Last Voyage of the Valentina(111)

“If you’ll have me,” she replied. “I would be lucky to marry a man as good as you, Fitzroy Davenport.”





27




T hey decided they would spend a couple of weeks in Incantellaria. That would give Alba time to say goodbye to her family. Then they would return to England. To Viv, the houseboat, Beechfield Park, her father and stepmother, and a new life together.

“We will come back, won’t we?” she said, thinking of Cosima. “I’ll miss them all so much.”

“You can come back every summer if you like.”

“What I am going to tell that little girl?”

“That it’s not goodbye.”

“She’s already been deserted once by her mother. Now she’ll be left again by me. I can’t bear to hurt her.”

“Darling, you’re not her mother.”

Alba shook her head. “I’m the nearest thing to a mother she’s got. It’ll be unbearable.”

Fitz kissed her and stroked her hair. “We’ll have children of our own, perhaps.”

“I can’t imagine that.” Can’t imagine loving another child as much as Cosima, she thought bleakly.

“Trust me.”

She sighed in resignation. “It’s just that I’ve grown so attached to her.”

“The world is getting smaller every day. It’s not so far, you know.” But Alba knew that Fitz couldn’t possibly understand her love for Cosima. It was the closest she had ever come to being a mother. Parting would break her heart.



Alba took Fitz back to Immacolata’s house for dinner. To him it was a pretty building, typically Italian, cozy, vibrant, echoing with the laughter of a big family. Immacolata blessed him and smiled. To Fitz there was nothing unusual about her smile; he could not have known that once it was as rare as a rainbow. Beata and Falco welcomed him warmly in broken English, and Toto made jokes about the differences between Fitz’s normal urban surroundings and the provincial quiet of Incantellaria. Toto’s English was surprisingly good. Fitz immediately liked him. He had much the same easy manner as himself and a dry wit that he understood. When Cosima skipped into the room, he could see why Alba had grown to love her. She ran up and threw her thin arms around Alba’s waist, her curls bouncing around her face like corkscrews.

When they sat down to dinner Alba announced their engagement. Toto made a toast; they all raised their glasses and admired the ring with enthusiasm. Yet beneath the excitement there lay an undertone of apprehension, for they all realized, except Cosima, that Alba would now be leaving them.

Alba was quick to sense their disquiet but nervous of speaking of her departure in front of the child. She watched Cosima eating her prosciutto with gusto, chattering about what she had learned at school, the games she had played, and the anticipation of going shopping again with Alba now that the weather had grown colder and her summer dresses were all too thin. Alba caught Beata’s eye. The older woman smiled sympathetically. Alba was unable to communicate what lay at the forefront of her thoughts. On one hand, the prospect of marriage to Fitz made her extremely happy; on the other, leaving Incantellaria and Cosima eclipsed her happiness like a gray cloud floating in front of the sun. She sat in the shade while everyone around her sat in the light.

After dinner Cosima went to bed, leaving the adults sitting chatting in the moonlight on the terrace beneath the vine. “So, when are you going to be leaving us?” Immacolata asked. Her voice had a hard edge. Alba understood why she felt resentful. They had only just found each other again.

“I don’t know, nonna. Soon.”

“She’ll come back to visit,” Fitz said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

Immacolata raised her chin defiantly. “That’s what Tommy said twenty-six years ago when he took her away. He did not bring her back. Not once.”

“But I make my own decisions now. It won’t be easy for me to leave you all. I can do it if I know that I will return again soon.”

Falco placed his large rough hand on his mother’s small one. “Mamma,” he said and his voice was a plea. “She has her own life to lead. Let’s be grateful for the part of her life that we have shared.”

The old woman snorted. “What are you going to say to the child?” she said. “You will break her heart.”

“And mine,” Alba added.

“She’ll be fine,” said Toto, lighting a cigarette and throwing the match behind him. “She has all of us.”

“It’s part of growing up,” said Falco gravely. “Things don’t always remain the same; neither do people.”