Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
CASALTA, 16 APRIL 1985
LUCREZIA
When the Orafi brothers left, Bianca and I both had our cheeks on fire, while Mia looked at us with her arms crossed across her chest.
‘Well,’ Bianca said.
‘Well,’ Mia echoed, staring from me to her, and back again.
‘I’m going to get ready,’ Bianca muttered and ran upstairs, followed by Mia.
I found myself alone for a moment – I looked up to the wooden beams of the ceiling and ran my hands through my hair. Seeing Vanni today had been such an intense experience: my head was spinning with thoughts of past and present.
His eyes, his smile, that mop of dark, curly hair – it was him, it was my Vanni, wheelchair or not. Changed, yes, like I was, but still him. The car accident: had it really been my father’s doing? Had he spread even more destruction than I thought? And it was never Vanni, for Bianca. My jealousy never had reason to exist.
But, Bianca and Lorenzo? Seriously? And… how? When had they ever had the time or the chance to know each other?
Oh, God. It was all too much. Maybe it’s not so strange that the memory of Nora’s Maremmano horse galloping towards me flashed through my mind now – my feelings a herd of wild animals I couldn’t control.
The phone on the coffee table, grey and sturdy and with its round dial like a taunting face, stared at me. On the other end of that phone was Claude. And the way my heart had beaten when I saw Vanni, the promise to see each other again, couldn’t exist in the same world where Claude and I were a couple.
It was just another sign of how our relationship felt like a plaster wall, and not stone.
We sat in a semicircle around Dino Cavalli’s desk – our family’s notary, like his father before him. Loyalties last a long time and have much power, in this part of the world.
The short trip there, in Bianca’s little pod of a car, was a daze. So much was happening in such a short time, I could almost watch myself living, as if I were a spectator in a film.
Cavalli’s mannerisms, from the way he plaited his fingers on the desk to the slow, careful way he spoke, would have been more suited to an older man, but he wasn’t much older than me.
‘Il Signor Fosco Falconeri was most certainly a remarkable man. I have long admired him, and so did my father, rest his soul. He’s made a mark on our community, and, I’m sure you’ll agree, on all our lives,’ he said in a drone and swept the room with a grave look.
Not much of a positive mark, though. Cavalli probably expected us to nod and murmur words of agreement; he seemed surprised to be met with stony silence.
I looked around me, as discreetly as I could. There were only women in attendance. Bianca sat composedly in her flowery dress down to her knees, and her eyes were shiny, but not with tears – she had that Bianca intensity, that restrained fervour that I knew from our childhood.
Nora was impassive, like this whole thing didn’t concern her – she’d just come because she was expected to, having changed from her usual muddy cargos and boots to clean cargos and semi-clean shoes. But her eyebrows were knitted together, betraying her sorrow and, I assumed, her worry. Her beloved stables were at stake – and I knew that she didn’t trust our father as much as she made out.
Mia was wide-eyed but calm, and she, too, in her usual black, seemed older than her years.
Matilde was there as well, looking rather ferocious – I thought I could see her feelings in fiery letters over her head: at last . Even if this left her miserable son without employment.
Gabriella looked like an old-fashioned librarian in a blazer and skirt, tortoiseshell clips in her grey bob, her head lowered. I could have been, in theory, cynical enough to believe that she’d married my father for his money: something told me that this wasn’t true, but I could have been wrong.
The room was so full of emotion that instead of seeing individual auras, I could see a cloud of moving colours over our heads, dark and acid hues of alarm and apprehension. The exception was Bianca, who still gave out a light blue and silver aura, in spite of it all.
Cavalli moved on, accepting that nobody was going to agree with him on my father’s all-round wonderfulness. ‘Sometimes, even the most experienced and competent of businessmen are faced with the hard reality of a changing world. The eighties have seen big changes in the social and financial panorama, in Tuscany, in Italy and in the world.’ He opened his hands, and I noticed a signet ring. An ‘O’ with a crown.
He was an Orafi man, now? So much for multi-generational alliances…
‘Foreign firms, pale imitators of our wines and olive oil and gastronomy, challenge us on prices and scales of delivery. And please, forgive me if I dare utter these words – but your father, your husband, your employer, made some questionable decisions. He was badly advised, undoubtedly…’
Nervous shuffles all around.
People have changed towards us. He wanted a small, almost secretive funeral. Workers were let go, but taken on by the Orafi…
All the little clues were beginning to paint a picture.
‘I know it might be a surprise to you, but I do hope I’ll not upset you too much if I say?—’
‘I don’t mean to be rude, but could you get to the point? These girls have been through enough,’ Gabriella interrupted in her gentle tone. Gentle, but authoritative.
I was impressed.
‘Of course. I’m sorry,’ Cavalli said, and sounded outraged more than sorry. ‘Well, to get to the point, like you said, I suppose it’s enough to say that Fosco Falconeri left everything to one beneficiary…’
Gabriella, of course.
‘His daughter, Lucrezia Cecilia Falconeri.’
I felt my lungs empty of all air, as if I’d been hit right on my collarbone. Five words that were like five punches. Everyone turned to look at me.
Gabriella lowered her head. ‘Oh no,’ she whispered.
Talk about misjudging someone. So she was after my father’s money? I supposed I couldn’t blame her. What else would there be for her in a marriage to my father?
But everything had been left to me. The black sheep.
I felt sick.
My eyes met Bianca’s; she was smiling.
‘He made up for what he did,’ she whispered, so low that only us two could hear it. I gazed at Nora, who was unreadable, and then I turned towards Mia. I was aghast. She had a black halo all around her – her aura was almost the colour of the night.
‘Mia?’
‘I’m sorry, Lucrezia.’
‘Well, I don’t want any of this, but it’s easily solved. I can give it all to you. To my sisters.’
‘That wouldn’t be exactly generous,’ Cavalli said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I wish I didn’t have to be the bearer of bad news. But all that is left of your family’s wealth is the house, Casalta, and a vast amount of debt. For which you’re now legally responsible, Lucrezia.’
‘ What? ’
‘Sadly, this is the truth. And us lawyers’ – dramatic pause – ‘deal in truth.’
I heard someone growling something along the lines of ‘sadistic old’… I think it was me. I felt Bianca take my hand, but it wasn’t enough to help me out of the panic that was taking hold. The room was closing in, and the voices calling my name were distant and muffled.
‘Excuse me,’ I murmured, and bolted out.
Once outside, I leaned against a wall that was warm with sunshine, and tried to breathe deeply, slowly. I certainly would not cry. I wouldn’t give my father this satisfaction. I was sure that even after death he was watching me with glee, as I crumbled.
So that was the reason for Gabriella’s Oh no . Not because she coveted the estate, but because she knew what was ahead. She knew that my father was bankrupt, and in debt. And my father wasn’t making amends; he was ensuring my life was ruined. I felt my knees give way – for a moment I pictured myself sliding down the wall, so I stood even straighter as my body and mind absorbed the shock.
And then I saw my sisters walk out of the building one by one, Matilde and Gabriella with them. All of them, even Nora, came to stand around me and, as they did, my racing heart slowed a little, my knees felt a little stronger, a little surer in holding me up.
‘We’ll face this together,’ Bianca whispered as they all crowded around me, a tiny forest of women, helping each other stand strong.