Chapter 15 Cosimo
Cosimo
Breakfast was eaten in silence, though that was nothing new; their family dealt in denial. Their father was all but hidden behind the newspaper at one end of the table, their mother sipping her espresso with glacial rage at the other.
Romola, her alibi blown, had been forced out of her room at last, but in the face of her parents’ frigid anger her depression had turned to defiance.
She was wearing a bikini at the table, sitting with one leg up on the chair, sucking crumbs off her fingers so that Cosimo half wondered whether she was drunk again.
She was making herself into everything their parents deplored – noisy, uncouth, slatternly – but their mother busied herself with making sure the little ones finished their figs and walnuts. Their father hadn’t looked at her once.
Cosimo had overheard them lecturing her on their return from the beach last night. The issue wasn’t that she had had sex; the only matter of significance was with whom, and sleeping with a Giannelli sat somewhere between eating faeces and running through the streets naked.
Romola helped herself to another pasticciotto.
‘That’s your fifth,’ their mother said.
‘I know,’ Romola shrugged, grabbing another for good measure.
Cosimo looked on. His sister always did this – starving herself for days at a time, then eating till she was almost sick. As with her drinking, there was a recklessness to it, almost as if she was trying to hurt or punish herself in some way.
She wasn’t the only one feeling bruised. His black eye had come out overnight and he had almost no range of movement in his right thumb. The doctor had been sent for.
‘They’re still running with that story, Papa?’ Fede asked, breaking the silence.
Cosimo looked over again at his father, hiding behind bureaucracy.
The headlines were doom-mongering over the British and French uproar about Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal Company; but in smaller print, further down the page, his own name was typed in black and white: Franchetti Landslide Shame.
Eighty-six villas had collapsed and thirteen people had been killed in May when a heavy storm had swept floodwater through a new development in Copertino, near Lecce.
‘It’s been weeks now,’ Fede frowned. ‘Why are they still coming for you?’
There was a pause before Filippo shook out the pages, closed and folded them, and laid the paper on the table. ‘Because I, to quote our American friends, am where the buck stops. I’m the minister of infrastructure. I may as well have built those villas myself.’
‘Yes, you may as well have,’ Romola said bullishly, eyeballing him. ‘But hey, at least the men who died were only poor construction workers – so they don’t really count, right?’
Filippo let the jibe slide as he reached for his coffee. He behaved as if she hadn’t said anything. As if she wasn’t even there.
‘Right?’ Romola sat forward, hunched over the table. Cosimo glanced at their mother, knowing she couldn’t bear elbows on the table. Just as Romola couldn’t bear to be ignored. ‘Can’t you hear me, Papa?’
Filippo’s head swivelled. ‘… Is there something you wish to get off your chest, Romola?’
Cosimo saw how she swallowed at his sudden directness, the chilling coldness in his voice, seeming to shrink back into herself a little. For all her badgering, she always withdrew at the vital moment, as if she wanted to spar but not wound; bite but not kill.
Cosimo cleared his throat. ‘I think what Romy’s trying to say is that—’
‘Romy doesn’t know what she’s trying to say,’ their father replied, swinging his attention to him now. ‘That’s the problem. She hears things she doesn’t understand. She sees things she doesn’t understand. She’s no great thinker, capable of debating on this.’
Cosimo bristled at their father’s arrogance. ‘But her point is it does all go through your office.’
‘Exactly,’ Romola said, drawing courage again from him; they had always stuck together. ‘The amount of building permits being issued isn’t viable! I heard that over four thousand building permits have been issued in the past four years.’
‘Oh? And where did you hear that exactly?’ Filippo asked witheringly. ‘An opinion piece by Italo Calvino? Some pretentious, drunk philosopher at one of your parties?’
‘… It just seems a lot.’
‘People need houses, that’s a fact, and whether you like it or not, the old ways are dead. The war changed things for ever. People want to live and work in the cities now.’
‘But the old city centres are being abandoned! In … in Palermo alone, the population has dropped by two-thirds—’
‘Palermo is a law unto itself. And besides, that figure is wildly exaggerated,’ Filippo scoffed. ‘But people do want the electricity and running water you can have in the modern blocks – that we enjoy as a matter of course. Are you saying we should insist they continue to go without?’
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. Of course not—’
They were stopped by their mother’s quiet chuckle at the other end of the table.
‘What’s so funny?’ Filippo frowned.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Rossanna sighed. ‘It just always tickles me when you present yourself as a man of the people.’
There was a silence.
‘Please, carry on,’ she murmured, twirling her wrist. ‘It’s fascinating. I do so love discussing politics at the breakfast table.’
Cosimo knew it was a clear command to drop the subject – she was a stickler for etiquette – but Romola was in no mood to appease either their father or their mother.
‘All I’m saying is, everyone knows there’s corruption. That these construction companies and the workers they use, and the concrete, and even the sand quarries they use to make the cement, are fronts for—’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Romola!’ their father barked. ‘It is for local councillors to issue permits as they see fit. I hardly see how I can be expected to police the disbursements and control the activities of regional authorities, when clearly I don’t even have control over my own family!’
His outburst was met with another frigid silence. They all knew it was more a response to his wife’s needling sarcasm than his teenage daughter’s baiting, but it was the break in protocol Romola had been looking for and she fell back at last, as if somehow satisfied.
She took another bite of the pastry.
‘Well, it’ll all blow over, Papa,’ Fede said, ever the diplomat. He looked as if he regretted raising the subject in the first place. ‘They’ll turn their attention to someone else next week, I’m sure.’
‘Oh, I know so.’ Filippo smiled at his eldest child.
They had always been close, and Cosimo was sure Fede was only at law school as a precursor to following in their father’s footsteps as a politician.
Fede felt the weight of duty, as the first-born son, to make their father proud and continue the noble Franchetti name in public service, whereas Cosimo had no idea where his own future lay.
‘Remember what I keep telling you. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Politics is all about the long game – and long memories.’ He patted the small leather-bound notebook beside his coffee cup; he carried it everywhere with him.
It was as much a part of his identity as his crested signet ring – or at least it was to them, always on the dinner table, bedside table or his desk.
‘Do you think I rose to this position on account of my pretty face?’
Rossanna’s head snapped up at the pithy remark. ‘No. Just your name.’
Just then the housekeeper came in. ‘Signore Russo on the telephone, signore.’
Filippo rose with a sigh of relief. ‘Well, on that note …’
They all watched as he went to take the call with the secretary of the Council of Ministers, the PM’s right-hand man. The tension in the room departed with him and Cosimo saw their mother physically soften as she pushed her knife and fork together on the plate and sank back in her chair.
‘What are your plans today, boys?’ she asked, looking over at them.
‘Studying,’ Fede replied. Sometimes Cosimo wondered if his brother worked so hard because it gave him the perfect excuse to hide away from the rest of them.
‘Really?’ She looked disappointed. ‘I had thought we might—’
‘I have exams when I get back, Mamma,’ he said quickly. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll make sure I get out for a bit. I’ll go down again to Marina Serra for a swim later.’
‘And you, Cosi?’ their mother asked.
He hesitated. His day lay before him like a white sheet with not so much as a wrinkle to divert him. ‘… I’m not sure. I thought Romy and I could—’
‘No,’ their mother said, cutting him off with a dismissive shake of her head. ‘I’m getting my nails done in Tricase, and she’s coming with me.’
‘But I don’t want to get my nails done,’ Romola protested.
‘What you want is neither here nor there. For the rest of this holiday, you’re going to remain in my eyeline at all times.’
‘But you can’t do that!’ Romola gasped, looking horrified.
‘Watch me.’ Their mother pressed her napkin to her mouth and set it down as an indication that both the meal and the conversation were at a close. She looked at Cosimo. ‘The little ones are going back up to the Parisis’ again today.’
‘Oh.’ Helping out on the agricola and learning some rural skills was something they had each done when they were younger.
Clearly no Franchetti would ever need to know how to prune an olive tree or press the oil, but it was a favour granted by Emilio Parisi that paid lip service to the idea of the family being integrated into the village, even though Cosimo now suspected idle, rich children were far more hindrance than help.
‘Would you drop them there at ten for me, please? They’ll need collecting at three.’
‘Sure.’ He sat a little straighter. He had humiliated himself on the beach last night. What if he ran into Rafaella there? … Worse, what if he didn’t? Despite everything, he still wanted to see her. If he could just explain …
‘But our nails won’t take five hours,’ Romy said in a worried tone.
‘No, but afterwards we’re going to Mass. And you will be going in the confession box.’
On a Thursday afternoon? Romola sank back in her chair, darting a murderous look towards Cosimo across the table, but he could only shrug in return.
It was official. This summer was a bust.