The Mermaid Garden (60 page)

though they included him in conversation, they didn’t pay him much

attention, so engrossed were they in each other. Dante’s tender gaze

was unmistakable, and she seemed to swell beneath it, shedding the

years with each peel of laugher.

Rafa grew subdued, withdrawing into the background while they

basked in the strange magic they generated. How peculiar, he thought

to himself, that sometimes when one question is answered, another is

raised; and the answer to
that
question was the very thing he feared the most.

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35.

Clementine did not go into work. She telephoned Sylvia and in her

croakiest voice explained that she was feeling rotten with a mys-

tery bug and didn’t want to contaminate the office. “I think Mr. At-

wood is in enough trouble at home already,” she said.

Sylvia knew she was faking, but she didn’t mind. She imagined Cle-

mentine wanted to spend the day with Rafa, and she didn’t blame her.

She switched on her computer and wondered whether there was a Rafa

out there for her.

But Rafa had left that morning for Italy, and the hotel echoed with

his absence. Clementine wandered through the rooms like a lost dog,

aching with longing and loneliness. She took Biscuit for a walk along

the cliffs and took her phone out of her pocket more than once to see

whether Rafa had sent her a text. She thought of calling him to say she was sorry she had run off without waiting to hear his explanation, but

each time she stopped herself middial, afraid of what he had to tell her.

She found her father in the library, replacing the books the brigadier

had returned.

“He hasn’t been reading so much since he asked Jane Meister to

marry him,” said Grey, climbing the ladder to put Andrew Rob-

erts’s
Masters and Commanders
back in the military section. “He’s a happy man.”

“Lucky him.”

He glanced down at his daughter’s disgruntled face. “What are you

so gloomy about?”

She folded her arms and looked out of the window at the sea. It was

a beautiful day, blue skies and the ocean as flat as a mirror. “Dad, do you fancy taking me out in your boat?”

Grey stopped what he was doing and came down the ladder. “I’d

love to.”

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She smiled feebly. “I’d really like to spend some time with you.”

Grey gently patted her shoulder. This small gesture of tenderness

struck Clementine with a sudden wave of neediness, and she threw

herself against him. He froze in surprise, not knowing how to respond.

It had been many years since he had embraced her; he had forgotten

what it felt like. But she didn’t pull away. Tentatively, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He didn’t ask what the matter was,

for he sensed that once she was out in the middle of the sea, she would tell him.

The following morning Marina awoke to the long-forgotten sounds of

Italy. The birds chirruped high in the umbrella pines, and the scents of the garden wafted in on a warm, sea breeze. She could smell pine and

soil, rosemary and cut grass, and the sound of gardeners watering the

borders with hoses was a distinctly foreign one. She opened her eyes

and let her gaze wander leisurely around the bedroom. It was extrava-

gantly decorated, with tall ceilings and elaborate moldings, delicate antique furniture, and silk curtains in a pale, duck-egg blue.

Once, she had believed she would live here with Dante and have

many golden-haired children to love, but that was long ago—another

life. Now, as she lay in the big, luxurious bed with a view over the gardens she had once believed to be paradise, she didn’t feel the old sense of longing or loss, but something different: a contentment of sorts. It was as if she could at last put the past behind her, because now she was back, she realized it no longer had the power to hurt her.

She got up and pulled open the curtains. Gazing into the sunshine,

she let the breeze brush her skin with soft caresses. She viewed the

grounds with detachment and realized how much she had changed.

She wasn’t Floriana anymore. She was Marina, with an English hus-

band and an English life. Although there had been a moment last night

when she had believed Marina to be the mask, she now realized that

she
was
Marina, and Floriana no more than a memory she gave life to in her thoughts. The past was gone, and she could never get it back.

But she didn’t want it back. She inhaled deep into the bottom of her

lungs and closed her eyes. She didn’t want
the past
back, only the son she had left there, and she yearned for him with all her heart. The early 30067 The Mermaid Garden.indd 390

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days of her exile, when the gray English skies and cold, penetrating rain had sent her into a frenzy of homesickness, were long gone. The hours

pacing the beach in frustration while she waited for news of her son

from Father Ascanio were gone, and the old priest was now dead.

The trauma of beginning again in a strange country, learning a new

language and remaining in isolation because her heart was too broken

to make friends, had also gone—and, like a tree in winter, she had re-

mained frozen until spring had revealed little green shoots and finally blossoms, and she had grown strong. She now knew that she could

survive anything, even the loss of her beloved Polzanze, because she

had lost her son and yet she still had the capacity to take pleasure in life, and love.

She gazed into the azure sky, where a bird of prey circled silently

on the wind, and felt an expansion in her chest, a sense of something

greater than herself: a sense of God. Closing her eyes again and feeling that warm presence on her face, she let Him back into her heart. And

she sent up a prayer for the only thing that really mattered now: her

child.

When she stepped out onto the terrace, she found Dante and Rafa

already enjoying a hearty breakfast. They were chatting away like old

friends. Rafa noticed at once the change in Marina. She had a lightness of being that made her look younger, almost girlish.

After breakfast they returned to the car. The butler had put their

bags in the boot and now stood holding the passenger’s-side door

open. Dante suggested they drive into Herba, but Marina refused. She

had seen enough.

She took his hand and quietly, so Rafa couldn’t hear, she whispered

to him softly, “I’m not that girl anymore, Dante.”

His eyes grew foggy, and he squeezed her fingers. “But I’m the same

boy who loves you.”

Rafa watched them embrace. They held each other tightly and for a

long time. He turned away and cast his gaze into the coppice of pine

trees, where a couple of squirrels were chasing each other up a skinny

trunk, disappearing into the thatch of green needles. He felt a stab of jealousy and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

Dante did not want to let her go. She still looked the same, in spite

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of her honey-colored hair. When she had stepped out that morning, he

had caught his breath at the sight of her, and had gripped the table as he was suddenly whisked back forty years. He regretted not having the

courage to elope when he had had the chance all those years ago, and he regretted not trying harder to find her. He watched her climb into the

car and waved as it motored slowly down the drive. He could still smell her scent on his skin and feel her soft body in his arms, and his longing surprised him, for surely too many years had gone by for him to yearn

for her in that way. Fate had intervened and taken her from him once;

now it took her from him again. But this time she wasn’t lost—and

they had a son. He rubbed his chin. How he had ached for a son.

With a purposeful stride he climbed back up the steps into the

house. “Lavanti, I’m going back to Milan,” he shouted to his butler,

then disappeared into his office.

Marina glanced back one final time as the car swept through the

gates of La Magdalena. She watched them close behind her, shutting

on the past, relegating it to the attic of her mind to be boxed up and put away with the rest of Floriana’s life.

“You seem happier today,” Rafa commented, a little bitterly.

“I am,” she sighed. Rafa chewed on her words pensively. “But I didn’t

get what I came for. I never asked.” She looked out of the window, at a mother with two small children wandering slowly down the road. “If

I lose the Polzanze, so be it. It is only a house. I can take all the important things with me.”
Because all the important things have been within
me all along
.

“I don’t suppose Grey knows that you speak fluent Italian.”

“No, he doesn’t. I have a great deal of explaining to do.”

“I suppose it would be presumptuous to ask you to explain to me?”

“It would, Rafa.” She looked down at her ring. “It is only fair that

I come clean with my husband first. Then, I will come clean with all of you. I don’t want to hide who I am anymore.”

He frowned at her, feeling an odd sense of rejection. After that, neither spoke. They both stared out of the window, alone with their thoughts.

They arrived back at the Polzanze that evening. Grey, Clementine,

Jake, Harvey, and Mr. Potter were all waiting in the conservatory to

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hear whether she had saved the hotel. Marina suddenly felt the heavy

weight of responsibility, as if she had just donned a cloak of lead. So many depended on her and the Polzanze, and she had failed them. She

looked at their eager faces and was suddenly deflated.

“I need to talk to Grey,” she said.

“Did you get it?” Clementine asked, unable to contain her impa-

tience.

“No, I didn’t,” she replied.

The air sank around them like damp snow. She wanted to reassure

them that it didn’t matter. But it
did
matter. It mattered terribly, to them.

Clementine pulled a sympathetic smile. “We’ll be okay,” she said,

fighting tears. She hadn’t realized until now how much the Polzanze

meant to her. She looked at Rafa, but he was unable to meet her eye. He looked so sad, as if the night in Italy had piled on a decade. She wanted to shake him. Didn’t he know by now how much she loved him?

Marina looked at her husband. “Grey, will you walk with me? There’s

something I need to tell you.”

Grey had known right from the beginning of their courtship that

she was keeping something secret from him. The recurring nightmares,

when she cried out in her sleep then sobbed in his arms, hinted at something dark and terrible that she was unable to share. He hadn’t ever

asked her what it was, for he had trusted that, in time, when she was

ready, she would tell him. He hadn’t expected it to take so many years.

Now she took his hand, and they walked down to the beach where she

had spent so many hours gazing out to sea, mourning her inability to

conceive. They strolled up the sand, and Marina took her time.

“Will you promise me one thing, Grey?”

“Of course.”

“Will you try not to judge me?”

“I won’t judge you, my darling.”

“Yes, you will. It’s only natural. Please don’t think less of me because I hid this from you. It was the only way I could cope.”

“All right.”

“And you know that I love you.” She stopped and took both his

hands in hers. “I love you for your patience, your compassion, and for

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the fact that you have always loved me, in spite of knowing there was a depth in me that I never let you reach.”

“Marina, darling, whatever it is, I’ll still love you.”

She took a deep breath, and without being aware of it, she gripped

his hands tightly. “My name is Floriana Farussi. I’m Italian. I was born in a little seaside town called Herba in Tuscany. My mother ran off

with a tomato seller from the market, taking my little brother with her, leaving me with my inebriated father, Elio. I was as good as an orphan, but I always dreamed of something more.”

She was so intent on telling her story that she hadn’t noticed her

husband had gone as gray as a carp.

She talked at length, and she told him everything. They sat on the

sand, and she described the summer she fell in love with Dante, the

time she nearly killed herself jumping off the high cliff into the sea, and the moment he had made love to her. She told him about Good-Night

and Costanza, and the wickedness of her mother, the countess.

As she told him about her pregnancy, her hopes for her future with

Dante, and the loss of her child in the convent, Grey began to under-

stand her more profoundly. He realized now why she had paced the

sand, mourning the loss of her child whom she had nurtured for such a

short time, and why her later inability to conceive had nearly destroyed her. He understood why she had suffered night terrors, and why she