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Like family.
Like the Montebellos.
They were all connected. His brothers and cousins, Gianfelice and Yaya. Now the wives and children. One tapestry, Yaya had described them a few months earlier, as she’d studied them with a look of unmistakable pride, each person bringing their own threads, but knotting together in a way that was valuable and important. Without one thread, the tapestry would never be whole.
And without Yaya?
His lips formed a grim line in his face.
Without Yaya, the world would be a vastly different space. He wasn’t so much of a fantasist to think that she would never die. He knew that wasn’t possible. But it was too soon, wasn’t it?
What had the woman said? He hadn’t even asked her name. She’d described Yaya as unlikely to improve, and she’d said it in a way that was clinical and certain, a way that lacked any degree of emotionalism. She’d said it as though it were an incontrovertible fact, like day following night.
He lay back on the sun lounger, unconcerned about the light sprinkling of rain nor the fact the night was hardly what could be described as warm. He stared up at the dark carpet of the sky and the little shards of diamond-like stars that glistened behind the clouds, and pushed all thoughts aside – thoughts of Yaya, thoughts of the woman, thoughts of his life and the events that had shaped it. He stared up at the sky and felt nothing, for as long as he possibly could, ignoring the woman’s words, her intimation that darkness was coming. He wasn’t yet ready to face that reality.
Chapter Two
Thirty years ago
“MAMA! MAMA!” RAF SHOUTED the words, over and over, his chubby little arms extended, wobbling with the effort. His mother looked over her shoulder, her bright red lips pursed, her eyes scanning him with a look he knew too well, a look he’d received many times in his short life – extreme impatience. Even as a two year old, he understood and fell silent, his huge dark eyes intent on the scene unfurling before him.
A man in a suit stood talking to his parents, his hair thick and woolly grey, like the llama toy Raf loved so much.
Another man stood between Raf, his brothers, and his parents. Raf started to move towards them but the man caught him, shaking his head and offering something like a smile – Raf didn’t want his smiles though. He wanted his mama, and her hugs, and for her to be the one who smiled at him. He wanted more honey yoghurt, too.
“Mama!”
“Basta, quiet!” She hissed, shaking her finger at him.
A tear slid down his cheek. His tummy ached in a new way. Something felt different. There was a loud noise outside. Raf looked and saw a helicopter, just like the one in his duplo set.
A loud noise – a shout. Raf jerked his attention back to his parents and the man in the suit. His older brother Nico put his hand in Raf’s. Their baby brother began to cry and now the other man moved to the pram, lifting him out. He spoke quickly and in words Raf didn’t know, words that sounded different.
The man in the suit was angry, pointing around the house. He walked to the hallway cupboard and picked up the pretty bottles filled with amber liquids, the ones mama and daddy liked to have near them, the ones that made a tinkly noise when they dropped and splashed all that funny-smelling liquid onto the floor. Now mama was yelling.
It was Nico’s turn to shout out, and begin to run towards her. The man nearest them was busy with their baby brother Gabe, so Nico made it all the way to mama’s legs, which he wrapped in a big hug. But mama was cross. She pulled him free and smacked his bottom, pointing to the floor he’d been sitting on earlier. Something ached in Raf’s tummy; the noise got louder so he pressed pudgy fingers to his little red ears. He watched as Nico walked back, lower lip sucked into his mouth, eyes downcast.
The man in the suit came to them, pointed to the helicopter and said more words in another language. A second later and the other man approached, shaking his head. Were they in trouble? He seemed cross. Raf looked beyond the man to mama. She was opening one of the bottles, pouring it into a glass until it was almost at the top. Raf was thirsty. Or was he hungry? He hadn’t eaten since the night before, and it hadn’t been very nice. Bread with bits of green on it, and it had tasted like smoke.
Arms – unfamiliar but somehow comforting – picked him up out of nowhere, carrying him to the helicopter. It was big and white. He stared at it then looked around. Where was mama?
He called her name. She didn’t come. He called again.
“Just go!” The words were roared, angry, so her mouth grew wet with spittle at the corners.
Raf stared. “Go where?”
He woke with a start, the dream – a memory – one he had every so often, the evening imprinted on his psyche in an indelible, hateful way. As an adult he understood it – all the things that hadn’t made sense then – his mother’s drinking, his father’s absence owing to another drug-fuelled hangover, Gianfelice – the man in the suit – who’d come to take them from harm’s way. His mother’s resentment. Her coldness. The fact she’d cared more about the size of her financial settlement – given in exchange for signing over full custody of her children – than the fact they were being taken away from her, to live in another country.
It was being back here at Villa Fortune that put those thoughts in his mind. Or perhaps it was the prospect of losing Yaya, of yet again having someone he loved wrenched away from him. He pushed his hand through his hair, as if he could set the dream aside so easily, beyond glad he’d been sensible enough to avoid emotional complications in his life. He was thirty three now, not three, and his heart was not so easily broken as it had been then.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING all the way over there?”
Lauren shifted her attention on autopilot, following Yaya’s gaze across the bedroom floor. Early morning light filtered in, casting the room in a warm glow. At the door stood the man she’d met late the night before, Raf Montebello. Having met him once, the shock of his extreme good looks wasn’t so severe. Now she found she was braced for this – him – and could meet his eyes without revealing any hint of attraction.
“Ciao, Yaya.” His voice was husky, his eyes heavy on his grandmother’s face, so it was impossible for Lauren not to feel a hint of sympathy for him.
“Come in, come in.” It was obviously a brightening moment in Yaya’s day to have her grandson appear. “I didn’t know you’d arrived.”
