He can’t believe she’s doing this to him. ‘Maybe. Now, can we change the subject? Or else I’m going to burn your food.’
‘Okay.’ Valentina knows she’ll have other opportunities to open him up. She swings herself down from the worktop and wanders across the apartment.
Tom tries to concentrate on the cooking. The whole process is a wonderfully therapeutic ceremony and one he fell in love with while in France.
A few minutes later Valentina calls to him, ‘Would you look at something for me? Give me a second opinion.’
‘Just a minute.’ He removes the skillet from the heat and slides the tuna on to pre-warmed plates. ‘Fantastico! Wait until you taste this.’
Valentina picks papers up from the sofa. ‘The woman we arrested, the one I told you about, she wrote down some strange things. I’ve got photocopies here.’
He carries the plates waiter-style, one across his wrist, the other on his palm, gripped by the tip of his fingers. ‘You want more wine?’
‘Not yet. Thanks.’ She taps the sofa. ‘Sit next to me. I’m sorry there’s no dining table. Not yet. Probably not ever in here, it’s too small.’
He hands over her plate and a knife and fork, ‘Buon appetito. I hope you like it.’
‘Looks good.’ She grins a little. ‘I’m sure it’s worth staying in for. Have a look at these while you eat.’
He takes the photocopied papers, smoothes them out on the arm of the sofa and tastes his food.
The tuna is cooked too little and the accompanying green beans boiled too much. So much for trying to make an impression.
He works slowly through the papers, wondering if he should offer to re-cook her fish. A glance across the room shows it’s not necessary. She’s almost finished.
He taps the paper as he reaches the end. ‘This is fascinating. What’s your prisoner like? Intelligence? Age? Looks?’
Valentina thinks for a second. ‘She’s late twenties. White. Italian — I think. Not very tall. Not very fat. Not very strong. In fact, not very anything. She’s mousey. Hasn’t spoken. The only communication has been through those written words, so I can’t really say how intelligent she is.’ Then she remembers something. ‘I did notice that her nails were all broken. Her hands looked rough — that is, once we cleaned the blood off them. So I’d guess she’s a manual worker rather than a brainier office type.’
‘Don’t write manual workers off as unintelligent.’ He wags a fork at her. ‘I washed dishes in every other kitchen in Paris; that doesn’t make me stupid.’
‘Never said it did. Why do you ask about her intelligence?’
Tom waggles the photocopy. ‘No spelling mistakes. Good grammar. She has an old-fashioned, formal and educated style of writing.’
The comment amuses Valentina.
‘She should have. She says she’s a noblewoman, of noble birth.’
‘The scene she wrote of is ancient Rome, certainly pre-Christ, and given the respectful references to the Senate, maybe even pre-Julius Caesar.’
Valentina’s impressed. ‘My, you are a smart old kitchen porter, aren’t you?’
‘Less of the old!’ He forks another bite of tuna, loads it with sauce and looks again at the paper. ‘The writer’s descriptions contain religious and ritualistic references; the whole thing is intriguingly riddled with allusions to secrets and truths. Do you know what the name Cassandra means?’
‘Nope. Can’t say I do.’ Valentina mops up the last of the sauce with a final forkful of fish. ‘I can’t believe I ate all this. You made me so hungry.’
‘Doom,’ says Tom, ‘Cassandra was a prophet of doom.’
17
Mother picks me out.
She takes me to one side, away from the others, and talks only to me.
I am special.
She tells me so.
I am Her favourite and I am to be called Melissa. I will be one of Her Melissae — Her little bees.
She speaks to me about Lagash, Anatolia, Phrygia, Crete and Malta. She talks of Hellenic and Roman civilisations, of the kings and emperors She’s known.
Of rulers who’ve worshipped Her.
Of fools who have ignored Her.
Of Her love for Attis, and how She killed him and then raised him from the dead.
‘Death and Life,’ She whispers in my ear, then speaks for a long time of creation and destruction and Her glorious part in it all.
The part I will play in the future.
Mother holds me to Her bosom and strokes my hair while teaching me how to change sea to sand and sand to grass. She tells me how together we will turn the grass to stone and the stone to marble and the marble to towers of glass and steel that will stretch beyond the sun.
There is nothing Mother cannot achieve. Nothing she cannot create.
Around us there are women of every race, every colour and every age. Mother could have picked any one of them, but She has chosen me.
I am special.
She tells me so.
Outside of the warm womb that is our temple, a pale moon rises and paints its whiteness on the naked flesh of my gathering sisters. The first sparks of a fire crackle close by. A large, flat stone is brought in, laden with bread and wine.
The Galli come.
They beat their drums, fine instruments made from skins of fish and goat, let loose a primal rhythm.
Mother catches it and shares it with us. She seals the rhythm inside us. It becomes our pulse. It flows through our genitals and rests in our wombs.
Mother tells me to close my eyes.
She tells me that She loves me. Loves me from the cool brow of Her stone-figured image on the heights of Mount Sipylus to the bloodstained soil of Rome where She now lies down with me.
I am not to be frightened of what She will do to me.
I am special.
She tells me so.
18
Sunday morning gathers around Valentina Morassi like a cool mountain mist.
She opens her eyes slowly and sees untidy puddles of pale daylight shimmering on the wooden bedroom floor.
Leakage from the real world.
An unwelcome clue that her night’s rest is over.
Not that she got much rest.
Valentina’s normally an eight-hours-a-night person. She squints at her Mickey clock and realises she’s had less than six.
Her own fault.
Hers and Tom’s.
The thought makes her smile. She’s happy to lose a lot more sleep if the man next to her is the reason why.
She has a plan for the day, and it’s a simple one.
Sleepy lovemaking. Breakfast in bed. Less sleepy lovemaking. Shower — dress — reluctantly think about work.
It’s all a nice change from her normal pattern of putting work first.
Great sex turns everything upside down.
Fill your body with pesky orgasms and suddenly your all-important life-defining job can go hang itself.
Valentina slides close to Tom and drifts her hand down his impressive rack of abdominal muscles.
He stirs a little.
Still asleep.
But not for long.
Before Valentina rouses him, she thinks about yesterday, about how nervous she was meeting him at the airport. About whether he would feel the same way about her as she did about him. Whether any sexual advance would jeopardise their friendship.