There are voices and footsteps from the alleyway beyond the courtyard, and behind the wall they’re backed against are sounds of life – the rattle of a metal pail; a man coughing; the rustle of kicked straw. But Ettore kisses Clare hard and tightens his arms around her, cinching her ribs, shortening her breath, and she doesn’t care if the whole of Gioia stops to watch. They make love in a rush, like the first time, and Clare tries to pretend that it won’t be for the last time; that she will see him again, that she will stay in Gioia and live there with him, and be married to him. But she can’t believe it, not truly. Not even then, drowning in his touch and the movement of his body, and the smell of him and rightness of it. So she lets her head be empty instead. She lets go of all her thoughts, until she has the feeling of only existing in that single point in time, with nothing in her past and nothing in her future; it’s frightening, and it’s wonderful.
When they’ve caught their breath and straightened their clothes it’s full dark. They stay for a long time, sometimes in easy silence, sometimes talking disjointedly about things far off and unconnected. They stand close, always touching. Clare has a handful of Ettore’s shirt at his waist, and the other grasping his forearm, hard as a bundle of iron rods beneath his skin. Ettore combs his fingers through the sweaty tangle of her hair, and rests it at the nape of her neck, as he likes to do.
‘Tell me about your home. Tell me about where you live,’ he says, in a languid voice. ‘It’s very different. It must be.’
‘Yes, it’s very different. Green – it’s very green. It rains a lot. All the time, it sometimes seems. It can be cold in the winter but not too much so. The summers are mild, warm. Compared to here it seems soft. In all my thoughts of it, it seems soft, and safe.’
‘And nobody is hungry.’
‘Some people are,’ she demurs. ‘The very poorest, of course. Of course they’re hungry. But far fewer people are hungry than here. And… perhaps it’s easier to find help there. There are charities… places the very poorest can go for help.’
‘Do the rich hate the poor?’
‘No. Not like here. Sometimes they don’t think of them at all, and sometimes they pity them, or scorn them… but they don’t hate them. And people are not only either rich or poor, they can be in the middle. There are lots of levels in the middle – Boyd and I are in the middle. The English are polite, and… contained. Everything is done behind closed doors. There are huge trees, and public gardens full of flowers, where anybody can go, and the children can play.’ Of all the things she has said, this seems to present the starkest contrast between England and Puglia: a public garden full of flowers, and children playing.
For a while Ettore is silent, as though picturing this scene. He breathes in, long and slow; Clare daren’t ask him what he thinks. If he would ever go with her to England.
‘I can see you there,’ he says at last. ‘I can see you in a garden. In a safe place.’
‘Ettore, I can’t go-’
‘How will you get back to the masseria? How did you get here?’
‘I walked a long way, then a lady brought me in her cart. I suppose I’ll walk back.’
‘Walk? Now, in the night?’
‘There’s not much choice, really. I… I didn’t really think beyond getting to see you, you see,’ says Clare.
‘Shit and hell, Chiara!’ Ettore shakes his head then turns to look out beneath the archway, into the alley they came along. Scraps of borrowed light show up the knots in his jaw as he thinks.
‘I’ll be all right. I didn’t see anybody along that road.’
‘Not in the daytime, perhaps. Now, you can’t. You’ll have to go to Via Garibaldi for the night.’
‘No! I told you – Boyd’s there, with Leandro. They’re not expecting me, and Marcie and Pip think I’m asleep back at the masseria. How would I explain to them all? I can’t, Ettore! They’d know for certain I was lying. I’ll walk back. It’ll be quite all right.’
‘No, it won’t.’ Ettore takes her hand and they march back out to the alleyway.
‘Ettore, wait-’
‘Come on. You shouldn’t have come – do you see now?’
‘Well I’m glad I did, even if you’re not! I’m glad,’ she says defiantly. Ettore pauses to give her a helpless look.
‘Chiara… you are bold. And foolish,’ he says.
‘You make me both,’ she says, and as he turns away she sees the glimpse of his smile again, just for a second.
Ettore leads her through several twists and turns until, though they can’t be far from Piazza Plebiscito or the castle, Clare couldn’t say for sure in which direction they might be. He stops so abruptly to rap at a door that Clare runs into the back of him, and he loops an arm around her waist to hold her, as though she might try to run. Pino answers the door, and Clare recognises him at once – his beautiful, sculptural face, his unusual height and build. She shivers; the sight of him recalls that violent moment when they arrived at the masseria and she first saw Ettore and everything changed. Now he smiles uncertainly at the sight of them on his doorstep, and behind him the pretty girl Clare spoke to earlier darts curious looks out at them. The two men talk at speed – a rapid, incomprehensible exchange that ends with Pino shrugging and coming up with a name. Ettore turns to Clare.
‘Did you bring any money?’ he asks. Clare shakes her head, and sees him sag. He sighs, pauses, then crooks his finger and lifts the thin gold chain around her neck. ‘Is this dear to you?’ Clare shakes her head again.
‘A gift. From my husband.’
‘We’ll need it,’ he says, his mouth twisting slightly in distaste. Without hesitation, Clare unclasps the necklace and hands it to him. Ettore passes it to Pino, who winds it around his thick fingers and says something to Ettore.
‘What did he say?’ says Clare.
‘He says it’s too much, and it is. But if the choice is between too much and nothing…’ He shrugs. Luna’s head appears around her husband’s arm to gaze at the precious metal, her face like a child’s at Christmas, and Clare guesses she has never seen gold before. Not up close. Pino closes his fist over it, as if to protect her from it, and Luna turns her rapt gaze onto Clare, so full of questions and wonder that Clare looks away, uncomfortable. Pino says some soft words to his wife, kisses her mouth and sets off along the street. Wordlessly, Clare and Ettore follow.
The two men seem to see better in the dark than Clare; they walk quickly, turning left and right, passing under archways, sidestepping piles of manure and rubbish, as Clare stumbles and dodges along behind them, soon out of breath. Piazza Plebiscito, as they pass along its short western edge, is a blaze of yellow streetlight, but empty. No walkers, nobody taking the air, or killing time, or smoking and gossiping. All of Gioia has the hushed, furtive air of a town under curfew, so much more so than a month earlier, when Clare first arrived. The light of the square only seems to create deeper shadows, deep enough for movement to go unseen, for watching eyes to hide. Clare stays close to Ettore’s shoulder, feeling jittery and exposed; like she’s walking a narrow ledge above a lethal drop, not across a wide pavement. In spite of everything she has seen and everything Ettore has told her, only now is she afraid. Only now does she actually feel the threat of the place.
Pino leads them down Via Roma, where the town opens out into fields and parched vegetable patches. He turns in beside a squat, handsome villa, glancing at Clare and putting a finger to his lips. Silently, they creep around to the back, to the stable block, and then around to the back of that, to a lean-to with lamplight spilling out beneath its door. While Pino talks to the tiny, elderly man inside, Ettore turns to Clare.
‘This man will take you back on the horse, once he’s finished pretending that your necklace isn’t enough payment. His name is Guido; you can trust him, I’ve known him a long time – he is Pino’s kin.’