She smiled at the thought of Luca, his kind blue eyes, his raffish grin, the tender way he had placed his hand on hers to reassure her that she wasn’t alone. She felt an unfamiliar mixture of fear and excitement, the tentative stirring of happiness long forgotten. Her tears weren’t the habitual tears of despair, but water from her thawing heart. She gazed out at the black horizon and felt a quiver of anticipation. Perhaps there was something beyond the darkness, after all.
Below her, beneath the olive tree, lay Valentina’s grave. Alba tended it regularly, pulling up weeds that seeded themselves in the soil, and occasionally laying flowers from her garden. She had faith. She knew that her mother wasn’t actually there in the soil, but in a world beyond the senses of normal people. She had a certainty that Cosima envied. As much as Alba had tried to convince her, Cosima had refused to believe in what she couldn’t see. Religion, so much part of her growing up, had seemed farcical in the face of her son’s death, like pretty icing to hide a rotten cake. If Luca was right, the cake might not be so rotten after all.
When she returned home the lights in the house had been switched off but for the one in the hall. Everyone had gone to bed, or so she thought. She was making for the door when a voice came from the table beneath the vine. ‘You’re back.’ It was Alba.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.’
‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’
‘I’ve worried about you constantly for the last three years. Every time you walk down that path to the cliffs, I fear you won’t come back. I have to be sure you’re safe before I can lay my head on the pillow.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve put you all through so much.’
‘Sit down.’ Alba leaned forward, her elbows on the table. ‘What did Luca tell you?’
‘That he saw Francesco. That’s how he knew I was in the sea.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘I want to.’
‘I want you to as well. To try to explain faith to one who believes only in the physical world is like trying to explain a painting to a blind person. Faith is the only thing that will give you the will to live. Knowing that your son is with you in spirit is the only way you’ll move on. Your life is an obstacle course. There are other obstacles you must jump and some will give you great happiness. Francesco had surmounted all the obstacles in his race and it was time to cross the finishing line. He’s resting now and looking out for you, willing you to complete your course.’
‘I’m feeling more positive,’ she said with a smile.
‘Then put on a nice dress. That black is so unbecoming.’ Alba took her hand. ‘I’ll buy you something new. Yellow would suit you.’
‘Francesco’s favourite colour.’
‘Exactly.’
Cosima smiled tentatively. ‘Do you remember the fashion show we put on when I was a little girl?’
‘Your father was so proud and you were so excited you twirled around like a ballerina.’
‘You bought me so many dresses in the dwarfs’ shop.’
‘You couldn’t choose, you liked them all. And you cried because no one had ever bought you so many before.’
‘We didn’t have much money.’
‘But I did and it was the first time I’d ever thought of anyone besides myself. In fact, I think you were the first person to teach me the joy of giving.’
‘Whatever happened to the dwarfs?’
‘They grew.’
Cosima looked at her in amusement. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’m totally serious. They grew. I don’t think there’s a dwarf left in the family. Incantellaria’s not the same without them. But I’ll find a pretty dress in Gaia Rabollini’s boutique.’
‘That’s very expensive.’
‘Consider it a coming-out present. It’s about time Incantellaria saw how pretty you are.’
14
At the end of the following week, Luca drove to Naples to pick up his daughters and their nanny, Sammy. He motored along the winding roads that hugged the red cliffs of the costiera and thought of Valentina, murdered somewhere on this very route – a small-town beauty playing a big and dangerous game. He wondered whether the Marchese, murdered in the palazzo, was somehow haunting the place just as Francesco was lingering close to his mother. Rather than suppressing those thoughts, he let them come. Whether he liked it or not, the spirit world was all around him. He didn’t know why he had had the sensitivity to see it in childhood, or why the spirits had come back now. Perhaps they had never really gone; he just hadn’t allowed himself to see them.