There’s a large, walled-in patch of ground to the front of the main buildings, called the aia. On a paved area here, threshed wheat is already piled high, drying, waiting to be shovelled into sacks. There’s a set of iron gates by which to enter and leave, guarded by a conical stone trullo hut where a man sits, night and day, to keep watch. There will be more guards on the roof, he knows, to watch the wheat. Six shaggy, creamy-white shepherd dogs are tied to lengths of chain here and there around the aia, and from his vantage point Ettore can see the precise circles they have trampled into the dust at the ends of their chains, each one with a four-metre radius. They wear collars of vicious metal spikes to protect their throats. Ettore stares into the setting sun until it makes his eyes stream. He is fifteen kilometres south-east of Gioia. His leg is better but he feels weak, his muscles wobbly, and he doesn’t think he could walk it yet.
Just then a woman walks across the aia with a lanky youth at her side; for a second Ettore thinks it’s Marcie, but this woman is shorter, slighter. Her hair is a subtler blond, braided into some kind of knot at the nape of her neck from which wavy strands have escaped to hang down below the narrow brim of her hat. The boy is taller than her, and walks with a slight stoop as if to apologise for the fact. Their footsteps make little puffs of dust rise. For no reason he can find, Ettore has the nagging feeling that he has seen this woman before. That he knows her. They approach one of the dogs and it lunges towards them, barking wildly. The woman puts a restraining hand on the boy’s arm, like a mother would, but she looks too young for that. But then, like Marcie, these pale foreigners have artifice and lives of ease that make them look younger than they are. The dog stops barking but wheels about on the end of its chain, back a few steps, around to the left then the right. The boy crouches down and holds something out to it, but the dog won’t come near enough to take it. He shuffles closer, and Ettore hears the woman say something in warning. She has her hand on the boy’s sleeve, the knuckles white. In the end the boy has to throw his offering, and the dog gulps it down in one mouthful. It paces, and it watches, and goes no closer to them, and Ettore thinks it wise not to trust them.
He finds the rest of his clothes laundered and folded in a chest by the door; he dresses, drinks more water from the pitcher and makes his way downstairs. Marcie is on the terrace over the dairy, sipping amarena, eating olives with a tiny silver fork, and making notes on a piece of writing paper.
‘Ettore! Dear boy, come and sit down! It’s so wonderful to see you up and about. Sit, sit,’ she says. Marcie is still beautiful, he thinks, but it’s a kind of desperate beauty, teetering on ruin, that’s somehow pitiful. Ettore once heard his mother say that beautiful women grow to hate themselves as they age, and he wonders if this is what’s happening. If Marcie is starting to hate herself. There’s a darker shade, and glints of silver, at the roots of her hair; her smile is a dazzle of red and white; she’s wearing silk. Ettore thinks of Paola, and Iacopo, and a wave of anger courses through him. Marcie’s smile falters. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Well. You must eat. You’re so thin! How have you gotten so thin in the summertime? I’ll call for Anna to bring you something. And of course it won’t be long till dinnertime.’ She rises and calls through a dark doorway, down stone steps into shadow. ‘Anna! Anna!’
‘I do not want to eat. I want to go Gioia,’ says Ettore, but Marcie seems, or pretends, not to hear. ‘Thank you,’ he adds, stonily. As she returns to her seat Marcie says, without looking up at him:
‘Of course you want to eat, and you need to rest. And you simply can’t leave without seeing your uncle first. You know how… upset he would be. Please, Ettore. Sit down.’ She pours him a glass of the cherry drink, and it’s the deep, deep crimson of venous blood. After a pause he takes it from her, and she smiles again.
There are footsteps behind him, on the open steps that lead up from the courtyard, and the other woman and the boy come to the table. The woman’s eyes are wide and clear, and there’s a strange nakedness to their gaze that Ettore is unsure of; like an excess of transparency. She almost looks stupid, but it’s not quite that. The boy, whose face has the nondescript look of something unfinished, studies him with unguarded curiosity.
‘Ah, there you are, you two! Come and meet the walking wounded. Clare, Pip, this is Ettore Tarano, Leandro’s nephew. Ettore, this is Clare and Philip Kingsley. Clare’s husband is the architect designing the new front for the Gioia house, and these two are brightening up my whole summer by staying as guests while he works.’ Philip shakes Ettore’s hand first, enthusiastically, and Clare follows more reluctantly. Ettore wonders if it’s the callused roughness of his hands on her soft skin that she doesn’t like.
‘Filippo. Chiara. Kingsley,’ he says, so that he will remember the names, and the boy grins even more.
‘Filippo! Well, of course – I hadn’t thought before how fabulous your name is in Italian, Pip! I shall call you that from now on,’ Marcie declares. Much of what she says is lost on Ettore, and his face turns hot with frustration. He frowns at his aunt, then looks away; tips the amarena down his throat in one gulp. It makes him cough. There’s alcohol in it, not just cherries and sugar. Then Chiara Kingsley speaks in hesitant Italian, and he turns to her, surprised.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr Tarano. I did not know that Mr Cardetta had family remaining in Gioia.’
‘Oh! I forgot – how wonderful! You can speak to him in Italian, Clare. I taught him some English last winter but it was hard going for both of us, because I have almost no Italian.’ Marcie claps her hands, pleased. Anna, the kitchen girl, arrives with a basket of bread and a plate of cheese, and more olives. The sight of the food makes Ettore sway on his feet, and sweat beads along his hairline.
‘Won’t you sit?’ Chiara says evenly. ‘You have been very unwell.’ Without speaking, Ettore sinks into a chair. His hand reaches for bread of its own accord.
For a while they drink and they talk, in English, and Ettore is aware of being consciously not watched as he eats savagely, desperately. He despises their tact; he despises himself for sitting there eating when his family in Gioia might have nothing. A shard of bread crust scores his sore throat and he gags, coughing and gasping. Filippo passes him water, which he takes without thanks. Ettore is aware of Chiara leaning towards him, her forehead creased in thought. He knows the look well; she is trying to find the right words in an unfamiliar language.
‘The doctor gave you water in a line. In a… cord. To the mouth,’ she stumbles.
‘With a tube?’ he says, and she nods.
‘That’s why your throat is a hurt, I think.’ When he doesn’t answer her she continues. ‘He cleaned your leg with alcohol. He cut away some badness. He has not closed it. It must dry. He comes back to close it,’ she says, all in the same careful tone, and precisely over-enunciated. Ettore nods.
‘I will pay for the doctor. Please tell Marcie that. I will pay for the doctor and for my time here.’