“Not even you?” she said with a smile.
“I wouldn’t dare!” He laughed and was pleased that her face was no longer dark and anxious.
Once he had finished the picture, he held it up for her to see. Beneath the portrait he had written Valentina and Alba 1945. Thomas Arbuckle. Now my love is twofold. Her expression unfolded like a sunflower that has just seen the sun, and she put her fingertips to her lips in wonder. “It’s beautiful,” she gasped. “You’re so talented, Tommy.”
“No, you’re the inspiration, Valentina. You and Alba. I don’t believe I ever drew Jack so well, or Brendan!”
“It’s perfect. I’ll keep it forever. The pastels won’t fade, will they?”
“I hope not.”
“I want Alba to see it one day. It’s important for her to know how much she is loved.”
She placed Alba against her shoulder and gently patted her back. Thomas bent down to kiss her and she raised her chin to give him her lips. He rested his mouth on hers for a long moment, wishing that they could spend the rest of the evening in bed, wrapped in each other. He withdrew with a sigh.
“We’ll be married soon,” she said, reading his thoughts. “Then we’ll have the rest of our lives to lie together.”
“God willing,” Thomas added, not wanting to tempt the fates.
“God will bless us. You will see. He will cry tears of blood at the festa di Santa Benedetta and then we will begin the rest of our life far away from here.” She cast her eyes around her home. “I won’t miss it,” she said. “But perhaps it will miss me.”
Only once were they able to lie naked together, in the lemon grove at dawn, while the town slept below them. There, in the pale light of the rising sun, Thomas drew her a third time, the last time. And that portrait was so intimate he knew he would never show a soul. When he gave it to her she blushed, but he could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that she liked it. “This is my Valentina,” he said proudly. “My secret Valentina.” And Valentina rolled it up so that it should remain so.
Thomas spent every moment he could with Valentina and their daughter. However, there were empty hours that he had to fill on his own while Valentina made her wedding dress with her mother and Signora Ciprezzo. During those long, hot hours he would sit outside the trattoria and watch the children playing on the quayside, the fishermen mending their nets or sailing out to sea to cast them. They’d arrive back with barrelfuls of fish which they would sell in the local shop or farther inland, where there was still a great deal of hunger. The children would gather around and watch as they unloaded, and once or twice a small fish would slither out by mistake and they’d grab it and rush off to play before the fishermen noticed and stopped them. He would share a drink with Lattarullo or il sindacco, who’d cross his legs to reveal polished black shoes and perfectly pressed trousers.
When he was alone, Thomas watched the tide come in and go out in a gentle dance across the pebbles. He imagined the same shore thousands of years ago. For the first time he was aware of the constant changeability of human nature and of his own mortality. One day, he thought, I will be nothing more than sand on a beach and yet the years will roll on, the tides will continue to come in and out, and there will be other people to watch them.
Finally the day of the festa di Santa Benedetta dawned. It was an exquisite morning. The sky was bluer than Thomas had ever seen it and seemed to be full of tiny particles of fairy dust that glittered in the sun. He stood, marveling at such magnificence, sure that if there was a God, He was here. The air was fresh and sugar-scented and a heady smell of carnations was carried up from the sea on the breeze. When he looked down to the seafront, he saw a most extraordinary sight. The tide was far out, leaving the pebble beach wide and open and covered, by some strange miracle, in a sparkling gown of pink carnations. The flowers glittered and shimmered as the wind caught the petals, causing them to flutter like tiny wings. Boats that had been moored just offshore were now stranded in the midst of this delightful, fragrant pasture of flowers.
Thomas dressed hastily and with the rest of the town stood transfixed in the face of such unearthly splendor. No one spoke, they were all afraid to, in case the verbal acknowledgment of the magic might cause it to disappear. How the flowers had got there no one knew. When the tide swept in, the flowers would be washed away, leaving everyone wondering whether it had really happened or whether they had all been involved in some sort of hallucination.
Thomas put his hands behind his head and smiled a broad smile. If you’re watching this, Freddie, I hope it’s filling you with as much joy as it’s filling me, he thought happily. Today is the festa di Santa Benedetta . Surely this is a sign from God. Tomorrow we marry. After the bloodiness of war we can now build a lasting peace. Our future is written in flowers.