Rupert Thomson - Secrecy

‘Three children,’ I murmured.

‘Did your brother have children?’

‘I don’t know.’ I took a gulp of wine. ‘His wife was blonde. Ornella.’

The Spaniard looked at me steadily. ‘Is there anyone else you want to know about?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Nobody else.’

No matter how often I had imagined my return, it had never quite felt real. There had been a silvery, liquid edge to everything I saw, a heightened, almost supernatural quality, as if, deep down, I knew I was picturing a scene that could not occur. At the same time, I felt involved or even implicated in what had taken place: some kind of payment had been exacted on my behalf — some strange, disproportionate revenge …

‘I’m sorry,’ the Spanish soldier said.

‘Did you lose people too?’

He was staring down into his wine. ‘Everyone. Like you.’

It was after midnight. Though I was sure no one had seen me smuggle Faustina through the gate that led to my workshop — we had waited until the guards were off duty — I thought it safest if we sat in the dark. Faustina faced the open door, her bare arm stretched along the back of the chair, her hand dangling.

I had written her a note about the earthquake, and she had offered to come and keep me company. It seemed likely, I told her, that everybody in my family was dead. What I was saying sounded grandiose and hollow; though I was telling the truth, I had the odd feeling that I was exaggerating. Actually, I went on, the news made no sense to me. I had become so accustomed to the idea of never seeing my family again that it was hard to believe anything had changed.

She understood, she said. As a child, she had spent whole days trying to visualize her father. He would scale the village walls under cover of darkness. He would wear outlandish disguises. He would bring her presents from exotic places. His visits would be magical, and utterly compelling. So much so that on the rare occasions when he appeared in person he could never quite compete. It would all seem awkward. Understated. What was different about her story, though, was that she had wanted to see him. Longed to see him.

I rose to my feet and stood in the doorway. Outside the air shifted slowly, but with a kind of determination, like someone turning in a bed. I looked up into the sky. The soft summer darkness. The chalk dust of the stars.

‘Strange, isn’t it,’ I said, ‘how we’ve spent our lives imagining things that other people never even have to think about?’

‘I brought something to show you.’ Faustina reached for her goatskin bag and took out a notebook with a faded red cover. Dating from the years when Mimmo Righetti was her friend, it was a record of all the charms and potions she had invented. She leafed through page after page of spells that had been designed to conjure up her father. ‘None of them worked, of course.’

‘But he came. You told me.’

‘That was just coincidence.’

She turned the page again, and there was the flying spell. She had even drawn the ingredients — the rose-and-silver clove of garlic, the crooked splinters of the spider’s legs, the grey hair discovered by the altar. The book was detailed, conscientious, almost as though she had known she would one day work in an apothecary.

Later, when we were half-sitting, half-lying on the divan, her head against my shoulder, I asked if she had ever seen Mimmo again.

‘Two years ago,’ she said.

Since moving to Florence, she had only returned to the village once, and that was to visit Sabatino Vespi, who still worked the land below Ginevra’s house. One morning, Faustina had emerged from La Cura, the church Ginevra used to attend, and had run straight into her old friend coming up the street.

‘Mimmo! How are you?’ Her delight sounded shallow, artificial, but he had caught her unawares.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you know …’

He steadied himself on his crutches and looked at her, and all she could see in his face was a kind of slow pleasure. His gaze, though direct, made her feel valuable, and she found it far easier to be with him than she had imagined it would be, and suddenly regretted having avoided him for so many years.

‘You’re pretty good on those crutches,’ she said. ‘You almost knocked me over.’

‘Lucky escape.’ He smiled faintly.

‘I think you’re even quicker than I am.’

‘I’m used to them now. It gets sore, though. Under my arms.’

‘Is your leg sore too?’

He glanced down at the place where his leg once was. ‘Not too bad. It sort of aches sometimes.’

‘I’m sorry I never came to see you.’

‘You’re seeing me now.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘You didn’t want to upset yourself. I would have done the same.’

She didn’t believe him. He would have perched on the end of her bed, and told her stories about what was happening in the village. He would have brought apricots and figs. He would have cared for her. She stared at the ground.

‘I did something no one else has ever done,’ Mimmo said in a low voice. ‘I flew.’ He looked off up the street, and his tongue moistened one corner of his mouth, something he used to do as a boy when he was unsure of himself. ‘Well, just for a moment, anyway.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I was there, remember?’

‘So,’ he said, and he was still looking past her, back into the village, ‘are you a witch yet?’

Their eyes met, and they began to laugh.

Not long afterwards, he told her he had to be going, and she understood that he was releasing her from an embarrassing situation, one she wouldn’t necessarily have known how to resolve. She also saw it as yet another example of his selflessness, his grace.

She watched as he laboured through the small piazza and up the slope to the castello. He wasn’t quick on his crutches, as she had claimed, or even particularly competent. His progress was awkward, and in the end she had to turn away.

For years she had asked herself why he had leapt off the roof. She knew the answer, of course. Because he had faith. Because he trusted her. Because he would have done anything for her. But even though she knew the answer, it seemed important to keep asking the question.

She fell silent.

‘He loved you,’ I said. ‘He probably still does.’

‘He lost his leg.’

‘You were just children —’

‘I ruined his life.’ She lowered her head. A tear spilled down her cheek. ‘I ruined it.’

‘It’s all right,’ I murmured.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘This is ridiculous. You’re the one who should be crying.’

I held her in my arms and stroked her hair. Her breathing deepened. She drifted off to sleep. Her book of spells and potions lay open on the floor. A draught from outside flipped a page, revealing a drawing of the crow’s feather. Above it, she had written a single word: featherspoon . I saw her crouching in the yellow grass, stirring the contents of the jar. Mimmo beside her, mesmerized. Her mother had given her up. So had her father. She had no idea of her true value. She even doubted her existence. Was it any wonder if she had looked for people who would believe in her? Was it any wonder if she had then felt compelled to test that belief, to push it as far as it would go?

She took a quick breath, as if she was about to dive beneath a wave, then turned over and laid her cheek against my chest.

The delicate, delicious weight of her.

‘Do you love me?’ she murmured.

She was talking in her sleep, or on the edge of sleep, but I answered anyway.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I love you.’

On returning to the House of Shells one evening, I found Signora de la Mar bent almost double outside my room. When she heard my footsteps, she straightened up. A letter had arrived for me, she said; she had been about to slip it beneath my door. I took it from her eagerly. I had been corresponding with van Leeuwenhoek about his microscopes, and also with a certain Mr Salmon, who had opened a wax museum in London, and I was expecting replies from both men, but when I had the letter in my hands I saw that it was discoloured — yellow in some places, brown in others — and that there were several diagonal slashes in the paper, all signs that it had been heated and then fumigated as a precaution against the spreading of disease. Looking more closely, I saw that it had been addressed to me care of the Grand Duke’s palace, and franked in both Naples and Palermo. My heart staggered; my face felt hot.