The Mermaid Garden(29)
By dessert Clementine was well and truly sloshed. She had allowed the alcohol to dull her senses. She joined in, telling stories of her own, making everyone laugh more heartily than they had laughed at Sylvia’s, but Sylvia didn’t notice, she was far more interested in Freddie’s hand. As Freddie’s hand reached as high as it was possible to go, Sylvia sprang up and suggested they go out for a cigarette. Clementine did not want to be left with Joe, Stewart, and Margaret so she got up to leave as well, placing a twenty-pound note on the table.
Once outside, the cool air revived her a little. Joe was not far behind. He handed back the note.
“Why are you giving me this?” she asked.
“Dinner is on me.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I want to.”
Clementine sighed. She didn’t want to feel any more indebted to him than she already did. “Thank you,” she replied grudgingly.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her mouth. His was nicer than she remembered. “You know you said you weren’t that sort of girl.”
“Yes.”
He kissed her again. “Do you think you could be now?”
She laughed. “I don’t know, Joe …”
“Come home with me.”
“I don’t love you, you know.”
“I know.”
“Do you love me?”
“I really fancy you.”
“Well, that’s a start. I might never love you, though. I don’t want to break your heart.”
“Let me worry about my heart.”
“All right. I’ll come home with you.”
“You’ll let me do what you thought I did, but didn’t do?”
She laughed sleepily. “Maybe.”
Back at Joe’s house they made love. Clementine wasn’t too drunk to enjoy the experience. The earth didn’t move, but it was pleasant enough. She left him asleep and drove home in the early hours, having sobered up enough to make it up the narrow lanes without crashing. The sight of the stable block did not fill her with joy, so she took the path Marina so often trod and walked down to the beach. The sand looked golden in the eerie light, the sea swelling and glittering as far as the eye could see, until the twinkling lights on the water blended with the stars in the sky. She walked up the beach, her feet just missing the waves as they rushed up to catch her.
The beauty of the night made Clementine melancholy. She wanted to weep at the sight of so many stars. Something pulled on her heart, a gentle tug. She put her hand there. It wasn’t a physical pain, but a feeling deep down that she couldn’t explain.
She thought of Joe. Perhaps this was as good as it got. Perhaps Sylvia was right and she shouldn’t wait around for Big Love, because there was no such thing, at least not for her. And yet, tonight, her heart felt as if it was opening up and willing something, or somebody, to slip inside. She sat down and let her mind still in the peaceful seclusion of the little bay. Soon, she forgot about Joe as the sea lulled her to sleep.
7.
Tuscany, 1966
Floriana was in love for the first time in her young life. She knew it was love because it lifted her so very high she could almost touch the clouds. She was sure that if she extended her arms she would leave the ground altogether and fly like a bird, right out over the ocean, soaring carelessly on the wind. Oh, if only she could fly, she’d build a nest in one of those umbrella pines in the gardens of La Magdalena and make it her home forever.
What a day she’d had. She couldn’t wait to tell Costanza. It no longer mattered that her mother had run off with her little brother and left her with her hopeless father, Elio. It no longer mattered that he was most often drunk and that she had to look after him as a grown-up would. It didn’t matter, either, that she was poor, because today she had been given riches beyond her most extravagant dreams. She had sneaked a peek at paradise and now she knew that however precarious her life, one thing was certain: she would marry Dante and live at La Magdalena.
She skipped all the way up the path that sliced through the meadows, taking pleasure from the crimson poppies that gently swayed to let her pass. The sea was calm and as blue as the sky that dazzled above it. Little crickets chirruped merrily, invisible in the long grasses, and she smiled because they, too, filled her heart with joy. At last she reached the Etruscan town of Herba, where she lived with her father. The familiar sounds rose on the heat: the barking of a dog, the high-pitched squeaking of children playing, the staccato cries of a mother berating her child, the musty smell of ancient walls and fried onions.
Soon she was hurrying over paving stones, past yellow houses with dark green shutters, wide arches, and red-tiled roofs, towards the center of town. Widows in black dresses sat in doorways like fat crows, sewing, gossiping, or fingering their rosaries, eyes squeezed shut, muttering inaudible prayers. Skinny dogs trotted in shadow along the wall, stopping every now and then to sniff something of interest, lingering outside the butcher’s in the hope of being tossed the odd scrap.