There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Sixty Seven

Friday August 12

The first thing I felt was the headache; the beating, incessant throb of that old familiar foe.

The one that only happens when Mason has been.

I don't know how long I had laid there but I woke to a terrific heat from somewhere in front of me and smoke pushing thickly into my eyes. Lola was laying beside me and I held her tightly to me as I tried to shake myself into the present. She was breathing; she was crying softly.

She was safe, at least.

And then the roar came to me, like a freight train was close.

The building in front of me was burning brightly – the vines all around were beautiful in the yellow light that flickered strongly.

I shook Lola.

'What happened, Lola? What happened?'

Se kept on crying and hid her face behind her little hands. I hugged her tight as I stood up and looked again at the building. The shed behind was also alight.

'Val?!'

I heard nothing but the sound of the fire as if it were capable of consuming everything around me.

'Lola, where is Mumma?!' But she kept crying and I left her and ran to the building, shielding my face automatically with my arms. The ferocity of the heat had me stop thirty metres from where it burned and I simply stood and watched, not thinking at all for a few seconds.

I noticed I had blood over my hands and the cuffs of my jumper.

And it started to come back to me. The harvest feast had started that afternoon. Carlotta had been there, dancing and singing and the staff had been watching her and me. Valentina had sat next to me and held my hand whilst she poured my wine and she had kissed me and kissed me whilst the party went on and Lola had gone to dance with Carlotta.

I remembered feeling happy and then confused and wanting her.

And I had tried so hard to keep my name from anyone but Carlotta and Valentina.

I had avoided the little town and its beautiful people who wanted to know all about me. I had avoided helping with the vines and copped being seen as lazy by the wiry Italian men who clipped and sprayed and drank their way through the sunny days.

I'd tried to make sure it was just us.

I looked back to where Lola lay and ran back to her, picking her up and seeing something glinting on the ground where she had been. Something inside the building exploded and she screamed so I held her tight as I bent down to pick up what had been glinting.

It was a carving knife, that had been used by the staff for the carving of the pig. I remembered the smell of the pig being cut open and the white meat falling lazily onto the clean silver tray.

But soon after I was watching from outside the window and I remember feeling Mason with me. We watched them dance and laugh as we brought up heavy petrol containers from the shed, sloshing beside my leg.

And then I felt down about how it can be so easy to miss the thing you've been waiting for. Like falling asleep on those nights where a combination of warm air and your conscience can conspire to delay what you so want and need. You lie there and long for it to come to you, that sweet relief of simply surviving another day. But the first you know of it, the actual moment you waited for, is when you wake up the next morning and realise you've been robbed again of its pleasure. That defining moment you battled on for; twisted and turned and yawned knowingly for; kept your eyes closed and your mind blank in order to get to that promised land.

You got there, but you missed it all the same.

And I don't know if that was Valentina's love or Mason's instruction but now they have both been and gone and I must get Lola to safety.

And the screams I can barely recall from last night don't haunt me anymore as I know they eventually fade, just like the hope I had for my Mumma.

They all had mostly happy lives. They had their share.

There must be one woman in my life I can shield from the world and from Mason.

I needed to get somewhere safe. Somewhere no one would know but for Lola and me, and Mumma.