Chapter 43 Rafaella
Rafaella
A cat with amber eyes slunk over the wall, on the prowl for its dinner as it surveyed the scant garden, peering disinterestedly past the withered olive trees and scattered toys. A small paddling pool was half filled with water, reflecting the moon, a plastic duck gliding in serene silence.
Upstairs in the umber-coloured villa, a cotton lace curtain was fluttering at the open window. The sound of children’s chatter had long since died down and the only noise now was shuttered gasps pinching the night sky.
Rafaella watched their shadow dance on the wall as Cosimo moved above her, his face burrowed in the crook of her neck, her legs wrapped around him like a bow.
Somewhere on the floor lay their clothes, shed alongside their past as they both reached for the future and brought it into the present. Into now.
Waiting hadn’t been an option. Just this day had been endless, and tomorrow felt like it would never come.
She’d had a taste of him again and she needed more.
She wasn’t sorry for it. She was a traveller in the desert, parched and needing to drink if she was to survive; one drop wasn’t enough to sustain her.
It had been her last day with the children but he was all she could think about as she played with them in the garden, lost in her thoughts as she fed, bathed them and read their bedtime stories.
Flavia had noticed her distractedness, giving Rafaella a funny look when she’d asked the nanny to stay a few minutes longer after putting them to bed so she could pop out to thank Brother Savelli for all his help.
Tomorrow morning, Signor Conte would be taking the children back again, and this house would fall quiet once more. Like her, they were being returned to the person to whom they belonged.
Savelli had been a good friend, passing on the coded message she had slipped to him earlier as the priests walked past each other in the busy corridor.
Cosimo had let himself in just before midnight, coming through the garden gate, which she had left unlocked.
They had come straight up here to her private sanctuary, saying scarcely a word, instead letting their bodies talk through hands, mouths and intertwined limbs.
Fon was away again, and they had all night to reclaim one another and soothe their scarred souls.
She felt his urgency gathering now, his body tensing as he panted hard, his mouth pressed to her ear.
She clutched him tighter, holding him as he cried out, and she knew his ecstasy was marbled with sorrow.
Reclaiming her meant, at some level, relinquishing Romola.
Giving Rafaella up had been the price of his freedom, but submitting to life in the Church had been his own form of penance for his part in his sister’s passing.
He had lived these four years in the shadow of death. Now he was choosing life.
She ran her hands through his hair, looking up at him as he gazed at her.
He was more handsome than ever; grief had etched its lines into him and scrubbed the arrogance from his eyes.
Gone was the blank architectural beauty of youth and, in its place, something more flawed, but richer and deeper, like the burnished spot on a lucky bronze statue.
‘I love you, Raf.’
‘I love you,’ she smiled, revelling in the weight of him and his powerful physicality. Her heart was roosting in its rightful place again. They had returned to the point from which they had been diverted that night when Fon had turned up at Villa Agosto while she had been waiting for Cosimo in bed.
He rolled onto his back with a contented sigh. It had been years since he’d lain in a double bed and his legs stretched out on the smooth sheets. He groaned happily.
Rafaella turned her head and watched him as he closed his eyes to enjoy the downbeat of cool air on his bare stomach. A film of sweat glistened on his skin and she could see sleep was hovering over him like a whispering angel.
The wall shadows had fallen still at last and her eyes closed too, her lean body limp in the twisted sheets. Somewhere outside she heard a cat yowl, a lover’s shout, the slam of a door, as the moon continued her stately ascent.
Cosimo’s fingers were softly stroking her bare thighs, growing slower, scarcely moving at all …
Her eyes flew open as an echo reverberated through her mind … The slam of the door.
Her door.
She sat up with a gasp, staring into the darkness and straining for the sound of footsteps in the hall.
‘What is it?’ Cosimo murmured, sitting up too and propping himself on an elbow. ‘Is one of the children—?’
‘Fon,’ she whispered, looking at him with wide eyes.
There was a pause.
‘But you said he was away.’
‘He is! He … he said he was …’ she stammered, feeling the blood pounding through her head. But she heard it still, a sound from downstairs – a thud, staggered footsteps, curses, as if someone had tripped over a shoe or a toy.
Rafaella jumped from the bed, grabbing his cassock and shoes. ‘Get dressed! You have to get out of here,’ she hissed, balling them against his chest as he too got up and stood disorientated in the room.
‘But how? Where?’
She jerked her head towards the Juliet balcony. ‘I’ll go downstairs and make him a drink. Something to buy time.’
Cosimo threw the cassock over his naked body, transformed in an instant from Adonis to a meek man of God. ‘But when will I see you again?’ he asked, pushing his feet into his shoes as they heard more crashes from downstairs.
‘What is he doing?’ she hissed in disbelief. Of all the nights for Fon to come back. She had scarcely seen him these past few weeks.
‘Rafa!’ Cosimo brought her attention back to him again. ‘Meet me tomorrow. In the confession box, just before noon?’
She nodded disconsolately as he reached down and kissed her again. ‘I wanted us to have all night together,’ she protested, pressing her hands over his as he clasped her cheeks.
‘We’re going to have all our nights together,’ he said with a wink, a flash of the cocksure boy she’d once known surfacing for a moment. ‘We’ll make our plan tomorrow, I promise. There’s no turning back now.’
She watched as he turned for the French doors, stepping up onto the stone balustrade before reaching for the cast-iron drainpipe and carefully making his way down.
Rafaella looked around the room and saw the story it told.
She hurriedly picked her clothes off the floor and laid them neatly over the bedroom chair, smoothed out the bedsheet, plumped the pillows and punched a fist into her own.
She glanced outside in time to see Cosimo running from tree to tree across the lawn towards the back gate.
She didn’t know where Fon was in the house or what he was doing, but if he were to look out …
She grabbed her robe from the back of the door and ran silently down the hall, desperately trying to compose herself. Could she pull this off? Or would he look at her and be able to tell straight away that another man had just made love to her in their bed?
‘Fon?’ she asked, walking into the kitchen and forcing a yawn, rubbing her eyes as if he’d woken her. ‘What’s going on? You said—’
Her husband turned to look at her, so drunk he could scarcely stand. He was holding a bottle of brandy in one hand and swaying on his feet.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked, concerned. He looked wrecked. He wasn’t usually a drinker, not like Dante.
He gazed at her with glassy eyes and she wondered how many duplicates of her he was seeing.
Her mind went back to the night of her sister’s wedding again ? that wonderful, terrible night in which worlds had collided and exploded; she remembered seeing him across the room, utterly alone at the dinner table as everyone talked and laughed and danced around him.
He looked just as alone again now. Just as wretched.
‘Hey,’ she said quietly, walking over and taking the bottle from his hand. Carefully, she set it down on the counter. ‘Fon, has something happened?’
His head was hanging, and it seemed an effort for him to meet her eyes. ‘I don’t want …’ The words trailed off.
‘Don’t want what?’
He swayed again. ‘… To be this.’
‘To be drunk?’
‘To be … me.’ The words came out as a mumble.
She put a hand on his shoulder. Something bad had happened, but what? ‘Come. Let’s get you to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning.’
He allowed her to drape his arm over her shoulder as she slowly led him along the hall and up the stairs.
‘It’s too late now,’ he mumbled as they walked past the children’s bedrooms, and she felt her own hypocrisy that she had stood in judgement of their father when under this roof lay infidelity, inebriation and lies.
‘It is late,’ she whispered, feeling sickened by what she had done, and was still prepared to do, to be with Cosimo.
She closed the bedroom door behind them, her eyes scanning the room again for any glaring aberration in the domestic scene.
She looked over at the wall where their shadows had danced, their silhouetted selves come to life with torrid intensity.
Now there was nothing to see but a hairline crack in the plaster. This room would keep her secret.
Fon dropped his jacket to the floor and kicked off his shoes, losing his balance as he tried to step out of them. He fell against her and she almost buckled under the weight of him.
‘Whoa. Are you OK?’ she asked again, trying to set him straight; but he didn’t seem to hear, his eyeline directed downwards. ‘Fon? Can you stand?’
He raised his hand slowly and traced the edge of her robe with his finger. She had become dishevelled trying to get him up here, the belt coming loose, and she startled as he pulled it open suddenly, exposing her breasts.
‘Fon!’ She recoiled, releasing him and moving to close it again, but he caught her by the wrist and held her hand in place. She looked back at him, alarmed by the gesture. This wasn’t like him. He never put a finger on her. ‘Fon! Basta! Let me go.’
She tried to wrest her arm from his grip but he was too strong and, as he looked back at her, she was taken aback by what she saw on his face: anger. No, more than that – rage. Despair.
Oh God, did he know? Had he seen Cosimo after all?
‘Fon,’ she said, a quaver in her voice as she saw his breathing grow heavier, his grip tightening on her wrist, hurting her now.
‘I have to … I have to do it.’
She stared at him. ‘What? No!’
His eyes travelled over her, taking in the sight of her tender curves, a Giannelli violating her privacy for the second time today—
Dante. These were his instructions.
‘Fon, no!’ she cried as he tore at the robe, yanking it off her so that she stood nude before him.
Instinctively she slapped him hard, skin striking skin.
He looked stunned, but only momentarily; it seemed to wake him up, and he hit her back in the very next instant.
The force of the blow threw her back on the bed and she tried to scramble away, but as she turned, she saw his shadow on the wall bearing down upon her, warriors in the moonlight.