The Tuscan Girl: Completely gripping WW2 historical fiction
The Tuscan Girl
Completely gripping WW2 historical fiction
Angela Petch
Books by Angela Petch
The Tuscan Girl
The Tuscan Secret
Available in Audio
The Tuscan Secret (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
The Tuscan Secret
Hear More from Angela
Books by Angela Petch
A Letter from Angela
Acknowledgements
To Giuseppina Micheli and Bruno Vergni, brave children of the 1920s.
Thanks for the memories.
‘Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.’
* * *
Dante Alighieri, Inferno
Prologue
Tuscany, 1945
Recently, Lucia’s dreams were filled with childhood memories. One hot summer day, when dragonflies skimmed the spangled, shimmering surface of the weir where the children played on Sundays, she’d driven the dozen sheep down to the riverbank and while they chomped on the grass, their teeth tearing at the lush green shoots, Lucia had stripped down to her underwear and blouse. Hanging her long skirt from a willow, she had jumped in by the waterfall, loving the shock of cool on her body, her blouse riding up around her like jellyfish tentacles. She kept her eyes open and floated on the water while watching a frog spring from the rocks. When the boys joined her, she hid for a while beneath the surface, holding her breath until her lungs might burst, wanting to surprise them and nip at their bare toes. Afterwards, she’d rested on the bank under the sun, her long hair draped over the grass behind her head, and when she noticed Massimo staring, she stuck out her tongue and jumped back into the water.
‘You look like a mermaid,’ he had shouted when she resurfaced, treading water so her budding nipples were concealed.
‘Turn around,’ she ordered, warning him not to peep. Then she had climbed from the river, picked up her skirt and gone to dry off in the meadow with the sheep.
Her dream tonight was of past Christmas Eves, sitting by her parents and brother, watching flames dance around the yule log that Father had dragged home from the woods. The fire looped and licked at the whorls and twists of the trunk he had chosen, and everyone beat it with their sticks, crying out, ‘Cacca, ceppo, give up your gifts…’ The scent of roasting chestnuts, the anticipation of the next day’s feast, simple gifts and shrieks of laughter filled her senses.
When she opened her eyes, she realised it was no longer a dream. The shrieks were real terror. Her parents were calling to her to get out quickly, the flames and acrid stench of burning filling her nostrils. Instinctively, she grabbed her brother’s coat from the back of the door where it waited for his return that would never come, and slipped her feet into the stout boots under her bed. They had planned what to do if soldiers came. Each one of them had their own escape route. Hers was out through the small window that opened on to the back of the house, then a leap onto the roof tiles of the pigsty carved from the hill, from where the drop to the ground was only one metre. Within a minute she was out of the house and racing through the woods. The sound of her footsteps as she crashed through the undergrowth was drowned by hysterical yelling from villagers as they gathered around the flames. From behind the vast trunk of a beech, she watched their silhouettes as they passed buckets to each other. Hearing gunshots, she ran like a deer up the track.
The noise of her laboured breathing echoed around the cave when she staggered in. It was pitch-black inside, and she felt along the dank stone walls until she was at the furthest point of the cavern. Something soft clung to her forehead as she inched along and she stifled a shriek, before realising it was only a cobweb. She sat on her haunches, leaning against the rock, willing her heart to stop its crazy thumping. The kindling and matches were in a box stowed in a crevice, but she was too afraid to light a fire in case she’d been followed. Eventually she dozed, waking when the thin light of dawn crept through the opening.
Birdsong and the lazy buzzing of a bee filtered into her hiding place like a normal start to the day. From far away she heard a cockerel crow. Normally it would be the signal to roll out of bed, pull on her clothes and start her morning chores. But nothing in her life was routine any more. Tears spilled down her cheeks, splashing onto her brother’s coat. She put her head in her hands, the stubbly growth on her scalp bringing back more awful memories. It would have been better if she’d burned in the house fire. She sobbed, rocking back and forth, not caring now if her crying gave her away. There was no point to life.
And then, she felt a fluttering in her belly, like a butterfly grazing its wings against her insides. She placed her hands beneath her clothing and, spreading her fingers over her abdomen as if to protect the butterfly from escaping, she waited. Until she felt it again, and then she stopped crying.
One
London, Present Day
She opened the door to a police constable standing on the landing outside the flat. ‘Alba Starnucci?’ the woman asked, the expression on her young face troubled. When Alba nodded, she heard the next dreaded question. ‘Is there anybody who can be with you? I’m afraid I have bad news.’
Alba concentrated on the stained-glass window above the altar where the wicker coffin rested on its stand, white lilies drooping down the sides. If she kept her eyes fixed on the colourful images of trees and mountains and away from what was going on below, she could control her tears.
James’s father was standing next to where his dead son lay. His words about James’s bright future curtailed at too young an age, his voice breaking with emotion as he described an event from childhood that Alba had never heard before, told of a young man she didn’t recognise. Irrationally, she worried that his free spirit would feel claustrophobic inside the woven tomb.
Alba’s father squeezed her hand. He and her stepmother, Anna, had come straight from Tuscany as soon as she’d phoned with the tragic news. They sat on each side of her, propping her like bookends. James’s parents hadn’t acknowledged her once. When she’d arrived at the church, his mother stared over her head at the mourners behind her, waiting to pay their respects, and her husband simply turned away and ignored her. But she didn’t blame them. It was her fault James was dead.
* * *
The hours that followed were a complete blank. Much later that evening, her parents described how, emerging from the church service to leave for the crematorium, she had turned to them in bewilderment and said, ‘Why are we here?’
They’d rushed her to hospital, believing she had suffered a stroke when she continued to make no sense. She plucked at the cotton NHS nightgown, asking the doctor ov
er and over what had happened. Then, four hours later, sitting in the taxi with her parents on the way back to the flat that she and James had shared, she felt the past slowly trickle back. Sitting at home, she scanned the leaflets she’d been given. Transient global amnesia, a benign attack. And the possible causes: sex, immersion in cold water, a blow to the head, alcohol, drugs or stress.
The weather had been warm for the beginning of December. In the park where she had walked beside James as he pushed his bike, a couple of gardeners were busy hoeing between shrubs of pruned roses. Two women overtook them on the path, chatting as they jogged. It was an ordinary morning.
‘Let’s sit outside,’ James had said. ‘It’s warm enough.’
Afterwards, Alba wondered if the sunshine was the real reason or if he’d known what her reaction to his bombshell was going to be and wanted them to be alone, without an audience.
While he was placing their order inside the Pavilion, she’d pulled out brochures for the new warehouse development. She’d wanted to show them to him for a while, but lately there had never seemed to be a suitable moment. She flicked through the glossy pages, imagining how they could arrange a double mattress in the mezzanine area; how it would flood with light from an expanse of glass round the top of the warehouse space. She held the page up to James as he rejoined her.
‘Look at this,’ she’d said. ‘It’s described as an urban space. Live-work accommodation…’ She broke off as he pulled the brochure from her hands, closed the page and laid it flat between them on the table.
‘Alba… I can’t,’ he said.
‘Why can’t you? You never want to talk about anything these days.’
He took her hands in his. ‘This is so hard…’
She snatched them away. ‘What?’
‘I can’t do this any more…’
‘This?’ She knew she was repeating everything he said. Maybe it was a way of stopping him from saying more.
‘It’s over.’
She frowned, shook her head. ‘What do you talk about, James? What do you mean?’ Her voice was raised, she couldn’t think in English properly, suddenly her brain seemed to find it necessary to translate from her native Italian into English and it was coming out wrong. She imagined him telling her any moment now that she was being dramatic, a typical Latin woman, as he often called her in her fiery moments. But that was usually when they were tangled together in bed. Not at ten o’clock in the morning in a park in central London.
‘What the fuck are you trying to tell me? Stop talking in clichés,’ she’d shouted, pulling the brochure to her chest and standing up. A woman walking her miniature poodle on the path nearby tutted and pulled her pet away.
James had stood up too. ‘If you won’t listen to me, then what’s the point of talking to you?’ he shouted back. Before she could reply, he jumped on his bike and cycled off, his sturdy legs pumping up and down in fury.
It was the last time she saw him. The police constable had explained how these accidents happened all too frequently. He must have pedalled up to the traffic lights to turn left, alongside a lorry also turning left. He was crushed; he had died instantly. The young officer had taken hold of her hand and said how sorry she was.
But how could she be sorry? Alba had thought. It was her fault. Completely her fault. James had cycled away in a temper and his temper had been caused by her. She was the one who was sorry, not the police constable.
She was grateful not to return to the flat on her own. Her father and stepmother guided her through the door and took over, insisting she rested while they sorted a meal and tidied up. When she awoke from a dreamless sleep, she heard her parents talking in the next room and, pulling on her dressing gown, she went to join them.
‘Darling girl,’ Anna said, pulling her stepdaughter into her arms.
‘I don’t want to cry,’ Alba said.
‘Cry if you want,’ Anna said.
‘Come back with us to Tuscany, tesoro,’ Francesco said.
‘How can I?’ Alba said. ‘What about my job at the gallery?’
‘Marcus will understand. We spoke to him and André already at the funeral.’
‘I’m not a child, Babbo. I can look after myself.’
She ignored the look that passed between her parents and sat down on the sofa. ‘I’ll be fine.’
* * *
After three days, her parents had reluctantly left, and Alba returned to work. Marcus bustled about the art gallery preparing for the new exhibition, trying to be kind to her, rearranging canvases and tweaking flower arrangements. He was counting on huge sales for his latest find: an emerging artist from Cornwall who specialised in seascapes.
‘These roses are all wrong, Alba,’ he said, lifting the bouquet she’d left on her desk. ‘Far too suburban garden. We need something wilder, something to pick up the colours of the sea: eryngium, sea holly, gypsophila maybe. What do you think, darling?’
Alba couldn’t think. Her mind was a blank. ‘I’ll see what I can find in my lunch break,’ she said.
He pulled a twenty-pound note from the till. ‘Treat yourself to a decent snack, sweetheart. You look peaky.’
It was a relief to be away from his fussing. She was usually on her own in the gallery, but today the press from a couple of national papers was invited, and he wanted everything just so.
She bought half a dozen blue agapanthus from Betty’s florist, and when she explained what they were for, she was loaned some spider conch shells to add to the display. ‘Not particularly West Country,’ Betty said, ‘but nobody will know they’re from the Pacific.’
Alba badly needed a coffee; her head was pounding. She’d tossed and turned the previous night, the bed seeming twice its usual size without James, the sheets cold. A double shot of espresso might do the trick.
When she returned to the gallery, she realised she’d left the flowers in the coffee shop, and in despair, Marcus went to fetch them himself. ‘Go home, Alba. You shouldn’t be back at work so soon,’ he said as he pulled on his tweed jacket.
On the bus, she cried silently, oblivious to the stares from other passengers. Back in the empty flat, she climbed into bed and willed sleep to come.
* * *
She ignored her phone and let the battery run down. Sleep seemed the only way to cope, even if James sometimes appeared cruelly in her dreams, his mat of blond hair blowing in the wind as he smiled and shouted something she couldn’t catch, his arms outstretched for a hug. On the third day, she staggered to her fridge. Sour milk, half a shrivelled carrot in the salad drawer. Just as she was trying to face the prospect of going out, there was a pounding at the door. When she opened it, André and Marcus stood there, half hidden behind a large bunch of carnations.
‘Oh my God, you two,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Your parents have asked us to sort you out and take you to the airport tomorrow. Your ticket to Italy is booked.’
Two
Tuscany, Present Day
‘Eat some more of this soup at least, Alba,’ Anna said, ‘and then you can sleep.’
Alba swallowed half the bowl of chicken broth to please her parents and then climbed the stairs to her room in the converted stable, known as La Stalla. It was much the same as when she’d left home; a couple of dog-eared posters of Italian bands still hung from her wall and her teddy, one eye missing, sat on her pillow. Anna had been using her desk as a sewing table and a colourful patchwork cushion cover lay half-finished by the side of an old treadle sewing machine. Alba’s life in London seemed a million miles away, and her heart ached for James. She stared at the view of the mountains dusted with snow. The river beneath her window, where willows waved silvery-green in the afternoon sunshine, was fuller than during the summer months. Normally she would be out there, sitting on the bench by the water or walking up the footpath, breathing in the clean air. But she was exhausted, as if she’d been drugged and, once again, she fell into a deep sleep. It was the only pattern she could live
with at the moment.
* * *
Downstairs, her father and stepmother talked in half-whispers, although Alba’s bedroom was on a mezzanine above the second floor, thick walls in between. ‘I wish I could bear her pain,’ Francesco said. ‘She’s so young. It’s so cruel.’
‘Give her a few days, tesoro. She needs time.’
‘I’m worried she’ll revert to how she reacted when her mother died.’
‘She was only eight then.’
‘I know… but she refused to speak for six whole months.’
‘That was years ago. Come on, let her be for a couple of days and then I’ll try and get through to her. Let her settle.’
* * *
A couple of mornings later, Alba was staring through the little round window at the first flakes of snow when Anna came into her room, carrying a breakfast tray. ‘Freshly baked rolls and coffee. I’ve brought mine up to eat with you,’ she said. ‘We have the house to ourselves – Babbo’s gone to Bologna until Wednesday.’