A Darkness Descending (11 page)

‘Can you watch the desk for me a minute, Maria?’ asked Giuli. The cleaner set her hands one on top of the other on the broomhandle’s end and considered, head cocked like a little bright-eyed bird. ‘Just a minute, honest? I’ll hear if the door goes.’ Then Maria nodded, face creasing briefly in her guarded version of a smile. And Giuli flew, skidding down the red-tiled corridor.

The Women’s Centre was in an old convent that had also served as a foundling hospital, and the corridors were whitewashed with niches for the
tondi
, little round plaster representations of the Holy Child, swaddled, with his arms held out, on a blue background. The obstetrics clinic – two consulting rooms with one harassed doctor between them and a rota of midwives – was the quietest part of the Women’s Centre. By the time a mother was decided upon having a baby, it seemed, the fight went out of her. Some of them were even happy. But not many: most of the pregnant women who came to the Centre ‘pursued other options’.

One consulting room was empty of patients or professionals, and the door stood open; the neighbouring one was in use. Damn, thought Giuli, sitting down abruptly on a flimsy plastic chair and beginning to fidget. From behind the door she could hear Farmiga’s voice. A tough, bullying woman. Good-looking, but if you looked closely it was all painted on, and her eyes were hard and she seemed to have only contempt for her colleagues and patients alike: the latter would emerge looking whipped and scurry away, never to return. ‘Good riddance’, was all Farmiga would say, loudly, as she changed into her high heels at the end of the day. As if saving the state money was her only priority. She’d voted for Berlusconi.

Fortunately, the midwives dealt with most of the care. Where were they? Giuli didn’t know who was on duty today as they’d already got in by the time she arrived, and she didn’t know which of them had seen Flavia either. Or if they’d agree to talk to her. The door to the washroom opened.

Clelia Schmidt. The German, or half-German, midwife: she’d been here a year. She was quiet and modest, and as a result Giuli didn’t know her well. Plus she had the mild, unmade-up face and braided hair of the idealistic, the back-to-nature, alternative-lifestyle sort of person for whom Giuli had never had any time. She got to her feet hesitantly.

‘Um, Clelia,’ she began, glancing back over her shoulder in the direction of the reception area. ‘Miss Schmidt?’

Standing in the corridor in her green scrubs, Clelia looked at Giuli with mild enquiry, then held out one arm towards the open consulting room. It was only when they were inside and the door closed, the midwife seated at the desk in front of a computer, that Giuli understood Clelia thought it was herself she’d be talking about; that she, Giuli, had some personal obstetric emergency. The realization made her jittery, and it took her a while to explain herself.

‘Ah,’ said Clelia, frowning, when eventually the question was asked. Giuli, perched on the narrow vinyl bed, leaned forwards attentively. ‘Actually, yes,’ Clelia said, ‘I dealt a great deal with Flavia, I signed off the post-natal care last week. But I’m not sure if I’m even supposed to tell you that.’

Her Italian was exceptionally good, with barely a trace of an accent, but Giuli could have wished – fervently – for a fellow Italian, who would be more likely to bend the rules, and to understand the situation for what it was. Or would they? Giuli didn’t even know if she understood the situation herself. Would she want other people to know things she’d said, hoped, regretted, imagined – or even done – to professionals? There had been plenty of professionals at the rehab centre when she’d been on her way out of prison to the outside world – shrinks of one kind or another, nurses, doctors, social workers – and it had taken a lot for her to speak to them at all. She took a deep breath.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand the rights and wrongs of it myself, Clelia.’

Far off through the bowels of the building she heard the mechanical squeal that indicated someone had come in at the front door.

Ignoring the sound, Giuli went on. ‘I know there has to be trust in the system, or it fails. I don’t want to breach the trust – I work here too, after all – but Flavia’s disappeared. She left the baby behind and disappeared, and we need to find her.’

The fair, kindly, unadorned face gazed back at her, with dawning horror.

‘There’s something, isn’t there?’ said Giuli. ‘She wasn’t well, was she?’

As if mesmerized, Clelia Schmidt moved her head, indicating no, as though if she didn’t actually say the words, she could not be held responsible. Giuli slid from the high narrow couch and stood stiffly close to Clelia Schmidt, hands behind her back. ‘It’s a difficult time for mothers, everyone knows that. But was there anything in particular in Flavia’s case? There was, wasn’t there? Something more dangerous than the hormones and all that?’ The midwife’s distress deepened visibly.

‘I don’t know why you are saying these things,’ she said, shaking her head furiously. ‘The hormones are dangerous enough.’

‘So she was finding it hard?’ Giuli tried to keep the sense of urgency she felt out of her voice, heard herself sounding earnest.

Clelia Schmidt’s hands fiddled with nothing in her lap. ‘I was not her only caregiver,’ she said, and looked towards the cloister, out of the window, as if someone there might rescue her.

‘But you formed a relationship with her? As midwives do.’ Giuli knew this: it was part of their charter, to support women in childbirth and afterwards, the continuity of care, or something. The midwife bobbed her head reluctantly. ‘The hormones,’ prompted Giuli. ‘I mean, generally, can you tell me? The effect on them of giving birth.’

With half an ear she was listening out, now, for old Maria shuffling down the corridor to fetch her, but so far nothing. She leaned forward, attentive.

‘If we are speaking generally.’ The midwife seemed to relax, frowning, unfocused, at her computer screen. ‘There are certain conditions that can be brought on by the trauma of birth, by unregulated hormones and chemicals in the body, and by the emotional upheaval of birth.’ She was warming to her subject now, almost eager. ‘In some women – abused women, and we do see them here – the physical act of giving birth can—’ And she stopped short, staring at Giuli and stuttering, ‘Not that – not that I’m saying Flavia was – no, no—’

Damn, thought Giuli, composing her expression. ‘Of course not,’ she said, calmly. ‘You’re talking generally.’ Clelia Schmidt looked desperate. ‘Really. Please go on.’

‘The conditions that may be brought on by the birth are first, and most commonly, post-natal depression.’ She spoke as though reciting from a textbook. ‘This can be hard to detect. New mothers are aware that they are supposed to be happy and they feel ashamed when they are not, so they pretend. There are specific questions we can ask, but they are not always useful. Intelligent women in particular—’ And the midwife stopped again.

The one thing everyone knew about Flavia Matteo was that she was an intelligent woman. A degree in one thing, a master’s in another, a doctorate in something else. What other kind of woman would Niccolò Rosselli have wanted? But Giuli smiled blandly as if she hadn’t made the connection and Clelia went on doggedly.

‘Then there is post-partum psychosis,’ she said, raising her eyes to meet Giuli’s. ‘Much rarer, more – well, I don’t know if it is more serious. Post-natal depression can have very serious consequences. But more extreme. Mood swings, delusions, violence …’

‘Violence,’ said Giuli. Holding her gaze, Clelia nodded. ‘Towards – others?’

‘Often in psychosis,’ the midwife replied steadily. ‘In the deluded state the violence is employed against others.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as the child,’ said the midwife, holding her gaze. ‘Most often, the child.’

Giuli said nothing.

‘Flavia left her child behind, you said.’

So we’re not really talking generally any more, thought Giuli, are we?

‘She did,’ was all she answered. But Flavia might have left the child behind to prevent herself from harming it.

‘I’m sure she wasn’t psychotic,’ blurted Clelia Schmidt, as though she’d read Giuli’s thoughts. Then she would say that, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t want to admit she hadn’t detected it – but midwives weren’t psychiatrists. Detecting mania seemed to Giuli to be quite a responsibility.

‘What about depression?’ she said gently. ‘I mean, the behaviour pattern, speaking generally. Those serious consequences you were talking about.’

Clelia looked at her, her expression taut and anxious. ‘Any kind of depression can lead to family breakdown,’ she said. ‘Insomnia, inability to communicate, hopelessness, apathy, anxiety, panic attacks. And the failure to bond,’ her frown deepened, ‘can be very serious for the child and the mother, can lead to lasting psychological problems for both. And of course where in psychosis the violence may be directed outwards …’ Here she stopped.

Depressives killed themselves.

And Giuli heard her name, called down the corridors from the outside world. ‘Sarto?’ Maria’s croak. ‘Signorina Sarto?’ A man’s voice further off, hectoring. Sounded like a wife-batterer, come for his woman: it wasn’t uncommon.

‘Look,’ she said gently to Clelia Schmidt, ‘you’ve been a great help. I know how things are. But if you could talk to your colleagues. If there’s anything more—’

‘She might have been depressive, yes,’ the midwife said urgently, head bowed over her desk so she need not meet Giuli’s eye. ‘I watched her closely. She was anxious, yes. She was trying so hard – I didn’t want to demoralize her. I should have – should have done more.’

‘You’re doing plenty,’ said Giuli, her hand on the doorknob. ‘We still don’t know for sure.’

There was a rap. ‘Signorina Sarto?’ Maria must have heard her voice through the door.

‘Coming,’ called Giuli. And as she turned back she saw Clelia Schmidt’s eyes fixed on her, as if she represented hope. Don’t, she said in her head. Don’t look at me like that.

Chapter Eight

V
ESNA
,
WHO NEVER CRIED
, found that she wanted to cry. Standing beside her outside the hotel, among the magnolia and laurels, Calzaghe had his greasy hand on her shoulder, not so much to comfort as to detain her; she knew that he was thinking about the effect this would have on business and how he could thrust Vesna ahead of him into the scandal of it. She pulled away.

Calzaghe turned at a sound, lifting his big head like a jowly dog scenting the air. It was the ambulance siren at last, coming closer but not quickly, not hurrying. It was, after all, too late for that. In a part of her brain Vesna knew that she should change. Her maid’s uniform was soaked, even her hair was dripping wet; she shivered suddenly. Was this shock? She felt numb, she wanted to cry but she could not. She remembered the dripping deadweight in her arms, slipping through them, impossibly heavy.

With her hand on the door, even before it opened, Vesna had known. The cool, moist air, the sudden sensation of emptiness like a kind of dying exhalation. The shushing draft from the open window, the neatly made bed; and the drip of a tap in the bathroom, splashing into a full tub. Vesna had set down the plastic basket in which she carried her spray detergent and her glasscloths and her duster on the floor by the door: it was still there to trip her up when – was it five, ten minutes later? – she ran –
ran –
dripping into the hall to shout.
‘Ambulance.
Call an ambulance.’ And Calzaghe’s fat ugly face, rough with white stubble, scowling at her furiously up the stairwell.

She hadn’t looked for a note. Everything had seemed so orderly, so composed. The woman in number five had made the bed and packed her small bag. Or perhaps she had never slept? Perhaps she had never
un
packed? She had looked out on to the distant sliver of sea from her balcony, she had at least done that, opened the windows and walked out into the air, looked at the world. Oh, God, thought Vesna as another shiver overtook her. On the gravel of the drive Calzaghe took a step away from her, as if shock might be contagious.

Must I go back up there? thought the maid with horror. To look for the note or the – the weapon, or the passport, to examine the bed to see if she’d slept there?

‘We don’t even know who she was,’ she murmured, and Calzaghe turned to her.

‘What?’ He spoke sharply.

‘I – well, she gave a name, in the register.’ Vesna couldn’t remember if she’d even looked at it, her mind a blank. ‘But I hadn’t got around to taking her ID,’ she mumbled, knowing she might as well take the blame now, it would come her way sooner or later. He glared at her and she took some satisfaction from the fact that the police would hold him responsible, ultimately. His hotel: she was just the Eastern European help. Calzaghe didn’t even know which country she came from, but she was legal.

The police. And they’d want to know when the woman died, wouldn’t they? When she’d done it. And Vesna wouldn’t be able to tell them. How long the thing had been there, and they going about their small business, the breakfasts and the laundry and the drying out of guest soaps.

She had walked towards the bathroom quickly, crossing the large bedroom, looking around, slowing unconsciously as she approached the door of the en suite. One of the earliest en-suite bathrooms, Art Deco, was how she’d been told to introduce it to guests who might be more familiar with shiny modern chrome and glass. ‘No shower?’ some of them would say incredulously, looking around at the original fittings, the cream rectangular tiles with black border, then down at the vast, yellowing marble tub.

The tub was in fact so big that she had fitted inside it, full length, like a child’s drawing of a woman. A woman underwater. A woman whose legs were too thin, though her stomach was softish, very pale skin with a dark line running up it. Vesna knew what that was: the
linea nigra.
The toes turned in, the dark red hair floating out around her head in water stained pink, the hands palm up and the wounds across the wrists frilled and blanched from immersion. The woman in number five, lying dead in the bath, was wearing her underwear.