Last Voyage of the Valentina(101)

“Dressed in furs and diamonds?”

“Let’s just say she dressed for the moment, Alba. She was an actress.” He pursed his lips in bitterness. “I’ve sometimes wondered whether she just wanted to go out on the tiles one last time. Perhaps she loved Lupo Bianco too, in her way. Maybe that final adventure had nothing whatsoever to do with superstition.”

“Would she have risked everything just for that?” Alba was shocked.

“Valentina? Absolutely. It was just another role she played, perhaps one she relished most. She would never be that person again. She was going away to be a lady. Maybe the temptation was just too much for her to resist.”

“So she was murdered because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“That’s what the police said. She was killed because she saw who killed Lupo Bianco. She knew too much. It’s as simple as that.”

Alba shook her head in disbelief. “If she hadn’t gone out that night, she’d be alive today.”

“Now you know the truth, surely you understand why your father kept it all from you? He swore the day she died that he would protect you from the horrors of her past.” He squeezed her hand. “He did the right thing.”



Alba sat in front of the mirror in Valentina’s small bedroom. She stared at her reflection, the image of her mother. Since learning the truth, she realized that she was exactly like her. Not only physically but in her faults as well. And she had believed her mother to be a paragon of virtue, an angel, and herself unworthy. She had despised her empty, drifting life and her alley cat immorality. The more she had reflected on her mother’s perfections, the more imperfect she had become, knowing she could never match up. Yet, all along, her father must have seen the life she led and thought how like her mother she was. He must have despaired.

And what of Margo? Alba was filled with shame. Margo knew the truth and had wanted to protect her from the sordid details of her mother’s past. She had only tried to give her a good home and a solid family. Alba sank her head into her hands as she now reflected on the tactlessness of handing Valentina’s portrait to her father, expecting him to sit by the fire and tell her charming stories about a woman whose secret life had held so little charm. She wept as she thought of the hurt she had caused him over the years, picking as she had so often done at the raw wound that Valentina had left in his heart.

What would Fitz think of her now? She was no better than her mother had been. Fitz deserved someone better, unselfish, not like her, not like her mother. She picked up a pair of scissors and began to hack off her hair.

She watched entranced as the feathery pieces fell onto the dressing table. A thin scattering at first and then large, thick clumps. She had a lot of hair. Once the length was cut she concentrated on evening it out around her scalp. She didn’t care how she looked. She no longer wanted to be beautiful. She no longer wanted to manipulate, to beguile, to hold men in her thrall. She wanted people to judge her on herself, not on a superficial and undeserved beauty. Like Valentina, she wanted to start again. Unlike Valentina, she had the chance.

Fatman’s words now resurfaced to terrorize her. “If you suck my cock I’ll pay for your flight home.” She blushed as if he had only just said it. In the course of a few days her whole life had been turned upside down. Things she had believed in were no longer true. She looked at herself differently. She moved her head in the mirror and considered her new image. Like a snake, she had shed her old skin and felt renewed, liberated. No one could say she now looked like her mother. No one would comment on her beauty, either. She smiled at her reflection and wiped her face with a towel, then went downstairs to find Immacolata.

When Cosima saw her she squealed in amazement. “Alba’s cut off all her hair, nonna!” Beata came in from the garden and Immacolata bustled out of the salotto. Alba stood at the bottom of the stairs, her hair short and spiky and uneven, but with a poise she hadn’t had before.

“What have you done to your beautiful hair, my child?” Immacolata asked, shuffling over to her.

“I think she looks beautiful,” said Cosima with a smile. “Like a pixie.”

Immacolata walked slowly over to Valentina’s shrine and took the portrait in her hands. She sat down carefully and patted the sofa for Alba to join her. “You have been talking to Falco,” she said gravely. “Listen, Alba, your mother was a mass of contradictions. In spite of everything, she had a big heart and she loved you and your father very much.”

“But she tricked him. She had a lover.”