The Whirling Girl (8 page)

THE WOODS WERE FULL of normal sounds again.

Had she made that up?

She heard the whine of a Vespa somewhere not too far.

When she pushed her way out through the brush, she saw she was on the rocky bit where Luke Tindhall had stopped the night before. How had she ended up inside the fence? Shaken, she sank down on the stretch of close-fitting stones.

A line of ants was making its way along one of the stones, unaware that they were travelling the ancient Etruscan road. Had Tindhall actually said this was part of an Etruscan road? The area was wide enough to take a horse-drawn wagon, like the old one she used to play on behind the barn. She knelt, ran her hand over the stones, let her thoughts escape into the possibility of where this might lead, if it really had been a road. The pavers were much larger than cobblestones, and so closely fitted that barely any grass grew between. The stone she knelt on reached from the tips of her fingers to her shoulder, and was about two thirds of that in width. All were roughly this size, the outer ones worn with deep grooves, as wide apart as a wagon's wheels.

Might this once have led from Cortona? Did this slope connect to the back slope of the city by a ridge farther up the narrow valley? Maybe this was once a major route, right past her uncle's house and on towards Umbria, to the Tiber, then down to Rome? Now she wished she'd paid more attention the night before.

AS SHE WALKED ON, the paving disappeared and the track became so overgrown that she was amazed Luke had taken his car through here. She caught a glimpse of the tiled roof of her uncle's house through dense trees. Then she saw the stream, angling down the wooded slope above.

Surely this was the scene in the ugly painting in the downstairs room! She sat on a rock, tried to calm her imagination. The water ran in sparse rivulets before it reached this overgrown track, but she could see from the wide jumble of the rocky bed that with rain this might become a torrent. And those rocks, so badly depicted in the painting, were as large as the paving stones she'd just passed, and also worn into deep grooves. What if they were part of that same ancient road? What if they'd been thrown about by an earthquake long ago, but previously had led to some secret votive spot above, not rediscovered until this moment? What if only since the quake had the water followed the line of least resistance down the ancient paving?

She began edging her way uphill along the stream bed, following its gentle curve through a growth of tall alders bearded with moss. She scrabbled from stone to stone, emerging eventually into a high boggy meadow where the late sunlight flickered with blue butterflies and bees. At the far end a limestone cliff, horseshoe-shaped, circled three sides of the grassy space, but debris had slipped down from the slope above. Perhaps that earthquake long ago? Great rocks and bush-dotted scree, with the cliff face showing only here and there. Above, the hillside continued thick with brush and trees, no trace of cultivation.

She scrabbled up a knoll to her right, hoping to gain a view, amazed to find how high she'd climbed in following the gradual looping of the stream. She was on a level with the tower on the opposite hill. When she turned in the direction of her uncle's house, she could look right down on the olive terraces; back the way she'd come, where the stream flowed from the meadow, the tall alders now blocked the low rays of the sun.

So, if not for those trees, it would have been possible to look right up to the ruined fortress from the meadow — and possible for anyone up there to peer down into that sweet secluded spot.

If not for those trees, her meadow (already she thought of it as hers) would be a secret no more, crowded with butterfly catchers and picnic parties.

Then she noticed that what she'd thought was debris that had slid down the cliff was actually a series of separate mounds, covered in rock and brush and trees. They too would have been in view of the city on the hill but for the intervening growth of trees. She heard her uncle's voice: “Here we have the essential element for an Etruscan city of the dead — in view of the living!” Could those be burial mounds, over underground tombs? Maybe painted inside, replicas of real Etruscan houses, beautiful houses for the dead, right here on her property?

A sudden sharp whistle from the direction of the olive grove made her whirl around.

Nothing but the encroaching dark.

She stumbled, and stumbled again, as she scrambled down the slope and across the meadow; she slipped on rocks as she navigated the stream. Bushes whipped and scratched as she forced her way along the overgrown path, scrabbled over the stile. Ahead of her, the house hunkered dark, empty. The scent of wisteria enveloped her, followed her inside when she'd managed to get the door unlocked.

THE LIGHT ON THE phone machine was blinking.

She'd not played Luke Tindhall's message, that was it. The answering machine was ancient, one of those with keys and a playback tape. Then that voice with its mix of upper-class and rough: “So sorry, a bit of a hitch, I've had a sudden call to … Rome.” She noted the hesitation, as if he'd pulled the destination from a hat, before he went on to say that he'd arranged for Dr. William Sands to show her around that morning, instead. “… However, I've managed to root out a collection of your uncle's newspaper pieces. I'll pop them up the hill in half an hour, before I head off to the train. Cheerio.”

“Cheerio!” she said back, “Old bean!”

There was no package she could see outside the door.

But there was a second message on the machine. Nikki Stockton had also called that morning, on behalf of her husband William, to say that unfortunately William couldn't show Clare around as arranged by Luke after all. Something had come up.

Nikki. The ballet woman. That costume. That bright pixie smile. Clare saw her stuffing the shattered oak-leaf earrings into the little pouch at her neck — then the moment when Nikki looked up and saw her husband's hand recoil from Anders's hand. The scene in the woods flared up, as Clare played the message again, listening for a shadow under the bright tone. She played it twice more, looking for what? Something that might link the two of them? A sinew of pain? When she had erased the message, she realized that there would surely be a recorded answer message on the machine. Whose voice would she hear? She sat for a long time trying to work up the resolve to play it.

In the end it was hard to tell. A man's voice, yes, speaking Italian. “
Pronto. Lasciate un messaggio dopo il segnale acustico, per favore.
” A message put out by the phone company, possibly.

She played it over and over.

The City on the Hill

IT WAS MORE THAN seven hundred years since the holy Santa Margherita of Cortona had made her way back across the wide Val di Chiana in disgrace, and entered the city to seek absolution, which was not immediately forthcoming. She had sinned in more than one particular.

She'd had an unfortunate start, being born not only beautiful but remarkably intelligent, with doting parents who made the mistake of sending her to be educated.

Then the mother died. The wicked stepmother came on the scene. The girl was ripped from school and made to work on the farm. But the damage was done. She had learned to read. Her head was filled with the ideals of the great romances of the age,
La Chanson de Roland, The Romance of the Rose
. Thus, when the handsome young lord of an estate across the valley chanced to come riding by, Margherita chanced to stray into his line of sight. She repulsed his advances. She knew there could be no proper relationship between a peasant and a noble. Yet, one dark and stormy night, she took a boat out onto the lake below the farm. The storm picked up. The boat flipped over. The young nobleman rescued her. And, now that fate had so conveniently spoken, she gave in and went off to live with him on his estate near Montepulciano.

For nine years she lived openly with him in great wealth and splendour, and she bore him a son. She gained much respect from the people of the town, even though her lover's family refused to let them marry; for, in addition to her beauty, she had a quality that transcended social strata. Sometimes, though, she was stricken with an inexplicable sadness.

Then one day the young mother, now at the fullness of her beauty, was sitting in the tower room of the villa her lover had built for her, working at her tapestry. She glanced up occasionally to look over the fields and woods where he had gone off hunting. Suddenly, his favourite hunting dog came up the stairs and tugged at the minkedged skirt of her silk gown. She followed the dog into the woods, to a spot beneath a spreading oak where the ground had been disturbed. With her bare hands the young woman joined the faithful dog in scrabbling through the earth, scratching frantically in terror.

To this day no one knows how the young man was murdered, or who did the deed.

And, though beautiful Margherita had been admired in the town, it turned out that she hadn't been that much admired. His family cast her out. She set foot across the valley, which was wild and swampy in those days, carrying her child. When her father refused to take her back, she sought shelter among the Franciscans. But they, too, turned her away. She was too beautiful, they said.

Finally, to rid herself of that fatal beauty, she scarred her lovely face, rubbed ashes in the wounds, knelt on hard stone and wept tears of blood, until at last the figure on the crucifix bent and summoned her to the business of sainthood; she was to restore the sick to health, raise the dead, enter the politics of the town by negotiating a peace between the Guelphs and Ghibellines.

Yet scandal followed her into her final holy days on earth. Malicious gossip spread about the long hours she spent in a cell high on the mountain, communing with her confessor. Not until she breathed her very last breath was her saintliness affirmed. As her soul left her body the air was filled with a cloud of fragrance, a wonderful perfume of flowers.

Now the holy Santa Margherita lies in a glass casket in the church on the hill, on the far side of the ruined tower.

CLARE THOUGHT OF THE saint's story as she started up the road to Cortona for her appointment with the lawyer. It said a lot for the town, she thought, that their favourite saint had been followed all her life by scandal.

When Clare had first read the story, in Vancouver, she'd thought it started out like a classic fairytale. But in truth, what a complex and real woman the holy Margherita must have been. An impatient driver honked behind Clare, then zipped by in the precise threesecond interval required to avoid a head-on collision with a tourist bus. Clare resisted an urge to cross herself.

In switchbacks, the road climbed past terraces of olive trees, past a church built where the Virgin had once appeared to workers in a lime pit, up and up towards a cluster of ochre and cream and apricot houses floating surreally on a cloud of pink blossoms — till finally it skirted the massive Etruscan wall, providing vista after vista over the plain that ran northwards towards Siena, Florence, and further fabled destinations.

She found a
parcheggio
shaded by lime trees, where cars had installed themselves with happy disregard for allowing others in and out. She followed two young mothers pushing baby carriages up a long, steep, cobbled street. Steadily they pushed, in their fiveinch heels and short black skirts, talking, cooing encouragements to their babies, gesturing with their free hands which held cigarettes. Little shops, like glass-fronted caves, were tucked under brooding stone buildings on either side. When she finally reached the top, and stepped through an archway into the main piazza,
Fantasy
was the word that fluttered down from the tower of the Palazzo Comunale and settled in her heart.

The entire place seemed so hushed, despite the hum of voices and the steady undercurrent of footsteps echoing against stone buildings that were crenellated, arched, fronted by loggias or balconies, like a stage setting.

She sank into a wicker chair facing the piazza and ordered a cappuccino. Then, thinking of something she'd read in the guide book, she called the waiter back and changed her order to a caffè corretto. She was early for her appointment with the lawyer, and nervous. The waiter smiled gravely, as if it were not at all remarkable to want a doctored coffee first thing in the morning. With an almost pharmaceutical air he asked her which method of correction she would prefer: “Brandy? Grappa?”

“Which do you suggest?”

“This depends on what you wish to correct.”

She said she had to visit her lawyer in half an hour.

“
Allora
, grappa.” He clicked his heels. “
Subito!
”

As she waited for her drink, she pondered a tricky question she wanted to ask the lawyer. Hadn't she heard that if there were the possibility of archaeological remains being found on a piece of Italian property, not only would the landowner not be allowed to undertake any excavation, but any finds would belong to the State?

But how to raise such a question without tipping off the lawyer (who, it seemed, was also Ralph and Federica's lawyer) to the possibility that there might be such remains on her uncle's property?

The waiter brought the thimbleful of espresso and the correction separately. Clare tackled the grappa first — a burst of firewater with a lingering and not entirely unpleasant aftertaste of gasoline. With a swoosh of iridescent wings, a flock of pigeons settled in the centre of the square. She imagined the morning here had been waiting for this moment to unfold. Metal shutters started rolling up. Shopkeepers appeared in their doorways and stood in the sun. Two girls in dangerous sandals ran to meet one another in the middle of the piazza in a swirl of pretty skirts. A covey of weathered men ambled in, discussing some serious matter in rumbling tones. A policewoman blew her whistle to stop an illegal motorist, and when a man dressed entirely in red walked towards the comely official figure, the policewoman blew her whistle at him too. The clock tower stood against a brilliantly blue sky.