The Night Falling (3 page)

He has heard about a hole in the ground at a town called Castellana, twenty-five kilometres from Gioia, towards the sea. This hole in the ground is wide and nothing that goes into it ever comes out, except bats – streaming millions of bats, like smoke. Sometimes it belches up shreds of a chilly white mist, which are said to be the ghosts of people who have gone too near and fallen in. It is the mouth of hell, the locals say; it plummets right down into the core of the earth, into a blackness so heavy it would crush you. Ettore thinks about this hole as his body keeps going, and his back burns like there’s a knife stuck in it, and his guts cramp from the leaves he ate. He thinks about jumping into it and falling through white mist and then cool, clammy darkness; he thinks about curling up in the ancient black depths, in the world’s stony heart where no man belongs, and waiting there. Not waiting for anything, just waiting; where it is cold and still and silent.

He’s suddenly aware that his name has been spoken. Ettore blinks and sees Pino off to one side, his face wide with concern. He realises that his scythe is still, that he has straightened up and let it come to rest on his boot. He can’t seem to make his hands tighten on the shaft. Behind Pino, he sees two guards exchange a word and a nod, sees them kick their sluggish horses to life and set out towards him. He can’t seem to make his thoughts come back from that hole in the ground and his sudden yearning for it. With all the will he can find, he grips the scythe and lifts it, turning his body to the right, angling the tip of the blade to catch the right number of wheat stalks. But he is too far from the edge of the crop, and the weight of it throws him off balance. His body uncoils, the way it must. It has moved this way thousands of times, on thousands of days; he can no more stop it than he can stop his heart beating. But he will fall if he doesn’t correct his stance, and though falling would be better than the alternative, he has no choice in this either. His body drives itself, is its own master; it keeps its own counsel, as he has trained it to do. Ettore teeters, and lurches forwards. His left leg lands in the path of the scythe as it swings, and he can do nothing to stop what will happen, though he sees it clearly enough. The metal bites easily, cleanly. He feels it hit the bone and lodge there. Pino shouts, and so does the man behind him. A bright spray of blood splatters the wheat stalks, looking too glossy and red to be real, and then Ettore falls.

Chapter Five

Clare

Gioia del Colle is quiet. Low sunlight pools in the street corners, reflecting from smooth stone slabs and streaked walls. Though they pass along avenues of elegant villas, four storeys high, with painted render and symmetrical shuttered windows, the road is crusted with manure – the fresh and fly-struck scattered over the old and dry. There are women out walking with huge urns or baskets on their heads and shoulders, but they do not speak. The only car is the one they’re riding in; it creeps along slowly behind a dray cart loaded with barrels. Clare sees almost no men, and when she points this out to Boyd, he shrugs.

‘They’re all out working on the harvest, darling,’ he says.

‘So early in the year?’ she says, but then remembers all the teams she saw from the train, their scythes moving with the steady rhythm of metronomes. She opens her mouth to say something about the lack of tractors, or harvesting machines, but shuts it again. The south is poor, she has been told. Everywhere is poor after the war, but the south was poor to begin with. They have gone from destitute to something less than that.

In the rear-view mirror she catches the driver’s eye, flicking over her as though checking something. She shifts her weight and turns to smile at Pip. The car turns onto Via Garibaldi and drives down between the tall, ornate fronts of the best houses Clare has seen yet. Some might even be described as palaces, she thinks.
Palazzi
. Slowing, the driver sounds the horn, and a set of carriage doors in the wall of one building swing open for them to drive through. They pass beneath a wide, dark archway and into an open courtyard. ‘Oh, look!’ says Clare, surprised. Boyd seems pleased by her reaction.

‘A lot of the grander houses are designed like this – a quadrangle around an inner courtyard. But from the outside you wouldn’t expect it, would you?’ he says. The sky is a perfect bright square above them.

‘I had no idea that there would be places like this here. I mean …’ Clare pauses uncomfortably. ‘It’s obviously a very poor region.’ In the mirror, the driver stares at her.

‘The peasants are poor, the gentry are rich, same as anywhere,’ says Boyd. He gives her hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, darling. I wouldn’t bring you to darkest Africa.’

A few watchful staff appear around the cloistered edges of the courtyard, ready to take the luggage, and as the three of them exit the car Clare feels her heart bumping with nerves. Their hosts appear through double doors in the far side of the building – a couple, the man holding his arms out wide, as though to greet old friends; the woman with a smile to rival the sun.

‘Mrs Kingsley! We are so delighted to finally have you here!’ says the man. His hands come to rest on her shoulders, heavy and warm, and he kisses her on both cheeks.

‘You must be Signor Cardetta. How do you do?
Piacere
,’ says Clare, using the Italian word self-consciously, uncertain of her accent.

‘Leandro Cardetta, at your service. But – you speak Italian, Mrs Kingsley? This is wonderful!’

‘Oh, hardly at all!’

‘Nonsense – she’s being modest, Cardetta. She speaks it very well,’ says Boyd.

‘Well, I hardly understood a word the driver said to the porter at the station. It was very disheartening.’

‘Ah, but they probably spoke in the local dialect, my dear Mrs Kingsley. Quite a different thing. To the peasants down here, Italian is as foreign a language as it is to you.’ Cardetta turns her gently towards the radiant woman. ‘May I present my wife, Marcie?’

‘How do you do, Mrs Cardetta?’

‘Oh, I’m Marcie – only ever Marcie! When people go around calling me Mrs Cardetta I don’t even know myself,’ she says. Marcie is striking, elegant, with the narrow hips and shoulders of a boy, and disproportionately full breasts sitting high on her chest. Her eyes are blue and her hair the colour of ripe barley, set in a wave that grazes her jawline. Her American accent is unmistakable and Clare tries not to show her surprise. ‘What – neither one of these fellas warned you I was a Yankee?’ says Marcie, but she doesn’t seem displeased.

‘Warned isn’t the word, but no – I had assumed you were Italian, Mrs Cardetta – Marcie. Do forgive me.’

‘What’s to forgive? And who is this highly distinguished young man?’ She holds out her hand and Pip shakes it, and though he is polite and confident as he does it, a touch of colour brushes over his cheeks. Clare thinks of the way she herself used to blush when shown the least attention by a man – or any new person – and feels a rush of tenderness towards him. He waits, as he should, for Signor Cardetta to proffer his hand and his name, then he does the same – deferentially, but not too much so. She’s proud of him, and glances at Boyd, hoping that he will have noticed. But Boyd is watching Leandro Cardetta, the way a person might watch an animal suspected of only feigning sleep.

‘Thank you for sending your wonderful car for us, Mr Cardetta – it’s an Alfa Romeo, isn’t it? It’s beautiful, but I don’t recognise the model,’ says Pip enthusiastically. Leandro grins wolfishly at him.

‘
Bene, bene
. You’re a young man of excellent taste, I see,’ he says. ‘But you wouldn’t recognise it – it’s brand new, and only a few have been made. Rarity, you see – that is the key to true value.’ The pair of them saunter over to the crimson car, to peer at it from all angles. Marcie Cardetta smiles and takes Clare’s arm; she is all ease and familiarity, and Clare can’t imagine how that must feel. Marcie is dressed in white, like a bride: a long skirt and tunic in some fluid fabric that ripples and follows her every move, belted low around her hips. As they walk into the house Clare catches the scent of her – musk and lilacs, and somehow the suggestion of moisture. It’s an oddly intimate aroma, at once compelling and intrusive. There’s scarlet lipstick on her mouth, and powder on her cheeks; up close Clare can see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. She is maybe forty, or a little older, but has such glamour that she seems far younger – younger than Clare, even, who suddenly feels just how very thirsty and unwashed and tired she is. Only as they step into the shadows inside does Clare realise that Boyd has been left alone, hesitating, in the centre of the courtyard. She looks back at him to smile but he has his hands in his pockets and is staring down at his feet, frowning, as if displeased by the dust on his shoes.

Marcie walks her onwards, and talks.

‘My dear Clare, I cannot tell you how
thrilled
I am to have you here – you and Philip, of course, but mainly you – poor Philip! No, it’s all right, he didn’t hear me. Just to have somebody to talk to, you understand – other than a man, and what woman can really talk to a man? I mean with
words
, you understand, not that other language we all speak.’ She dips her head towards Clare, gives her a conspiratorial little nudge with her shoulder. ‘I mean just to talk about
everything
. The Italian women – well, I should say the Puglian women, because you could hardly compare the specimens down here to those in Milan or Rome – well, they look at me like I fell from outer space! Not a word of English, any one of them. And I’ve
tried
to learn Italian – believe me I’ve tried, and I’ve managed it a bit, but when they don’t want to understand you, by golly, they’ll make sure they don’t. Staring at you with those black eyes of theirs – have you seen their eyes? Did you notice their eyes? Like jet buttons on a sackcloth waistcoat, with their faces all so brown. We must make sure you don’t get too much sun, dear – your skin is just delightful … And how funny is it that you can go six months without seeing a blonde down here, and now we have two under one roof!’

On and on Marcie talks, as she leads Clare up to the room she’ll be sharing with Boyd. The house is warm and shadowy, and full of echoes. The light is barricaded out – on the sunny west side of the quad the shutters are all closed, so that only thin, bright shafts get through here and there. Clare’s smile begins to ache in her cheeks but she feels some of the tension that has clenched her guts since the train left Bari begin to dissipate. Inwardly, she’s still as uncomfortable in new company as she has ever been, and she’d been dreading the conversation drying up, dwindling into silence while she floundered for a way to replenish it. At least it seems that there will be few such awkward silences to contend with. Few silences at all.

Once they reach the room Marcie clasps Clare’s hands for a moment, gives a happy little shrug and leaves her to change. A steady quiet settles in her wake. Clare turns around, sees the book Boyd is reading and his glasses, placed neatly by the bed. The room is large and square, and faces south, and Clare opens the shutters to a rush of hot air and the slanting yellow light of evening. The walls are a rich ochre colour, the ceiling a high spread of dark wooden beams, the floor terracotta. There’s a painting of the Madonna above the fireplace, and one of Paris above the bed, which has an ornate brass bedstead and a mattress sagging visibly in the middle. When a servant brings in the luggage, the door howls in protest. It’s made of the same aged wood as the ceiling, and has massive hinges to cope with its own weight. Like a door in a castle, Clare thinks. Or a jail. She leans over the window sill and looks out at the clustered red rooftops and the narrow streets. Immediately behind the Cardettas’ house is a small, neat garden with more paved walkways than flower beds. There are fig and olive trees for shade, and a vine-covered veranda where a long table waits, covered with a linen cloth. There are herbs but few flowers, and no grass. One of the fig trees is alive with small birds – Clare can see them all, rattling the leaves, hopping about like fleas. They chatter rather than sing, but it’s still a nice sound.

The door moans again as Boyd comes in. He has a way of moving, a way of standing slightly curled in on himself, that looks faintly apologetic. Clare smiles and crosses to him, to be folded into him, against the smooth fabric of his shirt and the slight give of flesh underneath. He is that much taller than her that her hair gets caught up with the sharp points and buttons of his collar. He has a faintly sour scent about him that she doesn’t remember smelling before. Or perhaps once before. It makes her uneasy.

‘I’m so happy to see you,’ he murmurs into the top of her head. Then he holds her out at arm’s length, studies her intently. ‘You didn’t mind coming?’ Clare shrugs. She can’t quite bring herself to deny it, not completely, because she did mind. She likes the unhurried habit of their home life in Hampstead, and taking Pip to their favourite places in London during the holidays. She doesn’t like to admit to herself that she’d been glad when Boyd announced he would be going to Italy, but it’s true nevertheless. It was better for him to be working, to be occupied; it was better for her and Pip that they had the house to themselves, and could keep their own hours and counsel. That they could make as much noise, and be as silly as they wanted. Say what they wanted. For a brief while the summer had stretched out ahead of her, wonderfully long and serene, until his phone call from Italy curtailed it.

‘I was surprised. You wouldn’t normally ask me to travel – not all this way. But I had Pip with me for the journey, so of course it was fine.’ This much is true, at least.

‘I know it might seem a bit peculiar. But Cardetta wants me to stay for as long as it takes to finish the designs, and I can’t … it’s too good a commission to turn it down. I mean – I’m happy to work on it. It’s an interesting project.’ He kisses her forehead, one hand on her cheek. ‘And I couldn’t bear the thought of so many weeks without you,’ he says. Clare frowns.

‘But when you first telephoned you said that it was Cardetta who wanted us to come out – Pip and me? Why would he? To keep Marcie company?’

‘Yes. Probably. Anyway, he only suggested it, and it gave me the idea. He had to offer the invitation first, of course. I couldn’t just ask and oblige him to accept.’

‘I see.’

Clare disengages herself from his arms and goes over to open her bags. It hadn’t seemed like that when they first spoke about it, soon after Boyd’s arrival in Italy. Even thin and buzzing along the telephone wire his voice had sounded tense and beleaguered, and almost fearful. She’d heard it in the clipped way he spoke, and straight away she’d felt the familiar dread sinking into the pit of her stomach, solid as wet sand. They’ve been married for ten years, and she is minutely attuned to the least sign of distress in him. She knows well enough what can come of it. It’s there now, of course – she saw it the first moment she set eyes on him, as he waved from the car. But sometimes it comes to nothing. She doesn’t want to acknowledge it too soon and risk it coalescing when it might not necessarily.

Born shy, the only child of parents who never raised their voices, never argued or ever spoke of their feelings, Clare longs for peaceful accord more than anything else; nothing jarring or unexpected, no awkwardness. Over the years, Boyd’s episodes have honed her fear of confrontation to a point of excruciating finesse. For days, weeks, sometimes even months, he is transformed; silent and precarious, unreadable. He drinks brandy at any hour, he doesn’t work, he doesn’t go out, he barely eats. His silence thickens like a black cloud around him, which Clare is too scared to penetrate. She walks on eggshells around him, dogged by her own inadequacy, her inability to bring him out of it. Sometimes, during such spells, the sight of her makes him collapse into violent sobbing. Sometimes days pass and he doesn’t seem to see her at all, and she remembers what happened when she persuaded him to go to New York, years before, and what
might
have happened, had she not prevented it. Then she can’t sleep or eat herself. She’s a prisoner to his mood, too frightened to make a sound. The relief when it’s over, when Boyd finally rises from his chair and sinks himself into a hot bath, and asks for a cup of tea, is so immense she has to sit until her breathing slows.

Boyd watches her as she hangs her skirts and dresses in the giant wardrobe that looms along the far wall of the room. He sits on the edge of the bed with one long leg crossed over the other, his hands laced over the uppermost knee.