The Soul Room (26 page)

I struggled free and managed to get onto my hands and knees. It felt as
if the whole of my insides were clamouring to fall out of me.

'Surrender to it Maddie!' I heard Nonna say as if from very far away.
'Surrender to it. You can do it, your body, your bones, they know what to do,
listen to them - go with them. John, support her head…’ Only half aware of what
was happening outside of my body, I sensed John kneel down to face me. Nonna
placed my arms around his broad neck so I could come off all fours and rest my
head on his shoulder. It made holding the position so much easier, meant I
could focus on the contraction rather than the pressure on my hands.

Astonishingly, my breathing practice came back to me and I started to
control my breath, steady in through my nose, long breath out through my mouth.
I rode the contractions, bucking my back and howling like a sick dog; and then
the need to push, my groin burning as the head started to descend. I was
roaring now, roaring like a lion. I was dimly aware of Nonna, constantly
reassuring me, and John letting me shout and wail into his shoulder, feeling
his breath warm on the back of my neck as he whispered encouragement.

And then there came a point that I thought I couldn't go on, when I just
wanted it all to stop, felt like I was going to split in two. But there they
were again, Nonna and John, kissing me, telling me they were proud of me, that
I was brave and wonderful; and I thought - perhaps I
can
do it. In my
heart, I called to my Mother and asked her to help me, to help me be strong; as
she had been; and I heard Nonna shout that she could see the head, and I let
out a last roar, and I cried, and then the rest of the body came, slipping out
easily like a fish.  Nonna picked up my baby tenderly and John supported me
until I was leaning against the sofa so that Nonna could lay him on my chest. 
Then he slowly opened his eyes, and they were black, and yet bright, deep and yet
opaque, full and at the same time, empty; and I felt love explode out of me and
blind me; and still he looked at me and clasped and unclasped his little
fingers, and then he started to cry.

I woke up in a
room I didn't recognise, a large, airy room with luxurious furniture. I guessed
I must be upstairs in one of the grand guest bedrooms. I knew Jacopo was asleep
on me, I could feel his delicious weight against my chest, but I wouldn't look
at him. Not just yet. I could hardly believe that we had both survived, at
times it had felt like this birth, and death, were so close together that there
was little more than a piece of tissue paper between them.

I closed my eyes and went to shift my position. I knew it was going to
hurt. Nonna’s Doctor had come from the village to deliver the placenta (it
seemed an outrage at the time - to expect me to push anything else out!) but it
had been easier than I expected. I'd needed a few stitches too, that had hurt
almost as much as the birth, despite the local anaesthetic. and I was now
really sore. It all seemed so far away though now - part of another life - and
he was here, he was definitely here, his little bare chest pushing against mine
as he breathed gently. And still I didn't look at him. 

My head swam with the events of the last few days; the drama and
unlikelihood. And yet nothing seemed more incredible, more impossible than what
I had just done - given birth - that an extra being was now here, out with me
in the world. I felt the warm pressure of the sun on my face and opened my eyes
to see a great shaft of it falling through the room and onto the bed.

Finally I looked down. Saw the sleekness of his hair, plastered in dark
swirls on his skull like seal fur; his little face, tightly shut, and red as an
apple against the whiteness of my breast; his hand, curled softly under my
chin. I wanted to shout out, to cry, to leap up and dance a jig, but instead I
brought my right hand up to cup his face and let my breath out in a slow
shudder of excitement.

There was a soft knock at the door and Dan appeared. As soon as he saw us
he burst into tears. I motioned him over to the bed and he sat beside me and held
my hand. For a while he couldn't speak, great fat tears falling onto his jeans
and leaving dark pools on the pale denim. I felt calm, magnanimous, in love
with the world. I stroked his hand and waited for him to recover.

After a few moments he shuddered and wiped his face with his sleeve and
looked at us. He reached out a long dark finger and stroked Jacopo's cheek.
'You both look so beautiful, like Madonna and child. I wish I had my phone back
so I could take a picture.' Jacopo sighed and screwed up his face even tighter.

'Some memories are far too special to be recorded.'

He smiled and looked out at the window, at the bright day growing azure
as it headed towards the afternoon.

'Fabrizio asked to see me before the police took him away.'

'What did he say?

'Nothing, his mouth moved as if he was going to speak, but nothing came
out.’

'How did he seem?'

'He was sorry...I think.'

'What about Rosa?'

'I don't know.'

'I don't think she would have gone through with it. Not in the end. Poor
Nonna, she loses her favourite grandson and now her daughter is involved in
this.'

‘She’s still at the police station, waiting to see what they're going to
do with Rosa. She’ll be back as soon as she can.'

‘So there are some police that can be trusted then?’

‘That’s thanks to Mario. He gave John the names of all the local officers
Fabrizio hadn’t been able to corrupt. A colleague of John’s sorted things out
at regional level. There’ll be a big enquiry, and Fabrizio’s accounts have all
been frozen until they’ve investigated him properly. He had three local
accomplices; as well as false imprisonment, all of that, one of them is being
done for impersonation – he’s the one that pretended to be Dan and flew to
Serbia. They had a contact in customs – eased his passage you could say.
Anyway, enough of that, all we need to know right now is that you and the
little guy are doing really well.’

‘Where is John? I want him.’

‘He’s still at the station, you’ll see him later. Now for goodness sake,
just rest.’

'OK little bro. I promise to have a nap after you've gone, and eat all my
greens.'

'I can’t help thinking, if Mum had spoken out and exposed Fabrizio
straight away after the rape, none of this would have happened.'

'The past is at the end of a very long thread Dan. She had no way of knowing
where it would lead. She thought she was protecting us.'

'Of course she did, I know that; and you wouldn't have come to Italy last
summer if she had, and Jacapo wouldn’t even exist.’

I stroked the tiny hand and it closed around my finger, like a fern frond.

‘Oh, I , when I saw Nonna, she said to tell you that Jacopo was her
father's name. She said you'd understand.’

The afternoon
moved on in a delicious, uneventful round of dozing, feeding and nappy
changing. Nonna fussed over Jacopo and brought me little dishes of food (which
I wolfed down greedily) and cup after cup of sweet tea, which seemed to revive
me, to symbolically replace something that had leaked out.

In the early evening, as the sky outside the room became streaked with
lurid sunset clouds, John finally came. He had been stuck at the local police
station giving his statement for several hours, watching the Terranima
constabulary arguing the toss with the Roma police. 

Jacopo was feeding, he slipped off my breast and started to cry. I repositioned
him, wincing as he clamped back on and started to suck. I was happy to notice
that I didn’t feel self-conscious in front of John. Maybe it was because it was
John, maybe it was because my body was engaged in a higher purpose, and that
meant that modesty and embarrassment were temporarily suspended.

He pulled a chair up to the bed, leant his forearms on his giant thighs
so that he was on my level and looked at me steadily. ‘Are you OK? I was so
scared that you wouldn’t make it, that the little one wouldn’t make it.’

‘We’re fine, we really are.’

‘When we realised he’d drugged you we thought that was it. And then you
just came round. I don’t know how you found the strength.’

‘I found somewhere, somewhere inside me that helped me fight it.’

‘It was like that, watching you; as if you were struggling out of dark
water.’

I shuddered. ‘Thank you for getting here so quickly, I don’t think we
would
have made it if you hadn’t.’

He smiled and reached over and stroked my cheek. ‘I’ve been ready to move
for days now. Me and your Dad met up, we had a drink. He told me about why you
had gone to Italy in the first place; your depression, everything you’ve been
through over the last few years. He told me all about Sergio, Nonna, the
family, and that you suspected Fabrizio was involved in Dan’s disappearance. I
knew you wouldn’t let me come with you, especially after what happened between
us before…but I knew I couldn’t let you do it alone, whatever it was you were
planning.

I’ve spent some of my time looking into Fabrizio more carefully, I did a
bit of digging, chatted to a few people. I found out that the Rome police have
had their eye on him for some time; financial irregularities, dealing with some
less than savoury characters, that kind of thing.’

‘Dan found that out too.’

‘He did well considering he’s not in the police, doesn’t have our
networks.’

‘Let’s say he knows a few unsavoury characters himself!’

John raised his eyebrows. ‘I won’t ask.’

‘So what happened then?’

‘Nonna called me, about two in the morning. She was feeling anxious,
couldn’t sleep; she went down for a drink and found your note. She had a bad
feeling about Fabrizio even before you told her you thought he was involved in
Dan’s disappearance. She didn’t like how he ran his business, or the proprietorial
way he talked about his future grandson, but she could never prove anything.’
He sighed and shifted position in his chair.

Jacopo had finished feeding and fallen asleep. My back was aching from
holding him so tightly, so I laid him gently on the bed beside me, then pulled
the covers up round my neck.  John took hold of my hand. ‘Nonna was devastated
when you disappeared.’

I looked away for a moment. ‘I shouldn’t have done that I know. It was
stupid. I’m sorry for the worry I caused. The danger I put Jacopo in.’

‘When I got to Nonna’s she was ready to go; she’d had a call from Mario,
he couldn’t go on helping Fabrizio once he saw you were pregnant.’

‘I saw him fighting with Lorenzo, when I was in the living room, before I
lost consciousness.’

‘He told Nonna that Fabrizio was planning to move you and Dan that
evening, that no-one, not even Mario, or any other of Fabrizio’s local hoodlums
knew where to. He said you were being blackmailed into giving Fabrizio your
baby. There was no time, we had to come straight away. Mario swore he would
protect you, watch over you. He contacted some local police, officers he knew
Fabrizio hadn’t been able to corrupt.’

‘It's amazing that he did that, when he knew he’d be arrested himself!’

John nodded and squeezed my hand tightly. ‘Turns out his wife was
pregnant too, that’s why he couldn’t bear to see how you were being treated’. I
squeezed his hand back, looked down at Jacopo and marvelled at how he had
managed to make it into the world safely after all, that we had made it through
together. Without Mario, the man I had hit, that might never have happened. I
felt a surge of guilt.

‘He raped her you know? Fabrizio raped my mother, that’s how Dan was...’

‘I know, Nonna told me.’

‘I
hate
him, I hate him so much.’

‘Some people are just wired wrong Maddie. I’ve seen it a lot in my job.
They’re not in the majority, thank God, but something goes wrong when they’re
little. They never grow up properly; always believe that the world is there for
them to take what they want from.’

I nodded, stroking Jacopo’s arm. He cooed softly.

'I love you Maddie, do you know that? It might sound crazy, we’ve spent
so little time together, but I do.'

‘I love you too. I’ve known it since that day you walked out on me, after
we kissed.'

He started to speak but seemed to lose confidence, leant his head in his
hands, revealing his bald patch. I wondered how it could be that I could love a
bald patch? That was what love was, I supposed, you come to love everything
about the person. Things that might not have been attracted to before,
mysteriously transform into being beautiful.

'So do we go on as before?' I said, trying to stay calm but my voice
betraying me. ‘I know this is hardly the right time, I must be crazy, I’ve just
had a baby but…I don’t think I can stand it if you don’t explain why you ran
out on me that day. I’ve lived with guessing about it and worrying about if for
weeks now. I thought I’d just forget you, forget it ever happened, but I
couldn’t.’

‘I’ll explain why I did what I did, I promise, I’ll tell you everything.
But can I sleep for a while Maddie? I haven’t closed my eyes for 24 hours.’

I nodded and pulled back the covers on the other side of the bed. He
kicked off his shoes and laid down gratefully on his side, facing Jacopo who
was still sleeping peacefully between us. John gently kissed his tiny cheek and
within seconds was fast asleep himself.

As I descend
this time I know it is going to be the last. The sound of the sea hushes
through the room like a choir; he has gone, there is a sense of peace and
stillness. I wander around the room, stroking the columns as I go past, leaning
against the glass of the windows, steaming them up with my breath. I want to
take in everything about this room, I know I won’t be here again. Eventually I
sit in one of the window seats and look out. It is a clear night, and moonlight
falls across the black sea, bright as a blade.