Chapter 34
While Jack worked, measuring, checking, examining, Florence wandered the estate but didn’t dare go too far afield.
Something about the unyielding little island disturbed her and she felt she needed to stay in the vicinity of the house.
So she reached for her notebook and began to write notes for her novel.
She often watched the mountain changing colour, purple, blue, green, grey, even ochre, depending on the light, but there were times when her skin crawled, and she felt its malevolence.
People had died on that mountain and in this house; she was sure of it and their deaths had been violent.
She had not seen even a glimmer of another person but for the same driver of the donkey and cart, and he’d only come by to make a delivery.
She listened to the plaintive sound of the sea and wind and felt again that something was waiting for her here, although what it was seemed no clearer than it had been before.
She picked flowers, heavenly scented roses, and pungent bunches of herbs which she dotted about the place.
It should have been paradise but there was no birdsong and there was something awfully forbidding about that.
The mountain was too imposing and the house too still, as if all the life had been stolen from it.
Discordant notes rang in her head. Bells, whistles, and a shrill high-pitched ringing.
She didn’t feel safe and tiptoed around the house dreading that someone might be about to leap out of the shadows and carry her off.
She felt that phantom people were calling out for rescue, their voices drifting in with the sea breezes.
As she looked around, she could almost feel their sadness, their pain, their trauma, and it scared her.
Yes, it was beautiful here in a way, but also chilling and she felt as trapped as the people who had once lived here must have been.
And when Jack had asked the housekeeper about what had happened to them, the woman wouldn’t say.
When Florence told Jack she felt disturbed by the menacing atmosphere in and around the house, he said, ‘We’ll be gone soon. I agree it’s atmospheric, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just your imagination.’
She knew it was not.
The days slid into each other and at the end of the first week he declared a day off.
‘I have a surprise,’ he said. ‘I’ve organised us a boat. Well, it’s a dinghy, really, but Claudia has made us some lunch to take.’
‘She likes you.’
He laughed. ‘She knows you won’t understand a word she says, so she speaks to me.’
‘She speaks to you because you are the man.’
He pulled a face. ‘And terribly important,’ he said in a mock-pompous voice.
She shook her head. ‘Idiot.’
‘Well, this idiot would like to invite mademoiselle on a little boat trip, and it needs to be today while the weather holds.’
She was happy to leave the house, although she usually loved old things, forgotten things that left a trace of what had gone before.
In France she’d searched the local bookshops for out-of-print cookery books and gardening manuals.
As a child it had been fairy tales. In Devon she had become a hoarder of ribbons, string, safety pins, buckles, pencils, hair clips and so on.
But this old palace was different. There were bullet holes in the walls at the back of the house, and whatever had happened she felt it still there.
After crossing the island and once settled in the dinghy with its Johnson outboard motor, they chugged southwards from Marina Corta. The flat areas they passed soon gave way to jagged hilltops.
After a while she spotted a beach. ‘We could swim there,’ she called above the sound of the waves and the motor.
‘Let’s see what else there is first. We can always come back.’
They continued past immense cliffs falling sheer into the glittering sea, then a promontory where the lava had formed an arch.
More low cliffs, and then higher cliffs, and after that then a shingle beach, totally deserted.
Further on a stunning stretch of coastline with tiny islands, caves, coves, and copper-coloured cliffs with the purple mountain rising above.
‘This is the best yet,’ she said.
And then they found it. A tiny sheltered beach behind a cliff where he moored the boat and they clambered out.
Despite the sea breezes Florence was hot and sticky but the air was filled with the scent of pine and eucalyptus from just a couple of trees.
Mixed with the salt of the ocean and the baking sand, it felt good, and with a rush of pleasure, she stripped down to her underwear and hurled herself into the sea.
It was not cold, so she splashed and shrieked and then swam for what felt like miles and miles.
Jack had already come out of the water and was examining their lunch. The day had grown brighter, the sky lemony and the sea was tinged with depths of purple.
‘Come on,’ he called when he saw her swimming back. ‘Lunch.’
‘Sky’s a funny colour,’ she said, looking up. ‘Is it all right?’
‘I should think so.’
Invigorated, she shook herself and sat down on a rock to dry herself in the sun.
He took out a few packages wrapped in waxed paper. ‘Cheese, I think,’ he said and unwrapped it. ‘Here. Pecorino flavoured with peppercorns.’
She picked out a larger packet. ‘This one is bread.’ She broke a piece off and handed it to him.
‘Have you had enough cheese?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit salty.’
‘Aha!’ he said. ‘I spy salami. Already sliced.’
He passed her a couple of slices and she sniffed it. ‘A mix, I think, of pork and lean beef. She took a bite. ‘Gorgeous. Really chewy.’
‘There are some tomatoes too, and wine.’
‘It’ll send me to sleep if I drink wine.’
When they’d finished their lunch, and the wine, Jack lay back with his hands behind his head and his breathing instantly slowed.
Florence went in search of some shade, getting a little wet as she clambered over the still water in the weatherworn rock pools, picking her way carefully over the rocks but grazing her knee a little.
She found a craggy inlet with a small cave that seemed ideal.
If she nodded off in the midday sun she’d get a headache, but this shade was perfect, and it would be lovely to fall asleep to the gentle rhythm of the sea.
Later, when she woke, she heard Jack calling her name through the rising sounds of a storm.
She rose to her feet and realised that the sea had swollen while she had been sleeping, and waves were now smashing against the rocks.
She couldn’t work out how to reach the beach where Jack had been without clambering right into the swirling water which she feared might sweep her away.
She couldn’t even see Jack as she stared at the sea, nor the little boat either.
Huge waves were battering the cliffs, foaming as they leapt into the air and the ominous violet sky was shifting to black.
She stood on a section of rock pushing her back hard against the cliff face to stop herself slipping.
She shouted his name, but the wind whipped her voice away.
Her heart thumped. This did not look good.
Maybe the water wouldn’t fill the cave and she could just wait it out. The sand felt quite dry at the back of it. But really, she had no idea. She shouted for Jack again. Nothing.
She glanced up to see if there might be another way to get out and saw him standing on a rock many feet above and to the side of her staring grimly at the water. She flapped her arms to attract his attention. He spotted her and she could see the relief flooding his face.
‘Wait there,’ he said. ‘I’m coming down.’
Her heart lurched as he began to descend, slipping and sliding on crumbling rocks that gave way beneath his feet. Even if he does reach me, she thought, how are we ever going to crawl back up there again battered by this torrent?
The wind shrieked and the water began spinning at the cave’s entrance.
She’d never be able to get past this. Beyond her the sea was growing even wilder.
She heard the pounding waves and the crack of thunder, the noise so loud she could hardly think.
And then she saw Jack had reached her, was leaning over the cave’s entrance from above and holding out his hand.
‘Come on,’ she managed to hear him shout. ‘Come on. Now. We don’t have long.’
She would have to take a leap of faith. Jump to reach his hand. But if she missed, she’d be in the water and dragged away in moments. Even Jack couldn’t save her from that.
Scared to move, but also scared not to move, she took a breath as he yelled at her to hurry.
Her heart almost stopped as she stretched out and leapt and then, oh God, she felt his hands grasping hers.
He began to haul her up. She scraped her flesh against the rocks and could barely breathe for fear of Jack losing his grip.
But he did not and when he finally dragged her over the top, they lay together panting, exhausted from the effort. The storm seemed to pause too.
After a while he rose to his feet and helped her up, but then the wind redoubled with the force of a cyclone.
‘Keep low. It will be all right if we zigzag our way. Try to feel for footholds.’
She nodded and saw what he meant. But she couldn’t feel any part of her body, let alone her feet.
When they finally reached a slightly flatter patch they rested again for a moment, and he pointed a little further up. ‘There’s a hut. We’ll head for it and sit out the storm.’
They staggered on through driving wind and rain while concentrating on not missing their footing on the shifting stones and feeling that it would never end.
But then, at last, they reached the hut.
He pushed open the door of the little weather-beaten place and they both fell into it, shivering but amazed that they’d made it.