Chapter 12 Cosimo
Cosimo
The flames leapt high into the sky, embers curling and twisting against the darkness as the villagers danced the pizzica on the sand. Everyone was in high spirits.
Everyone but Cosimo.
The haul from the mattanza had been the port’s best ever, and the wholesalers buying for Asian markets had paid full price to take it off their hands. The fishermen might not be rich, but no one was going to starve this winter.
‘You look like you’d rather be in Rome,’ Fede said, sinking into the sand beside him and handing him a beer.
‘I think I would.’
‘… Funny, given you seem to spend all your time in Rome wishing you were here.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Fede pinned him with a quizzical look but Cosimo stared instead at the burning logs. ‘So why aren’t you hanging out with all of them, then? Because you’re usually inseparable, and no one’s working now.’
Fede jerked his chin towards the figures on the other side of the flames.
Rafaella and Gina were with Clara, Antonia and Donatella; Luigi, Gino, the Giannellis.
They looked golden in the firelight as they laughed and messed about, making jokes with a familiarity from which he’d been shut out.
Dante was leading the celebrations, of course, but Fon was by his side tonight, and Cosimo saw how Rafaella followed him with her eyes – wary but watchful.
With him, on the other hand, she was doing a great job of pretending he didn’t exist, that he hadn’t come back here at all.
He sighed. Was there any point in staying? He still didn’t understand how he had become so grossly implicated in the debacle. He hadn’t betrayed Rafaella, yet he saw rejection in her eyes every time they glanced at one another.
He stared down at the sand. He didn’t think he could hack another five weeks of this. Everyone else greeted him with their usual friendliness, but without the tether to Rafa and Gina, he felt merely tolerated. For the first time in his life here, he felt like an outsider.
‘Cosi?’ Fede prompted. ‘Tell me what’s going on. Have you had a fight with them?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did Rafa look like she’d rather drink tar than come over to ours the other day? And why is she ignoring you now?’
‘It’s nothing to do with me.’ Cosimo shook his head quickly. ‘Romy … got into a tiff with them, so …’
‘About what?’
He hesitated, knowing his elder brother was unaware of their sister’s party-girl status in the capital. ‘… Girl stuff.’
‘So now we’re all the enemy? That doesn’t sound like Rafa,’ Fede frowned, looking over at the group beyond the fire.
They were playing a game with a playing card, holding it to their mouths as they sucked in their breath.
Gino was passing the card to Antonia but he exhaled, the card falling away as she leaned in for it and received a kiss instead.
Everyone laughed loudly as she pretended to be annoyed.
Cosimo sighed, letting his head hang down, elbows looped over his knees.
It was the sort of game they’d played as thirteen-year-olds in Rome, but things were always behind out here.
That was one of the reasons he loved it.
He had kissed Rafaella playing hide-and-seek, of all things, in the moonlight!
‘Well, have you heard from Valentina?’ Fede asked, changing the subject.
Cosimo exhaled sharply. No topic was safe, it seemed. ‘No. They’re doing some night shoots, so the hours make it hard to stay in touch.’
‘Ah,’ Fede nodded. ‘She seemed nice … Very friendly.’
Cosimo glanced at him, checking for traces of sarcasm, but that wasn’t in his brother’s nature.
‘Nice’ and ‘friendly’ were not the adjectives most men would use for Valentina.
Drop-dead sexy, stunning, beautiful … but also demanding, selfish, shallow, vain.
‘Actually, I’m not sure I’ll be seeing her again. ’
‘No?’
‘We’re not really a match,’ he said diplomatically.
The truth was, they’d barely spoken; they had little in common when they were sober, and from the moment she’d arrived at the villa she had seemed far more interested in the trappings of nobility and talking to his parents.
He hadn’t knocked on her bedroom door that night – too overtaken by the events between Romola and the girls – but neither had she knocked on his, and it said everything that neither of them was affronted by the other’s lack of interest. Cosimo, for his part, couldn’t think of anything but Rafaella and how to heal the rift his sister had caused between them all.
A hushed gasp from the group caught his attention. Dante was doing a magic trick on Gina; whether or not it was working, there was a look of enchantment on her face.
‘Well, at least they seem to be talking again,’ Fede murmured, nodding across the beach towards their parents in animated conversation with some of the port’s other wealthy summer visitors.
There were a few well-off families who never saw one another in the city but flocked together here like close friends, taking mutual comfort and refuge in each other’s company at these larger village events.
‘Thank God,’ Cosimo muttered. The Franchettis came from a class in which how things looked mattered more than how things really were, and no one gathered here tonight could possibly imagine the wall of silence that had sprung up between them after the party and remained in place now for almost a week.
He didn’t know exactly what had caused it this time, but he could take a guess; their father was of a generation for whom fidelity was a concept, not a concrete requirement. He was required only to be discreet.
‘You know, if Romy’s not back on her feet by tomorrow, I really think we should call for the doctor—’
A cascade of laughter made them look up again and Cosimo watched as Gina jumped onto Dante for a piggyback, his fingertips pressing into the soft flesh of her thighs as he ran with her as if she was a child.
The rest of the ragazzi were getting up to go, too.
Cosimo had heard them making plans to go into Tricase town for gelato.
No one seemed to care that Tito’s sold gelato right here; they wanted to travel five miles inland instead.
The boys wanted to show off on their bikes and the girls wanted to ride pillion, arms and legs squeezed tightly around the boys as they took the bends too fast. It was exactly the kind of thing he did back home with his dates, and he knew exactly what it led to.
He watched as they all started walking up the beach, heading for the scooters parked by the harbour wall.
Some of the parents called out curfews and hands were raised in acquiescent reply.
Fon said something to Rafaella and she nodded; he ran ahead with the sort of machismo and swagger more associated with Dante.
‘I guess we could take her back some food?’ Fede went on, his thoughts still on their sister – but Cosimo was already on his feet, sprinting over the sand and around the fire.
‘What are you doing?’ he panted, catching Rafaella by the arm and spinning her round. She looked up at him in alarm, the gold flecks in her eyes illuminated by the firelight.
‘What?’
‘Are you seriously doing this? You’re going to forgive him and not us?’
She pulled her arm back. ‘Cosi—’
‘How can you do that?’ he hissed. ‘Romy won’t leave her room! She hates herself for what she did, but you’re going to forgive him?’
She looked stunned by the accusation. ‘… Your betrayal was worse.’
‘Mine?’
‘Yes! Yours, Cosi!’
He spread his hands out as he realized this really was personal. His suspicions were right. She was angry with him, not just Romola. ‘How? I haven’t done anything!’
‘No?’ Her eyes burned into his, her breathing coming heavily, and he saw silent accusations run across her face. What wouldn’t she say?
‘What did I do? Tell me!’ he implored.
‘You left, Cosi! That’s what you did. You left, and you said nothing all year. You didn’t write. You didn’t call. You didn’t have the decency to say to my face that what happened last summer was a mistake! And then you just turned up here with her like nothing had ever happened!’
‘Hey, is he bothering you, Rafa?’
Cosimo, stunned by her verbal onslaught, her tongue loosened by beer, turned to find Dante standing in the sand beside him, Gina still clinging limpet-style to his back.
Dante’s eyes narrowed, but there was a smirk on his lips. ‘Want me to get rid of him for you?’
‘What did you say?’ Cosimo asked, immediately squaring up to him, fists already clenched.
Dante shrugged Gina off like a rucksack and she sprawled backwards onto the sand – but Dante, forgetting her already, was oblivious.
He had only Cosimo in his sights, and there was a look of delight on his face that this was actually happening.
Cosimo wondered just how long Dante had wanted to land one on him.
Years, no doubt. The man bristled with jealousy.
‘I don’t like the way you’re harassing my brother’s girlfriend,’ Dante sneered, pushing him roughly on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps you should pay more attention to your own girlfriend. She certainly seems to be crying out for a real man.’
‘What did you say?’ Cosimo repeated in disbelief.
‘You heard me. You need to stop being so careless with pretty things. On the boat the other day, if your old man hadn’t been there, I’d have—’
Cosimo swung his right arm, but it only glanced against Dante’s cheek as the other man dodged the punch.
‘Hey, it’s not my fault if you can’t keep her satisfied!’ Dante grinned. ‘Just like it’s not my brother’s fault if your sister can’t keep her legs closed—’
This time Cosimo’s punch landed, but not before the words were heard – as Dante had intended – and a collective gasp whistled around the crowd as the scandal was finally unleashed.
Dante staggered back with a stunned look, but he was a street fighter and rallied quickly, charging towards Cosimo and tackling him, throwing him onto his back and winding him.
Unable to breathe or defend himself for several vital moments, Cosimo lay there as Dante attacked with a flurry of jabs.
He could hear screams – not his – rising up as the villagers descended on them, pulling Dante off him.
In the melee, Cosimo seemed to have connected with Dante’s jaw once or twice, because Dante’s mouth was bloodied; but it was Cosimo who’d taken the drubbing.
He could feel his left eye beginning to swell up, a rivulet of blood trickling down his brow.
In the background he could hear his mother’s voice frantically telling Filippo to ‘do something, do something!’
‘What in God’s name is wrong with you both?’ El Greco asked, his stocky, tattooed arms outstretched as he stood between them, keeping them apart. ‘What is this about?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Dante sneered as Cosimo got unsteadily to his feet and brushed himself down.
He was shaking with rage, adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream, but their showdown was over – for now.
It had to be. For Romola’s sake, nothing more could be done while they had an audience.
His head was ringing and he was pretty sure he had broken his right thumb, but he’d be damned if he would show this contadino any weakness.
Fede came and stood by his shoulder. ‘Let’s just leave it,’ he said calmly, authoritatively, shooting a warning look at Dante, who had once been his childhood friend.
They had grown apart years ago, recognizing that they were very different people.
Both understood, more clearly than Cosimo and the girls, that there was more dividing them than uniting them.
Dante obliged, but his smirk indicated he’d already done and said enough for one night.
Cosimo could see the shock in everyone’s eyes as the comment about Romola echoed through their minds.
The Giannellis had disrespected the Franchettis in plain sight of the entire port.
It felt as if the old order had been upended.
Cosimo looked over at Rafaella, still watching from a distance and trembling in dumbstruck silence. Fon was by her side again. He handed her the bike helmet and she took it, her feet moving even as her eyes remained upon Cosimo, and Fon began leading her away with a victorious look.
They were still going for gelato. He was still going to get what he wanted.
And what Cosimo wanted too.