Chapter 2 Fon #2
‘We had so much to do with the boat today. We had to get the mooring changed and fill her up, not to mention washing off the salt,’ Dante said, placing a hand on their mother’s shoulder. ‘Wait until you see her. What a beauty!’
‘You still haven’t told me how you managed to afford it,’ she fretted, trying to catch his eye.
‘Don’t worry so much, Mamma. I told you, I met a man who knew a man … It was a good deal,’ he shrugged, taking his bowl to the table and sitting down just as their father came in. He had been mending the nets all afternoon. ‘Papa, you should have come out with us. Did you see us?’
‘Everyone saw you,’ Carlo Giannelli replied disapprovingly. ‘Carosa wasn’t happy with the wake you caused on his way back in. Two of his lobster pots were toppled.’
‘He’s never happy,’ Dante said dismissively. ‘Besides, today was just the trial run. When we do the trips for real, we’ll be further out.’
Fon took his usual place by the window, looking out onto the chickens, while his father and brother took the head and right-hand seats.
‘Mangiate,’ their mother insisted, using a cloth to swat at a bothersome fly. ‘While it’s hot.’
They all waited as their father served himself first. ‘Good news, Papa. I got a good price for the sea bream at Brindisi,’ Dante said.
‘It’s crazy, you going all the way up there to sell some fish,’ their mother tutted from the stove as she reached in for the bread.
Dante glanced over at her before reaching for the package in his pocket and sliding it across the table. ‘Like I told you, it was better than your guy was offering. Uncle Teo was right – there’s profit to be had if you cut out the middleman.’
Their father took a quick look at the contents: more cash than he had ever seen in one place before. He looked back at his eldest son with pride, removing the package to his own jacket pocket with a silent nod before his wife returned to the table. ‘Well done, my boy.’
Fon looked on, unsettled by the blatant lie. They hadn’t been up to Brindisi today, and Parisi’s men were no fishermen.
‘So, you have heard the news?’ their mother asked wearily, sitting down at last as Dante took the bowl and served himself next.
‘Even five miles out at sea, I heard the news,’ their father muttered. ‘Everyone has gone mad!’
‘Si,’ she agreed. ‘Mad!’
But Fon glimpsed a dark bead of excitement in her eyes before the disapproval won out. ‘What’s happened?’ He was always the last to know, it seemed.
‘The Franchettis are back –’
His head whipped up at the words. They were here already?
‘And they’re throwing the party tomorrow night. They have a guest of honour.’
‘Who?’
‘Valentina Fabiani.’
The name didn’t seem to mean much to Monica’s husband but her sons looked back at her, stunned, Dante pausing with his spoon midway to his mouth. ‘Why is she coming here?’
‘She is a friend of Cosimo’s,’ their mother shrugged.
Dante’s eyes narrowed. ‘Friend? Or girlfriend?’
‘How should I know?’ she scowled. ‘All I know is the duchessa is unhappy. The boy acted on a whim again, and now it is down to his poor mother to clean up his mess. She says if it cannot be prevented, then she is at least determined to keep things elegant.’ Monica arched an eyebrow to show that a line was being drawn between the noble Franchettis and their sexy starlet guest – and it was clear where their loyalties should lie.
But what did red-blooded young men care for elegance and etiquette against sexual allure? Power came in different guises; Dante was learning that. Fon, too.
‘Of course, their housekeeper has been frantic all afternoon trying to source some calla lilies!’ she continued. ‘Her usual supplier only has Madonna lilies.’
‘Why can’t she use Madonnas, then?’ Fon asked, reaching for the serving spoon.
‘Not all lilies are correct just because they are lilies, Fon!’
‘Oh,’ he sighed. It was funny how the women of the port seemed to care about these rules in the summer months and not at all during the rest of the year.
‘The nearest she can find any is in Bari, so tomorrow you and your brother are going to drive up there at dawn.’
‘Wait, what? Why us?’ Fon gasped.
‘Clearly you don’t mean me?’ Dante frowned.
‘Si, both of you. You’re to buy eight hundred stems.’
Eight hundred flowers? Fon looked at his mother in disbelief. Surely it was a joke? Who needed eight hundred flowers for a party?
‘But how?’ Dante argued. Their small car couldn’t even fit a goat in the back. They knew because they had once tried.
‘They have said they will give you the use of their car for the trip.’
Dante paused at this. The Franchetti car was, if memory served, a glossy Alfa Romeo.
Fon remained unmollified. ‘We’re supposed to start with the boat trips tomorrow,’ he protested. ‘We’ve been getting everything set up today.’ He had spent his morning painting advertising boards with ‘Water-Ski Trips Available Here’ on the quay outside the harbourmaster’s office.
‘It can wait for one more day. There are going to be many important people coming in for this party. We must come together to make sure it’s a success.’
‘But—’
‘Your mother’s right,’ their father interjected. ‘Help out the Franchettis tomorrow and your reward will come when their guests want to go out on the water in the days afterwards.’
Dante nodded, seeing the business opportunity this presented, but Fon continued to smoulder.
Cosimo Franchetti coming back was never good news as far as he was concerned.
The last thing he wanted was to be sent out of the port – on an errand necessitated by Cosimo’s actions, no less – when the Franchettis had just arrived back in it.
Every summer it was the same: the Franchettis’ return cast a golden shimmer over everything but it also unsettled the whole community.
A kind of headiness came over the villagers, as if they were all drunk on beauty and excitement for six weeks straight.
The women cared about nonsensical things like calla lilies over Madonnas, for one.
And Rafaella Parisi’s eyes would shine, for another.
Fon stared at his dinner, wishing summer had never come and that the Franchettis would just stay in Rome, where they belonged.