A Funeral in Fiesole Read Free Page A

dining table. So we all pushed together at the end closest to the door to the passage and the kitchen.
    They all found fault with everything. Well, almost. It was mostly Paola. I put up with it, like I always did, and smiled, smiled, smiled, even with the smell of garlic still on my fingers. Even with Paola examining all our expressions. She was so transparent. She was so ruthlessly calculating. She was waiting for an opportunity to say something momentous. It was there in her eyes. Sad, sad eyes, but with sharpness in them I recognized. She was after something.
    ‘We could have eaten in the kitchen, you know.’
    ‘This place is falling to pieces.’
    ‘It’s so cold in here.’
    ‘Where are the lace curtains?’
    ‘Is that the garden door slamming?’
    ‘What, no red wine?’
    ‘Mama would have used the good cutlery.’
    Later, someone praised the food, which made Harriet smile. I knew her cooking secrets and shortcuts, and often copied them. She could be quick and efficient, and clean and everything, but she cut corners with recipes, used packets and pouches to boost her flavours and sauces, so some of it was faux. Still, she believed in spending time with people rather than chopping-boards, as she so funnily expressed her lack of desire to spend too much time standing at a counter with a sharp knife in hand. Well, I thought she was funny, but I doubt my oldest sister ever found my wife the least bit amusing.
    Paola helped to carry out crockery and glasses, stopping from time to time to study our body language, our expressions, what we were wearing, and paused meaningfully at the end of some of our sentences. She weighed and measured everything in her head, my eldest sister, and could not wait, it was obvious, for the twins and their respective partners to arrive.
    But it was our daughter who got there first, running around from the servants’ quarters at the back. Damp from the rain even from the brief dash from the garden, Lori chose her words, as I expected. She was reticent and patient with the whole Gramma’s funeral thing, and restricted what she said to pleasantries and small talk. My children were fascinating to Paola. As the only nephew and niece in the family, it was no wonder.
    ‘I left the cello in the back house. I’ll bring it up when it’s stopped raining. I guess you guys won’t mind if I play, but I’m setting down a new piece for the festival. Luckily it’s here. The timing is excellent.’
    I raised an eyebrow at my daughter, without a word. I slid meaningful eyes toward her aunt Paola.
    Lori responded immediately. ‘Oh – I know. Funerals are hardly expected to fit around other events, but it so happens we’re playing at the Maggio Musicale , in Florence.’
    Harriet beamed.
    Paola would see pride in her eyes, even past my wife’s long black hair. I waited for my sister to say something about playing, or instruments, or music. Or even the funeral. She simply examined Lori with those impassive eyes. Blank eyes which did not quite hide the sentiments and thoughts written into the lines on her face. She was approaching the last years of her fifties, and could still not completely mask her reactions and feelings. It was plain envy I saw there. I could see she wondered how she would have raised a daughter of her own.
    I doubted Paola had ever been present to hear Lori’s cello in the house. She cocked her head to catch sounds of another arrival in the hall. We all heard keys and things thrown onto the table, and Brod’s high voice.
    He entered the dining room talking. ‘… and here you all are! Hello, hello. Paola – good drive? Nice flight?’ He inclined his head at Harriet and me. ‘Hello Nige … hello, hello.’ He put his head back out through the hall door and called. ‘Come in, Grant, for heaven’s sake.’ His smile was so broad it widened his long face at the mouth in a cartoonesque way. The moustache – something new – did not help. ‘Grant?’ Breathless, he was,