Robyn Hogan

The Final Chapter

Fidelma woke to scrabbling on the stairs, a broom sweeping, dustpan clattering on the stone and the call of children playing in the piazza. She seemed to have grown more or less immune to the bells but Francesca was a noisy housekeeper and had woken her. Moaning, she turned, pulled the bedclothes higher before realising she really needed to go to the bathroom. She trundled over, squeezed through the door and used the conveniences.

Francesca, alerted by the water flow sounds, began an insistent knocking at her door. ‘Delma. Delma.’

Del pulled a robe round her and, going to the door, opened it to the hotelier.

Francesca, in her floral dusting overall, a check scarf knotted over her hair, utensils leaning against the wall, greeted her with an enormous smile. ‘A letter for you,’ she seemed as pleased as if she had commanded it herself, ‘from Salvatore.’

Del, still sleepy, lethargically accepted the letter. Francesca remained grinning, slow to turn away, return to her work, but Del closed the door firmly. By the time she had reached the work table her hands were shaking and she felt, inexplicably, both furious and nervous.

The letter was penned in his precise manner, rather akin to a marginal note.

She skimmed it quickly then, sitting on the bed, read it more slowly.

The great cathedral bells rang out, the noise filling the wide piazza, flowing into the bedroom. The time, followed by the angelus. Authoritative, majestic, deafening and surprising: she had slept until noon.

He began his note by apologising for any rudeness then suggested there was something he needed to talk to her about and would she meet him at six for a stroll and dinner? No need to reply; he would call for her. Harmless enough. Except she knew not whether the ‘something’ was medieval history or her origins. She screwed the note up, tossed it to join the other scrap paper in the bin and, stripping off, stepped into the shower. Refreshed, she pulled on jeans and a white cotton shirt, brushing and clasping her hair into a casual knot. The midday sunshine bounced off the wonderful stonework, the sea beyond sparkled enough to hurt and she was, in some ways, sorry to be leaving this pretty town. Picking the note up, she smoothed it out and re-read it.

He was her father; one last conversation could not hurt. She would just have to be careful. Soon she would be in London then with the twins in Oxford and no one need ever know of her anguish. Except, of course, Hazel and Susan. She should not have rung them but she had. She would handle them when the time came. She had to trust they would be loyal to her.

She would keep her countenance, meet Sal for one last private memory. She would not tell him who she was; who he was, but there was an awful tugging, yearning feeling struggling within her. There was guilt, too, knowing at first hand the loneliness of the man, but, if she once weakened, the explanations would never stop. Like a stone into still water, the ripples would spread back through her siblings, forward through her children and startle the older generation of a country town. Not to mention the Italian relations, Francesca too; she couldn’t handle that maybe vast family clamouring to accept or deny her existence. They would pull her features apart, as if she were a newborn, and allocate them to sisters and aunts, living and dead, and, of course, Sal.

Echoes from the evening angelus were easing as she greeted Sal, looking neat and dapper with a solidness of bone that made her roundness feel comfortable. She had put on a dress, a swinging, pale-gold knitted silk, newly purchased, adding stylish, Italian sandals, and had rolled her hair into a casual chignon. She hoped she would be able to manage the cobblestones without too much pain. When he called, she slung her handbag over her shoulder and, draping a white, cotton jacket over her shoulders, proceeded as casually as she could down the stairs to meet him.

‘I thought we might take a stroll along the breakwater. It’s a lovely time of day and the fishing fleet will be returning, responding to the call of the bells. But, first, I want to show you something else.’

‘Certainly.’

They walked into the setting sun; it seemed he wanted to point out some particulars on the cathedral door, draw her attention to some details on the façade. He offered his arm, in an old-fashioned way, and Del linked hers through it. They spent some time examining the doors and the sculptured arch above, tracing the iconic and decorative schemes. Companionably, they discussed the mix of styles in the bas-reliefs of the Bible stories and plant and animal motifs depicted. He, of course, claimed to be the more authoritative, as he was, but expressed grudging surprise at her depth of knowledge. The Arabic references were without her ken but he brought exciting aspects into perspective for her. Though there was some erosion and lack of clarity in the stonework, the solid brass doors’ features had withstood the western sun since 1180, the patina softening as the sun became lower.

‘A couple of nights ago I peopled this square with the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick and his entourage. Quite fun.’ They had moved on, were walking down the cathedral’s south side, under the arch that linked the campanile into the complex and on towards the breakwater, Del picking out the smoother stones for her feet.

Sal smiled. ‘I like doing that too, filling these streets with pageantry.’ She looked at him with fresh eyes. ‘But, of course, one can never write of such imaginings.’

‘Depends on what one is writing and,’ remembering the earlier argument, ‘on one’s market,’ she added, archly.

He laughed, patting her hand. ‘That’s the type of response Margherita would have given me.’

Oh no, we are back with her again. How could he have got to know her mother so well in one brief citrus harvest? It just wasn’t possible. He must have spent fifty years inventing her, building her character into his psyche.

They paused when they reached the ocean. He was wheezing, looking a little exhausted. Lads, in canvas shoes, were jumping off the breakwater into the sea, away from the harbour, shouting, then clambering back up the rough stone foundations, ready to jump again. There was some pattern in their play but whether it was the furthest jump or the highest or some quite different criterion she could not guess. No girls, she noted and wondered what they did for fun. Sal, when she asked, just shrugged. Perhaps he did not know. Perhaps he had not noticed the absence of females.

She looked away while he coughed into his handkerchief then they were walking again. He sighed when they sat on the seat provided at the end of the pathway. The fishing fleet was visible riding the swell out towards the horizon. Across the harbour, to the south, lay the Villi parkland, a lush and busy oasis at the water’s edge and, beyond, on a promontory, the sun glowed golden along the arcades of the museum Abbey of San Maria di Colonna.

‘I know she’s dead. I have to face the fact.’

Startled, Del twisted to look at him; he continued to gaze towards the fleet. One boat was churning through the sea towards them, hurrying to enter the inner harbour, to display the catch, perhaps sell it, before the others returned. The skipper tooted, a signal to the harbourmaster, Del guessed, and swung into the harbour opening, waves of green water shooting along the embankment, darkening the stones.

‘Not long ago. Only a few weeks ago. Her passing is still so fresh for me. May I tell you?’

She nodded, murmured. Poor man, he needed to talk. She didn’t have to volunteer anything and she would not. But it was unnerving that he knew. How? She gazed down at the swirling wake left by the passing boat. Margaret’s face evolved in it, her expression one of extreme anger. Del felt her heart thump, her pulse begin to race at the memory in the swirling sea. The face folded in on itself, the water slowed and stilled and Del forced herself to concentrate, to listen to Sal Brenna.

‘I was having difficulty sleeping. Sweating and tossing and turning. And I could hear her laughter, soft and calling. Her sweet smell teased my nostrils, lingered in my room.’

Sweating and tossing, wheezing and coughing: he was not well. Del knew those symptoms at close quarters; universities had been full of smoke ridden dens and corridors for centuries.

‘Have you seen a doctor?’

‘Si, si, and it is too late.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Again Del felt the infinite sadness in the man. ‘How do you know Margherita is dead? Tell me more,’ and she placed a hand of encouragement on his arm.

‘She was troubled in her dying. I could feel her stretching out to me, straining to reach me and with all my being, all my soul and spirit I sought to hold her. We came together and she smiled, that beautiful, laughing smile with the dimple dodging in her cheek.’ The smile on his face as he turned to Del transformed his sober features. She turned aside from its inner brilliance; a similar quality was in her mother’s last smile.

That smile had touched Fidelma deep inside but, stubborn as always, she had not realised it until this moment. She had assumed guilt had been passed onto her. But her mother had not felt guilt, only loss. It had not been the priest’s absolution that eased Margaret’s dying restlessness. Rather, Margaret’s spirit, seeking that of her soul mate, calling across the vacuum, rising to meet her lover’s spirit, to be united once more. Was that not the truth?

The second boat arrived, tooting and splashing past, white seabirds swirling to greet it, and, again, in the wake was her mother’s face. Anger was still there but something else underlaid it: frustration? yearning?

Del looked towards Sal to make some comment and stifled a gasp. He was holding a letter; the writing was her mother’s. She turned back to the water and the vestige of Margaret Dunne’s face sinking in the sea. ‘I brought Margherita’s letter for you.’

‘Thank you,’ she managed to respond through the sudden nausea and wishing herself already in London. Why had he thought she would like to see it? What do I do if he asks me outright if I am his daughter? Lie?

‘She never abandoned me, nor I her. Circumstances were against us.’ He was an old man still coming to terms with the way his life had run its course. Not for the first time, Del felt the weight of his unhappiness; the depth of sadness his kin seemed never to have sensed. But she would not plumb it with him.

‘Is this an actual letter from the Australian woman in the orchard?’ she dissembled. Perhaps she could suggest he show it to Silvia; provide Silvia with proof of Margherita’s existence. Had Francesca ever seen this letter?

He nodded, the paper he was holding rustling slightly. ‘Her husband was very badly injured, not expected to live. But she is a woman of honour; she will fulfil her duty then seek happiness with me. That’s what she writes.’

‘Do you truly believe she would have left Australia for a foreign land and with two children in tow?’ Too late she realised he had never mentioned the children, just his child. She held her breath but he was too absorbed in his reverie to notice and she let it out slowly, quietly. Or else he knew she was his daughter.

Another of the fleet sailed past and again the angry face of Maggie Dunne spread in the wake. Suddenly Del recalled the event that had caused such anger. Had severed the friendship in her relationship with her mother forever. Anne was right, their mother had doted on her, had given her most things she asked for until, yes, until Del had told Margaret she planned to marry Kevin.

‘Your life has only just begun,’ Maggie had screamed at her daughter, ‘and you want to throw it away marrying an old man.’

‘He’s not an old man,’ Del had protested.

‘He’s old enough to be your father,’ her mother had ranted. Not quite.

There was shouting as the later boats jostled for entry positions, almost seeming to collide in the narrow neck to the harbour. The churning water slapped higher against the rock wall, spray splashing them where they sat. This time, when she looked at Sal, he was holding another letter. Her mother’s writing. And nestled in its folds was a snapshot of a grinning baby, hair a smudge of darkness covering the scalp, sitting on a chequered rug, hugging a toy koala. Del gasped aloud, hand over her mouth. She knew the photograph. Anne had been given a Box Brownie camera for her seventh birthday—Del knew because Anne had made a big production of giving it to her, Del, on her seventh, while she moved onto a bigger and better instrument. Similar photographs to this one appeared in the earlier pages of the family album Anne continued to keep up to date.

‘I do not know her name. She did not tell me.’ Del’s attention was drawn back to Sal. ‘I called her my Orange Blossom Baby; then my Orange Blossom Girl. Now she is a woman, has been a woman for a long time, I simply call her Blossom. I’d like to know her name.’ The sadness in his voice was deeper than the sea.

The strong smell of fish and the noise of its being unloaded swirled round them in their silence. He sighed and coughed, struggling to reach his handkerchief without upsetting the photograph. Del took the letter and her image from him and he turned away, the spasm harsh and longer than before. As he settled she handed them back to him.

‘She will send her to me; one day my Blossom will come to me.’

Her mother’s face was forming again. This time Del realised it was not so much anger as intense frustration portrayed in the rolling water. What she had remembered as anger, had interpreted as anger at the time, was a frustration born of a life’s planning to send, no, take, a daughter to her father. And just as she was ready to make the journey, Del had insisted on her own journey.

A true love affair had blossomed in that orchard, been consummated there. A marriage without records, it lived, endured in the spirit. A commitment that had moulded the lives of two people as surely as any church sanctioned union. And she, Fidelma, their barley-child, the evidence of their love.

Her mother had at last been free to join her lover, to take his daughter to him. But her plans came crashing round her in the complication Del’s impending marriage presented. Why didn’t she tell me then? Del screamed silently. There could have been ways of solving the problem if only they had stopped to consider. But no, Del, young and in love, and ever so slightly pregnant, mistook frustration for anger. Cut to the quick, she had stormed away, wilfully blocked her ears, stubbornly turned her back on her mother’s pleas and sped back to the city. Only now, sitting by this green water, seeing her mother’s face rising in the swell, did she realise how much unnecessary pain she, Del, had caused.

She and Kevin had married quietly in St. John’s College chapel with only friends, not family, as witnesses and the rift, the chasm, had never properly healed. And Del knew she, in her wilfulness, had never given it a chance to heal. As well, Margaret’s pride must have kept her silent.

‘I wish I knew her name.’ The yearning in his voice interrupted her guilty reverie. His index finger stroked the photograph with infinite tenderness, as if he were stroking the child herself.

‘Fidelma.’

Del spoke without thought; her resolution never to tell him, shattered. Splattering in pieces around her. Suddenly, she wanted to run, slip the silly sandals and race down the breakwater, across the flagstones, up the stairs to her room—then London. She rose swiftly, fingers already on one strap, backing away from the seat but her eyes on him.

He sat tense, head bowed, nodding as if he ached. He had not realised what she had said; he was deep in his own reverie. She relaxed slightly. Slowly, probably disturbed by her movement, he raised his eyes to hers, a query in them, then, the notion that she had spoken spread across his face, carrying a frown of doubt. He glanced rapidly at the trembling photograph, swung his eyes back to a shaking Del. She had to meet his eyes: dark disbelief, excited, glistening. All slow motion. And she felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Suddenly both his arms were round her neck, crushing her, his copious Italian tears pouring into her hair. She slid her arms round his waist, felt the wheezing even through his woollen coat, and choking on her own tears, knew she could not run away.

Slowly, gradually, their spasms eased. Gloaming settled softly as a dust curtain on the town, throwing a mantel over the ancient monuments, blending the market place, the harbour, the foreshore.

She had not planned this, that she would stay and care for her father, but then she had not planned on being a barley-child either.

THE END