Chapter 27 Cosimo #2
‘Did you see the paparazzi outside?’ Fon swung his arm back towards the sea behind him, almost spinning himself off his feet. ‘They’re right there, on the beach. They’re still there. They’re going to confront—’
‘If this is about my father, he has people in his office who deal with the press,’ Cosimo said evenly. ‘It’s not for you to concern yourself with. Or me.’
‘Well, now, that’s not true!’ Fon argued. ‘She was your girlfriend, after all. Yours!’
Cosimo frowned. ‘Fon, you’re not making any sense. You need to go home and sleep this off.’ He walked over and manually turned the other man around, facing him back towards the stairs.
‘It will be a sensation! A scandal!’ Fon cried, raising his arms in the air. ‘The Duke and the Starlet!’
What? Cosimo’s hands dropped down as he stared at Fon swaying like a windsock, his words whistling around their heads. ‘What did you say?’ he whispered. The duke and the starlet?
There was simply no way—
‘Yes! Your father’s fucking your girlfriend!’ Fon cheered, throwing the words into the air like wedding confetti. ‘It’s why your sister fucked me! If he goes low, she goes lower!’ He laughed, the sound almost demonic in its glee.
Cosimo fell still. He felt gears that had been stuck in neutral easing into position at last as the mystery of Romola’s despair on the night of the party fell into lockstep with Valentina’s benign acceptance of his disinterest. He remembered his father’s close attention to their guest – more than just good manners …
I’m trying to protect you, Romola had sobbed the next morning.
What exactly had she walked in on? Echoes of his father’s voice at breakfast chimed in Cosimo’s mind.
The way he hadn’t been able to look at his own daughter.
She sees things she doesn’t understand. And then his fearsome bullishness, daring her to say the dreadful words he knew she couldn’t …
Is there something you wish to get off your chest?
‘What will your poor mother do?’ Fon asked, his face now like a Greek tragic mask as his hands pulled down on his cheeks. ‘She’ll be humiliated!’
Cosimo felt time slow at his words, an anchor dragging on the seabed and stalling the world’s thrust. He felt the blood pool at his feet as he forgot to breathe. This drunken idiot’s ravings were on the pulse. His mother would be destroyed by this. Their family would fall apart.
His father’s affairs were the great unmentionable thing in his parents’ marriage; he and Fede and Romola all knew why their mother was so sad, her cold anger lying behind every smile.
But they had seemed to have an understanding of sorts.
Be discreet. Choose wisely, from among their own. Those who had just as much to lose …
But Valentina broke the mould, and not just because she wasn’t aristocratic.
His father was betraying him – his own son – as well as his wife …
Distantly Cosimo heard laughter, a taunting cackle that grew louder and louder in his ear. He snapped back into the moment and saw Fon, in his face, with tears in his eyes. He was laughing but crying too, like a man teetering on the very edge of insanity.
In a fury, Cosimo grabbed him by the lapels. Fon didn’t try to protect himself; he dangled limply, careless of his fate. He was too out of it to understand the danger he was in, coming here, saying these things …
‘Where’s your proof?’ Cosimo yelled, shaking him wildly, but Fon simply stared back at him with dull eyes. He almost looked as if he wanted to be hit. ‘No? I thought as much! Baseless slurs! You just want your pathetic revenge—’
‘Photos.’ The word was little more than a breath. ‘Gallipoli.’
Photos on the beach. He recalled his father’s tan when he had come back today to the wedding; he had thought it odd, given he’d come from the city …
Cosimo wheeled back, releasing Fon from his grip, his hands in his hair as he realized there was no stopping it now.
They were undone. Ruined. His father had destroyed them all. His mother, Romola, Fede—
‘Cosi?’
He heard her voice just as the rage exploded from his body and he threw himself at his old enemy.
Fon staggered backwards, the breath knocked from his lungs as Cosimo tackled him and he fell against the stone urn.
They both went down heavily, a violent crash sounding as stone met flesh.
Cosimo felt a sharp pain in his shoulders, his thumb more than broken now; the skin on Fon’s neck was badly scraped and bleeding from the rough stone, but still Fon didn’t try to fight back.
He looked defeated, and Cosimo dragged himself away as huge, gulping breaths of despair rolled up through his torso.
He felt as if he’d swallowed a thunderstorm.
‘… Cosi?’
He raised his head. Rafaella was standing at the far end of the loggia, wearing his shirt and a horrified look as she took in the sight of him and Fon sprawled on the ground.
‘My God, what has happened?’ she cried, running over. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘… I’m fine …’ Cosimo mumbled, his voice a croak as he looked over at Fon trying in vain to pull himself up. ‘… He’s just drunk.’
She looked troubled. ‘What happened? I heard shouting.’
Cosimo stared at her beautiful features, her eyes wide with concern as she cupped his face. How could he tell her what his father had done? How could he reveal his family’s shameful underbelly?
‘He – he …’ The words wouldn’t come, but his eyes were shining with pain and she folded him into her, pressing his head against her chest.
‘Shh,’ she whispered. ‘I can guess.’
She assumed they had been fighting over her – which, to an extent, they had.
Now wasn’t the time for details. He needed to think, to accept.
Cosimo felt himself surrender as she sank onto the tiles beside him, holding him more tightly.
He felt relief as her actions made it clear she had chosen him. Fon was forgotten beside them.
‘… Where’s Romy?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Romy. She was just coming up the drive. I saw her from the window.’
Cosimo pulled back and stared at her, hearing an echo to her words as the anchor caught on the seabed once more, slowing down the earth’s drag.
His mind replayed the events of the past minute. Timings … tone …
‘Cosi?’ she asked again, her voice rising as she watched the expressions flicker over his face. ‘… Where’s Romy?’
His sister would have seen him as she walked down the long drive. She would have seen him standing here in the loggia, arguing with Fon. She would have heard his pain and known something was wrong.
She had called his name.
In the very moment they had fought. And fallen.
He caught his breath as he looked back at the central arch, denuded now. The stone urn had toppled from its perch, gone from sight.
And that was when time stopped.