She should have realized earlier; what was wrong with her? The overheated trattoria, its doors open to the steamy dark and the sound of frogs in the trickling river, fireflies on the far bank, a good meal of the old-fashioned kind they used to go out for, when Dad was alive, when Luca was home. The thought of a handyman she’d picked at random out of the Yellow Pages who could be bothered to worry about Ma, and a glass or two of wine on top of the Martini; that was what had been wrong with her. Lulled into thinking, Life isn’t so bad. Things will get back to normal.
The phone hadn’t been in her bag. Fumbling at the restaurant, she hadn’t been able to find it, had told herself she’d check when she got home because she was beginning to attract attention as she flung the bag’s contents around: Cellini’s business card, then her keys landing on the table with a clatter that caused heads to turn.
Must have left it at home. Though she had known she hadn’t taken it out. Knew. And when it hadn’t been there — the house otherwise just as they’d left it, though in her rush to get back through the door Roxana had barely had time even to worry about footprints and all of that — and Ma had been standing over her in the hall and beginning to look anxious at last, Roxana had made herself stop. She was worse than Ma, panicking over nothing.
‘It’s only a phone,’ she had said, with forced breeziness. ‘Must have left it at Marisa’s.’
Ma’s mouth had pursed. Just as Roxana had been thinking she doesn’t like Marisa any more than Maria Grazia, Ma had said, ‘Oh!’ Startled, pleased with herself. ‘Maria Grazia phoned.’
‘My Maria Grazia?’ Like an idiot. ‘Phoned here?’
‘Yes,’ Ma had said with exaggerated patience. ‘Here. At about six. Because you weren’t answering your mobile. She was worried about you. She was on a train.’
I’m worried about me, Roxana had thought, feeling the stupid panic rise, pushing it down. What will I do without my mobile? It’s not safe. She had taken a deep breath, stop it. Twenty, thirty years ago, nobody had had mobiles. We coped. Not safe? Don’t be stupid. She had put her hands to her temples.
‘Six.’ She’d been on the pavement outside the bank at six, if Maria Grazia had called, she’d have heard it ring — oh. Oh. And she’d exhaled. ‘It’s all right,’ she had said. ‘I know where it is.’
Standing now, the morning after, at the window in her bare feet, Roxana pulled up the roller shutters with a rattle and looked out over the thick vegetation of the garden to the fence at the back, the path that led along behind the houses; had she always known you could see it from here? She left her shutters closed, as a rule, to keep the room cool. And most mornings she was at work, not gazing out of her bedroom window.
Ma had been right about the weather breaking. The sky was low and grey and the light glared, flat and scalding, turning the green foliage dull and lifeless. It was always the worst before the storm came, and it could take days to break. The air was so dense with humidity that Roxana could hardly breathe, and the light hurt her eyes. And when she remembered where the phone was, she felt a dull throb of dread. It was plugged in, in the bank’s little kitchen, tucked behind the toaster, and charging at the bank’s expense.
Stupid to feel dread: this was the place where she’d gone to work for the past two, three years. Was it suddenly a hellhole? But standing here, she suddenly felt the most tremendous unwillingness to go back in there, ever. She felt the weight of all those mornings, pulling on her helmet, parking up by the river, letting herself in, booting up the computer screen and settling at her workstation, and realized, she understood that she hated every minute of it. Every minute of it.
At the window, Roxana exhaled, wow. Where did that come from? Her face, she noticed putting a hand to it, was filmed with sweat. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it. Everyone has bad days, no one loves their job all of the time.
Somewhere far off under the low sky, somewhere to the south there was a rumble. Below Roxana and to the right, Carlotta came slowly out on to her rear balcony, which was identical to Violetta Delfino’s, and began to pull laundry off a wire rack. In her nightgown, with bare old arms, with that look of clammy exhaustion from too many sleepless nights in the heat.
Seen from above like this, they were so close, so similar, the lives of Ma and old Carlotta, that it was almost comical that they barely exchanged a word from one end of the year to the next. Roxana thought of the imagined slights and hostilities that might stem from a sidelong glance or an overheard word, from the behaviour of the cat, some piece of untamed vegetation or the hanging out of inappropriate garments in full view.
Carlotta looked up.
Roxana waved.
Carlotta hurried back into the house as if scalded, and Roxana had to laugh at the expression of sheer affront on the old lady’s face. She pulled the shutters back down, went inside and got in the shower.
As the water ran, lukewarm because it never got properly cold once the summer was here, the heat settling everywhere, even into the stone-cold earth, Roxana pondered. She had already spent longer on the phone to Sandro Cellini than was strictly necessary, she knew that, but he hadn’t seemed to mind. Actually — and Roxana felt a little pulse of satisfaction as she remembered it — it seemed as though she had actually made a difference.
So all it had needed was the sound of Sandro Cellini’s voice — weary, attentive, kind — as he answered his phone late last night, and she had ended up telling him everything. Rambling on, Ma would have called it, and does he really need to know what you think about this man, this Josef? Does he really need to know that, in fact, you liked him, you’d been suspicious at first because he was a foreigner, and poor, but seeing him once a week, registering his patience and unassuming respectfulness, you had got a feeling about him? Just a sense that he was, in some central part of himself, a decent man, even though you barely exchanged a word. Roxana had told Cellini about her visit to the Carnevale, too.
‘They’ve boarded it up,’ she had said. ‘I think they’re starting work next week, properly, it’s been a long time in the pipeline, apparently. He said they’re getting dogs — the man who was putting up the boards. Said it was horrible inside.’
‘Horrible.’ She heard him turn the word over. ‘And no sign of him? The builders, or whoever this man was, had seen no sign of Josef, or anybody?’
‘Well, I did ask,’ Roxana had said. ‘That was why I went there, I had a feeling, about Josef.’
She’d sat down then, feeling in the dark for the uncomfortable little upholstered chair that sat by the phone table. Uneasy, because she had known it was going to sound mad.
‘I thought there was a connection, you see, I don’t know why. When — when Claudio died, and Josef hadn’t come in the day before, when he always came in. Stupid, I know.’
There’d been a silence, then Cellini had cleared his throat. ‘Not stupid, as it turns out,’ he had said. ‘Given that Josef was calling himself by Claudio Brunello’s name.’ He had paused, and he had heard women’s voices, soft, in the background. ‘So you asked?’
‘He said the place was empty.’ And she had frowned, trying to remember. There’d been something, though. ‘He said, it wasn’t pretty, or something like that. There was some kind of mess, left behind.’
‘Right.’ Cellini had sounded thoughtful. ‘When does the work start? Did you say, they were putting dogs in there?’
‘That’s what he said. Well, he was putting a sign up, too, warning, guard dogs.’
The sound Cellini made had been sceptical. ‘Might get down there, anyway,’ he had said. ‘Have a look around.’