The Silent Wife(25)
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask your dad. I don’t know anything about classical music.’ Straight out of my ‘How to be a Fab Stepmum’ manual, I grabbed my opportunity to engage. ‘Do you like this sort of music?’ I asked, dreading that she’d launch into some comparison of composers I’d never heard of. All the Farinellis seemed to scoff up the arts and culture section of newspapers with their breakfast.
Francesca wrinkled her nose. ‘Not really. Mum used to listen to opera all the time but I’m not that keen.’
‘You might be later on. Shall I put this to one side for you? It’s real gold, judging by the hallmark on the bottom, so it’s definitely worth hanging onto,’ I said.
Francesca nodded. ‘Yes please. I could use it for my earrings.’
My moment of usefulness faded away and she started looking at her old schoolbooks again. I rotated my shoulders, picking my way back to the other side of the attic. As I stood deciding between tackling the bag labelled ‘bed linen’ or opening up an old-fashioned chest that contained God knows what to make me doubt myself a little bit more, I sneezed and the gold box flew out of my grasp.
It landed lid open on a pile of rucksacks, the sound of violins and flutes blaring out.
‘Sorry, sorry, must be all the dust.’ I scrabbled to retrieve it, praying that I hadn’t dented something that would turn out to be a priceless heirloom.
As I picked it up, tipping it upside down to inspect for damage, the padded velvet bottom fell out. A shower of papers fluttered down: tickets, a postcard, a couple of handwritten notes, a folded-up menu from the National Portrait Gallery. I gathered them together to stuff them back in, noticing an engraving inside on the bottom.
My darling Caity-Cat
Whenever I hear this music, I will think of you and wish we’d made different choices.
Yours always, P
I frowned and peered closer. Yes, definitely ‘P’. I really didn’t want to know what pet name Caitlin had for Nico. ‘Petal?’ ‘Pumpkin?’ ‘Precious?’ Ugh. Thank God Nico hadn’t thought up a Caity-Cat equivalent for me. Maggie-Moo. Or if I didn’t get on top of my weight soon, Maggie Muffin-top. I’d once had a boyfriend who called me ‘Shnoodle Bum’. It had put me off nicknames for life.
‘Wish we’d made different choices.’ What did that mean? What choices? I peered down at the pieces of paper in my hand, the souvenirs of Caitlin’s life. She’d missed out on so much. Would she have enjoyed all of these concerts, these places, these dinners just that little bit more, sought to wring a fraction more fun out of every minute, if she’d known that her minutes were in limited supply? Decided to have another drink, another iced bun, sod tomorrow?
I glanced over at Francesca, who was still flicking through her books, biting her lip in concentration. Despite knowing that discovering any more details about Nico’s relationship with the woman who preceded me would just be extra torture, I flipped through the tickets. Opera tickets. Pelléas and Mélisande at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. La Traviata at the London Coliseum, Così Fan Tutte at the Theatre Royal in Bath. I shoved the tickets back in the box, along with a flyer for ‘Late Turner: Painting Set Free at Tate Britain’.
Nico had never mentioned opera to me. He’d clearly dismissed me as a complete numbskull and decided to stick to safe topics like I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, the latest James Bond films, and Natural Calico or Orchid White paint for the dining room. I felt a stab of hurt. If I’d grown up in an Italian family where weekends were about museums, concerts and cooking, I’d probably have known about opera and art too. Mum, for all her warm and wonderful qualities, was far more interested in Coronation Street and a bucket of KFC than culture and ‘foreign’ cuisine. I hoped Nico wouldn’t expect me to go to anything more sophisticated than Adele. I didn’t think I could bear an evening with the whole Farinelli family summarising the main plot of Turandot for me, while singing along in Italian themselves.
I sneaked a glance at the other pieces of paper. A dinner menu from the Ritz. Christ, I’d be grateful for breakfast at a Premier Inn. I’d always had the impression that Nico liked rustic, spit and sawdust type restaurants rather than uber-posh places. Or maybe he just thought I’d feel more comfortable there. Perhaps he thought I’d let him down by sloshing wine into my water glass or tipping the free mints into my handbag for later. To be fair, I might do that, indoctrinated as I was with Mum’s scooping up of sugar sachets and serviettes. She couldn’t walk past a plastic spoon in a café without thinking it might somehow come in handy.