Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
CASALTA, 18 APRIL 1985
LUCREZIA
A hesitant sun rose on a new day, soft with rain. Today was the day we would officially let Casalta go.
We took our places around a shiny black table, in the notary’s meeting room. Unlike his study, which was full of antiques, this was modern, with abstract posters framed on the wall and brightly coloured chairs. In the centre sat an ominous pile of documents. Cavalli looked smug, the Orafi signet ring shining obnoxiously on his finger.
‘Is it only the two of you?’ the notary murmured to Bianca.
‘Yes. There was no need for my sisters to be here,’ she said in a cold tone. ‘Therefore, Nora is not here.’
What? What interest did he have in Nora?
‘I see. Well, please tell her I was asking after her.’
‘She won’t know who you are,’ Bianca replied, and Cavalli’s expression morphed into something between humiliated and piqued. He straightened the papers and the pen in front of him with short, sharp movements.
Across the table was Lorenzo, dressed in a dark suit and silk tie, composed, calm, as if this was just everyday business. Which, for him, I supposed it was.
Vanni wasn’t there.
I wanted to turn around and look at the door, hoping he would come in at any moment, or to the windows, where he might come in through the car park. But I didn’t move. It’d be so transparent, my desire to see him. And I didn’t want it to be, for both my sake and his…
My eyes met Lorenzo’s, which were quietly triumphant. I held his gaze; yes, the feud between the Falconeri and the Orafi wasn’t mine, but seeing this man lording it over me and my sisters stung. A lot.
Cavalli bumped his pen on the table twice, as if we were children brought to attention. I balked. My nerves were on fire: I couldn’t wait to get it all over and done with.
‘We all ready?’
‘Ready,’ Lorenzo said. Bianca nodded, and leaned towards me a little – a gesture imperceptible to others, but comforting to me.
‘Good. Let’s begin.’
Half an hour of reading and signing documents later, it was done. Casalta was not ours any more.
It was so final.
When I was holding the pen to the very last page, ready to sign and finish it all, something happened. All of a sudden, I saw red roses twirling around my arm as quick as snakes; a thorn pierced my finger, and blood fell on the paper to make my signature.
I jumped and shook my arm, but of course there was nothing there, and everyone stared at me. ‘Sorry. A cramp.’
‘It’s the last one,’ Cavalli said. ‘We all know what Italian bureaucracy is like, eh?’ He attempted a laugh, but nobody joined in. I would have liked to stick the pen in his eye.
I tried again, but again scarlet roses appeared around my wrist, encircling it – my whole body tensed, waiting for the sting – my fingers uncurled and the pen fell.
‘Lulu?’ Bianca whispered.
‘I can’t sign,’ I heard myself saying.
‘What?’ Lorenzo’s voice was icy.
‘I can’t. I can’t give you Casalta.’
I’d like to say that I felt brave and determined, but I was shaking so much I felt my chair vibrating.
What did I just say?
‘What did you just say?’ Bianca was ashen.
‘Excuse me?’ Lorenzo was calm and smooth as ever.
‘I can’t give you Casalta.’
Bianca clasped her hand to her mouth. There was a moment of silence. Lorenzo’s jaw worked, and then he spoke. He turned to Cavalli as if I wasn’t there.
‘Please leave us, Cavalli. We have matters to discuss.’ He wasn’t asking; he was stating. Never mind that this was the notary’s meeting room.
Our father’s lawyer had truly become the Orafi’s lackey: he scurried away and closed the door.
‘Look, Lucrezia,’ Lorenzo said. ‘You don’t need to worry about any of this any more; none of you has to. I’ll be more than happy to take it from here. Settle with the banks, smooth it all out. We won’t let a single worker go. Of course, there will be a nice payout for each of you. We won’t leave you destitute.’
‘I’m not looking for money,’ I whispered. I shook my wrist lightly, expecting to see the roses appear again. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.
‘Be reasonable. Even if you weren’t neck-deep in debt, even if the business was thriving, with your father gone, there’s nobody to take care of it…’
‘Except four perfectly capable women,’ I said, with more determination than I felt. Lorenzo ignored me.
‘You can take your time to get settled somewhere else, get back on your feet.’
‘We are on our feet, thank you very much,’ I said.
Lorenzo laughed.
That laughter of scorn sent me through the roof. Bianca’s eyes were wide.
‘You find this funny?’ I enunciated.
He sighed and leaned back on his chair. And then a smile, slow, knowing, curved his lips. It was the smile of a cat who knows that the mouse will have to come out of its hiding place, sooner or later. ‘Of course not. Well, I see your mind is made up. Signorine, I’ll speak to you soon, I’m sure.’
He left the room and closed the door behind him, softly. There’d been other signs of annoyance except that working of his jaw.
‘What just happened?’ Bianca’s eyes were even bigger than usual.
‘Don’t look at me like that; you’re freaking me out.’
‘What happened? ’
Cavalli came back inside, with an expression that said: please, vacate .
‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said and took her arm. ‘I must give us a chance,’ I whispered so that Cavalli, standing there with his mouth pursed, looking insulted, wouldn’t hear us.
‘So?’ Bianca asked.
‘If I told you that a thorn stung me when I was trying to sign, would you believe me? A rose thorn. A rose trailing up my hand,’ I said, and mimicked the climbing plant.
‘Yes,’ she said calmly. ‘I would.’
‘Well, that’s what happened,’ I whispered, my heart full and my mind whirling with the consequences.
She nodded and said nothing more until we arrived home, the home that was still our own.
‘We didn’t sell. Lucrezia didn’t sign. Casalta is still ours!’ Bianca announced to a mystified Mia, and to Nora, who turned to look at me with a hint of gratitude and respect. Just a hint, mind.
‘Lucrezia?’ Gabriella’s voice was quiet, full of worry.
‘I need a moment,’ I said, and slipped away down the hall, followed by my sisters’ gazes.
I stood in the corridor with the wide glass windows, my father’s study at its end. The forbidden room was the place of ultimate terror, for me: the sum of all fears.
The night I saw my mother I’d been called in there to receive judgement, but I never made it inside: I went through the glass, and I was sent away instead.
In my nightmares, the awful dreams that followed me from childhood to adulthood, I made it all the way to the study: but the door would open to a chasm and I’d fall to my death. Other times my father would drag me inside, lock me in, and never let me out again. The dreams were so real I could smell the stale smoke – my father was fond of nausea-inducing cigars – and his aftershave, a fragrance that still caused a reflex of dread and anxiety.
It was time to face this old terror. To exorcise it by looking it in the eye.
Step after step along the corridor, I walked beside my reflection in the black glass. My feet were like lead – I was sure that any moment now my reflection would jump out of the glass and grab me…
I laid a cold, sweaty hand onto the door handle, certain my father would yank the other side, and I’d fall into the abyss…
I lowered the handle and pushed.
I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I could turn away now; I could choose not to face the blackness inside, and instead return to the light, to my sisters, to life here and now. But I knew that if I did that, the dark would follow me. It would not let me rest.
I stepped inside, and for a moment, between the light-headedness and the pitch dark, I didn’t know which was ceiling and which was floor – I felt weightless, falling, falling…
My father’s voice resounded in my memory, and his smell, and the noise of broken glass and of my cries… I could have fallen on my knees there and then, my hands over my ears to block that voice, those words.
But I didn’t. I fumbled, feeling the walls beside the door for the light switch, until I found it.
Light filled the room, and I blinked as my eyes adjusted. There was no chasm; there were no ghosts to lock me in.
Slowly, as if every step was treacherous, I made my way to my father’s desk, and sat on the leather chair. I could hear myself breathing, and I dried a film of cold sweat from my forehead.
I found a block of paper, and a fountain pen. In those folders and papers, piled one on top of the other on the desk and on the shelves around it, were names and contacts. I would list them all, and call them all, until I found a way out for us – someone who’d be crazy enough to help the business, and let my sisters keep Casalta.
I owed my sisters, and Casalta, one last shot.