel on the drive as it accelerated away, put an end to it. Piero jotted down a note to remind himself to have the gravel raked and replenished again. Impetuous departures tended to make ugly ruts right in front of the house.
When Piero came downstairs, he found Tebaldo alone with the children.
“Ah, Piero, could you ask Marta to look after these two for an hour or so? It seems I have them, after all, this morning and I really need to go and run a few errands.”
“Of course.” He looked at the children. They were pretty, and young enough to have that charming innocence that all children have until it is taken away from them by adults.
“I wonder what you two would like to do?” he asked, taking their hands and leading them out of the room.”
“I want a biscuit,” remarked the younger of the two, Camilla.
“Well, let’s go and see what Marta’s got in the kitchen.” He led them downstairs.
Marta looked up as they came in. Tebaldo’s children had both inherited his good looks. They were like two little clones of their father. Arabella was four and Camilla, three.
“We were wondering if there are any of those biscuits left, you know the ones Paola made?”
“Of course. Why don’t you sit down at the table? Who wants a glass of milk?”
“Me, me!” shouted the girls together.
Tebaldo went into the salotto, restrained a grimace at the sight of Guido stretched elegantly on the sofa, flicking through a glossy magazine, as though posing for a celebrity photo, and asked tersely, “Where’s my mother?”
“Dear boy, I am not your mother’s keeper. I have no idea.”
“I want to borrow the car. She knows, but I can’t find the keys.”
“What’s happened? Has your delightful wife taken your car? I thought I heard a car take off rather thoughtlessly fast. It really messes up the gravel, you know.”
Tebaldo felt an unreasonable surge of rage at what seemed to him a declaration of ownership. “Mind your own business, you interfering little prick. It’s not your gravel.”
Guido leapt to his feet and threw down the magazine. “Listen Tebaldo, I want to make something quite clear to you. I expect a little more respect from you. Don’t talk to me as if I’m some kind of servant. I’m not, and whether you like it or not, I’m going to marry your mother.”
“And you listen to me, you jumped up little gigolo. There’s no point in pretending that this marriage is anything but ridiculous. If I could stop you marrying her, I would. I sometimes think she must be off her head. What the hell does she see in you?”
“How dare you! I’ll tell her what you said. How will you like that?”
“I don’t give a damn. Tell her what you like. She knows quite well how I feel about this. If she needs sex, I don’t see why things couldn’t have gone on as they are. I assume you provide that service, though you hardly look up to it. Why is she marrying you? What have you got on her?”
“You disgust me. She’s marrying me because I’ll make a good husband.”
Tebaldo began to laugh quietly, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter, tears streaming from his eyes. “That’s rich, really amazing. I wonder what you think makes a good husband.”
“Well, I’d hardly expect you to know, since you aren’t one yourself.”
“Vicious little bastard, aren’t you.”
“No, I’m merely stating a fact, my dear boy.” Guido gave him a huge smile.
“I’m not your dear boy. Don’t call me that.”
“Alright, if you promise never to call me Papa.”
They glared at each other, then Guido, held out his hand, “Peace.”
Tebaldo gave him a scorching look, turned his back on him and marched towards the door. He fired a parting shot before leaving the room. “It won’t last long you know. You’ll end up like all the others, and you won’t get anything out of it, so don’t think you will.”
Guido grinned as he sat down again. Of course he would get something out of it, and considering how much he was putting into this relationship, that was only right. All he had to do was wait.