The Mermaid Garden(166)

“Who’s to say what sort of people we’d be if we had never met?”

“That’s a very deep question.”

“Isn’t it good then that we have the whole afternoon to discuss it?”


* * *

When they returned to the Polzanze, it was already getting dark. The days were shorter now, the sunlight weaker, the grass strewn with crispy brown leaves and prickly conkers. Only the pigeons cooed on the rooftops as if it were still summer.

Marina gazed upon the house she loved so dearly and thought of Dante, who had made it all possible; Dante, who was once again part of her life. She could now remember it all with pleasure, and as she did so, memories buried deep beneath the rubble surfaced again like flowers, finding their way through the debris into the light where she feasted her eyes on them nostalgically.

There was only one beautiful rose that came up through the wreckage, thick with thorns. It gave her pain to look on it, so she ignored it, even though it grew bigger and more alluring with each day that passed. Until one wintry afternoon in December she strode into the hall to find Jennifer on the telephone.

“Ah, here she is,” she said, making a face at Marina. “It’s for you.” She held out the receiver.

“Who is it?”

Jennifer shrugged. “I don’t know. She says she’s an old friend of yours. Her name is Costanza.”