Victoria Fox - The Silent Fountain

‘Never touch me again,’ she said, her voice quavering. She wanted to weep – with shock, with disappointment, with sadness at the innocence she had lost, the friendship she had watched blow to ash before her eyes. Would she ever meet a man who would care for her and put her first? Would she ever know love without pain, without expectation, without betrayal? Would she ever be able to trust a living soul without that nagging voice telling her: You’re safer on your own ? Would she always be frightened, lonely, damaged… the eternal outsider? Something hardened within Vivien in that moment: something liquid turned to stone. ‘I owe you nothing, Jonny,’ she said, ‘do you get it? You found me. You offered me this. It never came at a price.’

She straightened her clothes and willed her trembling legs to carry her into the corridor. As she stepped out, she heard his voice ring out from behind.

‘I’ll get you for this,’ Jonny choked. ‘You’re nothing without me, Vivien. I’ve given you everything – and rest assured I can take it away just as fast.’

I’d like to see you try , Vivien thought, lifting her chin.

I’m stronger by myself. I’m stronger than you know.

Italy, Summer 2016

We speak, finally, on the Friday. Adalina tells me: ‘Signora isn’t able to see visitors; she’s unwell. But if you go to her room at midday she will talk with you.’

I’m curious as to how this encounter will unfold, and when I reach Signora’s room at the appointed time it’s all I can do not to laugh, because Adalina wasn’t joking. There is a chair parked outside the woman’s door, and the door itself has been left ajar. A shaft of light seeps from the mysterious bedroom, but nothing else is visible. Gingerly, I sit. Nothing happens. Finally, I venture: ‘Hello?’

The space is so quiet that to move the chair would be startling. Instead I adjust my position, so that another inch of the room creeps into view. Rugs. Drapes. Heavy furnishings, gold and black… There is the edge of a mirror, in which I think I glimpse a fraction of the woman’s reflection. The back of her head, her shoulders, perhaps. It’s like turning an abstract picture, trying to make sense and finding none. I realise I am desperate to see her. I imagine her as tall, her pale hair secured at the nape of the neck with a velvet clasp, her shoulders broad and her jaw firm, still crisply defined despite her years, her lips full and wide… I draw her not as pretty but as handsome: someone whose face, having seen it once, you will not forget.

When she speaks, I recognise immediately the person I talked to on the phone.

‘Lucy.’ Her voice is distinctive, deeply mellow, like plums in autumn on the verge of rot. It comes from a place much closer to me than the mirror would imply, and a chill skitters down my spine at the prospect that she is closer to me than I think, and that she isn’t the person in the bed, if indeed that is a person.

She says my name as if it tastes bad, her tongue splicing it in two.

‘Yes,’ I answer.

‘You’ve settled in?’ It isn’t a polite enquiry; there is no warmth or friendliness, more an impatience. I hold my hands together in my lap.

‘Yes,’ I say again, feeling like a schoolgirl outside the headmistress’s office, waiting for punishment. Only in this case, I have no idea what I’ve done wrong.

‘We wished to avoid hiring,’ the voice says shortly, rudely. ‘But the house won’t look after itself – and I can’t very well expect Adalina to do it.’

I’m unsure how to react. ‘I’m glad you decided to,’ I say, and before I can stop myself I’m babbling, eager to please and it emerges as over-share. ‘It came at the right time for me. I was looking to get out of London. This was too good to pass up.’

Stop talking. She doesn’t need to know.

‘Oh?’ comes the voice.

‘Family stuff,’ I say quickly. It sounds weak, a quick step back – and, though it’s impossible, the silence that follows is so loaded that I start to wonder if by some miracle she knows my story. What would she think of the crime I committed?

‘As you’re aware, I rarely take company,’ she says, and I’m relieved to move off subject. ‘You might view this job as an escape clause, or a frivolous holiday, but this house is my home and I will protect it with all that I have. If it’s equal to you, I would ask that we stay out of each other’s way wherever possible.’

My mouth is dry. Relief turns to surprise, then shock. ‘Of course,’ I say.

‘You may go now.’

The end of the meeting, if it can be called that. I’m debating the correctness of saying goodbye, surely too formal but then it’s hardly as if she’s set any other tone, before the door in front of me closes abruptly, a swift sharp snap then silence.

*

That evening I take the bus into town. Florence is coming to life on the cusp of night as only a city can: twinkling lights dance on the river, couples stroll through cobbled piazzas, the scent of burned-crust pizza fills the air along with a heady tang of wine.

I turn on my phone. It seems to take an age for it to switch network, find a signal and connect to 3G. I wait. The moments pass. Each time a message beeps in from my new server, my heart leaps then dives. There’s one from Bill, another from our landlord. Tilda WhatsApps from a Barbadian beach, wishing me luck, lots of smiling emojis. To my shame I’m not waiting for them. I wait for anything from him, an email, a text, a missed call, anything. I blink back tears: of course there’s none. What would Tilda think of her reliable big sister, the person who put her to bed and cooked her tea and waited up each night she went out, being responsible for…?

I can’t say it. I can’t think it.

Shoving my phone back in my bag, I head to the library, so focused on the distraction it will give me that I almost trip up the steps to the entrance.

It’s open late, quiet, studious, deliciously private. As I settle into a booth with a stack of archives, I turn my phone to vibrate, and read Bill’s message again:

Spill, then – who is she? What’s she like? Xxx

Today’s encounter with Signora has set me on edge. Horrible , I start to write back, horrible and rude and weird. Why did I come here? Why did I let you convince me? But I delete the draft. I don’t want to admit the truth to Bill – that the woman I spoke to is hard and cold, cruel and dismissive, but that for some insane reason I’m drawn to her, fascinated by her, and I feel connected to her in a way I can’t express. I need to know who she is. I need to know why she’s cut herself off.

Just like me.

I’ve become protective of my quarantine. Connecting to the outside world makes me panic that I’m about to learn drastic news. It’ll be Bill, or one of my sisters, or my dad, or some random on Facebook I haven’t spoken to in years, emailing me about the exposure at home. I can see it now; rehearsed the way it might unfold so many times. Lucy, what the hell? Is it true? Or perhaps, simply: It’s started.

As ever, temptation lingers to check the websites, Google his name, his wife’s name, see if anything new has cropped up, but I have to trust that Bill would tell me first. She doesn’t reference it, doesn’t even mention it, and I know she’s being kind. She’s trying to help me forget. How could I forget? I can’t. I decide to click the phone off altogether, instructing myself instead to the task at hand. In this, at least, I can distance myself from my plight. However challenging I’ve found the Barbarossa so far, it’s at least proved a change of scene – and however obstructive its owner, she’s given me a diversion. Something happened at that house. I sense it in the walls, the shadows and the dark. From Adalina’s secrecy and Salvatore’s madness. From the voice behind the door; from the noises in the attic, the cold and the quiet…