The Villa (34 page)

But the problem was – she knew she wanted him. Lying on that sandy beach in the cove this afternoon she had experienced it – that
fuck it
moment when logic jumps out of the window and unbridled lust takes over.

She checked her watch which was on the glass shelf. It was 6 p.m. now. She wouldn’t have long to wait. She had time to call Ginny first. Ginny … What would her daughter be doing now, in England? she wondered. And Muma? They all seemed a whole world away from Sicily and what was happening to her here. She thought of Ginny’s face when she’d told her she was coming back here – the sudden vulnerability almost shattering Tess’s resolve. Did she really see vulnerability? Sometimes it was hard to believe. Ginny seemed so confident, so independent, so resentful of Tess and everything she stood for. She sighed. No one prepared you for these things when you decided to have a baby. Or when – like Tess – you were propelled into motherhood without really thinking about it at all. No one warned you that your daughter would one day change into another being – an adolescent – whom you would irritate beyond belief every time you so much as opened your mouth. Tess smiled. But it would pass. Muma had promised her that it would pass.

For supper she would make some pasta and grill some sardines. She had white wine
frizzante
, fresh nectarines,
some crackers and pecorino cheese. That would have to do. Tonino … She wasn’t sure what she was going to say to him, but …

She spent forty-five minutes blow-drying her hair, applying her make-up and deciding what to wear (loose white linen trousers and a honey-cream silk top). She called Ginny who was not in a communicative mood – nothing new there. Then she started preparing food. There was almost too much to think about now. She didn’t know where to start.

At 7.15 she reminded herself that Sicilians were never on time. At 7.30 she opened the wine and at eight she cooked the spaghetti. At 8.30 she looked down from the terrace on to the
baglio
, but his studio was in darkness.

OK, so she was having second thoughts too, but at least she’d wanted to talk to him first. By nine she’d drunk the whole bottle of wine, eaten the spaghetti and sardines and didn’t really care if he turned up or not. Men were – as she’d always known – a complete waste of time, space and energy. And Giovanni Sciarra – damn his socks – was obviously right.

By 10.30, when she heard the knock on the door, Tess had also drunk five shots of
limoncello
– which was the only other alcohol she had in the house – just for the hell of it, and was practically asleep on Edward Westerman’s tatty brown leather sofa. Should she answer it? She didn’t want to, but …

*

Tess opened the door. He looked wild, dishevelled and drunk. And he was glaring at her (again) as if he were angry (again). Hang on a minute – shouldn’t she be the one who was pissed off?

‘What happened?’ she asked.

He leaned heavily on the doorpost. ‘You own this villa, yes?’

‘Yes, I told you.’ This hardly seemed the time or place for a discussion on property ownership.

‘But you are not a relative of Signor Westerman, no?’

‘No.’ Tess was beginning to see where this was going. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who had been warned off. Maybe his family hated her family as much as her family (according to Giovanni) should hate his.

‘Are you going to come in?’ He didn’t look dangerous, but he did look as if he might fall over any second.

‘I am not sober,’ he said, fixing her with an uneven look.

‘I guessed,’ said Tess, moving to one side so he could lurch past her. ‘And as matter of fact, neither am I. I drank our bottle of wine.’ And the rest.

Tonino hung on to the doorframe of the living room, took a deep breath and made his way inside as if he were walking a tightrope.

Tess shook her head in despair. She’d better make coffee. She waved him towards the leather sofa and headed for the kitchen.

‘So … ’ said Tonino, seeming to lose the thread.

‘So?’

‘So. You do not even know the man, Westerman, is that right?’

‘I never met him,’ Tess agreed from the doorway. ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

Tonino was sprawled on the sofa. ‘I assumed … ’ He spoke slowly and carefully, hardly slurring. And in another language, Tess noted with admiration. ‘You were a relative of his.’

‘No.’ In the kitchen she put on some coffee and took stock – which would have been a lot easier if hadn’t she drunk all that wine. After being warned off, Tonino had clearly headed for the nearest bar.

She took the coffee into the living room. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she repeated, putting the tray on the table.

Tonino was now sitting with his head in his hands. She resisted the urge to hug him. ‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

So – she’d been right. ‘I’m Flavia Farro’s daughter,’ she said. ‘My mother lived here in Cetaria. Her family worked for Edward Westerman. That’s why he left me the villa. But … ’ She glanced at him. His eyes were glazed now, but whether from alcohol or from what she was saying, she couldn’t tell. ‘But you know that, don’t you?’

‘You lied to me,’ he said.

‘I did not.’ Tess was indignant. ‘I told you my name. I told you I owned the villa. Everyone else in the village seemed to know who I was before I even arrived.’

‘You tricked me,’ he said.

‘Rubbish.’ Tess sat down next to him. She was angry too, she realised. After all, she was the one who’d been kept
waiting, who had cooked for him, who had been stood up – well almost. And she was the one who was supposed to hate
him
. ‘I never tricked you. It’s not my fault you assumed I was related to Edward Westerman. That’s after you’d decided I wasn’t just another bloody tourist.’

He looked up at her sadly. ‘But you never put me right. What about honesty, Tess? What about trust? I thought … ’

‘So did I.’ Suddenly Tess wanted to cry. It was true – she could have told him who she was, only she didn’t want to get embroiled in some old and ridiculous family feud that meant nothing to her. And how could it matter after all this time? But she was kidding herself. It did matter – to people like Tonino Amato and Giovanni Sciarra. They could bear a grudge for ever, it seemed. And that was probably why she hadn’t told him. She had wanted him to like her for who she was, not dislike her for who she was descended from.

‘Do you know what happened between our families?’ he asked her. He seemed suddenly to have sobered up.

She shook her head. ‘Not exactly.’ Only Giovanni’s and Santina’s versions anyway, and there were still a lot of gaps.

‘But you knew there was a quarrel?’

She nodded. God, she felt miserable. What a come-down after all that chemistry that had been zinging between them.

He grabbed her hands. ‘Why didn’t you tell me yourself? Why did you let me find out from …?’ He tailed off.

‘Who?’ His grip was so fierce he was hurting her. It was like Giovanni Sciarra all over again. ‘Who told you?’ She shook her hands free.

‘It does not matter.’

And she supposed it didn’t. It could after all, be anyone. If Tonino had been at all sociable, he would have known along with the rest of them. And it was probably Giovanni. Giovanni would have enjoyed putting the boot in.

‘OK,’ she said. She poured out the coffee. Black, she decided for both of them. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I should have. But let’s get this into perspective … ’

He said nothing. A sense of perspective clearly didn’t come easy in Sicily.

‘Our grandfathers had a row,’ she said. ‘In 1940 or whenever it was.’

‘1945,’ he said. ‘September 5th.’

‘Right.’ His precision with the date didn’t bode well.

This time Tess took hold of his hands. ‘But what does it have to do with us? That was … ’ She tried to work out the sum, but in her present state of mind, it defeated her. ‘Over half a century ago,’ she said. ‘And remember – my grandfather and yours were best friends once.’

Rather unsteadily, and clearly concentrating hard, he took the coffee she’d poured for him. ‘You, Tess,’ he said, ‘are more English than Sicilian. Otherwise you would understand.’

‘Perhaps,’ Tess suggested, ‘you could explain it to me?’

‘You mean tell you the story?’ He gulped back the hot black liquid. ‘So you really do not know?’

It was probably best not to mention the theft and betrayal. ‘I really don’t know,’ she said. Because she wanted to hear his side of the story. ‘So tell me.’

Tonino took a deep breath. ‘So … ’ he began.

Always, Tess thought. Always, he was telling her stories.

‘There is the treasure,
Il Tesoro
, which belongs to the Englishman, Edward Westerman, yes?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. So far, so clear. ‘But what is it?’

‘Ah.’ He sighed. ‘No one seems to know. Only that it was very valuable.’

Another mystery. Now there was a surprise.

Tonino leaned forwards in the chair. ‘Your benefactor,’ he looked around the room – with curiosity rather than bitterness, she felt, ‘was forced to return to England for the duration of the war.’

Tess nodded, although the mention of the war made her think of her mother and the English pilot whose life she had saved. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine this house, Villa Sirena, shut up and empty during those wartime years. What a waste.

Tonino’s voice cut into her thoughts. ‘And your grandfather made sure Villa Sirena was empty of anything valuable – in case it was looted.’

‘Who would it be looted by?’ Tonino seemed much more sober now he’d drunk the coffee. And she was too. But Tess
wasn’t getting the impression he’d changed his mind.

Tonino shrugged. ‘Germans, I suppose. Or Mafia. In Sicily, war or no war, there have always been unscrupulous men.’

And not just in Sicily, Tess couldn’t help thinking.

‘So he asked my grandfather, Alberto Amato,’ Tess heard the pride in his voice, ‘his most trusted friend, to help him hide one of Edward Westerman’s most precious possessions.
Il Tesoro
.’

‘Why?’ Was it so big he couldn’t carry it? The mind boggled.

Tonino bowed his head. ‘I do not know.’

‘And where did it come from in the first place?’

‘I do not know that either.’ He spread his hands. ‘Perhaps Edward Westerman’s builders found it when the foundations for the villa were being dug. Who knows?’

Giovanni might know, she thought, since he appeared to know everything. But would he tell her? Probably not. Her mother might even know – though it was unlikely she would have been privy to her father’s secrets. Santina? It was possible. But it sounded as if it might be something of historical value. The equivalent of finding a Roman urn in a field in England.

‘Which would mean that it did not legally belong to him,’ Tonino said.

‘Right.’ That made sense. If it was a Greek or Roman artefact he had found, it wouldn’t matter that it was his land. What would matter was that it was important historically and should be declared to the authorities, she supposed.

‘It is not unusual,’ Tonino said, ‘for such things to be found here. And it is common practice when building work is being carried out, for Mafioso to keep an eye on progress – with binoculars …’ Here he put an imaginary pair of binoculars to his eyes.

‘Really?’ Tess blinked.

‘But yes,’ he said. ‘Large sums of money could be at stake.’

‘And no one knows what it is,’ she murmured, ‘or where it is.’

He gazed at her. With regret, she wondered? ‘Sometimes,’ he said darkly. ‘It is best not to know.’

Honestly … This man and Muma would get on like a house on fire.

‘It was assumed that
Il Tesoro
remained in its hiding place till after the war,’ Tonino said. ‘And the trouble only began when my grandfather was sent to fetch it. The war was over. Soon Signor Westerman would return to Sicily.’

‘What happened?’ Tess asked, though she guessed what was coming. A theft and a betrayal, Giovanni had said.

‘My grandfather, he could not locate it,’ Tonino said. For the first time he seemed ill at ease, as though this was an aspect of the story he was not comfortable with. ‘There was a problem.’

‘A problem?’ Tess asked. ‘You mean it wasn’t where he’d left it?’

Tonino shrugged. ‘Something like that,’ he agreed.

Tess stared at him. ‘So someone else got to it first?’

‘No. I mean, yes. Or maybe no,’ he said.

Clear as mud.

‘I do not know,’ he admitted. ‘Because I do not know where he hid it. He told me only that it was as well hidden as the very foundations of Sicily. But the important thing was what happened next.’

‘Which was …? ’

‘People – they spoke to your grandfather. Especially the Sciarra family. Enzo had wormed his way in closer to your grandfather. No doubt he too knew of
Il Tesoro
. They hated my family. They were suspicious. In Sicily … ’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They’re always suspicious.’

‘They said that my grandfather had … what do you say, sold out.’

‘Sold out? As in sold
Il Tesoro
?’ Why would he? Everyone would know what he’d done. But then again, if
Il Tesoro
was worth a lot of money, who knows? Greed was a powerful thing. For a Sicilian in the 1940s that sort of money could transform lives. And presumably if Edward Westerman wasn’t supposed to own it in the first place, he couldn’t say much about it disappearing … What with the war and general looting and what have you … It would be easy for
Il Tesoro
to slip the net. It must have been a temptation.

But Tess realised that none of this would go down well with Tonino who was clearly convinced of his grandfather’s innocence.

‘Sold, yes,’ said Tonino with a sigh. ‘Or sold the information of where it was hidden. I do not know.’ He looked so dejected. Tess realised her own anger with him had
dissolved. She wanted to make it all right, but she didn’t know how.

‘And my grandfather believed Enzo and the others, I suppose?’ she said. ‘He thought your grandfather must be guilty?’

Tonino nodded. ‘Enzo Sciarra was an evil man,’ he said. ‘Not content with causing the death of my Uncle Luigi, now he accused my grandfather, Alberto Amato, of disloyalty and theft.’ He sat up straighter.