Last Voyage of the Valentina(53)

At last Mrs. Arbuckle moved. She walked calmly across to the desk and began tidying it. She closed the drawers that were left ajar and put her husband’s letters back in a neat pile on the blotter. Her capable hands moved slowly and carefully, and she didn’t stop until she was satisfied that all was as it should be. The captain was a fastidious man. His years in the navy meant that he liked his things to be orderly. Then her hand hovered over one of the drawers. She chewed the inside of her cheek as if deliberating what to do. It was as if something within pulled at her. Was she perhaps looking for the same thing as Alba? After a long moment she withdrew her hand and walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

When Cook found Mrs. Arbuckle in the sitting room, she was perched on the club fender talking to Caroline as if nothing had happened. She smiled at Cook, thanked her for lunch, and bade her good night. Cook was intrigued. The animosity between Alba and Mrs. Arbuckle was well known, but she now realized that no one really appreciated the full extent of it.

Cook walked home to find a message from Verity. Could she telephone her? Cook snorted self-importantly. That Verity, she thought intolerantly. She’s after my recipe again. I shan’t give it to her. I absolutely shan’t.



Alba and Fitz left not long after Cook. Thomas kissed her temple and shook hands firmly with Fitz. “I hope to see you again,” he said.

“So do I,” Fitz replied. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Now I’ve met Alba’s parents I know where she gets all that charm from.”

Thomas chuckled. For a moment he felt the young lieutenant laughing inside the heavy skin of the old captain. He had forgotten how good it felt. He patted Fitz on the back and suddenly it was Jack’s face that grinned back at him. He blinked the image away. He hadn’t spoken to Jack since the war. He didn’t know where he was, if indeed he was at all. He turned to the porch and remembered climbing those steps, holding little Alba, his world in shreds. Yet, hadn’t that small bundle in his arms represented hope and light when all around him was hopeless and dark? He watched her climb into the car. They waved and then were gone.

In the car Alba vented her fury. “He’s hidden it!” she exclaimed. “I looked in every drawer in that desk. He’s either hidden it or destroyed it. I wish I had never given it to him. I’m a fool!”

“I don’t think he’d destroy it, Alba. Not after the way he talked about her last night.” Fitz tried to soothe her. Besides, he genuinely liked her father. He wasn’t an old duffer at all. He was a relatively young man. Should have been in his prime. Yet, like many who survived the war, his experiences had robbed him of his youth. “Did you ask him for it?”

Alba looked surprised. “No,” she replied. “We don’t talk about her. Every time I have brought her name up in the past we’ve had a terrible row, all because of the Buffalo. I suspect he’s hidden it somewhere safe where he can take it out and look at it every once in a while in private. He’s hardly going to leave it in his desk. Margo would find it in a second. It should be something that we can share,” she said in a quiet voice. “She belongs to me and Daddy. Not to the Buffalo, Caroline, Miranda, or Henry. It should be something that we can talk about by the fire, over a glass of wine. It could have been so special. But because of the Buffalo it’s a dirty secret and I feel unworthy because I’m the product of that secret.”

They drove on in silence, each trying to find a way through the terrible muddle that Valentina had unwittingly created by dying. The sun was setting behind them, turning the sky a brilliant gold, and pale pink clouds wafted across it like goose down. Sprout slept peacefully in the back.

“I’m going to go and find her myself,” Alba said, sliding down the seat and folding her arms. “I’m going to find Incantellaria.”

“Good,” Fitz replied. “I’ll help you…”

“Will you?” she interrupted before he had finished his sentence. “You mean, you’ll come with me?” She sat up happily.

Fitz chuckled. “I was going to offer to help you find it on a map!”

“Oh,” she said, disappointed.

When they arrived in Cheyne Walk Fitz pulled up beneath the street lamp. He didn’t know what to expect. They no longer had a role to play. Normality could be resumed. Would he go back to his bridge nights with Viv, only to gaze longingly through Alba’s windows and suffer her suitors’ walking up her gangplank with armfuls of roses and self-satisfied smirks?

“You’ll get a ticket if you park it here,” she said.