The Tuscan Sister

Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

CASALTA, 17 APRIL 1985

LUCREZIA

I woke up still reeling from my dream.

Why, why, did my father choose to make me responsible for all this? There will be no forgiveness for him, ever. There wasn’t before the reading of the will, and certainly there won’t be now.

And yet, when I went downstairs and into the gardens an eastern wind played with my hair, coming in from the sea and smelling of salt, pine and juniper, and my heart lifted. I took a deep, deep breath.

I belonged to Tuscany, and having been gone for so long made me look at the place with different eyes, like I was seeing it for the first time. The beauty of my surroundings made me feel like I was in the eye of a storm – a moment of peace and stillness after the crowded dreams and the complications of the day ahead.

Still in my nightie and barefoot, I strolled among the roses and finally sat on the bench, my eyes closed against the gentle sunlight.

‘Good morning. I saw you coming down, so I made you coffee.’ I looked up, and saw Gabriella standing there with a coffee cup and saucer in her hand.

‘Thank you.’

‘Sugar, no milk, yes?’

‘Yes. You noticed how I take my coffee?’

‘I’m trying to escape the evil stepmum stereotype.’

I had to laugh. ‘Keep me company?’

‘Maybe you need some silence, some alone time?’ she asked thoughtfully.

‘You can’t miss this sky,’ I said, and patted the place on the bench beside me.

Gabriella settled in beside me with her calm, soothing energy. There was a suffused pink light coming from her. She was so different from my mum, I considered; Father had chosen two opposites for his two wives. My mum was a main character in every scene; she was colourful and wilful and a little eccentric. Gabriella was homespun, steady. She was tranquil.

She and Bianca were similar, I realised. I wore sharp couture to fit with my work, Nora was all rubber boots and outdoor gear, Mia was a variation on the theme ‘gothic princess’. Bianca was all dresses and pink cheeks, and just like Gabriella she exuded nurturing.

Apparently, Gabriella was supposed to have changed my father – but it didn’t appear so.

We were silent, contemplating the glorious morning sky, while caffeine did its job and woke me up properly. ‘You really are failing, you know, in your role of evil stepmother,’ I said.

She giggled. ‘I’ll try harder.’

I took a sip of coffee and felt it course through my veins, clearing my thoughts a little. ‘Gabriella… I really must ask you.’

‘Let me guess. Why I married your father? Why he married me?’

‘I don’t mean to be insensitive…’

‘Not at all, my dear. We really were chalk and cheese, weren’t we? But I loved him. And I know for sure that he loved me. Plain and homely me.’

‘You’re not…’

She raised a hand. ‘I know what I am, and I know my worth. I’m just saying that I’m different from the kind of woman a man like your father would go for. But I was what he needed. Was he what I needed? I don’t know. No.’ She smiled. ‘But I fell for him at my ripe old age, after being convinced I would never, never marry again.’ She swept a leaf from her skirt. ‘You see, I’ve always been so sensible. In life, I always coloured by numbers. I got married young, had my son; I was devoted to my family. My first husband passed away, and I found myself alone. My son was now grown-up and independent, and I settled in a quiet life, alone. And then… then I met your father. And I fell in love for the first time.’

She turned to me, but I couldn’t say anything. Her confidences were precious, delicate – after days of intense, almost violent sensations and feelings, she tiptoed onto the stage like a grey-haired ballerina.

‘He was good to me. I couldn’t quite believe he chose me. Isn’t it unfair that women of a certain age are seen as past their best, while men seem to almost increase their prestige as they grow older? Your father was handsome, fascinating, always dressed as if he’d come off a film set…’

‘Really?’ In my memory, my father was the man who towered over me, and on his face were eternal discontent and disappointment with me.

‘You probably saw him in a different light.’

You can say that again .

‘He was fiery, as you know. With me, he calmed down. He used to talk to me for hours. About his youth, and the pressure to marry someone suitable for his family, not your poor mother, and how much he tried to mould her into the woman he wanted her to be. About his daughters and how disconnected he felt from them, about you…’

‘He spoke about me?’ I swallowed.

‘He had a lot of respect for you. He said that even as a child, you were the only one who stood up to him.’

Respect . But not love…

‘But things changed, between him and me.’

‘What changed?’

‘I saw how much Bianca and the girls missed you. I could only imagine what you went through. I learned things I didn’t want to know.’ I had the overwhelming feeling she wanted to say more, but she stopped. She looked away, biting her lip.

Do you know, Gabriella? Do you know what happened to my mother? The question was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t formulate it.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what will you do, now?’

‘Not at all. I’d like to tell you, but I don’t know. Everything happened so fast. Getting married again when I never thought I would, losing him so quickly. I own a house in the Riviera, up in Liguria. I suppose I’ll go there. This is not my home.’

‘Oh, Gabriella. I’m sorry. I’d love to say that this is still your home, that you can stay as long as you want, but… this place is not ours any more either.’

‘Yes. About that. I have a little money set aside. It wouldn’t make much of a dent, but…’

‘Thank you, but we’re going to need something radical. We need to sell everything … Maybe it’s better this way.’

She turned towards me, mouth agape, but she controlled herself quickly. ‘That’s for you to decide, my dear.’

‘The decision has been made already. There’s no other option.’

‘I… well, I still hope I can help a little. Give you some guidance, some clarity… because I’m a little removed, compared to your sisters,’ she said.

She hesitated for a moment, then wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me gently. ‘Thank you for being so welcoming to me. Even in these crazy circumstances. For not assuming…’ I felt a little hot then, because at the beginning I had made assumptions. ‘Well, yes. For being so welcoming to me. You know, your mum was very, very lucky to have the four of you. All of you are exceptional girls.’

‘Well, thank you… we were very lucky to have her.’

‘You were.’ My gaze met hers, and for a moment it seemed like Gabriella was about to say something else. Instead she stood, an arm open to invite me inside with her. ‘Lucrezia, your sisters are waiting for you. I think the moment has come to speak to them.’

My stomach churned. I nodded. ‘Yes. It’s time.’

All my sisters were in the living room, and all turned to look at me when I walked in. They reminded me of birds in a nest, looking up with their beaks open, waiting.

‘I’ll go get dressed,’ I said more confidently than I felt. ‘And then I’ll explain everything.’

In front of the mirror in my room, I looked in my own eyes. I had to be strong. This burden had been placed on me; my father had chosen me to carry it, whatever the reason. I had to do the best by my sisters, and by myself too.

I had to sort this mess out in whatever way I could, so that my sisters would suffer as little as possible.

I reminded myself that there was my name on the terrifying document folder that Cavalli had given me – it meant my neck was on the line.

But it also meant that the last word would be mine.

Twenty minutes later, I went downstairs in my blue dress and heels, my hair done and make-up on. All this was my suit of armour; it made me feel more resolute and less vulnerable. I stopped on the stairs for an instant, gathering my strength. Bianca and Mia were sitting on an armchair each, while Nora stood leaning against the wall, as if ready to bolt at any moment, to go and find refuge with her horses. Which, I was sure, she was.

Everyone turned their faces to me. Bianca looked calmer now, Mia white and wan. Nora was clearly hostile, as if all of this was my fault.

‘I’ll get straight to the point. If we don’t sell Casalta soon, the banks will take it. If we sell it at a good price, we can hope to settle the debts. Bianca, Nora, you both work, and Mia, maybe you can try and sell your paintings? I’ll help as much as I can, of course. We’ll make sure the house will raise enough funds to set us, me … completely free from all debts, and we’ll start again. Hopefully there won’t be creditors coming out of the woodwork. If so, well, we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.’

‘You don’t have a clue, Lucrezia,’ Nora offered. Well thank you, Nora. ‘What I earn from riding lessons is nowhere near enough to pay for new lodgings.’

‘In that case, you need to sell some horses, or rehouse them somewhere safe, somewhere they can thrive,’ I said slowly, steeling myself for her reply.

‘We can’t! They’re part of the family! And they’re my job, they’re what I do!’ I didn’t need to see her aura to know how devastated she was. She was on the attack. Shame that she was attacking the wrong person.

‘I’ll have to leave my murals. Maybe they’ll paint over them…’ Mia whispered. A halo around her head and shoulders appeared, light grey, the colour of dismay.

I turned from one to the other. ‘I don’t see any other solution. We’re bankrupt . And we owe a lot of money. Well, I do.’

Nora was staring at me – now I knew what the expression ‘eyes flashing in anger’ looked like. Her green eyes did seem to glimmer with her fury.

‘Eleonora.’ Bianca hadn’t spoken until then. Her silvery voice had a touch of steel to it that I was starting to recognise. ‘You’re talking as if Lulu wants this. This disaster is to be laid at our father’s feet, not hers.’

‘She does want it! She hates Casalta. It’s clear to see how much she wants to get rid of it. Don’t you, Lucrezia?’

I saw no point in lying. If I started pretending now, everything else I said would be put in question.

I held her gaze. I’d been through years of exile; I’d been made responsible for my father’s mess. I’d been forged in fire, and there was no way I would lower my eyes now.

‘You’ll be surprised to know that Casalta is in my heart,’ I tell her. ‘Yes, there is a part of me that will be relieved, but I hate seeing you so upset. And I wish I could find another way. I wish you could keep your horses and your murals, and Mia, your beautiful paintings! But there’s nothing I can do. How else can we come up with that kind of money? If our father had chosen another one of us, what would you have done? Eleonora, what would you do, in my shoes?’

‘I’m with you,’ Bianca said.

Nora hung her head.

Mia sat there with a desolate expression, like a little Cassandra. There was still no trace of her rainbow aura, and it broke my heart. I knew that for Mia it wasn’t just about the paintings. I knew she was special, she needed her home and her routines, and she couldn’t be thrown unprotected into the outside world. Mia needed looking after, it was clear… it’d been clear since she was little. Her incredible perceptions, her gift, came at a price.

‘The Orafi,’ she whispered in a low voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Dad hates them,’ Nora said.

‘Not any more, because he’s dead. And he left all this for Lucrezia to sort,’ Bianca said calmly.

The more I got to know my twin again, the more I saw how the frightened little bird who was always desperate to please had grown into a resilient and tenacious woman.

‘So,’ I continued. ‘Yesterday I went to see the Orafi brothers. I believe that it’s Lorenzo who makes the decisions. They do want our house, just like you said, Mia. It seems Lorenzo was aware of Father’s desperate situation.’

‘ Vultures ,’ Nora whispered. ‘They were always out to destroy Dad.’

‘It seems to me that he did a good enough job of destroying himself,’ I retorted.

‘You know nothing about him.’

‘I know what he did to me, Nora. And I know what…’ I bit my lip, and just at the same time Bianca called me to silence.

‘Lulu!’

I said nothing more. I knew it would be disastrous to mention what we suspected about Mum’s death to my sisters, without being sure. I’d already gathered that Nora was close to Father and had a certain – misplaced – loyalty towards him. It would just throw oil on the fire.

‘Anyway, vultures or not, it beats having it sold for peanuts by the bank. At a bankruptcy auction.’ A collective gasp followed my words, and I checked myself. My sisters not only loved Casalta, but they had been sheltered – I had to try and watch my words. ‘I’m sorry,’ I added.

‘I bet they’re celebrating,’ Nora said. ‘The Orafi, I mean.’

‘What difference does it make? I mean, I know it’s a matter of pride, for us. But sometimes pride must be swallowed,’ Bianca said, and I shot her a grateful glance.

‘Are we all in agreement?’ I looked around. My sisters gave lukewarm nods.

‘He didn’t do this to punish you,’ Mia said.

‘You mean leave the mountain of debt in my name? I beg to differ.’

‘He did it because he knew that you’d be the one to sort it. The one without ties to Casalta. You were the one who could cut through it all and be pragmatic.’

‘Great,’ I said sarcastically.

‘We’re with you,’ Bianca asserted again.

Nora murmured something about tending to the horses. ‘It’s easy for you! You didn’t grow up here! You didn’t live here! For you it’s just a house. We sell and start again, easy. It’s just horses. But for us…’

‘Which part exactly is easy for me, Nora? Being on my own at boarding school? And then I come back home after twelve years, and I find that my father has lumbered me with debt? Or maybe the part where our father sent me to a clinic for disturbed children for a year, a whole year of being stuck in a hospital with locks on the door and being turned into a zombie with medication, hearing screams day and night? Tell me which part was easy for me, Nora!’

Silence fell in the room. I brought a hand to my mouth. I’d never wanted to tell them the truth.

But I just had.

The silence in the room was so vibrant, it was as if another person was sitting there with us.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know. I…’

Bianca and Mia’s faces were the colour of ash.

Nora ran from the room. I watched her through the window, running without looking back; on impulse, I followed. She strode across the gardens, with me trying to keep up. I was tall, but she was taller, with longer legs, and I almost ran after her. ‘Nora! Nora!’

‘Please, leave me alone!’

‘I will leave you alone once we talk.’

‘No!’

‘Eleonora, you’re behaving like a child!’

She turned. ‘ I’m behaving like a child? You keep badmouthing Dad. I know he was difficult…’

‘Badmouthing? Difficult? ’

‘I don’t know if he really sent you to that place…’

‘You believe I’m lying?’

‘Maybe he just wanted to help you. Maybe you needed it!’

She froze, horrified by what she’d just said.

‘Let me tell you what that place was like. Then you’ll tell me if you think I needed it. If any child needs it.’

‘I could talk to him.’ Nora’s voice was low all of a sudden. ‘I’m the one who took after the Falconeri the most. I don’t even have those weird gifts you say you have. Bianca hearing voices, and Mia being all weird. I just want to be normal! Like everyone around here. Normal .’

‘You can be whatever you want. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I was too busy surviving; I did my best.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’ She turned to walk away, and I was left there, somewhere between anger and sadness, and regret: if only I’d stayed closer to Nora. If only I’d stayed closer to them all.

‘Nora…’ I asked myself if I could tell her. If I could say to her what Father had confessed to Bianca, that he was the one who ended Mum’s life, not a fall on the stones.

But it would break her heart.

I stayed quiet.

Once again, she turned around, and the sun at her back gave her dark hair a golden halo – she looked like some ancient Roman goddess, a hunting goddess.

I know this is not your fault. I’m sorry , I was hoping she would say. But she didn’t.

‘I better go,’ she said instead, and I was left alone on the golden hill, on this hard, hard morning.

When I returned, Bianca was still ashen.

‘I wish you’d told us.’

‘There was nothing you could have done.’

Mia’s voice was thin. ‘We thought it was a school.’

I looked down. ‘I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to be upset.’

Bianca took my hands, and Mia sat at my feet, her head on my knee.

‘What happened to you there, Lulu? What happened to you?’

I shook my head. I could have never gone into detail about that place. I didn’t even want to remember.

But even there, safe with my sisters, the memories that I’d worked to erase came flooding back.

ISTITUTO LUGANO, 1973 – TWELVE YEARS EARLIER

LUCREZIA

They told me that the Istituto Lugano was a home where children get better. I said my arms were perfectly fine, now all the cuts caused by the glass were healed. They said this was a place where children’s minds got better, not just their bodies.

A mental hospital, then?

No. I was not allowed to call it that.

I was now sitting in the doctor’s office. From the window I could see the black branches of the trees below, and beyond them the other wing of the clinic, under a grey autumn sky. Neon lights illuminated every room; I didn’t want to think who was in there or what was happening to them.

‘I saw her.’

For months I’d repeated the same statement over and over and again: to the nurses who looked after us, to the doctor who spoke to me three times a week, taking notes, to anyone who would listen. I wrote the words in the condensation on the window, with my spoon in the pastina we were given for dinner, in the steam on the shower screen.

I saw her, I saw her, I saw her.

It’d become a battle of wills between the world and me.

Dottor Minieri’s eyebrows rose to form two perfect ‘S’s in his high forehead. I had to give it to him: his patience was endless. My umpteenth ‘I saw her’ must have been grating on his nerves, but he never showed it.

On the desk in between me and the doctor were stacks of drawings I’d made. It was the same scene over and over: a rose bush, a red-haired woman, a little girl with a big ‘O’ for a mouth. And on every one of the drawings, I’d written in big blue letters: I saw her.

‘Lucrezia, you’re a clever girl; I know by now I can speak to you in direct terms,’ the doctor began. He’d told me I was a clever girl countless times, probably to convey the fact that clever girls knew how to get themselves out of situations like the one I was in. He kept trying to give me an out; I kept refusing it. ‘Yours was a big loss, a big shock for a child. It’s only natural that you… wished your mum back into existence.’

Dottor Minieri was kindly, but I was furious with the world, homesick and lonely, and I could only think of one thing: I would not lie . I would not say I hadn’t seen my mum, when she’d been there, looking at me. And no, she hadn’t been a product of my imagination: I was sure. She’d been as real as the doctor there, in front of me, as real as the horrendous painting of a jungle that hung on the wall behind him, as real as the depressing view out of the window.

‘Lucrezia?’

‘I have nothing else to say. I’m sorry.’

The doctor sighed. A thump came from somewhere, followed by a muffled scream. I sank into myself and raised my shoulders. I don’t want to remember the things I saw and heard in that place. Yes, I have memories of a kind hand on my arm and compassionate words when I refused to get out of bed, of warm milk and a stack of books given to me when I broke out in a stress-induced fever. But there are other memories as well, and I’d rather keep them in the recesses of my mind. I was afraid of the other children, afraid of the nurses even when they were kind, afraid of the doctors most of all. I made myself as small as I could, trying to make myself invisible, trying to disappear altogether.

‘Lucrezia, tell me. If you and I agree that, yes, you saw your mother that night, then what’s going to happen? What would you do with that knowledge?’

‘I would tell my father. And he’d get angry. And send me back here again.’

He took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a tissue.

‘Because he wouldn’t believe you, and he’d think your mind was playing tricks on you, and you needed help. Like the help we’re giving you now.’

I thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe he would believe me, though. If I could convince him that I shouldn’t be here, because I saw my mum, and she was real.’

‘If he believed you, what do you think he’d do?’

‘He’d look for my mother! He’d want her back!’

‘If there was even the slightest chance of her being alive…’

‘He’d look for her!’

‘But he’s not doing that. Why, do you think? If he believed there was the slightest chance of finding her and bringing her back, wouldn’t he look for her?’

Chip .

A little sliver came off my wall.

‘Yes,’ I whispered. At that time, I believed he cared for her.

‘He was there, but he didn’t see your mother. Your sister and the housekeeper, Matilde, didn’t see her either. But all these people loved your mother, and they love you. If they thought she could be brought back, they would try.’

I sniffed. The doctor handed me a tissue. He looked down at my drawings, then up again. His eyes found mine, and I felt a shiver down my spine. I knew what he was about to say, because he’d been saying it for a month, and I never let it seep through my defences, all closed up like the little hedgehog I was.

‘If your mum was alive, why would she do this? Appear to you and then run, disappear again, without a word? Would she not be here with you now?’

The words hit me like an icy shower, and this time, they made it through. He’d said that before, but the truth of it had never reached me. I’d never let that simple question get anywhere near my mind and my heart; I never really listened.

They’d worn me down.

‘But I…’ saw her , I was about to say. This time, though, I didn’t finish the sentence.

For the first time it sank in. She wouldn’t have abandoned us.

I didn’t see her.

She really was gone.

The nurses were all smiles, now. I was called into Dottor Minieri’s office one last time, to be told that my recovery had been relatively fast – a year didn’t pass quite as fast for me – and complete, that he’d write to my father saying I was ready to face the world again, and normal life. The illusion was shattered now; I could go home whole and sane.

It was like a déjà vu moment, when I stood in the waiting room of the clinic, too excited to sit. I wore the same pink top, my hair longer and held back with an Alice band, jeans instead of shorts. I was smiling – my young heart was ready to move on and start living again.

I didn’t know the woman who came to get me in a big, square car that looked like something you’d drive up a mountain, or in the desert. What happened to our family driver, Martino?

‘You must be Lucrezia!’ the woman said in heavily accented Italian. Only later did I realise that it was a French accent. She wore a matching skirt and blazer, with a brooch at the neck of her shirt – she would have looked severe, had it not been for her kind eyes and an open smile. ‘I’m Madame Aubert. It’s very nice to meet you.’

My joy was beginning to turn into disquiet. Who was this woman?

‘I’ll just speak to the doctor a moment, and then we’ll get everything sorted in no time.’

Dottor Minieri stood on the doorstep of his visiting room. ‘Welcome. Come on in,’ he said, and the woman disappeared into his study, leaving a cloud of perfume behind.

I swallowed, my heart beating faster and faster. Whispers could be heard through the door, but I couldn’t make out the words.

After what seemed like an eternity I was called inside. By then, my confidence had drained away. ‘I’m not going home, am I,’ I asked in a small voice. It was more a statement than a question.

Both Minieri’s and the woman’s faces fell. ‘You didn’t know?’ Madame Aubert said with a half-surprised, half-horrified look to the doctor.

Dottor Minieri was as mystified as she was. ‘Your father didn’t tell you? In your phone calls?’

‘I never speak to my father. Only to Matilde. My father decided I’m not allowed to talk to my sisters in case I… influence them.’

‘I see.’ Minieri’s lips became very thin, and a red line, visible to me only, appeared around his head, glowing electric. I blinked – his aura spoke of anger, but it wasn’t towards me, I knew that. I gazed from him to the strange woman, and back. I didn’t understand what was happening.

Madame Aubert bowed to be level with me. ‘Your father enrolled you in my school. It’s a small school; we’re like a family. You’ll be happy, with us.’

My heart sank, and it seemed to me that it made a noise hitting the floor – but it was my little bag, having slipped through my hand.

I’d done what I’d been asked to do; I’d accepted that I hadn’t really seen my mother. But I still wasn’t allowed home.

I contemplated grabbing something off the doctor’s desk and throwing it against the wall, screaming and thumping my feet and disgorging all the anger and disappointment and loneliness I felt at that moment; but that would have just meant more time in the hospital.

Madame Aubert picked my bag up. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you feel at home, chérie . I promise.’

‘Casalta is my home,’ I said. I took the bag from her and stepped out, towards the car, with all the dignity a broken girl could muster.