Page 6 of The Lost Story of Sofia Castello

5

LISBON, 2000

‘Oh my dear, I’m so sorry,’ Sofia eventually says, reaching out and touching me lightly on the arm. ‘There’s no need to worry. I asked him to keep an eye on you.’ She looks at the man and shakes her head. ‘Why did you have to do such a lousy job?’

‘I am happy I did a bad job,’ he replies in faltering English. ‘Who wants to be good at following a woman?’

I stare at them both, incredulous.

‘Is there any way you could turn that off?’ Sofia says, looking back at me. ‘I can hardly hear myself think.’

‘Oh, uh, I don’t know.’ I start pressing at the alarm, but it continues to shriek. I’d been so certain I’d never need to use it that I didn’t bother reading the instructions.

‘Gabriel?’ She looks at the man hopefully.

‘Please?’ he asks me, holding out a hand. His tanned skin is scuffed at the knuckles.

I pass him the alarm, trying to process these latest developments. Sofia had asked the man to follow me, so I don’t need to be scared. But why would she do that?

The man, Gabriel, tries pushing and pulling at the alarm, but it continues to shriek.

‘ Meu deus !’ Sofia exclaims. ‘Someone is going to call the police if we don’t stop it. Come, come,’ she says, ushering us both inside a large suite of rooms.

Gabriel disappears into a side room, and there’s a loud bang and then silence. He reappears holding the smashed alarm and holds it out to me, with a laboured sigh, as if I’m entirely to blame for the fiasco.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he mutters, which sounds so weird and formal, it makes me want to laugh.

‘It’s OK.’ I take a breath, my ears still ringing. ‘I thought you were going to attack me.’

Sofia lets out another snort of laughter, and I’m reminded of my first meeting with Sir Lawrence Bourne when I’d snorted with laughter at something he said. Being frightfully posh, I’d assumed he’d be horrified at my lack of decorum. But when I apologised, he smiled and shook his head. ‘I love people who snort with laughter, darling,’ he’d said in his plummy voice. ‘It shows they’re uninhibited in their joy. It demonstrates a freeness of spirit.’

Gabriel’s face flushes. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he mumbles again, but looking more annoyed than sorry.

‘Well, that’s certainly got things off to an interesting start,’ Sofia remarks, still chuckling to herself. ‘And I’m very sorry too,’ she says to me with a warm smile that reaches her dark brown eyes, making them sparkle. ‘I really didn’t want to scare you; I just needed to be sure that you were here alone. That you hadn’t notified the press or anything. Given my slightly unusual circumstances, I’m sure you can appreciate that I can’t be too careful.’

‘Of course.’ I start to relax a little. Maybe I haven’t blown it after all.

‘And I’m glad to see that you have a feisty spirit,’ she adds.

I’m about to say, I do? but manage to bite my lip. ‘Oh, well, yes,’ I stammer instead.

‘A woman after my own heart,’ she continues and gives Gabriel a pointed stare. ‘Who won’t take any bullshit from a man.’ She starts laughing again.

‘OK, OK,’ he says, rolling his eyes.

‘Why don’t you make us both a drink?’ Sofia says, winking at me. ‘To help poor Lily recover from her ordeal.’

He nods.

‘I brought some red and white wine from my local vineyard,’ she says to me.

Normally, I never accept an offer of alcohol at a first meeting with a client as I like to have my wits about me, but this is no normal meeting and my pulse is still racing from the whole alarm fiasco, so I nod. ‘Red would be great, thank you.’

Gabriel disappears into another of the rooms, and Sofia ushers me to sit beside her on the elegant royal-blue sofa, which feels oddly intimate given that it’s our first meeting. We’re so close I can smell her rich, musky perfume, laced with the faintest trace of cigarettes. I glance around the room at the gleaming mahogany desk and matching shelves and the huge floor-to-ceiling windows.

‘So,’ Sofia says, folding her hands in her lap. She’s only wearing one piece of jewellery, a beautiful silver ring in the shape of a crescent moon, with a jewel glimmering at the bottom, like a star.

I smile at her. ‘It’s lovely to meet you.’

She instantly frowns and shakes her head. ‘One thing you need to know about me right from the start is that I can’t abide phoney pleasantries.’ She claps her hand on my leg, causing me to jump. ‘I always say exactly what is on my mind, and I want you to be the same in return. And given the circumstances, I suspect you might be feeling something other than lovely about meeting me.’ She looks at me expectantly, and the old ghostwriter instinct kicks in. This is it – an opportunity to win her respect and trust.

‘Fair enough,’ I say calmly. ‘In that case, it’s bloody insane to meet you!’

There’s a moment’s silence and I hope I haven’t overdone it, but then she leans back and lets out one of her guffaws. ‘Bloody insane!’ she hoots. ‘Oh, how I love the way you Brits speak. I have a feeling you and I are going to get along famously.’

‘I bloody well hope so,’ I say with a grin, and she laughs again.

Gabriel reappears with two glasses of red wine and a dish of olives on a tray.

‘Your Royal Highness,’ he says to Sofia teasingly as he places them on the coffee table in front of her.

‘Thank you,’ she replies.

‘I’ll be in my room if you need me,’ he says to her before giving me a pointed and slightly warning stare. I wonder how they know each other. I guess he could be some kind of minder she’s hired, but there’s a warmth between them that suggests that it might go deeper than that.

‘I’m sorry you and Gabriel got off to such a bad start,’ she says as he goes into an adjoining room. ‘He’s a good boy.’ She sighs and shakes her head. ‘How can you tell when a person is eighty? They call a thirty-four-year-old man a boy!’ She picks up her wine and takes a sip.

‘Does he work for you?’ I ask casually.

‘Oh no. He’s actually a fisherman – which explains his complete lack of talent at tailing you. If you’d been a mackerel, he might have had more success.’

Now it’s my turn to laugh.

‘He’s from the village where I live,’ she continues. ‘I was very close to his mother, so I’ve known him all his life. And since his mother died, he does odd jobs for me, fixes things around the house, drives me places, that kind of thing.’

‘I see.’

She settles back on the sofa and takes a sip of her wine. ‘I imagine you must have a lot of questions for me.’

‘I feel like that’s something of an understatement!’

She grins. ‘I love your accent so much. Please can you do me a favour?’

‘Of course.’ I put my glass down, assuming she’s going to ask me to fetch her something.

‘Can you say, “How do you do? I’m so frightfully pleased to meet you,” as if you’re the Queen of England.’

‘Oh.’ I start to laugh. ‘OK.’ I clear my throat and hold out my hand. ‘How do you do? I’m so frightfully pleased to meet you.’

Sofia hoots with laughter as she shakes my hand. ‘You’re bringing back a lot of memories. I knew some Brits during the war.’ Her smile fades. ‘Anyway, due to the nature of this situation – and by that I mean the fact that everyone thinks I’m six feet under and pushing up the daisies – I’m afraid I won’t be able to answer what I’m sure is the most burning question you must have. And by that I mean – how the hell am I still alive?’

I nod, feeling disappointed but unsurprised – we have only just met after all.

She leans forward and takes an engraved silver box from the coffee table. I watch as she opens it. Her fingers are surprisingly long for one so short, and her nails are painted as black as her hair. ‘What you will come to realise if today goes well and we both want to proceed with his project,’ she continues, taking a cigarette from the box, ‘is that my supposed death is not in fact the most shocking thing about my tale. Far from it.’

I stare at her as she takes a lighter from the box. What could possibly be more shocking than the fact that she isn’t dead?

She puts the box back on the table and lights her cigarette, leaning back on the sofa and exhaling a thin plume of smoke. ‘So, what I propose is that I start telling you my story from the beginning, with the first instalment today. And if we both want to continue, we’ll begin the project in earnest, but I need to stress that this isn’t going to be an easy job – for either of us.’

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘Well, the fact that I’ve kept silent for almost fifty-nine years ought to tell you something,’ she says, slightly shortly. I remain quiet as she takes another drag on her cigarette, acutely aware that I’m now engaged in the delicate dance of winning her trust. ‘When – if – my story becomes public, it’s going to ruffle more than a few feathers.’

‘I understand,’ I say softly.

‘No,’ she replies sharply. ‘You really don’t.’

I feel a burst of dismay that I might be losing her.

‘How could you?’ she continues, and to my relief her tone is gentler. ‘You have no idea what happened to me. But I have it on very good authority that you’re one of the best ghostwriters in the business.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about?—’

She puts up her hand to stop me. ‘Please, no false modesty. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t. So, shall we see how we get along? Take it a step at a time, a chapter at a time, and when we get to the trickier parts, I’ll have a better idea of whether I want to go there – or whether I want to abandon ship.’ She gives a nervous laugh.

‘That sounds like an excellent plan,’ I say calmly, although inside I’m buzzing. This isn’t just going to be the most exciting job of my career; it looks like it’s going to be the most challenging too – but in a way that fires me up rather than depresses me. There’s no way I want Sofia to abandon this project. I need to do everything I can to win her trust and make her open up to me.

‘OK then.’ Sofia clears her throat. ‘Shall we begin?’