The Villa (37 page)

Tess kicked herself gently through a wide gap in the rock islands. On the other side, the difference was noticeable; the water lighter and greener, the sponges more vibrantly coloured, the fish more plentiful.

She continued to explore, gradually letting all the anxieties drift away with the current. ‘Don’t do anything silly,’ her mother had told her. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

But as Tess checked her gauges and began to make her way back to shore, decompressing slowly and naturally as
the water grew shallower, she knew she had to return to England. Her first instinct was to protect her child – that was what motherhood was all about. Even if it was from Ginny’s own father.

Flavia spoke to Lenny about David when he came home from doing some gardening for one of their neighbours. Edna was fit as a sparrow; privately Flavia considered her neighbour just liked having a man around – which was fine; Flavia was more than happy for Lenny to be out of the house for an hour or two every now and then.

‘You shouldn’t have invited him in,’ Lenny growled. ‘I wouldn’t have.’

‘Whatever he has done, he is still her father.’ Flavia sat down on the chair on the patio and watched Lenny. The man still had so much energy. Now, he was digging over a flower bed. Always digging, that man. She had never quite understood the English and their gardens. If you were growing fruit and vegetables, then fine, that all went into the pot. But they went to an awful lot of trouble for their spring and summer planting. Still, she had to admit that the garden looked glorious for it – there were asters, antirrhinums, purple trailing lobelia …

‘He’s never been her father.’ Lenny lined up the spade and made his first slit in the moist brown earth.

‘Biologically he is.’ Flavia knew what it was. David had left Tess when she was expecting Ginny, and Lenny had
never forgiven him for leaving his daughter high and dry; a single mother with a baby to care for.

‘Biologically, bollocks,’ said Lenny. He put his boot hard down on the top of the spade and it sliced through the earth like butter. He kicked it up with the blade, made a chopping motion. He’d go round the whole flower bed like that, then again with a fork to crumble up the heavy sods. He didn’t seem to find it hard work either.

Flavia felt weary just watching him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know how you feel.’ She sighed. ‘But Ginny is eighteen and the girl knows her own mind. Have you considered that she might need him?’

‘What the blazes for?’ Lenny retorted.

Of course, he’d tried his best to be father and grandfather to Tess’s girl, but no one could be everything. ‘Recognition?’ Flavia suggested. ‘A sense of identity? To be acknowledged?’

Lenny snorted. ‘Sounds like a load of claptrap to me,’ he said.

Well, as far as Tess and David were concerned, he had a blind spot. But Flavia had often wondered how it might have affected Ginny – having a father who had never given her the time of day.

‘Up to Ginny, even so,’ she said firmly. ‘Not up to us.’ She would not take anyone’s right to choose away from them – this, after all, was what her father had done to her.

Lenny met her steady gaze. ‘Better tell Tessie though,’ he said.

‘Oh, I have done.’

‘And what did she have to say?’

‘Not much – yet.’ Flavia knew her daughter. She was shell-shocked. And God alone knew what else was happening over there. She could hear all of Cetaria in Tess’s voice, it seemed. The sadnesses and the beauty; the past.

‘Is she coming back home?’ Lenny looked excited at this prospect. Bless him, he was a simple soul. Flavia too would like to haul her daughter back to England. But there were two reasons why she held back. One was that Tess clearly hadn’t resolved whatever she needed to resolve. And number two was Ginny.

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. It might be a good idea to give David a chance. He wasn’t a bad person, just irresponsible. And he was a lot older now. She had a feeling that for her granddaughter, he wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Flavia turned to the back of her book. It could be said that Sicilian recipes were imprecise. They rarely bothered with exact weights and Flavia was used to thinking in terms of ‘a few (
alcuni
)’, ‘a touch of (
un tocco di)’
or ‘a lot (
assai
)’. It was a matter of instinct. And yet, in typical contradictory nature, precision – for example in the use of basil or oil or the relationship between a pasta and its sauce – was what could transform the ordinary into the special.

She carefully wrote out the next recipe –
melanzane alla parmigiana
; her granddaughter’s favourite – hers too when she was young. And so …

* * *

Flavia remembered the journey to Exeter very well. She got herself comfortable in the chair and stared out into the garden, unseeing, reliving every detail. She turned to the beginning of her notebook and found her place. She picked up the pen …

A week later, hurtling to Exeter on the train, sitting rigid and erect with nerves, Peter’s address written on the piece of paper clutched in her hand – memorised in her heart – Flavia reflected back on the past eventful week.

Compared to home in Sicily, her duties were light and easily fulfilled. As there, it was a question of ritual. First, she must light the fires to warm the house. Her instructions were precise. She must build each one in the grate in layers, comprising thinly chopped wood, crushed paper doused in paraffin, pieces of coal on top. It was not difficult. The fire caught easily. And the smell of coal smoke was always there in your nostrils – from early morning to last thing at night. Not dry, sweet and fragrant like olive wood, but itchy and sulphurous, seeming to permeate your very skin. There was cleaning to do too, but mostly food preparation, and it was this duty which Flavia enjoyed the most – though the ingredients left much to be desired. She was accustomed to making do with little – but it was the procuring of the freshest ingredients that was the hardest part.

She had time off too – time in which to talk to Signorina Westerman (‘Please, please call me Bea.’) and learn about England, and time in which to walk around London, get her bearings; ‘become accustomed to this country,’ as Bea put it.

There was much to learn. Flavia stared out of the train’s grimy
window on to equally grimy terraces of cottages with squares of garden and oblong allotments of vegetables; on to roads and rivers, trees and fields of green. English people, she concluded, were very fond of putting things into compartments. And English people were so different. It wasn’t just the language and the currency that were hard to get to grips with. It was the customs – what to say to who, how to behave.

She sat back in her seat and a puff of dust rose into the air. She was also learning how to be free. Because, yes, here you could wander around without restrictions. But Bea had told her: ‘There are places you don’t go, that are unsuitable for a young girl, there are people you don’t talk to’ (most people according to Bea). ‘There are still – even in England – rules that must be obeyed.’ So … so far Flavia had not ventured very far from West Dulwich. But she had already seen the Rag and Bone man and heard his strange cry, she had spoken to the butcher’s boy who rode a bicycle with a small wheel at the front to accommodate his tray of meat, and she was accustomed already to being woken each morning by the comforting clippety-clop of horse’s hooves and the chink of glass as the milk was delivered to the houses of the neighbourhood. This seemed very grand indeed.

Flavia shivered and swayed to the rhythm of the train. The window was closed but the train was draughty. It hissed and rolled; smelt of steam, coal and hot oil; despite all this, for Flavia, this train was a carriage from paradise – taking her where she most yearned to be.

The worst thing about England was the weather. It was always chilly and at night she often wrapped herself in her coat for warmth. The sun had not emerged all week, and that, Bea said, was quite usual for November
. Madonna save us
… But … Peter was here
. Peter, Peter, Peter,
the train seemed to echo his name
.

‘What exactly do you plan to do, my dear?’ Bea had asked. She was all for telephoning the family, if they had a telephone number which could be obtained. But Flavia had no intention of doing such a thing.

‘I see him face to face,’ she said. ‘It is the only way. I go to house.’

‘To the house,’ Bea said distractedly. ‘Just like that? With no warning? Do you honestly think—?’

‘Yes.’ Flavia nodded.

Bea had regarded her with what looked like admiration. ‘You’re a plucky little thing, I’ll give you that,’ she said. And then, ‘should I come with you, I wonder?’

‘No.’ Flavia shook her dark curls decisively. This was her journey and she must do it alone.

‘Then, after you have been to the house,’ Bea said, ‘you must telephone me. And I shall expect you back within three days. Agreed?’

‘
Sì.’

But as the stations were eaten up by the hurtling train, Flavia felt her certainty waver. What if he no longer lived there? What if after all this time it emerged that Peter had never made it back to England …? What if his family were cold or cruel or didn’t want to speak with a girl from Sicily?
Peter, Peter, Peter,
echoed the train
.

At last they drew into the station and Flavia picked up her bag, squeezed the lever to push open the heavy door and made her way up the platform. Once again, she hailed a taxi (she was getting quite good at this; a decisive gesture was the way) once again she sat in the cab; her bag hugged to her chest, and watched a city pass by her eyes …

Exeter was very different from London. There was less traffic; it was greener, smaller and less daunting, though it too showed its legacy
of the war years. They passed several fire-blackened ruins and sites of rubble and demolition
. Peter
… thought Flavia. There were also signs of rebuilding. Bea Westerman had told her that England was rebuilding its entire future. Was it possible, Flavia wondered? And yet it was true that with this new construction there was a sense of hope in the air, a new energy after the war years. She saw a coal lorry making deliveries; the men in caps with their blackened faces and grimy clothes. She noted a large canal too – with barges; a big church, a filling-station in what looked like the main street, an ABC cinema. It seemed a pleasant town; she had known somehow that it would be.

The house, when she arrived, was not grand like Beatrice Westerman’s house. But it was newly painted and had a nice front garden with a gate and a neat path. Flavia’s heart was hammering like a wild thing. She took deep breaths. She didn’t stop to think. She lifted the heavy brass knocker
. Peter,
she thought
.

She heard footsteps, saw a light go on, heard a voice, saw a female form getting closer. A girl of about sixteen opened the door. She held it not wide open but just ajar – to keep in the heat, Flavia supposed. She had brown hair and very blue eyes. Flavia blinked at her, but they were not Peter’s blue, not at all.

‘Can you help me?’ she asked politely, for she had rehearsed this speech. ‘I am looking for Peter Rutherford. I am a friend from Sicily.’

The girl stared at her as if she were from not Sicily, but another planet. ‘Peter Rutherford?’ she echoed.

‘Yes.’ Flavia crossed her fingers in her woollen gloves behind her back.

‘Oh, Rutherford.’ She frowned. Turned and yelled. ‘Mum? Who were the people who lived here before us? Was it Rutherford?’

‘Yes.’ An older woman came into the hallway. Her hair was encased in rollers and a tight net. She wore a pinafore apron and was holding a teatowel in her hand. She surveyed Flavia. ‘Which one were you after?’ she asked.

‘Peter,’ answered the girl for her.

The woman nodded. ‘The younger son? Mid-twenties? Fair hair?
Tall?’

Flavia almost exploded with relief. He was alive then. He had made it.

‘Sì,’
she said. ‘Yes. That is Peter.’

The woman nodded, still eyeing Flavia with curiosity.

‘Can you tell me, please? Where is he now?’ She held her breath.

‘Living only two streets away, I believe.’ The woman slung the tea towel over her shoulder. ‘I see him sometimes in the grocer’s.’

‘Two streets away?’

‘I’ll write down the name of the road.’ The woman went to fetch a pen and paper.

‘Thank you.’

‘I don’t know the number, mind.’

‘It does not matter.’ Flavia was so excited, she could hardly speak
. Peter.
So near
.

The woman wrote down the address. ‘Silver Street,’ she said. ‘That’s where I’ve seen him walking to.’

‘Thank you. Thank you.’ Flavia took the scrap of paper–she felt like kissing it, kissing the woman too.

‘They’re a nice couple,’ the woman remarked. ‘Nice little kiddie too. Well, good luck, love,’ she said. ‘I hope you find them.’

At 3 p.m. the tangerine-coloured VW was outside waiting for her, drawing lots of admiring glances, her father looking very calm at the wheel.

Ginny climbed in. Her father … It was a sensation she wasn’t used to.

‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘Pride Bay.’ She directed him. ‘They do the best hot chocolate there.’

In the cafe he ordered caffè latte for himself and hot chocolate with whipped cream for Ginny.

‘I guess you’re wondering about a lot of things,’ he said, sitting down opposite her. He spoke slowly, as if he was putting a lot of thought into the words. ‘Like why I suddenly turned up like this – out of the blue, as your Nan almost put it.’

‘Yeah.’ Ginny sniggered. She liked his accent – the Australian twang – but she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. He’d been gone all her life – that was eighteen years he’d missed out on birthdays, Christmas and day-to-day contact. A lot. A hot chocolate wouldn’t do it – even with whipped cream.

He tapped his nose. ‘A windfall,’ he said. ‘I expect your mum told you that I was a bit of an old hippy … ’

Ginny shrugged. She had imagined they both were. Only her mother got catapulted into the world of children and responsibilities, while he’d bummed off to Australia and continued the hippy dream, she supposed. All right for some.