Piccolo wrote a letter as he wept and explained the circumstances of his father’s death to his mother and sister. He wrote a second letter to Margaret Mary McTavish and included it in the envelope to his mother. Piccolo explained that he had survived the bombing of the Arandora Star, but fate was not through with him. The Ettrick was due to set sail for Australia, from Liverpool immediately taking survivors of the Arandora Star with it. There would be no reprieve for the Italian Scots.
DUNMORE STRAND, IRELAND
July 8, 1940
Eleanor King took a walk along the beach at Dunmore Strand every morning after Mass at Saint Patrick’s Church. She walked over slivers of black and gray shells that covered the beach and crunched under her feet. Her posture was upright for a woman of seventy-seven. She moved along the shore at a brisk pace as she said her rosary. She was praying, keeping one hand in her pocket on the beads, when she looked down the beach.
“Not another one,” she muttered as she approached a corpse that had washed ashore, the eleventh body that week.
Eleanor knelt next to him. She was startled that his eyes were open; they were as blue as thistle. He was handsome too. Eleanor King liked a tall man. His skin was bloated and waxy and tinged with green from the drowning, but his color didn’t trouble her. He looked like a painting. The stranger’s hand was glassy, and his gold wedding band, lodged on his finger, was intact. His uniform hung in tatters on his body, the gold bars of his naval rank having survived.
“A Catholic. God bless him,” she said aloud. She peered down at the medal around his neck. Our Lady of Fatima. Eleanor closed her eyes and said a prayer to the Blessed Lady. She stood and looked around. She spotted a couple on the peak above the dunes. She waved to them. They acknowledged her. “Police!” she shouted. They went for help.
Eleanor King would stay with the body on the beach at Dunmore Strand until the coroner arrived. She planned a proper Catholic funeral for the stranger. Only she; her husband, Michael; the priest; and the organist were in attendance when the Mass of Christian Burial was said for the unidentified victim of the Arandora Star.
Somewhere, high in heaven, John Lawrie McVicars was laughing at the irony of a lifelong Protestant ending up in an unmarked grave in a Catholic cemetery in Ireland. That was the luck of McVicars.
CHAPTER 33
Viareggio
NOW
Anina blew her nose into the tissue. She pulled several more out of the box, drying her tears. “My great-grandparents had a tragic love affair.”
“Are you crying for them or for yourself?”
“Nonna, I’ve been thinking a lot about my life. I don’t make good decisions.”
“Because you haven’t had to make them. Enjoy your youth. If you’re lucky, and you’re like me, you’ll be old much longer than you are young, and you will enjoy the wisdom that comes from experience. But you have to plan for that. That’s why it’s important to find something you love to do. I loved numbers so I became a bookkeeper. The truth was, I wasn’t an artist so I couldn’t create the jewelry, but I could find a way to participate that made me feel like I was part of the business. Do you like filling in for Orsola?”
“I do. And nobody’s more surprised than I am. I don’t mind the customers when they’re picky. I put myself in their place and understand that when they’re making an investment, every detail has to be perfect. I’m on their side.”
“How do you like working with Nonno?”
“He never forgets to give me my lunch hour.”
“An artist never stops, not even to eat. You can learn a lot from your grandfather.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”
“You have time. Take advantage of the opportunity and build on it.”
Anina pulled the cushions off the chair, forming a cot.
“What are you doing?” Matelda asked her.
“I can sleep in the chair. It folds out, see?”
“Fold it back. Go home and sleep in a proper bed.”
The nurse brought Matelda her medication. “Nurse, tell my granddaughter to go home. One of us should be getting a good night’s sleep. This hospital is a circus after midnight. Tell her.”
“Go home,” the nurse said as she left.
“Do you need anything else?” Anina asked her grandmother.
“Giancarlo Giannini.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She kissed Matelda. Anina dimmed the lights before leaving the room. “We have all the time in the world,” Anina assured her.