The Villa Read Free Page A

smoothly through the slick greasy skins and pulpy flesh. They needed time to de-gorge otherwise they would be bitter.
    Edward had – of course – had friends. Arty friends, but more especially, men friends. Sometime later she’d understood why, as a girl, she had felt at ease with Edward, even when alone with him. It was significant too, she realised, that she had been
allowed
to be alone with him. These days, naturally, his homosexuality would not mean so much, but then … In England, the activities he indulged in would have been illegal, but in Sicily, in a small village in a grand villa, it was easy to hide and be safe. Easy to have lots of house guests, lots of parties. English eccentricity was accepted, even while it was not understood. And Edward had inspired great loyalty in his staff by giving them a living and treating them well.
    ‘Perhaps he became a recluse,’ she said. Perhaps he had been lonely. She could imagine that. ‘It happens. Especially to artists and poets.’
    Tess – on her way to fill the kettle – shot her a disbelieving glance and flicked a tangled curl from her face. ‘What about the people who cared for him at the end?’ she said. ‘What about whoever took over from Aunt Maria?’
    Maria … The knife hovered above the purple skin. Her sister’s death had been sudden and shocking for Flavia. They had not been close and this made the loss even sadder. It was too late now. Maria had come to England only once in her lifetime when Tess was just eighteen, and the visithad not been easy. Their lives had been so different, she supposed; they had travelled in such opposite directions. Flavia had become anglicised long ago; she even thought in English now.
    Maria was timid – dark and vigilant as a rat. She was shocked at the way Flavia was bringing up her daughter …
You allow her to go out alone? Dancing?
She was distrustful of the relationship Flavia had with Lenny – their casual teasing, the way Flavia cheerfully left him to get on with the washing up after supper. And she found it hard to accept that Flavia had become a businesswoman – running her own small restaurant, managing her own accounts, her own staff.
    ‘England is different from Sicily,’ she said to Maria – over and over, it felt like. ‘If you stayed for longer you would find out. There is a freedom here that you have never dreamt of.’
    ‘Perhaps so, perhaps so.’ And poor Maria would sigh and frown and wring her hands. ‘But Signor Westerman is alone. He needs me.’ And Flavia suspected that, truth be told, Maria wouldn’t want such freedom. Her sister had not been blessed with children and she had lost her husband many years ago in a traffic accident in Monreale one night. ‘What was he doing there?’ she’d moaned to Flavia on more than one occasion during her visit to England. ‘I shall never know.’
    Perhaps, Flavia thought, it was better not to know. They were talking about Sicily, after all.
    ‘Our family looked after Edward for many years,’ Flavia said now, throwing the rounds of sliced aubergine into acolander for salting and keeping her voice level. First Mama, Papa and Flavia, then Maria and Leonardo. ‘This must be his way of showing appreciation.’ Was that how it was? Or had Edward Westerman known how it would tear at her? She suspected that he would.
    Tess dropped teabags into two cups, looking enquiringly at Flavia as she did so. ‘Muma?’
    ‘Please.’ Tea was an English taste that had taken Flavia twenty years to acquire. It would never get you going like an espresso, but it had its uses.
    ‘But why not leave the house to you?’ Tess persevered. ‘You knew him, at least. I’ve never met him.’
    ‘Pshaw.’ Flavia dismissed this notion. ‘I am an old lady. No doubt he thought I was dead.’
    ‘Muma!’
    Flavia shook her head. She didn’t want to be having this conversation. She had tried to put Sicily behind her. Since leaving for England she’d never gone back there. At