Farelli's Wife
It was still painful to recall how she slipped away from the dance and stumbled across them in each other’s arms, in the darkness. She backed away, but not before she heard Franco murmuring, ‘Mi amore—I will love you until I die,’ and saw him kiss her passionately. It was so different from the teasing kiss he’d almost bestowed on herself, and she fled, weeping frantically.
Apart from herself, the only person not pleased by the wedding was Sophia. Joanne overheard the family scene in which Sophia begged Franco to marry a local girl, and not ‘this stranger, who knows nothing of our ways’. Franco refused to quarrel with his mother, but he insisted on his right to marry the woman of his choice. He also demanded, quietly but firmly, that his bride should be treated with respect. Joanne was struck by the change in him. Already the easygoing lad who’d once let his mother’s tirades wash over him was turning into a man of serious purpose. Sophia evidently felt it too, for she burst into angry tears.
‘Poor Mama,’ Renata observed. ‘Franco’s always been her favourite, and now she’s jealous because he loves Rosemary best.’
The whole neighbourhood was invited to their wedding. Joanne longed not to be there, but Rosemary asked her and Renata to be her bridesmaids. Joanne was afraid that if she refused everyone would guess why.
When the day came she put on her pink satin dress, smiled despite her heartbreak, and walked behind Rosemary as she went down the aisle to become Franco’s wife. Joanne saw the look on his face as he watched his bride’s approach. It was a look of total, blind adoration, and it tore the heart out of her.
A year later she pleaded work as an excuse not to attend the baptism of their son, Nico. Rosemary wrote to her affectionately, saying how sorry she was not to see her again, and enclosing some christening cake and photographs. Joanne studied them jealously, noting how the same look was still on Franco’s face when he looked at his wife. Even in the flat photographs it blazed out, the gaze of a supremely happy man whose marriage had brought him love and fulfilment. She hid the pictures away.
After that there were more pictures, showing Nico growing fast out of babyhood, becoming an eager toddler learning to walk, held safe by his father’s hands. Franco’s face grew a little older, less boyish. And always it bore the same look, that of a man who’d found all he wanted in life.
Rosemary stayed in touch through occasional telephone calls, and long letters, with photographs enclosed. Joanne knew everything that happened on the Farelli farm, almost as well as if she’d been there. Renata married an art dealer and went to live in Milan. Franco’s father died. Two years later his mother visited her sister in Naples, where she met a widower with two children and married him. Franco, Rosemary and baby Nico were left alone on the farm: alone, that was, except for a woman who helped with the housework, and the dozens of vineyard workers who wandered in and out of the house.
Rosemary often repeated her loving invitations. She wrote:
It seems so long since we saw you. You shouldn’t be a stranger, darling, especially after we were so close once.
Joanne would write back, excusing herself on the grounds of work, for her skill in copying paintings to the last brush stroke had made her a successful career. But she never gave the true reason, which was that she didn’t trust herself to look at Rosemary’s husband without loving him. And that was forbidden, not only because he cared nothing for her, but because Joanne also loved Rosemary.
She had no other close family, and the cousin who was also sister and mother was dearer to her than anyone on earth, except Franco. She owed Rosemary more than she could repay, and her fierce sense of loyalty made her keep her distance.
She was lonely, and sometimes the temptation to pay a visit was overwhelming. Surely it could do no harm to meet little Nico, enjoy the farm life for a while, and be enveloped in the warmth and love that Rosemary seemed to carry with her at all times?
But then Rosemary would write, innocently ending the letter, ‘Franco sends his love’. And the words still hurt, warning her that the visit must never be made.
She’d been eighteen when she’d fallen in love with him, and it should have been one of those passing teenage infatuations, so common at that age. Her misfortune was that it wasn’t. Instead of getting over Franco she’d gone on cherishing his image with a despairing persistence that warned her never to risk seeing him.
To outward appearances Joanne was a successful woman, with a string of admirers. The chubbiness of her early years had gone, leaving her figure slender and her face delicate. There were always men eager to follow her beauty and a certain indefinable something in her air. She let them wine and dine her and some of them, blind to the remote signals she sent out without knowing it, deceived themselves that they were making progress. When they realized their mistake they called her heartless, and to a point it was true. She had no heart for them. Her heart had been stolen long ago by a man who didn’t want it.
Then Rosemary returned to England for a visit, bringing her five-year-old son. They stayed with Joanne for a week, and some of their old closeness was restored. They talked for hours into the night. Joanne was enchanted by the little boy. He looked English, but he had the open-heartedness of his Italian father, and would snuggle on her lap as happily as on his mother’s.
Rosemary watched the two of them fondly, while she talked of her life in Italy with the husband she adored. The only flaw was Sophia’s continuing hostility.
‘I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t remarried,’ she confessed. ‘She hates me.’
‘But she was always nagging Franco to get married,’ Joanne recalled.
‘Yes, but she wanted to choose his wife. She’d have picked a local girl who wouldn’t have competed with her for his heart, and given him lots and lots of children. Franco really wants them. Sophia never lets me forget that I’ve only managed to give him one.
‘I’ve tried and tried to make her my friend, but it’s useless. She hates me because Franco loves me so much, and I couldn’t change that—even if I wanted to.’
Her words made Joanne recall how Sophia’s manner to herself had altered without warning. She’d been friendly enough, in her sharp manner, until one day she’d caught Joanne regarding Franco with yearning in her eyes. After that she’d grown cool, as though nobody but herself was allowed to love him.
Rosemary’s face was radiant as she talked of her husband. ‘I never knew such happiness could exist,’ she said in a voice full of wonder. ‘Oh, darling, if only it could happen for you too.’
‘I’m a career woman,’ Joanne protested, hiding her face against Nico’s hair lest it reveal some forbidden consciousness. ‘I’ll probably never marry.’
She was the first to learn Rosemary’s thrilling secret.
‘I haven’t even told Franco yet, because I don’t want to raise false hopes,’ she admitted. ‘But he wants another child so badly, and I want to give him one.’
A week after her return to Italy she telephoned to say she was certain at last, and Franco was over the moon.
But the child was never born. In the fifth month of her pregnancy Rosemary collapsed with a heart attack, and died.
Joanne was in Australia at the time, working against a deadline. It would have been impractical to go to Italy for the funeral, but the truth was she was glad of the excuse to stay away. Her love for Rosemary’s husband tormented her with guilt now that Rosemary was dead.
The year that followed was the most miserable of her life. Despite their long parting, Rosemary had stayed in touch so determinedly that she had remained a vital part of her life. Joanne only truly understood that now that she was gone, and the empty space yawned.
She had several requests to work in Italy, but she turned them all down on one pretext or another. Then a debilitating bout of flu left her too weak to work for some time, and her bank balance grew dangerously low. When the offer came from Vito Antonini she was glad of the chance to make some money.
He lived only sixty miles away from Franco. But she could shut herself up to work, and never venture into the outside world. There was no need to see him if she didn’t want to. So, despite her misgivings, she accepted the job and flew to Italy, telling herself that she was in no danger, and trying to believe it.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHY you never take the car?’ Maria demanded one day. ‘When you arrive I say, ‘We don’t need the second car. You use it.’ But you never do. Is very unkind.’
‘Don’t be offended, Maria, please,’ Joanne begged. ‘It’s just that I’ve been so busy.’
‘Don’t you have any friends from when you were here before?’
‘Well—my cousin’s family lives near Asti—’
‘And you haven’t visited?’ Maria shrieked in horror, for like all Italians she was family-minded. ‘You go now.’
Vito backed his wife up, and the two of them virtually ordered her out of the house.
‘You stay away tonight,’ Maria ordered. ‘You won’t have time to drive back.’
‘I’ll have plenty of time,’ Joanne insisted. ‘I’m only going for a couple of hours.’
They argued about this until the last minute, Maria demanding that she pack a bag, Joanne firmly refusing. She was going to make this visit as brief as possible, just to prove to herself that she could cope with meeting Franco. Then she would leave and never go back.
She was dressed for the country, in trousers and sweater. But both had come from one of Turin’s most expensive shops, and she added a gold chain about her waist and dainty gold studs in her ears. She didn’t realize that she was making a point, but the costly elegance of her attire marked her out as a different person from the gauche girl of eight years ago.
As soon as she got out onto the road and felt the beauty of the day, and the sun streaming in through the open window, Joanne was glad. She’d been shut up too long with the smell of oil paint and turpentine, and she needed to breathe fresh air.
She took the route through the little medieval town of Asti. Already there were posters up advertising the palio, the bareback race that was run every year around the piazza. The jockeys were all local lads, and Joanne’s mind went back to the time Franco had taken part.
She’d been nervous as she’d taken her place in the stands with the family and almost every worker from the Farelli vineyard. The palio was so fierce that mattresses were fixed to the walls of all the surrounding buildings to save the riders and horses who crashed into them. Even so, injuries were common.
After the first lap it had been clear that the race was between Franco and another rider.
‘That’s Leo,’ Renata said excitedly. ‘He and Franco are good friends—except today.’
It was neck and neck on the last lap. Then Leo went ahead. Franco made a desperate attempt to catch up. The crowd’s cheers turned to screams as the horses collided and both riders were thrown. Miraculously the following riders managed to jump over them, and neither man was hurt. But Joanne’s heart was in her mouth as they all hurried around to see Franco afterwards.
Sophia clung to him, almost suffocating him until Giorgio gently prised her away. Leo hurled his whip to the ground, complaining, ‘I was winning. I had the race in the palm of my hand. And he robbed me.’
Franco offered Leo his hand. Leo stared at it until everyone thought he would refuse to shake. At last he put out his own hand, saying through a forced smile, ‘I’ll get even with you next year, Farelli. See if I don’t.’
But Franco had never competed again. By the next race he’d been married to Rosemary, looking forward to starting a family.
Joanne parked the car and spent an hour wandering the streets she’d once known so well. She decided she might as well have lunch here too, and enjoyed a leisurely pizza. She would have denied that she was putting off her meeting with Franco, but she didn’t hurry.
But when she resumed the journey she was further delayed by a traffic jam. For two hours she fretted and fumed behind a trail of trucks, and it was late afternoon before she neared the Farelli vineyards. She parked the car off the road and got out to lean over a fence and survey the land. The vines were growing strongly and everywhere she looked she saw the brightness of summer. It reminded her of her year in Italy when she’d fallen in love with Franco.
What would he be like now? Her last picture of him had been taken eighteen months ago and showed him older, more serious, as befitted a man of responsibilities. Yet even then a mischievous devil still lurked in his eyes. But he must have changed again since the death of his beloved wife. Suddenly she was afraid to see him. He would be a stranger.
But she couldn’t give up now. Courtesy demanded that she see Rosemary’s widower and child before she left the district. She started up again and drove on to the turning that led to the house. At once memory began to play back. The dirt track was still the one she’d seen the day Renata had brought her here for the first time. There were the ruts left by the trucks that regularly arrived and departed.
The big, sprawling house too was the same, yellow ochre in the blazing sun, the dark green shutters pulled closed against the heat, the roof tiles rusty red. And everywhere there were geraniums, the brightly coloured flowers without which no Italian country home seemed complete. Geraniums around the doors, in window boxes, in hanging baskets: red, white, pink, purple, every petal glowing vividly in the brilliant light.
Chickens strutted pompously back and forth in the yard, uttering soft, contented clucks. The Farelli family was wealthy, but the house was that of a prosperous farmer, with homeliness prevailing over luxury. That was its charm.
Did nothing ever change here? There was the long table under the trees with the benches at either side. Above it stood the wooden trellis roof with flowers wreathing in and out and hanging down from it. How many times had she sat beneath those flowers, as if in paradise, listening to the family backchat over a meal? Paradise that might have been hers, that could never have been hers. Paradise lost.
The front door was open and she walked inside. Rosemary had made this place her own, but it still felt familiar. The few new pieces of furniture blended in with the warm red flagstones. The huge fireplace, where the family had warmed themselves by log fires, was unchanged. The old sofa had been re-covered, but was otherwise still the same, the largest one Joanne had ever seen.
The staircase led directly out of the main room. An old woman whom Joanne had never seen before came bustling downstairs, wiping her hands on her apron. She was dressed in black, save for a coloured scarf covering her hair. She stopped very still when she saw Joanne.
‘I’m sorry to come in uninvited,’ Joanne said quickly. ‘I’m not prying. My cousin was Signor Farelli’s wife. Is he here?’
‘He is with the vines on the south slope,’ the woman said slowly. ‘I will send for him.’
‘No need. I know where it is. Grazie.’
In the poor light of the stairs she hadn’t noticed the old woman’s face grow pale at the sight of her. And she went out too quickly to hear her murmur, ‘Maria vergine!’ or see her cross herself.
She remembered the way perfectly. She followed the path to the stream, stepping gingerly across the stones that punctuated the fast-running water. Once she’d pretended to lose her nerve in the middle of those stones so that Franco came back and helped her across, steadying her with his strong hands.
After that the path lay around by the trees until the first slope came into view, covered in vines basking in the hot sun. Here and there she saw men moving along them, checking, testing. They turned to watch her and even at a distance she was aware of a strange frisson passing through them. One man looked at her in alarm and hurried away.
At last she reached the south slope. Here too there were memories everywhere, and she stopped to look around her. This was where she’d walked one evening to find Franco alone, and their brief tête-à-tête had been interrupted by one of his light-o’-loves.
Lost in her reverie, she didn’t at first see the child appear and begin moving towards her, an incredulous expression on his face. Suddenly he began to run. Joanne smiled, recognizing Nico.
But before she could speak he cried, ‘Mama!’ and hurled himself into her arms, hugging her tightly about the neck.
Dismay pervaded her. ‘Nico, I—I’m not—’
‘Mama! Mama!’
She could do nothing but embrace him back. It would have been cruel to refuse, but she was in turmoil. She’d barely thought of her resemblance to Rosemary, and Nico had met her before. But that had been eighteen months ago, an eternity in the life of a young child. And the likeness must have grown more pronounced than ever for him to confuse them.
She should never have come here. It had all been a terrible mistake.
‘Nico.’
The man had approached while she was unaware, and stood watching them. Rosemary looked up and her heart seemed to stop. It was Franco, but not as she had ever seen him.
The light-hearted boy was gone for ever, replaced by this grim-faced man who looked as if he’d survived the fires of hell, and now carried them with him.
He’d filled out, become heavier. Once he’d been lean and rangy. Now there was power in every line of him, from his thickly muscled legs to his heavy shoulders. He wore only a pair of shorts, and the sun glistened off the sweat on his smooth chest. An outdoor life had bronzed him, emphasizing his clear-cut features and black hair.
One thing hadn’t changed and that was the aura of vivid life he carried with him, so that his surroundings paled. But it was belied by the bleakness of his expression.
‘Nico,’ he called harshly. ‘Come here.’
‘Papa,’ the child called, ‘it’s Mama, I—I think—’
‘Come here.’ He didn’t raise his voice, but the child obeyed him at once, going to his side and slipping his hand confidingly into Franco’s big one.
‘Who are you?’ Franco whispered. ‘Who are you that you come to me in answer to—?’ He checked himself with a harsh intake of breath.
‘Franco, don’t you know me?’ she begged. ‘It’s Joanne, Rosemary’s cousin.’
‘Cousin?’ he echoed.
She went closer and his eyes gave her a shock. They seemed to look at her and through her at the same time. Joanne shivered as she realized that he was seeing something that wasn’t there, and shivered again as she guessed what it was.
‘We met, years ago,’ she reminded him. ‘I’m sorry to come on you suddenly—’ She took a step towards him.
‘Stop there,’ he said sharply. ‘Come no closer.’
She stood still, listening to the thunder of her own heartbeat. At last a long sigh escaped him and he said wearily, ‘I’m sorry. You are Joanne, I can see that now.’
‘I shouldn’t have just walked in like this. Shall I leave?’
‘Of course not.’ He seemed to pull himself together with an effort. ‘Forgive my bad manners.’
‘Nico, don’t you remember me?’ Joanne asked, reaching out her arms to the little boy. A light had died in his face, and she could see that he did now recall their first meeting.
He advanced and gave her a tentative smile. ‘I thought you were my mother,’ he said. ‘But you’re not, are you?’
‘No, I’m afraid I’m not,’ she said, taking his hand.
‘You look so like her,’ the little boy said wistfully.
‘Yes,’ Franco said in a strained voice. ‘You do. When my people came running to me crying that my wife had returned from the dead, I thought they were superstitious fools. But now I can’t blame them. You’ve grown more like her with the years.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘No, how should you? You never troubled to visit us, as a cousin should. But now—’ he gazed at her, frowning ‘—after all this time, you return.’
‘Perhaps I should have stayed away.’
‘You are here now.’ He checked his watch. ‘It grows late. We’ll go home and eat.’ He gave her a bleak look. ‘You are welcome.’
Franco’s workers gathered to watch them as they walked. She knew now why she aroused such interest, but still it gave her a strange feeling to hear the murmurs, ‘La padrona viva.’ The mistress lives. Out of the corner of her eye she saw some of them cross themselves.
‘They are superstitious people,’ Franco said. ‘They believe in ghosts.’
They’d reached the stream now and Nico bounded ahead, jumping from stone to stone, his blond hair shining gold in the late afternoon sun. It was the same colour that Rosemary’s had been, as Joanne’s was.
A man called to Franco and he turned aside to talk to him. Nico jumped up and down impatiently. ‘Come on,’ he called to Joanne, holding out a hand for her.
She reached out her own hand and felt his childish fingers grip her. ‘Hey, keep still,’ she protested, laughing, for he was still bounding about.
‘Come on, come on, come on!’ he carolled.
‘Careful!’ Joanne cried as she felt her foot slip. The next moment they were both in the stream.
It was only a couple of feet deep. Nico was up first, holding out his hands to help her up. ‘Perdona me,’ he pleaded.
Her soft white sweater had become transparent, and was clinging to her in a way that was revealing. Men and women gathered on the bank, chuckling. She joined in, sitting there in the water and laughing up into the sun. For a moment the light blinded her, and when she could see properly she caught a glimpse of Franco’s face, and its stunned look shocked her. She reached out a hand for him to help her up, but it seemed that he couldn’t move.
‘Will anyone help me?’ she called, and some of the men crowded forward.
‘Basta!’ The one word from Franco cut across them. The men backed off, alarmed by something they heard in his voice.
He took Joanne’s hand and pulled her up out of the water and onto the bank. As she’d feared, her fawn trousers also clung to her in a revealing fashion. To her relief the men had turned their heads away. After Franco’s explosion not one was brave enough to look at her semi-nakedness.
‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ Nico said.
‘Don’t be angry with him,’ Joanne said.
Franco gave her a look. ‘I am never angry with Nico,’ he said simply. ‘Now let us go home so that you can dry off.’
‘I went to the house first,’ Joanne said, hurrying to match her steps to Franco’s long strides, ‘and the old woman there told me where you were.’
‘That’s Celia, she’s my housekeeper.’
Celia emerged from the house as they approached and stood waiting, her eyes fixed on Joanne. She exclaimed over her sodden state.
‘Celia will take you upstairs to change your clothes,’ Franco said.
‘But I don’t have anything to change into,’ she said in dismay.
‘Didn’t you bring anything for overnight?’
‘I’m not staying overnight. I mean—I didn’t want to impose.’
‘How could you impose? You are family.’ Franco spoke with a coolness that robbed the words of any hint of welcome. ‘But I was forgetting. You don’t think of yourself as family. Very well, Celia will find you something of her own to wear while your clothes dry off.’
Celia spoke, not in Italian but in the robust Piedmontese dialect that Joanne had never quite mastered. She seemed to be asking a question, to which Franco responded with a curt ‘No!’
‘Your clothes will soon dry,’ he told Joanne. ‘In the meantime Celia will lend you something. She will show you to the guest room. Nico, go and get dry.’
It was the child who showed her upstairs, taking her hand and pulling her up after him. Celia provided her with a huge white bath towel and some clothes. She bore Joanne’s garments away, promising to have them dry in no time.