Chapter 1 Rafaella #3
‘Are you dating him?’ Romola asked, looking delighted. ‘You never said in your letters!’
‘I – well …’ Rafaella blustered, feeling under immediate scrutiny.
‘Five months. Second base,’ Gina said, winking again and making Romola scream and clap excitedly.
‘Gina!’ Rafaella scolded, her cheeks burning.
‘Oh – as if I wasn’t going to get it out of you!’ Romola laughed. ‘But I can’t believe you’ve got a boyfriend and never said! What’s the big secret?’
‘No secret,’ Rafaella fibbed. Everyone in the village knew, of course, but it was true she had held back from sharing the news in her letters. She hadn’t wanted it to get back to Cosimo, as she’d known it would. She had wanted to control the message, to see how things were between them first.
But this had hardly been controlled. And his reaction wasn’t what she had anticipated.
‘You can do better than him, surely, Rafa?’ Cosi asked, his gaze tangling with hers like a cat’s cradle.
‘What’s so wrong with him?’ she bridled.
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ He looked across at his sister. ‘Don’t you remember that time we caught him peering over the garden wall while we were in the pool and he tried to pretend he was bird-watching?’
‘No.’
Cosi looked back at Rafaella. ‘He’s a loner. I always thought he was a bit odd.’
‘You’re a bit odd,’ Romola said, rolling her eyes and pushing him so that he stumbled back a step.
‘Just because Fon’s quiet doesn’t make him odd. Loads of the girls around here have a thing for him,’ Gina said protectively. ‘He’s good-looking. And he’s taller than you now, too, I reckon.’
‘Not stronger, though, I bet,’ Cosimo said, casually flexing a bicep. ‘He always had legs like pipe-cleaners.’
‘Oh, leave him alone!’ Gina scolded. ‘He and Raf are very sweet together.’
‘Sweet?’ Scorn dripped from the word. ‘Well, I guess if that’s what floats your boat.’
‘It will be if he has even a fraction of his brother’s charm,’ Romola grinned, biting her lip as Gina gave a small squeal too. Dante’s appeal to women ran across all age groups and up and down the social ladder.
Rafaella waved a hand dismissively, although she was stung by Cosimo’s scorn of her love life. ‘Tell us your news,’ she implored Romola. ‘What happened with Rocco? You said you were going to meet after Easter?’
Although they only saw each other once a year, the girls’ letters were regular and always filled with gossip.
Of course, Romola’s were thicker, stuffed with detailed accounts of her adventures at glamorous parties and society balls.
There was so much more to do in the big city, not to mention that life was exponentially bigger when you had the money and status that came with the ducal Franchetti name.
‘Pah! It never happened. He threw me over for some girl he met skiing in Courmayeur.’
‘No!’ Gina dramatically pressed a hand to her heart. The story of Rocco’s determined pursuit of their friend had kept them all on tenterhooks for most of the year. ‘He threw you over?’
‘Si! But I don’t care,’ Romola said dismissively.
‘You don’t?’ In her last letter, Romola had vowed she was going to marry him.
‘Of course not,’ she shrugged. ‘By then I had met Otello, and he has a castle near Turin with three ghosts.’
‘Three?’ Rafaella asked incredulously.
Her comment prompted a wail of laughter from Gina. ‘You’re supposed to care about the castle, Rafa! Not the ghosts.’
Even Cosimo cracked a smile at that.
‘But she said he has three!’ Rafaella protested, catching sight of a couple walking round from the lido, towels thrown over their shoulders and heading towards the last remaining table. ‘Oh, come – we are working. You’ll have to pretend to work with us while you tell us all the news.’
‘You want me to work? In this?’ Romola asked in mock horror, pulling at the fabric of her turquoise-and-blue dress as the four of them walked over the sand. ‘It’s a Pucci.’
‘A who-cci?’ Gina cooed, stroking her like a pet.
Romola laughed again. ‘Only the new It designer of the moment. He opened a boutique in Portofino. All the glitterati are wearing him. You really haven’t heard of him?’
Rafaella smiled as this year’s education began. Romola was their authority for everything stylish. ‘I’m sure Silvana has.’
‘Oh, she has. It was she who told us to find you here, and we could scarcely get away! She almost had the dress off me trying to examine the seams!’
‘Did you hear she and Luchino are getting married in a few weeks?’ Rafaella asked, her eyes shining.
‘Of course! She—’
‘Wait, don’t say another word,’ Gina said, holding up a finger. ‘I’ll be right back!’ She ran over to the couple sitting down at the last free table to take their order.
‘Do you want some Cokes?’ Rafaella asked as they waited, reaching down into the fridge and holding up a couple of bottles.
‘Love one,’ Romola gasped, taking it. ‘I’m parched.’
‘Cosi?’ She looked up at him, feeling a small shock as their eyes met again.
He shook his head. ‘Too sugary. They make me feel sick.’
‘Since when?’
‘Ignore him,’ Romola said, shoving his arm irritably. ‘He thinks he’s the big man now because he drinks Merlot and cognac.’
‘I can’t help it if I have a discerning palate and you don’t.’
‘Well, we definitely don’t have Merlot or cognac here,’ Rafaella shrugged, opening a cola for herself too and gulping it down thirstily.
She needed the sugar. She felt shaky, as if there had been a step change in the rhythmic beat of her heart.
Every year, the Franchettis’ summer return to the port seemed to quicken her life force, as if pulling her from a state of dormancy; but this was different.
She felt like there was quicksilver in her veins.
‘Will you still be here for the wedding?’
‘Of course. I love a wedding! Besides, I don’t want to leave a single second before I must,’ Romola said.
Standing behind the counter, she looked like a flamingo in a henhouse.
Usually Rafaella felt a heady mixture of fascination and awe as she readjusted to being in her glamorous friend’s orbit, but she couldn’t concentrate on her today.
Cosimo lurked in her peripheral vision, her familiar old friend but also …
aloof, as if he was holding himself apart.
‘OK, I’m back,’ Gina panted as she reached for the coffee pot, not wanting to miss a thing. ‘So – when did you get here, anyway?’
‘Not even an hour ago. Mamma will be furious we sneaked out,’ Romola said, completely unperturbed by the deception. ‘We promised we would unpack before we came to find you, but we couldn’t wait. We’re having our party tomorrow night and just knew you would want to know the scoop right away.’
Scoop? Rafaella and Gina both looked at her expectantly. As if the annual party itself wasn’t exciting enough.
‘Guess who is our guest of honour?’ Romola said, clapping her hands with excitement as Cosimo looked at her sharply.
‘Romy—’
‘We can’t guess!’ Gina said, far too impatient for games at the best of times, but especially while holding a coffee pot. ‘Who is it?’
‘Valentina Fabiani!’
Heads turned in their direction as the name carried on the breeze.
‘Valen—?’ Gina breathed.
Rafaella felt her whole body tense with shock.
If La Lollo was Italy’s sweetheart, Valentina Fabiani was her precocious little sister.
‘The bombshell from Bomba’, the newspapers called her.
Her latest picture had been a huge hit, and her recent visit to the Colosseum for a private tour had created traffic jams in Rome for hours.
‘But how do you know her?’ Gina stage-whispered. This put Dante Giannelli’s brief brush with fame firmly in the shade. He had been one of three hundred extras on set with La Lollo, merely breathing the same air. But for the Franchettis to actually host a bona fide film star in their home …
‘I don’t. I haven’t met her yet. You-know-who here met her at a jazz club on Via Veneto a few weeks ago.’ Romola jerked her head towards her brother. Cosimo had the decency to look abashed as the girls stared at him incredulously.
‘You’re dating Valentina Fabiani?’ Gina asked him in open disbelief.
‘I wouldn’t say dating, exactly …’
Rafaella felt suddenly sick. The sugar had hit her bloodstream, and it was so hot … She grabbed a cloth and began wiping the counter as Romola carried on dishing gossip.
‘Supposedly she’s travelling to Gallipoli for some reshoots of her next picture, so Brother Dearest invited her to stop over here for a few days. Mamma disapproves terribly, of course, but Valentina’s arriving here tomorrow evening, so there is no time for indignation.’
Now it was clear why the Franchettis had arrived early – nothing to do with the heat in Rome. But then, Romola, like the rest of the Roman nobility, always spoke at an angle, everything slightly oblique.
‘… Poor Mamma is in a terrible fluster.’
The girls knew Romola’s mother would not be doing anything more arduous than choosing the flowers and deciding which dress to wear.
It would be the village women, swinging into action, who would bring the party to pass – and they would do it happily, because everyone would talk about it for months if not years afterwards.
Such events enhanced the legend of the noble Franchettis in their beloved summertime port.
‘Right. Well, that’s all perfectly normal. Tomorrow night we’re partying with a film star,’ Gina said wryly, nodding as she digested the news. She looked across at her co-worker and best friend. ‘I guess this means our summer has officially begun. Wouldn’t you agree, Rafa?’
Rafaella was staring out to sea, watching the Giannellis’ boat still cutting swooping loops beyond the harbour wall as they revelled in their moment of glory.
‘… Rafa?’
She turned back to them, dishcloth in hand, and managed a smile, aware of Cosimo’s quiet gaze upon her profile. ‘I guess I would, yes.’