Tuscan Rose (27 page)

‘A palazzo and a country house! But you don’t love him!’

Signora Visconti was crying now. ‘No, I love you! But I can’t do it! The Church would not have it! I don’t want to burn in hell!’

Rosa froze, wondering what she should do. Antonio knew little about her private life and never pried. She didn’t want to learn more about his than was necessary. She stood up with the idea of taking Sibilla for a walk or to a cafe for a while. She was putting on her coat when a teary-eyed Signora Visconti burst from the backroom. She ran past Rosa with barely a glance towards her and rushed out of the shop. Rosa turned to see a stricken-looking Antonio standing behind her. She averted her eyes.

‘Buon giorno,
Rosa,’ he said.

‘Buon giorno,’
she replied, blushing. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea?’

‘Thank you. I could do with a cup of tea.’

Rosa picked up Sibilla and walked to the backroom to put the kettle on the stove. Antonio sat down at his desk and began making telephone calls to customers. Both of them kept up a semblance of normality, but the air was thick with tension.

In the afternoon, Antonio went to visit some craftsmen and Rosa stayed in the shop to meet with the customer coming to
collect the writing box. Antonio had provided a list of other items to consider in case the customer did not like the box, but Rosa was convinced that it was the perfect gift. She was cleaning some crystal vases when the bell to the shop tinkled. There was a swish of a skirt and the smell of orange blossoms. Rosa turned and froze to the spot. The red-blonde hair and the blue eyes were unmistakable. It was Signora Corvetto, the Marchese Scarfiotti’s mistress.

‘Buon giorno, signora,’
Rosa said, trying to recover her composure.

Signora Corvetto smiled but in a puzzled way. She had recognised Rosa but seemed to be having trouble placing where she had seen her before. Memories flooded back to Rosa. She remembered the day she had left the convent. Signora Corvetto had been in the car when the Marchese had picked her up. She had thrown her ermine wrap over Rosa’s knees.

‘Have you come about the writing box?’ Rosa managed to say.

‘Yes,’ answered Signora Corvetto, taking the seat Rosa offered to her. ‘Signor Parigi said it is a particularly beautiful one.’

Rosa smiled to hide her inner turmoil. Signora Corvetto would recognise her eventually. Then what would happen? Would she tell Antonio? Would she tell the Marchese Scarfiotti? Rosa had kept her agreement to stay away from the Scarfiotti family and to never mention them to anybody. But it seemed the past had caught up to her, whether she wanted it to or not.

Rosa brought the box to Signora Corvetto, who gave a gasp of delight when she saw it. She ran her fingers over the rosewood then undid the latch and looked inside. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘How clever of you to think of it.’

‘It has a secret compartment,’ said Rosa, demonstrating the springlock.

‘It’s perfect,’ said Signora Corvetto. ‘Would I be able to have it engraved?’

Rosa took out her notebook to write down Signora Corvetto’s instructions. Antonio hated people engraving objects; it destroyed
the value of the antique. But Rosa understood Signora Corvetto was looking for an exquisite gift, not for something to be resold.

‘What would you like the engraving to say?’ she asked.

‘For Clementina. Eighth of May, 1933.’

Rosa’s hand trembled but she did her best to appear calm. Darling Clementina. She remembered the garden party held in honour of her ninth birthday at the Villa Scarfiotti.
Signora Corvetto is very nice. She comes to see me every birthday,
Clementina had said. Memories Rosa had pushed down for years rose to the surface: Clementina in the schoolroom at the crack of dawn, eager for her classes; reading
Le tigri di Mompracem
together; the anxiety Rosa had felt when she had to entrust Clementina to the instructors at Piccole Italiane.

‘Are you all right, Signora…?’

Rosa recovered herself. ‘Montagnani,’ she said, finishing Signora Corvetto’s question. ‘I’m sorry, I thought I heard my daughter cry.’ She nodded towards the backroom, where Sibilla was visible playing with her toys in her pen.

Signora Corvetto turned in Sibilla’s direction. ‘What a beautiful child,’ she said. ‘Can I hold her? I love children.’

Rosa led Signora Corvetto towards the backroom and picked Sibilla up for her to hold.

‘Hello,’ said Signora Corvetto, ticking Sibilla’s nose.

Sibilla giggled in delight. With the Montagnani family always doting on her, she never shied from attention.

Signora Corvetto turned to Rosa. ‘You have your daughter with you while you work?’

‘Only for a short while longer,’ said Rosa with a resigned shrug. ‘When I was nursing her she had to be with me, but now she is becoming too active and will soon have to stay with her aunt.’

A distressed look passed over Signora Corvetto’s face. ‘It’s not easy to give your child up to someone else,’ she said. ‘But sometimes you have to do it for the best.’

The women returned to the shop where Rosa wrote out a bill of sale and attached the documents giving the details of the writing
box. She had not had a vision of the box’s origins and now she wished she had tried. She attempted to peer into its past while she wrapped it in tissue paper to take to the engraver later, but nothing came to her. Perhaps her attachment to the future owner of the box prevented her from seeing its past ones.

Signora Corvetto paid for the box and Rosa handed her the bill of sale. When she did, their fingers touched and Rosa felt a tingle run through her.

‘I recognise you now,’ said Signora Corvetto. ‘You were Clementina’s first governess. Signorina Bellocchi.’

Rosa blushed to the roots of her hair.

‘Clementina missed you terribly,’ Signora Corvetto said. ‘I think she still does.’

‘I…I didn’t leave voluntarily,’ Rosa stammered.

Signora Corvetto looked at her, surprised. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I didn’t realise that. They told me that you’d found a placement elsewhere.’

Rosa’s mind raced. She wanted to beg Signora Corvetto not to tell anyone that she had seen her. What would happen if Antonio found out she wasn’t a widow? Or the Marchesa Scarfiotti discovered she was in Florence? Although she feared that to mention anything may make matters worse, she decided to take the risk.

‘The Marchesa Scarfiotti and I,’ Rosa began awkwardly, ‘we didn’t get along.’

Signora Corvetto fixed her eyes on Rosa’s face. ‘I quite understand,’ she said. ‘It must have been difficult for a young girl like you. She can be very intimidating.’

Rosa opened the shop door for Signora Corvetto. ‘Please,’ she said quietly, ‘don’t mention to anyone that you saw me.’

Signora Corvetto nodded. ‘No, of course not. You have a new life now with a husband and a baby. I wish you nothing but happiness.’

‘Thank you.’

Rosa watched Signora Corvetto walk down the street. She was an elegant woman but there was something lonely about her too.
Rosa’s hand tingled again. She saw Signora Corvetto’s face loom up before her at the garden party. It became juxtaposed with Clementina’s and the revelation took Rosa’s breath away. The creamy skin, the red-blonde hair, the blue eyes…Signora Corvetto was Clementina’s birth mother!

Suddenly things that had happened made more sense. Now she understood why it was Signora Corvetto who had come with the Marchese to collect Rosa from the convent, and why she always visited Clementina on her birthdays. What had forced Signora Corvetto to surrender Clementina to the Marchesa?
It’s not easy to give your child up to someone else. But sometimes you have to do it for the best,
she had said.

Rosa thought it must be dreadful for a mother to be in such a situation: to see her daughter grow up before her eyes and never be able to acknowledge her. But most of all Rosa felt sorry for Clementina. She thought of Signora Corvetto and Clementina embracing at the garden party. The girl had been in the arms of her real mother and not known it.

T
he day Sibilla said her first word Rosa had been feeding her puréed vegetables in the Montagnanis’ kitchen while Carlo played peekaboo with her behind Rosa’s back. Sibilla squealed with delight and dribbled food over her face.

‘Carlo, I know you are there,’ said Rosa, turning around. ‘You’re distracting Sibilla from eating.’

‘I’m not distracting her from eating,’ Carlo replied, pulling his lip down and waving at Sibilla. ‘No one in their right mind would eat puréed broccoli.’

‘She’s a baby!’

‘Even a baby,’ said Carlo, dancing around Sibilla’s high chair.

Rosa did her best to maintain a stern expression with him but it wasn’t easy. Carlo was the family clown, and because of his angelic face frequently got away with it.

‘Mamma!’

Rosa and Carlo looked at each other, startled. They turned to Sibilla who was watching them and wriggling her feet. She had been babbling and saying pseudo words for a few months but it was the first time she had pronounced anything clearly.

‘Mamma!’ she repeated, waving her arms.

Rosa pressed her lips to her daughter’s hands. Of all the things
in life that brought her pleasure—playing her flute, discovering a beautiful antique at a market, window shopping on Via Tornabuoni—nothing compared to the joy her daughter brought her.

‘I’m back,’ said Luciano, coming into the kitchen with a loaf of bread and a bag of potatoes. He sniffed the cannellini bean soup that was simmering on the stove, filling the kitchen with the aroma of sage leaves and garlic. His hair was clinging to his cheeks from the rain that had been falling that afternoon. Rosa handed him a towel.

‘Sibilla said her first word,’ Carlo told him.

‘Brava bambina!’
cried Luciano. ‘What did she say?’

‘Mamma,’ replied Carlo.

Luciano laughed. ‘Not Babbo?’

‘Not yet,’ said Rosa.

She and Luciano exchanged a glance. Although they had no plans to marry yet, they had spent many nights talking about the future. Luciano intended to adopt Sibilla and give his name to her once the fascists were out of power.

Luciano squeezed Rosa’s shoulder. ‘She will,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘When the time is right.’

With the warmer months approaching, Luciano began to re-form The Montagnani Company. Donatella was returning with Dante, but Benedetto was working on a film and wouldn’t be able to perform with them over summer. Luciano had to find another actor.

‘Come and meet Roberto Pecoraro,’ Luciano said to Rosa and Orietta one day when they were painting a backdrop of a street scene in Marseilles. The new play was
The Count of Monte Cristo.

Rosa turned around to see Luciano standing with a plump young man with a stubby nose and thinning hair. The women greeted Roberto but he returned their warmth with only the slightest hint of a smile.

‘Roberto will be playing several parts,’ Luciano said.

Rosa had read the play in order to plan the music. She started off trying to distance herself from the story of wrongful imprisonment as the friendship between Edmond and his doomed companion stirred up memories of her friend Sibilla. But then Edmond’s escape and rise to high society were too miraculous to believe and Rosa was swept up in the fantasy of the story. Life is nothing like that, she’d thought at the end. The bad are not punished. The Marchesa Scarfiotti had got away with having Rosa sent to prison under false pretences. She was a rich and powerful woman and a friend of Mussolini’s. She could get away with anything.

Luciano asked Roberto to show the women his interpretation of Abbé Faria and Baron Danglars. Roberto shrugged his agreement. Rosa and Orietta sat on upturned fruit crates to watch him. All actors with the troupe needed to be able to play several roles, but the way Roberto switched from one character to the other with effortless ease and played the intellectual priest and the greedy, evil baron with equal conviction was outstanding.

‘Bravo! Bravo!’
Rosa and Orietta shouted when he had finished.

They were sincere in their praise but Roberto barely acknowledged them. It was strange that he was extroverted when acting but so standoffish in person. Rosa studied the young man’s face: those haughty eyes, that superior manner. Why did she sense Roberto spelled trouble?

Rosa had told Antonio before she accepted the job at his shop that she would be travelling with the troupe in summer. He appeared to have forgotten and she wondered how he would react when she reminded him. She arrived at the shop one morning ready to tell him that she would be leaving soon, and found him on his hands and knees under his desk. Ambrosio was watching him with a bemused expression in his canine eyes. At first Rosa thought Antonio must be tightening a screw until she saw Allegra’s white paw stretch out and grab for the roll of paper he held in his fingers.

‘Missed it, kitty!’ he said, poking the roll of paper around the legs of the desk again. Allegra swiped for it and this time caught the paper and chewed on it. Antonio laughed.

Rosa stared in disbelief.
He’s playing with Allegra!

‘Antonio?’

He whipped his head out from under the desk. When he saw that Rosa realised what he was doing, he blushed. ‘Stupid cat!’ he said unconvincingly. ‘She knocked my pen under there and now I can’t find it.’

He sat back in his chair. Allegra jumped into his lap and snuggled there.

‘It looks like she’s done that a few times before,’ Rosa said, laughing.

‘Well,’ replied Antonio with a sheepish grin, ‘she has grown on me.’

When Rosa told him that she was leaving for the tour, he sighed and lifted his hands. ‘Ah, so you
are
going? I thought maybe I had lured you away from your thespian friends. Never mind. I can’t replace you, Rosa. Can you come back in the autumn?’

‘Yes, and I can work in the mornings for another month. The rehearsals are in the late afternoon.’

Antonio’s face brightened. ‘So all is not lost,’ he said, lifting Allegra off his lap and placing her on the floor before standing. ‘I have a favour to request of you. The week after next, I am going to Venice to see a glass blower there. My elderly father lives with me. He has a nurse but he tires of her company quickly. I wondered if you would mind reading to him for an hour or so after you finish here?’

Antonio had been so generous to her and Sibilla that Rosa was pleased to have an opportunity to return the kindness. ‘I could play my flute for him as well,’ she told Antonio. ‘Do think he would like that?’

Antonio looked dubious. ‘Rosa, I must be frank. My father is not exactly…cultured. You won’t be reading him anything highbrow. He likes adventure and mystery stories. I’ve just obtained a copy of
The Hound of the Baskervilles.’

‘Sherlock Holmes? In English?’ asked Rosa.

‘Oh, no,’ Antonio laughed. ‘The translation. He also likes Jules Verne and Jack London. He swears and blasphemes quite a bit too. You mustn’t be offended.’

Rosa found the insight into Antonio’s life intriguing: he was a closet cat lover and the debonair son of a blaspheming father. She could not have imagined it.

‘My father was a plasterer,’ Antonio explained, as if he had read Rosa’s thoughts. ‘But he did very well. He made sure I received a good education.’

Antonio’s apartment was near the Piazza della Repubblica. The maid opened the door and invited Rosa inside. It was no surprise that the apartment was exquisitely decorated. The furniture was mahogany, Antonio’s favourite wood, and the rooms were spacious with high ceilings. It was not grand, but there was an elegance in the way the light filtered from the tall windows onto the terracotta-tiled floors. The apartment was not overcrowded with furniture and she could see that each piece had been chosen with care. From the foyer, where the maid took Rosa’s coat, she glimpsed a sitting room with a Louis XV settee and a Renaissance-style cabinet. But they were the only decorative pieces. The other furniture was unadorned. On the hall table was a framed photograph of an elderly woman with a lily in her hand who Rosa recognised from her vision with the torcheres as Antonio’s late mother.

The maid led Rosa past the dining room and she noticed a pedestal dining table with six chairs and Dresden china on the sideboard. Antonio obviously didn’t host large parties, but when he did have guests he entertained in good taste. Apart from an empire-style clock and a bronze horse statue, there were no vases or figurines anywhere; nothing to distract from the furniture. And yet, despite the lack of effects, Antonio’s personality was present in the apartment. It had a private and serene air. There was a sense of simplicity about it that reminded Rosa of the convent.

‘If it was warmer you could have sat out on the terrace,’ said the maid. ‘But Signor Parigi’s lungs are weak and the nurse decided it’s better if he stays in bed.’

The maid knocked on a door at the end of the corridor. A female voice told her to enter. The maid ushered Rosa into a dim room lit only by two bedside lamps. A nurse in a white uniform sat next to a four-poster bed where an elderly man lay with his head back on the pillow, sleeping. He was pale and breathing heavily. At first the room seemed different from the rest of the apartment only in that the curtains were dark and the furniture was ornate and carved. Then Rosa noticed a horseshoe-shaped wall mirror with a cowboy hat perched on it. A bull’s skull hung from the opposite wall and on a side table sat a chessboard topped by cowboy-and-Indian pieces.

‘Should I leave?’ Rosa whispered to the nurse. ‘Maybe Signor Parigi is too tired today?’

‘It’s all right,’ whispered the nurse, who introduced herself as Giuseppina. ‘He’s drifted off. And you’d better call him Nonno. He prefers it.’

She looked furtively over her shoulder, like someone who has lulled a difficult baby to sleep and is enjoying the temporary peace. Rosa’s impression was right because the next moment Nonno’s eyes flew open and he sat up.

‘Che cazzo fai?’
he shouted. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Your loud talking woke me up!’

Rosa blushed. She hadn’t heard such language since she had been in prison.

‘Non capisci un cazzo,’
Nonno said, waving his arms at Giuseppina. ‘You’re as dumb as a fucking plank.’ Then, looking at Rosa, he asked: ‘Who’s this?’

‘This is Signora Bellocchi, your son’s assistant.’ Giuseppina explained to him. ‘She has come to read to you.’

‘Porca, puttana, troia, lurida, maiala!’
shouted Nonno, a run of swearwords such as Rosa had never heard before. ‘I don’t need some tart to read to me. Where’s my son?’

Giuseppina and the maid were calm in the face of Nonno’s outburst and Rosa could only assume it was because they were used to his colourful language. But she was struck dumb. ‘Nonno’ meant ‘grandfather’, but Antonio’s father was not like any grandfather Rosa had ever imagined.

Giuseppina opened the curtains and offered a seat to Rosa. ‘You mustn’t let his language put you off,’ she whispered, squeezing Rosa’s arm. ‘Once you get to know him, he’s charming.’

‘Don’t open the curtains and don’t whisper!’ Nonno snapped.

‘Signora Bellocchi needs some more light. It’s too dark in this room,’ Giuseppina told him.

Nonno sat up with his arms folded, mumbling while Giuseppina and the maid left the room. Rosa took the copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo
out of her bag. She’d decided that she would leave the Sherlock Holmes for Antonio to read to his father.

Nonno glanced at her. ‘What have you got there, heh?’

Rosa showed him the copy of the book. He took it from her. His hands were swollen around the knuckles and his nails were gnarled and yellow as if they still had pieces of plaster under them. They were not at all like his son’s manicured hands. Nonno’s eyes were the same faraway blue as Antonio’s but that was where the similarity ended. His face was hard and wrinkled. He resembled a gargoyle.

‘What are you staring at?’ he asked, handing the book back.

‘I was trying to see in what ways your son resembles you—or differs,’ Rosa replied.

‘He’s an idiot and I’m not,’ said Nonno. ‘That’s the difference! Now stop meddling in other people’s business and read if that’s what you came to do.’

Antonio had warned Rosa that his father was rough, but she had not anticipated that he would be so confronting. She thought of the days when she used to read to Clementina. It occurred to her that she was about to read bedtime stories to a foul-tempered old man. Despite herself, she started to laugh.

Nonno frowned at her.
‘Cazzo!’
he said. ‘My son has sent me a crazy woman.’

His comment only made Rosa laugh more.

‘All right, I’ll read,’ she said. ‘But only if you are polite.’

‘Good, get on with it,’ said Nonno, rolling his eyes.
‘Dio buono!
Women can talk!’

Rosa read for about ten minutes with no outbursts from Nonno. She had to glance at him every few pages because he was so quiet she thought that he had fallen asleep.

‘Stop staring at me and keep reading!’ he said.

Rosa read on without further outbursts for another hour. She only stopped because she had to leave for rehearsals, not because Nonno wanted her to go.

‘It’s a good story,’ he said, pursing his mouth and lifting his chin. ‘Better than most of the rubbish my son reads me.’

‘I’ll come back tomorrow,’ said Rosa, gathering her things. ‘Do you want me to tell Giuseppina to come back in?’

Nonno waved his hand dismissively. ‘Silly fusspot, why would I want her to come in again?’

‘Well, then,’ said Rosa, trying to keep a straight face. ‘I’ll see you the same time tomorrow.’

Rosa returned to read to Antonio’s father every day while Antonio was away, as she had promised she would. On her last visit, when she finished reading, Nonno turned to her.
‘Signora
Bellocchi?’ he said, staring at her hand. ‘But you have no ring. Are you a widow?’

Rosa nodded.

‘But you’re so young. Still a girl.’

‘I was unlucky.’

Nonno was quiet for a moment, thinking something over. He wrapped his misshapen fingers around Rosa’s wrist. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You’re a pretty girl. Why don’t you marry my son? Antonio’s nice-looking and he works hard. He’d make a good husband.’