The Hidden Palace, page 24
He sat next to her, knees drawn up. Neither spoke and Florence fell into a kind of stupor.
Sometime later she roused herself to find the noise of the storm receding – just the hum and thump of the water now – and Jack had lit a candle.
‘Lucky the first match wasn’t damp,’ he said.
‘Lucky?’
He gave a grim little laugh. ‘I found it in here along with the candle. Only one in the box. The gods were on our side.’
‘A miracle then.’
Another grim laugh, but she heard something else in the laugh. Fear maybe?
After that the conversation fizzled out and there was a long silence. He held her close, and she could feel his heart beating. While out in the storm she had felt the wind behind her back driving her. Propelling her. She had felt terrified that she was about to die. But now all that was making her think, making her feel, forcing her to speak her mind.
‘You shut yourself off from me, Jack, from life,’ she suddenly burst out. ‘Why?’
‘What?’
He sounded irritated. Nevertheless, she continued. ‘After what we both just went through, I must ask. We are connected. Be honest. You know we are and yet you keep denying it.’
‘I haven’t said a word.’
‘Does it need words?’
‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Oh, but you do. You keep me at arm’s length. What are you so frightened of?’
‘That was a confrontation with death today,’ he said, sounding exasperated. ‘That’s what I was frightened of.’
‘No, that isn’t true, you aren’t scared of dying. It isn’t that. What you’re scared of is living.’
He drew away from her in silence, the atmosphere tense. He didn’t reply immediately, then he said, ‘Can we just drop it, Florence?’
‘What are you avoiding, Jack?’
He snorted. ‘You have no idea.’
‘Then tell me,’ she said, raising her voice.
She heard his sharp intake of breath. ‘Very well. You’re right. I wasn’t scared of dying. I was scared of you dying.’
‘Me?’
‘You are my responsibility,’ he said, his voice catching.
That’s it, she thought. That’s it. ‘You’re still holding so much pain inside you,’ she said almost to herself.
He didn’t speak for a moment. When he did his voice was ragged and deep. ‘I didn’t keep my little boy safe. And I didn’t keep you safe from the BNA men who raped you.’
She heard the anguish and longed to make him feel better, but sensing he was on the verge of telling her everything, she kept quiet.
‘The loss of a child is indescribable.’ He paused for a moment and when he spoke again there was a tremor in his voice. ‘It was my job … but I couldn’t protect him.’
Her heart twisted and she ached to reach out to him but he carried on speaking so she simply listened.
‘I can’t allow myself to love, Florence, do you see? I did not deserve the child I lost. When Charlie died, I reached the end of the line. I could never endure grief like that again.’
‘Oh Jack.’
She heard him sob and then suddenly he was weeping and taking great gulping breaths. She did not try to stop him and felt her own eyes grow damp. Had he ever cried about the loss like this? She doubted it. Men like Jack rarely cried.
She stroked his back and after a while, still shuddering, he ran a hand over his wet cheeks. ‘Sorry.’
She didn’t speak but reached for his hand.
‘Hélène once asked me if I wanted a family,’ he said.
‘What did you tell her?’
‘I wanted to tell her the truth but being in France was my only escape. If I spoke of what had happened while I was there … well, it was impossible. I just told her I couldn’t think of it.’
‘It was the truth.’
‘Yes. But I did feel I’d short-changed her.’
She hugged him close. ‘You can move beyond this.’
He shook his head and spoke very quietly. ‘Florence, I just don’t know how.’
‘It wasn’t the same thing, of course, but after the rape I discovered that unbearable pain can pass through you without destroying you. Little by little you let it in, feel it, and it passes.’
‘Does it?’
‘Yes, and that’s how you learn to live again. In the middle of something that seems so impossible there can be peace. Moments only, but peace all the same and they grow longer. But if you spend your life suppressing the pain it really will destroy you.’
‘You know I love you, Florence.’
‘Yes … I do. And I know you’ve been trying not to.’
‘Will you help me?’
She blinked hard, wanting to cry herself. ‘Of course. Of course I will. Only you can do it, but you don’t have to do it alone. I’ll be there, Jack. I’ll always be there.’
He nodded.
‘And you know, everything passes, everything, no matter how loved or how precious. We all live with that knowledge. It’s life. And yet we still have the courage to love knowing that one day that same love will break our hearts.’
And then he kissed her. Properly. Longingly. Passionately.
CHAPTER 35
Riva
Malta, 1930
It was Addison who saved her, Addison who got her back on her feet after she recovered from losing the baby and it became clear Bobby was never coming back … Addison who, several weeks after she tore up Bobby’s note, came to her door and asked her to accompany him although he didn’t specify where to.
She had been listening to the radio where the news was still all about the Wall Street Crash the year before and the ongoing global economic depression. Millions were unemployed, hungry, and desperate and in Germany people were turning to the Nazi party for a cure. While it was clear that peace was fragile, it seemed far enough away not to be a problem for Riva, and she’d rather be listening to the news from afar than having to face the real world outside her front door.
Rather unwillingly she followed Addison out of the apartment, along the corridor and then down the main stairs.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
He half turned back to look at her, his eyes sparkling. ‘You’ll see.’
‘You know I don’t really want to leave the house yet.’
He laughed. ‘You won’t have to. I promise.’
When they reached the ground floor and the grand hallway, he crossed it and unlocked a small door opposite the stairs. She had no idea how much he was opening a door to a different future, had just assumed it was a cupboard of some sort, but he asked her to follow him along a narrow dark corridor.
‘Good grief, Addison, are you going to hide me away in a dungeon until I grow old and grey?’
He laughed again and at the end of the corridor, opened another door. She shaded her eyes at the blinding sunlight that flooded in.
‘Come on,’ he said, and stepped outside.
She glanced out and then, as her eyes adjusted, walked into the prettiest courtyard garden she had ever seen. She heard the gentle trickle of a fountain set right in the middle, surrounded by flowers that grew out of blue enamel pots and roses that climbed the surrounding walls. An Arabic-looking archway on the opposite side led to what looked like a covered alcove.
‘My Moroccan garden,’ he said. ‘My wife and I went to Marrakech on our honeymoon, and I promised her I would build her one.’
‘Did she love it?’
He shook his head. ‘Filomena died before I got round to doing it. So many things I should have done and then it was too late.’
She glanced at the pretty jewel-like colours of the tiled floor – blue, white, ochre and turquoise. They surrounded the cup-shaped fountain and also rose halfway up the walls while patterned terracotta tiles paved the edges of the courtyard where two rectangular sections had been planted with orange trees. The sight of it lifted her heart. Over by the archway two giant palms in terracotta pots stood sentinel like exotic birds, their wings stretched out either side as if ready to take flight. She detected a scent that seemed to waft all around her.
‘What?’ she asked, sniffing the air.
He smiled and pointed at some white blooms that grew around the fountain. ‘Angel’s trumpets.’
‘The scent is heavenly.’
‘It’s good to see you looking happier,’ he said.
‘How could I not? This is paradise.’
‘And that’s plumbago,’ he said, glancing over at the archway. ‘I trained it to shade the alcove beyond. It’s an evergreen.’
‘You did the work here?’
‘Some of it … until my arthritis got the better of me.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise.’
He grinned. ‘Well, it may surprise you to know that I am in my late seventies. I don’t usually admit it. Either way, the arthritis is creeping, hips, spine and so on, but the worst thing is that it’s happening in my fingers and wrists.’
‘Can I do anything to help?’
He seemed to study her face before saying, ‘Maybe.’
Absorbed by her thoughts, she hung back as he headed for the archway where a white sofa with pretty patterned cushions sat in the shady alcove. She glanced back at the garden and inhaled the scent again, but Addison turned right and opened another door.
‘This place is a rabbit warren,’ she said.
‘More than you realise.’
They entered a small and rather gloomy hall which opened onto a bedroom and a bathroom, both painted a pinkish terracotta but with high windows from which you could only see the sky. He flicked a switch and a lamp burst into light, making the walls glow as if lit from within, and she saw an embroidered Moroccan wall hanging behind the bed.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘How lovely.’
‘I bought that in Marrakech. As you know the electricity on the island is limited so a part of this little place is lit only by oil lamps. We’ll go up now,’ he said.
Back in the hall she saw a spiral staircase in the corner. ‘I didn’t spot that before.’
‘I hadn’t turned the light on. You go first.’
She climbed the stairs which led straight into a large bright kitchen with a dining table at one end. She felt puzzled by this charming, but odd, little upside-down house.
‘There’s a refrigerator,’ he boasted. ‘American of course, made by General Electric. Carry on up.’
She did and when she reached the top she gazed around in surprise. A spacious, high-ceilinged sitting room decorated in the palest blues and greens overlooked the landscape of Malta. Delicate silk scarves hung over two large lamps. Strings of silvery beads hung from a mirror and embroidered cushions were stacked up on a navy blue sofa. There was no large terrace beyond, just double glass doors that opened onto a balcony just big enough for one small cast iron table and two chairs with a tiny pergola above them for shade.
‘Do you like it?’
She smiled. ‘I adore it. But it’s so odd. I’ve never seen a house with just one room on each floor.’
‘I’ve arranged for coffee and pastries if you’d like to follow me.’
On one side of the sitting room there was a wall with just one door in it and no windows. He unlocked it and she followed. There was a small gap and then another door.
‘There’s more?’
‘No. This is my apartment, and we,’ he pushed the door open, ‘are in my study. Come on through.’
‘I never expected that.’
They made their way on to his balustraded terrace where a table was already laid with a coffee pot, two cups and saucers and a plate of delicious-looking pastries.
‘Help yourself,’ he said.
She poured the coffee, selected two pastries and tucked in. It was the first time she hadn’t had to force herself to eat for weeks.
When she’d finished, he asked if she’d like to hear the story of the little apartment, he’d just shown her.
She nodded but thought of it more as a little house.
‘This palace is a labyrinth, like many of the others here, but it was some time before I discovered all its secrets. The door we just came through into my study had been bricked up, and for a long while I hadn’t the slightest idea.’
‘Why was it bricked up?’
‘Well, it could have once been a priest hole. But I think smugglers more likely. Contraband.’
‘How did you discover the doorway?’
‘A bird had got in. I heard the awful flapping noises. As you know the palace is built into the exterior walls of Mdina and of course, from the distance, I could see the little balcony, but assumed it was part of the building next door but when I asked, he said there was no sign of a trapped bird in his place.’
‘How thrilling. Like one of those dreams when your house has entire wings you never knew about and you wake up excited and it’s so disappointing when you realise it’s not true.’
‘I’d say those dreams are hinting at something.’
‘What?’
‘Perhaps that there’s more to you than you currently understand and whole possibilities you’ve never even imagined.’
She smiled. ‘Hope you’re right … Please go on.’
‘Well, I quickly hired an architect who worked out that there was most probably a connection via my study. You should have seen the place when the builder broke through. Yeasty. Mouldy.’
‘So when did you restore the apartment?’
‘Oh, not for ages. But then I had the strangest feeling that it would be needed.’
‘Really? By whom?’ she asked and noticed he was staring intently at her.
‘Well as it turns out, you, my dear. You.’
She blinked rapidly, not understanding.
‘I can see that staying in Bobby’s apartment isn’t ideal for you. The hidden little upside-down house in the palace walls is empty. If you like it.’
‘I love it,’ she said, astonished. ‘But I can’t stay here. I need to work, earn a living.’
He held up one finger. ‘Ah well, I have thought of that too. Throughout my life I’ve written journals and, believe it or not, poetry. And now a British publisher is going to publish my memoirs.’
‘So, not only an artist.’
‘Writing was my first love, but I failed to make any money. Besides, painting came more easily, although once I married money was no longer an issue.’
‘And you carried on painting.’
‘Not right away. But you can’t make another person your purpose in life. I found that out when Filomena died.’
She gave him a sympathetic look.
‘So yes, after she died, I carried on painting, and I did do rather well. But now my fingers are stiff with arthritis and my publisher is coming over in a couple of months to see how far I’ve got.’ He raised his hands hopelessly. ‘I urgently need someone to help me choose and collate. Someone I like.’
She could feel her mouth falling open in surprise. ‘Me? I …’
‘Don’t decide straight away. Mull it over. I would pay you, of course, and I think it might take six months or so. Something like that. You can use my automobile if you need to get about.’
‘I don’t drive.’
‘Easily sorted.’
‘My typing isn’t brilliant either. My mother forced me to take classes, but a trained secretary might suit you better.’
He shook his head. ‘I need someone I trust, someone with the right heart for the job and I think it might help you too.’
‘I’m touched you think so. But … well … the thing is, I don’t know how to tell you this but I’m not who you think I am.’
He smiled indulgently and patted her hand. ‘My dear girl. I know who you are. You are Rosalie Delacroix, from Paris.’
Hearing her real name, tears stung Riva’s eyes, but she managed to stop them falling.
‘Don’t blame Bobby for telling me. Not for that anyway. I wheedled it out of him. And I have news about your family, too.’
Her hand flew to her mouth.
He told her there had been a high-profile police investigation, but it transpired the entire thing had been a swindle. There had been no fraud, although her father’s hidden addiction to gambling had been exposed. He lost his job because of it, and because of that and his debts, they had been forced to sell the Paris apartment and her mother’s jewellery. They then moved to a small town in the countryside where they lived a much-reduced quiet life. Riva was relieved her father hadn’t gone to prison but felt desperately sad to think of his humiliation. And now, thinking of the life and people she’d left behind, the tears did fall.
CHAPTER 36
Malta, several months later
Riva hadn’t needed time to think about Addison’s offer and accepted it the day after he brought it up. She had put her work for Otto on pause but expected to resume at a later stage. Now the lovely little apartment had become her solace and the work she was doing with Addison her respite. All the time she’d been staying in Bobby’s apartment she had dreaded he might turn up with his American girl, despite his uncle’s warning to keep away. She had buried the grief over her lost baby; it hurt too much. And now she was living in her little upside-down house, doing her best not to dwell on Bobby’s betrayal. She still missed him though, still felt the crushing grief, the inconsolable loss, the memories, the anger. Never again would she wake up next to him and yet he was not dead, only lost to her.
She dressed carefully in a navy cotton dress and slipped into white high heels, wanting to make a good impression on Addison’s publisher, Gerard Macmillan. She wasn’t sure what to do about her hair. The dye was fading rapidly, and she had decided to go back to her natural bright red, but you could still see a dividing line. She found a blue and red scarf among her things and tied it turban-style round her head, grimaced as she looked in the mirror, added some red lipstick, then rubbed it off again. She wanted to look serious, not like a cabaret dancer from Strait Street.
Later, as she walked into Addison’s study after knocking on the door that divided his apartment from hers, he looked up at once and smiled.
