The House by the Sea. Louise Douglas
turn, but I read the headlines, clear as anything: Bridge failure – multiple deaths, rogue concrete blamed.
We crossed the ravine without anything terrible happening, travelled a winding road for a while and then at last the old city of Ragusa came into view, clinging to the side of a mountain, materialising like a dream. It was built so high that its apex was wreathed in cloud. It was a fairy tale city; growing out of the landscape like something organic and ancient, one of its faces lit by the sun, the opposite side in shadow. I stared at it, awestruck, trying to imprint the memory in my mind because I’d never seen a city like it.
‘Did you know it was like this?’ I asked Joe. ‘Did you know it was this beautiful?’
‘I’ve been here hundreds of times,’ he replied coldly.
Of course he had. No doubt this view was commonplace to him. I wished I’d kept my enthusiasm to myself.
We found a shady layby at the foot of the city where we could leave the car, before getting out, stretching and staring upwards. Anna would have known I would love this view, she would have known the effect it would have on me, but, even in death, I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. If she had imagined that bringing Joe and me here together would be the prompt we needed to start dismantling the wall we’d built between us, then she’d been wrong. Joe clearly had no interest in making friends with me and the feeling was entirely, one hundred per cent mutual.
Joe pulled a jacket from the back seat, shook it ineffectually to smooth out the creases and put it on. He leaned down to comb his hair with his fingers using the wing mirror as a reflector. To one side of us, the seductive city climbed the mountain. To the other, the land dropped away steeply into a shrubby ravine. Goats were grazing in sandy patches amongst the black shade of trees dripping with long, pale catkins.
Joe retucked the hem of his shirt into the waistband of his trousers. He had a small belly now that he’d never had before and I tried not to notice it.
‘I should have brought a tie,’ he said.
‘I’m sure it won’t matter.’
‘You don’t think it’ll look disrespectful?’ This was typical Joe, becoming anxious, craving reassurance, whenever he had any dealings with authority. It was a window back into the past, to the insecure young man who was never good enough for his father, who struggled to cope at the expensive and brutal boarding school Patrick had insisted on, who had, right up until Daniel’s death, used humour to deflect criticism. Neither of us was laughing now.
‘No,’ I told him, ‘you look fine.’
Joe said, ‘Hmm,’ unconvinced, and patted his pockets until he found a folded letter with the address we needed on the heading. He tapped the street name into the map app on his phone and we followed the directions, climbing steeply uphill through narrow, stepped alleyways.
Close up, the city was as lovely as it had looked from the road, unexpected views announcing themselves as we turned tight corners: a wall overlooking a ravine with a church clinging to its side; falls of bougainvillea, swallows feeding above a grand fountain, splashing water poured from the urn of a statue into a great, green bowl; patches of dark shadow, patches of bright light, dappled ground around the trees. Birds sang from their perches on flag-poles jutting over secret squares; restaurants were tucked behind houses that were stacked tightly against one another; twisting alleyways barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side; steps leading upwards, or downwards to arched doorways and tiny, vaulted bridges; the smell of good coffee; the smell of cooked cheese. Carnations and pelargoniums planted in old olive-oil tins spilled red flowers like spots of blood; caged songbirds trilled from balconies; and washing dried on wire racks hooked to windows above our heads. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was Anna who had brought me to the place, if I could only have stopped myself from seeing the city through her eyes, imagining her imagining me and Joe here together, then I would have been utterly delighted by it. I had to clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from pointing out the wondrous views to Joe.
Eventually, hot and breathless, my skin burning and a blister forming beneath the ankle strap of one of my sandals, we found ourselves in the central piazza. In front of us the steps that led to the doors of the Duomo San Giorgio towered over the square. I would have loved to sit for a while outside the café and drink it all in, but Joe was focused on his phone. He shielded his eyes with his hand as he studied the names of the streets that led from the piazza.
‘This way,’ he said gruffly.
I followed him into a shady, cobbled alley lined with tiny, expensive shops. At the end of the street was a sign: Studio Legale Recupero.
‘There,’ said Joe. ‘That’s it.’
‘It’s very…’ grand, I was thinking. It was nothing like the office of the solicitor who’d dealt with my side of the divorce. She’d been an acquaintance of Fitz’s and every inch of available floor and table space in her scruffy little backstreet room had been piled with cardboard files. This was modern and elegant and impressive.
Our two shabby reflections looked back at us through the darkened glass. Above us, cameras fixed to the lintel blinked.
Joe reached up to straighten the collar of his shirt. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get this over and done with.’
He raised his finger and pressed the buzzer. The door opened and in we went.
6
We found ourselves in an air-conditioned reception area, full of swathes of glossy wood and butter-soft leather furniture. Birds of paradise blooms stood proud above an enormous glass vase beside the desk. We introduced ourselves and the receptionist invited us to take a seat, which we did; sitting awkwardly side by side. I leaned down and tried to adjust the position of the sandal strap so it stopped rubbing on my blister, while Joe fidgeted with a loose button on the cuff of his jacket.
A few minutes later, the lawyer’s assistant arrived and invited us to follow her into a tiny, darkly mirrored lift. I held my breath and pressed my hands against the wall behind me to prevent any part of my body touching any part of Joe’s. The lift was slow and cranky and I was scared we’d be trapped. I had to stop myself reaching for Joe’s hand. Ten years it had been. Ten years, and still my instinct was to lean to him for reassurance. Did the body never forget?
The lawyer, Avvocato Recupero, was waiting for us in a room on the first floor. He spoke no English, but he was courteous and his tone was kindly; he put me at ease. I could see how he would have appealed to Anna; she always liked nice things; attractive people. I imagined her imagining us meeting him for the first time. Go away, I said, leave me alone, but she was with us, almost as present in that office as if she had been there in person.
Joe and I were shown where to sit, side by side. There was a jug of water on the table and several upturned glasses. I filled one and drank the water so greedily I spilled some onto the faux silk blouse. The spots glared black. I filled the glass and drank again. This time I spotted the desktop with water. What was the matter with me? Why was I being so clumsy?
I wiped the desktop with the sleeve of my jacket. It left a smear on the wood. The assistant leaned over and passed me a paper towel and my cheeks burned hot with embarrassment.
Joe was fluent in Italian and talked for some time with the lawyer. I couldn’t follow what they were saying although I heard Anna’s name mentioned several times. I sipped my water and tried not to fidget. Eventually the tone changed and the formalities began and at this stage Joe took the time to explain what was happening. Every so often, a document was placed in front of me and I was shown where to sign.
‘That’s to confirm your inheritance of half of the villa,’ Joe told me, ‘that’s the transfer of the deeds. That’s to say you’ll take fifty per cent responsibility for insurance.’
Every document I signed, he signed too, his name beneath mine, an uncomfortably intimate procedure that reminded me of signing the marriage register, and then, later, the papers that would