The Night Falling (44 page)

His throat has gone dry but he’s steady. They have circled and approached from the south, to be downwind of the dogs. There’s some fine timing to be managed. The gate guard will be silenced just before Ettore goes over the
aia
wall at the corner of the quad, and sprints to the doors at exactly eleven, when Chiara will have them opened from inside. Then he will remove the door guard and the others will cross the
aia
as fast as they can, and be inside before the roof guards have got themselves together to fire down at them. The raiders stand, bunched together, silent. Waiting. One man has a pocket watch in his hand; he squints down at it intently.

‘I hope you remembered to wind that thing,’ Ettore says softly. There’s a low collective chuckle, and beside him he feels Paola relax minutely. At five to eleven the man with the watch nods to another, who sets off with a knife in his hand, low to the ground and fast, towards the gates. They wait, listening hard. There’s a tiny noise, like a foot dragged through dust. The nearest dog barks furiously for a moment, then growls and goes quiet. They have no way of knowing if their man has been successful; they can only trust. At one minute to eleven, Ettore gets the nod.

He runs on silent feet down to the wall. It’s near two metres high but made of huge chunks of rough
tufo
, easy to climb. He’s over in seconds, drops as softly as he can and freezes. The nearest dog growls, gargling the sound deep in its throat. Ettore hardly breathes. The dog comes as close as it can to where he is, sunk in the deep shadow of the wall. It strains on its chain but doesn’t bark, and he wonders if it’s familiar with his scent, if it recognises him at all. He can’t trust in that. When he moves, it will have to be like lightning – as soon as he does he’ll be within the dog’s reach. He waits, the muscles in his legs burning, wanting to straighten up. But he’s waiting for a specific sound. The seconds tick by and his heart thumps twice as fast, and he thinks eleven o’clock must have come and gone, and Chiara has not done as she said she would. As clear as day, he sees the end of them all in gunshots fired from the darkness above, in the jaws of these dogs, in swinging clubs, buckling skulls. Then he hears it. The soft, high sound of her voice coming quietly from inside, and the jangling of the door keys. He has a split second to be grateful and then he’s up, running with every shred of effort he can find.

The dog snarls and launches itself at him. He smells the greasy stink of it, its meaty breath as its jaws snap centimetres from his face. But he’s past it and the small door is opening, swinging inwards, a hand’s breadth, then two. He’s through it without hesitation, and has the guard back against the side of the arch, the pistol pressed up under his chin. It’s Carlo, his pleasant face sagging in shock.

‘Open the big doors,’ he whispers. He sees Carlo recognise him, feels him relax a fraction. He drags him forward then thumps him back again, harder, gouging the gun into his soft gullet. ‘Do it! Now!’

‘Wait, Ettore! Something’s wrong!’ Chiara has her hands on him, trying to pull him back towards the door. ‘Go – run! Please!’ she says.

‘Chiara, go inside! Lock the door – do as I told you!’ Ettore hisses at her. He turns his head to her for a second, sees her fearful face and the pale golden glow of her, fresh and lovely as rain. He can’t let himself be distracted.

‘No, you must listen to me! Your uncle’s here and he’s been filling the place with guards since this morning. Armed men – I don’t know who they are! I don’t know what’s happening, but you have to
run
!’ Her fingers are digging into his arm; her fear is infectious, and her words have turned him cold. But it’s too late, because the
aia
dogs have gone wild, shattering the night with their furious voices. Cursing, Ettore knocks Carlo down with the butt of the pistol, snatches up the keys and fumbles to let Paola and the others in.

‘Go now, Chiara!’ he shouts, but still she hesitates, and then there’s the deafening crack of rifle fire, and everything turns to chaos.

Chapter Fifteen

Clare

On Sunday morning Clare comes down for breakfast on the terrace but finds it deserted; the table laid ready. Every other time, when he’s been at the
masseria
, Leandro has already been sitting there, peeling a fig or sipping black coffee. Since the fire on Friday night he has been morose, sunk in thought. Clare listened out for him after the party, late into the night. When she heard him return she went down, barefoot, leaving Boyd awake and bewildered in bed. Leandro was dirty, and stank of smoke; he detached her grasping hands to tell her that Ettore wasn’t hurt. Two men were dead – a peasant she wouldn’t know, who was one of the arsonists, and Federico Manzo – so badly burnt they’d only known him by the cleft in his upper jaw. How and why Federico came to be in the fire hasn’t been established, but Clare felt nothing when she heard of his death. No satisfaction, no remorse. She only had room for her relief that Ettore was not a part of it, or if he was, that he hadn’t been caught or hurt. When she got back to bed a faint smell of smoke had transferred to her from Leandro’s hands, and Boyd’s eyes were wide open, watching her. It was too dark for her to see what expression was in them, and she said nothing.

There’s something ineffably sad about the empty breakfast table, so Clare goes up to the roof to look out. It’s early and the air is still cool. Behind the muck and milk smell of the dairy is a freshness the sun hasn’t yet burnt off. The sky is the colour of forget-me-nots; it makes her think of England, but her homesickness is faint, distant. She can’t imagine going back to the quiet routine of mealtimes and letter writing and grocery shopping and tea that was her life before. She might not belong in Puglia but she no longer belongs there, either, and she has no idea where that leaves her. There’s movement to the north of the complex and Clare turns to watch. His son is dead, but Ludo Manzo is still at work. Clare sees him emerge from his
trullo
and run his hands through his hair before clamping his hat over it. A man she’s never seen before is holding the head of a leggy brown horse, and Ludo sets about appraising the animal, running his hands over joints and muscles, peering at its teeth. The overseer’s eyes have black rings around them, and his expression is grimmer than ever, but he moves with his same easy precision, speaks with his same clipped efficiency, and shows no outward signs of grief. Clare watches them for a while, then watches the way the sun, as it climbs, obliterates the subtle shades from the landscape – the mauve smudges under the olive trees; the pastel lemon and orange of the ripe prickly pears; the milk-coffee-coloured ground. The baleful sun bleaches them all away. What softness there is here is fleeting, and fragile.

Hearing the scrape of a chair, somebody coming out to the breakfast table below, Clare goes down. It’s Leandro, wearing one of his linen suits but no tie. His shirt and jacket are rumpled, and he hasn’t shaved. Uneasily, Clare sits down opposite him. He looks up and smiles faintly, but there’s something lacking from it.

‘No husband or wives yet this morning, it seems. Nor stepsons,’ he says.

‘I don’t think Boyd’s sleeping very well at the moment. I didn’t like to wake him.’

‘And Pip slumbers on, like all boys prefer to. I remember having to rise early at his age. I remember making a silent pact with the devil that he could have my soul if only he’d let me stay in bed.’ He isn’t smiling. ‘But I always had to get up.’

‘At least you got to keep your soul, then,’ says Clare.

‘Only to lose it at a later date, as it turned out.’ He takes a sip of his coffee, then pours a cup for Clare and pushes it towards her. Tiny fronds of steam dance on its surface, and vanish.

‘Surely not,’ Clare demurs cautiously.

‘No, you’re right. Just an old man, feeling sorry for himself.’

‘Mr Cardetta, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone less sorry for themselves than you are.’ At this he does smile a little, but then he looks away and it slides off his face. For a while they sit in silence, listening to the sparrows bickering around the water trough in the courtyard. ‘I’ve … I’ve been wanting to ask you, Mr Cardetta, what it was you had been about to tell me, that afternoon in Gioia after Federico … after I’d come to find my husband. You’d been about to tell me why you’d brought us out here – Pip and me.’

‘Had I?’ He watches her steadily.

‘You said I was in danger.’ She feels her stomach clench at the memory of his words, and of that time; the memory of Federico’s kiss.

Leandro grunts, and looks down at his coffee.

‘Perhaps we are all in danger,’ he says.

‘Please,’ says Clare, in desperation. ‘Please. I need to know what you meant.’

‘You need to know? Perhaps,’ he says, looking up at her again. There’s something new in his expression, and it gives her a shiver of warning. ‘Perhaps we all have bigger and more pressing things to worry about this day. Wouldn’t you say?’ Clare doesn’t dare answer him. He sips his coffee and looks out across the courtyard. ‘It seems so peaceful here, doesn’t it? So much goes on beneath the surface. Do you know what the fascists call the peasants, and their uprising? The Bolshevik Menace. What do you say to that?’

‘What ought I to say?’ says Clare.

‘Does it seem apt, to you? You’ve got to know my nephew, and you’ve been here many weeks. Do the peasants fight for socialist ideals? Do they fight to overthrow the senate, and install a communist state?’

‘It seems to me that they fight for the right to earn enough money to feed themselves, and their families.’

‘Exactly!’ Leandro thumps the table with the flat of his hand. ‘And who could condemn them for it?’

‘Only … those blinkered by prejudice and … greed.’

‘
Exactly
, Chiarina. Exactly. What then should the landowners and proprietors do? What should they do when their farms are attacked, their crops burnt, their animals killed and carried off? What should they do when money they haven’t agreed to pay is demanded with menaces?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Cardetta.’ He glares at her with a slow, deep anger in his eyes; jabs one index finger at her for a second and then lowers it.

‘I make a loss, you know. It
costs
me money to run this place – such is the way of things when a country almost bleeds itself dry on the battlefield; and when it never bloody well rains. I wanted to show that the land could be improved, and relations between farmers and workers needn’t be bad. I’ve paid higher wages than any other man near Gioia. I’ve been fair to the
giornatari
; they’ve been well fed and watered in my fields …’

‘You’ve employed Ludo Manzo, who beats and mocks them.’

‘Ah. Ludo Manzo. Is he the reason I’m attacked by arsonists, then?’ Leandro’s voice has gone dangerously quiet. Clare swallows. ‘Is he the reason I’m lumped in with all the other
masserie
?’

‘I don’t know. How can I know? But … perhaps it’s only the case that …’ Clare hesitates. ‘Perhaps it’s only the case that you can’t be on both sides at once.’

‘Ha! It’s strange to hear my nephew’s words coming out of your mouth, Chiara,’ he says.

‘They’re my words, Leandro. You said to me, weeks ago, that down here politics is something that happens to you, not something you can choose to ignore. And you were quite right. These are desperate men, and desperate times, so it seems to me. I don’t see that anybody can remain on the fence. Not even you.’

For a long time after Clare says this Leandro watches her; he’s inscrutable, she can’t tell how he feels or what he thinks, yet she senses hostility, a new chill. Eventually he says:

‘No, you’re right. It’s time I came down off the fence.’ And the hairs stand up along her forearms. It sounds like a warning. Then the
aia
dogs start barking, their clamour ringing in the still air and echoing from the walls. Four men on horses have arrived at the front gate. There they pause, the horses tossing their heads and stretching out their necks, while one man talks to the gate guard. Then they carry on around to the rear of the complex. Clare and Leandro watch them until they are out of sight below the walls, and Clare feels anxious knots forming in her gut. The men all have rifles across their backs, or holstered behind their saddles. Leandro says nothing; he turns back to his coffee and reaches for his cutlery as Anna brings out a fresh omelette and puts it in front of him. And even though Clare knows she shouldn’t ask she can’t help herself.

‘Who are those men?’

Leandro chews carefully, and swallows, his eyes on his plate.

‘An insurance policy,’ he says, not looking up.

‘
Signora
?’ says Anna, gesturing to the omelette. Her eyelids are puffy and red, as they have been since Federico died. Clare shakes her head, and the girl goes. She doesn’t even want her coffee. She doesn’t dare ask Leandro what he means, but sweat starts tickling along her hairline, and when she thinks of the coming evening – what she will do, and what will come afterwards – she has a cold, creeping feeling of dread.

All day as they sit, or drink, or read, Clare is gnawed by anxious thoughts. This is what they’ve done every Sunday of the summer, and yet it now seems as though they’re faking it, deliberately killing time, stiff in their roles; as if they all know something’s coming, somehow, though only Pip does. Clare sees more mounted men arriving, and then six others in a mule cart, who clamber out and stand beneath the
masseria
walls, stretching out their shoulders and backs, some of them joshing each other, some grim-faced and quiet. She paces the roof, watching, powerless. The door creaks and thumps as several of them come into the complex, vanishing into the servants’ rooms and storerooms in the front wing of the quad. After lunch, Clare decides she must warn Ettore. Whatever the purpose of these men is, he thinks the
masseria
will have its normal handful of guards, and that Leandro is in Gioia. Her prescience of violence is like seeing black clouds gathering upwind, and knowing there’ll be no sheltering from the storm when it breaks. But when she tries to leave, planning to walk into Gioia and warn him, the guard on the front door refuses to let her out.

‘The master … rules nobody to go,’ he says, in tortured Italian. ‘Much trouble. To be safer, inside.’

Breathing too fast, and with her cheeks scorching, Clare can only retreat. Her heart sinks. If she gets the same response that night, at eleven, what then? The only possible hope is that Carlo is on the door, and can be persuaded. She feels close to tears; close to breaking. From the terrace she sees Leandro watching her, and she dithers for a while before setting out across the courtyard. His level gaze is like a searchlight, and Clare does everything she can to clear her face of expression. She goes to sit with Pip in the long sitting room as he finishes the last pages of
Bleak House
, running one of Peggy’s silky ears between his finger and thumb, again and again. He frowns at the text, and after a while Clare realises that his eyes are completely stationary, and he hasn’t turned the page. Time is rushing on too quickly; she wants the sun to stay up for ever, and the night to never fall.

And then, of course, with Leandro and Boyd in residence dinner is later, the whole evening longer. Without them, Pip, Marcie and Clare would likely have retired by eleven, for want of something else to do. Sick to her stomach, Clare barely touches the food. Full dark falls and it is nine o’clock, then ten, and they are all still at the table on the terrace surrounded by sticky little glasses and various bottles of liqueur, with smoke from Leandro’s pipe clinging to their skin and hair. There are tremors in Clare’s bones – like after Francesco Molino was beaten, like after Federico attacked her – juddering up through muscle and blood, her own personal earthquake, and she can do nothing to stop it. It’s half past ten when they finally quit the table and go down to the sitting room, and Clare walks close to Pip.

‘Go to your room now,’ she whispers to him, and he stiffens.

‘Do you really think they’re coming?’ he says.

‘I … I don’t know. I hope not.’ She has the wild thought that they’ll somehow have heard about the extra men arriving, or at least that Leandro is here. That they’ll call it off. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeats. ‘But just in case. Will you go, please? And lock the door. I’ll come up and join you soon.’

‘All right.’ He gives her a look then; a strange, appraising look, quite alien to him. Startled, Clare says nothing else.

She almost gasps in relief when Marcie excuses herself minutes later, yawning conspicuously.

‘I’m done in. I think I’ll hit the hay,’ she says, taking Leandro’s hand and smiling as he kisses her knuckles. ‘And I’m sure you boys can’t wait to be shot of us so you can discuss business and broads. Will you be up for hours?’

‘It’s not true! And no, honey, not hours,’ says Leandro. Clare carefully doesn’t look at him. She stoops, gives Boyd a brief peck on the cheek.

‘I’ll go too,’ she says, flushing when nerves turn the words shrill. She wants to take a deep breath, wants to steady herself, but she can’t seem to exhale properly. Boyd reaches up and cups her neck gently for a moment, and she’s sure he must be able to feel her pulse thudding.

‘Good night, darling. I’ll be right behind you.’

‘Walk me up, Clare?’ says Marcie, proffering her arm. ‘What’s bothering you?’ she says softly, as they climb the stairs. ‘Come on now, I can see there’s something.’

‘I …’ Clare’s mind goes blank. ‘I think perhaps … perhaps I may be in the family way, after all,’ she says desperately. There’s a startled pause and then Marcie laughs. It echoes up and down the stairwell, and has a sardonic edge that jars Clare with instant suspicion. ‘Is that funny?’

‘Oh, no! I mean – well, I’d thought it was something awful!’ Marcie gasps, dabbing at her eyes. ‘Why should that make you look as though you’ve the weight of the world on your shoulders?’

‘Well, I … I’m not sure how Boyd will take the news.’

‘Oh, I
bet
you’re not!’ says Marcie. Clare stops climbing. Beneath her hand Marcie’s arm is smooth and slender, but strong.