Late Season Read online

  Time passed and Anna couldn’t leave, not just yet; she had no money saved, and her apprenticeship was barely begun. Her mother came down to the city on the bus once, but she looked so sad and small in her worn coat and darned stockings, bewildered by the traffic, the raucous city voices and the towering buildings, that Anna didn’t ask her to come again. Anna’s grandfather died, less than a year after Anna left, and her grandmother – his wife – found him among his vines, a pruning knife in his hand, dead as he reached up to rub the bloom off a heavy bunch of grapes. Anna went home for the funeral and if her mother and grandmother had said any word to her that they needed her she would have refused to return to the city. But they said nothing, only looking at her sadly, as though she had become a stranger and they weren’t sure how to talk to her. The Germans were still in Montequercio, settling in as if they owned the place now; Anna felt as though she was slipping away.

  After her grandfather’s death Anna would return home for snatched days here and there, going back to Rome each time with cardboard suitcases filled with any eggs and ham and cheese that her mother had saved for her, because rationing meant that these things were almost impossible to find in the city. Anna suspected that the Vannuccis might have had this in mind when offering their hospitality to a country cousin, and certainly they all ate very well in the month or two following one of Anna’s visits to Montequercio. But the time between trips home was long, and to begin with she felt her separation from the country very keenly.

  On Sundays sometimes Anna would go for a walk in the Borghese Gardens, but although she liked to look out over the city she found it a sad, dusty place, every stone bench occupied by a courting couple and not much in the way of greenery. You could walk beside the Tiber in places, but that too was just an alien, polluted reminder of the rivers at home: the Ombrone and the Merse, so dark and cool and smelling of the forest. So Anna preferred, in the end, to wander in the market at Porta Portese on her day off, jostled by the crowds and pickpockets. The air was heavy with the rich smell of tripe cooking in onions and tomatoes, and a sour whiff came off the cheeses piled for sale at every corner. The din of hawkers and bartering customers deafened her, too, but at least it was a place that could never remind Anna of home.

  As the war changed, the city became a terrible place. The English began to land in Sicily and then closer, at Anzio, and it seemed that the Germans would not, as they had boasted in the streets of Rome, simply throw them back into the sea. There was no food; people were starving in the streets, eating boiled shoe-leather and setting traps to catch larks and swallows in the parks. No one could say whether it was better to stay put or leave the city; there were dire warnings against returning to the countryside where there were pockets of intense fighting and the Americans flew low over the hills, bombing the refugees as they fled the city. While she was unable to return home Anna was determined to save; that was her only goal, but gradually it became clear to her that her money was worth less every day. Finally there was nothing left to buy, for love or money. However hard Anna tried, after she had given the Vannuccis something for her keep (the few beans and rice and dried figs that constituted their diet now that she could no longer go home), there was nothing left.

  Then, at last, after months of skirmishes and the daily drone of bombers over their heads, in a vast final conflagration, the war burned itself out. The retreating soldiers bombed some parts of Rome into ruins, but once they had gone and the smoke had cleared, although the streets were now filled with someone else’s army, what remained was once again recognizable as their own city. A farmer who had come to town with black-market eggs brought Anna word that her mother and grandmother were safe, and, for the first time in months, she cried. Sometimes, later, Anna thought she should have gone back home then, but she had nothing to offer them; she had saved nothing. She gave the farmer a bolt of cloth that she had been given in lieu of wages to take back to her mother and asked him to tell them that she was safe, too, and would visit as soon as she could. He didn’t seem surprised that she was staying, but just nodded.

  ‘Best to stay for a bit, eh? There’s nothing out there in the country at the moment, the Germans took everything they could lay their hands on, hard enough feeding themselves just now I should think.’ And Anna, biting back a retort that the city wasn’t exactly paradise, either, had agreed.

  Things did look up, though, and it didn’t take long. Once the war was over, everyone who had a penny put by seemed to want a new dress, one with a tiny waist and a big skirt, just like they were wearing in Paris, so it was said. They wanted little jackets with hidden padding in the shoulders, beading on the lapels and embroidery on the pockets, pearl-buttoned chiffon blouses and figured silk cocktail frocks with sweetheart necklines, and trade became brisker than ever. The mistress of the atelier praised Anna’s work, looking at her sharply for any sign that her best worker was homesick and exclaiming over the neatness of her stitching.

  The truth was that Anna had begun to enjoy her work; she realized that she did, indeed, have a talent, and that afforded her some satisfaction. And after the war years when nothing but cheap stuff was delivered to the atelier and they had to make do with that and whatever they had put by, the materials improved, too. For years the woollen cloth they could get hold of had been handwoven on wooden looms in the mountains, the weave coarse and uneven and it didn’t wear well at all, but even that had been in erratic supply. But then things began to change; it didn’t happen overnight, but surprisingly soon after the English and American soldiers had swept through the country and the ships and trains began to run through Europe again, rolls of machine-made cloth began to turn up, and of a quality Anna had never seen before.

  The room in which Anna worked was suddenly flooded with brilliant colour and seductive texture. Satin-backed crepe, heavy and slippery as water; alpaca and merino from Milan; French silk velvet and Swiss lawn so fine it was almost transparent, the rolls of cloth all stood in ranks almost covering the walls of the workshop. Boxes filled with tiny bugle beads, silvered glass baubles from Murano and buttons of jet and cut crystal appeared. Reels of coloured thread and skeins of embroidery silk, and the travelling salesmen who brought them had the spring back in their step even as they hauled their cardboard suitcases up the stairs to the fourth floor. So Anna, who in her heart of hearts knew that there would be no market in little Montequercio for the skills she had acquired so painstakingly, had stayed put. Soon the sense of having betrayed someone – her mother, or herself, or perhaps even the forests and fields of her childhood – faded, although it never quite disappeared. And when the attic flat next door to the atelier came up at a good rent, she moved out of the Vanuccis’ kitchen and into her own place.

  The apartment was small, of course, no more than two rooms with a door between them, but it was a palace compared with the Vannuccis’ place, and actually quite sizeable by the standards of the time. Anna would never have got the chance to rent it if her employer, suspecting Anna’s dissatisfaction with her living conditions and fearing that she might run away home, had not put a word in with the landlord, and quite likely paid him a little something up front too. The floors were dark cotto, red, thick with wax and undulating where they had been worn down or the old building had moved. But Anna could still remember to this day the joy of closing her own front door behind her, watching the dust motes dance in the sun that poured through the windows, breathing in the clean, dry smell of her own home.

  She had scrubbed the place until every surface gleamed; she polished the windows with a rag and a drop of vinegar in the water, scrubbed the floors and the cracked white tiling in the corner that served as a kitchen until her hands were red and blistered. She had washed the window-frames and the shutters, cleaned out the gutter outside her window, pulled down the cobwebs from the rafters, and even climbed a ladder to clean the beams overhead. She had no furniture of course, to begin with, although there was a little terracotta stove for cooking and warming the place, and the padro
ne had left her an old iron bedframe. It squeaked and had no springs, only a kind of arrangement of interlocking wire hooks, but had been much improved by the purchase of a new mattress. Eventually she had picked up a chair or two, and a table, from the market at Porta Portese, and she liked the way the two rooms began to look. Everything was simple, and clean, and each modest item of furniture, a rush-seated wooden chair, a painted bedhead, a linen cloth on the table, represented a choice she had made.

  Best of all, the apartment was at the top of the building; its small whitewashed rooms were full of light, and Anna was far from the mosquitoes, the smell of drains and the intrusion of footsteps always overhead or in the street. Each room had a window looking out over the rooftops to the south, the curved backs of the terracotta tiles slanting this way and that as far as the eye could see, a palace or a church here and there pushing its profile above the houses of ordinary people. Anna would stand there in the early morning, watching the sun rise over the Villa Borghese, the slice of river gleaming silver off to the right and far below.

  Naturally no one had approved, particularly not Anna’s mother and grandmother, who considered it extraordinary, if not immoral, that she should want to live alone, but there wasn’t much they could do to stop her. Anna had a mind of her own, and always had, they agreed. For their own part the two older women had stayed on in more or less peaceable companionship at the farm together. They still tended the vegetable garden and harvested the olives themselves, although they had given over the farming of the land and the care of the vines to Piero Montale’s father in return for an annual rent.

  By now Anna knew what she wanted, and she knew she would be able to pacify her mother, in the end; she was almost thirty and she had had enough of living in the Vannuccis’ kitchen. Cousin Eleonora and her husband had always been kind to her, in a perfunctory sort of way, and she knew they had once needed the money she brought in, but they needed it no longer. She had seen off the advances of the oldest of her cousin’s sons, Giannino; her second cousin once removed, he obviously considered the family connection to be distant enough for intimacy to be acceptable, even if Anna didn’t. And if Anna couldn’t have the freedom the hills and fields around Montequercio would allow her, at least she could have her own place in the city.

  In a way, of course, Anna’s mother had been right about the hazards of a woman living alone. If Anna had not had her own place, she wouldn’t have ended up with Paolo, either. But then there were so many pieces to that particular puzzle. If the Germans hadn’t killed her father and the war hadn’t changed things, if she hadn’t been a good seamstress, if Cinecitta had never been built and the film stars had not come to Rome, if she had been blonde not dark, rich not poor, then Anna would never have met Paolo’s father. The same variables as applied to every union, in fact. Where Anna considered herself fortunate was that, with her own place, she had managed to keep Paolo, whereas a more dependent woman, a woman more closely observed, might have lost him.

  Standing in the old kitchen over her mother’s pan and stirring, Anna shook her head fiercely at the memory. She had never wanted a husband and she certainly hadn’t wanted a baby, not at thirty-eight. But of course when he had arrived she wanted him right enough.

  The onions were beginning to brown on the stove and Anna put in the pieces of beef, half a jar of her own tomatoes, marjoram and a glass of wine. She put on the pan’s heavy lid and turned the heat down low, wiping her eyes with a corner of her apron, and tutting. Onions. The stufatina needed two hours or so, which was just enough time for Paolo to get from Rome to Montequercio. Anna took off her apron, picked up her cushion and went outside to the terrace, where the sun would dry her eyes for her, while she waited.

  6

  By the time Martin and Dido arrived back from their search for the river, Louisa, Tom and the boys had left for their picnic in the opposite direction, up into the woods in search of adventure and a ridge with a view. Lucien was looking for firewood among the trees above the house; Justine could see his dark shape moving against the pale trunks from where she sat, a book unopened in her lap. She had found some deckchairs stacked below the stone stairs, their striped canvas bleached almost white by many seasons’ exposure to the elements. Her sleeves pulled down, her face shaded by a wide brim, Justine sat in the delicious, illicit warmth of the sun with her eyes closed and let her mind go as blank as the golden glare through her eyelids.

  What would Evie be doing if she was here? She would be lying beside Justine in another deckchair, with Dido – too big for it but that wouldn’t have bothered Evie – on her lap, arms around her neck. She would have been planning a shopping trip for them, subverting Louisa’s cultural agenda, Tom’s restaurant visit. Girls all together off to Rome or Florence in the car, Evie describing the perfect pair of shoes, shoes she knew she’d find in some back alley if she looked hard enough. Declaring how wonderful Italy was, the blueness of the sky, the sweetness of the peaches, how lovely it was to be all together. Feeling a prickle at the back of her eyes, Justine squeezed them together then opened them again in the glare. No one there.

  Louisa had packed up some of yesterday’s bread, tomatoes and supermarket ham and called the boys down from the fence, but Tom was still nowhere to be seen, so Justine had left Lucien still poring over the map and gone to look for him. She had found Tom sitting at the foot of a tree, hand curled around a beer bottle, looking up at the canopy of leaves glowing over their heads in the midday sun. He sighed when Justine sat down beside him, and looked up at her.

  ‘Are they all ready?’ he asked. The sound of the boys’ excited voices, arguing over what they were to carry, was audible on the far side of the house.

  Justine nodded. She thought of Tom’s sons, who were so intent on the present, so uninterested in the adults. It had struck her when she saw them, as it often did with children – perhaps because she had none of her own – how remarkable a thing family resemblance was. How odd it must be, she thought, to be reminded of yourself whenever you look at your child. Like going back into the past; the temptation, as in science fiction, to change the future, to start all over again.

  ‘They’re lovely boys,’ she said. ‘Sam’s very sweet to his brother, isn’t he? And he looks just like you.’

  Tom brightened. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and Angus is just like Louisa. Always rushing about, furious about something.’ He fell silent again for a moment, and Justine wondered whether he hadn’t understood they were all waiting for him, and she was going to have to pull him up bodily. But then he went on.

  ‘How could it have happened, Just? She should be here too.’

  Justine knew he was talking about Evie, and she shrugged helplessly. ‘I know,’ she said with resignation, relinquishing once and for all the hope that the holiday might have been a chance for all of them to move on. She sighed. ‘I can’t help thinking I should have listened a bit more carefully, she might have wanted to give us a clue she was unhappy. But it never occurred to me. Evie was never unhappy.’ Justine frowned. ‘Or that’s what I thought.’ She looked back towards the house, no longer sure.

  Tom put the beer bottle to his lips and upended it. When he put it down again he was frowning. ‘Well –’ There was something in his voice, a note of hesitation, demurral, that made Justine lean forward, wanting to know what he was about to say. There was something confused in the look he gave her and for a moment Justine thought he was about to confess something to her. But then they heard Louisa calling from above them, a distinct edge in her voice now, and Tom shook his head.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said, and with a groan he stood up and walked towards the sound of his wife’s voice.

  Now they were gone, Tom and Louisa carrying their insulated bags and a rug up the dusty path while the boys scrambled behind them, and in her deckchair in the shade of the plum tree while Lucien went on with his wood-gathering Justine was thinking about Tom’s state of mind.

  Justine had known Tom well for almost fifteen years, on and off, and
over that time she had learned to take his ebullient good temper for granted, and to grow very fond of him. She was on his rota of lunch companions, all of whom had to be willing to submit to minute interrogation on subtleties of flavour, restaurant décor and table service in return for a free meal – if not always a good one – in his cheerful company once or twice a year. Now she thought about it, the most recent of these lunches, perhaps five months earlier, had been less comfortable than usual.

  The restaurant was brand new, open for less than a week but already trailed in advance by almost every column except Tom’s. He had arrived late, and she’d had to wait outside for him, not knowing what name he’d used to book. Not for more than ten minutes but, still, Tom was never late. Once inside, against the bleached wood and sleek leather banquettes he suddenly looked old and uneasy, out of place in a way he’d never been before however modern the décor. The impression had been confirmed during the meal; Tom had been distracted, hardly paying attention to any of the details he was supposed to register. For once Justine had had to prompt him, offering her opinion on the menu, the atmosphere, the waiting staff, before it was asked for. The lunch had troubled Justine for some time afterwards, although she persuaded herself he must still have been recovering from a bout of flu Louisa said he’d succumbed to the previous month, just after Christmas.

  Now, sitting in the warm shade, in a place where they should all have been at their most relaxed, Justine found herself wondering whether even that flu had been a disguise for something else. Since their arrival in Italy there seemed to have been a melancholy subtext to everything Tom had undertaken, even his efforts at bonhomie the previous evening. It occurred to Justine that she hadn’t seen Tom and Louisa together for some time, and with a lurch she wondered whether their marriage was going wrong. She found the thought upsetting, and to her surprise she realized that she had always considered them a model of the attraction of opposites, or of the marriage that can survive the test of time and imperfection, even more than Martin and Evie’s more mysterious, passionate union.