Last Voyage of the Valentina(110)
“I shouldn’t have let you go. It was my fault.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Fitz, but the truth is you deserved better. I only ever thought of myself. I cringe now. There are moments in my life that I would quite happily rub out if I had the chance.” Fatman flitted through her mind, but without the habitual plummeting of the stomach. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.” He took her hand and caressed her skin with his thumb. “I like your hair short. It suits you.”
“It suits the new me,” she said proudly. “I didn’t want to look like my mother anymore.”
“So, did you find out all you wanted to know?”
“I grew up with a dream, Fitz. It wasn’t real. Now I know the real woman. She was complicated. I don’t think she was very nice, actually. But I think I love her better now, warts and all.”
“That’s good. Will you tell me about it later? Perhaps we could go for a walk. The Amalfi coast is famous for its beauty.”
“Incantellaria is lovelier than anywhere else. I’ll show it to you once you’ve eaten. Then you must meet Immacolata, my grandmother, and Cosima, my cousin’s daughter. She’s just turned seven. She’s adorable.”
“I thought you didn’t like children.”
“Cosima’s special. She’s not like other children. She’s blood.”
“God, you sound Italian!”
“I am Italian. I feel right here. I belong.”
“But Alba, I’ve come to take you home.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think I can face it. Not after what I’ve learned.”
He squeezed her hand. “Whatever you have to face, my darling, you won’t face it alone. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Her eyes, a moment ago so solemn, now lit up at the dish that was being placed in front of Fitz. “Ah, frittelle!”
After lunch, Alba took him up the path through the rocks to see her mother’s grave beneath the olive tree. “We held a service a month ago to remember her. Before then she hadn’t been given a headstone. It’s nice, isn’t it, the headstone? We all chose it together.”
Fitz bent down to read it. “What does it say?”
“ ‘Valentina Fiorelli, the light of Incantellaria, the love of her family, now at peace with God.’”
“Why didn’t she have a headstone?”
Alba sat down beside him, drawing her legs underneath her. “Because she was murdered, Fitz, the night before her wedding. She was never married to my father.”
“Good God!”
“It would make a good book, so don’t tell Viv!”
“I won’t. So tell me. From the beginning. What was she like?”
Alba was happy to tell him everything.
When Alba had finished her story, the sun was beginning to set, turning the sea to molten copper. The evening air was cool and smelled of dying foliage and leaves. Autumn was setting in. Fitz was moved by Valentina’s life, but more by Thomas Arbuckle’s plight. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about her, least of all share her with their daughter.
“So you see,” she said gravely. “I can’t go back.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t face my father and Margo. I’m too ashamed.”
“What utter nonsense. Didn’t you say that you love Valentina more now than you did before, because you know and understand her faults?”
“Yes, but that’s different.”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t love you in spite of your faults. I love you because of them. They make you different from everyone else, Alba. Loving isn’t about selecting only the good parts, it’s about taking the whole and loving the lot.”
“I like it here because no one knows what I was like before. Here, they judge me as they see me.”
“That means your father, Margo, and I love you more, because we’ve loved you all along.”
“Now you’re being silly!” she said with a light laugh.
“I’m not being silly when I say that I want you to marry me.” Fitz hadn’t intended to put it quite like that. He had envisaged a romantic buildup to his proposal.
“What did you say?” The corners of her mouth curled up shyly.
He delved into his pocket and brought out a crumpled piece of tissue paper. With trembling hands he unwrapped it to reveal a simple diamond ring. He took her left hand and slipped it onto her third finger. Without letting go, he looked deep into her eyes. “I said, Alba Arbuckle, will you take on a penniless literary agent who can offer you little more than love and an old, smelly dog?” The old Alba would have laughed at him, called him absurd, made him feel like a fool for asking. Or she might have accepted just for the fun of wearing such an exquisite ring. But now she gazed down at the diamond that glittered in the light. “It belonged to my grandmother,” he said. “I want it to belong to you.”