Farelli's Wife

To outward appearances Joanne was a successful woman, with a string of admirers. The chubbiness of her early years had gone, leaving her figure slender and her face delicate. There were always men eager to follow her beauty and a certain indefinable something in her air. She let them wine and dine her and some of them, blind to the remote signals she sent out without knowing it, deceived themselves that they were making progress. When they realized their mistake they called her heartless, and to a point it was true. She had no heart for them. Her heart had been stolen long ago by a man who didn’t want it.

Then Rosemary returned to England for a visit, bringing her five-year-old son. They stayed with Joanne for a week, and some of their old closeness was restored. They talked for hours into the night. Joanne was enchanted by the little boy. He looked English, but he had the open-heartedness of his Italian father, and would snuggle on her lap as happily as on his mother’s.

Rosemary watched the two of them fondly, while she talked of her life in Italy with the husband she adored. The only flaw was Sophia’s continuing hostility.

‘I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t remarried,’ she confessed. ‘She hates me.’

‘But she was always nagging Franco to get married,’ Joanne recalled.

‘Yes, but she wanted to choose his wife. She’d have picked a local girl who wouldn’t have competed with her for his heart, and given him lots and lots of children. Franco really wants them. Sophia never lets me forget that I’ve only managed to give him one.

‘I’ve tried and tried to make her my friend, but it’s useless. She hates me because Franco loves me so much, and I couldn’t change that—even if I wanted to.’

Her words made Joanne recall how Sophia’s manner to herself had altered without warning. She’d been friendly enough, in her sharp manner, until one day she’d caught Joanne regarding Franco with yearning in her eyes. After that she’d grown cool, as though nobody but herself was allowed to love him.

Rosemary’s face was radiant as she talked of her husband. ‘I never knew such happiness could exist,’ she said in a voice full of wonder. ‘Oh, darling, if only it could happen for you too.’

‘I’m a career woman,’ Joanne protested, hiding her face against Nico’s hair lest it reveal some forbidden consciousness. ‘I’ll probably never marry.’

She was the first to learn Rosemary’s thrilling secret.

‘I haven’t even told Franco yet, because I don’t want to raise false hopes,’ she admitted. ‘But he wants another child so badly, and I want to give him one.’

A week after her return to Italy she telephoned to say she was certain at last, and Franco was over the moon.

But the child was never born. In the fifth month of her pregnancy Rosemary collapsed with a heart attack, and died.

Joanne was in Australia at the time, working against a deadline. It would have been impractical to go to Italy for the funeral, but the truth was she was glad of the excuse to stay away. Her love for Rosemary’s husband tormented her with guilt now that Rosemary was dead.

The year that followed was the most miserable of her life. Despite their long parting, Rosemary had stayed in touch so determinedly that she had remained a vital part of her life. Joanne only truly understood that now that she was gone, and the empty space yawned.

She had several requests to work in Italy, but she turned them all down on one pretext or another. Then a debilitating bout of flu left her too weak to work for some time, and her bank balance grew dangerously low. When the offer came from Vito Antonini she was glad of the chance to make some money.

He lived only sixty miles away from Franco. But she could shut herself up to work, and never venture into the outside world. There was no need to see him if she didn’t want to. So, despite her misgivings, she accepted the job and flew to Italy, telling herself that she was in no danger, and trying to believe it.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHY you never take the car?’ Maria demanded one day. ‘When you arrive I say, ‘We don’t need the second car. You use it.’ But you never do. Is very unkind.’

‘Don’t be offended, Maria, please,’ Joanne begged. ‘It’s just that I’ve been so busy.’

‘Don’t you have any friends from when you were here before?’

‘Well—my cousin’s family lives near Asti—’

‘And you haven’t visited?’ Maria shrieked in horror, for like all Italians she was family-minded. ‘You go now.’

Vito backed his wife up, and the two of them virtually ordered her out of the house.

‘You stay away tonight,’ Maria ordered. ‘You won’t have time to drive back.’

‘I’ll have plenty of time,’ Joanne insisted. ‘I’m only going for a couple of hours.’

They argued about this until the last minute, Maria demanding that she pack a bag, Joanne firmly refusing. She was going to make this visit as brief as possible, just to prove to herself that she could cope with meeting Franco. Then she would leave and never go back.

She was dressed for the country, in trousers and sweater. But both had come from one of Turin’s most expensive shops, and she added a gold chain about her waist and dainty gold studs in her ears. She didn’t realize that she was making a point, but the costly elegance of her attire marked her out as a different person from the gauche girl of eight years ago.

As soon as she got out onto the road and felt the beauty of the day, and the sun streaming in through the open window, Joanne was glad. She’d been shut up too long with the smell of oil paint and turpentine, and she needed to breathe fresh air.

She took the route through the little medieval town of Asti. Already there were posters up advertising the palio, the bareback race that was run every year around the piazza. The jockeys were all local lads, and Joanne’s mind went back to the time Franco had taken part.

She’d been nervous as she’d taken her place in the stands with the family and almost every worker from the Farelli vineyard. The palio was so fierce that mattresses were fixed to the walls of all the surrounding buildings to save the riders and horses who crashed into them. Even so, injuries were common.

After the first lap it had been clear that the race was between Franco and another rider.

‘That’s Leo,’ Renata said excitedly. ‘He and Franco are good friends—except today.’

It was neck and neck on the last lap. Then Leo went ahead. Franco made a desperate attempt to catch up. The crowd’s cheers turned to screams as the horses collided and both riders were thrown. Miraculously the following riders managed to jump over them, and neither man was hurt. But Joanne’s heart was in her mouth as they all hurried around to see Franco afterwards.

Sophia clung to him, almost suffocating him until Giorgio gently prised her away. Leo hurled his whip to the ground, complaining, ‘I was winning. I had the race in the palm of my hand. And he robbed me.’

Franco offered Leo his hand. Leo stared at it until everyone thought he would refuse to shake. At last he put out his own hand, saying through a forced smile, ‘I’ll get even with you next year, Farelli. See if I don’t.’

But Franco had never competed again. By the next race he’d been married to Rosemary, looking forward to starting a family.

Joanne parked the car and spent an hour wandering the streets she’d once known so well. She decided she might as well have lunch here too, and enjoyed a leisurely pizza. She would have denied that she was putting off her meeting with Franco, but she didn’t hurry.

But when she resumed the journey she was further delayed by a traffic jam. For two hours she fretted and fumed behind a trail of trucks, and it was late afternoon before she neared the Farelli vineyards. She parked the car off the road and got out to lean over a fence and survey the land. The vines were growing strongly and everywhere she looked she saw the brightness of summer. It reminded her of her year in Italy when she’d fallen in love with Franco.

What would he be like now? Her last picture of him had been taken eighteen months ago and showed him older, more serious, as befitted a man of responsibilities. Yet even then a mischievous devil still lurked in his eyes. But he must have changed again since the death of his beloved wife. Suddenly she was afraid to see him. He would be a stranger.

But she couldn’t give up now. Courtesy demanded that she see Rosemary’s widower and child before she left the district. She started up again and drove on to the turning that led to the house. At once memory began to play back. The dirt track was still the one she’d seen the day Renata had brought her here for the first time. There were the ruts left by the trucks that regularly arrived and departed.

The big, sprawling house too was the same, yellow ochre in the blazing sun, the dark green shutters pulled closed against the heat, the roof tiles rusty red. And everywhere there were geraniums, the brightly coloured flowers without which no Italian country home seemed complete. Geraniums around the doors, in window boxes, in hanging baskets: red, white, pink, purple, every petal glowing vividly in the brilliant light.

Chickens strutted pompously back and forth in the yard, uttering soft, contented clucks. The Farelli family was wealthy, but the house was that of a prosperous farmer, with homeliness prevailing over luxury. That was its charm.

Did nothing ever change here? There was the long table under the trees with the benches at either side. Above it stood the wooden trellis roof with flowers wreathing in and out and hanging down from it. How many times had she sat beneath those flowers, as if in paradise, listening to the family backchat over a meal? Paradise that might have been hers, that could never have been hers. Paradise lost.

The front door was open and she walked inside. Rosemary had made this place her own, but it still felt familiar. The few new pieces of furniture blended in with the warm red flagstones. The huge fireplace, where the family had warmed themselves by log fires, was unchanged. The old sofa had been re-covered, but was otherwise still the same, the largest one Joanne had ever seen.

The staircase led directly out of the main room. An old woman whom Joanne had never seen before came bustling downstairs, wiping her hands on her apron. She was dressed in black, save for a coloured scarf covering her hair. She stopped very still when she saw Joanne.

‘I’m sorry to come in uninvited,’ Joanne said quickly. ‘I’m not prying. My cousin was Signor Farelli’s wife. Is he here?’

‘He is with the vines on the south slope,’ the woman said slowly. ‘I will send for him.’

‘No need. I know where it is. Grazie.’