Farelli's Wife

His words brought home to her how near their parting was. Her time in Italy was almost over, and then she wouldn’t see him again. He was the love of her life but he didn’t know, would never know.

She was desperate for something that would make him notice her, but while she was racking her brains she saw a movement among the vines. It was Virginia, a voluptuous and poorly named young woman who’d occupied a lot of Franco’s attention recently.

Franco had seen her and turned laughing eyes on Joanne, not in the least embarrassed. ‘And now you must go, piccina, for I have matters to attend to.’

Crushing disappointment made her adopt a haughty tone. ‘I’m sorry if I’m in the way.’

‘You are,’ he said shamelessly. ‘Terribly in the way. Run along now, like a good girl.’

She bit her lip at being treated like a child, and turned away with as much dignity as she could muster. She didn’t look back, but she couldn’t help hearing the girl’s soft, provocative laughter.

She lay awake that night, listening for Franco. He didn’t return until three in the morning. She heard him humming softly as he passed her door, and then she buried her head under the pillow and wept.

The time began to rush past and the end of her final term grew inexorably nearer. Joanne received a letter from her cousin Rosemary who would be taking a vacation in Italy at that time. She wrote:

I thought I’d come to Turin just before you finish, and we can travel home together.

Joanne and Rosemary had grown up together, and most people, seeing them side by side, had thought that they were sisters. They’d actually lived as sisters after Joanne’s parents had died and Rosemary had urged her widowed mother to take the girl in.

She’d been twelve then, and Joanne six. When Rosemary’s mother had died six years later Rosemary had assumed the role of mother. Joanne had adored the cousin who’d given her a home and security, and all the love in her big, generous heart.

As Joanne had grown up they’d become more alike. They had both been unusually tall women, with baby blonde hair, deep blue eyes and peach colouring. Their features had been cast from the same mould, but Rosemary’s had been fine and delicate, whereas Joanne’s had still been blurred by youth and teenage chubbiness.

But the real difference, the one that had always tormented Joanne, had lain in Rosemary’s poise and charm. She had been supremely confident of her own beauty and she’d moved through life dazzling everyone she met, winning hearts easily.

Joanne had been awed by the ease with which her cousin had claimed life as her own. She’d wanted to be like her. She’d wanted to be her, and it had been frustrating to have been trapped in her own, ordinary self, so like Rosemary, and yet so cruelly unlike her in all that mattered.

At other times she’d wanted to be as different from Rosemary as possible, to escape her shadow and be herself. When people had said, ‘You’re going to be as pretty as Rosemary one day,’ she’d known they’d meant to be kind, but the words had made her grind her teeth.

She could remember, as if it were yesterday, the night of the party, given by a fellow student. Joanne and Renata had been going together, with Franco escorting them, but at the last minute Renata had sprained her ankle and dropped out. Joanne had been in ecstasies at having Franco all to herself.

She’d bought a new dress and spent hours putting up her hair and perfecting her make-up. Surely that night he would notice her, even perhaps ask her to stay in Italy? Her heart had been singing as she’d gone down to where he’d been waiting outside on the terrace.

He’d been dressed for the evening. She’d never seen him formally attired before, but then she’d been struck afresh by how handsome he’d been with his snowy shirt against his swarthy skin. He’d looked up and smiled, raising his eyebrows in appreciation of her enhanced appearance.

‘So, piccina, you’ve decided to take the world by storm tonight?’ he teased.

‘I just dressed up a little,’ she said, trying to be casual, but with a horrible suspicion that she sounded as gauche as she felt.

‘You’ll break all their hearts,’ he promised her.

‘Oh, I don’t know about all their hearts,’ she said with a shrug.

‘Just the one you want, eh?’

Could he have suspected? she wondered with sudden excitement. Was this his way of saying that he’d finally noticed her?

‘Maybe I haven’t decided which one I want,’ she said archly, looking up at him.

He chuckled, and the sound filled her with happy expectation. ‘Perhaps I should help you decide,’ he said, and reached out to take gentle hold of her chin.

At last! The thing she’d prayed for, wept for, longed for, was happening. He was going to kiss her. As he lifted her chin and his mouth hovered above hers she was on the verge of heaven. She raised her hands, tentatively touching his arms.

And then it was all snatched away. There was a step in the passage, and a woman’s voice floated out to them.

‘I’m sorry to arrive without warning—’

Franco stopped, his mouth an inch above hers, raising his head, alerted by the voice. Joanne felt the shock that went through his body. He’d heard only Rosemary’s voice, but already some special timbre in it seemed to tell him what was about to happen. He stepped away from Joanne, towards the door.

The next moment Rosemary appeared. Joanne, watching with jealous eyes that saw every detail, knew that all the breath had gone out of him, so that he stood like a man poised between two lives. Later she realized that this was literally true. Franco had seen his fate walk through the door, with long blonde hair and a dazzling smile. And he’d instantly recognized that this was what she was. He was no longer the same man.

Dazed, hardly able to believe what had happened, Joanne turned her eyes to see Rosemary staring at Franco with the same look that he was giving her. It was all over in a flash, and there was nothing to be done about it.

There were hasty introductions. Rosemary greeted everyone and threw her arms about Joanne, while somehow never taking her eyes off Franco. He was like a man in a dream. It was his idea that Rosemary come to the party with them. Joanne wanted to cry out at having come so close to her desire, but what would be the use of that? Even she could see that what was happening had always been meant.

At the party Franco monopolized Rosemary, dancing almost every dance with her, plying her with food and wine. His good manners made him attend to Joanne’s comfort, watching to make sure that she wasn’t a wallflower. There was no danger of that since she was popular. She danced every dance, determined not to show that her heart was breaking, and when Franco saw that she had a supply of partners he forgot her and spent every moment with Rosemary.

Many times she wondered what would have happened if Rosemary had seen her in Franco’s arms. Would she have taken him, knowing how Joanne loved him? But the question was pointless. Franco pursued Rosemary fiercely through the evening that followed and every day afterwards until he made her his own. He was like a man driven by demons until he came to the safe haven of his love.

It was still painful to recall how she slipped away from the dance and stumbled across them in each other’s arms, in the darkness. She backed away, but not before she heard Franco murmuring, ‘Mi amore—I will love you until I die,’ and saw him kiss her passionately. It was so different from the teasing kiss he’d almost bestowed on herself, and she fled, weeping frantically.

Apart from herself, the only person not pleased by the wedding was Sophia. Joanne overheard the family scene in which Sophia begged Franco to marry a local girl, and not ‘this stranger, who knows nothing of our ways’. Franco refused to quarrel with his mother, but he insisted on his right to marry the woman of his choice. He also demanded, quietly but firmly, that his bride should be treated with respect. Joanne was struck by the change in him. Already the easygoing lad who’d once let his mother’s tirades wash over him was turning into a man of serious purpose. Sophia evidently felt it too, for she burst into angry tears.

‘Poor Mama,’ Renata observed. ‘Franco’s always been her favourite, and now she’s jealous because he loves Rosemary best.’

The whole neighbourhood was invited to their wedding. Joanne longed not to be there, but Rosemary asked her and Renata to be her bridesmaids. Joanne was afraid that if she refused everyone would guess why.

When the day came she put on her pink satin dress, smiled despite her heartbreak, and walked behind Rosemary as she went down the aisle to become Franco’s wife. Joanne saw the look on his face as he watched his bride’s approach. It was a look of total, blind adoration, and it tore the heart out of her.

A year later she pleaded work as an excuse not to attend the baptism of their son, Nico. Rosemary wrote to her affectionately, saying how sorry she was not to see her again, and enclosing some christening cake and photographs. Joanne studied them jealously, noting how the same look was still on Franco’s face when he looked at his wife. Even in the flat photographs it blazed out, the gaze of a supremely happy man whose marriage had brought him love and fulfilment. She hid the pictures away.

After that there were more pictures, showing Nico growing fast out of babyhood, becoming an eager toddler learning to walk, held safe by his father’s hands. Franco’s face grew a little older, less boyish. And always it bore the same look, that of a man who’d found all he wanted in life.

Rosemary stayed in touch through occasional telephone calls, and long letters, with photographs enclosed. Joanne knew everything that happened on the Farelli farm, almost as well as if she’d been there. Renata married an art dealer and went to live in Milan. Franco’s father died. Two years later his mother visited her sister in Naples, where she met a widower with two children and married him. Franco, Rosemary and baby Nico were left alone on the farm: alone, that was, except for a woman who helped with the housework, and the dozens of vineyard workers who wandered in and out of the house.

Rosemary often repeated her loving invitations. She wrote:

It seems so long since we saw you. You shouldn’t be a stranger, darling, especially after we were so close once.

Joanne would write back, excusing herself on the grounds of work, for her skill in copying paintings to the last brush stroke had made her a successful career. But she never gave the true reason, which was that she didn’t trust herself to look at Rosemary’s husband without loving him. And that was forbidden, not only because he cared nothing for her, but because Joanne also loved Rosemary.

She had no other close family, and the cousin who was also sister and mother was dearer to her than anyone on earth, except Franco. She owed Rosemary more than she could repay, and her fierce sense of loyalty made her keep her distance.

She was lonely, and sometimes the temptation to pay a visit was overwhelming. Surely it could do no harm to meet little Nico, enjoy the farm life for a while, and be enveloped in the warmth and love that Rosemary seemed to carry with her at all times?

But then Rosemary would write, innocently ending the letter, ‘Franco sends his love’. And the words still hurt, warning her that the visit must never be made.

She’d been eighteen when she’d fallen in love with him, and it should have been one of those passing teenage infatuations, so common at that age. Her misfortune was that it wasn’t. Instead of getting over Franco she’d gone on cherishing his image with a despairing persistence that warned her never to risk seeing him.