That Summer in Puglia , livre ebook

Eyewear Publishing - Valeria Vescina

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166 pages

English

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Tommaso has escaped discovery for thirty years - but a young private investigator, Will, has tracked him down. Tommaso asks him to pretend never to have found him. To persuade Will, Tommaso recounts the story of his life and his great love Anna. In the process, he comes to recognise his true role in the events which unfolded, and the legacy of unresolved grief. Now he's being presented with a second chance - but is he ready to pay the price it exacts?That Summer In Puglia is a tale of love, loss, the perils of self-deception and the power of compassion. Puglia offers an ideal setting: its layers of history are integral to the story, itself an excavation of a man's past; Tommaso's increasingly vivid memories of its sensuous colours, aromas and tastes, and of how it felt to love and be loved, eventually transform the discomforting tone with which he at first tries to keep Will - and painful truths - at a distance. This remarkable debut combines a gripping plot and perceptive insights into human nature with delicate lyricism. 'Yes, I can appreciate that as a P.I. you don't often get the chance to give your clients good news - but I didn't hire you. I don't want people back home to know I'm alive. A valid reason? Simple: she was a murderer. My mother killed my love.'

Sujets

Historical romance

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Publié par	Eyewear Publishing
Date de parution	10 juillet 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839780318
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published in 2018
Second and third printing in 2019
by Eyewear Publishing Ltd
Suite 333, 19-21 Crawford Street
London, W1H 1PJ
United Kingdom
Graphic design by Edwin Smet
Author photograph by Julia Warszewski 2017
Cover image photograph by Salvo d Avila 2017 all rights reserved.
Reproduced by permission of the artist.
Printed in England by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved
2020 Valeria Vescina
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
The English translation of Lucretius s De Rerum Natura is by the Rev. John Selby Watson, in Lucretius on the Nature of Things - A Philosophical Poem in Six Books , Henry G. Bohn (London), 1851.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Set in Bembo 12 / 15 pt
ISBN: 9781839780318
www.eyewearpublishing.com

For my parents, who taught me about strong sails and good anchors, with love.
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
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
If I pass the shop windows more slowly, I should get a good look at his reflection. He s still walking behind me, and it is him - every day that shabby leather jacket.
How can the same person keep running into me for a week? There must be an innocent explanation. Could he just have moved into the neighbourhood? Probably an Imperial College wiz. Isn t that what Zoe said yesterday when I pointed him out, sitting opposite us at Starbucks in South Kensington? In which case, no surprise I keep seeing him in Queens-way: this area is always teeming with students. I m hardly the only man who lives on this side of the park but works mostly on the other. In his mid-twenties, so he could well be a postgraduate - his autumn term will have just started.
When I told her how fixedly he looked at his laptop screen, Zoe seemed bemused by my curiosity. I pretended it was casual - I couldn t let her suspect my alarm. I ought to trust her judgment: he was ignoring us, to all appearances a middle-aged couple long at ease with each other. No match for the delights of particle physics or of computer games, I suppose.
And yet the other day, in the chemist, didn t I have the impression he was watching me? I know that a moment later I told myself he was just scrutinising razors and I happened to be in his line of vision. But surely, bumping into the same stranger for several days in a row justifies some anxiety. What s confusing is that he looks so unthreatening - not what I had anticipated, but I suppose murderers and thieves don t come with a warning tattooed on their foreheads, either. He was wandering about the aisles with shoulders so hunched and a step so gangly that I wished I could tell him to straighten up and stop looking like an underfed titan carrying the heavens. What s wrong with you? I was tempted to say. A more confident bearing, and you d be amazed how much easier life gets.
And what was he doing inside the bin shed of the Hallfield Estate some days earlier? When I stepped inside that murky, reeking shack to dispose of my rubbish bag, the eyes staring out at me made me jump. Then I made out the rest of his body. I can still hear his Sorry in a bass voice strained to a higher pitch by fright, followed by his more composed Didn t mean to scare you, as he walked straight past me into the grey morning. Could he be innocuously renting in one of the blocks next to mine? That d explain things.
But what if he is tailing me? What if his laptop yesterday was a secret video camera? No, no, that s ridiculous. Maybe it s only the taxman - though why bother now with my absence from the register? The sum it would cost to find me would outstrip my pathetic assets.
Let me slow down. That s it, to a snail s pace. Why isn t he overtaking me? I ll have to stop somewhere and see if he carries on. That cash point will do - with such a queue, I won t even have to pretend I m tapping into my non-existent bank account. There - he has walked on. Calm down, heart. Calm down. Best to rest against this wall until my legs aren t quite so wobbly.
Panic over for now. But it goes to show: I still need to be prepared for the prospect of being found. How long has it been since I last rehearsed what I might do if that happened? A decade? I d have been forty-two then, and had an escape plan. Now I m too tired to start afresh in yet another place. Today there d be only one strategy left. Honesty.
CHAPTER 1
Sorry to disappoint you, Mr...? Mr. Barker. A true inhabitant of the British Isles, then - not like me. Sorry, but I can t think of a single reason to be glad to have been tracked down. Sure, I ve been expecting you - noticed you circling around, over the past week. But when you called out to me, back there on the Broad Walk, I still thought I had misheard. Tommaso Spagnulo. The name sounds so unfamiliar, after all these years.
Come, let s sit on that bench. You won t mind the ducks and the Canada geese wandering over from the Round Pond, will you? Excellent. I don t know why some people think the geese vicious - the poor creatures have every reason to fear us, not vice versa. The view from that bench is priceless: whatever you may think of the Albert Memorial, the sight of the spire through the foliage casts a spell, especially against this morning s sky - grim, isn t it? And I need to sit down.
Me, in shock? I suppose I am - more than I imagined I d be. No, no, not because of her: she was already dead to me. She s been dead a long time. My astonishment is at having been found.
Where did I go wrong? Was it complacency? The web, and new investigative methods , as you say. Still, fresh-faced, but you must be God s gift to your profession or else we wouldn t be sitting here.
A funny pair we make, don t you think? You, so pale and tall, and I, olive-skinned and a full head shorter; your shock of red hair, and my greying mop. Oh, it s good of you to say it but if I look younger than my age it s hardly down to personal merit. I inherited a leanness that gives that impression. Sometimes I feel centuries old.
My English puzzles you? Something too perfect about it. That s a kind way of putting it. I love books, and much of your language I learnt from your classics: Shakespeare, Austen, Forster, Orwell... Colloquial talk still catches me out - gives away the foreigner in me, even after more than thirty years.
How pleased you are - it s obvious from the glint in your eye and the excitement in your voice. I take it there s a reward in all this for you - and recognition. Even so, I must ask you to pretend you never found me. Don t look at me like that - I m not mad, but I don t want the inheritance. Four million euros, waiting for me in an Italian bank? Perfect: there ll be plenty of vultures squabbling over that kind of money - let them have it. As to the recompense - tell me what it d amount to, and I ll pay you. It s the least I can do. I m an honourable man.
You went out on a limb to find me, because you thought you d make me happy? Sorry - I didn t mean to offend you by laughing. I m moved that anyone should be driven to act by such unselfish motives. Just my luck. But happiness is a tall order, and I m living proof of the adage that money doesn t buy happiness. Yes, I can appreciate that as a P.I. you don t often get the chance to give your clients good news - but I didn t hire you. I don t want people back home to know I m alive. A valid reason? Simple: she was a murderer. My mother killed my love.
***
I can see that I m asking a lot of you. Bouncy as a puppy, barely five minutes ago, and there you are, sagging into this bench as if I had winded you. But chin up - if you ve managed to find me, you ll manage the same feat with plenty of others. And keeping quiet about this triumph will cost you far less than announcing it would cost me: I couldn t guarantee that I d stay alive if you were to reveal my existence. It s conceivable that the threat against my life uttered long ago in anger might never have been acted upon and never will, but I can t be certain. I see from your alarm that this - more than my dread of being shackled to the nightmare I left behind - might persuade you to hear me out. You sounded sincere, when you said you had hoped to make someone happy, for once. I believe you. This is your chance - even if not in the way you presumed.
Yes, I guess the price is fair: without the full explanation you demand, I can t expect you to understand, and even less, to comply. I give you my word that my account of events will be faithful, though I confess to some apprehension. I ve never confided the story to a soul. From time to time, I ve been tempted to tell Zoe, my best friend, but I ve always stopped short. Why? Good question. It s not that I don t trust her. I even feel I owe her an explanation, after all her years of putting up with the mystery surrounding my past. I wonder whether the prospect of putting it all into words is what has petrified me - words take on a materiality that random threads of thought lack. I suspect it has been compounded by fear - that once Zoe knew, the past I had escaped would become present and too real every time I saw her. Zoe belongs to my life in this country, the life to whic