Lucy Gordon - Farelli's Wife

Once Joanne managed to catch him among the vines when he was alone. He was feeling one bunch after another, his long, strong fingers squeezing them as tenderly as a lover. She smiled up at him. She was five feet nine inches, and Franco was one of the few men tall enough to make her look up.

‘I came out for some fresh air,’ she said, trying to sound casual.

‘You chose the best time,’ he told her with his easy smile that made her feel as if the world had lit up around her. ‘I love it out here at evening when the air is soft and kind.’

He finished with an eyebrow raised in quizzical enquiry, for he’d spoken in Italian, a language she was still learning.

‘Morbida e gentile,’ she repeated, savouring the words. ‘Soft and kind. But it isn’t really that sort of country, is it?’

‘It can be. Italy has its violent moods, but it can be sweet and tender.’

How deep and resonant his voice was. It seemed to vibrate through her, turning her bones to water. She sought something to say that would sound poised.

‘It’s a beautiful sunset,’ she managed at last. ‘I’d love to paint it.’

‘Are you going to be a great artist, piccina?’ he asked teasingly.

She wished he wouldn’t call her piccina. It meant ‘little girl’ and was used in speaking to children. Yet it was also a term of affection and she treasured it as a crumb from his table.

‘I think so,’ she said, as if considering the matter seriously. ‘But I’m still trying to find my own style.’

She hadn’t yet learned that she had no individual style, only a gift for imitation.

Without answering he pulled down a small bunch of grapes and crushed a few against his mouth. The purple juice spilled out luxuriantly down his chin, like the wine of life, she thought. Eagerly she held out her hands and he pulled off a spray of the grapes and offered them to her. She imitated his movement, pressing the fruit against her mouth, then gagged at the taste.

‘They’re sour,’ she protested indignantly.

‘Sharp,’ he corrected. ‘The sun hasn’t ripened them yet. It’ll happen in its own good time, as everything does.’

‘But how can you eat them when they taste like this?’

‘Sharp or sweet, they are as they are. They’re still the finest fruit in all Italy.’ It was a simple statement, unblushing in its arrogance.

‘There are other places with fine grapes,’ she said, nettled at his assurance. ‘What about the Po valley, or the Romagna?’

He didn’t even dignify this with an answer, merely lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug, as if other vineyards weren’t worth considering.

‘What a pity you won’t be here to taste them when they’re ripe,’ he said. ‘That won’t be until August, and you’ll have returned to England.’

His words brought home to her how near their parting was. Her time in Italy was almost over, and then she wouldn’t see him again. He was the love of her life but he didn’t know, would never know.

She was desperate for something that would make him notice her, but while she was racking her brains she saw a movement among the vines. It was Virginia, a voluptuous and poorly named young woman who’d occupied a lot of Franco’s attention recently.

Franco had seen her and turned laughing eyes on Joanne, not in the least embarrassed. ‘And now you must go, piccina, for I have matters to attend to.’

Crushing disappointment made her adopt a haughty tone. ‘I’m sorry if I’m in the way.’

‘You are,’ he said shamelessly. ‘Terribly in the way. Run along now, like a good girl.’

She bit her lip at being treated like a child, and turned away with as much dignity as she could muster. She didn’t look back, but she couldn’t help hearing the girl’s soft, provocative laughter.

She lay awake that night, listening for Franco. He didn’t return until three in the morning. She heard him humming softly as he passed her door, and then she buried her head under the pillow and wept.

The time began to rush past and the end of her final term grew inexorably nearer. Joanne received a letter from her cousin Rosemary who would be taking a vacation in Italy at that time. She wrote:

I thought I’d come to Turin just before you finish, and we can travel home together.

Joanne and Rosemary had grown up together, and most people, seeing them side by side, had thought that they were sisters. They’d actually lived as sisters after Joanne’s parents had died and Rosemary had urged her widowed mother to take the girl in.

She’d been twelve then, and Joanne six. When Rosemary’s mother had died six years later Rosemary had assumed the role of mother. Joanne had adored the cousin who’d given her a home and security, and all the love in her big, generous heart.

As Joanne had grown up they’d become more alike. They had both been unusually tall women, with baby blonde hair, deep blue eyes and peach colouring. Their features had been cast from the same mould, but Rosemary’s had been fine and delicate, whereas Joanne’s had still been blurred by youth and teenage chubbiness.

But the real difference, the one that had always tormented Joanne, had lain in Rosemary’s poise and charm. She had been supremely confident of her own beauty and she’d moved through life dazzling everyone she met, winning hearts easily.

Joanne had been awed by the ease with which her cousin had claimed life as her own. She’d wanted to be like her. She’d wanted to be her, and it had been frustrating to have been trapped in her own, ordinary self, so like Rosemary, and yet so cruelly unlike her in all that mattered.

At other times she’d wanted to be as different from Rosemary as possible, to escape her shadow and be herself. When people had said, ‘You’re going to be as pretty as Rosemary one day,’ she’d known they’d meant to be kind, but the words had made her grind her teeth.

She could remember, as if it were yesterday, the night of the party, given by a fellow student. Joanne and Renata had been going together, with Franco escorting them, but at the last minute Renata had sprained her ankle and dropped out. Joanne had been in ecstasies at having Franco all to herself.

She’d bought a new dress and spent hours putting up her hair and perfecting her make-up. Surely that night he would notice her, even perhaps ask her to stay in Italy? Her heart had been singing as she’d gone down to where he’d been waiting outside on the terrace.

He’d been dressed for the evening. She’d never seen him formally attired before, but then she’d been struck afresh by how handsome he’d been with his snowy shirt against his swarthy skin. He’d looked up and smiled, raising his eyebrows in appreciation of her enhanced appearance.

‘So, piccina, you’ve decided to take the world by storm tonight?’ he teased.

‘I just dressed up a little,’ she said, trying to be casual, but with a horrible suspicion that she sounded as gauche as she felt.

‘You’ll break all their hearts,’ he promised her.

‘Oh, I don’t know about all their hearts,’ she said with a shrug.

‘Just the one you want, eh?’

Could he have suspected? she wondered with sudden excitement. Was this his way of saying that he’d finally noticed her?

‘Maybe I haven’t decided which one I want,’ she said archly, looking up at him.

He chuckled, and the sound filled her with happy expectation. ‘Perhaps I should help you decide,’ he said, and reached out to take gentle hold of her chin.

At last! The thing she’d prayed for, wept for, longed for, was happening. He was going to kiss her. As he lifted her chin and his mouth hovered above hers she was on the verge of heaven. She raised her hands, tentatively touching his arms.