The Italian Girl (23 page)

The next morning Rosanna was up early. She arrived at Covent Garden before most of the cast and spent an hour with Jonathan Davis going through the sections she was still unsure of.

Rehearsals began officially at ten o’clock. At eleven, Roberto had still not arrived.

‘Don’t worry, Miss Menici. He’s always like this during rehearsals. Then he turns in a superb performance when it matters.’ Jonathan seemed perfectly calm.

Rosanna kept her thoughts about her co-star to herself, and tried to concentrate on her singing. Eventually, at midday, just as they were about to break for lunch, Roberto appeared.

‘I’m so sorry. I forgot to order my wake-up call last night,’ he announced blithely.

‘Okay, everyone, we’ll continue for another hour as Mr Rossini is now with us,’ called Jonathan patiently to the rest of the cast.

An hour later, Roberto announced he had a sore throat and was going back to the Savoy to nurse it in bed.

‘It’s this climate – it is so damp.’ Roberto waved his arms dramatically as he left. ‘I’ll see you at the hotel, Rosanna.’

Rosanna turned her back on him.

Later that evening, Rosanna was in the bath when she heard a knock on the door. She ignored it. The way she felt at the moment, she couldn’t trust herself to control her temper. Getting out of the bath, she dried herself and pulled on a thick towelling robe. She walked into the sitting room and was startled to find Roberto lounging on the sofa watching television.

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing here?’ She pulled the lapels of her robe more tightly together.

‘The door was not locked.’ He smiled disarmingly. ‘You should be more careful. You never know who might walk in. I’ve come to take you out to dinner.’

Rosanna sank into a chair, her senses on high alert. ‘I thought you had a sore throat.’

‘I did, but it has gone. Come, get dressed and we’ll go.’

‘No. I don’t want to.’

Roberto looked surprised. ‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m exhausted and . . . besides, I don’t wish to have dinner with you.’

‘Rosanna, I think you’re angry with me. What have I done?’

‘What have you done?
Mamma mia!
’ Rosanna thumped a cushion in frustration with her fist.

‘Tell me, please,’ he urged.

She could control herself no longer. ‘All right, Signor Rossini, I
will
tell you. I’ve come here to make my debut at Covent Garden. I’m nervous, frightened, I feel under-rehearsed. And in the few days that I do have to get the role right, I find that my co-star isn’t willing to give more than a couple of hours’ rehearsal time, so the company and I have to carry on without him when there’s little more than two days left before we open! And . . .’

Rosanna stopped talking as she saw the corners of Roberto’s mouth twitch. He began to laugh.

‘Why are you laughing? I don’t think it’s at all funny!’

‘Ah, it is, only because I see that at last Rosanna Menici has some fire in her belly – the temperament of a true artiste.’

‘Me? Temperamental?’ Rosanna walked menacingly towards Roberto. ‘Let me tell you something about temperament, Signor Rossini. I’ve heard all the stories about you being difficult, but because you helped me in Milan, I decided others were jealous of your success and I chose to ignore the rumours. But, after the last two days, I see I was wrong. You’re completely selfish. You treat me and everyone else in the company as though we’re not worthy to stand on the same stage with you. When you do come to rehearsals, you behave like a petulant child if something is not completely to your liking. I don’t know why anyone should put up with you. If I was Jonathan Davis, I would have sacked you that first day.’

Rosanna stood over Roberto, her body taut with anger.

Roberto looked up at her.

‘Do you know that you’re at your most beautiful when you’re cross?’

Before she knew what was happening, Roberto had grasped her hands and pulled her down onto his knees. As if in a trance, she watched as his mouth moved towards hers. But just as their lips were about to make contact, Rosanna came to her senses and wrenched one of her hands from his grip. She raised it and slapped Roberto hard across his face.

Both of them sat in shock for a few seconds. Then Rosanna stood up and turned away from him, shaking with emotion.

‘I want you to leave now.’

She didn’t turn round, but listened as Roberto stood up and walked towards the door. It slammed shut behind him.

She sank to the floor and burst into tears.

21

Rosanna was awoken by a knock on the door. Still half asleep, she searched for the light. Turning it on, she looked at the clock by her bed and saw it was almost eight a.m. Finding her robe, she headed towards the door.

‘Who is it?’ she asked nervously.

‘I have a delivery for you, madam.’

Rosanna opened the door and found a bellboy submerged under a lavish bouquet of orchids and lilies.

‘Where shall I put them?’ The bellboy carried the flowers into the sitting room. ‘On the table over there?’

‘Yes, that’ll be fine, thank you.’ Rosanna waited until the bellboy had shut the door behind him, then went across to the bouquet. A small white envelope was tucked among the blooms. She pulled it out and opened it.

You were right. I am a shit. My deepest apologies
.
See you at the Opera House (on time). R.

Rosanna tore the note into small pieces and dropped them disdainfully into the wastepaper basket. Then she went to get dressed.

‘You are exactly one minute and twenty-five seconds late.’

Roberto was already standing on stage, a woollen scarf wrapped round his neck.

Rosanna ignored him and walked across the stage to talk to Jonathan Davis.

Over the next two days, Roberto behaved like an angel. He was helpful and polite, and didn’t argue when Jonathan asked him to do something different. He even offered to stay late to work with Rosanna on their complicated duets. Rosanna was grateful, but still maintained her distance.

Each evening after they arrived back at the Savoy, she half expected to hear a knock at the door, but it didn’t come. He didn’t telephone her suite either.

Rosanna hated herself for feeling disappointed.

There were two lovely bouquets of flowers in her dressing room when she arrived for the first night. Hurrying to open the cards, she was crestfallen when she saw that one was from Paolo and the other from Chris Hughes. Roberto had clearly been offended by her lack of appreciation for his last floral offering. She tried to push thoughts of him to one side as her dresser helped her into the extravagant silk gown that she would wear to play the beautiful but doomed Violetta. She began to mentally prepare herself, but she felt freezing and saw that her hands were shaking. Two minutes later, her temperature had soared and her palms became sweaty. Her heart was beating fast and she felt sick every time she thought about walking onto the stage. She tried opening her mouth to practise some arpeggios, but nothing more than a squeak came out.

Rosanna
, she told herself firmly,
it’s stage fright. Luigi told you this could happen. Concentrate on your breathing.
She studied her reflection in the mirror and tried to calm herself.

By the time she was made up and dressed she was so shaky she could hardly stand. She wanted to cry and wished desperately that Paolo or Luigi was there to hold her hand and tell her everything was going to be all right.

‘Beginners, please!’ The call of the assistant stage manager roused her as he passed outside her dressing room door, summoning the opening performers to take their positions. Somehow, she made her way unsteadily to the wings. The orchestra was warming up and Rosanna could hear the expectant hum of the audience behind the famous red curtains.

As she stood shivering like a willow tree in the wind, a hand was placed on her shoulder.

‘Good luck, Rosanna. We will triumph together tonight.’ Roberto looked gloriously masculine in his costume of top hat and tails.

‘I feel so sick, Roberto,’ she whispered desperately.

He took her cold hands in his and rubbed them. ‘Good. You’re playing a consumptive, so your acting will be supreme tonight.’

Rosanna was too nervous to even register the joke. ‘But I have no voice,’ she added.

‘Rarely before a performance do I have one either. Think of it like this: you are standing in the music room at Luigi’s villa. The piano is playing and you are singing for yourself because you love it. Nobody is listening – you are all alone.’ Roberto smiled down at her and placed a kiss on each of her cheeks. ‘We will be superb tonight. I know it.’

He left her to take up his position and Rosanna stood alone in the wings listening to the first strains of the overture. She closed her eyes and thought of the calmness of Luigi’s music room and the happiness she’d felt when she’d sung there. Then she stepped out onto the stage and her voice began to soar.

Many hours later, Rosanna arrived back in her suite at the Savoy. She was still on a high, every nerve ending in her body tingling.

The applause at the end of the performance had seemed to go on forever. Jonathan had told her she and Roberto had taken twenty-two curtain calls. At the after-party, she’d been surrounded by strangers offering superlatives and claiming her Violetta to be the best since Callas.

Rosanna sat down in a chair. Without doubt, it had been the most wonderful three hours of her life. For the first time on stage, she had really felt the power she’d had over the audience. Her confidence had soared and she’d begun to enjoy herself, portraying her tragic heroine as a woman of feverish excitement, temptations and fears. Her Violetta had come alive tonight.

And Roberto . . . Roberto had helped her. In his role as Alfredo, he’d supported her generously, never upstaging her, and had handled their duets with a calmness that had transmitted itself to her too. It was almost as if he had stepped back and allowed her to fly. And there had been moments when she’d looked up into his eyes during ‘
Parigi, o cara
’ and felt all the force of her character’s doomed love. Rosanna sighed. Whatever Roberto was, however selfishly he behaved, she knew there was part of her that had loved him since she was a little girl. And after tonight, despite her best efforts to convince herself otherwise, she knew she still did.

Tonight, she’d meant to make her peace with him, to thank him for his words before the performance, for all his help. But at the party, she’d been surrounded by so many people that she hadn’t had a chance to talk to him. When she’d eventually looked for him, he’d disappeared.

Rosanna paced around her sitting room wondering what she should do. Eventually, she opened the door and walked along the corridor to his suite.

There was no response to her light tap on his door. She listened but could hear nothing. She knocked again. Then she thought she heard a muffled sobbing. Puzzled, she checked she had the right suite. Finding she did, she listened again. There was no mistake. Someone inside was crying.

‘Roberto,’ she called softly through the door. ‘It’s Rosanna.’

The sound did not abate. Rosanna turned the handle and found the door was unlocked, so she opened it and stepped tentatively inside. The sitting room seemed to be deserted, but the sobs guided her behind the sofa. Roberto, still in full evening dress, was slumped on the floor, his head in his hands. He was weeping so hard he hadn’t heard her enter the room, so when she put a hand to his shoulder, he jumped in shock.

‘It’s only me,’ she whispered as she knelt down next to him. ‘Roberto, what is it? What has happened?’

He looked at her with such anguish in his eyes that she could only respond by putting her arms round his shoulders and hugging him awkwardly.

‘I had a message, tonight during the party. My mamma . . . she . . . is dead.’

‘Maria? Oh Roberto, I’m so sorry.’

‘My father came home to find her in bed as usual, but he couldn’t wake her, she wouldn’t stir, and then he realised she wasn’t breathing. The doctors think it was a stroke. I kept promising to go home and see them, but I did not and now . . . now it’s too late. My mamma is dead. I will never see her again. She is gone.’ This statement precipitated another sobbing attack.

‘Roberto, would you prefer me to leave? Perhaps you want to be alone.’

‘No. Please . . . please stay. You knew her, Rosanna, you understand.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

Roberto nodded. ‘There’s some brandy in the cabinet over there.’

Rosanna found the bottle. She poured a large measure and handed it to him.

‘Thank you.’ He swallowed it in one go.

‘Do you want me to ring reception and see if they can arrange for you to fly to Naples as soon as possible?’

Roberto looked at her and his eyes filled with tears once more. ‘No, Rosanna. I can’t go to Naples. I’ve been so bad, so selfish, that now I cannot even attend my own mamma’s funeral.’ Roberto’s shoulders heaved.

‘Roberto, everyone will understand if you have to cancel a performance. Your mother is dead and you have to return home.’

‘You don’t understand. I cannot go and that is the end of it!’

‘Come, Roberto, why don’t you sit down on the sofa?’ she said gently.

He allowed her to help him up from the floor and guide him to the sofa, where he sat down heavily. Rosanna settled next to him, reaching out her hand to clasp his as he stared into space.

‘You know, I think I’ve loved only one person in the whole of my life: my mamma. And I’ve let her down, as I let everyone down. I’m such a shit that now I cannot even say goodbye to her.’

‘I’m sure she didn’t think you’d let her down. You’re one of the most famous tenors in the world. I know how proud she was of you. She talked of nothing else whenever she visited our café,’ Rosanna comforted him, understanding he was hysterical, overcome with shock. Nothing he was saying was making sense.

‘Yes, but I didn’t make time for her when I became famous. I’ve seen her twice in the past six years, and that was only when she made the journey to Milan to see me.’ He turned to look at her mournfully. ‘You were right when you said I was completely selfish. I am a bastard, Rosanna. I hate myself.’ Roberto put his head in his hands and began to cry again as Rosanna sat silently next to him, understanding there was nothing she could say that would help. Eventually, he stopped sobbing and wiped his eyes. ‘I’ve never cried like this before. I feel so guilty.’