In the rear-view mirror she catches the driver’s eye, flicking over her as though checking something. She shifts her weight and turns to smile at Pip. The car turns onto Via Garibaldi and drives down between the tall, ornate fronts of the best houses Clare has seen yet. Some might even be described as palaces, she thinks. Palazzi. Slowing, the driver sounds the horn, and a set of carriage doors in the wall of one building swing open for them to drive through. They pass beneath a wide, dark archway and into an open courtyard. ‘Oh, look!’ says Clare, surprised. Boyd seems pleased by her reaction.
‘A lot of the grander houses are designed like this – a quadrangle around an inner courtyard. But from the outside you wouldn’t expect it, would you?’ he says. The sky is a perfect bright square above them.
‘I had no idea that there would be places like this here. I mean…’ Clare pauses uncomfortably. ‘It’s obviously a very poor region.’ In the mirror, the driver stares at her.
‘The peasants are poor, the gentry are rich, same as anywhere,’ says Boyd. He gives her hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t worry, darling. I wouldn’t bring you to darkest Africa.’
A few watchful staff appear around the cloistered edges of the courtyard, ready to take the luggage, and as the three of them exit the car Clare feels her heart bumping with nerves. Their hosts appear through double doors in the far side of the building – a couple, the man holding his arms out wide, as though to greet old friends; the woman with a smile to rival the sun.
‘Mrs Kingsley! We are so delighted to finally have you here!’ says the man. His hands come to rest on her shoulders, heavy and warm, and he kisses her on both cheeks.
‘You must be Signor Cardetta. How do you do? Piacere,’ says Clare, using the Italian word self-consciously, uncertain of her accent.
‘Leandro Cardetta, at your service. But – you speak Italian, Mrs Kingsley? This is wonderful!’
‘Oh, hardly at all!’
‘Nonsense – she’s being modest, Cardetta. She speaks it very well,’ says Boyd.
‘Well, I hardly understood a word the driver said to the porter at the station. It was very disheartening.’
‘Ah, but they probably spoke in the local dialect, my dear Mrs Kingsley. Quite a different thing. To the peasants down here, Italian is as foreign a language as it is to you.’ Cardetta turns her gently towards the radiant woman. ‘May I present my wife, Marcie?’
‘How do you do, Mrs Cardetta?’
‘Oh, I’m Marcie – only ever Marcie! When people go around calling me Mrs Cardetta I don’t even know myself,’ she says. Marcie is striking, elegant, with the narrow hips and shoulders of a boy, and disproportionately full breasts sitting high on her chest. Her eyes are blue and her hair the colour of ripe barley, set in a wave that grazes her jawline. Her American accent is unmistakable and Clare tries not to show her surprise. ‘What – neither one of these fellas warned you I was a Yankee?’ says Marcie, but she doesn’t seem displeased.
‘Warned isn’t the word, but no – I had assumed you were Italian, Mrs Cardetta – Marcie. Do forgive me.’
‘What’s to forgive? And who is this highly distinguished young man?’ She holds out her hand and Pip shakes it, and though he is polite and confident as he does it, a touch of colour brushes over his cheeks. Clare thinks of the way she herself used to blush when shown the least attention by a man – or any new person – and feels a rush of tenderness towards him. He waits, as he should, for Signor Cardetta to proffer his hand and his name, then he does the same – deferentially, but not too much so. She’s proud of him, and glances at Boyd, hoping that he will have noticed. But Boyd is watching Leandro Cardetta, the way a person might watch an animal suspected of only feigning sleep.
‘Thank you for sending your wonderful car for us, Mr Cardetta – it’s an Alfa Romeo, isn’t it? It’s beautiful, but I don’t recognise the model,’ says Pip enthusiastically. Leandro grins wolfishly at him.
‘Bene, bene. You’re a young man of excellent taste, I see,’ he says. ‘But you wouldn’t recognise it – it’s brand new, and only a few have been made. Rarity, you see – that is the key to true value.’ The pair of them saunter over to the crimson car, to peer at it from all angles. Marcie Cardetta smiles and takes Clare’s arm; she is all ease and familiarity, and Clare can’t imagine how that must feel. Marcie is dressed in white, like a bride: a long skirt and tunic in some fluid fabric that ripples and follows her every move, belted low around her hips. As they walk into the house Clare catches the scent of her – musk and lilacs, and somehow the suggestion of moisture. It’s an oddly intimate aroma, at once compelling and intrusive. There’s scarlet lipstick on her mouth, and powder on her cheeks; up close Clare can see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. She is maybe forty, or a little older, but has such glamour that she seems far younger – younger than Clare, even, who suddenly feels just how very thirsty and unwashed and tired she is. Only as they step into the shadows inside does Clare realise that Boyd has been left alone, hesitating, in the centre of the courtyard. She looks back at him to smile but he has his hands in his pockets and is staring down at his feet, frowning, as if displeased by the dust on his shoes.
Marcie walks her onwards, and talks.
‘My dear Clare, I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to have you here – you and Philip, of course, but mainly you – poor Philip! No, it’s all right, he didn’t hear me. Just to have somebody to talk to, you understand – other than a man, and what woman can really talk to a man? I mean with words, you understand, not that other language we all speak.’ She dips her head towards Clare, gives her a conspiratorial little nudge with her shoulder. ‘I mean just to talk about everything. The Italian women – well, I should say the Puglian women, because you could hardly compare the specimens down here to those in Milan or Rome – well, they look at me like I fell from outer space! Not a word of English, any one of them. And I’ve tried to learn Italian – believe me I’ve tried, and I’ve managed it a bit, but when they don’t want to understand you, by golly, they’ll make sure they don’t. Staring at you with those black eyes of theirs – have you seen their eyes? Did you notice their eyes? Like jet buttons on a sackcloth waistcoat, with their faces all so brown. We must make sure you don’t get too much sun, dear – your skin is just delightful… And how funny is it that you can go six months without seeing a blonde down here, and now we have two under one roof!’
On and on Marcie talks, as she leads Clare up to the room she’ll be sharing with Boyd. The house is warm and shadowy, and full of echoes. The light is barricaded out – on the sunny west side of the quad the shutters are all closed, so that only thin, bright shafts get through here and there. Clare’s smile begins to ache in her cheeks but she feels some of the tension that has clenched her guts since the train left Bari begin to dissipate. Inwardly, she’s still as uncomfortable in new company as she has ever been, and she’d been dreading the conversation drying up, dwindling into silence while she floundered for a way to replenish it. At least it seems that there will be few such awkward silences to contend with. Few silences at all.
Once they reach the room Marcie clasps Clare’s hands for a moment, gives a happy little shrug and leaves her to change. A steady quiet settles in her wake. Clare turns around, sees the book Boyd is reading and his glasses, placed neatly by the bed. The room is large and square, and faces south, and Clare opens the shutters to a rush of hot air and the slanting yellow light of evening. The walls are a rich ochre colour, the ceiling a high spread of dark wooden beams, the floor terracotta. There’s a painting of the Madonna above the fireplace, and one of Paris above the bed, which has an ornate brass bedstead and a mattress sagging visibly in the middle. When a servant brings in the luggage, the door howls in protest. It’s made of the same aged wood as the ceiling, and has massive hinges to cope with its own weight. Like a door in a castle, Clare thinks. Or a jail. She leans over the window sill and looks out at the clustered red rooftops and the narrow streets. Immediately behind the Cardettas’ house is a small, neat garden with more paved walkways than flower beds. There are fig and olive trees for shade, and a vine-covered veranda where a long table waits, covered with a linen cloth. There are herbs but few flowers, and no grass. One of the fig trees is alive with small birds – Clare can see them all, rattling the leaves, hopping about like fleas. They chatter rather than sing, but it’s still a nice sound.