Somebody from the Past

By Rita Petrini

Expect the unexpected is the key to this novel. Angela, the protagonist, works as a pathologist at the Coroner’s Office and is a successful professional woman. The day that her husband – a foreigner she has helped to take refuge in her country – abandons her for a younger woman, her world falls apart. Psychologically traumatised by what she considers her husband’s betrayal, she tries to find comfort in her work. However the constant emotional stress she is under pushes her towards the edge of a new frontier. A woman starts to appear to her in the most unusual places provoking intense emotions. The problem is Angela is the only one to see her. Who is this woman? What does she want from her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483543772

Book preview

Margherita

Chapter 1

It was three o’clock in the morning when Angela opened the door of her apartment. She could hardly keep her eyes open. She was very tired. All she wanted was her warm, cosy bed where she could lose touch with harsh reality and become entangled in a world of dreams.

She had hardly put a foot inside when she heard the phone ringing. She ignored it. The answering machine would have taken care of it. It would probably have been a nuisance, a wrong number, surely something that could have been taken care of in the morning. ‘Calling somebody at three o’clock in the morning? Gosh, society is really going mad.’

Once in the hall she took off her shoes. She switched on the lights, slipped off her raincoat and walked briskly across the lounge to reach the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of mineral water. She was incredibly thirsty. The meal delivered at her office from the nearby takeaway and eaten in a hurry had given her indigestion. She regretted that the pressure of work had taken over her will power to avoid junk food. All her good intentions of eating healthy were always ending badly. She was fundamentally lazy and her job was leaving her too little time to take care of herself.

‘I’ll die of heartburn,’ she thought, ‘and I wouldn’t give a damn about it.’ The tiredness had decisively depressed her mood. Since her marriage to Carlo had so painfully ended she had lost any interest for life itself. It wasn’t just the end of a relationship to have hurt her so badly but the fact that the man to whom she had dedicated her life had cast her aside for a much younger woman. A woman twenty-five years her junior, a very unfair competition. ‘What makes a man approaching sixty fall into the trap of an unscrupulous Lolita, a teenage sexual exploiter who doesn’t want to wait long or work hard to climb the ladder of success? Boredom, inner insecurity or reaction to the passing of time? Egotism or simply stupidity?’

From the kitchen she could hear the voice of her mother through the answering machine. She wanted to know if she intended to join her Christmas party. This would have meant spending Christmas Eve at her aging mother’s ancestral house in the company of her second – or was it the third – husband, an uncertain number of half brothers and sisters and various cousins. She couldn’t stand her mother’s low pitched voice. It had always had the effect of irritating her. It was a gentle, calm voice with no hint of enthusiasm or burning inner passion. The voice of an empty soul or a hypocrite. A well suited voice for a person who had always had an easy life knowing no turmoil of sentiments or struggling of feelings. A voice so different from her own. A life so different from hers. On her way to the bedroom, passing near the telephone, she couldn’t resist the temptation and picked up the receiver.

Go to bed, Mum. Why aren’t you sleeping?

I just wanted to know if you are coming to us for Christmas.

You call me in the middle of the night just for this? Can’t you wait until morning?

You are never at home. You never answer your mobile. It’s very hard to get hold of you. You are shutting yourself away from the family. Anyway, Christmas is an important event. It’s the one time in the year when all the members of the family get reunited. I know that you don’t care much about reunions but Christmas is special. You are an oddity. Ordinary people like to see each other, exchange greetings, spend some time together in a friendly atmosphere. It would do you good to come and spend a little time with us.

I’m not coming. I don’t want to ruin your family reunion with my presence. I am rude and unfriendly anyway. You are better off without me, Angela said in a rebellious mood.

Oh, Angela! You can be such a pain when you make an effort. I can hardly believe you are my daughter, her mother commented sadly.

By the way Mum, what’s wrong with you? What are you doing up in the middle of the night? What’s the matter, is Roberto keeping you awake with his snoring?

Roberto doesn’t snore, well not much anyway. It was Carlo who was snoring, remember? My sleeping pills are not working tonight. My head is full of thoughts. Not even Mogadon can put it at rest.

Uh, Angela commented with indifference, It always works with me. Obviously your mind resists losing consciousness. You are too excited because of Christmas. Double the dose. Take another Mogadon and go back to bed.

You forget I am old. You are always out, you work incessantly, you get tired, you want to sleep. On the contrary I spend most of my time thinking, remembering. I reflect on events of my life. I ask myself questions. I find myself at the end of the road, there is so little time left for me. I don’t want to consume it sleeping.

Well, I never thought you had doubts or unpleasant memories. You have always given everybody the impression that your life was perfect. I cannot really think of anything that could trouble your days and impede your rest…

What do you know about me? Only what you see. Appearances sometimes are deceitful. I do worry about you, for example.

With no inclination for introspective conversations at that time of night, Angela truncated the dialogue, I’m not coming. That’s my answer to your question. Goodnight.

Her mother wasn’t going to give up so easily. She was used to having her own way. She always had, all her life. Why are you not coming? It’s two years now, what do you want to do with your life? Enter into a convent and become nun? You can’t give your life away for a man who betrayed you. He isn’t worth it. It’s time to get on with your life. I know it is hard but you have no other option. You can’t consume yourself for something over which you have no control. Yes, you have been abandoned by a man you trusted but dear, it happens to a lot of women all over the world every single day. What happened to you is not so peculiar and it wasn’t your fault. He has always been an unworthy man, we could see it. He wasn’t right for you and you were the only one not to see it. We are all human, we all make mistakes. Angela, you have got to get over it. Sooner or later you’ll meet somebody else. The world is full of nice, decent men capable of loving a woman sincerely. Men who can make you happy if you give one of them a chance. If you don’t want to meet people when are you going to find one?

Please Mum, stop it. I don’t need a man. I don’t need another man in my life. I have had enough of men they are all the same.

Don’t be silly. Men are not all the same. Take Roberto, for example. He is a good man from a decent family… Carlo wasn’t, really. He wasn’t a well educated man, he didn’t have proper manners. His family was a bit low in social class. You should have married someone else, a real professional. A hard worker, someone with drive and ambition. Someone not afraid of taking the initiative…

Oh, he wasn’t afraid of taking the initiative after all. He left me for a teenager who could have been his granddaughter… Angela laughed sarcastically then she added, Please, Mum. Let’s not talk about the past, of what could have been but has not been. I don’t want to remember or be reminded by you about the mess I have made of my life. Okay, Carlo has revealed himself as the cheap man you all knew he was. I don’t want to know any more. The past is past. Mum, please go back to bed. Take another sleeping pill and get off the phone. I’m very tired and really need to rest now. I’ll call you tomorrow, promise. Goodnight.

Angela hung up the phone before her Mum could say another word.

‘Give me a break. Just leave me alone. Let me get over the bitter taste of my personal defeat in my own time,’ she thought in anger. ‘For God’s sake, who cares about Christmas! All I want is to be left alone. Is that asking too much?’

Angela walked briskly towards her bedroom. She got undressed and set the alarm for eight o’clock. A few minutes later she was already in dreamland.

She found herself, as was often the case, in her grandmother’s house. The one who lived beside the sea. She saw herself sitting on a chair in the kitchen. Her grandma was busy moving around, looking cheerful and smiling reassuringly to her from time to time. Angela was shifting her eyes constantly between the happy face of the woman intent in preparing the meal and the branches of the tree in the middle of the little garden onto which the kitchen window opened. There were no curtains on the window. It was always open to embrace that majestic tree in the garden that was almost a feature of the house.

The house was located in the Old Station Square right at the centre of the town. Behind the big entrance gate, the path leading to the house was flanked by two big rectangular flower beds. Amazingly no sound, no buzz from the Square was ever reaching the house. The house was little country oasis right in the middle of the fracas. It was there that Angela had learned to appreciate the healing power of silence. The setting of the house was so natural that silence appeared such a natural condition of life only interrupted from time to time by the sound of the leaves of the tree rustling under the caress of a light summer breeze and the chirping of the little birds. Angela had always loved that house. Life with her grandmother away from the stressful relationship with her mother was so peaceful. No rules, no demands, no blackmail. Dreaming of her with her grandmother in that big kitchen smelling of food all the time was always bringing comfort to her heart.

Then suddenly, as often recently, the dream changed. She saw herself lying on the bed. The sheet was covering her nose and mouth. Her arms, abandoned by her sides, were totally paralysed. Breathing under the sheet was becoming more and more difficult. Her mind was alert as if it was awake. She soon realised that she was losing control of her body. She knew that she had to remove the sheet from her face to regain normal breathing. All it would have taken was to raise her arm and remove the sheet. However the mind couldn’t control the body. Her arm was remaining inert. Soon panic set in. She started to sweat.

‘What do I do now?’ she was thinking. ‘There is not a bloody thing I can do about it. I’m fucked. I’m going to die for the lack of oxygen!’ The mind was continuously battling the lack of response of the body. Unsuccessfully. She was now lying in a pool of sweat. When she had finally given up and accepted her incipient death, her left hand rushed towards the sheet and tore it away from her nose. Exhausted, almost sick, she had found life again. She woke up with a start, as ever. Breathless, her mouth dry and still sweating profusely Angela sat on the bed and burst into tears. A quiet, desolate outcry. It was quite a few months now that that nightmare had entered her sleep. Recently it had become more frequent.

It can’t go on like this, she said to herself, I have to do something about it.

She took a warm shower, got dressed quickly and made herself a frothy cappuccino. She drunk it avidly and went out in a rush. The noise of the busy city hit her with all its unpleasantness. Everybody seemed to be running, indifferent to each other. They all seemed to be following a plan of action, to be heading towards something or somebody.

I am not one of them, I can’t be one of them. I have no direction, I have nobody to run towards. Life guides me. Where? Nowhere. Warm, silent tears were rolling down her cheeks. She didn’t even attempt to wipe them away. She continued to walk without direction for a while. Her movements were slow and almost tranquil but her heart was beating fast.

She had no recollection of how long she walked. She walked and walked. She strolled along the avenues and the side streets of the city, looking around but miles away. She stopped only when her body couldn’t take it anymore. With tired legs and very thirsty she decided to stop and rest for a while. She chose a small coffee shop from which the friendly tune of one of Enrique Iglesias’s most popular songs was inviting her to enter. She didn’t enter. She opted for one of the small tables outside away from the other clients and from the waiter who promptly came over she ordered two cappuccinos.

Two cappuccinos? the waiter asked puzzled by the fact that she was alone.

Yes, two. I like cappuccinos. ‘What am I supposed to tell you? You serve them in such small cups that one is not enough for me.’ Angela thought slightly irritated.

I can’t lie, she had once told her Professor of Latin and Greek.

Then you must learn, had said the Professor icily. You can’t go through life without lying. One way or another, for one reason or another. If you can’t lie, my dear, you have got to learn. It is imperative you learn for your own good."

Angela had looked at him in astonishment then she had said, giving in to one of her rebellious moods, I will not change. I’m not going to lie, no matter what.

The terribly strict Professor had remained silent for a while then, looking at her with his intense, cold blue eyes, had added with a detached tone of voice, "You are wasting your time in this school, my dear. This is an institute for people who are going to be successful in life. You are going to be a failure. You have to remember that in this matter life gives you no options. Lying is not an alternative to being frank and honest. You will survive only by learning to lie skilfully. Life doesn’t reward people with integrity, only those who are capable of delivering beautiful lies will climb the social ladder of success. Why do you think telling the truth is so important and worthy? Nobody wants the truth. The ugly people don’t want to know they are ugly, the idiots that they are idiots. So what do you do? Tell the people who live on fraud that they are crooks?

No, no, my dear. What’s the point of being intelligent and talented if you are unwilling to lie? You’ll go nowhere, Angela. I really hope you marry a rich man because I cannot foresee how you can take care of yourself in this life if you are not prepared to lie. If you insist on telling people what you are really thinking, especially considering that you are a woman, you will only gather a queue of enemies behind you. What a difficult life you are going to have, my dear, if you don’t learn to lie! I feel sorry for you. Angela, reconsider my advice: learn to lie," and in so saying the Professor turned his back and disappeared into the long corridor.

Angela had remained there staring at the back of his head until she couldn’t see him anymore. She couldn’t believe what her beloved Professor had asked of her. The next time she had bumped into him, she boldly apostrophised him, Professor Giordano, don’t you always tell us to learn from history? You make us read the works of the greatest names in Latin and Greek literature, what for? In the ancient poems the heroes are always the noblest. They win exhibiting the purest emotions and the fairest behaviour. They have a noble code of conduct, great ideals and laudable sentiments. The heroes always win against the villains. They never achieve glory through lying and deceit. In this Lyceum we study philosophy, we are pondering in search of the truth. What’s the point of slaving over the text books if, according to you, all we have to do to succeed in life is to lie…?

"I see, you want to play the smart card with me! Well, dear Angela, remember this: You cannot go through life holding noble feelings and the truth as a shield.

Hector was a great hero but he was killed by Achilles for being stupid and defending the action of a deceitful brother: Paris had stolen Helen from her husband. They could have solved the conflict by sending her back to her people to face the right punishment. Hector’s noble sentiments ruined an entire city. Any rational person could observe that loyalty is not always a good thing and can make us behave in an idiotic way. To save a woman they allowed thousands to be slaughtered. In this case betrayal would have been more acceptable. In the end Troy was conquered by deceit. The naivety of the Trojans was exploited by their enemy with a beautiful lie. The wooden horse that was a conciliatory gift was in reality a weapon of mass destruction, so to speak. The soldiers hidden inside at night came out to open the doors of the citadel to the troops of Agamemnon. See? In ancient times they were even able to conquer cities making use of a little, beautiful lie. We live in a modern world, we have to deal with different contingencies.

Let’s go down to the banalities. How does a man conquer a woman? Showing her his bad traits, being on his worst behaviour? Of course he tries to enchant her, to seduce her… He puts on the most credible mask he can manage to appear wholesome and worthy of love. Isn’t that lying? Isn’t that deceit? Of course it is. When the mask falls, the pretence drops, the relationship ends. He wouldn’t have had the woman in the first place if he hadn’t lied. You don’t have to look at lies only within an important context, only within the issues of morality and integrity. After all, wouldn’t you call it lying the behaviour of a girl who goes out on a date? She does her hair, she wears make-up, she wears her best dress and sometimes a padded bra. She is presenting herself under false pretences. The poor man who will fall for her doesn’t really know how ugly she is first thing in the morning, before she polishes up her appearance.

We are all lying all the time. Some people more than others, some less but we all love to be liked, to be appreciated and for this we often pretend to be what we are not. It doesn’t matter we live in a world of make believe, It doesn’t matter if life is a theatre and we are all tragic-comic characters on its stage. To live, even merely to survive, we need each other. To attract people to ourselves we have to be nice and pleasant. It doesn’t matter if that’s not really the way we are or if the words we use do not reflect our true feelings. We have to learn to lie in a credible way to achieve what we want.

I am an old man compared to you, that means that I have acquired a great deal of experience in dealing with life. Believe me Angela if I am telling you that you have got to learn to lie to succeed in life, you have got to trust me. You are one of my favourite students and really want you to make a success of your life. Listen to me: Learn to lie. Start exercising… You can start with me… A beautiful, sad half smile lit his face. Come on, tell me I am your favourite Professor, the most interesting and clever lecturer you have ever had. Tell me that I polarise your attention every time I enter the classroom," his handsome face disclosed an enigmatic look.

I really think you are somebody special, Angela told him, blushing.

Really?!? Well said Angela. See, it’s not that difficult to lie once you start doing it. I am no different than the others. I too like to be praised. It doesn’t matter if you are telling the truth or just pretending. I liked your lie. From now on every time I mark your papers I will be that little more generous… Well done, see, you can do it. Keep it up.

He had then turned his back to her and headed towards a colleague. Angela would often think of him even now after so many years. She could still see him with his camel coat, his black brief case, his icy gaze and the enigmatic smile he would give her every time their eyes would meet.

So many years had gone by since she had last seen him. She was still finding lying difficult. She still had this irresistible impulse to tell the truth at all costs. Her own version of the truth of course, as a philosopher would say. Nevertheless not a predetermined lie deliberately told for personal gain.

‘If I had been a good liar maybe Carlo wouldn’t have left me for someone who could lie better than me. Someone who could inflate his Ego with lots of nice words. A cheap little tart who couldn’t wait to earn success on her own terms. A teenager exploiting a mature man who could immediately give her all she wanted, financial security at its best. A little girl lacking decency, someone who still thinks that giving a man a child is the best way to get hold of him for good. Between the two of them who was the best woman, herself, a woman of high morality and noble principles or the cheap tart who has no scruples in having sex with a man three times her age knowing that the wife was at home waiting for him? Why bother fishing for answers! Deception always triumphs over honesty. Vice is always more exciting than virtue. Too much Latin and Greek on her mind, too many good principles in her life. Reality is one thing, fair play is another.

Let’s not forget we live in a consumistic society where money and sex dominate the scene. These two always keep company, the only thing that changes is which one follows the other. Men don’t respect women? I wonder why! Of course the main reason for this is the bad behaviour of women themselves. If they wanted to be respected they shouldn’t take advantage of men pretending to fall in love when they are just considering the size of their wallet. Women have become