Chapter 7 Rafaella
Rafaella
‘Hold still.’ The words were muffled; Silvana’s mouth was full of pins as she moved slowly around Rafaella’s inert body. She was pinning the baby-blue fabric Rafaella had chosen weeks earlier, back when she had cared about how she looked for Cosimo’s return.
Now none of it mattered. The villa gates had remained closed for the past few days as the Franchettis sequestered themselves behind the high walls of their garden.
Their high-profile return had been followed up by a conspicuously private retreat once Valentina Fabiani had left for Gallipoli, pursued by the paparazzi on their scooters.
Something must have happened, everyone conjectured, and the port was buzzing with rumours: Signora Franchetti was on the verge of a breakdown according to the cobbler’s wife, who had long served as their summer housekeeper and had counted more than two hundred cigarette butts in the bins.
Fon’s mother had heard that Federico was secretly a communist and had dropped out of law school to lead the trade union uprisings in Turin.
Rafaella’s own mother had overheard at the wash-house that a distant relative of the Franchettis had emerged and was laying claim to half their fortune.
All Rafaella knew was what she knew: she had lost her dearest, most precious childhood friends, and it couldn’t be undone.
Even Gina wasn’t her usual sunny self, though she tried hard to pretend otherwise.
They worked their shifts at the caffè by day and sat together on the promenade each evening, legs dangling down over the water as they ate their gelato.
They talked around the void that had unexpectedly opened up in their summer, never acknowledging the bitter disappointment that came from losing at the eleventh hour what they’d been longing for all year.
The Franchettis might only spend six weeks in the port, but that short season provided enough glamour and excitement to make the other forty-six weeks of the year bearable.
‘Step back and let me see you,’ Silvana said bossily, squinting as she admired her handiwork. ‘I think we could go shorter, no?’
‘If you like,’ Rafaella shrugged.
Silvana frowned. ‘If I like? A few weeks ago you were pleading with me for shorter, tighter, now-now-now, and all of a sudden you don’t care?’
‘It’s just a dress.’
‘… I can always cut it on the shin, if you prefer?’
‘If you think that’s best.’
Silvana crossed her arms in front of her. ‘Basta! Talk to me. I know something’s up.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘… Is it Fon?’
‘What? No!’
Rafaella looked away, feeling her big sister’s fingers pressing on her other metaphorical bruise; for Fon had made no attempt to contact her or apologize for what he had done.
In fact, she hadn’t even laid eyes on him since the night of the party.
She knew he knew her daily movements well enough to be able to either find or avoid her in the port.
It stung that he apparently cared so little, he couldn’t even be bothered to apologize.
Was he a coward or a cad? That was the question Gina kept asking her, but Rafaella had no answer.
She didn’t delude herself that their fledgling relationship had been any great love story, but they had always been friends, and there had been trust between them.
She had stuck up for him, aged eleven, when the other boys in school had started calling him names, and they had only stopped because she was pretty enough to have some power over them.
She knew Fon didn’t have his brother’s easy charm and that he could be awkward in groups; he was quiet and a bit of a loner, it was true.
But it wasn’t as if she was the life and soul of every party herself.
And there was much to be said for having a boyfriend who actually listened when she talked and didn’t just look at her with that hungry expression, like most other boys.
She was a realist; she knew full well her daydreams about Cosimo were idle fantasies that could never amount to anything, and when Fon had asked her to go out with him she’d reasoned that at least he was handsome, sweet and safe.
Or so she had thought.
‘Is he trying to move too fast?’
‘Not with me.’ The retort was out before she could stop it.
Silvana’s eyebrows shot up. Nothing ever got past her. ‘With someone else? Did that low-life cheat on you?’ Her sisterly indignation grew with every breath.
‘Silvana, just leave it—’
‘Those Giannellis! They’re rotten to the core, every last one of them!’
‘That’s not true.’
‘No?’ Silvana planted her hands on her hips, always a sign she was about to come in hard with the truth. ‘Luchino told me they were siphoning off ten per cent of everyone’s harvest at the trappito last winter.’
‘What?’ Rafaella was shocked. ‘No!’
‘Si! Where do you think they got the money for that boat, huh?’ Silvana swatted a hand disgustedly in the air. ‘You’re better off without him.’
Rafaella swallowed. Was that true? The Giannellis ran the port’s communal oil press, the trappito, but to skim profits off the villagers’ harvests, to deceive their friends and neighbours …? Then again, how else could they explain affording that boat on a fisherman’s income?
No one could deny the water-skiing enterprise was doing well.
The paparazzi photographs of Valentina Fabiani being towed along in her pink bikini had had an immediate effect, sending an influx of new visitors to the port.
Tito’s and the beach caffè were seeing a surge in business as the tourists hung around before and after their excursions on the water; Rafaella was quickly growing accustomed to the background whine of the engines as she worked, hearing the speedboat ploughing back and forth beyond the harbour wall and curving hard in figures of eight.
‘You can do so much better than him,’ Silvana huffed.
Rafaella shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’ She wondered what her sister would say if she knew she had kissed Cosimo.
A Franchetti! Valentina Fabiani’s boyfriend!
… Cosi, her old friend. There had been many times in the past year when she’d wanted to tell her, to confide her secret, wild hopes for what might happen when he returned; but her sister’s wisdom always came with rough edges and little sentimentality, and Rafaella wasn’t quite ready to have the cold truth served back to her.
‘He’s handsome, though,’ Silvana said, doubling back on her indignation. It wasn’t as if they were spoilt for choice with suitors here. If they had been, she might not have held out for a wedding ring from Luchino for so very long.
Rafaella shrugged. Was that enough? ‘I suppose.’ She wanted to change the subject. ‘Are we done here?’
‘Sure.’ Silvana watched as she wriggled out of the dress and stepped into her shorts, beginning to button up her blouse. ‘And of course, if he does get rich—’
‘Is that your dress?’ Rafaella asked, pointing to the mannequin draped with a dust sheet by the window. She knew exactly how to divert her sister’s attention when needed, and besides, Silvana had been suspiciously secretive about her design, working here alone most evenings to get it done in time.
‘Yes, but – wait!’
But Rafaella had already peered under the sheet. She looked back at Silvana in shock, her gold-flecked eyes wide. ‘… Has Mamma seen this?’
‘Now don’t panic,’ Silvana said quickly, seeing her sister doing exactly that as the dust sheet slithered to the floor. ‘It’s not finished yet.’
It seemed to Rafaella it was scarcely begun! It was going to show a lot of skin, and whatever the fashions might be in Rome, in Tricase Porto a corset was very definitely worn underneath other clothes. What would Father Tommaso say? Nonna Giacosa? ‘Silvana …’
‘There will be lace sleeves!’ Silvana anxiously traced over her own arms, reinforcing the point. ‘And I’m going to overlay the skirt with the satin – it will not just be sheer tulle like that, of course not!’
‘Of course not,’ Rafaella murmured, staring at the mannequin’s bare crotch through the fabric and sending up a silent prayer anyway.
‘And there will be little covered buttons going all the way down the front …’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do! But you mustn’t say anything to Mamma,’ Silvana said, hurriedly throwing the sheet back over the dress lest anyone should see it from the street. ‘She has no vision, but I know it will be perfect when it’s completed! And it is my wedding, after all …’
‘But—’
‘Rafa, promise you won’t say anything?’ This time, Silvana’s fingers found an actual bruise on her arm as she held her insistently.
Rafaella looked back at her sister, who was bossy and always had to be right, but was also rarely wrong. ‘… I promise I won’t say anything.’
‘Not even to Gina?’
She shook her head.
Silvana exhaled, looking relieved. ‘OK, good.’ The crisis was over.
‘Now scram,’ she said, walking Rafaella over to the stairs to make sure she caused no more trouble on her way out.
‘If you want your dress for the wedding too, then I don’t have time to sleep, much less stand here gossiping. I’ll see you later.’
Rafaella stepped outside with relief. The atelier was a hothouse in every way and she closed her eyes for a moment, allowing the sea breeze to ruffle her long hair.
‘Rafaella!’
She looked up to find Fede Franchetti coming along the road on his Vespa, past a long line of stationary cars facing in the opposite direction. There seemed to be some sort of traffic jam further on.
‘I thought it was you!’ he said, stopping alongside her and giving her one of his easy smiles. ‘Where have you been hiding? I came looking for you at the party but couldn’t find you again.’