OH GRANDMAMA!
BY JOAN SIDNELL
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CONTENTS
PREFACE Page 4
FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS Page 6
CHAPTER 1 – A Chance Encounter (1904) Page 9
CHAPTER 2 – The Honoured Guest (1904) Page 19
CHAPTER 3 – The Portrait (1904) Page 27
CHAPTER 4 – Forbidden Love (1904) Page 37
CHAPTER 5 – The Proposal (1905) Page 46
CHAPTER 6 – Confession (1905) Page 55
CHAPTER 7 – Across the Sea (1905) Page 62
CHAPTER 8 – Into the Mountains (1905) Page 68
CHAPTER 9 – In Disgrace (1905) Page 76
CHAPTER 10 – Good News and Bad (1905) Page 87
CHAPTER 11 – Back Down the Mountain (1905) Page 99
CHAPTER 12 – A Painful Separation (1906) Page 111
CHAPTER 13 – The Cycle of Life (1906) Page 121
CHAPTER 14 – An Artist’s Garret (1906) Page 131
CHAPTER 15 – A Tour of Torino (1906) Page 141
CHAPTER 16 – Collina Verde (1906) Page 151
CHAPTER 17 – High Society (1906) Page 158
CHAPTER 18 – The Baron’s Typewriter (1906) Page 167
CHAPTER 19 – New Beginnings (1906-1907) Page 175
CHAPTER 20 – The Convent (1907) Page 184
CHAPTER 21 – The Good Wife (1907-1913) Page 192
CHAPTER 22 – London (1913-1914) Page 203
CHAPTER 23 – The Shadow of War (1914) Page 215
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CHAPTER 24 – For the Greater Glory (1915-1917) Page 227
CHAPTER 25 – Walking Wounded (1917) Page 235
CHAPTER 26 – Hiding Out (1917) Page 244
CHAPTER 27 – The Bitter End (1918) Page 253
CHAPTER 28 – Peace at Last (1918-1919) Page 260
CHAPTER 29 – Typhoid Fever (1919) Page 268
CHAPTER 30 – Revelations (1919) Page 275
CHAPTER 31 – Uprooted (1919) Page 282
CHAPTER 32 – The Pain of Separation (1919) Page 293
CHAPTER 33 – Struggling On (1919) Page 300
CHAPTER 34 – Piccanina (1920s) Page 310
CHAPTER 35 – Moving Up (1920s) Page 321
CHAPTER 36 – Love Blooms (1932) Page 332
CHAPTER 37 – Married to the Army (1932-1937) Page 342
CHAPTER 38 – Giovanni’s War (1932-1945) Page 348
CHAPTER 39 – The Good German (1940-1944) Page 360
CHAPTER 40 – Fond Farewells (1944-1945) Page 369
CHAPTER 41—Enemy Alien (1938-1941) Page 381
CHAPTER 42 – Love during Wartime (1941-1944) Page 390
CHAPTER 43 – Ghosts from the Past (1945-1948) Page 497
CHAPTER 44 – Letters from Malta (1952-1962) Page 406
CHAPTER 45 – A Visit to Italy (1966-1970) Page 412
CHAPTER 46 – Finding the Family (1980) Page 425
CHAPTER 47 – Back to the Old House (1980) Page 438
CHAPTER 48 – A Secret Revealed (1984) Page 447
CHAPTER 49 – The Book (1984-1999) Page 456
CHAPTER 50 – Home at Last (2000) Page 464
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PREFACE
As a small child I was used to hearing about my mother’s childhood. There were happy bits and not so happy bits. And the names of the people mentioned provoked different moods in my mother; she spoke of some with a smile on her face, while others produced a look of deep hurt in her dark eyes.
When she spoke of her darling Papa, her eyes sparkled and she smiled a lot. I grew up with my own vision of this big man with a marvellous voice who could paint and sculpt all manner of things and who took her everywhere with him when she was small. He was her guiding light and kept her safe from harm as much as possible.
However, any mention of her mother, Emma, would have the opposite effect and her face would darken. There was little or no relationship between the two of them for several decades. My mother grew up feeling Emma had abandoned her and did not love her.
My original aim in writing this book was to address this misconception on my mother’s part, one that remained with her for many years. In seeking to describe and explain Emma’s behaviour, I hoped my mother would come to realise that she had indeed been loved, but had simply been the victim of cruel circumstance – and that her own mother had suffered too.
The title of the book refers to the difficult and adventurous life journey of Emma Boella
(née Miller), who was, of course, my grandmother. The tale follows the choices she made and the trouble that resulted, both for herself and others.
My version of Emma’s life is based in part on conversations I have had with family members who knew her, particularly her sister Rosa. However, there are many gaps in the factual thread, and Emma is now long dead. In which case, I have had to build the narrative by inventing various circumstances and imagining how she might have reacted, based on
4 what I know of her personality. To a large extent, I have imagined her reactions based on what I feel I might have said and done in her difficult shoes.
The major characters in this book really existed, but some of the minor parts, such as gardeners, maids and family friends, have been invented. While some of the places and surroundings have been made up, others are based on accounts I heard from my mother when
I was small. She really did ride on the back of Jack, the big St Bernard, and the children did play on the wooded hillsides near Torino when she was only just old enough to remember.
I have tried to be fair and faithful in my accounts of family members, particularly those who are still alive or are well remembered. However, inevitably, I may have made errors here and there, for which I apologise.
This book covers four generations of the family over the space of almost one hundred years, with events taking place in three countries: Malta, Italy and England. I hope that further generations of the family might get some idea of what their recent ancestors got up to and the struggles they faced. Needless to say, telling such a grand tale has been a mammoth task, and it could not have been completed without the assistance of my nephew David, who organized my files, edited my text and filled the many gaps with words of his own. In the process, he has cracked the whip mercilessly to ensure that I finally finish the book.
As I write, I have just celebrated my 80th birthday, an event that coincided with completing the manuscript for this book. While it has been a fascinating journey, I must say
I’m happy it’s finished!
Now, time to get on with the next one…
Joan Sidnell
Teynham, Kent
August 2014
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FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS
Emma Miller in her youth
Giovanni Boella with brush and easel
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Emma’s father Giuseppe Miller
Joan Sidnell as a little girl
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Joan Sidnell with her mother Iris Whatton
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CHAPTER 1
A CHANCE ENCOUNTER
(1904)
Emma Miller grew up in a big old house in one corner of a square overlooking
Marsamxett Harbour in the ancient city of Valletta. Today it is known as Independence
Square, in honour of Malta’s independence from British rule. However, in the early years of the 20th Century, when Grandmama Emma was still a school girl, it was called something quite different, for the British were still very much in charge. Next to Emma’s home was the
Anglican Cathedral of St Paul, with its tall spire and Ionic columns, a building frequented by
British soldiers and sailors garrisoned on the island. Aside from the church visitors on
Sundays, the square was mostly quiet and pleasant. A few trees offered shade in the middle, under which the old folk would sometimes sit and chat; carriages would occasionally rumble over the stones, bearing passengers on their way; but otherwise, nothing much ever happened.
To say the house overlooked the harbour is a bit of an exaggeration, since it was only from the upper floors that anyone could see across the square and down the flight of stone steps to the seafront. The harbour was the smaller sister of the Great Harbour on the other side of Valletta, but it was still busy enough. There were boats of all sizes, coming and going, from cargo vessels breaking their voyage across the Mediterranean, to brightly-painted fishing boats that bobbed on the water like corks. British naval vessels were a common sight too, making the most of Malta’s strategic location between three continents.
Across the bay’s sparkling water, one could see the island of Manoelo with its fortress and cannons ready to repel invaders. Anyone standing on Manoelo and looking back at
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Valletta would have seen equally imposing fortified walls running down to the water’s edge, and behind them banks of shops and houses built from sand-coloured local stone, with green wooden shutters in the Continental style. The spire from the Anglican Cathedral marked
Independence Square, and behind it stood the large silver dome of the Carmelite church.
Lined up along the seafront were horse-drawn carretta’s, their black hoods providing protection from the strong sunshine. In the relative cool of evening, couples, old and young, would stroll along by the harbour walls to the sound of lapping waves.
By early 1904, at the age of 18, Emma found herself the eldest of four children, three girls and a boy, overseen by two conscientious and highly respectable Maltese parents,
Alessandrina and Giuseppe. The mother was from the Tagliaferro banking family, a fact that lent her impeccable social credentials. The family was originally from Italy and had built a large shipping business in the Mediterranean and Black Sea, with several prominent members acting as consuls for Rome, for which they were created counts by the Pope. The branch that settled in Malta eventually set up the Tagliaferro Bank and built several churches in Valletta and nearby Sliema. Alessandrina’s grandfather, Francesco, was consul to a dozen European nations, including Russia, as well as Morocco, Persia and Brazil. He cemented his status within Malta’s elite by marrying Maddalena Preziosi, who came from a line of Maltese counts.
Giuseppe Miller, meanwhile, was a prominent businessman, importing fine goods and antique furniture from Europe for the benefit of the island’s social elite. He could boast no counts among his living relatives, although one of his ancestors had been a German knight who settled in Malta during the Crusades. The original name of Muller, he said, had been
Anglicised over the years. Giuseppe had little of the martial instinct in him, and was more than happy with his role as importer and purveyor or the best that money could buy. Needless to say, his own house was exquisitely decorated.
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Emma was blessed with beauty, brains and an aptitude for study, and her parents hoped that this clever girl would make a clever marriage. She worked diligently at her lessons with the Catholic nuns at the nearby convent school, and absorbed a great deal of knowledge on history, geography, mathematics, music, literature and fine art. Like her sister, she showed promise with a paintbrush, but it soon became clear that her particular talents lay in languages.
Aside from her native Maltese language, by her late teens, Emma had grasped the basics of ancient Greek and Latin, and was reasonably fluent in French, Italian, English and
German. She studied several of the major writers in each language, and practiced both composition and conversation at every opportunity. She had also made a good start on
Russian and had worked hard at the grammar of Arabic, which formed the basis of much of the Maltese language. Her interest in Arabic had raised a few eyebrows among the nuns, who took great pains to educate their girls on the many struggles there had been to retain the island’s European character and Catholic faith in the face of numerous foreign invaders.
Indeed, so fresh was the Ottoman invasion in the collective memory that it was not uncommon for parents to scold their wayward children with the prospect that the Turks would get them unless they behaved. “The Turks are coming! The Turks are coming!” they would yell, and children would run and hide in cupboards or under the furniture.
Consequently, when Emma enquired about learning Turkish, the nuns refused point blank, and so she had to content herself with several European tongues and practicing the backward- flowing Arabic script.
Learning was a balm to Emma’s spirit, a retreat from the complications of social etiquette and high-class gossip. At an age when most girls were thinking of marriage, Emma used her studies as a means of avoiding liaisons with various “suitable” Maltese males whom her parents deemed worthy. Aside from confirming her social status, marriage to the right
11 man would, in her parents’ eyes, be a means of further securing her financial future. But
Emma had her own ideas of what a husband should be, and for the most part it was not in the pattern of the short-statured, small-framed and mild-mannered youths her parents were inclined to present to her. They all seemed to have small hands, and she felt a man’s hands should be large, well-shaped, long fingered and strong. They should be beautiful, commanding, and expressive hands.
Oh, some of the young men from “good” families were nice enough, but she could not see herself loving, honouring and obeying any of them. No, she still had more studies to complete and was ready to use them as a barrier against suitable young men. And so far, it had worked wonders, for what young man would wish to marry a girl more intelligent and better educated than himself?
However, Emma’s strategy had not gone entirely unnoticed, and as she approached marriageable age, her parents did their best to wean her from her books and introduce her properly to Maltese society. She accompanied her mother to genteel tea parties where she outshone other daughters in beauty, charm and clever conversation. Inevitably, she would be asked to show her skills at the piano, which were considerable, although her knowledge of ancient warfare and sensual Greek poetry proved irksome at times.
As Emma approached her nineteenth birthday, her parents increasingly took her along to evening functions, showing her off in fine dresses, fashionable hats and white silk gloves.
One such occasion was the first night of the new opera season, a warm September evening on which all of high society wished to be seen enjoying high culture. Truth be told, a great many were primarily concerned with seeing and being seen, the music acting merely as a backdrop to a glittering display of wealth and status. Which was, of course, why Emma had been dragged along in a fine white dress and her mother’s pearls.
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For those who cared, the opening night of the new season was also a special musical event, a chance to hear whatever new artists had been engaged, many of them respected singers from Italy or elsewhere in Europe. On the night in question, the opera was to be
Verdi’s Aida, and the cast included a basso profundo from Italy named Giovanni Boella, who had performed at La Scala to favourable reviews.
At 40 years of age, Giovanni was said to be an accomplished painter and sculptor, as well as holding an engineering degree from Torino. Indeed, in addition to playing the King of
Egypt in that night’s performance, he was rumoured to have assisted with the lavish costumes and scenery. He was six feet tall with blond hair and dark blue eyes, a veritable Adonis, with a strong aquiline nose and a fine moustache curling upwards at the ends. Of course, Emma did not know it yet, but this commanding Italian singer with the curly moustache was to change her life beyond all recognition.
* * *
As the family dressed for the outing, Emma’s father took the opportunity to broach the subject of Emma’s future. He told his wife that it really was time Emma finished school. She had learned quite enough by now. It wasn’t as though she would have to earn her own living as a governess.
“It really is time she started thinking about marriage,” he said, adjusting his bow tie in the bedroom mirror. “She’s never shown much interest in the young men we’ve invited to the house. Perhaps someone more mature would suit her?”
It was true that most of these younger men had gone away discouraged, although there was one who caused her younger sister Rosa to blush becomingly whenever his name,
Eustratius, was mentioned. He was from a good family, the Petrocochinos, who hailed
13 originally from the Greek island of Chios but had become successful traders after settling in
Malta. They had even been honoured by Italian royalty for their military actions and had produced at least one artist of note.
However, all such considerations were very much academic for the time being. Rosa was still only 16 years old and would have to wait until Emma was safely married before she could think of having a suitor of her own.
As Giuseppe Miller put the final touches to his evening attire, he resolved to introduce
Emma to Alphonso Bastaldi, the son of an aging Maltese banker. This twice-widowed son, at
45 years of age, had been well groomed to take his father’s place in the family business, and was considered quite respectable – despite having used up two wives already. A match between Alphonso and Emma would bring benefits to Giuseppe’s own business and could not harm his public standing. After all, how many families could claim to incorporate two banking lineages?
Giuseppe ran the idea past his wife as he helped her on with her coat. Alessandrina was mildly encouraging of her husband’s plan, but knowing her daughter better, she very much doubted whether it would meet with Emma’s assent.
“Well,” said Giuseppe, with a hint of indignation, “we will be seeing the Bastaldi family this evening. I have invited them to share our box. It’s better situated than theirs. The old man is in his eighties and can’t see or hear as well as he used to. The whole family will be there, and we can see then if his boy and our daughter are at least affable with one another.”
“He’s hardly a boy,” was his wife’s comment. “After all, he’s been married twice before.”
She remembered the circumstances of the second wife’s death and recalled some of the rather spiteful drawing-room gossip about its possible causes. Normally she wouldn’t have given much thought to such tales and had at the time banished them as malicious tittle-tattle.
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However, as it seemed her lovely Emma’s name might possibly be linked with his, she began to feel a slight sense of alarm. She consoled herself with the thought that Emma would probably sniff at the “boy” and give him the cold shoulder.
On this balmy September evening Rosa had been allowed to join the outing to the opera.
She was just old enough for such an event, and she had made such a fuss of being allowed that her parents eventually gave in. She at least seemed to be showing the appropriate social instincts, and Alessandrina suspected that it might be for the chance of seeing Eustratius, rather than the opera itself, that Rosa so longed to attend.
Rosa had the same beautiful dark eyes as Emma, but was blessed with a slightly stronger nose than her sister’s small and delicately shaped one. She had also inherited her father’s strong jaw line, and being slightly taller than Emma, appeared handsome rather than beautiful. That evening, she wore her hair swept up on top, tied with ribbons the same colour as her simple lilac dress.
Emma, for her part, looked exquisite. She had on her first proper evening dress, and her mother had lent her the lovely double string of pearls that had come from the Russian court as a gift to her diplomat grandfather. Looking at Emma as they climbed the stone steps to the opera house, her mother wondered if she looked a little too attractive, and she thanked God for her discerning and strong-willed character.
Giuseppe told his wife and daughters to go on up to the box. He would wait in the foyer to meet the old banker and his son. As his two daughters moved away, he whispered to his wife to arrange the seating “suitably” and nodded to the girls’ backs. The females were duly shown to their box, and they found that the orchestra had only just filed in. There would be quite a lot of tuning, no doubt, before the curtain went up.
The interior of the auditorium was magnificently decorated, equalled only by some of the finer churches on the little island. There was an air of subdued expectancy, as people found
15 their seats and, recognising one another, nodded and murmured and rustled their programmes, or else wafted the warm air with delicate fans. Besides the Maltese elite, there were various foreign faces in the audience: businessmen, scholars, British officers and diplomats, their breasts decorated with stars and ribbons of various sorts.
The seats were fast filling up and Rosa searched the place with nervous eyes. Suddenly, she leant forward with a sharp intake of breath as a young man and his parents arrived at their seats immediately below the box. It was unmistakably Eustratius. He looked up and recognised Rosa, then smiled and made a charming little bow with his head. Rosa knew she would have difficulty in keeping her eyes on the performance once it had started.
Papa and his guests arrived just after the curtain went up, and there was a distinct whiff of whisky about them. Apologies were made in loud whispers and chairs hastily and clumsily rearranged, and then all eyes were on the stage.
As a basso profondo, Giovanni Boella had performed bit parts in several major operas, and his range was such that he could take parts intended for the very deepest voices as well as those for higher basses. He could never attain the glorious heights nor the widespread fame of the tenors, but he knew their parts perfectly, and often performed their arias in his deeper register at private gatherings.
His was not the leading role in Aida, but his impact on Emma was great. His deep, rich notes struck some primeval chord within her, and although she knew nothing about the calls of the rutting deer, she began to feel the stirrings of animal attraction deep within herself.
This voice belonged to a real man, a fact supported by his tall, athletic build. Even when he wasn’t singing, she was studying him through her little mother-of-pearl opera glasses. When she got to her feet for a standing ovation, she found her legs quite weak.
* * *
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As the final encore came to an end, and the applause began to subside, Emma turned to her mother and asked casually if she might be allowed to go backstage and meet the artists, a common enough practice on opening night. Her mother’s eyes met with her father’s, and it seemed that on this occasion Giuseppe understood that he was not to have his way immediately.
“Of course, my dear, but allow me to come with you. It would be unbecoming for you to wander among the dressing rooms alone,” said Alessandrina.
“Then we shall all go,” declared Philioppo, not wishing to be excluded, and secretly wondering what might become of his wife if she were to wander the dressing rooms without him. He stretched his arms wide to include Alphonso Bastaldi and his aging parents, and declared once more, this time with an air of triumph: “We shall all go!”
Giovanni Boella was just removing his heavy make-up and had on a blue silk dressing gown that matched his eyes. He turned to greet the visitors: first Papa and Mama; then the old banker, his wife and son; then Rosa, who appeared to be floating on an invisible cloud; and at last he came to Emma. She looked up into his lovely blue eyes and she thought she could drown in their depths.
As he held her gaze, a strangely delicious sensation washed over her. The touch of his hand sent a pulse of energy up her arm, and her knees went weak again, so that she thought she might swoon. However, she managed to hear that sonorous deep voice as he bowed over her hand, saying: “Que Belissima!” Then she looked up into his eyes again and felt sure that he was just as shaken by the encounter as she was. The attraction seemed magnetic. She had never in her short life been so affected by any man.
It was the custom on the opening night for the foremost dignitaries of Valletta to offer hospitality to the leading members of the cast, and in this spirit, Emma’s father invited
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Giovanni to take lunch with them the following Sunday. First they would attend mass at St
John’s Cathedral, and then drive the short way together to the Miller home. Giovanni graciously accepted, much to the delight of all concerned, though Emma did her best to conceal her feelings behind a façade of calm detachment.
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CHAPTER 2
THE HONOURED GUEST
(1904)
And so it was that Emma found herself seated close to the front of the cathedral, wondering when she would first catch another glimpse of the captivating Italian. He had arrived either before or after the Millers, and there was no guarantee in Emma’s mind that he had not been tempted elsewhere, so popular must he be with so many people.
She decided that he was most likely to be seated on the men’s side at the back, though she dared not twist her head round to have a look. But during the responses and the hymns she heard that delicious deep voice again. The nuns at her convent were very strict about keeping one’s attention fixed firmly on the progress of the mass, and Mother Superior would have had a fit if she had been able to read Emma’s mind just then.
As they emerged from the cathedral, Emma saw Rosa speaking to a young man whom she recognized as Eustratius. He was well dressed, with neatly parted hair and a delicate face, ornamented with the same genuine smile he had revealed on the night of the opera. However, the conversation was cut short when Giuseppe appeared on the cathedral steps, squinting in the bright sunshine. It was a good thing that the sun was in his eyes, or he might have noticed
Rosa’s liaison and interrupted. He had no particular desire to block the path of love, but things must be done in the right order and in the right way.
First of all, Emma must be married off, then Rosa could be introduced to appropriate suitors, ideally in the drawing room at home, where he and his wife could see and hear everything. Added to which, recent investigations had revealed to Giuseppe that while
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Eustratius’ family were wealthy and respectable, there was little true Maltese blood in the line. He had nothing against Greeks per se, but he would rather his daughter marry into an ancient Maltese family if at all possible. Consequently, Eustratius had been dropped down the list of eligible young men.
The youngest of the three sisters, Maria, was also in attendance at mass, as was Maurice, the only boy and youngest of the lot. Maria was just 14, and so had not been allowed to attend the opera, though she had listened with interest to Emma and Rosa’s descriptions of the event, and was keen to finally meet the mysterious Italian with blond hair and blue eyes.
Maurice, at just 12 years of age, had not taken so much interest in his sisters’ tales from the opera, and had been relieved, in fact, to have an evening at home with his books and toy soldiers. As for mass, he was only glad that it was over for another week.
The four children walked with their mother back to the house, but Papa rode in a carriage with Giovanni and a member of the female cast who had also accepted an invitation to lunch.
She was not quite a leading member, but she had appeared at La Scala and seemed fascinated by Giuseppe’s potted history of the Maltese people, to which he treated his guests as they drove slowly through the narrow streets. The monologue was conducted in Italian, partly in honour of the guests, but also because few people outside of Malta spoke Maltese. Giovanni seemed less than enthusiastic about the history lesson, although he nodded and smiled, occasionally raising his eyebrows in interest. Giuseppe wondered if the Italian thought himself superior to his Maltese hosts, and he instructed the driver to take them on a longer route home, so as to take in some of Valletta’s more interesting historical sites.
The three maids had already finished laying the table for lunch when Alessandrina and the children arrived home. The marble-floored dining room looked grand, with all the best silver gleaming brightly, and crystal decanters filled with wine, and every item of furniture shining from an extra-vigorous polish. Having adjusted her dress for lunch, Emma took the
20 chance to inspect the dining table before the guests arrived. She walked round the table reading the name plates, and was happy to learn that the Bastaldi’s would not be joining them. It occurred to Emma that she had not paid any attention whatsoever to Alphonso on the night of the opera, and it was perhaps as a consequence that he and his parents had decided to lunch elsewhere. This fact put a spring in Emma’s step as she headed to the drawing room, where he mother was preparing for her role as hostess.
When the second party arrived, a full 15 minutes later, Giuseppe took the opportunity to point out some of the paintings that adorned the hallway, including portraits of himself, his father and grandfather. He indicated also an item of furniture that had some interesting provenance and launched into an account of its importance. But it seemed Giovanni was once again having difficulty showing enthusiasm. His mind was on Giuseppe’s eldest daughter, and his senses strained for evidence of her presence, just as she sat in the drawing room listening intently for his deep voice.
During lunch, the singers were asked to tell in detail the stories of their training in the operatic arts and their experiences of visiting so many interesting places with touring companies. Giovanni, who appeared to have perked up, described Rome, Paris and Vienna in vivid colours, but he finished by saying that Valletta was certainly among his favourite destinations to date. The girls giggled at this remark, and Emma surprised herself by blurting out in her finest Italian: “Mr Boella, you can’t be serious, surely!”
Her mother shot her a disapproving glance, and Emma looked down into her bowl of soup, painfully aware of having broken a rule of etiquette in showing her feelings so freely in polite company.
In recent years, Emma had grown to feel that Valletta was both parochial and stuffy by contrast with other European capitals. She had only ever learned of Vienna, Paris and Rome from books, but she longed to see them for herself, and had no doubt that the experience
21 would be a liberating one. Her studies in German, Greek and Russian, likewise, had sparked in her mind fantasies of life in those countries, and she had long wished that her parents had continued the diplomatic family traditions that took her grandfather to St Petersburg and elsewhere. Banking and business were, by contrast, incredibly dull, she thought.
Giovanni turned to Emma, and cleared his throat in prelude to an explanation, but before he could speak, Giuseppe interrupted and said that his comment had been spot on, for certainly Valletta was among the most charming and interesting capitals in Europe. Fearing another long speech on the city’s fascinating history, Alessandrina herself interrupted.
“I understand, Mr Boella, that you have spent much of your life in Torino, but that you are originally from Sardinia. Have I understood correctly?”
“That is quite correct, Mrs Miller,” he replied with a small bow. “My family has land on
Sardinia, and I was indeed born there, in the countryside, not far from Cagliari. However, I was sent to school in Torino at a young age, and I also attended university there. My parents had a house also in Torino, and that is where they are now buried. I have travelled widely through Italy, but I must say that I consider Torino to be my home, perhaps because it is there that I spent so much of my wild youth. And if my memory serves me well, I think I must have been very wild.”
Giovanni smiled mischievously, and there were sympathetic chuckles around the table.
But it occurred to Emma that this impressive and charismatic man might indeed have been both wild and dangerous in his youth, and might still be so, even as he entered his fifth decade. Alessandrina, meanwhile, reflected on the rumours that Giovanni Boella had been married before, and that his wife had died during childbirth. She wondered how long ago she had died, and how he had dealt with his natural passions since her passing. She noted the lack of any rings on his fingers, and was tempted to ask whether he had a wife and children waiting for him in Torino. However, before she could decide on this, Giovanni continued.
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“I have my roots in Sardinia and northern Italy, as you say, but I think travelling is really in my blood. As a singer, I must go in search of new ears to hear me, and the painter in me is always in search of new subjects. I sometimes think of myself as a kind of travelling Gypsy, wandering here and there, painting and singing for my supper.”
There were more chuckles, but Giuseppe took the opportunity to steer the conversation toward one of his favourite subjects. He provided an account of his own exalted origins, which he traced back to a particular Tutonic knight who settled on Malta during the crusades.
The original Germanic name of Muller had been transformed into Miller, he said.
Giuseppe’s account of his pedigree continued in great detail until the arrival of the dessert course, with only passing references to his wife’s family, who he said were of Italian origin, one line having been granted the title of count by the Pope. The coats of arms of several branches of the family could be seen mounted on the walls around the house.
Giuseppe was enjoying himself immensely, but Emma was deep in thought, digging into her icy dessert with a look of intense concentration. She was pondering Giovanni Boella’s past life, which seemed thoroughly exotic to her. She had several counts and knights in her extended family, but somehow being raised in Sardinia seemed much more interesting, as did life as a student in the grand old city of Torino, not to mention strolling among the Alps, with their flowery meadows and snowy peaks. What fascinated her most, however, was the idea of this blond-haired, blue-eyed boy from northern stock being raised among black-haired, brown-eyed Sardinians, playing in the sun-baked Mediterranean countryside, but all the while yearning for the cool and clear air of the Alps. She looked up from her dish and stole a brief glance at Giovanni, then looked down again before she was discovered.
Emma longed for some excuse to engage Giovanni in conversation, and wondered if she should ask him about his childhood experiences in Sardinia, or perhaps about his mountain
23 rambles. However, bearing in mind the disapproving response that her previous outburst had provoked from her mother, she thought it would be wiser to keep quiet. Then, just as Emma had decided to defy etiquette and ask Giovanni to describe his childhood home, Alessandrina spoke up with a question of her own, pleading with him to explain certain details in Mozart’s
Don Giovanni, which she said were unclear in her mind, despite having seen the opera more than once. This task he completed with ease and lucidity, not least of all because he had appeared in the opera in Rome, taking the part of the vengeful father. Giuseppe was grateful that he treated the topics of seduction and violation with tact, bearing in mind the presence of his wife and daughters.
Then, remembering his position as one of one two adult males among several attractive women, Giovanni attempted a disarming joke: “I assure you all that I am in no way similar to my namesake, Don Giovanni, and you are all quite safe in my company.” This comment provoked more gay laughter among the ladies, and Giuseppe wondered if this weren’t exactly the kind of humour that Don Giovanni might have employed to charm new women into his arms.
As the dessert plates were cleared away, conversation turned to the subjects of painting, sculpture and engineering, since these were three areas of skill to which Giovanni laid claim.
He had painted portraits of some of Italy’s leading singers, he said, listing a few names that his hosts had vaguely heard of. He had also studied engineering at university and turned his hand to modifying designs for several mechanical devices that were eventually churned out in
Torino factories. However, he said there was little hope of his making money from engineering, since this would require dedication, and he was too easily distracted by beauty.
Emma’s heart beat hard as she wondered what exactly he meant by this.
As if to calm her pounding heart, Giovanni raised a hand, and with a sweeping gesture that indicated the paintings hung around the dining room, said: “My first love is painting, Mr
24
Miller, and it is in painting natural scenery and portraits such as these that I spend much of my time. Indeed, music is merely a pleasant diversion for me. I am most at home with a palette and an easel and some beautiful object of nature before me.”
Emma was not quite sure, but it seemed for a moment as if Giovanni had flashed a glance in her direction.
Eventually, the ladies withdrew to the drawing room, leaving Giovanni and Giuseppe to enjoy port and cigars. Giovanni listened with patience while his host gave an account of
Maltese cuisine, which he said was basic by the standards of the French, for example, but still quite excellent when cooked properly. Giovanni assured Giuseppe that the French had, in any case, learned most of their sauces from Italian chefs supplied to the French royal court.
Without the Italian influence, he said, they would still be eating frog stew.
During a pause in this culinary conversation, Giovanni managed to turn the subject back to art, and said that he was keen to explore the natural beauty of the island, and perhaps sketch some village scenes, when time allowed. Giuseppe strongly supported the idea, and suggested a few choice spots from which an artist might view the island at its best. A trip to
Gozo, the smaller sister island of Malta, might also prove interesting, so long as Giovanni was happy to travel in smalls boats. It was at this point that Giovanni asked whether Emma would mind sitting for a portrait, since she seemed to represent a fine example of the classic
“Maltese beauty”.
Giuseppe felt simultaneously flattered and alarmed at the prospect of Giovanni, the wandering Gypsy, focussing his bohemian attentions so intently on his beloved daughter. He paused, and spent a few moments in surveying the many portraits that adorned the dining room walls. Finally, having concluded that art was a respectable business, and that every portrait had involved a certain degree of sitting while an artist peered and daubed, he replied:
“So long as it is painted here in this house, yes. It would be unseemly for my daughter to go
25 to your rooms, you understand. We do have a studio upstairs. Rosa is a naturally gifted painter, as you know, and she is often to be found there working on her art. Perhaps she could learn something by watching you paint Emma, assuming you don’t mind an audience?”
“Not at all,” said Giovanni. “The more the merrier!” And for the rest of the evening, he seemed utterly enthralled with Giuseppe’s tales of Malta, which, it turned out, reached far back into ancient history.
26
CHAPTER 3
THE PORTRAIT
(1904)
The following Sunday, soon after mass, Emma and her sister Rosa waited patiently in the artists’ studio on the third floor of the big old house. Giovanni arrived through the door rather noisily, carrying a case in each arm, an easel and a large palette. He wore a dark blue beret on this head, and a white smock to protect his clothes. His manner was one of gallant informality, mixed with a business-like focus on the job in hand.
While Giovanni was busy with his preliminary sketches, Rosa sat quietly with her own sketch pad, taking note of how he dealt with the placing of her sister’s features in relation to each other on the bare canvas. Emma sat looking towards the window, not directly at the painter.
“Thank goodness!” she thought to herself. To steal glances at him unnoticed was disturbing enough, but to have to keep meeting his gaze would have been unthinkable. The man must surely know how female hearts reacted to his lovely eyes.
At one point he moved towards Emma to rearrange the drape of her shawl and in so doing she felt the touch of his hand through the thin material, and a delightful tingling sensation spread all down her arm. She could feel the nearness of him even when he had withdrawn his hand and stood looking at the effect of the alteration. She felt her cheeks becoming warm and her breathing a little faster.
When he had finished the preliminary sketch, he started putting colour in the space around it, almost to the charcoal lines, but not quite. And then he darkened the areas of
27 shadow on Emma’s facial features. Rosa, who was watching closely, felt that what had been a good charcoal likeness of her sister had suddenly become an apparently random arrangement of blobs of colour.
She herself had never painted people, but preferred flowers and trees, although finding a place to sit with her easel was not easy. As was the case with most houses in Valletta, the
Miller house did not have a garden. There were a few enclosed courtyards where flowers grew, and some of the grander houses on the outskirts had gardens around them, while the parks featured some fine old trees. But Rosa was not allowed to visit such places alone, and so she was limited mostly to the trees in the square and a few shrubs and roses that Papa kept in pots on the flat roof.
The exception to this rule of confinement were occasional trips into the countryside with
Anna, one of the maids, whose parents lived on a farm on the other side of the island. As
Giovanni continued to paint, Rosa’s mind drifted to her first such outing, just the previous spring, when she had for the first time been able to sketch and paint the Maltese countryside in all its glory.
The maid always put on her faldetta when she left the house, as did all self-respecting
Maltese women. This was a long, black cape that covered a woman's body from head to ankles, incorporating a broad hood to keep the sun off. Such garb provided protection from both the sun and prying male eyes. With Rosa heading ever in the direction of womanhood, it was decided that she should do likewise on this first journey across the island. Anna’s faldetta was of a simple woollen weave, while Rosa’s was of black silk with lace trim, a recent gift from her mother.
Early one morning, the two black-clad figures climbed aboard a carriage, one carrying a parcel of food for her parents, the other a box of paints, an easel and a book of watercolour paper. The pair headed out on their journey, alighting from the carriage not far from Mdina,
28 the old capital of Malta, with its sturdy defensive walls. There was still a mile or two to walk before they would reach Anna’s family home, but this section of the journey was, for Rosa, the whole point.
In early May, when the countryside was still green and not yet baked brown by the summer sun, there were great swathes of bright red poppies growing by the roadside, vivid against the bleached stone walls. How she loved painting those poppies, and she would try time and time again throughout her life to capture their brilliant translucence and the delicate crumpling of the petals, their lightness as well as the vivid colour. Beyond the walls that criss-crossed the farmland, she could see cactuses bearing prickly pears, and farmsteads surrounded by patches of greenery. Each farm had a little wind-powered pump that gently turned to bring up water for the neatly sown fields. In the distance, she could see the terracotta domes of old churches where the relics of saints were venerated. In some, the discarded crutches and callipers of the lame or injured bore testimony to divine powers of healing.
Now and again, Rosa and Anna would stop for a rest and a drink of water. This gave
Rosa time to make quick sketches and colour notes of the surrounding scenery.
When they reached Anna’s family home, the old couple were at the door to greet them
— the old lady dressed in the traditional black, her white hair pulled back in a tight bun, and the old man with an ancient, floppy sunhat on and a pipe in his mouth. Both their nut-brown old faces were criss-crossed by myriad lines, and their toothless mouths were stretched wide in gummy smiles. After the initial greetings, Anna went indoors, but Rosa was allowed to stay outside to sketch and paint the garden plot, where vegetables grew among the flowers.
After a while, she was called in for refreshments all laid out on a snowy cloth with hand- made lace edging. Rosa’s place at the table was distinguished by a beautiful tea cup and saucer covered in deep red roses with gold edging. And then there was a hearty meal of
29 simple country food, topped off with a few goodies Anna had managed to bring with her from Valletta.
This was the routine into which Rosa and her hosts fell on each visit. But the best part for
Rosa was still to come. After the meal had gone down, the four of them would stroll along a winding, rocky path, until they saw the azure sea before them. Sitting at the top of vertical cliffs, they would silently enjoy the soft sound of the sea and the cry of a few birds. On the way back to Valletta, Anna’s arms would be laden with whatever flowers were in bloom. On that first occasion, this included some of the climbing roses from around the door, which were just opening their petals. Pink and white and richly perfumed, these few flowers would be the subjects of further paintings when Rosa finally made it home.
Rosa woke from her reverie and noticed a great difference in the image on Giovanni’s canvas. The splodges had given way to more delicate brush strokes, and Emma’s face seemed at last to be emerging, elegant and beautiful and with a decidedly rosy tint to the cheeks.
Before the painting was half finished, Giovanni announced that he would have to depart, since he was scheduled to sing that evening. But he would be back to continue the portrait next week. And so he was, and again the week after that, working with infinite care and delicacy on the portrait, mostly in silence, and with a look of intense concentration on his face. Occasionally, he would stop to twist one of his moustaches, and Emma struggled to contain a smile.
Although she did not realise it at the time, Giovanni was as smitten as she was. Had he not felt so deeply for her, the portrait would have taken less than half the time. He thought her enchantingly beautiful and was intent on capturing that beauty to the best of his ability. As time passed, and he felt more confident that the portrait was a success, he increasingly engaged Emma in conversation, firstly on polite and conventional topics, but later on more wide-ranging and personal subjects.
30
Finally, Emma plucked up the courage to ask about his childhood in Sardinia, and he responded with a series of portraits in words, describing the large country house that had been his parents’ home and his adventures among the hot Sardinian hills. He told her too about the
Italian Alps, with their deep snows, gushing rivers and thick forests, of lightning strikes and narrow mountain paths that crumbled under foot. He spoke too of his many travels in Europe, of visits to German universities and encounters with Austrian royalty. He described his training in various arts, and insisted that he was almost entirely self-taught when it came to painting and sculpture. He scorned painting academies, which he said did terrible harm to their students, destroying their individuality by the rigid copying of the interpretations and methods of the instructors.
Emma was spellbound, but couldn’t help noticing that Giovanni skirted around the subject of wives and children, and she was grateful, taking it as evidence of his delicacy. In fact, he had purposely avoided mention of a number of aspects of his life, including one incident in particular that occurred when he was just 19 years old.
He had just finished his first year at university, and was spending the summer holidays at his parents’ house in Torino. With their permission, he set out on a trip up into the mountains to paint and do a bit of hunting. He stayed in the family’s lodge, which they had named Il
Nido, since it seemed like a bird’s nest perched high on a mountain side. He took one of the maids with him to cook and wash clothes, since a man of his station would rarely be required to fend entirely for himself in the domestic arena. She was not particularly attractive; if anything, she was rather lumpish and clumsy, Giovanni’s mother having chosen her for this reason. However, she had a kind heart. Too kind, it seems, for when this handsome young man asked to be kept warm in the cold mountain night, she found it difficult to refuse him.
And whether it was the wine or the mountain air, he could never be sure, but he somehow lost control of his passions entirely.
31
While nothing was said in the following months, Giovanni’s parents suspected that their son was responsible for the maid’s increasingly obvious condition, and his general air of shame in her presence was more damning than any confession. Finally, four months into the pregnancy, Giovanni’s mother took the opportunity to speak with the maid in private, offering to support her and the child once it was born. She even offered to fix her up with a local young man who would make a suitable husband. Good natured as she was, the maid never once made an accusation against Giovanni, either in private or in front of his parents, and asked only for an annual sum towards the child’s upkeep and a reference for future employment.
As it turned out, the maid died in childbirth, leaving her own parents, who were dairy farmers, to raise the baby in a village outside Torino. They named the baby Bianca, and she grew into a sweet and beguiling little girl, pretty both in looks and ways. From time to time,
Giovanni visited her, though he never admitted to being the father. He would occasionally make additional gifts of money or pretty clothes to the girl, and became known as “Uncle
Giovanni”. He often praised her for her curly golden locks, which he said made her look like a princess.
Over the years, a bond grew between them, and by the time Giovanni had graduated from university, she had stolen his heart. He decided that if he ever married and became a respectable man in Torino city life, he would do his best to provide Bianca with all the best things in life, starting with a good education.
As it turned out, Giovanni’s talents and passions took him far from Torino in subsequent years. Having graduated as an engineer, he found that his deepest passion was for art, both sculpture and painting, and he longed to develop his skills to their full limit. He spent a year travelling the country with a student friend, seeking out the works of Da Vinci, Michelangelo,
Raphael, Titian and Caravaggio, and making sketches from them. He travelled from Milano
32 to Genoa, to Venice and Pisa, down to Rome and Naples, stopping occasionally in small towns and villages to sketch and paint rustic scenes. Increasingly, he would ask people to sit for him, and he discovered a talent for capturing the tones and expressions of the human face.
At the age of 24, he settled for a while with his mother’s sister in Milano, and it was there that he secured his first paid commissions, painting portraits for relatives and their social circle. It was in Milano also that he was first asked to perform in an opera, joining the chorus at La Scala. His aunt arranged for him to take singing lessons with one of the best bass voices in the city, a venture that greatly improved Giovanni’s singing. He had always had a powerful voice, but in this period, he developed control and sensitivity.
Shortly after his twenty-fifth birthday, Giovanni met the charming young lady who would become his first wife. He had returned to Torino for a holiday and gone into the mountains to shoot and sketch. There he came to know a family of humble farmers who lived half way up the mountain, growing vegetables and raising goats and chickens. The couple,
Arturo and Maretta, had a daughter named Alessandra, and Giovanni was struck by her natural beauty and warm smile from the first. He allowed his shooting and sketching to take a back seat while he nurtured his relations with the farmer’s daughter, and soon they fell deeply in love.
Just four months into the love affair, Giovanni asked for Alessandra’s hand in marriage, and they were wed that spring, the ceremony taking place in a country church. It was something of a shock to Giovanni’s middle-class relatives to learn that he’d fallen for a poor girl from the mountains, but he insisted that love must take precedence over social convention and so he had his way.
The newly-weds travelled together for several months, venturing as far as Paris, Geneva,
Zurich, Vienna and Berlin, before settling in Milano, where they moved into a bright and spacious apartment. He continued to paint, and she found work as a shop assistant, selling
33 hats to the city’s finely dressed ladies. Increasingly, he was called upon to sing at La Scala, taking his first solo role as Zaccaria, the high priest of the Jews. Over the following years,
Alessandra gave him three sons, who he grew to love very much.
However, fate was cruel. For ten years into the marriage, she died while giving birth to their fourth son. Just days after Alessandra’s death, the new baby died also, having been born small and weak, thus landing Giovanni with a double grief. Unable to move from his bed, he took the three boys out of school and sent them to live with Alessandra’s parents in the mountains to the north of Torino. For a while, he closed his door to friends and family, unable to face the world while his heart was so filled with grief.
Finally, at the age of 36, he started to find his strength once more, and stepped out into the world. Milano held too many memories for him, and so he sold the apartment and joined a touring opera company, leaving in the autumn for Paris and wondering if he would ever return. The following year, however, he was back at La Scala, taking the part of
Mephistopheles in Faust. He won public acclaim that year, not only for the quality of his performance, but also for the striking stage scenery, which he had designed and partly painted himself.
Then, deciding that he had neglected his sons’ education, he arranged for them to return to Milano and live with Giovanni’s kind-hearted aunt. There they would attend a respectable school and get the kind of education that he had always wanted for them. They had enjoyed their sojourn in the mountains, but now they must return to reality. If they wanted to visit
Arturo and Maretta, they could do so during summer holidays.
Giovanni’s life fell into a pattern of sorts. He spent the next several years touring with the company during the opera season, and filled the idle months with painting and sculpture, mostly portraits for those with enough money to pay his high prices. He returned to Milano when La Scala required his presence, but preferred to spend his time in Torino, moving in
34 intellectual and artistic circles. There was no shortage of work for a competent portraitist, and his fame continued to grow within the city. Occasionally, however, his operatic career would take him to out-of-the-way places, and on one occasion, he was lucky enough to have landed on the charming island of Malta.
* * *
As Giovanni put the very finishing touches to Emma’s portrait, he concluded the account of his youth and travels. He had not, of course, mentioned the maid or the bastard daughter, nor the various ladies of the night who had filled many a lonely evening. And he had made only vague allusions to having once been married with children. However, he longed to unburden himself of the entire story, and Emma seemed certain to be a sympathetic listener.
His guess was not far wrong, for Emma’s besotted feminine heart was already longing to embrace him and praise him for all his talents and hard work.
Giovanni stood his portrait of Emma against a wall. He would come back when it was dry and add a coat of varnish. As he washed his brushes, the younger of the two house maids,
Alissa, knocked and entered. She said that Alphonso Bastaldi and his parents were downstairs and that they would be staying for lunch. Emma’s father wished Emma and Rosa to join them immediately. The maid had been instructed to show Mr Boella out once he had finished his painting.
Emma was angry with her father, who surely must know that she had no interest in
Bastaldi. She was sad, also, at the prospect of saying goodbye to Giovanni. The painting of the portrait had offered her an opportunity to talk with him away from her parents, and she might never have the chance again.
35
As Giovanni gathered his things and prepared to leave, Emma said goodbye, shook his hand and looked into his eyes. Though she dared not utter the words, she willed her eyes to express a question: “When will we meet again?”
Emma found the ensuing meal intolerable, and Alphonso made her flesh creep. He didn’t smile exactly; he leered at her. He had a nasty way of standing just a little too close, and he smelled of whisky and stale cigar smoke. She could not even be polite to him, and her father glared at her sternly as she ate little and talked less. Despite various attempts on the part of
Alphonso to engage Emma in conversation, she hardly uttered half a dozen words. In the end, everyone was relieved when Giuseppe suggested that the ladies might like to take some fresh air on the roof and look at the roses growing there.
As they passed upstairs, they stopped by the studio and Emma showed them the portrait drying against the wall. It was clear to Alessandrina that the artist was in love with her daughter, who appeared to have been gazing just beyond his left shoulder. She wondered what her husband would make of it, but perhaps he was not as perceptive as she. She hoped he was not.
That night, as Emma was preparing for bed, Alissa the maid entered her bedroom and put down a stack of fresh towels. She paused a moment, and then handed Emma a small square of paper, which had been folded several times. It was a note from Giovanni, reading:
“Tomorrow. Outside the convent at four. G.”
36
CHAPTER 4
FORBIDDEN LOVE
(1904)
Emma attended lessons at the convent the next day as if it were just another Monday at school. However, her mind wandered again and again from her studies, and she struggled to learn anything at all. When her German-language tutor, Sister Miguel, reviewed her work at the end of the afternoon, she found countless grammatical errors, which were certainly not made by the Emma that she knew. She was reprimanded and told to take her head out of the clouds.
Finally the clock ticked round to four, and Emma’s heart raced as she packed her books away. Emerging into the bright sunlight, she saw Alissa waiting in the shade of a tree, the hood of her faldetta covering half of her face. But she could see no sign of Giovanni.
Emma handed over her books to Alissa, wondering if she should ask where the Italian had got to, half suspecting that he had decided against the rendezvous after all. Just then, a caretta drew up, and the tall, barrel-chested figure of Giovanni Boella stepped down, impeccably dressed in a fine linen suit and a broad-brimmed straw boater, his moustaches waxed and combed to perfection. Emma smiled and then strolled away with Alissa, following the harbour wall in the direction of home, aiming to put some distance between herself and the other students leaving the convent. After a while, Giovanni caught up and greeted the maid and her blushing young mistress with equal pleasantry.
He took the heavy books from Alissa’s arms, and she went a little way ahead, leaving
Emma and Giovanni to talk as they strolled slowing along. They conversed politely on the
37 subject of her studies, then the weather, the history of the Island, the functions of the various boats moving around the harbour — anything but what was really in both their minds.
At last she heard him say, “Is there any way I can see you alone?”
Although she had been wishing the same thing, she nonetheless blushed with confusion, for she was not sure how it could be managed. Nor was she entirely certain that she should be taking such bold steps, for surely her parents and all adults warned against such things for a reason.
Seeing her confusion and taking it for embarrassment, Giovanni straight away added,
“Of course, if you would rather not, I quite understand. Perhaps if I asked your parent’s permission?”
“No, no, don’t do that! Papa is terribly strict with us girls. He guards us very, very carefully. Only because he loves us, you understand. But he would never give his approval,
I’m quite sure.”
Giovanni knew that she was probably right, but he wondered to himself exactly why her father would not approve of him. It could not be his age, since Alphonso Bastaldi was three years his senior and had already been identified as a suitable candidate for Emma’s hand. It could not be the fact of his having been married before, since this was another thing that
Giovanni had in common with Alphonso. And it could not be Giovanni’s lack of breeding, because he was clearly of respectable middle-class stock.
Perhaps it was his lack of Maltese ancestry, or rather the preponderance of Italian blood?
Indeed, Giovanni had noticed a general disdain for Italians among the Maltese, and he suspected that Giuseppe was no different from his compatriots in this respect. He had heard a few jokes since his arrival to the effect that Italians were stupid in one way or another.
Perhaps Giuseppe had also been put off by Giovanni’s itinerant life, wandering the corners of Europe like a “Gypsy”, as he had so carelessly put it over lunch some weeks
38 before. Allied with this was his persona as the creative, bohemian type, who found himself motivated more by “beauty” — and other such dubious, ephemeral notions — than by solid earnings. Giovanni suspected that Giuseppe admired artists to a certain extent, regarding them as a kind of necessary froth on the top of any civilized society, but that they were not to be taken entirely seriously, and certainly not to be trusted with one’s daughters.
Perhaps — and here he felt he was getting warmer — it was Giovanni’s apparent lack of wealth that was at the root of Giuseppe’s disdain, since he had admitted to having to work for a living “like everyone else”. He began to regret having been so frank about his lack of funds.
His parents’ land in Sardinia had been inherited by his older brother, Guido, and the house in
Torino had gone to his mother’s cousin, who seemed like she would live forever. Only on her death would Giovanni get his hands on the old house, and that might be decades from now.
Indeed, he wasn’t even sure of this, since he had never been informed of the details of the will. He had been left only the hunting lodge in the mountains to the north of Torino. This, along with a few savings, which he kept tucked away in an Italian bank, was the sum of his wealth.
Certainly, if he were to make a more favourable impression with Emma’s parents in future, he would have to correct their view of his lowly financial standing and emphasise his family’s claims to noble ancestry – which including reputed links to the House of Savoy. He might also drop into conversation the names of a few counts and barons whom he counted among his circle of friends. And he would have to stop describing himself as a Gypsy who worked for his living like anyone else. That certainly would not do. He had won the respect of Alessandra’s father by talking endlessly of bridges and city planning, and the money to be made from mass production, and such an approach might prove successful once again.
In any case, he would have to bide his time until Alphonso Bastaldi was out of the picture. The Maltese banker seemed to have little chance of winning Emma’s heart, and once
39 he was gone, Giovanni would be in a position to put his case more cleverly. The opera company would be in Valletta for another few weeks, and he hoped this would be sufficient time to accomplish the task of painting a favourable impression of himself. However, if no more invitations to the Miller household were forthcoming in that time, he would perhaps leave the opera to its own devices and settle in Malta for the winter. He was quite certain that he ought not to give up on Emma Boella without making some sort of effort.
“I may be able to leave the house without anyone knowing,” said Emma at last, having gathered her courage. “I’m sure Alissa would help me in this. I could leave for an hour before dinner one evening, but it would be risky.”
“Well, you can let me know tomorrow,” he replied. “We can meet outside the convent at the same time, and you can tell me whether you think a solitary meeting would be possible.
Would that be agreeable?”
”I’m not sure. Sometimes it is Anna, the older maid, who meets me, and she would thoroughly disapprove of my speaking with you. She’s very nice, you understand, but she has more old-fashioned ideas. I mean, she wouldn’t tell on me, but she wouldn’t approve either.”
“Well,” said Giovanni, “if it is not Alissa here with you tomorrow, I will tell the driver to go on past, and we shall meet another day instead. In any case, I have to come to your home to collect the portrait for framing, so I will see you next Sunday for certain.”
“You had better look carefully tomorrow, Mr Boella, because Anna and Alissa look almost the same wrapped in their faldettas. If I acknowledge you as you drive past, it will be
Alissa. If I ignore your presence, then drive on.”
By this time, they were nearly at the bottom of the steps up to the square, and Emma slowed to a halt. “If we go any further, we can be seen from the top windows of my house.
Be careful.”
“Ah, but that is all to the good. I’m sure that will come in useful,” smiled Giovanni.
40
He took his leave, and Emma and Alissa went up the steps to the square. As they reached the top, they saw a curtain twitch.
* * *
The following afternoon, Emma left the convent with Alissa shortly after four o’clock, and Giovanni was there to greet them. Descending from his carretta, he walked with them for a while. Their conversation was brief, just long enough to confirm that Emma would indeed risk a solitary meeting with Giovanni, later that evening at five o’clock.
She explained that she would go home, greet her parents, change her clothes and then retire to her room to start her homework. Then, at five, she would descend quietly by the back stairs, through the kitchen, and out through the tradesmen’s entrance at the side of the house.
Dressed in her faldetta, she should be able to cross the square and make it down the stone staircase to the harbour wall unrecognized. If she were recognized and later questioned, she would simply say that she had gone to buy flowers for Rosa to paint, and as an insurance policy, she would be sure to do so and return with them in a bundle.
Giovanni should wait for her in a carretta further along the harbour wall, and they would drive away together, hopefully unseen, and … well, that was as far as she had thought things through. She said she could only be away for an hour, and that she should be sure to return long before dinner, which was always served promptly at eight.
Giovanni said it was a splendid plan, and that he would be waiting in his carretta from six o’clock. He would, he added, be more than happy to help Emma pick some flowers, since this was a pastime close to his heart.
Later that evening, the plan was put to the test, and it went like clockwork. Giovanni and
Emma soon found themselves trotting around the streets of the city, having told the driver
41 that Mr Boella wished to be shown the sights. They drove past numerous churches and through several squares, and Emma did her best to provide a commentary as they went.
Eventually, Giovanni asked the driver to let them down, and the shy lovers proceeded on foot. They stopped at a spot overlooking the Grand Harbour and gazed at the impressive view, complete with fishermen returning from a day on the sea and tall-masted British naval vessels at anchor. They spoke little, but felt happy in each other’s company, as if they were old friends, and Emma felt that she were turning a broad corner in her life, beyond which was an open vista and the promise of great things.
Giovanni looked at his gold pocket watch and suggested that she should return home.
Proceeding through the narrow streets with Giovanni at her side, Emma became increasingly nervous that she would be recognized, since she was reasonably well known in the local area.
She pulled her faldetta close around her face and stuck to the shadows. Eventually, they passed the cathedral, and Giovanni said that he would like to visit the place with her someday, to explain some of the best paintings, including one in particular by a famous
Italian artist.
As they approached the Carmelite church, with its large, silver dome, Giovanni bid her farewell, but said that if she were happy to meet again, then he would be at the bottom of the steps the following Friday at six o’clock. Emma agreed and headed home alone, hoping that her absence had not been discovered. Just as she turned into the square, she remembered that she had not picked a single flower. And so she plucked a purple sprig of late blossom from a low-hanging tree. The flowers were, she thought, unusually sweet-scented.
Luckily, Emma’s parents had not missed her at all, and dinner passed just as usual. That night, she told Rosa all about her adventure in whispers before going to sleep. Rosa said that she was just as excited as her sister, and that if she could be of any assistance, Emma need only ask.
42
* * *
For the next three weeks, Emma and Giovanni continued their secret meetings, each
Tuesday and Friday evening at six o’clock. They enjoyed their tours by carretta and on foot, but soon began to resent having only an hour or so together each time. They longed to go further afield, to explore the island beyond Valletta and perhaps even find a secret place in which to become more intimate. They had not yet kissed, partly because Emma felt afraid of being seen. But she longed to take that first step, and her mind often worked on ways by which she might be able to spend an entire day with her lover, for that is what he seemed to have become, at least in her heart.
To Emma’s great surprise, it was the older maid, Anna, who came up with the solution.
One Saturday, she told Emma that she had noticed her furtive meetings with Giovanni, and had said nothing to her parents. She said she approved of Emma’s lover, since he seemed both a charming and respectable person. Added to which, she had nothing but contempt for
Alphonso Bastaldi, who was known to have done away with his wife because he was bored with her. In which case, if Emma were truly in love, then Anna would be happy to help her to see more of the man. In truth, Anna had been less than convinced that she should encourage the match, but for the past week Rosa and Alissa had been quietly working on her, and her soft heart had finally come round.
And so it was arranged that Emma would accompany Rosa and Anna on their next trip across the island to see Anna’s parents. She had never shown any interest in such day-long trips before, and Alessandrina expressed a mild surprise when the idea was first mooted.
However, no major objections were raised, and so the following Saturday, early in the
43 morning, three black-clad figures headed out on their journey. However, while Anna and
Rosa continued across the island as usual, Emma stepped down from the carretta beyond the city’s main gate. And waiting for her was her wonderful Giovanni, a broad smile on his face and a bunch of wild flowers in his hand.
During this first full day together, Giovanni explained that he had informed the opera company that he would not be accompanying them on the next stage of their tour, which took them to Sicily. He would stay through the winter and work on new paintings, and spend as much time as possible with Emma. Perhaps, he said, in the New Year, he would have the chance to convince Emma’s parents of his worthiness. Emma was over the moon, and for the first time, the couple embraced. Then, finding the shade of an alleyway, they kissed. It was just as wonderful as Emma had ever imagined, and more, although she said his moustache might do with a trim.
* * *
In the following weeks, they were able to spend several such days together, always under the cover of a journey out with Anna and Rosa. The lovers spent much of the time exploring the southern part of the island, stopping in quiet places for picnic lunches, either on rocks overlooking the blue sea, or else in some shady orchard. They shared simple meals of bread, cheese and sausage, all carefully prepared with Giovanni’s pocket knife and washed down with red wine.
Emma taught Giovanni a few phrases in Maltese, and he tried them on farmers, or else on the old ladies who sat in doorways making lace. These women, with their creased, brown
44 faces, smiled and giggled at the “young lovers”. Emma and Giovanni watched as they worked on their lace, throwing their bobbins hither and thither across their cushions, chattering as they did so. He bought Emma a set of beautiful lace cuffs and a collar, but she didn’t dare to wear them at home, for fear of being questioned.
Their romantic arrangements were interrupted by the arrival of the Christmas festivities.
Giovanni had been hoping for an invitation to dine at the Miller household, but none was forthcoming. Instead, it seemed the Bastaldis were to be the guests of honour, and they came and went almost as if the house were their own. Emma’s parents seemed to make every effort to leave her and Alphonso alone in each other’s company, and Emma became adept at excusing herself on the slightest pretext. On one occasion, the reputed wife-killer presented
Emma with a small Christmas gift wrapped in fine paper and tied with a silk bow. Emma graciously accepted it, then left it on a sideboard unopened while she excused herself on the pretext of having to discuss some urgent matter with the cook. The days dragged and she found it difficult to summon even the appearance of festive cheer, to the point that her mother became impatient with her sullen mood.
It was a great relief to Emma and Giovanni both when the holy season was finally done with, and their reunion one mid-January morning in the shade of an alleyway was both passionate and ecstatic. They exchanged gifts at last and vowed never to be parted again for so long. They soon resumed their former schedule of secretive meetings and agreed that
Emma’s parents must finally be getting the message. Surely, if the couple could just be patient, their longings would eventually be fulfilled.
45
CHAPTER 5
THE PROPOSAL
(1905)
One Saturday, as Easter approached, Giovanni said that he wanted to visit the Cathedral of St John and show Emma the paintings he had spoken of before. After which, he said, he had a surprise for her. Emma enjoyed her tour of the cathedral’s art works, and felt that
Giovanni’s commentary brought to life several paintings that she had seen many times before but never truly appreciated. However, the one painting on which he was most keen happened to be one that Emma found less than appealing. It was Caravaggio’s scene of the beheading of St. John the Baptist, a work that had prompted much praise over the years, and of which the cathedral was rightly proud. However, to Emma’s eyes, it was brutal and disturbing, and she found it particularly ghoulish of the artist that he had signed his name in the pool of blood flowing from St John’s neck. Emma was impressed with Caravaggio’s artistic skill, but it seemed to be tempting fate to linger too long before a reminder of such an unfortunate and imprudent Italian visitor to Malta.
She interrupted Giovanni’s commentary to ask him what his surprise was. Turning and taking her hand, Giovanni declared proudly: “I have prepared lunch for you, my love, in my rooms, which are close by. There is fine Italian wine, or at least the best I could find around here, and I have prepared a pasta sauce that I hope you will find delicious. I must admit that, having tasted it this morning, there has rarely been a better sauce concocted, if I say so myself.” And he gave a little bow, which made Emma smile.
46
Up to this point, Giovanni had resisted the temptation to invite Emma back to his lodgings, largely because he did not wish to risk being accused of having slept with her. It was one thing to be caught walking arm-in-arm together, but quite another to be discovered in a small apartment without a chaperone. However, time was moving along, and Giovanni had an announcement to make that he felt required both privacy and ceremony.
Within half an hour, they were seated at the dining table in Giovanni’s humble lodgings, which consisted of a kitchen-cum-studio, with an adjoining bedroom and bathroom. The meal was just as good as he had promised, and when it was finished, he gave Emma a tour of his recent paintings, which lined the walls of the studio. He had been working furiously to capture the light and colours of Malta, both city and countryside, and Emma was quite astounded at both his industry and the quality of his works. Even the hurried pen-and-wash sketches were worthy, she thought, of hanging in a gallery. Then she saw the portrait of herself standing by the window, an ornate gilt frame around it. Once her father saw that portrait, thought Emma, he would surely know what was going on.
Holding the painting up to the light, Giovanni said: “This is what I’ve brought you her for, my dear. To show you the painting in its frame, which is the finest I could manage under the circumstances, and also to tell you that I plan to present the picture to your father tomorrow as a gift for Easter. I’m not sure I can wait much longer before meeting with your parents again. Alphonso may be on the way out, but who is to say that someone else may not replace him very soon? In which case, tomorrow is the day. I will present the picture, which I hope your father will appreciate on its artistic merits, and then I will ask for permission to court you.”
Emma’s face drained of blood and she felt a little nauseous. Certainly, this step must come at some point, but now that it was here, she feared that her father would be cruel and
47 dismissive of Giovanni’s suggestion. He would be sent off with a flea in his ear. And what then?
But she didn’t express her misgivings immediately. Rather, she agreed with Giovanni’s project and offered her encouragement, muted thought it was: “That’s a fine idea, my darling.
I’m sure he will love the painting, and also give you a fair hearing. Father is somewhat stuck in his ways, but underneath it all he’s a fair man, and he wants me to be happy.”
The couple moved to the adjoining bedroom and lay down together, fully clothed, in each other’s arms. Giovanni was quite resolved to put all carnal urges to one side until they were married. As they lay on the soft bed together, Emma’s head nestling on her lover’s shoulder, they both felt they had arrived in heaven.
Suddenly, Giovanni spoke again, this time with confidence: “There is no fair and sensible reason why your father should refuse my request to court you. But if he says no,
Emma, will you come away with me? Will you come with me back to Italy?”
The enormity of his words filled her with a mixture of delight and terror, for she knew in her heart that her father was quite likely to turn down his request. And yet, it seemed she had to agree. They must be together, and if that meant defying her parents and running away, then so be it.
“Yes, of course I will,” she whispered. “I’ll go anywhere with you. I’ll stay with you forever.”
She lay there for a while, feeling the warmth of his arms and listening to the ticking of the clock, and then remembered that she absolutely must not miss her rendezvous with Anna and Rosa. They would be waiting for her, as arranged, along the wall by the Grand Harbour at five o’clock, and she must be sure to meet them. Failure to do so might mean discovery and utter ruin. She jumped from the bead, kissed her lover passionately once more and flew down the stairs.
48
* * *
The next day, after the Sunday church service, Emma stood at her bedroom window, looking down into the square from behind the lace curtains. On the dot of eleven, she saw
Giovanni walk up to the house in his best suit, the portrait under this arm, wrapped in a sheet of white linen. He was let into the house, and Emma sat deadly still on her bed, listening for voices, hoping with all her might that her father would be kind to Giovanni and accept his proposal. Ten minutes later, she saw Giovanni marching away from the house again, his back taut with injured pride. She knew that he had been rejected, and she felt sick. She longed to run after him, but she knew that would make things worse. She lay on her bed and cried.
A few minutes later her father burst into her bedroom. “So! You have been encouraging that ... that artist to think that I would even consider letting him call on you? You may be clever at your lessons but you don’t have an ounce of common sense in that infatuated head of yours. You know who I want you to marry, so you had better get used to the idea. And it’s about time you finished at the convent and thought about being a normal young woman. I am going to speak to Mother Superior tomorrow, and she can give you a certificate by way of graduation. Then you will stop at home, and pay more attention to your future.”
He stood looking at her for a moment, red-faced and eyes bulging, and she thought he might be on the verge of relenting, of apologizing for his outburst and asking to hear her side of things. But he didn’t. Instead, he turned on his heels and left the room, slamming the door after him.
49
* * *
Emma had expected her father’s refusal, but to have to stop her studies with the nuns as well was a double blow. She thought of Giovanni waiting in his usual place that afternoon and longed to meet him, but didn’t dare to leave her room, let alone the house. She endured two whole days of misery and uncertainty, sitting in her room, answering the door only to
Alissa, who bought her meals and then took them away uneaten.
On the third day she emerged and went down to breakfast. No one took any notice of her; they had been warned not to. Alessandrina spoke politely with Rosa about this and that and then reminded her husband of their lunch appointment at the Russian Ambassador’s residence. Giuseppe murmured a response from behind his newspaper, and again there was silence.
Alissa hovered around the breakfast table, clearing plates and bringing fresh coffee. As she poured a cup for Emma, their eyes met, and the maid gave a meaningful glance up at the ceiling.
Emma’s heart lurched with excitement. Perhaps there was some plan afoot, some means by which she might meet Giovanni again. She was ravenous, having refused meals for two days, but she forced herself to eat in a leisurely fashion, as though she had all the time in the world. Finally, as she was starting on her fourth slice of toast, her parents excused themselves and left the room.
As Alissa cleared the table, she slipped a note under the edge of Emma’s plate and then disappeared. It read: “Darling Emma, try and meet me around half past ten, if you can get away. I’ll be waiting by the bottom of the steps. If you can’t make it, send a note with Alissa.
Your loving Giovanni.”
50
It was usual for the younger maid, when she had finished all the dirtier chores, such as cleaning the kitchen stove, washing the steps and polishing all the brass on the front door, to go up and change her apron so that she would look fresh and clean for any visitor. Just before half past ten, she raced up the stairs, removing her soiled apron as she went and knocked quietly on Emma’s door. Entering the room, she spoke in an excited whisper, laying out the plan in what seemed like one long sentence.
“Your parents are going to the Russian Ambassador’s house, so you will have a few hours to see him. It’s all arranged. He’ll be here any minute, down by the bottom of the steps.
Once your parents are gone, you can slip out and meet him. If they take a while to leave the house, I’ll go down for you and tell him to wait until the coast is clear. You can wear your faldetta anyway, just in case there are spies.”
Just then, they heard the front door closing, and moving to Emma’s bedroom window, they saw Alessandrina and Giuseppe climbing aboard a carriage. They would be with the ambassador for morning coffee and lunch and might not be back until mid-afternoon.
Families may fall apart and children betray their parents, but the wheels of civilized society must keep moving. Invitations must be sent out, appointments kept and reputations maintained. From the window, Emma could see the top of the stone stairway, but could not see all the way down. Only from the studio above and the maids’ attic quarters above that could one see down to the harbour wall.
Alissa rushed from the room, saying: “I’ll run up to the studio and see if he’s there.”
Emma stood in her room alone, looking around her and wondering what, if anything, she should take with her on such an impetuous mission. She wondered if she were in the grip of madness, hurtling headlong towards ruin. But she so longed to meet Giovanni that she felt nothing could stop her. Then she heard a loud banging from above, apparently Alissa’s foot stomping on the floor of the studio. Clearly, it was a signal to get moving.
51
Emma left the house cautiously. As usual, she wrapped herself in her faldetta and crept out the workman’s entrance, then walked around the shadowy edge of the square and down the steps. He was waiting for her in a carretta, the collar of his coat turned up in partial disguise. As she climbed in beside him, he wrapped her in his arms, saying, “I thought you were never coming.”
They went back to his rooms, where they celebrated the joy of being together again with long embraces and tears and shameless kisses. The awful emptiness of their abrupt separation was behind them, and neither wanted to be parted from the other ever again.
He told her how he had spent the past two days pacing his room, and Emma told of how she’d barely stopped sobbing into her pillow. Now they were both so weary, and they retired to the bed, where they fell asleep, warm in each other’s arms.
* * *
When they awoke, the room was dark, the sun having apparently gone down. Emma could hear the loud ticking of the clock, but she could not make out the hands in the gloom.
Outside could be heard a strange bellowing noise, as if from some wounded animal. Emma raised herself from the bed and looked out of the window. There in the street below was her father, walking stick in hand, looking up at her and shouting.
She opened the window, her heart in her mouth, and heard him yell: “Emma, come down at once! Close that window now and come down here, before I come up there and drag you down!”
52
Emma closed the window and turned to Giovanni, who was sitting upright, having clearly heard everything. He offered to go downstairs and explain the situation to Emma’s father, but she said that it would be suicide to try. She insisted on leaving on her own. She said she would try to explain to her parents what had happened, and would contact Giovanni in a few days. In the half-light she fumbled to put her shoes on and tie the laces, and had just finished this task when the front door to the small apartment burst open, and in stepped
Giuseppe, walking stick held out in front, as if he expected to fight a duel.
Giovanni sprung from the bed and strode into the living room to meet the furious father.
Emma heard him say: “Mr Miller, please allow me to explain. There has been a terrible misunderstanding.”
But he was cut off before he could explain. Giuseppe brushed him to one side as he strode further into the apartment, saying, “You have my daughter here. Where is she?”
At that moment, Emma, dishevelled and pale with dread of what might follow, emerged from the bedroom, fixing her hat in place with a large pin, her faldetta draped over one arm.
Giuseppe looked at her with disgust and disappointment in his eyes. “You little trollop!
What have you done to us?”
Then he turned to Giovanni and announced: “She’s to return with me immediately, Mr
Boella, and I shall be seeing you in due course. I don’t wish to hear your explanations, since I think I can imagine what has occurred. However, I shall send for you once I have decided on a course of action.”
And with that, he grabbed his daughter’s arm and marched her from the room and down the stairs, the walking stick held aloft.
Once home, Emma discovered that her entire double life had been discovered. She had clearly slept through the entire afternoon and into the evening, and the realization of her absence had prompted a barrage of questions from Alessandrina and Giuseppe. They had
53 grilled Rosa, then Anna and Alissa, until they had the whole story. Once they learned of the covert arrangement with Giovanni, and that it had been continuing since the autumn, they assumed the worst, and Giuseppe had rushed to rescue his daughter, fearing all the time that she must already be pregnant. He should have expected this from the wandering Italian gigolo, and he cursed himself for having been so trusting.
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CHAPTER 6
CONFESSION
(1905)
In the following week, Emma found herself confined once more to her room, but this time she was locked inside, and it was her mother who brought her meals on a tray and took them away. In time, Alessandrina attempted to talk with her kindly, asking her if “anything untoward” had happened between her and Giovanni. But Emma was both embarrassed by the question and confused as to what would qualify as “untoward”, and so she could only answer that she didn’t think so, a response that apparently caused her mother deep concern.
Since Giuseppe was still too angry to discuss the subject directly with Emma, it was
Alessandrina who explained that she was not to see Mr Boella again for any reason, nor to communicate with him at all until her father had talked with him and matters had been settled. Emma could not guess what exactly was meant by “settled” but she assumed that it meant Giovanni’s banishment from Malta, perhaps with threats of legal action to keep him from returning.
At first, Emma submitted to her mother’s authority, and simply cried in secret. But the next day she told her mother that she loved Giovanni desperately, and that they were hoping to marry, and she begged her mother to relay this to her father in the hope that Giovanni might be able to put his case. Alessandrina said that she would try her best, but the decision was not hers, and her husband was nothing if not stubborn.
The following day, Emma heard her father coming up the stairs. The key turned in the lock, and he appeared in the doorway, his face pale and showing signs of exhaustion.
55
“You are to come with me to the cathedral and confess,” he said, apparently unable to look Emma in the eyes.
She struggled to keep up with her father, who spoke not a word on the way, only touching her to push her through the great doors of St John’s Cathedral. She went straight into the confessional closet, while her father went down to the altar rail to pray. The priest,
Father Paulo, entered the adjoining closet and mumbled the opening lines of the confessional rite.
Emma began as usual, listing her laxity in offering prayers, her tardiness at mass and several unkind thoughts that had passed through her mind. Then there was a pause, and she said: “And I feel I have dishonoured my parents. Or at least displeased them, for which I am very sorry.”
“Go on,” said the priest.
But Emma could not think of anything else to confess. Everything she had said was the truth, and everything she had done had been done in the name of love. What was there to confess? She listened to the rosary tinkling as it passed through the priest’s fingers, and she wondered what more he could be waiting for.
The she said, “And I have had impure thoughts,” not quite knowing where the conversation could be leading to, and not liking it one bit.
“Go on, my child,” said the priest.
“That’s it. Just thoughts, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a sin, is it? I mean, if it is then
I’ll confess, but surely it’s natural, or else we wouldn’t have them.”
She was shocked at herself for arguing on such a point at such a critical moment, but something in her nature told her not to submit and confess to her crimes unless she could be sure that they were indeed crimes. Confessing without sincerity seemed in itself to be sinful.
56
The priest cleared his throat, and told her that she should stay where she was until he returned, and then he left the confessional closet.
She heard him talking quietly and heard her father’s voice too, but could not make out what they were saying. Then the priest returned and asked Emma to follow him to the vestry.
Once inside, he closed the door and said, “My dear girl, it is understandable for a young lady in your position to rebel against confession, and you would not be the first. However, I must tell you that your father has a right to know what has been happening, since he cares for you so much. And so I must ask you to tell me more directly, standing here in this house of
God, what exactly took place between yourself and Mr Boella.”
Emma’s head swam. She was unsure of what she was being asked. She assumed it was something to do with making love, but without a more explicit line of questioning, she was loath to broach such a topic, particularly with a man of the cloth.
Finally, the priest spoke again, apparently having noticed the confusion on Emma’s face:
“Your father wishes to know what damage might have been done during your time alone with
Mr Boella. Nobody else needs to know that you have shared a bed with that man, but if as a result you could be … I mean, if you think you might have a child in nine months’ time, then your father feels it essential that he should know.”
Emma stared wide-eyed at the floor, examining the patterns in the marble flag stones, unable to move or speak.
“You do know how a child is conceived?” the priest enquired at last.
Emma was blushing to the roots of her hair, but in all honesty, she was not entirely certain of what was entailed in making babies. She had heard rumours and reached her own conclusions on human biology, based in large part on her observations of animals. However, nothing had ever been thoroughly clarified during the course of her education. The nuns had never talked of such things, and mother certainly had not.
57
Finally, the priest asked her if she knew about the “bees” and the “flowers” and how honey was made. After a further uncomfortable silence, he said: “Never mind, my girl. That’s enough.”
Just as the priest was turning to leave the vestry, Emma realized that her future with
Giovanni rested on her answer. If nothing “untoward” had happened between them, then he could be sent packing, and Emma would be hustled into marrying Alphonso Bastaldi. On the other hand, if something “untoward” had taken place and she were now carrying the Italian’s child, then it seemed there would be no option but for them to marry. It would be a shameful affair and her father would be thoroughly disappointed in her, but she would at least be with
Giovanni again – and for the rest of her life.
Before the priest could leave the room, she caught his arm, and said in a very quiet voice:
“Yes, I think something might have happened. I think it did.”
The priest gave her a consoling pat on the arm, and left the room.
* * *
Because Giovanni and Emma were assumed to have committed a carnal sin, their wedding took place in the porch of the church, rather than inside. The service was conducted by a young priest who seemed thoroughly disdainful of the whole affair. None of Emma’s family was present. Her father had forbidden them all to attend, and he flatly refused to give her away.
However, in the week before the wedding day, Giovanni had been able to send word to one of his friends in Naples, a tenor by the name of Marco, with whom he had been on close and confidential terms. Marco sailed to Valletta and played the role of “father”, giving Emma
58 away on the day. He had brought with him a beautiful young soprano named Teresa, who took the part of maid of honour.
Emma wore a plain blue dress, decorated only with the little white lace collar and cuffs that Giovanni had bought her. He had hastily purchased a gold engagement ring and silver wedding band, and gave her both on the same day. Emma repeated her vows in a shaky whisper, near to tears, and as the service ended, the couple enjoyed a lingering kiss.
When Emma opened her eyes, Teresa was holding out a bunch of flowers for Emma.
They were a gift from Rosa, smuggled into the soprano’s hands by way of Alissa, and as
Emma took them, tears began to roll down her cheeks. Her real family was slipping out of her life, but it seemed that she was to have a new family composed of singers and artists, and they seemed to be the kindest and warmest of people.
The small party tumbled into a waiting carriage, and Marco livened up the proceedings by producing a bottle of champagne and four tall glasses. They toasted to marriage, love and long lives as they proceeded on a roundabout route to Giovanni’s lodgings.
The four of them dined and drank late into the night, sitting around Giovanni’s kitchen table, and from time to time the three singers broke into song, producing aria after aria in celebration of love. They talked of the married couple’s bright future in Italy, of travel plans and the sights awaiting Emma as she travelled north to Torino, which was to be her new home. Numerous enthusiastic toasts were proposed, and by the time Marco and Teresa made their goodbyes, Emma was feeling quite dizzy. As Emma was drifting off to sleep, she heard
Giovanni say: “At long last, my sweet, we are free, utterly free. And I have so much to show you. I have so much to show you. Italy … beautiful Italy …”
* * *
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Emma entered the only home she had ever known for the last time and went quietly up to her room. A little while later, the door opened and her mother crept in. She opened her arms to her precious daughter, suspecting strongly that she would never see her again. Locked in each other’s embrace, mother and daughter wept. Rosa, Louisa and Marcel crept in and closed the door behind them quietly, hoping not to disturb Papa, who lay on his bed in a deep, whisky-induced sleep.
When Emma and her family had managed to stifle their tears, they talked of practicalities. She would need to take all her essentials and many of her books, but it would be impossible to take her entire wardrobe. Emma’s mother joked that they most likely had clothes shops in Italy too. Two trunks were dragged out and thrown open, and they were filled with all the necessities and just a few luxuries. When it was discovered that everything would not fit in two trunks, a sturdy travelling bag was produced, and Emma filled this with more books, scarves, gloves and letter-writing materials.
Finally, the luggage was carefully carried down the back staircase and deposited on the street. Emma stole back upstairs alone, and looked around once last time at the room where she had grown up and studied and dreamed. For a moment, her life seemed utterly unreal, as if she might blink and it would all turn out to be untrue, no more than a ridiculous dream.
Then she heard Giovanni’s caretta drawing up outside, and she went quietly down the back stairs.
Her mother and siblings were waiting just inside the house, not daring to stand in the street, lest they be forced into an uncomfortable moment with Giovanni. Emma gave a last round of tearful embraces and climbed aboard the caretta, taking a seat beside her husband.
Just as the caretta was on the point of departure, Alissa dashed out from the house and pushed a tightly folded piece of paper into her hand.
60
“You can write to this address,” she said. “It’s my cousin’s house. She’ll pass the letters to me, and I’ll pass them to your mother or anyone else.”
Then the little maid stifled a sob as ran back indoors.
As they finally rumbled out of the square, Emma noticed a curtain twitching at an upstairs window. She had no idea who was watching her departure, but she waved goodbye anyway. Perhaps it was Anna, or perhaps it was her father. It occurred to her that she would probably never see him again.
Then she felt the warmth of Giovanni’s arm around her, and her mood lightened. As they drove down to the harbour, where their ship waited, he put a finger under her chin and turned her tearstained face up to his.
“It’s going to be alright, Signora Boella,” he said.
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CHAPTER 7
ACROSS THE SEA
(1905)
For a while, Giovanni’s prediction that everything would be alright held true. The crossing to Naples was calm and the skies blue. Emma stood on deck to watch her island home disappear below the horizon, but then managed to put all thoughts of loss and sadness from her mind. She breathed the fresh sea air and threw bread to the seagulls that followed in the ship’s wake, and she asked countless questions about Italy and the sights to be seen there.
The couple found their quarters cramped, and the bed they shared seemed certain to have been designed for a single occupant, rather than a couple. But nothing could spoil the joy they felt at being able to spend their nights together without fear of discovery. They snuggled up close and spoke in whispers as the ship rolled across the dark waves. Emma played constantly with her wedding ring, evidence of her liberation into the arms of her beloved and of the new life opening up before her.
They spent two weeks travelling by coach from Naples to Rome, moving slowly along country roads that left a lot to be desired. Emma had wanted to travel northwards by train, partly because she wanted so badly to see their rustic home in the Alps north of Torino, which Giovanni had alluded to once or twice but not yet explained fully. In addition, it was famous Italian cities that she longed to see more than the countryside. However, Giovanni insisted on going by road at least as far as Rome, stopping in small towns and villages to sample the local culture and paint the scenery. It was rare that he had a chance to explore the rugged south in such a leisurely fashion, and he planned to make the most of it.
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Each night they stayed in a different pensione, each more basic than the last. Toilet facilities were mostly shared, and few places had proper bathing arrangements. On the first evening, Emma waited until her husband was out of the room before attempting to wash herself bit-by-bit standing in a shallow tin tub. At home she had been used to Alissa’s help with the water carrying. There had been a properly shaped bath with a good depth of water in it. The little maid had washed her back and hair for her, and been ready with the towels and her clean clothes.
Left to her own devices now, Emma was trying to rinse off the soap by pouring water from a jug over her shoulder and down her back when Giovanni came in without knocking.
The sound of the falling water covered the sound of the door opening, and she was unaware of him standing behind her, gazing in wonder at this ready-made pictorial composition, this pocket Venus in a bowl. She had looked wonderful dressed. Undressed and oblivious of his presence, she took his breath away.
“And she’s all mine!” he thought.
He cleared his throat and she turned round quickly, startled, trying to cover herself with her hands and the sponge. He took her hands and held them out from her sides, saying, “Let me look at all this beauty.” But he looked only a few seconds before he gathered her to him, still damp and smelling of soap, her soft skin against his rough clothes. After a minute or two, he somehow contrived to remove these and lifted her onto the bed, where she gave herself to him – wholly and joyfully – for the very first time.
In the following days, the couple seemed to spend more time attempting to paint the scenery than actually travelling through it. Emma had some skills of her own as an artist, but she preferred to watch her husband as he sketched and daubed, mixing his paints and washing his brushes for him. When she was not needed, she would lie on a blanket in the shade of a tree and read from the first of many Italian works of literature that she planned to plod
63 through. In the evenings, they ate heartily, daring each other to try every rustic dish in turn, and they often went to bed tipsy on local wines.
For Emma, everything was different and everyone was a stranger, except for her husband, to whom she felt increasingly bonded. Just occasionally, however, she stole a sideways glance at him and wondered if she knew him at all. He had long ago stopped telling tales from his past life, and she couldn’t help wondering what more there was to discover.
She didn’t have long to wait, as it turned out. For on their last night before arriving in
Rome, as they lay in bed, she asked her husband where exactly they would be staying in the mountains around Torino, and whether they would be very isolated. Giovanni explained that their home would be a basic structure, the stone hunting lodge of his youth, and that it was indeed somewhat isolated. But, he said, it was not far from a farm belonging to family members, where they would always be welcome. They would, in fact, most likely be stopping with these relatives as they journeyed northwards into the mountains.
Emma said that it all sounded lovely, but she was curious to know more about these relatives of his. Who exactly were they?
Giovanni cleared his throat and began to explain about his first marriage, about his three boys and the untimely death of his wife. He told of Alessandra’s humble origins on a farm in the mountains that was still farmed by her aging parents, Arturo and Maretta. The sons were now living in Milano for the sake of their education, but the eldest of them, Ernesto, often visited his maternal grandparents. At 16 years of age, Ernesto was also turning into a capable farmer and was good with his hands, although he had inherited none of his father’s artistic talents. With the school summer holidays approaching, it was just possible that he would be there with the old couple when they arrived.
Emma was silent for a while, taking in this new information, wondering if she ought to be jealous at all. But then she decided that there was nothing to be jealous of, since
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Giovanni’s first marriage was long over. Indeed, if anything, the sad tale of loss and grief was all the more reason for her to be supportive.
“It sounds quite wonderful,” she said at last. “I can’t wait to meet the old couple. They sound lovely. And I can’t wait to get into the Alps and see real snow for the first time. Of course, if your son is there, then that will be a bonus.”
“Thank you, darling,” said Giovanni. “I’m sure you’ll grow to like them all just as much as I do.”
As he drifted off, he reflected on the fact that he had not mentioned the housemaid who had born his first child when he was still a student; the maid who had died in childbirth, and to whom he had lost his virginity in that little stone hunting lodge high in the mountains — the little hunting lodge that would be his new wife’s new home. Honesty was a good thing, he thought, but there were limits.
* * *
In Rome, Emma begged to be allowed to see the sites, but Giovanni said that they would see them some other time. Instead, they must continue northwards, he said, not least of all because money was beginning to run low. And so they took a train to Milano, the first Emma had ever ridden in, and she found the whole experience quite thrilling. In Milano, they took another train, heading west across the Plain of Piedmont, arriving in Torino one warm evening. Emma had hoped at least to see a bit of Torino, since it was the city that Giovanni called home, but even this was denied her. Instead, they spent one night in a hotel by the railway station, and early the next morning they headed out in the back of a canvas-covered cart, driven by a weather-beaten hill-farmer.
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As they headed into the foothills of the Alps, Emma drank in the exquisite green tones of the forests and the patches of meadow, the brilliance of sunlit branches and the depths of contrasting shade. The farther into the hills they went, the jollier Giovanni became, sharing jokes with the old driver in the local dialect. He was in his element, and Emma found his joyfulness infective. As they bounced along the stony track, his eyes caressed the slopes, the shimmering sunlight on them, the deep shadows and the subtle changes of colour. Beyond the tree-tops were the misty blues and purples of distant mountains, and sometimes he asked the driver to stop for a moment while he committed to memory the exact colour, shade and tint that distance lent to the scene. Clearly, Giovanni was in love not only with his wife but also with his surroundings, and most of all his art. She began to realise that she would have to share these things with him or be excluded.
They stopped by a little waterfall for their lunch of bread, sausage and olives. They shared a bottle of red wine with the driver, who told them of his goat farm high on the slopes of a mountain not far beyond the hunting lodge that would be their home. It was so good to have a break from the uncomfortably hard seats and Emma wandered up the road to stretch her legs. With the climb, the air had grown cooler, and she wondered if she should have bought some warmer clothes at some point during their journey.
Looking up, she saw that Giovanni had left the track to explore the approach to the waterfall, jumping from boulder to boulder, stopping and turning to look downward every so often, drinking in with his painter’s eye the curve of the little stream, the light on the water, the rich green of this little valley and the varying hues of the hills below them.
An hour later, they turned a corner in the road, and saw before them a great mountain rising into the blue sky, and high on its flanks a few surviving patches of the winter’s snow sparkling in the sun. Giovanni could hardly contain his joy and almost fell from the cart as he tried to stand. Emma was likewise thrilled at the scene, but she felt somewhat afraid also at
66 the prospect of living among huge, snow-covered mountains. The weather in late May seemed quite perfect, but come the winter, she imagined the cold would be severe, perhaps even deadly.
“Will we be living up there?” she asked anxiously, grasping her husband’s jacket and pulling him back into his seat.
“Not up there, my love, not so high. There will be snow in the winter, and the air will be fresh, but I don’t expect you to scramble among the rocks every time you leave the front door.”
He gave a happy chuckle and squeezed her hand, but she was only half comforted.
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CHAPTER 8
INTO THE MOUNTAINS
(1905)
Not long after the sun had dipped below the horizon, they emerged from a forest track to see an old stone farmhouse before them, set on the crest of a small rise, surrounded by meadows, a steep pine-covered slope rising on the western side. There were lights in the windows, and a river of white smoke curled from the chimney. It was not their own much- anticipated home, Giovanni explained, but the farm of his first wife’s parents, and it would be their lodging for the night.
As the cart creaked closer, two dogs began to bark wildly, and the old couple, Maretta and Arturo, emerged from the house. The old man puffed on a pipe while his wife wiped her hands on her apron. Then from the side of the house, emerged a well-built young man, whom
Emma supposed to be Giovanni’s eldest son, Ernesto. He was followed closely by two dogs, a large St Bernard and a clumber spaniel, both barking excitedly as they greeted Giovanni, weaving in and out of his legs so that he was forced to stand still while he ruffled their furry heads.
“Hello there, Jack my boy!” said Giovanni to the St Bernard, and “Enough Diana!
There’s a good girl!” to the other. Then he issued them a firm order to quiet them: “Enough, enough!” Finally, they calmed down and were content to follow him adoringly along the path.
“We thought you’d never arrive, Papa,” said the boy, as he struggled with the first of the bags.
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“It takes a while to travel the length of Italy, my boy, and we stopped to paint a little on the way,” said Giovanni.
“I’m sure it was more than a little, Papa, if I know you at all,” and Ernesto flashed a shy smile, so much like his father’s that Emma had trouble dragging her curious eyes away from him.
They were ushered into the kitchen, which was thick with the smell of pine wood from the stove, and there Emma could see more clearly the old couple’s brown faces wreathed in a smiling welcome. She felt their arms about her and they each planted a toothless kiss on her cheek.
But however warm their welcome, they could not hide their amazement at Emma’s youth. She was hardly older than Ernesto, who hovered indecisively, unsure whether to kiss her cheek or shake her hand. He ended up kissing her hand in a gallant gesture that reminded
Emma of his father, as did his wavy blonde hair. Despite the similarities, Emma instantly identified a key difference between father and son. While Giovanni was commanding and strident, young Ernesto still had the gawky awkwardness of youth about him, and he was clearly in awe of his father. Emma found this distinction reassuring, since she supposed that she was now the boy’s step-mother. It was a title she had never expected to hold — and certainly not before her 20th birthday.
“There’s plenty of hot water on the stove, and your room is this way,” said Maretta, going ahead of them with a lamp into a bedroom containing several massive items of furniture, old and lovingly polished. There was a great high bed with a crocheted cover of every hue, and the mattress sank at least twelve inches when Emma sat on it. Behind a beautifully painted screen, Emma discovered, of all the wonderful things, a proper tin bath and large, fluffy towels.
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As Ernesto brought in the last of the hot water, Maretta said: “You make yourself comfortable, my dear. Supper will be ready in about half an hour, but take as long as you like.
It will keep warm perfectly well.” Emma did indeed take her time in bathing, and she felt most relieved to find that the comforts of home she had found lacking in every pensione from
Naples to Rome had at last been provided with ease, half way up the Italian Alps.
Marretta had prepared a meal she felt might be familiar to a girl from an island occupied by the British. There was roast goatling with rosemary and root vegetables, followed by pudding and cream. Emma found it quite delicious, and was happy to accept second helpings of everything, washed down with plenty of local wine, which Giovanni declared “rough but acceptable”. As Arturo offered a toast to the “young couple”, Emma felt confident that her new family – though far from socially exalted – would prove to be a source of comfort and moral support.
The next day, Giovanni announced that he and Emma would be spending a few days with the old couple, rather than heading up to their own house immediately. There was much news to be shared, and it was clear that Ernesto longed to spend time with his father.
Giovanni took his son into the forest above the house, and they cut down a few choice trees from which to make fence posts. Giovanni showed his son how to make a stockade for animals, carving proper joints into each post and cross beam, and Emma could see that
Ernesto, while not particularly artistic, might make a good carpenter. Arturo, for the most part, looked on at father and son, sucking on his pipe and offering occasional comments in his trademark dry humour.
Emma helped Maretta in the kitchen, although her skills were limited to chopping vegetables, kneading dough and rolling pastry. She politely declined a request to pluck a chicken for the table, and Maretta was patient with her, knowing that domestic chores must be a novelty to the poor girl. In between chores, the old woman took Emma on tours of the
70 house and garden, proudly showing off her rose garden, from which the house took its name:
Il Roseto.
* * *
On the morning of the fourth day, the newlyweds loaded their belongings onto a beaten old cart belonging to another craggy old farmer who had agreed to take them on the final leg of their journey. Maretta donated a great basket of ready-cooked food, saying that it would probably come in useful in the first few days. With promises to visit again soon, they pulled out of the farmyard, waving goodbye to the diminutive old couple and the strapping young man beside them.
It was not a long journey that faced them but the rough track seemed to head forever upward. As they went higher, so the scenery changed. There was less in the way of wild flowers and lush grass, and more rough scrub and rocky scree slope between the swathes of pine forest. Looking down between the trees, they could see a valley to their right, and a sparkling river running through it. Alongside the river was a hamlet, complete with a church and stone-slab roofs glinting in the sun. Giovanni said the place was known as Orto, and was the closest thing to civilisation for miles around. He said Emma was welcome to visit Orto for an occasional chat with the locals, so long as she didn’t mind the steep climb back up the mountain afterwards.
Finally, the ground levelled out a bit and the path widened. Before them, behind a ragged border of ancient trees, was a low stone building with a wooden veranda. Around the building were the neglected remains of a garden, apparently overgrown with weeds. There were no other houses in sight, but Emma half hoped that this dilapidated old place was not their final destination.
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“Here we are!” said Giovanni as the cart came to a halt. Emma’s heart sank; it was not quite what she had expected. It was smaller and far less tidy than Maretta and Arturo’s place, and she guessed the interior would have none of its homely charm either. Her husband hadn’t been entirely joking, she thought, when he described himself as a wandering Gypsy.
“It looks a bit of a mess now, but we will soon knock it into shape,” he said at last, as he paid the driver a few coins for his trouble. “It is actually quite comfortable inside, my darling, and we will be able to grow all our own vegetables in the garden.”
Climbing the few wooden steps onto the veranda, Emma saw that everything was incredibly dusty, the residue of last year’s dead leaves still lurking in the corners. As she approached the front door, she noticed little heaps of bird droppings from a swallows nest in the eaves above, and she had to wipe several spiders’ webs from her face and hair.
The door was massive, heavily studded, with a great black ring handle and hinges.
Before he opened it, Giovanni ran his hands over its surface saying: “I made this myself; every bit of it. It would take an army to break that down.”
He then pointed to an old wooden sign above the door, bleached by sun and snow, the words Il Nido still just visible. He produced a large, black key and unlocked the door. But before he pushed open the door, he turned to his wife with an enormous smile and said:
“When I left this place many years ago, I had no idea you would be coming back with me, or else I’d have left it tidy. Anyway, welcome to your new home my darling.”
Then he gathered Emma up in his strong arms and carried her over the threshold, a romantic gesture that swept away all her misgivings.
They entered a large, square room with three windows along the opposite wall and a huge stone fireplace running almost the entire length of the left-hand wall. On a shelf above the fireplace were a dozen or more carved wooden figures, more of Giovanni’s handy-work.
The right-hand wall was punctuated by three doors, again all beautifully hand made. An easel
72 stood in the far corner of the room, by a window, and along the window sill were various boxes of paint powder, bottles of oil, brushes, chalks and pencils. In the centre of the room was a large, bare wooden table with a pair of benches. Hardly the height of comfort, thought
Emma.
Two of the other rooms turned out to be bedrooms, similarly bare, but with double beds that seemed tolerably comfortable. The final room was a kitchen of sorts, with a small stove in one corner, the ceiling hung about with pots and pans. A tin bath stood in another corner, along with two buckets and a wash board. Between them was a water pump and a shallow stone sink. She stood for a while taking in all of these implements of drudgery, and for a moment she was transported back a year to her days as a student in Malta, innocent of love, engrossed in her books and waited on hand and foot. Her eyes were drawn to the small window above the sink. Peeping out, she could see over the tops of thousands of pine trees, down into the valley below. She began to think of her family, so far away.
“Fill a pot of water, will you, my darling, and get it boiling?” shouted Giovanni from another room.
Tentatively, she approached the water pump and caressed its long, curvy limb, but she had no idea how to get it started. She had seen such things being done by the servants a hundred times or more, but had never thought to try for herself.
“My darling useless little wife,” laughed Giovanni from behind. “I’m going to have to teach you quite a lot it seems.”
Having given Emma a lesson in the fundamentals of stoves and water pumps, Giovanni pointed her to a cupboard, in which she found great piles of linen, scented with dried sprigs of lavender. They worked together at removing the great dust covers from their bed, spreading out fresh linen sheets and putting a quilted cover on the enormous duvet, which
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Giovanni joked was made from the down of a million innocent ducklings. It would, he said, be the main thing keeping them alive when the winter snows arrived.
In the following days and weeks, Giovanni undertook to instruct his wife in all the essentials of housekeeping, partly in the hope that she would take on such tasks in future, leaving him to concentrate on his art. He paid particular attention to the lighting of fires, explaining at each stage exactly what he was doing and pointing out a long list of common errors that would result in a smoky mess. She learned also the rudiments of floor scrubbing, window cleaning and laundering. She was a quick learner and took pride in the improvements she was able to affect with a little elbow grease. Once things were looking a little tidier, she began to decorate the rooms with vases of wild flowers they had gathered on evening walks.
Giovanni also began to teach his wife how to cook some of his favourite Italian dishes, ingredients permitting. Removing some of the paraphernalia in the kitchen, he revealed a small brick bread-oven set into a wall and brought it to life with a roaring log fire. He showed her several methods of baking bread and making pastry, then he turned his attention to his favourite of favourites. From on top of a cupboard, he retrieved a dusty cast-iron contraption for producing pasta. It looked something like a clothes mangle, with a handle and several interchangeable drums to cut the pasta dough into different shapes and sizes.
At first, Emma found the whole thing somewhat overwhelming, but with a little coaching, she was able to produce spaghetti, lasagne, linguine and farfalle. Macaroni would have to wait. Having taught her three simple sauces that could be made from their limited supplies, Giovanni bowed out of the kitchen and directed his attention to fixing numerous broken, aged and creaking parts of the house.
Emma soon began to enjoy her new role as housewife, rustling up hot meals for her husband and putting her mark on their home. One sunny morning, she washed the curtains and hung them on a line stretched between two ash trees. She paused to look down into the
74 winding valley below, feeling like an eagle in its eyrie. She could not see the river but the distant sound of its eternal rushing reached her amongst the busy chirruping of birds and droning of numerous insects. The air was scented with pine and lilac blossom and she felt the beginnings of contentment stealing into her heart. Perhaps, after all, this rustic hunting lodge would be a place of happiness, somewhere she could finally rest after so much turmoil.
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CHAPTER 9
IN DISGRACE
(1905)
Back in the house in Valletta there was a pall of gloom on everything, so that people were inclined to step quietly and speak in low voices. Giuseppe had insisted upon the removal of everything that would remind him of Emma. Her remaining books, clothes and other belongings were thrown out. The portrait, so recently painted, was burned.
Rosa now shared a bedroom not with Emma but with their younger sister Maria. To
Rosa, it seemed her own childhood had come to an abrupt end also. She was no longer to attend school each day. If she wanted to study, she could do so at home with the aid of visiting tutors. The repercussions of Emma’s treason – for that is how it was treated – fell heavily upon the two younger sisters, who were deprived of all freedom lest they further sully the family name.
Their brother Maurice came and went exactly as before, since being a male and very young, it was assumed he could not get into any trouble. As it happens, his main concerns were toy soldiers, stamp collecting and playing among the rock pools with his friends, none of which were likely to result in any disaster worse than drowning.
Perhaps if Giuseppe had managed to keep his own reactions to Emma’s betrayal in check, the damage to the family’s reputation might have been limited somehow. The rumours might have been contained or countered with face-saving narratives. With time, people might have forgotten the dreadful events that had occurred in the Miller household. If he had made a real effort to carry on normally, the family name might have been saved from shame.
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However, Giuseppe refused utterly to reconcile himself with events, refused to consider forgiving his daughter, and even refused to discuss the matter with his wife. Instead, he hid in his study on the pretext of arranging business matters, and turned increasingly to drink, working his way steadily through the vast store of imported alcohol he kept in the cellar. He turned down invitations to social events and instructed the servants to tell visitors that he was not at home. Alessandrina was already deeply saddened at the loss of her eldest daughter, and now she was on the edge of collapse at the prospect of losing her husband too.
Through the long, booze-sodden days in his study, Giuseppe thought over and over of his final exchanges with his daughter, and brooded on the rumours that were no doubt flying around the island. It seemed he would never be able to show his face again in public, certainly not at the opera or among the Maltese social elite that frequented it. Far from seeing to business matters, he avoided any kind of work, failing to collect goods that arrived at the port and leaving numerous clients waiting in vain for the delicacies they had ordered. Within a matter of months, his business had begun to unravel and customers started to take their money elsewhere.
Poor Rosa was virtually in purdah, and so had no chance to smile at, wave to, or even catch sight of Eustratius. The only outing that was allowed was early mass, which
Alessandrina and the children now attended with the maids. After mass, they hurried home, no longer joining the post-service chatter outside the cathedral, at which so many invitations were handed out and accepted. Alessandrina no longer attended afternoon teas with her lady friends, and so had no relief from the general atmosphere of gloom and her husband’s moody resentment towards her. She suspected that her husband held her partly responsible for
Emma’s betrayal, but since the matter was considered taboo, she could never be certain.
She took some comfort, as always, from playing her grand piano, mostly applying the soft pedal so as not to disturb her husband. She told herself that she was getting more practice
77 than ever before, and there were occasions when the music transported her away from her woes for minutes at a time. However, when the pieces ended, she found herself once more in a grief-stricken and silent home. On the odd occasion that her husband left the house, she and
Rosa would join musical forces, Alessandrina at the piano and Rosa singing in her sweet, young voice. However, they generally steered away from Italian-language pieces and avoided
Verdi altogether.
Three months after Emma’s departure, with the family business having ground entirely to a halt, Alessandrina found herself struggling to pay for things, a situation that she found both novel and utterly alarming. At first it was a bill for a new dress, and then it was a gift for her son’s birthday, and then even the essentials of life began to seem unreasonably expensive.
Her husband was unwilling to discuss financial matters and insisted that everything was in hand, though this was clearly not the case. Members of Alessandrina’s family offered to help, which was only right, considering that they were among the wealthiest on the island. On several occasions, she received small parcels of money without her husband’s knowledge.
But when he found out that she had accepted “charity”, he exploded in a long rant, accusing her of going behind his back and betraying him again. She promised to refuse any future offers of help, and resolved to make economies, relying on savings until her husband finally pulled himself together.
By late August, it became clear that they would not be able to keep on all the maids, and they let Alissa go. Six weeks later, they asked Anna to leave, and waved her off with great sadness. When the oldest of the three maids, Margareta, found it difficult to keep up with the workload alone, she also left. Rather than collapse like her husband, however, Alessandrina took on the various housekeeping tasks herself, aided by her two daughters. Occasionally, she would joke that since they no longer had any friends there was little work to be done around the house anyway, and the children would laugh half-heartedly.
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* * *
One morning in October, Rosa was amazed and delighted to see Eustratius at early mass, although she dared not show her joy. She had learned over the past few months to blend into the background, hidden within her faldetta. Just as the women of Malta had famously hidden behind the folds of black cloth after being raped by Turkish invaders, so Rosa, her sister and mother hid their shame at Emma’s affair. However, when she spied Eustratius in conversation with a priest after mass, Rosa plucked up the courage to push back her hood and look boldly in his direction.
This was the best thing that had happened in months. Just to see his smile made up for all the recent misery she had endured, and if he at least still liked her, it would give her something good to hang on to. She even dared to imagine that he might offer her a means of escape from the oppression and misery that filled her existence.
From then on, Rosa began to attend mass every morning, slipping out of the house long before her father was awake. And each morning, she found Eustratius there too. They could not talk openly, of course, but just exchanging smiles and nods of greeting was sufficient to spark joy in her heart.
Then, one Sunday morning, as they left the cathedral, Mama was surprised to find
Eustratius in front of her, politely bidding her good morning. She returned the greeting, secretly concerned that news of her fraternizing with the outside world might make its way back to Giuseppe. Before she could move on, he presented her with a posy of flowers and asked if she would pass it on to her daughter, Rosa.
“I know she likes to paint flowers,” he said, “and maybe these would be of some use to her.”
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“How very thoughtful,” she replied, taking the flowers.
Then, after a moment’s thought, she handed them back to him and said, “Perhaps you should give them to her yourself,” and she moved away in the direction of home, leaving
Rosa and Eustratius alone together on the pavement.
Blushing deeply, Rosa accepted the gift and said breathlessly: “Thank you so much.
While I am painting these, I will think of you.”
“I think of you all the time,” he said very softly, before bowing and bidding her goodbye.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t let Papa see those,” said Mama as they walked home.
Rosa hid them within her faldetta, and then as soon as they were home, she went straight up to the studio and put them safely in water. It had been some time since she had felt like painting anything, but that afternoon she felt inspired. She immediately made two or three sketches, each showing a different view of the little arrangement, so that even if they started to wilt she had three views of them while still full and fresh. She began to put in the colour and found great comfort in the familiarity of putting paint on paper, wet colour next to wet colour, so that they merged and blended, making new hues altogether.
When she had completed the watercolours, she tried the same thing in oils. The smell of the paints sent her mind back to the previous year, when Giovanni had sat for hours painting her sister. She was filled for a moment with a terrible grief that caused her to grip the brush so hard that it almost snapped. She closed her eyes tight and thought of smashing everything, of throwing the paints and spirits and brushes to the floor, tearing the canvases to shreds and ripping up the delicate watercolours. What use were fresh flowers without her beloved sister?
What use was life or anything at all?
Then the moment passed, and she opened her eyes. She must control her emotions, just as her mother did, for the sake of the family… and for the sake of Eustratius too. She must maintain control.
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She washed her brush clean and chose another colour from the palette. Before lunch was ready, she had created a miniature portrait on canvas that she felt did some justice to the beautiful flowers. So good was it, in fact, that she decided to tack a small gilt frame around it and hang it on the studio wall. It occurred to her then that such a picture might even be good enough to sell, providing a further source of income and some degree of independence. For the moment, she would not mention the idea to anyone, but it certainly seemed worthwhile pondering.
Rosa continued to smile and greet Eustratius after mass each day, and every Sunday a little posy changed hands under mama’s approving eye. Alessandrina liked the young fellow and knew him to be from a good family, and she was happy of the joy that knowing him clearly brought to Rosa’s heart. She was, however, quite resolved that news of the development should be kept from her husband.
Not long after Rosa’s new romantic breakthrough, Alessandrina had a breakthrough of her own. One Sunday after early mass, she heard a female acquaintance complain to a priest of the high cost of alterations to a dress. Swallowing what remained of her pride,
Alessandrina said that she was in compete agreement at the “criminal” prices of charged by some of the supposedly high-class dress-makers, and the she would be more than willing to do the job for half the money. She ignored the priest’s raised eyebrows and set about arranging a price for her first commission as a seamstress.
As a girl she had been taught needlework by her governess and had cut out and sewn clothes for her dolls. In her teens, she had applied the same skills on a larger scale, unpicking an old dress and cutting out the new pieces round the old. The result was far from perfect, but she managed to wear it in company without comment. In later life, having found herself somewhat talented with needle and thread, she had made many an alteration to her own dresses, often preferring her own handy-work to that of her regular seamstress.
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Before the year was out, Alessandrina found herself quite busy with taking up hems and repairing torn cuffs, all under the nose of her drunken husband, who simply assumed she was making extensive alterations to her own wardrobe. She even involved Maria in the work, and in this way their poverty was somewhat relieved. Parcels were collected after mass every
Sunday, and the fixed items exchanged for cash the following week. The priest asked that such business not be conducted on the steps of the Cathedral, and so Alessandrina and Maria would meet with their clients in a nearby square, while Rosa and Eustratius engaged in the ceremonial handing over of the posy.
In this way, the three women of the Miller household maintained both sanity and dignity, though there was no doubt that the family as a whole had dropped several rungs down the social ladder, perhaps never to rise again.
Around this time, Alessandrina took the precaution of storing some of her better jewellery in the bank, along with several items of silverware that were worth a great deal of money. She had been tempted to sell them, but had managed to resist. She feared, however, that her husband might sell them at some point without her knowledge, perhaps when he had finally worked his way through the wine cellar. She wanted these few treasures to be saved for her children, should they ever marry and start homes of their own. The pearls in particular were precious to her. By rights, they should have gone to Emma, but now they would be
Rosa’s, should she ever marry her beloved Eustratius.
The evening after her trip to the bank, she lay in bed as usual, thinking about her daughter in northern Italy. She had not heard from her since she left, and wondered if she ever would. Then, for the first time, it occurred to her that she might by now be pregnant, perhaps showing a large bump. Soon, whether she learned of it or not, Alessandrina would probably become a grandmother for the first time. The urge to contact her daughter was so strong that she almost leapt out of bed. But she knew it would be a pointless action, for she
82 had no address to write to, nor any means whatever of contacting Giovanni. Instead, she lay there in the dark, her husband snoring by her side, and prayed to God, asking for help in whatever form he chose to send it.
* * *
The following week, Alessandrina was on her hands and knees, whitening the front doorstep, when a familiar figure approached and stopped level with her. It was Alissa, the youngest maid, who had once been responsible for that very task. She reached into her faldetta and pulled out an envelope, then slipped it into Alessandrina’s hand. The writing on the envelope was Emma’s.
“You shouldn’t be doing this, Signora. Let me finish it for you,” said the maid, taking the whitening brush from Alessandrina’s hand.
Too shocked to speak, Alessandrina stood up, her heart beating like a drum. She staggered back indoors, wondering whether to open the letter straight away. What if it were bad news? Should she sit down in preparation? Where could she read it without fear of being interrupted? Certainly, her husband could not know of this communication, at least not for now.
She climbed the stairs to the top of the house and sat on the bare bed in what was once
Alissa’s room. Opening the letter, she found a single sheet of paper bearing a few lines written in Emma’s perfect script:
Dear Mama and Papa,
I hope you are well and have forgiven me by now.
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I am comfortably settled in my new home, high in the mountains and far from the noise of town. Everything is very different here, the mountains so high and the views quite stunning.
The air is cool most of the time, and we are already preparing for snow, which Giovanni says will reach up to the windows once it starts.
I am learning gradually to be useful around the house. Giovanni is very good to me. He is teaching me to cook proper Italian food and even to grow vegetables and cut firewood.
My Italian seems to be improving by the hour, which is to be expected, as it’s the only language I now speak. I imagine that if I now tried to hold a conversation in Maltese, I would fail miserably!
We don’t see many people, of course, because we are so far from everything, but
Giovanni has so many books that I can hardly complain of being bored. He really has a great many of them, and I am constantly amazed at the breadth of his knowledge.
His work is progressing well, and he now has a great many paintings that he plans to sell to galleries in Torino the next time he visits. For my part, I am content for the moment to work at being a good wife.
I think about you all the time, and imagine you all going about your lives in all the familiar ways and places. I often feel homesick and wish I could be with you.
In any case, I thought I would write to tell you that I am fine and doing well. And I wish you all the very best of luck and happiness.
Your loving daughter,
Emma
Alessandrina immediately went to her writing bureau and started to compose a reply, but she was overwhelmed with a flood of questions for her daughter, and she could not decide on which to ask and which to put to one side. She longed to know everything and say
84 everything, but feared that such a flood of confessional prose might frighten her daughter into silence. She was particularly afraid of mentioning Giuseppe’s current state of mind or the family’s impoverished condition. And yet to leave out these facts would be to paint an entirely false picture of life in the Miller household.
In the end, she tore up her many attempts at a reply and decided to show the letter to
Rosa first, since she seemed likely to be able to communicate better with Emma. The two girls had, after all, once been very close.
That evening, when Rosa read the letter, Alessandrina could see her nostrils dilating as a sign of the emotions passing through her mind and body. Rather than express joy, Rosa’s response was somewhat muted, merely stating that she would send back a reply immediately.
Rosa went to her room and composed a letter that was more direct than her mother would have liked. She outlined the negative changes that had occurred in the household since
Emma’s departure, including the limits on her own freedom, the ending of her school career and their father’s descent into alcoholism. There was no money and the maids had gone.
Mother had been reduced to a seamstress and it was only the little money she earned that kept food on the table. The family name had been ruined, and they would in all likelihood never be able to show their faces in polite society again.
She congratulated Emma on learning to cook, clean and light fires, but said that she didn’t find it quite so much fun, nor treat it as a game. Of course, Emma’s perspective might be somewhat different, considering that she was free to come and go as she pleased, while
Rosa was hardly able to linger after mass without fear of reprisal.
Having laid out these bare facts, she softened her tone and said that she had continued to learn to paint, progressing to oils, even applying some of the tips she had picked up from
Giovanni. She also told of her continued love for Eustratius, which she said was stronger than
85 ever. She told the flowers he gave her every Sunday and said that mother seemed to be a firm supporter of the match.
In conclusion, she said that father had not forgiven Emma, and he might never do so. But mother clearly had, and that she missed Emma very much. In fact, she said, they all loved and missed Emma very much indeed, and thought of her on a daily basis. She wished her sister well in her new life and begged her to write as often as possible.
The next day, she gave the letter to Alissa, who had appeared at the side door to the house on the pretext of delivering a basket of eggs. As the maid hurried away, Rosa wondered if she ought to have been so harsh in the first portion of her letter, and then decided that she had really had no choice but to tell the truth of her current existence. After all, she prided herself on having always been honest with her sister.
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CHAPTER 10
GOOD NEWS AND BAD
(1905)
One day after lunch, Emma felt a terrible urge to lie down without even clearing the table. The following day, as she was preparing breakfast, she suddenly felt quite nauseous and had to run outside to be sick. It was Giovanni who guessed the cause. He’d been through this before, with Alessandra, four times in all.
The smell of the turpentine used to clean his brushes turned Emma’s stomach, and so he moved his painting materials into an outhouse normally reserved for logs and rusty farming implements. The light wasn’t quite so good and early in the morning it was a bit chilly working without a fire, but he was ready to make this sacrifice for his young wife. Of course, it would be impossible to work in an unheated outhouse once the snow began to fall, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Perhaps by then, she would no longer be so sensitive to smells.
A week later, as if by way of consolation, Giovanni suggested they take a stroll down to
Orto, the village in the valley below. Emma saw the slate roofs gleaming in the sun every time she hung out the washing, and had long wished to visit. Now they would be going at last, breaking out of their self-imposed confinement, and the prospect filled her with excitement.
The trek down the mountainside was long and difficult. Rather than follow the cart track that had brought them gradually up from Il Roseto, they plunged directly down into valley through the pine forest, following paths apparently made by goats and wild animals. They
87 had started out immediately after breakfast, and an hour later they found themselves wandering somewhat wearily into the small village, which straddled a clear and lively river.
Giovanni greeted several people by name as they wondered down the one and only street. They all returned the greeting with what appeared to be a degree of deference, as if Mr
Boella were some wealthy landowner. An old man with a pipe tipped his hat and bowed slightly, and one young woman offered a brief curtsey as she struggled with two wooden pails of water. Emma was used to deference from the lower classes in Malta, but she felt such distinctions were somehow misplaced now that she chopped her own kindling and scrubbed her own floors. She felt particularly embarrassed that her husband should be receiving such honours while wearing a large and rustic straw hat, which he apparently considered suitable attire for such an outing.
They stopped outside a grocery shop that advertised rooms for rent, and Giovanni called for chairs and a table to be arranged in the sun. The village was on a route popular with tourists hiking in the mountains, he explained, although it seemed business was slack for some reason. The shopkeeper, a middle-aged man named Paulo, brought coffee and bread rolls, and entered into a long and apparently rambling conversation with Giovanni while
Emma listened. At first she was somewhat shocked at the low standard of her Italian comprehension, for it seemed she could understand no more than one word in each sentence.
And then it occurred to her that they were speaking in a local variant of the Piedmont dialect, a mountain variation on Italian of which she was so far ignorant.
When Paulo disappeared inside, she asked her husband what they had discussed.
Giovanni told her that he had asked the man about buying a horse and cart, since living on the side of the mountain without one was highly impractical. Once the cold weather arrived, and once they were parents, it would be impossible to walk everywhere. As it was, it would take them the best part of a day to walk to the old couple at Il Roseto, and they would not be able
88 to carry more than a backpack each. They most certainly needed transport of some kind, and this was the place to get it. The blacksmith further up the road had a spare cart that was road- worthy, and there were plenty of old horses past their prime that could be purchased without trouble. Once they had finished their coffee, they would go and investigate further.
When Paulo came back outside, he brought three more chairs and another pot of coffee.
Before long, Giovanni was engaged in another long and rambling conversation with the shopkeeper and two of his friends, who had appeared from the darkness of the shop. This time the conversation appeared to be more serious, and Emma wondered how discussion of a horse and cart could arouse such strong feeling. At one point, Giovanni, accentuated his point by slapping his hand down on the table so hard that coffee splashed from their cups onto the white table cloth. He apologised distractedly and continued to make his point, his voice growing ever more operatic. As he concluded a very long sentence, she noted his index finger pointing to the sky and his eyes open wide as if he were issuing a horrible prophesy. Or perhaps it was an ultimatum.
Surely, this could not be about a horse and cart. Among the torrent of Alpine dialect, the only words she had managed to pick out were “work”, “travesty”, “chaos”, “poverty”, “eat”,
“organization”, “greatness” and “Italy”. That last word had been uttered several times, and
Giovanni seemed to pronounce it with increasing force and precision as he went on.
His point made, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver cigar case, an item that
Emma had not seen before, and lit one of his miniature cigars. The other men were silent, looking into their coffee cups or examining the billowing white clouds that skimmed over the mountains.
Soon, Paulo spoke in a more commonly understood form of Italian: “I understand that
Madam is from Malta? How are you enjoying our mountain paradise?”
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“Yes,” she replied, “I am from Valletta, and I love your country very much. It really is so beautiful, with the rivers and trees and everything… I have a little trouble with the language at the moment, but I am making some progress slowly.”
“But you speak such beautiful Italian, Madam! I think your Italian must be better than my own! Mr Boella, why do you keep your wife from conversation? She is not only beautiful but also eloquent!”
“She speaks when she has something to say,” was Giovanni’s terse reply, and Emma had the feeling that it would be imprudent to show too much friendliness towards Paulo and his friends just yet. Without knowing for certain what they had been discussing, she had no way of knowing what she was stepping into.
By way of affirming her loyalty, she lay her hand on Giovanni’s and gave a small squeeze. He blew a cloud of smoke into the air and announced that they really must be moving if they were to buy a horse and cart and get it back up the mountain before sunset.
And so the little gathering in the sun was broken up, the coffees paid for and goodbyes said, complete with doffing of caps and several gallant bows in the direction of Emma.
Emma decided it would be wise to remain quiet until her husband’s mood had lightened, and so they strolled on in silence until they reached the blacksmith’s shed at the far end of the village. The strong smells of wood smoke and hot metal made her feel a little nauseous, and so she remained outside while her husband conducted enquiries within. She moved into the shade of a tree, sitting down on the soft grass while Giovanni tramped across a field in search of a horse. Emma closed her eyes and listened to the symphony of sounds: a gurgling river, some birds chirruping, a cricket in the long grass, a hammer striking metal.
A while later, she awoke to see her husband harnessing a lean, bay-coloured mare to a four-wheeled cart. With the aid of the blacksmith and an old woman dressed in black, they finished the job quickly. Then, with no further ado, Emma was helped into a seat beside her
90 husband, and they set off home. As they creaked through the village, rocking from side to side on the uneven track, she wondered if the villagers were secretly laughing at them – the supposed lord and lady of the manor, whose home was a stone shack and whose only means of transport was probably older than the village itself. She consoled herself with the fact that she would not have to spend hours scrambling back up through the forest; now the horse could do all the work.
Their route back home took them more than a mile south along the river valley before they turned off into the trees and began to gain altitude. Giovanni broke the silence by announcing that he had another surprise for his wife. They would take a long detour and visit the old couple and his son. There would be just enough time to stop for lunch before they headed home once more. Assuming the horse did not die on them, they should make it home by nightfall, he said, a small chuckle signalling that his good humour had returned.
As Emma linked her arm through her husband’s she noticed several boxes in the back of the cart that she had somehow overlooked. There was ham and cheese, flour and onions, fresh bread, garlic, pickled mushrooms, eggs, wine and much more besides. While she had slept, her wonderful husband had organized everything, and he had not asked for praise or reward of any kind. She closed her eyes and pressed herself more closely to his side, relishing the feeling of blissful optimism that washed through her.
She felt somewhat less blissful two hours later when she stepped off the cart at Il Roseto and immediately threw up by the roadside. Maretta took her inside and helped her to freshen up, while Giovanni joked loudly with his son. Within half an hour, they were all sat around the table, eating rabbit stew and sharing wine. Everyone seemed in fine spirits, except for the old man, Arturo, who said little throughout the meal, and answered questions mostly by nodding with a vague smile.
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Once the meal was finished, Ernesto took his father outside on the pretext of showing him something in the woodshed. The young fellow looked terribly serious as he began to tell
Giovanni of the increasing physical weakness of his grandfather and his intermittent periods of forgetfulness. It wouldn’t be so bad, he said, if his grandmother wasn’t also beginning to forget things. She sometimes left food on the stove and only noticed once smoke started to pour from the kitchen. The old man had fallen several times while helping Ernesto with chores around the farm, and since his last fall, he had become increasingly withdrawn. He hadn’t broken any bones, but something inside seemed to have given way.
“It’s not that I mind doing the physical work around here,” said Ernesto, “but the thing is, he still tries to do lots of things on the land that are just beyond him, and I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself badly at some point. And he won’t discuss it either. When I suggest that he should let me do something for him, he gets angry and either swears or just walks away and sulks.
“Sometimes, Grandma can’t remember whether its breakfast or supper she is supposed to be preparing, but then the next day she’s alright. Between the two of them, I’m not sure I can cope much longer. I’m sure one of them will either do themselves a serious injury or burn the place down.”
Giovanni listened in silence, lit another cigar from the silver case in his jacket pocket, and then patted his son firmly on the shoulder.
“Not to worry, my boy. You’ve done well. Leave it to me, and I’ll think of something.”
“Thank you, Papa,” said Ernesto with obvious gratitude, suddenly shifting in role from care-worn adult to trusting son.
“Leave it to me, my boy,” said Giovanni, as he headed back to the house.
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* * *
On the bumpy ride back home, Emma noticed that the upturn in her husband’s mood had been but fleeting. Since lunch, he had seemed just as gloomy as down in the village, if not more so. Certainly, she could not allow herself to be kept from knowing his troubles indefinitely, whatever they might be.
“You look very serious, my darling. What’s the matter? Is it politics?”
“No, I’m afraid it’s closer to home than that,” he said.
He told her of Ernesto’s anxieties and his sense of responsibility to his grandparents.
They could not be left alone, and Ernesto was not really able to deal with them, particularly if one of them should fall ill.
He then shifted to his concerns about Emma’s pregnancy, and how they would cope with a baby all alone, so far from a doctor. If she were to give birth in March, there would most likely still be snow on the ground, and perhaps the roads might be blocked with drifts. In such a situation, the horse and cart would not be much use.
He spoke also about his work, and the need to be closer to Torino so that he could sell his paintings and get new commissions. Buying the cart had put a large dent in his savings, and they would not last much longer unless he could make some sales. Stuck up so high had been perfect for a while, but in the end it was simply impractical.
Giovanni’s approach to the subject had been rambling and roundabout, but finally Emma had worked out what was coming next, and she didn’t like it at all.
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“You mean you want me to give up my home – our home – which we’ve only just made comfortable, and move down to live with the Maretta and Arturo? Are you serious? After all the work we’ve put in? After all that scrubbing and washing and painting and fixing things, we’re just going to close it up and leave it to rot for another twenty years? Is that what you’re saying?”
Giovanni was quiet. He could see her point of view too, of course. He had also grown to love their little nest among the peaks, and particularly the peace and quiet and the privacy it afforded them as a newlywed couple. Indeed, it had been perfect for a while…
But there was no doubt about it. They had to move.
“I’m sorry, my darling,” he said, stopping the cart. “I know how you feel, and I understand perfectly, but we just can’t stay up there and leave Ernesto to cope with his grandparents all alone. It’s not fair, and if something happened, I could never forgive myself.
I could never forgive myself if something happened to you either.”
After a suitable pause, during which time Giovanni had held her firmly in his arms, he said softly, “I think, anyway, that you might need a bit of help in the coming months, my dear. Having your first baby won’t be all plain sailing.”
She closed her eyes and knew that he was right.
* * *
Over the next few days, Giovanni was the model of a caring husband. He said that they need not move straight away, but would see how things went and move when Emma felt she was ready. In the mean-time, he said, they would enjoy their high perch for all it was worth.
He took on more of the cooking and cleaning, preparing a series of fine dishes from the groceries they had purchased in Orto, and set the dining table outside so they could eat lunch
94 with a view of the valley. The back of the house was essentially an alpine meadow, sloping down gently to the forest edge. The grass had grown long and yellow as the summer wore on, and there were hundreds of tiny flowers in vivid colours dotted about the place, bees and butterflies flitting from one to the other.
Giovanni’s cooking never seemed to waver from the highest of standards, and Emma began to enjoy the prospect of being waiting upon more and more as her pregnancy progressed. The addition of parmesan cheese to the pasta made all the difference, as did the good wine, which had been brought up to Orto from Torino for the benefit of wealthy hikers.
They were indeed idyllic days, and Emma began to feel that it wouldn’t be so bad after all to move down to live with the old couple. So long and she and Giovanni continued to be close and caring, nothing really could ruin her happiness.
During one such drawn-out afternoon, as they lay among the grass, Emma broached the subject of Giovanni’s animated discussion with the shopkeeper in Orto. What had made him so angry that he had to bash the table? And what was he saying about chaos and food and
Italy?
Giovanni suddenly looked rather solemn and reached into his jacket pocket for his cigar case, a movement that Emma had now grown to associate with a rise in emotional tension.
“I should apologise for that minor outburst, my darling,” he said, lighting a cigar and then running his hand affectionately down her back. “I’m sure it made you very uncomfortable, for which I’m sorry. But I’m afraid we were discussing something that I find upsetting.”
He paused again, and looked up at the sky, as if composing an important speech in his head. He twisted one of his moustaches, and then cleared his throat. When the explanation came, it was rather prosaic.
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“That shop where we had coffee used to be quite busy. At least I remember it always being busy when I was young. There were hikers and foreigners coming and going, heading up to the mountains and back again. Paul and his father used to do good business in putting people up for the night, and they sold a lot of supplies too. But things are quiet now, and they have been for a while.
“The trains are often not running, you see, due to strikes, which means people can’t really move around Italy, and that includes tourists, of course. Added to which, there are strikes in the factories all over the place, which means industry is suffering, which affects exports, and raw materials, and the economy as a whole. People are not working as they should be, which means they are not earning, which means not only that they cannot feed their families, but also that they cannot buy things in the shops and markets… which in turn means the economy continues to be affected.”
He took another puff on his cigar, determined to remain calm in front of his wife.
“And all the time, you see, people are simply asking for what they deserve, which is a reasonable wage for a reasonable day’s work. And I can assure you that some of the working people in Italy are working harder than they ought to. Some of them are worn into the ground with the long hours they put in. And what do they get in return for their labours? Very often they get less than they need to feed their families. Which means the children are stunted from lack of nutrition, and yet they still have to go out to work, very often, when they ought to be in school.”
Another couple of puffs on his cigar…
“Now, my own children, of course, are well taken care off. I have seen to that, and so have their grandparents and their relatives in Milan. They live a good life and want for nothing. Ernesto is living up here because he chooses to, but when the time comes I shall insist that he finish his education, since that will determine his future.
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“But, of course, for the children of so many families in Italy, there are not so many choices. There is the choice between working ungodly hours until they are almost dead… or else just giving up and dying in the gutter… which is no choice at all, of course.”
Another cloud of smoke billowed into the air…
“And so, of course, one cannot blame them for going on strike to demand better wages and proper treatment. But every time they do so, the economy suffers, which means Italy suffers as a whole, and it suffers in front of so many other countries that are doing much better, which is utterly shameful.
“And who is to blame? It’s those geniuses in the government and industry who have the good sense to invent things and draft laws and pass regulations and line their pockets, but not the good sense to pay fair wages to the very workers who put them there! Those geniuses of the Italian elite, who are the inheritors of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance and the
Risorgimento, those inheritors of the language and learning of Cicero and Michelangelo, those geniuses in the idiot liberal government and the banks and the factories, can’t even manage to pay a man a reasonable wage with which to feed his children… And all the while,
Italy, my beautiful Italy, stumbles and lurches from one crisis to another… We can’t even make the trains run properly!
“We pretty much invented European civilization, with a little help from the Greeks and the Germans… although not the French… and yet we seem unable to find a reasonable way to live with ourselves without squabbling over a few stupid lira!”
More smoke…
“It upsets me because I know that this is a truly great country, perhaps the greatest in history, but it is being held back by selfishness and idiocy. There is chaos where there should be order, there is greed where there should be equality, and where there should be reasonable negotiations, there are carabinieri fixing bayonets and attacking their fellow countrymen.
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The same is happening in Russia, of course, and perhaps on a larger scale. It seems they have the same breed of geniuses running affairs over there.”
In the pause that followed, Giovanni took several puffs on his dwindling cigar and then stubbed it out in the dirt.
“But, my dear, none of this need worry you particularly. The only impact on us is that it makes me a little more anxious over money. It is largely the geniuses of whom I speak that will be buying my paintings, and I’m concerned that they should continue to splash out on such luxuries as the country nose-dives into chaos. Actually, some of those very geniuses happen to be personal friends of mine, which is both a blessing and a complicating factor, although perhaps not an insurmountable one.”
Emma felt relieved to know finally what it was that had upset her husband on that day, but the image of the nation descending into chaos was not a happy one. Nor was the prospect of living in poverty with a new-born baby.
“But we’ll be alright, won’t we?” she said.
“Of course we’ll be alright, my darling,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and taking on the role of protector and comforter that he played so well. “I’ll sell a thousand paintings, and we’ll make beautiful babies, and well ignore the rest of the world. The rest of the world can go to hell.”
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CHAPTER 11
BACK DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
(1905)
It was just as the very first flakes of snow had begun to fall that Giovanni and Emma finished loading the last of their possessions onto the cart. They hoped to make it down to Il
Roseto before they found themselves in the first blizzard of the winter. Emma was now showing a medium-sized bump, but she insisted on fetching and carrying just as before. She had only just learned how to use her hands for real work, and she enjoyed the exercise. As they left the little homestead, Emma screwed her head round to look at it one more time. A light dusting of snow now lay on the wooden roof tiles, like icing sugar on a cake. She hoped they would move back one day to the mountain retreat that had been her first marital home, the house to which Giovanni had brought her over many miles from Malta.
By the time they arrived at Il Roseto, the whole mountain was white, and the dogs that ran to meet them seemed to be overcome with the double joy of snow in which to play and the return of their long-lost companion with the booming voice. The old couple seemed just as pleased at the new arrangement, and neither showed any sign of frailty or mental vagueness as they helped Emma and Giovanni distribute their belongings about the place.
They had managed to transport pretty much all of their possessions, except for the furniture and the pots and pans. Giovanni had bought a box of carpentry tools with him in anticipation of building some sort of extension to the old couple’s home. He envisioned a painting studio built of pine wood, and perhaps an additional sitting room so that the five them might not feel so cramped under one roof.
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Giovanni had, of course, bought all of his paintings with him, each wrapped in cotton and sacking material. Until Emma joined the task of finding places to stack them, she had not realised just how many there were. They included dozens from Malta and many more he had painted since their arrival at Naples. There was not enough room in the bedroom for them all, and many had to be stacked in one corner of the living room. Giovanni was obviously nervous that some disaster would occur to wipe out all of his hard work, and he reminded everyone from time to time that the dogs were not to be allowed near his canvases.
There were boxes of books to be unpacked too, including many that Giovanni had wanted to leave behind but Emma had insisted on bringing. They had been a great source of inspiration and encouragement to her, and she was loath to let them go. Ernesto helped Emma to unpack the books and arrange them about the place, commenting occasionally on works that he’d read at school or asking questions about others that were new to him. She thought that perhaps a love of literature might be a common bond between them.
Giovanni and Emma were settled back into the bedroom they had shared before, and it soon began to feel something like home again. But as she soaked in the tin bath, Emma pondered just how temporary or otherwise this stay in the old couple’s house was going to be.
Certainly, she would be spending Christmas there, and probably the spring too. But there had been no time limit placed on the arrangement. Since they were moving there largely due to the infirmity of the old couple, it seemed she might be stuck with the arrangement for years.
They looked strong enough right now, and there was no telling how many more years they might last. Emma had stepped from the constraints of her family in Malta to those of a family in Italy. Was she doomed never to have a home that she could truly call her own?
There were benefits, of course, of living on the lower slopes of the mountain. For one thing, farmers came to the door from time to time to exchange or sell goods, and a postman called once a week with mail. Since Maretta and Arturo rarely wrote or received letters, the
100 postman mostly saw his visit as an opportunity to take a rest and exchange gossip over a cup of coffee. Emma gave him a letter to be sent to Malta, one that she had written weeks before but been unable to post. She asked him to be sure and look out for any reply that might be addressed to Il Nido, and give it to her. Before trotting off on his old pony, the postman promised to guard her mail with his life, in both directions. With his official cap and long white moustaches, he looked for a moment like a gallant knight pledging loyalty to a fair damsel.
One morning the following week, the three men rode off in the cart without bothering to explain where they were going. They took with them bread, sausage, cheese and tea, and the two dogs trotted along behind. They were gone most of the day, and when they returned in the evening, the cart was slow and heavy with its burden of sawn wood. They had spent the day at a saw mill, making planks from the old seasoned trees that had been felled some years previously and had lain in the forest.
They spent the following two days doing the same, Ernesto and Giovanni doing the heavy lifting and loading while the old man drove the cart. Once they were finally unloaded, the planks covered most of the barn floor. This time there were huge beams as well, and stacks of wooden roof tiles.
Emma enquired several times about their project, but was always told that she’d know what it was when it was finished. She liked surprises, as a general rule, and had a feeling this would be a nice one.
It was not long before Ernesto and Giovanni had built the skeleton of an extension onto one end of the stone farmhouse, consisting of a dining room, one double bedroom and a small painter’s studio, all standing on a slightly raised wooden platform. The old fellow helped as much as he was able, lending valuable advice where needed. He insisted that he was still able
101 to lend a hand with the sawing and hammering down at ground level, so long as he took frequent rests.
The three worked from daybreak to dusk, while the two women did the farm work and kept the men plied with food and drink. This was a wholly new experience for Emma, who had never fed farm animals before in her life. She learned how to milk the two goats and found the little kids absolutely enchanting as they followed her, crying “Maaaa! Maaaa!” She enjoyed feeding the chickens too, and collecting the warm eggs, and was shown how to put eggs under a broody hen. She gathered pine cones and holly berries, accompanied by the dogs, Jack the St Bernard, and Diana the spaniel, who kept bringing her sticks to throw. The berries and cones she hung around the house in preparation for the Christmas festivities, according to instructions from the old woman, who seemed to be enjoying the additional company.
At the end of each day Emma inspected the building work. Finally, the last roof tiles were tacked into place, and the windows fitted. Ernesto had begun to paint the outside of the house in a rich green colour, and Emma insisted on helping with the task, partly to prove to herself that she was finally over her aversion to strong smells.
Once the extension was finished, it was truly wonderful. The only entrance was from the outside, and could be reached via the veranda, which had been extended round the side of the house. Since there was no access to these new rooms from within the existing stone structure, the extension was essentially a discrete living space, a private suite of rooms for Emma and
Giovanni. There was even a small iron stove in one corner on which to cook and make hot water, and Giovanni had constructed a rather rudimentary stone fireplace, with an iron chimney above it. He said that both of these would be needed as the winter deepened.
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So grateful was Emma for the work the three men had put in that she had to fight back tears when she was handed a large key to the front door. It wasn’t her own house, exactly, but it would certainly make life bearable.
* * *
Not long afterwards, the postman arrived with a letter, but it wasn’t for Emma. Rather, it was for her husband, and Giovanni took it onto the veranda to read alone.
Watching from the kitchen window, Emma could clearly see a change in his expression as he read the contents. He seemed to frown and shake his head slightly, then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the silver cigar case. Clearly, something in the letter was upsetting to him, but she waited in vain for any explanation.
Later in the evening, as she was preparing the table for dinner, she asked him about the letter. Was it bad news of some kind?
“Nothing to worry your pretty head about,” was his terse reply.
“Alright,” she said. “If you don’t want to tell me, then I won’t bother you with questions.” And she walked back into the kitchen, the mingled sensations of hurt and fury wrestling in her breast.
“What’s the trouble, my dear?” said the old woman as Emma strode stony-faced to the kitchen hearth, where a small log fire crackled.
“Nothing at all. I’m just a little cold. I need to warm up,” Emma replied.
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After a short silence, during which Emma gazed into the flames, the old woman made another attempt at offering some comfort. She had also noticed Giovanni’s change of mood since the postman’s visit.
“Is there something the matter? Is it bad news?” she asked.
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me,” said Emma, apparently still transfixed by the flames.
“I’m afraid, my dear, a woman is not always the first to know what is on her husband’s mind,” said Maretta. “Men can be just as secretive as women, particularly when they have problems. I’m sure he’s just concerned about his work. He’s much in demand, you know, in
Milano and Torino, painting and sculpting, and designing new contraptions. Most likely, he’s been asked to take on a new commission, and he’s plotting how to get it done. He’s a brilliant man, you know, quite brilliant.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” said Emma, managing a smile at last. “I’m sure it’s just about work. He has been a bit worried about money since the summer.”
“And then there are his political concerns, his socialist ideals, and I don’t know what else…”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I understand that he must have a lot to think about.”
“When he feels like getting it off his chest, he’ll come to you and tell you the whole story. In the mean-time, there’s no point worrying about it. We have plenty to keep us busy, anyway, you and me. Come here and help me with this cake.”
Emma pulled on an apron and lent a hand with the cooking, passing nuts, sugar, spices and flour on command, only occasionally letting her eyes drift to the window, through which she could see Giovanni standing on the veranda once more. He had taken another miniature cigar from the silver case and now stood gazing into the dark, winter sky, no doubt pondering important matters and sketching grand plans for their future.
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* * *
The next day was Christmas Eve, and Giovanni announced that they would all be eating their evening meal in the extension, taking their seats round a large oak table that had been hidden under a dust sheet in the barn. How different this all was from Emma’s Christmases in
Malta with her own parents and siblings. She wondered about them and what they would be doing on this special day. She saw them all in her mind’s eye, sitting down solemnly to eat dinner, some guest taking her place next to her mother. Or perhaps her usual chair would simply be left empty? She pictured her father’s face, sad and grim as he carved the meat. She felt tears well in her eyes and tried hard to focus on lighting a fire in the stone hearth. Soon she had shaken the images from her mind, but even as she served the meal of baked fish and roast vegetables, her heart was heavy. It didn’t help that she still felt hurt at having been excluded from Giovanni’s thoughts the day before. She was haunted by a sense of foreboding, as if she were about to lose her husband, having only just found him.
In the end, the evening passed well enough, Giovanni lightening the mood with an impromptu operatic performance at the dinner table, his vocal cords loosened by a bottle of good, red wine. Before long, the group was laughing and swapping childhood stories and memories of Christmas gone by. The old couple told tales stretching back to the early part of the previous century, providing Emma with a human link to times and places that she had only ever encountered in books. Maretta told of the arrival of the first steam trains in Italy, while Arturo described his memories of great political events.
He had been involved in the uprising against the Austrians in 1848 and later fought for the unification of Italy, during which he actually shook Garibaldi’s hand. Meretta said that
105 nobody could be sure that Arturo’s stories were true, but for Ernesto and Emma, it was all utterly fascinating.
* * *
The next day was suitably cheery. Emma joined the family in exchanging small
Christmas gifts round the breakfast table, then sitting down to a large lunch of chicken and fresh winter vegetables. The wine flowed freely once more, and by mid-afternoon Giovanni declared that he would take a nap to recover his energy.
As the sky began to darken, and having washed the last of the dishes, Emma went to the bedroom to check on her husband. As she opened the door slowly and took in the scene, her heart almost leapt from her chest. Giovanni stood over the large bed, packing shirts into a suitcase. Two smaller travel bags lay already packed at the foot of the bed. He turned as she opened the door and a guilty frown darkened his features.
Emma’s heart plummeted.
“What are you doing? Are you going away?”
“Yes, my dear, I’m afraid I am,” he replied, walking round to meet her at the door and taking her hands in his. “But not until tomorrow. We can still enjoy the rest of the day together and tonight also, but tomorrow I will have to go to Torino.”
“But why are you packing so many clothes? Are you going for long? What are you going to Torino for? Why didn’t you tell me? Is it the letter? What was it about? Did you think of asking me to come with you?”
“My dear, you mustn’t stress about it,” he said, caressing her face. “I’m going to Torino for a short while to sell some paintings and organize some new work. The letter was from my agent, who happens also to be the owner of a very fine gallery in the city centre. He has
106 arranged for me to paint two portraits and work on some interior designs. An aristocrat of some kind has purchased an enormous villa in the city, and they wish me to paint the interior in a lavish and traditional style, complete with cherubs and vines and such things. It could mean a lot of money, but it will certainly be hard work. Needless to say, I cannot do any of this from the side of a mountain, and so I have to leave in the morning.”
He held her close and waited for a reply, not sure whether he would be forgiven or have his eyes gouged out. Emma was simultaneously heartbroken and furious, and she did not trust herself to do or say anything. She just looked at him with wide and disbelieving eyes.
“And, of course, I will be terribly busy with arranging things and doing business and painting, and so I can’t very well take you with me, my dear. Even now, I am not entirely sure where I’ll be living, nor for how long. After all, you are carrying our child, Emma. You have to think of that.”
He placed his hand on her bump, as if to demonstrate his point, but she jerked backwards a little way, still angry.
“My sweet, please understand that I wanted to tell you immediately I got the letter, but at the same time, I didn’t want to ruin our Christmas together, since we were all having such a wonderful time. Please forgive me.”
These final words softened Emma’s mood somewhat, and her tense body relaxed in his arms.
“Well, I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said at last. “You have to go. I understand that. I only wish you had told me about it as soon as you knew.”
“I’m sorry, my sweet, I really am. I simply didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”
“You know, “ she continued, barely containing her anger, “you sometimes treat me like a child, making arrangements and not telling me what’s going on, keeping the truth from me and then presenting me with gifts and decisions as if I’m one of your offspring. But I’m not a
107 child, Giovanni, and I don’t want to be treated like one. In future, I want you to tell me everything. Do you understand?”
“Yes, of course, my dear. I’m so very sorry. Please forgive me.”
Emma wondered if forgiving so easily would be taken as a sign of weakness on her part, but she could not resist the bliss of a loving reunion with her husband, though he might be a stubborn, pig-headed, paternalistic oaf at times.
“Then you are forgiven,” she said with a reluctant smile.
She helped him with the last of the packing, as if to reinforce the notion that they were indeed a team, facing the world and all of its cruel necessities together. He identified thirty canvasses that he felt sure would sell in the galleries and wrapped them carefully, then tied them in bundles. He would frame them once he was in the city, he said. He also packed the essentials of his painting equipment in a metal chest and bound two easels to it. At last the job was done.
In the darkness of evening, the couple lay on the bed together, conscious of time slipping through their hands and savouring the warmth of their embrace. Emma wanted to ask more questions about Giovanni’s trip, but resisted the urge, since she feared causing more annoyance and ruining the sense of trust and closeness they now enjoyed. If only they could always be this close.
Neither of them slept very well that night. He was thinking through the various things he had to do on arrival in the city, and whenever he drifted off into sleep, another anxious thought would bring him back to full consciousness. She wanted to hang on to his dear presence for as long as possible. Despite what she had said about his paternalistic attitude, up to now, he had been her fortress, her haven. With him beside her, she could face any new, strange or intimidating situation. He was her rock. But he was leaving, and she didn’t even know for how long.
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She comforted herself with the fact that Ernesto would be staying behind. He was young, but also strong and good-hearted, and he had many of the physical characteristics of
Giovanni. When she heard his voice at a distance, she often mistook him for her husband.
Between the two of them, they would be able to cope with any emergencies that presented themselves, including any sudden degeneration in Maretta or Arturo’s health. Sadly, she told herself that even if Giovanni did not hurry back to see his wife, he would want to come back and see his son from time to time.
Early next morning, Emma found herself standing in a soup of snow and mountain mist, as Giovanni loaded his bags, canvasses and painting equipment onto the cart. At the last moment, he fetched a box of tools for woodwork and sculpture, just in case. Certainly, she reflected, he would have enough to keep him busy in Torino, assuming the promised commissions were forthcoming.
After a tight and lingering embrace, Emma allowed Giovanni to climb aboard, and only then did she notice that Ernesto had packed his bags too. She stood open-mouthed as the boy clambered into the seat next to her husband, a cheerful smile on his face. She had not imagined that the young man might be tagging along. Such an arrangement had not even been mentioned.
The dogs, it seemed, believed they would be joining the adventure too, and began to scout the road ahead. Giovanni called them back and ordered them to stay put, which they did with their heads low and their tales between their legs. Emma felt a deep sympathy with the dogs.
Seeing the two of them, father and son, setting off on their adventure together, Emma felt a sudden urge to climb aboard too, and tears began to run down her cheeks. She wanted to ask Giovanni how she was expected to cope all alone with the frail old couple. Wasn’t she being left in exactly the same situation from which they had rescued Ernesto just weeks
109 before? She thought of challenging him on this point, and his son too, but felt it was impossible to do so in front of Maretta and Arturo. They would be mortified to hear themselves referred to in such terms.
Moments later, Giovanni was jerking the reins, and the horse walked on down the hill.
Emma stood there in the cold morning air and watched her husband disappear into the mist.
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CHAPTER 12
A PAINFUL SEPARATION
(1906)
Over the next few weeks, Emma did her best to ease the load of daily existence that was becoming a burden on the old couple. She was surprised by the ease with which she took on many of the farmyard chores, especially with the child slowly growing inside her.
She lent her strength to Arturo’s when heavy loads were too much for him, although he would never let her take all the weight. He felt embarrassed that she had to help at all, but with Ernesto away and she so willing to help, a camaraderie grew up between them. He enjoyed her youthful energy, and she enjoyed learning the little songs he sang as he went slowly about his chores. They were in the local dialect, which she had committed herself to learning while she had the chance.
Before long, the feeling of longing for her husband began to subside and she started to see every day as a learning opportunity. The old fellow was a mine of information on the area where he had lived for most of his life. He had grown up in a village some ten miles to the north, where his father had been a school teacher. As a young man, he had moved to Torino to work in a book bindery, and then had a series of related jobs in printing houses and bookshops, as well as fighting the Austrians when called upon to do so. In the end, however, he had opted to return to the mountains where he had grown up, buying the old farm with his wife some twenty years ago. Since then, he had never had much time for the city, preferring to live off the land and enjoy the beauties of nature.
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In his younger years, he had walked in the mountains with Giovanni, and spent several summers hunting and fishing area to the north and west of Orto. Giovanni had visited the area often, bringing his first wife, Alessandra, and their young children for summer breaks. They loved Il Nido, and the children in particular found the rocky mountain playground thoroughly exciting. They had kept bees there and even smoked their own venison. Giovanni, it turned out, was a fine shot with a hunting rifle, a fact that didn’t surprise Emma in the least.
For some strange reason that she could not fathom, hearing Arturo talk at length about
Giovanni’s past life and former marriage did not spark the least bit of jealousy in her. Had she learned these details direct from Giovanni, it would have been unbearable. But from the mouth of a wizened old man, such reminiscences seemed quite harmless. The past was the past. She was simply glad for the information, since it filled a few gaps in her knowledge.
She learned a lot from Maretta too, including many tips on childbirth and how to look after a baby. The old woman had not had children of her own, but she had helped to deliver and raise several in her time, and had also applied numerous natural remedies to help overcome fevers, infections and maladies of all sorts. Over the weeks, she transferred to
Emma all the key points of motherhood as she understood it, and Emma even took to writing down the important points in a notebook. The names of shop-bought medicines were of particular interest to her, as were the herbs with which country potions were made.
While all of this knowledge was fine in itself, she knew that nothing much could prepare her for the experience of childbirth when it finally arrived, and she hoped to God that Maretta would remain active long enough to help her through that particular drama. While the old woman was mostly well, just occasionally Emma discovered her standing alone in the kitchen, a look of vagueness and confusion on her face. When she asked Maretta what was up, it was as if the old woman had barely understood the question. A moment later, she snapped into action, picking up the nearest implement and setting about a household task
112 almost at random. Emma wondered whether this were a sign of mere forgetfulness or a more serious deterioration. She resolved not to challenge Maretta on this point, nor even allude to it, for fear of causing embarrassment or panic.
When the old postman finally delivered a letter for Emma, she virtually snatched it from him and tore it open as she ran back to the house. The opening words from her husband were indeed loving and kind, as she had hoped. However, the note was brief, no more than two small pages, and told her little more than she already expected. He was meeting lots of people and making progress, and working hard to build their new future. He hoped she was well and the old couple too. She lay on her bed and read the note three times before bursting into tears.
A week later, at the end of February, Ernesto turned up at the kitchen door. He had come back to see that everything was running smoothly and was full of stories of life in Torino.
The four of them sat down at the kitchen table while the young man ate his way hungrily through a bowl of stew. He told with excitement of Giovanni’s life in the big city, including dinner parties with artists, writers and political thinkers, some of them continuing late into the night, and all of them lubricated with good wines, including the occasional bottle of champagne. The more she listened, the more Emma wondered when she would see her husband again. It seemed he was having a fine time without her. Finally, she excused herself from the table, and walked to her marital suite, collapsing on the bed in tears once more.
The next day, she handed a letter to Ernesto, insisting that he take it to his father as soon as he was able to return to Torino. In the letter, she begged her husband either to return to her side, or else to send for her at once. The young man returned to the city, the letter in the breast pocket of his jacket.
* * *
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The following week, Giovanni surprised Emma by arriving at Il Roseto unannounced. He had taken a ride in a farmer’s cart and walked the last mile alone, carrying only a knapsack on his back. Seeing his wife gathering eggs from stray nests in the barn, he crept up and grabbed her from behind. She gave a shriek of alarm and dropped the eggs as his strong arms wrapped around her. He held her tight and planted kisses on her face through her tussled hair.
With the baby due in two weeks, she found the embrace thoroughly uncomfortable. Her face showed a grimace of pain as she peeled his arms away.
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” he said, clearly hurt.
“Of course I am, but you mustn’t squeeze me like that. You might hurt the baby.”
“I’m sorry, my darling. I didn’t think” he said, reaching his hand down to caress her belly.
“Well, that’s nothing new, is it? When do you ever think of me?” she flashed, surprising herself with the vehemence of her own words. After waiting so long for his return, and indeed insisting on it in a letter, it seemed the prominent emotion in her heart was one of reproach.
He was shocked by his wife’s hostility, and also a little confused at the basis of the accusations against him. He knew for a fact that he thought of her often and cared about her deeply. In the face of such unfairness, he was tempted to fight fire with fire. However, after a moment’s consideration, during which he stared into this wife’s somewhat wild eyes, he said,
“Well if this is the welcome I get, I’ll happily leave you alone.”
With that he strode away, gathering a basket of logs and disappearing round the side of the house. She instantly regretted her outburst. She so longed for a loving reunion, but it seemed the baby and her own hurt feelings were getting in the way. As she gathered up the few eggs that had not been broken, she realised that she had made her husband angry for the first time ever. Until now, they had never argued, and she hoped to God that their falling out would not last long. She called to the dogs, who bounced over to the barn and licked up the
114 broken eggs, then she headed round the side of the house in search of her long-lost life- partner.
She saw him by the log shed, furiously chopping the basket of logs into kindling, swinging the axe with full force. He was a tall man and his blows were powerful, the long- handled woodsman’s axe a mere blade of straw in his hands. She decided not to interrupt him as he worked off his anger, and went indoors.
Maretta was busy making pasta at the kitchen table and looked up with surprise as Emma walked in, deposited the eggs in the larder and then swept out again without uttering a word.
The old lady, sensing that something was wrong, went to the window in search of a clue. She saw Giovanni attacking the logs with an energy that suggested anger. She had not noticed his return, and assumed that he had not received the warm welcome home that he had perhaps expected.
She filled a bucket with warm water and took it to Emma’s bedroom. Tapping gently on the door, she said: “It’s only me. I have some hot water for you, if you want to freshen up.”
A tearful voice bade her come in. Emma was sitting on the bed, her hair tousled and her face red and swollen from crying. Maretta put the water down and sat on the bed next to
Emma, gently wrapping her arms round her shoulders.
Between great shuddering sobs, Emma told the old woman how Giovanni had surprised her from behind. He’d made her drop the eggs, and worst of all, he had squeezed her so tight that her belly hurt. He went off for indefinite periods without warning and barely wrote a letter, and then just turned up and started wrestling her as if nothing had happened. He was like a child, a spoilt child, who thinks he can have everything he wants and to hell with other people’s feelings. She was so angry with him, and yet she loved him so dearly, and now she had hurt his feelings too, and he might never forgive her… and he was all she had in the world.
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As she dissolved into more sobs, her tears mingling with the flour on Maretta’s kitchen apron, Emma was grateful to the old woman for not speaking. It was enough that she simply held her and listened. With such a wealth of experience, there was no doubt that she understood Emma’s complaints.
At last, she lifted her head and said: “And there’s another thing. The baby’s getting so big now. I really must look hideous. None of my clothes fit me anymore, and the only thing I feel comfortable in is this old smock, which is covered in dirt and stains from the animals.
God only knows what I look like! Why couldn’t he have let me know he was coming?”
“Perhaps he didn’t know himself,” replied Maretta softly. “He’s hardly a master of his own destiny. There are probably all sorts of people in Torino giving him orders and making demands on his time. Surely, it’s something that he put his work to one side and hurried back when you summoned him? He can be a bit immature, I know, but he’s certainly not a monster. And actually, you do have a dress to wear. I finished making the alterations last night. You’ll find it on the table here, if you care to look.”
Maretta, stepped back into the dining room and retrieved a bundle of white silk with lace trim. It had been one of Emma’s fine old dresses from Malta, expanded on all sides to fit her new maternal proportions. It felt quite luxurious to Emma as she pressed it against her cheeks. The measurements were not exactly flattering, but at least she would fit comfortably inside.
“It’s not the height of Milano fashion, my dear, but with a proper wash and a clean dress, you’ll feel yourself again in no time.”
Emma was grateful for this act of kindness and for Maretta’s sensible attitude. She pulled a scruffy handkerchief from the front pocket of her smock and blew her nose. Perhaps everything would be alright again if she trusted that it would be?
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“And think on this, my girl,” continued Maretta. “Pregnancy may be inconvenient and uncomfortable, but it is also a miracle from God for which we should be grateful. There are many women who long for the chance to bear children, but that gift is denied to them. In a week or two, when you see the end result of your discomfort, you’ll see what all the fuss is about. And don’t be too sure that Giovanni sees you as you see yourself. Perhaps he grabbed you so hard because he was overcome with love and desire for his beautiful wife? Did you think of that?”
Emma managed a smile. “No, I didn’t think of that. I’m afraid I was too angry. But I’ll do my best to take it on board. Thank you.”
Having tipped the warm water into the wash basin, Maretta turned to leave. As she reached the door, Emma spoke once more.
“But what about at night time? I mean, in bed. With this bump in the way… won’t we have to sleep in separate beds?”
“Why would you need to sleep in separate beds?”
“Well, I mean, won’t the baby get in the way? It was already difficult before Christmas, but now I’m enormous. Surely, it just … won’t work.”
Finally, Maretta understood what the girl was alluding to and a broad smile spread across her wrinkled face. “Don’t you worry, my girl. Giovanni’s quite experienced in such things.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. If he wishes to show his affection without squashing the baby, he’ll find a way to do so. Don’t you worry about that!”
And the old woman went off, chuckling to herself. Emma found herself chuckling gently too, though she wasn’t quite sure why.
* * *
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When Maretta returned to the kitchen, she found Giovanni sitting at the table, a glass of wine in his hand, making a fuss of the two dogs who were clearly overjoyed at his arrival.
She greeted him with a kiss on each cheek and thanked him for chopping the kindling. Then she returned to her original task of making spaghetti, feeding dough into one end of the machine and slowly turning the handle.
Ordinarily, Maretta would steer clear of giving unsolicited advice, particularly to married couples. And Giovanni was a proud man, with plenty of experience behind him. He might well take offence at any sort of interference. But on this occasion, she felt quite justified in putting him in the picture.
As she slowly turned the handle, she recounted the complaints Emma had made through floods of tears, and reminded him of his duties as a husband. He was the bread-winner, of course, and she understood that. Obviously, he had to spend time in the city, but he might find time to write at least once a week, and it wouldn’t hurt to keep his wife informed of his future movements, rather than treating her like a child. After all, secrecy was no way to encourage trust. She was young and inexperienced, and her heart was still trusting and tender.
He should treat her with the gentleness and consideration she deserved.
As the last of the spaghetti strings emerged from the machine, she reminded him of the grief he had experienced at losing Alessandra, and asked whether he really wanted to lose another wife so soon? Perhaps that last remark had been below the belt, she pondered, but it seemed he needed something to bring him down to earth.
Everything the old woman had said was true, and she had maintained a calm and affectionate tone throughout. Even so, Giovanni did not enjoy his telling off. He had rather hoped the tiff had gone unnoticed, but clearly this was not the case. Sharing a house in this way, he could hardly hope for privacy in his romantic affairs. And so he endured the lecture in silence, rooted to his chair, his eyes directed mostly to the red wine in his glass.
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Maretta had been a loving and generous mother-in-law to Giovanni, showering him with kindness and affection over the years. In turn, he had been affectionate and loyal, and provided for her in various ways. The thought of falling out of favour with Maretta horrified him, and he took her censure seriously. She was perhaps the only person who could deflate his arrogance and return him to the state of a naughty child in need of correction.
“Of course, your right,” he said at last. “You’re quite right. I have been very stupid, and
I’ll try to make it up.”
“That’s a good boy. I know you’ll be okay. Just show her some respect and kindness and don’t treat her like an idiot, and you’ll be fine. Because she’s not an idiot, you know.”
“Oh, yes, I know. She’s certainly very clever, and I really do feel so stupid for having neglected her. I’ll think about everything you’ve said. Thank you.”
Emma remained in her room alone, and was concerned to find that her husband did not join her there. But when she emerged for dinner with the others, she found Giovanni calm, gentle and infinitely watchful. Over a huge meal of spaghetti, frittata, bread and cheese, he enquired of every one’s health and daily life in his absence. He listened with interest as
Emma recounted details of her further transformation into a farmer, including the milking of goats, the felling of trees and even the plucking of chickens for the pot. He asked about her reading, and she said that she hadn’t had much time for books just lately, but was slowing learning the local dialect. She fetched a notebook that contained long vocabulary lists, rendering the same words simultaneously in Maltese, Italian and Piedmont dialect. She also recited from memory a range of local plants with medicinal uses, and explained how they could be applied. Giovanni joked that he looked forward to falling ill so that she could look after him, and Arturo said he should be careful what he wished for.
Giovanni shared news of his life in Torino, but spared them the lurid details of his social life that his son had emphasized. Instead, he told of the progress of his work and the money
119 he was making. He listed a number of items that he was planning to buy for the baby, including a new crib and tiny suits of clothing. He was even charming enough to say that he didn’t care whether their child was a boy or a girl, so long as it inherited the beauty and intelligence of its mother. Had he attempted flattery of this sort a few hours earlier, Emma might have scolded him, perhaps even slapped him. But after her talk with Maretta and with a certain amount of repentance in her heart, she lapped it up.
Towards the end of the meal, Giovanni reached into his knapsack and drew out presents for everyone. There was a silk shawl for Maretta, a packet of expensive pipe tobacco for
Arturo, boxes of nougat with almonds, some chocolates and a bottle of brandy. He had been saving these gifts until he was sure that he was no longer persona non grata with his wife.
Finally, from deep within the knapsack, he drew out a small, black box, within which was a sparkling necklace of what appeared to be diamonds.
“They’re paste, I’m afraid, my dear. The real thing is somewhat beyond our means at present. But I thought they would look wonderful on you. And at some point, once we have ourselves more firmly established, you will finally have the chance to show them off.”
As he strung the sparkling gift around her neck, Emma felt the last of her misgivings vanish like drops of water on a hot stove.
“Thank you, my darling. They’re truly wonderful,” she said.
That night, once the lights were out, Giovanni confirmed the old woman’s predictions and demonstrated his affections for his wife in ways that placed no pressure on her belly, and left her quite breathless.
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CHAPTER 13
THE CYCLE OF LIFE
(1906)
Emma and Maretta had spent the morning seated in the garden enjoying the first of the warm spring days. They used the excuse that they needed the bright sunlight by which to sew and darn, and there were indeed a great many items of clothing strewn about the place in various stages of disrepair and patching-up. Maretta had complained that her bones ached more than usual, and it seemed that even with her glasses on, she had trouble seeing needle and thread clearly. Still, the women enjoyed the warm sun and rarely stopped chatting about one thing or another.
Unable to reach a nearby sock, Emma pulled herself forward to get out of her chair, and the first pain raked across her lower back, causing her to catch her breath and sit straight down again. The old lady knew what had happened and suggested as calmly as possible that she thought it might be time to go indoors. She walked Emma to her room and suggested she have a lie down. She then went around to the other side of the house, where Giovanni was painting a rustic scene.
“I think she is on the verge of going into labour,” she said. “She’s gone to lie down, but you should keep an eye on her.”
Giovanni sat with his wife for a while, but she asked to be left alone so that she could sleep. He joked that it might be indigestion, but she failed to see the funny side of things.
Returning to the main part of the house, he found Maretta preparing towels, bowls and potions. She said that Arturo had gone down the hill to fetch Dolores Casicano and her
121 daughter Anna, who were renowned in the area as good midwives. In the absence of a doctor, they would do fine.
Shortly after sunset, the women arrived and prepared to bed down in the spare room.
They asked to see Emma, but Giovanni insisted that she was sleeping and had asked not to be woken. It was only late that evening that he finally climbed into bed beside his wife.
Emma went into labour just after midnight. Giovanni was awoken by her groans beside him and her hand searching for his. He knew it would be a long, hard battle, and he was so afraid that history would repeat itself. He had already lost one wife in childbirth, and he wondered if fate might curse him again. He wasn’t often given to prayer, but he mumbled a prayer now. “Please, God, don’t let it happen to my Emma. We’ve had so little time together.”
As the three women set about helping Emma through her ordeal, Giovanni was ushered outside, and he instantly began pacing up and down the garden. Arturo joined him and urged him to come away from the house.
“Come on lad,” said the old man. “Leave all the noise to the women. You can’t help by charging up and down like this.”
And he urged Giovanni along a moonlit path into the forest, until all he could hear was the crackle of dried twigs, their heavy footfall and the occasional chatter of a startled bird.
Giovanni suggested once or twice that they should return, but Arturo said there was something ahead that he wanted to show him. And so they followed the path round a curve in the mountainside, occasionally tripping on roots and scratching their faces on twigs.
Arriving at a clearing, they both stopped for a moment and surveyed the sweeping valley below them, bathed in bright moonlight, the river sparkling softly as went. For a little while, there was nothing to hear but the faintest sowing of the mountain breeze. And then it came: the most blood-curdling, most anguished scream that Giovanni had ever heard, reverberating
122 around the surrounding mountains. It continued for a few seconds, but ended on a note of triumph, and then he thought he could hear a cheer and perhaps some laughter.
There was no holding him then. He turned and charged back to the house, crashing through the trees and bursting into the bedroom without knocking. There was a great deal of hurried covering up before he was able to see Emma’s flushed face peering happily down at the dark-haired bundle in her arms. He enfolded them both in his arms, gently, reverently, and kissed each tenderly. This was his first daughter, or at least the first he could openly declare, and he was happier than he could ever remember.
* * *
For a week or two everything seemed to revolve around the new baby. During Emma’s lying-in period, Maretta spent much of her time fetching and carrying and dealing with woman’s things. Giovanni took over in the kitchen and seized the opportunity to add some variety to the menu. He produced all sorts of delights to tempt Emma’s appetite, which was pretty healthy anyway. In addition to her bosom filling out, she had generally become more rounded, and it was as well that she insisted on getting up and about.
Secretly, Maretta was relieved when Emma started moving about again, because she had found the whole thing quite exhausting. Added to which, she was concerned about her husband, who had developed a hacking cough. He seemed to be moving more slowly than usual and had given up on sawing the logs or chopping kindling. In terms of chores, he had come to a virtual standstill.
One day, Emma left the baby sleeping and wandered outside, where she found the old man struggling with a bucket of food for the goats.
“Here, let me help you with that,” she said, taking hold of the handle.
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“Oh, you don’t have to, my dear,” he said, instantly letting go and leaning his back up against the barn door. He was having trouble catching his breath and pretty soon started a bought of coughing that went on for a good minute.
“You should go in the warm. I’ll feed the goats,” she said with a smile.
The old man looked at her with sad, rheumy eyes and patted her weakly on the shoulder.
“You’re a good girl,” he said and wandered slowly back to the house.
Giovanni said it must have been the rich tobacco he’d brought from Torino, but Arturo said it was nothing of the kind. He said he’d caught a chill, and hadn’t really started on the tobacco. When the postman arrived, Giovanni gave him a letter for a doctor in Torino, who turned up the next day and instantly ordered Arturo to remain in bed. He said the old man had bronchitis, which might turn to pneumonia if they weren’t careful. He handed over several medicines and said he would return in a week.
A couple of hours later, when Maretta went to their bedroom to take him a drink, he did not respond to her. Emma found her standing at their bedroom door with her hands across her mouth and the most bewildered expression in her old eyes. She was trembling like a leaf. She looked up into Emma’s face and whispered, “I think he’s gone.”
Emma called Giovanni, who sadly confirmed Maretta’s fears. The old lady murmured,
“Leave me for a while please,” as she sank to her knees beside the bed. They left her alone with him, and when Emma returned an hour later, she was still there, her head on his shoulder. But when she touched the old woman, she found her body cold and lifeless.
Emma immediately checked the bottles of pills and syrups, assuming that the old woman had poisoned herself in her grief. But it seemed that nothing had been touched. As Giovanni said many times in later years, “Her heart just broke there and then. She just couldn’t live without her husband.”
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Within a week, the house was full of people who were entirely new to Emma, mostly friends of the old couple from the surrounding area, but also relatives from further up the valley and Giovanni’s relatives from Milano and Torino. Despite their hermit-like existence,
Maretta and Arturo seemed to have been loved by a great many people.
Among them, of course, was Ernesto. But also in attendance were Giovanni’s two younger sons, Stefano and Guido, aged 15 and 13 years. Emma found them utterly charming, and spent a great deal of time spoiling them and asking questions about their schooling and life in Milano. They had been brought by train and carriage by their nanny, who seemed even younger than herself. Emma was tempted, not for the first time, to suggest to Giovanni that he should see more of his younger sons. But she decided that life was already quite complicated and difficult enough without attempting to merge his old life so fully with the new.
The two coffins were loaded side-by-side on a hay cart, and the entire party proceeded slowly down the hill to a tiny church. The old couple were buried in an ancient grave yard surrounded by apple trees, and for the very first time, she saw Giovanni cry.
* * *
A few days later, after the funeral guests had departed, Giovanni and Emma baptised their first baby, naming her Anita. The only guests at the event were Ernesto, the midwife and her daughter, but it was a happy occasion nonetheless, and the priest was happy to ring the church bells in celebration, their joyful peals flooding the valley below.
Giovanni turned out to be both an attentive and capable father, and he seemed to enjoy nothing more than holding Anita in his arms and speaking to her about the new world into which she had arrived. While he avoided the dirtier aspects of baby-care, he worked hard to
125 ensure that Emma was comfortable, and Ernesto seemed never to stay still for a second, so many chores had he been given about the place.
One morning, as Emma was nursing Anita in the garden, she heard raised voices inside and the slamming of doors. Then Ernesto stomped out of the house and headed the barn, kicking stones as he went. As she later learned, Giovanni had finally ordered his son to return to Milano and continue his schooling. If he worked hard for another two years, he would win a place at university, where he might study engineering and eventually build a good career for himself. Even if he only wanted to be a racing-car mechanic, he would do well to have a sound college education. He should make preparations to head for Milano in the coming months, and Giovanni would write to his former in-laws to tell them to expect Ernesto home soon.
This, at least, was Giovanni’s wish, but Ernesto was far from happy with it. He said he wanted another year to think things through and would prefer to stay in Torino, helping his father in his work, or at least to remain at Il Roseto and keep the place going. In the end,
Giovanni had put his foot down, and Ernesto had stormed out.
Emma felt sorry for the boy; she had a strong sympathy with anyone who sought freedom from the constraints of home life. However, she could also understand her husband’s concerns as a father. In the end, she simply asked her husband to be gentle with Ernesto, to explain his wishes calmly and not shout at him, a request that Giovanni acceded to. After a further discussion between father and son, Giovanni was able to convince Ernesto of the importance of restarting school in September, and Emma heard no more of the matter.
It was not long afterwards that Giovanni announced, in his typically final way, that he was returning to Torino, where his work was waiting for him. He would continue the interior decorations that he had started at the villa, having written to apologise for his extended absence. He would also make a start on the second of the portraits he had been asked to paint
126 and perhaps finally put together the exhibition of scenes from Malta. Emma was not shocked at the news, for she had expected him to depart again at some point. Rather, she did her best to be supportive, helping with preparations, and even insisting that she and the baby would be fine, so long has he wrote from time to time.
And so, as late April turned to early May, Emma and Ernesto found themselves together on the farm alone. They worked well together as a team, although Emma found it strange to be acting the role of step-mother to a boy who was older than her own brother in Malta.
Instead, she decided to view him as slightly younger cousin, and he seemed happy with the lack of an authority figure in his daily life. He was also, like his father, affectionate with
Anita, and would happily take care of her for hours while Emma caught up on sleep.
She received a letter from her husband a week after his departure. He said that his work was going well and that he would be paid handsomely at some point in the future. For now, though, he was having to economise, renting a humble studio for himself and mostly eating in. After that, there were no more letters for two weeks, and finally Emma lost patience, telling Ernesto that he must go to his father and order him to write. Ernesto did just that, hitching the bay mare to the cart and taking off one morning after breakfast. It was only the following day that she reflected on that fact that Ernesto had taken several bags with him, and also a dozen books from the shelves in the living room. Had she noticed at the time of his departure, she would have asked him why he had packed for a stay of several weeks, and not a few days.
And when there was no message from either man for the following week, she began to feel she had been entirely abandoned. Not only had neither bothered to write, but she had no precise knowledge of their whereabouts. For all she knew, Ernesto might have taken the opportunity to catch a train in Torino and head back to Milano alone – or to seek employment in Torino, finally free from his father’s overpowering influence. Or else, he might have
127 headed off in search of adventure in Italy or the wider world, his head full of the romantic notions he had learned from novels and poetry. With Dumas, Manzoni and Mary Shelley bouncing around in his brain, heaven knows what he might be planning.
In the third week, she waited for the postman to arrive on his appointed day, but even he seemed to have abandoned her. The gallant postman on horseback who had once vowed to defend her correspondence with his life was nowhere to be seen.
* * *
When the cock crowed the next morning, she decided finally to leave Il Roseto in search of her husband. The letter from Giovanni had contained the address of the “humble” studio he was renting. Although she had no idea of the geography of Torino, she felt sure she would find it somehow.
She packed a large knapsack with clothes for herself and the baby, a small blanket, toiletries and some nappies, and a few items of sentimental value. At the last moment, she climbed onto a chair and felt around on top of the wardrobe, where she found their secret stash of money. She would take this with her too. After all, she had no idea how long she might be away or what might happen in the coming days.
The going was not too steep at first, but after an hour her calves ached with the constantly downward incline. She found a grassy patch and sat down to take a good drink of water and check on the baby sleeping in her arms. The dogs had come with her, of course.
She couldn’t very well leave them alone on the mountainside. And she was happy for their company. They had no idea of the true drama of the situation, and their continual tail- wagging and enthusiasm for the outdoors lightened her mood.
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She had already passed the small church in which Anita had been Christened. Now, in the valley, far to the south, she could see a small clump of dwellings in the trees and smoke rising from chimneys. It might take her an hour or so more to make it to the valley and another half hour to reach the small village. She felt proud of herself for having struck on such an adventure alone. So far, she thought, there had been no mishaps, and she said a little prayer, asking for continued good luck.
She rested once more as she reached the valley floor, sitting on a rock by the river to feed
Anita as the bees and butterflies danced around the late spring flowers. Not long after, she wandered into a charming hamlet of stone houses much like those in Orto, complete with a grocery shop-cum-tavern with a few seats outside.
She was not certain what to do. Should she ask for a bed for the night or arrange for a carriage to take her on to Torino? With these questions in the forefront of her mind she entered the dark interior of the tavern. A plump red-haired, pink-cheeked young woman was wiping down the tables. Perhaps this was the redhead that Ernesto had mentioned. He had described her as a good sort, whatever that meant. She smiled broadly as she caught sight of the baby in Emma’s arms.
“You must be Ernesto’s cousin by marriage … or sister-in-law … or something anyway,” said the young woman, smiling broadly. “What are you doing here? Have you come down all by yourself?” she continued.
“Well, yes. That’s if you don’t count the dogs and this little bundle,” Emma said, proudly showing her first-born. “I need to get to Torino as soon as possible. I was hoping to hire some transport to the city. Can I hire a carriage here?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“To this address, which is somewhere in Torino,” said Emma, sitting at a table and flattening out the creased letter. “Do you know the name of the street?”
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“Wait a minute. I’ll see if the boss knows this one.”
The woman disappeared into a back room, leaving Emma to rest her weary body. She was more tired than she had realized, and closed her eyes for a moment, ever conscious of the baby sleeping in her arms. As the woman came back in, Emma jerked herself awake just as her grip on the baby had begun to loosen.
“Here, let me hold her for you,” said the young woman, taking Anita in her arms. “The boss said he knows the place exactly, and his son will drive you there tomorrow. But for now,
I suggest you take one of our rooms and get some sleep. You look completely exhausted.”
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CHAPTER 14
AN ARTIST’S GARRET
(1906)
They travelled slowly across the gently rolling plain, weaving along a wide roadway bordered by ancient, weather-battered trees. Some drooped downward to the road and some bore huge swellings in their lower trunks. All of them offered welcome shade as they swayed in the fresh breeze. There seemed to be few people on the road that morning, and the few villages through which they passed were very quiet, perhaps due to the warm weather.
Emma felt the sky was enormous, the deep blue hue broken only by a few scudding white clouds. Increasingly, the land was arranged in large and well-ordered fields, rich with slowly ripening crops. There were also vineyards in abundance and orchards and numerous streams and ditches to keep everything irrigated. The warmth was such that she removed her outer garments and the scarf from her head, and when they spotted a water pump, she asked the driver to stop. The dogs had been patient all the way, sitting in the back of the cart without a murmur, but they were glad of a cool drink when it finally came.
Just a few miles from the edge of the city, they crossed a stone bridge over a small river and passed through a shady, wooded area. As they emerged from the trees, Emma caught sight of an old, two-storied house set back from the road, a hill rising gently behind it to the west. The house was somewhat dilapidated but charming nonetheless, built of stone with an arched doorway and windows. The chimneys were tall and octagonal, grouped together in the centre of the red-tiled roof. Some tiles were clearly missing, having slid down to rest in the guttering. Counting the green-shuttered windows, Emma estimated at least eight rooms in all,
131 perhaps a dozen, and she was thrilled at the thought of so much living space. With the snow- tipped Alps as a distant backdrop, the old house was a pretty picture indeed.
The place had clearly been empty for some time. The shutters were thick with dirt, the fences collapsing. It had been surrounded by a lush garden, now thickly overgrown. She imagined the former owners to be somewhat eccentric, so different was the style of architecture from the norm in the area. She wondered also if Giovanni has noticed the place on his journeys back and forth. She made a note of the name on the gate: Collina Verde. It would not be hard to remember, she thought, since it seemed to refer to the lush, green hill that stood behind the house.
Just a little further on, they passed what appeared to be a monastery or convent, set back from the road, on the southern flank of the same hill that rose behind Collina Verde.
Embraced by thick woodland, the huddle of tall, white buildings was protected by a high stone wall, and in the middle of it all was a bell tower topped with a cross. The driver confirmed for Emma that it was indeed a convent, and a very old one, but he joked that he had never been inside.
“As a general rule, men are not invited into convents, although I know a few who’ve tried,” he said with a smile.
She thought about asking the driver to turn up the hill so that she could explore, so drawn was she to the place. After all, it had been a convent in Valletta that provided her with an education, as well as a refuge from family life and social pressures. However, she fought the temptation to stop, reminding herself that there was no guarantee that she would be able to find her husband that night.
In the middle of the afternoon, they saw the first signs of Torino: thin trails of smoke spilling from factory chimneys and a dusty discoloration of the otherwise clear sky. As they entered the city suburbs, the driver suggested that the dogs should be tied to the carriage.
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They were becoming rather excitable, as though they sensed Giovanni close by. With
Emma’s permission, he threaded a length of rope through their collars and tied it to the side of the carriage, then firmly bade them “Sit still!”
Very soon, Emma was able to see close at hand the city’s grand apartment buildings, its church steeples, plush mansions and fine shops. She imagined an enormous number of very fine buildings threaded throughout by miles and miles of streets, and each street packed with busy Italians: the rich, the poor, the brilliant and dull, all living their own very intricate lives.
What a place to get lost in! What a wonderful place to investigate! With her husband beside her, of course … once she was quite sure that she still had one.
* * *
Finally, Emma, Anita and the dogs were dropped at the address on Giovanni’s letter: 15
Livorno Street. Looking up at the apartment building, she decided that her husband’s use of the term “humble” was probably justified. The four-story building was much the same as all the others in this quiet street: shabby, with peeling paint and tiny balconies hung with washing. Somewhere to Emma’s left, a child seemed to be murdering a violin by an open window, while to her right a married couple was having a blazing row. Not far away, two grubby children were prodding something in the gutter with a stick.
She checked the address again, half hoping that she had been dropped in the wrong place, then she rang the doorbell. She waited nervously, hoping that her husband would appear at any moment. Instead, an elderly woman in a voluminous white apron opened the door, a look of stern curiosity on her face.
“What do you want, Madam?”
“I believe my husband, Giovanni Boella, is living here?”
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The woman turned to the shabby staircase behind her and yelled, “Senor Boella!” at the top of her voice. For a small woman of advanced years, she had a formidable shouting voice.
At the top of the stairs, a door opened slightly, and Emma heard her husband’s voice, clearly irritated: “Yes, what is it?”
“Your wife is here to see you,” shouted the old woman, again with great force.
“My wife?” said Giovanni from inside the room.
There was a pause and some mumbling from beyond the half-open door. Emma thought she heard the words “keep still” and “nearly finished”, and perhaps something about “money”
... but she was still not sufficiently confident in her Italian to eavesdrop effectively at a distance. She saw the back of her husband’s head, complete with his dark blue beret, and his powerful shoulders covered in a painting smock. The faint smell of cigar smoke wafted down the stairs as the old lady tapped her foot impatiently and the dogs began to whine.
“Show her into the parlour, please, Mrs Giotti. I shall be down shortly,” came Giovanni’s voice finally.
Having received her orders, Mrs Giotti allowed Emma inside and showed her to the parlour, a rather cramped and gloomy room to one side of the entrance hall.
“Don’t you have any more luggage?” she asked, with apparent annoyance.
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Emma. “We’re travelling light.”
Mrs Giotti said she would bring water and coffee, and disappeared from the room, leaving the door half open. Somewhere upstairs, Emma heard voices again. This time she clearly heard her husband saying: “Thank you so much, my dear. I shall be in touch again next week.”
Then there was a female voice, apparently young, with a tinkling note of laughter: “The pleasure is all mine, Mr Boella.”
“Goodbye, my dear,” said Giovanni, though not quite at full volume.
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Moments later, Emma could hear footsteps on the stairs, and saw a pair of naked ankles below the hem of a hitched-up skirt. Whoever was coming down the stairs was apparently treading carefully so as not to break her neck in the gloom. Outside, the day was still bright, but in this building, it seemed to be dusk.
Emma heard the upstairs door close softly, and then there was silence. Then the front door closed with a loud bang, and there was more silence. Emma sat quite still, her heart racing with fear and jealousy. What had she interrupted? Who was that woman? What on earth was her husband up to? Was she a relative? No, of course not! Why would they be talking about money? And what could they possibly be doing next week? Was she a prostitute? Had her husband taken refuge in working women of that sort? Had she arrived at the end of her marriage so soon after it started? If so, what did her future hold? How would she make it back to Malta alone, and would her parents ever accept her back after all that had happened?
Mrs Giotti returned with a tray of coffee and water, and said that she would check on
Giovanni.
“No, don’t disturb him,” said Emma, afraid that the slightest wrong move might reveal the full horror of her situation.
“Why ever not? I’m sure he can make time for his wife once in a while. No man should work continually and without a rest. It’s not healthy. He’ll kill himself with those paints as well, if he’s not careful. Either that or die of cigar smoke. You wait here, and I’ll see what’s keeping him. I think the model’s gone, unless he has another one hidden under the bed.”
And with that, Mrs Giotti left the room, cackling to herself.
As she sipped on her sweet, strong coffee, Emma’s heart began to return to normal, and she began to consider an entirely different scenario. Her husband had been busy working in his rooms, and the young lady with bare ankles was merely an artist’s model, such as are used
135 by many painters and sculptors in the course of their work. Giovanni was painting a scene that required a female face or figure, or else creating some sculpture, perhaps of a local
Italian beauty. And, of course, such models must be paid for their work, just in the same way as prostitutes … though for different services, of course.
In all likelihood, she told herself, nothing untoward had happened, and her husband’s interest in the girl was purely professional. Most likely, Giovanni loved his wife just as much as ever, and it was only her jealousy and insecurity that made her fear the worst. She must really get a grip on herself, or else she would be the one to destroy her marriage single- handed.
She closed her eyes and drained her cup of coffee, taking care not to spill any on the baby sleeping in her arms.
“My darling! What a wonderful surprise!” came Giovanni’s booming voice, and Emma found her husband’s strong arms around her, his moustache brushing her cheek as he peppered her with kisses.
“But why didn’t you write to tell me you were coming? I would have made arrangements for you, or at least tidied my rooms. How on earth did you get here all alone? You really should have written ahead.”
Emma had been planning to give her husband a telling off from the first moment she saw him, but the strong surge of jealousy had left her quite exhausted.
In a voice that was barely audible, she said: “I’m sorry, my darling. Could we just go upstairs?”
Giovanni’s rooms were indeed rather small, more so even than his lodgings in Valletta.
He fed the dogs and settled them on a blanket in one corner, then made his wife comfortable on the bed, where she gave Anita a good feed. He threw open the tall glass doors to the tiny
136 balcony, allowing a waft of fresh air into the smoky room. As he unpacked the knapsack and distributed the few belongings around the place, he began to talk.
“I really do wish you’d told me you were coming, my dear. I’ve been terribly busy, and I haven’t found time to write. I’m so sorry for that, I really am. But I’ve made the most wonderful progress on the villa and the exhibition, and I’ve completed the two portraits I told you about. Everything is going just fine. I barely stop working, and I find I’m so productive here, despite the lack of good light. Eventually, I will have to move to better rooms, but that will have to wait until things improve financially.”
Reaching the bottom of Emma’s knapsack, he pulled out the large wad of cash that she had brought down from Il Roseto, and his face instantly brightened.
“My darling, what a wonderful woman you are! I had meant to ask you to send this down, and now here you are, with all our money in one go! This is quite wonderful! I was hoping to buy some more paints and to pay for these rooms a few months in advance, just until the villa is done. Then Mr Manzoni will pay up and we’ll be awash with cash. But until then, this will come in very handy. You really are quite the best wife in the world.”
Stepping over to the bed, he planted a large kiss on Emma’s cheek, and she began at last to feel better. She gave him an account of the events that led up to her departure, told of her anxiety in waiting for a letter, and how she’d sent Ernesto down to find Giovanni, and how the boy had never returned.
“You sent Ernesto down to find me?” said Giovanni, as he stood before the mirror, shaving soap around his chin and cheeks.
“Yes, of course. Didn’t he speak with you?”
“No, not at all. I haven’t seen him since I left the farm. When did you send him?”
“Well, a couple of weeks ago, at least. I can’t remember for sure,” said Emma, worrying now.
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“What address did you give him? Did you send him here?” said Giovanni, his temper rising.
Emma paused, searching her memory for the exact moment when she handed Ernesto the new address. But she couldn’t find any such memory. Perhaps she hadn’t given him the address at all. Perhaps she had merely assumed that he would be able to find his own father.
Perhaps he had got lost and come to harm?
“I’m not sure…” she said at last. “I can’t be sure if I gave him this address. Perhaps he went to the old address. He seemed quite sure of what he was doing. He packed for a long stay. He took everything with him, even books. He seemed quite confident that he could find you.”
“Oh, I’m sure he was quite confident, my dear,” said Giovanni, returning to the task of shaving. “He was confident that he could find a job in Torino somewhere, move in with some of his friends and start a new life without the interference of his father. I’m sure he’s having a fine time, and spending all the money I lent him before I left. I don’t think you need to worry about him. At least not until I get my hands on him.”
Emma felt she had made a terrible blunder. In trying to solve a problem for herself, she had lost her husband’s eldest son and perhaps created a rift between them. She cursed her incompetence.
“Perhaps he has gone back to Milano to finish school?” she said weakly.
“Perhaps, my dear, but I very much doubt it. As I say, he’s probably living with friends and hoodwinking their parents into thinking he has my permission to eat their food and drink their wine. All the while, he is no doubt chasing the girls and boasting of the great future he sees for himself in one career or another. No matter. It won’t take me more than a couple of days to track him down. No point worrying about it further.”
Emma felt she had got off lightly and decided to change the subject.
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“And so Mrs Giotti is your landlady?”
“Yes, and a very strict one she is too! Not prudish at all and very open-minded, but she likes to be paid on time, and if I break any of the house rules, I get a thrashing.”
“So the work is going well then? I’m so happy for you. Will you be putting on the Malta exhibition soon?”
“At the end of the month, I think, though we haven’t finalized the date. We want to be sure that some of my wealthier customers will be in town before we make any announcements. If everything goes well, I might make a packet.”
Drawing closer, he lent over the bed and began to talk to Anita in the softest voice, gently stroking her tiny face and lifting her little fingers with one of his.
“My sweet little girl will be wearing the finest of clothes and dripping with diamonds,” he said, a look of infinite paternal affection on his face.
“And the woman from before?” said Emma, more confident now that she had nothing to fear.
“The woman?” said Giovanni, instantly straightening and furrowing his brow.
“Yes, the woman from before, the woman who left as I arrived. You paid her money and she left. At least, I think she was here,” said Emma, looking around as if for evidence.
“Ah, the woman!” said Giovanni at last, and he threw his hands in the air, as if shocked at his own forgetfulness. “Yes, of course, my dear. Teresa, the model. She’s such a sweet girl, and just perfect for my purposes. I’m painting a Virgin Mary to be transferred to the ceiling at the villa. She’s just perfect for the role.”
Emma felt her pulse rising. She knew that his work inevitably involved models of various sorts, but she couldn’t help minding that he painted pretty young women when his wife was not present. And she couldn’t help wondering why he had not mentioned her
139 presence of his own accord. She couldn’t quite make up her mind whether to pursue the matter or drop it entirely.
She was just coming round to the former option when Mrs Giotti’s voice came bellowing up the stairs: “Your dinner is ready, Mr Boella! Will your wife be staying to eat?”
“Yes, I think she’ll be staying, Mrs Giotti,” said Giovanni, and he turned to his wife with a quizzical expression, as if seeking confirmation.
“Oh, yes. I’ll be staying for dinner. That’s if you have room for your wife?” she said.
“Of course, my dear. You are more than welcome.”
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CHAPTER 15
A TOUR OF TORINO
(1906)
The next day, Emma finally had her reward for a whole year of hiding out in the mountains. Giovanni persuaded her to leave the baby in the capable hands of Mrs Giotti while they took a cab to the city centre. As it turned out, their accommodation was not far from the very heart of things, and as they progressed inwards, the buildings began to appear better looked-after and the residents somewhat more respectable.
Giovanni instructed the driver to take a route past various grand buildings, lush gardens and statues of great figures from history, and he provided ample historical comment on each one. Emma took in very little of the history lesson, so enthralled was she by the visual feast on offer. She had not seen polite society up close since their hasty passage through Torino the previous spring, and she found herself studying people’s hats and clothes in great detail.
Since she had left everything at the old farm and might be staying a while in Torino,
Giovanni had promised to buy her new clothes that very day, and even a new hat, if she found one to her taste. Several times, she tried to stop the cab so that she could look in an appealing shop window, but Giovanni insisted that they were headed for the very best shop in the city, and that she should be patient.
Their circuitous route took them past the Mole Antonelliana, with its strange square dome and pointy spire. Giovanni insisted on circling the building twice so that his wife could get a real impression of its size and form. It was, he said, a wonder of modern construction and a true symbol of Italian greatness. Alessandro Antonelli was not only a mathematical and
141 architectural genius, but a symbol of what had always made Italy great: the brave spirit of innovation in combination with an unquenchable passion for beauty. He said it was sad that the Jews had pulled out of the construction project so soon, particularly as they had put up most of the money to get it going. They were brilliant too, of course, in their own way, but he was glad the building had not become a synagogue in the end. It worked better as a museum to the unification of Italy. It was, after all, a monument to the indomitable Italian spirit.
His speech done, Giovanni suggested they take a tour of the Egyptian Museum, but
Emma convinced him to save that delight for another time. She said it would take a whole day to appreciate it properly, and she didn’t want to be rushed. By way of an alternative,
Giovanni suggested the Cathedral of St John the Baptist, which he said was not far away. But
Emma said this was likewise deserving of a full day, or at least several hours. In truth, she was yearning for the simple delights of a pavement café and a clothes shop, although she kept these thoughts to herself for fear of seeming uncultured.
Giovanni paid the cab driver and they proceeded on foot to one of his favourite cafes, the
Rissoli, in a side street off the Piazza Castello. He was greeted warmly by the head waiter, and Emma chose several delights that seemed too wonderful to be true after so much rustic cooking. There was coffee submerged in a thick layer cream, and also chocolate cake, and ice-cream with fruit and melted chocolate sauce, and little biscotti that crunched deliciously between the teeth. She followed all this with an aperitif, since Giovanni insisted that they were on holiday and should spoil themselves once in a while.
How strange it seemed to Emma that, just two days before, she had been slowly trudging down that distant mountain, wondering if she had been abandoned for good, her feet, legs and back aching with the weight and downward slog. And now, here she was, with a generous and attentive husband, comfortably seated in an expensive café in one of Europe’s great
142 historic cities, about to start on her second aperitif. As she took her first sip, a delightful thought popped into her mind and she sat bolt upright in her chair.
“Oh darling! I forgot to tell you! I saw the most wonderful house on the way down here yesterday. It was quite marvellous, although falling to pieces. It would make such a wonderful home for us both. Better than the old farm, I mean. It’s close to the city, just a couple of miles, and yet it’s still out in the beautiful countryside, on the side of a hill. It’s really quite lovely. It’s called Collina Verde, and it’s just down the road from a convent. Do you know it? You must have passed it a thousand times.”
“Yes, I know the place very well,” said Giovanni, somewhat startled by his wife’s sudden burst of enthusiasm.
“Well, what do you think of it? Could we live there?”
“Live there? But we’ve only just settled into the farm!”
“Yes, I know, my dear. But it would be so much better to be close to the city. You could work here whenever you need to, and I could raise our children at Collina Verde, and we would never be more than an hour or two apart. It would be just perfect. And there’s a village nearby, so I needn’t be so isolated. What do you think?”
Giovanni reached into his jacket pocket and removed the cigar case.
“Well, it’s a possibility, of course,” he said, lighting one of his small cigars thoughtfully.
“It’s certainly a possibility. It has occurred to me that you might want to be closer to the city, and that house would indeed be nicely located. But it would take a lot of work to make it liveable. And there’s no certainty that it’s available. I mean, the old couple who lived there are long dead, but I think it actually belongs to the Church, as part of the estate of the convent. So it might not actually be for sale … although renting might be an option.”
Emma sat quietly and sipped her aperitif, watching her husband’s thoughts develop.
Once his ideas seemed to be heading in a direction of which she approved, she felt it was best
143 not to interfere. As she had discovered in the past year, she had only to present him with a problem of some kind, and he would work away at a solution until he found one. At times, he had reminded her of the larger of the two dogs as it worked to get at the marrow of a bone.
Giovanni called the waiter over and asked for the wine menu. As the waiter walked away, he asked also for the lunch menu and then blew a large cloud of smoke thoughtfully into the air.
“Well, it’s certainly possible. There need be no great obstacles, so far as I can see. I can speak to the mother superior at the convent and see what she says. We should be able to sell
Il Roseto somehow, I think. There are plenty of wealthy people in Torino who would like the place as an escape from city life. And with the money from the sale, we would in theory have the funds to repair the new place and perhaps buy the leasehold. It seems simple enough.”
Emma remained silent for a while and allowed his words to work their way around her head.
“Sorry, my dear, but did you say we can sell Il Roseto?”
“Yes, of course. We can’t afford to keep two houses.”
“Yes, but does that mean that Il Roseto is ours to sell?”
“Why, of course! It was left to me in Arturo’s will. Didn’t you know that?”
“Well, I might have known it if you’d told me,” said Emma, a touch of reproach in her voice.
“Didn’t I tell you? Well, I suppose it must have slipped my mind. I can’t think of everything, you know. There was a baby and two funerals about that time, if you recall, and also the small matter of earning a living with my own hands. Or does that count for nothing?”
Emma felt a surge of anger rising in her chest, the same sense of outrage that occurred to her whenever she felt she had been shut out of her husband’s thoughts or been kept from some serious development that should really have been the business of them both. As she
144 looked him in the eyes, she pondered the consequences of lashing out. Their lunch would be ruined, as would all of the good feeling that had been built up overnight and during the morning. Added to which, she would end up feeling, once again, that she was the over- emotional female piling additional pressures on her otherwise attentive husband.
As luck would have it, the waiter arrived at that precise moment and handed her a menu, then proceeded to make various recommendations. Giovanni ordered for himself, and selected a bottle of wine. Emma found it difficult to focus on the words before her, and in any case, she had no appetite for lunch, having just consumed two desserts. Giovanni cut in and suggested a dish that he described as “perfectly satisfactory”.
The waiter stalked off, and Giovanni extended a hand across the table to his wife.
“Let’s not fight, my dear. I apologise for forgetting, once again, to keep you fully informed.”
“That’s alright,” said Emma, though she barely felt it.
“And it’s not as if any bad news has suddenly emerged, is it?” he continued, grasping her hand more tightly. “You’ve suddenly discovered that you are, completely by chance, the joint owner of a fine Italian farm, and soon to be the proud inhabitant of a small country mansion just a stone’s throw from the best city in the world.”
He blew another puff of smoke into the air. “And you have a husband who thoroughly adores you, despite his vagueness at times, and who plans to buy you numerous fine dresses just as soon as we’ve finished our enormously expensive lunch. Life’s not so bad, is it?”
Put that way, she admitted, life wasn’t so bad.
* * *
145
Emma was awoken by heavy footsteps on the stairs, then the door creaked open and
Giovanni’s voice said softly, “Emma, sweetheart.”
It took her several seconds to remember where she was, by which time her husband was in the room with a drink of hot chocolate in his hand, a large dollop of whipped cream floating on top.
“Here, drink this. It should revive you,” he said. “Anita’s waking up too.”
Emma began to orientate herself slowly, blinking her eyes as Giovanni lifted the baby from the basket that had become her cot. Judging by the bright light pouring in through the window, she had slept through the whole morning. Her husband had already been to the old house and returned with his assessment.
“Did you find the place alright?” she said at last, sipping the warm drink.
“Yes, it’s not a bad building. There doesn’t seem to be anything structurally wrong. I think with a bit of hard work, we should have it fixed in less than a month. That’s assuming we sell the farm and have the money for renovations. We might need some more roof tiles, and some glass for the broken windows, but not much more than that. There’s a good water supply from the spring on the hill, although the pipes might need to be updated at some point.
We can repair the chimneys without any problem, and there are one or two cracks in the plaster that need filling. Also, one or two floorboards will need to be nailed down, and the banisters are a bit wobbly. But otherwise, it’s not going to be such a big job.”
Poor Emma began to wish she had not mentioned the house. All his talk of repairs conjured up images of a huge mess to be cleaned up at the end of it. Just the thought of making yet another home liveable drained her of energy, and she lay down again on the bed and closed her eyes.
“I’m afraid someone is hungry,” said Giovanni, handing over Anita, who had started to cry.
146
“Of course, give her here,” said Emma, unbuttoning her nightdress.
“I had a chance to speak to the mother superior at the convent too,” said Giovanni, throwing open the balcony doors to let in some fresh air. “She said they would love to have someone rent the place, so long as they were willing to pay for the renovations as part of the deal. If we rent on a 20-year lease and look after the place as we go, we can have it for a song, virtually nothing. And after 20 years, if we are still happy there, we just sign another contract and keep paying the rent. I think by then we may have enough to buy a small castle somewhere anyway, assuming my work continues the way it’s going. But even if we are never rich, I think we will be quite safe in that house. The rent is so cheap that we’ll hardly notice the money going out.”
As he spoke, a smile spread over Emma’s face, and she began to visualise happy and secure times stretching many years in the future.
“That’s wonderful, Giovanni. Thank you so much for arranging this,” she said.
“That’s quite alright, my sweet,” he said, sitting by her side on the bed. “The thing is, I think the mother superior was grateful that someone would take it off her hands. Since the former occupants passed away, nobody has wanted to go near the place. It has a reputation for being haunted and the villagers have a superstitious fear of it.”
“Haunted? By what?”
“Well, ghosts, I suppose, or something supernatural. There’s a system of caves in the hill behind the house, and there are stories of people dying in there hundreds of years ago, members of some persecuted sect that took refuge in the darkness – some nonsense of that sort. The old couple who were the former residents lived well into their eighties, but when they finally died, the local people still insisted that it was the ‘curse of the caves’ that killed them off.”
“And was it?” said Emma, somewhat chilled by the story.
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Giovanni looked at her for a moment, not quite sure if his wife was joking. When he realised that she was genuinely spooked, he decided to make the most of it.
“I suppose,” he said with deathly seriousness, “we will only know once we have moved in.”
Maintaining his solemn air, he rose from the bed and walked to the balcony to smoke a cigar.
“And did you find Ernesto?” said Emma, shaking off all thoughts of the supernatural.
“I’ve sent a messenger to enquire at several addresses that he frequents, mostly friends and family. I feel pretty sure he’ll be back in a day or two, which is good, because we could use his help with the renovations once they get going. I very much doubt that my son has found paid employment just yet.”
* * *
Over the next few weeks, Emma remained at Livorno Street with the baby, while
Giovanni worked at the Manzoni villa, finishing the frescos. The model, Teresa, was not seen again, and Giovanni said that it would make much more sense for him to base the image of the Virgin Mary and infant Jesus on Emma as she nursed Anita. And so mother and child posed on the chaise longue as Giovanni sketched away in charcoal and pastels. He then painted his sketches onto the ceiling of the villa’s private chapel, complete with angels, cherubs, clouds, doves and sheep, in exact accordance with Mr Manzoni’s wishes. He painted a starry sky in the master bedroom, complete with sun and moon, and a veritable jungle of vines, palms and roses in the upstairs salon. The ceilings in the master’s study and various other rooms were left unadorned, with the option of further commissions in future, should
148 suitable themes suggest themselves. His work finished, Giovanni collected the very handsome payment and washed his hands of interior decoration for the time being.
Meanwhile, he managed to locate Ernesto, who had indeed been staying in town with friends. The boy was suitably contrite and offered his deep apologies to Emma, which she accepted with grace and a knowing smile. Giovanni suggested that he should continue to live with his friends until he returned to Milano in August to start school. In the meantime, he should be ready to help with repairs to the new house, assuming they were successful in selling the farm. Having by this time discovered that he valued good food and comfortable lodgings more than the adventures of the road, the boy agreed gladly to his father’s suggestion.
Giovanni advertised his intention of selling Il Roseto, placing advertisements in a newspaper and with a property agent, and he quickly received several enquiries. The second visitor to the place made Giovanni a handsome offer, which he accepted on the spot, confident that his wife would be happy to get rid of it. Armed with a sizable bag of cash, he returned one evening to Emma, and announced that they were now the proud new tenants of a dilapidated and haunted country house a few short miles from the city. The nuns had agreed to sell a 20-year lease on Collina Verde, which would make the place a proper home for the
Boella family as it expanded over the decades. Emma and Giovanni celebrated with brandy and champagne and talked late into the night about their plans for their new home.
* * *
They moved in half way through August, just as Ernesto was making his way back to
Milano. Giovanni had insisted that Emma should not visit the place until he and his team of builders had made it fit for human habitation. And so, by the time she packed her belongings
149 onto a cart and said goodbye to Mrs Giotti, she had only a very vague recollection of what
Collina Verde looked like.
As the cart passed the convent and then wound around the bottom of the hill, her misgivings began to vanish, and she felt a thrill of excitement at the sight of the chimney tops just peeping above the trees. This was to be their first real home together with their baby, and she felt at last that she might be allowed to stay in one place more than a few months.
The wheels of the cart rolled up the sloping drive and came to a crunching halt. Her heart was pounding and her cheeks became flushed. She gave a little squeal of excitement as
Giovanni scooped her and the baby up in his arms. Pushing the door open with one foot, he carried her across the threshold.
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CHAPTER 16
COLLINA VERDE
(1916)
Giovanni carried his wife through the small, stone-paved entrance hall and then lowered her to the floor. Emma stared around in amazement. Her earlier feeling of trepidation was banished immediately. How clean it all looked in contrast to her first home high in the mountains! The room was spacious, the walls freshly painted white. Light streamed in through the large French windows, beyond which she could see a farm-yard and trees.
In the centre of the ceiling was a beautiful crystal chandelier, a present from a satisfied customer. The crystals shone in the sunlight, projecting rainbow tints here and there on the walls and ceiling. At one end of the room was a red-brick fireplace, and above it a large mirror.
There were large beams on the high ceiling, and like the floorboards, these were freshly sanded, although still waiting for a coat of varnish. There were three large rugs too, and a few essential items of furniture, including a dining table and a sofa strewn with cushions.
Counting the chairs, she noted that there would be ample seating for dinner parties and evenings with friends – once she finally made some. The walls were already hung with several of Giovanni’s own paintings. All that was missing, she felt, was a grand piano, such as she had practiced on as a child in Malta. But this was hardly the time to be noting deficiencies.
In one corner of the room, was a pile of crates and packing cases, which she assumed to be the remains of her possessions and some of the belongings of Arturo and Maretta. Bent
151 over the crates was a thin old man in workman’s clothes, muttering to himself as he scratched his head under a floppy straw hat. Emma assumed this to be one of the local builders who had helped Giovanni put the place in order.
“Oh it’s lovely!” she gasped as she twirled slowly around, baby Anita cradled in her arms.
She could have stood longer admiring the living room, but Giovanni led her eagerly into the kitchen. A huge stone fireplace with an enormous beam across it took up the whole of one wall. In the hearth stood a squat, black oven with numerous doors and handles, and next to it a water tank with a tap at the bottom.
“There you are madam,” Giovanni indicated with a flourish. “You have a bread oven, hotplates and hot water on demand. What do you think of that?”
“My darling, it’s wonderful!” she cried, somewhat surprised to find herself so enthusiastic at an item of kitchen technology. The studious Emma of two years before would have looked at the same oven with blank disinterest.
He pointed also to the large kitchen table, chopping blocks, gleaming pasta machine and rows of pans, spoons and ladles hanging along the walls. There were three large enamel sinks beneath three windows, and potted flowers arranged neatly on the window sills outside.
Through the windows, Emma could see the shady lawn behind the house, stretching up the hill, fringed by fruit trees, and higher up, a lush meadow peppered with summer flowers.
She noted for the first time that this rear end of the house had been carved into the slope of the hill, so that the lawn started just below the level of the windows. Building the house must have taken a lot of hard work, she pondered, involving the removal of large quantities of rock and soil. She wondered at the true cost of the place, were it ever put up for sale.
Opening the kitchen door and looking into the large, cobble-stone yard, she saw a water pump, washboard and mangle, and her heart sank momentarily at the thought of all the hard
152 physical labour that she would be doing, particularly with the arrival of more children.
Noticing her sudden glumness, Giovanni reached over the middle sink and turned on a brass tap. A torrent of fresh mountain water burst forth, causing Emma to jump with surprise.
“You don’t think I’d have my wife working the hand-pump on a daily basis? That’s just for show, my darling. From now on, you have fresh water on demand, direct from the snowy peaks.”
Just as the smile spread over Emma’s face, she was whisked outside onto a large wooden veranda, from which vantage point Giovanni pointed out the chicken shed, a lean-to for logs, a small stable for the horse and carriage and a barn that he said was in the process of being converted into a studio.
Emma wondered at the completeness of it all, and the fact that she had not been required to lift a single finger to make this dream home become a reality. Then she noticed a small, stone hut beyond the barn, hidden among some pine trees at the foot of the hill.
“What’s that building? Is that ours too?” she said.
“Yes, it comes with the house. It’s where the old man, Pepé, lives. He’s been there for 60 years, and there seems no reason to move him out.”
“You mean that old man who was in the living room?”
“Yes, that’s him. He worked with the old couple who lived her before, kept their horses and worked with the chickens and garden. He’s pretty knowledgeable, and he seems happy to work for us here for a small wage, on the condition that we allow him to stay in his home.
You don’t mind, do you?”
“No, not at all,” said Emma. “I mean, he’ll be useful around the place. So long as he’s not strange or mad or anything like that?”
“Oh no, don’t worry,” said Giovanni with a smile. “He’s perfectly sane, if a little snappy at times. I’m sure you’ll grow to love him. In fact, he was a friend of Arturo once upon a
153 time, so he’s almost family. And he’ll be a good guard dog too, for when I’m away. He keeps a shotgun and isn’t afraid to use it.”
Towards the front of the house, within sight of the road, were two more rooms, which
Giovanni had furnished as a study and parlour. He said the study would be shared, and he had even provided two desks, one for each of them, in case Emma felt the need to conduct her language studies in comfort. The parlour, meanwhile, was still scantily furnished, and
Giovanni said he would leave this task to his wife, since she was more likely to use it. Emma was not entirely sure why she would use the parlour more than her husband, but as she sized the place up, she imagined her mother and sister sitting there with her and a few friends, sharing afternoon coffee and local gossip.
Upstairs were three bedrooms, a store room and a large bathroom, complete with an enamel bath standing on what appeared to be the clawed feet of some great predator. One of the bedrooms contained a double bed, several boxes of clothing and piles of sheets and blankets. In one corner was a freshly painted cot, lined with soft blankets and set on rockers.
Emma laid the sleeping Anita in the cot and set it rocking gently.
She stood in the room, taking in its dimensions, and then noticed the lace curtains billowing in front of a doorway. Stepping onto the balcony, she found a young lady in a white smock and apron, hanging a rug over the rail.
“Hello madam,” said the girl, bobbing with a nervous curtsey.
“Hello,” said Emma with a smile, before turning to her husband with raised eyebrows.
“Yes, my darling,” said Giovanni hurriedly. “I’m so sorry. I should introduce you at once. This is Bianca, from the village of Grasello, just down the road. She will be helping you with some of the housework here, and she’s already been very useful in getting the place straight. I thought you might need a hand, my dear, particularly now that we have the baby.”
The young woman curtseyed once more, this time blushing deeply.
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Emma reflected on the fact that her husband had once again been making decisions on her behalf, decisions that would affect her life in various ways, and a flash of anger shot through her. But she managed to maintain control of herself and extended her hand in welcome to the poor girl, who shook hands lightly and then curtseyed for a third time.
“Bianca has a great deal of experience with children,” said Giovanni, worried now that he’d made a serious error. “You have helped raise children before, I think, haven’t you
Bianca?”
“Yes, sir, I’ve helped with my cousin’s babies and even helped deliver some too,” said
Bianca. “I’m quite good with little ones, madam.”
Emma could see that Bianca was on the point of making another curtsey, and she instantly felt sorry for the girl, who was, after all, entirely blameless.
“Well that’s wonderful,” she said. “I’m very lucky to have someone with your experience to help me, Bianca. I’m sure we’ll get along very well. It’s so nice to meet you.”
With this, Bianca, curtseyed once more and excused herself, slipping back into the bedroom and then down the stairs. As she left, Emma noticed the fine symmetry of Bianca’s face, the aquiline nose and delicate lips. She noticed also her wavy, fair hair, tied up in a bunch at the back of her head. Finally, she saw that Bianca was possessed full a bosom and a slender waist, and slim ankles that showed beneath the hem of her frock. She judged her to be the same age as herself, though somewhat shorter and lighter of build.
“You don’t mind, do you, my darling,” said Giovanni? “I thought it might be a nice surprise. She’ll come in very handy.”
“Yes, I’m sure she will,” said Emma, still battling the flickering flame of anger within her as she leaned on the balcony rail and gazed above the tree tops.
“You’re not angry with me, are you, my sweet?”
155
There was a long pause, during which Emma made the effort to count the ways in which having a maid around the house would make her life so much easier and less worrisome.
Having done so, she reminded herself that her fears over the semi-naked model, Teresa, had been almost entirely unfounded. Indeed, Teresa had never been seen or heard of since the day
Emma arrived at Livorno Street. If necessary, Bianca could be dismissed from their lives in the same way.
“Are you angry?” said Giovanni with obvious concern, reaching into his jacket and taking out the cigar case.
“No I’m not angry, my dear,” said Emma at last. “It’s very kind of you to arrange all of this. And you’re quite right that I’ll need someone to help me with the baby and everything else. You might have asked me first, of course, but never mind. I know your intentions were good.”
Relieved, Giovanni returned the cigar case to his jacket pocket and put his arms around his wife.
“I’m sorry, my darling. I will ask you in future. And yes, my intentions are good. I have plenty of money to pay for these things now, particularly since the rent is so cheap. Bianca will hardly get in the way. She’ll live in the village with her grandparents and just come here each morning to help around the place. I’ll leave you entirely in charge of her, and if you find she’s no good, you can get rid of her. How does that sound?”
“Yes, that sounds fine, my love,” said Emma. “I was a little surprised at first, but I’m quite sure it’s the sensible thing.”
“My darling,” Giovanni said softly, “this is all for you. I know that you come from a respectable family, and since we first fell in love, I have wanted to give you the kind of life you are used to, the kind of life you deserve. That includes a lovely house and fine furnishings and some servants where possible to make things go smoothly. After all, I don’t
156 want to come home every time to a wife who is frazzled and despondent. You must keep some energy for your husband.”
He smiled at his own flirtatious remark and held her closer.
“You’re very sweet, my dear,” said Emma, a genuine smile on her face once more.
* * *
Several days later, as Bianca was preparing vegetables for dinner, Emma noticed a damp patch on the kitchen wall where the house cut into the hillside. The patch ran from the floor to around waist height and was equally wide.
“What’s that damp patch, Bianca?” she asked the maid.
“It’s the entrance to the caves, Madam. It’s been bricked up to keep out the draft and stop the children going in there.”
“Yes, my husband told me something about the caves,” said Emma, her interest rising.
“It’s quite fascinating. Have you been inside?”
“I heard about them before,” said Bianca, “but I’ve never been in there myself. I don’t much like confined spaces, I’m afraid.”
“There are quite a few caves in the mountains around here,” said Pepé, who was standing in the kitchen doorway. “Some of them are old, with paintings on the walls, and some of them are supposed to have treasure in them. A few of them have skeletons of those that died in there. But I leave all that to people who like that kind of thing. So far as I’m concerned, it’s just a load of cobwebs and dust. It’s better left alone, if you ask me.”
His verdict delivered, the gardener turned and shuffled back into the yard.
“Well, perhaps that’s an adventure for another day,” said Emma to herself.
157
CHAPTER 17
HIGH SOCIETY
(1906)
Giovanni quickly finished work on the barn, and it turned out to be a fine and spacious studio. He installed several wooden shutters in the roof and walls that he could prop open with poles, allowing the sunlight to pour in. The north light was excellent in the morning and afternoon. The hill and the mountains to the west meant that evening fell rather quickly, but he compensated for this by leaving his bed early each morning and catching the best of the light.
Over the following weeks, he worked hard to finish the last of his paintings of Malta, transforming each of the scenes in his sketch books into canvases filled with the vibrant colours of the Mediterranean island. He painted huge, blue skies with puffy clouds, vast and sparkling seas, rocks and sand shimmering beneath the turquoise waves. There were huge trading boats skimming along at high speed, while fishermen bobbed around in smaller vessels, casting nets and hauling them up. There were golden villages and whitewashed farmsteads, and the countryside criss-crossed with rocky walls and crops of various sorts.
Everywhere there were bright flowers and cactus plants and donkeys. And just occasionally, a pair of lovers walked arm in arm along a country road.
As the first chill, autumnal winds began to blow on Collina Verde, the artist announced to his wife that his work was done. He dragged her into the barn and there popped open a bottle of Asti Spumante, pouring them each a glass.
158
“I have arranged a private viewing for a very special customer,” he said, turning in a circle and waving an arm at the numerous paintings of Emma’s homeland that were hung and propped up wherever there was space.
“My darling, it’s wonderful,” she said, though she instantly felt a pang of homesickness.
“This is the Grand Harbour, of course,” said Giovanni, pulling his wife over to a large oil painting. “And this is Mdina from the south, as I’m sure you know. And this is the field and the tree where we had our first picnic, if you remember, my sweet?”
“Yes, I remember,” said Emma. “Of course, I remember. It’s very beautiful.”
Giovanni noticed the softness of Emma’s voice, and wondered if he had made her sad.
Reaching for the bottle, he refilled his wife’s glass with the sparkling wine and said, “This is all money, my dear. It is art too, of course, and very good art, if I say so myself. But more importantly, it is money for us, because in two weeks I will finally open my long-awaited exhibition, and I will sell these pictures to extraordinarily wealthy ladies and gentlemen who know nothing of art or of Malta … and we will live in outrageous comfort for another year!”
He clashed his glass against Emma’s and noticed that her mood had brightened.
“I would like to propose a toast,” he said with an air of mock grandeur. “To art, money and outrageous comfort!”
“Money!” shouted Emma, and they drained their glasses.
* * *
It was two days before the Malta exhibition that Giovanni informed Emma that she should probably not be there for the opening. The blood drained from her face as she listened to her husband list the reasons why she should stay home with Anita on that first day of the show, rather than standing alongside him in Torino.
159
He said he would be incredibly busy and he’d have no time to spend with her. He’d be making last-minute arrangements with the gallery owner, and there were likely to be numerous stresses involved that would make him bad-tempered, and he hated to be in a bad temper around his wife. Added to which, he really must focus on business, since this was his chance to make a big splash in the city, from which he’d been largely absent as an artist for some years.
Emma listened to all of this with a pounding heart, so disappointed and angry was she.
But she managed to keep control of her feelings and swallowed several rude words that she was on the verge of uttering.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy the opening day anyway, my sweet,” continued Giovanni.
“There will be such a crowd of people, and I’m liable to get lost amongst them, meeting them all and answering their questions about my time in Malta and justifying the prices … which I admit are a little high. You’d be left quite on your own for much of it, and I wouldn’t want to do that to you.”
He looked up from the stack of canvasses that he’d been busy wrapping in cloth and tying up with twine, ready for transportation to Torino.
“You don’t mind, do you, my darling?” he said, a look of guilt shining through the façade of unconcern.
“Not at all,” said Emma, “I quite understand.”
“Good, I’m glad you agree,” he said, returning to his packing.
With the help of Pepé, he loaded the last consignment of paintings onto the carriage, and then returned to his wife, beads of sweat on his brow.
Emma was now quite used to receiving bad news and surprises of all sorts from
Giovanni, and she readied herself for the next phase in the communication. She had learned that she should now expect some expression of gratitude for her patience and understanding,
160 wrapped in a heavy layer of sentiment, complete with an affectionate embrace and something about her being “beautiful” and “precious”. She preferred this stage, of course, to the initial shock of bad news, but she was nevertheless not exactly over the moon.
“Added to which,” said Giovanni, “you shall need all your energy for the party the following evening,” and he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Party?” said Emma, thrown by the deviation from tradition. Had he on this occasion thought to follow a disappointment with a genuine treat?
“Yes, the party, my dear. Didn’t I mention it?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, there’s usually some sort of party in the evening after a new show opens, either on the first evening or later on. And on this occasion, we’ll be entertained by Georges DeBois and his wife Madelaine, who have a very charming villa not far from Piazza San Carlo. They are enormously wealthy, and I expect them to buy at least a few of my paintings on the first day, which is why I don’t mind that they’re French. Actually, they are very charming people, and well-connected too. They have a very international crowd of friends, some of them in common with me, and they have been kind enough to offer a dinner party in my honour.”
“It sounds quite wonderful,” said Emma, a thrill of excitement running through her body.
“And it will be a perfect stage on which to introduce my charming and exotic wife, who will arrive with me, entirely rested and quite delicious in her fine new dress and fake diamonds.”
“Oh how wonderful! My first party since leaving home!” said Emma, wrapping her arms around her husband and squeezing him with joy.
“I didn’t think you liked parties,” said Giovanni, teasingly.
“Well, I never used to when I was young, but this will be different. This is quite different,” she said, squeezing him again.
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“So you’ll be coming to the party then?” said Giovanni.
“Just try and stop me,” she said, laughing, and she strode off to her bedroom and hung out her new best dress to air.
The first day of the exhibition went very well, with Giovanni selling more than he’d expected, such that several visitors on the second day expressed disappointment that there were so few paintings left. He returned home as soon as he was able, leaving the gallery owner in charge of business, and joined his wife in dressing for the party. They had never attended a party together, and they took great delight in helping each other with the final touches to their attire. Emma helped loosen the straps on the side of Giovanni’s waistcoat, which seemed to have shrunk since he last dressed for a black-tie event.
Bianca had been helping Emma to get dressed, but Giovanni saved for himself the honour of putting the paste necklace around his wife’s neck. Finally, she stood in front of the full-length bedroom mirror and assessed the overall impression. In her white, silk dress, long, white gloves and a broad-brimmed hat, she looked quite stunning, though she wished she had more make-up to apply.
Standing back, and making a frame with his hands through which to view his wife,
Giovanni declared: “Perfection has finally arrived on earth!”
* * *
Partly for the sake of appearances and partly out of practicality, Pepé had been volunteered as driver for the evening. He dressed himself in his smartest black woollen coat and a black hat, and looked quite respectable, at least in the evening gloom. Emma said it was a shame that poor Pepé should have to sit outside while they ate and drank heartily inside, but
Giovanni said he’d be more than happy chatting with the other drivers. They’d be given
162 plenty to eat and perhaps a nip of brandy from the kitchen to keep them happy. Added to which, said Giovanni, Emma really wouldn’t want her husband driving her home after the bottle or two of celebratory booze that he intended to imbibe.
All through the long drive into the centre of Torino, Emma tried to guess what the
DeBois villa looked like. She imagined it to be at least as large as her own home, perhaps larger, and she thought there would be two or three servants. Hopefully, there would be a piano, although she tried her best not to get her hopes up. As they passed some of the more elegant apartment blocks in the city centre, she tried to catch a glimpse of the luxurious interiors, which seemed invariably to be bathed in a golden light.
When they finally arrived at the villa, Emma’s eyes widened in astonishment. Two footmen pulled open the large iron gates and pointed them up a sweeping drive, which was lit with red lamps hung from poles. Several other carriages were parked in a row, the horses being fed and watered by a gang of stable boys. The villa seemed quite enormous, consisting of at least three stories and surrounded by a well-tended garden, complete with trees and hedges manicured into curious shapes.
Emma looked up in wonder at the ornate stonework surrounding every window, the enormous portico and Corinthian columns. From each of the large windows shone a golden light that promised of warmth and wealth. A footman helped her from the carriage, and as she began to climb the stone steps, she noticed Giovanni handing Pepé a silver hip flask, no doubt topped up with brandy.
The interior of the villa was no disappointment. As she handed her coat to a servant,
Emma took in the double staircase, high ceiling and sombre-looking portraits on the walls.
The chandelier above the entrance hall was the largest she had ever seen, and the marble floor seemed so highly polished that she hesitated to step on it, lest she leave marks with her heels.
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A servant announced their names, and immediately a lady she presumed to be Mrs
DeBois appeared from double doors to her right, draped in a long, green dress, a large white feather in her hair. She wore such an array of pearls and diamonds that Emma hardly knew which to look at first.
“Darling Giovanni!” said Mrs DeBois, her arms outstretched and a wide smile on her lips.
“Darling Jacqueline!” responded Giovanni, and he strode toward the lady in green, his own arms wide open. They fell into a half-embrace, exchanging three kisses on the cheeks.
Emma was somewhat surprised to find that Mrs DeBois was on first name terms with her husband and she stiffened at seeing them exchange kisses. But she did not have time to ponder this, for within moments Jacqueline was clasping Emma by the shoulders and planting warm kisses on her own cheeks, the scent of expensive perfume strong on the air.
“Good evening, my dear Mrs Boella! It is so very charming to meet you at last,” said the hostess, apparently with genuine warmth.
“Good evening, Mrs DeBois. Thank you so much for inviting us here. This is really a lovely house,” said Emma, wondering suddenly if she sounded young and socially clumsy.
“And so this is your adorable wife!” said Jacqueline, turning to Giovanni. “Why have you kept her from us for so long? She is quite beautiful, and if she is as clever as you have boasted, she will have the party at her feet, and perhaps the whole of Torino.”
“I must apologise, Jacqueline, for not introducing you sooner,” said Giovanni, and he jokingly went through the motions of a formal introduction.
Just as he finished his performance, Emma heard the servant announce the names of two new arrivals: “The Baron Ivan Aleksandrovich Gubrilov and Mrs Sylvia Cattori”.
Emma was highly curious to see the Baron, particularly since he sounded Russian, but she resisted the temptation to turn round, for fear of seeming uncultured.
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“My darlings, I must greet Sylvia and the baron,” said Jacqueline, “but please do go in and help yourselves to absolutely anything you like. I shall join you very soon.” And she planted more kisses on their cheeks.
Once in the drawing room, Emma soon became the centre of attention. Giovanni introduced her to numerous friends, some of them Italians, and others from all corners of
Europe. There was Silvio, of course, Giovanni’s best friend from his university days, and
Riccardo the engineer, and Luigi the gallery owner, who announced with pride that he had now sold almost three quarters of the Maltese paintings. There was also a German singer called Ralph with curly blond hair and a deep voice to match Giovanni’s. There was a rotund
Spanish wine merchant called Raul, and a Hungarian with a name and profession that Emma found impossible to decipher, partly due to the enthusiasm with which he spoke. Everyone seemed so eager to congratulate Giovanni on his new wife that they barely mentioned the roaring success of his art show.
Emma was utterly charmed by her husband’s friends, who seemed both gallant and generous, topping up her glass with champagne whenever it fell below the half-way mark.
She answered their various questions about her homeland and the journey from Naples, and was more than happy to describe her new house in every detail. She was even more happy, however, to find that Giovanni’s friends seemed to be almost exclusively male. There were a few women at the party, but they seemed mostly to hover around the edges of the room, as if wary of her presence.
Just as she was tiring of explaining where she came from and how she had arrived in
Torino, a tall and elegant Frenchman approached and introduced himself as Mr DeBois. He was a man of noble bearing, with sunken cheeks, a large nose and brilliant white hair. He seemed to be at least twenty years older than his wife. He took Emma’s hand and planted a kiss on the back of it, and told her of his deep joy at finally meeting the woman who was
165 making his favourite artist so happy. Emma decided instantly that she liked Mr DeBois very much.
Dinner, when it was finally served, was sumptuous beyond expectations, consisting of seven courses, and Emma faultlessly worked her way through them all. She smiled to herself as she recalled her thoughts on the way to the party, wondering whether the DeBois house would be larger than her own and how many servants there might be. As it turned out, there seemed to be one servant for each guest at the enormous table, and when she dropped a napkin, a young man in uniform behind her instantly picked it up for her.
Seated opposite his wife, Giovanni was able to observe how well she conversed with others at the table, switching between languages as required. The Belgian poet to her left talked endlessly of literature, and it seemed Emma was more than able to keep up with the conversation, even in French. On her right side was a school teacher originally from Venice, who took every chance to quiz Emma on the history of Malta and the origins of its language.
Between the two dinner partners, Emma had more intellectual stimulation than she’d found in the whole year and a half since landing in Italy. Others at the table engaged her on a wide range of topics, and she seemed always able to give a sensible and interesting reply. More than once, aided by the free-flowing wine, she managed a witty comment that set her new companions laughing. All in all, Giovanni decided that she was not only socially presentable but a positive asset from a business point of view.
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CHAPTER 18
THE BARON’S TYPEWRITER
(1906)
As the last plates were being cleared and cigars lit, Mr DeBois tapped on his glass with a spoon and called for silence. Standing, he gave a short speech about Giovanni’s fine art works and joked that he would have bought more of them if his bank account had not run completely dry. He then complemented Giovanni on his “finest work to date”, and Emma blushed when she noticed that everyone was looking in her direction. Finally, Mr DeBois invited his guests to join him in the music room, where those of a musical persuasion would provide entertainment.
Ralph was the first to sing, standing by the grand piano as Mrs DeBois played. He sang three German songs on the topic of lost love, each sadder than the last, and Emma felt tears welling in her eyes. Next, Giovanni sang La Calunnia from The Barber of Seville, complete with dramatic gestures and facial expressions. The small gathering applauded wildly and demanded more, to which request he responded with a heart-breaking rendition of Schubert’s
Ave Maria. In her somewhat inebriated state, Emma found tears running down her cheeks, and she watched the first of them drop into her wine glass, hoping desperately that nobody would notice. Luckily, she was standing at the back of the room, near the door, and all eyes were on the performance.
At that moment, a hand appeared from her left, offering a neatly folded silk handkerchief. She accepted the handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.
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“Thank you so much,” said Emma in a whisper. Looking up briefly, she saw a man of about fifty years with kind, grey eyes and a dark, pointed beard.
“Not at all, my dear,” whispered the man. “It is indeed a very moving song, and I have shed tears on hearing it more than once. There is no shame in appreciating great music.”
“Yes, you’re quite right,” said Emma, offering the handkerchief back.
“No, my dear,” said the man, “please keep hold of that. You may keep it as a gift from me and take it with you whenever you attend musical events.”
Emma did not quite know how to respond to this statement, particularly since her husband was still in the middle of singing. She trained her gaze on Giovanni, but her mind was now working furiously at deciding the origins of the man’s accent. He wasn’t French,
Italian, Spanish, German or Swiss, and she didn’t think he sounded Hungarian, though she couldn’t be quite sure, since she had only ever met one Hungarian and had understood nothing he said. Perhaps, she thought at last, he was Russian?
There was more wild applause as Giovanni came to the end of Ave Maria, and Emma felt immensely proud to have such a brilliant and popular husband. Her joy was tempered, however, by the appearance of a stunning young woman by Giovanni’s side, black hair falling in ringlets to her shoulders, a string of pearls around her neck and a full bosom bursting from the top of her low-cut dress. She greeted Giovanni by clasping his hands and kissing him on both cheeks and then whispered something in his ear while the audience waited in silence. After a short introduction on the piano, the woman revealed herself to be the possessor of a remarkably beautiful soprano voice, no doubt a professional opera singer and one of Giovanni’s fellow performers.
She and Giovanni entered into a duet that Emma could not place, but which contained many protestations of love and seemed to prove Giovanni’s claim that he had one of the most versatile voices in the country. While Emma was impressed with her husband’s vocal range,
168 she was more concerned with the longing looks and heaving breast of his musical partner.
Once again, she felt herself on the verge of tears, but this time not out of sadness or joy, but some far more complicated mix of emotions. Was it jealousy or anger or just the long-denied store of exhaustion and grief within her?
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her arm, and the man with the handkerchief leaned close and whispered in her ear.
“Do you think I might talk with you a moment, my dear?” he said.
“Why, yes, of course,” said Emma, a little startled, but glad for the chance of some distraction.
The man led Emma into a long hallway with a lush, red carpet, the walls painted white and gold. They walked a few paces before he turned and pulled his heels together in a military fashion and then bowed deeply.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ivan Aleksandrovich Gubrilov from St Petersburg, a friend of your husband. It is a great pleasure to meet you,” he said, taking her hand in his and placing a kiss on the back of it.
Emma realized this was the baron she had heard being announced before, and she congratulated herself on guessing that he was Russian.
“Emma Boella,” she replied, offering a small curtsey. She was somewhat vague on the ranks of the Russian nobility, but she thought it wise to play safe and assume herself to be in the company of minor royalty.
“I have been meaning to talk with you all evening, Mrs Boella,” said the Russian, his
Italian fluent but so strongly accented that she had to concentrate hard to keep up. “Your husband is a great artist, of course, and we have known each other for some years now. I am always glad to be in his company and see his latest works, and it makes me deeply happy to find that he has made such a fine match in you.”
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“Thank you so very much,” said Emma, “That’s very kind of you, Baron.”
“Oh, please don’t call me Baron, my dear. Call me Ivan, or even Vanka, which is how your husband addresses me. In fact, it is quite wrong to call me a baron, and I tell these
Italians all the time that I am much lower down the social ranks, almost a peasant, in fact. But they won’t listen, so I have to humour them. It was my great-grandfather who was a baron, and my father himself was a military man in the royal court, but I have no real claims to any such honours, having disgraced my family and left the army behind. I am hardly able to ride a horse in a straight line, much less lead a cavalry charge. I thought it best to resign my commission and head west before I rose to the rank of general and led an entire army to its death.”
Vanka laughed at his self-effacing comment, and Emma felt instantly glad to be in the company of someone who claimed to have brought disgrace on his family and managed to laugh about it.
“I see that your glass is empty, Mrs Boella,” said Vanka, his face suddenly turning quite serious.
“Please call me Emma,” she replied.
They walked to the far end of the corridor and entered a large drawing room, where they were instantly offered fresh drinks and a tray of Torino chocolates topped with walnuts.
“I understand that you are something of a genius at languages, Emma,” said Vanka.
“I’m far from a genius, I’m afraid, but I studied several languages in school. There wasn’t much else to learn. The library was limited and the nuns had somewhat conservative views on education. But they encouraged me in languages, for which I’m very grateful. It has certainly come in very useful.”
“And is Russian among your many tongues?” said Vanka, a humorously hopeful expression on his face.
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“Oh, yes, it is,” said Emma, suddenly nervous, “but I have very rarely used it outside of my classes. I studied for three years in school, and I had a tutor from Moscow who gave me lessons each week, but I have never used it in real life, so to speak.”
“Then perhaps it is time for real life to begin,” said Vanka, suddenly switching to his native tongue.
“Oh, well … yes … of course,” said Emma, racking her brain for long-unused Russian vocabulary.
“Good, so I have one more Russian friend in Torino. Thank God for such mercies!”
“Well, I’ll try my best,” said Emma, gaining confidence.
For the next half hour, they discussed Emma’s life and family, her education and love affair with Giovanni, and the various trials in travelling to Piedmont and setting up home.
Aided by another glass of Barolo wine and occasional linguistic hints from Vanka, she told of the hard work she had put into the first house high in the mountains and the move to the farm with Arturo and Maretta. She described her sadness at their sudden death, and then her good luck in finding her current home, which she described as an “absolute dream”.
Vanka listened with full attention to the entire story, nodding occasionally and eating a good dozen chocolates. She noticed that he had kind eyes and a particular knack for making a woman feel as if she were interesting. Finally, as Emma’s tale arrived at the present moment, he grasped her hand and said, “Emma, my dear, you are exactly what I have been looking for.”
A little taken aback, she wondered if she ought to withdraw her hand, but decided not to, for fear of seeming rude. She could still hear her husband singing down the corridor, and she supposed herself to be safe from immediate discovery.
Letting go of her hand, Vanka breathed deeply and then continued.
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“I’ve been looking for someone exactly like yourself, with a love of languages and a knowledge of their connections. Somebody with a sharp mind and a natural curiosity.
Someone, also, with enough time on her hands to devote to a fascinating project.”
“A project?” said Emma.
“Yes, a project that I hope you will find interesting. Aside from being an exile from my homeland, I am also something of a pioneer in the field of mechanical writing technologies.
Well, I say I am a pioneer, but perhaps that is an exaggeration. Let us say that I have several friends with whom I discuss advances in this area and the possibility of manufacturing such technologies here in Torino and elsewhere. These machines are being improved all the time and their popularity is spreading every year. They are already quite well established in
America, of course, and I have two models at home that I use for correspondence. However, at present, they are still rather uncommon in Italy and even more so in Russia. But I think this will change in the next several years. Have you used a typewriter before?”
“Well, I have heard of them, of course, but never seen one. I’m afraid we Maltese are even further behind the times than the Italians, Mr Gubrilov,” said Emma.
“Call me Vanka.”
“Vanka, of course. So, please tell me about the project. Are you designing a new machine?”
“Well, not quite. I have an Italian friend, who is on the verge of launching his own typewriter, produced here in Torino, specifically aimed at the Italian market. He has made several prototypes already and handed them out to be tested before full-scale production begins. I am among those lucky enough to have received a machine, and I have been playing with it for weeks. It seems to work very well, and I have only reported one or two suggestions for improvements. It is really is a very solid machine.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
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“Well, I would like you to take this machine and try it out for yourself, and report back on any problems you have with using it. I will pay you, of course, for your efforts, and you will get to keep the machine afterwards, assuming you want it.”
“But I have never used one before. I shall probably break it,” said Emma, her forehead heavily furrowed.
“That’s highly unlikely. I’m sure it’s quite indestructible.”
“Well, if you’re quite sure…”
“And there is another aspect to this testing, which is that I would like you to make a few notes on how such a machine might be adapted to use with the Cyrillic alphabet, since there are very few machines that can type in Russian. One or two models exist, but they seem to have a few keys missing, strange though that seems. There seem to be several possible ways of working this out, but I would very much value your input. As I say, you will be paid for your ideas.”
“Well, it all sounds quite fascinating, but I might have to think about it for a while. It’s something of a new departure for me.”
She paused for a moment to drain her glass and refill it with more Barolo. It was certainly an interesting idea. Since becoming a wife and mother, she had felt her intellect withering like a bunch grapes left on the vine. The typing machine might jolt her into some sort of action, and she might even find a way of putting her language skills to work on a more regular basis. Certainly, it couldn’t hurt to have an extra source in income, in case the art market began to dry up.
“Actually, Vanka, I’ve decided. I will take up your offer and gladly become your test subject. And if I can think of anything intelligent to say on the subject of adapting this machine to the Russian language, I will certainly let you know. I’ll make notes and
173 suggestions and prepare a small report for you within three months. Does that sound agreeable?”
“That’s quite wonderful!” said Vanka, jumping to his feet. “I shall drop by your house after Christmas with the machine and we can get started. Oh, this is quite wonderful news!”
For a moment, she thought he was going to throw his arms around her, and she stiffened, mindful of Giovanni’s presence down the corridor.
“We should perhaps get back,” she said. “My husband may be missing me.”
When they returned to the drawing room, Giovanni seemed quite content. At the piano was a slender young lady in a fine blue dress, dripping with diamonds, her hands running delicately up and down the keyboard. Giovanni stood by the piano, looking her square in the eyes and singing some tender love song about dawn choruses and sunrises and final embraces.
* * *
On the long, cold drive home, Emma felt excited about her new Russian friend and the imminent adventure with typing technology. As she snuggled close to her husband, she thought about telling him all about it, but for some reason she held back. Perhaps she felt he might disapprove, or even become jealous. Or perhaps she felt guilty at having had such a fine conversation with the Russian man with the kind eyes, all alone and without Giovanni’s knowledge. Or perhaps she was still jealous of all those beautiful and musical women who seemed to be utterly under Giovanni’s spell the moment he opened his mouth to sing. It was all so confusing at times, and the wine in her veins didn’t particularly help. In any case, she decided to say nothing all the way home. Rather, she buried her face in the folds of his great coat and silently shed tears from she knew not where.
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CHAPTER 19
NEW BEGINNINGS
(1906-1907)
Emma wanted her first Christmas at Collina Verde to be just perfect. Assisted by Pepé, she gathered great armfuls of greenery and berries and brought them into the house. She hung sprigs of the bright berries and shiny leaves around the place, along the tops of picture frames, over doors and windows and around the fire place. She rooted around in old
Maretta’s treasures and found several candle holders, which she polished until they shone beautifully. There were boxes of candles too, which Maretta had kept in storage, and these were placed strategically around the living house, particularly in the windows. She put a large one in front of the mirror above the fire place, and she felt the effect was quite magical.
Giovanni had made several trips into Torino since the party, and seemed to be hiding various objects in a cupboard in the study that he said was “out of bounds” until the new year.
With two days to go before Christmas, Emma realized that she would not have the chance to visit Torino and buy him a gift in return. At first she was worried, and then she remembered that he had often said that he didn’t like presents bought from shops, and would rather have an old toffee wrapper from his wife than a gold ring from a jeweller. Emma resolved to make his wish come true and set about pondering the options.
She had noticed how cold Giovanni’s fingers got at times when he was painting, particularly in these winter months, and thought that she could perhaps make him some fingerless mittens. They might not be good enough to wear in company, but they would do the trick in a cold artist’s studio. She had discovered two balls of fine wool that Maretta had
175 spun in anticipation of the baby, and Emma thought these would do just fine. She wouldn’t have time to dye the wool, but she thought this would not be a problem, since they would be covered in paint soon enough.
She set about her task at every spare moment, spending short spells quietly working in the bedroom while Giovanni was busy in this studio. She had to swear Pepé to secrecy, then use his hands as models for the mittens. Every now and then, she would call him into the bedroom, and he would stand there silently while she tried them on his hands again. She couldn’t tell if he approved or disapproved, but he was a good enough model, since his hands were large and bony, like her husband’s. The mittens were just about finished in time for
Christmas morning. Finally, she wrapped them in brown paper tied up with string, and decorated the parcel with a sprig of holly, then hid it in her bedside table.
Giovanni woke his wife with a gentle kiss on Christmas morning. Smiling mischievously, she leaned out of the bed and retrieved the mystery parcel. He tore open the wrapping and held up the mittens. At first he looked puzzled, but when she told him they were for staving off the cold while he painted, his expression turned to delight.
“What a clever girl” he chuckled, as he tried them on. “They really are just what I needed. Thank you so much. I’ve got something for you too.”
And from the cupboard he pulled a large box, wrapped in layers of red tissue paper and tied with a silk bow. He heaved it onto the bed, and she began to remove the wrapping, her eyes wide with anticipation. Removing the lid, she saw a brown fur coat, soft and glistening, and she gasped with shock. It must have cost an enormous amount of money, she thought, and she just managed to stop herself interrogating him on the price.
Before she knew it, she was on her feet, and Giovanni was helping her into the coat, which fitted perfectly, the high collar instantly warm against her neck. Abandoning all
176 concerns over expense, she flung her arms around her husband, who was grinning from ear to ear.
“If you are to be mixing with the high society of Torino, I thought it only right that you should have a coat fit for royalty. I promise you, Emma, nobody in Torino has a better coat than this, although I must admit that I got a very good price. Almost a steal, in fact, since I paid for it partly in pictures – but that’s another story.”
“Oh, my darling, it’s wonderful. Just wonderful,” she said, clasping him tightly.
Releasing himself from her embrace, Giovanni returned to the cupboard and took out a small, flat package wrapped in pink tissue paper. When she unwrapped it, she found a delightful watercolour sketch of baby Anita, asleep in her cot.
“Oh Giovanni, it’s beautiful! Thank you so much. I will treasure this one more than anything. It’s truly precious. Thank you!”
They would have gone on thanking each other for the rest of the morning, had they not a list of important things to do that day. First of all, they must attend mass at the local church, both for the festive merit of the occasion, but also as a means of meeting the local community and formally introducing themselves to the priest. Since their arrival at Collina Verde, they had meant to spend more time in the village, but events had somehow taken over. They had also wanted to meet the priest, but Emma had been reluctant to do so and always found some important household task to do on Sunday mornings.
They dressed hurriedly and arrived at the village church just in time for the start of mass, and to see an effigy of the Christ child placed upon the altar. The familiarity of the words, the incense and the sound of the choir transported her to the little church of the Maltese convent where she had spent so many years studying and taking religious instruction with the nuns.
She wondered sadly if they ever thought of her and her damaging misbehaviour. She thought also of the terrible affect her love affair had had on her family.
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The priest gave a sermon about God’s light coming into the world in the form of a baby, and how His love would in the end conquer all, while the palaces and castles of kings would turn to dust. The choir sang some wonderful Latin hymn, the words echoing off the ceiling and around the hard, stone walls. Emma was flooded with childhood memories, a mixture of religious sanctity and the excitement of Christmas, and she missed her family, particularly her mother, like never before. She found tears running down her cheeks, and then felt
Giovanni’s handkerchief being pushed into her hand. That started the tears coming faster. She fought hard against them.
After all this time, she was still uncertain about what sins she may or may not have committed in the weeks and months before her marriage. She knew she had not given herself to Giovanni in the Biblical sense, but her father and the Maltese priest had seemed quite certain that some serious transgression had occurred, and this alone had thrown her into doubt. Even if she had not committed any sins of the flesh, she had certainly dishonoured her father, which was itself a transgression.
She felt certain that all of this must be cleared up with the village priest before she could take communion. And yet there was no time for such a conversation today. It would have to take place soon, and she would have to make time for it – but not today. She watched as the rest of the congregation went to take communion, receiving the body of Christ on their tongues and sipping of his blood. She wondered if the wine might be the same delicious
Barolo she had gulped down at the party, and her thoughts turned to dinner. By the time the last few people had returned to their seats, Emma had brought her memories and her tears under control and was able thank people for their good wishes as they took a peep at her baby girl.
* * *
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It was two weeks later, in early January, when the memories of parties and Torino’s grand architecture had quite faded, that a message arrived for Emma. Opening an expensive- looking envelope, she found an embossed calling card, complete with a family crest in luxurious colours. It was that of Vanka, the Russian with kind eyes and a passion for typing machines. Attached to the card was a brief note, requesting the pleasure of visiting Emma at her home and hinting at a gift. He would be in the area that very afternoon, if it was not too much trouble to receive him.
This put her in a flat spin. Giovanni had left early that morning to conduct business in the city, and so Emma was not able to consult her husband. There surely could be no harm in entertaining Vanka, she concluded, since it was Giovanni himself who had brought them together, and no doubt her husband would return home at some point before dinner was ready.
She scribbled a brief note in reply, inviting Vanka to visit later in the day, after lunch.
She said she would be delighted to receive him and was curious to see the gift.
However, once the messenger had disappeared on his horse, Emma realised that Vanka might expect to stay for dinner. Since Christmas, she and Giovanni had been living on pasta, goat’s cheese and winter vegetables from the garden. With an aristocrat in the house, she would have to provide something a little more up-market.
Calling Pepé and Bianca into the living room, Emma explained the situation and suggested that they put together a nice dinner for three, aiming to sit down at around seven o’clock, by which time Giovanni would probably be back. If possible, she would like a roast chicken and vegetables, as well as some kind of dessert, if Bianca felt she could make such a thing. She said that coffee and wine should be prepared in the meantime, once the guest had
179 arrived, and perhaps some snacks to stave off hunger while dinner cooked. The maid looked at the old man, and they both shrugged.
“No problem at all, madam,” said Pepé. “I’ll kill one of the hens and bring in some vegetables.”
He shuffled off outside, leaving Bianca to explain what she thought she could rustle up based on the contents of the kitchen. There were pears in syrup, with which to make the tart, and she could cover it with the cream she’d bought in that morning. There were several kinds of vegetables in the kitchen, as well as chestnuts, almonds, eggs, bread, cheese and wine. She felt confident she could make something nice.
Emma was infinitely relieved to have two competent and willing helpers, and she thanked Bianca profusely before dashing upstairs to change. She put Anita on the bed and busied her with toys while she looked through her wardrobe for suitable clothes to wear. She didn’t want to look shabby for Vanka, since he was a distinguished guest. On the other hand, if she dressed too formally, she might give the impression of trying too hard to please. He was, after all, a family friend, noble heritage notwithstanding. She tried on three dresses before settling on one from Malta that had once been smart but now seemed quite lived-in.
She selected fine stockings too and a good pair of shoes. She then called down to Bianca for hot water for a bath, and began to undress.
As she lay in the bath tub, she smelled a series of delicious aromas creeping upstairs and under the bathroom door. She could make out the scent of roast chicken and the smells of baking, sugar and spices. She thanked her lucky stars again for the blessing of servants.
When the doorbell rang, she looked at the living room clock and was surprised to see that it was almost three o’clock. Anita was thankfully having a nap in her cot in the parlour, and
Bianca and Pepé seemed in complete control of the kitchen. So much so, in fact, that they had shooed Emma out when she had came in to enquire about progress.
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Vanka was just as charming and gallant as Emma remembered him. He bowed and kissed her hand, and explained in a torrent of Russian that he had been on a mission to visit an old friend of his in a nearby town, and had decided at the last minute to stop by with the typing machine.
A servant walked in behind Vanka with a large box in his arms, apparently very heavy, judging by the way he staggered into the living room.
“Bring it this way,” said Emma, “into the study. We can put it on my desk.”
And so the typewriter was unwrapped and Vanka began to explain its workings in great detail, demonstrating its operation by typing a few lines from Dante. Emma then tried the machine for herself, pressing the keys nervously at first and making only the faintest of marks on the paper. With practice and the urgings of Vanka, she soon began to get the hang of it, and insisted on typing out an entire page from a novel she had been reading. Vanka then demonstrated the most common application of the machine by dictating a letter to Emma, which she typed with growing confidence and just a few mistakes.
Signing his name at the bottom of the letter, Vanka announced with a flourish, “There you are Madam Boella! You are now a competent and fully qualified typist and secretary.
Congratulations!”
He then went through the various photographs and diagrams showing the existing
Russian versions of the machines, explaining their deficiencies and suggesting possible ways that the machine now in Emma’s possession might be adapted.
“But I’ll leave all of that to you, Emma. I will not expect to hear from you for two or three months, and then please let me know you thoughts. And if you feel that the scheme is doomed to failure or that there is no sensible way of making it work, then by all means tell me so. I shall pay you in any case. Just send me a bill with your report, and we shall be quits.”
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“I’ll do my best, Vanka, I really will.”
Returning to the living room, they found a bottle of red wine and a steaming pot of coffee on the dining table, along with almond biscuits and a bowl of salted walnuts that
Emma didn’t even know she possessed. Bianca really was earning her meagre salary today.
Emma enjoyed Vanka’s conversation just as much as she had done at the party, although it was his turn to talk about his life, and hers to listen, which she did gladly. Since arriving in
Italy, he had worked mostly at buying and selling things – from antiques to horses, artworks to properties. He had set up two shops, one selling rugs imported from the Orient and the other selling fur coats, hats, stoles, scarves and muffs. He had made a good deal of money and purchased a fine apartment in Torino and two other properties. He had obtained wealth, that was certain, but he still wanted to do something special, something innovative, and perhaps something that would contribute to his beloved Russia. The country, he said, seemed to lurch from crisis to crisis, with landowners losing their properties while strikes and famines seemed commonplace.
“Perhaps,” he said, “the typewriter won’t save Russia in one go, but we must all contribute what we can. And I suspect there might be a good deal of money in the project too.”
Listening to Vanka’s long explanation of his life and ambitions, Emma began to feel very young and quite useless. What had she done besides leaving her family in disgrace and giving birth to a baby?
“And do you have any ambitions, Emma?” said Vanka, just as she was thinking that she had none at all.
“Well,” she said, pouring another coffee, “nothing in particular. I suppose I should perhaps use my education at some point. And even that machine, if I can find a use for it. I might, I suppose, try my hand at translations, assuming I can find someone who is in need of
182 my skills, such as they are. But there is the baby to look after, of course, and I’m not sure how it would all fit together.”
“Yes, I see,” said Vanka, stirring sugar into his coffee and pondering with a frown. “Of course, you could always try the convent around the corner, if you haven’t already.”
“The convent? What for?”
“Well, they seem to be quite a large establishment and hardly poor, judging by the excellent condition of the buildings. I went there once a few years back to purchase a painting, and I can assure you there was no lack of riches within those walls. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they had need of some of your skills. Such places usually have to maintain correspondence with large numbers of people, from London to Rome to Berlin and Paris, and that’s just the kind of job you could help with.”
“Well, perhaps, but…” said Emma, suddenly feeling butterflies in her stomach.
“Added to which, of course, I’m willing to bet they don’t have a typewriter. Whereas you do have such a machine, which puts you in the category of very desirable and employable people.”
“I’m not quite so sure about that,” she said, switching from coffee to wine.
“Oh, don’t you worry about it,” said Vanka, holding out his glass. “We shall gain some
Dutch courage, my dear, and then sally forth. We shall dazzle them with technology. They won’t know what hit them.”
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CHAPTER 20
THE CONVENT
(1907)
The elderly nun who opened the door of the convent was small and infinitely wrinkled, but her face bore a huge smile that shone in the sunlight. They were shown down a long and echoing corridor, across a peaceful stone courtyard, and into a dark office lined with books from floor to ceiling. The room was empty, and they were told to take seats and wait for
Mother Superior. Vanka rested the typewriter on a large table and they sat down in silence.
Mother Superior, when she arrived, was a tall woman of middle age who spoke in a courteous but somewhat clipped manner.
Vanka took charge of the situation, introducing Emma and apologising on her behalf for not having visited sooner. He explained about the machine and demonstrated its uses, typing out a letter that he dictated aloud to himself on the subject of some hypothetical goods that were late being delivered and which must be produced forthwith. Tearing the paper from the machine, he signed it at the bottom and announced with a flourish, “Mother Superior, your letter is ready.”
The nun was, at first, quite speechless. Like Emma, she had heard of such machines but never seen one or guessed at their uses. Vanka invited her to sit in front of the machine and gave her a very rudimentary lesson in its uses.
He then asked her to give up the chair to Emma, who would demonstrate the power of such a contraption in the hands of a multi-lingual secretary. Handing her the letter, he asked
Emma to render it into French for the benefit of Mother Teresa, whom he flattered by
184 suggesting that she no doubt had perfect French. This Emma managed, with only one mistake, and Vanka ripped the resulting document from the machine, signed it and handed it to the nun with a bow.
“Now German,” he said to Emma, who dutifully typed a version in the German language.
“Yes, I see the point of your demonstration now, Mr Gubrilov, and I must say I am very impressed with the machine, and also with the young lady’s knowledge of languages. It’s all quite impressive.”
“And there are another three languages that Mrs Boella has at her fingertips, due in large part to the fine education she received from the convent in Valletta.”
“I think it’s two more, actually, Vanka,” said Emma, suddenly very nervous.
“You’re forgetting Russian, my dear. Very soon, Mother Superior, there will be a version of this machine capable of typing in Russian, which just happens to be another language in which Mrs Boella is quite fluent.”
“Yes, very impressive, Mr Gubrilov. Although I must say that we rarely have use of the
Russian language. Indeed, we are mostly limited here to Italian and Latin here, although it is useful at times to correspond with our Christian brothers and sisters abroad.”
“I forgot to mention that Emma is also proficient in Latin,” said Vanka, with an apologetic bow.
“That is very commendable,” said the Mother Superior, taking a seat again behind her large, highly polished desk. “And you say you are looking for work here, Mrs Boella?”
“Well, yes, if you think you need somebody.”
“I think we could find room for you and your…”
“Typewriter,” said Vanka.
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“Yes, of course… you and your typewriter, Mrs Boella. I imagine sure we could find uses for the two of you.”
* * *
Later that evening, when Giovanni returned home, he found Emma and Vanka sitting in two armchairs in front of the fire, drinking wine and laughing together. Emma had asked
Vanka not to mention her new job just yet, nor the typewriter, which they had left at the convent for the time being. She wanted to tell Giovanni in her own time and her own way.
“Vanka! Good God! What are you doing here?” said Giovanni, throwing his arms around the Russian and patting him firmly on the back.
“I thought I’d drop by and see my good friend and his lovely wife. And drink your wine too, if you don’t mind.”
“Not a bit of it. Pour me one too, will you, and then tell me your news.”
Emma was happy to listen to the two men gabbling away through dinner, which turned out better than she had hoped. There was onion and potato soup to start, then roast chicken and vegetables for main, and a pear tart with cream to finish, topped with shavings of dark chocolate. The men didn’t comment on the meal or compliment Bianca for her efforts, but
Emma could see that they were more than satisfied.
Over brandy and cigars, the conversation turned to Giovanni’s future commissions, and
Vanka reminded him that he had promised to paint his farm in Sardinia, as well as his horses there. Giovanni said that he had not forgotten the request but had merely not found the time yet to make such a trip. Emma had not realised that Vanka also had property in Sardinia, and she supposed that the place was one of many things that had drawn the two men into friendship.
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“So when can you do it?” said Vanka.
“Well, I suppose any time you like,” said Giovanni, waving his cigar in the air. “Just name the day and I’ll hop on a boat.”
“Then how about next week?” said the Russian.
Emma decided that both men had had quite enough to drink and seemed to be engaging in reckless talk, challenging each other to be decisive, as if making snap decisions were the sport of courageous men.
“Don’t be silly, my dear,” said Emma. “You can’t just hop on a boat to Sardinia and paint Vanka’s horses. What about me and Anita?”
There was a brief silence, during which Giovanni looked at his wife and puffed on his cigar, apparently attempting to weigh up the consequences of continuing on his current course of reckless individualism.
“Well, Vanka, we’ll chat about it some time,” he said in the end. “I certainly have not forgotten your request and I will be more than happy to paint your horses. I have not painted horses for years, and a trip to Sardinia will give me an opportunity to see what remains of my family there. But, as Emma has pointed out, I have responsibilities here. So we’ll just have to work something out.”
It was quite late when Vanka finally collected his driver from the kitchen and headed back to the city. He was still in good spirits as he walked to his carriage, and before he parted he showered both his host and hostess with embraces and kisses.
Emma decided that she would wait a while longer before telling her husband about her job. She wanted to go to the convent first and check that Mother Superior had not changed her mind. Two days after Vanka’s visit, she did just that, and was told that she would indeed be employed three mornings a week to start with. The rate of pay was not enormous, but
Emma felt elated to have her first paid employment, which she felt sure would open the door
187 to all sorts of opportunities in the future. When Mother Superior heard that she had a baby, she told Emma that she was more than welcome to bring Anita along, and that some of the younger nuns would be happy to take care of her while she worked at the typewriter. Indeed, she said, other local women who did work around the convent often did the same with their own youngsters.
* * *
Finally, a week after Vanka’s visit, Emma plucked up the courage to tell Giovanni this grand development in her life. He was painting in his studio one morning and there had been a heavy snowfall overnight. Emma took him a cup of hot chocolate, the baby held in one arm, wrapped up against the cold in a little blanket. When she told him her good news, he stopped painting, the brush suspended in mid-air, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“What did you do that for?” he said, a look of contempt on his face. “If you’ve run out of money, why didn’t you ask me? Why did you go to strangers?”
“I did not go to strangers! Vanka asked me to help him test his machine, and then he suggested working at the convent. And I have not run out of money. So far as I’m aware, we have plenty of money. But it seems the nuns can use my skills, and you never know when a job of this sort will come in useful. You have said yourself that the future of the country is in the balance and the art market is very changeable. So, I thought it wise to see if I could put my education to use, rather than just rotting away in this house. You should be grateful that I have an education and someone is willing to pay me for it.”
“You should have asked me if you wanted money,” he repeated. “I have plenty of money, more than we need, in fact. You only have to ask me, Emma, and I’ll give you whatever you want.”
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“You are not listening to me Giovanni,” said Emma, quite cross now. “I was offered the job because I am one of the few people around here with the skills in languages and the education to write properly and a typewriter with which to produce letters and other things.
They also like the fact that my father was in business, since I know a little bit about stock taking and dealing with suppliers. I certainly didn’t go there begging for work because my husband is late giving me money! That’s ridiculous!”
He stood open-mouthed for a moment and then returned to his painting, daubing listlessly with a mostly dry brush.
“Well, you should have come to me and asked my permission first,” he said at last, apparently unable to look at his wife. “I’m disappointed in you for going behind my back.”
“Well, it’s not as if you’ve never made a decision without consulting me, is it?” she spat at him, her temper on the point of boiling over.
“Perhaps not, Emma, but this is different. You’ve deliberately entered into a scheme of business with another man without consulting your husband, and you’ve made a fool of me, disrespected me utterly. I’m sure that’s what you were laughing about the other night, wasn’t it, as I came in the front door?”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “Are you out of your mind? Are you suggesting that I’ve betrayed you with your friend? Are you serious? This is a job, Giovanni, not a love affair. And I only didn’t tell you about it at first because I wanted to be sure that it wouldn’t fall through.”
“I suppose Vanka advised you to keep it a secret, did he?”
“Are you serious? Do you think there’s some kind of conspiracy against you? Or perhaps a love affair? He’s your friend, for God’s sake! What are you talking about? If anyone’s likely to be playing around, Giovanni, it’s not me. You seem to have young woman hanging
189 on your every word, draping themselves all over you. They just melt, don’t they, when you start to sing?”
“What on earth are you talking about?” he said, turning to face her with a look of fury in his eyes.
“I’ve seen those women all over you, playing the piano and singing to you about love and passion and broken hearts and all that nonsense, and you lapping it up, despite the fact that your wife is standing right there in the room, and you have a baby at home. And you have the cheek to accuse me of consorting with Vanka? You must be insane!”
Giovanni’s eyes were wild now with rage, and Emma began to be a little frightened that she had gone too far. He was gripping his paintbrush so tightly in his hand that she thought it might snap. He looked Emma in the eyes and then glanced down at the baby in the crook of her arm. After a pause, he dabbed his brush once more on his pallet of oil paints and returned to the picture.
“Well, the break will do us good, then,” he said, quietly.
“Break?” she enquired.
“I leave for Sardinia in a week. I’ve bought my ticket already. Vanka needs his horses painting, and I’ve always been a good friend to him. So I’ll go there and paint his horses and whatever else needs to be done. And you can stay here and nurture your career. Perhaps you could look in on our child whenever you have time.”
“My God! You’re not serious? You’ve made plans to go to Sardinia without me and you didn’t even think to discuss the matter?”
“My dear, you can hardly speak about openness,” he said, leaning into the canvas to work on a tiny detail, an air of cool triumph in his voice.
Emma went suddenly quite dizzy with rage, and she thought for a moment that if she weren’t carrying little Anita she might attack her husband and poke his eyes out with a brush.
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Instead, she watched herself, as if in slow motion, launch the cup of hot chocolate through the air, hitting Giovanni on the side of the head and splashing the steaming liquid all over the snow-capped mountain scene on which he was working.
She strode out of the barn and stomped through the snow back to the house, the baby held lightly in her arms. She felt that her marriage was quite possibly over. And if not, she was sure it would never be the same again.
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CHAPTER 21
THE GOOD WIFE
(1907-1913)
Giovanni was away in Sardinia for three months altogether, and spent much of it in the company of Vanka, who seemed still to be among his best friends, despite the accusations of betrayal levelled at Emma. During this time, Emma battled at first with her feelings of disappointment and anger, but she soon put them aside in order to focus on her work at the typewriter. She devised various schemes for arranging the Russian letters over the keyboard, and made good progress on the report for Vanka.
The nuns were very pleased with her work as a secretary, and asked her to type numerous letters that they suddenly felt inclined to send to the four corners of Europe. She was asked also to conduct various inventories, starting with the books in the library and continuing with various texts and artworks around the place. In her fourth week, she was asked to type up stacks of Latin masses from ancient prayer books that had fallen into disrepair so that a printer in the city could prepare new ones.
When the Mother Superior asked her to help with the book-keeping too, she accepted cautiously, but said that she could hardly do everything in just three days a week. As a result, her contract was extended to five mornings and two afternoons, and the nun kindly increased her rate of pay. Emma noted with interest that her monthly income was now sufficient to feed and clothe herself and Anita, though she would struggle to pay the servants’ wages out of it.
She started to write a letter to Giovanni, telling him of her pay rise, half hoping that an open-hearted and friendly letter on the subject would clear the air between them. But in the
192 end she decided that this too was a rash idea. In all likelihood, he would not be supportive and he might consider the letter a provocation. Instead, she counted the money each week with a smile and bought new clothes and toys for her little girl. The rest she kept in the bottom of her jewellery box as an insurance against bad luck.
Anita, meanwhile, spent most days at home, since Bianca was more than happy to look after her. Now a year old, the child was able to stand and walk in a wobbly way. She also spoke her first few words of Italian, mostly “Mama” and “Papa”, but also “food” and “milk”.
She made a great many other strange noises that nobody could understand, and Emma joked that one day she would be a great linguist, since she clearly already knew Hungarian.
Occasionally, the child would squeal with sheer delight, and Emma felt for a moment that life was a truly wonderful thing.
* * *
One Sunday afternoon, she took the opportunity of her husband’s absence to speak with the old priest at the local church, Father Paulo, and seek absolution for her sins. Sitting in the confessional, she told him the entire story of how she met her husband, their secret meetings and how they were found out, of the pain she had caused her family and the lie she had allowed everyone to believe about having had intercourse with a man outside of marriage.
When she finished speaking, the priest said that he could see nothing much wrong with her behaviour, particularly since she was still a virgin when she had married. Love was a powerful thing, and it was quite normal for a young woman to be smitten with an older man.
Indeed, he said, she and Giovanni had shown exemplary self-control, which was to be applauded. However, she had clearly hurt her parents very much, and had indeed dishonoured her father, first by seeing Giovanni against his wishes, and then by allowing him to think that
193 she had lost of virginity, when she had not. In this, she had been wrong, said the priest, and it was good that she had come to ask God’s forgiveness.
He asked if she were truly sorry, and she said that she was. He then absolved her of her sins and gave her a number of Hail Mary’s to say. He advised her also to pray at bedtime to ask God directly for his forgiveness. If she were sincere, then it would certainly be granted.
Relieved by all that had been said, Emma ventured to tackle another, more pressing, issue. She told the priest of her argument with Giovanni and explained that she had been guilty of anger, jealousy and pride. But she said Giovanni had been wrong to accuse her of betrayal, particularly since he had often made decisions without consulting her and seemed quite happy to flirt with other women. He seemed to want her to be loyal and stay mostly at home while he went off without telling her – and there was no knowing whether he was being entirely faithful. It was not that she suspected him of adultery, of course … but he didn’t seem to discourage the advances of other women, which surely wasn’t right in a married man. Noticing that she had drifted from confession to accusing her husband of wrongdoing, she stopped there and waited for the priest’s response.
On this topic, Father Paulo was less forthcoming, and it seemed that there was a somewhat cold tone to the voice that drifted through the confessional grill.
“I do not normally wish to become too intimately involved in the details of any marriage,
Mrs Boella. I understand that you and your husband have had problems, but this is really for you to sort out between the two of you. There are often problems of this sort in a marriage, but God has been kind enough to endow us with the brains and patience to find solutions. I will simply remind you that marriage is for life and that it is a wife’s duty to honour and obey her husband, as described in the marriage vows. He has the duty of providing for you and protecting you, and if he sees fit to make certain decisions and not tell you about them immediately, you must respect the position in which he finds himself as a married man and
194 bread-winner. I would advise you to trust and support your husband as much as possible. If you find yourself in doubt, I suggest that you pray to God and to his Son, Jesus Christ, for guidance.”
With that, Father Paulo uttered a few more words in Latin, and the confession was over.
Outside, he shook her hand warmly and said that God would protect her so long as she looked to his Son for salvation. He said she was more than welcome to take communion in his church each week, and he expected to see her next Sunday at mass.
* * *
Shortly after his return from Sardinia, Giovanni informed Emma that he could not really maintain his inspiration as an artist by mooching around in Piedmont for the rest of his life.
He would have to travel periodically, refreshing his pallet with new experiences and filling his sketchbooks with ideas, then return home to work in his studio and reconnect with family life. In this way, he would be artistically free and able to keep the money coming in, while she would have the run of the house and be at liberty to pursue her career as a secretary, if that’s what she really wanted.
This blueprint for their future was presented as a matter of fact, rather than a topic for discussion, and Emma brooded for some time about the appropriate response. Part of her wanted to fall at her husband’s feet and beg forgiveness for whatever insult she had sent his way. Another part of her wanted to appeal to his romantic heart and ask if they could find a way back to their early days of innocent love. But it seemed she was capable of neither, partly due to pride and partly because he had hurt her now several times, and she was unable to forgive if he was unwilling to apologise unprompted.
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She thought of suggesting they give up on the marriage altogether, but she knew divorce would be impossible. He had not, so far as she knew, been unfaithful, and in any case the
Catholic Church was just as fervently opposed to divorce as it had ever been. Again and again, she thought of the words of the priest, and of how she had already dishonoured her parents and shamed her family by her recklessness. She pondered Father Paolo’s advice on marriage, of the importance of devotion and obedience and honouring one’s husband. In the end, she resolved to endure Giovanni’s behaviour, agree to his periodic absences and offer her support as best she could. But she found it more difficult to be truly happy with her lot.
* * *
And so, over the next few years, Giovanni took off on his travels whenever he deemed it necessary, sometimes with friends, but often alone, returning each time with sketches and canvasses of new valleys, mountains, villages and local beauties to sell in Torino. He went back to the south of Italy and over to Venice, up to the Austrian Tyrol and through the St
Bernard Pass to Switzerland. He made separate trips to Sicily and Corsica, and even followed the coast of France down as far as the Pyrenees. Each time, Emma stayed behind to fulfil her duties as a mother and secretary. Whenever Giovanni returned, he would play the role of brilliant wandering artist, celebrated each time with parties in Torino and scooping up new commissions for portraits.
Meanwhile, Emma did her best to honour and obey her husband, as she had been instructed, and the result was two more children. The first, Ronaldo, was born in 1909. He was a healthy baby with dark hair and dark eyes, just like his mother. In 1911, another boy was born, again with his mother’s colouring. He would be called Roberto. In early 1913,
Emma discovered that she was pregnant with her fourth child, and when she felt the first
196 unmistakable pangs of nausea, she began to cry. Carrying and giving birth to a child was exhausting work, and she wondered when it would ever stop.
The nuns were happy to accommodate Emma’s occasional absences for childbirth. They allowed her also to walk home during her lunch breaks to breastfeed the boys before returning to her desk in the afternoons. As they grew older, the boys increasingly joined the crèche at the convent, playing with the younger nuns, who became like big sisters to them.
Though she was always good-tempered and willing to help, even Bianca seemed to take the news of the fourth pregnancy with little enthusiasm. She had become indispensable to
Emma, looking after the young ones whenever she could, and it was not long before she moved into the house, making one of the bedrooms her own. She was not only a practical help about the place but also a source of moral and emotional support, particularly when
Giovanni was away. The two women often talked all through the evenings, although Emma was careful never to criticize her husband too harshly. She often longed to tell Bianca the true depths of her sadness, anger and disappointment, but she felt sure this would put her in a bad position with the Almighty.
Aside from Bianca and Pepé, Emma could lay claim to very few acquaintances, and fewer friends. Her experience with Vanka had made her nervous of talking too freely with men in general and Giovanni’s friends in particular, lest her husband become jealous. On their return from Sardinia, Giovanni and Vanka had spent the evening drinking hard and regaling Emma with stories of their adventures, but Vanka seemed wary of talking to Emma directly and looked away whenever their eyes met. She had handed him her report on the typewriter, for which he thanked her graciously. He insisted on paying her there and then, in front of Giovanni, as if to demonstrate that there was nothing remotely secretive about their dealings. It also meant, of course, that Vanka and Emma would not have further cause to contact each other, and so it proved to be.
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Emma was, of course, invited to Giovanni’s parties in Torino, where his friends and associates continued to praise his artistic output after every show. But she found herself shy of entering into conversation with the men for fear of repeating her early mistake. As for the women, there seemed always to be some impediment to the establishment of a lasting friendship. In some cases, they had husbands and families who were jealous of their time. In other cases, they seemed aloof and moved in too fast a set to consider Emma a worthy companion. Others seemed to like Emma, but she found them dull or shallow. And yet another group seemed too keen on Giovanni to want anything to do with his wife. She did find herself forming some kind of bond with the school teacher from Venice, but she returned to that city after only a year and was never seen again.
Of course, Collina Verde was so far from the city that anyone who thought to pop round for coffee would first have to take a long and dusty cab ride, followed by an equally off- putting journey home. Occasionally, Emma would sit alone in her parlour and wish it were not so quiet and empty.
* * *
During these years, Anita grew into a strong and confident young girl. Since the age of five, she had been taking classes with the nuns, who taught her reading, writing and counting.
Mother Superior had offered to start her education sooner, but Emma had wanted the girl to have more time playing with her wooden bricks and coloured crayons before the real work of learning began. The first reports of her progress were encouraging, and before long, the sweet little girl was able to recite the Italian alphabet in one go entirely without prompting and count to one hundred without using her fingers. Her reward was a chocolate bun all to herself,
198 much of which ended up on her fingers and dress. In subsequent years, she proved to be just as studious and clever as her mother.
Emma said to Bianca once or twice that Giovanni’s main role in the family was to get her pregnant, but she knew this to be unfair. He was, in fact, a fine father when he was around. He loved all of his children and played with them whenever he could. He had been present for the births of Naldo and Roberto, just as he had been for the arrival of Anita, and he even learned to bring his pre-natal anxieties under control. He showered Anita with little gifts, some shop-bought, but many more hand-made, including a dolls’ house and a family of little dolls to live in it. He built her a wooden cart to ride around in and a little house of her own among the apple trees, where she could play at giving tea parties to her stuffed toys. He was a doting father, and it was clear that Anita missed him when he was away.
It was just as Emma was becoming aware of her fourth pregnancy that Giovanni began to report a lack of enthusiasm for good art among his well-to-do friends in the city. Everyone with money in Torino seemed to have bought at least one of his works, he said, and they were hesitant to buy more. Added to which, the craze for so-called modernism was putting a dent in the profits of true artists. Even people he’d once held in high esteem were now wasting their cash on these modern works, which he found shocking. He was all for progress in technology and society, but some of the new developments in art were a disgrace, the creations of warped minds, thugs seeking to destroy the nation’s heritage.
Emma often saw her husband sitting on the balcony with his newspapers spread around him, smoking numerous cigars and shaking his head as he worked his way through the news and opinion pages. The prime minister was an idiot, he said, and the socialists were like headless chickens. Advances had been made in the conditions of workers, but the Catholic
Church seemed to want to impose its will on the nation like the priests did during their sermons. Italy’s foreign wars to reclaim its historic territories, while commendable in
199 themselves, had divided opinion and unsettled many of his friends. There was even talk of a wider war across Europe, which Italy might be forced to join, though on which side it was still not clear. What the country needed was a strong leader and a clear vision – but Italy seemed incapable of producing either.
Emma listened to all of this with patience and wondered where it was leading. She tried to encourage him to paint more, suggesting that if there was a slump in demand for his works it must be temporary and that things would pick up. The thing was not to get despondent, she said. He listened to her encouragements, but her words seemed to have little effect. He still produced paintings and sold them, but with a fraction of his former energy. Meanwhile, though she never mentioned it, Emma congratulated herself on having worked away quietly at her own career, humble though it was at present.
* * *
At the height of summer, Giovanni received a letter from London. Tearing it open, he read it while standing in the living room, his wife looking on. A smile spread over his face, and he announced that he had gained a great commission in London that would put an end to all their anxieties. One of his friends had been doing business with a wealthy English woman who was in the process of starting a new nightclub in London, where the rich and famous would dance the nights away. Giovanni had been asked to supervise the interior design of the entire place, including paintings, draperies, plaster ornamentations and key furnishings.
Assuming he wanted the commission, he should be ready to start work in the coming month.
Emma was simultaneously thrilled for her husband and broken-hearted. He would be lifted from his gloomy mood only by being parted from her again, and he would probably be away for the birth of their fourth child – the first time he had missed that important occasion.
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Still, mindful of her wifely duties, she congratulated him with a long kiss and suggested they toast the good news with a bottle of good wine.
It was six weeks into his trip to London that Giovanni wrote to Emma with details of his new adventure. The job would take longer than expected and he had decided to move out of his hotel and rent a property in Catford, in the south-east of the city, where he could be more at home and set up a proper studio. Work on the nightclub was progressing slowly, since the builders were still plastering walls and other such essentials when he arrived in London. Still, he said, there had been plenty of opportunity to make new connections, including several people who wanted their portraits painted and one or two who needed cherubs and vineyards on their bedroom ceilings. The letter was short on romantic sentiment, but offered sincere affection and enclosed a sizable amount of money to “pay the rent and keep everyone fed”.
Emma was on the point of writing back to ask whether Giovanni would be around for the birth of their next child, when her waters broke and she went into labour. The child, another boy, was born in late October 1913, and once again he had his mother’s dark colouring.
When she was well enough, Emma wrote a short note to Giovanni, explaining that he was a father again, and that she had decided to call the boy Mario – assuming there were no objections.
Giovanni’s reply came within days, in the form of a telegram, expressing his sadness at missing the birth and saying that he would be on the first boat back to Italy. She was to wait for him before making arrangements for the Christening. This she was happy to do, and when
Giovanni arrived, it was as if they were newlyweds once more, congratulating each other on their new child with sweet words and kisses. A week after the Christening, however, he was back on a boat to England, where his talents were required to create ornate plasterwork on the ceilings of the nightclub.
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Nursing her new baby, Emma often wondered what else her husband was getting up to in
London, aside from his artistic endeavours. She knew the kinds of people he was naturally drawn to, with their talk of art and literature and the latest developments in this and that. She knew that all of their conversations would be washed down with oceans of the finest booze.
And she knew that there would be no end of beautiful young ladies keen to share a duet or two with the man who once sang at La Scala.
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CHAPTER 22
LONDON
(1913-1914)
Giovanni wrote a long letter from London excusing himself from Christmas with his family. He was working flat out to get the club finished for the opening on New Year’s Eve, and there was no way he could be spared. Emma swallowed her hurt and soldiered on, though
Christmas was a muted affair by comparison with former years. The boys were not much disconcerted, but Anita missed her papa greatly when it came time to open presents.
In February of 1914, Giovanni wrote again to say that the club had opened on time and was a roaring success. He had been showered with praise from all sides for the lavish décor and had been paid handsomely in the end. He had decided, however, to reinvest much of the money in photographic equipment, since photography seemed to be the way forward, both artistically and in financial terms. People in London seemed just as keen to have their portrait rendered by photographic means as painted, and he could produce a single portrait in a day.
His skills in composition and lighting still came into play, and he prided himself on being quite adept at the art form already. He had set up a dark room in his new apartment and worked at producing prints night and day. His list of pending commissions was quite respectable, he said.
His letter listed a range of objects that he had purchased, few of which Emma fully understood, and he explained his reasons for buying one model over the other, based on technical performance and solidity of construction. Largely as a consequence of this investment, he said, he was unable to send much money back to Italy just yet, and he hoped
203 that Emma would be able to muddle through the next few months with her earnings as a typist. There was no mention in Giovanni’s letter of any plans to return home, and Emma began to suspect that he had hopes of settling in London for good.
One Sunday, not long before Easter, he turned up at Collina Verde without warning, totally unannounced. Emma was glad to see bags and chests being unloaded from the cart, and she wondered if this meant he was moving back permanently. However, after a warm though distracted greeting, Giovanni opened the chests to reveal a range of photographic equipment, including boxes of plates, jars of chemicals, powders, papers, lenses, filters and two large, concertina-like camera bodies. There was a tripod too, wrapped in sacking, which
Giovanni erected in the centre of the living room, setting up the camera as his children watched with wide-eyes.
Giovanni was like a school boy, screwing and unscrewing various things and making fine adjustments here and there. Emma had seen such equipment from a distance but never really up close, and she had certainly never attempted to use any of it. Giovanni made her look through the eyepiece, a small black sheet draped over her head to keep out the light. She peered through the hole but could make out nothing worth seeing. The children had been set in a row on the sofa, Mario in Anita’s arms, where their father intended to capture them in a photograph for the first time. But Emma could only see a row of blurs.
“It’s a bit more complicated than your typing machine, isn’t it?” said Giovanni, laughing.
“Well, I suppose it is,” she admitted, not quite sure that photography could be worth all the messing around.
As she moved away, she accidentally knocked the tripod and Giovanni rushed to stop it falling over. He just managed to catch hold of the camera and instantly lost his jolly mood.
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“For God’s sake be careful with it!” he shouted. “This has cost me nearly all my money.
It’s worth more than the contents of this house put together and it’s our future too. Please be more careful.”
Emma had plenty of angry words just waiting to be launched back at her husband, but she had learned to pause on such occasions before speaking. Then, before she knew what was happening, she was being hustled over to the sofa and Mario was being placed in her arms.
The other children were arranged around her and a fine, tasselled shawl draped on the back of the sofa. Sticking his head under the black sheet behind the camera, Giovanni gave his orders for them to hold still … and the first Boella family photograph came into being, whether
Emma liked it or not.
* * *
Giovanni spent much of the following month in Torino, convincing his friends and acquaintances of the necessity of having their likenesses – and those of their loved ones and pets – reproduced by way of photography. Many had already had photographs snapped from every angle, but others were new to the whole thing, and they paid Giovanni handsomely for the pleasure. Anyone could snap pictures, he explained, but few could produce genuine photographic art.
When he began to make noises about returning to London, Emma said that she thought she and the children might enjoy a change. Would there be room in the apartment for them, she wondered?
“Well, not really, I’m afraid,” said Giovanni, apparently taken aback by the suggestion.
“You see, the place in Catford is really quite small. It’s big enough for me and my equipment, but nothing more. The second bedroom is the dark room, and the living room is for painting
205 and storage. I’m afraid you’d all just be in the way, and I really have so much to do. I’m so sorry, my dear, but I’m not sure how it would work.”
He seemed genuinely apologetic, but Emma was not put off with apologies. She had been thinking for some time that they really ought to try living together in London. If photography was her husband’s future and if he was going to make good money at it, then there seemed no reason why they shouldn’t share a life together in England. She had become somewhat bored with her work at the convent by now, and there was only so much to be seen or experienced in the local area. Added to which, she felt that if she was closer to Giovanni, she could be more certain that he wasn’t spending too much of his income on wine, women and song.
“Well, what if you were to rent a larger place? Perhaps you could find a whole house, and we could all move in together? I could give in my notice at the convent, and we could close up this place for a while, and I could come over and try it out. I mean, we’re only renting anyway, so there’s no harm in giving it a try. If it doesn’t work, I can always come back.”
It was a fine day, though a little chilly, and they were sitting on the balcony with glasses of wine, the newspapers spread out around them. He had been going through the European news when she joined him.
“I’m not sure, my dear,” he continued, turning the page and examining a story on the
Austrian royal family. “There’s no certainty in anything. I have work coming in for now, but
I can’t be sure that things will remain this good for the rest of the year. What would happen if you and the children came out to London and got settled in and then the work dried up?
You’d have to come scurrying back here alone, and the nuns might have rented the house to someone else. I don’t think I could do that to you.”
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“Oh, but I’m willing to take that chance, Giovanni. I mean, you get to do all the travelling and have all the fun and take the risks, and I’m left here rotting away, doing nothing. It might do me good to take a chance now and then,” and she turned to watch the great white clouds scudding across the blue sky.
Giovanni remained silent and continued reading about Austrian royals before moving on to events in Russia, where further unrest was predicted. After a while, he leaned back and lit a cigar.
“There may be a war, my dear. It’s not certain, but it’s possible, and there’s no knowing what that might mean for you if you got stuck in England when it started.”
“A war? But there are always wars. They’re in the newspapers all the time,” she said, suspecting this to be another lame excuse.
“No, I mean a big war, involving everyone in Europe, including Italy. At the moment, it’s just bravado and the rattling of sabres, but if something were to happen, I’d be happier to know that you were safe here, in Piedmont, rather than stuck with me in some foreign city.”
It was Emma’s turn to be silent, and her eyes turned to the upside-down words of the newspaper. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Europe was on the verge of chaos, and perhaps the photography market might collapse just as the art market seemed to have done. Then again, maybe not. Maybe nothing would happen at all, aside from her sitting in a big house on the edge of a small Italian village, growing older by the day and wondering what had happened to that grand life of adventure she had been promised.
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, Giovanni, I’d rather take my chances and live with you in London. It’s not right for us to live apart, and it’s not right that the children don’t get to see you. When we got married, the idea was for me to come and live with you and spend my life with you, not for us to live apart. So, if you don’t mind arranging a bigger place to live in, somewhere fit for the children, I will start making arrangements to join you.”
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Giovanni didn’t reply immediately, but kept reading the newspaper. Eventually, leaning back in his chair and blowing smoke out over the Italian greenery, he said, “As you wish, my dear.”
* * *
Emma saw the shores of England for the first time on the evening of a very grey day, the young Mario in her arms, and the three other children gripping the rails of the ship as it docked. She had struggled with the children on the long crossing and wished every minute that she had managed to persuade Bianca to come with her. However, she had declined the invitation, insisting that she would be uncomfortable so far from her family, in a strange land where nobody spoke Italian. As Emma looked at the mass of people on the jetty, shouting and chattering in English, she thought that Bianca had probably been right.
They travelled from Portsmouth by train, with Giovanni taking charge of the mountain of bags and cases from the first, directing the porters with firm commands. She was shocked when she saw where they were to live. Giovanni had written to explain that he’d found a large residence in Hither Green, in a street named Spring Bank Road, and the names had conjured pleasant, suburban images in Emma’s mind. As they pulled up in the cab, however, she was could see no green, nor a spring, nor any verdant banks.
By comparison with their country home in Italy, the house in London seemed quite awful. What a disappointment! No countryside, no trees, no green fields. Just rows and rows of tall houses all joined together, each one looking exactly like the others. They had arrived on a chilly day, despite claims that spring was in full swing, and smoke poured from most of the chimneys.
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Giovanni had been in the house for two weeks already, but he seemed to have made little effort to make it homely. His work materials were nicely arranged, and there were signs of meals having been cooked in the kitchen, but not much more. The children’s beds were bare, some of the windows had no curtains and the carpet on the stairs was threadbare. The rooms were cold, and before Emma put the children to bed in the master bedroom, she lit a fire to take the chill off the air. Coal was a novelty to her, and the smell seemed dirty, the dust causing her to sneeze.
The next day, Emma was shocked to find that a dense fog had descended on the city. Her husband informed her that the air was often like this, but due more to smoke than fog.
London was an industrial city and a damp one, and people kept a coal fire burning much of the time. He advised her against opening the window, lest the polluted air should get into the house and damage the children’s health. She had never witnessed such a thing in her life before, and it was only the first of many adjustments she had to make in the coming days and weeks.
Giovanni spent much of his time tinkering with his photographic equipment or else up in the city, making deals or photographing clients. Occasionally, clients came to the house and were photographed in front of a range of backgrounds that he had prepared. He was fastidious in his arrangements and played with all sorts of methods to direct and shade the light. Emma knew not to disturb him during his work and she rarely said more than hello or goodbye to the visitors.
He had promised to find her work through his new London connections, but after two weeks, he had only managed to secure one contract to translate some clothing catalogues into
French and Italian. This kept Emma busy for a few days, and she increased her English vocabulary by constant reference to her dictionaries, but the money was hardly promising. At
London prices, her pay was gone in a flash.
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Giovanni said that all of the translation and typing jobs he had seen in London required fluent English, and she might have to resign herself to a long wait before something suitable turned up. In any case, he said, on their current income, they could not afford a servant to care for the children, and so Emma would be stuck at home until that particular hurdle had been overcome.
She spent the ensuing weeks making the house liveable, nursing Mario and proceeding with Anita’s education, which she was determined to make a priority. Life in the house was not so bad, and she soon managed to get the place clean and comfortable. But as soon as she stepped outside, she found herself at odds with her environment. She could barely understand the locals when they spoke, so thick was their accent, and the area seemed indescribably ugly after the plains and mountains of Italy. She looked in the shops for the kinds of food that she liked, but found nothing much to her taste.
Giovanni seemed to spend many evenings out late. He said he was nurturing connections and doing deals, but Emma wondered why it was necessary to consume quite so much alcohol in the process of agreeing to photograph somebody’s dog. She wondered sometimes if he found her company dull, and she had to admit that she was hardly the life and soul of the party these days. Perhaps she shouldn’t blame him for wanting to be away from home in the evenings.
On two occasions, he didn’t come home until the next day. The first time, he said that he’d missed the late train and the smog had been so bad that the cabbies had refused to take him across the river. He’d been forced, he said, to sleep at a friend’s place. On the second occasion, he had been photographing a sculptor friend called Sven, along with a few of his works. Time had passed quickly, and they had celebrated the day’s work with a few glasses of wine. Before long, the dawn chorus could be heard, and Giovanni was forced to bed down in the spare room.
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Emma listened to these stories calmly and gave her husband the benefit of the doubt. She was wary of becoming a burden on him or restricting his social life. After all, if she had the chance to let her hair down and spend the night sleeping at a friend’s place, she might jump at it.
However, she did insist that she be invited to the next actual party that he thought suitable. She could leave the children in the care of Mrs Savage, the Irish woman next door, who seemed to be both sensible and sympathetic. Giovanni had agreed to this request, although she would have to wait another three weeks before the invitation arrived.
* * *
The much-anticipated event was the birthday party of a music publisher who seemed to know a great many people and made friends very quickly. He was a lively and talkative
Englishman in his mid-fifties who smoked cigarettes continually from a long, ivory holder and wore a fur coat indoors. He insisted on being called “Paffy” for some reason that
Giovanni explained but which Emma found incomprehensible. The guests were what
Giovanni termed “Bohemian” and they seemed to rejoice in nothing but witty banter and innuendo and drinking too much champagne.
Emma waited for an hour for some kind of speech or an invitation to sit down to eat dinner, but nothing materialized. Before long, she noticed people playing drinking games and conducting wheel-barrow races up and down the living room carpet. Everyone talked English incredibly quickly and the music was provided by a wind-up gramophone machine. People were dancing in ways that she had not seen before and at the end of each tune they seemed to cheer in self-congratulation. Finally, the record was removed from the gramophone, and a
211 hush descended on the place, at which point, Emma realised her husband was nowhere to be seen.
She found him standing by a grand piano, surrounded by entranced guests, and sitting as the keys she saw a blond woman in a low-cut, golden dress. Emma was standing behind her and could only see her back, but it was clear that she was very adept at the piano. Giovanni was singing in English, something she had never heard before, although she could pick out the few words clearly. It was a love song, all about roses and white skin and long journey’s over the sea. In between verses, the woman’s fingers would run up and down the keys, apparently improvising on the basic tune as they went.
“Isn’t she wonderful?” said a voice in Emma’s ear.
“Yes, she’s very good,” Emma replied. “But who is she?”
“That’s Martia O’Brien, the concert pianist from America.”
“Oh yes, of course,” said Emma, not wishing to seem out of touch.
“They perform together so well, don’t you think?”
“Yes, very well.”
When the song was done, Martia turned to the room to receive her applause and her eyes met briefly with Emma’s. For a moment, it seemed as if the smile faded from Martia’s lips, and then she returned to the piano and launched into another tune, her hands moving furiously up and down the keys as the party looked on.
In the coming days, Emma thought often about Martia the concert pianist and her husband’s smooth, romantic tones. She wondered how long they had known each other and whether they had sung often before at that same piano. She wondered also how they had come to choose that particular tune. However, she kept her thoughts to herself and worked hard to control the jealous and distrustful feelings that lurked in her heart. At night, while her
212 husband prepared for bed, she would say a short prayer, asking God for patience and guidance.
With the first flames of jealousy and suspicion alight, Emma resolved to leave Giovanni to his social life. It would be best, she decided, to stay at home and focus on the children. If he was up to something with another woman, then there was nothing she could do about it anyway. He would in all likelihood lose interest at some point and drop her. The pull of the children and the constant affections of a loving wife would win in the end. All she had to do was sit it out and enjoy life at home in Hither Green as best she could.
The plan might have worked if she had not hated Hither Green quite so much. The dirty air and the course, unintelligible people wore her down, as did the dreary architecture and dull food. It seemed at times as if the locals positively resented her presence, a fact that her husband put down to the growing tensions in Europe and the insular character of the English people. And with no work coming in, she found herself taking the role of mother and drudge, while her husband gallivanted about the place like a lord.
Just as she was on the point of “celebrating” three months in London, an event occurred that tipped her over the edge. Giovanni had gone into the city centre to attend a music recital, telling Emma not to wait up, since the event was likely to finish quite late. She had tried to go to sleep but had been unable to, images of Martia O’Brien flashing into her mind whenever she closed her eyes. She sat in bed, reading a book until the early hours and went to the window whenever she thought she heard a cab pull up outside. In the end Giovanni did not arrive home until the following afternoon, by which time Emma was almost frantic with worry and jealousy. When he walked in the door, he looked somewhat dishevelled and he barely bothered to say hello, perhaps due to tiredness.
Not knowing what else to do, Emma threw her arms round him and burst into tears, sobbing into his chest, which smelled of perfume and brandy and cigar smoke. She clung to
213 him like a child and sobbed as she had not done for years. It all seemed so awful to her at that moment: the house and the city and the lack of work and the emotional distance between them and her jealousy over Martia and then not knowing where he would be from one night to the next. She wasn’t sure she could stand it much longer.
Giovanni was kind enough to hold her in his arms, rocking her from side to side and saying softly, “There, there, my dear. There, there.”
But they didn’t discuss the causes of her grief, nor tackle her underlying fears of infidelity or the causes of their apparent estrangement. Instead, they agreed that she was not enjoying London as much as she had hoped, and that it was perhaps best if she went back to
Italy with the children. And so, in July 1914, with war just weeks away, Emma climbed aboard a ship at Portsmouth and put miserable, treacherous England firmly behind her.
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CHAPTER 23
THE SHADOW OF WAR
(1914)
Emma was delighted to see the house on the hill again and remained so in spite of all the cleaning and rearranging necessary to make it comfortable. Pepé had guarded the house well enough from a distance, but had not set foot inside, preferring to remain in his own little stone cottage among the trees. Not knowing when or whether she would return, Emma had left the dogs, Jack and Diana, in his care. Now in their old age, they waddled slowly to greet
Emma, their tails wagging at full speed. When Anita clung lovingly to Jack’s neck, he endured the burden graciously.
Emma tracked down Bianca, who had moved back in with her aging grandmother on the far side of the village. Bianca was happy to see her old friend and instantly agreed to come back to Collina Verde. In Emma’s absence, she said, the only employment available to her was in a local winery, and she found the work dull and her boss horrible. Running the Boella family home again would be a pleasure.
In her second week after returning, Emma went to the convent, hoping that she had not yet been replaced. However, when Mother Superior greeted her, it was with a look of sympathy and concern that Emma found slightly alarming.
“My dear, I do hope your husband is safe. I have been so worried for him and for you and your children,” said the nun.
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“Yes, my husband’s fine, we are all fine. Why ever would you ask such a thing? What has happened?” replied Emma, looking around at the younger nuns, as if their expressions might lend a clue.
“My dear,” said Mother Superior, taking Emma’s hands in her own, “have you not heard the news? Britain has declared war on Germany. I was so concerned that you might become caught up in it all. It’s really quite dreadful. And your husband, is he with you?”
“No, I’m afraid not. He’s still in London, but my children are here,” said Emma.
She couldn’t help wondering if she had still failed to grasp the significance of this new development. At first glance, it seemed that an Italian living in London would be perfectly safe in the event of fighting between England and Germany. After all, the fighting would hardly be taking place on the streets of Hither Green. Or would it? Was it possible that her beloved – though often infuriating and potentially unfaithful – Giovanni might be in danger?
“Well, my dear Emma,” continued the nun, “I’m happy to hear that you are both safe, and I’m sure your husband will be fine in London. I cannot imagine that the fighting will last very long. It seems so ridiculous that such a situation should have come to pass, and I’m sure those in power will see sense very soon.”
Before Emma could offer any analysis of her own, Mother Superior led her back to her old desk and began to list a number of administrative tasks that had been sadly neglected. If
Emma could possibly spare the time, the nuns would be happy to have her back. She would be paid at the same rate as before, of course.
“And this machine of yours is still functioning just perfectly,” said the nun, patting the typewriter, “although none of us can operate it with the speed and accuracy that you can. You have indeed been much missed!”
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* * *
And so it was that Emma found herself welcomed back into her old life once more, almost as if she had never been to London. Each day, with the help of Bianca, she would bathe and dress the children and feed them all, and then head off to the convent with Anita and Mario. The little girl would continue her education, while Mario would entertain the young nuns with his babbling noises and sweet smiles. Roberto and Naldo, meanwhile, stayed at home with Bianca and Pepé, where they variously assisted and hindered them in their daily tasks.
Emma’s only link with the outside world was a newspaper delivered by the postman, and she scoured it for reports from England. The nuns discussed the war often and displayed a knowledge of political events that took Emma somewhat by surprise. They had always seemed aloof from worldly matters, closed up within the walls of the convent. But now, with war threatening the entire continent, they seemed to be pouring over the newspapers at every opportunity and sharing their views freely.
When they quizzed Emma on her own views, however, she had to admit that she’d not paid much attention to events, and would have to read some more before forming an opinion.
Years of marriage and motherhood had been educational in many respects, she reflected, but she had neglected to pay attention to the wider world. And now it was making itself known to her in the most forceful of ways.
Back home, she asked Bianca and Pepé for their own opinions, and they both said that
Italy was best off remaining aloof from the war. Emma could hardly have agreed more, although she determined to study the various arguments on both sides. Each evening, once the children were in bed, she took out the newspapers and worked through them on the dining room table, underlining important passages and making a note of key names.
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She read the arguments for giving the Germans and Austrians a bloody nose and taking back those territories that had once been the property of Italy. Joining forces with Britain,
France and Russia, would perhaps enable Italy to regain some of its former glory, a course of action Giovanni would certainly support. That said, Germany and Austria were closer to
Torino than the London or Moscow, and those two powerful nations might easily swarm over the Alps and crush Italy in a matter of months. Emma thought of the dangers an invasion might pose for herself and Anita, and she concluded that the pacifists were right to suggest remaining neutral.
She wrote to Giovanni to express her concern for his safety, and she even asked tentatively whether he thought he might feel safer in Italy. Two weeks later, she received a reply from her husband reassuring her that he was quite safe in London. He went on to express a strong desire for Italy to enter the war on the side of Britain, to regain those Italian- speaking territories that were currently in the hands of the Austrians – the Italia Irredenta. It was high time, said Giovanni, that Italy stand up and be counted, assert its rights and once more assume its position as a great power. People seemed to forget, he said, that Italy was once the centre of a powerful Empire – the greatest empire in human history – and that leadership was in the Italian blood.
The letter unnerved Emma somewhat. Perhaps not so much because of the passion with which her husband spoke about Italy – for he had always been fiercely patriotic – but more because of the relative lack of tender, husbandly emotions expressed. He had not, for example, expressed concern for her safety, nor for that of his children. Nor had he sought to reassure her that the family would be safe from attack.
He did, however, make one potentially useful suggestion, which was that she might consider opening the entrance to the tunnel that had been bricked up in the kitchen. The tunnel led directly into the hillside behind the house, he said, and eventually to a large system
218 of caves. Such a place, said Giovanni, might prove useful in time of danger, if only as a means of escape. He had once explored them himself, examining their prehistoric drawings as part of a student project, and under the circumstances, she and the children might as well make their own exploration. So long as they went carefully, there was no serious danger.
* * *
The following Sunday, Emma took Anita and Naldo into the kitchen and told them they were to have an adventure. Looking into their serious little faces, she made them swear, hand- on-heart, that they would tell nobody of what was about to happen.
Slowly and carefully, she moved the kitchen dresser to one side, and then began to chip away at the plasterwork behind it. The two children were tasked with picking up the chips of plaster and placing them in an old sack. After half an hour, Emma was down to the bricks that blocked the tunnel entrance, and these she removed one by one with a hammer and chisel. As soon as the first brick was out, she felt a cool breeze blowing onto her face, as if the tunnel was somehow piping the mountain air into her home.
They peered into the dark interior and listened for sounds of life or movement, but there was nothing to be heard. Emma had intended to explore with just a candle, but with such a fresh breeze blowing, she decided to light a paraffin lamp and take a candle and matches just in case that failed.
Crouching down, she squeezed through the hole in the bricks, first one leg, then her head and body, then the other leg. The lamp threw its flickering light on the rough rocks around her, casting grotesque shadows here and there. Once she was sure that the floor was safe, she held out her hand and helped Anita through, followed by little Naldo. At first, the children
219 were afraid and complained about the darkness, but Emma said there was nothing to be afraid of and that she suspected there might be chocolate and treasure just around the corner.
Slowly they moved forward into the tunnel, holding hands tightly as they went, Emma leading the way. The first few meters of the tunnel floor were fairly even, as though worn smooth by many feet, but soon Emma felt a roughness to the path. Before her, she saw what looked like a column and she realised they had reached a fork in the path. She hesitated, unsure whether to head to the right or the left, aware of the ease with which one might get lost. The path to the right seemed smooth, while the left-hand fork was rougher and strewn with small rocks. She stopped for a moment and then told Anita to go back into the house and bring the ball of knitting wool she had been winding up from an old jumper.
While she waited for the girl to return, Emma held up the lamp and inspected the walls.
In some places, they were smooth, as if they had been worn away by centuries of water passing though the passage. In other places, however, there were signs of the rock having been chipped away, as if to widen the passage for ease of movement. The ceiling also bore signs of having been chiselled, perhaps to even out bumps that might knock someone’s head.
When Anita returned, they tied one end of the wool to a rocky outcrop and then let it unwind as they headed along the right-hand fork. Soon, they found themselves climbing up rough-hewn steps, and the sensation of cool air blowing in their faces grew stronger. After the ninth step, an irregular stone arch opened into a huge cave, apparently larger than the house itself. The walls were covered with prehistoric shapes: the curve of an animal’s back, horned heads and little creatures on two legs. Emma had seen something like this in a book
Giovanni had brought back from Egypt, but she had never thought she’d find such things under her back garden.
Moving through the cavern, they soon heard the sound of trickling water. On the far wall, they saw clear water falling gently down a rock face into a pool, and at the top of the wall, a
220 small crack lead directly upwards into the hillside. She held the lamp behind her back for a moment and looked up at the crack. Though she could not be certain, she thought she saw a glimmer of sunlight above. There was the unmistakable sensation of cool air flowing down onto her face.
“It looks like this place might have been somebody’s home many years ago, maybe thousands of years ago,” whispered Emma. “Look at all the paintings on the walls. There’s water to drink too, so they didn’t have to go down to the river. It must have been very cosy.
What do you think?”
“I don’t like it,” said Anita with great sincerity.
“Why ever not? Don’t you think it’s interesting?”
“I don’t like the dark,” said the little girl.
“I want to go back,” said Naldo, clinging to his mother’s legs.
“What if there’s some chocolate hidden in here somewhere? Shall we have a look?” said
Emma, hoping that she’d be allowed to explore just a little further.
“I don’t want any chocolate,” replied Naldo firmly. “I want to go back.”
Emma decided that her children were probably right. They had been away for some time, and Bianca could only keep the younger boys busy for so long. They turned around and began to wind up the ball of wool, working their way back home. It was only as they wriggled through the hole into the house that Emma remembered the tales of ghosts that
Giovanni had once told her, and she found herself involuntarily speeding up her final movements.
Back in the kitchen, she found a short length of rope and attached it to the back of the dresser by means of two large screw hooks from her husband’s studio. Now, in theory, the family could enter the tunnel and then close the entrance after them by pulling the dresser
221 into place. Anybody searching the house would find it empty, and she and the children would be safe for a while.
As she yanked on the rope to test its strength, she was filled with a strange mix of emotions. On the one hand, she felt foolish, as if she were a child living out a private fantasy.
On the other hand, she suspected that these preparations might one day serve a useful purpose, and she was comforted at having made them.
As she swept up the last of the brick dust and plaster from the kitchen floor, she reminded her children of their vow of secrecy. “Now remember,” she said, “not a word of this to anyone. This is our big secret.”
“Not even Papa?” said Anita, a frown on her face.
“Well, yes, my dear,” reassured Emma. “We can tell Papa all about it when he comes home. Whenever that might be.”
* * *
In the second week in December, Emma received another letter from Giovanni, this time saying that he would , God willing, be with the family for Christmas, although only for a period of two weeks. For the first time, Emma thought of her husband as an intruder into her space, turning up to excite the children and make demands on his wife before vanishing again. She had begun to enjoy her daily routine and even enjoyed making the money stretch.
Giovanni had not sent her anything since her return to Italy, and she had been forced dip into the stash of notes hidden in her jewellery box. She had increased her hours at the convent, and now did five full days there. The extra money came in very handy, although she still had to economise somewhat on luxuries such as wine, and she seemed to spend most evenings darning socks and patching holes in the children’s clothes.
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The children were indeed overjoyed to see their Papa when he finally arrived, and the presents he gave them kept them amused for days. There was a red toboggan, which was put to good use in the fresh snow of the sloping front garden. There was a miniature theatre with hand puppets, their heads carved from balsa wood and painted with various dramatic expressions. There were winter clothes too, and books containing fairy tales and no end of sweet treats. Emma received a silk shawl and warm, winter stockings.
However, she was disappointed when he handed over a very light envelope containing very little money. In the five months since their parting, he had managed to save less money for his wife and children than he used to give her in a month. When she thought of complaining, she reminded herself that she had once argued for the right to work at her own career and earn her own money. Pointing out his small contribution to the family funds would no doubt spark another row on the same, tired topic, and so she said nothing.
One evening, when the Christmas festivities were over and everyone else was tucked up in bed, Emma raised the subject of the war. Seated at the dining room table, a fresh glass of wine in her hand, she listened while her husband explained with great passion the necessity of
Italy’s becoming involved. As she listened, she felt for a moment like a school girl sitting obediently through a history lesson, and she was glad to have done some reading in advance.
Giovanni repeated the arguments relating to Italy’s claims on various territories, the return of which would open a new chapter in the nation’s glorious history. Britain and France might support such claims, whereas Austria and Germany would not. Indeed, Italy might have to fight Austria for places such as Trieste, but the battle would be worth it, assuming
Italy came out victorious. There was the option of remaining neutral, of course, said
Giovanni, but given Italy’s central location and pivotal importance, such a situation could hardly last long. No, there was no sensible option but to side with Britain and France, so long as they agreed to her territorial demands ahead of time.
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Emma was pleased with herself for keeping up with her husband’s little lesson, recognizing the names of the important persons and territories with which he sprinkled his discourse. However, she was still convinced that war was a bad idea. Why should thousands of Italians die just for the sake of gaining territories elsewhere, walking to their deaths for the
“glory” of the nation? Added to which, there was no guarantee that Italy would win. What if enemy troops were to make it as far as Torino? How would Pepé, armed only with a shotgun, protect her from an invading army?
“So what does this mean for us then?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” said Giovanni.
“I mean, Giovanni, if Italy goes to war, how will it affect us and the children? Will we be safe? Will you come and live with us here? Should we all move back to London? Will anywhere be safe?”
He seemed uncomfortable with this line of questioning and decided to stand up and stretch his legs. He stoked the fire and re-lit his cigar on a stray ember.
“Well, I don’t see that it will affect us very much. The fighting will be far from here, I imagine, high in the Tyrol or along the Adriatic. I don’t imagine Austria or Germany will get around to invading England either. In which case, I don’t see any need for us to change our arrangements. I’m too old to fight, of course, although I’m sure I could still hit a moving target if needs be. I was in the militia, of course, in my youth.”
“Yes, I know you were,” said Emma.
“I used to lead a platoon of men, you know, back in my university days. We’d ride up into the mountains at the weekend, leave the horses with a farmer, and then go ahead on foot.
We’d camp out and cook under the open sky and take up positions among the rocks. I could hit a bottle at three hundred yards in those days. I suppose if I were called upon to do so again, I could still lead men into battle. Not that I imagine they’d need an old man like me.
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We have a capable and modern army now, full of fit young men. I think we’ll put on a fine show once the fighting starts.”
He held up the fire poker and looked down its length as if checking the barrel of a gun.
“I’m sure you’re still a good shot, Giovanni,” Emma said, wondering if her husband were trying to avoid the key question. “So you don’t think we need to prepare at all?”
“Well, there’s nothing much to do, my dear. We won’t be involved. It’ll all be down to the army.”
“But what if we lose? What if the Austrians break through and I have to protect the children? With you in London, I’d be all alone. Pepé might die of a heart attack at the first sign of trouble. And the dogs are useless.”
Giovanni sat down again, apparently resigned to having to address his wife’s concerns.
“Well, I think, my dear, that if you just sit tight, you will be fine. The Austrian army would probably head direct to the city, so I don’t imagine they’d bother you much here.”
“What about the cave behind the kitchen?” she said at last, wondering if Giovanni had forgotten all about it.
“Ah yes, of course!” he said, standing up suddenly and nearly knocking his drink flying.
“How silly of me to forget! That, my dear, will be your insurance policy in case of invasion.
You must open it up and make some explorations. With the addition of some food and blankets and oil lamps, I believe it might be very comfortable for a short period. I will help you open it.”
“Well, I’m ahead of you on that, I’m afraid,” she said, a smile stealing across her face.
She reached out for his hand and led him into the kitchen. Taking care not to make any noise that might wake the household, they moved the dresser to one side, lit a lamp and began to open the hole in the wall. Giovanni was too large to fit through the existing hole and so they had to remove a few extra bricks. But once inside, he was able to move about with ease.
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“This is the way,” said Emma, leading her husband down the right-hand fork into the huge cave.
“Oh yes, I remember now,” said Giovanni, holding the lamp up to the images on the walls. “It’s such a long time since I’ve been in here. I did a survey one year, while I was still at university. The old couple who lived here used it for a cellar, and they were very welcoming to students. I was fascinated with ancient art in those days, and the wall paintings here are perfectly preserved, despite being thousands of years old. You can learn a lot about their lifestyle and priorities from these pictures, you know.”
Emma led her husband carefully towards the far wall, and they found the tiny waterfall.
Above ground, all the streams and rivers were frozen over, but down here, the water still flowed.
“Feel the cold breeze blowing down,” said Emma, holding her husband’s hand up to the crack in the rock.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” he whispered one more time, before enfolding her in his arms. She had missed being held like this, and she closed her eyes to savour the moment.
“This is your answer, my dear,” he said softly. “This place will be your safe haven if the worst comes to the worst.”
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CHAPTER 24
FOR THE GREATER GLORY
(1915)
Italy declared war on Austria in May 1915, by which time Giovanni had long returned to
London, leaving his wife pregnant once again. She received a letter from him, expressing his excitement at Italy’s entry into the war. He wrote three pages on the necessity of regaining the nation’s former glory, and only towards the end did he enquire briefly about the approaching baby. There was no money in the envelope. She supposed that he’d be spending his hard-earned cash on celebratory parties in London while she made dual preparations for giving birth and being invaded.
She didn’t write back immediately, but called Pepé and Bianca into the kitchen and informed them that she had opened the passage behind the dresser and explored the tunnels under the hill. There were no ghosts, she said, and so far she had not felt any kind of curse fall on the house. She saw Bianca’s eyes widen as she said this, but she ignored her and continued.
Since war was upon them, Emma said, they should now consider the hole in the kitchen wall as their escape route in case of an invasion. They could hide in the main cave for weeks, she said, assuming it was stocked up properly with food and blankets and other necessities.
There should be room for around four adults plus the children, which meant that Pepé, Bianca and her grandmother could use it if necessary, but nobody else from the village should know about it. There just wouldn’t be room for everyone. She wondered how on earth she would
227 manage to raise a new-born baby in a dark cave, but these thoughts were too horrible to give voice to.
She prepared a long list of materials that they were to find or buy. They needed blankets and pillows, paraffin lamps, matches, candles, bowls, jugs and buckets for washing, chamber pots, coffee and sugar and lots and lots of tinned food. They would need to keep more perishable foods in the kitchen ready to move into the cave at short notice, should the time come.
Pepé said he had a small cooking stove that could be cleaned out and got working. He could move some charcoal and wood into the place too. He’d get it all lit and see what the ventilation was like. Once that was done, he would see to getting some wooden planks laid down so that they would not have to sleep on the cold stone floor. Under strict instructions not to tell anyone, Bianca started to buy extra food and other materials from the grocery shop in the village.
* * *
Italy declared war on Germany in August, and the baby was born weeks later, on
September 9th. Emma was relieved to have the baby born at last. In her nightmares for the past few weeks, she’d been running through a forest, chased by German soldiers. Heavily pregnant, she had been too slow, and they caught her every time. As she was dragged to the forest floor, she woke up, alone in her bedroom, eyes wide and ears straining for sounds of soldiers outside.
She was pleased also that the baby was a girl. Anita had been hoping for a little sister, and it was good to redress the balance after three sons. Emma wrote to Giovanni with the good news, asking him what the child should be called and when he would be able to come
228 over for the Christening. Three weeks later, Giovanni’s letter turned up, having apparently been opened and read by some anonymous authority.
In his note, he congratulated his wife on producing another girl and suggested the first name “Iris”, which he said was the name of a Greek goddess who travelled by way of rainbows, delivering messages from Olympus. Emma had no objection to the name; clearly her husband had put some thought into the matter, though she had no idea what those thoughts might be.
He also suggested the two middle names “Italia” and “Enrica”. The first was no doubt an expression of his patriotic ardour, but the second puzzled her. She knew the name “Enrica” to mean “ruler of the home” and she wondered whether Giovanni was simply wishing his new daughter a strong character. On the other hand, perhaps she was being named after the much- loved Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, one of Giovanni’s favourite singers at the time.
She pondered for a while this curious mix of Italian patriotism, Greek goddesses and famous opera singers. It seemed strange to be piling so many expectations and connotations onto a baby that had yet to utter her first word. In the end, Emma decided that one name was as good as another, and she would accede to her husband’s wishes.
Giovanni finished his letter by saying that it would be impossible for him to travel to
Italy at present. The seas were full of German submarines and ships were being commandeered for war duties. Travelling overland through France would likewise be dangerous and would probably take weeks. No, he concluded, they would be better off staying where they were and making the most of it.
As she tore the letter into shreds, Emma wondered if he’d be “making the most of it” with Martia O’Brien.
* * *
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Though she was quite unaware of the fact, Iris Italia Enrica Boella had been born into a nation at war and a home divided both by that war and a general rift in her parents’ marriage.
At least one of her names reflected this turmoil, though her mother was determined to give her as happy and normal a life as possible, despite the circumstances.
Over the next two years, while her father remained in London, Iris grew into a happy and lively little girl. Her big sister Anita took particular pride in caring for her and teaching her the many skills and items of knowledge she had picked up. They played together with Anita’s dolls and the older sister often acted as interpreter when few others could understand the young one’s garbled ramblings. As soon as she was able, Anita started Iris on learning the alphabet and taught her to recognise a few basic words, using picture books and crayons. The boys, meanwhile, were happier playing with building blocks or making model boats to sail in the bath, or else constructing wooden hideouts among the trees. Emma often felt that her children seemed to be continuing the general rule in the Boella house thus far: the men gravitated towards making things while the women were drawn to words and books.
* * *
Piedmont seemed largely isolated from the war, aside from the men who went off to fight and the women who drifted into factory jobs in the city, where they made bombs, guns, bullets and fighting vehicles. Emma continued almost entirely as before, raising her children and working at her secretarial duties, and she was grateful for Bianca’s insistence on remaining in her service, despite pressures to quit.
However, in the first year after Italy’s entry into the war, people in the village began to ask more questions about Emma and her views on the fighting. Whenever Bianca went to buy
230 groceries, they would enquire after Emma’s health and then drift into asking about her political views, movements and social circle. They were suspicious of any foreigner living amongst them and half suspected that Emma might be a spy. It was bad enough that she lived in the haunted house, but if she should turn out to be a friend of Austrians, they’d have to take measures.
The owner of the bakery, Mr Canizaro, had grown accustomed to speculating with his customers about who might or might not be a spy. Since his bakery was also the local café and bar, there was plenty of room for circulating rumours. Sometimes, as Bianca was buying bread, she would hear old men muttering about foreigners as they sipped their drinks.
Meanwhile, Mrs Ferrero, the large woman who ran the nearby grocery shop was consistently grumpy and sour-faced, and often referred to Emma as “the foreigner”. Her husband seemed rather meek, but no more friendly.
Whenever the subject was broached openly, Bianca scolded them all for their wild thoughts and assured them that her mistress was a loyal a supporter of Italy. Malta was under
British control, she said, and the British were allies of Italy. By now, Emma had been in the country for ten years, and she was pretty much an honorary Italian. She reminded them too that that the Boellas were a respectable family with links to royalty and a strong history as
Italian patriots. She mentioned Giovanni’s proud service as an officer in the militia. After a while, their questions became less frequent, although the suspicions seemed to linger unspoken.
When Emma heard all this, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The idea of her being a spy was so ridiculous as to be comical. That said, in time of war, such things must be taken seriously. Fear breeds paranoia, she thought, and that might lead to false accusations.
There had already been much talk in the newspapers of foreign spies being revealed and
231 arrested. Bianca advised Emma to steer clear of the village and the church until the war was finished, and Emma was more than happy to follow this advice.
* * *
It was not until August 1917 that Giovanni was able finally to visit Italy. He had travelled through France by train as far as Marseille, and then along the coast to Genoa, before turning north to Torino. The journey had been long and arduous, and he had been stopped many times by suspicious soldiers, policemen and officials. France had been in chaos, he said, and he’d seen huge numbers of soldiers moving to the front lines. The casualties were enormous too, greater than he’d anticipated. But then, he had not expected the war to drag on for quite so long.
For the first time, Emma saw him looking his age. Normally full of energy, he seemed sapped and weary as he sank into the sofa. His mood brightened, however, when he saw his children, and particularly the charming, black-haired Iris. The little girl was already two years old and was initially wary of this great big man with the curly whiskers and black beret.
However, within a matter hours they were firm friends. He plied her with bonbons and pulled funny faces, then bounced her on his knee and sang funny rhymes – all of which she found highly amusing.
By the time dinner was served, Giovanni was seated in the middle of the sofa, his five children crowded around him, chattering away and vying for his attention. He told them stories of life in England and his adventurous journey through France, and handed out more bonbons. Clearly, the children had not lost their affection for Papa.
Emma, meanwhile, was less easy to please. She was happy to see Giovanni again, if only because it allayed her ongoing fears of infidelity. She was glad also that the children were
232 being reunited with their father and that he seemed to have maintained all the correct paternal instincts. But she had difficulty adjusting to her role as obedient wife and second-in- command of the house after so long in charge. When he gave his opinion on wartime economies or improvements to the cave, she bridled and contradicted him almost as a matter of policy.
She couldn’t bear the thought that he had been away for so long, enjoying the high life in
London, attending numerous parties while she was dealing with slanderous gossip and the threat of invasion. Nor that he felt himself justified in arriving in Italy and instantly taking charge. It seemed unjust, and she wasn’t going to stand for it.
This resentment expressed itself in the bedroom too, where Giovanni had a hard time breaking down the barriers of resistance to intimacy. For the first few nights, Emma insisted that they abstain from intimacies of any kind. He took offense and was angry, but he knew there was no point in pressing the matter. They went to sleep facing in opposite directions, both fuming at the other’s unreasonable attitude.
Eventually, after a long week of tensions, the couple began to get along better. The former intimacies were restored and Giovanni learned to stop giving orders about the place, resorting instead to more diplomatic forms of communication. Even Bianca and Pepé, who were initially formal with their returning master, began to relax in his company.
If there was one distinct benefit to having Giovanni home again, it was the chance to be seen with him in church on Sunday. He had been deeply annoyed to hear the rumours regarding Emma’s loyalties, and he was determined to set the record straight. He arranged with the priest that he should lead the choir in an extended round of religious songs, finishing with his party piece, Ave Maria. His voice boomed and echoed around the small, stone church, the congregation transfixed, a few of the women dabbing tears from their eyes.
Sensing that he had his audience in the palm of his hand, Giovanni departed from the
233 religious theme to sing The Song of the Italians, with all its talk of victory and being ready to die and standing united as one Italian people against the Austrian eagle, which had already lost its plumes. In a break with the normal rules of religious decorum, the congregation responded with a standing ovation and quite a few bravos. The performance done, the priest continued the normal Sunday service as if nothing had happened.
After the service, Giovanni stood next to the priest by the entrance, chatting with him about the war and greeting every member of the congregation as they emerged. Emma clung to his arm and made a point of looking everyone in the eye as they passed.
By September, when Giovanni returned to England, Bianca was able to report that people in the village were as nice as pie. Mrs Ferrero had let her have a large salami free of charge “for the children”, while Mr Ferrero had made a gift of a box of almond croissants, tied with a red ribbon. There seemed to be some consolations to married life after all.
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CHAPTER 25
WALKING WOUNDED
(1917)
One cold November night in 1917, Emma found herself drawn finally into the war, having spent more than two years trying to put it from her mind. She was sitting in the living room, patching holes in the children’s clothes when Jack pricked up his ears and began to growl. He was now rather rickety, but his hearing was still acute.
“What is it Jack? What’s wrong?” said Emma.
Diana let out a little yap, struggled to her feet and waddled out to the kitchen, apparently also alerted to strange goings on outside.
Emma looked out of the kitchen window and could see nothing but shadows and a light rain falling in the moonlight. She checked that the kitchen door was locked and the windows too. Returning to the living room, she checked the bolts on the front door and crept upstairs. Going into the dark bathroom, she quietly opened the window and looked out. Creeping across the back yard were half a dozen figures, moving from shadow to shadow.
She froze in fear. The Austrians had arrived, or the Germans. They would be armed and they would break into the house. She would have to gather the children and Bianca and head down to the cave. She would have to bring the dogs with her and make sure they didn’t bark, and she’d have to put out the fires properly so that the intruders did not know for sure that the house had been occupied.
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But this would all take time, possibly half an hour. By then, these men would have gained access to the house. She needed weapons. Why didn’t she have a weapon? Why didn’t Giovanni at least leave her a gun and some ammunition? Where was Pepé?
Would he come out with his shotgun and save them all?
Emma was just on the point of closing the window when she heard one of the figures trip over something in the darkness and begin to swear in Italian. Another voice told him to be quiet, again in Italian. She stood still, trying to hear more.
Soon, she saw one of the men come closer to the house, and in the light from a downstairs window, his uniform became visible. He was an Italian soldier, wet through with rain and a bloody bandage wrapped round his head. Then she saw more of them emerge into the light, all of them Italian soldiers, ragged and muddy, one man limping along on a pair of crutches. Each of the men had at least one visible injury, and there was not one rifle in sight.
They were a sorry bunch indeed, she thought, perhaps part of the mass retreat from the east, which she had read about in the newspaper. The Austrians had broken through to the east of Venice, and the Italian lines had collapsed. Thousands had fallen back in ragged order, dropping their weapons in the rush to escape death. These men might be making their way back to their villages in the mountains, she thought. Perhaps they had deserted and were trying to avoid being captured and returned to the front?
She leant out of the window and called out: “Are you in trouble?”
“We have some injured men here,” said a young and shaky voice.
Running downstairs, she opened the back door and let them in. Jack and Diana started to bark. Emma was glad for their protective instincts but told them to be quiet.
These young men had clearly been through enough already.
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* * *
There were seven soldiers in all. The one on crutches had to be helped onto the sofa, so bad was the injury to his foot. Another two collapsed in armchairs, one with his arm in a sling, the other with bandages all over his face, just one eye open to the world.
The other four were well enough to sit on upright chairs at the dining table.
Poor little devils, thought Emma, they’re just out of school. Is this really the Italian army that has been fighting for the nation’s glory?
Just then, Bianca appeared at the top of the stairs, a lamp in her hand. Emma told her to fetch some clean clothes belonging to Giovanni and lots of towels and water. She needed blankets too and pillows to make beds on the floor.
One of the men at the table was the boy with a bandaged head who had spoken to
Emma. She noticed the stripes of a corporal on his great coat, but he looked far too young to be leading anyone into battle. After thanking her for letting them in, he took a deep breath and explained their situation.
“My name’s Stephano. I’m a signaller. I was at Caporetto when the Germans started lobbing gas at us, mostly chlorine, I think. Lots of men died early on but others got their gas masks on a sat it out for a while. We were given the order to fall back just in time, before they started shelling the trenches. I think anyone who stayed would have been killed. I got hit in the head when a mortar went off. I was knocked unconscious and woke up in a dressing station. I could still hear the shelling and it sounded like it was getting closer, so they started telling us all to get moving. Everyone who could walk was told to start moving west.”
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Bianca arrived with a pile of Giovanni’s dry clothes and some towels. She piled them on the dining table and looked with pity at the men before rushing back upstairs to collect blankets.
“We were on the road for two days, and I managed to get a ride on a waggon. My head hurt so much, and it still does. I think it might be infected, although I’ve had the dressing changed twice.”
“What about the others?” said Emma.
“I met them all in a field hospital outside Udino. They’d all been hit by shrapnel like me, except for Angelo over there. He copped a bullet in his foot. They’re all local lads, from round here. We were told to walk back to the defensive lines. We crossed one river and were supposed to stop and dig in. But then we were told to keep walking west, towards Venice, because the Germans were catching up. We had no idea where we were supposed stop and we never saw our own units again. Everyone was mixed up.
It was complete chaos.”
Bianca arrived with blankets and pillows and dropped them on the floor before heading to the kitchen to boil water. Emma brought bottles of wine to the dining table and a few glasses. Then she wondered if the men might need water more urgently. She fetched a jug of cold water from the kitchen and a few cups. They all drank greedily, and Emma was glad to hear the sounds of Bianca preparing food at the kitchen table.
“Go on,” said Emma. “Then what happened?”
“Well, it was days before we got to a proper hospital and saw a real doctor. We were the lucky ones, really, because there were so many men with horrible injuries. I mean, I saw so many people killed or lose their eyes or their arms or legs. There were men who had died of the cold in the mountains and their bodies had frozen stiff. And
238 there were lots of men whose lungs were destroyed by the chlorine. There wasn’t much medicine either. Most of the morphine went in the first few days.”
Stephano finished his second cup of water and then poured a glass of wine, which he knocked back just as fast. Telling the story was clearly bringing back some difficult memories.
“The Germans were moving so fast behind us, it seemed like nothing could stop them. So we just started hitching rides further west, past Venice and on towards Milan.
People had heard of the breakthrough and they could see we were injured, so they gave us rides on their carts and food too sometimes.”
“So you deserted?” said Emma.
“I suppose so,” replied the boy, looking into his wine, his face showing both shame and exhaustion.
“So where are you going now?” she asked, refilling his glass and those of his friends.
“We’re all trying to get back to our homes. That’s kind of what brought us together in the first place. We’re all from Torino or Aosta or different places in Piedmont. We’re all hoping to just get back to our families and get cleaned up and then see what happens.”
“But what if you’re caught?”
“By the Germans?”
“No, by the Italians. I mean the army must be looking for you by now.”
“Nobody knows we’re missing. There are thousands of soldiers missing and thousands dead. Hundreds of thousands dead probably, and the same numbers have probably been captured by the Germans. Nobody knows if I’m alive or dead. And
239 nobody cares except for me and my family. Eventually, we might have to explain why we didn’t go back to the front line, but we’ll deal with that later.”
“So you’re just going to hide out and hope nobody turns you in? You’re deserters, you know.”
“Are you going to turn us in?”
“No, of course not,” said Emma, shocked that he should misunderstand her intentions. “Not at all, you’re all completely safe here. I’m just asking what your plans are. I mean, you must have a plan?”
The boy looked around at his men who didn’t seem to have much to say. They just shrugged and looked into their drinks.
“Well, basically, we’re heading for our homes, but we don’t know how safe that really is. You’re right, I suppose, to say we’re deserters. Maybe we can stay here for the night and decide what to do tomorrow?” said Stephano, and he suddenly seemed younger than ever, like a little schoolboy who had lost his mummy.
“Of course you can stay,” said Emma. “You can all stay her as long as you like.
You’re completely safe. I won’t tell anyone. We’ll get you fixed up and then take it from there. Stay as long as you like.”
She stood up and went into the kitchen, where Pepé was standing with his shotgun, a dark and distrustful look on his face.
“What do they want?” he asked.
“They’re wounded soldiers who’ve been sent home from the front and they need a place to stay for the night. So we’re going to clean them up and make them welcome.
Do you have any objections?”
“Not if you’re alright with it, madam,” he said, but the scowl didn’t leave his face.
Nor did he put down the shotgun.
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* * *
Just then, Emma heard a groan coming from the living room, and looking in, she saw that it was Angelo, the man on the sofa with the injured foot. He was lying on his back, his bad leg in the air, while another soldier tried unsuccessfully to remove his boot. Blood was dripping onto the floor.
“Leave it,” said Emma, stepping into the room. “I’ll get a doctor, and we’ll do that properly.”
“No, don’t get a doctor!” said Stephano, standing up. “A doctor will have to report us to the police, and they’ll tell the army. We can deal with it ourselves.”
“Well, then, I’ll get one of the nuns to help,” said Emma.
She sent Pepé to the convent to fetch Sister Margaret, who had been a nurse once, long before, following Italian soldiers in their battles with Austria. She was pretty old now, and could no longer stand watching men tear each other apart. She preferred these days to pray that they would see sense. However, she still retained some wartime nursing skills, and she arrived at the house with a large bag of bandages, dressings, potions and utensils. She brought with her also two younger nuns, who were relatively new to the sight of blood and gore, but were driven by compassionate thoughts.
Sister Margaret rolled up her sleeves and started to cut away the bloody boot from
Angelo’s foot. As the boot fell away, more blood dripped into the basin of warm water underneath. The tattered sock was cut away and then a blood-soaked bandage. A terrible stench began to fill the room, and Emma covered her nose with a handkerchief.
As the foot itself was revealed, the sight of the gaping injury shocked her and she had to close her eyes. She hadn’t imagined that anyone could still move around with
241 such an injury, even on crutches. She looked at Angelo’s face, which had gone very pale, and she was glad when Sister Margaret gave him a spoonful of morphine syrup.
The foot was bathed and dressed, and more bandages were applied. Angelo was given another spoon of morphine. Slowly, the younger nurses removed his clothes, and with the help of two other soldiers, the patient was given his first all-over wash in two weeks. With the blood and dirty water everywhere, Emma was sure that the sofa would have to be thrown out, and possibly the carpet too, but she didn’t mind. She was just happy to be of some use to these poor men.
The soldiers who could manage the stairs with relative ease went up and used the bath, while others washed in basins on the veranda. By the end of the evening, all the men had washed and been helped into dry clothes. Their army uniforms would be washed in the morning and hung out to dry. They could decide later if they wanted ever to put them on again.
Margaret inspected every wound that was presented to her, washing and dressing them and offering advice on further care. She lectured them on the state of their feet, saying that they would all succumb to foot rot unless they started to wash and dry their feet daily. They must use powder to keep them dry and put on clean, dry socks every morning.
Stephano’s head injury was not too serious, but he was right to suspect that it had become infected. The tiny fragments of steel, wood and mud had been removed by a surgeon early on, but the stitches closing the gash in his scalp had come undone and the skin has started to rot. Sister Margaret said that she would irrigate the wound every two days and apply new dressings, and Emma should watch and learn what to do.
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When all the men had been settled down to sleep, the three nuns joined Emma,
Bianca and Pepé in the kitchen and they discussed the next steps in dealing with these fugitives.
“It’s up to you what you do, Mrs Boella,” said Sister Margaret. “I’ll leave you to make your own decisions regarding these men, bearing in mind that they are deserters.
But so far as Angelo is concerned, I have to tell you that he will certainly lose that foot.
It must be amputated in the next few days before the infection poisons his blood. We have a doctor who visits the convent from time to time, and he will be able to arrange the amputation. I think he will be discrete, and I will be happy to provide Angelo with care after the operation. But I don’t think he will be coming back here. I want to keep a close eye on his leg. We will keep him hidden at the convent until he’s sure what he wants to do. If he still wants to head back to his home, then we’ll help him.”
“Thanks you so much, Sister Margaret. That’s very kind of you,” said Emma.
“That boy with the head injury, Stephano, is also in a bit of danger. His head will get worse unless the wound is washed clean frequently. I will irrigate the wound again tomorrow and then come daily to check on it. If we are able to avoid infection, I think he’ll recover.”
“That’s wonderful, Sister Margaret. Thank you so much,” said Emma, holding the old woman’s bony hands in hers.
“Not at all, my dear. I’m just doing God’s work.”
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CHAPTER 26
HIDING OUT
(1917)
Emma was awoken next morning by a diffident tap at the door. Struggling to open her eyes, she said “hello” and the youthful face of Bianca popped into view.
“I’ve made coffee for everyone, and I’m making them porridge. They said they’re very hungry,” said the maid.
“Bless you. You’ll need lots of milk though, I imagine. Did you milk the goat yet?”
“Yes, I milked the goat already. I think we’ve got plenty by now. It’s nearly ten o’clock,” said Bianca, smiling at the idea of her mistress sleeping in so late.
“Oh, my God!” said Emma, shocked at her own laziness. “I’ll be down in a moment. There’s honey in the larder. Give them some of that for the porridge.”
When Emma had washed and dressed, she descended into the living room, and found a happy scene. The young men were all seated round the table, sipping their coffee and scraping up the last of the porridge. The jar of honey was empty in the middle of the table, as was a large cooking pot that had, by the looks of it, been full of porridge.
Greeting the men at the large table, Emma realised they were only five in number.
Stephano was sitting on the sofa, his head still heavily bandaged, talking with Anita.
The little girl was showing off her dolls, explaining their names and describing their clothes in intimate detail. On the carpet in front of the sofa, little Iris sat alone, a doll in her hands, and she banged its head playfully on the floor. Scouring the room, Emma
244 discovered her three boys sitting together in the parlour, building something from bright wooden blocks. Mario, the youngest boy, was mostly kept out of the actual job of construction, since Roberto and Naldo feared he might knock the whole thing down.
One of the soldiers offered them occasional advice on the project from his seat at the dining table.
“Good morning Mrs Boella,” said Stephano, turning round, a doll in his hand.
“Good morning Stephano. And please call me Emma. I think we can all be on informal terms now, bearing in mind the circumstances. Have you eaten?”
“Oh, yes, thanks very much. It was delicious, the best breakfast I’ve had in about a year,” and his face was lightened by a boyish smile.
Emma looked around for Angelo, the man with the damaged foot.
“If you’re looking for Angelo,” said Stephano, “the nuns arrived early and took him to the convent. They said they’ll look after him there.”
“Oh, I see,” said Emma, frowning and somewhat embarrassed that she’d missed out on such an important event.
Just then, Bianca returned from the kitchen carrying a large serving plate of toasted bread, and behind her came Pepé, carrying butter and several pots of jam.
“Just in case they’re still hungry,” said Bianca.
As it turned out, they were indeed still hungry, including Stephano, who took his seat once more at the dining table and put away two slices of toast on top of his porridge.
After breakfast, talk turned to the future, and the men explained that they had decided to stay at Emma’s house for the time being, if she had no objections. They wanted to wait until their wounds had healed before pushing on to their home villages.
They had no idea how the fighting was going in the east, but they were all pretty certain
245 they’d be shot for deserters if they were caught by the army. Thousands of soldiers had fallen back in the face of the enemy offensive, and the army had been powerless to stop them. But as time passed, those who had deserted would be dealt with wherever they were found, and the Italian army had a reputation for harsh punishment.
Salvatore, the man from Aosta with his arm in a sling, said he’d seen men thrashed almost to death for the slightest acts of disobedience. He had even seen soldiers shot on suspicion of disloyalty. Units in the mountains had been decimated, he said, just to hammer home the message that poor discipline and cowardice would not be tolerated.
The soldiers were treated worse than the animals, Salvatore said, and he didn’t expect any lenience from the army if he turned himself in.
“So what about your uniforms?” asked Emma.
“Well, maybe we should wash them and keep them somewhere, just in case things change and we decide to return to the army. But until then, we’ve agreed to wear civilian clothes. Pepé says we can wear some of his, and Bianca said she can get more, including boots.”
“Well, you should stay indoors anyway until you’re ready to leave,” said Emma.
“Yes, and we should stay away from the doors and windows,” said Bruno, a dark- haired man from Ivrea, who had bandages on both of his legs. “In case of visitors, it might be best if we all sleep upstairs anyway, so this room doesn’t look like a doss house.”
Bruno swept his arm around the room, indicating the array of cups, blankets, pillows, clothing and muddy footprints. As he did so, Emma noticed the young man had a facial tick down the left side, which she imagined he had acquired on the frontline.
“I quite agree,” she said. “Once you’re all done with breakfast, I suggest you move your things upstairs and make yourself comfortable in the spare room next to the
246 bathroom. It’s over the kitchen, so you’ll be able to see anyone approaching from the back yard. And if you have to make a quick escape, you could jump from the windows that overlook the meadow. Head up the hill, through the trees and keep going into the mountains.”
The men agreed with the plan, and after thanking Emma for her hospitality, they cleared the table and moved themselves to their new quarters upstairs.
* * *
The following two weeks were pleasant enough. The soldiers were all given books and newspapers to keep them occupied in the daytime. In the evenings, they stayed in the bedroom, sitting on the floor and playing cards, their cares eased by bottles of wine from Giovanni’s considerable stores. Bianca became competent at changing the men’s dressings, and Sister Margaret came every day and cleaned the wounds as required. She said that the doctor had removed Angelo’s foot and it seemed he would make a good recovery.
Emma, of course, continued with her work at the convent, and she did her best to act quite normally. The subject of the deserters was never mentioned while she was there, and the only nun she discussed the matter with was Sister Margaret, and only within the walls of Collina Verde. The old nun told her that Angelo’s presence in the convent was a well-kept secret, known only to five people, all of whom could be trusted.
The children were generally told to stay away from the soldiers and never talk about them, although Anita couldn’t help occasionally sneaking into their room with an extra morsel of food when she wasn’t being watched.
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Emma decided not to write to Giovanni about any of this. For one thing, he might object to her harbouring deserters, calling them cowards. He might even report them to the police and have them shot. Added to which, he would probably not be happy to think of his wife sharing her house with several young men who had not been with a woman for a year or more. She imagined the fuss he would cause on that count alone, and decided to keep the whole thing secret. Anyway, she thought, whatever she wrote in her letters would no doubt be read by some military censor, and then the game would be up.
* * *
In the third week, as the soldiers were reporting improvements in their wounds, bad news arrived from the convent. A young nun arrived one afternoon, breathless from running, and told Emma in whispers that the police had arrived and taken Anglo away.
There had been military police with them too, and they’d known about his presence there somehow. They didn’t know if it was the doctor or someone else, but somehow they authorities had found out.
“The other soldiers are not safe here,” said the nun. “They have to be moved now.
They have to leave.”
“But where?” asked Emma, her heart racing. “It’s still daylight. If they try to go up the meadow, they’ll be seen from the road.”
“What about the cave?” said Pepé, who had apparently heard the whole discussion from his place in the kitchen doorway.
“Of course!” said Emma, and she issued instructions for the hole in the wall to be opened up.
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It took just ten minutes to get the men through the hole in the kitchen wall, along with all their belongings and neatly folded uniforms, and to cover the opening once more with the kitchen dresser. They had been told to wait in the cave until either
Emma, Bianca or Pepé came and got them. They should not call out or answer any questions, but must wait until they were fetched out in person.
It was shortly after the last traces of the men had been removed from the spare room and elsewhere that Emma heard a loud knock at the front door. Looking around the living room one more time, she noticed the bloodstain on the carpet by the sofa.
With the help of Pepé and Bianca, she shifted sofa forwards to cover the stain, and then she noticed further stains on the sofa, which were covered quickly with a few shawls.
There was more knocking, this time more insistent.
Opening the door, Emma was greeted by a stern-looking police captain with a bushy moustache and an equally serious-looking army captain with a thin moustache that curled up at the ends. The police officer introduced himself as Captain Mantonese and apologised for the inconvenience. He explained that they were searching for some army deserters who had been reported in the area. They were, in fact, dangerous criminals, said the army officer, and might be armed.
Emma did her best to act surprised and concerned, but told the officers that she had not seen any army deserters. If she had, she would have reported it right away.
“But they may be in civilian clothes by now,” said the army officer. “You wouldn’t necessarily know that they were soldiers, Mrs Boella.”
Emma was alarmed to find that the officer knew her name and it occurred to her that he probably knew a lot more than this. He probably knew all about the soldiers and was just going about things in a polite way, out of deference to her sex and Giovanni’s status as a prominent local figure and certified patriot.
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“Well, I haven’t seen anything strange,” she said, trying her best to remain calm.
“If it’s all the same to you, madam, we’d rather just have a little look around inside, just for the sake of thoroughness,” said the police captain. “It’s our duty to investigate, you understand.”
“Of course,” she said finally, and she let the officers in, only to find three police constables and four military policemen trooping in behind them, stamping muddy footprints all over the living room. Each had a rifle slung from his shoulder, and a bayonet hung from his belt. Emma noticed that the officers had pistols too and she felt slightly sick at the thought of shooting.
They searched the downstairs of the house first and then the upstairs. Emma remained in the living room with the officers, while Bianca and Pepé followed the others around the house, scolding them for their poor manners and warning them against leaving marks or damaging the furniture. Once the house had been searched and nothing found, the army captain asked to be shown the woodshed, barn, Giovanni’s studio and Pepé’s house. Nothing was found, of course, and so he ordered his men to take a look around the woods separating the house from the meadow above.
“I apologise again for the intrusion,” said the police officer finally, bowing deeply to Emma.
“That’s quite alright,” she said. “I suppose you’re just doing your job.”
The army officer apologised too, though apparently with less conviction.
“I understand you’re not Italian, Mrs Boella,” he said stiffly.
“No, I’m not Italian,” she replied, wondering where this was leading.
“I understand your family is of German origin?”
“What are you talking about? I’m Maltese, if you don’t mind! My family are from
Valletta, which is run by the British, who happen to be our allies in this war. If you’re
250 trying to suggest that I’m some kind of traitor or foreign agent, I can tell you that your wrong and I find the implication deeply offensive. In fact, I have a horror of being invaded here by the Austrians or the Germans, and I don’t imagine I’d be any safer than your own wives and daughters. So I would ask you to keep your suspicions and insults to yourself!”
The army officer brought himself to attention and bowed in apology, although he didn’t seem able to summon any words to accompany the gesture. That was left to the police captain, who apologised on his behalf, bowing deeply once more and trying to reassure Emma that no offense was intended.
Once they were gone and the door closed, Emma almost burst into tears, but she stopped when she saw Bianca and Pepé standing by the kitchen, applauding her performance with broad grins. They had survived a thorough search and the authorities now knew that Mrs Boella was not someone to be pushed around.
* * *
The soldiers remained in the cave for another few weeks, taking it in turns each day to sit on the veranda outside the kitchen and soak up some sunlight. They would smoke and look at the sky and the hills and talk about their plans when the war was over. Occasionally, they would help Pepé with chores like chopping the logs or mucking out the horse, but Emma was always anxious when they spent too long above ground.
Christmas was the most muted and strange that Emma had experienced to date. It was the third that Giovanni had missed, due to the war and the difficulties of travel. It
251 was also strange to be enjoying something approaching a normal festive season above ground while half a dozen men celebrated in the gloom of a nearby cave. Only on New
Year’s Eve did they emerge as a group, gathering for a couple of hours to drink each other’s health and toast the future with large amounts of brandy. Pepé sat on the front doorstep, ready to raise the alarm if anyone approached the house. Once the party was done, the men returned beneath ground.
Two days later, they started to make their way back to their villages, leaving one by one after dark, heading in different directions, weighed down with new clothes, tins of food and well-rehearsed stories on how they had come to be in the area while the fighting continued in the east. With one notable exception, Emma never saw the soldiers again.
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CHAPTER 27
THE BITTER END
(1918)
January 1918 turned out to be a tough month. Emma had already learned that she was once again pregnant, and now she was to lose her job. One Monday she arrived at the convent to find a police officer in conversation with Mother Superior. It was the same Captain Mantonese who had searched her house before Christmas. He greeted
Emma with a deep bow but said nothing, then said a gracious farewell to the nun and departed.
Emma’s heart was in her mouth, expecting that she had once again fallen under suspicion of treachery. Mother Teresa said nothing at first, merely handing her some hand-drafted letters to type up. Later, however, Emma was called into a meeting with the nun and a young priest, Father di Bruno, who was visiting from Torino. Mother
Teresa started by explaining that the convent was struggling financially due to the war, and that they weren’t quite sure they could afford to pay for a secretary any longer, at least not until the fighting was over. They had been very glad for Emma’s help over the years, said the nun, clearly deeply upset at having to give Emma the elbow.
“I’m so sorry, my dear,” she said finally, “but I’m afraid I’ve been asked to let you go.”
“I see,” said Emma, her heart pounding with a mix of fury and fear.
“We shall do our best to find you alternative work, of course,” said the nun, wringing her hands. “There are new vacancies in the factories and engineering firms in
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Torino, and I’m sure something could be arranged. I’ll write you an excellent letter of recommendation.”
“Thank you,” said Emma.
“It’s a matter of security too, of course,” said the priest, coldly. “The church is concerned that all communications should be secure, and all risks of indiscretions must be eliminated. It’s the war, of course, and no reflection on your own character, Mrs
Boella. But we really feel an Italian would be better suited to this kind of position, under the current circumstances.”
Mother Teresa turned to look at Father di Bruno with wide eyes, her face reddening with anger at the man’s cruelty. Just as she was on the verge of speaking, Emma called an end to the proceedings.
“Well, that’s all fine,” she said, standing up. “I’m sure I’ll find ample work in
Torino. I have, after all, received the very best training here, for which I’m very grateful.”
She gathered her children from the crèche and walked home in tears.
* * *
She began her new job two weeks later. True to her word, Mother Teresa had found her a job as a typist in the head office of an automotive firm on the northern edge of the city. The journey to work required her to rise early and hitch a ride with a farmer each morning. There was no crèche, of course, meaning that Pepé and Bianca now had to keep an eye on all five children, but they accepted the additional burden without complaint.
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Emma’s new working environment was more dull and restrictive, with little chance to leave her seat and stretch her legs. There was a senior typist at one end of the room who handed out the tasks and ensured that everyone maintained a good rate of work.
Rather than being the one-and-only secretary in a rather ramshackle institution, she was now one of a dozen women hired to type up multiple copies of bland technical documents relating to the manufacture of cars, trucks and wartime vehicles and the various parts for them all. There were technical manuals for the use of engineers and customers alike, lists of equipment and materials required, schedules of production and costs incurred. Due to Emma’s language skills, she was often required to work on documents in French and English, and she quickly earned a reputation with the office manager, Mr Di Stephano, for being able to spot errors in translation that might have caused problems.
It occurred to her almost from the start that this new job was infinitely more sensitive than that from which she had been fired on the grounds of security. If only
Captain Mantonese could see her typing up lists of the military vehicles soon to roll off the production lines, complete with dates of completion and their final destinations, he’d have a heart attack. The irony of the whole thing made her chuckle.
One thing she didn’t find very funny, however, was her growing belly, which would soon be visible to Mr Di Stephano and everyone else. She sat in the middle of a long row of typists on a hard wooden chair, the manager’s office just a few yards away.
If he noticed that she was soon to give birth, she might be given the sack again.
As the months passed and her bump grew, she took to wearing extra layers of loose clothing, even as the weather began to warm up. She also took to arranging her seating such that her belly was mostly obscured from view. She would read the newspaper in the half hour before work began and then prop it up on a little desk that she’d placed to
255 one side. She had been allowed to keep a vase of flowers on the same desk, which was also a useful camouflage. But nothing obscured the reality of her condition like a copy of La Stampa.
* * *
In May, Emma could hide her pregnancy no longer, and she revealed the news to
Mr Di Stephano. As it turned out, he was infinitely sympathetic and expressed his sorrow at having to let her go, even offering to take her back at some point in the future if at all possible.
Whether she liked it or not, Emma gave birth to her third daughter in the first week of June. In his last letter, Giovanni had instructed her that if it was a girl, she was to be named Lusia Vittoria. The second of these names was, of course, an assertion of Italy’s military destiny. The first name was after Luisa Tetrazzini, whom Giovanni described as the best female singer alive. Emma knew they had met and even sung together on one occasion, and she couldn’t help feeling a stab of jealousy. Had they ever been more than just professional acquaintances? Had he met her again in London and not revealed the fact to his wife? Such ideas were too horrible, and she pushed them from her mind.
The little girl was just as charming as all the others, but it seemed her hair would be lighter than the rest, the blond trait of her father finally coming to the fore. Emma thought how pleased Giovanni would be and wrote to him with details of the baby, describing her fair hair and her blue eyes, her tiny hands and her first smiles.
He wrote back to express his delight at the description of his charming Luisa and his deep sadness at being stuck in London at such an important time. His letter was attached to a hefty parcel, containing books for the children, bars of chocolate and some
256 tiny booties for the baby. Hidden within it all was a healthy-looking wad of bank notes, the total of which he had been careful to mention in the letter itself, lest anyone think of reducing it. In the absence of a husband to shower with kisses, Emma kissed the money.
* * *
Stuck at home, nursing the new baby, Emma was more glued to news from the eastern front than ever. She followed every report and rumour in La Stampa and even subscribed to
Corriere della Sera in order not to miss anything. In the autumn, she was overjoyed to read news of Italian successes in pushing back the Austrians, and she found herself whistling the
Italian national anthem around the house, although Bianca said it was not ladylike to whistle.
By this time, Emma had been thoroughly rehabilitated in the eyes of the village, and had even gained a reputation as an unofficial local heroine, having secretly given succour to wounded soldiers at great personal risk. No matter what the police thought of Emma, she was known in the village to be kind-hearted and a true friend to the ordinary people. When men were sent home injured from the fighting in October of 1918, the village wives visited Emma for advice and financial help to buy medicines and dressings. Emma had little to offer, besides a few lira and some sympathy, and she directed most enquiries to the convent, where
Sister Margaret was still a force for good.
It was in early October, almost a year after she first took in the deserters, that Emma received a request for help from a local woman named Teresa Carbone. The woman was the mother of four sons and spent much of her time tending the small farm that she owned with her husband, Fabrizio, who had been sent to fight.
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The woman arrived at Emma’s house in tears, begging her to come and help her husband, who had been sent home from the front with terrible injuries. The hospital in Torino had been overwhelmed with the injured and the doctors had told his wife to care for him, though she knew this to be beyond her abilities.
Arriving at Teresa’s home, Emma was shocked at the extent of Fabrizio’s injuries. He was only just alive, blinded, facially mutilated and with both hands and forearms missing. A mortar round had landed nearby and not exploded, and he had been trying to get rid of it when the thing went off. His fellow soldiers and medics had saved his life, and he was sent him back through a series of dressing stations and field hospitals. Ordered back to Torino, the poor man had to endure long journeys by horse and cart and then by train.
It seems the doctors in Torino had done their best to tidy up his wounds, but at some point they had decided to discharge him from their care, forcing him on a final, bumpy journey on the back of a cart northwards to the village. Teresa was certain that her husband was not healed, and she could not understand why the doctors had sent him home.
The poor woman knelt beside the bed and wept while Emma gently inspected the man’s wounds and sent someone to fetch Sister Margaret. But Teresa was beyond consoling. There were no hands to hold and little left of his face to kiss. He could not see her and he had been permanently deafened by the blast. He moaned continually in pain.
On arrival, Sister Margaret said that the man had serious blood poisoning and might not last much longer. She gave him two spoons of morphine then asked the others to leave the room while she changed his dressings.
Before she left, the nun told everyone to light a candle and pray to God, Jesus and Mary for the man’s life. If he were to pass in the night, they should pray for him to be taken into heaven. She would ask a priest to visit the house and give him his last rights.
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The priest came and went, and Emma remained in the room with the couple, their children looking on solemnly. Fabrizio became quiet and Emma began to hope that he was beginning to recover, building his strength through sleep.
Just as the first light of dawn began to show at the window, the patient began to make more moaning noises, and Teresa lay her head with its long hair on his chest. She moved her head gently from side to side so that he could feel the softness of her hair. He was just able to whisper her name, and they stayed like that till his laboured breathing gradually quietened and with one long sigh stopped altogether. At least they had made their goodbye.
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CHAPTER 28
PEACE AT LAST
(1918-1919)
In the first week of November, the bells began to ring out at the church and Bianca burst in the door, shouting: “It’s over! The war’s over!”
She and Emma clasped each other tight and danced around the living room in a high- speed waltz. The children had no idea what was going on, but soon joined the dancing. When
Pepé learned the news, he attempted a small jig, but couldn’t quite manage it, and so he hobbled off to fetch some wine instead with which to toast the news. It was peace, not victory, that they were welcoming.
Giovanni was predictably boastful of Italy’s greatness, and the letter he sent home told of a great party that he had hosted for his Italian and English friends, at which they had sung several rounds of the British and Italian national anthems. Everyone had been incredibly drunk, he said, and the hangover had lasted for days. He said he would soon be able to make a trip home to see his little Luisa for the very first time and said he planned to continue the celebrations once they were all reunited.
Arriving two days before Christmas, he swept into the house with bundles of presents and smothered Emma and the children with kisses. He squeezed his wife tight and lifted her feet off the floor, whispering in her ear, “I’ve missed you so much, my darling, so much.”
Unlike the other children, Luisa was too young yet to know that she had a father, let alone feel joy at being reunited with him. However, she soon warmed to the big man, bundled up in his arms and rocked from side to side, showered with smiles and compliments. He was
260 deeply moved by his third daughter, and he remarked several times on her beautiful golden hair. In the coming days, he would call her Goldilocks, pretend to be the big bad wolf and then tickle her until she gurgled with delight.
When Emma first saw all the baggage that Giovanni had bought with him, she felt sure that he had come home for good. With the end of the war, she had regained her husband, she thought. However, she hesitated to raise the issue immediately, in case he had still not decided. Rather, she thought to tempt him back by making herself more delightful than ever, everywhere from the bedroom to the kitchen.
It became clear over the course of Christmas that he had left a great many things behind in London, many of them precious to him. Some of his best suits and shoes were not with him, nor were most of his tools for painting and sculpture. He had taken a large box of books and artistic prints with him, and these were nowhere to be seen. Clearly, if he intended any kind of permanent reunion, it would not be happening straight away. Still, she resolved to be patient and wait for the perfect time to raise the matter.
In the meantime, they celebrated the end of the war with enthusiasm. Bianca and Pepé were invited to join the family for every meal through Christmas, and they toasted alternately to peace and victory. Giovanni shared his views on the future of Italy, the certainty of her regaining her rightful place in the world, and a whole range of bright prospects for the future.
They shared stories from the war years, and Giovanni was keen to tell tales of life in
London, dropping names of famous figures he had met, although nobody else had heard of them. Emma had decided not to trouble her husband just yet with tales of the soldiers who came to stay. She still thought her husband might be displeased, and Pepé and Bianca had been sworn to secrecy.
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* * *
With the wandering artist back in Italy, the invitations to dinner in Torino were many, and Emma was happy to put on her fine clothes for the first time in years. They dined once more with Jacqueline DeBois, who greeted her as an old friend. Emma returned the display of affection, though she wondered why the French woman had not bothered to get in touch during the entire war. She later learned that the couple had returned to France during the fighting and Mr DeBois had died there of pneumonia. Jacqueline was as bright and sparkling as ever, a feather sticking out from a bejewelled band around her head, but there was a sadness in her eyes and her face seemed to sag.
There were few others at the dinner party that Emma recognised. Vanka had apparently gone off to Russia and been caught up in the revolution. Nobody knew whether he was still alive. The German singer Ralph had been called up to fight in the German army, and nobody knew of his fate. Of the others, only Riccardo the engineer and Luigi the gallery owner were familiar to Emma. She liked them both and was glad that they had survived, although Luigi seemed very sad the entire night, drowning his sorrows with too much brandy.
If there was any good news that evening, it was a deal that Giovanni and Luigi made to hold an art show in Torino. With the war over, more people would soon be spending on art,
Luigi said, and now was the time to strike. Giovanni had produced a number of patriotic canvases, showing valiant soldiers sacrificing their lives for the glory of Italy. Such images would undoubtedly be of interest to local buyers, bearing in mind the nation’s current mood.
Nobody would be bothered that Giovanni had spent most of the war in England. What counted was the skill with which he had captured the energy of the nation and the courage of the young men in their pursuit of liberty and glory. Emma remained silent during this
262 discussion. When she closed her eyes she could only see the shattered, dying body of
Fabrizio Carbone.
A second show was planned featuring several canvases on the theme of London during wartime. There were general scenes of the city skyline, the River Thames and it bridges, the
Houses of Parliament and children playing in the streets. There were also paintings of soldiers waiting for trains beside their kit bags or else marching proudly down the street ahead of their deployment to the trenches of France and Belgium.
Emma noticed that in some cases Giovanni had started to introduce some of those modern styles and techniques that he had previously dismissed as ugly and barbaric. She rather liked them, but thought it diplomatic not to mention the development to her husband.
The shows went well, and by March of 1919, Giovanni had sold all thirty-two paintings he had brought back with him from England. He said that on his next visit he would bring various artistic photographs he had taken, since he was sure they would sell nicely too. He had boxes of them now, he said, and the returns on time and money invested were much better than those on painting. All that was needed was a certain talent for light and composition, and he confessed – once more – to having such talent in abundance.
He said also that he had made his first ventures into moving pictures, having purchased a camera that took a series of photographs in close succession. He had experimented with the new technology at home, and it seemed pretty straightforward. The only problem was knowing how to make money out of it. So far, all he had managed to do was make contacts in a film studio that needed scenery painted from time to time. It was Martia O’Brien who had put him in touch with the studio boss, he said, since she sometimes wrote musical scores to be played along with the movies.
When Emma heard Martia’s name, the blood drained from her extremities and she felt suddenly sick. Though she knew not why, that Irish-American woman at the piano had
263 haunted her since that night at the party in London. There was something in the look she gave
Emma when she turned round to receive her applause. It seemed she and Giovanni were still on good terms, even to the point of planning his career together.
Emma said nothing about this, but quietly fumed. She resolved to be angry rather than sad. She was not going to return to the role of insecure, jealous wife, worrying all the time about her wayward husband. If he was going to be unfaithful, there was nothing she could do about it, and she certainly wasn’t going to run crying to him again.
The following week, the first of April, Giovanni declared his intentions of returning immediately to England. The future, he said, was in London, where all manner of creative developments were underway. He said he could breathe there, creatively speaking, and this was of the utmost importance.
On the day of his departure, Emma found herself just longing for him to go. All hopes of a permanent family reunion had been banished from her mind. She was more certain than ever that there was something funny going on between Martia and her husband. She had no evidence of it, of course, but she felt it in her bones.
* * *
April brought a double blow for Emma. Not only had Giovanni gone back to London – and presumably to Martia O’Brien – but Bianca announced that she was to be married. Emma was speechless at first, feeling as though the ground might swallow her up.
“Oh, how wonderful!” said Emma, feeling that it was, in fact, anything but. “Who is the lucky man, if I may ask?”
Bianca blushed deeply, just as she had on the day of her first meeting with Emma.
“Do you remember Stephano?” she said quietly.
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“Stephano? You mean the soldier?”
“Yes,” said Bianca, a smile growing over her face. “We met after Christmas. He came back to see me, and we’ve been courting ever since. I said he should come and see you, but he said he didn’t want to get you in any more trouble.”
“My God! But that’s wonderful! But where is he? Is he working now? What happened to him?”
Bianca told the whole story of the young corporal’s return to normal life. He had gone back to his village and stayed hidden on his uncle’s farm through the final year of the war.
His mother had received a letter from the army saying that was missing and presumed dead.
She made a show of grieving for her son, but secretly she was visiting him at the uncle’s farm every day, taking him pots of stew and bottles of wine and congratulating him on getting away from the fighting. After the war, he simply left the Susa area and headed to Torino, where he found work in a bakery, and then came looking for Bianca. He had found a small place for them to live and asked Bianca to marry him as soon as possible. For various reasons, she added, the wedding should be sooner rather than later, and she blushed once more.
Emma tried to think of when exactly Bianca would have found the time to conduct a romance of this sort without her knowing all about it. Then she remembered all the parties she and Giovanni had been to in the past few months, and the Sundays on which Bianca had gone off to spend time with her grandmother. Emma was reminded of her own ingenuity in conducting a secret love affair so many years before, and she was quite sure it was possible.
“Well, that’s marvellous,” she said at last, wrapping her arms around Bianca. “I’m so happy for you. If you love him and he loves you, I’m sure you’ll be wonderfully happy.”
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* * *
It was not long after Bianca’s wedding that Emma began to wish that the ground really would swallow her up. The new maid, Sabina, possessed none of Bianca’s genuine good nature, nor was she particularly fond of children, judging by the way she groaned and tutted at their every move. She was also a poor cook and seemed unable to ever clean anything to
Emma’s high standards. There was always dirty washing water in the sink, food and cutlery left all over the kitchen, boot marks on the floor for days on end. She even failed to light the fires each morning until Emma nagged her about it.
Emma had asked her from the start if she would mind moving into the house, so as to be on hand for the children. But Sabina had declined the offer, saying that she had a husband at home and she needed to tend to him as well. She would arrive an hour before Emma left for work each day to see to the children, and stay until she returned in the evenings, but nothing beyond this.
It was hardly what Emma had been hoping for, and the situation was only just workable.
Still, she told herself, beggars can’t be choosers. She’s all I’ve got for the moment and she’ll do the basic job until someone better turns up.
In the meantime, Emma set about looking for a new job. She sent off letters to those companies that she knew off, including some that Riccardo had suggested. She wrote also to
Mr Di Stephano, asking if he might need her back. She posted letters off to everyone she could think of and settled down to wait for the letters of rejection. For three days, she sat at home, waiting for replies, supervising the lazy Sabina and praying quietly for a lucky break.
The first letter to come through the post was a small hand-written note from Mother
Superior, begging her to return to the convent, where she said the accounts and
266 correspondence had reached a state of complete chaos. If Emma could possibly forgive her for her former transgressions, they would love to have her back.
Emma rushed to pull on her boots and coat and ran out the door. She had hit rock bottom, it seemed, and then God – or at least a nun – had answered her prayers.
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CHAPTER 29
TYPHOID FEVER
(1919)
It was in June of 1919 that Giovanni received a worrying letter from his wife in Italy. His beloved, golden-haired girl, Luisa, was seriously ill, running a fever and in danger of dying.
The illness had started at first like a tummy upset with diarrhoea and a bit of sickness. But soon it was clear she had a very high temperature and was in much discomfort. Her high pitched squeals of pain seemed ceaseless. When the doctor came, the news was not good. He said it would be twenty four hours before he knew for sure, but he suspected typhoid fever.
The letter continued, “As a precaution, sheets soaked in disinfectant have been hung at the child’s room door. No one but the nurse is to go in the sick room.” The letter ended with a request that Giovanni return to Italy with all possible speed.
One week later, Giovanni arrived at the front door of the family home, having taken several trains through France and a series of carriages across the Alps. Dropping his bags, he rushed upstairs expecting to be able to see his precious little girl but was stopped in his tracks by the sheet over the door. He wanted to be able to pick her up and hold her in his arms, but the nurse would not allow him into the room without the doctor’s permission.
The doctor came and reasoned with Giovanni, telling him that the child must rest, and that the chances of spreading the infection must be kept to a minimum. The girl was indeed suffering from typhoid fever, said the doctor, and it was in an advanced stage. He had given her some medicine and he hoped it would work, but she was terribly weak.
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Giovanni was desperate and shouted at him: “There must be something more you can do!
You’re supposed to be a doctor aren’t you?”
The doctor assured him that everything possible had already been done, and the girl’s life was now in the hands of God.
Giovanni was far from content with this answer and insisted on seeing Luisa for himself, if only briefly. In the end, he was allowed into the room for a minute. He knelt by the bed and looked at his tiny child, pale and clammy and thin as a rake. He stroked the golden curls away from her forehead, which was damp with sweat. He left the room quite sure that the doctor was right; she would survive only by a miracle.
She died in the early hours of the morning. The nurse came to tell them at three o’clock.
Giovanni, who had not gone to bed but had been dozing fully dressed on top of the covers, sprung from the bed.
“No! No! You’ve made a mistake,” he bellowed. He was beside himself with grief.
When he saw the darling little body lying so still, he started shouting “Why? Why? It’s not true! Do something, someone! You should have done something! Instead you just waited. For what? For her to die?”
The nurse had to restrain him from hitting the doctor. So furious was Giovanni that he barely noticed his wife collapsed in a heap by Luisa’s bed, sobbing into the sheets.
Unable to stay still, he strode out in to the back yard and walked up the hill, through the trees, scratching himself on low branches, just as he had done on the night Anita had been born. But this time, it was death, not birth that was driving him wild. He was out of his mind with grief and he had to blame someone, so he blamed Emma. Later that day, rather than comforting his wife in her unbelievable loss, he turned on her, blaming her for the child’s death.
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“That girl you employed as a maid, Sabina, is filthy. Look at this place! You should have been at home, looking after Luisa, not going out to work.”
To have guilt added to the awful burden of loss was too much for Emma. At that moment, she hated him. All she wanted was get away from him. Instead of consoling her, he was accusing her of neglect. He offered no words of comfort. Where other husbands would have held her in their arms to try and ease the pain, he could only blame her. At that moment, the love she had hitherto had for him began to wither and die.
* * *
Having heard the sad news, Ernesto came from Milano to attend the funeral. His two younger brothers, Guido and Stefano, came also. All three boys had grown into men, married and served their nation in the trenches. But Emma was unable to talk to any of them, so deep was her pain. She leaned on Ernesto through the funeral and was grateful for his strength and kindness.
As the tiny body was committed to the earth, Giovanni would not even look at her. He was locked in his own private hell and she could not reach him.
In the following days, he remained openly hostile. Obviously, her very presence angered him, and he took to sleeping on a camp bed in his studio. In the daytime, he would stomp around the house, insisting on getting things cleaned and organized, and then would retreat to his studio for hours at a time. He vented his feelings on canvas with grotesque shapes and hideous colours, all the time raving and ranting against the doctor, the nurse, Sabina, Emma and God.
He had already sacked Sabina, making it very plain that he blamed her poor standards of hygiene for Luisa’s death. In the end, since the children had also grown afraid of him,
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Giovanni spoke only to Pepé, and then only on practical matters. He worked his way through several bottles of brandy, which he drank in large quantities to get to sleep. In his dreams, he would see his tiny Luisa slipping into the next world, and then he would wake sobbing.
Emma decided that this sort of existence was impossible. She could not go on living with a man who hated her openly and blamed her for their child’s death. She would go out of her mind. She went to the studio and told him that she could not continue and that they should be apart for a while. He simply looked at her with disdain and then returned to his painting.
Late one night, he crept in from the studio and climbed into the marital bed. Emma thought he had come to comfort her, to commiserate. Instead, he took her forcefully, brutally, with no words of love or endearment, as though he were punishing her. It was nothing less than a vicious assault. And when he had finished, he left her alone to her grief and pain, bruised and bleeding.
She sobbed in the darkness. I loved her too, she thought. I carried her within me, bore her in great agony. She was a breech birth, and difficult. Then I felt her soft little mouth at my breast. Oh, I loved her so much! I loved her so much!
Two mornings later, Giovanni kissed his kids goodbye and loaded his cases into the carriage. He left without saying goodbye to Emma, who was watching from an upper window. Sad though it was to see him go, the whole house seemed a brighter place without his brooding silence and the general cloud of disapproval that hung around him.
She awoke the next morning glad of his absence from her life. The nuns suggested she take a couple more weeks to get her bearings and to recover from the tragedy. But to be honest, she didn’t see any merit in hanging around in the family home. She went back to her typewriter gladly before the allotted time.
* * *
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Once back in London, Giovanni felt he had two options. He could either continue to dwell on the loss of his beautiful child and the apparent collapse of his marriage, or he could attempt to pick up the pieces and move forward. Certainly, if he wanted distractions from his grief, London was the place to be. His heart was still heavy with the loss of his golden-haired girl, and he feared it always would be. But brooding would not bring her back. Nor would his clients care much to know of his grief. They would want him to be productive, and productive he intended to be.
As he entered the house in Hither Green, he realised there was someone else already there. He heard footsteps on the floor upstairs and recognized them as Martia’s. She’d been asked to check on the place in his absence, and he’d given her a spare key. She enjoyed the change from her own apartment in Bloomsbury, plush though it was. And since he’d had the piano installed, she had felt more than comfortable on her visits.
It would indeed be good to see his American friend again after all the pathos, all the harsh words, all the accusations and nastiness of the past weeks.
Thank God for Martia! So generous and kind-hearted, was she, such a supportive friend through all his times of uncertainty. She had helped him make his way in London, smoothing his entry into numerous social circles, arranging commissions and sharing his passion for music.
She had a private income too, sent to her each month by her father in Boston, and this she added to her income from piano recitals and the occasional tour. She had been kind enough to share her income whenever required, funding several of his artistic adventures. His recent foray into moving pictures had been her idea, and he had been pleased with the results so far. In contrast, Emma had at times seemed nothing but a tiresome burden, always writing
272 letters detailing her difficult circumstances, pleading for more money and asking when he’d be home.
Martia’s calmness soothed him and he was much more prone to inspiration after listening to her running her fingers over the piano keys. She was, in some regards, his muse, though he had not thought of her very much in sexual terms. He had certainly not asked her to pose nude, but rather delighted in her witty conversation, her astute observations and encyclopaedic knowledge. She had a certain hard edge to her at times, which was expressed in her wicked sense of humour. She enjoyed imitating some of their common acquaintances and providing withering assessments of their psychological make-up. He found all of this amusing, harsh though it sometimes was. She was not bad looking either, with an angular nose, wavy blond hair and green eyes. And yet, thus far, there had been no more than a few mischievous flirtations between them.
As she came down the stairs, she could see instantly the depth of his grief, his drooping posture, the dark rings round his eyes and two weeks of stubble. Her heart was breaking for her dear friend, and she took him in her arms, whispering, “There, there. You poor, poor thing.”
He put his arms around her too, closed his eyes and buried his face in her shoulder, in that long, blond hair, which smelt so sweet. She was warm and loving and she wasn’t in any way the cause of his misery. He lifted his head, and their cheeks touched, their warm breath mingling. Looking at her eyes, he saw they were welling with tears, apparently out of compassion, possibly out of love. Then he noticed tears running down his own cheeks, tears of sadness, but also of relief. Their cheeks touched again, and then their mouths. It was at this moment that their hitherto platonic friendship became a full-blown love affair.
* * *
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Meanwhile, back in Italy, Emma still felt damaged and very much hurt by Giovanni’s violence. She just could not understand how this violent reaction, this temporary loss of sanity, had come about. Could grief really do that? Could it make a hitherto reasonable human being lose all control?
For that is surely what had happened to him. She could still feel the bruising he had caused. It wasn’t just the physical violence that upset her. It was seeing the person she trusted and loved become a veritable monster. This was not the man she knew. He had, in her mind, become a complete stranger.
And, of course, there was the usual worry after two very fertile people had come together. After a few weeks, she knew she was pregnant again. But instead of the usual joy of knowing she had a little bit of her beloved Giovanni growing inside her, she was horrified and sickened by the thought. It was as though his spiteful attack had damaged her body, her mind and her very soul.
He had meant to hurt her, and she did not want this baby. She thought she knew finally how the Maltese women had felt so many years ago when they were raped by the invading enemy. They must have hated the seed growing within them, and yet they bore the children, and perhaps even grew to love them. But Emma could not do what those ravaged women had been brave enough to do. She felt from the depths of her very soul that she had to be rid of this growing mass, this reminder of Giovanni’s cruelty and hatred. She absolutely could not have this baby.
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CHAPTER 30
REVELATIONS
(1919)
The children were playing on the hillside, enjoying the broad, lush meadow fringed by walnut trees. Purple green mountains loomed in the background with a mixture of dark pines and light green mountain ash covering the lower slopes. Naldo and Alberto were rolling in mock combat in the grass while a young Mario was throwing sticks for
Diana, who hobbled after them on her aging legs. Jack the St Bernard lay sleeping in the grass, too old and heavy to be bothered with such exertions. Beside Jack sat little
Iris, just four years old, stroking the animal’s coat. The only sounds were the cry of a hawk somewhere up above, the gentle soughing of the grass and the puffing and panting of the two boys at play.
Suddenly, the peace was shattered by the clanging of metal on a tin tray. All eyes, human and animal, turned downhill to the distant figure of their big sister Anita, summoning them all for lunch.
The boys stood up, brushing themselves down, and Naldo went to the tiny Iris and lifted her onto Jack’s back has he heaved himself out of the grass. Accustomed as she was to riding this way, Iris grasped the leather harness and chuckled with delight, while her elder brother held his hands at the ready to steady her should the need arise. They made their way down to the house, from which emanated the delightful aroma of meat and tomato sauce, which would accompany the spaghetti Papa had made early that morning.
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It was not only the children who were looking forward to lunch; the dogs were hungry too. They had been well fed over the years, and while they mostly ate scraps like any other dog, they had also developed a taste for spaghetti Bolognese. Giovanni had schooled them in eating pasta, and Iris would always remember the sight of Jack and Diana so fully stuffed on her father’s spaghetti that they couldn’t walk.
Giovanni had made it home again. However there was little of the joy and excitement that normally attended his visits. He and Emma seemed to have nothing to say to each other. The children could tell she was angry about something. They could tell by the set of her mouth and the moistness of her eyes as she tried not to give way to tears. She had been like this when Luisa died, and they wondered what on earth could have happened now.
Giovanni had arrived only the night before and had not yet unpacked his bags. He did not seem to have brought much with him this time, and Anita, who was now 13, wondered whether he was staying at all. As she arranged the cutlery on the big wooden table, she pondered what might be wrong with her parents.
The long-awaited meal was eaten in silence, with neither of the parents looking at the other. As soon as the meal was over, Emma rose and went to her room and slammed the door. Giovanni stood staring after her for a few seconds, and then went over to his unpacked ruck- sack and suitcase by the front door. He put the ruck-sack on the back and turned to find five pairs of dark eyes looking at him below questioning frowns.
“You aren’t going already, are you Papa?” said Naldo, anxiously.
Holding his arms out to his boys and drawing them into his embrace, he said,
“I’m very sorry, my little darlings, but I have to go now.”
“When will you be back?” said Roberto.
“I don’t know. It may be some time.”
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Anita was standing with little Iris in her arms, and Giovanni held the two of them in a long embrace, kissing each on the top of their dark heads.
Then he let them go and murmured, “I’ll be back sometime.”
Five pairs of saddened eyes followed him as he strode down to the road, and then he was lost to view behind a clump of trees.
Just then, Emma emerged from the bedroom and began to clear the table. She had been crying, and when Anita came back to help her, she waved the child away.
“No! I’ll do it,” she said. “Take the kids for a walk.”
“Mama! Please tell me what’s wrong. Why has Papa left already? Why aren’t you speaking to each other?”
“It’s nothing you would understand. You’re just a child.”
“Mama, I’m already a woman. I’m thirteen now. I’m not a child any more. I don’t like seeing you sad like this and not knowing why. What’s happened? What’s going on?”
Emma looked at her daughter long and hard, and she had to admit to herself that she was growing into a woman already. She looked tall and slender now, taller than herself by an inch or two. She was not exactly beautiful, but striking at least. Her nose was a little too strong, a feminine version of her father’s, but her lovely dark eyes and beautiful olive skin made up for it. Her head was crowned with thick, blue-black hair, plaited in two braids. And she had such a serious look on her face, as if she was trying to understand all the world’s woes and find a way to take them on.
The famous tenor Beniamino Gigli had taken the girl riding on his motorbike the other week. He had come in search of Giovanni, hoping to catch up on news and perhaps boast about his success. Not finding the great man at home, Beniamino had stayed for coffee and then invited Anita to try riding pillion. Emma had allowed Anita
277 to go for a short ride, her arms around the singer’s waist, and it had occurred to her than that the girl would soon be catching the eyes of men of all ages.
Emma had meant to have a little warning talk with her daughter, but with so much else on her mind, she hadn’t. She didn’t want her girl becoming bewitched by a lovely voice the way she had been by Papa’s so many years before. She had been bowled over by that deep voice from the very start, from that first night at the opera…
Emma consciously put a stop to the romantic memories and came back to the terrible present. The horrifying confirmation of his infidelity had blown her world apart. She hadn’t minded how hard she had to work to keep the children fed, so long as she felt they were a team. Giovanni worked on his art in London and at the film studios, while she toiled at her desk in the convent. Between them, they raised their children and maintained their sacred vows. Or at least that had been her understanding…
She had long suspected something was going on with Martia, but now that confirmation had come, it was too hard to bear. It was the ultimate betrayal. She needed someone to confide in, but how could she load all her troubles onto a daughter so young? On the other hand, it seemed Anita wouldn’t rest until she’d heard the full story.
She told the other children to go out and play out the back again. She and Anita would clear the table. The children wandered off through the kitchen, their heads hung low. Once outside, they starting shouting in play and ran off into the sunshine. Anita started to gather the plates and cutlery, waiting for her mother to begin.
“Your father has another woman in England,” said Emma at last. “He met her at a party several years ago. She’s a pianist and she got him the job at the film studios, painting the scenery. I’ve suspected for some time that they were having an affair, but I wasn’t sure. However, when he came home last night, I found a note from her in his
278 jacket pocket. It’s obviously a love letter, although it’s very brief. It’s signed by the woman I suspected.”
Anita had stopped clearing the table, her mouth wide in amazement, but Emma continued the task alone.
“He says it’s nothing serious, just a friendship. Ha! I know him better than that. A friendship indeed! I know a love letter when I read one. No wonder he hasn’t been sending any money home! He’s been spending it all on that woman. He may be in his late fifties but he still can’t resist a pretty face. Although I wouldn’t say she’s particularly beautiful. He’s just an idiot … they’re both idiots … but women can’t resist him, of course, with his charms and his singing and his sweet words.”
“Oh Mama! But Papa wouldn’t!”
“Papa would!” said Emma, forgetting all her previous concerns about the fragility of Anita’s young mind. Now that she had started confiding in her daughter, she couldn’t stop.
“And that’s not all. I’m pregnant again, and do you know what he said? He had the cheek to say it couldn’t be his. Of course it’s his! It happened just after Louisa died. He did it in anger and spite to punish me. He said her death was my fault!”
She gasped, remembering who she was speaking with. She put down the plates with a bang and covered her mouth with her hands.
“Oh, I shouldn’t say such things to you! I’m so sorry! You are not supposed to know about such things.”
“Oh Mama!” said Anita, frozen still in shock at all the revelations.
Emma tried to lend some normality to the announcement of a new child, hoping that a restatement of the facts would cover her previous indiscretions.
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“I’m pregnant again, Anita, by your father, of course, although you don’t need to worry about how such things come about. You’ll find out when you finally get married yourself.”
“What are you talking about, Mama? I’m old enough to know about babies. I’m surrounded by rabbits and cows and goats making babies all the time. Even the boys know how it works.”
A look of surprise appeared for a moment on Emma’s face. She had clearly underestimated her children’s powers of observation. Or else she had not noticed them growing up so quickly. In a flash, the expression was replaced by a one of anguish, and she remembered the serious nature of their conversation.
“I can’t have another baby, Anita. I can’t! I already have to work to keep you all.
He sends less and less money these days. Poor little Luisa died because I had to hire that stupid, dirty maid to look after all of you. I’m alone now without Bianca, and I just can’t cope any more. I can’t cope with another one. I couldn’t risk that happening again.”
Anita leaned across the table and touched her mother’s hand, which had clenched into a fist, and Emma sank into a chair.
“I know he blames me for that,” she said, as if to herself. “He loved that little soul so much. Her eyes were exactly the colour of his and her hair too. It really broke his heart … and mine.”
Tears began to tumble down Emma’s cheeks as Anita put her arms around her.
“I can’t care for all of you and earn the money to keep you all and have another one to care for as well. I just can’t manage it, Anita.”
After a silence, during which Anita tried to think of some consoling words, Emma pulled herself upright and blew her nose on a handkerchief.
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“When I think what I gave up for him! What a silly little fool I was! I ruined the lives of my whole family in Valletta because of him. My father never recovered from the shame of it. And now I am here in this situation. If my father were here now, he’d tell me he warned me from the start, and he would be right.”
“Oh Mama, you sound like you wish you’d never had us!” said Anita, her chest heaving with emotion.
“Oh no, sweetheart! Not at all! You children are all I live and work for. And the same goes for Papa too … until this … this betrayal. How could he? How could he,
Anita?”
And she bent forward into her young daughter’s arms and began to sob.
The girl held her mother for a minute before the woman pulled away.
“I’m very much afraid I will have get rid of this one,” Emma said, blowing her nose again.
Anita gasped.
“Oh mama, you wouldn’t! It would be a mortal sin!”
“I don’t think I have any option, my darling. I know I can’t get it done in this country. I will have to go to England. There are people there who will do it for a fee.”
“You can’t leave us on our own!”
“No, of course not! Do you think I’d do that? No, your father can look after you while I’m having the procedure. It’s his fault anyway, so he should lend a hand. We’ll all go to the house in London and I’ll leave you there for probably no more than a week, and then I’ll be back to collect you. I may have a few things I want to say to your father too, while I’m there... And then we can all come home again.”
Too stunned to utter a word, Anita looked for a while at her bedraggled mother and then quietly continued clearing the table.
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CHAPTER 31
UPROOTED
(1919)
And so it was that after a long train journey through France and a rough crossing of the Channel, Emma and her five children went up the steps to the grey house in south
London and let themselves in. She had kept the key to the house all these years, just in case she ever decided to return. She never imagined she would return under such circumstances. As the door swung open, she felt like she was breaking into her husband’s secret life – which, in a way, she was.
The house was empty and terribly quiet. The six pairs of feet made their way up the steep stairs to the big front bedroom. The children were all exhausted from the wearying and seemingly endless journey, and they lay down together on the big bed, apart from Anita, who wanted to be by her mother’s side.
Emma kissed them all, saying, “Have a good sleep, and be good for Papa. I’ll be back soon.”
In the hallway, Anita clung to her mother and cried as quietly as she could, so that the others would not hear.
“Come back soon,” she said, looking up.
“I will, my dear. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” said Emma, planting a final kiss on her forehead.
Anita watched her from the window as she went down the street, pausing to look back and wave before rounding the corner.
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* * *
The minute Giovanni opened the front door, he heard familiar childish voices. As he stood at the bottom of the stairs, he saw five beaming faces looking down from the landing above. The bigger boys charged down into his arms, and Anita come down more slowly, carrying little Iris.
His kids were here, but where was their mother? Was she somewhere else in the house?
What had been her intention in arriving unannounced like this? In the excitement of the tumultuous greetings, he could do little more than hug them all and ruffle their hair.
Finally, when he could hear himself speak, he asked his question: “Where is your mother?”
“She had to go somewhere else,” said Anita, glad that she’d rehearsed her lines in advance. “She said she would be back in two or three days.”
“Where did she go?” he asked, more perplexed than before.
“She didn’t say,” said Anita, hoping this would satisfy her father.
“She dropped you here and didn’t say where she was going?” he asked again, incredulous.
“That’s right,” said the girl, looking blankly at Giovanni.
Finally, feeling he wasn’t going to get any further with the matter, he gave up asking.
But what was he going to do with these children? He sighed heavily. He loved his children, and he was happy to see them again, but there was work to be done, and some of it must be finished in the coming days. He absolutely needed help if he was to get anything done.
Leaving them to play in the drawing room, Giovanni walked down to the telegraph office and stepped into a telephone booth. He asked the operator for a number in Bloomsbury.
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“Martia, darling,” he said, his voice switching to the soft tone he used for romantic utterances. “A very surprising thing has happened, my dear. Emma has delivered the children here and then disappeared somewhere. The children won’t tell me where she’s gone to, and I have so much work to do. I can’t possibly deal with them all on my own.”
By supper time, the children were getting their first glimpse of the Irish-American woman, whom Anita alone knew to be “the other woman”. The girl was tempted at that moment to scratch her eyes out, so furious was she at the pain she had caused her mother.
However, she was distracted from this fantasy of revenge by the huge tin of toffees that was set down before them, a golden ribbon just asking to be undone.
“Go on then, you little brats,” said the other woman. “That lot should keep you quiet for a while.”
Giovanni was so thoroughly confident in Martia’s command of the situation that he changed into his painting smock and disappeared into his studio, there to put the finishing touches to a long-overdue portrait.
* * *
The next morning, as the children went into the back garden to play, Giovanni called
Anita to him and asked her again where her mother had gone. The girl seemed reluctant to tell him, but when he put on his stern face and demanded the truth, she finally answered. Her answer hit him like a rock.
“What baby, for goodness sake?”
“The one you forced on her, when you went crazy and hurt her. She said you raped her.”
He sat there open mouthed for a moment. He had no memory of that night, when he had been of his mind with grief, his blood mixed with brandy, crazed with guilt of his own. He
284 had woken the next day in the studio with a banging headache and the sense of having had more nightmares, terrible, dark dreams, and then the living nightmare of his grief had begun once more.
“She said you raped her,” said Anita again, looking at her father’s frowning face, hoping for some kind of explanation.
He took out a cigar and lit it, mechanically, ignoring the presence of his child. And then he began to remember snatches of the event itself, images that he’d told himself were just a dream, but which now seemed to have been real. If so, then the resulting baby was real too, and he was responsible for it. He felt the suddenly hot, and he loosened his collar.
“Where has she gone?” he asked again, taking Anita’s hand.
“I don’t know, Papa, she didn’t say. She just told me she was going to get rid of the baby. She said she’d be back afterwards.”
“Alright, my dear, alright,” he said, letting go of her hand.
He couldn’t bring himself to look in his daughter’s eyes. He hadn’t denied the act of rape, and he was increasingly convinced that it had taken place. What must his daughter think of him? He hadn’t been told of the new baby, but he supposed it was true. And Emma was going to kill their unborn child, without even consulting him … she was going to kill their unborn child … having already killed Luisa … It seemed everything was just collapsing all at once.
And this on top of the love letter from Martia! Now the children had met Martia too, and no doubt Anita had been told all about that. He was certainly not coming out of all of this very well. It was a wonder that Anita could bear to be in his presence at all.
He thanked his daughter and told her not to worry, then sent her off to check on her brothers and sisters. He would have to think long and hard about the future. What was
Emma’s plan? Would she want him back? Would he even go back to her now, if she asked?
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And what about Martia? There was no doubt in his mind that she was the woman for him – strong, capable, talented, the life and soul of any party. And so supportive of his work, so respectful of his talent. As a musician herself, she knew the value of inspiration and the hours of solitude and practice required to attain perfection.
* * *
He found her sitting in her favourite spot, at the grand piano in the drawing room, practicing for a recital, a cigarette smoking nearby. She stopped and turned as he entered.
“Hello, darling,” he said, sitting down on the stool beside her.
He told her of Anita’s revelations, about the baby and the abortion, and the alleged rape, which he said was an exaggeration aimed at painting him in a bad light. He may have been a little rough, but it certainly wasn’t rape. In any case, he had to decide what to do about the children. If they went back with Emma, he might not see them again. She might even decide to take them to Malta, for all he knew, and then it would all be over.
As Martia listened to the whole thing, she knew exactly what she must do. She must stand by her man, support him in his hour of need. They must present a united front against
Emma, who had proven herself incapable of caring for his children properly, killing one through neglect and now another by way of abortion. If they could hang on to the children and send Emma packing, she would be out of their life for good. She might even fling herself into the Channel on the way home. And good riddance to her!
Truth be told, Martia didn’t particularly like children, which was one reason she’d never had any of her own. For one thing, they tended to get in the way of piano practice, always demanding attention and interrupting things. She knew this from her childhood home, where younger brothers and sisters would always butt in when she was trying to play. She would
286 scold them and slap them and send them running off in tears, and then return to her beloved piano keys. Children seemed to get in the way of everything, in fact, placing obstacles in the way of travel and parties and all things nice. And they were so incredibly expensive too.
But if this was the only way she could hang on to her beloved Giovanni, then so be it. In
12 years from now, the youngest, Iris, would be 16, she calculated. That was a long time to wait for freedom, but she felt confident that with a firm hand they could all be kept in order.
The house was, after all, quite large enough for them all, and the drawing room could be labelled out of bounds to children, if needs be. She knew from experience, that she could be quite terrifying when she wanted to, and no four-year-old girl was going to get in the way of her happiness.
She told Giovanni that she would love to help him raise the children, here in London, if that’s what he wanted. They could work out the details as they went along, she said, but certainly she could be counted on.
“Thank you so much,” he said, burying his face in her sweet-smelling, golden hair once more. She was his saviour, and together they could overcome any obstacle.
* * *
That night, before they turned out the light, she told him of the key part of the plan as she saw it. The main thing was to ensure that Emma got back on that boat to Italy without her children. After that, she could be accused in any court of having abandoned them, and she would have no hope of ever winning them back. They would be Giovanni’s from that point on, and nothing could change that. They would form a new family together, here in London, and life would start again, but better than before.
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She explained that she had already disabled the doorbell and muffled the knocker with a wad of cloth. She would listen out for the door and make sure that nobody answered it if
Emma came knocking. Giovanni would most likely be at work anyway, since he had so many clients to visit this week.
“If anyone comes to the door in the next few days, don’t answer it. Just stay out of sight, and keep the kids out of sight too. I’ll check to see who it is, and if it’s Emma, we just won’t answer. She can stand there and knock as much as she likes, but she won’t get any response.
In the end, she’ll give up and go away.”
Giovanni was silent. He couldn’t bear to think of the mother of his children being treated in this way, even if she had killed their unborn child. And yet, he could see no other option.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that she’d never see the children again. That would be too horrible. Perhaps it was cowardly, but Martia’s plan seemed to make sense.
“Giovanni, my darling,” said Martia, leaning close to him, “Don’t worry about at thing.
I’ll take care of it all, and soon the whole thing will be over. Just trust me.”
She planted a kiss on his mouth, and another, and then reached across to turn out the light.
* * *
Emma found the address she had been given and stood outside for quite a few minutes. At one point she turned away, unable to face what she had come to do. But a nagging voice kept saying, “For the sake of the children, you have to do this. You cannot cope with another one. This one would not be born of love; it was conceived in hatred.”
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She thought again of her husband’s act of savagery, and she was filled with revulsion. What right had he to treat her thus? Luisa’s death had been a terrible blow for her, and on top of that injury, he had added a terrible insult.
She looked up at the grim building and checked the address. Muttering, “God forgive me,” she climbed the steps to the front door.
Inside, the place that bore no resemblance to a clinic. It seemed more like a boarding house, dark and dusty. She was shown into a parlour by an old woman and asked to explain her reasons for coming. The woman told Emma the cost of the procedure and Emma handed over an envelope containing money, her hand shaking and reluctant to let go.
Minutes later, another woman arrived and showed her into an adjoining room, where she was asked to take a seat on a low couch covered in a white cotton sheet. She was told to remove her shoes and stockings and drink some bitter liquid from a dirty glass.
Almost immediately, she felt dizzy and was helped to lie down. Her body relaxed, and she her eyes lids became heavy as she was moved more fully into position. Sounds became distant and she was only slightly aware of the clink of instruments, of hand pressure and of something being pulled from inside her, of wetness between her legs and a voice saying, “All done now.”
She struggled to open her eyes and turn her head to one side. She saw a dish with some pink mass laying in it, and a pair of hands snatching the whole thing out of sight.
Though her vision was blurred, she could have sworn something in the pink mass moved.
There was no sense of relief, just a feeling of revulsion and self-hatred.
“Oh my God, forgive me,” she said in her mind, over and over again.
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A couple of hours later, on legs that felt like jelly, she made her way slowly along the street until she came to a sign for rooms to let. It looked shabby and unpromising, but she could walk no further. This would have to do. All she wanted to do was to lie down.
When she awoke, she had no sense of what day it was or what time it was. After a few moments, she came to a full realisation of where she was and – more horribly – how she had come to be there. It wasn’t just a nightmare. It was reality. Her life was a nightmare. The nightmare was real. She thought for a moment of just staying there in that bed, laying there until she died. Or walking to the river and dropping herself in it.
Then she thought of her children, waiting for her, and she gave herself a mental shaking: “Come on, Emma, this is what you set out to do and you’ve done it.”
She would have to go now and collect the children, and take them back on the boat to Italy. Doubtless she would have to face Giovanni, if he was speaking to her at all.
She would not tell him where she had been, not unless he asked. All she wanted was to get her kids back home safely to Italy and start again without the fruits of his hatred growing inside her.
* * *
She returned to the family house in Hither Green, standing on the pavement at the bottom of the stone steps, gathering her thoughts and courage. The boat was leaving the next day, and she was low on money now. She and the children would all have to stay a night in a hotel, but she had just enough money for that one night. The train tickets through France were safe in her travel bag, but there was little money spare for emergencies or the unforeseen.
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They might just make it back to Collina Verde with a few lira to spare, if they were lucky.
Her tummy rumbled, and she recalled that she had not eaten breakfast.
She looked again at the front door, looming at the top of the steps. She knew that her husband might have many difficult questions for her. But she had been through the worst of it now, and she took comfort from the prospect of starting a new, and more independent, chapter in her life.
At the top of the steps, she pulled hard on the bell, but heard no sound from within. She pulled again, apparently with no effect. She reached for the knocker, but it had been removed.
She rapped at the door with her bare knuckles until they were red and sore. She glanced up at the windows in between banging on the door and knew that she had been seen when a curtain twitched. But still no one answered the door.
She thought of calling out or walking round to the back of the house and entering through the kitchen. But she was paralysed by the thought that perhaps her husband was not alone, but with his lover. Her body, already fragile, was flushed now with the natural drugs of jealousy and fear, so that her hands became cold and she began to shake. Perhaps they were keeping the children locked away upstairs, scolding them if they went near the windows.
Perhaps she had made a terrible mistake in trusting her husband this one last time?
Her head began to swim, and she staggered slowly down the steps, gripping the rail tightly with both hands. A horse and cart rumbled past, the driver looking at her with a frown.
She realised she must look a mess. She felt weak and was sweating, her hair plastered to her forehead.
She turned and looked up at the house again. The curtain at the bedroom window moved, as if someone were dodging out of sight. Emma gripped the hand rail and started back up the steps. Then she felt a sudden stab of pain through her abdomen and she doubled over. She
291 knew couldn’t go on with this; she would have to lie down somewhere and catch her strength.
Straightening up slowly, she walked off in the direction of the hotel, her head hung low.
* * *
With every wave it rode, the boat carried Emma further away from her children. She slept fitfully upon the draughty deck, sunk into a deckchair, wrapped in a blanket. She was still exhausted, having been unable to sleep all night in the hotel, crying endlessly and taking medicine for the ache in her womb. She had dressed twice in the night and resolved to return to the house in Hither Green. She would push her way in, demand to see her children, to fight for them if necessary. But each time, she had realized that she didn’t have the strength for such a battle, nor the money to stay longer if she missed her boat. After all, the children might not even be there. And she was so dreadfully tired, and the pain in her womb nagged away.
On waking, she wondered once more where she was, and then saw seagulls overhead, felt the motion of the boat and salty wind blowing past. Then she felt a sudden surge of panic as she realized that her children were not with her. But where were they? And then, moments later, the terrible truth would dawn on her once more. They were no longer with her. She had left them behind in England, lost them to that blond American bitch and her adulterous husband.
Could life possibly get any worse? She struggled to her feet and stood by the rail, looking back at the distant line on the horizon that seemed to be England. To her right, the coast of France approached. Beneath her, the grey waves rose and fell, and she wondered what it would be like to drown, to sink beneath the waves. Perhaps it would be better than this, better than carrying on?
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CHAPTER 32
THE PAIN OF SEPARATION
(1919)
Geovanni was somewhat surprised at the equanimity with which Martia accepted the children in the house. She took the line of a firm but fair governess, with occasional flashes of generosity. She could be kind to the children, but the threat of punishment was never far below the surface. She seemed to get on well with the boys, talking to them like young adults, taking an interest in their engineering constructions and encouraging them to read books at every opportunity. She was especially fond of young
Mario, whom she thought quite sweet-looking, with his pretty, long-lashed eyes. She thought at times that he would grow up looking very much like his father.
Martia seemed less keen on the girls, particularly Iris, with whom she often lost her patience. The young girl was always whining about something, asking where her mother was and when she would return, or else talking about their house in Italy and their lovely dogs. She demanded constant attention and seemed obsessed with dolls and other trivial matters. As the days passed, Martia concluded that Iris was a spoiled brat, having been given too free a rein by her idiot mother. She encouraged Anita to keep the young girl away from her as much as possible, and luckily, Anita managed this fairly well. She cared for her little sister very much.
After two weeks had passed, Anita finally summoned the courage to ask what had happened to her mother. The other children had also been pestering her to ask, and she
293 could hold her questions in no longer. One evening, as Giovanni and Martia were listening to music on the gramophone in the drawing room, Anita knocked and entered.
The couple were sitting side-by-side, smoking and drinking wine, a stack of gramophone records on the coffee table in front of them. A tenor voice oozed from the gramophone horn, filling the room with Italian words.
Anita stopped just inside the door, explaining that she and the other children wondered whether there was any news of their mother, since she had not yet returned for them. Martia and Giovanni had rehearsed their story well, and began to tell it, taking it in turns to speak. Emma had decided to return to Italy without the children, claiming that she was unwell and would not be able to care for them any longer. The operation had been successful but painful, and she was feeling unhappy anyway, so she had got on the boat alone.
Anita had feared this answer, and suspected that it was not true. She thought that perhaps her mother had tried to take them all back with her, but had been thwarted by
Martia. If so, her father was probably involved in the plot also. There was a battle for control of the children, and her mother had lost.
“So what was wrong with her?” she said at last, her voice shaking.
“I told you, my dear,” said Giovanni. “She was unwell after the operation and had to return without you. She wouldn’t have been able to cope with the journey back home and look after all of you as well. So she went alone.”
“But why didn’t she say goodbye?” said Anita, anger rising within her.
“Because she didn’t want to upset you. She knew it would be terribly sad, and she couldn’t bear to say goodbye. She was very unwell, you remember,” continued
Giovanni, stubbing out his half-finished cigar impatiently.
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“Well, why didn’t she leave a letter for us? I don’t think she would have gone off without at least leaving a letter or something,” said Anita.
“Well, that’s exactly what she did, Anita, if you insist on knowing,” said Giovanni, rising from the sofa and walking to the fireplace. “She did exactly that. She went back to Italy without even leaving a note of farewell. She had her own wellbeing in the front of her mind, as is often the case, and she left you here in my care because she knew she could depend upon me to do the right thing. She didn’t say a word of goodbye to you, nor leave a letter. I’m sorry about that, but perhaps you’re finally finding out who your mother really is. I’m sorry to say so, but it’s the truth,” said the old man, automatically taking out a new cigar and lighting it.
“I don’t believe it,” said Anita, frowning deeply and beginning to tremble. “She wouldn’t do that to us. She’s not like that at all. She would definitely want to take us back. I don’t believe she would just go away and not say anything to us.”
Tears were now welling in her eyes and the throat was tight.
“Don’t you dare talk to your father like that!” shouted Martia, rising from her chair. “Don’t you dare talk to him like that, accusing him of telling lies! He may be soft but I’ll thrash you to within an inch of your life! Now get up to your room!” And
Martia began to walk across the room in Anita’s direction, a look of fury on her face.
“My dear, be calm,” said Giovanni, taking hold of Martia’s arm and stopping her forward progress. “Anita has a right to know what happened, and I have told her. She has expressed her disbelief, and that’s natural, bearing in mind what it says about her own mother. But she has a right to know who her mother really is.”
Martia was silent again, but she resented Giovanni’s voice of reason. Had he not been there, she would have given Anita the good thrashing she deserved and sent her
295 off to bed in tears. Sometimes, she thought, Giovanni really was too soft with his children. They had him wrapped around their little fingers.
Anita still had not moved from the spot, determined to find out what was going on.
She was on the verge of believing that her mother had indeed disappeared back to Italy without trying to retrieve her children – but she could not believe that was the end of it.
“So when will she come back for us?” she said at last, now feeling suddenly dizzy.
Martia made another move toward the girl, and Anita flinched, but Giovanni held the woman back. Then he spoke again, the tone of fatherly affection present in his voice.
“She didn’t say when she would be back, my dear, and I’m not sure she ever will be. If she’s still alive, then I imagine she’s working hard to adjust to life without you.
She didn’t mention anything about wanting you back.”
Anita stood still and silent, allowing these words to percolate into her mind.
“So you’re saying she’s abandoned us for good? I don’t believe it,” said Anita, although she was beginning to think it might actually be true. “Surely she’d at least want to say goodbye?”
Tears were now beginning to fall down her cheeks, and Giovanni was moved by a deep love for his dear daughter. He stepped forward and put his arms around the girl.
“I’m sure she’ll write or telephone at some point, my darling, just as soon as she’s better. Then you can talk with her and ask her all your questions. Until now, I’m afraid you’ll just have to get used to living without her. I love you very much, and so does
Martia, and we will do our best to look after you all from now on.”
Anita was quite sure that Martia did not love any of the children. She was there for other reasons, related to romance and other adult things. Indeed, Anita felt sure that she hated the children at times, and the feeling was mutual.
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“Go to bed, my sweet, and get some sleep,” said Giovanni softly. “Things will look different in the morning. Your mother still loves you, I’m sure, and you’ll hear from her sometime. You’re very precious to me, and you always will be. Now go upstairs.”
Anita left the room silently and ran upstairs. Her brothers and sisters were waiting for her, eager to find the answers to their questions about Mama. When Anita told them, they variously burst into tears and began to complain that it couldn’t be true.
Roberto and Naldo wanted to go down and confront father directly, but Anita forbade it. Iris, meanwhile, was crying, as was Mario. Both had to be consoled by Anita, and they were allowed to share her bed that night, snuggling close until the tears were overcome by the need for sleep.
* * *
During her long journey home, Emma exhausted herself with thinking and worrying and regretting her actions. On the train to Paris and then through an entire night in a cheap hotel there, she pondered her failure to hang on to her children. She continued thinking the same dreadful thoughts on the train down to Marseille and through a long night walking down by the seafront. She cursed her idiocy in trusting Giovanni to hand her children back, and she cursed her cowardice in shrinking from a fight with that wretched woman, that blonde whore.
She cursed and sobbed and said aloud, “Why? Why? Why? What have I done to deserve this?”
Along the French coast and up to Torino, in carriages and trains, the same thoughts tumbled around her brain, but now with less clarity, as the energy drained from her body and mind. She wondered if she had cried out the worst of the poison now, scolded herself with sufficient scorn and suffered sufficient remorse to be allowed some respite.
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As she walked in through the door to Collina Verde, she felt quite empty, her head spinning from lack of sleep, the voices in her mind now indistinct and mostly ignored. She put down her travel bag and plodded upstairs to bed. She slept for 12 hours solid, and woke the next morning with the same startling question that always attended her waking moments:
Where were her children?
She spent that day alternately unpacking, preparing for work the next day and sobbing.
Just as she had wiped the tears from her face and resolved to be stronger, she would collapse again, once while cutting a slice of bread to eat with her soup, another time in the middle of cleaning out the ashes from the living room fire.
By the evening, she seemed to have attained a degree of stability and resolve. She would pull herself together, get on with her normal life and explore what chances there might be of somehow regaining her children. It would take time, but there must be a way. She would write to Giovanni first of all, asking if they could possibly be sent back to her in Italy. She hoped he might want them off his hands by now, knowing how much he valued the peace and quiet necessary for true creativity.
If that did not work, she would consult a lawyer and try to find a legal means of getting them back. Surely, as their mother, she should have the right to keep them with her, in the country where they were born, living in the only home they had known. What judge could rule against such a claim?
If all else failed, she would appeal to Giovanni’s friends to intervene. Vanka was not around, but she might look up Mrs De Bois and ask for her help, or perhaps Luigi, Riccardo or Silvio. One of them, surely, would be able to see her point of view and would agree to apply pressure on Giovanni. She had experienced a run of back luck, but the whole world could not be against her, surely?
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She went over the finances and tried to calculate how she would live without an income from Giovanni. On her own, she would be fine, but with the children, it would be difficult, though not impossible. She could ask Anita to stay at home and take on washing or else get work in the village. She was old enough to work by now, and she could earn almost as well as an adult. If they tightened their belts and had the support of the nuns, there was no reason why it was not possible to live without Giovanni’s rare windfalls from London.
In the end, she began to feel somewhat better, and she raised her spirits further by pouring a large glass of wine and taking down an old novel from the bookshelves. It was
Treasure Island, a story she had read as a youngster and loved for its exotic locations, lively characters and the thrill of adventure. She read it by the light of the fire, the wine washing through her veins and easing her to sleep.
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CHAPTER 33
STRUGGLING ON
(1919)
The next day, she presented herself at the convent bright and early. When Mother
Superior enquired about her holiday in England, it was all she could do to keep from bursting into tears. Of course, she could not mention the abortion, and she dared not try to explain about her failed marriage and losing her children.
Instead, she merely said that the children would be spending an extended holiday with their father, and that for this reason, she would have more time to devote to her work at the convent. Detecting a note of sadness in Emma’s voice, Mother Superior resisted the temptation to delve deeper. Instead, she said there was plenty more work to be done if Emma wanted extra hours. In addition, there were now more than a dozen children in the crèche, which had become increasingly popular with local families through the war years. If Emma could spare the time, she would be most welcome as an additional teacher.
Emma was cautious about accepting this offer at first, but on meeting the children, she found herself drawn to them. They ranged in age from 3 to 13, and all seemed so well- behaved, playing with the young nuns or else working at their school books, developing the skills of reading, writing and arithmetic. Emma sat down with one of the older girls, and looked at her handwriting, which was quite awful, like a line of ants wiggling across the page. There was clearly much work to do here, and she felt that somehow the presence of these children might help ease the pain of losing her own.
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The nuns explained that the crèche had grown during the war out of necessity. With so many men at the front and so many women working in the factories, many children had been left at home alone, which was neither safe nor kind. Some of the older children had been unable to make the daily trek to school, since they normally relied on lifts on the back of farmer’s carts or with relatives, and these were no longer available. Others, meanwhile, had lost their fathers and their mothers had been unable to cope, and they now lived in the convent full time, sleeping on mattresses in the nun’s dormitories.
When she heard all of this, Emma decided that she absolutely must get involved, and she committed to working there three mornings a week, making up for her absence from the office by staying late in the evenings. She would also give the older children lessons at her house at the weekends, if they wanted, and she would be happy to give them lunch too.
Her spoken Italian was now just as good as any local woman, if not better, and she had the added advantage of having studied the grammar in some detail. She was also good at arithmetic and would be happy to attempt any other subject on which there was a school textbook available. She knew that this wouldn’t bring her own children back, but it would at least give her a reason to get out of bed each day.
And so Emma spent the next few weeks going between the convent and home, and she filled at least a few hours each weekend with giving private lessons. There were three girls and two boys, all quiet and conscientious, ranging from 9 to 13, and they were quick to improve under their new tutor. They sat at Emma’s dining room table and worked in silence, and she almost felt like telling them to be more noisy – like real children. During lunch, which was invariably soup and bread, she engaged them in conversation. Officially, she was seeking to expand their vocabularies and develop their range of interests, but in truth, she simply loved to hear their eager young voices chattering away.
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Once the lessons were done, however, and the children returned to the convent, Emma felt horribly lonely, more so than she ever thought possible. The house was so empty in the evenings without her beloved and bubbly children tearing about the place and making a mess.
She would often take out writing paper and start to compose letters to them in London, explaining why she had not taken them back to Italy with her, but she never seemed to find the right words to explain it. She started letters also to Giovanni, but was likewise overwhelmed with the burden of expressing her wishes. She tore up all off her efforts and collapsed in tears, then turned each time to the bottle, pouring more brandy to fill the gap in her heart.
Seeking another distraction, she bought a gramophone, something that Giovanni had always insisted was an extravagance. Why would she need such a machine, when she was married to a celebrated singer?
Along with the gramophone, she purchased a box of records, including several operas she knew and loved, plus some more modern music. The new tunes she heard were lively and full of energy, their joyful songs of love rendered in Italian, French and English. The voices were accompanied by lively tunes on piano, accordion and string quartet, with the occasional brass instrument chiming in. She played through the entire box, and soon learned to skip those arias that most reminded her of Giovanni, since they tended to make her cry.
She also made several trips into Torino to enquire about freelance translation work with engineering firms there. She got only one positive response, and that was from Mr di
Stephano, who said there was plenty of translation work available, since some of the regular translators had turned out to be sub-standard. If she would come to the office every month, he would happily give her a stack of documents in French, Italian, English and German. She could work from home and would be paid by the word, and there was likely to be plenty more work in the coming years.
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By November, Emma had established a routine of work at the convent and at home that almost blotted out the sadness. Almost but not quite, for at night sometimes she would curl up on a ball and cry bitterly, so deep was her loss.
Then, one Sunday evening, she found herself full of resolve finally to write the letters that had so far defeated her. She started with a letter to Giovanni, in which she expressed her deep sadness at losing the children and begged him to let them come home. She explained that she now had more money than ever, and that the place was clean and tidy. The children would be well looked after and would surely be happier with their mother. She said that she would be willing to take any step that he thought necessary, but she absolutely could not be parted from her children for the long term, and she was sure the children felt the same.
This done, and fortified with a stiff brandy, she wrote a second letter, this time to her children, explaining that she was missing them terribly and hoped they would all be reunited soon. She said that she had been ill, and this was the reason why she had not been able to bring them back to Italy. However, she was well again now and was trying to work out a way to bring them home. She had decided not to mention the confrontation with Martia, since it would only upset them and perhaps make their new domestic arrangements more difficult.
She said they must all be patient and behave well for Papa. She described how nice their
Italian home was looking and how the dogs were both fine and healthy, despite their old age.
She told them also of the antics of Pepé, who was just as grumpy as ever. She described the onset of autumn too, along with the arrival of truffles and mushrooms and the jam she had made. She closed by saying that she loved them all very, very much and would try to talk to them by telephone soon. She dropped just one tear on the letter as she finished writing it, but wiped it off before it could leave a mark.
She then placed the two letters in separate envelopes, put the same address on them, but headed one “Mr Giovanni Boella” and the other “My Darling Children”. The next morning,
303 she gave them to the postman, complete with stamps, and said a prayer to God that her messages should arrive safely and have the desired effect.
* * *
It was Martia who collected the mail each morning, and when she saw the pair of letters from Emma, she decided to keep them secret for the time being. She waited until Giovanni was out on business and then steamed open both envelopes. Having committed the key points to memory, she returned them both to their envelopes and sealed them again with glue.
The letter to the children would never reach them, but be placed in a shoe box, along with various other scraps of paper and love letters of old. The box was hidden, as usual, under some old clothes in the draw at the bottom of the bedroom wardrobe. Neither the children nor
Giovanni would ever get to read it.
The letter to Giovanni, however, would be handed to its intended recipient. Martia knew that Giovanni was determined to hang on to the children, and so nothing that Emma said in her letter would have the slightest effect on the situation. If anything, it would encourage
Giovanni to finally write a stern response, telling Emma to forget ever seeing the children again.
And that is indeed what Giovanni did that very evening. Having read Emma’s begging letter, he sat down at his writing desk and began to explain why he could never let her near the children again. By killing their unborn child, Emma had broken the law of Italy and that of God too. She had also demonstrated conclusively that she was an unfit mother, which had already been evident in her neglect of Luisa. She was a filthy and disorganized person and one clearly capable of murder.
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If Emma persisted in seeking to drag the children back to the unhealthy life they had lived in Italy, he would be forced to take the matter to court. He would tell the judge of the abortion and of her neglect of Luisa, of Emma’s mental instability and the poverty and filth of the conditions at Collina Verde. He would explain also that she had run away from their home in London, which he had worked so hard to establish, condemning their children to a life of neglect in a rural backwoods. No judge on earth would possibly fail to rule against him.
He finished by suggesting that she see a doctor and a priest and that she seek to begin life anew, looking to the future rather than dwelling pointlessly on the past. The children were in good hands now, and she had no reason to fear for their wellbeing.
His hand hesitated at the end of the letter, as he pondered the closing words. He was so used to signing off with love and affection, but now he had blocked off that possibility, though his heart seemed somehow to insist on a deep love for the woman.
In the end, he simply signed the letter “Giovanni” and sent it off by the next post.
* * *
When Emma read the letter from her husband, she was furious. She forced herself to read it twice, but found no hope of being reunited with her children. Giovanni was being more hard-hearted than she had ever imagined, and she felt outraged at the injustice of it all. She tore the letter to pieces and then had to pick them up quickly when heard Pepé’s boots plodding across the yard. She rushed upstairs and took a bath and told herself that falling apart would do no good. For the sake of her children she must pull herself together.
Even so, she took the next three days off work, drinking hard and composing letters to
Giovanni and his various friends, then tearing them to pieces and burning them on the fire.
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What Giovanni said about the abortion and the judges was true. Any Italian judge who heard that she had aborted a child would rule that she was an unfit mother. He might even send her to prison. English judges might possibly be different, but she very much doubted it. Engaging a lawyer would be useless, since a lawyer would have to rely on a judge’s ruling in the end, and Giovanni would always bring up the abortion and Luisa’s death … and Emma would always lose.
By the end of three days, she had finished only one letter that she was sure of posting.
She had written to Jacqueline DeBois, providing all the details of the case, including the death of Luisa, the rape and the subsequent abortion. She felt there was no reason to hold back on anything, since these details were sure to emerge sooner or later if Jacqueline agreed to help. As a woman, she might be more sympathetic, and she might even have some sway with Giovanni, based on the affection they apparently felt for each other.
A few days later, Jacqueline wrote back expressing her deep sorrow for Emma’s situation. She said, however, that she knew Giovanni quite well, and she was certain that he would not be pushed into doing something that he didn’t want to do. He could not be swayed by any argument of hers, although she would suggest to him that Emma should at least be allowed to speak with the children by telephone.
She told Emma to take a cautious and patient approach. Rather than demanding anything or making threats, she should give up on her claims and seek to maintain a healthy relationship with the children by way of letter and telephone. Once Giovanni had ceased to see her as a threat, he might become more flexible in his approach. She might be allowed to visit, perhaps, or else they might be allowed on holiday to Italy. She wished Emma the best of luck and said that her door was always open if she wished to visit.
Emma was furious when she first read Jacqueline’s response. She considered it a betrayal to suggest admitting defeat. She suspected that the entire letter had been cooked up in
306 coordination with Giovanni. However, after she had calmed down, she began to think that perhaps the French woman was right. Perhaps patience and stealth were the only way forward. Pushing against Giovanni would be useless. So long as she wrote to the children frequently, they would know that she loved them, and one day they would be re-united. She must simply be patient; incredibly strong and endlessly patient.
* * *
Emma had long pondered the possibility of returning to her family in Malta, even when she still had her children with her. She had felt the urge more than once to pack her bags and take the children on a train to the coast, there to board a ship bound for Valletta. They might start a new life in her country of birth and perhaps have better luck there.
But there had always seemed to be so many arguments against going, even now that she was alone. Her father had washed his hands of her, and in the few letters she exchanged with her mother, it seemed her sins had not been forgiven. Her mother and sister Rosa still loved her, it was true, and they might enjoy a happy reunion, but this could never take place in
Malta so long as Papa was alive. Added to which, her disgrace had become a matter of public record in Valletta, and she wasn’t sure she had the strength to face the harsh judgement of high society.
Then, in the spring of 1920, she received a letter from Rosa explaining that their father had died. In fact, he had passed away more than a year ago, and Rosa apologised for not informing her at the time. She had wanted to, but there seemed so much that needed to be said – and she couldn’t find the right words. The dust having now settled, she had resolved to paint a picture of events.
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“Papa never quite recovered from the shock,” wrote Rosa. “As you know, he drank heavily after your departure and Mama was unable to convince him to stop. The doctor informed him that he would kill himself if he continued, but Papa didn’t listen. He used to lock himself away in his study sometimes and drink from morning to night. Then he would make an effort to pull himself together and apply himself to the business, which was on the verge of collapse. We would all hope he had made a recovery, but it would never last very long, and he’d be back to his drinking.
“His liver began to fail in the summer of 1918, and we buried him in November. I did want to write to you at the time, and I’m deeply sorry that I didn’t find the strength, but there was so much that I wanted to say and I couldn’t find the words. Well, now perhaps I can tell you that it was indeed your hasty marriage to Giovanni that led Papa to ruin. But it was also his own fault. Mama was deeply shocked too and saddened by your affair, but she didn’t fall to pieces. Indeed, she has been a tower of strength. And so I can only conclude that the fault lies with Papa more than with you. And so if you ever thought of returning to Malta, we would welcome you with open arms. Mother also longs to see your children, of whom we rarely hear news these days.
“If there has been any good news in the past year, it is that I am finally engaged to be married. As you will have guessed, it is my beloved Eutratius who has asked for my hand, and I am overjoyed about it. Papa would never have allowed me to marry him, of course, but now I am free to follow my heart. I would so love you to attend the wedding, if at all possible, but I know you have your own responsibilities, and so will understand if you can’t come. Just know that I am finally on the verge of great happiness, and I hope you will also continue to be happy in your own life.
“Your loving and devoted sister, Rosa.”
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Emma cried bitterly at the news of her father’s death. Despite their split, she had continued to love him deeply and had hoped there might one day be a reconciliation. Now it would never take place. She hadn’t realised that he was so ill. If she had known, perhaps she would have made the voyage to see him. If she had found the strength to do so, perhaps she might have saved his life... What an end to things!
And while she was happy that Rosa was finally free to marry the man of her choice, attending the wedding was out of the question. No event could more clearly highlight her role in her father’s death, and with the massed ranks of Malta’s social elite in attendance, she would simply die of shame. Perhaps if her marriage had been a success, she might be able to brave it out, particularly if Giovanni were standing beside her, offering his support. But it would be quite unbearable to turn up with neither husband nor children, forced to admit to all and sundry that she had been horribly wrong in placing her trust in a wandering Italian.
Emma wrote to Anita, briefly offering condolences and congratulations in equal measure. She declined the wedding invitation but said that she hoped “time and fate would see them reunited someday.”
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CHAPTER 34
PICCANINA
(1920s)
Martia was increasingly confident that victory was hers. Two more letters arrived for the children around Christmas time, as well as a parcel containing books and a doll for Iris. The parcel she put out with the rubbish, and the letters were thrown into the shoe box unread.
Christmas was a sullen affair and Giovanni was unable to recreate any of the usual cheer, no matter how hard he tried. By the New Year, however, he had forgotten all about it, and found himself enthusiastically engaged in the decoration of a house in
Knightsbridge. The job would bring in lots of money and lead invariably to further work. He had been asked to create “something suggestive of the Italian Renaissance.” It was a task Giovanni felt he could complete with his eyes closed.
Left at home with the children, Martia felt herself increasingly annoyed by their attitude, which she considered ungrateful and uncooperative. They were given chores to do and scolded for the slightest mistake. Even little Iris was given chores, although
Anita was permitted to help her, since at the age of five there was little she could do alone without making more mess than she cleaned up.
The children were enrolled in a local school, and were told that the very best results were expected of them. They had enormous difficulty in the first term, since
English was a very foreign language to them. Their mother had taught them French, but little English, and they struggled hard to understand teachers and pupils alike. Giovanni
310 insisted, meanwhile, that everyone speak Italian at home, since it was an essential part of their heritage. Martia’s Italian was just about equal to the task, although she often broke into English when she thought the children were out of earshot.
However, Anita made a special effort to teach her siblings in the evenings, helping them with homework and even reading adventure stories in English before lights out.
Before the end of the school year, they were beginning to get the hang of it.
One day, during the school holidays, Anita told Iris she would be able speak to her mother. They walked down to the local telegraph office and Anita showed Iris into a telephone booth. Putting the receiver to her ear, all she could hear was an unrecognisable, crackly voice. She pushed the phone away, wondering what it had to do with her Mama.
* * *
Over the next few years, the letters would arrive from time to time, and Martia would be sure to scoop them up and place them in the shoebox unread.
Her resentment for Iris continued to grow. Aside from generally disliking needy little children, she didn’t like the look of the girl. The trouble was she was so like her mother, with her small nose and pretty face. Anita, meanwhile, had her father’s rather strong nose and a more determined jaw. Added to which, she had a more determined personality, and had already made it clear in a roundabout way that she hated Martia just as much as Martia hated her, if not more.
As soon as Iris was old enough, Martia assigned her the task of bringing the morning coffee up to her and Giovanni in bed before leaving for school. The girl would be scolded for spilling any in the saucer, and was rarely thanked for her efforts.
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As she grew, so did the list of chores that Iris was required to perform. By the age of 8, she was helping Anita with the weekly washing, helping to make breakfast, drying the dishes while her brothers washed, and sweeping down the steps before going to school. She barely had time to do her homework in the evenings, and what little time was left for play was spent quietly in her room, fearing all the time that Martia might burst in with another complaint.
When she dropped a cup, she was slapped hard on the legs and then sent to her room without supper. She spent long hours in her room, looking out of the window into the back garden, wishing that her mother – whose face had now become indistinct in her memory – would come and take her away. Sometimes, she would play in her room and not dare to come down for meals, in case she was scolded again. And if nobody called her down, she would simply go to bed hungry.
One day a school friend invited her to a party. This was her first such invitation to a party, and she had never been allowed to invite any friends home. She counted the days in mounting excitement, but on the morning of the big day she accidentally dropped and smashed a cup while washing up after breakfast. That was the end of any party; she would not be allowed to go, but would have to stay home and atone for her clumsiness. After all the excitement of waiting and counting the days, the disappointment was unbearable.
Giovanni tried to smooth the atmosphere and asked Martia in a half-hearted way to be less rough with the children, but he was always told that they were spoiled already and needed to learn a lesson or two before going out into the big, bad world. Having finally met his match in the Irish-American woman, and knowing that he needed her support to continue working and raising the children, he usually backed off.
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As if this was not hard enough, Iris also put up with a lot of teasing from her brothers, particularly Mario, who seemed to have developed a cruel streak. Perhaps aware of his position as Martia’s favourite, he had taken to tormenting Iris, sticking spoons in her dolls’ eyes and other such nasty things. If she complained, she would always be punished, not him. Among his favourite tricks for a while was to put his little sister’s favourite doll on a high shelf that she could not reach. When she began to cry,
Martia would appear from nowhere and give her another hard spanking.
At some point, she resorted to shutting the girl in the cellar, where she would scream and cry for fear of the darkness. Mario intensified her suffering by telling her of the rats in the cellar.
* * *
Generally speaking, Iris found school a great comfort, the benefits far outweighing the drawbacks. One or two of the teachers were unkind to her, commenting on her shabby dress and unkempt appearance and making rude allusions to her foreign origins.
However, other teachers made up for this with kind words and encouragement. They knew that she was having a hard time at home, and so did their best to support her learning. She was naturally clever, and since school was an escape from home, she applied herself fully to her books. However, all her efforts seemed to mean nothing beyond the school gates.
One day she came home from school with the results of class tests for the term. She had come top of her class in several subjects, including English, which was quite impressive, considering her difficult start. Overall, she was top of the class too, a distinction for which she received much praise from her teacher. Some of her
313 classmates, however, resented the fact that an Italian should be getting “special treatment”.
The teacher had written a letter for Iris to take home, informing Martia and
Giovanni of the outstanding grades. However, when Iris presented the letter to her father, his response was simply to say: “Yes, you should be doing well at school! You come from an intelligent family!” And she was sent upstairs to wash and change for dinner.
As she approached her tenth birthday, the headmistress suggested they put her in for the scholarship exam the following year, giving her the chance to attend a prestigious school for the brighter children. However, Martia wouldn’t hear of it, saying, “It’s a waste of time and money. She’ll only get married and it will all be wasted!”
The kinder teachers had suggested to Iris that she might one day become a school teacher like them, and Iris had set her sights briefly on this as a means of escape and independence. But without the support she needed from home, this hope seemed to have been dashed beyond repair.
* * *
Anita found life in the London house increasingly intolerable, and at the age of sixteen, she applied for a work on an ocean liner. She claimed to be eighteen years old and just got away with it, due in large part to her height and serious demeanour.
When she told her father, he hit the roof. She had gone behind his back, for one thing. In addition, she should be aiming higher, since she had a good education and a respectable family background. Finally, he said, she wasn’t old enough to go out into
314 the world alone. It was a dangerous world, and the ocean liners were notorious for employing sketchy characters. He forbade her to leave.
Anita’s reply was that she was old enough now to make decisions without her father’s approval, and that she had already signed the contract. And anyway, nothing could be more dreadful than having to stay another day at home with that cruel woman.
Giovanni was on the verge of a full-blown outburst, but he knew that his daughter was speaking the truth. In the end, he merely said: “If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head you had better leave.”
She left soon after that, and was ecstatic to be free at last. However, she felt infinitely sorry for her little sister, who would be left without a protector in that grim old house. Roberto and Naldo were growing into sympathetic boys, at least where Iris was concerned, but neither of them was a match for Martia. Anita’s goodbye was a tearful one, not only for the girls but for all the children.
* * *
Poor Iris! First Mama had left her and now her big sister. Mario saw his opportunity to intensify this campaign of cruelty and Martia found herself less inhibited in her punishments now that Anita was not there to disapprove. Soon, Iris would begin to feel more keenly the sense of having been abandoned, and she would wonder why on earth her mother had never come back for her. How cruel she had been to dump her in
England and run away! This sense of having been betrayed by her own mother hurt more than anything, and it would remain with her long into the future.
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One day, the headmistress at Iris’s school received a visit from Mrs Savage, the
Boella’s Irish neighbour. She told of her concerns over the wellbeing of the little girl next door, who was continually being punished and locked in her room.
“When they have their back door open,” said Mrs Savage, “I can hear the family at their meals. You know, the clatter of cutlery and that, but that poor child is still up at her bedroom window. She looks so thin and so sad too, especially when her father is away. And there are bruises too on the backs of her legs, poor little mite, and that blond woman, who’s not her mother, shouts at her all the time. I often hear little Iris crying her little heart out.”
Martia was summoned to the school and insisted that the child would try the patience of a saint. She was badly behaved and needed a firm hand. Sending her to her bedroom was the only way to deal with her sometimes.
“But you can’t just shut her in her room like that,” said the headmistress,
“especially not at mealtimes. She’s looking very thin these days.”
“She’s missing her big sister and won’t eat,” said Martia.
Indeed, she was missing her sister, the one who would have stood up for her against Martia’s constant displeasure. But she would happily have eaten more, had she been invited to dinner more often.
“Well, there are bruises on the child and she’s often to be heard crying. I suspect that you’re idea of discipline is somewhat excessive, and I want it to stop. I don’t want to have to call you to the school again. She must be properly fed and treated like the rest of the family.”
Martia provided Giovanni with an edited version of the discussion, but he was able to fill in the blanks for himself. He told Martia for the umpteenth time that she was inclined to go too far with Iris, and that she should be more patient with the girl.
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Knowing that his words would have little effect, he resolved to take Iris to work with him whenever possible. She would accompany him at weekends and during school holidays, acting as an assistant and general dog’s body. Rather than object to any of this, Martia simply laughed and said: “Good! Keep the little bitch out of my sight!”
* * *
Giovanni found he enjoyed having his daughter with him as he worked. He had taken to calling her “Piccanina”, which meant something like “Little One”, a reflection of his fatherly affection. In later life, this name would be shorted to “Nina” and become her adopted name among her extended family. As a child, she was indeed, small, but she worked hard to live up the responsibilities of an artist’s assistant.
She was thrilled to have her father all to herself. She enjoyed visiting large houses and nightclubs, watching him plan and sketch and paint, meeting the subjects of his portraits and listening to adult conversations involving money and schedules and aesthetic considerations.
She fetched and carried for him, mixing paints to his instructions and washing the brushes in turpentine. She had already learned some of these skills at home, helping out in his studio when required. Now, however, she seemed to be breaking out, experiencing the “real” world beyond the confines of home and school. There were no teachers here, and no Martia, and she found that her father was different in this environment too. At home, he could be serious and moody, perhaps due to the influence of Martia. Painting a bunch of grapes on someone’s bedroom wall, however, he was a different person: alive, humorous, affectionate.
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* * *
Watching him work over the next few years, Iris was able to see more of her father’s great talent, including the wide range of skills to which he could lay claim. He could render portraits in oils, watercolours or pastels, and produce photographs with all the concern for lighting and composition of the Old Masters. He could create a statue or bust in clay, producing his own moulds to transform the thing into bronze. He could make moulds for plasterwork too, attaching the most intricate reliefs to walls and ceilings as if he were making designs in the top of a pie.
He could paint scenes for a musical or theatrical production, and put together backdrops for films. He could make just about anything out of wire and papier-mâché, and he was continually creating little gadgets or features in a room that worked at the flick of a switch. He invented a mobile darkroom, so that he could process images on location, and Iris had great fun working out how to use it.
And at the end of the day, he could sing a song at the top of his lungs to an assembled room of lords, ladies, actors, politicians, thinkers and nightclub owners, and then chat with them all as equals over a glass of champagne.
He might at times seem a little arrogant, but since he achieved all of the above with the greatest of ease, Iris felt he was entitled to a little bit of self-assuredness. As she was to say many times in later life, the man was a creative genius.
Among his most high-profile interior design jobs was for an Irish lady called Mrs
Meyrick, who had become a friend of his. She had shot to fame as a nightclub owner, with one particularly popular spot in Soho attracting a lively crowd of late-night drinkers, including everyone from gangsters to aristocrats. When she declared that she
318 would be opening a new club called the Silver Slipper, she begged Giovanni to paint the inside in an Italian style, something that he was more than happy to do, decorating the walls with twisting vines and bunches of grapes. For the big opening, he created an enormous silver slipper out of wire and papier-mâché, and received both adulation and large amounts of cash in return.
It was partly through the London nightclub scene that Giovanni became acquainted with the British aristocracy. He had long been comfortable in the company of artists and businessmen, but it was a real pleasure to be finally hobnobbing with minor royalty. Some of them he found silly or pretentious, but others seemed serious and right-thinking.
When Lord and Lady Mountbatten wanted work done on Brook House, their
London home in Park Lane, they turned to Giovanni. He was happy to indulge their various tastes, even consenting to transform Lord Mountbatten’s bedroom into the semblance of his ship’s cabin with a porthole. He included a view of Malta, one of the naval officer’s favourite spots. Of course, Giovanni was able to paint the image from memory. He was also able to install a small motor that was connected to the light switch, so that when Mountbatten turned out the lights, he would hear the comforting hum of a ship’s engine, a sound that was sure to lull him to sleep.
The work of an artist did not run smoothly at all times, of course, and Giovanni occasionally returned home with tales of disaster too. One such tale involved a film he had been asked to work on, painting backdrops for a nautical adventure. Replica sailing ships had been constructed and floated in a large tank of water, ready for a battle, which was to be a key scene in the film. The director shouted “Action!” and the scene began, cannons firing and smoke wafting around the place. The ships began to catch fire, first the sails and then the timber, until the fleet was destroyed. When the director finally
319 shouted “Cut!” he was alarmed to find that the cameraman had left the cap on the lens.
Not a scrap of the action had been caught on film. They would have to build the fleet again from scratch.
Iris was enthralled by all of this, of course, and in later life she would tell of the personalities her father met during the Jazz Age. Some of them, particularly those in entertainment, would be invited back to their house in Hither Green. The adults would drink and play the gramophone, or else put on performances of song and piano. There was lots of laughter, and the children would hide in the shadows on the top landing, hoping to catch a glimpse of somebody famous.
Charlie Chaplin’s cousins were regular visitors, but it seemed the great comedian himself was mostly busy in America. The closest Iris and her siblings got to him was watching his films at the local cinema. On the odd occasion when Martia was away, the children would take empty bottles back to the shop and collect the pennies for returning them. These would be spent on tickets for the cinema matinée. There in the darkness, they would laugh at the antics of Chaplin and Buster Keaton, or see Douglas Fairbanks as Robin Hood, or Rudolph Valentino on one of his epic adventures. Then the lights would go up, and they were back in the grim reality of South London.
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CHAPTER 35
MOVING UP
(1920s)
During these years, Giovanni kept a close eye on events in Italy, particularly the nation’s recovery after the Great War. Like many of his generation, he was bitter at the failure of the Allied powers to hand over various territories promised to Italy in return for her support. Her colonial ambitions were thwarted at Versailles, her progress on the path back to greatness hampered at every turn.
But for Giovanni and many others, hope emerged in the form of a schoolteacher, journalist and soldier by the name of Benito Mussolini. As a journalist, this brutish figure had argued for Italian neutrality during the war. He later served in the Italian army, achieving the rank of corporal before being injured. With the war over, he set about enforcing his vision of Italian revival and expansion, arming gangs of thugs and putting them in smart black uniforms, eliminating his enemies and marching on Rome.
By 1922 he was prime minister, and three years later he announced himself Il Duce.
To Giovanni, this man was precisely what Italy needed: firmness amid the confusion and a clear vision of the nation’s future. Added to which, Il Duce’s fondness for industry and innovation appealed to Giovanni, who found himself drawn once more to small acts of invention in his studio. He attended political meetings in London throughout this period, and happily signed up as a member of the Italian National
Fascist Party at their British headquarters in Soho. He and his friends had black shirts
321 of their own made, and smart trousers to match. They sang Giovinezza, the anthem of the Fascist Party, and saluted in unison with stiff arms outstretched.
The meetings, the uniform, the patriotic songs all made Giovanni feel young again, and he could on occasion be found posing and saluting in front of the bedroom mirror.
The boys found it great fun to imitate their father behind his back, following him around the house, and singing the Giovinezza under their breath, their little arms raised in salute. Iris would watch with wide eyes, stifling her giggles, fearing that her brothers would be discovered at any moment.
Indeed, on the one occasion that Mussolini visited London, in 1922, Giovanni was among those welcoming the great leader at Victoria Station. The event was his chance to sing
Giovinezza at full volume in public, and he felt for a moment that he his life had taken on a new meaning, that he had plugged himself into a wonderful vein of energy, that he was part of a transformative moment in Italian history.
He later attended the fiery speech Mussolini gave in Soho, and was lucky enough to shake the man’s hand. He dismissed criticisms in the British press and the rumours of
Mussolini arriving late for appointments due to his passion for the local prostitutes. In short,
Giovanni was entirely sold on the man and would gladly follow him to the end of the world.
* * *
As soon as he hit sixteen, Naldo left school and found work running errands for an
Italian businessman in Soho. Giovanni was not sure he approved of his son’s employment, since it was unskilled and somehow seedy. Added to which, there were rumours that the businessman’s practices were not entirely above board. Having spent a
322 great deal of time at Mrs Meyrick’s nightclubs, Giovanni knew well enough what went on, and he didn’t want his boys involved with gangsters and thieves.
That said, he had to admit that Naldo’s boss had his head screwed on straight were politics were concerned. He was a registered member of the Fascist movement, and a proud patriot, something that more than made up for the accusations of criminality.
Roberto had also gravitated towards the Italian community in Soho, which was quite vibrant in the 1920s. He had waited tables in a café and then found himself work as a commie chef in a pasta restaurant. The owners were friends of Giovanni’s, and
Roberto’s humble start in that kitchen would lead to great things. Some years later, he would set up his own Italian restaurant in London, and more on the south coast, selling ice creams and coffee to his own high Italian standards.
When Mario finally reached his teens, his attention turned cars and their engines.
He learned to fix any sort of mechanical problem, building on the start he’d had with his father, who was continually explaining the inner workings of mechanical objects.
When he left school, Mario found occasional work on the racing circuits, but since it was not a full-time job, he continued to live at home, a fact that had both pluses and minuses.
One day, Mario was home when Papa needed someone to take a portfolio of sketches to a prospective client. Giovanni was snowed under with existing work, and couldn’t get away from his studio. So he sent a somewhat reluctant Mario on the errand, ensuring the boy looked presentable and could find the address.
These samples had taken a lot of time and patience to complete and had been collected over many years. Mario laid them out before the prospective client, who was well satisfied with what he saw. The job done, Mario gathered up the drawings and headed for the train station, his mind wandering between dinner and racing cars. He got
323 in the carriage and placed the folio up on the luggage rack. It wasn’t long before he felt drowsy and fell into a doze. It seemed only a few minutes before the voice of a porter shouting, “Catford! Catford!”
The voice slowly penetrated his sleepy brain, as did the sound of doors opening and slamming shut. He jumped up and opened the door just as the train was starting to move. He landed on the platform without a scratch … but without the drawings!
It took his befuddled brain a while to remember what it was he was missing. Then the sickening realisation hit him, and he could well imagine his father’s wrath.
Giovanni’s reaction did not disappoint. He managed to prevent himself from beating his son unconscious, but he used a great many swear words that rarely passed his lips. If there was any blessing at all, it was that the client had been impressed by the portfolio, and Mario was able to confirm that they wanted to hire Giovanni for the task, whatever it was. But Giovanni was still faced with the mammoth task of recreating much of the portfolio from scratch, a job that he worked at slavishly for almost a month.
Everyone felt the effect of the drama and crept around like mice. However, little
Iris enjoyed the whole thing enormously, for she had the pleasure of seeing her tormentor getting his just deserts. Even Martia got short shrift when she tried to make excuses for her pet boy. Iris, the usual recipient of blame for anything gone wrong, felt just a little bit smug for a number of days after that.
* * *
In 1929, at the age of fourteen, Iris found a live-in job with a photographer and his family, working in the darkroom with the chemicals. She was quick to learn and did
324 very well, fitting in nicely with the photographer’s family. Not that she made any more from the job than her board and lodgings, for every Friday evening one of her brothers was sent to collect her wages and take them back home.
Still, it was better than nothing. She had finally found a way to escape the house and Martia’s viscous temper, and it seemed life was sure to improve from this point onward. School had been her refuge from home, but Martia and Giovanni had declared that it was a waste of time and money for the young girl, who should either be making a living or getting married. At the age of fourteen, of course, she was too young to marry, and so the world of work was her only option.
The photographer, Mr Green, was a friend of Giovanni, and he had agreed to take the girl on for a minimal wage, having been assured that she had already grasped the basics of photography from her father. Indeed, both Iris and Giovanni thought that this might be a suitable career for her, one way or another. She had demonstrated some talent as an artist, producing fine sketches at school and picking up the rudiments of painting too. Having watched her father at work, she was well aware of the elements necessary to produce a well-composed and properly lighted image.
Painting might have been a career option for Iris, had she been inclined to follow her talents. But she had spent too many dull afternoons in her father’s studio, washing his brushes and maintaining a deadly silence so as not to ruin his concentration.
Watching him work outside of the home had been a pleasure, but the smell of turpentine always reminded Iris of that studio and the oppressive atmosphere in the house. Through the rest of her life, the smell of turpentine would conjure the same unhappy feelings.
Photography, though, was a different matter. She found the equipment fascinating and the process of developing and printing exciting. There was the promise of travel
325 too, of new horizons and independence. In the absence of anything else, she decided to put her eggs in this particular basket.
Mr Green was happy with her work in the darkroom and noted that she interacted well with his clients. Then in October, the Great Crash happened, and pretty soon orders for photographs were being cancelled and few new ones were being made. Mr
Green tried to keep Iris on as long as he could, but by the New Year, it was clear that he’d have to let her go. She cried bitterly as she returned to her old home.
Once again, Giovanni was able to find her a job, this time in a Greek restaurant in
Clapham, buying the fresh food in the morning markets and then waiting tables in the evening. She had a room of her own above the restaurant too. It was small and shabby and she rarely had a quiet moment, what with people calling her down at odd hours to do extra tasks. However, it was better than living at home, and she never complained.
By now she was a lovely, shapely, dark-eyed, raven-haired young woman and the
Greek restaurant owner rather fancied her. After just a few weeks, he offered her a very nice little flat, all of her own, if she would show him a few personal favours. She would have none of it and walked out of the job. No matter how hard it might be to find another job, he could keep his flat!
She began to search desperately for employment, looking through the newspapers and asking everywhere she went. She had an interview to work as a chamber maid for three Jewish girls. She would have to look after them, picking up their mess and keeping their rooms tidy. Their bedroom was the worst mess Iris had ever seen, and she had already had quite enough of household chores. Apart from the idea of being at the beck and call of these lazy creatures, the “bedroom” odour of stale sweat, dirty underwear and old perfume was too much for her – and she refused the job on the spot.
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* * *
She had been job hunting all day. There was nothing else going, she had no money and she was dispirited and tired. She wandered into Greenwich Park and sat down wearily on a bench. She did not hear the closing bell as the park gates were locked for the night. The next thing she knew, it was morning and the air full of birdsong. She was cold and tired and incredibly hungry, but she couldn’t bear the thought of returning home, where she would no doubt be scolded by her step-mother once more.
Then she remembered that her English Godmother, Florrie Richardson, lived within walking distance of the park. They had not had much contact recently, but the woman had been very kind to Iris in those dreadful early years. Florrie had lived in
Catford before the war, and had known Emma during her brief stay in London. After
Giovanni and Emma split, Florrie maintained good relations with Giovanni, accepting with joy the burden of becoming Godmother to little Iris. However, until now, she had not been able to play much of a role in the girl’s life, due in large part to Martia, who seemed intent on ruining anything good that came Iris’s way.
Now, a new ray of hope in her heart, Iris made her way to Florrie’s house. When
Florrie opened the door, the girl said: “I’m Giovanni Boella’s youngest daughter. I believe you’re my Godmother.”
Florrie looked at the sleep-tousled, wan face on her doorstep and took a moment to work out who it was. She stood there speechless, her mouth open as the light slowly dawned. Then, overcome with amazement, she said: “Come in my dear, come in! This is a lovely surprise!”
She gave Iris a hot breakfast and listened to her troubles. Iris told her the whole story while Florrie banged about with pots and plates, listening with growing concern.
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“You see I just can’t go back to that awful woman again,” said Iris. “I don’t know what to do. I’ll go mad if I have to go back there.”
“No, no, of course not,” said Florrie. “Look, you can stay here with me until we find you some paid work. You can’t go back to that situation, not now you’ve got away from it once. I’ll have to let your father know that you’re safe here with me. He can’t object to that.”
And so Iris settled into the spare bedroom, while her Godmother worked to iron out the remaining creases in the situation. She contacted Giovanni and told him that Iris was safe and well and would be staying with her. She then spoke with a friend who was a district nurse and who could use a nice, clean, sensible girl to help on her visits. There were plenty of old people on the daily round who needed bathing and daily care. If Iris was willing to roll up her sleeves and do such work, she’d find herself fully employed.
The nurse took Iris along with her for a couple of days and was surprised at how efficiently and kindly she dealt with the old folk. Pretty soon, Iris was allowed to make her visits alone, bathing and dressing her half-dozen patients each morning, then returning in the evening to prepare them for bed and have a chat. She had a gentle touch and a pleasant manner and they took to her straight away.
She would do little favours for them like popping to the shop for tobacco or posting a letter, or matching up some knitting wool or buying some flowers and putting them on the grave of a loved one. It seemed to Iris that she had at last found a niche of sorts, with work that she could do and which she found rewarding. Best of all, there was a safe and friendly home to return to each evening. She’d had a bumpy start to adult life, but at last it seemed to be properly under way.
* * *
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Six months passed, during which Iris slowly began to shake off the stress and gloom of her family home in Hither Green. Then one day, she got back to Florrie’s to find a strange envelope on the kitchen table. It had been hand delivered by one of her brothers, all of whom were still living in Hither Green. The note was from Papa, explaining that Martia was very ill in hospital. She had breast cancer and might not recover – and she had asked Iris to visit her there.
“Why ever would she want to see me?” Iris said as she passed the letter to Florrie.
“Maybe she’s beginning to feel guilty about the way she treated you, especially now she’s seriously ill?”
“I’ll go tomorrow,” said Iris, tucking the letter into her jacket pocket.
“There’s a good girl,” said Florrie.
But Iris was just doing what she had been painfully conditioned to do. If Martia said you were going to do something, you made sure to do it!
She finished her morning round in time to catch the afternoon visiting time at the hospital. She’d been told Martia was down the end of the ward, on the right, but Iris had difficulty recognising her at first. She was so changed. Her skin was yellow, her cheeks sunken and the emaciated hand that she stretched out was claw-like.
Iris didn’t know what to say beyond, “Hello.”
It seemed ridiculous to say, “How are you?” when this poor creature was so obviously ill.
And Martia was indeed a poor creature now. Perhaps Iris was the only one of the children to come and visit her, and perhaps she felt bereft when others in the ward had so many visitors?
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Then Martia caught the attention of the patient in the bed next to her and said:
“This is my daughter.”
Then, turning her emaciated cheek to Iris, she said, “Give me a kiss.”
Totally amazed but not showing it, Iris did as she was told once again. It was the first and only kiss between them.
* * *
Iris did not attend Martia’s funeral. She was too busy seeing to her “old dears”, as she called them. And indeed, they had become dear to her. So much so, that when the first of them died of old age, she was overcome by sadness and the district nurse had to give her a pep talk.
“You will probably see each and every one of your people die over the next couple of years or so,” said the nurse. “Be glad that you helped to make their last years more comfortable and you were always willing to listen to their troubles. I know you did.
There will be others to take their places. In fact, there is a new lady I want you to go to tomorrow. You know, if you want to train as a nurse one day, you will have to toughen up a bit.”
Iris had indeed entertained the idea of training as a qualified nurse. The thought would occur to her every now and again, but she wasn’t entirely serious about it. She doubted whether her limited education would allow her to obtain a place in a nursing school. She could so easily have had better prospects, perhaps even have become a teacher, if only Martia had not turned down her chance of a scholarship. That cruel and heartless woman, that blond bitch…
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Anyway, that was all over now. Martia had passed from this world and couldn’t hurt her any more. The damage had been done and the memories still haunted her. But she was at least free now to make her own way. She had found a happy home and meaningful work, and for the first time in her life, all her hard work and efforts were truly appreciated.
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CHAPTER 36
LOVE BLOOMS
(1932)
One afternoon in the summer of 1932, Iris’s life took another decisive turn. It was her half day at work and she was late returning to Florrie’s place, happily anticipating taking the weight off her feet and downing a nice cup of tea. When she walked into the kitchen, she was surprised to find that her Godmother had company. A young man of medium height and wearing the uniform of a Territorial Army soldier stood up as she entered.
She heard Florrie say, “This is my Goddaughter Iris,” and she found herself looking up into smiling, dark brown eyes that wrinkled at the corners. They were set under arched, black eyebrows, almost meeting over a short nose, below which a neat little moustache decorated his upper lip. His tightly curled hair was brushed straight back in a neat, military short-back-and-sides.
“What a nice, kind face,” she thought.
She felt herself flush as she recognised admiration in his expression and hurriedly excused herself to go and freshen up.
Florrie had put on an extra nice tea, including cakes and sandwiches, and part of the way through she asked Nina if she would pass the plate of cakes to Reggie.
“That name makes him sound like a little boy,” thought Iris, smilingly, as she offered him the mixture of decorated chocolate cakes.
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Unfortunately, her smile had suddenly made him nervous and he fumbled awkwardly, extracting the most lavishly decorated morsel but somehow managing to get chocolate on both his own fingers and those of Iris. In a flash, he took a clean hanky from his pocket, and, red with embarrassment, clumsily tried to wipe her fingers clean.
Iris was very aware of the gentleness of his touch and felt sorry for him in his confusion. Putting the plate down, she said, “No, really, it’s alright. I’ll just go and wash my hands in the kitchen.”
When she returned, he was full of apologies, and every now and then they gave each other nervous little smiles. The three chatted for a while, with Florrie ensuring the flow of pleasant conversation never faltered for long. It turned out that this charming man was Florrie’s nephew, but had rarely had the chance to stop by, so busy had he been building his career in the City. As a stock trader, he’d made a reasonable living until the crash in 1929, but since then things had been difficult. He’d lost his job in the months after the crash and then found another one at a different firm. Then they’d had to let him go, and he’d been forced to find yet another employer. Each time he moved job, he took a drop in salary, and with the economy still in a bad way, his prospects didn’t look particularly rosy.
In the end, he had decided that his best chance of regular employment with good prospects lay in the army. He’d been a soldier in the Territorial Army for a few years, training on a part-time basis, as had both his brothers. But now he’d signed up for a full-time job in the Regulars, where he hoped to qualify as a radio operator. All being well, he’d be guaranteed job security for the next two decades.
Despite the ups and downs of his career, Reginald Whatton was cheerful and soft- spoken, and he seemed to have a boyish sense of humour that kept both Florrie and Iris amused through two whole pots of tea.
333
At the end of the meal, he said: “Look, I’m afraid I can’t stay any longer. I have a parade to attend. That’s why I’m dressed like this. It’s my last night in the Territorials before I join the Regulars. I start my basic training in three weeks’ time. But I’d like to see you again, if you don’t mind.”
Thoroughly flattered at the suggestion, Iris replied: “Yes, that would be nice. I’m off this Sunday afternoon and evening.”
“Well, if it’s alright with Auntie Florrie, I’ll call for you at about four o’clock.
We’ll have some tea at Lyons Corner House and then find a cinema.”
After that first evening at the cinema, he knew he wanted to marry this girl, but he was afraid a proposal might frighten her off. He had been nervous about holding her hand in the cinema but she hadn’t seemed to mind. She found him both gallant and funny, just as charming as on that first afternoon over tea and cakes. For his part,
Reggie thought Iris pretty and sweet, fragile and somewhat naïve, and she seemed to laugh at his jokes too, which was a bonus. She told him of her difficult childhood and the pain that it had caused her, and he found his protective instincts were aroused.
There seemed no reason why they shouldn’t be perfectly happy together.
* * *
In the following weeks, he pondered her possible response to a marriage proposal, weighing up the pros and cons of his offer. Financially speaking, he had very little to offer. A few years back, he’d been comfortably off, earning a nice salary in the City, going up to work on the train each day, sporting a bowler hat and umbrella.
But now things were very different. However smartly he wore his uniform, it was still army boots and brass buttons, and he was still just a common soldier. It would be
334 different, of course, if he’d been commissioned, but such spots were rare, what with so many university educated men falling on hard times and opting for the military life. He had a good basic education, having been at Colf’s Grammar School in Black Heath, reputedly the oldest school in England. But in the current climate, those without a degree were at the bottom of the list for Sandhurst.
No, he’d have to start out as a common signaller in the Royal Corps of Signals and work his way up. He had the brains for the job, no doubt, and brains counted for a lot when it came to radio messages and Morse Code. But no matter how hard he worked, he would only be able to offer Iris a very basic kind of life.
He continued to ponder all this as he entered basic training, taking every opportunity to write to Iris, afraid that she might be snapped up by someone else in his absence. After he finished basic training, he came home on leave, traveling through
London by train. He’d noticed two of his relatives, aunts on his mother’s side, but they pretended not to notice him, avoiding eye contact with the man who’d fallen so far in social status. They’d be ashamed to admit to having a nephew in the ranks. He took the slight to heart and made a note to repay it one day if he got the chance.
As he brooded on all this, he came to realise that it wasn’t just Iris’s response that mattered, but that of her father. He was apparently from a good Italian family, a man of brains and proud of his social background. What would he make of his beloved daughter marrying a soldier, and an English soldier at that? She was still only 17 years old, and she’d need her father’s permission to get married. If he said no, they might still elope and marry in Scotland, but that would be a bad way to start their life together. No, the father’s opinion was all-important, and he hoped it would be favourable.
One rainy Sunday afternoon over ice cream at Lyons Corner House, Reggie popped the question, presenting a ring in a little red box shyly across the table.
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Iris was overjoyed and instantly accepted. Then she stopped in her tracks, her face suddenly serious, and said, “But what about Papa?”
* * *
Since Martia had died, Iris had been in the habit of visiting the old house at least once a week. The boys had now grown up and moved out, leaving Giovanni alone. He had a cleaning woman come in twice a week to keep things tidy and wash the clothes and bedding, but there was a lot she did not do. Papa himself had always kept the kitchen spotless. He was a great cook and liked to keep his domain in order. The same went for his studio. No one else was allowed to touch it.
But Iris was aware of a range of things in the house that would never get done if she didn’t stop by and take care of them. She cleaned the silver and brass in the sitting room, polished the furniture and cleaned the windows, and if the net curtains needed washing she did those too. She couldn’t bear to see the house looking neglected.
Whether anyone noticed this or just thought the cleaning woman did it all, she never knew.
So the next time she went to the house, she stayed behind after the cleaning and waited for her father to get in. He was working at the film studios, painting scenery and building sets, and he seemed to be just as busy as ever. Perhaps if he ever stopped working, he might ponder the loss of his wife and Martia and the emptiness of the house now that the children had flown the nest. Of course, with the economy in such a bad state, he counted himself lucky to be in any kind of employment, and he was determined to make himself indispensable.
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When he came in, he greeted Iris with a kiss on each cheek. At first, they chatted amiably, Iris listening to her father’s latest tales of rising stars and silver screens.
However, when she told him she intended to marry and needed his permission, his mood changed. He said that she was too young still, and should think carefully about jumping into marriage. It wasn’t all love hearts and roses, he said.
Then he began to ask about the man in question, and his concern turned to horror as she revealed that she was engaged to a common English soldier.
By some cruel stroke of bad luck, the three boys had decided to visit their father that very afternoon, arriving together by train. As they walked in the drawing room, they sensed instantly that something was up. When they heard the news, all three expressed horror at the prospect of being related through marriage to such a person.
“How could you?”
“What are you thinking of?”
“A British soldier? You must be out of your mind!”
Giovanni told the boys to leave the room so that he could talk with Iris in private.
They sloped out, muttering to each other in disgust.
Her father’s inclination was to say “no” outright. But as he sat there, lighting a new cigar, he reflected on how he had behaved in seeking Emma’s hand all those years ago.
He had wooed Emma behind her father’s back and then forced his hand by spending the night with her. Later, he had allowed her parents to believe she might be pregnant, and they had been married quietly and in great shame. Certainly, he was not in a position to insist on social propriety in matters of love.
He knew he was helpless. He would have to sign the parental consent form she had put in front of him. If he didn’t, this soldier might get her pregnant anyway in order to force the matter. Indeed, what was to say she wasn’t already with child?
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He repeated that marriage was a serious step and not to be taken lightly. She should think carefully about what she was doing. He had hoped she might marry someone of higher social status at least, someone with better prospects, someone Italian perhaps?
Opting for the wrong man might ruin her life and she was still young, with so many options ahead of her. Surely, she could wait a while longer before taking this big step?
But Iris was quite certain that she loved Reginald, and he loved her too. His army pay wasn’t enormous, but it would be enough to get by on. And once they were married, he could get married quarters, which meant she would finally have a home of her own — even if it was just borrowed from the army. And they so wanted to be married. Wouldn’t he please sign the form?
Giovanni wrote his signature with a hand shaking with fury. As he handed it to her, he said: “You have shamed this family beyond belief. You take this form and don’t ever come back again. Nobody, and I mean nobody, in this family will ever speak to you again. I forbid them to do so!”
The boys were by now standing in the doorway, and he glared at them as he uttered this order. They were silent and knew that he meant what he said. She was being cut off from the family, and the fact wounded her deeply. But she wanted to marry her Reggie more than anything in the world, and if this was the price, then so be it. She left the house, the piece of paper clutched in her trembling hand.
* * *
Reggie too was experiencing some opposition to his choice of spouse. His parents, who considered themselves respectable middle-class people, were shocked when he decided to join the army without a commission, giving up the career that had once
338 seemed so promising. But that was nothing to the absolute horror they felt at his marrying a foreigner — and an Italian at that. He was an Englishman born and bred, raised in a nation on top of the world, with standards and traditions to be proud of, not to mention a fine empire. Now the Whatton blood would be mixed with that of some dirty Wop!
“Reggie! You can’t! What will people say?” said his mother.
She imagined all the shocked faces at the church fellowship meeting. Why couldn’t he have chosen a nice English girl? She thought of mentioning some nice girls who might be more suitable, but on reflection decided that none of them would want to marry an enlisted soldier.
“These foreigners do have such dirty habits you know,” said his father, biting into his toast and marmalade then wiping his mouth clean with a napkin.
Reggie had anticipated this kind of reaction, and he had resolved to be unremittingly calm and reasonable. He would make them see how lovely she was, whether they liked it or not.
“Why don’t you let me bring her to meet you I’m sure you’ll like her?” he said.
“Well, I don’t know,” said his mother. “What do you think, George?”
“I think he’s already made up his mind,” said the old man, “and nothing we say, however much we may disapprove, is going to make the least bit of difference. He’s getting on for thirty now and is old enough to make up his own mind. I think we’ll just have to make the best of it and give the girl a chance.”
“When and where are you getting married?” said his mother.
“Next Tuesday at Lewisham registry office.”
“Registry office?” she gasped. “Oh, but Reggie, that’s not a proper wedding! What do her parents say?”
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“Her mother left her when she was young and her father has washed his hands of her altogether. None of her family are allowed to speak to her again. You see they don’t think your son’s good enough for her.”
He’d expected this news to provoke some sympathy in his parents, but it seemed to just confirm their view of the whole thing as a disaster. In the silence that followed,
Reggie decided that if his parents couldn’t bring themselves to support him wholeheartedly, they could go to hell. He turned and left the house, saying over his shoulder: “Don’t worry. We’ll understand if you don’t come to the wedding.”
* * *
Reggie and Iris went to the registry office by bus. She had on a new, mid-calf - length, satin dress in chocolate and beige and a hat to match, the brim turned up at the front. She looked lovely and clung closely to the groom as they went up the front steps.
He looked fine too, wearing his dress uniform, all slim and toned from so much military training.
This long-awaited and hard-won formality was over in a flash and they were pronounced man and wife. Nobody from either side of the family had attended, not even Reggie’s two brothers, who had sent telegrams simultaneously wishing the couple well and apologizing for being otherwise engaged. Anita was by now far away, working her passage on some ocean liner and Iris missed her dearly. Florrie, as
Godmother, gave Iris away, and the district nurse was the solitary bride’s maid — a rare honour for a woman in her fifties.
On the way back to Florrie’s, Reggie and Iris got off the bus and bought a piece of rich fruit cake. It was their wedding cake, and they shared it with Florrie round the
340 kitchen table, happy that the long period of uncertainty was over at last. Iris could barely believe the continued run of good luck she was experiencing. After so many years of heartache and deprivation, she was now a married woman, very much in love, and both she and her husband were in full employment. What could possibly go wrong?
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CHAPTER 37
MARRIED TO THE ARMY
(1932-1937)
They didn’t have a honeymoon. They did not care where on earth they were, as long as they were together. Three days after the wedding, Reginald reported for duty at an army camp in Aldershot, Hampshire, where he had been granted married quarters.
They inspected the grim reality of army housing together, moving around the bare and dusty rooms with trepidation. The basics were there, but not much else. There were signs of the previous occupants here and there, and layers of dust on the windowsills and skirting boards. The carpets were worn and the windows in desperate need of a clean. Walking into the kitchen, Iris found that their weekly ration of food had been delivered: a huge lump of beef and an enormous loaf of bread. It was the army’s way of ensuring that they would not starve.
“Never mind, my darling. As long as we’re together,” said Reggie, putting his arms around her.
Iris was quite ignorant of the realities of reproduction, and the whole business came as something of a shock. Her mother had not been around to explain such things, and Martia certainly wouldn’t have taken the trouble. If Anita had remained at home longer, she might have told her little sister all about the birds and bees, but she had left for life on the open sea before Iris was of reproductive age.
Reginald had some prior experience in such matters and he seemed to know what he was doing. Even so, Iris could never say, hand on heart, that she enjoyed the whole
342 process. It was more of a wifely duty than anything else, and if they were going to have children, then she supposed it was necessary.
It was within their first few months of marriage that Reggie got his first posting overseas. Iris had known that the army life might mean living abroad, but she had not expected to be separated from her husband so early on in their life together. He was to be sent to Saarbrucken, capital of the tiny region of Saarland, for six months. The region was tucked away between France, Germany and Luxembourg, and had been under French administration since the end of the war. The population was mostly
German and would probably vote to be reunited with Germany when the plebiscite rolled around in 1935. Until that time, the French were responsible for the place and the
British were doing their bit to keep the peace.
Iris tried to accept the news with equanimity, telling herself that six months apart wasn’t very long, and that he’d be back before she knew it. Still, she couldn’t help resenting the interruption to their wedded bliss, and she wondered at times whether
Reggie was looking forward to regaining his freedom for a while. She thought that perhaps they had managed to wrangle the deployment, plotting behind her back… but she told herself that such suspicious thoughts would get her nowhere and decided to buckle down and accept her fate.
Reggie wrote to her every week through his time in Saarbrucken, though his letters seemed to shrink in size as time passed. Reading of his descriptions of the fine architecture and old pubs, and looking at the charming postcard she’d received, she couldn’t help wondering what her husband was getting up to. She was aware that he had an irresistible charm about him, and she felt sure he would not go unnoticed on the
Continent.
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Before she knew it, Reggie was back home in Aldershot, and she noticed no particular lessening of his husbandly affections. If anything, he was more demonstrative than before. It was Reggie who first realised she was pregnant and told her she had a baby in her belly. Once she was over the shock of realising that sex had produced definite results, she began to ponder how the baby would ever get out. She had no idea of the realities of childbirth. She thought it would have to be cut out somehow and was terrified at the prospect.
The little girl was born at the Louis Margaret hospital in Aldershot on the Feast of the Assumption in 1934. It was by all accounts a difficult birth, with retention of the placenta, but both mother and child survived. The baby was named Joan, the nearest
English-sounding female equivalent to Giovanni. Despite Giovanni’s cruel decision to cut Iris off from the family, she still loved and respected him deeply, and Joan’s name was a tribute to the old man. Indeed, in later years, Iris would often called her daughter
“Giovanna”.
With the arrival of the child, Iris’s joy was complete. She had her beautiful baby, with dark, curly hair and long lashes, and she had her Reggie. She had two people to love and who loved her back. She was so proud when people gazed admiringly into the pram, and the arrival of the child allowed her to make a few friends among the army wives.
There were one or two scares in the first years, but they came and went. Firstly, Iris was intent on ensuring her baby was well fed, mindful of her own hunger as a little girl, and took every opportunity to provide her with nourishment. Joan became a very chubby baby and this in turn made her somewhat chesty, and she had more than one chest infection to fight off. When she caught measles at 14 months, it turned into
344 pneumonia, and Iris was beside herself with worry. However, thanks to the army doctor and her own care, Joan made a good recovery.
* * *
Just as it seemed life had settled into a happy routine, Reggie announced that he was being sent abroad again. He would be deployed to India this time, perhaps for a period of several years. The army needed him on the Northwest Frontier, where rebellious tribes continued to cause trouble. He would most likely be setting up lines of communication in remote regions. The family was to follow him as far as Delhi, where they could live in army digs for as long as his posting lasted. They would be sent for in the coming months. He was packed and gone before Iris had time to take it all in.
At first, she was alarmed at the prospect of life in India, visions of wild and dangerous places springing up before her mind’s eye. There were jungles and tigers and snakes and crocodiles in rivers, and perhaps even bandits and the risk of fighting with ruthless tribesmen. And there was the food, all spicy and greasy, and filthy living conditions, with dirty water and poverty everywhere. How could she possibly raise
Joan in such an environment?
But in his letters home, Reggie insisted that they would face no such dangers unless they deliberately sought them out. They would be living on an army camp, probably in Delhi to start with, and every comfort would be taken care of. After all, the
British Army had been in India for quite a while and knew how to make itself comfortable. Indeed, Iris and Joan might be better taken care of than in England.
Aldershot, after all, was hardly Knightsbridge.
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With Reggie already in India, and the date of their departure nearing, Iris finally came round. She talked to the doctor about special precautions for the heat and mosquitoes, including quinine and nets for the beds. She bought a nice sun hat and a new summer dress and began to pack things in boxes ready for transport. She rolled up the carpets and sold most of the furniture and counted the weeks before the big day.
Married life wasn’t working out entirely as she’d expected, but there was no doubt that she was going to have an adventure or two along the way. So long as she was still with her Reggie, all would be well.
Just as the house was being emptied of the last bits of furniture, Iris received notice that all families were to remain in England for the time being. With the rising tensions in Europe and the Japanese on the rampage in Asia, all plans were being reconsidered.
Those wives and families who were booked on ships to India were to remain at home.
Reginald and Iris wrote letters simultaneously to express their great sadness, and they crossed in the post, half way between the two countries.
Iris was heart-broken, and as she struggled to get her furniture back and buy new items to replace those she’d sold, she couldn’t help stopping now and then to cry. Her beloved husband was thousands of miles away and might be away for years. In that time, who knew what might happen? Who knew what women might worm their ways into his affections? Under the influence of his army pals and lubricated by beers, who knew what he might get up to?
She had heard by now of British soldiers who had taken “local wives” to keep themselves company on long deployments in India. Some had even rented bungalows for these local women to live in, producing little Anglo-India babies together. These parallel families were raised in hill stations and sent to Christian schools specially intended for half-cast offspring, and the army did its best to sweep the whole thing
346 under the carpet. The English wives back home could do nothing about it, of course, lacking any concrete evidence of events thousands of miles away.
And even if Reggie was faithful to her, how on earth could they maintain any kind of proper marriage over a period of several years apart? If there really was another major war, like so many people were saying, she might never see him again.
First she had lost her mother, and then her father and siblings, and now perhaps her husband too. As she sobbed in bed each night, she wondered how much more sadness she could possibly take.
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CHAPTER 38
GIOVANNI’S WAR
(1934-1945)
With Martia dead and his children all grown up, Giovanni had grown increasingly lonely in the house in Hither Green. Naldo and Roberto had followed their big sister’s example and found work on ocean liners, working in the restaurants and kitchens, or else serving the high- class passengers in their cabins. The boys saved plenty of money and eventually put down roots in Southampton, buying property there and starting catering businesses of their own.
Mario, meanwhile, had followed his love of car mechanics and spent most of his time working at the race tracks.
And Iris? What of Iris? Giovanni never saw her these days. She had been cut out of the family and had not returned to visit him since that day. He felt a guilty about it all, and he often reflected on the rough time she had had with Martia. It had been a shame that the two of them had never hit it off. Deep down, he felt Martia had been jealous of her youth and her beauty. And, of course, she couldn’t have failed to notice the resemblance to Emma.
In his darker moments, Giovanni felt he had let his daughter down badly, feeling should have intervened more to protect her. And then he would reflect on his own sense of betrayal once more, betrayed and abandoned by his own children after so many years of providing for them. “Such a beauty wasted on a private in the British bloody army,” though Giovanni time and again.
Despite his best efforts and a steady flow of commissions for portrait photographs and paintings, he found living alone unbearable, and his thoughts were increasingly drawn back
348 to Italy, which seemed to be on the verge of greatness. Perhaps, he sometimes thought to himself, Italy needed him as much as he needed Italy? He spent a good deal of the time these days at Fascist meetings in Soho and was held in some regard by other members for his artistic and engineering skills. Certainly, an emboldened Italy would need creative men and engineers.
Giovanni’s sons from his first marriage had written to him often, suggesting that he would be more than welcome in Milano, and that his grandchildren were keen to see their fabled Sardinian grandpapa at long last. For two years, he pondered the idea, and then finally in early 1934 he made up his mind to leave England.
One cold February morning, he packed the last of his artistic paraphernalia into a large trunk, and closed up the house. Standing in the street, surrounded by various cases and tea chests, he made a final check on a particularly precious bundle. Wrapped in a small table cloth were dozens of letters from Emma to the children. They had lain unread in Martia’s wardrobe for years. He had no idea why Maria had kept them rather than burning them as they arrived through the letter box, but he was glad they were still intact. He had the grace to admit, at least to himself, how much his wife had longed for her children. He had the decency also to feel a little ashamed of his part in keeping them apart. He hoped that someday he would have the courage to present the letters to his children, perhaps in the hope that they might be reconciled with their mother. Personally, he wanted never to see the woman again, but he would understand if his children felt differently.
* * *
Within a week, Giovanni was in Milano, enjoying the company of his grown-up, Italian sons, talking enthusiastically about Il Duce and the nation’s return to greatness. He attended a
349 number of Fascist rallies, where he heard Mussolini speaking with characteristic energy and forthrightness. His sons were not quite so enthusiastic about their great leader, thinking him brutish and arrogant, but they were disinclined to challenge their father on such topics.
Ernesto had done well for himself, opening a large linen shop in the centre of the city, and raved about the money to be made in Milano for anyone with a good business brain.
Giovanni worked hard to establish himself in the city’s artistic scene after so many years away, attending as many gallery shows and private parties as he could manage. Before long, he had meet senior figures in the Fascist party and enthusiastically declared his loyalty to the cause of reviving Italy and righting the wrongs of history. In return, he was invited to paint a number of senior party figures, and even found himself invited to meet their wives and children. Embraced into the bosom of Italian life, he felt energised and whole once more, his optimism fully restored.
It was in the summer of 1933 that Giovanni met Mussolini for the second time, quite unexpectedly, at a garden party. Introduced as Milano’s best portrait artist and a true Italian patriot, Giovanni could hardly fail to win the admiration of Il Duce, who immediately commissioned him to paint his portrait. There were already several such portraits in existence, along with quite a few striking photographs, but one more could not hurt.
Giovanni accepted the commission with great joy, and over the course of six weeks worked at the task with devotion. He captured the strong jaw and the serious, commanding eyes that seemed capable of staring down death itself, their gaze directed off to one side, as if looking far into the future. The great leader wore a military hat with an eagle on it. Giovanni had wanted to paint him against a beautiful skyline, perhaps that of Milano with its towers and tiled roofs. But Mussolini insisted on a plain, dark background, and Giovanni had to admit that it lent a certain brooding austerity to the image.
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Occasionally, Giovanni attempted to engage the great man in conversation, venturing opinions on history and politics, but he found Il Duce less communicative in person than he had hoped. Lacking a packed room or mass rally, he seemed to have little to say, as if all his energy were being directed into his powerful facial expression.
When the image was finished, Mussolini offered a good price, far more than the going rate, but Giovanni insisted that the painting was a gift from a fellow patriot. In the end,
Giovanni won the dispute and Mussolini thanked him for his efforts with a bottle of good brandy.
However, Giovani was not invited any further into the great man’s personal circle, and indeed would never see him up close again. When he was invited to decorate his personal apartments in Milano, the invitation was sent by way of messenger, and the instructions were laid out on paper in a list of requirements, along with crude sketches and suggestions for colour schemes. He happily set to work, but he felt somewhat disappointed when the job was done and Il Duce sent another messenger to express his thanks and hand over the money.
Giovanni knew he was an aging artist and a tradesman, not a man of action or a political mover-and-shaker, and he would have to be content with his place.
* * *
By 1939, another European war seemed to be on the cards. This time Italy, under the guidance of Il Duce, was siding with Hitler and Germany. To Giovanni, the thought of siding with the Germans seemed unpleasant, to say the least. They had, after all, been Italy’s enemies in the Great War. Added to which, anti-Semitism did not sit well with Giovanni, who had many Jewish friends, both in Italy and London. Indeed, he had spent much of his artistic and musical career working alongside Jews, and he had never tired of complementing
351 their race on their brains and business acumen. His good friend Madelaine DeBois had been of Jewish extraction, and he recoiled at the thought of her being treated with anything less than the greatest respect. So far has he knew, she had left Italy some years before, settling back in France, and he sometimes wondered how she would fare under Nazi rule.
No, to Giovanni, this German obsession with “the Jewish problem” seemed in very bad taste. And yet, events were now moving with great speed, and the momentum seemed unstoppable. Italy would soon be at war, he thought, and this time England, the nation that had been his home for so long, would be the enemy.
In the run up to the war, Giovanni wrote to Roberto, Naldo and Mario to ask them to join him in Italy before the fighting began. But they insisted that they were raised in England and had eaten English food all their lives, and they were damned if they were going to fight for
Mussolini against the English. After all, they were none of them really Fascists. That was more their father’s thing. In any case, when the war finally arrived, they were all rounded up by the British and sent to internment camps away from the coast.
Giovanni understood his son’s point of view, of course, but he could not turn his back on
Italy. He was determined to help his country in any way possible. Through his contacts with the Fascist party in Milano, he made several suggestions for improvements to weaponry and military vehicles, hoping that he might contribute to Italy’s war effort. While his suggestions and technical drawings were always gratefully received, he never heard of any of them actually being implemented. His friends in the automobile industry told him that motor mechanics had moved along considerably since their days at college, as had the mechanics of mass production. Old men like themselves and Giovanni had better leave it to the youngsters.
And so Giovanni spent the war between Ernesto’s family home and his own small studio flat, where he worked and entertained a few close friends. He attended political meetings and discussed the latest developments with like-minded people, and he often turned up in his
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Black Shirt uniform to take part in marches. He attended the quasi-military parades of Fascist youth groups too and showed them proper rifle drill in preparation for their eventual entry into the army. He told them of his days in the Torino militia and how he would lead his platoon into the high mountains, shooting targets at long distances from among the rocks.
They listened to him respectfully, and he wished to God he was thirty years younger.
Meanwhile, he kept body and soul together with the usual range of commissions, although it seemed people had lost interest in art for the time being. What was the point of painting fine frescos on one’s bedroom ceiling if a bomb was going to blow it all to bits?
He grudgingly welcomed the German officers into his social circle when they arrived, but he secretly wished they would all go away. Italy had defeated the Germans in the Great
War, and at great cost. But now it seemed they were free to walk around like they owned the place. When they spoke to him in German, he sometimes pretended not to understand, forcing them to use their pitiful list of Italian phrases. It was around this time that he came to insist on the very clear differences between German Nazism and Italian Fascism, and his friends warned him once or twice to keep his views to himself.
The war rumbled on, and for several years, Giovanni didn’t hear a peep from anyone in
England, nor from Anita, wherever she might be by now. As the bombing raids on Italy intensified, Giovanni went to sleep at night wondering which of his children might be killed in a German raid over England. And of course, his children in England couldn’t help wondering how their parents were faring in Italy, caught between the Nazis and the Allied bombers. Increasingly, Giovanni asked himself whether Mussolini had been quite so clever after all in taking the country to war. And when the news came that Allied forces had landed in the south of Italy, he had to admit that the whole thing had been a terrible mistake.
* * *
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The scene was one of calm panic. Italian officers walked briskly between their offices and their staff cars carrying bundles of papers, crates of brandy, desk lamps, favourite paintings and boxes of ammunition. The corridors of the Fascist headquarters were littered with documents, and a fire burned in the courtyard, two corporals throwing thick files into the flames at intervals.
Giovanni was looking for a particular friend of his on Il Duce’s staff, a major who had promised him safe passage out of Italy in the event of defeat. Clearly, the allies would be upon them within a matter of days, and the partisans were growing bolder by the day. And yet nobody had come to Giovanni’s apartment or sent word to his sons regarding plans for evacuation.
He stopped a young clerk whose arms were filled with confidential papers and asked:
“Do you know Major Difidente? I’m looking for him, or any officers on Il Duce’s staff.”
“They are all gone, sir,” said the young clerk bracing himself up with military formality.
“Everyone has gone, sir. I mean everyone senior, sir, including Il Duce. They have gone to the mountains, I believe … or to Germany.”
Clearly, Giovanni had missed the boat – or rather, the convoy that would have carried him safely northwards with his beloved leader. He turned and left the building, striding down the cobbled street back towards his studio apartment, a deep frown on his aging face. As a prominent member of the Fascist community, he was sure to be on somebody’s hit-list in the event of a full-scale defeat. He would be carted away and shot like a dog.
With the Germans gone and Italian forces scattered, he would have to make his escape unaided. He would ask his sons and their families to join him, but if they refused to leave
Milano, he would have to go alone.
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* * *
It was past midnight when they arrived at Il Nido, the stone cottage that had been
Giovanni and Emma’s very first home. The rain-sodden party crowded into the place, their teeth chattering with cold. Everything outside had been drenched by the downpour, and the only dry wood was the furniture. Giovanni broke up two old dining chairs and started a fire.
He knew the layout of the place like the back of his hand and he made his way by feel alone to the cupboard where an old tinder box still lay. He heated water over the fire and reached into his knapsack for coffee and sugar.
He looked at the pale frightened faces around him. These young lads had started out as proud followers of Il Duce, members of a youth group in the north of Torino. They had been told to assemble at a training ground north of the city and await orders, but none had come.
When Giovanni had stumbled across them in an outhouse, they had been huddled round a candle, trying to read a map of the city. They had hoped to defend Torino against the Allied forces, they said, fear in their eyes. They didn’t seem to have any weapons or equipment beside an old shotgun and a few cartridges.
Giovanni had insisted that they wouldn’t last more than five minutes and their best bet would be to join him in the mountains, where they could wait for the right moment for a counter-attack, if that moment ever came. In reality, Giovanni knew the game was up, but he thought they might just avoid capture by the communist Partisans if they were lucky.
He had led them northwards into the mountains under cover of heavy rain, hitching a ride on a farmer’s wagon at first and then walking the rest of the way. To avoid detection, they left the path and walked through the forest, scrambling over logs and rocks in the darkness.
They struggled on through the low-hanging branches in great discomfort, soaked to the bone and ready to drop.
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Now they had arrived at long last, and the journey had taken its toll. The youngest of the group, a lad of not more than fifteen was shivering with fear as much as cold, and Giovanni thought he saw tears in his eyes.
“Come on lads,” said Giovanni, pouring out several cups of sweet coffee. “This could be our finest hour. Whatever we suffer now we suffer for our leader and Italy. You’ve all received training, and we’ve got two good hunting rifles here somewhere. We could hold out up in this place for days, maybe weeks.”
There didn’t seem to be much enthusiasm in the boys for fighting. In the face of their fear and exhaustion, all talk of great leaders and patriotic duty seemed suddenly irrelevant.
Giovanni decided to change his tack.
“Eventually, even if Italy loses the war, there’ll be peace again, and you can all go home to your families. We just have to make ourselves comfortable here and wait it out. Drink your coffee.”
Just then a noise was heard outside, perhaps the slamming of a car door. Two voices could be heard, then more. Someone was giving orders.
“Come on! Out this way,” said Giovanni, leading his frightened followers through the kitchen to the back door. If they were very quick, they might escape out the back and into the forest.
As he stepped out into the darkness, Giovanni felt a hand grip his throat and a pistol was pushed close to his face. A voice issued a warning: “One move and I’ll shoot.”
The bedraggled party was loaded into a lorry at the point of several rifles, and they began their bumpy journey back down the mountain. Looking at the young faces in the darkness,
Giovanni saw that the boys were not just dejected now, but terrified. They most likely expected to be executed, he thought to himself. And they are probably right. The Partisans were known to be taking revenge on the Fascists all over Italy, rounding up those loyal to
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Mussolini and passing sentence in kangaroo courts. The punishments were severe and public executions were not unknown. Perhaps these few boys would be spared because of their youth, but Giovanni, as a long-time, card-carrying Fascist, would almost certainly be dead before the week was out.
As they bumped and rolled through the darkness, he thought to himself of the number of times he had come down his familiar mountain when he was a younger man. He had never dreamt it would be as a captive being roughly tossed about in this way, expecting at any moment to be handed a shovel and ordered to dig his own grave.
They had reached the bottom of the mountain and followed the familiar road past his old house. Sitting by the open end of the truck, he leaned out to take a last look at the place. The lights were on. He wondered if his wife – for they had never divorced – was inside, reading a book perhaps or entertaining a lover.
The prisoners were held overnight in an abandoned industrial building, given blankets and told to sleep on any part of the floor that was not wet with rain. In the morning, they were bundled back into the truck and driven through the streets as the sun warmed the pavements.
Giovanni asked where they were being taken, and one of his guards explained simply: “To your trial.”
Not long into the journey, the truck came to a halt outside a large municipal building in the city centre, not far from the river. A great crowd had already gathered, despite the relatively early hour, and as Giovanni stepped down he could hear shouts of “traitor” and
“collaborator” from every quarter.
He turned to the party of young Fascists behind him, all of whom seemed struck dumb with terror. He stopped in his tracks and spoke loudly to them, telling them to be brave. This was their finest hour, he said. If they were going to die, it would be for the cause of Italy, for
357 their great leader. They were going to die for what they believed in, and should not be afraid but proud.
Then things seemed to move very quickly. Giovanni’s guards had apparently intended to march him into the building, but the size and enthusiasm of the crowd overwhelmed them, and they were separated from their captives. Giovanni found himself being grabbed by hands on all sides, swept off his feet and then dragged away. Somebody had him by what was left of his hair, while another punched him in the face. His glasses were knocked off, and somebody seemed to be hitting him on the legs with a stick. It was a moment of absolute terror for the old man.
Then he found himself being hoisted above the crowd, and looking down he saw the stone balustrade of a bridge and the river far below. They were going to throw him off. In the cold of morning, and in his state of exhaustion, he was sure to drown.
He heard screams not far away and then a loud splash. One of his teenage comrades had been thrown off. Then he heard two young voices calling for help. Giovanni suddenly became aware of the sound of the chilly water as it rushed under the bridge. Another scream rent the air, and then a splash, as the crowd roared.
“This is it, this is my death,” thought Giovanni. The end had come, and he was not entirely sad to be going. It had been a tough life in parts, and at the age of 82, he had achieved a great deal. At least, he pondered, he would not die slowly of some painful disease, unlike poor Martia, wasting away in an English hospital, tumours gnawing painfully at her body. Instead, his death would be reasonably quick.
Just as he was being tipped over the balustrade by several pairs of hands, he realised that several other pairs of hands were holding him tight, apparently preventing his departure.
Then he realised that there was some disagreement as to whether this one should meet his
358 expected fate. The argument was fierce, and it seemed a fight was about to break out in the crowed.
Then he heard a woman’s voice shouting: “You can’t do that to a man of his age! He’s in his eighties! Shame on you! He’s an old man. Let him go!” He turned to try and see who had called out. He saw only the head of a woman wrapped in a black shawl, her face hidden in shadow. A man nearby barked out an order and more hands grabbed him, pulling him away from the edge.
For a moment, he felt certain that he’d recognised that woman’s voice. It was Emma, surely. He would know that voice anywhere, and who else would know that he was in his eighties? As he searched the bobbing heads for a glimpse of his estranged wife, someone put a coat around Giovanni’s shoulders and he was hustled away into the crowed. He exited the bridge on the other side of the river and disappeared into a maze of narrow streets.
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CHAPTER 39
THE GOOD GERMAN
(1940-1943)
Emma was still living at Collina Verde when Italy entered the war on the side of
Germany. By this time, the locals had long accepted her as an honorary Italian. Her kindness to stray and wounded soldiers in the Great War had not been forgotten by the villagers. Now in her mid-fifties and with grey running freely through her long and luscious hair, she was greeted as a respected elder by all who knew her. Many knew her as a lady of letters, and her reputation as a teacher had spread far and wide.
She was also a translator of high reputation among the engineering and industrial firms of Torino. Her value to them was that she could render the same document into five European languages. Her vocabulary of engineering terminology was most impressive, and in the process she developed an interest in engines of all sorts, but particularly motor cars. With the help of the postman, she had learned to drive and had purchased an old car to replace the horse and carriage. She would drive to town in her Fiat whenever she felt the need, throwing up a cloud of dust as she raced along the country roads.
Successful though she was, her sense of grief at losing the children had not faded, but simply stepped into the background. In the quiet moments, it would step out of the shadows once more, like a ghost, shocking and freshly painful.
When the fighting started in Europe, she thought of her children, now grown up, and wondered if they would be pressed into service on the side of the British. Or perhaps they would be branded a danger to national security and locked away? Or perhaps they would be
360 killed in a hail of bombs or artillery fire? She longed at times to be reunited with them, to bring them to safety, and she lay awake at night thinking again and again of the horrible past and the things she might have done differently.
Emma supposed she could track her daughters down, if she really tried, but she was held back by the fear that she would be castigated for having failed so dreadfully as a mother. The same was true of the boys, her lovely, sweet boys, now grown men, perhaps with children of their own. Whenever Emma thought of such things, she would sigh and then sniff and draw herself up again, and then turn her mind once more to the numbered images in an engineer’s manual. Work was her salvation.
* * *
The build-up to war had been lengthy and elaborate, orchestrated with great fanfare by Il
Duce. There were endless newsreels of Italians marching in uniform with rifles shouldered and arms raised in salute to their leader. The preparations were quite noticeable in Torino, where military hardware was increasingly conspicuous, and the railway station was packed with soldiers heading off to distant places.
One day, several of the boys Emma had taught to read and write came to say goodbye to her, stopping by the house in their uniforms, rifles and kit-bags on their shoulders. The young lads seemed cheerful enough, having never seen war before. But Emma knew that at some point they would be up to their knees in mud, shivering from the cold, death all around them, wishing to God they were anywhere else. And looking at these fresh, smiling faces, she could only see what damage a shell or a bullet might do to them, how they would bleed and their bones shatter and how they would moan and cry before passing into the next world. She tried
361 not to show it, but her heart ached for those boys as they climbed aboard the army truck and waved goodbye.
As she had expected, not long into the war, Emma had a visit from a couple of police detectives. They were endlessly polite and apologetic, explaining that they were required by law to check on any potential security threat posed by foreign nationals or those with family abroad. It was, they said, purely a matter of routine, and they were quite convinced of Mrs
Boella’s credentials as a loyal Italian patriot, family background notwithstanding.
Emma served them coffee and chocolate pudding and listened gracefully to their apologies, offering her assurances that she took no offense at all. She had been prepared for some kind of attention from the police, but after all these years and so many troubles, she was not going to be ruffled by it.
If anything unnerved her, it was when the older of the two men asked about Giovanni.
Had she been in touch with her husband in recent years? Did she know much of his circumstances? He was highly regarded in Milano, the detective said, and had even painted Il
Duce’s portrait.
Trembling slightly, Emma said that she had not spoken to her husband for many years and had no knowledge of his doings, though she was sure he would always land on his feet.
Somewhat embarrassed, the police officers thanked her for her hospitality, apologised once more for the intrusion and were gone.
It was the first time that Emma had heard news of Giovanni in two decades. She had always assumed he’d remained in London, living with Martia and moving in his elevated social circles, hobnobbing and name-dropping and sharing his views with anyone who would listen. But, she reflected, London was probably the last place he’d be welcome now. If he hadn’t left of his own accord, he’d probably have been locked up.
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So it seemed he was living in Milano… Did that mean Martia was in Milano too? Or had they split up? Or perhaps she was dead? Despite herself, Emma couldn’t help smiling at thought of that nasty woman’s premature demise.
* * *
Over the following months and years, Emma kept a close eye on events, reading in great detail the push-and-shove of combat across the Continent. She wondered where those fresh- faced village lads were now and what their chances of survival might be. She listened to the radio too, waiting for signs of peace — a truce or a lull in the fighting.
Though she would not have wished it, she found herself making a contribution to the war effort through her daily work. The factories that had previously turned out cars and tractors were now producing military vehicles of all kinds, and Emma stayed up to all hours translating the necessary designs and manuals. German was the language most in need, it seemed, and after some time she found herself thinking and even dreaming in German.
The irony of the situation was not lost on her. For several years during the Great War, she had lived in fear of being overrun by Germans and Austrians, and now she was helping their war effort, producing vehicles that the Italian military would use in support of their Nazi partners. Where once she had seen the Germans as the greatest danger to herself and her children, she was now working overtime to ensure their success in battle. But it seemed she didn’t have much choice in the matter. After all, if the Germans were defeated then Italy would be crushed.
* * *
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One bright Sunday in the spring of 1943, Emma found herself drawn more deeply into the German war machine than she’d ever imagined. She had wandered over to the convent with a freshly baked cake for the nuns. Entering the office, she saw a handsome German colonel in a smart uniform engaged in conversation with the Mother Superior, who was now well into her eighties. Tanned, trim and well-turned out, Colonel Albert von Graf stood up when Emma entered the room, offering a deep and courteous bow.
He explained that he had come to the convent in search of a skilled linguist and secretary who was said to be living in the area. His work as a liaison officer to the Italian military required a great deal of translation between the two languages, much of it highly technical in nature. While there were many highly-educated Italians in the city, said the colonel, few of them had the range of experience that he was seeking. He needed someone who knew about engineering and industry but had the ability to craft letters and reports on delicate topics when required. The ideal candidate would have a sensitivity to culture and diplomacy, combined with a knowledge of the workings of a diesel engine. His sources had informed him that the ideal candidate was living right next to the convent, and he had comes in hope of making her acquaintance.
Laying the cake on Mother Superior’s desk, Emma introduced herself, and said that she thought perhaps the colonel was looking for her. The pair conversed briefly in faultless
German, and the Albert von Graf declared that her grasp of the language was better than his own, and she might easily have been born in the Black Forest and raised on wurst and sauerkraut.
He laid out the terms of employment, listing the duties, hours and rates of pay. He explained that she would have to work in his office in a northern suburb of Torino, that the hours were long and that she might be called upon to travel from time to time, across to
Milano or perhaps down to Rome. Emma found herself suddenly filled with excitement at the
364 prospect of a new job. She had often longed for a change of pace and routine, and here it was, being handed to her on a plate, albeit by a German officer. As the colonel spoke, Emma watched him for signs of bad character, for something shifty, overbearing or underhand. But all she could see was a good-looking man with a bright smile and impeccable manners. She accepted the job without further ado.
* * *
Despite being in her late fifties, Emma was still attractive, with her dark, shining eyes, good skin and bright white teeth. She got on well with the colonel, who seemed to treat her more as a friend than an employee. She noticed how devotedly his subordinates served him, following his instructions without demure, saluting and clicking their heels all day long.
Knowing how highly regarded he was, she found herself increasingly honoured to be on his staff, and it seemed her work was well up to the required standard.
Over the months, their friendship grew, to the extent that she sometimes joined him for drinks or dinner after work. He said that she must no longer address him as “Colonel” when they were out of the office, but call him “Albert” instead. Emma was glad of the shift to informality, relieved to have a new friend – worldly and intelligent – with whom to talk.
She would often stay over in a hotel close to the army camp where they worked, the bills paid by the colonel’s office. She was tempted at first to refuse this luxury, but bearing in mind the long drive to and from home each day, it seemed only sensible to accept. She wondered at first what the villagers might be saying about her, stopping overnight in the city, spending all her time with a German officer … but she quickly put such thoughts from her head. If life had taught her anything, it was to take no heed of the meddling and prejudices of others.
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It was in a restaurant one evening, fortified by a bottle of red wine, that Albert revealed his personal sorrows. He showed Emma some photographs of his wife and children, all of whom had been killed by an RAF bomb. One day he had been a loving husband and father, and the next he was an empty shell. Emma was deeply touched by Albert’s grief and did her best to console him. She listened to his tales of family life, the memories of holidays and birthdays and Christmases… now all gone and never to be repeated.
They talked of the war and of war in general, and it soon became clear that Albert was not a great fan of Hitler or the National Socialists. The men in Albert’s family had been army officers for centuries, and Albert was simply following this proud tradition. He was good at his job and he was devoted to his country. As for the Nazi’s, they were thugs and fools and he had no time for them. And yet a soldier was duty-bound to follow orders, even the most unpleasant. In the end, Emma and Albert agreed that the war was a horrible mistake and toasted to an early end to hostilities.
That night, as Emma retired alone to her hotel bed, she thought of poor Albert’s position, of his grief and the moral conflicts the war represented for him. She felt a deep sorrow welling in her chest, and she wondered if she might be falling in love.
* * *
A test of her devotion to the man came not long after. She had noticed with concern that large quantities of food that was being wasted on the army camp. The officers’ mess in particular seemed to throw out large quantities of good food, largely due to cooking too much in the first place. Meanwhile, there were Italian families struggling to get by on next to nothing, while refugee children were as thin as rakes. Mother Superior had taken several children in, including some from France, but was struggling to feed them. There were other
366 churches, monasteries and convents, she said, in the same position. And all the while, the cooks at the officers’ mess were tipping sausages, half-eaten chickens, heaps of vegetables and gallons of good stew into the dustbins.
Albert listened quietly to Emma’s plea and pondered the problem carefully. Just as
Emma was on the point of saying that she understood fully if nothing could be done, he said he would have a word with the cooks and see about a solution. Merely reducing the amount of food they cooked would not benefit the children, but putting some of the excess to good use might.
In the following weeks, Albert quietly arranged a scheme whereby the cooks at the officers’ mess would maintain their existing food orders, but set aside any food that had not been used, whether cooked or raw. And before long, a cart was leaving twice each week from the army camp laden down with flour, potatoes, pasta, vegetables, sausages and the occasional cake. Before long, chefs from the main canteen had joined the effort. Having spent years stuffing food into the soldiers with little thanks, the prospect of feeding some skinny orphans seemed quite appealing.
Albert was able to report to his superiors that he had “reduced waste” without ever revealing exactly how this was being achieved. He felt good about his contribution to helping these children, many of whom seemed to have lost both home and family, and he was glad too that he had been able to satisfy Emma’s kind request. He was particularly pleased to receive a long letter from Mother Superior detailing the positive effect on the orphan children under her care, who had grown noticeably stronger and more lively. Added to which, the food was so plentiful that she had been able to redirect some of it to another church, where refugee children were also in need. She expressed her undying gratitude.
As Emma’s love and admiration for Albert grew, she found herself increasingly compelled to unburden herself of her own grief, to tell him the story of how she had given
367 birth to six children and lost them all; how she had placed all her trust and hope in one man, only to be bitterly disappointed; how she had gone against her parents’ wishes and lost her family and homeland for ever.
One evening over dinner, Emma told the tale, describing each of her children in detail.
She told of the abortion too, and the grief and torment that had followed, how she had thought often of killing herself and longed for some freak accident to take her away from this cruel world.
They were sitting at a corner table in their favourite restaurant in the city centre, and
Emma was glad that she was not facing the room, for tears were streaming down her face as she finished telling her story. Albert took her hand in his and squeezed it. She was glad that he didn’t speak, only offering his sympathy silently. He seemed to know that no words could do justice to such grief. That night, they finally admitted their strong feelings for each other and sealed their fate as lovers in a hotel room, sleeping in late the next day. Emma’s heart was glad for this merciful downpour of affection after such a long, long drought.
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CHAPTER 40
FOND FAREWELLS
(1944-1945)
There came a time when the colonel was recalled to Berlin. The military in Italy was in retreat, the Allies advancing from the south, and the Germans knew they could not hold out indefinitely. Albert was in Milano when the order was given. He had time only to write a brief letter to Emma in Torino before heading north.
As he set pen to paper, he wondered where he might be six months from now, or a year.
If the war was lost, what would become of him? And how on earth would he and Emma be reunited? Would she come to find him in Germany? Would there be anything left of
Germany by that time?
His family home had been destroyed, along with everyone he loved. His parents were long gone, and his only brother had already died on the Russian front. Berlin would soon be in chaos, if it wasn’t already. When the people took revenge on the Nazis, they might turn also on those army officers who had so slavishly followed Hitler’s orders.
Like a flash, he knew what to do. He would leave Milano as ordered, but then slip away from the convoy, heading for the cottage in the South Tyrol where he had spent so many holidays, first with his parents and then his wife and children. It had always been a peaceful place, quiet and welcoming, hidden among the pines, with a view of the snow-capped mountains. The old woman who owned the place knew him as a friend, and he would not stick out so badly, surrounded by other German speakers. He might be an accountant on a holiday, for all they knew, an innocent civilian come to escape the bombing. Yes, it would be
369 the perfect place to hide out. And once this hideous war was finally over, Emma could come to him.
He wrote his brief letter on blue paper, explaining his hasty departure and expressing his undying love for her. Then he gave the address in South Tyrol and said he would consider this his new home … and perhaps hers too, if she wished.
“I hope to see you there one day soon, God willing,” he wrote, “Your loving and devoted
Albert.”
He sealed the blue envelope and handed it to a courier, then he turned and walked to his waiting car.
* * *
Emma opened the letter and read it, then read it again, tears rolling down her cheeks. She poured herself a stiff drink and gulped it down, then read the letter again. It was over, and it seemed only the slimmest chance existed of being reunited with her Albert. She longed to head to the Tyrol right away, but felt it would be too dangerous, with the country at war and roadblocks everywhere. For now, she must keep it together and wait for peace.
Over the next few weeks, she did her best to keep from disintegrating. She knew the fighting was getting closer, and she half expected to be killed when it finally arrived. With the army camp closed, she found herself back home again, cooped up as if she had never had a life outside, and this added to the sense of oppression. When the floors could be scrubbed and the tables polished no more, she went into the garden and began to pull up weeds.
It was as she was standing among the vegetables one day that a young man by the name of Gino arrived, carrying a shotgun over his shoulder. Gino was a farmer’s son from a village on the mountain above. He had avoided military service due to his limp, having broken his
370 leg badly as a child. He often came down the mountain, bringing the odd rabbit or leg of lamb for Emma’s pot. She greeted him with a warm smile, happy to have some company at last, but quickly realised that his mood was more serious.
He said that the Germans had all fled Italy, leaving the Italian Fascists to handle things alone. The Partisans were getting bolder by the day, heading down from their mountain hide- outs and probing into populated areas. He said it was well known that she had worked for the
Germans, and some even suspected her of sleeping with the colonel. There was no doubt that she would be in danger of reprisals, and he felt it only fair to give her warning of the inevitable. If she had any sense, she would leave now and head south, maybe to Rome, where nobody knew her.
Emma was too stunned to respond. She had only imagined her death in the abstract, but now it seemed she would have to start making life-or-death decisions … and quickly. Should she pack? How would she get away without being noticed? Would it perhaps be best to wait until dark and then slip into the forest up the hill?
She decided that such decisions were beyond her for the moment, and that she would do well to take the advice of this young man. He was one person she could trust. She would make him coffee in the kitchen and beg his advice.
It was just as she was taking the coffee jar down from the shelf that she heard a banging on the front door. She looked at Gino and noted the fear in his eyes.
“It’s the Partisans,” he said. “You must go now, out the back door.”
Emma went to the kitchen door and then realised that she would be seen running up the hill at the back of the house. Seen and mostly likely shot dead.
Returning inside, she asked Gino to help her move the dresser to one side, revealing the entrance to the tunnel. As the hole in the wall became visible, she felt the familiar cool draft of air wash over her face. She turned to a nearby kitchen shelf and took down a tin box,
371 pulling out a bundle of cash and stuffing it into her handbag. She grabbed her coat from the back of a chair and then entered the dark passage. Once inside, she turned to her young saviour and said: “Pull it back in place. Then go home. Say you never saw me. And thank you for this, Gino.”
There was more banging on the front door and a voice shouting to be let in.
“Good luck,” said Gino. He shook her hand and then pulled the dresser back into place.
Emma crept gingerly into the darkness and then remembered the candle and matches she had always left to one side of the entrance. She fumbled in the darkness and found them. She lit the wick, a small golden flame trembling in the breeze. She went on another twenty feet, groping at the tunnel sides, and finally came to the fork in the path. The right-hand route would take her to the cavern, where she could hide for a while perhaps. But she knew there was no exit from there, no way to the surface, and she had no provisions to keep her going.
The left-hand passage, however, was still a mystery. On the one occasion she had tried it, she found herself afraid as the passage narrowed and the ceiling lowered. It seemed there had been a cave-in of sorts, for the space was restricted and the walls lumpy and dusty, full of cracks and small stones. She had turned back on that one occasion, fearing that she might become trapped, but now she wondered if she should try again. It might just lead to some sort of exit, her only route to freedom.
Behind her, she heard male voices in vigorous discussion. Gino seemed to be having a hard time convincing the intruders of his innocence. She closed her eyes and spoke to herself calmly: there is nothing to fear from trying the left-hand route; if it’s too narrow, you can turn back; this is no time for cowardice and so you have to be brave.
She strode onwards, feeling her way along the wall, noting the lumps to one side and the lowering ceiling. Soon, she had to turn sideways to squeeze through, and she fought with a rising sense of panic. She paused again, told herself not to be silly, and pushed through the
372 gap. Immediately, the passage widened again and the ceiling returned to its normal height.
She was able to stand up and the floor was once more smooth under foot, rising on a very slight slope.
She increased the pace, wondering where on earth she could be heading to, her eyes straining for signs of light. Then, after perhaps two hundred feet, she came to a dead end.
Fear and disappointment surged through her body and she felt for a moment like screaming.
Then, holding the candle over her head, she looked up and saw rough wooden planks.
She placed her hand on them and found them cool and slightly damp; she noticed also that they formed a square, like a cellar door. Feeling around above her head, she finally came across a bolt, rough and rusty, as if it had been in place for a century and never used.
She tugged at it and banged it with her fist, then took off her shoe and banged on it again.
Dust fell into her eyes, but she kept on banging until the bolt came loose, and she was able to draw it back.
The trap door itself seemed reluctant to budge. She put the candle down and pushed against the planks with both hands and the top of her head. Eventually, slowly, it moved, making the most awful grating noise as years of dirt and gravel were dislodged. With eyes and mouth tight shut, she made one final push, her arms now fully outstretched.
Then she stopped, aware somehow of movement above her, perhaps a person, perhaps one of her captors waiting for her to emerge.
“Come on up, my dear, and close that door behind you,” said Mother Superior, before breaking into a peel of laughter.
How pleased Emma was to hear that voice!
Realizing now that the tunnel must have led her to the convent, she immediately relaxed and broke into a dusty smile. She felt several pairs of hands reaching down to haul her to
373 safety, and before she knew it, she was standing in the convent library, surrounded by nuns, the carpet rolled back to reveal the hole floor.
Mother superior held out her arms, a broad smile on her craggy old face.
“Thank goodness,” she sighed. “You were only just in time. The Partisans were just here, and they’ve headed over to your house. I’m sure they’ll do you a mischief if they catch you, my girl.
She led Emma to her office and provided her with a nun’s habit, telling her it was the best kind of disguise available. She gave her a travelling bag too, in which to place her normal clothes and fashionable handbag, and provided her with a battered Bible for additional cover. Emma stepped behind a screen to change and then emerged into the office like a nervous butterfly.
“Let me look at you,” said the old nun, a deep frown on her face. “Wait a minute. You’ve got your wimple on wrong.”
Emma stood like a child while the older nun made some adjustments to her robes and veil. “You’ve still got some make up on,” said the nun. She motioned to a small stoup of holy water in the corner of the room. “I think God will forgive you if you use it to remove you make-up, bearing in mind the circumstances.”
That done, the old nun went through Emma’s travelling bag, fishing out the handbag and high-heels, the make-up and snake-skin purse. All of that would have to go. A real nun would never be carrying such things. She took the wad of cash the Emma had with her and placed it in an envelope, tying it firmly with string. Then looking in the pockets of the traveling bag,
Mother Superior noticed a photograph of Albert looking smart in his uniform.
“This will certainly cause you some problems, my dear, if they find you with it,” and she threw the picture into a draw. From the same draw, she removed a wooden crucifix on a chain and dropped it into the bag.
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“One day, when this is all over, you can have that photograph back. But for now, you’re married to God. Now, how do you feel?”
“I haven’t got any shoes,” said Emma, wiggling her toes by way of demonstration.
“Oh, my poor dear,” said another nun, taking off her own sandals and handing them over.
“Thank you so much,” said Emma, suddenly overwhelmed by the kindness around her.
“We have two nuns taking a child to see a specialist at the hospital in Torino later today,” said Mother Superior. “I suggest you go with them. There is the old van, and you can sit in the back with the child. After that, my dear, I suggest you head for Rome and look up an old friend of mine. He’ll help you, I’m sure.”
* * *
It took Emma two weeks in all to reach Rome. As she headed south on the dusty roads, columns of American and British soldiers passed by, heading in the opposite direction. She had enough money to buy food and lodging, but she found herself sleeping mostly in make- shift accommodation by the roadside or in bombed-out buildings, bedding down with the refugees. Hotel receptionists could be inquisitive, and she dreaded being cross-examined about her origins and religious convictions, let alone the nature of her journey.
In Rome, she headed for the small church that Mother Superior had advised her to visit.
Clutching the scrap of paper on which the address was written, she introduced herself at the church gate and she was led inside. When she saw Father Moscati’s broad smile – so much like the old nun’s – she knew she was safe at last. That night, she slept for twelve hours, and when she awoke the next morning to see the blue sky and puffy, white clouds, she felt her troubles had vanished like a dream.
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* * *
She had been working as a translator for the British Army for over a year before they suggested that she take a holiday. The fighting in Italy was at an end, and Emma had certainly earned a rest, having worked like a demon since her miraculous escape. She had, of course, dropped the pretence of being a nun, and she had managed to make herself popular among the British officers, playing on her Maltese background and avoiding mention of an
Italian husband.
Now she had been given a month’s leave, and her first thought was to simply stay at home in her hotel room, sleep late in bed and perhaps read some books purely for pleasure.
But she knew that she really should try to track Albert down at last, if only to be sure that he had survived the retreat.
She packed a bag and headed north once more, telling everyone she was heading to the mountains for a spot of skiing and to shoot some deer – the kind of obscure, silly explanation that made the British officers smile and ask no further questions.
The Tyrol was wonderful, full of fresh breezes and flowers and alpine villages, so pretty and peaceful that one would think there had never been a war. Arriving at the village mentioned in Albert’s letter, she asked for Frau Huber who rented holiday homes and found the old woman easily enough. Explaining that she was an old friend of the colonel, Emma was directed up a mountain path and through a thick pine forest, arriving at last at a clearing, in the centre of which was an old wooden chalet, complete with smoking chimney and a beautiful garden. There seemed to be a gardener working there among the flowers. As she drew closer, he stood up, and she saw that the thin, frail old man before her was her lover.
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She hesitated at first, startled by his gaunt appearance and stooped posture. Moving closer, it became clear that he was very ill.
When he recognized Emma, his face lit up and for a moment the illness in his eyes was replaced by joy. He opened his arms and she ran to him at last, but his embrace was weak and his body trembled with the effort of holding her.
They kissed gently and looked into each other’s eyes, neither of them quite believing they had been reunited like this. The joy they felt was enormous and Emma felt that perhaps she would be allowed to be happy for a while, that her luck had finally changed. Tears of love ran down their faces and he said over and over again: “My darling, my darling, my darling…”
Then, standing back for a moment, Emma surveyed his emaciated body.
“What has happened to you? Are you ill? Have you been injured?”
“No, my dear, I’m afraid it’s worse than that. A bullet would have been okay … but I’m afraid I have leukaemia. There is nothing that can be done. I’ve been to various doctors and they’ve given me the treatments, but nothing has worked. They have finally given up on me.
Kaput!”
He managed a weak laugh, but seeing that Emma was not smiling, he continued. “It’s too far advanced, they say, and I must accept death. And I believe I have done so … at least in theory. All that remains is to say goodbye and depart with dignity. So long as I die well, and have no fear of what comes afterwards.”
He raised her limp hand and planted a kiss on the back of it. All the happiness had drained from Emma on hearing this news. Her mind went dark and she felt the blood drain from her hands and feet. He was going to die. She had waited and waited and longed to find him again … and now he was going to die!
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Noticing her horrified expression, Albert pulled her closer and spoke softly in her ear: “I have come to accept the situation, my dear, and you are the answer to my prayers. Can you stay with me a while. I don’t want to go through this alone.”
“Of course I can,” she said, suddenly putting her feelings to one side. “I won’t leave you alone, my darling. How could I?”
In bed that night, they wept together, wept because of the short time that was left to share. And yet, Emma was so thankful to have found him in time. Now at least she would be able to help him through his darkest days, to ease the pain perhaps and ensure that he felt loved in his final moments. After all, death would come to them all; what mattered was to go out properly.
She would have the chance also to tell him how important he had been in her life, how he had restored her faith in human nature, which had taken such a battering over the years. Now she had found him, she must squeeze an entire lifetime of love into these final days and weeks.
* * *
When she awoke the room was full of the morning sun. The place beside her was empty and on looking from the window she saw him standing barefoot in the long meadow grass, throwing a stick for a shaggy black dog. She pulled on her summer dress and sandals and went out to join him. They walked hand in hand along a forest path, the dog sniffing before them. He was, said Albert, a sheep dog who had lost his vocation, abandoning his flock one day and arriving at the cottage in search of either food or companionship. Albert had given the farmer some money by way of compensation and since then Gorky – as the dog was
378 called – had been his sole companion. He ate a lot of sausages, said Albert, but more than made up for it in conversation.
Eventually, they emerged onto a high meadow with a small lake. The water was crystal clear, fed from a gurgling brook among the rocks. They took off their shoes and paddled in the shallows, laughing at the icy coldness of the water and watching out for fish that Albert assured her were down there somewhere. It was good to see a smile on his face; he seemed so full of life, as if death could never take him away.
Then, within just a few minutes, his breathing became laboured and his hand grew heavy on Emma’s shoulder. “You’ve done enough to wake me up, my darling,” he said, his face turning serious. “Let’s go back and have something to eat. I think my wandering days are over.”
Day by day, he grew a little weaker, working less on the garden, not bothering so much to keep the place tidy, struggling to rise from a chair. He tried to hide it at first, but Emma was aware of his exhaustion. Eventually, she persuaded him that it was perfectly alright to stop fighting, to allow her to do more of the work while he sat back and relaxed.
“I am here to help you,” she said. “I’m sure God sent me here so that you will not be alone my dear Otto. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.”
“Yes, I know, my dear,” he replied, squeezing her hand. “And I’m glad you’re here. Of course, you can do as much as you wish… I hardly have the strength any more…”
“And don’t forget,” she said, resting her head gently on his, “I need to be needed too. I was a mother once and I still have a mother’s instincts. Let me cherish you for the little time we have together.”
Albert gladly assented, and as the days passed, he became more and more dependent on her. She used all the nursing skills she had learned over the years, trying to relieve his suffering, his breathlessness, his every discomfort. She brought him his medicines, counting
379 out the tablets and feeding him the syrup on a spoon, doing her best to ease his pain and make him comfortable in bed. When he accepted finally that he must remain in bed, she constantly adjusted his bedclothes and helped him to the toilet, washing him carefully and soothing his brow with cool flannels.
The doctor came and prescribed more medicines, increasing the dose of painkillers and offering to take him to hospital for the final days, but both Emma and Albert insisted that he was to remain at home. Towards the end, she prayed for his suffering to be over soon.
The day before his death, he refused to be sedated, saying he wanted to stay awake, to be aware of her presence until the last moment. And she sat with him until late, holding his hand and speaking softly, telling him stories of no consequence just so he could hear a reassuring voice.
The following morning, just before dawn, she awoke suddenly and knew he had gone, his hand still in hers but cold now. He was buried in the local churchyard. She planted an almond tree on his grave. His name was carved on a grey headstone, but there was no mention of his military rank, just a brief message from the woman who mourned for him: “So deeply loved, so sadly missed.”
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CHAPTER 41
ENEMY ALIEN
(1938-1941)
Long before the outbreak of war, Iris Whatton found herself engaged in a battle of her own – that of raising a child on army pay with no husband around to share the burdens of domestic life. The money she received as an army wife was less than she needed, and she struggled to feed little Joan and herself, much less keep them both in nice shoes and clothes.
She made the most of life in Aldershot, though she had grown to dislike the place and she increasingly felt depressed.
She wrote several times to Reggie in the following year, asking if there were any way they could join him in India, but his reply was always that such things were out of his hands.
She began to suspect he liked it that way, and she often pictured him surrounded by pretty local girls, cooking him curries and bringing him beers on command.
Things might have been easier for Iris had she shared her woes with some of the other army wives, but she was wary of opening up in that way. She was keen to maintain appearances, to put on a good show, to portray dignity and a sense of decorum. Her childhood had taught her two things: never complain without good reason; and never show your weaknesses, because that’s where you will be attacked. In short, Iris became increasingly isolated, and the stress began to tell, causing her sleepless nights, a loss of appetite and an increasingly short fuse. Little Joan sometimes found her crying, and that made her cry too.
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Her in-laws were aware of her sadness, and to her great surprise, it was Reggie’s father,
George, who came to the rescue. He had never been unkind to Iris or Joan in the past, but he had always remained distant, perhaps because of his wife Flo’s concerns about Reggie having married a foreigner. Now, though, George felt the need to extend the hand of friendship, and not before time.
Iris was invited to live with her in-laws in South-East London. She and Joan would move into the front room on the first floor of their large terrace house, with use of a bathroom and kitchen. For this, she was asked to pay seven shillings and sixpence a week, since the room was normally let to a lodger. The rent was quite a lot for Iris, but the army was willing to give her an allowance for living off-camp, and she could just about afford it. George was always quick to keep up with modern technology, having already replaced the old gas lamps with electricity, and Iris was happy to find electric lights, a gas stove and a telephone all on hand.
Joan was enrolled in a local school and began to learn quickly, mixing well with all the other children. All seemed to be going splendidly, except for the looming threat of war. The prospect of her Reggie getting caught up in it all began to play in Iris’ nerves. Once again, she grew jumpy and restless, and both George and Flo were concerned for her health.
Then, as the summer holidays rolled around, they suggested a solution of sorts: Iris and
Joan would take a seaside break down on the Kent coast. The girl next door, Marie, was going to stay in Sheerness, a holiday town with a naval dockyard and miles of beaches. It was the perfect place to unwind, said George, and the change would do both Joan and Iris good.
* * *
A few days later, they arrived in Sheerness, outside the door of a gloomy-looking terrace house in a long row of others just the same. Iris gathered her courage and rang the bell. The
382 door was answered by a wrinkled woman with yellow hair. Entering the tiny house, they were overcome by a musty, doggie smell that made little Joan catch her breath. This was to be their holiday home for the next few weeks, and both Iris and Joan began to wish they’d stayed in London.
The moment they sat down, they started to itch and they continued to do so for two whole days and nights. Soon, Joan came out in red spots and lumps, which Iris said were flea bites. As soon as possible, they found another place to stay, much cleaner and with a view of the sea. They shared their lodgings with a young woman named Mary who had travelled down with them from London and joined the Wrens, working as a secretary for the anti- aircraft defences. Their landlady was a pleasant woman called Mavis, who had a yellow canary in a cage, named Neville after Mr Chamberlain, the prime minister.
Having finally found a clean and comfortable place to live, mother and child finally began to unwind, walking along the seafront, watching the ships go by and paddling in the water. Iris even splashed out on ice creams and they lay in deckchairs to soak up the sunshine.
However, just a few days later, on 3rd September, 1939, the peace was shattered. Joan and Iris sat in the living room with Mavis and Neville as the prime minister announced over the radio that Britain was at war with Germany. Nobody knew what to say, least of all Iris, who could only think of her poor Reggie, so far away, who might already be packing for a new deployment to the front line, wherever that might be.
“Let’s have a nice cup of tea, shall we?” said Mavis, breaking the silence.
“Yes, that will be nice,” replied Iris, still stunned at the terrible news.
Not long after, they found themselves along the sea wall, along with hundreds of local people, listening in awe to the first air-raid siren. Nobody knew what to expect, and having
383 heard the siren, and thinking that perhaps bombing might start straight away, they hurried home and waited anxiously for the all-clear.
Iris had intended to return to London and continue life as before, but both Reggie and
George said that the Kent coast would be a safer place for Joan in the event of bombing raids.
They should move to Sheerness permanently, remaining with Mavis and starting from scratch. Neither Joan nor Iris were against the idea, bearing in the mind the fresh sea breeze and miles of beach to stroll along, and if it meant avoiding German bombs, then so much the better.
* * *
Despite its being a backwater, life in Sheerness was far from dull. In the first few weeks of war, they were all fitted with gas masks in case of chemical attack from above. Joan’s rubbery mask smelled strange to her, and she felt a strong sense of claustrophobia and breathlessness when she put it on. The masks were to be carried everywhere, and those with more money were able to find good-looking bags to carry them in, slung over the shoulder on a proper strap like a fashion accessory. However, Joan’s mask remained in its original cardboard box, hung on a length of string. The box became tatty and grubby over time, but it was useful for keeping odds and ends in – conquers, sweets, pencils, loose change.
Joan did well at her new school, making friends and pleasing her teachers with her bright attitude and hard work. She made friends despite being the new girl, the girl from London, the girl with somewhat shabby clothes and scuffed shoes.
Iris was still struggling to get by on an army wife’s income, and living in with Mavis provided little in the way of privacy. She began to look for somewhere to live that offered more independence. Finally, she found lodgings with a friend named Mary who worked at the
384 dockyard. It was a small Victorian terraced house, one of many like it in Sheerness. The place was a bit shabby and needed a lot of work to brighten it up, but at least it was a home of sorts.
Iris and Joan would have their own bedroom, sharing the kitchen, bathroom and living room with Mary, who was a lively and cheerful character. As it later transpired, she was just a bit too lively.
* * *
With Britain still holding out against the Axis powers, Hitler decided to turn the full force of his bombers on Britain’s airfields, then on London and the other key targets. Pretty soon, the air raid sirens were going off night after night. Few people got a decent night’s sleep, but everyone seemed to adjust to the hostilities. Mrs Purdy, the woman living next door, had two little girls and her husband was away with the army. She was afraid of the raids, and Iris wanted to offer her some comfort. Whenever the siren started – which was most nights for a while – Iris would knock on the wall and the woman would leave her house and come round. Iris put a mattress on the floor of the cupboard under the stairs and everyone huddled together while the raid was on. The bombers could be heard flying overhead, the anti-aircraft guns hacking away, trying to knock the Germans out of the sky. The bombs were mostly meant for London, but occasionally a load would be aimed at the dockyard, and they made a horrible boom as they landed, shaking the houses and sending crockery toppling from the kitchen shelves. During a lull in the attacks, Iris would go to the kitchen and make tea in jam jars, most of the cups having been broken.
The morning after a raid, Joan would join the other children in collecting shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells on the way to school. They were all proud of their collections, and would show them off to each other, comparing the size and looking for special markings.
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Some of these treasures were still hot to the touch when the children picked them up and they would certainly have been capable of killing anyone they hit.
One night Iris narrowly missed “getting it” when Mrs Purdy next door failed to return her knock on the wall. Iris popped out onto the pavement between the houses and rapped at
Mrs Purdy’s door, then popped back through her own front door immediately. She made it just in time to avoid being hit by a large, red-hot lump of shrapnel, which landed just where she had been standing seconds before. Whether by luck or chance or a guardian angel, her life had been spared for another day.
* * *
But it wasn’t just the Germans who had it in for Iris. It seemed the British wanted to make her life difficult as well. Having been born in Italy, Iris was classed as an enemy alien.
After all, the Italians were just as much the enemy as the Germans. Despite being married to a serving British soldier, the rules said that Iris was to report to the police authorities every two weeks.
At first, she hoped the authorities might overlook her presence, and for a while this seemed to be the case. Then one day, she received a visit from a local policeman, Detective
Sergeant Wellband, who lived a few doors down the street. Iris knew the detective well enough and was on talking terms with him and his wife, but she had never received a visit from either of them.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Whatton,” he said, “but someone has informed us that you were not born in Britain, which means you’re technically required to register with the authorities. Were you actually born in Italy?”
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“Yes, that’s right,” said Iris, “I was born in Torino. But my husband is in the British
Army and I was raised in London. I’m just as British as anyone else.”
“I quite understand, but I’m afraid these are the rules since the war started. You’ll have to be registered at the police station, that’s all. It’s just for the records. And you’re supposed to check in with the police station every two weeks, but I don’t think that will be necessary.
We’re pretty much neighbours anyway, so I can vouch for you.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Iris.
“Not at all, not at all,” said the policeman. “It might be a nice also if your Joan were to walk to school with my girl Jennifer every day. They could walk home together as well and look out for each other. Would that be alright with you?”
“Yes, that would be fine. I’m sure Joan would be happy to have a new friend. But I have a question.”
“What’s that Mrs Whatton?”
“Who was it that told you I was born in Italy?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” said the policeman. “But I can offer you a piece of good advice for the future,” he said, leaning in confidentially.
“What’s that, sergeant?”
“Never trust anyone until you’ve found them out, Mrs Whatton,” he said.
It was a phrase that Iris turned over and over in her head in the following days, as she pondered who exactly had betrayed her to the police. Which of her supposed friends or nosy neighbours had turned her in? Which of those smiles hid such a malicious and scheming mind? Which of these nosy parkers wished to bring about her downfall?
“Never trust anyone until you’ve found them out, Mrs Whatton,” she thought.
“Yes, so true, so very true.”
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* * *
The arrangement with Detective Sergeant Wellband worked well, and Iris was glad for his kindness and discretion. However, others were not so nice. Having identified Iris and Joan as foreigners, they felt free to gossip about them at every turn. They watched mother and daughter closely for evidence of wrong-doing, and when there was nothing to criticize them for, they made it up.
The cruelty didn’t stop there. The war had brought with it food rationing, a system that, in theory at least, ensured everyone got their fair share but no more. But it seemed some shop keepers were not very forthcoming with certain foods when Iris requested them. Often, when
Iris went into a shop to buy meat, sugar, eggs or any other supposed luxury, she would be told that they had sold out. And yet the local women would buy the same goods from the same shop on the same day. A couple of times, she challenged a shop keeper on this point, but was met with hard-faced resistance, a very ignorant kind of cruelty that hurt Iris deeply.
Didn’t they care that her husband was a British soldier in India, serving his country just like everyone else? Didn’t they care that he might be killed along with their own loved ones, perhaps fighting the Japanese in Burma? Didn’t they have any pity for a poor mother trying to raise a child in wartime?
At such times, she would turn over the policeman’s advice once more in her mind:
“Never trust anyone until you’ve found them out, Mrs Whatton.”
* * *
Aside from her country of origin, over which she had no control, Iris was set apart by her attitude to the fighting. While she strongly hoped Britain would be victorious and her
388 husband returned to her in one piece, she just couldn’t take any joy in hearing of enemy deaths — much less seeing them.
When the Battle of Britain started, she would often see British fighter pilots battling it out with their German foes over the sea. She would stand and watch the dog fights, trying to spot who was who and hoping that whoever got shot down would at least parachute to safety in the sea.
Iris would stand at times with the local men and women, who would cheer when a
German was shot down, but she couldn’t bring herself to cheer along. That pilot was somebody’s son, she would think, closing her eyes and praying that he might survive. When it was clear that he could not have survived the crash, she would go indoors, sad and shaken, and wishing that this bloody war would just end, one way or another.
Perhaps the closest she came to warlike sentiments was the day she was nearly shot as she strolled along the beach, Joan by her side. Up ahead, they saw a fighter plane flying at low level, apparently heading right for them. Suddenly, the machine guns on the plane’s wings opened up, strafing the seafront on which they were walking. If the pilot had wanted to hit them, he wasn’t a very good shot. Most likely, he was just having fun. But Iris didn’t find it very funny.
From her vantage point beneath the plane, she had seen Italian markings, and she shouted at the pilot, shaking her fist and unleashing an unholy string of Italian swear words such as she’d never used before. Her energy spent, she was able to laugh about the incident later.
Typical Italians: they fly all the way to England, and the only thing they can find to attack is an Italian woman walking along the beach with her child!
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CHAPTER 42
LOVE DURING WARTIME
(1941-1944)
Finally, Iris did something that really gave her detractors something to talk about. Her flatmate Mary was in the habit of bringing sailors home for supper, and Iris was inevitably introduced to some of them. One such visitor was a Royal Navy diver named John, who took a liking to Iris from the start. She was impressed with his charm and good looks, and Mary invited him to visit again so they could get better acquainted. He had a fine sense of humour and was good with Joan, who soon came to know him as “Uncle John”.
Iris was aware of the risk she was taking, but she had long suspected that Reggie was being unfaithful to her in India. Indeed, his own brother, Sid, had suggested as much before he left for his army posting to Egypt, describing the debauched lifestyles of army officers in
India. Iris had concluded that what was good for the goose was good for the gander, and with
Mary and Sid offering encouragement of sorts, she decided to make the most of the opportunity. In later years, Iris would tell her closest confidants that her affair with John was the only time she had ever enjoyed the sexual act.
* * *
Within weeks, news of the affair had spread, and tongues were wagging furiously around
Sheerness. Iris and Joan moved to new digs, sharing rooms with a woman called Mrs
Longbottom. Not long afterwards, Iris began to get morning sickness and felt generally
390 unwell. She grew larger every month, but managed to conceal the truth from her daughter, who was almost as ignorant of reproductive matters as Iris had been in her youth.
Then one day, Mrs Longbottom explained to Joan that her mother would have to go away for a few days. Joan was not unhappy about this, because it gave her a brief spell of freedom, playing with the neighbour’s son Freddie and his friend Ronnie. They would tear around in a go-cart they had built and called an “ambulance”, delivering newspapers and collecting jam jars for the war effort. They carried a first-aid kit and painted a big red cross on the side of their emergency vehicle. Joan would sit on the large platform on the back and was often thrown off at high speed, leaving her nursing bumps and bruises. However, nothing detracted from the new-found sense of freedom and adventure.
Joan came home from school one day to find her mother sitting in a chair, holding a little white bundle and crying. The little girl was thrilled to discover that her mother had had a baby. “I’ve got a baby brother! I’ve got a baby brother!” she sang as she danced around the room in joy. In the following days, she told everyone the good news, unaware of the difficult situation the new arrival put her mother in.
Iris had written to Reggie in India as soon as she knew she was pregnant. He was shocked to find that his wife had been enjoying herself almost as much as he had — what with his ladies of the night and a “local wife” tucked away in a Darjeeling bungalow. He was shocked … and yet he knew he couldn’t really complain, under the circumstances. He had no doubt that Sid had spilled the beans on his lifestyle, and it would be silly to deny it.
Reggie wrote back to say that he was willing for the boy to take his name. However, he was unlikely to get a posting in England so long as the war lasted. He would try to pull some strings, of course, and as a captain, he might have some chance of an early return. However, while the fighting continued, he was likely to have to tough it out in Delhi …
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Assuming he survived the war, he would slip quietly back into English life, and with any luck, the local gossips in Sheerness could be convinced that he’d been in Aldershot all the time, popping home at weekends unnoticed — and the family honour might be saved.
* * *
In 1944, with the war still raging, Reggie was able to get a transfer back to England. Joan and Iris met him at the station, and they found it difficult to recognise him as the slim young man who had gone away to India. He had put on so much weight that he seemed altogether like a different person. Joan was too shy to speak to him at first. This strange man was not at all like the father she remembered.
That evening, when Iris was getting Joan ready for bed, Reginald offered to give her a bath. “Good Lord, no Reggie!” said Iris. “She’s not a baby any more. She’s ten years old!”
The next morning, Reginald invited Joan to come and sit on the edge of his bed. The young girl was tongue-tied. As he lay gazing into her face, she was too bashful to say a word.
She didn’t know where to look — anywhere but into her father’s eyes. It took several days to get over this shyness, but eventually, she grew more comfortable in his presence and began to help him with various chores around the house.
Despite the strange and strained circumstances, Iris was glad to have her husband back.
When they strolled along the seafront, she watched carefully for the reactions of the local women. Those who had been so thoroughly cruel to Iris in previous years were suddenly as nice as pie, smiling and stepping up to shake Reggie’s hand.
“Here is my husband,” she thought, “the army captain who has been serving his country at the risk of his life. He has served on the Northwest Frontier and held important posts in
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Delhi and Bombay. So far as you know, he is the father of both my children, and I dare you to say otherwise.”
With an army officer on her arm, she suddenly found her social status lifted beyond her wildest expectations. If anything, the rise was too sudden and just a little embarrassing. One day, as they strolled along the seafront, Reggie noticed a solider walking along with his cap tucked under his shoulder strap. Iris jumped as Reggie barked at the soldier to put his bloody cap on his head when he was walking down the street. The young man immediately complied, standing to attention and saluting before moving away swiftly.
* * *
The new child was called David, and luckily he resembled Reggie somewhat, although there was a striking similarity also to Sid. The boy was healthy and happy and would grow into a broad-shouldered lad with a love of the water. He would become a strong swimmer, building his endurance in the sea and the open-air swimming pool, and would win medals in regional competitions. Iris often reflected on the boy’s affinity with water — just like his biological father.
In his first few years, though, David had a few brushes with ill-health. He had an attack of pneumonia, but survived thanks to “M and B” tablets, a new drug on the market. Around the same time, he developed an ear abscess, which damaged his hearing, although nobody knew this at the time. He was slow to start talking, and produced a gibberish of his own that only Joan could understand.
Not realizing the cause of this impediment, Reggie would get annoyed with the boy, frustrated at not being able to understand him. He would make fun of David, imitating his strange sounds as if speaking to some kind of strange animal. When the doctors tested
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David’s hearing and found him mostly deaf, Reggie and Iris were mortified. However, they soon came to terms with the situation, and Joan was more than happy to act as interpreter for her little brother, who seemed to be learning fast in other ways, despite his handicap.
In later years, David would come to excel at mathematics and he loved working with his hands, particularly with wood. When he left school, he got an apprenticeship as a pattern- maker at the dockyard. He would work on building ships, crafting the most difficult of components, calculating the curve of a propeller blade to within thousandths of an inch and helping to turn the plans into reality. Once again, Iris could see his father’s nautical inclinations coming out.
* * *
Reginald’s new posting in England was certainly a cushy number, if a bit dull after the
Orient. He was stationed in Reading, at the army records office, sorting files, updating information and keeping track of the living and the dead. He would stay in Reading and travel down to Sheerness at the weekends, but soon he decided the journey was too long, and so he moved Joan and Iris to rented rooms in Gillingham, not far from the naval docks at
Chatham.
It was 1944, and Hitler was sending thousands of V-1 flying bombs — the doodlebugs
— over to England. It seemed Chatham was on Hitler’s list of suitable targets, and Joan and
Iris lived in constant fear of one of these flying bombs falling out of the sky and killing them all. Joan and Iris usually slept in the same bedroom, but when Reggie came home at weekends, Joan would have to sleep on her own. She would be sent to a room on the floor above, in a small tower with a pointed spire. She would lay in bed at night listening to the
394 horrible sputtering noise of the V-1s overhead, willing them to keep going as they flew over the house. She prayed for them to keep going … keep going.
Not long after, they moved again, this time up to Chelsea in the west of London. By this time, Hitler was replacing the V-1s with the larger V-2 rockets. There was no warning with these new weapons, just a sudden and deafening explosion. Strangely, the site for the new family home was directly opposite a prime target for such attacks: the Lots Road power station.
Joan hated living in Chelsea. The area had a reputation for fine houses and well-to-do families, but it seemed Joan and Iris has been landed in its one underprivileged spot, just around the corner from the World’s End pub. They were made to feel unwelcome from day one. As Joan walked to school, the local kids would lean out of upstairs windows and shout:
“Bloody toffs! Who d’ya fink you are?” They would spit down on her as she scurried along.
Thankfully, they we were not in Chelsea for long, and eventually moved to a posh flat in
Ashburnham mansions, with a proper bathroom and hot water on tap. Iris employed a woman to help with the house work, though she was always suggesting she rest with a nice cup of tea. Knowing nobody in the area and with Reggie stuck up in Reading though the week, Iris was glad for the company of another woman.
For a brief moment, she felt like a human being, living in comfortable surroundings, with a husband to provide for her and a female friend who didn’t gossip about her or look down on her as a filthy foreigner.
By this time, Iris had conceived and given birth to yet another child — and this time there was no mystery as to the father. Wendy Nina Whatton was most definitely Reggie’s little girl, and he was besotted with her. She was a sweet-faced little thing, with a delicate nose and a big smile, and she won the hearts of everyone who met her.
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And then one day, peace was announced, and London suddenly became one big party.
All the streets around the Whatton home were draped with coloured flags and tables set out for street parties. Not having been invited to join in, Iris and her family watched the celebrations from the safety of their balcony. It had been a cruel, miserable war, but the
Whatton family had pulled through in one piece – even expanding somewhat – and now at last it was over.
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CHAPTER 43
GHOSTS FROM THE PAST
(1945-1946)
With the war now over and the skies free of bombs and rockets, the Whattons moved back down to the coast, settling once more on the Isle of Sheppey. They moved into another of the tiny Victorian terraced houses in Sheerness, which was still a transit point for soldiers and sailors returning from distant lands. It wasn’t exactly King’s Road, but it was a safe and economical place to raise three children, and Iris was sure to find work as an auxiliary nurse or home help.
One cold snowy morning in 1946, she received a letter from her brother Alberto in
Southampton saying their father had come over from Italy. Papa had expressed a wish to see his younger daughter, and Alberto said she absolutely must come. The old man was very sick and might not last much longer.
It would be difficult to describe the variety of emotions that beset poor Iris’ loving heart.
The very fact that her darling Papa was still alive after all the years of silence was almost unbelievable. That he wanted to see her, and that he was actually within reach in England after all that time, seemed incredible. Of course she wanted to see her darling Papa! She would pack a bag at once and head to Southampton.
However, Reginald had other ideas. He couldn’t see why Iris should go running back to her father after he had deliberately shut her off from the family, causing her such pain and humiliation.
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“Don’t be silly,” he said, “Of course you can’t go! It’s out of the question! What has he ever done for you, shunning you like that and then disappearing for years? And the train fair down there is too expensive anyway. You’re better off staying here.”
Iris argued with her husband, but was unable to budge him on the matter. Joan, however, refused to accept her father’s “final word”, demanding to meet her mysterious grandfather, who had been denied to her up to now.
“Oh please let me go and see him!” she begged. “I’ve heard so much about him and I’ve never ever seen him. It may be my only chance. If it was your father, you would want to go.”
Reggie wavered a little at this, but still stood his ground. Joan knew she had to go further, and she began to call Reggie all sorts of horrible things, the anger and frustration mounting by the moment.
“I think you’re a rotten, mean man,” she shouted. “It would be different if it was your own father! You’ve got to let her go!”
When Joan unleashed her fury in the form of a punch in her father’s stomach, Reggie finally knew he had to relent. He reluctantly gave his permission for the two to travel down to
Southampton the next day. He went to his wallet and withdrew just enough money for two train tickets.
Later, when it had all been settled, Iris hugged Joan in gratitude. “Thank you, my little champion,” she said.
* * *
There was thick snow on the ground when mother and daughter set out for the train station early the next morning. They were wrapped up warm, with woolly hats, scarves and mittens, and they soon found themselves wedged in tight between a bunch of soldiers in their
398 khaki uniforms. They put their feet up on the seats opposite and the soldiers draped their legs in their great coats. Before long, Joan was very cosy and she slept the whole way down to the coast.
Alberto’s house was packed with faces from Iris’ past. Alberto was there, of course, and so were Mario and Ronaldo, whom Iris had not seen since long before the war. There were wives too, and several members of a new generation that she had never even heard of. After a few pleasantries, Joan and Iris went upstairs to Giovanni’s sickroom. There was no heating in the place and the fire grate looked quite unused. Beside the bed was the old man’s easel and a half-finished oil painting of nasturtiums in a blue bowl. Even on his death bed, it seemed he couldn’t keep from painting.
Iris was concerned by the chill in the room. Her father lay in his bed with only a singlet on his top half, his arms bare. The blankets at waist level, leaving his chest open to the cold.
With no fire going, Iris was worried that he might catch pneumonia, if he didn’t have it already. Had nobody noticed that there was snow on the ground outside?
Iris urged Joan forward and said, “This is Giovanna, or Joan in English.” She hoped the old man would recognize the compliment in the name, but he made no sign of it. He didn’t even greet Joan.
Instead, he took one look at the girl and said, “Emma!” before turning his head away.
Joan was mortified. This was the man her mother had talked endlessly about for years, praising his greatness, his genius. Joan had learned so much about him and so wanted to see him, but apparently the sentiment was not reciprocated.
Giovanni got out of bed to go to the bathroom and he stood tall and straight like a much younger man, walking easily without assistance. “How can this man be sick?” Joan wondered.
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Joan went downstairs, leaving her mother to talk with Giovanni alone. She had no idea what they said to each other, but she was glad that some sort of reunion, some kind of closure, was taking place after all these years. She hoped for her mother’s sake that the experience would help to lay some ghosts to rest.
Four days later, once Joan and Iris were back home, they received a telegram saying
Giovanni had died of pneumonia. This man Joan had heard so much about, the man she had longed to get to know, to talk to, was now forever beyond reach. The news hurt like a knife in the girl’s heart.
In future years, Joan would follow in Giovanni’s footsteps, becoming an artist herself.
She would keep a photograph of the great artist, singer and inventor with her – standing in his artist’s smock with a beret on his head, his palette and brush in hand, a look of great seriousness on his face. From time to time, when she needed advice on a colour or an outline, or even something more important, she would ask the old man’s advice.
* * *
After hearing of her father’s death, Iris was very quiet for several days. She was grieving deeply, but she didn’t want to share her burden with her husband or children. Her loss was her own, and she felt it unkind to bother anyone else with it. Not that Reggie would have been particularly sympathetic anyway, pragmatist that he was.
But something else was troubling Iris, and it had to do with her mother. During the trip to
Southampton, Alberto had shown Iris a pile of old letters that Giovanni had brought with him from Italy. They were letters that Emma had written to her children so many years ago, but which had never been delivered. Or rather, they had been delivered, but Martia had scooped them up and hidden them away.
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The boys had always known letters of this sort existed, having seen one or two lying unopened on the doormat. But they had never had the guts to ask about them, much less open any without permission. Certainly, they had never imagined there were dozens of them, tied up in bundles with string and locked away in the bottom of a wardrobe.
Now they had been delivered at last by their father, they urged Iris to read some of them, since they demonstrated Emma’s love for her children and her longing to be reunited with them. However, Iris had refused. She had been so deeply hurt by having been abandoned by her mother – as she saw it – and nothing could convince her to shift her opinion, to open herself to the possibility of forgiveness. The pain went too deep, and she felt it was best left alone.
Joan had listened to her mother talking this over with Alberto in Southampton, and she knew that the issue must be playing on her mind. Joan watched Iris for days, trying to imagine the thoughts bouncing around in her head, replaying the heated discussion with
Alberto and the other brothers, in which she’d explained her hurt at being abandoned, the sufferings she endured at the hands of Martia, the wounds that would never heal. But it seemed her siblings had not understood, and Iris was sure they never would.
And rather than talk it through with Joan or her husband, Iris kept the whole thing to herself, bottling up the pain as usual. A hard expression settled on her face as she smoked endless cigarettes, moving about the house in a deafening silence.
* * *
It was eighteen months later, in 1948, that Joan and Iris got another surprise. A letter arrived from Italy, this time from Emma, announcing that she intended to visit England and
401 see her long-lost children. She gave the date of her expected arrival and hoped Iris would be able to put her up for a couple of weeks.
Iris’ first reaction was one of horror, but she felt there was no way she could refuse her mother’s request. She had walked out on her children so many years ago, and now she was walking right back into their lives – and there seemed no way to stop her.
Emma’s letter explained that she would be taking a boat to Dover, and she asked if Iris or someone else would meet her there.
“Well I’m not going,” was Iris’ immediate response, and she started banging the saucepans about in the sink, suddenly very red in the face.
Reggie smoothed things over by suggesting that he would go and collect the old woman himself, and Joan could come along too, if she liked. Joan was intrigued by the whole thing, although somewhat anxious. As with her Italian grandfather, she had never met Emma, and had to rely on descriptions and stories passed down through her mother. However, the stories she had heard about Emma were less flattering, and she didn’t know quite what to expect.
“Where are we going to put her?” demanded Iris impatiently, before immediately answering her own question. “We’ll have to put the kids in the back bedroom and give her the front room.”
In spite of her apparent reluctance to meet up with her mother, she suddenly engaged in a spurt of cleaning and rearranging of furniture, washing all the net curtains and bringing every surface to a high polish. Joan had never seen her mother so busy at cleaning in her life, and she helped out as much as she could. Their house might only be a small terraced house in
Sheerness, but by God it was going to be clean! As a finishing touch, they put out photos of
Giovanni, thinking she would like to see her beloved husband on display.
Joan and Reggie took the train to Dover, arriving just as the boat was coming in. They didn’t have to wait long. Reggie said, “Here she is,” and a small, plump woman with dark
402 hair walked up to them. She was beautifully made up, with lots of rings and bangles and she trotted along on high-heeled shoes.
“I knew you immediately,” said Emma. “You’re so like Iris!” And she planted a kiss on each of Joan’s cheeks.
On the way home, Joan was tongue-tied, as was her usual way with strangers. However,
Reggie managed to keep the conversation going. When they arrived home, he opened the front door with his key and showed Emma in. Iris was in the kitchen and she heard the party arrive, but she remained where she was, arranging pots and pans, not bothering to turn round as her mother entered.
Emma was understandably hurt at this snub, but she did her best not to show it. She had waited so many years to see her daughter again, and the pain of separation had once been unbearable. But the war and everything that had gone with it – including falling deeply in love with her German officer and then losing him – had somehow given her strength. It was a strength gained through repeated pain and strain, the gradual build-up of scar tissue on the heart … but she was glad of this strength too, because it gave her courage and resilience in the face of life’s little cruelties.
She had met her beloved Iris after so many years, so many decades of separation, and she longed for an embrace, longed for a loving reunion, even a kind word. And yet she knew this would be difficult … impossible perhaps. She must be patient, she told herself. Life is cruel, it is tough and cruel, and she must be patient until the very end.
Reggie and Joan showed her up to her room, where she unpacked her bags. She seemed content with her lodgings and was soon washed and dressed for dinner. However, coming downstairs to the living room, she noticed the photographs of Giovanni around the place and felt a sudden shock of anger pass through her.
“Take those pictures down!” she ordered. “I don’t want to see that bloody man’s face!”
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Iris was alarmed and puzzled, quite unaware of the history of tension, betrayal and disappointment behind her parents’ relationship. She quickly obliged, removing the photographs from view and packing them away in a cupboard, but she was quite sure her mother was being unreasonable. After all, Papa had been a great man.
Over the next few days, the atmosphere defrosted somewhat, and Iris was finally able to talk with her mother, if only about necessities and pleasantries. She could not bring herself to ask the questions that most troubled her, the questions that fought to be released: “Why did you leave us when we were so young? Why did you bring us over here and dump us like that? What gives you the right to waltz back into my life like this after so many years, as if nothing had ever happened? Who the hell do you think you are?”
Rather than utter these words, Iris played the role of thoughtful hostess and dutiful daughter, though the atmosphere was at times dense with tension, the strain of thoughts unspoken. At times, Iris just longed for the visit to be over.
Everyone expected Emma to be put out by the humble nature of the Whatton household, with its simple food and rudimentary plumbing, but she made no sign of being uncomfortable. In particular, Joan assumed she disliked the bathing arrangements but was too polite to say so. The bath had been plumbed into what had been the old scullery and it stood under a cold tap. The hot water had to be warmed in a gas copper and scooped into the bath with a pan. This wonderful system was at her disposal every day and she did not turn a hair.
She took it all in her stride, apparently unconcerned with such trivialities.
She was more concerned about Joan’s future, her education and what sort of marriage she would make. She tested Joan on her French and suggested that Iris should send her to stay with Anita, who was living in the south of France. There Joan would not only learn to speak
French properly, but she would also meet a better class of young man and make a good marriage.
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It was, of course, the chance of a lifetime, an opportunity not to be missed, particularly since Anita had landed on her feet, having married a French diplomat with good prospects.
However, Joan did not want to be sent away from her parents and their humble, cosy, love- filled home. Nor did she wish to leave her little brother and her baby sister, nor all the makeshift plumbing and the tatty little street. She had lots of friends living nearby and she was happy at the local grammar school. Pretty soon, it became clear to Emma that Joan would not be convinced of the move to France, and Iris and Reggie were hardly enthusiastic about losing their daughter, and so she gave up on the idea. For now, it seemed, there was no helping the Whattons.
Towards the end of her stay, Emma found Iris becoming more talkative, and she was able to tell her something of her life during the war. She confided that all the beautiful underwear in her room had been provided by a nice German colonel, though she didn’t explain the depth of the feelings that had passed between them, nor the depth of her grief at losing him. This conversation on the subject of underwear was the closest moment mother and daughter shared.
Not long after, the allotted two weeks came to an end. Emma said her farewells and left, heading first to Southampton to see her other children, and then back to Rome, where she had settled for the time being. She was glad to have met her daughter again, but sad to find her both reserved and clearly bitter after so many years. Emma told herself that she must be patient with her daughter’s feelings. If she pushed too hard, the reaction would be strong, the resentment would grow. It was better to be patient, to remain in touch somehow and see what kind of trust might develop naturally. She would write letters to her daughter, and slowly, she hoped, she might be forgiven.
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CHAPTER 44
LETTERS FROM MALTA
(1952-1962)
As she passed through her teenage years, Joan showed great promise as an artist, excelling at sketching and painting at school. She often wondered if she had inherited her talent from her Italian grandfather, and she pondered the possibility of attending art college to perfect her skills. That said, she suspected that college might constrain her natural talent; in which case, it might be best to remain self-taught. Perhaps, one day, if she worked hard, she might make a living out of painting. Even if she was poor for a while, it would be worth the struggle just to have the freedom to create and express herself.
Iris was not enthusiastic about the idea of Joan following in her grandfather’s footsteps.
She had grown to associate the smells of paints and turpentine with her troubled childhood, and the idea of having another artist in the family, along with the clutter of paints, brushes, easels and canvases, was quite unappealing.
“You won’t make any money as an artist,” she said. “It’s impossible to get by unless you have real talent, like Papa. He made money because he was a brilliant man, a genius. And he was a man, of course, rather than a woman, which helps… You’d better go into something more solid, a reliable job like nursing.”
Iris had long been fascinated by nursing, and had been tempted to translate her experience as a home help into a proper nursing career. She had concluded that such ambitions were impractical, but she encouraged Joan to take an interest in all things medical.
The girl had joined the St John’s Nursing Cadets as a youth and had passed exams on first-
406 aid, even lecturing the other cadets on various topics. As she neared the end of her school career, it seemed clear to Joan that the future lay in nursing. Not only was it a genuine passion by this time, but nursing students were paid a real wage for the work they did on the wards, and the Whattons were not in a position to ignore financial considerations.
And so, in the spring of 1952, Joan put romantic thoughts of an artist’s life to the back of her mind and applied to a course in nursing at St Bart’s Hospital in Rochester. Having done fairly well at school, she found no difficulty in getting a place on the course, and soon found herself living in the student nurses’ accommodation, making new friends, attending lectures on anatomy and physiology, taking pulses and learning how to bandage various parts of the body. She applied herself to the course with vigour, but still found the life dull and overly regimented. She enjoyed many of her new friends, of course, but couldn’t wait to go home whenever she was allowed.
It was while visiting home one weekend that she noticed her mother reading a letter at the kitchen table. It seemed to be another one from abroad, probably from Emma, who had taken to writing regularly to her children, now that contact had been established. Iris always read the letters from her mother, but she never replied. Even after so many years, she still could not forgive, and Joan recognized the stern, resentful look on her face as she scanned the contents of this most recent note.
“How ridiculous!” said Iris, standing up from the table and throwing down the letter.
“Who do they think I am? The Queen of England? Where am I going to get all that money from? And why on earth should I pay to save that woman after what she did?”
Joan was both shocked and puzzled. She longed to know what on earth her mother was talking about, but didn’t dare to ask. Iris went to the kitchen cupboards and began to take out pots and pans, then brought ingredients from the larder and arranged them on the table. She took out several knives and began to wash vegetables at the sink, ready for making a stew.
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When she thought it might be safe to ask a question, Joan spoke: “Who was the letter from?”
“It’s from my bloody family in Malta! Mama’s had a stroke, apparently. She’s in hospital in Valletta and they want me to send money to pay her medical bills. As if I care what happens to her! And where am I going to get that kind of money from? Do they think I’m made of money? They should bloody well see how we struggle here on Daddy’s wages. That bloody woman can die for all I care! She’s not getting a penny from me!”
Iris thumped a cabbage on the table and sliced it in half, then began to chop it furiously.
Joan was quiet again. She didn’t want any of this anger to be turned on herself.
* * *
Aside from the emotional history involved, Iris was quite justified in refusing to send money to Malta, so poor was she at the time. Reggie had established himself by now as an inspector with the Department of Social Security, keeping tabs on the payments made to the sick and unemployed. His work had a certain status to it, but it was poorly paid. Or at least, it seemed to be poorly paid, judging by the miniscule housekeeping money he doled out to his wife each week. She would have to scrimp and scrape to feed and clothe the five of them, and there was often less food in the kitchen than was needed.
Indeed, Joan had noticed her mother growing thinner over the years, and she often suspected she was skipping meals to feed her husband and children. When it came to dinner time, she would often say that she’d eaten already, leaving a plate smeared with gravy on the sideboard as evidence of the fact.
Then one day, one of the neighbours looked through the kitchen window and saw Iris doing this. She came into the kitchen and confronted her, demanding to know why she was
408 pretending to have eaten when she was clearly going hungry. Iris said that she’d run out of food, and she wasn’t going to let her kids go hungry. The housekeeping money just didn’t stretch far enough, she said.
The kind neighbour took the next opportunity to stop Reggie as he was returning from the office. Standing on the garden path, she berated him about his stingy attitude, telling him he was starving his wife to death, and he’d better think twice about it. Shamed by the accusation, Reggie increased the housekeeping allowance, and Iris promised her neighbour never to skip meals again. Of course, with Joan now at nursing college, the load had been lightened considerably, although it was now Joan who struggled at times to make ends meet.
The next day was Sunday, and Joan watched her mother going about her household chores as usual, washing and cleaning and preparing the Sunday lunch. In addition to her usual brisk manner, Iris was particularly quiet, her face drawn, her mouth tight shut, except when she was smoking one of her many cigarettes. When she ran out of cigarettes, she had to ask Reggie for more, and he would go through the usual rigmarole of counting them out from his stash in a canvass army bucket he kept under the stairs. He rationed them to his wife, just as if she were one of his soldiers, and she paid him from her allowance.
* * *
Joan watched her mother struggling with the news of Emma’s illness and the demand for financial help. Iris struggled through the day, clearly both miserable and angry; Joan felt immensely sorry for her but was quite unable to help. If she were to broach the subject, she might simply upset her more. She hoped she might be able to convince her that grandmamma had not abandoned her on purpose, but had been forced into it by cruel fate and strange circumstances. She thought again and again of trying to make her mother see this, in the hope
409 that it might ease the resentment that had stored in her heart … and perhaps allow her to find peace. Even if she couldn’t send money to pay for her hospital care in Malta, she might at least be able to write a note wishing her well.
But Joan felt this was an impossible task. Or rather, perhaps such a change in her mother’s attitude was possible … but if so, it was far beyond her own capabilities. She could now assist in the mending of a broken arm or leg, but she knew nothing of how to heal her mother’s heart.
Returning to the hospital in Rochester, Joan thought a lot about her mother and grandmother, about the rift between them, which she found tragic. She had longed at times to go and visit Emma abroad, but suspected that her own mother might object. In one of her letters, Emma explained that she’d found work as a courier with Warner Brothers film studios in Rome, and the idea conjured all sorts of exciting images for Joan, so hungry was she for the world of art and architecture, for travel and to feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun.
But, of course, she didn’t even suggest the idea to her mother, suspecting that it would be taken as a sign of disloyalty. Instead, she continued with her nursing training in dull and dreary Rochester, slowly moving closer to graduation and the hope of a full-time job closer to home.
* * *
Joan final graduated and got a job at the only hospital on the Isle of Sheppey, where her parents were living once more. Her exam scores had been high and she proved knowledgeable on a range of drugs and techniques that some of the older nurses were not yet familiar with. It seemed she was likely to be promoted quickly and might even end up
410 training the other nurses, assuming she could deal with the jealousies and rivalries of the hospital environment.
Then, one Friday in 1962, she arrived at her parent’s house to find her mother in a state of agitation. A letter had come from Malta explaining that Emma had died in hospital, and despite her failure to provide any financial support during the long illness, Iris was invited the funeral. Of course, there was no way that Iris could make it to Malta within such a short space of time. And she wasn’t inclined to go anyway, even if she could arrive by snapping her fingers. It was all over, she said, there was nothing to be done. There was no point grieving for a mother who had clearly never loved her in the first place. It was all over, and that was that.
Joan didn’t challenge her mother on any of this, but she was quite sure she would grieve when she was alone. Indeed, she had been grieving in one way or another since the age of five, and it seemed the pain would never really go away.
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CHAPTER 45
A VISIT TO ITALY
(1966-1970)
Anita’s arrival in England in 1966 was a breath of fresh air for Iris, who had long dreamt of being reunited with her older sister. Iris had talked often of Anita, the clever and forthright older sibling who had gone bravely into the world at such a young age, travelling the Seven
Seas on an ocean liner. It was only in the years after Giovanni’s death that they had made contact again, and the bond was nurtured by occasional letters from France, enclosed in expensive-looking envelopes that bore pretty French stamps.
In the most recent of these letters, Anita announced that she was coming to stay in a month’s time. It was more a statement of fact than a request, and Iris once more began to clean the house from top to bottom. This time, however, it seemed the anxiety to please was softened by a feeling of joyful anticipation.
Based on her mother’s descriptions, Joan had built up a rather exotic image of her aunty: an elegant and mysterious woman with an iron will and striking looks. When she finally arrived, Joan was not disappointed. The woman spoke good English, but with a strong accent, a mix of Italian and French. Her hair was neatly shaped in soft waves and she wore an elegant summer dress of bright colours. She also wore modern glasses that turned up at the corners, and she seemed skilled in the art of applying make-up, her skin soft and powdered, her lips rosy red.
The overall impression was a mix between a film actress and a minor royal, and when she began to tell the story of her life, it became clear that she was both successful and well-
412 connected. While working on cruise ships, she had met her husband, a Frenchman named
Paul Reynaud who was working as a chef in the galleys. They had travelled the seas together and seen many exciting places. Later, they had married, settling in Cannes, in the south of
France.
When the war came, Paul was a fierce supporter of the Resistance and worked to undermine the Germans, arranging for secret messages to be passed back and forth.
Eventually, when the war was over, he found himself working as an interpreter on the staff of
General de Gaul, who took a shine to him. In this way, Paul was taken into the French diplomatic service and at one time became the vice-consul of Antwerp. He was a strong socialist and was known in the family for defending his views at great length, both in the debating chamber and at the dinner table.
Truth be told, Iris found her sister rather outspoken too, unafraid to give her opinions on life, love and politics. Even in questions of her own home, Iris found Anita giving advice freely, and she soon recalled the dynamic of their early youth – the older sister taking charge, while little Iris obeyed.
Bossiness, to one side, Iris was immensely happy to have been reunited with Anita after so many years, and Joan noticed a definite change in her mood. She had been reunited not only with a former loved one, but also with her cultural origins, which were both Continental and Mediterranean. Added to which, Anita was living proof of the exalted social background from which she had come. As an English wife and auxiliary nurse, Iris lived in a humble home and she had worked hard to feed and clothe her family. But the presence of Anita made clear to everyone that she was more than that; she was a Maltese-Italian woman from a family that was cultured, clever and highly respectable.
However, when Anita suggested one day over breakfast that they two of them should travel together in France and Italy, Iris almost choked on her poached egg.
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“Oh, I can’t, my dear,” she said. “I really can’t go back with you. I have my shifts at the hospital to do, and there are the children to see to. I’m really fine here.”
“Nonsense,” said Anita. “Your children are all grown up. Even Wendy is a young lady now, and Reggie is quite capable of running the home without you. The hospital gives you holidays, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, they do, but …”
“No arguments,” concluded the elder sister. “It would do you good to get out of this place for a while, and we’d love to have you visit. Paul has always wanted to meet you, and he’s already planned a route by which we can drive into the mountains. I insist on you coming back with me, and I won’t accept any complaints.”
Reggie smiled and said nothing. He was sure the change would do his wife a world of good, and he wasn’t unhappy at the thought of having the house to himself for a while.
“But I haven’t got a passport,” said Iris after a long silence.
“Haven’t got a passport?” said Anita, her eyes wide with surprise. “But how ever do you travel?”
“Well, I don’t really travel,” said Iris, embarrassed.
“Well then, you can apply for a passport as soon as possible, and you can write to me once you’ve got it. Then we can arrange a date for you to come out. You can stay with us, and we’ll cover all the expenses. So you have no excuses, Iris, do you?”
“No, I suppose I don’t.”
On the day before Anita returned to France, Iris cooked a traditional Italian meal of spaghetti Bolognese, and she received compliments all round. Even the parmesan cheese, which was pre-grated and shaken from a little plastic pot, met with Anita’s approval. Reggie, however, embarrassed his wife by sitting down to the meal with a pair of scissors by his side,
414 which he said were useful to cut the spaghetti before it reached his mouth. It was one of his many little jokes, and despite her general air of formality, Anita seemed to enjoy it.
* * *
When Iris arrived in Cannes, she found her sister and Paul waiting at the airport in a smart convertible with the roof down. They whisked her away into the city, Paul driving at high speed while Anita pointed out the main features and provided a historical commentary.
Iris was suitably impressed with their plush apartment, barely daring to sit down on the expensive furniture, in case she made it dirty. They dined well, and Iris was even more impressed to find that, while both of her hosts were accomplished cooks, neither of them had to lift a finger if they didn’t want to. All the meals were prepared by their very own cook and housekeeper, who called Iris “madam” and saw to her every need. It was another world entirely from the one she normally inhabited.
Within days, Iris found herself in the back of the car once more, following the French coast to Antibes, Nice and Monaco. As they went, Anita continued the commentary, explaining that much of the territory through which they were passing had once been Italian, and she provided Italian pronunciations for every town and village at which they stopped.
Soon they crossed the border into Italy, and here they stayed one night in Ventimiglia, allowing Iris to use her Italian for the first time in decades. She was surprised at the ease with which the long-unused words rolled off her tongue, and sitting in a pavement café, soaking up the warm sunshine, she finally began to relax.
Before long, they were in Torino, where Anita insisted on taking a tour of the Egyptian
Museum and explaining the exhibits at great length. When Paul suggested they visit the
415 national museum of automobiles, however, Anita said that they mustn’t waste too much time in Torino, but continue on to their ultimate destination: Milano and the surrounding lakes.
Iris found Milano quite beautiful, although she felt shabby and common compared to the swish locals, with their expensive, fashionable clothes. She did her best to blend in, though, and found herself once more spoken to with polite deference by waiters and shopkeepers alike, who were always surprised when Anita revealed that her sister was, in fact, English.
It was on their second day in Milano that Anita took Iris to a large linen shop near the city centre. Anita said she wanted to buy some towels and also to introduce Iris to the owner, who she thought she might like. Iris was happy enough with the idea, and found herself quite at home examining the various bed sheets, cushion covers and blankets. Before long, Anita called her over to the counter and introduced her to a middle-aged man with a neat white moustache, standing proudly in a white apron.
Anita made a formal introduction: “This is your second cousin, Riccardo, the second son of Ernesto, Papa’s eldest son by his first wife. And this is Iris Boella, my sister.”
Iris was in a state of mild shock, unable to speak. She had not expected to find herself introduced to family members, least of all in a linen shop. She looked around quickly, almost expecting to see her own, long-dead father emerging from the shadows.
“I’m very glad to meet you,” said Riccardo, smiling and holding out his hand.
“Very nice to meet you,” said Iris, although she wasn’t quite sure that it was.
“Riccardo has inherited the family business on his mother’s side, or part of it,” said
Anita. “There are four shops in all…”
“Three shops,” corrected Riccardo.
“Three shops in all,” she continued, “and a factory making bed linen and duvets, I believe?”
416
“And dresses too,” said the white-haired man, smiling kindly at Iris. “We make dresses, hats, suits and shoes. But that’s my brother’s side of things and I don’t get involved. I have enough with all this,” he said, sweeping his arm around to indicate the shop’s high-ceilinged interior.
“Yes, it’s lovely,” was all that Iris could muster by way of conversation.
“But you must come and visit,” said the man. “Come round for dinner this evening and my wife will cook for you. She’ll be more than happy to have some family round. We can talk about old times … or at least share a few family stories. Did your father ever tell you about our business here in Milano?”
“Oh, no, he would never have done that,” said Iris, quite unsure where the conversation was taking her. Was she supposed to talk about her father and dredge up all the mixed feelings that topic entailed? Would she be asked next about her mother, who she could barely bring to mind without feeling the urge to scream?
Anita saw that her sister was uncomfortable and stepped in.
“Well, it would be lovely to come and have dinner, but we may have to do it sometime next week. We’re going to Lake Garda tomorrow and we must get an early night. It’s such a long drive into the mountains.”
“Ah! Lake Garda! Of course, how wonderful!” said Riccardo. “You must go as soon as possible. It’s one of my favourite places in Italy, and I go whenever I have the chance. I swim and I lay on the beach and we take out a little boat … Not that I have the chance very often with this place to run,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and laughing.
At that moment, a customer approached with a query, and the conversation was cut short.
Bidding farewell, the sisters stepped out into the street once more, Iris leading the way at high speed, her high heels clicking furiously on the pavement.
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* * *
The view from the hotel room was magnificent, the best Iris had ever seen. Indeed, she had barely imagined that such views existed, much less that it would be hers to enjoy each morning before breakfast.
Before her were the rich blue waters of the famous Garda, with only the slightest of waves sparkling in the sun. Beyond that, on the far shore, a mountain rose steeply, its flanks covered in trees. To the right, a road followed the rocky shoreline, and between the road and the mountain behind were numerous red-roofed buildings in the traditional style. To the left, further along the shoreline, she could see a church with a tall bell tower, and in the waters nearby were several sailing boats, their white sails gleaming in the sun. Above it all was the deep blue sky, with just a few clouds wafting by.
They spent their days in the cafes of this small town, or else by the lake shore, lying in the sun and soaking up the rays. Paul convinced Iris to swim in the lake, which turned out to be quite cold, despite the warm summer sunshine. Iris prided herself on being a reasonable swimmer, having taken many a long swim in the sea off Sheerness, although she preferred to stay within her depth where possible. When she got just a little way from the lake shore, she noticed the water getting suddenly colder, and she imagined what strange beasts might live in the murky depths.
She headed back to shore, taking long slow strokes, careful not to get her hair wet. She had been thinking of taking a boat out, perhaps a peddalo or a rowing boat. But now she decided that it was probably not safe. Small boats can tip over at any moment. Swimming was one thing, but boats were another. One can never be too careful, she reminded herself.
As she was drying herself with a towel, Anita lifted the brim of her sun hat and posed a question.
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“Would you like to see the house where you were born?”
“It’s not around here, is it? I thought I was born in Torino?”
“Yes, you were,” said Anita, sitting up in her deck chair. “We both were. But I wondered if you’d like to see the place on our way back. We could spend the night in the city and then drive out the house for the day. It’s still standing. Paul and I know the current owners.”
Iris thought about it for a moment, then lay back in her own deck chair, placing a large sun hat on her head.
“No, I don’t think so, my dear,” she said, closing her eyes. “There’s no point in dragging up the past. What’s done is done. I barely remember the place anyway, and everyone’s long gone by now.”
“Are you sure? We’d only have a quick look around and then leave,” said Anita.
“Yes, I’m quite sure. There’s really no point in going back there. What’s done is done.”
And she sniffed sharply three times in the particular way that she had. Those few sniffs were an unconscious comment on things: at the same time an expression of sadness and a line drawn under something before moving on.
After a brief pause, Anita continued: “Mama didn’t mean to abandon us, you know. She didn’t really have any choice.”
Iris felt her skin, already warm from the sun, burning and prickling suddenly with emotion. She really didn’t want to discuss this topic, least of all when she was having such a pleasant time.
“She just couldn’t cope with us all, Iris, not alone in Italy,” persisted Anita. “She was working all the hours God gave to support several children, and she was expecting another one. She couldn’t possibly continue. Papa was in London and never sent any money, living his Bohemian life with Martia. And Mama back in the Italy, stuck all alone with barely two
Lira to rub together. She didn’t have much choice but to give us up. What else could she do?”
419
“Well, a mother who loves her children will never give them up,” said Iris, still hiding under the shade of her sun hat. “I know that because I’m a mother myself. One just can’t do it if one loves one’s children. And that’s that. Mama left us in London and ran off, and I was left with that bloody witch, Martia … that cruel, wicked woman ... Papa should have stopped her, but he was weak.”
“I know,” said Anita, “but you can’t blame Mama. She didn’t have any choice in the matter. She was put in an impossible position. If anyone was to blame, it was Papa. He abandoned us long before Mama, and he abandoned Mama too. If anyone’s to blame for our rotten childhood, it’s him.”
Iris was silent for a while, considering this proposition. It made perfect sense, of course, and she might have conceded as much, had she the stomach for more debate of this kind. But she found the whole topic so unpleasant that she really wanted it to be over.
Finally, she said: “Well, a mother doesn’t abandon her children if she loves them. And that’s that.”
And she sniffed again three times, drawing a line once more under the proceedings.
That exchange was the last they had on the topic for the rest of the trip. Like Joan, Anita had long been aware of the harm done to Iris as a child, and she often longed to set things right somehow. She had hoped a visit to their original family home might help Iris come to terms with things. But it seemed she was not to be persuaded.
* * *
Two days later, they drove on to Lake Como, spending two nights there. Once again, Iris was bowled over by the beauty of the place. She was particularly impressed with the fresh water that poured from a pipe in the mountainside, falling into a large stone trough at the end
420 of a narrow street. The locals explained that it was fresh spring water from the heart of the mountain and perfectly good to drink. Iris tried a cup of it and even splashed it on her face.
Not far from the spring was a small delicatessen, and Anita said they should go in to buy some items for a picnic. The place was fairly gloomy, but the smell was rich and wonderful, and Iris was lost immediately in examining the range of cheeses. She noticed a rotund woman in her eighties behind the counter but had not expected her to be a family friend.
“Hello Mrs Reynaud,” said the shopkeeper. “How are you? It’s so nice to see you again.”
“Hello Mrs Lombardi. How are you?” said Anita.
“Very well, thank you. Business is quiet, but I’m not complaining. We get by just fine.
Are you with your husband?”
“Yes, but he’s taking a rest in the hotel. The warm weather slows him down. But I have someone else with me, someone I’d like to introduce.”
Iris had been pondering the prices of genuine parmesan cheese and wondering if she should take some back to England with her. She had hoped to avoid getting dragged into the conversation, but now it seemed such hopes were futile.
“No need to explain who this is,” said Mrs Lombardi, coming round from behind the counter.
“I can see straight away who she is. This is your sister, Iris. I could see the moment she came in the door. She’s got the Austrian jaw of your grandmother, Giovanni’s mother. All the
Bergers have that strong jaw. It sticks out a mile.”
“But she has her father’s Sardinian nose, of course, as do I,” said Anita, looking at her little sister with an affectionate smile.
Iris was shocked once more to be thrown into contact with her ancestry without warning, and unnerved also to find her face the object of close inspection.
“And how are you enjoying your visit, Mrs…?”
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“Whatton. I’m Mrs Whatton,” said Iris, suddenly feeling like a school girl at the front of the class. “I married a British soldier.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” said Mrs Lombardi, clasping her hands together in joy, as if the wedding had only just taken place. “But you must have a drink! To celebrate your return!”
The old woman pottered back behind her counter and produced three sherry glasses. She uncorked a bottle and poured three measures of dark sherry, offering one each to her guests.
“To your health!” said the woman, knocking the drink back in one go.
The sisters drank theirs more slowly, and then found their glasses refilled immediately.
“And you must have some of that parmesan. I saw you looking at it,” said the woman cutting of a large slice and wrapping it in paper. “A gift from Como, from a friend.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t accept it. I have to pay…” said Iris, reaching for her purse, quite flustered.
“Nonsense!” said Mrs Lombardi. “I would consider it an insult if you tried to pay. Take it back to England with you and tell everyone where you got it from. Maybe it will bring us more customers!”
* * *
Back in England, Iris unpacked her slice of genuine Italian cheese with pride. She cooked enough pasta sauce for two days, humming the Giovinezza as she stirred the sauce.
Reggie said she looked like a new woman, and Joan noticed a new energy in her mother’s movements. She showed off her photographs, mostly snaps of the lakes and mountains, and also herself, Paul and Anita in cafes or on the lake shore. She talked at length about the scenery and the food, and told and retold of her chance meetings with Mrs Lombardi and her long-lost cousin Riccardo. She was particularly proud of having been recognized instantly as
422 a descendant of the Berger line through her father. Somehow, a “strong Austrian jaw” seemed like a feature to be prized.
Fairly soon, though, she was back to the grind of daily life, working hard as a nursing auxiliary at the hospital and counting the pennies at home. In the following years, she studied for her State Enrolled Nurse qualification and passed the exams with flying colours. She found herself working in the maternity unit, helping mothers through labour and looking after their babies. With her pay increase and Reggie’s promotion at the office, they were able to move to a new, more comfortable home. They sold the terraced house in Sheerness and settled into a bungalow in Minster, not too far from the hospital.
By this time Joan had married and given birth to the first of several children, and a few years later, Wendy and David married too, settling on the island. David continued with his work at the dockyard, while Wendy followed the family tradition and became a nurse.
* * *
Then, in 1970, Reggie died of a heart attack. He had been diabetic for some time and tended to eat and drink as he pleased, despite countless warnings from Iris to cut back on alcohol and sugary foods. He had gained weight and his heart had felt the pressure until it finally gave way.
The loss was felt deeply by all the family. Despite what Iris said about his selfishness where money was concerned, Reggie’s quiet sense of humour had endeared him to all he knew. Long after his death, Iris would tell her grandchildren of how he kept a very long stick in the bedroom so that he could turn off the light switch without rousing himself from bed.
Wendy would tell her own children of how he would pull his jumper over his head and
423 waddle round the room, pretending to be a gibbon, his long arms swinging loose at his sides, ape-like noises issuing from his mouth.
She would tell also of the joy of being bounced on his knee as he sang the chorus to The
Galloping Major. It was a tradition that would be passed down through later generations.
Bumpity! Bumpity! Bumpity! Bump!
As if I was riding my charger.
Bumpity! Bumpity! Bumpity! Bump!
As proud as an Indian rajah.
All the girls declare,
That I’m a gay old stager.
Hey! Hey! Clear the way!
Here comes the galloping major!
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CHAPTER 46
FINDING THE FAMILY
(1980)
Many years passed, and Joan found herself the proud mother of ten children. Her first husband, a doctor at the hospital where she worked, had given her a boy. That marriage, however, ended tragically, the husband dying young and leaving Joan heartbroken.
She had remarried, this time to a school master called Alan, who gave her eight more children, and they adopted one more. The family moved to a farm in Kent, just off the island, where the children learned to ride horses and work with their hands, all the while encouraged to study hard under the watchful eye of their bookish father.
Near the end of her school career, Elizabeth, one of the older children, decided that she might want to study mathematics at university. She had a particular talent for numbers, and it was hoped she would follow her father into teaching. It was on a trip to explore Southampton
University that Joan came face-to-face once more with the question of her foreign origins.
Elizabeth had now seen the seat of learning and was sitting in the back of the car with her sister Mary, hoping for a quick journey home for supper. But Joan had different ideas.
“It’s around her somewhere,” she said, turning a corner slowly, peering through the windscreen to read the road signs.
She was searching for the house of her uncle Alberto, which she knew to be somewhere off Southampton Road. He had moved out of the old house some years before, buying a more modern home called L’Arlbery or L’Arbory or something similar... Joan had learned this snippet of information from her mother, but it had never been suggested that they pay a visit.
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Now that she was fully grown and a mother many times over, Joan had decided to take matters into her own hands. She wanted meet more of her extended family, those with foreign roots, and perhaps iron out a few creases in the family history.
In particular, she longed to know why Grandmamma Emma had brought her children to
England and left them there. Was it purely a matter of poverty? Or was she simply unwilling to be tied to her unfaithful husband a moment longer? Iris had always put it down to a lack of maternal instinct on Emma’s part, but there must surely be more to the story than that…
Suddenly, they saw the house. It was indeed modern, large and freshly painted, with a neat front garden, complete with lush grass, flower beds and ornamental trees. Joan knew that
Alberto had done well in business, and she was not surprised to see he had moved into a fine place. He had set up at least one cafe in Southampton, serving ice cream and Italian coffee.
He had also started an ice cream factory, or so Iris said, and the profits from that business had been considerable.
However, the man who answered the door was not Uncle Alberto, but someone else entirely, a man Joan didn’t recognize at all. She introduced herself rather apologetically and said she was looking for her long-lost Italian uncle.
“Ah, that’s my father. I’m afraid he’s not here. He died two years ago, but you’re welcome to come in. I’ll put the kettle on.”
Tony was the older of Alberto’s two sons and had become an architect. Judging from the interior of the house and the swimming pool, he was doing very well. He apologised for not offering a cup of tea, explaining that the electricity had gone off due to a power cut.
Taking a seat in the living room, Joan explained the purpose of her visit: “I was really hoping to find out some more about our family roots, particularly the Italian side of things.”
“Oh, I don’t know much about that,” said Tony. “Dad told us bits and pieces about his childhood in Italy, but nothing very concrete. I mean, there were a few anecdotes from
426 growing up in Torino, but nothing really about his relatives out there. He was pretty young when he came to England.”
“So you’ve never been to see any of our family out there?”
“No, I’m afraid not. It’s all a mystery to me. There was Uncle Naldo, of course, but he’s gone too. They never really talked much about it. Dad said England was the country that fed him and clothed him, and so he felt loyalty to England, not Italy.”
Joan felt a wave of disappointment wash over her. How sad it was to have lost touch so completely with the family history! Nice though the house in Southampton was, with its soft carpets and swimming pool, it seemed a dead end in terms of genealogical research.
“Do you have any contact with out Maltese relatives?” she asked at last.
Tony chuckled and said: “I could point to Malta on a map, Joan, and they’ve got lovely beaches, but that’s about as much as I know. I’ve never been in touch with anyone out there, and I’m not sure what I’d say to them if I was. Sorry I can’t be more help.”
Having hit a dead end, the conversation turned to the newer generations in England. Joan explained Elizabeth’s hopes of getting into university and Tony told of his own children, who were doing well in various ways. The conversation was pleasant enough, but it was not what
Joan had been hoping for.
Her sense of disappointment deepened on the ride back home. How horribly sad it was to have been swallowed up into English culture so completely, to have lost touch with one’s roots! It wasn’t just Tony’s side of the family either. She and her own offspring had become thoroughly English, and she resented that fact – as if she’d lost out on some wonderful, rich inheritance, cut off from her Mediterranean past.
The artist in her had long imagined Malta in particular to be a place of romance and natural beauty, and she had no doubt that her relatives in Valletta were socially exalted … or had been once upon a time. Now, more than ever, she felt a strong urge to go abroad, to travel
427 to Emma’s homeland and see for herself, to tie up the loose ends in this mysterious and somewhat tragic story, if not for her own sake then at least for her mother’s.
* * *
It took some time to convince Iris that a trip to Malta would do her good. There was the fresh air, for one thing, and the natural beauty of the place, and the chance to meet some long-lost relatives. But Iris was not immediately convinced. She had been abroad several times over the years, returning alone to the Italian lakes twice alone, staying in hotels on the shores of Garda and Como, where she felt a sense of peace. But she had never had the courage to travel to Malta, much less stay with her relatives there.
In the end, Joan argued that her mother really needed a change of scenery. The Isle of
Sheppey was a drab old place, the people small-minded and stuck in their dull English routines. A holiday would blow away the cobwebs. She said she was going to Malta anyway and her mother could join her if she liked. Two weeks later, Iris telephoned Joan and told her to book two plane tickets.
Their hotel by the airport was less than luxurious. The shared room was rather bare and the noise of construction work drifted in through the windows day and night. There was also an unpleasant smell emanating from the bathroom, and it remained in their nostrils the whole time.
On the second day, Iris made a telephone call from the hotel lobby and was happy to hear a friendly voice on the end of the line. It was Great Aunty Rosa’s son, Maurice Petrocochino.
He was clearly surprised by the arrival of his long-lost cousin Iris, but happily so. He had received Joan’s letter, of course, but it seemed he had always been out when she phoned from
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England. Now, gentleman that he was, he invited them to visit the family home. He would, he said, call the following afternoon and collect them in person.
That night, neither Iris nor Joan could get to sleep. Both had thoughts of family connections running around in their heads. Who was who, exactly? Who was still alive and who was now dead? Who might be friendly and who hostile? Would they have anything at all in common with the Rosa’s side of the family? Why on earth were they here in the first place?
When they finally fell asleep, it was not for long. Joan was woken by the sound of an alarm bell, followed by a banging on the door and the sounds of shouting in the corridor.
Rising from bed, she looked into the corridor and heard shouts of “Fire, fire!”
“Come on Mummy, get up!” said Joan. “There’s a fire in the hotel. We have to get out quickly.”
“What are you talking about?” said Iris, irritated at being woken at such an hour. “There isn’t a fire. It’s still dark outside.”
“Mummy! Get up, I’m telling you there’s a fire. We have to get downstairs.”
Finally coming fully awake, Iris rolled out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown and wandered into the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” cried Joan.
“I’m getting my false teeth, my dear. I can’t go out without them.”
“Mummy, hurry up! It’s a fire! We don’t have time for your false teeth.”
In the bathroom, Joan saw her mother looking in the medicine cupboard, then on the window sill.
“Where the bloody hell are they?” demanded Iris, more irritated than ever.
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“Oh, I know,” she said finally, rushing back into the bedroom. There on the dressing table, in a glass of water, were her teeth, both upper and lower sets, waiting patiently to popped back in their owner’s mouth.
“There!” said Iris at last, “Now we can go.”
She grabbed her handbag and a scarf to tie over her head, and they made their way downstairs. There was smoke in the corridor now, and Joan wondered if they’d left it too late.
Someone told them not to use the elevators, and so they took the stairs down from the fourth floor to the lobby. The smell of burning was thick in the air, and Joan wondered if she might find the lower floor ablaze when they stepped out from the stair well.
As it happened, the air in the lobby was quite clear, and aside from a stream of guests leaving the building, there was no sign of a conflagration. Standing in the car park, they listened to the excited chatter of the other guests as a cool breeze blew about their ankles. The fire, it seemed, was in the basement. Someone had left a cigarette end in a dustbin, and this had caught fire, setting a curtain alight. While the fire was only minor, the smoke had spread through the air-conditioning ducts, pouring onto every floor.
Soon a receptionist arrived to inform the guests that the fire was out and it was safe to return to bed. There had never been any danger, said the woman, and she wished them a good night’s sleep. Iris mother refused to take the lift, even though the fire was now out, and so they took the stairs. As Joan puffed and panted her way back to the fourth floor, she decided to demand a room on the ground floor first thing in the morning.
It took two cups of coffee to set Joan right the next morning, and she barely had the stomach for her Continental breakfast. The receptionist was kind enough to find them a new room on the ground floor, although Joan noted that the window was above her head, and she wondered how she would ever get out of it in case of a real fire. Being under five feet tall had various disadvantages, but she had never imagined it might prove fatal.
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By the time Maurice arrived in his blue Mercedes Benz, Joan was beginning to feel human again. Maurice was a tall man, more English-looking than Maltese, Joan thought, and he seemed to have a natural way of putting people at their ease. He greeted them warmly, as if they had known each other all their lives, and helped them into the back seat. They sped off, leaving the cursed hotel in a cloud of dust.
The second-floor apartment in Sliema had been formed by knocking two apartments into one. It was spacious and splendidly located, just a stone’s throw from St Julian’s Bay. Joan and Iris were both deeply impressed with the place, complete with marble floors, plush furnishings and numerous family photographs dotted about the place in silver frames.
Maurice fetched cool drinks from the kitchen and explained a little about his life. During the war, he had served in the artillery, defending the Island against bombing raids. While manning an anti-aircraft gun, he had once shot down one of their own planes, he said, although the pilot luckily bailed out in time. The war had been difficult, he said, partly due to the heavy bombing, but also due to the lack of food. There were few supplies coming through by ship, and what did get through was seriously rationed. People were going to work each day on an empty stomach, he said, and quite a few people were unhappy about that. Some even refused to work until they were assured at least breakfast.
Of course, they pulled through the war in the end, and managed to rebuild the country.
Then Malta gained independence in 1964, thanks in large part to Dom Mintoff, who was bloody-minded and stuck to his guns against the British (no offence intended). Since then, it had been a matter of putting the place properly on the map, integrating it into Europe and boosting income, sorting out the banking system, getting the infrastructure sorted out…
Joan listened to all of this with a mixture of interest and concern. It was wonderful to meet Maurice at long last, but she began to wonder what they might have in common. She thought to tell him of her own life, of their war experiences and her nursing career, and the
431 painting lessons she gave privately from her home. But it all seemed rather modest in comparison with what Maurice had to boast of.
It seemed he had been appointed Registrar of Partnerships after independence, and had led negotiations with the European Economic Community. On resigning from the civil service, he had joined the Malta Development Corporation and taken a lead role in the development of the island, planning housing projects and ruling on the locations of new hotels. He had overseen the massive wave of construction since the war and was proud of the progress the island nation had made in the past few decades. Joan gave the impression of being impressed with all this, but secretly she was shocked to think of so much building on an island that she’d always treasured as unspoilt. She wanted to ask whether the construction work had harmed the island’s natural beauty, but she decided to keep quiet for the time being.
“Well, I’ve been talking quiet long enough,” said Maurice at last. “I think it’s time I got my mother. She’s probably in her room. She often rests in the afternoon. She’s getting on now, of course.”
He rose from his arm chair and walked off, leaving Joan and Iris to sip their drinks and settle more deeply into the comfy sofa. Having met both Emma and Anita, Joan was somewhat nervous of meeting her Great Aunty Rosa. Would she be yet another formidable woman who took charge of every situation from the word “Go”?
As it happens, Joan had nothing to fear. Rosa was a short and somewhat plump woman, and though matronly in her manner, she was kind and welcoming. By Joan’s calculations, she must have been in her nineties, but the force of life was still strong within her. She seemed genuinely pleased to finally meet Emma’s youngest child and Joan too, and she settled instantly into recounting the story of her life, starting with the recent death of her beloved husband.
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Eustratius had died ten years before, she said, and she had missed him greatly. At first, she insisted on continuing in their old house, which was also in Sliema. But in the past few years she’d been convinced to move in with Maurice and his wife Liliana. Maurice was so kind to her, and she had everything she needed here, although there was nothing like having one’s own home.
Moving back through the decades, she talked of the war, and how the people sheltered in caves and cellars as the bombs fell from above. Finally, without prompting, she began to tell the story of her childhood, and how it was brought to an abrupt end by her sister’s rash actions.
She told of the horrible effect on the family of Emma’s marriage to Giovanni, the charismatic yet reckless opera singer. The family had been deeply shamed by the manner of her courtship and departure from home, and father Miller had never recovered from the shock of it all. Taking to the bottle, he allowed the business to run down, all the while keeping a tight grip on Rosa’s movements, lest she repeat her sister’s mistake. She was allowed out only to attend mass, and then she had to go early in the morning, when few others were about.
It was only when her father finally died that Rosa was able to marry her sweetheart,
Eustratius Petrocochino. Their courtship had been long and almost entirely covert, and by the time they finally wed, she was in her thirties. Even then, things were not easy. She had two miscarriages and feared that she would never carry a child full-term. Then finally, in 1921, she gave birth to a baby girl, who she named Marie Rose. This girl was bright and happy and went on to marry Albert Hyzler, who became the president of Malta, albeit very briefly.
Joan watched her mother’s face as this fact was trotted out, wondering if she found it equally shocking. Presidents in the family? She expected a few doctors and diplomats, but not presidents!
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Rosa continued, unaware of the effect she was having. In 1923, she gave birth to
Maurice, of course. He turned out to be a strong and intelligent child, and Rosa was immensely proud of his achievements as a senior civil servant. She began to list his various jobs, but Maurice interrupted her, laughing: “I’ve already bored them with my life story, mother. I think we can skip further details.”
As Rosa began to chide her son for his modesty, Maurice steered the conversation in another direction.
“I understand your sister Anita married a diplomat?”
“Oh yes,” said Iris, glad of a topic of which she knew something. “He’s a very clever man. He speaks several languages and knew General de Gaul personally.”
“But he’s a socialist, isn’t he?” said Maurice.
“Yes, he’s a very strong socialist. I don’t think he saw eye-to-eye with de Gaul on everything, but he was well respected for his work. He was a match for Anita in the brains department.”
“Yes, they were certainly well matched. Anita had a good head on her. It’s so sad that she died,” broke in Rosa. “She visited us here several times and told us a lot about you and your children. You went to Italy together, didn’t you?”
“Yes, up to Milano and then into the mountains, to Garda and Como. It’s quite wonderful up there.”
“Oh, yes, quite beautiful…”
Joan noticed that Rosa’s eyes had dropped to the carpet. She seemed to be on the point of saying something but didn’t know how to begin. Then, after a brief silence, she started up again.
“Anita came out here when your mother was ill, of course. She had been here several times over the years.”
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“Yes, she told me she had visited,” said Iris, her heart rate suddenly speeding up.
“We were so worried about your mother during the war, you know.”
“Were you?”
“Yes, we didn’t know if she was alive or dead. We knew she lived in Torino because I’d exchanged letters with her over the years, but then we didn’t write for some time, and then the war stared and it was impossible to get any kind of letter through. I wrote to her many times, but I suppose all my letters were destroyed before they got to her. She probably never received any of them, and I certainly never had anything from her. I often wondered why she didn’t just come over to Malta, but of course, she had spent so long in Italy, it had become her new home… although they bombed us to bits once the fighting started.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Iris, hoping the conversation might change track once more.
“And then, once Mussolini was dead and the Allies had taken Italy, we had wonderful news,” continued Rosa. “We were listening to the radio and heard Emma’s name. She used the Red Cross service to send us a message saying she was alive and well and hoped to visit soon. We were just overjoyed! I can’t tell you how relieved I was to hear she was still alive.
She was my sister, after all, and I loved her very much, although I hadn’t seen her for many years.”
There was a suitable pause, in which Rosa perhaps expected Iris to say something, but she only sniffed and took a sip of her lemonade.
“Of course, after the war, she came to live with us here. Or rather, at the old house, where I raised Maurice. She was healthy enough when she arrived, but as you know, she later became frail and eventually had a stroke. Such a shame!”
“Oh, yes, very sad,” said Joan, partly from genuine sympathy and partly to fill the inevitable gap in conversation.
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“She spent months in hospital in Valletta, of course. She was unwell for so long, but the nurses were good. They were nuns.”
“It was a convent originally, wasn’t it?” pitched in Maurice.
“Yes, that’s right. It was very good hospital. I wrote to you at the time, I think, Iris, to say your mother was ill.”
“Yes, I remember your letter,” said Iris.
“But I’m not sure you replied, or did you?”
“I’m not sure if I did. It was quite a while ago.”
“I asked if you would send some money to help pay for your mother’s treatment, but you never sent any. Why was that?”
“Well, I could hardly afford to!” said Iris, suddenly bridling and looking to Joan for support. “We weren’t made of money, you know. I had to struggle to raise three children on my housekeeping money and it wasn’t easy. Reginald, my husband, barely gave me anything.
I had enough to feed the kids and put food on the table and buy twenty cigarettes a week, and if I wanted more, I had to pay my husband for them. We weren’t wealthy, you know. We were working people, and it was hard enough just to keep the kids in shoes.”
“But you must have had something to give, even a few pounds?”
“A few pounds? I never had a few pounds to spare for anything. If I’d had a few pounds to spare, I would have spent them on some new dresses for my girls to go to school in, not on my mother, who dumped me when I was small. I don’t see why I should have paid for her treatment, even if I did have the money.”
Rosa looked suddenly quite embarrassed and instinctually turned to look at her son, who looked more embarrassed still, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. Apparently, he had never imagined his English relatives to be so poor. Probably, Joan thought, the idea of
436 poverty was something they both struggled to truly comprehend, wartime experiences notwithstanding.
“Of course, raising children can be horribly expensive,” said Rosa at last. “My own grandchildren seem to want new this and new that all the time. They go through clothes very quickly. You’ll have to meet them, Joan. We’ll invite them all round for dinner and they can finally meet their English cousins. That will be nice, won’t it, Maurice?”
“Yes, that will be lovely. I’ll ask them all over at the weekend. It’s about time we all got together again.”
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CHAPTER 47
BACK TO THE OLD HOUSE
(1980)
Joan spent the next day looking for a better hotel: one that wasn’t stuck out by the airport and that didn’t seem likely to catch fire at any moment. She found one at a reasonable price in Sliema, overlooking St Julian’s Bay, just two blocks from the family apartment. As they finished unpacking and surveyed the sea view from the balcony, Iris said: “Why didn’t you book this one in the first place?”
“I don’t know, Mummy,” replied the dutiful daughter.
With two days to kill before the family dinner, Joan set about exploring Valletta, which was just a short taxi ride away. She made sketches of the harbour, noting the colours of the buildings and the brightly painted fishing boats bobbing on the sparkling waters. She would attempt to turn these into full-blown paintings on her return to England, and she wondered whether she would be painting essentially the same scene as those of her grandfather so long ago. Iris joined her on two such trips but was content for the most part to sit in cafes and watch the world go by. She was always happy to return to the hotel, laying on her bed and taking a siesta before dinner.
When the weekend rolled around, Joan and Iris presented themselves dutifully for the family meal. They were introduced to Maurice’s wife, Liliana, who was friendly but somewhat absent minded. When Joan enquired discretely whether she was well, Maurice explained that she had Alzheimer’s disease. She still recognized her family members most of the time, but strangers could be a worry to her.
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As the dining room table was being laid for dinner, various additional members of the family began to arrive, each one announced by Maurice, complete with a short summary of their position in the family. First to arrive was Maurice’s older daughter Linette, who worked in a bank in Sliema. She was a kind and charming woman in her forties, but she seemed far from well. Before she could explain for herself, Maurice said that Linette had kidney disease and had to attend hospital often for treatment. Joan felt immensely sorry for this young woman, having nursed people with kidney problems in the past.
Next through the front door was Maurice’s middle daughter, Rosanne. She wore thick glasses, which Joan thought did nothing to enhance her natural beauty. Then there was the final daughter, Nathalie, a gay and friendly woman with long black hair. She had brought her son, a quiet and polite boy called Luke, who shook Joan’s hand and said in his best English how glad he was to meet his English relatives.
Finally, there was another Maurice, one of Maurice senior’s two sons. He was tall like his father, and he had the confident air of a man of business or politics. The other son, Albert, was away on holiday with his wife and two daughters, but Joan and Iris were assured that they would love him if they met him.
With so many new names to learn, Joan began to fear she would get them mixed up at some point during the evening. She resolved to make notes on each of these newly discovered relatives, and perhaps to interview them individually on what they knew of Emma. She thought for a moment of asking for a pen and paper but decided it might seem rude.
Dinner was quite delicious, having been prepared by the cook under Rosa’s watchful eye. There was water melon to start, served with white grapes and lashings of cream. Having learned that Iris was partial to spaghetti Bolognese, this formed the main course, complete with Parmesan cheese and ground black pepper. Dessert was a choice of chocolate cake or
439 crème caramel, and Iris was convinced to try a bit of each. As the coffee was served, Joan wondered if she ought to have worn a looser pair of trousers, so full was she after the feast.
Much of the conversation was taken up with lives and loves of the current generations, as well as the many changes that had taken place in Malta. Joan was still wondering whether to comment on the half-finished buildings around the place and the inevitable toll on the natural beauty of the island, but she continued to hold her tongue.
“You know, Uncle Albert – that’s Albert Hyzler – has done just as much for Malta as anyone else,” chimed in the younger Maurice. “He was President of Malta, you know.”
“Acting President, actually,” corrected his father, “and only for a short time. But it’s true that he’s been very active in both politics and development issues. We really must introduce you and show you the old house.”
“The old house?” said Joan, wondering if this was finally the lead she was looking for.
“Not the house where I raised Maurice,” said Rosa from her seat at the head of the table.
“It’s the house where I grew up, along with my sisters and brother – the old Miller house. It’s in Independence Square, or so it’s now called. We must take you there. It’s quite wonderful, though a bit gloomy perhaps. Albert insists on keeping the shutters closed most of the day.”
“So this is where Emma grew up?” said Joan.
“Yes, it’s where we all grew up. It passed to my daughter, Mary Rose, when she married
Albert, and they lived there for years. She’s gone now, of course …”
“She died of cancer,” said Maurice in a hushed tone, mindful of his mother’s lingering grief.
“Well, that’s decided then,” broke in the younger Maurice. “We’ll pop round for tea tomorrow. You’ll love the house, Joan. It’s like walking back into another era.”
* * *
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Dr Albert Hyzler greeted his guests warmly the next afternoon, apologising for not having the time to prepare lunch. He said he hoped tea and cakes would suffice. Joan said that cakes would be wonderful. She had put on her smart trousers with the elasticated waistband, just in case.
The host was well-groomed and balding with a goatee beard that Joan thought made him look more like an artist than a doctor and politician. She noted the softness of his hands, and wondered if he ever mucked out a horse or pulled up weeds in the vegetable patch.
Before long, the guests were taken on a tour of the house. It was indeed quite sumptuous.
The ceilings were high and decorated with intricate plaster work. The long windows were shuttered to keep out the warm sun, and thick velvet curtains hung on either side. A large crystal chandelier hung over the long dining table and another refracted electric light around the living room. Every item of furniture seemed to be an antique, some of them perhaps two hundred years old. Finely dressed people, presumably ancestors, looked down from guilt- framed pictures on the walls, and the highly polished sideboards bore silverware, crystal vases and ornaments of every kind.
“Come upstairs,” said Albert in a conspiratorial tone. “I have something to show you – a few things, actually.”
On reaching the first floor, he led them into a large drawing room, at the centre of which was a black Steinway grand piano.
“Do you play?” asked Albert, lifting the lid on the keyboard and taking a seat.
“No, I’m afraid not,” replied Joan and Iris in unison.
Albert rested his fingers on the keyboard and began to play a light tune, a look of intense seriousness on his face.
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“Bach,” said Albert at last. “I rarely have time to practice these days. It’s such a shame. I took so many lessons as a child, and I barely play at all. I think that if I hadn’t become a doctor, I might easily have been a concert pianist.”
Rising from his seat, he reached across the piano and picked up a violin that was resting there.
“You know what this is?”
“It’s a violin, isn’t it?” said Iris.
“Yes, but what kind of violin?”
“It looks very old,” said Joan.
“It’s a Stradivarius, the best and most expensive breed of violin in the world. I don’t play it, of course. It’s a Tagliaferro heirloom and very much treasured. I should put it down before
I drop it.”
Joan looked at her mother, whose mouth had dropped open.
“And I understand you’re an artist, Joan?” enquired the doctor.
“Well, yes, of sorts. I give lessons and sell a few pictures now and then.”
“Oh, she’s a wonderful painter,” chipped in Iris. “I have one of hers on my wall in my living room. It’s a sailing boat out at sea off Sheerness. She’s very talented, my Joan.”
“Then you’ll be interested in this,” said Albert, pointing to a large painting on the wall.
“It’s a Caravaggio: Mary and Christ Child with St John. I think it belonged originally to
Franceso Tagliaferro, who would have been… let me see… your great-grandfather. He was
Consul to the Papal States, among other places, which may have helped him to get a good deal.”
Albert laughed gently at his joke and Joan wondered just what a “knock-down price” on a Caravaggio might be. Certainly out of her price range, she concluded.
“Let us go down for tea,” said Rosa suddenly.
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As they reached the top of the stairs, Joan noticed another staircase leading upwards into the darkness. She wondered what might be up there. Most likely the bedrooms, she thought, and then she wondered whether this might have been where the young Emma spent her nights as a child. Perhaps there were still traces of her childhood, perhaps letters or other clues to her young life?
She was on the point of asking when Rosa took her arm and led her back downstairs, where the clatter and rattle of cups and plates could be heard.
“It’s all quite wonderful, isn’t it? So many memories … so many memories…” said the old lady softly.
* * *
The following day, after breakfast, Joan asked her mother what she wanted to do, and Iris replied that she would just stay at the hotel and read a book.
“Come on, Mummy, let’s do something.”
“Like what?”
“Well, I thought we could go to the Blue Grotto. It’s very beautiful and we could take a boat out. They do trips around the coves and the water turns a lovely azure colour. It’s famous. You’ll love it.”
Iris agreed to the excursion reluctantly and within an hour they were down at the southern end of the island, talking with a little Maltese man about a trip in his boat. He would take them out into the sea and around the caves, so long as Joan was able to get her mother on board. It took several attempts to get Iris from the quay into the little craft as it bobbed on the water, but eventually the task was achieved without a dunking.
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The skipper, who earned half his living as a fisherman, began to pull at the oars, and soon they were moving away from the tiny harbour. Joan felt a rush of excitement as they started out. The sky above was a deep blue and entirely free from clouds, the sun shining brightly. She could feel a warm wind blowing, and she trailed her hand in the water as they moved along. She had seen pictures of this stretch of coastline, and here she was, finally seeing it for herself. At last, she felt like she was actually on holiday.
As they left the harbour behind, the waves suddenly became bigger, though still not large by a fisherman’s standards. The skipper pulled harder at his oars and a splash of water sprayed into the air, sprinkling the two passengers. The boat rocked gently as the skipper pulled hard on the left oar, turning the boat along the coast.
“Joan, we’re going to sink!” said Iris, clutching the sides of the boat.
“No we’re not, Mummy. We’re fine. It’s just a few waves.”
“We’re going to drown, Joan. Let’s go back.”
“We’re not going back now, Mummy. We only just got out here.”
“We’ll I’m going back,” said Iris, clutching now at Joan’s arm and making as if to stand.
“Sit down, Mummy! We’re fine! It’s just a few waves. We can swim anyway if the boat tips over… which it won’t. I’m sure this man does this all the time. Look, he’s not frightened.”
The skipper was watching the commotion with a broad grin on his face.
“It’s okay, madam. No problem. It’s very safe. You trust me, it’s very safe.” And he pulled hard on his oars again.
Joan was not disappointed at the sights along the coast. The rugged cliffs were punctuated with large caves and arches, above which seagulls wheeled on the warm air. The dark blue sea grew lighter near the cliffs, turning a stunning cobalt where sand covered the seabed. Here and there, the minerals in the rocks reflected green and purple in the water. Joan
444 reached into her bag for her sketch book, but realising she had left it behind, she resolved to take mental photographs.
Soon they entered a large cave, where the waves thankfully calmed, and even Iris had to admit that the scene was wonderful. The sounds of the oars and the lapping waves bounced around the interior, and Joan suddenly felt like she was in a cathedral, but one made by nature, not man. She closed her eyes and wished that life could be like this all the time.
* * *
It was their last night in Malta before the plane home. Joan felt the need to draw some conclusions from a trip that seemed to have been inconclusive. As they finished packing and prepared for bed, she said to her mother: “The old house was lovely, wasn’t it? That grand piano and all those lovely paintings… What a wonderful place to grow up!”
“Yes, and to think they had all that money while we were living in poverty in England with that bitch Martia,” replied Iris in obvious irritation.
“I was thinking of your mother’s childhood more than yours.”
“Oh, yes, she had a lovely childhood, I’m sure, waited on hand-and-foot!”
“Well, she didn’t have it easy later, raising her children alone in Italy. I think she must have struggled to raise you all.”
“Well, she didn’t raise us! Papa raised us!” said Iris, turning to face Joan, a pair of tights in her hand. “And we would have been fine if it hadn’t been for that bloody woman!”
And Iris launched into the tale of her unhappy youth. She recounted the story of how she had accidentally broken a coffee cup and had been slapped on the legs and sent to her room without supper. That story finished, she told of the time she had been prevented from attending a friend’s birthday party at the last moment. And then she told of the horror of
445 being locked for hours in the cellar, alone in the dark with the rats… If her mother hadn’t left them in London, she might have had a happy childhood. She wasn’t fit to be a mother! Her father was a great man, of course, but weak. He should have stopped Martia when she went too far … and she often went too far. She was a cruel woman, that Irish-American bitch!
Joan listed patiently. She had heard all these stories many times before, and while sad at her mother’s suffering, she felt a strong urge to shake her out of it. Of course, her childhood had been terrible, but she was wrong to blame her mother so harshly. How could she be so sure of her mother’s reasons? Didn’t she also suffer, like any mother would suffer at the loss of her children?
“But Mummy,” said Joan at last. “You have no idea why your mother left you in
England. You can’t possibly know the reasons. I mean, she must have had reasons. It’s just that we don’t know what they were. I’m sure she loved you, but she never had the chance to show you how much. Can’t you see that she must have loved you?”
“She wasn’t fit to be a mother. She left us, and that’s that. It’s all over now. There’s no point in raking up the past.”
Iris sniffed three times and went into the bathroom to remove her false teeth.
Joan walked on the balcony and looked at the evening lights along the promenade, breathed in the salty, sea air. She pondered the great irony of her mother’s words. Perhaps there was no point in raking up the past. And yet her mother seemed to be stuck in the past, unable to forgive, unable to believe that she had been loved. In many ways, despite her long and eventful life, and despite having born three children, she was still a heartbroken little girl.
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CHAPTER 48
A SECRET REVEALED
(1984)
Joan leaned over and looked out of the aeroplane window. Above, the sky was dark blue, and below, through the gaps in the clouds, was the glittering Mediterranean Sea. Soon the island of Malta would come into view, like a sand-coloured life-raft in this vast expanse of water.
It was almost three years since she had visited the place with her mother, and now she was returning alone. She reached into her handbag and pulled out the notepad on which she had been scribbling through much of the flight. Among the jottings was the list of names she had begun: Alessandrina Tagliferro married to Giuseppe Miller; Emma and Rosa Miller;
Eustratius Petrocochino; Maurice Petrocochino who married Lilianna; Mary Rose who married Albert Hyzler; Maurice’s boys, the young Maurice and …
And there she had stumbled. There were several other names written and crossed out, some of them no doubt correct, but others somehow ill-fitting. Was it Rosanne or Linnette who worked at a bank, and what was the other daughter’s name? Natasha perhaps? And who was the second son of the elder Maurice? Was it another Albert? Yes, it must be, she thought.
There were two Alberts for sure… or had she imagined this because of the two Maurices?
And wasn’t there a Marcel among them somewhere?
She cursed herself for not having made proper notes during her first visit. She thought her mother might know everyone’s name, but she was back in England, having declined the invitation to make another visit. Joan had decided to fly out alone this time in search of her
447 grandmother’s story – her motivations and the struggles she faced. She thought somehow the clue might lie in that old house with the grand piano, but maybe not. Probably, in the end, there would be nothing to find, but it seemed important somehow to keep looking.
And of course, there was no harm in spending a couple of weeks on the little island nation. She had brought her pastels and watercolours this time, and she fully intended to capture some of the scenery. In particular, she wanted to paint the fishing boats in all their bright glory and perhaps the horse-drawn carriages that were so popular with the tourists. If possible, she would wander into the countryside too, perhaps to an isolated bay or an unspoilt village.
After a bumpy landing and a battle to retrieve her suitcase from the luggage carousel,
Joan found herself once more in Maurice’s car. He had insisted on collecting her from the airport and taking her home immediately for tea and cakes. It was as the cake was being sliced that Maurice asked where Joan would be staying.
“Oh, I’ve reserved a room at a hotel in Sliema. It’s the same one I stayed in before with
Mummy, overlooking the bay. It’s quite alright. Better than the first one anyway – what with the smelly toilets and the place catching fire.”
“Well,” said Maurice, “you can stay in your hotel, of course, and I’ll drop you round there later if you like. But you’d be more than welcome to stay here, if you prefer. We have a spare room and we’d love to have you.”
Joan agreed instantly; not only would she be situated in the heart of the family for the full two weeks, but she’d save a bit of money too – all the better to enjoy her holiday.
* * *
448
Rosa may have been in her late nineties, but she was still full of life. That evening, over supper, she suggested an excursion the very next day, assuming Joan had the energy.
“I’ll take you to lunch at the parliament dining room,” she said. “We have had several
MP’s in the family, as you know, so we have the privilege of dining there whenever we like.
I’ll book in the morning. And I have some things to show you that I think you’ll like.”
And so the next day, the two women hopped in a taxi and headed for the parliament, full of chatter and enthusiasm for their outing. For Joan it was indeed a novelty to be dining in such an important spot, and she was glad she’d packed her best dress and new shoes. While she didn’t feel particularly important herself, she was happy at being elevated momentarily into the midst of the nation’s elite – even if it was on a miniature scale.
However, the restaurant itself was pretty ordinary and the food a distinct let down.
Maltese cooking, she had decided, relied too heavily on British and Italian dishes, and the
Maltese rarely did justice to either. She chomped her way politely through her mashed potatoes, which were lumpy and undercooked. The green vegetables were overcooked, meanwhile, and the steak tough. She was glad when the plate was cleared and the last mouthful swallowed.
“Now, my dear,” said Rosa at last, sipping her coffee. “I remember you taking an interest in my childhood and in your grandmother too, and I’ve been thinking what I can show you that might interest you. So I’ve brought these along.”
She lifted her bag onto her knees and pulled out a large envelope, from which she took a number of old photographs, laying them on the table.
“I want you to take these back home with you and make copies. You can post them back to me when you’re finished. I trust you to do that. You have every right to copies of the family photographs. After all, you and your mother are just as much family as the rest of us.”
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“Oh, that’s very kind of you. Thank you,” said Joan, both grateful and worried at the preciousness of the cargo entrusted to her.
The first picture was clearly very old and showed a young Rosa holding up the baby
Maurice as he stood in the bath. The photograph was, in fact, the reflection of the mother and child in the bathroom mirror, a technique that lent some additional depth to the image.
“I was so proud of him,” Rosa said, a broad smile on her face. “I had lost two babies by miscarriage, and so when I was finally able to give birth, every day seemed like a miracle. He was very lively and strong for his age. He’s always had a real force of life in him.”
Joan handled the photograph carefully, inspecting it up close.
“It’s a lovely photograph. Who took it?”
“My husband, Eustratius. He was very artistic, although he never really made anything of his talents, apart from family photographs. But look, there are more.”
From the pile Rosa lifted more images, mostly yellowed with age, showing herself and her husband and children. They were standing in the living room, then out in the garden, and finally outside a church. There was one of Rosa sitting at a piano, her husband by her side, his hand resting on her shoulder. They seemed so comfortable with each other.
“Ah, now, this is what you want to see,” said Rosa with an air of significance. “This is me and Emma and our younger sister Maria and my little brother Maurice. That’s who I named my son after, of course. It was Christmas, I think, which is why we are in our best clothes, and there are the presents piled up, ready to be opened. Yes, those were happy times, before your grandfather arrived on the scene.”
Joan held the picture up close. Looking carefully at Emma’s face, she saw again the face of her own daughter, Elizabeth. They were almost identical.
“How old would Emma have been in this photograph?” she said at last.
450
“Oh, I suppose about 16 years old. She was still just a child, untouched by male hands, so to speak.”
“Do you think she made the right decision in marrying Giovanni?” asked Joan.
“Well, I’m not sure. Of course, she loved him in the beginning, and love is like that. You have to follow where it leads you. It’s like a strong river. Once you’re in, it’s really useless to struggle against it. And so I suppose she had no choice. He swept her off her feet. And maybe she swept him off his feet too. She was certainly very much in love. I remember that much.
Their courtship was very exciting. They would meet in secret, and I would pass messages between them, as would the maid. Giovanni would wait in a carriage by the harbour and
Emma would watch for him from her bedroom window. It was very exciting for a while.”
“But was it a mistake, do you think? I mean… was it something she regretted later?”
“I think she did regret it later, of course. After all, she lost her children, and that really broke her heart. To spend so many years raising your children and then lose them like that – poof! – just gone… Well, it was a disaster for her, emotionally speaking.”
The waiter brought the two ice cream sundaes and put them down. Perhaps, thought
Joan, the dessert would make up for the main course.
“I hope I’m not jumping to conclusions,” said Rosa, “but you seem troubled by your grandmother’s life.”
“Well, I’m not so bothered by it myself, just curious. I mean, it’s Mummy who’s troubled by it in a way, because after all these years she can’t forgive her mother for abandoning her. She still holds a grudge, and I think that’s a shame.”
“I see. Well, that’s understandable, of course. Your mother was very young, and it must have been traumatic to lose her mother so completely and with no explanation.”
451
“Well, that’s part of it, I think,” said Joan between mouthfuls of ice cream. “She was told by her step mother that she’d been abandoned because her own mother – Emma – didn’t love her, which is a really cruel thing to say, of course.”
“Yes, that’s a terrible thing to tell a child.”
“Well, that’s the kind of person Martia was. That’s the woman Giovanni moved in with.”
“Yes, I know who she was,” said Rosa, her face suddenly hardening. “I’ve heard all about her from Emma. I think she must have hated children, actually, from what I’ve been told.”
“Yes, I think she probably did. She was certainly very unkind to Mummy.”
“So, your mother’s still affected by her childhood?”
“Yes, she is. She often says it’s a wonder that she’s normal after all she went through.
But to be honest, I don’t know if she is entirely normal. She’s always been quite nervous and sometimes she’d suffer terrible depressions. And her anxieties would make her quite strict as a mother. She would be so tightly wound sometimes she would snap at the slightest thing.
I’ve never been very tidy or organized, and that would make her worse. She would sometimes scold me for being clumsy and leaving a mess. She was a kind mother, of course, but very strict sometimes. She’s still highly strung now, after so many years.”
“I thought as much,” said Rosa. “I noticed when she came to visit that she was never happy when anyone mentioned Emma. She seemed on edge. And I suppose that’s why she never sent money to help pay for Emma’s hospital care? I mean … aside from the financial difficulties you were facing.”
“Well, that may have been part of it. Even if she’d been rich, I’m not sure she’d have felt obliged to help out.”
“I see,” said Rosa, frowning into her ice cream as if it were a crystal ball bearing bad news.
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“The thing is,” continued Joan, “I would love to be able to tell Mummy that her mother –
Emma – had a good reason for leaving the children in London and returning to Italy. I would love to be able to explain this to Mummy in a way that she would understand, so that she didn’t have to continue feeling such resentment. That’s really why I’m here, I suppose, or a large part of it.”
Rosa didn’t reply immediately. She continued looking at her dish, scraping up the last spoons of ice cream and the two remaining grapes. The dish finished, she wiped her mouth on a napkin and looked Joan in the eye.
“Well, I think I can explain some of this to you Joan, and perhaps it would help your mother if she knew the truth. It’s a matter that we rarely discuss in the family, partly due to embarrassment, but I suspect it would be healthier if we were more open about such things.
We can be a bit reserved in Malta, despite our Mediterranean temperament. There are taboos and such things, partly religious, partly cultural… Well, anyway, I’ll tell you everything and you can decide what to do with the information.”
Taking a deep breath, Rose began to explain about the death of Emma’s little daughter,
Luisa, and the grief it caused to both parents. She explained that Giovanni had raped his wife in a fit of fury, blaming her for the child’s death. She explained also that Emma was left alone in Italy to look after the children, while Giovanni lived the high life in London. Then Emma discovered she was pregnant again, and shortly after discovered evidence of Giovanni’s love affair with Martia.
“With so many blows and worries mounting up, along with the poverty and the sense of betrayal, she just couldn’t bring herself to keep the child.”
There was a pause while Rosa waited for the pieces of the jigsaw to settle in Joan’s mind.
“You mean she had an abortion?”
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“Yes, she did. She went to London, of course, because it was impossible to get an abortion in Italy. Well, it was possible, just about … but it was certainly easier in London.
And she didn’t want to risk anyone finding out about it, because she’d be in serious trouble.
And so she went to London, left the children with Giovanni, and went for the abortion. She trusted that Giovanni would look after them for a day or two and hand them back later. But when she returned to collect the little ones, Martia was there and she wouldn’t let her have them. She refused to open the door to Emma, and she stopped anyone else doing so. Martia was quite a frightening woman, by all accounts, and she had the support of Giovanni in most things.”
“Oh, that’s terrible!” said Joan, her eyes wide. “So what did Emma do?”
“What could she do? She had no money, she was unwell after the abortion, and neither
Giovanni nor Martia would let her even see the children again, let alone take them away. So she returned to Italy without them. But I’m sure she didn’t want to. I’m quite sure of that.”
“So she didn’t really abandon them at all. She just couldn’t get them back.”
“Yes, that’s about right. And it wasn’t just a matter of not being physically allowed to take them back. It was also a legal problem, because she would never have won custody of the children in those days once the court heard that she’d had an abortion. She’d have been thrown into prison straight away. Particularly in those days, any Catholic woman who killed an unborn child would be an absolute outcast. And she could never prove that she had enough money to support five children either. No, I’m quite sure any judge would always have ruled against her. So she lost them, and she suffered a lot. And not only that, of course, but she had to keep it all secret, all that pain locked away in her heart. She had nobody to lean on, and she kept all that inside until after the war, when she finally told me.”
“That’s just incredibly sad,” said Joan, shaking her head, her mind boggling at her grandmother’s terrible life.
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“So if you tell your mother that story, which is the truth, maybe it will help. I hoped it does.”
“Yes, I will tell her. And thank you so much for telling me. I really would never have guessed.”
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CHAPTER 49
THE BOOK
(1984-1999)
The next day, Joan thought of little else. She took care this time to make notes in her notepad, recording everything Rosa had told her. As she wandered the shady back streets of
Valletta, she would turn it all over in her mind, pondering how on earth Emma coped with such a tragic loss, how she had managed the abortion, how she had survived the ordeal without any support… To Joan, the whole affair seemed so both deeply sad and thoroughly unfair. She tried to turn her mind to other matters, stopping in a few churches and looking at the harbour views. But she just couldn’t tear her thoughts away from Emma’s story, and she returned again and again to her notebook.
She wondered how she could tell her mother the story in such a way that it might have a positive effect. She could repeat it in a conversation over lunch, just as Rosa had done, and no doubt she would. But it seemed a book would lay out the entire situation most clearly, giving her mother time to absorb everything and turn it over in her mind. Such a book would tell
Emma’s story as Rosa had told it, with particular emphasis on the abortion and her sense of betrayal and exhaustion… and the rest she would fill in herself.
On the Saturday, Joan was introduced once again to Nathalie’s son Luke. He had grown into a teenager now, but he was no less friendly and polite. He explained that he had finished school for the summer and would be happy to make himself of use to Joan in any way she wished. They hit it off instantly, and Joan said he should join her on her walks around
Valletta. From that moment, Luke became her guide, taking her to all the historical sites and
456 scenic spots, plotting their movements on a tourist map. She had by now seen much of it for herself, but she was glad of the company.
They would take a taxi to Valletta and then proceed on foot, occasionally hopping a ride in a horse-drawn carriage. He took her to the best spots for watching the boats come and go and introduced her to the fishermen as they fixed their nets and made ready for their next outing. They also visited St John’s Cathedral, where Caravaggio’s painting of the beheading of St John the Baptist was on view. They visited also the site of the opera house, which had been bombed to bits by the Luftwaffe in 1942. Joan had seen pictures of the original building, which had been quite something. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine the scene in 1904, as high-class opera lovers decanted from their carriages and mounted the stone steps.
She asked young Luke why on earth nobody had bothered to rebuild it after so many years. He shrugged his shoulders and said that everyone seemed to have a different opinion on what to do with the site, and some felt there were other priorities. And so, in the end, nothing was done.
Joan repaid her guide each day with ice cream, a system that allowed her to consume a fair bit herself. After their third ice cream, she concluded that here at last was a dish the
Maltese could do properly.
It was on the second Tuesday, a day when Luke was busy with homework, that Joan’s wanderings took her back to Independence Square. She had stumbled across it quite by accident, and only recognised it by the columns of St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral. Across the square was the old house on the corner, where Emma and Rose had grown up. She walked over and thought for a moment of knocking on the door to see if Dr Hyzler was at home. She hesitated for a while, then stepped back and looked up at the windows on the upper floors, their green shutters closed to keep out the light.
457
In her mind’s eye, she was transported back 80 years, to a time when the young Emma was deeply in love with her Italian hero. She would wait at that window, thought Joan, hidden behind the net curtains, ready to move away if anyone looked up. From that high vantage point on the third floor, she could see across the square and down the steps to the road that ran along Marsamxett Harbour. There her lover would be waiting in a carriage, perhaps dangling a handkerchief out the window as a sign that that she must come to him.
Joan walked to the top of the steps leading down to the harbour road. They certainly were in line with the windows of the upper floors. She walked down the steps and stood with her back to the harbour and looked back at the house. She could see the window, and closing her eyes, she imagined her grandfather, a man of 40, sitting hidden in his carriage, waiting patiently for this vibrant teenage girl to slip out the servant’s entrance and into his arms. That warm embrace, the scents of perfume and fresh flowers, hearts pounding at the excitement of it all.
* * *
The years passed, and Joan’s life changed beyond all recognition. First, she and her family moved from the farm that had been their home for so many years. It made more practical sense to be in town, nearer the trains that took the younger children to school, and
Joan could do the shopping more easily and a thousand other things. And yet, she missed the farm deeply, for all its ramshackle character and the hard work it took to keep in order. She missed the animals – the chickens, goats, cows, horses and a donkey called Pork Chops. She missed the trees and the fruit and the hum of bumble bees hopping from flower to flower.
458
Then, just as she was adjusting to life in town, her beloved husband Alan died of a heart attack. She had already suffered the loss of one husband, and now it had happened again. She was heartbroken. Her children also suffered greatly, so much had they loved their dad.
Joan had little choice, of course, but to carry on, and she applied herself to her work with vigour, painting furiously and giving lessons in her ground-floor studio. But the town house still held so many memories, traces of her beloved husband. And as the children continued to grow up and leave home, she found it too big. She sold it and moved with her remaining children – now in their teens – to a bungalow in the nearby village of Teynham. There she continued to paint, sculpt and teach, and from time to time she would tinker with her books.
She had by now come to love writing, producing a children’s book based on a bad- tempered half-elf who lived in a ruined farm house, as well as a humorous account of her own life in the countryside. And every now and then she would play with the idea of setting down Grandmamma Emma’s sad story. She thought she might begin the tale at the old house in Independence Square, where Rosa, Emma and their siblings were raised. And then there would be something about this rather wild Italian turning up and sparking Emma’s interest, followed by secret meetings and a love affair and a rushed marriage… and all the tragic events that followed.
Indeed, Joan set these scenes down on paper several times over the following years, but it seemed there were various things missing, mostly details of time and place that she felt might be important. She would write a page or two, draw a blank and then cram the notebooks into a draw for some other day.
Eventually, she married again, this time to an Egyptian psychiatrist called Mohsen who had lived in England for several years. She had taught him to paint – after a fashion – and the affection between them had grown as the lessons progressed. He was one of several suitors,
459 but he won Joan’s hand finally during a trip to his ancestral home in Cairo. Shortly after arriving, they married with little fanfare – and so another adventure began.
For Joan, life in Egypt breathed new energy into her painting career. She found herself sketching scenes that might have been captured any time in the past several hundred years:
Bedouin women in their traditional dress; fishermen casting nets on the Nile; plump women in their galabeyas and headscarves selling fruit and vegetables by the roadside. There were stray dogs too, and foxes, horses and camels and palm trees in abundance. She sold her paintings among the ex-pat community and even put on shows at the Marriot Hotel. She knew she would never get rich from her art, but she had the satisfaction of the artist who loves her subject and sells what she creates.
She began work too on a new book, a real-life story based on the mysterious death of a local Egyptian woman. She found herself engrossed in the telling of the tale and hoped it might even sell one day, assuming she could find a publisher. All the while, Grandmama
Emma’s life story sat on the back-burner – or rather on Joan’s laptop – a jumble of ideas, names and half-sketched scenes. Joan had never been much of an organizer, something her mother had often commented upon, even scolded her for. Now it seemed she had met her match in attempting to string together this assortment of scenes, this patchwork of overlapping lives.
* * *
Finally, she decided that another trip to Malta was needed if she was ever going to get working seriously on the book. Mohsen was happy enough to accompany her, and the couple had a fine time visiting the Petrocochinos and the Hyzlers, discussing all things historical and cultural over breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mohsen got on well with Albert Hyzler; not only
460 did the two doctors have a profession in common, but it seemed they shared acquaintances in the Cairo diplomatic community. Mohsen was fascinated by the Island’s history, and was particularly charmed to find so many Arabic words in the local language.
All in all, Joan thought, the trip had been more educational for her husband than for herself. While it was nice to have him along, she had been unable to catch Rosa alone for more than five minutes, and her thoughtful wanderings around Valletta had been replaced with a more structured form of exploration, negotiated with her husband, as with so many other things in married life.
She returned to Cairo with a deep resolve to finally work seriously the book. She may not have gathered any more information on what had really transpired so many years before, but she felt she should forge ahead anyway. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger, and neither was her mother, who was, of course, the intended recipient of the work.
Each morning, she would rise early, make a cup of tea and switch on the laptop. Peering through her reading glasses, she would sort through the jumble of files and begin tinkering once more with the story, sketching out her own rather romantic version of another person’s life. Slowly, slowly, bit by bit, the book began to take shape.
* * *
Iris Italia Enrica Boella died of a heart attack one Friday morning in June 1999. She died alone in her basement flat in Sheerness, where she had lived for 25 years. It was two days before her body was found, lying face-down in the living room, between the television and her reclining armchair. On the wall was one of Rosa’s oil paintings, a vase of flowers painted in miniature, the small gilt frame still bright after the best part of a century. It had been a present from Anita, who had always been more active in maintaining her connections with
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Malta. On the sideboard were two pictures that she’d also received from Anita: one of the 18- year-old Emma in a fine Edwardian dress and hat; the other of Giovanni in an artist’s beret and smock, an easel and paint brush in his hands.
The house where Iris lived was owned by Wendy and her husband John, and they raised two children there. The house was always busy, a hive of activity, and Joan’s children would often come to stay for the weekend or at Christmas, playing board games long into the night.
Iris would often joke that she was “under the feet” of Wendy and John, but for the most part the arrangement worked well. Iris had the company of family in her final years, which she often described as “the best years of my life”. Wendy and John, meanwhile, benefitted from having a live-in baby-sitter – and indeed the children were glad to grow up so close to their kind and generous Maltese-Italian grandmother.
Iris had even taken some of her holidays with Wendy and her family, including one trip back to Malta – or more specifically to Gozo, the smaller sister island, several miles from the
Maltese mainland. They had spent the fortnight in a rented villa in a quiet village, exploring the island by car, from the secluded coves to the ancient ruins. Iris picked prickly pears from the cactus plants, peeling them for lunch; walked whispering into dusty village churches; lay floating face-up in the crystal-clear waters, weightless for once. On returning from the holiday, Iris often spoke of how wonderful it would be to move there, to retire to Gozo or
Malta, to buy a small house or apartment there, by the sea, perhaps within walking distance of Maurice and Rosa. The idea never became more than a dream, for Iris would never want to be so far from her little Wendy – but she was happy at least to know the place existed and to have the option of returning someday.
Then in 1997 tragedy struck the household when Wendy died of cancer. For Iris, it was the final twist of the knife in a life that had rarely been easy. She grieved hard for her daughter over the next two years, and often wished she had gone first, often longed to join
462 her “little Wendy” in the next life – assuming there was one. She would have to wait two years before she had the chance of finding out, collapsing on the living room carpet. After examining Iris’s body, the coroner explained that her heart had simply burst.
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CHAPTER 50
HOME AT LAST
(2000)
Joan and her Egyptian husband stood on the little motor boat among a gaggle of tourists, looking across the blue sea at the rocky outline of Gozo. Gripped tightly in Joan’s hands was the urn containing what remained of her mother’s ashes. She had already sprinkled some on her sister Wendy’s grave and on the rose bed in her own garden. Now she was going to scatter the rest in the deep, blue sea between Gozo and Malta, as per Iris’s wishes.
Far away, on the horizon, was Malta, the ancestral home of Emma Miller, with whom the story had begun. Here she had grown into an attractive young lady; here she had courted and loved; from here she had been banished and finally returned to die. Poor Grandmama Emma!
She had gambled her happiness on a wandering opera singer, and lost it all – family, reputation, marriage and children. Here too, therefore, were the origins of Iris’ own story, and it seemed fitting that she should be returned to the land of her mother, from whom she had been so painfully separated.
Joan regretted not having been able to heal her mother’s pain, regretted failing to paint the picture of Emma’s life that might have put things in perspective. She had researched the story and tinkered with it endlessly, but she had failed to pull it all together before her mother’s death. Writing was a passion for Joan, but it had to compete with the chores and obligations of daily life. And so the book had never been finished.
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Even so, she felt certain that if there was any justice in the universe, her mother would have gone on to a better place, perhaps there to find not only peace but understanding of all that needed to be understood.
Joan leaned against the railing and eased off the lid, then tipped the contents of the urn over the side. As the ashes began to fall, a wind suddenly sprang up, and they were blown upwards and back over the boat. Joan, Mohsen and the rest of the passengers were covered in what remained of Iris Boella – on their clothes, in their eyes, their hair. Doubtless, some of the ashes were carried onwards and into the sea, but probably half never made it.
“What are you doing?” protested Mohsen.
“It’s not me, it’s the wind,” Joan replied.
As she brushed the ashes off her coat, she couldn’t help seeing the funny side of it.
Things had never gone easy for her mother, and her own life had had its ups and downs.
What reason was there to imagine the final ceremony would be any different?
And as she looked down at the lapping waves, into the deep, blue waters, she could hear her mother’s voice: “Trust you to make a mess of it, Giovanna!”
But she knew her mother would be smiling as she spoke.
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