The Tuscan Girl: Completely gripping WW2 historical fiction Read online

  It was good to be in the company of her siblings again. Seventeen-year-old twins Emilia and Rosanna had very different personalities. Rosanna was studying accountancy. She was sturdy and sensible, while her twin floated around in a dream most of the time, her head lost in the stories she so loved to write. Davide, recently turned nineteen, had developed from a gangly, awkward teenager into somebody Alba could now easily spend time with. In his first year at veterinary school in Edinburgh, he loved returning to Rofelle. There’d already been a phone call from the young sheep farmer up the road with a request for him to come up and help with one of his lame ewes.

  ‘So, do you think you’ll try and find a job here, or back in Scotland?’ Alba asked him at supper that evening.

  ‘Difficult to say. Trouble here is who you know, not what you know.’

  After the meal, Alba moved into the living area to help decorate the tree.

  ‘Ma, why do you keep this stuff?’ she asked, pulling out a box of tatty paper decorations made from toilet rolls and creased doilies.

  ‘Because they are the first things you all made at primary school,’ Anna replied. ‘And to me they’re more beautiful than the bought stuff.’

  The house looked stunning. Garlands of fresh ivy and holly were wound around the beams. Dry twigs painted white, and wooden figures and red bows tied to branches of spruce, festooned the tops of cupboards and window frames. The old Welsh dresser Anna had insisted on shipping out to Italy after she’d married Francesco was decorated with cards, pine cones and an old nativity set from Francesco’s childhood. With the stove lit and mulled wine and mince pies handed out, the Christmas spirit was flowing. Alba let herself be swept away with it, pushing thoughts of James to the back of her mind. It wasn’t easy, but she was determined not to be a misery.

  * * *

  With Anna having been brought up in England, their Christmases were a mixture of Italian and British traditions. The family always dined on traditional salted cod on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day, there was a typical starter of home-made pasta shapes called cappelletti, followed by the English meal of roast turkey and trimmings. A choice of panettone with Prosecco or Christmas pudding was served for afters, and the best Barolo wine accompanied the meal. Anna made her own crackers, filling them with individual presents and jokes, an English custom which always intrigued their Italian guests. Each Christmas, Anna and Francesco invited ‘waifs and strays’, as they privately described them.

  This year they had invited Egidio, the elderly manager of the local tourist office, on his own for his first Christmas after the death of his wife, as well as an even older man called Massimo. He was tiny and hardly said anything throughout the afternoon. Egidio did most of the talking for him, introducing him as one of the oldest residents of the area.

  ‘But I am young at heart,’ Massimo announced in a rare chatty moment, a twinkle in his brown eyes. ‘Do not underestimate me, my friends,’ he said. He enjoyed the turkey and asked for more English stuffing, which was unusual for an Italian.

  Presents were opened after the meal. With the stove lit, Anna, a little tipsy and her paper hat now aslant her dark curls streaked with silver, distributed the gifts. The floorboards were soon invisible beneath a sea of wrapping paper and cries of ‘Cool’, or ‘You shouldn’t have’ and ‘How did you know I wanted one of those?’ echoed in the large, open-plan sitting room. They all spoke in Italian, although Anna encouraged them to use English when she could.

  Alba handed her father an envelope, on which she’d scribbled a design of holly and Christmas trees, and he pulled out a drawing.

  ‘This is stunning,’ Francesco said, holding up her sketch of the waterfall and mill. ‘Look, Anna. Bello, no?’

  ‘Bellissimo!’ she said. ‘It’s so good you’re drawing again, Alba. You’re very talented.’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to give you. I’ll get it framed as soon as I can.’

  Egidio admired it, peering closely at the detail over the top of his glasses. ‘If you can sketch me another like this, I would love to use it in the tourist office. Do you have anything else, Alba?’

  ‘Only something I started on the Mountain of the Moon. But it’s very scrappy. And it rained, so the lines are smudged. I need to go over it again.’

  ‘I’d love to see.’

  She fetched her sketch pad from upstairs and showed it to Egidio while she perched on the arm of his chair. He smiled at her. ‘But are you sure you didn’t copy this picture from my book in the museum?’

  She frowned. ‘Absolutely not. I’ve never seen your book. I imagined this from a ruin I came across. Up at Seccaroni…’ She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the images she’d taken on her walk. ‘There,’ she said, showing him the tumbledown house. ‘I’ve almost convinced myself that I saw a young man up there, too. But if I did, goodness knows where he went. There’s no path behind that old house, is there, Egidio?’

  ‘My walking days are over. I wouldn’t know. But maybe you saw a hunter. They know the paths like the insides of their pockets. And when they don’t have a licence to hunt, they hide themselves very quickly. It happens all the time. People come from Romagna and steal truffles and mushrooms.’ He sighed and mumbled something about them being sons of bitches, and Alba smiled at his ripe language.

  Egidio peered further at Alba’s sketch. ‘But this is uncanny. It’s almost the same as the picture of the house I mentioned. I’ll have a hunt for the book and then you will see what I mean. Your mother is right. You have talent.’

  ‘I’m out of practice, Egidio. Where I work in the gallery in England, there’s never any time. I’m always busy selling other people’s work.’

  ‘A pity,’ he replied. He held up the picture to show Massimo. ‘This is the old house up on the ridge at Seccaroni – used by the partisans, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘You probably know the place.’

  The old man shook his head after bringing the sketch close to his eyes to view it better. ‘The war was a very long time ago,’ he said, struggling to his feet. ‘Excuse me, could I use the bathroom?’

  As Francesco helped him across the room, Egidio handed the sketch back to Alba. ‘Don’t leave it too late to do the things you really want to do. If you want to draw, then do so while you can. Life is very short. I know that from personal experience, cara mia. Oriana and I… we had many unfinished plans.’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose loudly.

  ‘I think your glass is almost empty, Egidio,’ Anna said, topping up his Amaro digestivo.

  When Massimo returned, he looked pale and refused a drink. ‘I should like to go back to the centre where I live,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to break up the party.’

  ‘As soon as I’ve finished this excellent digestivo, we shall leave together,’ Egidio said. ‘Alba, your sketch would make a wonderful start for my new project. I have an idea to set old photos of buildings next to images of their ruins, before they are swallowed by nature. And your paintings could complement them. It would be good to explain the history of these places before it’s too late. What do you say? Can you help me?’

  ‘I’m flattered, Egidio, but I’m going back to England soon. I’ve lots to sort out.’

  ‘That’s a pity. But, if you come back, then the offer is still there.’

  The two elderly gentlemen said their goodbyes. It seemed to Alba that Massimo couldn’t get away fast enough. Maybe something awful had happened to him during the war and he didn’t want to talk about it. It was probably no coincidence that he asked to leave as soon as the subject was brought up.

  Three

  On Boxing Day morning, Alba lay on her bed on the mezzanine at the top of the stable. Her eyes traced ice crystals on the edges of the porthole window. The weather was turning colder and she worried about the man she’d seen in the ruins. Was he still out there? She reached for the sketch on her bedside table that she had shown Egidio. It struck her that the young man she’d drawn at the window was very similar to the hippy-
type youth she’d imagined disappearing over the ridge… but she’d drawn him before he’d appeared. She ran her finger over the outline of his face. It was weird, too, that the idea for the sketch of the house had come to her from nowhere, and that it should apparently be so similar to the building in Egidio’s book; a book she had never seen. Who are you? What are you trying to tell me? she asked herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about the odd coincidences. Then she told herself to stop being fanciful. Perhaps her mind was playing tricks after all, and the loss of James was fuddling her mind. Flinging back the covers, she jumped out of bed and pulled on jeans, thick socks and a warm fleece. The tourist office was shut today so she couldn’t look in Egidio’s book, but there was nothing to stop her from walking to the ruins again and checking that she wasn’t going mad.

  Downstairs, her stepbrother was sitting with his legs over the arm of a squishy leather armchair, reading a paperback.

  ‘Fancy a walk, Davide?’ she asked.

  ‘Why not? This book is boring,’ he said. ‘Give me a sec to put on something warmer.’

  Within five minutes they’d started up the hill. The snow hadn’t settled after all despite the nip in the air, and the sun shone from a deep blue sky. Alba had forgotten how beautiful these winter days could be in Tuscany. She was pleased it wasn’t misty and murky.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Davide asked as they walked briskly.

  ‘Towards the Mountain of the Moon. There’s somewhere I want to show you. And I’d like your opinion on something that’s bugging me.’

  ‘Mysterious. Tell me more.’

  ‘Wait until we get there.’

  They kept up a good pace, walking mostly in easy silence. At one stage Davide remarked what a good workout it was, better than being confined in a gym. Stopping to sip water on a ridge in the middle of a meadow, they were amazed when a dozen wild boar rushed across their view.

  ‘Wow!’ Davide said as the sound of their hooves pounding over the frosty ground dwindled when they disappeared into a copse. ‘That was so sudden, I didn’t even get a chance to catch them on my phone. What a sight!’

  ‘We’ll preserve it as a memory. Actually, it’s been good to leave my phone alone for a while, Davide. I use it all the time at work.’

  ‘What do you want to do with yourself now, Alba? Have you thought about staying here in Tuscany?’

  ‘I’ve thought of nothing else over the last two days. But I’m not sure whether it’s to avoid returning to London and the memories of James… Egidio offered me a kind of job yesterday, researching for the next tourist office project.’

  ‘Give it a go. What have you got to lose?’

  ‘It’d be strange coming to live back home at the ripe old age of twenty-six. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Ma and Babbo would love it. And they’d give you your space.’

  After another three quarters of an hour, and a steep climb through a dense beech wood, their boots scrunching over crisp leaves, they reached the ruined house of Seccaroni.

  Davide went over to read the sign, which informed passers-by that these ruins of an old house had been uninhabited until a group of partisans used it as their base, from the autumn of 1943 until 1944.

  ‘I had a weird thing happen to me here,’ Alba told him. ‘I don’t want to say anything to Ma and Babbo because they’ll think I was hallucinating, or whatever, after me ending up in hospital after James’s funeral.’

  ‘Go on, then. Tell me.’

  ‘Don’t laugh, will you…?’

  ‘You need to tell me first. You’re being very enigmatic.’

  She hesitated before blurting out, ‘I’m beginning to think I might have seen a ghost in these ruins.’

  Davide laughed.

  ‘See – you think I’m mad, too,’ she said, thumping him. ‘I told you not to laugh!’

  ‘Sorry, Alba. I wasn’t expecting that. I promise not to laugh again.’

  She told him about the young man she’d sketched from her imagination a few days before Christmas, and then the uncanny resemblance to the person she’d seen who seemed to disappear over the crest and into space. ‘But weirder still,’ she continued, ‘Egidio told me about a book he has that shows an old photo of this building as it used to be.’ She struck her alpine stick into the ground as she spoke, embarrassed at what she was recounting. ‘And he thought a sketch I did from my imagination looks pretty similar.’

  He whistled. ‘Wow, Alba, kind of paranormal…’ He went over to the stones and then walked the few metres to the edge of the ridge. ‘And then you say the man you saw disappeared down there? Quite a drop!’

  ‘I know,’ she said, approaching him. ‘You do think I’m bonkers, don’t you?’

  ‘You know me. I’m a scientist. There’ll be a logical explanation for this somewhere. You told me it was stormy. Maybe you mistook a shadow for a person in the gloom. And…’ He paused. ‘Don’t get cross with me, but you do have a very vivid imagination. Are you on medication after your amnesia episode?’

  ‘Porca miseria, Davide. I’m not taking anything. Babbo suggested it might be a hippy from the city. A group of them was camping up here last summer, apparently.’

  Davide had knelt to peer over the edge. ‘It looks like there’s a gap in the rocks – it could lead to a path.’

  She joined him and peered at where he was pointing.

  ‘Now we’re here, I’ll climb down and investigate,’ Davide continued. ‘I’ve a rope and carabiner with me. Always carry them when I’m on walks in the mountains. If you help me from up here, it’ll be fine,’ he said, pulling the equipment from his rucksack.

  ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Alba asked. ‘Shouldn’t we wait for somebody else? I don’t know the first thing about abseiling.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Just be here to phone for rescue if the rope snaps.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Only kidding, Alba. I know what I’m doing.’

  She helped him secure one end of his rope around a tree, and the other end he attached to the carabiner. Then, slowly, he pushed himself out over the edge in a controlled descent. ‘There’s an opening here, but no path I can see,’ he shouted up. ‘And if there ever was, it went long ago. There’s no evidence of a recent landslide.’

  Suddenly, a large bird flew from a ledge in the cliff face, flapping dangerously close to Davide’s face so that he stepped back, loose stones falling as his boots scrabbled for purchase again.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Alba called.

  He regained control, finding a foothold on a protruding rock.

  ‘Just made me jump. Wasn’t expecting that. But, wow! I’m pretty sure that was a golden eagle. I really don’t want to disturb it any more than I have to.’

  ‘I didn’t think there were any in this area. Babbo is always saying how he wants to see them return.’

  ‘I’m ninety per cent sure. In any case, it’s definitely a raptor. I’ll go a bit further in. Keep a lookout for that beauty for me.’

  She watched him disappear into the rock face. The eagle was soaring high in the thermals, and, as long as it kept its distance, Alba stayed quiet.

  ‘I’ve found something,’ she heard her brother call after a couple of minutes. ‘Looks like an old box. Can you fasten another length of rope around the tree and drop it down? I’ll tie it to the box and we’ll haul on it together.’

  Alba remembered a couple of knots from her brief venture into Girl Scouts and secured the second rope around the convenient pine. She threw the other end of the rope down the side of the cliff and waited for Davide. The high-pitched whistle of the raptor announced its return and, once again, it swooped down and around him.

  ‘Poor thing,’ he said as he reappeared at the top. ‘We need to get out of here as soon as possible. I need you to help me pull the box up, Alba. It’s quite heavy and riddled with woodworm.’

  He secured Alba to the tree before they pulled together on the box so that there was no danger of either of them slip
ping over the edge. It was hard work, and the box stuck a couple of times on its way up. Davide had to kneel at the edge and loosen the tension on the rope and then pull on it to help the box come free.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s strong enough with all this banging against the rocks, and we don’t lose its contents,’ he said.

  With a final heave, they pulled the box as it scraped its way over the top. It was made of a dark wood, with metal pieces reinforcing the corners, and was bound with an old rope and locked with a rusty padlock. It reminded Alba of the wooden suitcases she’d seen in old photographs of migrants leaving home to find work abroad.

  Davide picked up a stone from the ruined house and hit the padlock a couple of times. It was so rusty that the metal broke apart easily. With his penknife, he cut through the already fraying rope.

  ‘Mind there are no snakes or scorpions inside,’ Alba said, as they gingerly opened the lid. The hinges creaked and a spider scuttled from an old sack, covered in a thick layer of cobwebs. As Davide lifted it out, the sack disintegrated, and some metal pieces fell with a clatter back into the box. Alba reached in and picked out an oval plate. There were also a couple of goblets, each one initialled with a looping, scrolled ‘B’, and Alba gave a low whistle. ‘Wow! We’ve found some real treasure…’

  Davide examined the base of the plate and rubbed it with his finger. ‘There’s a hallmark on this. It could be silver. Goodness, what on earth is this lot doing up here?’

  ‘When the Germans occupied the area, people hid possessions so they wouldn’t be plundered,’ Alba replied as she took several photos on her phone of the silverware.

  ‘But surely people living up here would have been peasants,’ Davide said. ‘They wouldn’t have had posh stuff like this, would they?’

  ‘Good point! I’d be very surprised. We’ll take this lot into the museum and see if they can shed any light. What a find,’ Alba said. She sat back on her haunches. ‘It still doesn’t explain about the young man I saw, though. Where did he disappear to?’