Last Voyage of the Valentina(88)

“Well, you had better tell him to behave, or she might run away.”

“Alba is not going anywhere,” said Immacolata, sitting down at the head of the table where she had sat for the best part of her eighty-odd years. “She is home now.”

Toto shook her hand and smiled at her warmly. “From what I remember of your mother, you look very like her,” he said. Alba was surprised that his voice didn’t resonate with the same wretchedness as his father’s and grandmother’s when they mentioned Valentina.

“Thank you,” she replied.

“I remember your father too, on account of his uniform. He was the most glamorous man I had ever laid eyes on. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I remember his humor too, because he was the only one to smile when old Padre Dino farted throughout an entire luncheon.”

“Really, Toto!” Beata protested. But Alba was delighted by her cousin. His earthy presence lifted the heavy atmosphere that Valentina’s ghost had placed upon the house.

Immacolata was keen to speak of her daughter. Suddenly, she had the excuse to tell stories and reminisce. Wounds still stung at the mention of her name, like throwing salt water onto cuts that had never been allowed to heal. But Alba forced her to open up the past, and Immacolata succumbed willingly. All the while she told stories illustrating her daughter’s virtue, her wisdom, her unparalleled goodness, Falco’s face darkened and his mouth thinned into a scowl.

When the women retired to bed, Falco remained at the table, slumped over a glass of limoncello, smoking a cigarette and staring vaguely into the dying flame of the hurricane lamp. Alba’s return had been an unexpected blessing. She brought with her joy that she couldn’t begin to understand. However, she was also a piercing reminder of a part of his life too terrible to contemplate.

Alba bathed, washing away the emotions of possibly the longest day in her life. It had been heady, fascinating, and somehow dreadful too. If she had thought the ghost of her mother haunted her little houseboat, how much more did it haunt this house. Immacolata had given her matches so that she could light the candle on the dressing table and the one beside her bed, explaining that they hadn’t had electricity during the war so she hadn’t had it installed in Valentina’s room when she renovated the rest of the house. She had wanted to keep it exactly as it was. So when Alba sat in front of the mirror, dressed in her mother’s white nightdress, her hair falling over her shoulders, her face pale in the dancing light of the flame, she was almost as frightened by her own reflection as she was by the sense of death that pervaded the little room.

She picked up the hairbrush. It was silver and heavy. With slow, deliberate strokes, she began to brush her hair, watching herself in the mottled glass of the mirror. She knew she was staring at the truest likeness of her mother that she would ever see. More startling perhaps than the portraits, for it was alive and breathing. As she gazed upon it, her eyes grew heavy with sorrow, for she was aware that her mother possessed a virtue that she could never ever possess. If she were alive there was little doubt in Alba’s mind that she would be disappointed. Valentina had touched everyone with an effortless, otherworldly grace. If Alba were to die suddenly, what would people remember her for?

That night she slept fitfully. She hadn’t imagined that her expedition to find her mother would lead her to search deep within herself. She had hoped to be able to move on, but Valentina’s ghost was now haunting her in a way that it had never done before.

When she finally slept, her dreams were strange, incomprehensible, unsettling. When she awoke she was relieved it was day, that the sky was clear and blue and that the sun was shining, throwing light into the shadowy corners of the room.

When Alba wandered out onto the terrace in the yellow sundress she had worn the day before, only Toto and Cosima were up and eating breakfast. The little girl’s face expanded into an enormous grin, her pretty pouting mouth revealing pearly teeth.

“Alba!” she exclaimed, climbing down from her chair to embrace her. “You didn’t dream of dragons, did you?” she asked, wrapping her arms around Alba’s waist as she had done with her father the previous night.

“No, I didn’t.”

“You look tired,” said Toto, chewing on a piece of brioche.

“I didn’t sleep very well. I think I was almost too tired to sleep.”

“Well, have some food and then Cosima and I will take you into town if you like. I gather your suitcase got stolen.”

“I need to go to the bank,” she said, sitting down next to Cosima, who had pulled out a chair for her.