The Mermaid Garden Page 10

  She skipped up the streets to the big archway in the yellow wall that had once meant home, but since her mother had gone it was now only a door that indicated the place where she lived. She gave it a firm push. It was heavy and large and opened into a courtyard. The ground was covered in cobbles, between which weeds grew and flourished until they were unceremoniously cut by Signora Bruno, whose late husband had left her the ramshackle building of small apartments to rent. Pretty iron balconies overlooked the courtyard, decorating the disintegrating walls with the occasional pot of flowers and, more commonly, lines of washing drying in the sun.

  Signora Bruno stopped sweeping when she saw the little girl come in, and leaned on her broom. Any excuse to stop working. “Your father’s at Luigi’s, propping up the bar, no doubt.” She watched Floriana with suspicion as the little girl skipped over to the steps and sat down. “What are you up to? You look like a mouse that’s eaten all the cheese.”

  “I’m in love, Signora Bruno.”

  The woman looked at the child’s misty eyes and laughed, the mole on her cheek protruding. “Who’s been putting ideas in your head? Fancy a child of your age even thinking such a thing. Love!” She clicked her tongue. “You love when you’re young and know no better. Until your heart breaks and you realize you’re safer living without it.”

  “That’s sad, Signora Bruno.” Floriana looked genuinely sympathetic.

  “Who is this lucky man?”

  “He’s called Dante Bonfanti.”

  Signora Bruno looked at her in astonishment. “Dante Bonfanti? Where did you meet him?”

  “I was peeping into his house from the gate, so he invited me in. Villa La Magdalena is the most beautiful palace in the whole wide world.”

  “I’d stay well away from them, if I were you,” Signora Bruno said darkly. “They’re not good people.”

  “Dante is,” Floriana protested.

  “That may be so, but his father is a very dangerous man. You leave them well alone and stay down here where you belong.”

  “But I love him.”

  The old woman smiled at her indulgently. “You’re too young for love—not that you don’t deserve it, mind you. Out of all the children in Herba, you deserve to be loved most of all.”

  Floriana looked at Signora Bruno’s thick ankles and skin-colored stockings that gathered in rings down her calves, and wondered what had become of Signor Bruno. “Where’s your husband?”

  “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. He was hard work.”

  “Like my father.”

  Signora Bruno chuckled like a hen. “Your father.” She shook her head. “A burden to you, he is. It’s not right. He should take some responsibility.”

  “Do you think he’ll die soon?”

  Signora Bruno’s face turned gray with pity. “No, cara, he won’t die soon.”

  “Shame,” Floriana said with a shrug.

  “You don’t want him to die, do you?” Signora Bruno looked shocked and a little confused. She put down her broom and came to sit beside Floriana on the step, squeezing her soft body into the small space between the child and the banister. “I know he’s not what you’d want for a father. He’s been in prison twice and drinks too much. It’s not really a surprise that your mother left him. But you? I don’t know why she left you—a little defenseless thing—and took your baby brother. I suppose he was too young to be left with a father who couldn’t take care of him.” She put her arm around Floriana, who winced. “She should have taken you with her as well, but she always was selfish, probably thought that Zita would look after you for her. But her sister’s as useless as she is. Where’s Zita when you need her, eh? She can’t even control her own children. A child is a blessing from God; your mother should know that.”

  “Do you have children?”

  “Grown up now, living in Rome.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  “Yes, cara, I do.”

  “Do you think Mamma misses me?”

  Signora Bruno’s heart buckled, and she didn’t know what to say. “I should think she does, dear.”

  “It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “If she doesn’t come back, because I’m in love. I don’t need a mother, you know.”

  “You talk a lot of nonsense, you do.” Signora Bruno dabbed her eye with her apron. “I tell you what, you go and fetch your father, and I’ll help you put him to bed.”

  “Thank you.”

  Signora Bruno pulled herself up slowly, her knees creaking and clicking as she straightened them. “Every child needs a mother. You shouldn’t have to be doing this at your age,” she sighed.

  Floriana followed Signora Bruno across the courtyard. Nothing mattered because tomorrow she was going to see Dante.

  Floriana found her father in Luigi’s just round the corner from where they lived on via Roma. He was hunched over the bar with an empty glass in his hand. Luigi was denying him another drink, and he was getting angry. Floriana approached him, and the huddle of men trying to persuade him to go home parted to let her through.

  “Papà,” she said, prodding his arm. “It’s time to go home.”

  Her father looked down at her irritably, his rheumy eyes cold and strange. “Go home yourself, scamp,” he retorted.

  Luigi and the other men defended her angrily. “You can’t treat your daughter like that, Elio. You go home now and be a good father.” Floriana had heard it all before and wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of him. If she felt anything at all, she felt weary of this tiresome routine night after night. It astonished her that Costanza’s father still employed him. She wondered whether he, too, felt sorry for her and employed him out of charity. She didn’t imagine her father drove very well with his shaking hands and blurred vision.

  Finally, they cajoled him into going home and watched, anxiously, as the little girl helped him out into the street, although she barely reached his waist. He leaned on her as if she were a walking stick, grunting and mumbling incomprehensibly. When she reached the door of her home, Signora Bruno was there as promised. She threw his arm over her broad shoulders and heaved him up the narrow staircase to their apartment. Once inside, she let him fall onto his bed. Floriana removed his shoes while Signora Bruno drew the curtains, noticing the hole in one and the stain on the other. No one could expect a ten-year-old child to wash and mend curtains. It was enough that she washed their clothes, as Signora Bruno had taught her to do after her mother left. “You’re going to have to be mother now,” she had said, and the little girl had listened bravely, trying not to cry. She had a way of puffing out her chest and holding her chin up in order to appear strong.

  Signora Bruno watched Floriana cover her father with a quilt. He grabbed her hand, and his face crumpled into a sob like a soggy dishcloth. “Forgive me,” he mumbled.

  “Go to sleep, Papà.”

  “I should be a better father to you. Tomorrow I will stop drinking, I promise.”

  “You say that every night. It’s boring.”

  “Your mother’s to blame for leaving us. If she hadn’t left us, everything would be all right.”

  “You started drinking long before she left.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Maybe she left because you drank.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I love her, and I love our son. Where are they now? Will I ever see them again? What sort of boy has he grown up to be? He probably doesn’t even remember me. But I love them and I love you. I drink to drown the pain of my pitiful life. I drink to forget my guilt, because I haven’t been a good father to you. Forgive me, Floriana. My little Floriana.” He reached out a hand to touch her face.

  “Go to sleep, Papà.” He closed his eyes, and his hand dropped onto the bed beside him. She gazed down at him a moment, searching in vain for the father she longed for him to be.

  “Have you enough to eat?” Signora Bruno asked as they
left the room and closed the door.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Sure.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I think he’ll be dead in the morning.”

  “Then what would you do?”

  “Go and live with Aunt Zita.”

  “She has enough children to feed.”

  “I don’t eat much.”

  “But you’ll grow and then you’ll eat plenty.”

  “When I grow, I’ll get married and live in a palace.”

  “We all dreamed of living in palaces when we were little. Look where I live now. Not quite the palace of my dreams.”

  “But I’ve requested it.”

  “God doesn’t always deliver, Floriana.”

  “I know. But He owes me.”

  Signora Bruno smiled at the child’s spirit. “In that case, He will turn you into a princess, for sure.”

  “You’ll see,” Floriana replied brightly. “If you’re good, you can come and work for me.”

  “Well, thank you, signorina!” The old woman laughed all the way down the stairs into the courtyard. “It had better be soon, or I’ll be dead.”

  Floriana ate a chunk of bread and cheese and drank a glass of milk. She could hear her father snoring through the wall and grimaced. He sounded like a pig. After eating, she ran a bath. If she was going to see Dante in the morning, she had to look her very best. She scrubbed herself from top to toe in the warm water and washed her hair, spending a long time laboriously combing it through until all the knots had gone. She cut her toenails and filed the ones on her hands as her mother used to do. She brushed her teeth until they shone. It was hard to find a dress that wasn’t dirty or too small, but she pulled out a white one imprinted with red flowers that she never wore because it marked so easily. She’d be careful not to climb trees. One day she’d have a wardrobe full of pretty dresses—day dresses and evening dresses—all clean and ironed and hanging on silk hangers in a room especially designed for her clothes. She’d have a maid to look after her and keep everything in order.

  She sat on the windowsill in her bedroom and lost her gaze among the glittering stars. If she married Dante, perhaps her mother would come back because she’d be proud that her daughter had married so well. She would sit in that little mermaid garden and tell her how very sorry she was that she had run away, and Floriana would forgive her because she would understand.

  The snores grew louder in the room next door. It must have been intolerable to share her bed with a man who snored like a pig.

  8.

  The following morning the two girls walked through the poppy field towards Villa La Magdalena. Costanza had immediately noticed her friend’s pretty dress and shiny hair, and was choked with jealousy. In reality Floriana had so little, and yet, striding confidently through the field that morning, she appeared to have everything. Costanza followed grudgingly, dragging her feet.

  “If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to,” said Floriana, stopping a moment so that she could catch up.

  “I do want to.”

  “Then hurry up.”

  “Why the rush? La Magdalena’s not going to go away.”

  “But Dante might.”

  “You needn’t have dressed up for him, you know. He’ll look on you as a child whether you’re in your best dress or your usual grubby one.”

  “I haven’t dressed up for him,” Floriana retorted.

  “Then who have you dressed up for?”

  “For me, silly. Signora Bruno told me that now I’m almost grown up I should take better care of myself.”

  “Mamma won’t let me out of the house unless she’s brushed my hair and washed my face. She’s so annoying.”

  Floriana glanced at Costanza. In her immaculately pressed blue dress and clean sandals she looked infinitely more groomed than Floriana did. Her long fair hair was scraped off her face and tied with blue ribbons. It really did make all the difference having a mother who cared. Floriana strode on, pushing the thought of her absent mother to the back of her mind.

  “What if he’s not there?” asked Costanza anxiously.

  “We’ll snoop around the garden all the same. I know where everything is now that he’s shown me.”

  “What if we bump into someone? There’s bound to be loads of staff.”

  “I was seen with him yesterday. They all know me now.”

  “They might call the police.”

  “Of course they won’t. What can two girls possibly do to threaten them? We hardly look like gypsies, do we?”

  “We could get into trouble. Beppe is a very powerful man.”

  “So what? He’s still a human being like the rest of us. Don’t be such a scaredy-cat.”

  “I’m just being sensible.”

  “Well, don’t. Sensible isn’t fun.”

  At last, they stood at the big black iron gates and gazed inside. The yellow villa peeped out coquettishly from between the avenue of cypress trees.

  “It’s certainly a fine-looking palazzo,” said Costanza admiringly.

  “It’s more than that. It’s magical.”

  “I’ve seen plenty of houses like this, you know.”

  “I bet you have.”

  “In fact, our home in Portofino was very similar.”

  “Shame your father lost it.”

  “It’s not really a shame at all. It’s hard work looking after a house that size.”

  “Not if you have people to look after it for you.”

  “Well, of course we had staff. Lots of staff.”

  “This is where I met Dante yesterday,” said Floriana dreamily.

  “He’s clearly not coming.”

  “Oh, he’ll come.”

  “I think we should go home now.”

  “You’re scared.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t think it’s very cool hanging on to these gates like a couple of stray dogs.”

  “If he doesn’t come, we’ll scale the wall.”

  “In our dresses?”

  “Not a problem. We can take them off.”

  Costanza was horrified. “Take them off!”

  “Yes, take them off and throw them over the wall, climb up and put them on when we get to the other side. Simple.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No, I’m not. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Floriana skipped off carelessly, leading Costanza along the boundary she knew so well, following the line of the wall until they reached the part where it had crumbled, making it low enough to climb. “If we sit on top, we can see into the gardens. They’re really beautiful.”

  “I don’t want to climb it. If I get a hole in my dress, Mamma will kill me.”

  “Take it off, then.” Costanza watched, appalled, as Floriana stepped out of hers and stood naked but for a pair of white panties, worn to a grim shade of gray. She still had the body of an eight-year-old. Costanza, on the other hand, was more voluptuous and already had the beginnings of breasts.

  “I’m not doing that,” she protested as Floriana did a little dance to torment her.

  “I feel liberated not wearing any clothes. Come on, it’s fun!”

  “You’re too old to be dancing around without anything on.”

  “Fine. Don’t then.” Floriana stopped dancing and tossed the dress over the wall with a whoop of laughter. “There it goes! Hope there’s not a dog on the other side!” She proceeded to climb up like a little monkey. Once she was on the top she sat there proudly, smiling down at her friend. “I’ll give you a hand. Come on!” Costanza reached up and took it. “Put your foot in that hole to lever yourself up.”

  She did as she was told, and slowly, with great care and anxiety, she joined her friend.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” said Costanza hotly, smoothing down her dress. “If anyone sees you!”

  “Who’s going to see me?”

  “I am,” came a deep voice from the other side of the wall. Floriana looked down to see Dante holdi
ng her dress up for her. “I’m not looking,” he said, shielding his eyes with his other hand. With a hoot of laughter, and not a bit embarrassed, she took the dress and stepped into it, pulling it up over her shoulders. “Can I look yet?”

  “Of course you can,” she replied, buttoning it up. “There’s nothing to see anyway.”

  Costanza was blushing to the roots of her hair, imagining the horror, had she been foolish enough to copy her friend and toss her dress over the wall. It was bad enough being caught climbing into his property uninvited.

  “Who’s your friend?” he asked, settling his lofty gaze on Costanza.

  “Costanza Aldorisio,” Floriana informed him.

  “Don’t I know your parents?”

  “Yes,” Costanza replied.

  “Conte Carlo Aldorisio?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  “Well, don’t stand up there all morning. Let’s get you both down.” He reached up his hands, which Floriana took without hesitation, and helped her jump onto the grass.

  Costanza was shy and took his hands with a rush of mortification. He was so handsome, she didn’t blame Floriana at all for having fallen in love with him. She had never seen anyone as good-looking in her entire life. She jumped down, aware for the first time of how heavy she must be in comparison to Floriana.

  “So you’re little Costanza Aldorisio,” he mused, grinning at her. “We’ve met before, but you wouldn’t remember—you were too small.”

  “Really?”

  “You came here with your parents.” She nodded dumbly. “Do you spy on us as well?”

  Costanza’s blush intensified. “No. Not me. Just Floriana.”

  “So, you’re the Lone Spy, are you?” He turned to Floriana.

  “I don’t think anyone loves your garden more than I do.”

  “I think you’re right about that.”

  “Can we go into the colonnaded garden again? I’d love to show Costanza.”

  “Sure we can.”

  At that moment Good-Night trotted out of the trees. Costanza squealed with fear as the dog came rushing excitedly towards them.

  “Good-Night!” exclaimed Floriana, bending down to greet her friend with open arms.