A Season for the Dead

Thirty-Four

The police car had delivered her to the house late in the afternoon where she was greeted by Bea who left almost immediately, saying little, unwilling to look her in the eye. Something had changed at the farm, something between Marco and Bea. It was not simply the story on the news and her own direct involvement in it. Bea seemed nervous, somehow, as if anticipating the slow, ordered life of the place was about to change.

Sara showered, slept for a while, then changed into casual clothes to watch television with the old man. When the latest bulletin came on, he immediately switched channels. She insisted he go back to the newscast. He sat in his wheelchair, squirming, as the macabre details of Alicia Vaccarini’s death were disclosed alongside stock footage of the politician, smiling, looking happy at some public function. When it was over, Marco Costa said nothing.

Sara walked into the kitchen. Out back, close to where Gino Fosse had almost murdered Nic, a crow danced across the yellow scrub that led down to the Appian Way. She watched its black wings flapping over the dusty ground. There was a handful of police at the gate. Marco Costa joined her and they sat around the table, sipping coffee. The city and its terrors seemed to exist in another world.

“Did you know her?” she asked eventually, desperate to break the silence that had come upon them.

“Who?”

“Alicia Vaccarini.”

“Ah.” It was an act. His mind never roamed, she knew, even when he was tired.

“We met once or twice. She seemed a pleasant woman. Vaccarini was after my time, you understand. One tries not to get personal in politics. I’d like to think I had friends across the spectrum, regardless of party. But the Northern Alliance… they never were my type. Those petty-minded bastards treated Alicia very badly. So she liked the company of women? So what? Does anyone care these days?”

It was a pointed remark, designed to make her feel comfortable. “You don’t need to say that for my sake, Marco. It was a stupid thing to do. I didn’t enjoy it. I never want to do it again.”

His lined, gray face peered at her. “You mean that was all it was? Curiosity?”

“Yes,” she replied, knowing that he thought she was lying.

He shook his head. “I never understood that idea. That you should try everything once. Where do you draw the line? Isn’t there always something else untried along the way?”

“I said it was a mistake.”

“I was making a general point, not a personal one. You should never assume everything pertains to you, Sara. That’s what children think. It’s always seemed to me that life is about focus and depth. Something like your academic world perhaps. You presumably think it’s better to know a lot about a little than the reverse?”

The university felt as distant as the city. So did the work which seemed a part of another person, someone she no longer understood or even, perhaps, liked.

“Of course.”

“Then that’s how I feel about most things,” Marco continued. “I’d rather just make a good job of a few and leave the rest to someone else. It makes sense, to me anyway.”

She looked around the kitchen, wondering if she should fill the silence by preparing a meal. There was good olive oil and balsamic vinegar for the dressing. Marco pushed his wheelchair forward and put his hand on hers, bidding her to stop.

“But that’s easy for me,” he told her. “I was brought up that way. It was natural. For you… I’m sorry, Sara. It’s not my business. But I have to say it. I don’t understand. Nic doesn’t either. That doesn’t make it wrong. It just makes it hard. No one’s judging you. No one’s thinking the worse of you for what happened. They’re just… puzzled. That’s all.”

“And you think you deserve an explanation?” she said coldly.

He retreated, no doubt feeling he had come too far. “You don’t owe anybody anything. It’s your life. To do with as you wish.”

“I know.”

“It’s just that I find it hard to believe this makes you happy. You’re so smart. You’re good to be around.”

Her green eyes widened. She was, he saw, surprised.

“And you don’t know that about yourself, do you?”

She went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi from the Marches. Marco watched her taste it. “It’s easy for you,” she said finally. “It comes naturally. I can’t just learn.”

“And why not?” he demanded. “Are you the only person who ever grew up an orphan? I can’t begin to understand how difficult that is. No one would wish it on another. But none of us is some fixed, unchanging point in the universe. Not me. Not Nic. We’re always changing, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. The person you were when these things happened is not the person you are now, surely?”

“And you think that you know either of them?” She said it too harshly. There was disappointment on the old man’s face and she was shocked to discover this made her feel guilty.

“I think I know one of them better than she might give me credit for,” he answered.

She poured a second glass of wine and offered it to him. Marco Costa laughed and pushed it away from him.

“Now you’re playing games with me,” he said. “I don’t want the wine, Sara. These drugs they give me, they make everything seem the same. What I want is the old taste, the one I remember, and that’s impossible. That will never happen. I can’t get that back. So what would be the point?”

She poured the Verdicchio back into the bottle and gave him some water instead.

“Don’t wait until it’s too late,” he said. “Regret’s a small sour thing but it can poison you for years. You saw Bea when you left? How was she?”

“Confused, I thought.”

“Not surprised. I asked her back here for dinner with us this evening. What you said last night made me think it was the right thing to do. It’s easy to take people for granted, all the more so when you’ve known them for a long time. We’re lazy creatures, looking for the soft option.”

“So you asked Bea for her sake?” she said, half scolding.

Marco Costa smiled, accepting the rebuke. “No. I admit it. Mine too. Bea’s a beautiful woman. I can’t believe I stopped noticing. I can’t believe I forgot that life requires the occasional surprise. And this is a special occasion, now that I come to think of it.”

There was the sound of cars outside. She could hear the voices of the distant cops on the gate. Then the doorbell rang. The old man looked at her expectantly. She went to open the door and was, for a moment, made giddy by the perfume of flowers, bouquet upon bouquet, in the arms of two pleasant-looking middle-aged women chattering wildly, looking ready to go to work.