Читать книгу The Secret Legacy: The perfect summer read for fans of Santa Montefiore, Victoria Hislop and Dinah Jeffries - Sara Alexander, Sara Alexander - Страница 15

CHAPTER 6

The following May, the Major and Adeline’s belongings at last found their appropriate places in the villa. New packages had arrived throughout the frigid winter and temperamental spring, then were sorted with care. By mid-summer, the Major’s library, up a few steps behind the kitchen, was complete, his sanctuary at the opposite side of the house from the large dining room. Oil-painted landscapes graced the walls. After my final chores of the evening I’d linger over the depictions of the humid mountainous coffee plantations above the Malabar coast in India, or the city of Jodhpur with its square blue houses clustering the valley, the stone alleys reminding me of an exotic version of Positano. It was clear to me that he’d always been drawn to these landscapes. The Major loved the mountains as much as I. His early morning walks, before the now hordes of tourists began their jaunts, often took him high above our town, into the mossy depths of my childhood. I was relieved, however, that those grotesque carved masks from the London hallways remained in his library.

Although the Major refused to entrust Elizabeth to anyone but me, we had come to an arrangement that I could leave the house for an extended time on Sunday afternoons and take her with me. Rosalia, who had strong-armed her way into my heart, huffed and puffed that this did not, in fact, constitute anything close to a day off. She wouldn’t believe me, but Sundays spent at her home were just that. They forced me to relax, to forget my inconclusive search for my brother who had run away from our uncle’s farm and all but disappeared in Naples not long after I left for London.

Elizabeth and I took our time climbing the narrow alleys that ran behind the neighboring villas. Her hair was a fluff of bright red waves that made the Positanese reach out and touch it out of instinct, so different was she from the dark-haired toddlers discovering gravity along the cobbles. She loved these Sundays as much as I. Rosalia’s sisters and sisters-in-law took turns to hold her and coo into her bright little blue eyes, teasing me that I’d left town only to kidnap a foreigner’s daughter.

One morning in late summer, we negotiated the steep steps down toward Rosalia’s gate and pushed it open. A fragrant canopy of kiwi and lemon trees entwined a high bamboo frame above. The excited chipper of birds greeted us. Along the slim walkway toward the main door, five cages hung with yellow and pale blue budgerigars twittering to each other and out toward the coast.

The door flung open. ‘Just in time!’ Rosalia said, greeting me with a kiss on each cheek, wrenching Elizabeth out of my arms and into hers. ‘You’ve been a good girl, yes? You eat all my food today, yes? No sorbetto if you don’t eat your lunch, young lady!’

I followed her into the kitchen. A huge oak table dominated the squat room. At the far end was her wooden oven, etched into the wall where the mountain rock was varnished but still craggy. This was a room wedged into the stone. Upon the stove in a heavy iron skillet, fresh anchovies melted into warm oil, softening several crushed cloves of garlic. The smell of artichokes followed soon after from a larger pan, their lustrous purple doused with fresh parsley. A simmering stockpot of linguini raced to al dente. Rosalia’s sisters busied themselves with the final fixings on the table, yelling for the men to join us. I could hear the rumble of their husbands and brothers coming down from the terrace above, following the scent toward lunch. In a few minutes the small room ricocheted with too many voices and conversations colliding at once. It was my weekly dose of cacophony, the perfect antidote to the church-like silence at the villa.

Rosalia balanced Elizabeth on one hip, scooping linguini out of the pan with the other.

‘Please, let me take her,’ I offered, reaching out my hands, which she shooed off with the back of the wooden spoon. One of her sisters swooped in and took over by the stove for the final hungry minute before the pasta was cooked.

The door swung open. In strolled Paolino, a basket in his hands laden with fresh romanesco cauliflowers, zucchini, cedri and a pile of sfogliatelle, small crisp pastries stuffed with a rich lemon crème. As he walked by me their vanilla scent powdered the air.

Rosalia had decided several months ago that he and I ought to be the perfect pairing. I loved her for many things, but this was not one of them.

‘You see, Santi,’ she began, bouncing Elizabeth beside me, ‘the man bakes too now.’

This meddling in other’s personal affairs was a pernicious local habit I longed to escape; it made my scheduled sailing to America toward the latter part of this autumn feel like part of a very distant future.

‘You already love him more than I ever could,’ I whispered to her cackle that followed.

‘What you witches plotting over there? You mind it doesn’t spoil our food now,’ Paolino called out from the far end of the table, where Rosalia’s brothers poured him their home-made wine.

‘You just wait, Paoli,’ Rosalia called out to him, ‘you get under our spell and there’ll be no helping you!’

Everyone laughed. The sun syruped through the windows. I took Elizabeth onto my lap and watched her eye the strands of oily linguini Rosalia lifted up with an over-sized fork, swirls of garlic steam wafting across the plates. I cut her portion into small pieces. She dove in with two hands. All meals at Rosalia’s ended with a salty smear of lunch across her happy face. The sisters would pinch her rosy cheeks in praise of her appetite. Paolino teased me that I wasn’t feeding the child enough and perhaps we ought to raise our weekly orders from him. He caught the roll of my eyes.

‘Oh come on, Santina – it’s a little joke between friends.’

I had no memory of friendship.

‘Well, you’d better get used to it. Men around here don’t just sit around and let beauty slip between their fingers like water, no? You’ve been around the British too long.’

I returned a forced smile, thankful Rosalia’s family’s laughter drowned my silence.

‘You’ve changed,’ he continued, mistaking my silence as an invitation for conversation. ‘You left a polio-struck orphan with a tatty dress and a half-hearted smile. Now you look . . .’

His hands waved in the air, as if they might pluck the word out from it somehow. I worried about the gesture that might follow.

‘Eat your food and save us all from this drivel!’ Rosalia’s grandmother piped up from the opposite end of the table, her wrinkled skin creasing into even more tiny folds.

‘Salud to that!’ the men cried, as the rest of the lunch simmered through the afternoon.

After the men left to sip limoncello outside on the small concrete terrace, and Rosalia, myself and the rest of the women had cleared the kitchen, it was time for me to return. Rosalia walked me to the gate, running a proud hand over her lemon trees overhead as she did so.

‘I know a joke from the truth, Santi.’

I turned to her, feeling Elizabeth’s weight pull on my back.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she replied off my look, ‘you know perfectly well what I’m on about.’

‘I don’t.’

‘It’s that mountain air in your lungs. Too near the sky to see what’s on the ground in front of you.’

Rosalia talked in riddles.

‘Paolino, Santina. You think it’s all singsong. I can tell it’s more than that.’

‘Aren’t you tired of weaving stories where there aren’t any?’

Her eyebrows did a little dance and her dimples deepened.

‘See you next week, Rosali. Thank you.’

‘Don’t ever say thank you. You’re family now. You say thank you it’s like I’m just a neighbor.’ She flicked a playful slap on my arm.

I went on my way, jogging home to prepare a light late lunch for the Major, Elizabeth bobbing up and down, delighted with the insane pace of her guardian.

I would have liked to remember keeping a calm hand upon the plates whilst setting the table after I returned home. I would have liked to forget the way I dropped not one but two plates upon the unforgiving tiles, blaming myself for rushing, knowing it had more to do with the memory of Paolino’s claustrophobia-inducing grin across Rosalia’s loud lunch, the way his eyes managed to connect with mine every time I looked toward his end of the table. Now my fingers quarrelled with one another whilst my mind chased silence. The Major strode through the kitchen just as I placed a few leaves of romaine into a bowl with the last of the tomatoes.

‘Whatever have these plates done to you, Santina?’ he asked, looking down at the heap of shards swept out of the way in haste.

‘I’m so sorry.’ I was starting to gabble. The appearance of Adeline in the doorway plunged us both into silence.

‘I smell kedgeree,’ she said, flat.

I looked at the Major. His eyes were alight.

‘Yes. I made it this morning,’ I said, filling the silence, hoping that if I spoke close to normalcy it might uphold her spell of sanity. Throughout the spring and summer we had seen a marked improvement in Adeline. On occasion she even held Elizabeth for snatched moments.

‘So you did,’ she replied, ‘it got me out of bed. I fell in love with Henry after I ate the first forkful he ever gave me.’

She looked at him. There was a simmer of a smile beyond her exhaustion. The spark was still there, the snap of a match as it ignites against sandpaper even if the flame fails into smoke. He took her hand and walked her out onto the terrace. They sat in silence for a moment. He cradled her fingers in his.

They shared an apple after their food, then Adeline returned upstairs. The Major did not retire to the library as usual. He sat looking out toward the sea whilst I cleared around him. Elizabeth refused to stay in her wooden chair I’d set in the kitchen. She fretted until I released her, so I delayed my tidying till she took her nap. I walked with her down the steps that led into the garden and sat her down on the last one, beside me. She crawled a little way down the hill, paused, squatted, then heaved herself up to standing. I’d seen her do this many times but she’d never held herself upright for so long. The breeze lifted her curls. Her nose scrunched. Then one foot lifted. She waivered but didn’t fall. A step. Then another. Then another. Several more determined paces followed, before she collapsed again onto the grass. I ran to her, wrapped my arms around her and swung her around.

‘You’re walking, ciccia! You’re doing it! Brava!’

She giggled into my ear as I squeezed her. I saw the Major over her shoulder. He was laughing. I’d never seen his expression so relaxed.

That afternoon Elizabeth took the longest nap of her life. I returned to the kitchen to finish clearing up and found a large bowl of oranges and lemons upon the table.

‘There you are, Santina. I’ve been waiting.’

The Major’s buoyant mood caught me off guard. Adeline must be sleeping too.

‘I took a short stroll to the end of the garden this morning as the sun rose,’ he said. ‘I gathered another load of oranges and lemons. Glorious.’

‘Are you ready for tea, sir?’

‘Not just now. I thought as the women in my life are finally sleeping, and it’s a little cooler, we would prepare a British breakfast staple.’

‘Sorry, sir?’

‘This afternoon, your English lesson is marmalade.’

We never had lessons on a Sunday.

‘This is not to be rushed,’ he began. ‘You may relinquish your dinner duties; Adeline and I can fix something for ourselves tonight. Once we start we have to keep a close eye on the proceedings.’

I gave a feeble nod, imagining how good my bed would feel at this very moment.

‘Where is your notebook, Santina?’

I lifted it out of my pocket, where I kept it.

‘Excellent. Now, whilst the marmalade is cooking we will write up the method. No time will be left idle. There is much to do.’

I had made some jams in the past but this process was a different beast. He stood over me, marshalling the way I dropped the ten scrubbed oranges and four lemons into a large stock pot, covering them with water and describing in more detail than was necessary how we would let it reach a boil, and then simmer for the next three hours, clamping the lid down to stop valuable vapors escaping. ‘A perfect poach is required, not an exacerbated boil, you understand?’ Though his words were clipped and could be mistaken for a military pace, there was a boyish skit to his lilt when he and I worked in the kitchen. He was in his late thirties, but when he spoke of food or poetry the years fell away, lifting veils through which I could spy the Major as a much younger man.

Whilst the room filled with the uplifting citrus smell, we set to work on my handwriting. It wasn’t the scrawl of last autumn, but there was still hesitation. He wrote a sentence and I copied. Any mistakes were noted and required me to repeat the word in question. The afternoon should have felt interminable, but I loved the intimate focus of these moments: the sound of the dish of the day brewing behind us, the soft scratch of my pencil upon the paper. The quiet way he would speak, directing my hand with gentle instructions, wooing my pencil to do the right thing.

Finally we removed the pot from the heat and set it aside to cool.

‘I shall take tea now. Please call Adeline to join me.’

He left.

I stood in the empty kitchen, steamy with the fresh, hopeful scent.

I could hear Elizabeth beginning to stir but decided to leave her a while longer whilst I fetched her mother. I ran up two stairs at a time. Adeline’s door was shut. I tapped softly, then a little louder. Still no answer. I eased the door open and peeked inside. Adeline was at the far side, crouched down. She had a pencil in her hand and was tracing intricate patterns across the length of the wall where the floor tiles met the plaster. I’d noticed the Major had set a sketchbook upon the table. I didn’t think he’d had scrawling on the antique walls in mind when he had done so.

‘Madam?’

No answer. The artist was lost in her work.

I coughed. She stopped, then froze me with an icy glare. My mouth opened a little but no sound came out. She returned to her creation.

‘Madam, the Major has asked you to join him for tea.’

The speed of her pencil accelerated. Elizabeth’s cries reached us from the kitchen two floors down. These stone walls were unforgiving; thick but live, amplifying every sound.

Adeline began to weep. I went toward her.

‘Stay where you are!’ she yelled without looking at me. ‘Stop that Godawful screeching.’ She whipped round to me. I could see her eyes were bloodshot, spidered with anguish. ‘Now!’

She rose to her feet and lunged toward me, sending me flying out of the room toward the stairwell. The Major was at the table now, oblivious to the protests of his daughter.

I prepared a bottle, lifted Elizabeth, and before I returned to the dining room to feed her I told the Major about Adeline’s current mood.

He gave a stiff nod. I felt like a student who had displeased her teacher.

He stood up from the table, walked through the kitchen and placed a hand on the lower side of the cooling pot. ‘Forty-five minutes more and we will continue,’ he announced, then left. I heard the library door close behind him.

I returned to a Major tetchy with impatience. ‘You’re three minutes late.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘This is alchemy, Santina. It requires precision. I expect deeper understanding from you.’

Together we lifted the oranges out of the cooled liquid, sliced them open and scooped out the pulp and pits into a smaller pan, reserving the peel. To the pulp we added a jug of water and set it on a medium heat for about ten minutes. I held a colander whilst the Major lined it with cheesecloth, placing the cooked pulp into it.

Whilst it cooled in the cloth, dripping into a bowl underneath, we sat at the table and cut the orange peel into thin strips, his eyes darting over my work to make sure each piece was the same length and width. I followed his instructions to gather the corners of the cheesecloth, squeezing the pulpy contents into a tight ball. My hands were sticky with the juice. He handed me a towel to blot them dry and then a large wooden spoon, so I could stir these juices back into the original poaching liquid. He tipped in the peel and placed the lid back on top. As soon as I became aware of the comforting quiet in which we worked, it hardened into an awkward silence, like a tray of boiled sugar crisping into brittle.

‘This, we leave overnight,’ he said.

My eyebrows raised before I could stop them.

‘You had no idea about the importance of time in this process, did you?’

I couldn’t tell whether he was about to castigate or educate. The lines between the two were random, dirty twists of floured dough upon a tired wooden counter.

He took a breath, his eyes softened. ‘O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay, softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence, Lulling to sad repose the weary sense, The faint pang stealest unperceived away.’

This time I was tired enough to let my confusion float around me and hover, lost and soothed in the tone of incomprehensible words.

‘William Lisle Bowles wrote that, Santina. Why do you think we started the process of marmalade?’

We returned to exhausting questions: short, sharp arrows whizzing by my ear.

‘I will tell you why. Because the process is long but finite. It requires attention, stamina and precision. And so does educating oneself in another language. I do not tire easily, and I expect you to be collaborative with your attention. When you returned from your luncheon elsewhere, you were skittish, forgetful, and a little frantic, dare I say it. In this vein you will learn absolutely nothing. Now, I could have chosen a different dish, something we may have eaten right away, like the kedgeree, when we began your education back in the spring, but I didn’t. Language, education, must be savored and labored. But it is a joyful thing. Smell this room, Santina,’ his hand swept through the air, ‘smell the optimistic spray of citrus grown in this very garden beyond the terrace. How can it fail to touch you?’

His words caressed and taunted me. I could tell that he was full of something more than facts alone, but my mind prodded with uncertainty. I offered a tentative smile.

‘Look outside, Santina.’ He placed stiff hands upon my shoulders and twisted me round toward the open wooden doors. The last hands I’d had upon me were my father’s. The memory prickled down my spine to a sting. I felt the weight of his hands upon me, noticing the tips of his thumbs pressing into my shoulder blades. The garden rolled down a steep incline and the trees stretched out their branches in greedy gnarls toward the early autumn rays. Beyond, the sea had begun its descent into dusky purple, Capri’s tip golden in the dipping sun. I wanted to move but daren’t, hating myself for it.

His voice fell toward a whisper; I could feel the breath skim the top of my ear. ‘Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.’

My body softened out of trained fear to the lull of his voice.

‘That is what Aristotle said, and I’m inclined to agree.’ He straightened. ‘Tomorrow,’ he went on, removing his hands, his voice once again crisp, ‘we will heat sugar in the oven upon a tray for ten minutes. Then we will reheat the preserving liquid and add the warmed sugar. When it has all dissolved in the liquid, and not before, we will turn up the heat. We will allow it to reach a rolling boil. We will remove the pan from the burner, allow to cool for thirty minutes, and finally pour into sterilized jars. Then what?’

Another prickle of a question, which required no remedy.

‘Then, Santina, you, Adeline and I may taste the glorious marmalade throughout the winter. And when the fog rolls in once again, and the tiresome visitors have abandoned the streets at last, we will sit and savor the memory of my trees once plump with bounty. Is that clear?’

Of course it wasn’t. He turned on his heels and closed the door behind him.

I breathed in the aroma, the citrus deepening toward a warm caramel now. The setting sun streaked in from behind me, burnishing the tiny kitchen with russet rays. Only a month remained before I left for America. I couldn’t shake the sense that the lessons that remained, like the marmalade of this afternoon, would be nothing besides bittersweet.

The mid-morning sun cast hopeful arcs of light upon the curve of the cobbles as I walked Elizabeth up the hill on her new-found legs. We’d stop every now and again, for me to catch my breath if nothing else, whilst I held her facing out to the sea, which spread out in a turquoise sheen toward the grey cliffs. Onward we climbed, as the path narrowed. To my right, beyond a squat wall, was a jagged drop to the water below. I walked without any particular aim, the smell of citrus and caramelized sugar still clinging to my hair from the previous afternoon, floating into focus every now and then on the breeze.

The path ended by the entrance to the cemetery. The dead had the best view in town. There was a small bench just outside. We sat for a moment to rest before returning home. I longed to lay flowers for my mother. I envied those little tombs, perched upon the uneven hill, goat-like, defying gravity with stubborn marble. At least all these people could find rest. Their loved ones could sit by them, remember them, whilst the wide expanse of the sea and mountains comforted them with awe and tranquillity, the landscape assuring them that their grief was all part of the natural fabric of the world, no more, no less. But I had none of this. There was a gaping hole where my mother should be, and another wherever my brother roamed; love without the freedom to be expressed.

The sound of footsteps drew me round. A figure stood by the gated entrance, fiddling with a heavy chain. I rose to my feet. It must be getting close to lunchtime if the gates were already being shut. I turned to begin my descent but something about the man playing with his lethargic lock spiked a memory. I turned back to take a closer look. I didn’t know this man, but there was something about the shape of his round face, the gentle slant of his almond eyes that stirred me. His hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in a while, it clung to his scalp in sweaty strands. He looked up at me for a brief glance. My heart twisted with sorrow and joy.

It was my little brother.