The Echoes of Love (26 page)

‘I'll show you around the house some other time. In some parts, the architecture is very old and I think it will interest you.'

‘Thank you, Paolo, I'd like that very much.'

Paolo's dashing blue Ferrari Maranello was parked at the front door, shining and ready for their escapade. Venetia was not surprised that it was one of the more expensive models around – Paolo was rich and successful after all – but she wondered at his recklessness. As far as she knew, the car was the fastest on the market. Not so long ago, she had seen a documentary on Italian television about international sport cars and the Ferrari Maranello had been at the top of the list for speed. Had the accident not left any trace of fear in him, even if he had no memory of it? He held the door open for her and she took her place in the passenger seat.

‘The site is on the other side of Monte Argentario. We should be there in about half an hour,' Paolo told her, as he slid in beside her and released the latch to the roof, which slipped back noiselessly. He turned on the ignition and made the car roar twice, grinning as he did so, and they were off, leaving a cloud of red dust behind them. Seeing the unimpressed look Venetia gave him, he feigned a sheepish expression, with an almost boyish smile that made her stomach flutter. His eyes twinkled wickedly. ‘
Scusa
, it's all part of the fun of having this sort of toy.'

And Venetia couldn't do anything but smile too. ‘Thank God for small joys!'

The smile he gave back to her was wry. ‘Most people seem continually to be making arrangements to live, and never actually living. Life is too unexpected, too short,
non credi?
'

For the second time that morning Venetia's heart went out to him
.
He's thinking of the accident, the loss of his wife and his memory.

The Ferrari climbed and twisted alarmingly along the rugged coastline, and through perched villages, on roads fringed with pink, yellow, and red wildflowers. Cars and buses roared past, racing and swerving round hairpin corners. The sun was as brilliant as ever, the air clear and stimulating, and everything aflutter in the sunny breeze. The shimmering hillside, planted with olives and vines, sloped steeply down; beyond the motionless spires of cypresses stretched the blue and green hills of Tuscany. The hollows and little valleys were brimming with whitish haze and the flat elder blossoms spread unmoving in the heat of this glorious day.

On the seaward side, they overlooked a necklace of small, sun-drenched, white sand beaches, separated by coves and craggy coral rock outcroppings. Viewed from far above, the shoreline was spectacular, with the great Tyrrhenian Sea stretching out beyond, sprinkled with islets and dotted with boats on its turquoise surface. The Ferrari tore past clusters of pastel-hued cottages framed by flowering trees, nestling in the hills that rose to windswept bluffs, where every turning had a picture-postcard view of sprawling green land, coloured villas and blue waters. Golden sunshine poured down, and Venetia's face was bright with pleasure, chestnut curls flying across her face. She loved the feel of the wind in her hair and the smell of the sea.

With a contented sigh, she leaned back in her seat. Aware that Paolo was looking at her, she blushed.

‘I'm just happy being with you,' he told her, echoing her own thoughts, and she wondered if this was also his way of telling her that he knew what she was thinking, and there was no need for her to feel self-conscious. ‘I hope you'll like the site. The location and the views are quite magical but to create my dream will need a lot of work. The villa is derelict and the various historic buildings surrounding it are also in very poor condition.'

‘You seem to have a compulsion to restore derelict buildings.'

‘I would say it's more of an irresistible urge to build, to turn waste into something worthwhile and useful. The landscape of Tuscany for the past three thousand years has been as much the result of man's work as nature's gift. If I'm able to put something back into the pot, make my contribution, why shouldn't I?'

Venetia could see it now: how this man was driven to transform things out of destruction into something new – a metaphor for his own life, perhaps. She shook her head. ‘Don't get me wrong. I wasn't criticising you, I was just making a statement.'

‘So you're not telling me off, then?' His gleaming teeth showed a moment in his smile, as his eyes followed the coastal route.

Venetia loved to see Paolo smile; she couldn't say why, but somehow it was important to her that he should be happy. She turned to face him, her lashes hiding her thoughts.

‘Now would I?' she said playfully.

He turned to face her, momentarily taking his attention off the road, and she stared into his eyes, a piercing blue, mottled with deep flecks, and their darker midnight rim.

He flashed her a wicked grin. ‘I'm not sure,
cara
. You're so unpredictable, very much like your English weather: one minute sunny and the next incredibly stormy.'

‘I'm sorry about last night,' she stammered suddenly. ‘What I said to you – I want to apologise. I'm really so very sorry – I, I really don't know what came over me. Judd was part of my life once, but I haven't seen him for ten years. I would quite understand if you didn't want to have anything to do with me after that.'

She was aware that this breathless, apologetic rush of words was not at all the cool and dignified speech which she had intended if the subject had been brought up; but he had hit her with his teasing half-reproach when she had least expected it and it was all she could manage.

‘
Non c'è bisogno di scusarsi
, no need to apologise.' His eyes had returned to the road, his expression impenetrable, but there was an almost imperceptible clench of his jaw. ‘If this Judd left such a lasting impression on you, maybe I should look at the issue from a different angle and be flattered that I remind you of him,' he said gravely. ‘Most of the time, people only see what they want to see. I've learnt that the power of visualising is very important in life, that is, if you want to survive. Carl Jung said:
“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.”
I think he had a point.'

He had stated his thoughts so simply and dolefully that Venetia felt her defences crumbling – already they had begun to fall away, even before he had appeared in his study that morning. Her certainty that Paolo was an unprincipled philanderer was slowly beginning to dissolve – only an uneasy suspicion remained, which in that moment she would have given anything to have had proved wrong.

Now they could not see the sea, as it was more or less screened by trees, but Venetia lost herself in the beauty of the hills. Around every bend in the road was a new vista: a slash of cobalt-coloured ocean through tall hedges, an old water mill, a disused olive oil factory of crumbling brick, a severe fortress church that could have been designed by Giorgio de Chirico, and houses painted in pastels as if a stage designer had created them for a seaside opera, some with laundry outside, spread to dry on bushes like huge flowers.

Venetia watched Paolo stealthily. There was that daunting air of power about him of which she had been conscious since the first day. She felt like a teenager again – a strange feeling – he couldn't be that much older than her, but something about him told her that he was a man who would welcome dependency and would never let anyone down. Despite her aversion to overpowering men like her father, it was strange that part of her craved someone to lean on.

Paolo's eyes flickered to her and Venetia hastily looked away again.

‘We'll soon be there,' he remarked, as they started the descent towards a small spectacular bay of clear blue water, sparkling like a jewel at the bottom of the cliffs. ‘I'm afraid we'll have to leave the car down here,' he told her as they rounded the cape and came out on to a large plateau. On it stood a little church with a cemetery surrounded by pine trees. He drew up on to a shelf of rock next to it, an area where people parked to admire the view.

Paolo stopped the car and turned off the ignition. ‘We'll walk up to the site. For the time being, there's no road that leads to it,' he grinned. ‘It's all part of the challenge.'

‘I'm game for it,' Venetia replied, getting out of the car. What she didn't tell him was that she had done quite a lot of mountain climbing in Scotland with Judd, and climbing a steep hill wouldn't be an issue, even though she wasn't as fit as she used to be.

They went up the rough and stony lane, which hadn't been used for decades. The hillside was bathed in warm, calm sunshine. Butterflies zigzagged in and out of the beating sunlight, across the path. Yellow Banksia roses and purple wild wisteria fell in tresses and clusters over crumbling walls and broken stone columns; Venetia caught whiffs of their fugitive scent in the air as she went by. The clumps of elder and bramble were thick and caught at the twill of her slacks. She was thankful she had worn trousers; the claw-curved thorns seemed to reach out and catch their unsuspecting legs as they passed.

The silence was as tense as if a spell had been laid upon the place, and Paolo and Venetia's steps sounded loudly as they picked their way over shifting, clinking stones. At one point, Venetia almost stumbled and their fingers brushed slightly. There it was again, that jolt of electricity through her, as if she had touched a live wire, sending heated darts of excitement deep down to the apex of her thighs.

Paolo stopped still and his eyes held hers as if he had felt it too. Venetia looked for a distraction and pointed to some bits of broken wall and rubble that lay on one side of the path, almost covered by grass.

‘Any idea what this is, over here?' she asked, her voice breathy.

‘That's reputed to be the remains of an Etruscan shrine,' Paolo answered, his voice husky, mirroring hers. ‘There was an Etruscan city at the top of this hill, as well as a Roman theatre and a Franciscan monastery.' He gestured for her to go ahead, and Venetia passed in front of him on the rocky path, aware of his eyes following her.

As they walked up the hill, pausing occasionally to cool down, they talked about the three civilisations – Etruscan, Roman and Christian – gathered there. Venetia was surprised at the extent of Paolo's knowledge about the art and the history of his country. It was as if she was peeling away new layers and discovering different sides to him. She found him more than interesting, with an eager mind. In some ways, it was as if he belonged to another period; she could quite imagine him at the time of the Renaissance, joining in with the circle of scholars that gathered round Lorenzo de' Medici, the erudite patron of poets and artists. He seemed to have an affinity with people of that era, discussing mythology and legends, dreams and fate, and such things as Michelangelo believed in.

‘Where did you get all this knowledge? Surely they didn't teach you history of art at business school?' she asked.

‘I spend a lot of time reading about beautiful things and like to surround myself with them. Albert Einstein said:
“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”'

‘Are you saying you're some sort of Peter Pan? You don't strike me as such.' A child was the last thing she thought of when looking at him.

Paolo smiled sadly. ‘Sometimes, one doesn't have the choice – it's the only way to keep sane,' he whispered.

Venetia barely caught his words; they were indistinct, as though spoken to himself.

She drew a trembling breath, realising how unintentionally insensitive she had been. Of course, Paolo had created his own Neverland, Miraggio
,
where he could hide in his universe of fantasy, like J.M. Barrie's character. She slanted a glance at the firm, austere profile… and again something stirred within her, an emotion akin to tenderness, but so much more. There were a hundred things Venetia wanted to ask him. She hated the thought of him being trapped inside such loneliness, but she could not admit to knowing his secret. She wished she could put her arms around him and comfort him – was this only compassion and pity she felt for Paolo, or was the strange sentiment that softened her heart towards him part of something deeper and more meaningful? Her resistance was so fragile now that she wanted more than ever to cross the narrowing divide between them, but she was too afraid to take the final step.

At last, hot and tired, they reached the crest of the hill. There, lay a vast expanse of ground that held an old Roman temple surrounded by venerable trees and, to the right of it, a huge arena. The temple was derelict; some trees had fallen across it, smashing the columns. The circles and steps of the Roman theatre lay almost intact in the sunshine. The air around it was full of the heady perfume of olives and the myriad tiny flowers almost hidden in the grass
.
And then much further to the right stood a crumbling villa and a chapel in beautiful pink stone, which, originally, would probably have been reached by a courtyard attached to the main structure. As far as Venetia could assess, the two buildings dated from the late nineteenth century. The Florentine-looking villa
was surrounded by its own derelict garden, with a wrecked gazebo covered in clambering ivy and brambles standing under two ancient Judas trees in flower.

Outside the garden, a viewing terrace had been built on top of a small knoll. Impressive stone steps led up to a colonnaded and paved long rectangular platform, with far-reaching views towards the Chianti countryside.

‘This is incredible!' breathed Venetia, gazing around her. They had stopped among some large stones and Paolo rested his foot on top of one, folding his arms and looking straight ahead. Standing next to him, Venetia was acutely aware of the closeness of his black jeans stretched over his thigh, and deliberately looked away.