Chapter 1 Rafaella
Rafaella
The bolt of satin rolled out along the length of the cutting table, ripples catching the light like the sparkling sea that lay beyond the window.
The women gasped at its beauty, a cluster of hands instinctively reaching forward to touch the liquid fabric.
The lace veil they had been working on moments before, their chairs still gathered in a circle, was instantly forgotten.
‘Basta!’ Silvana Parisi cried, swatting them away and reaching for her white cotton gloves.
She pulled them on with a proud smile, holding up the cut end and pressing it against herself.
‘Huh? Huh?’ she prompted as the women broke into excited chatter, seeing how the fabric draped and fell like a waterfall against her impressive curves.
‘But how did you afford it?’ Nonna Giacosa asked with her usual suspicious tone. She was not in the habit of believing in luck – or favours – and in her long memory, no one in this tiny, impoverished fishing port had ever worn something as opulent as a satin wedding dress before.
‘Dante brought it back from Rome for me. He became friends with the costume designer on set.’
‘I bet he did,’ Gina Crespi murmured, rolling her eyes towards Rafaella and winking at her. ‘Was she blonde?’
‘He was not,’ Silvana continued. ‘But the fabric was left over from a costume for …’
She left the reveal hanging tantalizingly and several of the women gasped again. They all knew Dante Giannelli had been cast as an extra in the new Robert Leonard film, starring Gina Lollobrigida, Italy’s sweetheart.
‘You are telling me my future daughter-in-law will be wearing La Lollo’s dress to marry my son?’ Giulieta Carosa exclaimed delightedly.
‘The fabric,’ Nonna Giacosa corrected.
‘And mine will be even better than hers by the time I’m finished with it!’ Silvana boasted, pressing the fabric to her body again and swaying happily from side to side.
Rafaella watched her big sister, knowing it was true.
Silvana could take a potato sack and make it into something beautiful, or even better – desirable.
She knew exactly where to tuck, dart or pleat, and she would spend hours poring over magazines that showed the fashions worn by all the movie stars carousing in Rome.
It hadn’t escaped the notice of the nonnas that she was pinning the younger women’s dresses ever tighter at the waist and bosom, bringing the style of the famous Fontana Sisters to little Tricase Porto.
Gina’s new Sunday best dress had had to be let down and out by an inch after her mother had crossed herself at the first sighting of her daughter in it; Silvana had promised to comply, but Rafaella knew she had only pinched in a half-inch instead, and Gina blamed the rest on pasta.
Silvana had promised to make a new dress for Rafaella too this summer, for she had grown fast this last year.
Finally, at seventeen, she was sprouting curves that had been sorely lacking before.
Rafaella had chosen a light blue cotton, which Silvana had suggested they trim with white cotton lace and pearly buttons at the bust. She couldn’t wait for her sister to start on it.
The peaches were already hanging heavy in the trees, which meant the summer people would be arriving any day now, and then their sleepy fishing village would burst into life for six glorious weeks.
Already there were more cars and scooters coming through on the coast road, visitors invariably dazzled as they came round the sharp bend to be greeted by a deeply coloured vision that could have come from a Cinecittà film set: dazzling turquoise waters lapping onto a small golden sand beach, flanked on one side by a long promenade where the ragazzi lay on towels in their swimwear, and on the other by the marina, where dozens of cerulean-blue fishing boats were moored.
Along the frontage sat a handful of grand villas in Neapolitan colours: the salmon-pink hotel Villa Maria on the waterfront itself, the now-yellow Villa Blanca, blancmange-pink Villa Agosto and the pistachio-painted Villa Aymone.
Set back in verdant gardens, behind high walls and trellised gates, they sat empty for ten months of the year; the villagers lived further up the hill, in the small white houses lining the far end of Borgo Pescatori and Via Santa Marcellina.
‘And what are you thinking for the style?’ Giulieta asked Silvana.
Her eyes fell to the open page of a nearby magazine that showed a model exiting a car, displaying a wanton amount of cleavage, and her fingers formed an accusing point.
‘Because Father Tommaso would have something to say if you walked down his aisle showing that.’
‘As if her own father would stand for it!’ Irma Parisi protested, seeming to find a slight in the suggestion.
The nonnas immediately joined in the consternation and Rafaella and Gina exchanged looks as the moral rectitude of the port was suddenly, seemingly, thrown into question.
Was this bolt of satin not merely a touch of luxury but a Trojan horse through which Hollywood’s scandalous sexual laxity would infect their seaside community?
‘Neither my father nor Father Tommaso will have anything to worry about,’ Silvana reassured them, haughtily tossing back her long, almost-black hair. ‘The neckline will be modest—’
‘High?’ Nonna Masina asked, bringing a shaking, veined hand up to her own neck.
‘Modest, si,’ Silvana reiterated noncommittally.
‘With long sleeves?’ The shaking hand went to her wrist.
‘To the elbows at the very least.’
A frown began to furrow the lined skin. ‘And long …’ Nonna Masina was far too old to get her hand down to the floor; neither knees nor hips would permit it.
‘Certainly past the knees.’
The nonnas’ eyebrows began to hitch upwards as they looked over at her mother, but they were interrupted by a sudden shout from outside. ‘Maria!’ The clamour at the table died down.
‘Tch,’ Gina’s mother tutted as she crossed over to the green-shuttered window. ‘What?’ she called out.
Rafaella could hear her grocer husband telling her their delivery of tomatoes and courgettes had arrived.
‘Pah,’ she muttered, swatting his words away with a hand as she turned back to the other women, her gaze falling longingly over the bolt of white satin once more.
Silvana’s wedding to Luchino Carosa was to be the high point of the villagers’ summer.
It was all the women wanted to talk about as they did their laundry at the wash-house or leaned on pillows over their stabled front doors in the evenings.
But their time was up in the dressmaker’s studio.
No more lace-making today. Riposo was over.
The shutters would soon be pulled back up at the caffè and the shrimp boats would shortly be coming in with the last of the day’s catch. Dinners needed to be prepared.
The nonnas got up from their stools beside the cutting table and began making their way down the narrow stairs. Silvana shared the rent on the property with the local cobbler, a new arrangement that seemed to be working well.
‘Can we have a fitting of my dress later?’ Rafaella asked as they carefully wound the satin back onto its roll. ‘I come off my shift at six.’
‘Not tonight,’ Silvana said with a flick of her thick lashes. ‘Luchino is taking me to see the new Mastroianni picture.’ Luchino had recently bought one of the new Piaggios and missed no opportunity to impress his fiancée by whizzing her off to places beyond the train line.
Rafaella bit back her disappointment – and desperation. ‘Tomorrow, then?’
Silvana raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s not like you to be so impatient, little sister.’
‘I’m not impatient,’ Rafaella shrugged. ‘But my clothes no longer fit.’
‘It’s true, your skirts are too short. I’ll have to drop the hem on that one,’ Silvana said, casting a glance at Rafaella’s pink-and-yellow-striped dress that now stopped several inches up her thighs.
‘You already have.’
‘… Oh.’ Her sister glanced at her, a gleam coming into her eye. ‘And is this sudden desperation for your blonde Romeo’s benefit? Or because a certain boy is coming back to the port next week?’
‘What?’ Rafaella felt her cheeks flame. ‘No! Why should I care what Cosi thinks about my clothes?’
Silvana’s eyes widened with delight at her evident fluster. ‘Who mentioned Cosi? Not me. I didn’t name names.’
‘Well, clearly you didn’t mean Fede!’
‘Why not? He’s as gorgeous as his little brother.’
‘He’s five years older than me!’
Silvana shrugged. ‘Papa is four years older than Mamma.’
‘Oh, forget it!’ Rafaella turned to leave.
Silvana smiled as she pinned the fabric’s end to the roll to keep it from creasing, then carefully lifted it onto a shelf alongside the other bolts of cloth. It glowed like a pearl among the heavy linens and cottons. ‘Fine!’ she called after Rafaella. ‘Come tomorrow.’
Rafaella spun back on her heel. ‘Really? When?’
‘During riposo. I’ve got fittings all morning.’
‘OK, great! Thanks!’ she cried, hearing her sister’s low chuckle behind her.