The following morning Mike announced an outing to a nearby vineyard. Briony immediately elected to stay behind. ‘I’m feeling a bit tired,’ she lied. ‘You all go. I’ll do some shopping and book us a table for tonight.’ They were going to try a restaurant in the next village, which Aruna had found recommended in the visitors’ book.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Aruna asked, her face worried. Since Briony had returned from her evening escape the atmosphere in the house had been subdued and everyone except Luke had been giving her wary glances, which she hated.
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she said, trying her best to appear cheerful. ‘Really. I’m just not sleeping that well. It’s the heat.’ This was true, but so was the fact that she felt embarrassed by their concern and simply yearned for her own company.
Aruna nodded, but she didn’t look convinced.
After she had waved them off, Briony made the restaurant reservation then walked down the hill and bought a few supplies at the local shop, which she lugged back to put away in the kitchen. Then she made a pot of gorgeously scented coffee. Settling herself on a sunbed by the pool, she picked up a novel she’d bought at the airport. The pleasure of being by herself, with the thought of olive bread, soft cheese and fruit in the kitchen awaiting her, was immense. Then she heard the sound of a vehicle stopping outside in the lane. Surely they weren’t back already.
There was a hammering on the front door. Surprised, Briony opened it to find an overgrown youth of about eighteen standing in the porch. At his feet lay a big cardboard box. He’d left his car with the engine turning and its ugly chugging annoyed her.
‘Buongiorno. For you,’ he said in heavily accented English, indicating the box.
Briony glared at it with suspicion. It was grimy and bore a picture of a food mixer on its side.
‘For you,’ he repeated, his huge, dark-lashed eyes pleading. ‘My mama give.’
‘Sorry? Non capisco.’
The boy waved his arms in frustration, then spun on his heel, pushing his hand through his thick black hair as he searched for words. He turned to face her again and tried a charming lopsided grin.
‘For you to see,’ he said. ‘Like TV. Thank you.’
She studied him for a second, then hunkered down and pulled up the flaps on the box. Inside was a machine of some sort, though not a food mixer. An old film projector, she realized, and a couple of round shallow tins – old-fashioned film canisters. ‘I don’t think this can be for me,’ she said, miming ‘no’ with palms raised.
‘Si, si,’ he insisted. ‘Mama, she, she . . .’ He rubbed the air vigorously as though with a cloth on a window.
‘Cleaning? Oh, your mother is Mariella?’
‘Si, cleaner. Very good. This for you. I go now. Arrivederci, signorita.’ And he set off down the garden, stopping only to wave one last time.
‘What is it for?’ Briony called, too late. She watched him jump into his car, execute a hurried three-point turn and accelerate away with a screech of grinding metal, leaving a cartoon cloud of dust.
Briony wriggled her bare toes, her arms folded, and stared down at the box. Why on earth had their cleaner sent them an old film projector? She sighed. Whatever the answer, she couldn’t leave it on the doorstep. She dragged the box into the kitchen where there was enough light to inspect the contents. She picked out one of the canisters. The slim round tin was so tightly closed that it took a few goes with a coin from her purse to prise it open.
She was no expert, but the film inside appeared to be in usable condition. She found the end of the tape, unwound a long strip and held it up to the light, examining the place where the photographic film began, but could discern no identifiable image. She thought for a moment, then wound it up and returned it to its case.
The presence of the box on the floor troubled her as she sat on a stool to eat her bread and cheese, hardly noticing the taste she’d so looked forward to. It occurred to her eventually that there might be an explanatory note with the gift. She hefted the machine up onto the table. The second tin contained only an empty reel. There was nothing else in the box nor anything written on the side. If only she had some idea of how to operate the wretched machine. Usually a technician would set film up for her if she needed it during research.
She was still puzzling over it when, in the early afternoon, the others returned from their expedition, hot, bothered and, in Zara’s case, much the worse for the wine-tasting. ‘She drank it instead of spitting it out,’ Aruna whispered, as they watched Zara haul herself upstairs to lie down.
Mike, carrying a box of clinking bottles into the kitchen, noticed the projector at once. ‘Hello, where did that come from?’ He set down the case next to it and picked up the canisters. He was breathing heavily and his fleshy face dripped with perspiration underneath his short thinning hair, but his eyes brightened as he examined the machine.
‘The cleaner’s son brought it over, I’ve no idea why.’
‘I might just be able to get this baby going,’ Mike murmured as he fitted the empty reel onto a sprocket. ‘My dad had one. He used to show us Charlie Chaplin films at Christmas. It was brilliant when he made them go backwards.’
‘Ladies and gentlebums,’ Mike’s deep voice boomed out of the shuttered darkness of the sitting room late that evening after they’d returned from the restaurant. ‘With any luck the show will now begin.’
The white bed sheet Luke had rigged up as a screen caught a sudden square of winking yellow light that leaped from the projector.
‘There’s a spider on the sheet!’
‘Don’t be a wuss, Zara,’ Mike sighed.
‘Come on, little guy. It’s not your turn for the limelight.’ Luke nudged it to safety.
The machine’s whirring loudened as the sprockets began to turn. A series of grainy black panels flickered over the sheet and then came a quivery black and white image. It took a moment for Briony to make it out. ‘A plane.’ It was tiny, flying smoothly in a cloudless sky, then suddenly it began to emit flames and black smoke and dipped and weaved, coming in and out of focus as the camera swooped to follow it. There were gasps from everyone in the room.
‘Any sound there, Mike?’ Aruna said urgently.
‘Can’t get any.’
The plane dropped silently behind a hill and everyone groaned.
‘Ah,’ Mike said as the image changed. A panorama shot of a large, untidy garden, a couple of parked trucks.
‘Army, or something?’ said Luke.
‘There are no markings, but could they be British?’ Briony moved to a better vantage point, trying to see the details more sharply. Two men in uniform were unloading boxes from one of the vehicles, then there was a close-up shot of the soldiers’ faces, grinning for the camera. One made a V for Victory sign and his lips moved. ‘Definitely British,’ Briony muttered, seeing a badge on a sleeve.
There was a whitish building of some sort in the background. Briony hoped the shot would pan out so she could see what it was, but instead it hovered over the boxes, then swooped round to show a small group of men sitting on crates playing cards and smoking. One made a monkey face, another waved, but a third hid his face with his arm. The camera zoomed in on the cards in his hand and then there must have been a scuffle after that because the picture spun chaotically towards the sky, and then there was a sudden glimpse of the white building again as it was righted. Window shutters, a pantiled roof.
‘A villa,’ Luke said quietly. ‘British soldiers at a villa here during the war.’
‘Seems like it,’ Briony agreed. The screen went dark then brightened again. This time the picture appeared to be a peaceful scene across a valley with all its terraces and groves of trees. ‘It’s our valley!’ Then she breathed in sharply. ‘Oh no.’
‘The bridge!’ They all spoke at once as they pointed out landmarks and noticed with dismay the wartime damage. A bomb crater; terraces ravaged by vehicle tracks; the shell of a burned-out house, charred rafters swaying in the wind; finally a shot of an overturned tank. A scrap of a boy with a rapturous smile stood balanced on the black cross on its side, one raised arm punching the air.
And then, ‘Those gates,’ Briony cried out, when the picture changed again. ‘Luke, it’s the place I came across the other evening.’
It made sense suddenly. ‘I was asking Mariella about the villa I saw up the hill,’ she explained. ‘Where I walked before Luke found me. That must be why she’s given us the film. But,’ she wondered, ‘where did she get it from?’
‘Sshh, there’s more,’ Luke said.
They found themselves staring at two men in khakis weeding a patch of earth studded with tender little plants.
‘Potatoes!’ he pronounced knowledgeably.
‘Tatties, eh? Ooh ah!’ Mike’s teasing voice.
The camera zoomed in on one of the hoes working briskly between the plants and a hand reaching down to yank out a weed, then moved upwards. The man’s open jacket revealed a vest stretched over a tanned, muscled chest. His head was lowered as he concentrated on his work, and his arms glistened with sweat. As though noticing the camera for the first time, he looked up and straight at the lens, pushed his cap back and wiped his forehead with his arm. Short, springy dark hair grew above a high forehead and laughing eyes in a narrow, tanned face.
Surprise raced through Briony’s whole body.
She knew that face, those eyes.
There came a loud ripping sound, the picture flew away in a rag of ribbon and the screen glared yellow once more.
‘That’s it, folks,’ Mike said, switching on the lights. ‘Can’t see what the fuss is all about, personally.’
There were general murmurs of bewilderment. Why had Mariella given Briony this film? ‘It was of round here,’ Aruna said, ‘so perhaps she thought we’d be interested. Hey, Briony, are you OK?’
Briony blinked and realized that everyone was staring at her. ‘Sorry,’ she said, then after a moment, ‘I wonder if Mariella meant it for all of us, or maybe . . . well, I don’t know. Listen, guys . . . Mike, sorry to be a pain, but I need to see it again.’
There were groans, but she didn’t care. She had to. She knew without doubt that the film had been for her and her alone.
The soldier’s face was as familiar to her as her own.
‘He was exactly like my brother. I didn’t mean it was Will, of course,’ Briony told Luke and Aruna, ‘it would have been my grandfather. Mum always said Will took after him.’
It was later in the evening and she had stepped out to join the others in the gloom of the vine-canopied patio, hesitant until they welcomed her. Astringent smoke from a candle on the low table filled the warm air, its flickering flame throwing restless shadows up the leafy wall and reflecting off beakers of the ruby wine they’d bought at the vineyard. With Mike’s help she had watched the film again, making him slow it right down when they reached the shots of the man who looked like her brother.
‘I did see what you mean about him being vaguely like Will, though the clip was so grainy. Do you know for definite your grandfather was here during the war?’ Aruna asked.
‘According to Dad he was in this part of Italy.’
Aruna looked sceptical. ‘It would be an amazing coincidence if it was him, Briony. I mean, those men all looked alike, especially in khaki with those savage haircuts.’
‘Mmm.’ She wouldn’t let Aruna sway her. The man’s eyes had looked out across the years into her own in a way that had tugged at her heart. She had only been ten when Grandpa Andrews died and could not remember him clearly, but she’d seen pictures. She was possessed by the desire to know if this man was him.
The obvious thing would be to ask Mariella, but she wasn’t due for a day or two and Briony couldn’t wait. In the morning she’d find out where she lived and visit her.
After Aruna and Luke had retired to bed she sat alone for a while in the candlelight watching the shimmering reflection of stars on the tranquil surface of the pool and thinking. Grace, her counsellor, had encouraged her to talk about her mother, and in the course of these conversations Briony had come to understand the true extent of her loss. With her mother’s death she had lost that entire side of her family. Maybe, just maybe, she’d been handed a chance to recover something.