A Funeral in Fiesole Read online

  ‘Concentrate!’ Speaking to myself was permissible now I was completely alone and getting used to it. This was no time to check in the mirror for tell-tale lines around my mouth. There was no comfort in bright light and heavy traffic. There was no longer the comfort of turning to John at every juncture for confirmation of a feeling, or some advice about something I already had decided. There was a dawning knowledge it was the case, though, through at least the last five years of our long marriage. I more and more often made things out myself. I knew what I wanted, yet deferred to him out of what – politeness? Reassurance? Companionship? Habit? Too hard to work out. Dubious, random analysis was without question best kept out of the car in complicated Italian traffic. They drove like demons, never batted an eyelid, and terrified the wits out of this driver, used to Australian traffic and drivers in larger cars, who obeyed signs and signals, rules and everything, as a matter of course.

  Here, they charged onward, missing each other, and me, by a hairsbreadth, with a margin of seconds, quite happily breaking road rules, but merging like magic, and never interrupting the flow. Yes, magic. I could get used to it. Could I? Could I abandon everything I had in Australia and live in Italy? Among these brinkman drivers? With fine lines around my mouth?

  It was a question I had to ask myself, because of the bequest. Also, there was the combination of feelings aroused by John’s departure, and all the reawakened memories of a childhood spent more or less in an Italian way.

  There were of course a number of bureaucratic hurdles to leap. I still held my UK citizenship, but without a passport. I could possibly obtain the right papers to reside in Italy. The European Union and the Schengen Agreement allowed it, without much difficulty, I was told. The prospect of weeks of form-filling and interviews, though, was not attractive.

  I did have weeks. I had as much time I liked. I did not have to be anywhere for anyone. There was no one to share things with either. I could do what I pleased, but would it please me?

  Before bureaucracy, I had to address my mental and financial situation. Money, now – since finding the crumpled lotto ticket – was not a real issue. So time, age, desires, plans, energy, and ability; these were the aspects I had to address. Not for me a breakneck dash into a future full of doubt and unknowns, despite a gradual getting used to having cash in the bank. One or two of my siblings would doubtless have raced impulsively towards their fate, if I remembered their personalities well, and if they still acted in the same precipitous, devil-may-care attitudes of their childhood.

  It was fortunate my writing could be done anywhere I pleased. A literary career is fully portable. Turning a new page at fifty-eight – or thereabouts – was not something someone like me did without the necessary contemplation of all the pros and cons. Would I still have been this cautious twenty years ago?

  My heart was not broken twenty years ago. I had to pull myself up. I drew up abruptly behind a delivery van and thought about my heart. Like anybody else, I did have my share of adolescent pangs which seemed like the end of the world as I knew it, when boyfriends came and went. Still, the way a heart is broken at fifty-eight is not the same as when it gets fractured at nineteen.

  But where on earth was Via Pietro Mascagni? I found myself going past one orange building for the third time. Going round in circles, I was, slowly; infuriating someone behind me now, who beeped his strident horn and vroomed around my little rental. All right, all right. Ah, there – the inviting and rare opportunity of a vacant diagonal parking space was not to be ignored. Not in Italy. I took it, easily and with some relief.

  I found her.

  I found her in a little ground floor apartment in a big block of putty-coloured flats with balconies. Not as old or decrepit as I expected.

  ‘It’s me. It’s Paola, Matilde.’

  ‘O cielo! It is you.’ She made such a fuss of me. It was so heartening to be welcomed so warmly. I placed a bunch of flowers in her arms, and we crushed it between us in a hearty embrace.

  ‘Tesorin! Tesoro!’ She called me her treasure, her little treasure, like she always did, and I thought back to the last time I saw her. It could have been some time after my second series was published, I thought. Too long.

  The changes were few – although thinner and greyer, she seemed sprightly, and led me to a little sitting room, where a younger woman sat. ‘This is my niece, she looks after me, now I need looking after!’ She gazed directly at the pale woman in a pink cardigan. ‘Say hello to Paola, Anna – she has come to visit and chat. All the way from Australia. Her mother … ah! Her mother is now with the angels.’

  All I could do was nod in agreement and salutation, at once. Matilde took my hand, hooked it under her arm and patted it, like she would do when I was little.

  It was a pleasant enough room, and while I was settled into an easy chair, Matilde went to hers, and creaked into an upright position which obviously favoured her back.

  ‘It’s been many years, Matilde.’

  ‘Eh? It’s like yesterday, my dear. How easily you slip into the old language with me. You were always clever with languages. I don’t imagine you can speak much Italian in Australia.’

  Someone had said she was very deaf, but she seemed to understand everything I said. ‘It all comes back to me.’

  ‘You have a lovely voice. Very clear. Very sharp. Hear this, Anna?’ She regarded her niece, who was arranging my flowers in a too-small vase. ‘I hear everything she says, everything my Paola says.’ She smiled at me, eyes clear and happy. ‘Now let me tell you why I was not there on the day …’

  ‘At the funeral.’

  ‘Yes – you must have wondered. Your mother and I … ha ha! We prepared ourselves, you see. We made plans. We agreed with one another. So we said our goodbyes in our way, our way. We always agreed about things.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘She was lovely. A real lady. A real angel. Given to strange impulses, but lovely, lovely.’

  Strange impulses? I did not remember Mama behaving impetuously at all.

  ‘You see, one needs to be impulsive as a woman. One has to do things quickly, when the time and opportunity present themselves. One must be prepared ... to jump! She understood what she wanted to do, and she did it. Her motto was festina lente.’

  I had an idea what it meant. ‘Hasten slowly?’

  ‘You were always a bright girl. Yes. Do you still have your phenomenal memory, eh?’

  I had to smile. Phenomenal. ‘I remember things, yes. Matilde – you planned with Mama we should all come to see you.’

  ‘Eh? Eh?’ She faced me, tilting her head. It meant her hearing was erratic, not always sharp.

  I went on. ‘I would have come to see you anyway, you know.’

  She rotated her head, and I saw why. It was her left ear. I went round to sit on her right, and she wagged a finger at me. ‘How quick you are, Tesorin. What a treasure you always were. Now, promise me …’

  ‘Yes.’

  Matilde gave a high-pitched laugh and slapped palms on knees. ‘Wonderful! Wonderful – it’s a sign of real generosity. You say yes, not ask what.’ She beamed again. ‘Be careful to whom you give this delightful generosity.’

  ‘Matilde – I’m nearly sixty.’

  ‘You are fifty-eight.’

  ‘It might be a bit too late for it to matter.’

  ‘Never. Never too late. It always matters – down to the last five minutes of your life. Your mother had it. She knew it. Her generosity was the clever kind.’

  Anna, the busy niece, brought in a tray laid with an embroidered cloth. And yes – there was a plate of cantuccini next to the coffee pot and little cups.

  ‘You still bake.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You still make biscotti – it’s wonderful.’

  ‘Ha ha! I knew at thirteen I would die in the kitchen … some kitchen … somewhere. Now, drink your coffee, and I’ll take you inside – to my bedroom. I have something for you …’ She did not stoop or shuffle, somet
hing remarkable at her age. ‘And later, we will have some vin santo with one of those biscuits. Do you remember how …?’

  I stopped. There was her enormous bed, and propped up against its foot was the painting. Basile’s painting. The umbrellas at Santa Maria. ‘Matilde!’ I whipped around.

  Her face was solemn, her eyes bright. ‘Look at it, look at it. Beautiful. Your mother wanted you to have it, my love. It is only for you, a bit of a segreto, you know.’

  I saw why it was a secret. So Mama knew how I felt at sixteen, at seventeen. She guessed about my affection for Basile. I tried to hold back tears, and somehow managed.

  ‘Bello, eh?’

  ‘Yes, beautiful.’ I leaned forward and peered closely at the picture. The paint had cracked and crazed a little, but it only made it appear more atmospheric, a bit hazy. There was Basile’s signature, on a small umbrella on the right, as I instantly remembered. ‘I came all the way to Fiesole, knowing it was the only thing I wanted.’

  ‘Take it with you to Australia.’

  ‘To Australia!’ It would have been too complicated to tell her I might be making other plans. Besides, they were not fully-formed plans yet. ‘Matilde – this is an incredible surprise. Where is … do you know what happened to Basile?’

  ‘Pick it up and bring it with you. You look like you need some vin santo!’ She laughed and walked back ahead of me. ‘Anna – pour the wine!’ Her ciabatte clattered on the tiled floor. They were the style of slip-ons she always wore around the house. Very little about her had changed. Her observations were no different. ‘So you all coped with the day?’

  ‘Suzanna … she coped by wearing red shoes.’

  ‘Ha ha!’

  ‘Brod and Nigel needed sympathy from others.’

  ‘And they found some in you, yes?’

  ‘I tried, Matilde, I said a few words to each of them, even Suzanna, but I don’t know … something in me keeps them distant.’

  ‘You are strong, Tesoro. But the strongest sometimes need the most sympathy. Who was there for you, eh? Who?’

  She was not trying to comfort me, but to show me something. How could she guess my aloneness? It had to be plain in my face.

  ‘You flew alone from Australia?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You do not seek sympathy. It’s not pride that separates you from your siblings, you know. Ah … in English you have no real word for superbia, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘You mean hubris?’

  ‘Maybe – you are insulated, like a … do you remember how Donato used to lag pipes? Insulated, in his way, to prevent things. You protect yourself before you are attacked.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘And surprises get you when you are least protected, of course.’

  ‘I know. John has left me, Matilde.’

  ‘Ah! I saw it in your face at the door. You have now … oh. Oh! There is no mother to comfort you now, Tesorin. Come here.’ She embraced me, so sweetly it was hard to hold back tears.

  ‘It was such a shock. So sudden.’

  ‘It clears the way, my treasure. It clears the way so you can find contentment. He could not have made his mind up in a day. Nothing is sudden for those who do the leaving. Your mother would have told you this. I tell you in her place.’

  I could not say a word.

  She let me go and gazed into my face. ‘Your mother …’ Matilde crossed herself. ‘She would have given you comfort. She would have understood, you know. Bless her dear heart. Your mother might have been impulsive, especially when it came to … listen – you are old enough now.’

  I laughed. ‘I might be, Matilde.’

  ‘She said she would never find another love like your father, so it didn’t matter one way or another who she had fun with, or with whom she spent a holiday here and there. She was impulsive, not like you, and for an Englishwoman, quite appassionata, but … she and Basile!’ She cleared her throat.

  I waited for her to pause, make her observations, and continue.

  ‘Basile was not of the same nature, you see. There was not an impetuous bone in his body, that man. Basile, after a while, removed himself from the picture, my dear. You might know why.’

  I did remember how deliberate he was. How precise. It was why his portraits were so sought after, but he painted very few. Landscapes and streetscapes were what was he mostly did. I thought, and thought, but could find no reason why he would leave. ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘He did not love easily. We all know the type. But when he did, like Donato, he loved deeply, and forever.’ She leaned forward, and placed a hand on the small of her back. ‘You were very dear to Basile, Paola.’ There was a meaningful flicker in her eye. ‘And you know you loved him too.’

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. ‘And Mama …’

  ‘Your Mama was not stupid. She might have been fancy-free and impetuous, but she liked spontaneity, not recklessness. She was a caring and careful mother.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Emotion gripped me, and would not let go. I only realised my eyes were full of tears when Anna placed a small box of tissues in my lap.

  ‘So after a few summers, when you developed into a most delightful young woman – do you remember wearing your mother’s pearls! – after a few years, he disappeared. Not for him such sorts of complication. Not for him. A most moral and upright person. He never married, you know. Never.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘His name! He became quite famous around Naples.’

  ‘He went south.’

  She agreed, and indicated I should help myself to a glass from Anna’s tray. Her delectable vin santo. ‘Back to his people. Back to painting the famous bay. A couple of years after he died, there was a brief biography on the television.’ She nodded again, and sipped wine. ‘Have a cantuccio with this. Perfetto!’

  Out of politeness I nibbled a biscuit and drank some of the wine. She was right, it was perfect. The reaction to hearing of Basile’s death, though, made me breathless, and I choked on a biscuit crumb, which made my tearful eyes worse.

  ‘Tesoro! Carina! You are moved by the emotion. My dearest Paola, he was an old man, and he left a wealth of paintings of the bay of Naples, of Pompeii, Solfatara, and other places around Campania. He became quite famous. They catalogued his works.’

  ‘There was a programme on television.’ Anna wanted to impress, and she did. ‘They showed how he was buried underneath a spreading tree, as his very name demanded. Sottalbero.’

  ‘What else?’ How could I have missed all this, all Basile’s life?

  They told me as much as they knew. After half an hour, we loaded the painting into the boot of the small car, embraced, and I started the long way back, wondering whether I would ever see Matilde again.

  Nigel

  Exasperation

  Paola returned to find us all arguing on the terrace. I heard her climb the big staircase to her room, and she appeared a minute later in the terrace doorway, looking out to where we all sat. For a moment she cut a silhouette, but when she approached, there was no doubt, from the expression on her face, that she had heard our loud voices.

  ‘How was Matilde?’

  Paola emerged onto the darkening terrace. ‘It’s chilly out here now. Have you been out here the whole time?’ She peered from one face to another, her mouth a straight pale line, her eyes sharp. Her expression no longer felt like she wanted to stick something sharp in each of our eyes. ‘What’s … what are you discussing?’ Her voice was not as composed as her face.

  ‘Are we being loud? Did you hear us …?’

  ‘I could hear you from the car.’

  ‘Arguing! About the will. Whether or not to accept it!’ Suzanna’s voice seemed a touch too soft, intentionally lowered, for effect. In the gathering dusk, she seemed ruffled, with pink cheeks and visible teeth; an angered cat.

  I stood back and watched the three of them. Suzanna fidgety and fretful, Brod apparently guilty he had introduced the topic, eve
n though he knew it would have to be mentioned at some point, and newly-arrived Paola perplexed and tired by her drive to Prato, struggling to stay calm. No, pacified by something. Her visit with Matilde must have made a difference.

  ‘Let me pour you a drink.’ I tried not to sound like a peacemaker, but it was precisely how it came out.

  At last Paola answered my question. ‘Matilde is in excellent health and spirits. It was such a lovely visit. She’s well cared for by her niece. Quite easy to find, too – if you know where to start!’ She sat and sighed. ‘I’ll give you all directions – I wish I’d had some myself.’ She realized she had sliced our argument in half, and appeared like she had no desire for it to resume, even though it was she who wanted to discuss the will all along.

  ‘I’ll have to continue dinner soon,’ I said, further fracturing the momentum of the lively discussion.

  ‘I thought we were going out.’ Suzanna had settled somewhat.

  ‘And I thought we were all of one mind about accepting Mama’s will. There’s the important documento to sign.’ Brod stared at Paola.

  Harriet placed a hand over her forehead in exasperation. ‘Brod – it was you who raised the question. It was you.’

  ‘And I was speaking to Nigel …’ He seemed to resent Harriet’s participation.

  ‘Oh!’

  I remembered it was when Grant had quietly left the terrace earlier, leaving us to what was obviously a private family conference. I wondered if the others minded my wife taking such an active part in it, since even Lewis was invisible, heavy navy sweater zipped up to his chin, blurring into the darkening sky, happy to listen without saying a word.

  Brod smiled and fairly bisected his face from ear to ear. In the deepening gloom, with the dusky indigo sky a backdrop emphasizing the size of his ears, he was comical. The moustache was awful. I had an idea he might have teased us all into a state of fury and doubt, quite on purpose.