The Villa (47 page)

Down in the bay, there was a sense that everything had been rinsed clean by the rain and the storm – even by the earthquake perhaps. The air was clear and the aquamarine water beckoned.
Come on, Tess. Feel me, touch me, taste me
…

Down the steps, a quick look around, but no one was taking any notice of a woman in a wetsuit with a scuba tank strapped on her back. Across to the stone jetty; Tonino’s door flung wide open, but no Tonino. (And what could he do? What would he do? Nothing, that’s what).

Tess shook her head. No. She had to deal with it herself: Giovanni for one, and the villa, her gorgeous pink villa, which seemed now to hold only a legacy of betrayal. And maybe
Il Tesoro
…

The sun was hot on her head and on her shoulders; she was overheating in the wetsuit, with the weight on her back and round her waist. She couldn’t wait to get in that water. She did the usual checks and waded in, feeling the sweet relief of the cool liquid, a body-quencher; an increasing weightlessness as she relaxed into the waves. She knew already that she didn’t have far to swim from the shore before she would find those amazing rock formations, coral, sponges and underwater life. So she felt safe. You could dive without a boat and you could dive without a buddy.
Just stay safe
…

She knew exactly where she was heading. In the near distance were the rocks,
il faraglione
, rust and cream, with bits of moss, earth and algae stuck to their jagged surfaces.

She slipped under. The water was still slightly murky after
the storm. The seabed had been stirred up, hadn’t yet entirely settled down from all the disruption. A bit like her, Tess thought, trying to still herself, to reach that point of calm, to get into the rhythm, her rhythm that was also the pulse of the tide.

The rocks, when she got there, seemed unchanged at first, but there were more fish than usual – maybe because of the storm. She saw salps, bream and parrotfish, plus a few she didn’t recognise and would have to look up later. She used a gloved hand to etch a line along a crack that seemed fresh … as if recently disturbed.

Something was different, as if some of the rocks had shifted, or been dislodged somehow. And there was a hole, a gap, where before …

Tess examined the rocks more closely. Where there had before just been rock, boulders, piled together, there was now an opening. She looked more closely. More than an opening, more than a hole. An entrance – easily wide enough to take a human being. Wide enough for her.

She shone her torch, directing the beam through the opening. The area on the other side seemed bigger, and the water was a distinct, bright turquoise, as if illuminated by more than the beam of her torchlight.

Once an explorer … She didn’t really have to think about it. She eased herself through the gap and found herself in a natural tunnel of rock.

Oh my God, she thought. This hadn’t been here before. Surely? She couldn’t have missed that hole; wouldn’t have
swum right past it … The water was turquoise, because of a thin shaft of light, she realised. And as she kicked herself gently forward, the tunnel of rock widened out. Some shrimps and small weed particles scampered past her in the water. And after a few moments … She broke surface.

She was in a cave. An underwater cave. God … And although it was quite dark, that thin shaft of light was shining down on the water. There must be a narrow chimney letting in sunlight from above. Too narrow, presumably, for access from the surface. So the only way in was the way she had come … Underwater.

Tess took the valve out of her mouth. Because there was air. A little stale. But nevertheless, breathable air. She took off her mask too, so she could see more clearly.

The cavern was deep and the rock shelved on various levels, forming platforms going up to the ceiling of the cave. She could make out the water level from the dark colour of the rock, and could see that high tide would leave the top section of the cave dry.

Jesus … Slowly, she swam across the surface. She could hear an interminable
drip drip drip
, and every ripple of the water with every stroke she made seemed to echo around the stone. It was eerie. Scary. And … why hadn’t she found this before?

Simple. She paused at the other side of the pool. The earth tremor. The one that had seemed to shake the cobblestones of the
baglio
as she stood there with Tonino two days ago. The day of the storm. That was why she hadn’t seen the
entrance to the cave on her previous dive. Because it hadn’t been there before. The cave had been there – but there hadn’t been a hole to swim through; there hadn’t been access. The opening had been created somehow by the tremor. A fissure in the rock may have been forced open, a rock or two could have shifted. What had Tonino said? Rocks are always moving here in Sicily; they may be solid, but they don’t always stay in one place.

She breathed in deeply and coughed, the sound reverberating around the cavern. The air was breathable, yes, but dank and musty, the atmosphere chill. Tess directed the beam of the torch around. The rocks near the surface of the water were slimy with green moss, and from the torchlight she could see mineral deposits on the rocky platforms and calcified growth coming down from the ceiling – stalactites – and … Jesus! she jumped as something fluttered and flapped overhead. Something dark with broad webbed wings. A bat.

That was it. She was getting out of here. She groped her way amongst the rocks near the water’s surface and saw some black crabs scuttling for cover. Black as death, she found herself thinking.
Stop it, Tess
…

Wait till she told Tonino about this place … Whatever had happened between them, she had to tell Tonino about this.

She was just about to put away her torch and put her mask back on, when she glimpsed something on a high platformed ledge above her. It looked like some sort of old earthenware
pot … Which was weird. And then something else caught her attention – something white and gleaming that seemed to catch in the light. Like a pile of … It couldn’t be, could it? Tess didn’t want to look again, but she had to.

Bones. A human skull and white human bones. A skeleton.

Bloody hell. She didn’t want to be here a second longer. Tess didn’t know what had happened here, but she knew she’d had enough.

Quickly, she shoved the demand valve back in her mouth and pulled her face mask back on. Cave diving was potentially hazardous and she didn’t have the necessary training. She shouldn’t really be here – especially not on her own. But, it was too late for that now, so – slowly,
take it slowly, Tess
– she moved back towards the tunnel. Towards the tunnel of rock and the opening. Towards the sea. There was no need to panic. She must get a grip.

Someone had died in there. A long, long time ago. It happened. So … As she’d suspected, the underwater cave had always been there. But the entrance had got closed up – by an earlier tremor perhaps. Some rocks could have fallen from above and sealed the entrance. And now it had reopened, thanks to the recent tremor. The rocks had moved again.

She was close to the opening now. She shone her torch. She could see it in front of her, just where the rocks were overhanging from above, just where the tunnel was at its most narrow.

Her theory was possible, even probable here in Sicily.
After all … She reached out her gloved hand. This looked like some sort of fault-line and …

It happened so quickly. One minute she was edging towards the opening, still examining the rocks in the tunnel as she went, her brain speeding while she kept her rhythm slow.

The next minute there was a sound and a sensation from just behind her, a kind of shiver in the rock and a dull, heavy, splashy kind of a thud.

And then she couldn’t move at all.

She felt no pain, which was confusing. But as she twisted round as far as she could, she saw that a boulder – still unstable from the quake perhaps – had fallen, become displaced. And somehow, she wasn’t sure how, it had trapped her leg.

But … She could feel her leg; it hadn’t done any damage. So she mustn’t panic. All she had to do was ease her leg out from under it. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

She tried. She could move her leg an inch or so to either side, but she couldn’t get it out from under the rock. Shit.
Don’t panic, Tess
.

She couldn’t help glancing at her air gauge. Fifteen bars of air left. OK. Fifteen minutes. No problem.

She twisted the top half of her body again, pushed ineffectually at the boulder. It was bloody heavy. She pushed and pushed, but it was hard to twist far enough round to get the angle right, to get any kind of a grip. She couldn’t shift it.

Bugger. Fuck.
Don’t panic, Tess
.

She tried to move her leg again. Nothing. She could feel
the boulder pressing against it now, but her leg was actually trapped against the side of the rocky tunnel, she realised that now. Nothing was broken. She was pretty sure that nothing was broken. But … What use was that if she couldn’t move?

She thought of Tonino. The story about his diving buddy getting trapped in a torn fishing net and no one being there to help him. Tonino not being there to help him.
Don’t dive alone, Tess. It’s not good practice. It’s
…

Bloody stupid, she thought. No one was here. No one could help her. She was on her own. So there was no point conserving her air supply. She had to go for it. She had to move the rock or her leg.

She thought of Ginny. And she thought of her mother’s journey to England, her own journey to Sicily.

She had twelve minutes left to get out.

She had been short-sighted, Flavia thought now. Shortsighted to imagine that Lenny wouldn’t know, wouldn’t guess, wouldn’t sense something. And short-sighted not to realise how he felt – how he had always felt. She had thought that her feelings for Peter were nothing to do with him. But they were. He was her husband.

‘You know I love you,’ she had told him when he came out of hospital. ‘You know how much you mean to me?’ It felt odd even saying such things after all they’d been through together. Flavia had never felt the need before, never realised there was a need. But now she knew she had to. Sometimes, emotions should be voiced. Misunderstandings, apparently, could last a lifetime, and they could be fed and nurtured without a woman being any the wiser.

‘You’ve stuck by me, Flavia my darling,’ he said. ‘That’s all I could have asked.’

She held his good hand. It felt limp and helpless. She hated to see him this way; her strength, her rock, Lenny …

‘You read the letters,’ she said, watching his face. ‘You know we wrote to one other.’

He hesitated. Nodded.

‘He came here, you see.’ She told him about the first visit.
‘And I met up with him one day, when I knew he was very ill.’

‘Thank you,’ said Lenny.

‘For what?’ Flavia was confused.

‘For not leaving me, of course. For not going off with him.’

She was about to protest, about to say, how could I leave you when I loved you …? But she realised that he was right. That it wasn’t that simple. That when Peter first came to see her, she had loved them both. So she could have gone to him, it wouldn’t have been hard; the right look, the right touch, the right time.

‘I know how you felt about him,’ Lenny said. ‘I saw you, don’t forget. In Exeter. I saw how much you cared for him.’

‘It is true,’ Flavia said. ‘But I have also cared for you.’ She put her hand to his cheek. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and there was a rash of coarse grey stubble on his jaw. She would do that for him later. She wanted to do things for him, to make him see … ‘We made our life together,’ she said. ‘You and I. I loved you. I still do.’

‘And Peter?’ His face twisted.

It was funny, she thought. When you were seventeen, you thought love was reserved for the young. But when you grew old, it still mattered just as much. It mattered, even though Peter had died so many years ago.

‘Oh, Lenny,’ she said. ‘What matters is what we have, you and I.’

‘Yes?’ He seemed to be hanging on to her every word.

‘Because what love really is, is caring for another human being, living with them through the good and the bad, working with them, wanting to grow old with them. That is true love. Not hearts and flowers and romantic dreams. Love is what we have, you and I. It is not second best. It is the real thing.’ Perhaps, she thought, you could fit in different ways with different people. Perhaps there was no one and only, just different possibilities. Or perhaps …

Yes, a part of her would always love Peter. But she had been wrong to imagine that he’d haunt her till her dying day, wrong to think she’d never be free.

He nodded and closed his eyes. ‘You’re a wonderful woman, Flavia, my love,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have asked for more.’

‘And neither,’ Flavia had said firmly, kissing him on the head, her Lenny, and knowing every word was true. ‘Could I.’

For every recipe there is a reason
, wrote Flavia.
Trade, social change, the season, the weather. Food is warmth. Food is identity
.

The final
dolce
was Flavia’s personal favourite. And so she had left it till last.

The fig – like the pomegranate – was an ancient fruit and some might say that the best way to eat them was from the tree – ripened and warmed by the summer sun, velvety to the touch. Sinking into the taste of a ripe fig was to bite into musk and be rewarded with the sweetest most intense flavour imaginable; seedy and honeyed on the tongue. The fig was
sensuality epitomised; sexuality symbolised in a fruit of the earth …

Bake in the juice of oranges with red wine. Add cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla and honey to taste. Sprinkle with toasted almonds. Serve. Wallow …

She had a dream that night – a memory dream. They were in a ballroom. In the centre of the ceiling was a revolving mirrored globe, its surface sparkling as it turned. Illuminating the bronze light fittings, the posters on the walls … She remembered the quiffed slicked-back hair, the tiny waists; stilettos, stockings and full skirts.