The Hidden Palace, page 23
The island was dusty and mountainous. Dear God, she thought, as they set off, where has he brought me? Malta seemed further away than ever. The driver sat astride the donkey pulling the cart along a stony path – you couldn’t call it a road – past the occasional bleak farmhouse. Then it rattled and jolted along narrower dirt trails that ran up and over the parched hills. All she could see were endless ochre crags rising higher and higher as they left the sea behind. The wind was alive, blowing dust into her eyes and she rubbed them, only making the stinging worse.
Jack noticed. ‘You okay?’
She nodded but her spirits were sinking.
‘Bad time of year,’ he said over the noise of the wheels rolling and bumping over the stones. ‘Dry. Looks greener in the north east.’
She turned away and kept her eyes closed. Would any time of year here be better?
They reached the peak of the mountain they’d been climbing and then began the descent through the sun-bleached landscape. She opened her eyes wide. ‘Oh,’ she said and drew in her breath at the sight of the sea. It seemed endless and such a deep violet blue.
He grinned to see her surprise.
They jolted down the hill and she saw volcanic cliffs plunging into the sea where brightly coloured fishing boats bobbed about.
‘Should be plenty of fish,’ Jack said.
‘Man cannot live on fish alone,’ she said and smiled at him.
They arrived at a long tree-lined track, road, she wasn’t sure what, leading back towards the mountains again but flat here. She spotted a tanned workman in a long leather apron who waved at their driver. Could you call a man on a donkey a driver? The drive, she decided it was a drive, was now lined with sculptures on squat columns, some of them damaged, and then she saw it.
She whistled in amazement.
A mansion, for that is what it appeared to be, was coming into view.
The driver spoke in guttural Sicilian and Jack said. ‘I think he’s telling us it used to be a palace and, but for a housekeeper, it has been unoccupied for decades.’
The two-storey terracotta and cream building spread out before them in a long, high rectangle. She counted the first-floor windows, all with delicate wrought-iron railings. Ten? No. Twelve. At least twelve. All of them with their canvas blinds down but held away from the windows on rods at the bottom to allow air into the rooms.
The man steered the cart round to the side of the house which turned out to be the front.
Jack helped Florence climb down.
She felt suddenly exuberant, a feeling that had been absent for some time. Something important was waiting for her here, she knew it.
Florence looked up at the main doorway of the grand house. It was on the first floor with two large windows either side and surrounded by ornate stonework with a balcony in front. From the balcony a staircase descended on both sides curving to the front. Beneath the main door, tall gates enclosed a huge archway. The stone of the building shone like gold in the bright sunshine, purple bougainvillaea crept up the walls and a strong scent of lemons wafted in the aromatic air. Herbs too she thought, certainly thyme, mint, rosemary. She inhaled deeply and pinched her arm. Could this place be real? Behind the house the volcanic mountain rose, magnificent, pink, hazy, and when she turned the other way, she saw the smudge of silvery sea glinting not far away.
Jack looked almost as surprised as she was.
‘He didn’t tell you?’ she asked.
‘He did not. This place is enormous.’
A woman in a faded black dress with a tiny white collar and small bib apron came through the archway. She didn’t smile or speak but indicated they should follow her up the stairs. She was tall and stick thin, with a grey plait wound into a bun at the back of her neck and eyes as black as midnight.
As she climbed the wide white steps Florence couldn’t wait to see inside but had to curb her impatience as the woman moved so slowly it seemed as if her every joint needed oiling. At the top she unlocked the bronze door – oxidised by time or weather, or probably both, it had a delicate patina of greenish blue. They entered a long room with a dozen open windows along one side where cream-coloured Italian lace curtains billowed in the breeze this side of the blinds she’d seen on the outside. Florence saw Jack’s eyebrows rise, as awed by it as she, for it felt as if they had been ushered into a world that had long gone. The room was pure nineteenth century, a place where the passing years had touched nothing. No electric lights – and she doubted there’d be running water – yet everything looked exquisite. Dark carved furniture and chairs upholstered in a striped gold fabric. Candelabra on the side tables and the most stunning tiled floor she had ever seen in intricate Arabic patterns of blue, ochre, white and terracotta.
‘Incredible,’ Jack muttered. ‘Completely intact.’
He glanced up, whistled and she followed his gaze to a frescoed ceiling where cherubs danced among the clouds.
The past was all around her, and the spirits of the past too. She heard whispering and the ringing of a ghostly bell. She pictured the people who’d lived there, and they didn’t seem gone. Not gone at all. Had they just slipped out for a minute? Maybe headed off to the beach with a picnic, returning at any moment to wonder what these travellers from another age were doing in their home? She could hear the whoosh of the distant sea and felt an uncomfortable shiver. There was something menacing in the air, and she felt the spirits here were not the happy kind.
The housekeeper smiled grimly and spoke to Jack.
‘What?’ Florence asked.
‘She says her name is Claudia and we are to follow her to our rooms.’
They passed a few rooms where open doors revealed furniture covered in dust sheets and at the end Claudia showed them two rooms, one on either side of the corridor. He glanced in both then tilted his head at her.
‘Choice is yours, Florence.’
The rooms were identical save for the fact that one looked out at the mountain, which seemed incredibly close, and the other faced the sea. She dithered, drawn by the mountain and yet it was … intimidating? Ominous even? Still, despite that, she pointed to the mountain side.
‘You’re sure? You wouldn’t rather have the sea? It’s lighter.’
She looked and shook her head. ‘I’m sure.’
Claudia spoke to him again and he translated for Florence. ‘She says she will take care of all the meals, and she has a letter for me.’
‘Really? How come?’
He shrugged. ‘Search me. She’s gone to fetch it now.’
The woman had left the room while Jack was talking and returned now with a white envelope with his name scrawled on it. He put down their bags, tore it open and read.
‘Who is it from?’ Florence asked, curious.
‘Edward, the one who owns this place. He’s already in Sicily.’
‘Coming here?’
‘No, I’m to go to him at his place in Donnafugata apparently, take my report with me.’
‘Has he asked you to take charge of restoration?’
‘No. He only wants an honest view of its condition before he goes any further.’
‘How long before we can go to Malta?’
‘It’ll take a while to survey this place properly and then to see him about it.’
Florence fingered the silver charm bracelet she wore round her wrist and remembered her mother’s strangely bright eyes as she’d given it to her. She had seen how thin Claudette had been then, had felt it when she’d hugged her, but when she’d asked, her mother had grown impatient. ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she’d said.
She had hoped Claudette would visit her in Devon before they left for Sicily, and in fact a visit had been planned, but when the time came, her mother had written to say she had a touch of flu, nothing serious, and couldn’t make the trip. She thought of Rosalie and of her mother. How must it feel not to have seen each other for twenty years? It was unimaginable not to see your sister for so long and she wished she could tell Claudette how close she was to Malta now.
CHAPTER 34
While Jack worked, measuring, checking, examining, Florence wandered the estate but didn’t dare go too far afield. Something about the unyielding little island disturbed her and she felt she needed to stay in the vicinity of the house. So she reached for her notebook and began to write notes for her novel. She often watched the mountain changing colour, purple, blue, green, grey, even ochre, depending on the light, but there were times when her skin crawled, and she felt its malevolence. People had died on that mountain and in this house; she was sure of it and their deaths had been violent.
She had not seen even a glimmer of another person but for the same driver of the donkey and cart, and he’d only come by to make a delivery. She listened to the plaintive sound of the sea and wind and felt again that something was waiting for her here, although what it was seemed no clearer than it had been before. She picked flowers, heavenly scented roses, and pungent bunches of herbs which she dotted about the place. It should have been paradise but there was no birdsong and there was something awfully forbidding about that. The mountain was too imposing and the house too still, as if all the life had been stolen from it. Discordant notes rang in her head. Bells, whistles, and a shrill high-pitched ringing. She didn’t feel safe and tiptoed around the house dreading that someone might be about to leap out of the shadows and carry her off. She felt that phantom people were calling out for rescue, their voices drifting in with the sea breezes. As she looked around, she could almost feel their sadness, their pain, their trauma, and it scared her. Yes, it was beautiful here in a way, but also chilling and she felt as trapped as the people who had once lived here must have been. And when Jack had asked the housekeeper about what had happened to them, the woman wouldn’t say.
When Florence told Jack she felt disturbed by the menacing atmosphere in and around the house, he said, ‘We’ll be gone soon. I agree it’s atmospheric, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just your imagination.’
She knew it was not.
The days slid into each other and at the end of the first week he declared a day off.
‘I have a surprise,’ he said. ‘I’ve organised us a boat. Well, it’s a dinghy, really, but Claudia has made us some lunch to take.’
‘She likes you.’
He laughed. ‘She knows you won’t understand a word she says, so she speaks to me.’
‘She speaks to you because you are the man.’
He pulled a face. ‘And terribly important,’ he said in a mock-pompous voice.
She shook her head. ‘Idiot.’
‘Well, this idiot would like to invite mademoiselle on a little boat trip, and it needs to be today while the weather holds.’
She was happy to leave the house, although she usually loved old things, forgotten things that left a trace of what had gone before. In France she’d searched the local bookshops for out-of-print cookery books and gardening manuals. As a child it had been fairy tales. In Devon she had become a hoarder of ribbons, string, safety pins, buckles, pencils, hair clips and so on. But this old palace was different. There were bullet holes in the walls at the back of the house, and whatever had happened she felt it still there.
After crossing the island and once settled in the dinghy with its Johnson outboard motor, they chugged southwards from Marina Corta. The flat areas they passed soon gave way to jagged hilltops.
After a while she spotted a beach. ‘We could swim there,’ she called above the sound of the waves and the motor.
‘Let’s see what else there is first. We can always come back.’
They continued past immense cliffs falling sheer into the glittering sea, then a promontory where the lava had formed an arch. More low cliffs, and then higher cliffs, and after that then a shingle beach, totally deserted. Further on a stunning stretch of coastline with tiny islands, caves, coves, and copper-coloured cliffs with the purple mountain rising above.
‘This is the best yet,’ she said.
And then they found it. A tiny sheltered beach behind a cliff where he moored the boat and they clambered out.
Despite the sea breezes Florence was hot and sticky but the air was filled with the scent of pine and eucalyptus from just a couple of trees. Mixed with the salt of the ocean and the baking sand, it felt good, and with a rush of pleasure, she stripped down to her underwear and hurled herself into the sea. It was not cold, so she splashed and shrieked and then swam for what felt like miles and miles.
Jack had already come out of the water and was examining their lunch. The day had grown brighter, the sky lemony and the sea was tinged with depths of purple.
‘Come on,’ he called when he saw her swimming back. ‘Lunch.’
‘Sky’s a funny colour,’ she said, looking up. ‘Is it all right?’
‘I should think so.’
Invigorated, she shook herself and sat down on a rock to dry herself in the sun.
He took out a few packages wrapped in waxed paper. ‘Cheese, I think,’ he said and unwrapped it. ‘Here. Pecorino flavoured with peppercorns.’
She picked out a larger packet. ‘This one is bread.’ She broke a piece off and handed it to him.
‘Have you had enough cheese?’
‘Yes. It’s a bit salty.’
‘Aha!’ he said. ‘I spy salami. Already sliced.’
He passed her a couple of slices and she sniffed it. ‘A mix, I think, of pork and lean beef. She took a bite. ‘Gorgeous. Really chewy.’
‘There are some tomatoes too, and wine.’
‘It’ll send me to sleep if I drink wine.’
When they’d finished their lunch, and the wine, Jack lay back with his hands behind his head and his breathing instantly slowed.
Florence went in search of some shade, getting a little wet as she clambered over the still water in the weatherworn rock pools, picking her way carefully over the rocks but grazing her knee a little. She found a craggy inlet with a small cave that seemed ideal. If she nodded off in the midday sun she’d get a headache, but this shade was perfect, and it would be lovely to fall asleep to the gentle rhythm of the sea.
Later, when she woke, she heard Jack calling her name through the rising sounds of a storm. She rose to her feet and realised that the sea had swollen while she had been sleeping, and waves were now smashing against the rocks. She couldn’t work out how to reach the beach where Jack had been without clambering right into the swirling water which she feared might sweep her away. She couldn’t even see Jack as she stared at the sea, nor the little boat either. Huge waves were battering the cliffs, foaming as they leapt into the air and the ominous violet sky was shifting to black. She stood on a section of rock pushing her back hard against the cliff face to stop herself slipping. She shouted his name, but the wind whipped her voice away. Her heart thumped. This did not look good.
Maybe the water wouldn’t fill the cave and she could just wait it out. The sand felt quite dry at the back of it. But really, she had no idea. She shouted for Jack again. Nothing.
She glanced up to see if there might be another way to get out and saw him standing on a rock many feet above and to the side of her staring grimly at the water. She flapped her arms to attract his attention. He spotted her and she could see the relief flooding his face.
‘Wait there,’ he said. ‘I’m coming down.’
Her heart lurched as he began to descend, slipping and sliding on crumbling rocks that gave way beneath his feet. Even if he does reach me, she thought, how are we ever going to crawl back up there again battered by this torrent?
The wind shrieked and the water began spinning at the cave’s entrance. She’d never be able to get past this. Beyond her the sea was growing even wilder. She heard the pounding waves and the crack of thunder, the noise so loud she could hardly think. And then she saw Jack had reached her, was leaning over the cave’s entrance from above and holding out his hand.
‘Come on,’ she managed to hear him shout. ‘Come on. Now. We don’t have long.’
She would have to take a leap of faith. Jump to reach his hand. But if she missed, she’d be in the water and dragged away in moments. Even Jack couldn’t save her from that.
Scared to move, but also scared not to move, she took a breath as he yelled at her to hurry. Her heart almost stopped as she stretched out and leapt and then, oh God, she felt his hands grasping hers. He began to haul her up. She scraped her flesh against the rocks and could barely breathe for fear of Jack losing his grip. But he did not and when he finally dragged her over the top, they lay together panting, exhausted from the effort. The storm seemed to pause too.
After a while he rose to his feet and helped her up, but then the wind redoubled with the force of a cyclone.
‘Keep low. It will be all right if we zigzag our way. Try to feel for footholds.’
She nodded and saw what he meant. But she couldn’t feel any part of her body, let alone her feet.
When they finally reached a slightly flatter patch they rested again for a moment, and he pointed a little further up. ‘There’s a hut. We’ll head for it and sit out the storm.’
They staggered on through driving wind and rain while concentrating on not missing their footing on the shifting stones and feeling that it would never end. But then, at last, they reached the hut. He pushed open the door of the little weather-beaten place and they both fell into it, shivering but amazed that they’d made it.
‘Jesus, Florence,’ he managed to say, gasping for breath. And she saw that Jack, a man not given to shock, was shaken.
‘I’m … so … sorry,’ she tried to say, all her strength spent.
He wrapped his arms around her. ‘You gave me a fright.’
‘I gave myself a fright.’
She heard the rolling sea, the waves thundering against the cliffs and the rain beating on the tin roof and stumbled into a corner where her legs gave way. Like a rag doll, she collapsed onto some blankets that smelt as if they had been there for years.
