Owen’s parents give him and Naomi a cautious greeting when they arrive. More than once he looks at his mother to find her eyeing this woman her son has in tow, with an expression not far removed from suspicion. He is visited by a sudden uncomfortable awareness of how short her white skirt is, how much cleavage her low-cut top reveals, the diaphanous fabric virtually see-through. For the most part his mother keeps a low profile, saying little. But if he is not mistaken, she listens astutely to Naomi’s conversation, as if searching for a key to her character in it. His father seems perturbed by the sudden news of their holiday plans. He corners him in the hall, and asks how the box office will cope without him.
‘Isn’t this their busiest season? Tourists flooding the capital, all wanting to catch a show in the West End.’
It takes a second for Owen to recall his elaborate deception, then he is quick with his explanation. ‘Well, actually, Father, this heat wave is leading to a drop in takings. It’s too hot to sit in a theatre. The city’s dead. So really, before this weather breaks it’s the ideal time to go.’
His father nods, accepting this reasoning without qualms. ‘Oh, the weather! It’s causing havoc everywhere, it seems. What I wouldn’t give for a little drop of rain.’
‘You and me, both,’ Owen empathizes.
After this there is no more talk of theatre. Instead, his father embarks on an animated monologue on the trials of gardening in drought conditions. In the midst of the unusual flurry of activity, Sarah’s room alone remains conspicuously silent, as if it has taken umbrage at all the irreverent chatter, and is sulking. A bed is made up for Naomi on the battered chintz settee.
‘I hope you’ll be comfortable here,’ his father tells her anxiously. And she smiles and assures him that she will. Dinner over, he leads her out into the garden, to examine the pathetic casualties of the freak desert conditions. Owen and his mother are momentarily by themselves in the kitchen. She sits at the small Formica table stirring a cup of tea. Having dried up the dinner things, he finishes off putting them away.
‘How have you been, Mother?’
‘Oh, you know. Up and down.’
‘Not back at work yet?’
‘Summer holidays.’
An intake of breath, then ‘Of course.’
‘I’ll go back at the start of the winter term.’
‘Probably do you good to have a break.’
‘Owen?’
He turns round at her lift of tone. His mother is sitting staring directly at him, unusual in itself. ‘Yes?’
‘So Naomi, she’s a lodger in the flat you’re living in?’
‘Mm . . . yes. Where do I put this?’ It is a new salad bowl and he is unsure where it lives.
‘In the middle cupboard, bottom shelf.’ As he is fitting it in she speaks again. ‘How well do you know her?’
‘Only since going to London.’ He wonders if his mother, like the doctor, thinks that they are having a relationship and adds hurriedly, ‘She has a boyfriend.’ He joins her, pulling out the chair next to hers.
‘But you’re going on holiday together.’ It is a statement of fact.
He looks into his mother’s brown eyes, taken aback by this interrogation. ‘He couldn’t get the time off work. The boyfriend. Pity, actually. So she just wanted a bit of company, that’s all.’ He pauses. ‘She hasn’t been very well.’
‘Oh? What’s the matter?’ She takes a sip of tea and waits, head to one side.
‘Ah, some . . . some nasty tummy bug. She’s over the worst of it now.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it dragged on and she’s a bit low.’ He strokes a hand over his cheek, clears his throat. ‘The trip will do her good.’
‘Italy. The Tuscan mountains. Sounds very nice.’ She is on her feet.
‘Hopefully. We’re staying in her friend’s house, an old stone cottage. You and Father should have a holiday.’ He says this without thinking, then bites his thumb. She rubs the back of her neck and drops her gaze. He recalls the holiday in Devon, the sun, sea and sand, and the funeral that followed it.
‘You know, I really am awfully sorry. Would you mind very much if I go and lie down? I’ve a bit of a headache. Half-an-hour. That should perk me up.’ Her hair hangs limply around her face, and her eyelids are heavy.
‘Of course not,’ he says, when he would give almost anything for her to stay.
‘I’m the most dreadful bore. Why don’t you go and join them in the garden?’
‘Shall I bring you up an aspirin?’
‘No thank you. I’ll be fine.’
After she has gone he sits at the table in the sun-filled kitchen wondering what she feels for him now, his mother, if anything. And wondering, too, at the interest she showed in Naomi. He is not surprised when she doesn’t reappear. Later, after his father has also retired to bed, Naomi pesters Owen to show him the hidden interior of Sarah’s room. He stammers out excuses.
‘My . . . my mother prefers to keep . . . keep it private. Anyway, I’m sure the door is locked, and I don’t know where the key is. Besides, we might disturb my parents, who are very light sleepers.’
But she persists, curious as Bluebeard’s wife. She must see the box bedroom, must open it up and rouse the little ghost, Sarah. So Owen relents, and lets this Fatima have her heart’s desire. He looks on uneasily, arms folded, leaning against the wall by the door, as she explores. He feels as if he has ushered a gawking seeker of cheap thrills into his dead sister’s tomb. He imagines Sarah’s somnolent ghost disturbed by the intrusion, her bleached spectre levitating from the pillow, and staring reproachfully at him with her stark, enamel-blue eyes. When, after investigating Sarah’s cupboard and remarking on the rows of socks bundled into fat white cocoons, and her pairs of polished shoes, she seems suddenly to lose interest, Owen is relieved. Downstairs once more, and she questions him about the day itself, the day Sarah drowned.
‘I told you what happened.’ He is unusually abrupt.
‘Not the details. Tell me again,’ she begs, undeterred. ‘You ought to talk about it, not keep it all bottled up inside you.’ But he will not be drawn. ‘Can you really not swim, Owen?’ she asks, changing tack. She sits on her makeshift bed, wings her legs up and hugs her knees. Owen shakes his head. ‘Not a single stroke?’ Her tone is one of disbelief.
Owen feels as though an infected tooth is being probed. ‘No, not a single stroke,’ he rejoins stiffly. He is at the lounge door, his back to her, his eyes tracing a dribble of black gloss paint. Then, ‘Shall I turn the light off ?’
‘I find that hard to believe. So . . . if you fall into a swimming pool, or off a boat into the sea, or . . . or into a lake, you . . . you would sink like a stone?’
The nerves in Owen’s shoulder muscles give an involuntary spasm. ‘I would drown.’ His voice is barely perceptible. ‘Like my sister did. Goodnight, Naomi.’ He is sure that the nightmares will come the moment he shuts his eyes. But the Water Child is ready for them and sees him safe asleep. The next day they drive into the breaking pastel pink of dawn. The Triumph Spitfire, none the worse for its sojourn in a darkened garage, sputters valiantly through France and across a spur of Switzerland. They break their journey at Dijon and Geneva, then take the Mont Blanc Tunnel, cutting through the Alps to Italy. After a night spent in a quaint hotel in Varazze, they set out for Lucca and the peaks of Garfagnana.
As they near their destination, 600 metres above sea level, among the steep wooded slopes of sweet chestnut, hornbeam and beech, Catherine ambushes his thoughts. Where her cheek brushed his chest, it felt soft as lint. She has a slight overlap of her front teeth. There is a tiny white dash above one eyebrow, a childhood scar. Her hair is red at the tips and at the roots. Then, swinging round the tight bends of the mountain roads, there is Vagli Sotto, built on a headland jutting out into a huge reservoir. Then he remembers the drowned village haunted by its own siren, Teodora. In all other respects it is enchanting, a clutch of stone cottages and whitewashed houses, and the square tower of an old church rising up from a grassy hillock. It is set against a vista of awe-inspiring, charcoal-grey summits, festooned with streamers of glistening snow, the Apuan peaks. At once he is reassured by these curmudgeonly, humpbacked, ancient gods. They preside in grandeur over the ruinous doings of men, while the trails of their pipe-smoke swag the world’s roof.
They have phoned ahead and Lorenzo Gallo, their landlord’s son, Enrico’s elder brother, is waiting for them. He directs them to a small patch of rugged ground on the outskirts of the town, where he says they can park the car, explaining that the narrow paths are unsuitable for traffic. They scramble out, stretching their cramped limbs after the long journey, and genially he gathers up their luggage. As they make their introductions, his eyes, shying away from Owen, dawdle on Naomi.
‘Come, follow. I will take you to the cottage. Then later you will join us for a meal, homemade cheese and sausage and wine, then grappa.’
Scampering ahead of him like a mountain goat, Naomi glances back at Owen, then at the lake. Fear has planted its stake in Owen’s heart. But as he trudges after them, the little village of Vagli Sotto draws the pessimism from him. He follows the sweep of banks matted with an entire palette of greens, the rich moss-green velvet of lush grass, the citrus green of the regimented rows of cultivated crops, the tawny green of scrub and bracken, the silver green of olive trees, the grey green of flinty rocks cloaked with sparse growth, and the lacy darker greens of the tall majestic pines, some of which are near black in their coloration. And here and there daubs of brilliance capture his attention, pinks and whites and reds, a cockerel proudly strutting about displaying his comb and wattle, a cluster of crimson-faced poppies, a pig scratching its pastel-pink rump contentedly on a dry-stone wall, the snowy blaze of a goat’s beard.
He lifts his eyes once again to the peaks, then lets his gaze drift over the blue ceiling of sky, where the clouds are as diverse as the greenery mapped beneath them. Some are just ghostly scribbles, some no more than a hazy dove’s wing, some are swollen milky pillows with pregnant mousy underbellies, and some, sheets stretched taut until they are torn asunder. There is nothing dormant about this celestial arena. It is an endlessly changing display buttressed by the craggy mountains. Storms will brew fast up here, he judges, as the hot air glissades up the cant of blue-grey rock, cooling rapidly.
He drinks in a breath heady as wine and pauses for a moment to let Vagli Sotto take his measure. He pulls his eyes back from the slide down to the lake. There, skating on its polished rink will be the clouds. The shoulders of the mountains will thrust themselves up from its ebony depths. The green slopes, the winding stone-paved paths, the huddle of buildings that make up the village, they will all be wallowing in the water. Even the inky pines will seem to dip their branches in the mere, waving gently like mammoth ropes of seaweed. And if he looks closely enough, leans over the rough-hewn wooden fence that borders the incline, and cranes his neck, he knows he will meet the face of that other Owen, already possessed by them. Oh, he is wise to the baffling mirage, the phantasm of air and life and vibrancy, where there is only another Atlantis sealed in a water-logged womb. Suddenly dizzy, he feels the drag of the Merfolk, hears them serenading him, calling his name. He covers his ears with the flat of his hands, and catches up with Naomi.
The three-storey stone dwelling that is to be their home for a fortnight, nestles into the shoulder of the hillside. There is a kitchen and dining-room on the first floor, a living-room on the second, and a bedroom on the third. And there is a small paved patio, where a solitary mulberry tree provides partial shade for a table and two deck chairs. From here and from every window in the property, spectacular views of the mountains are afforded, and of the lake too, lying like a mammoth oil slick below them. The rooms are furnished simply with heavy wooden furniture, decorated with primitive paintings of flowers in bold colours. They smell of permanence, of pine resin and lavender and clay. Like most of the buildings in the village, the property seems as much a part of this landscape as the vegetation and rocks rooted round about it.
‘It dates back to medieval times,’ Lorenzo explains with pride. ‘What do you think? We undertook the renovation project ourselves. Harder work than my brother, Enrico, has ever done, let me tell you.’ He hands Owen the heavy iron key, leaving him astounded at the weight of it. ‘Vagli Sotto is lovely, yes?’ They nod. There is no denying it. The village is bewitching, soaked in the salmon-pink glow of early evening. The dramatic, remote setting ploughs its rugged beauty into the newcomers. There is something intoxicating about the isolation, Owen reflects. If only it wasn’t for the lake . . .
Lorenzo’s grey eyes flick over him with interest. ‘Now we have a smart holiday cottage, rich tourists can come here, spend lots of money and enjoy it as well,’ he adds, stroking his chin in a miserly gesture. Not so very unlike his brother then, Owen ruminates, except that his stall is set up closer to heaven than hell. His eyes dart to the few straggling black wisps sprouting from Lorenzo’s chin – a poor imitation of Enrico’s stunning orange tassel. Naomi seems energized by it all, dashing here and there, admiring the rustic furniture, exclaiming one moment, and firing questions the next. Through the open front door, Owen scans the steep precipices, and traces the looped script of winding road written into the slopes. He would like to leap back into his car and race down them, away from the lake, the lake that is visible from every window, from every walkway. Lorenzo follows his sightline and nods with approval. ‘You like our lake in the mountains. We are another Lombardy up here. They have Lake Como, Maggiore, Lugano, Orta and Garda. We have Lake Vagli. Man-made but even more beautiful, I think. The dam was built to provide hydroelectric power for the mountain people living in Garfagnana. There was a village in the valley, but they flooded it in 1953. Fabbriche di Careggine. The residents relocated but the buildings are still there, under the water, the cottages, the church. Boating, swimming. Yes? I think the tourists will love it.’
Owen gives a weak smile in response and closes the door. They make their way up to the second-floor bedroom, the Italian’s well-built frame dwarfing the narrow passage. Once there, his eyes glide suggestively towards the twin beds, and then back to where his two guests stand before a huge wardrobe. Naomi throws the doors wide, pulls out drawers, and runs her fingers over the smooth dark wood. She is transfixed by the slide of supple skin across the intractable, polished oak.
‘This is the only bedroom,’ Lorenzo says slowly. ‘It’s not a problem?’
‘We’ll manage,’ Owen replies briskly.
Lorenzo winks cheekily. ‘You can always make up the settee downstairs if you prefer it.’
Naomi rotates slowly, taking it all in. ‘I love it,’ she pronounces. She tugs at a fingernail with her canine teeth, and then with the back of a hand smoothes her neck. She chatters happily to Lorenzo about Florence and Pisa, the places she wants to visit. Owen feels excluded. For a moment he becomes the adolescent version of himself, sitting on the back step in the sunshine. His eyes had vacillated between the book in his lap, and his mother talking to Ken Bascombe. He can see her now, leaning on the fence, smoking a cigarette, her cheeks glowing, his mother looking so beautiful and distant. The anguish that parted them has grown up like thorny briars, become increasingly intimidating and impenetrable. Seeing her is more dreadful than not seeing her. Her eyes hold nothing but punishment for him, and a truth so terrible that it must never be told. But he lives with the heavy knowledge. It is simply this: if he had died that day, if it had been him who drowned and not Sarah, his mother could have borne it. She could have buried him and gone on living. His teeth ache with needing her. He is half-made, incomplete, alone on an empty beach with the remote grey tide coming in.
A succession of tinny squeaks rouses him to the present. Naomi is bouncing on her bed, testing the metal springs. ‘In the mountains,’ she says softly, her white teeth snipping crisply around the words, ‘I expect it gets very cold at night.’ And her lips redden with pleasure. She blinks her gummy blink. Suddenly she jumps up and crosses to the window. Lorenzo follows and they stand side by side. Their arms are touching. She pinches back a corner of the closed ecru and mauve cretonne curtains, and peeps out. Leaning over her, he throws them wide. The rings skid along the metal rod with a sharp discord, and instantly the room is floodlit. Owen joins them, flanking her right side, her devious blue-eyed profile. Lorenzo lifts the latch and eases open the window. All three survey the lake. Owen sways on his feet, the vertiginous sensation nearly toppling him. He imagines Teodora sealed under the lid of impermeable black water.
‘When they dammed up the Edron River, they say a village woman stayed in her cottage, that she drowned. Teodora, her name was. They say she haunts the lake still, that if you see her you, too, will drown,’ Lorenzo says with evident relish. ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
Owen gives a nervous splutter of laughter. Naomi smiles at Lorenzo, entranced. ‘Yes, Enrico told us. We will keep our eyes peeled for the phantom of the lake and let you know.’
‘It certainly makes an excellent story for you to . . . to embellish for your . . . your tourist guests,’ Owen falters. Lorenzo chortles, undaunted by Owen’s seeming cynicism.
After he has gone, while Naomi is getting ready for their evening out, Owen stands at the lounge window. He eyes the lake as if it is an invading army and he is a lookout on the battlements of a fortress. Then he scans the mountainous panorama. Night falls fast here. He can see it coming, inexorably blotting out the day. He has a vision. Teodora sitting in her stone cottage combing out her silky black hair, as the water gushes in under the door, then through the windows, and finally rushes down the chimney. In his mind the level rises like a running bath, until her mouth gapes and the torrent rushes in.
At Nerio Gallo’s house that evening, Naomi gets drunk on grappa, and flirts with Lorenzo, and with his bearded father. Owen reddens, because they are not in the market, where the lights are low and cheap things have guile. As they weave their way the few steps home, she slides her arm through his.
‘It’s so quiet here. Aren’t you glad we came?’ Her speech is thick, carrying to him on her alcohol-sodden breath. When he makes no reply she digs her heels in and they stumble to a stop. ‘Did you hear me?’ she slurs from a corner of her mouth. Looking down on her, he nods and thins his lips in a weak smile. The blades of brilliant stars stab the navy-blue arras of the night sky. A biscuit-gold harvest moon finds its double in the lake. The mountains are splashed in party silvers, greys and purples. The salty sausage and the grappa have given Owen a fierce thirst. The planes and hollows of Naomi’s face, exaggerated by the dim light, appear unsettlingly skeletal to him. Her eyes blaze out from cadaverous sockets. Her mascara and eyeliner has smudged, giving a gothic look to her angular face. And her mussed hair, hatted in moonlight, looks white as a barrister’s wig. ‘Well?’ she breathes.
‘Naomi, you’re drunk,’ he observes, aiming for carelessness, but striking a pious chord. ‘We’ll talk in the morning.’
‘But you are pleased we came, that it’s all so pretty?’
‘Yes, yes. I’m pleased,’ he lies.
In bed, Naomi, sinks into boozy slumber instantly. But Owen is wakeful. He sits on the window seat and listens to the window trembling in the breeze. A ray of moonshine, refracted by the glass, shimmies on the ceiling. Lake Vagli glitters under the harvest moon like a slumbering mythical monster. He lifts his eyes and imagines he can see Teodora, a black mermaid beached on the gritty concrete bank. She is a chantress warbling honeyed notes that bring the tears to his eyes. And the wave of her voice rolls away across a universe blistered with uncounted sun, seeded with marbled planets, to break on some unknown shore, sending a ripple through the continuous circle of time.
***
Sunday morning. They are sitting sunning themselves on two deck chairs outside the cottage. Naomi leans forward and pulls off the tunic she is wearing. The fabric, magenta voile, is light as gossamer. She reclines again. Now she is wearing no more than a skimpy black bikini. Her eyes are closed. She has kicked off her sandals, and Owen studies her toes curling against the baked flagstones, relaxing, then curling again, like a contented cat. Each time, the balls of her feet rise a few inches. Her body is open, letting tongues of sunlight lick her flesh. Her only concession to the harmful rays is a pair of sunglasses. Owen, dressed in fawn shorts and a short-sleeved pale-blue shirt, has an engaging Enid Blyton innocence about him. His sandals are firmly strapped on and he is wearing a half-brim cap, but no glasses.
He has just applied sun lotion and there are streaks of it on his arms. One of his eyes itches and without thinking he rubs it. The lotion, still on his fingers, makes his eye water copiously. The same second the sun, reflecting off one of the gold hinges of her sunglasses, temporarily blinds him. Re-focusing, his vision is indistinct. He squints and makes out what looks like three Lilliputian priests. Then he realizes they are not men but boys, young boys, and there are not three but five, all wearing black cassocks and white surplices. Two of them carry flags, the third, spearheading the little group, a cross. Owen tries to sit up but the canvas back of the deck chair makes it difficult, and he flounders like a beetle on its back.
Following at their heels are the men of the village, most middle-aged, some bent-backed and grey-haired. Many wear suits, ties and even hats. All have made considerable efforts with their appearance. As they pass by their eyes stray to where the newcomers are sunbathing. Naomi’s body holds them for a second but their expressions remain impassive. Owen prods her. She gives a small blissful sigh and wriggles away from him. The flash of a silver lantern draws him back. Now he sees that the life-size priests have arrived, three of them, dressed in long white robes, with short red capes tied at their necks. They form a semi-circle, at its centre a stooped, shrunken, old bishop, carrying a gilded crook. Owen has managed to hoist himself up and he nudges her again.
‘Naomi, sit up. Put your tunic on,’ he hisses. ‘I think it’s some kind of religious festival.’ She sighs, shifts in her chair languidly, lowers her sunglasses and peers over the rim. She looks mildly intrigued but she makes no move towards modesty. He is about to speak again when several more men bearing a plinth round the corner. Crowning it, seated on a silver throne, is the statue of another bishop. Again Owen pushes her. When she does not stir, he retrieves her tunic from the ground and attempts to cloak her spread-eagled body. Only when the band arrives does she rouse herself, a crowd mainly of youngsters dressed in black trousers, blue shirts and military-style caps. They all carry instruments, trumpets, drums and clarinets, and they are playing a solemn processional march.
She swings herself forward on the deck chair and climbs to her feet, the movement executed with considerably more grace than he could muster. The tunic floats off her. She is standing barefoot in her brief bikini. As Owen rises, she takes a couple of steps forwards and casually leans over the wooden railing, gazing at the spectacle on the climbing path. She claps her hands as they pass by, as if the ceremony has been arranged for her benefit alone. And this is how they find her, the women of the village, as they round the bend, bringing up the rear of the parade. One of them, a stout matron wearing a long-sleeved, dark-blue dress, the substantial shelf of her breasts adorned with a plain gold cross and chain, breaks away from the crowd. She strides purposefully up to them. Naomi turns to face her, raises her sunglasses now and smiles unabashed. Owen intercepts, stepping between them.
‘Can I help you?’ he asks, wrapping his own arms uncomfortably about his waist.
‘Your washing,’ says the woman. She has the gimlet-glare of a hawk.
‘I’m sorry?’ he queries, not understanding her meaning. Naomi, leaning back on the railings, lowers her sunglasses and gives a high, mocking laugh.
‘Your washing, it is in full view,’ the woman reiterates with a jut of her chin, looking beyond his shoulder.
He turns and sees their laundry spread out on a wooden rack to dry. There are a few T-shirts but mostly it is a display of Naomi’s lacy pants and a few bras. He feels his cheeks grow hot. Naomi raises her eyes, annoyed. ‘Oh, of course. I’m so sorry, but we didn’t realize,’ he apologizes hastily. ‘We’ll clear them away. Naomi, give me a hand.’ She looks at him rebelliously and lounges further back on the rails. ‘Naomi!’ he presses again through gritted teeth. He starts plucking clothing and underwear off the rack. When he glances up the woman has not budged. She is locked on the indecently clad visitor, her expression transparently hostile. Naomi takes off her sunglasses and meets her withering gaze levelly. The villager seems to wince slightly at the cloven-coloured eyes. Then, like a petulant adolescent, Naomi stoops, retrieves her tunic and slips it on. And all the while the other women, children at their skirts, troop by staring in their direction.
‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ she mutters. She lets her head drop back on her shoulders and scans the sky. Finally she shrugs, pushes off from the railing, skirts her challenger and stalks off into the cottage.
‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Owen falters. The woman gives a grudging nod. ‘I . . . we never meant to cause offence. We didn’t know it was a . . . a . . .’ He dries up, his mouth arid as ancient bones. For a second she does not move, just holds him in her percipient stare. Then the stern aspect of her face fades suddenly and she nods, appeased. She turns on her heels, head held high, hurrying to catch up with her neighbours. With his bundle of damp washing he hastens after Naomi.
***
Monday. After a breakfast Owen has lost his appetite for, they drive to Lucca and hire bikes. They pedal around the ancient city walls, enjoying their commanding prospect over the surrounding countryside. Half-way round they stop and clamber off to appreciate the panoramic views. The lacy leaves of the plane trees stir in the warm breeze. A horse and cart, loaded with market produce, clops by. Other cyclists pedal past. An elderly couple stroll hand in hand. Proud parents walk their young son between them. Owen and Naomi gaze out over meadows, clusters of dark trees, a sea of brick-red tiled roofs from which towers rise imposingly, and beyond these, as far as the eye can see, a vista of dusky majestic mountains.
‘It’s quite something,’ Owen says. ‘The kind of landscape an artist would want to paint.’
‘You know, I can’t forgive him.’
For a second he is disorientated by her remark, and then the wretched circumstances of this seemingly endless summer break on him. ‘You say that now, but in time—’ he opens hopefully, but she cuts him off smoothly.
‘No, never. I have nothing but contempt for Sean now, for the cruel way he treated me.’ She does not look at him but keeps staring outwards, her voice expressionless. ‘He murdered our baby. He didn’t even consider an alternative.’
Owen sighs softly. ‘Naomi, you must see that it was difficult for all concerned.’ He lays a hand on her arm and exerts a light pressure with his fingers.
She brings her other hand to her mouth and absently flicks a thumbnail and fingernail together. ‘You wouldn’t have behaved like that.’ She casts him a sideways look, her tantalizing eyes suddenly shy. When he reserves comment, she makes it a direct question. ‘Well, would you?’
‘That’s different,’ he dodges.
‘Why?’
‘I’m not married,’ he tells her with a shrug.
‘I don’t believe that you would have acted so callously even if you were,’ she maintains.
‘Who can predict what I would have done?’
She faces him now and their eyes meet. ‘I . . . think . . . I . . . can.’ She pays her words out slowly, making each one count.
He lifts his hand from her arm, opens both out to her, his gesture beseeching. ‘Look, I don’t pretend to understand how appalling this must have been for you. But it’s done, finished with. You ought to try and put it behind you. Going over it will only make it worse.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be part of a family?’ she asks unblinkingly. And Owen feels uneasily as if she is assaying his soul, testing the true mettle of him.
‘No reason at all.’ He takes a breath, attempts to frame a sentence, and fails. ‘You are . . . you . . . are—’
‘What am I, Owen?’ She grabs his hand and holds it in hers.
‘You are a lovely woman and one day you’re bound to meet a man, marry, have children. It’ll work out for you, I’m sure. Have a little patience, that’s all.’ She smiles broadly then, as if he has given her the correct answer in a competition, as if he has won the prize. ‘You are such a gentleman!’ she exclaims, clapping her hands, and she pecks him on the cheek.
They finish their ride, return the bikes, and wander the old town. There are so many churches, almost too many to count. Naomi keeps suggesting that they push open the heavy doors of one and explore the gloomy interior. But Owen is reluctant. They are not dressed for church. His attire, jeans and a T-shirt, is marginally more suitable than hers. The burgundy skirt she is wearing sits so low on her hips that her belly button is exposed. Without a bra, her breasts are clearly outlined in her tight, powder-grey, sleeveless shirt. He warns her that they are not suitably apparelled each time she runs up a flight of entrance steps, or pauses outside the massive medieval doors.
‘I really don’t think we should go in,’ he advises as he surveys the trickle of locals entering and leaving the basilicas. The women wear long-sleeved, calf-length dresses, their covered heads lowered respectfully; the men, long trousers and shirts buttoned to the collar.
‘Don’t be so silly,’ she admonishes. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’
‘Naomi, there’ll be people praying in there.’
She shakes him off, then huffs out her breath impatiently, making the wisps of hair that overhang her brow stir. ‘I want to pray too,’ she insists obdurately. Before he can stop her, she has grasped the heavy, iron ring-handle of the door she faces. In an instant she has disappeared inside. He hesitates long enough to stand aside for a woman who is leaving. She is fingering a rosary and still mumbling her prayers. Their eyes meet for a second, and Owen has a stab of compunction on Naomi’s behalf.
On entering the huge space, pleasantly cool after the hot streets, the reverential hush is punctured by the smart click, click of Naomi’s heels on the stone floor. He is stealing along a dark corridor to one side of the pews. She is tottering down the central aisle, momentarily illuminated in a shaft of indigo light angling through a stained-glass window. It is late afternoon. There are several people either sitting quietly, or kneeling, hands clasped, lips moving in fervent prayer. He pauses by a tray of tiny cream candles, and watches a man light one with a taper, push a coin in a box, genuflect, and make the sign of the cross. He recalls Catherine and the dampness of her tears on his shirt, and is thinking that he would like to light a candle for her, for her and Bria, when he hears Naomi exclaim:
‘Oh, look at that!’
He sees the bent heads come up fast. Stepping quietly, he hurries forwards, reaching the altar rail in time to see and hear a man reprimand her. The irate gentleman taps her on the shoulder, places a finger to his lips signifying that she should be quiet, then growls something in Italian.
Naomi gives an apologetic shake of her head. ‘So sorry, I forgot where I was.’
Hastily Owen steps in, nods at the scowling man, and pulls her to one side. He bows his head as he retakes his seat. ‘We should go,’ Owen urges, drawing her away. But for the second time that day she gives him the slip, jogging his hand off her arm with a jab of her elbow.
‘I want you to look at this first,’ she urges, moderating her tone, now back at the altar rail and leaning forward to peer at something.
He would far prefer to scurry away, but knowing if he does not relent she may create even more of a disturbance, reluctantly he sidles up to her. With a pointed finger she directs his gaze. He stares with macabre curiosity at a glass coffin lying on a low table a few feet from them. Inside is what looks like the embalmed remains of a body. The skin is brownish-yellow, hugging the ridges and dips of the skull. It is impossible to tell if the figure is male or female. It is swathed in a long, flowing robe, and wearing some sort of religious headdress, like an elaborate egg cosy. Its hands resemble the bony talons of some huge bird. They clutch at a gem-encrusted, silver cross. There are other ornaments scattered about the remains, rings and chains and bracelets, as well as a few bones. They glitter in the conical radiance which issues from an overhead spotlight. Looped through these are garlands of silk flowers, their vivid hues long since bled away to the dusty beiges of dead leaves. The thin lips, like buff piping, are parted to reveal a few grey teeth. The eyes are mercifully closed. But the dark nostrils are stretched so wide they create the illusion that they are flaring open, that the preserved corpse is inhaling the dead air it lies in. He senses Naomi studying him.
‘Is it real, do you think?’ she asks in an awed whisper, transfixed by the grotesque spectacle.
He shudders and nods. ‘Mm, it looks like it.’ He feels suddenly claustrophobic. ‘It’s probably the remains of a saint or a bishop. Come on, Naomi. Let’s go.’
‘It is weirdly beautiful, don’t you think?’ She scans his horrified face and smothers a giggle. ‘Oh, Owen, why must you take everything so seriously?’ Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the man in the front pew rising to his feet again, his complexion flushing fig purple. She must have noticed him too, because as he moves towards them she drops to her knees on a hassock at the foot of the altar rail. Dramatically she makes the sign of the cross and raises her hands high in prayer. Owen is speechless, as is the angry Italian, whose mouth drops, then snaps shut. Hands thrown up, he turns and leaves. Owen retreats into the shadows, his own prayer that she will be swift. Finally she rises, pivots slowly, and pauses theatrically for a moment on the altar steps. With astonishment he sees that her eyes are welling up. She gives that idiosyncratic blink of hers, and first one crystal drop, then another, falls on a ruled line down her cheek. As if some sort of miraculous con version has taken place, she drifts dewy-eyed from the church. She genuflects one last time as he waits for her, the great door jammed open with his foot. Outside in the blazing sun once more, Owen strides ahead. He is annoyed and embarrassed. His companion has made an exhibition of herself in a place of worship, a church where decorum and respect, in deference to the locals, should be axiomatic. Naomi catches up with him. She clutches his hand. She embeds her bitten nails in his palm possessively. ‘It was wonderful, wasn’t it?’ When he doesn’t respond she continues. ‘What’s the matter? We’ve had such a lovely day. And you’re upset.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ he lies.
They stop at a street café and sit outside. They order beers and sip them slowly in the quiet of the afternoon. On a nearby table a young couple bill and coo like doves. A girder of light slants under the café awning. He notices that Naomi’s foundation has been pasted on too thickly. It has sunk into the map of her face, accentuating the fine lines and creases, like a brass rubbing. Her eyeshadow is that shimmering shade of turquoise that makes a harlot of a sweet-faced girl, and converts a mature woman into a fairground attraction. Her eyeliner has run and her mascara has made spiders’ legs of her lashes. She wears that old-fashioned shade of lipstick, a vivid carmine. It has bled in the heat of the day, fixing the corners of her mouth in a droop, as if she has palsy. He can see the dark roots of her hair advancing on the bleached ends, giving up on the charade. And in a stale waft of nicotine he detects her faint but distinctive scent, the gamey odour of high meat. He looks across at the lovebirds.
‘Owen?’ A pause.
‘Yes?’
‘You are so kind, bringing me here, looking after me. Most men would have walked out. But you stayed.’
He shrugs. ‘I couldn’t leave you like that.’
‘Because you’re decent and good.’ A second pause.
‘Naomi, when we get back . . .’ He trails off, his courage failing him. He wants to tell her that his mind is made up, that he is going to move on. A week or two in the market, no more, and he will be gone. Not back home, not permanently anyhow. He’s heading for the open road, where he will have no identity, where he will be able to reinvent himself weekly. He has managed to save a modest amount, sufficient to set him on his way. And when that runs out he will work his passage. ‘Naomi, the thing is that . . . that when we get back . . .’ His stammering speech sticks again.
‘Yes? What is it?’ she prompts, amused. ‘Oh nothing,’ he demurs. ‘God, it seems hotter here than it was in London, if that’s possible.’ The rim of her glass is smudged with lipstick. She rests her head on his shoulder. For some obscure reason, it strikes him suddenly that Catherine has the scent of summer rain. The couple opposite them kiss. His eyes linger on the lovers consumed in their embrace, as Naomi snuggles closer.
At nightfall he asks her what she was praying for. She switches off the lamp, and stands in a spire of moonlight, surveying him, where he lies supine on his bed. She has taken to sleeping in his T-shirts. This one, plain white, swamps her like a nightgown. She looks eerily alien and inhuman, the more so because she is smoking. The floorboards creak as she crosses to the window. It is open and the curtains are tied back. She kneels on the seat, her body corkscrewing back to him. With her every move the lighted tip of her cigarette draws electric orange lines that linger in the air, the way the trail of a sparkler does.
‘Owen?’
‘Yes?’ He rolls on his side towards her.
As she sucks on her cigarette the tip flares to crimson, then dulls again. It seems an age till she tunnels out the smoke. ‘Sometimes I think about Catherine, about Catherine and her baby, Bria. I imagine what she looks like, if she’s a blonde or a brunette.’
‘She’s a redhead.’ He speaks without thought, an automatic response, regretting his indiscretion immediately. The resulting stillness is voluble.
Then, her voice suddenly very small, ‘How do you know?’ He cannot see her expression. Subtly lit by the glow of the street-lamp below, her features are in shadow. He curses himself inwardly for his doltishness.
‘I met her,’ he tells her lightly.
‘When?’ she asks in the same constrained tone. She takes another drag on her cigarette. The smoke is tinted sulphur by the mango-yellow radiance. ‘When did you do that, Owen?’
He bites down on his bottom lip before replying. ‘Oh, I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago. Sean wanted me to collect something from his house in Hounslow. I was only there a minute or so.’
She turns away from him and gazes out of the window. ‘You didn’t mention it,’ she says.
‘Well, no . . . no. I didn’t think it was important,’ he explains haltingly.
‘Was it only that once? Or have you seen her before?’
‘Naomi, I said. Just that meeting. That’s all. In fact, you can hardly call it a meeting. We can’t have exchanged more than a couple of sentences.’ He does not fully understand why, and yet it seems imperative that he lies about this, that he protects Catherine and Bria. Though from what, he cannot say.
‘What is she like?’
‘Ooh, honestly, I . . . I don’t recall,’ he hedges.
‘You recalled the colour of her hair,’ she counters crisply. She stretches out her arm and flicks the ash into the night.
He pulls the wrinkles from his linen sheet edgily. ‘Only because it was such an unusual colour.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘Naomi, what is this? I went and fetched a package for Sean. I knocked on the door. She opened it, gave me what I’d come for, and I left.’
‘You didn’t go in?’ She circles her head, and massages the back of her neck.
A second’s hesitation and then he answers. ‘No, of course not. Why would I?’
‘She didn’t ask you in?’
He sighs and sits up in bed, his head banging on the headboard. ‘No!’ There is an impatience in his tone, disguising his guilt.
‘Is she pretty?’ she repeats.
‘I don’t know what to say. She was . . . ordinary,’ he replies, thinking that she was the antithesis to this.
‘Ordinary but with red hair,’ comes Naomi’s instant rejoinder. He can hear her breathing the smoke in, pushing it out. It wafts back into the room, tainting the mountain air.
‘Look, it’s the only thing I registered about her.’
‘Did you see the baby?’
He is instantly alert. ‘No, why should I have?’
As she swivels back to him she spins her still-lit cigarette out of the window.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ He is up and beside her in a trice. ‘Forest fires. You don’t want to be responsible for starting one of those.’ Glancing down, a broken whisker of smoke betrays its location on the stone patio to Owen. ‘I’ll go and get it.’ Her hand latches onto his arm, preventing him.
‘Why should she get to keep her baby?’ she says coldly. ‘Why should she have it all?’ She pulls him down until he is perched on the seat next to her, her eyes finding his. Hers seem to smoulder with animosity, he thinks.
‘Oh, Naomi, you know why.’
‘Why?’ she demands, unappeased.
‘Because . . . because she is Sean’s wife.’ Her hands grip his upper arms so tightly that it hurts. She cranes her neck. Her rasping voice on his ear feels warped and covetous.
‘In the church, Owen, I prayed for my baby, for my dead baby, that God would stop the crying in my head. And I prayed for Sarah, for you and Sarah, your poor drowned sister.’ Her lipstick tongue outlines her open mouth. Owen tenses. If he could he would snatch back his tragedy. Too late, he realizes that it is not safe in her hands.
‘You must give yourself time to grieve,’ he says stiltedly.
She redirects her focus to the mirrored lake. ‘I wonder if that old legend is true? What sort of a woman could shut herself up in her cottage while they flooded the valley? Think of it, Owen, sitting there and watching the level of the water steadily rising. Seeing your things floating on it, sinking in it, and knowing that very soon you were going to join them. It must have been horrible.’
‘Let’s not talk about it.’ There is a quaver in Owen’s voice. When next he speaks his cadence is consciously emphatic to rid himself of it. ‘I’m shattered, Naomi. It must be all the fresh air.’ He pulls away from her giving a stage yawn, grabs his jeans from a chair, and yanks them on over his boxer shorts. ‘I’ll dash down and check that your cigarette has gone out. It would be mad to run the risk of a fire.’
***
It is not until the middle of the week that they explore the village, ambling their way up the intersecting paths. They stop by a tap, where icy mountain water runs continuously into a stone trough. Naomi makes a bowl of her hands and bends over to drink. The air screams with heat, and Owen’s throat feels seared to ashes. The sight of her lapping fills him with an acute thirst. As he leans in, she springs back and throws the palmed water into his face. Soon they are shaking with laughter, gulping and splashing all at once. He swallows and splutters, exquisitely aware of the freezing finger sliding down his throat, prodding at his belly. By the time they have slaked their thirst, the legs of his jeans are damp, his T-shirt has a soaked bib, and his arms and face are freckled with round droplets. Her clothes are saturated too, the calico cotton of her drawstring blouse clinging to her body. She drops her head and shakes it, sending spray flying, like a dog drying its coat after a swim.
They meander higher and higher up the incline. In one of the small fenced gardens an Alsatian barks furiously at them. A short plump woman is taking down washing, a baby tied in a sling at her back. Owen greets her but she snubs him. A little further on and they pass a wizened man sitting on his doorstep, smoking. He raises the cigarette to his lips with shaking leathery fingers, sucking on it, then coughing, before sucking again. He touches the rim of his cap to them as they walk by.
After a while they come to a tall, rusty, wrought-iron gate. It squeals in protest when they push it open. They step into the tiny square cemetery. It is no more than a patch of wind-crushed grass and a few crosses, leaning tipsily. Naomi investigates a row of family tombs, like a road of exclusive holiday homes, bordering one low stone wall. As with everything else in the village, he has realized that this graveyard overlooks the reservoir. He decides that there can be few more isolated places for the dead to rest than up here, with only the snow-peaked giants for company.
Night is drawing in now, a grey rag rug unrolling over the peaks and barrelling towards them. Owen can hear the baying of the wind, feel the scissor-snap of its jaws through his damp clothes. Anselmo, Teodora’s husband, hobbles out of the past. He pictures him hunching over to gather up fallen branches, stowing them in the basket strapped to his back, unaware at first that the mountain leviathans are stirring, raining their icy gales over him. Bent on his task, to start with he is not awake to the worsening weather, the drain of light, the blast knifing into him, the snow with its sand bite on his face, the frozen grains clinging tenaciously to his rough, woollen cloak.
Suddenly realizing the danger he is in, Anselmo starts to hurry down the slopes. But he is not a young man and the frozen ground has become lethal. His heart chatters in his chest. Each painful inhalation scrapes the scant warmth from him. His muscles lock with the effort of the descent. He slips, his load pulling him off balance. He skids down a wall of rock shellacked with ice, twisting to try to brake his descent. He lands badly on a heap of snaggletoothed stones, and feels the matchstick snap of one leg under him. In that same second he knows, he knows he will die out here, alone in this desolate landscape, his body packed with snow. Owen envisages that death, the long hours surrendering inch after inch of his numb flesh, his slack-necked, tortoise face filmed with agony.
Then Anselmo fades to be replaced by another, his wife, Teodora, sitting cosy by her fireside. The blusher of peppery flames dapples her full cheeks. She is combing her streaming hair, and it gleams like black marble in the flickering light. The shrewish wind screams and nags at her window. She pauses, lifts her head and gazes through the glass pane at the maelstrom outside. She thinks of her decrepit husband now, of his sagging muscles and rumpled flesh, of the unmade bed of his face, of his greying gums and his missing teeth, of his rough whiskers and matted beard, of the wheeze of his dusty, stale breath, of how she sets like plaster as he pokes himself between her hot thighs. When next she casts her eyes deep into the hollow heart of the fire, she is smiling.
‘I’m freezing. Let’s go, Naomi,’ he says in a rush.
But she clambers over the low wall on the far side of the cemetery, sitting herself down in the scrub. ‘Come on, Owen. The view over the lake is spectacular. You must look,’ she beckons with a scoop of her arm. He is crippled with fright, limping to sit beside her. She can feel the quake of him as the lake leers up at them.
‘It’s funny to think of the village under the water,’ she says. ‘When I walked around it with Lorenzo he showed me shrines . . . evenly spaced, with photographs of all the people who have drowned there. Those faces peering out at you from the grave . . .’ She breaks off and looks closely at him. ‘You really are very scared,’ she ponders. ‘Can you not swim at all?’ He shakes his head. She snakes an arm across his tensed shoulders.
That night there is a storm. It begins with distant jags of lightning slicing at the black peaks. Each blink torches bolsters of cloud as they bowl towards them. Naomi sits smoking on the window seat in the darkness, impatient for it to arrive. They hear the yawl of the wind plunge to a chesty roar. Then come the cracks of thunder that give a terrier tug to the earth. Curtains of pewter-grey rain sweep in. The trees grow unruly, their dripping branches scourges. Somewhere a bell jangles as the wind flings it. Each lurid flutter sets the lake alight. Twice Owen tells Naomi to close the windows. But she protests, not wanting to miss a single moment of it. He traces the tattered illumination of her face. She is rapt. Only when the rain has saturated the seat cushion, does she reluctantly turn her back on it.
Their last day. The weather is glorious. The sun polishes everything to a citrus gleam. The sky is a cloudless blue. From the moment she rises, Naomi seems to be in a state of heightened excitement, as if it is her birthday and a party is to be held in her honour. Determined to make the most of it, they drive into the mountains and chance upon a deserted village. Here lizards bask on the sun-kissed rocks, and the song of the cicadas pulses in the shimmering heat. They journey on to a town where the streets are hung with bright banners and coloured lanterns. The church square is filled with dancers and the sultry air swells with music. The women, in flower-print bodices adorned with spider-web collars, trill their tongues. They lift their full skirts to show their flounced petticoats, and twirl and skip and jump. Men in white stockings and shirts and black pantaloons tip their hats and hook their thumbs in their waistcoat pockets. Sure footed, they guide and stamp, lift, catch and spin their breathless partners. A huge man with a handlebar moustache trips his fingers lightly over the buttons of an accordion, deft as a lace-maker juggling her bobbins. And all the while, slick-haired guitarists pluck their strings, roll their lovesick eyes, and croon the songs of their forefathers.
Then they eat pizza slices and drink ice-cold Asti Spumante, sitting on the edge of a village fountain. About them the pigeons splash clumsily in the water, and from their swelling, feather-boa necks come a whole score of deep-throated coos. In the late afternoon they return to Vagli Sotto and begin packing their bags. Relief is Owen’s overriding emotion. The week is over. Tomorrow they are leaving the sleepy town of Vagli Sotto, and the lake hemmed in by the towering wall of the reservoir. Soon, the ghostly clink-clink of the bells tied at the necks of the few wandering goats, the distant muted clucking of chickens, the mewling of the wind that comes and goes without warning, and the resonant clanging of the church bells calling the faithful to their prayers, will be merely a memory. He will walk out on this second life as he did his first – a life that promised escape, but has delivered yet another disturbing slant on reality. Sean’s weakness for gambling, his drinking, his infidelity, his descent into the underworld of the city, Naomi’s abortion, her attempt at self-harm, her disturbing sleep-walking, even Catherine’s misery, all these he will leave far behind. Of course he is concerned for Catherine, for Bria. But she is not his wife and Bria is not his baby. Even if he wanted to, there is nothing he can do to alter their plight.
They choose to dine on this, their last night in Tuscany, in the nearby town of Castelnuovo. Owen’s mood is upbeat, buoyant. They share a bottle of wine with their meal. On their way back, Naomi suggests that they pull in at the lakeside bar, and have a last drink to mark the end of their Italian interlude. Owen, light headed and feeling invincible, assents. They share another bottle, a Montepulciano, an expensive red wine, and chase it with liqueur glasses of grappa. By then the world, though a trifle unsteady on its axis, has rearranged itself into a benign paradise. It has become a utopia where little girls are sitting on the sand, waiting with ear-to-ear smiles when their brothers round the stripy windbreak that conceals them. Here, mothers have hearts roomy enough to forgive and forget. Here, if their daughters drown, their sons are their salvation.
‘Let’s walk back,’ Naomi suggests. ‘We can leave the car and collect it in the morning.’ And when he hesitates she insists, telling him that in any case he is drunk and cannot drive. ‘Let’s take the lakeside path,’ she adds. ‘It is so beautiful bathed in moonlight.’ And this other Owen finds himself agreeing. He has a misty re collection of a double with aquaphobia who could not be prevailed upon to go down to the water’s edge for anything. But tonight this is his shadow. And he can think of nothing he would prefer than visiting a picturesque lake romantically lit. They link arms as they weave down the track that intersects with the path.
The moon is so bright that it makes its own silver day. The trees stand out in black relief against this pale wash. The silhouette of Vagli Sotto village rises up before them, lights twinkling, like a children’s illustration. To their left the concrete bank shelves steeply down to the water. Close up, through his alcoholic haze, the lake looks deceptively still. It really is a mirror, Owen muses, a solid silver plate inscribed with mountains, stars and moon, the bridge across it seemingly a near circle. The air is spiked with the scent of water, soft and pure, and pine sap, and summer grasses. He floats along, fire in his veins, his feet not seeming to connect with the ground. For a time they do not speak. The shrines to the drowned that they pass have ceased to be sober reminders of the dangers of deep water. Intermittently they sprout like gleaming stalks. The plastic flowers twined about them are silver gilt. The photographs in their cellophane sleeves are no more than a blur to Owen. Both, as if by mutual consent, now slow to a halt.
‘I’ve been here all this while but I haven’t swum,’ Naomi says wonderingly, tugging on Owen’s arm. ‘I want to wash myself in the water. Unzip me,’ she commands. She turns her back on him.
He traces a finger up her spine, along the teeth of her dress zip. Her hair has lengthened considerably, so that he has to lift it up to find the metal tab. Her ivory flesh reveals itself as he pulls. He stands back swaying slightly on his feet as she steps out of it. Her hands reach behind her back and she unhooks her bra, wriggles off her pants and slips off her sandals.
She turns to face him, smiling, holding her hands out to him. ‘Swim with me, Owen,’ she pleads. There is a buzz in his head, a bustle confusing him, making him forget that he cannot swim, that swimming to him is drowning. He bends to pull off his shoes, to peel off his shirt and trousers. You cannot swim, you cannot swim, you cannot swim, comes the mantra in his head. Suddenly uncertain, he shakes his head and backs a pace. She laughs. Then she is stepping like a skier down the concrete incline. ‘What are you afraid of ?’ she taunts, toeing the water. A spray of pearls scatter and melt back into the mirror. She stretches up her arms and shuts her eyes.
‘Naomi, be careful!’ he cries, as if remembering something, someone. But her knees are bent and the next moment she is arcing through the air, and disappearing like a flying fish into the water. The explosive splash, the concentric ripples, all still in seconds. His eyes rove the mirror seeking the spot where the water will split into jagged shards, and she will emerge. But it remains perfectly smooth, polished, nothing stirring beneath its surface. He begins counting the seconds in his head, trying to gauge how long she can safely hold her breath. He reaches twenty with no sign of her. He grips the sandpaper bank with the soles of his feet, and pigeon walks down to the water’s edge. He side steps back and forth, shading his eyes from the dazzling moon, straining them in the shining, unsure what to do. It is fifty seconds, when, far out in the lake, she rockets up.
‘Naomi! Naomi, are you okay? I thought something had happened.’ She is swimming towards him, moving sleek as a shark through the black and silver fluid. He watches her approach with envy, wishing it was him, that he could glide over the ghost village and not be paralysed with terror.
‘Owen, it’s fantastic. Come on in,’ she beckons, waving a hand.
‘I can’t swim,’ he tells her. Then, ‘I can’t swim,’ he tells himself.
‘Put your arms around my neck and we’ll ride over the lake,’ she pleads. ‘You have nothing to be scared of. I’ll look after you.’ She is by the bank now, making grabs for his feet.
‘No, no, I’m not ready,’ he pulls back.
‘What’s the matter, Owen? Don’t you trust me?’ she asks. She keeps slipping under the mirror, her head popping up again.
‘It’s not that. I just can’t.’ He sits down and draws his knees up to his chest. ‘I’ll watch you swim. I’ll enjoy that.’ She sculls the water for a bit so that she appears to be pinned in position. ‘I can’t change your mind?’ He shakes his head and she shrugs. Then she is off playing like a dolphin, rolling and flipping and kicking. He knows that if he was sober he could not be doing this, that seeing her water tricks would bring his krakens lumbering to the surface. Only the numbness makes it possible.
‘You’ll have to help me to get out,’ she calls ten minutes later. ‘It’s too steep.’ He gets up, goes forward, bends from the waist and offers her his hand. She grasps it and he heaves her up. She clasps him, her body cold and sleek and shaking with exhilarated laughter. ‘It was so good, so very good!’ she breathes, this Teodora, who has swum up from the ghost village to find her lover. ‘You should have joined me. I’d have kept you safe. Because I am the lady of the lake, the lady of the lake.’ Her voice is husky, musical, the siren’s song. He surrenders to its unbearable harmonies. And then they are kissing and he can taste mountain water in her mouth, trickling down her neck, varnishing her breasts. They stagger back, still entwined, up the bank and to a patch of grass. She wraps her dripping thighs about him, and as he sinks into her, gasping for air, his is the surprise of the drowning man.
He wakes with a jolt. His head is thumping. The interior of his mouth feels like flour. The previous day unrolls before his sore eyes. The abandoned village. The country dancers. Sitting by the fountain. The meal in Castelnuovo. The lakeside bar. Naomi swimming. And then . . . Owen swipes a hand over his mouth as if trying to rid himself of a bad taste in it. He turns his head on the pillow to see Naomi sitting up, staring back down at him. She has pushed the twin beds together.
‘Good morning,’ she says. She bends and kisses the crown of his head. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘Mm . . . like . . . a rock,’ he stutters.
‘Hung over?’
‘Just a bit,’ he winces.
‘We’ve a long day ahead.’ She has not taken off last night’s make-up. The foundation is blotchy, the mascara has clumped, and her breath is sour. Her hair is a mess. She looks old, overnight old, her paint peeling.
He is full of remorse and regret. He was drunk. He thinks about the lake and his stomach heaves. Then he thinks about the sex and he is filled with revulsion and self-loathing, and a dreadful sense of the irrevocable. ‘I’ll make some coffee. Why don’t you take a shower, get dress—’
‘We could shower together,’ she interrupts him with a lascivious giggle.
‘No,’ he says too vehemently. Christ, how is he going to tell her that it was a mistake, that it should never have happened? Her brow creases in displeasure. ‘I mean, we’ve too much to do.’ He is about to leap out of bed when he realizes he is stark naked under the sheet. Perhaps it was naive to assume that if he accompanied Naomi to Italy their relationship would stay platonic. He’d been a fool. He should have kept his wits about him, instead of letting himself get roaring drunk. But after all, she was broken and grieving. He knew that she needed friendship, support, though surely not sex?
‘Okay. Plenty of time,’ she smiles suggestively, bouncing out of bed and running to the shower.
They thank their landlord and bid farewell to Lorenzo, promising to remember him to his brother, Enrico. Owen’s relief at their departure is apparently shared by the handful of villagers who come to see them off, their expressions collectively surly. With every mile he puts between him and the lake with its drowned village full of ghosts, the sinister atmosphere seems to dissipate. They drive with the top down. And as the Spitfire picks up speed, zig-zagging the mountain roads, the air gusts into their flushed faces, cooling them. By the time they pull into a roadside café for lunch, he is less downhearted. It still remains for him to broach the subject of last night’s unwise liaison. But he sees no reason why it should be such a trial to explain away, to extricate himself from what was, after all, a brief drunken episode. In fact, describing it as an episode at all is really according it a gravitas it does not merit. Truly, if his somewhat fragmented memory serves him right, the entire encounter was more like a few camera frames flashing by unnoticed.
He likes Naomi, and he has to confess, thought her attractive initially. But it was more curiosity than lust. He sees that now. Her maturity and experience, her blatant sexuality, her confidence, her tactility, even her mystifying past, these are all magnets that would naturally attract a young man. But in hindsight, they have nothing whatsoever in common. The tracks of their diverse lives have crossed one another, that is all. And now they will continue their journeys separately. Apart from anything else, there is the discrepancy in their ages. He concedes that this is not an insurmountable obstacle if love is at stake. But it isn’t. And, he tells himself, as they find a table and sit down to drink their coffees and eat their sandwiches, she probably sees it in much the same light. A preposterous incident. High spirits. A holiday fling under cover of darkness. And that lethal grappa leading them on. They both got carried away, dug in their spurs and the moment galloped off with them. But now that they are heading back home it is time to rein in and take stock. It seems sensible, to Owen, to take the initiative and dispel any misunderstandings quickly, before they become ingrained. Besides, it would be prudent to have their tête-à-tête before they overnight in a hotel, to avoid any awkward embarrassment.
‘Naomi?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to quit the market.’ He waits to see how she takes his announcement. She sips her coffee, blows the steam off the cup, and appraises him with her queer eyes. ‘I’ve stayed long enough. It wasn’t intended to be permanent. Just a summer job. Filling in.’ He sounds as if he is making excuses.
She runs an index finger back and forth along her neck chain, as if easing a tight collar, then stops abruptly. ‘I’ve been thinking the same. Time to move on. A fresh start. A new beginning.’
He smiles over at her. Showered, in fresh clothes, with her make-up newly applied, she looks altogether more self-assured. He wonders if he has been worrying unduly. The café is busy. Animated conversations conducted in Italian, co-ordinated with frenzied gesticulations, fly from customer to customer, the clatter of trays, the hiss of steam, the ring of a till, all reach him like surround-sound. ‘That’s a great idea. A change will do you good,’ he says approvingly. But he is not thinking of her benefit. It is Catherine and Bria who interrupt the train of his thoughts. His hair has grown too, bleached to wheat-gold by the sun. He rakes his flop of fringe off his face. His skin glows with wind burn. What she asks next brings him back with a jolt.
‘Where shall we go, Owen?’
Despite not having started on his sandwich, he wipes his mouth with a paper serviette as fastidiously as if it is covered with grease. ‘We?’ he queries hesitantly.
‘You and me.’ She is pulling at the chain again and he can see where it is cutting into the base of her neck, the indented lines pinking.
‘Naomi, I’m going by myself,’ he corrects her. She tilts her head, a childlike confusion in her eyes. ‘What happened last night, by the lake . . . well, it shouldn’t have. We were both a bit drunk. If we’re honest with ourselves and . . . and each other, it meant . . . nothing.’ He rubs at his brow with the flat of his hand. The temperature between them has suddenly dropped. He feels it penetrate like an icy blast.
‘Nothing?’ she echoes, staring at him, her face still as a millpond.
‘God no, Naomi, that came out all wrong. It was . . . nice, of course. Just not . . . not appropriate.’ He rests his elbows on the table and clasps his hands in an effort to still them. She tugs on the chain as though it is strangling her, and it snaps and drops, landing among the chewed crusts on her plate. ‘Oh! It’s broken. I’m sorry.’ Reflexively he reaches for it, to see if he can fix it. But she shields it with her hands, stopping him, then snatches it up herself. ‘Maybe I can mend it.’
‘It’s not worthwhile. It’s only cheap gilt,’ she says acerbically. ‘Costume jewellery. Throw-away.’
He sighs with regret. ‘I’m not handling this terribly well, am I?’ Her shrunken eyes give him his answer. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, especially after you’ve been through so much. But believe me, we’re not suited to one another. You’ve had horrible luck. Sean, and the pregnancy. And really I do think you should give yourself a chance with someone else, but—’
‘But just not you,’ she finishes for him.
‘Naomi, you can’t think it would ever work out with us. For starters, I’m so much younger than you.’ Her eyes blaze and he closes his own. With every sentence he is making more of a hash of this. When he reopens them it is with hand-picked words at the forefront of his mind. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m fond of you. I care what happens to you, but not like that. If I gave the wrong impression, if I misled you, then I promise it wasn’t intentional.’
A few links of the gilt chain dangle from her clenched boxer’s fists. ‘I thought you were different,’ she says, reassessing him frankly with those preternatural orbs. He squirms under her microscopic inspection. The café doors swing open and a group of teenage girls in bright dresses come chattering in, and make their way towards the self-service queue. Glancing up at them, he wishes that their high spirits were his, that there was nothing more taxing for him to do today than select a lunch. He pushes away his plate, and drains his now lukewarm coffee. ‘I’ve been stupid. I should have understood how susceptible you are at the moment. All I can say is that I am so sorry. Please, don’t let this spoil our friendship.’
She tosses the chain on the table. ‘Is there someone else? A girlfriend?’ she asks with a lift of her brows.
‘No, no! Look, trust me, I’m a mess. I need time to sort myself out.’
‘Are you lying to me, Owen?’
‘No. I’d never do that.’ He has a sudden prick of conscience, as he recalls reporting to her that he did not go into Sean’s house, that he did not see the baby, Bria. With shaky hands she rifles in her bag for her cigarettes and matches. She knocks the packet a couple of times on the side of the table, her teeth closing around the tallest, pulling it out. On her third attempt to light it, he takes the matches from her, strikes one and holds the steady flame to the trembling tip. She inhales, breathes out the smoke, then waves it away.
‘I can wait for you,’ she begs.
He shakes his head. ‘Please, don’t make this any more difficult than it already is. I’m not ready for a relationship,’ he says bluntly, accepting that there is no kind way to reject her. What he does not add is that he is not ready for a relationship with her, that he never will be.
‘When we get back I shall tell Sean I’m going, give him . . . and you, a few weeks to sort things out. And then I’m leaving.’ She opens her mouth to speak but he pre-empts her. ‘Nothing will change my mind, Naomi.’ For a few minutes they sit facing each other. ‘And if you take my advice,’ he continues, his tone suddenly inexplicably tender, ‘you will move on too. Because . . . because you deserve better than this.’ He has leant forward, addressing her, as the cigarette in her hand burns down. But he is dwelling on the heaviness of Catherine’s head cushioned against his beating heart.