Chapter 3 Cosimo
Cosimo
Cosimo stood on the balcony and looked out to sea, watching as sunlight darted and bounced off the surface like a thousand golden arrows.
Distant boats pottered past on the horizon, their sails catching the same buffeting breeze that made the cloud pines shimmy all around him.
It was what he loved most about this place – the contrast between the verdant garden, so thick it was almost like a jungle, and the vast, open expanse of the Adriatic a few steps beyond their trellised gate.
Both landscapes were extreme, and both were as different as it was possible to be from the ancient clamour and cheek-by-jowl jostle of life in dusty Rome.
He had spent every summer of his childhood here, riding his bike down the long, lemon-tree-lined drive and swimming in turquoise waters that were so bright, whenever he left he was certain he must have exaggerated their jewel-like hue in his mind – only to return the next summer and realize it had all been true.
The air was clear here, sparkling somehow, swallows double-dipping on the thermals and hidden cicadas giving the blistering heat a sound.
Yes, this, right here, was his favourite spot in the world – standing beneath the middle arch of the pink villa in his green-striped pyjama bottoms, sipping espresso, with the bougainvillea blossoming in an extravagant froth and scented jasmine perfuming the sky.
A brilliant day was dawning before him, as if just for him.
The villagers had come out in force to help prepare for tonight’s party. He could hear multiple voices even over the mellifluous swish of the fan in his bedroom: shouts for help carrying things, directions for where to put them …
He peered around the decorative stone campana urns – they had been planted with extravagant geraniums this year, one centred in each arch along the balustrade wall.
In the garden below, gardeners were sweeping away stray palm fronds and twigs that had fallen overnight.
One was carrying a net as he went to skim the round swimming pool hidden in the orange grove.
A blue Piaggio Ape was parked askew on the gravel below – the grocers’ van.
Their daughter, his old friend and sparring partner Gina, was unloading crates of fruit from the back.
He straightened up. Where Gina was to be found …
‘You finally got out of your pit, then?’ an arch voice behind him asked, and he turned to find Romola walking barefoot through the vaulted drawing room towards him. She was wearing another of her fashionable new swirly dresses that made more sense on the coast than they ever had in the city.
‘It’s going to be a long day,’ he shrugged.
‘And night – you hope!’ Romola grinned, brushing past him and reaching for one of the orange slices cut and arranged on plates on the breakfast table.
She sank into the deep yellow cushions of a chair, arm flopping on the rest as she bit into the segment.
‘… When’s she arriving?’ she asked, sounding deliberately bored and watching as he sat down on the wall, half turned to keep an eye on the comings and goings.
Stone steps flanked either side of the balcony here, turning back in on themselves down at garden level; as children they used to have timed races up them.
Last summer they had been more useful as an alternative entrance to the front door at the west side, when they’d broken curfew to drink beers on the beach and needed to sneak in.
Cosimo shrugged. ‘Six, thereabouts.’
‘Mamma’s going to hate her.’
‘I know.’
‘She looks cheap.’
He flashed her a grin. ‘I know!’
‘She’s furious that everyone is so excited about Valentina’s presence and not our return.’
‘I hardly think it’s an occasion for anyone that we’re back. We do come every year, after all. This is our home.’
‘Oh, so we’re locals?’ she teased.
‘Of course!’
Romola giggled, swinging a long, tanned leg. ‘You have some funny ideas, Cosi.’
‘What’s funny about it?’ he asked defensively. ‘We practically grew up here!’
‘No, we just summer here. And the locals only like us because we spend more in six weeks on prosecco and lobster than they make the whole rest of the year.’
Cosimo frowned. They had this argument almost every year, but this time it seemed to matter more than ever that he won it. ‘So you’re saying Gina and Rafa are only pretending to be our friends?’
‘Well, not them, obviously!’ Romola said, rolling her eyes. ‘We were all playing together long before we understood the differences between us.’ She sucked the orange juice off her finger. ‘It was good seeing them yesterday, didn’t you think?’
‘It always is,’ he shrugged.
‘It’s a bore that they’re working now, though. What are we going to do with our days if Gina’s always working for her parents and Rafa’s at the agricola – and when they’re not there, they’re doing shifts at the beach caffè?’
‘It is pretty selfish,’ he agreed.
Romola laughed. ‘I guess we should have seen it coming. This is how their lives will be now,’ she sighed.
‘They’ll work in the port till they marry, and then they’ll be too busy having babies to go anywhere or do anything else …
’ She gave a horrified gasp. ‘You do realize this could be our last summer before all of that happens?’
He frowned. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘What’s ridiculous about it? Rafa’s been with Fon for five months! That’s longer than you or I have ever managed.’
‘Yes, but we don’t want to settle down.’
Romola tipped her chin down demurely and pressed a hand to her chest. ‘And not follow in Mamma and Papa’s footsteps? But why ever not? Their lives are so perfect!’ she mocked.
He grinned and lapsed into an easy silence, sipping coffee. He loved it here. For all the glamour of their life in Rome, he felt he spent all year waiting to come back to Villa Agosto.
‘God, it must be fun to be able to fly,’ he said, watching a butterfly flit in the geraniums. ‘I’d have that as my superpower, wouldn’t you? No, wait!’ He held a hand up. ‘Don’t tell me – you’d choose invisibility, so you could go round spying on people. Or being able to read their minds.’
Romola gave a bark of laughter as she kicked a leg at him. ‘Fun! But you’re wrong. I’d choose the ability to fly too.’
‘You would?’ Cosimo was surprised.
‘Yeah, but I wouldn’t be a butterfly,’ she scoffed. ‘They just flutter, looking pretty, and then die within a day. I’d be …’ Her eyes scanned the garden, alighting on a bird darting between the trees like an arrow, catching flies. ‘One of them. Sharp, agile. A weapon in the sky.’
Cosimo rolled his eyes. ‘That’s a barn swallow. Not an eagle!’
She laughed again, not caring either way. ‘It’s good news about Silvana and Luchino getting married, at least,’ she said, getting back to the local gossip as she inspected a nail.
‘Is it?’ he asked sceptically.
‘Of course. He should have asked her last year, if you ask me. It was getting to be embarrassing, him making her wait like that.’
‘Right.’ He sighed, looking out to sea again, not caring about the courtship of the betrothed couple.
His mind was still on Rafaella and Fon. The news they were dating had come as a bolt from the blue yesterday and he hadn’t been able to shake his disgruntlement.
He just couldn’t get his head around the thought of them together.
What did she see in him? Every summer Cosimo could feel Fon’s yearning to be included in their group, staring at them across the water or watching them in Tito’s Bar.
There was a hunger in his look that unnerved Cosimo, as if he wanted something from him.
And now he had it. Because he had Rafaella.
Romola smiled. ‘Did you see how excited they all are that the dress is going to be made from the same satin used for Lollobrigida’s dress in her new film?’
‘No. I’d tuned out of the conversation by then.’
She chuckled. ‘Dante Giannelli was an extra on set, and apparently he met someone who knew someone …’
‘Ugh, of course he did,’ Cosimo muttered. ‘He’s such a shameless opportunist.’
‘Well, it appears opportunity is well and truly knocking. Yesterday he was showing off in that new speedboat.’
Cosimo’s head whipped back round. ‘Wait – that was him?’
‘Apparently they’re going to offer water-skiing trips to the summer people.’
Cosimo frowned. Tricase Porto had only ever been a tiny fishing port, never raising its eyes to consider chasing or attracting the fashionable crowds from the cities.
That was precisely why he loved it here so much.
It was an opportunity to get away from the back-stabbing fakery and social climbing of their everyday lives.
Romola shrugged. ‘I thought it looked rather fun, actually. Could be something to do tomorrow, depending on how sore our heads are.’
‘But how did he afford a speedboat?’ Cosimo insisted. ‘That doesn’t make sense …’
‘Gina says since coming back from Rome he’s been convincing his father to let him’ – she gave a wry smile and made speech marks with her fingers – ‘diversify their income streams.’
Cosimo raised an eyebrow. ‘Dante the businessman? That’s a new one. I assumed he was on the hunt for a rich widow.’
‘Well, probably that too,’ she conceded.
Cosimo looked back out to sea. Slick sailing yachts often dotted the horizon, but if he wanted the jet-set lifestyle on the water, he’d go Porto Ercole. ‘So much for coming to Tricase for the quiet life.’
‘Ha! Everyone’s life is quiet compared to yours, Cosi!’ Romola said. ‘It’s not the place, it’s the person – and you date like women are going to be banned.’
‘Like you can talk!’ he snapped back. ‘You get through boys like they’re dresses.’
‘What can I say? I like pretty things,’ Romola shrugged. She smiled; bickering was their form of affection. ‘Talking of which, I had to look twice at Rafa, didn’t you?’
He swallowed. ‘Not really.’
‘But she looks so different.’
‘Different how?’