—Shadow on the Stair: The Haunted Life and Loves of Mari Godwick, Caroline Leeman, 2015
THE ROVERS WILL NO MORE GO A’ROVING
On the heels of a sold-out tour of America, the rock group the Rovers shock the music industry and the world by announcing a “prolonged hiatus” while band members focus on “other personal projects.” While drummer Sam Collins has already appeared on albums from artists such as Cream and the Byrds, and bassist John Keating performed onstage with the Rolling Stones just last year, all eyes are naturally on front man Noel Gordon and what he might do next.
The youngest son of the Earl of Rochdale, Mr. Gordon has always cut a glamourous （some would say outrageous） figure, frequently compared to Jim Morrison of the Doors and Roger Daltrey of the Who. His velvety baritone and esoteric lyrics have made him a musical superstar, but it’s his matinee idol face and frequent high-profile romances that have made him a fixture in newspapers both here in the UK and also across the world.
Currently on his honeymoon on Mustique with the heiress Lady Arabella Wentworth, Mr. Gordon could not be reached for comment, but sources tell us that a solo album is definitely in the works, and one wonders just how much higher Noel Gordon’s star might rise.
—Pop Beats Magazine, June 1969
CHAPTER THREE
It’s surreal that, just two weeks after that lunch in a little café in Asheville, North Carolina, I find myself in Rome.
The flight was uneventful, and I slept through most of it, so being flung into the chaos that is Fiumicino makes me feel like I didn’t just leave the country, but possibly the planet.
Chess is already at the house outside Orvieto, and she’s left me instructions for how to make my way there. I squint against the bright sun spilling in the windows at baggage claim as I review them on my phone. From the airport, a train to Termini, the station in the city center; from there, another train will take me to Orvieto, where, allegedly, Chess will be waiting for me.
I haven’t been overseas in nearly five years, and even then, I was always with Matt. This is my first time navigating a foreign country on my own, and the sense of pride I feel when I manage to get on the right train is probably way out of proportion, but I don’t care. For the first time in more than two years, I actually feel like myself again, the cobwebs clearing out, the sense that whatever has been weighing me down is finally lifted.
It’s about an hour from Rome to Orvieto, and even though I’m exhausted and the gentle rocking of the train should absolutely put me to sleep, I’m too excited, sitting with my face practically pressed against the window, watching urban sprawl bleed into countryside.
The station we pull into is much smaller than the one in Rome, and far above me, I can see the thick walls that surround the historic part of the city. It looks unbelievably ancient and solid, with only trees and the occasional rooftop visible from down below. I’ve read about Italy’s medieval hill towns, but this is my first time actually seeing one, and I feel tears spring to my eyes as I wrestle my suitcase off the train.
I’ve done it. After months of being trapped in my house, trapped in my own body, I am somewhere new, and the thrill of it races through my blood like champagne.
I’m even more excited—and relieved—when I see Chess waiting for me just outside the station.
Somehow, she seems to be even blonder than she was in Asheville, and I wonder if the next time I see her, she’ll be full platinum. But she’s smiling at me, her grin huge, her arms spread wide, and I let myself be swept into her embrace.
“You’re here!” she sings out, and then gestures at the car behind her.
It’s tiny and red, extremely Italian, and I laugh as I load my suitcase into the miniscule backseat.
“I cannot believe the great Chess Chandler is such a cliché,” I tell her, and she looks at me over the tops of her sunglasses, still smiling.
“Look, my best friend is in Italy with me for the summer. We are going to drive a fucking Fiat, wind in our hair, full Under the Tuscan Sun shit, bitch.”
That makes me laugh again, and then we’re in the car, and she’s right—this is exactly how you should do Italy.
The drive winds through the hills, taking us slightly away from Orvieto until we’re high enough that I can actually see over those massive walls into the old city itself.
“It’s amazing,” Chess tells me, following my gaze. “Like an actual fairy tale or something. We can go in this afternoon if you want.”
I might, or I might want to do absolutely nothing, and the freedom of that makes me almost giddy.
We drive underneath the bluest sky I’ve ever seen, past fields and trees, and then Chess turns down a dirt road, the Fiat bumping along in a way it’s probably very unused to. This is a car made for the tight streets of Rome, not a dusty track covered in pebbles and potholes, and I think how typically Chess this is, bending even cars to her will.
And then the house comes into view.
“Holy shit, Chess,” I murmur, my eyes going wide.
I’ve looked at photos of Villa Aestas about a hundred times in the past few days, but there’s seeing a picture, and then there’s seeing the real thing, rising above you like something out of a movie.
It’s every dream anyone could have of an Italian villa: a solid but graceful rectangle of butter-colored stone set on the greenest lawn, with bright flowers blooming in every window.
We pull into the curved gravel drive in front. Around the side of the house, I can see the shimmering aquamarine of the pool, and past that, the greener, murkier waters of the pond, lined by tall cypress trees offering pockets of shade at the water’s edge.
“It’s unreal, right?” she asks, pushing her sunglasses up to get a better look. “The website doesn’t do it justice.”
It really doesn’t. Because it’s not just the way the place looks. It’s how it feels.
Peaceful, like a private little universe, tucked away from the world.
I know immediately that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
It’s a feeling that gets even stronger when Chess opens the heavy oak front door, ushering me into a cool and dim foyer. The floors underfoot are stone, the walls painted the same warm yellow as the outside of the house, and just by the front door, there’s an old, scarred table with a vase of bright sunflowers.
“I picked these,” Chess tells me, reaching out to stroke the petals. “There’s a whole field of them right behind the house. It’s like they were determined to make this place as perfectly dreamy and Italian as they could.”
And they succeeded. This house doesn’t just live up to my fantasies—it exceeds them, wildly.
Another thing that is, I have to admit, perfectly Chess.
“Soooo?” she asks now, lacing her fingers together and lifting her hands under her chin.
“I can’t believe someone got murdered in this house,” I reply, and she laughs.
“All right, that’s your first mention of the murder, you only have four left.”
“I’ll save them,” I promise, because standing in this front hallway right now, light pouring in through an arched window at the top of the stairs, murder is the last thing I’m thinking about. Besides, Chess was right—it sounds like it was more of your typical drugs and rock ’n’ roll fiasco of the seventies, not exactly the kind of Gothic story that spooky legends are built around. A musician beaten to death by some lowlife, in an argument that got out of control because everyone involved was high out of their minds. And anyone who was there that night is long dead.