The Tuscan Sister

Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

CASALTA, 17 APRIL 1985

LUCREZIA

Thankfully, the phone ringing interrupted my memories. It took me a moment to come back to the here and now, before Bianca answered.

‘Hello? Vanni. She’s here.’ Bianca handed me the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘Lucrezia?’ His voice was unmistakable. Warm, deep – and so very familiar. I felt the corners of my mouth lift in a smile. I was so glad that he was calling me.

‘Vanni.’

‘You sound…’

‘Yes. I know. Just… not the best moment.’

‘Look, I was wondering if you wanted a few hours away from everything. What do you say?’ I hesitated and looked at my sisters, sitting pale and in shock.

‘I don’t know. Things here are a little… heavy , as you know.’

A sigh. ‘I can imagine. It wasn’t the right time to ask, I suppose…’ I could hear the disappointment in his voice.

‘Go! Go have fun!’ Mia called out suddenly.

‘Who was that?’ Vanni asked.

‘My sister, Mia. She says we should go and have fun. Maybe just a couple of hours…’ I said tentatively.

Bianca was sitting silently, lost in thought; Nora was sulking in the stables; Mia was nodding, her eyebrows raised. ‘Fine, then. Yes, I’ll come.’

‘Great! One condition, though.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That we don’t talk about the sale of Casalta, or anything that troubles you. I want to take you away from all that for a little while.’

‘That’s just what I need, Vanni,’ I admitted. ‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour?’

I couldn’t keep the smile out of my voice. ‘See you then.’

As soon as I put the receiver back on its cradle, I asked myself if I should stay, try to unknot the many knots, do something practical… But my soul needed my old friend, needed some time to breathe and regroup.

‘I won’t be long.’

‘Have a great time, Lulu,’ Mia said, but Bianca was still silent.

Silly, I suppose, that I should feel like smiling and running up the stairs as if I were carefree, and not in the middle of a financial and family crisis. Vanni did that to me: the young girl I was before everything fell apart was tied to his presence – he brought her out of me, and I liked this girl more than my cold, restrained Paris self. I pushed away the guilt of leaving my sisters worrying and wondering about the whole situation: I’d go and breathe some oxygen, and come back ready to face it all.

Guilt about leaving my sisters wasn’t the only thing I pushed away. The thought of Claude was also relegated to the back of my mind. He wasn’t just far geographically, but emotionally: he was barely there at all, and I knew that for his sake and mine, things needed to change soon.

I was on the doorstep, with Vanni’s car there already, waiting for me, when Bianca held me in a tight embrace.

‘I wish it’d been me. I wish I could have raised hell and taken you home. I wish…’

‘ Shhhhh ,’ I soothed. ‘I’m here now. It’s finished.’

Bianca held both my hands and gazed at me with an intensity that made me hold my breath.

‘I love Casalta. But I love you more. And all I want, all I need, is for you to be happy.’

Bianca’s words of love, having finally unburdened myself of the truth, walking on Florence’s stony streets with Vanni – everything conspired to bring a spring to my step. The change of register, between recalling the dark days of the Istituto Lugano, and being here now, was almost making my head spin. I looked up and around, to the sky and to the tops of Florence’s harmonious buildings. Beauty, I reflected, was a balm to the soul.

The day was grey, a little drizzly, but, far from taking away from the city, the weather only added to its allure. We crossed Piazza del Duomo slowly, without rush, without anywhere to be; I gazed all around me in wonder, as if seeing the city for the first time. And in fact, it was the first time I’d seen it as an adult. I caught Vanni’s eye, and saw he was looking at me.

‘What?’ I asked, smiling.

‘You’re drinking everything in.’

‘Yes! I feel like a tourist. I’ve been here a thousand times, but it’s like seeing it all anew.’

‘So, I know it’s two different places, and you can’t compare, and blah blah blah, but… Florence or Paris? Which wins?’

‘Florence. Hands down.’

‘Right answer!’

We reached the duomo, and my heart skipped a beat as I stood at its feet, contemplating the striped marble, the domes, the perfect grace of the structure. ‘I’d forgotten how the duomo is so huge, and yet so… light. Like it has no weight.’

‘ Mmmm .’

I laughed. ‘You don’t seem so taken!’

‘I’m not into art that much, not like your family. I prefer natural things, not manmade. Fields and trees. They are… pure. You’ll think I’m an oaf!’

‘Not at all! I understand. So why did you take me here, to the… impure city?’ I joked.

‘Because it’s easier for me to navigate than fields and hills.’

His smile faltered, and for a moment, I was at a loss for words. It was easy to forget his difficulties… Sometimes Vanni’s chair struggled a little on the narrow pavements, but even then, I was amazed to see how the chair and him had become a unit, how easily he negotiated any obstacles.

‘I know there are places where you can’t go right now. But I was just thinking how… well, how it all seems normal. You in this chair, me beside you, walking on. It’s just the way things are. Maybe…’ I stopped. I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to be so honest, so unguarded.

‘ Maybe? ’

‘Maybe I’ve been so happy to see you again that I didn’t quite consider anything else.’ It was true. The more time I spent with the Vanni of today, the more normal, assumed, his inability to walk seemed to me.

He didn’t answer, but his face seemed to tense up. I wasn’t sure if those words had pleased him or… hurt him? Why would my words hurt him?

‘I mean, of course I consider what you went through,’ I hastened to add. ‘But it doesn’t seem important, compared to actually seeing you. Not that it’s not important…’ Ah, I was tripping on my own words. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying!’

‘No, no… I understand. Really, I do.’

‘Oh, good.’

The Lucrezia I was in Paris never got herself in a tizzy, but clearly, she wasn’t here.

After all, the Lucrezia I was in Paris never got herself anywhere. She safely stayed behind her walls, spoke little, and never offered her side to avoid possible hurt or rejection. I wasn’t sure which one of the two I preferred, but in this moment, walking the streets of Florence with my childhood friend, chatting about everything and nothing, no wall would be high enough or mighty enough to shield my heart.

I was always surer and surer, with every step I took, that my life in Paris was crumbling from its very foundations. And I hoped that Claude felt the same; I hoped that the conversation that was on the horizon for us would not cause pain, but freedom.

We stopped to watch the green waters of the Arno flowing by. Vanni rested an elbow on the stone banister, and I bent down to lean on it.

‘You’re lost in thought,’ he observed. ‘There must be a lot on your mind, right now.’

I nodded. ‘Yes. But you made me promise I wouldn’t talk about Casalta…’

‘True! That’s not allowed.’

‘And in fact, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking of my partner. Of my job…’ I shrugged. ‘Of my life. I believed it was settled. I believed I was settled. The day I left I thought that the person who went back to Paris would not be the person who left. But I didn’t imagine it would be to this extent. Claude feels like a stranger who never knew me. My job… has no connection with my heart. Everything about my old life seems to be slipping between my fingers. Like this water, flowing away… Oh, I bet you’re sorry you asked!’

‘No, not at all. I like listening to you talk.’

I waited for a moment, hoping he would reciprocate my confidences – but he didn’t. We crossed the Ponte Vecchio, the oldest bridge in Florence, passing the jewellery shops that lined it. Here, it was easy to forget modern times: it was like being thrown back to when the Medici ruled the city. My Florence was like a city-wide time machine.

‘My mum used to work in one of these, when she arrived. To support herself while she painted. She used to go to the Uffizi almost every day… she used to take us with her too, even when Nora and Mia were babies. The routine was Uffizi first and then ice cream. Just the five of us… Thinking back, how did she manage four small kids in a museum?’

‘Your sisters were angels. But you were savage, when you were little!’

‘Er, excuse me?’ I laughed.

‘You were! Like a little girl Tarzan. All composed and calm in public, wild when it was just us children.’

‘You’re one to talk! You never sat still…’

Oh. I stopped abruptly. I wanted to bite my hand.

‘Yeah, well. Anyway. Would you like to go to the Uffizi, then? A trip down memory lane?’

‘I’d love to! I’d like to show you something, actually. But… the stairs…’

‘There’s a lift. A friend of mine, a lady who goes to my same physiotherapist… she visits all the time. There aren’t many accessible places, but the Uffizi is one of them.’

‘That’s good.’ It was a different way of seeing the world, I considered: if you couldn’t walk, or if you were with someone who couldn’t walk, you began to notice steps, stairs, obstacles everywhere. I was in awe of how Vanni negotiated this new world – but I had the feeling he wouldn’t have appreciated any praise. I felt he preferred me to behave as if this had always been our reality and nothing had changed. We crossed the bridge again, in the opposite direction, and passed between the wide stone columns of the Uffizi.

I almost held my breath as we made our way into the museum, reaching the upper floor via a lift I’d never been in before. The chill of the thick stone walls, that unique scent I remembered so well – I know it’s hard to believe, but I could smell the paint, even if everything was behind glass and long dry.

I took a deep breath, inhaling the fragrance. Maybe I was simply remembering the scent my mum carried with her.

‘You look happy,’ Vanni observed.

‘I am. Come on, there’s something I’d like you to see.’

The place was almost empty, on this drizzly day, and we moved through the rooms and corridors with ease, until we arrived at my favourite paintings: those by Bronzino. My namesake, Lucrezia Panciatichi, met my gaze, sitting with immense dignity and a mysterious, aloof expression, wearing a splendid dress, embroidered in gold.

‘My mum chose our names because of these paintings. This is me: Lucrezia.’

Vanni jerked his head from the portrait to me, and back. ‘I’m… blown away. The shape of your face… your eyes…’

‘I know! Don’t ask me how our mum did it, but she did. And this…’ We moved forward a little, to the portrait of an exquisitely pretty young girl with creamy skin and pink cheeks.

‘This is Bianca. She’s not identical to you, but has the same sweet expression as Bianca.’

‘You guessed. It’s Bianca de’ Medici. And this is Maria de’ Medici, our Mia…’ It was slender, black-eyed girl in a black velvet dress, with a mysterious gaze that seemed to look through you – just like Mia.

‘She looks like Mia. She really does!’

‘I know. And this is Eleonora. Eleonora di Toledo.’ She was a strong, solid-looking woman with a little boy beside her.

‘Mmmm. Quite matronly, to be Nora.’

I smiled. ‘True. Maybe she’ll be the one who doesn’t look like her portrait. Or maybe she’ll grow into it.’

‘Maybe. Lucrezia, this is really, really spooky. Your mum seemed to know you before you were born.’

‘My mum was special. As for being spooky… Maybe just a little.’

‘Yes. What colour is my aura now, Lucrezia?’

I smiled and looked down. ‘You remembered.’

In the years I was away, I never confided in anyone else. My child’s instinct told me not to tell anyone in that horrible hospital, obviously – at boarding school I just wanted to go unnoticed, not to attract any attention to myself, though sometimes my ability to read people’s moods was remarked on. I always recoiled – I was terrified that if there was something strange about me, they would send me to the hospital again.

Once in Paris, I hoped I’d left the old Lucrezia behind, like a butterfly out of her chrysalis – I’d built a new, cold identity that certainly didn’t involve preternatural talents. The more I ignored the gift, the more atrophied it became. But since I’d come home, it was beginning to bloom again, like a muscle that was being exercised again.

‘It’d be impossible to forget. Would you forget, if your best friend told you she could see green all around your head, and looked up at… nothing? Well, not nothing to you, of course. Would you forget if she told you about her sister plucking stories out of thin air?’

I smiled. ‘No. I wouldn’t forget. But I’m not sure I’d believe her.’ I stole a glance of him, as we stood side by side in front of Bronzino’s masterpieces.

‘I believed you. I still do. And I could see how special Mia is.’

My heart soared. I’d been right, to confide in him. He believed me, and he seemed fascinated instead of daunted.

‘Yes. I think Mia is the most magical of us.’

‘What about Nora?’

I shrugged. ‘Nora is a mystery. You see… our gifts come from Mum, and Nora refuses anything that comes from her. Bianca says she has an affinity to animals, but apart from that, I don’t know.’

‘So… what do you see around me, now?’

‘Wait.’ I focused on the space around him, and my eyes were filled with spring green and light yellow… which then morphed into a deep, soothing aqua blue.

I smiled. ‘I see… you. Your spirit. It’s all beautiful, and… kind.’

‘It’s not always how I felt, in the last few years,’ he said. And then, a thought seemed to hit him.

‘Something just came back to me. I saw your mother talking to my dad, once. It wasn’t long before you went away. They were over at the warehouse, in our estate. I’m sure it was her. Her hair was impossible to miss.’

‘Really? When? We weren’t allowed any interaction. Had he known, my father would have…’

I couldn’t finish the sentence. We never really knew why our families hated each other so. There were other powerful wine and oil traders around here, other rivals. But with the Orafi, it was always vicious. And it started suddenly… The car accident and its responsibility weighed between us, unmentioned and yet there, hanging in the air, under the gaze of the women in the portraits.

‘Hey. I’m sorry I brought this up… Let me see you smile again, please.’

I felt Vanni’s hand, warm and strong, find mine. Can something be electrifying and yet comfortable at the same time? The thought of Claude ran through my mind, cold, devoid of any feeling but guilt. And this in itself made me feel even guiltier. I took my hand away, and I could see he was a little startled.

‘No, it’s fine. Don’t worry. Are you hungry? I am,’ I said a little too quickly, a little too cheerfully. ‘There was a place we used to go to with Mum. Nothing fancy, a tiny restaurant that gave us girls these mini round pizzas… We loved them. It might not be there any more, though.’

‘Well, let’s see,’ Vanni said, and we made our way out of the gallery, under a showery sky. I said a silent goodbye to the women who gave us our names, their beauty forever frozen in time.

‘This way.’ I led him, but quickly realised that maybe it wasn’t the best idea. The alley, enclosed by high stone buildings, was narrow and lined with a slim pavement that made the wheelchair proceed at an angle. The trattoria was still there, but I was dismayed to see how high, how narrow the entrance steps were – the Uffizi had spoiled us with its ramps and its lift, but most other places, in an ancient city like Florence, weren’t accessible.

How come I’d never considered such a thing? It had never even occurred to me that simply moving in the world with ease was a privilege.

I crossed my arms. ‘We should go and find somewhere a little more welcoming.’

The air around Vanni’s head and shoulders coloured crimson – anger. But against who? Me, the steps, the chair?

‘No, I don’t want to stop you.’

‘I don’t really care about?—’

‘ Buongiorno! Can I help?’ A man wearing an apron appeared on the steps. ‘Michele! Come here!’ he called inside, in a thick Florentine accent.

‘It’s fine, we don’t…’ I began, but everyone ignored me. The two men gave Vanni a nod and lifted the chair, with Vanni frowning and glaring at the steps.

‘You go first,’ he said. The waiters were strong, and careful – but those steps were simply too narrow. Vanni sat powerless while the chair was tipped uncomfortably. Had it not been for one of the waiters grabbing him by the shoulders while the others balanced the chair, he would have fallen.

It was nothing, really, not for those men, not for me, not for the punters inside – but it was for Vanni. The waiter helped him back on the chair, and he was safe on top of the stairs; but the whole restaurant had turned to look, and one of the punters was halfway to us, thinking he might have to help. Vanni’s cheeks were flushed, his jaw locked.

He didn’t meet my eye while they led us to the table and took our orders. The crimson of his aura had turned blue, not a peaceful sky blue, but a deep and sorrowful blue-black. He took a sip of his wine.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Totally fine. No problem at all.’

I tilted my head. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Are you okay, Lucrezia?’

‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Are you not ashamed , to be seen with someone who nearly fell flat on his face?’

The bitterness in his words shocked me. There was a blustery sea inside him which I hadn’t seen until now, lost as I’d been in all that was happening to me and my sisters.

‘I can’t believe you’re asking me if I felt ashamed to be seen with you. It’s absurd!’

‘It’s not absurd. But anyway. I don’t want to spoil our day out…’

‘You’re not spoiling anything! You make our day out. When I saw you again I was too happy to even consider the fact that you can’t walk. You were there, in the same room as me. The rest seemed irrelevant. I know it’s not and I know your life has changed, but this is the way I felt in that moment: I didn’t care .’

There was a pause, as both of us digested our conversation. ‘Enough about this,’ he said then, with a smile that reassured me a little. ‘Tell me more about your life in Paris,’ he said while one of the waiters laid two plates of fragrant spaghetti with fresh tomatoes in front of us. No fancy French cuisine could beat the simplest of Italian dishes, I considered smugly, and covered my pasta with a generous smattering of parmigiano.

‘Well, you know I always was a little bossy…’

‘You were,’ he said in a serious tone, but with a mischievous light in his eyes.

‘You’re supposed to say not at all !’

‘Not at all,’ he parroted with a grin.

‘Fine, I was! Anyway. I found the perfect job for my bossiness. I’m a personal assistant to a chef. I organise his schedule, deal with the press, make sure everything runs smoothly. He’s also… well, like I said, we’re together.’

‘Oh. That’s good.’ He rolled some spaghetti around his fork. Quite deliberately, I thought.

‘He’s not… I mean… It’s not a fairy-tale romance. We work well together.’

‘That’s good,’ he repeated.

‘So, that’s me. Tell me about you.’

I took a sip of wine. An abundant sip.

‘Not much to say. I work, as much as Lorenzo allows me… He thinks I could break at any moment. I had a girlfriend… fiancée, actually. Not any more. She couldn’t live with this,’ he said and patted the armrest of his wheelchair.

I leaned back. The thought of how that must have made him feel was unbearable. I tried not to judge his former girlfriend – we don’t all envisage our life the same way, and it was better she left him than both of them living unhappily. But it was hard to imagine what Vanni must have been through. ‘That sounds awful.’

He shrugged. ‘It taught me a lesson.’

‘Not to settle for fair-weather friends? And partners?’

‘Not to hope I could have a normal life.’

I couldn’t find the words to say that it wasn’t true. That it really wasn’t true. That he’d become blind to his worth and his talents.

That happiness was within reach, if only he allowed himself to take it. Or at least, try.

Maybe that was something I should have told myself: happiness is possible, if you only try and reach out for it, instead of denying it over and over.

I didn’t want to go back to it all. I didn’t want to say goodbye.

When Maurizio opened the car door for me and it was time to step out, I had to force my body to move in the opposite direction from Vanni, fighting that strange force of gravity that pulled me to him.

The sky weighed heavy on the hills, full of clouds that had only just begun opening. It was darker than it should be at this time of day, with night drawing in almost suddenly, as if it were winter. The first smattering of raindrops hit the car. A storm was brewing.

I turned to him. ‘Thank you. Really. Today was…’ I couldn’t finish the sentence. Every word that came to my mind seemed too sentimental. ‘Good.’

I reached the door, and turned around one last time. Vanni raised his hand in a brief goodbye. He was smiling, but the smile died on his lips a moment before I looked away; and he was gone, away into the gathering darkness. The way he’d stopped smiling as soon as he thought I wasn’t looking at him worried me: had he not had a good time? I knew that the mishap on the restaurant steps had been upsetting for him, that he’d been affected by that, but I hoped that it hadn’t completely spoiled the day for him.

I ran upstairs to get changed, and while I undressed under the trailing red roses, a thought hit me: there was nothing left of my bond with Claude. Nothing, except goodwill. Maybe the bond had never been there at all. Vanni’s eyes, Vanni’s smile and the feeling of my hand in his filled my memory, but who knew what was going to happen between us? Everything or nothing.

I had no idea what was going to happen next in my life. The destiny of Casalta was up in the air; the relationship with my sisters was a tapestry in the making, with many hanging threads; everything now revolved around taming this beast my father had unleashed against me, the mountain of debt and the uncertainty of my sisters’ future. But what I knew for sure was that my heart was not with Claude, not with my job as his assistant either. The more time I spent in Tuscany, the more my ties to Paris frayed.

But you know , I whispered to the roses, that I’m not telling the whole truth, not even to myself: that I carried Vanni in my heart with me for all these years…