Love Will Tear You Apart

Giulia Ottaviano

• Editore: RIZZOLI FIRST
• Anno: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9788858633267

The house is floodlit, the crystal glasses are ready, the waiters and maids arelined up. A delicate Chanel dress lies on the bed. Eugenia is late for her father's birthday: and she knows full well that celebrations for Paolo De Gasperis, a prominent Milanese entrepreneur, are not ordinary occasions. She enters the house in a hurry, and then she stops, taken aback: the drawing room is empty of guests. The news came a few days ago: the De Gasperis company's huge building site has been seized, and Paolo has been charged with serious offences. Lucy, his wife, is devastated: she can already see their assets confiscated, the family ruined. But Eugenia does not know that everything is changing. She doesn't want to know. Because not long ago, at university, she met Tobias, the first boy who's ever made her feel this way: intelligent, straightforward, real. He's half German and has lived in Milan for a few months. He's far removed from the glittering world in which she has grown up: he doesn't know about luxuries or parties at the villa, and in Eugenia he sees a depth she didn't know she had. Together – on their late-night strolls, on stolen afternoons they should have spent studying – they discover an unexpected city, made up of cloisters and country roads off the beaten track. But perhaps, dreams cannot last. Eugenia will return home, once and for all, to stand by her family. And she will have to decide the destiny of her newly-found love. Giulia Ottaviano has written a real page-turner, a book that tells of desire and fear as we experience them today.

Love Will Tear You Apart

To Carlo and Giusy

Prologue

Inside the De Gasperis house, floor lamps and chandeliers bathed the dining room in a warm and welcoming light. In the darkness of the street outside, the windows of the gloomy stone building twinkled like expensive earrings.

Lucy glided across the antique rugs that covered almost the entire floor space of the room. She hopped barefoot from one corner to the other, wearing a long, delicately coloured dress that almost touched the ground, making her look like a nymph.

She adjusted the flower arrangement in the middle of the table a fraction, and called for Ninin to change the water that was yellowing slightly in the two vases filled with roses that had been placed at the entrance. Armed with a white silk handkerchief held tightly in her fist, she attacked the plates, glasses, cutlery and silverware, polishing them furiously, stopping only to dampen the corner of the cloth with her tongue whenever necessary. She had tied the bows on the waitresses’ aprons herself and had taken Ninin aside to ask her to ensure that every one of them was well turned out and sweet-smelling.

«What’s the time?» she called every few minutes. She was nervous.

One of the waitresses, the youngest one, almost a child, replied that it was just after eight.

For a moment, Lucy seemed to relax.

As always, she had completed the more important and complicated tasks in the morning, before leaving the maid and the rest of the staff to carry out her orders, while she had her hair and nails done. She always left an hour or two in the late afternoon to check that everything had been done according to her liking.

She took a turn around the room, but in vain.

She was on the lookout for anything that needed reorganising, moving, changing. She always liked to add her touch, but everything was already as it should be. This disappointed rather than pleased her.

She sat down at the table and took a deep breath.

«The seating cards» she said.

Ninin came in a few moments later, clutching a silver tray. Balanced on top of it were twelve small ceramic eggs, a block of note cards, a fountain pen, a white sheet of paper and a black leather writing case. Lucy wrote down the list of dinner guests on the sheet of paper. Then she sketched the table and the seats around it and began to write the names around the drawing. In previous years she had enjoyed creating new combinations, seating enemies close to each other and separating lovers, but this time she opted for a classic, patriarchal seating plan: Paolo at the head of the table, herself and Eugenia either side of him. Couples would be sat opposite one another and Primo, the closest of her husband’s friends and associates, would be in the guest of honour’s seat.

It’ll be just perfect this way, she thought.

Ninin reappeared behind her.

«May I, signora?» she asked.

Lucy nodded and the maid took the sheet of paper, placed it back on the tray and returned to the small room off the kitchen where, in her best handwriting (which her mistress would pass off later as her own) began to copy the names out onto the little cards. Then she placed them on the black leather writing case, which she took back to Lucy for her final approval.

She stood up. Meanwhile Ninin began to position the little eggs on the table next to the side plates. Lucy followed behind her, slipping the cards into their holders. Suddenly she heard a crash from the kitchen. Something had fallen and as it smashed on the floor had made a horrible, unexpected noise, almost of defeat, that had made one of the waitresses cry out.

«Please continue» she commanded.

She could hear the chef admonishing his assistant.

This chef, the owner of a top restaurant in Via Solferino, had been hired to cook Paolo’s birthday meal for the last fifteen years. The same menu every year.

«Is something wrong?» said Lucy appearing at the kitchen doorway. She leant an arm on the doorframe and crossed one leg in front of the other, revealing her slim ankle and slender foot.

«As you can see, signora» he replied, showing her the shattered oven dish that he had retrieved from the floor. «Empty, luckily» his movement suggested.

«That’s alright then» she responded briskly, and smiled, her teeth whiter than the long string of pearls that hung down to her navel.

The chef and his assistant went back to work.

Everything was under control.

As she walked away she added: «Do bring the roast pig to the table whole».

Every year the same request. Every year the same horrid joke that Paolo would crack to his friend Primo as he removed the apple from the pig’s mouth: «I won’t let them silence you!».

She walked the length of the long corridor as if it were a catwalk, her shoulders straight, her gait anxious. As she went by she straightened picture frames impatiently and switched on the spotlights that illuminated the canvases and the niches filled with Japanese statues (from a phase she’d had a few years ago).

Then she went into Eugenia’s room.

It was much untidier than usual. Abandoned clothes lay in a heap on the bed and she tossed them lazily into the laundry basket. She shelved the books that were stacked on the bedside table and desk, closing and gathering the ones that her daughter had left open on the floor, like tortoises with white stomachs. She piled them up in a corner.

When had she started reading all these books?

She tidied the unmade bed, smoothing the sheets with her hands and then left the room, upset and troubled.

«Ninin» she yelled, «remember to dust the bottles in the drinks cabinet... My husband is bound to offer the guests a whiskey tasting.»

«I’ve already done it, signora» she replied. A couple of bottles had broken in the confusion a few days ago. It had taken the maid hours to clean up the mess – it was a nightmare getting liquor stains off wooden shelves.

«And don’t clear up Eugenia’s room tomorrow» she continued. «It’s time she pulled herself together.»

Lucy went into the dressing room.

Paolo would want to wear a bow tie, she thought to herself. It was one of her husband’s customs, which had over time become almost a tradition: the bow tie and pig roast on his birthday, a cigar on New Year’s Eve, shaving in the evening, taking the boat out on the first of May, a run in the park on Sundays.

She took a deep blue bowtie from one of the drawers which was filled with many others and put it to one side, placing it over the back of an armchair, like a freshly caught minnow.

Then she opened one of her wardrobes, glancing at her clothes lined up in profile, stroking some of them. Her collection was worth a fortune; it was her treasure trove and not just financially: every one of the outfits reminded her of a show, an event, a dinner. They were her memories, her life’s keepsakes, like a pair of old glasses left behind when their owner dies. All it took was one glimpse of print or fabric to take her back to a summer spent in Positano.

Lucy didn’t change – Paolo liked her to be elegant but natural, especially for evenings at home. When he was younger he’d even get annoyed if she put on too much make up. He said that her beauty was pure and should stay that way. Yet for several years now she’d been covering the lines and dark circles with a layer of foundation.

That evening, she completed her look with a pair of cream ballet slippers – she would put them on at the last minute, as soon as the entry phone rang – and a stole that ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• Copyright
• Love Will Tear You Apart