The House by the Sea. Louise Douglas

heat and exertion.

      I scratched the lump on my wrist, found another a little further up my arm.

      Joe caught my eye in the mirror. I looked away. He gave me the card key for my room. ‘You’re on the first floor,’ he said.

      ‘Okay.’

      He hesitated, then asked: ‘Are you hungry?’

      ‘No,’ I said. ‘I just want to sleep.’

      I was starving, but I’d be okay. Before I left Bristol, Fitz had come into my room and packed a bar of chocolate, some crackers and a couple of apples into my bag ‘in case of emergencies.’ Fitz was brilliant; she thought of everything.

      The hotel room was small and clean: a bed, a television, a floor-to-ceiling window with a net curtain, an old air-conditioning unit leaning precariously over the top of the door.

      I propped the picture of Daniel on the bedside table, took off the suit and blouse and folded them onto the seat of the chair. I bathed, wrapped myself in hotel towels and lay on the bed, sinking back against the pillows, holding the TV remote and flicking through Italian news channels, but most of the news seemed to be about football. I turned down the volume, called Fitz and was comforted by her dear, gruff voice. I didn’t know where to start to relate all that had happened since she dropped me off at the airport that morning, so she made it easy for me by asking questions that I did my best to answer.

      When it came to Joe, I told her that he’d been ‘okay, considering’. I studied a bruise forming on the back of my calf where the bag had bumped into me. ‘We won’t be here for long,’ I said, ‘he wants to sell the villa, too.’

      ‘Really? That’s not what you were expecting.’

      ‘No, and it’s a massive relief! Honestly, Fitz, I can’t even think about how awkward it would have been if he’d wanted to keep it. It could have taken months to sort out.’ I sighed pointedly. ‘As it is, we should have it all wrapped up in a week or two. He says there’s a lot of stuff inside the villa that we need to deal with, but I bet it’s mostly junk. Do they have charity shops in Sicily?’

      ‘Don’t be too quick to ditch it. You can sell anything online these days.’

      ‘I just want to be rid of it. It’s going to be mostly her stuff.’

      ‘If it’s mostly Anna’s, then it’ll be good quality.’

      ‘I don’t want anything to do with it.’

      Fitz sighed.

      ‘I told Joe we should get someone in to clear the villa, but he wouldn’t listen,’ I continued. ‘If he thinks I’m going to sort through heaps of her disgusting old clothes…’ I shuddered and tailed off.

      Fitz was silent, which meant I’d said something of which she disapproved.

      I wasn’t sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help being bitter about Anna. It was as if there was a never-ending stream of bile inside me connected to her and whenever I opened my mouth some of it came out. Releasing the anger was the only way I could gain any relief, otherwise it built up inside me, a swirling mass of hatred.

      ‘She’s dead, Edie,’ Fitz said gently.

      ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know. But that doesn’t make her any less guilty.’

      11

      The next morning, I dressed and went down to breakfast as soon as the hotel’s tiny restaurant was open, drawn by the smell of coffee and the lure of sweet pastries, hoping I was early enough to avoid the awkwardness of having to share a table with Joe. No sooner had I sat down with a glass of orange juice and a plate of bread and cheese, than he walked into the dining room. His face fell when he saw me.

      ‘Hi,’ he said, with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

      ‘Hi,’ I replied in the same tone.

      Joe looked around the room. One other table was occupied by a young man in a suit who was simultaneously eating and tapping messages into his mobile phone. Joe was faced with a difficult decision: to join me, or choose to sit as far away as possible. I could see the panic in his eyes and couldn’t bear it.

      I pushed back my chair. ‘I’ll go and eat in my room,’ I said. I picked up my plate and my glass.

      ‘You don’t have to.’

      ‘No, it’s fine.’ I scrabbled for an excuse, ‘I’m waiting for a phone call.’

      ‘Right,’ said Joe, making no attempt to hide his relief. ‘I’ll text you when I’m ready to go.’

      I took the food upstairs and ate alone, sitting at the table in my bedroom, with the window wide open and the curtain tied back, watching the hotel gardener water blood-red geraniums in their pots around the brilliant blue pool, watching the light catch on the plume of bright water that arced from the mouth of the hose. There had been times in my life when I’d have relished the opportunity to stay in a hotel like this one, to look out of this window and enjoy this view. Right now, it was the last place on earth I wanted to be.

      There was a Eurospin store on the outskirts of Porta Sarina where we stopped on our way back to the villa. Inside, it was more like a warehouse than a supermarket, noisy, overcrowded and dark, smelling of cardboard and decaying vegetables. We filled the trolley with fresh and tinned food, bottles of water and beer, biscuits, boxes of matches, candles and cleaning supplies.

      Joe paused by a display of sleeping bags.

      ‘There might not be any bedding in the villa, and these are cheap,’ he said.

      ‘We’re going to stay at the villa?’

      ‘We don’t want to be traipsing back round the bay every night, spending a fortune on hotel rooms.’

      ‘But…’

      ‘What?’

      I was remembering the sensation of being watched; the conviction that someone, or something, was inside the villa already; the feeling of being a trespasser or usurper inside the walls of that lovely, lonely, abandoned place.

      ‘It makes sense to stay there,’ said Joe.

      He was right, but apart from the unease I felt deep in my bones, I also disliked the prospect of staying in the Villa della Madonna del Mare, knowing that Anna had spent so much of her life there, knowing how much it was her villa. But Fitz was right. Anna DeLuca was dead and the sooner we cleared out the villa, the sooner I could leave it, and her, behind.

      As we headed to the checkout, we heard a call and turned to see a small, slender-boned woman of about my age coming towards us. She was heavily pregnant, wearing patterned leggings beneath an over-washed cotton dress and dirty tennis shoes.

      ‘Joey DeLuca!’ she called. ‘Is that really you?’

      ‘Valentina?’ Joe asked. ‘Valentina Esposito!’

      The woman put down her wire basket and half ran, half waddled towards Joe, and he held out his arms to greet her, a wide smile, like the smiles I remembered from long ago, brightening his face. They embraced, he leaning down to hug her with a warmth and enthusiasm that I hadn’t seen since I arrived in Sicily.

      I stepped back, closer to the shelves, to give them space.

      ‘You look amazing, Valentina!’ Joe said, straightening up. ‘But what are you doing here? I thought you and Salvo moved to the States!’

      Valentina shrugged. ‘It didn’t work out between us. Salvo stayed in New York, I came home. It wasn’t all bad, we had a kid, Francesco, he’s fourteen. I’m married to Vito Barsi