Constant Tides

Peter Crawley

Description

In the early hours of Monday 28th December 1908, a girl steals through the garden of Villa Mazzini. Lilla is on her way to meet Enzo and together they intend to leave on a steamship for a new life in America. First though, they must evade his father's spies, for Don Carmelo believes the daughter of a fisherman unworthy of his son's affections; and second, they must survive the greatest earthquake in the city's long history.In July 1943, Mira receives a visit from Lieutenant Aldo de la Grascia at her family home in the village of Ganzirri. Mira is fond of theofficer and without his continuous gift of provisions, her caf would have closed long ago. However, the war has already made her awidow and Mira isn't sure if she is ready to love again. Then, late one night, an Italian sailor knocks on her door and asks her to help hiscompanion, a wounded British naval officer.And in the summer of 2018 on the beach at Capo Peloro, Angelica is intrigued by an Englishwoman who speaks Sicilian in theMessinese dialect and who seems more than a little melancholy. In the afternoon, the woman goes for a swim and is caught in thestrong tides that run through the Strait. Angelica wonders whether the woman has put herself in danger intentionally and knows there islittle that can be done to prevent her from drowning; that is until a feluca appears.A three-part novel based on historical events,Constant Tidesfollows the loves of three courageous women through the spring, summerand autumn of their lives in the Strait of Messina, Sicily.

Sujets

• Mesina
• Sagas
• Messina

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 mars 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838598167
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Peter Crawley

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781838598167

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

By the same author

Mazzeri
Boarding House Reach
Ontreto
The Truth In Fiction
The Wind Between Two Worlds

To the people of Messina

Constant Tides is a work of fiction and, with the exception of known historical figures and events, any resemblance to persons either living or dead and other events is entirely coincidental. The views and attitudes expressed in this novel are in no way to be confused with those of the author, even and especially when written in the first person: these are merely the imagined views and attitudes of imagined characters.
Contents
Book 1
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30

Book 2
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29

Book 3
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

Acknowledgements

Book 1
Lilla
1908
Chapter 1
Her heart thumps in her chest, her cheeks burn and her limbs lose their substance. The young girl falters in her stride, reaches out to steady herself and clings to the rocklike root of the fig tree in the Villa Mazzini.
“Come, Lilla,” she whispers, “be brave. You must. Where is your courage? Remember that time when you had to swim in the dark. That time you were playing dares with Rosario and Gaetano, and they said you were a coward and that you wouldn’t swim out to the boat and back because it was night and girls were afraid of the dark. Well, you proved who had the greater courage then, so now show yourself once more that you are brave.”
The sound of her own voice lifts her spirits.
That time, that time with Rosario and Gaetano, her first step into the inky–black water had been both frightening and enthralling. Was she to be swallowed beneath the waves as the sea monster sucked down the waters of the Strait? No, because like everyone else the monster was sleeping, so she had swum out and straight back without difficulty. And the boys? Well, that shut them up. They’d never again dared her do anything they hadn’t done.
This time things will be the same, only they will be different. The night is chilled, the end of December not the middle of the summer; and this night Lilla is leaving home for good, for a new life, for her new life with Enzo in…
“America. Oh, it sounds so grand. And I will wear a dress that will give me breasts like a pigeon, a dress that shows off my ankles, or maybe a high collar with a necktie or a hat with bird’s feathers; and Rosario and Gaetano will still be here with their baggy trousers and shirts made from heavy cloth. Oh, and Enzo will work in an office and he will be a man of distinction and we will be a couple other people want to know.”
Lilla lingers beneath the boughs of the fig tree and wonders. Her mother, her sisters, Rosario and Gaetano: what will they think of her running away?
Her father is a hunter, married both to her mother and to the tides that govern the narrow waters of the Strait between Messina and the Calabrian coast; a man of principle, a tough man with a kind heart, a man some called a peasant and others a king.
The previous evening, when Lilla had crawled into the bed she shared with her grandmother and three sisters, she had lain awake and overheard her father and mother discussing the day.
Apart from it being Sunday, there was much that had been peculiar. For one, her father had not insisted on herding his family to the Chiesa di Gesù e Maria del Buon Viaggio to pay their respects and pray for benign weather and good fishing. Instead he had forsaken his obediences and taken to his smaller skiff, rowing with his friend, Pipo Sorbello, up to the shallows at Contemplazione where, in spite of the clouds hanging low and the heavy rain, they had managed a bumper catch of fish.
“I tell you, Rocca, there is something very odd going on,” he’d said to Lilla’s mother. “The fish were behaving in a very strange manner; I have never seen so many large shoals so close inshore. In such weather, the fish normally make for the deep as though they cannot bear the drumming of the rain on the surface. Yet no, it was like they were all competing for room among the shallows, competing to get closer to the sky. All one had to do was cast one’s net and soon the baskets were overflowing. And it wasn’t only the fish either: the seagulls, too, were wheeling and diving but not fighting for their share of the fish; they seemed reluctant to skim the water, as though it was in some way tainted.”
Something very odd, that was what he had said, something very odd. Did her father know of her intended departure? Had she behaved in an unusual manner? In being overly helpful with the supper and putting her sisters to bed, had she, inadvertently, given her game away?
In the next room, her father had slept fitfully. She’d lain awake and heard him turning and thrashing, a curious unease lying over him like a prickly blanket, and Lilla had waited until she was sure he was soundly asleep before stealing past his door.
“Where are you going, my angel?” His voice had startled her.
“Nowhere, papà… just outside.”
“Then I will come with you.” And they’d stood together by the door of the small house, silent but for the barking of dogs and alone but for the comfort of the stars and each other.
Lilla had shivered nervously, aware that she could do little else other than wait and hope her father would soon return to bed.
“So, this boy, Enzo,” he’d said at last. “Enzo Ruggeri, the son of Don Carmelo, the strong man of the harbour…”
“Yes, papà.” She’d looked down at her feet as though, somehow, it was they who were responsible for the flight she was about to take.
“You are leaving us?”
Curiously, Lilla noted, there seemed no malice, no edge of temper in her father’s voice. “Yes, papà.”
“He is taking you away?”
The thought that the blame for deserting her family might be laid at Enzo’s door had angered her. After all, it was not Enzo’s decision that she should go; it was hers. “No, papà. He is going with or without me. He is not taking me away; I am going with him. We are not eloping.”
Her denial had contained something of a white lie, for she had already been as intimate as she thought proper with Enzo and that intimacy had sealed their love for each other. However, there was no doubt her running away would cause her family considerable shame among the community of fishermen.
“It is the same, Lilla. To elope, to leave with someone, to run away with another. But you must not worry: only fools and the wealthy worry about what others say.”
“I thought you would be angry with me; that is why I did not tell you.”
“I know, my little angel and I understand. And if you had told me, then I could not deny knowing when your mother asks me. And if I give you my blessing and she finds out, then she will have both of us to forgive.”
“Do I have your blessing, papà?”
“You will break your mother’s heart if you go.”
Lilla had wiped away the tears welling in her eyes. “I will break my own if I don’t.”
“Yes,” her father had sighed. “And your sisters will break your mother’s heart when they go. And go they will, one day. As sure as the Madonna provides us with fish, one day they will go.” He pauses, thinking. “This Enzo, he is capable and honest, and he has taught you to read and write; that is good. And I watched him when he came to work with us on the luntro: he works hard, he has a feel for the sea and he does not shy away from challenge; that is good, too; that will mak