Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) (30 page)

She runs over to the window and opens it, hoping the bird will fly out of its own accord. Yet it seems possessed, unable to find its way. It continues to fly around the room, knocking into the saucepans hanging down from the rack and the jars of spices on the windowsill.

Come on, little blackbird, out you go!

Finally the bird lands on top of the fridge, blinking at Valentina with its tiny jet-black eyes. She waits by the window, waves to the bird. She is not sure if it senses her, but suddenly
it launches itself across the room and just like that is out of the window. In the end so easily; no need for its fear.

Valentina closes the window quickly. She sits down at the kitchen table and chews her bottom lip, thinking about the bird. Is that good or bad luck to have a blackbird in your kitchen?

She spreads her hands on the surface of the wooden table and takes a deep breath. Last night. She finds it hard to believe it really happened. But it did. She puts her hands on her backside. It feels a little sore, but not painful. She gets up and goes into the bedroom, stands with her back to her mirror, twisting around to look at her bottom. Remarkably, it is blemish-free. Not one little burn or redness from her experience with Leonardo.

She feels different today. All of these erotic investigations are having a profound effect on her. She is realising that sex can never just be casual, even if it is free spirited. She thought that she could remain an observer, like a true photographer, but there is something within her that cannot resist participating. She thinks of Theo’s emails:
Have fun
, as if he is encouraging her. He was there in Leonardo’s club the other night, with her and Leonardo and Celia. He is part of it all. She thought that by doing what she did with Leonardo last night she could break free from Theo and let him go, but instead it makes her want him more. She can’t understand the logic of her need. But it is there, primal and urgent, heating her blood. And why oh why has he disappeared again? He
was there one moment, gone the next. He didn’t even talk to her. Is he trying to prove a point? It is all very convoluted and confusing . . . just like Theo himself, she supposes.

A possibility occurs to her for the first time. Maybe she could try to be his girlfriend, like he asked. Maybe she can take the risk and trust him.

If only he would come back. She has had enough of waiting for him. Okay, she thinks as she picks up her phone and scrolls down to his number, you win, Theo. Yet the phone rings out; it doesn’t even go to voicemail. She flings it down on the bed in frustration.

Her doorbell buzzes. She goes into the hall and picks up her intercom.

‘Package for Signorina Rosselli.’

It is from Mattia. Her mother’s pictures that he said he would send her. Although the package looks a little large to be just photographs. She tears open the wrapping to find two bundles. One is an old cardboard folder decorated with the winged lion of Venice. She opens it up, and a sheaf of photographs flutter to the floor. Some of them are recent. Of Valentina when she was growing up. A serious, heavy-browed, plump little girl, with her signature black bob even then. She cannot bear to look at the ones when she was a teenager, she was so pitifully thin. How could her mother have let that happen to her? And then there is a stack of really old photographs. Not of her mother, but of her grandmother, Maria, when she was a little girl. Maria was a smiling child,
and obviously adored by her own mother. Picture after picture of Valentina’s grandmother and great-grandmother hand in hand in front of the grand old palazzos of Venice, or her grandmother on her own mother’s lap in a gondola, the misty black and white landscape of the Adriatic lagoon bleaching into a nothing sky. There are no photographs of her grandmother’s father, or any siblings, and Valentina has a distant memory of being told that her grandmother’s father died when she was a baby, and that she was an only child.

There are two pictures that intrigue Valentina in particular. One is of her great-grandmother dressed in a sailor’s outfit, looking thoroughly modern in her flared white trousers, an admiral’s jacket and sailor’s cap. She isn’t smiling; in fact her expression is ferocious. Most remarkable of all is her hairstyle. A sleek black helmet bob, just like Louise Brooks; in fact very similar to the model in the erotic negative Valentina was just looking at. Very close in style to her own hair, although her bob is slightly longer, and more feathery. Finally, to her surprise, Valentina finds a picture of herself as a baby, on the lap of her great-grandmother. She can recognize it as the same woman, because although she is obviously very old, she has the same powerful gaze as in the other pictures of her, and of course there is the bobbed hair, now as white as snow. Valentina trails her finger over the image. She wishes she had known her great-grandmother when she was young and living in Venice. She has a feeling about her, as if they might have understood each other better than herself and her mother.

Valentina turns to the second bundle Mattia has sent. It is much larger, and to her delight it is full of vintage clothes. She pulls out item after item. Some of them look very rare. Are these from her mother as well? She guesses by the style of them that they could have been her great-grandmother’s clothes. She feels a thrill of excitement. They are all absolutely exquisite. She hunts around for a card or note of explanation from her brother, but she can find nothing. She thinks of her friend Marco, and his obsession with all things vintage. He will go crazy when he sees this hoard. There is a very short maid’s uniform, a divine Egyptian costume, a tailored pinstripe suit that is too small to be for a man, a trilby, a cloche hat, a short black ballerina dress with a stiff tutu, all sorts of ancient corsets, suspender belts and feathers. She pulls out a pair of black silk shorts and a sleeveless white silk blouse, a little discoloured but wearable, and a black silk scarf tied in a floppy bow. There is a long string of pearls that Valentina can’t believe her mother would give her. Surely they are worth something? But the real thrill is when she finds the sailor’s outfit from the photograph she just looked at, along with the hat. Here is the evidence that these are her great-grandmother’s party costumes when she lived in Venice.

Valentina tries on some of the costumes. Everything fits her perfectly, as if they were tailored for her. She could actually wear some of these clothes out. She remembers that today is Tuesday, and Marco’s party is later. She should wear one of
the outfits. The more flamboyant the better. That will please her friend.

So she won’t be going into the Dark Room tonight at least. Her heart skips a beat. Is she disappointed, or relieved? She really isn’t sure. She opens the French windows and steps out on to her tiny balcony, her dressing gown slung loosely over one of the old corsets. Now that the rain has gone, it is warm for October. Maybe she could show a little flesh later. She surveys the street. She notices one of those tiny Smart cars parked opposite her apartment, with a tall man sitting inside it, his head almost crushed against its roof. Really not the car for a man with such a build, she thinks. She wonders who he is waiting for. Which of her neighbours is dating a Smart car man? It is hardly romantic to have to sit behind your boyfriend while he drives, as if you are in the cockpit of a plane. But then it could be slightly sexy, she muses, if you could reach around the front seat and caress him as he drove. He could feel you, but he wouldn’t see you.

Just as she is thinking this, the man turns and looks up at her. To her surprise, he picks a camera up off his lap and directs it at her. Did he just take a picture of her?

She steps back inside the room and closes the French windows. She is furious. How dare some stranger take pictures of her? She realises now that he must be the same man she saw in the garden last week. She pulls on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, not caring about a bra or panties she is in such a hurry. She doesn’t even have the patience to wait for the lift,
and runs down the three flights of stairs to street level in her bare feet. She storms out of her apartment building, but despite the fact that she is so quick, the Smart car and its occupant is gone. She thinks about ringing the police, but what could she tell them? She
thinks
a strange man in a Smart car took a picture of her? It sounds stupid, and really she doesn’t want to focus any attention on herself after Inspector Garelli’s interrogation about Theo and the pictures.

Back in her apartment, she dresses for Marco’s party. She is going to cycle to his flat, and it’s warm enough to wear the black silk shorts, with the little white blouse tucked into them and the bow tied loosely around the collar. When she looks in the mirror, it occurs to her that she looks very like Louise Brooks in her famous sailor outfit. She opens up her laptop and searches for an image of Louise. Sure enough, there she is, looking just like Valentina looks tonight. Louise Brooks was a rebel, and her free spirit cost her dear – a Hollywood career. Yet Valentina admires her greatly. She was an advocate for sexual liberation for women in the twenties and thirties. Yet still, nearly ninety years later, women are dealing with much the same prejudices. Valentina wonders if that is why her mother sometimes appears so hard. She was supposed to be living the ideal relationship in the sixties with Valentina’s father, the perfect balance of freedom and possession. Yet something went wrong. Did her father begin to judge her mother? Was he not the liberated man he claimed to be? She
has no idea. It is the one subject her mother refuses to discuss. This infuriates Valentina. The man may have walked out on her mother, but he is still her father. He walked out on her and Mattia too. Shouldn’t they know whether he is dead or alive, at least? But Mattia claims he doesn’t care, and something always stops Valentina from looking for him herself. Fear, she supposes. Of getting hurt.

By the time she arrives at Marco’s party, it is in full swing.

‘Valentina!’ he cries when he sees her, his eyes flashing from too much wine already. ‘You look amazing. Where did you get that outfit? It looks vintage.’

‘It
is
vintage,’ Valentina tells him, as he hooks his arm through hers and brings her into the sitting room. ‘I got a package of old clothes belonging to my great-grandmother today.’

‘
Dio mio!
’ Marco looks like he is about to pass out with excitement. ‘When can I come over?’

Valentina balances her glass of red wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She doesn’t smoke often, but sometimes she enjoys the luxury of a cigarette with a drink. Marco’s sitting room is thick with smoke. She is disappointed to see that he has invited some of the dope crowd. She has never understood the attraction that most of her contemporaries in Milan have for marijuana. Many of them grow their own, and approach its cultivation as a fine art. She finds smoking it
okay, yet she feels she doesn’t need it to get out of her body, if that is why they are doing it in the first place. Drugs in general don’t interest her, since her dreams are psychedelic enough. She doesn’t judge anyone if they want to take drugs, but if everyone is smoking dope, she finds that the party becomes a bit boring too early on, and conversation is certainly limited.

She walks through the lounging smokers; a few of them call out to her, offering her a spliff, but she politely shakes her head and makes for Marco’s terrace. Where has he gone? She wants to tell him all about her great-grandmother’s costumes. Maybe he could come over tomorrow and they could dress up together. Maybe she could talk to him about Theo. Out of all her friends, he is the most likely to understand how she feels. She might even tell him about the Dark Room. She wonders if he knows what it is.

She pulls back the sliding door into Marco’s tiny back yard. It is good to breathe in some oxygen after the smoky confines of his apartment. She steps outside to finish off her cigarette, balancing her glass of wine on top of an empty plant container.

‘Do you have a light?’

What a corny line, Valentina thinks as she turns around. The man in front of her looks vaguely familiar. She has obviously met him at one of Marco’s parties before.

‘Sure.’ She takes her lighter out of her shorts pocket, and steps forward to light his cigarette. He cups his hand around hers, although there is no breeze. She hesitates, looking him in
the eyes before she pulls back. She notices how long his eyelashes are, like a woman’s, although the rest of his face is angular and rugged, and he is very tall with a broad build. She can tell by the way he looks at her that he isn’t gay.

‘I like your outfit,’ the man says, looking her up and down.

Valentina instinctively pulls down the tiny black shorts, which have ridden up her thighs. She supposes she does look a little provocative, but then this is one of Marco’s parties. Everyone dresses up, although this man looks quite ordinary in his blue and white shirt and blue jeans.

‘So how do you know Marco?’ she says, ignoring his comment.

‘Oh, you know, from round about,’ he says vaguely, puffing away on his cigarette.

‘Do you work in the fashion trade?’ she asks him.

He laughs shortly.

‘Do I look like I work in fashion?’

‘No,’ she says, stubbing out her cigarette, suddenly annoyed. She picks up her glass of wine and makes to pass him, but the man blocks her way back into the apartment.

‘Excuse me,’ she says, trying to push past him. He doesn’t move quickly enough for her, and Valentina gives him a shove, in the process of which she spills her red wine, fortunately not on her great-grandmother’s silk blouse, but all over the man’s shirt.

‘Oh,’ she says, a little embarrassed. ‘I am sorry, but you didn’t get out of my way.’

‘I didn’t realise you were in such a hurry to get away from me.’

‘I wasn’t . . . I was just cold . . . Look, do you want to take it off? I could get some salt from the kitchen and we could try to remove the wine with it.’

The man smiles at her, although it is not an altogether friendly smile.

‘Sure,’ he says, unbuttoning his shirt and peeling it off. He has very pale skin, nearly as pale as hers. It is free from any body hair whatsoever, yet his chest is broad and manly. He hands her the shirt.