Homecoming Girls (22 page)

Federico took off his hat and gave a slight bow to the young
women. ‘I had hoped,’ he said, ‘to see these charming ladies again and guessed that they might be here. And as I was passing I thought I would look in.’

So he hadn’t told Lorenzo that he was going to call, Clara mused. Why was that, I wonder?

‘I’m about to make coffee,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Perhaps you’d like to stay and also enjoy a piece of special cake?’

‘Indeed I would.’ Federico threw his hat on to the hat stand and came to greet Clara and Jewel. ‘Mm.’ He sniffed appreciatively. ‘Fruit cake. Maria’s speciality.’

They sat down and Maria came in to slice the cake. Jewel thanked her for her generosity. Maria patted her on the shoulder and said it was the least she could do to show how pleased she was to see her. ‘To see both of you.’ She included Clara within her big smile.

‘I was thinking.’ Federico stretched his long legs. ‘How would the ladies like to take a ride along the coast? I’ve got the buggy outside and it’s a lovely day now that the fog has lifted. Perhaps we could take a picnic?’

‘You know I can’t get away during lunchtime,’ Lorenzo told him. ‘Not all of us exist only for pleasure.’ His tone, though jocular, had a slight edge to it. ‘Some of us work for a living.’ He disappeared into the kitchen to make the coffee.

Clara glanced curiously at Federico. Surely he must do something with his time? Yet he couldn’t have a regular commitment, she thought, as he hadn’t hesitated over the suggestion of coming to meet her this morning.

‘Do you have a profession, Mr – Federico?’ she asked, and added with an engaging smile: ‘Or are you a gentleman of leisure?’

He nodded and grinned. ‘That’s what I am, much to the chagrin of my friends.’

Clara raised her eyebrows but said nothing. It was neither her business nor polite to enquire about his fortune.

‘Federico is very rich,’ Maria said, putting a slice of cake on each plate and handing them round, first to Jewel, then
to Clara and lastly to Federico. ‘But not by his own hand. His papa give ’im too much money. It make ’im lazy.’

The two girls were astonished by her openness. It was not done in their social circle to talk about money in such a lax way.

Federico shrugged and took a bite of cake. He blew a kiss to Maria. ‘Delicious,’ he mumbled. ‘One of your best.’

The cake was moist and fruity, and tasted of rum. Lorenzo brought the coffee to the table.

‘So you can’t come?’ Federico said. ‘That’s a pity.’ He glanced at Clara and then Jewel and smiled. ‘This is a beautiful coastline. If we can’t persuade Lorenzo to leave his dishes, perhaps I might be permitted to escort you myself?’

There was an awkward silence. Jewel broke it with an apology. ‘Thank you very much but I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Lorenzo has invited us to have lunch, and we have accepted. Perhaps some other time, when he is free?’

Clara leaned forward. ‘I’m curious,’ she said. ‘Is a buggy large enough to hold four passengers? In England a buggy is a two-wheeled vehicle, like a gig or a curricle.’

‘No ma’am,’ Federico said. ‘A buggy such as mine is a four-wheeled surrey. It’s quite new, well upholstered, and has a canopy to keep the sun off the passengers. It’s outside if you’d care to take a look.’ There was a touch of pride in his voice which was apparent to everyone.

‘You can go,’ Maria said suddenly to Lorenzo. ‘I can manage. Pinyin will help me.’

Lorenzo opened his mouth to protest, but Clara spoke first. ‘Excuse me, but couldn’t we go after lunch?’ she suggested. ‘Lorenzo has said that he’s making a special meal in Jewel’s honour.’

Lorenzo looked at her gratefully and glanced at Federico. ‘You can stay and eat with us.’

Federico appeared doubtful; he looked as if he was used to having his own way, but then he said, ‘Well, thanks. That would be really good.’ He pushed back his seat. ‘Excuse me. I’ll just check that the mare is secure.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t want her setting off home without me!’

Lorenzo cooked a delicious meal for the four of them, his mother declining to eat but insisting she served. They started with a small plate of prawns tucked into a thin pastry parcel on a bed of spinach. Then Maria brought in a large dish of just tender fettuccini pasta in which Lorenzo had tossed thin strips of succulent chicken breast, garlic, herbs, red pepper and a creamy white wine sauce, topped with grated Parmesan cheese. He then served Jewel and Clara and invited Federico to help himself.

‘Delicious!’ Jewel said, wiping her mouth on a crisp white table napkin. ‘I remember eating pasta with you, Lorenzo, when we were children, but I don’t recall it tasting like this.’ She put her hand over her mouth as she realized that Maria might think her remark a slight on her cooking.

Maria lifted her hands. ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘I no cook like this for bambinos. Only pasta with butter or olive. Or mushroom, or basil sauce.’

‘I’d never eaten pasta before I came here,’ Clara said. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘Tch!’
Maria said. ‘It is peasant food.’

They finished the meal with a board of different cheeses, and then were brought a plate of crisp biscotti made with almonds and pistachio nuts, which Maria urged Jewel and Clara to dip into small glasses of sweet wine.

Pinyin, in the meantime, had been clearing dishes from their table, and although he kept his eyes lowered Jewel felt that they were straying towards her. I must speak to him, she thought. He might have known my mother, or met her at some time. She resolved to have a conversation with him as soon as she could. Perhaps, she mused, he could advise me, and maybe better than Sun Sen or his father.

Federico seemed anxious for them to take the drive as soon as they were finished. At his mother’s insistence that he should take the afternoon off, Lorenzo changed into a jacket and donned a cream panama hat, which Jewel thought very dashing.

‘Will you come and sit up front with me, Miss Clara?’ Federico asked. ‘Plenty of room for two!’

She agreed that she would and he helped her up, then, sitting beside her, took the reins whilst Lorenzo assisted Jewel into the buggy, giving her a smile which made her feel very warm inside. She knew that she wouldn’t want to take her leave of him and go back to England. Whatever am I thinking of? How can I have such ideas? Papa and Mama would be devastated if I didn’t go home.

Federico drove them back down into the heart of the city, turned towards the bay and then climbed once again to show them the view from the topmost height possible.

‘What a sight, eh?’ he said. ‘There’s nowhere to beat it. Just take a look at those ships. They come in from all over the world.’

‘We live in a port town,’ Clara ventured and suddenly felt homesick. ‘Not as large as this by any means, of course, and we don’t have hills like these, or such a view, but—’

Federico turned and flashed a smile. ‘You’ll never want to go home, Miss Clara, not after being here in this wonderful city.’

‘Oh, but I will,’ she remonstrated. ‘Of course I will! There’s nowhere quite like home.’

She turned, expecting Jewel to back her up, but Jewel was not even looking at the view. Her eyes were cast down and her hand was being clasped in Lorenzo’s.

Goodness, Clara thought. Is Jewel falling in love? Whatever will we do?

They got out on a grassy area to gaze at the view and Federico, with one hand holding the reins, put the other on Clara’s shoulder. ‘See that clipper out there?’ he murmured in her ear.

‘Yes indeed,’ she said. ‘The three-masted. It’s a fine ship.’ She put her hand to her forehead, both to shade her eyes and to edge away from such close proximity. ‘Built for speed and originally to transport tea from Asia.’

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘You know about ships, do you?’

‘As I said,’ she was now convinced that he hadn’t listened to her, ‘we live in a port town. My home overlooks the Old Harbour which leads into the biggest dock in England.’ Then she took pity on his crestfallen expression and added, ‘The ships there are not so numerous as here, and are mostly fishing vessels, trawlers, barges, schooners and the like. But the transport ships come in from all over the world. And we export our wool and import cotton. It’s a very busy commercial port, but for passenger ships we mainly travel to Liverpool or London.’

‘Really!’ he said. ‘Well, shall we move on?’ He called to Lorenzo, who had climbed higher up a bank with Jewel, the better to admire the bay. ‘You’ll have food to prepare for this evening, I expect?’

Which he had: a large party was expected that night. Jewel and Clara tried to decline Lorenzo’s request that they should come for supper, thinking that they would be a distraction, but when they got back to the restaurant he and Maria insisted that they would keep a table free for them. Lorenzo didn’t include Federico in the invitation and Clara didn’t know whether to be pleased or sorry about the omission.

Federico, however, seemed indifferent to what might have been a slight, and asked if he might drive them back to their hotel.

‘Would you be so kind as to take us as far as Chinatown?’ Jewel asked him as they stepped into the vehicle. ‘There’s still time to look round before we need to go back to the hotel to change.’

He hesitated. ‘You’re not thinking of going alone? Just the two of you?’

‘Why, yes,’ Jewel said. ‘We did in New York. It’s perfectly safe.’

‘Not here it’s not,’ he answered tersely. ‘There’s always trouble with the Chinese. There are too many of them, that’s the top and bottom of it.’ He gazed openly at Jewel. ‘I don’t mean to offend, Miss Jewel, and I’m not including you in
what I say, for you’re a visitor to our country and not wholly Chinese, but—’

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Cavalli.’ Jewel’s voice was icy as she broke in. ‘I must advise you that I was born in this country just as you were, and my mother was Chinese, as perhaps your mother was Italian. I may not have been to California for many years, but I do not consider myself to be a visitor.’ She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘This, in a manner of speaking, is my homecoming.’

He had apologized profusely and humbly. ‘It’s a great weakness of mine,’ he’d said, standing by the surrey with his hand to his chest. ‘I may appear arrogant, I admit. I have too much money, as my friends are always at pains to remind me.’ He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I often wonder how I keep their friendship, but somehow I do. Forgive me.’

Clara immediately did, for he seemed quite penitent, but Jewel remained aloof even when he offered to escort them into Chinatown. She had coldly refused, and reluctantly he had dropped them close by with the warning to take great care.

‘I do believe he’s quite used to apologizing,’ Jewel said cuttingly, when he had driven off. ‘The words roll off his tongue with consummate ease and don’t mean a thing.’

Clara said nothing. She was bitterly disappointed. He had seemed so charming, an amusing companion; but it was plainly true that he was condescending and self-important and appeared to have done nothing with his life except spend his father’s fortune. But why should we judge, she thought? We don’t know him or anything about him.

‘He’s a wastrel,’ Jewel said.

‘That’s rather strong, cousin,’ Clara protested. ‘He may well have qualities that we’re not aware of, and it’s quite right that he should warn us of danger.’ She looked down the narrow street and the many smaller streets and alleys that led off it. ‘We are strangers to this area, after all, and we are women. Perhaps we’re being foolish to go alone.’

Jewel took her arm. ‘Nonsense,’ she said firmly. ‘We will not
do anything to endanger ourselves. We’ll simply observe, and then when I speak to Pinyin, as I intend to do this evening if there is an opportunity, I shall ask him if he would be willing to escort me so that I can make enquiries.’ She cast a glance at Clara, who had a bright spot of colour on each cheek and was pressing her lips together. ‘You don’t have to come with me, Clara,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘When I come again, I mean. But I won’t go without you now, if you don’t want to come.’

‘Of course I’ll come,’ Clara said. ‘We’ll look at the stores as other people are doing.’ She had noticed that there were many sightseers wandering about the streets, looking in shop windows and handling the silks and satins which were displayed on the stalls. It’s odd, she thought, that Jewel considered herself to be a visitor when we were in New York’s Chinatown, and yet here in San Francisco she claims to belong. What has brought about that change, I wonder? Was it seeing her father’s house and remembering that she spent part of her childhood here? And more to the point, will she come home with me, or will she want to stay?

They wandered arm in arm down the centre of the main street, at first keeping a watchful eye on those around them, but, as they became more confident, looking up at the colourful unintelligible signs above the stores. Gradually they drifted towards them, curious to see what items were being sold. Each time they stopped, a shopkeeper appeared in the doorway, bowing deeply and inviting them in broken English to come inside. Politely, they declined and moved on.

All around them were sounds; of tinkling bells and flutes, rattling beads and voices like the chattering of small birds, none of which they understood.

On the corner of an alley was a stall piled high with rich materials: scarlet satin, inky-black silk, deep red brocade with decoration of oriental patterns and flowers imprinted on them; Jewel and Clara were drawn towards them. A musky scent of incense and spice wafted on the air and they glanced beyond the stall to the alley. There was boarding above the entrance, painted with Chinese characters in black and blue,
telling them they knew not what; they glimpsed a crowd of men, some Chinese but mainly Caucasian, entering doorways above which young girls peeped out from behind curtained windows.