The Mermaid Garden(155)

Rafa grew subdued, withdrawing into the background while they basked in the strange magic they generated. How peculiar, he thought to himself, that sometimes when one question is answered, another is raised; and the answer to that question was the very thing he feared the most.





35.


Clementine did not go into work. She telephoned Sylvia and in her croakiest voice explained that she was feeling rotten with a mystery bug and didn’t want to contaminate the office. “I think Mr. Atwood is in enough trouble at home already,” she said.

Sylvia knew she was faking, but she didn’t mind. She imagined Clementine wanted to spend the day with Rafa, and she didn’t blame her. She switched on her computer and wondered whether there was a Rafa out there for her.

But Rafa had left that morning for Italy, and the hotel echoed with his absence. Clementine wandered through the rooms like a lost dog, aching with longing and loneliness. She took Biscuit for a walk along the cliffs and took her phone out of her pocket more than once to see whether Rafa had sent her a text. She thought of calling him to say she was sorry she had run off without waiting to hear his explanation, but each time she stopped herself mid dial, afraid of what he had to tell her.

She found her father in the library, replacing the books the brigadier had returned.

“He hasn’t been reading so much since he asked Jane Meister to marry him,” said Grey, climbing the ladder to put Andrew Roberts’s Masters and Commanders back in the military section. “He’s a happy man.”

“Lucky him.”

He glanced down at his daughter’s disgruntled face. “What are you so gloomy about?”

She folded her arms and looked out of the window at the sea. It was a beautiful day, blue skies and the ocean as flat as a mirror. “Dad, do you fancy taking me out in your boat?”

Grey stopped what he was doing and came down the ladder. “I’d love to.”

She smiled feebly. “I’d really like to spend some time with you.”

Grey gently patted her shoulder. This small gesture of tenderness struck Clementine with a sudden wave of neediness, and she threw herself against him. He froze in surprise, not knowing how to respond. It had been many years since he had embraced her; he had forgotten what it felt like. But she didn’t pull away. Tentatively, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He didn’t ask what the matter was, for he sensed that once she was out in the middle of the sea, she would tell him.


The following morning Marina awoke to the long-forgotten sounds of Italy. The birds chirruped high in the umbrella pines, and the scents of the garden wafted in on a warm sea breeze. She could smell pine and soil, rosemary and cut grass, and the sound of gardeners watering the borders with hoses was a distinctly foreign one. She opened her eyes and let her gaze wander leisurely around the bedroom. It was extravagantly decorated, with tall ceilings and elaborate moldings, delicate antique furniture, and silk curtains in a pale, duck-egg blue.

Once, she had believed she would live here with Dante and have many golden-haired children to love, but that was long ago—another life. Now, as she lay in the big, luxurious bed with a view over the gardens she had once believed to be paradise, she didn’t feel the old sense of longing or loss, but something different: a contentment of sorts. It was as if she could at last put the past behind her, because now she was back, she realized it no longer had the power to hurt her.

She got up and pulled open the curtains. Gazing into the sunshine, she let the breeze brush her skin with soft caresses. She viewed the grounds with detachment and realized how much she had changed. She wasn’t Floriana anymore. She was Marina, with an English husband and an English life. Although there had been a moment last night when she had believed Marina to be the mask, she now realized that she was Marina, and Floriana no more than a memory she gave life to in her thoughts. The past was gone, and she could never get it back.

But she didn’t want it back. She inhaled deep into the bottom of her lungs and closed her eyes. She didn’t want the past back, only the son she had left there, and she yearned for him with all her heart. The early days of her exile, when the gray English skies and cold, penetrating rain had sent her into a frenzy of homesickness, were long gone. The hours pacing the beach in frustration while she waited for news of her son from Father Ascanio were gone, and the old priest was now dead.

The trauma of beginning again in a strange country, learning a new language and remaining in isolation because her heart was too broken to make friends, had also gone—and, like a tree in winter, she had remained frozen until spring had revealed little green shoots and finally blossoms, and she had grown strong. She now knew that she could survive anything, even the loss of her beloved Polzanze, because she had lost her son and yet she still had the capacity to take pleasure in life, and love.