Chapter 58

Alessandro.

Alessandro is fed up with being held in custody. It’s not the company of other prisoners that annoys him—he’s been given a cell all to himself because he’s considered very dangerous.

No. It’s the bad food.

After he murdered his wife, he moved back in with his mum to ensure a steady availability of good food. But since his last—and most disastrous—trip to Singapore, he hasn’t been back home with his mum even for one day. Instead, he’s been moved from one custody cell to another, first eating strange food in Singapore, then eating familiar food but badly cooked in Palermo.

And now he’s fed up.

His lawyer—another mafioso affiliated with their clan—has assured him that he’ll get him out very soon, but for Alessandro “very soon” isn’t early enough.

“Tell my mum to send me food,” Alessandro told the man yesterday.

“I’ll try. I’ll do what I can,” the man replied nervously.

Alessandro was surprised by the man’s reaction. Asking his mother to send food must be easier than getting him out of jail. So why did his lawyer look so nervous about it?

Only now, one day later, while Alessandro stirs the overcooked pasta gloop in the prison’s food tray, the answer starts to dawn on him.

His mum hasn’t yet visited him in prison—not once. Alessandro has no idea if such a visit would be allowed, but he knows that permissions are no issue for his mother. She’s a formidable lady—the human equivalent of a bulldozer. Alessandro fears her more than he feared her brother, Zio Pino—God rest his soul—and so does everyone else in their clan and in the neighborhood.

She always gets what she wants so, if she had wanted to visit him in prison, she would have managed to do it, permission or not. So if she hasn’t appeared yet, there must be a reason. Is she sending him a message?

Maybe she’s not happy with Alessandro for failing his Singapore missions—not once, but twice!—and getting caught in the process. If he had managed to poison Gianluca, he wouldn’t have reported him and the entire family, causing Zio Pino to end up behind bars and dying of a heart attack. All this mess the family is in was caused by Alessandro’s failure to kill Gianluca.

The thought of his mother’s disapproval sends shivers of unease down Alessandro’s back. She must be so ashamed of him!

And Alessandro knows very well that the only way to stop someone else’s shame falling on you is to either murder them—like he’s done to his wife—or cut them off and disown them—which is what his mum must be doing to him now.

A horrible sinking feeling presses Alessandro down into the hard prison bed. Now that Zio Pino is dead, if his mother disowns him, who will he have left? He’ll be alone in the world.

Just then, one of the guards announces that it’s visiting time. Someone is waiting for him in the visiting room.

Alessandro leaps up. It must be his mum! Their lawyer must have told her that Alessandro needed food, and she must have come to feed him and comfort him.

The guards handcuff him to take him down to the room. They don’t take any chances after he once bit a guard’s ear almost clean off.

But Alessandro is so excited that, if he wasn’t handcuffed, he would be running down the corridor!

The visiting room is a large space with glass panels where the prisoners sit on one side and the visitors on the other and they talk through old-fashioned phone handsets. There are lots of people—a crowd of women and children—but he can’t see his mother. In fact, he can’t see anyone he recognizes. Was this a joke?

Alessandro turns to the guard, thinking of ways he could strangle them even with his handcuffs on.

“There,” they tell him, pointing to a woman sitting at one of the cubicles, on the other side of the thick glass.

“She’s nothing to do with me,” Alessandro says.

“She’s brought you some food. We’re just checking it before releasing it to you,” the guards say.

And Alessandro understands. His mother has sent him food through one of her couriers. She’s ashamed of him and she’s not going to visit him personally, but she hasn’t entirely cut him off. At least, not the food.

Alessandro is relieved but he’s also sad. What will he have to do for his mother to take him back? Will she ever do that? Probably not if he’s condemned and sentenced to remain in prison.

Also, Alessandro doesn’t like strangers, not unless they are female and sexy, and this woman doesn’t make the cut of sexiness.

But she might have a message from his mother, so he guardedly approaches the chair and sits down. They release his handcuffs and, for the first time in weeks, he feels a little more human again. He picks up the phone handset. He didn’t know they still made those.

“Hello. You must be Alessandro,” the mysterious stranger says with a smile.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Rosalia.”

Alessandro reels at the name of his dead wife.

***

Nurul.

Sir is in Italy at the moment and there’s less work for the villa’s staff. The cook is cooking simple meals, the driver isn’t driving anywhere, Luz isn’t tidying Sir’s room and Nurul doesn’t have to replace towels at the pool.

Only the plants keep on growing, so Daniel and the other gardeners are working just as hard. But the rest of the staff is well rested and relaxed. Maybe even a little bored.

The problem with being bored is that you start to think. Questions like “What am I doing with my life?” and “What am I working towards?” crop in people’s minds.

Those who have children back home—in Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Sri Lanka—don’t have any doubts: they are working to save for their children’s education. Those who hope to get married, are saving for their weddings or to buy a home.

Nurul has no children to give a purpose to her life. She has already been married and got divorced, and she has no desire left to go there again. The only reason she’s working is to survive: to have food on her plate and a roof over her head.

But recently she’s found out that she’s earning more money than she’s spending, and her small monthly savings are adding up. So she’s started to dream.

Maybe, one day, she could open a little shop. She’d love to have a nail salon or a beautician’s shop. Not in her parents’ village—nobody has money for this sort of thing there, and she would never go back there anyway—but maybe here.

She loves Singapore. She’d love to stay here, maybe one day have permanent residency, her own shop and home next door to Daniel’s. Now she’s really dreaming!

Recently, Nurul has been keeping a close eye on Luz and Daniel and she has concluded that Luz is definitely not interested in dating Daniel.

He seems to have realised it too, and Nurul thinks he’s made peace with the situation because he has been looking less dark and broody recently. For example, he’s stopped splitting logs or digging flower beds as deep as graves.

Today is Daniel’s day off and also Nurul’s. She’s told her friends that she will not join them at the park where they usually spend their day off together. But she hasn’t told them that it’s because she’s hoping to spend the way with Daniel.

He’s a very private man and she’s never worked out what he does on his days off. Nurul has never seen him at the park where she goes with her friends—other Indonesian domestic helpers—but that’s no surprise. Singapore has enough gardens and parks for different nationalities of foreign workers to each have their favorites.

“Hello, Daniel. Where are you going today?” she asks him, stopping at the entrance of his room in the staff’s quarters.

He looks surprised. Nurul has never come so close to his room, and this is the most personal question she has ever asked him.

“I just thought we could share a taxi,” she explains. “I don’t feel like trekking up to the bus stop.”

“Sure. I’m going to Bedok jetty.”

“Nice. Are you going to swim?”

Nurul can’t swim and she’s never owned a swimming suit, but she wouldn’t mind watching Daniel swim or even just watch him stand around in his swimming suit.

“No. I’m fishing. Where do you need to go?”

“In the same direction,” she says vaguely.

If he presses her for more information, she will tell him that she’s going to the East Coast Park, which is all around the jetty. If he makes her feel welcome, she’ll spend the day with him. If not, she’ll spend the day at the park.

She’s got nothing to lose and, at worst, she will learn something about fishing.

“That’s great, then we can share a taxi.” he says.