Late Season Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Copyright

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  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Late Season

  Christobel Kent was born in 1962 and now lives in Cambridge with her husband and five children; in between she has lived in Modena, in northern Italy, and in Florence. Her first novel A Party in San Niccoló was published by Penguin last year.

  Late Season

  CHRISTOBEL KENT

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  For Louis, Kitty, Hamish, Molly and Beatrice

  With thanks to Bernard Keeling, for his insights into Roman foundling hospitals, among other things, and to Bruce Johnston for his hospitality in Rome

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road,

  Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre,

  Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads,

  Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  Published in Penguin Books 2004

  8

  Copyright © Christobel Kent 2004

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  1

  Anna saw the cars arrive from her terrace in the dusk, and watched as they disappeared down the lane and into the trees, where it was already quite dark. There were two estate cars with English plates and a little airport hire car trying to keep up with Montale’s pick-up as it careered ahead of them on the dirt road, kicking up clouds of white dust and scattering the loose stone of the road surface beneath its fat tyres. As she watched them disappear Anna wondered whether they knew what they were in for.

  The dust hung in the darkening air for a while before settling, the roar of the cars receded down the valley into the woods, and Anna sat down again on the terrace to catch the last of the evening sun. The vine that hung in tendrils from her pergola was turning red and the few sharp black grapes it produced were almost ready for picking; summer was over and the sharp breath of winter not far away. At this time of year the temperature dropped fast as evening fell and it seemed to Anna more important than ever to catch the lingering warmth of the sun slanting low through the leaves. Montale’s pick-up came back up the lane alone just as Anna stood to go inside, glass in hand, her old red cushion and her book under her arm, and he raised a hand in greeting, squinting at her in the fading light. Anna nodded, smiling faintly at the red-haired farmer she had known since he was a boy, and turned to go inside.

  Anna Viola’s small farmhouse stood just on the edge of the natural reserve of the Alto Merse, a series of densely wooded valleys in southern Tuscany through which the dark, peaty waters of the river Merse wound. The outside was built partly of stone, partly of the crumbling red brick common in and around Siena, although now only the vestiges of faded pink stucco still clung on here and there to the friable surface. The farmhouse was set into the lip of the hill, which sloped up a few hundred yards behind; an area overgrown now with brambles, birch and wild plum, dark and cool even in the summer. But at the front the stone façade faced faced southwest, and in the evenings the little terrace, which was set off to one side, would flood with the pale yellow light of the sun as it dipped. It was not always sunny, naturally, and in the winter, still a month or so off, the sun would have set by four, slipping down behind the range of black hills to the west. Then the house would turn cold very quickly, and it would seem a lonely place, perched as it was above hundreds of hectares of dark and almost uninhabited forest, on the edge of the wilderness.

  In the next valley, down six miles or so of strada sterrata, or unmade road, it appeared that the foreigners Anna had glimpsed from her terrace had arrived at their destination. A modest stone farmstead in a clearing of scrubby pasture on the valley floor, Il Vignacce had, until a year or two earlier when Piero Montale had inherited it from his aunt, been nothing more than a ruin, commented on once or twice a year by passing walkers as picturesque in a desolate sort of way. The walls had been built of limestone and tufa, the pitted volcanic rock of the region, and had been a foot or more thick, but the window openings had stood empty for decades and the chimney stacks, one at either end, had long since collapsed.

  But Piero Montale was a tirelessly industrious man, always out on his tractor, hauling water, ploughing, sowing, working away at every corner of his land. Hating the idea that such a resource as Il Vignacce might moulder away unused, he had determined that the ruin would make him some money and doggedly he had set about investigating what grants might be available for the restoration of the property. There were funds to be had for the reinvigoration of the countryside, after all, the most commonly sought after funds were those available for the development of agriturismo: the combining of agriculture with holiday letting.

  An agriturismo might be a palatial hotel complex in the cornfields of Lazio, or it might be the humble conversion of a pretty stone pigsty in the Po valley (the pigs long since relocated to modern barns which, although airy and hygienic, did not have quite the same charm) into holiday apartments. Some continuing agricultural component was stipulated in order for the owner to qualify for a grant, which was why the owner of the pigsty might plant a hectare or two of Lambrusco vines to substitute for the pigs. So Montale kept a small herd of long-horned Ma-remman cattle down in the valley, where, winter and summer, they would wander through the trees behind Il Vignacce, their bells clanging mournfully as they went.

  Montale had obtained his grants for the restoration of the old farm, and despite murmurings from the locals as to the wisdom or desirability of the conversion of so lonely and isolated a ruin, and a place, into the bargain, around which any number of rumours circulated, he had proceèded. with his plans. The contractors had grumbled as their trucks skidded and plunged through the forest loaded with wood and cement, tanks for water and drainage, and pallets of new red cotto tiles. But with the blessing of five straight months of fine weather Il Vignacce was rebuilt. Even the old wood-fired oven on the north elevation, originally quite essential to the farms self-sufficency, was reconstructed, and the exterior
stone staircase that mounted the front wall diagonally, no longer necessary for a farmer to live above his animals but attractive and above all, authentic, was lovingly filled and re-pointed. To furnish the place Montale weeded out the pieces of furniture from his own home that his wife had long wanted to replace – an old oak armoire with the wormholes filled, an old-fashioned marble-topped sideboard, a mirror or two. He sorted a couple of elderly fridges, missing a few attachments but sound enough, from among the junk that sat in his outbuildings, and only then did he take the pick-up to a newly opened Swedish discount furniture warehouse just outside Florence to fill in the gaps with cheap pine beds and cheerful linen.

  The track to Il Vignacce from the main road was a project that Montale had left for another day, or perhaps another century, there being no public funds available for its restoration. The track was ten, maybe twelve kilometres or so of variable road surface (to put it charitably), not finished enough even to appear on the few maps available for the region. The thought that not all his foreign visitors might take it in their stride as easily as he did, bumping down it in the truck or a tractor, a couple of times a day, was one that he pushed to the back of his mind. So far, after all, none of his guests had actually got stuck down there, as Montale himself had once a year or so back, caught in a downpour that had washed away a whole section of the road. He had been forced to sleep in the cowshed adjoining Il Vignacce for a night while the rain pattered relentlessly on the tiles over his head, and his wife bawled him out on his mobile until the signal went. It had not been a night he would have wished to repeat, even in more comfortable conditions; perhaps it had been to do with the depth of darkness surrounding him, but the place had made him uneasy, and Piero Montale was not a superstitious man. He’d got back up in the end, cursing and skidding around each sodden bend, and as a result he’d taken a few basic measures on some of the more precarious stretches.

  And now, at after eight on a late September evening, the broad pasture Il Vignacce surveyed was swallowed in darkness and the only vestige of the day was a faint lemon glow diluting the navy blue of the sky over to the west. The old farmhouse, long and low, all but one of its heavy iron shutters closed against the night, sat in a small pool of yellow light cast by the exterior lamp over its massive front door. For the last tenants to be staying at Il Vignacce this year, the holiday had begun.

  *

  The three cars in which Anna Viola had seen the English visitors pass her house were parked to one side on a skirt of close-cropped grass beneath the trees, ticking and sighing as their engines cooled in the night air. In the dark the trees seemed to come very close to the house on all sides but the front, where the light shone on open ground; they stood tall and still in the night air as though playing grandmother’s footsteps and just waiting for a moment of inattention by the inhabitants of Il Vignacce to creep ever closer. The house was divided in two, the larger half being on the south side, and here the iron shutters to the windows had been thrown open carelessly. A square of brilliant light shone on to the grass below the window, and inside, standing around the long wooden dining table, long enough to seat ten comfortably, stood the new arrivals.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Lucien cheerfully. ‘What a road! Did they say anything about that on the website?’ He stared around goggle-eyed in a pantomime of amazement and, despite herself, Justine laughed. She shook his arm in mock reproof.

  ‘It won’t seem so bad once we’ve done it a few times,’ she said, but, looking round at their faces, tired and grey after the day’s travelling, still taut with anxiety over passports and tickets and timing, she wasn’t so sure.

  And the journey, or at least the final stretch of it, had come as quite a shock. The farmer had turned abruptly off the main highway and the pretty terrace of a little farmhouse had come into view; for a brief moment Justine had thought they had arrived but the dusty pick-up had bounced past on the uneven road surface. They’d followed him down a steep slope into dense woodland, the trees absorbing what remained of the day’s light and plunging them into deep gloom.

  Justine tried to remember whether there had been anything about the miles of dirt track in the description of the house; perhaps there had been a warning that the access road wasn’t suitable for all types of vehicle? Whatever there was had not conveyed the reality of five or more miles of lurching through dense forest on loose stones as darkness fell, descending hundreds of metres to the valley floor, climbing to cross a ridge only to start back down again. And all the time they had been obliged to keep up with the dusty pick-up rattling remorselessly on ahead.

  On one ridge they had glimpsed a muddy-looking reservoir carved out of the red earth and beyond it the lights of a distant village. They passed through a bleak clearing where a logging lorry stood while a gang of ragged, dark-skinned labourers loaded it silently in the twilight, turning their heads to watch the cars as they bumped past, but offering no greeting.

  Their little convoy had paused to open a gate about halfway down, giving rise to a weary cheer from Louisa and Tom’s car, but with a wave onwards the sandy-haired farmer climbed back up into the cab of his truck and set off again at speed. The sharp bends and precipitous dips had gone on for another ten minutes before they finally arrived, in pitch darkness, at the house. Il Vignacce. And even now Justine felt herself quail a little as the memory of the journey returned, and with it the sensation of having arrived at the most obscure and isolated place she had ever seen. She looked around the room to see how the others were reacting to the day’s journey.

  Lucien looked the most buoyant of them, every detail of his appearance shrugging off the journey, but then he usually managed that kind of insouciance. Lucien’s dark hair was springy, and his smooth brown face, faded cotton shirt and worn corduroy trousers gave the impression that he belonged in such a rustic setting; this was his stock in trade. His photograph had always looked so perfect beside his short-lived gardening column that Justine sometimes wondered whether his face, and his gamekeeper’s shirts, had got him the job, rather than any expertise in the subject.

  Lucien smiled as he looked around the room, giving off his habitual cheerful optimism. It was hard to believe, to look at him now, thought Justine, that Lucien had been reluctant to come on this trip; he looked as though he was ready for anything.

  For the others the burden of expectation that accompanied every painstakingly planned holiday, that crucial time away from the office or the school run, was all too visible on their strained faces, along with the awful possibility of disappointment as they looked around the house, checking for ugly furniture, cramped accommodation, inauthentic fittings, a blighted view. Not much chance of the last, thought Justine, as they seemed to be miles from anywhere, not a light nor a sound. Although in the inky darkness that enveloped the house it was impossible to be sure. Looking around the room, Justine thought it didn’t look too bad at all; the floors were terracotta, the steel shutters painted a muted brown; old country furniture was set about with a few functional modern additions.

  Justine looked at her husband again. Perhaps it was because Lucien didn’t work, at least not in any conventional sense, that he wasn’t really looking at the trip as a holiday and therefore wasn’t expecting perfect relaxation; for him it was a challenge. And of course whereas the others had been driving across Europe for almost three days, Lucien and Justine, unencumbered by children and all their paraphernalia, had only had to travel from the airport.

  ‘Good job we stopped at that supermarket,’ said Lucien. ‘God knows when we’ll feel up to getting out of here again. Shall I start cooking?’ And he pushed up his sleeves and pulled open a kitchen cupboard at random.

  ‘Saucepans look all right,’ he said, holding one up for inspection. ‘Nice and heavy.’ He began to sort through the carrier bags piled at his feet.

  Louisa and Tom were sitting at the table, a couple of chairs apart, and they made no move to help Lucien, although Louisa smiled approvingly when he suggested lemon risott
o. Two pendant lampshades hung low over the table, casting a warm light on the couple’s faces and from over their heads came the sound of children’s feet running, and the squeak of bedsprings. The lampshades trembled slightly with the vibrations transmitted through the terracotta by some vigorous bouncing.

  ‘He is marvellous,’ Louisa said, turning to Justine. ‘You’re so lucky. What I wouldn’t do for a man who can cook.’ She looked pointedly at her husband, who smiled in a benignly unfocussed way, and ignored her inference with what seemed like equanimity.

  ‘I mean,’ Louisa continued, ‘you would have thought that a restaurant critic might have some interest in cooking his own food, wouldn’t you?’

  Tom nodded and smiled. ‘Too many cooks, though, darling,’ he said, mildly. ‘We can’t all be multi-talented, can we? Clattering away together in the kitchen.’

  Poor Tom, thought Justine. Not because Louisa was getting at him, again, but because whereas Louisa looked no older than she had when they first married, her short hair still a bright untarnished blonde, her skin smooth and golden against the clean pink cotton of her shirt, Tom looked old, suddenly – not just middle-aged but almost decrepit. His blue eyes were faded, and his fair skin had reddened, become as coarse as if he worked outside. Or lived rough, she thought. Although, obviously, given the perfect comfort of Tom and Louisa’s Regency house in Hammersmith, with its cream sofas, polished wood and silver-framed family photographs, that was not a possibility. Perhaps it’s just age, Justine thought. We’re all getting older.

  Behind Tom and Louisa in the warm kitchen, where the light faded into the shadows at the far end of the long table, stood Martin, his serious, saturnine face shadowed with a day’s growth. Justine wondered where they’d stopped on the way down. Some motel in the Rhone valley, Martin had said, where perhaps he had not thought to shave. Perhaps he’s letting things slip just now, thought Justine; something about that wasn’t right. Martin had always been a very clean man, his clothes crisp from the iron, a smell of soap – even in the middle of all the turmoil. She thought of Martin’s modest North London house with Evie in it, the door opening on to a place that was always warm and bright, everything it contained somehow organized, speaking of a purpose and a proper place. Martin’s shirts on the ironing board, Dido’s sports kit bagged and labelled, the boots ranked in the hall. For the first time it occurred to Justine, who had only herself to organize, that Evie might have found it a burden, keeping all that order in others’ lives. Not any more.