The Soul Room (15 page)

‘You must rest after we have spoken. But first eat my dear, and drink
your coffee. She pushed a plate of torn bread, grapes and oozing cheese in
front of me. I was starving I realised, and slathered some of the cheese onto
the fresh-baked bread and chewed it hungrily. I stopped.

‘Oh, Nonna, the cheese…’

‘You think that women in France stop eating the Brie when they are
pregnant?
Mangiare
and enjoy. It is pasteurised. The food
fascista
,’
she gestured ruefully, ‘they are even here in the hills of Italy these days.’

‘You said you had things to tell me Nonna.’

‘Yes, I have. I have a story.’ She sighed and looked at me keenly. I held
her gaze. She looked at people the same way that John did, with a deep
analytical interest.  The comparison made my tummy clench and I breathed deeply
and tried to push it away. ‘Something has happened to you since I last saw you
Maddie. Something has changed in you, or woken?’ When I didn’t answer she
nodded her head.

‘Your story Nonna.’ I prompted her gently.

‘Yes, yes. It come.’ She reached into one of the voluminous pockets of
her dress and pulled out a little battered flask and unselfconsciously tipped a
little of the spirit it contained into her coffee. ‘When I was a
bambina
,
about six or seven I was playing out in the field behind our house and I
suddenly thought of my Aunt Anna. I had not seen her for nearly a year, but I
saw her face so clearly, she was smiling at me.’ Her voice trailed off and then
she turned and looked at me with a little jump. ‘
Scusate Tsoro
. For a
moment I forget you are there. It happens many times at my age.’

‘It happens a lot when you’re pregnant too.’

She laughed. ‘Papa was out feeding the chickens, I ran up to him and told
him that I had just seen Aunt Anna, as clearly as I could see him. That she had
been stood in front of me and smiled. He looked at me strangely.
‘I am sorry
to have to tell you this Cara, but your Aunt Anna died this morning. We just had
a telephone call but we didn’t want to upset you.’
He sat down and put me
onto his lap then and ask me if I ever see other things too. I tell him about
the time that I warned my mother to bake some bread as her
suocera
was
coming for surprise visit; how I had known that my
gatto
was sick before
she died. How I had known why I should not be alone with Signor Mugnaio, and
all the time my father he listen, and stroke my hair and I feel his chin rough
with beard as he nod against my cheek.

That evening after dinner he and my
Mamma
tell me that the
Lazatti’s had a gift, one that usually come only to the men, but somehow, I had
it. I not know it then, but the men in my family had been honoured for hundreds
of years, as advisers and seers for everyone from peasants to
Sindaco’s
.
How even then, people, they came to my father for advice on their weddings,
their crops. There are reasons that the Italian’s are such a superstitious
people; because in many places they have managed to keep hold of these
traditions - these gifts.’

 ‘So you had the gift, and Rosa?’

‘No not Rosa. As I said, it is rare for Lazatti women to have the gift.
It go past a generation.’

‘To Sergio!’

‘Yes, he had it, dear boy. He had it and it torture him because with it
he see his own fate.’

I put my head in my hands. It explained so much. It explained his
sensitivity, his occasional sadness, the suddenness of his declaration to me;
the fact he wasn’t fazed when I said I couldn’t have children. Maybe he knew it
even then – that he would have a baby with me - this miracle baby. ‘I remember
when I was here when he was a little boy, he knew that one of the goats was
pregnant! And our son, he has the gift. You can tell already?’

Nonna smiled and nodded. ‘Yes
Tsoro
. I recognised his energy as
soon as I saw you that day. It emanated from you.’

I sat forward, adrenalin surged into my blood and the baby squirmed
instantly in response. ‘I’ve seen him. I’ve not told anyone this, but I’ve seen
him!’

Nonna raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

‘I thought perhaps it was some kind of waking dream, like the ones I had
as a child. Something brought on by the hormones; but it’s not is it?’ I sat
back, a little breathless and shook my head.

Nonna leaned forward and rested her brown wrinkled hand on mine.  ‘This
is much for you to think about. To understand.’

‘But he’s just a baby. He has no language and no awareness. He’s a blank!
How can he talk to me and reason with me? It doesn’t make any sense!’

‘When we are born we are empty and we are full. It is the way. It is your
son’s consciousness that talks to you; the consciousness that is waiting to be
called in when he is born. It surrounds him and comes from him but it is not
yet
of
him.
Piccoli
bits of it are there; when he see sunlight
through the skin of your stomach, when he hear your voice echo, when he touch
the umbilical cord that feed him. These things he
feels
, but when he is
born, he will be able to
think
also. Then all his consciousness, his
anima
,
will come into him – will grow to fill him
preselezione continua
-
a
’ she gestured into the air, ‘ – to last his whole
life!’

I tried to focus on Nonna’s rapt face and bright eyes, but my head swam
and my vision started to blur.

Nonna reached for my hand. ‘Now you must rest. Both of you must rest.’

Nonna woke me at
a quarter to seven as she had promised. I had descended immediately into a deep
dreamless sleep and felt heavy-eyed and sluggish as I searched for my phone.
Dad seemed reassured to hear from me, and to find that I was safely with Nonna.
Anxiety sharpened the edges of his voice though, and I knew that it was going
to take a lot to keep him from jumping on the first plane and flying over;
especially if I was going to have the time to look for Dan.

After talking with Nonna I had half expected to descend straight into the
lighthouse, but I was relieved when I didn’t. As much as I loved seeing my son,
I was overwhelmed. Being pregnant amplified the powerful forces now at play in
my life. In many ways it felt like the most natural thing in the world – after
all, millions of women went through it. On the other hand, truly
believing
there is a living being growing inside you, feeling it move and hiccup against
your skin and bones, was strange and miraculous. I felt like I was caught on a
tidal wave. It was extraordinary how much my life had changed in one short
year. When I’d emerged, dazed and blinking from my depression, I had intended,
resigned myself, to a life that was simple and predictable; but once I had
invited Sergio to have dinner with me that Summer evening in Mr Amarena’s guest
house, I had sent my life down a completely different path – one of surprise
parenthood and loss and mystery. I wondered if with hindsight I would make a
different decision but decided that I wouldn’t. My baby was the most important thing
in the world to me now, and that was that.

When I got downstairs Nonna told me that the Amarena’s had called to
invite me to join them for dinner. With a knowing look she said that Fabrizio
was bringing the cart over at eight. My first impulse was indignation and a
desire to call him up and tell him what to do with his cart – if anything, now
I was in Italy, the impulse to avoid him was even stronger. How easy it would
be just to stay with Nonna for a couple of weeks, spend time at Sergio’s grave,
to just be and think. I shook myself internally. That wasn’t the only reason I
had come. I had also come to see if I could find out anything about Dan and I
wasn’t going to do that by hiding away. So I swallowed my apprehension and
tiredness and showered.

I spent time getting ready – somehow looking as good as I could was a
kind of talisman. The Amarena’s were all impeccably groomed and I wanted to
present as confident and strong a front as possible. I felt very vulnerable. A
part of me suspected that Fabrizio at least, would like nothing more than to
have my baby to himself, and I had to make sure that I held everything together
and didn’t present any weak points. This was a difficult state of mind to
contain, and the effort of it was making my boy twist and press inside me. I
massaged my belly, feeling the pressure and tightening under the skin. It
reassured me and strengthened my resolve.

Dead on eight I
heard the clatter of the Amarena’s cart against the flags outside Nonna’s front
door. I kissed her hurriedly and went out. Fabrizio looked more the patriarch
than ever, high up on the cart, his leather-gloved hands nonchalant on the
horse’s reins. He held out his hand to help me up. My weight seemed nothing to
him and once again I thought longingly of John, his strength and solidity. As
he shook the reins and urged the horse to turn, Fabrizio leant over to kiss me
on both cheeks, I acquiesced, and even managed to smile.

‘Nonna tells me you and the child are doing very well. You certainly look
lovely – no worse for your trip.’

‘Nonna has looked after me very well.’

‘Many people around here go to Nonna for advice about their pregnancies.
They believe she is a clairvoyant, has a special way of seeing.’

‘Really.’ I said non-committally; my hand going unconsciously to my bump.

‘Yes,’ he grunted, ‘of course it is all nonsense,
superstizione
.
Unfortunately, it is beliefs like this that have held the South of Italy back.’

I nodded and another piece of the puzzle of the Amarenas fell into place.
I knew now that there was no way that Sergio would have felt able to tell his
father about his gift. Probably not even his mother either. Nonna must have
been his only true friend and ally. He hadn’t even told me about it, though
perhaps he would have done if he had had the chance to meet me when I was
pregnant. Like Nonna he may have known that his son shared his vision.

It only took ten minutes for the little cart to reach the Amarena’s
house. It was a stuffy night and the black silhouettes of the vineyards stood
out starkly against a strangely phosphorescent sky. There was a sweetness in
the air that I remembered from the Summer before, my Summer with Sergio. As I
daydreamed, Fabrizio regaled me with an update on his empire. They had been
making wine in this region for nearly a thousand years; he filtered his wine
through volcanic clay and gave it softness through a special kind of
fermentation normally used only for red wines. He was particularly proud to
have broken into supermarkets in the UK and other parts of Europe and had
impressed them by combining state of the art wine-making techniques with
timeless artisanship. His discourse washed over me until he moved on to the
subject of his extensive wine cellar, at this point I found myself strangely
alert.

‘And they are all under your house?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded complacently. ‘When Collette was a little girl she paced
every corridor in the cellars and worked out that there was over a mile of
them. They go even further than the boundaries of the building in some places.’

‘In England some 16th century houses have ‘Priest holes’ in them. Little
rooms, passages and escape tunnels the aristocracy would use to hide priests
when Elizabeth the first persecuted the Catholics.’

‘Ah! Yes it is very like that! My cellars too have such passages, some
come out by…’ He stopped, I couldn’t tell if by circumstance or design. ‘Here
we are.’

The dinner was
predictably delicious. There was a small dish of spaghetti with clams, fried
breadcrumbs and chilli as a starter, a thin and tender steak of veal stuffed
with chargrilled aubergine and Porcini mushrooms. I hadn’t realised how much I
had missed real Italian food until that meal, and the greedy pregnancy hormones
meant that anxiety did nothing to hamper my appetite or my enjoyment.

Rosa and Collette made polite enquiries about my health and the baby, but
I sensed that their modest interest was only engendered by Fabrizio’s zeal
(which increased exponentially with the amount of his own wine that he
consumed) and did not match it. He barely stopped talking about all that he
would teach my son – the things he had done with Sergio when he was a boy, the
history and methods of the Amarena estate. Every now and then I interjected,
trying to remind him that my son was going to be raised in England, but each time
he waved me off and carried on. It was hard not to let his talk lead to a
growing sense of unease, but I knew it would serve no purpose, and deep in my
core I had already decided that there was no way I was going to let Mr Amarena
have any control over my baby or his future.

With the arrival of the sweet, a fantastically sticky almond cake soaked
in Limoncello and doused in cream, Mr Amarena’s eyes twinkled.

‘I have a very fine dessert wine in the cellar that I have been saving
for such an occasion as this,’ he said a little pompously, and as you haven’t
had any wine yet Maddie, a glass of it will not do you or the baby any harm.
You must try some.’

‘That would be lovely.’

‘You should come down to the wine cellar with me, I can show you the
rooms and passages I told you about.’

‘Oh, yes, I’d like that.’ I did not like the idea of being stuck under
the house on my own with Fabrizio though. ‘Collette, why don’t you come too,
Fabrizio said you used to love exploring them as a child.’

Collette sighed but managed a small smile. ‘
Si
, ok Maddie.’

Fabrizio took my hand and led me across the impressive tiled hallway
until we came to the huge airy kitchen. Collette followed behind, her stiletto
heels clicking. At the far end of the kitchen there was another small corridor.
Once we entered it Fabrizio threw up his hands, ‘Ah,
che stupido
, I
forgot the keys. Wait here please.’ He left us in the corridor and dashed back
into the kitchen. Collette looked bored.  He didn’t go far, I heard him open
something, a tin perhaps, there was a metallic sound, and then a clunk as it
was presumably put back in its place. He returned, smiling broadly. 
‘Andiamo.’
He gestured forward. There were three big doors at the end of the corridor, one
left, one right, and one straight ahead.  The door on the left was made of
thick planks of dark wood fastened with brass bolts. It was much older than the
other doors in the house, which had been replaced with modern ones and
embellished with kitschy cut-glass handles.  He put the key in the lock and
turned it.