The Italian’s Baby Read online

  ‘It’s in my eyes,’ he bellowed.

  ‘Oh, stop being such a baby!’

  ‘You’re a heartless woman.’

  ‘OK, here comes the rinse,’ she cried, pumping again.

  When the suds had gone she handed him the towel she’d brought out and he dried himself thankfully.

  ‘That’s better. Hey, what’s this?’ He snatched up a plastic cylinder from the bench where she’d set it. ‘Washing-up liquid?’

  ‘It’s as good as anything for the purpose.’

  ‘You washed my hair with washing-up liquid?’ he repeated, aghast. ‘Do you realise you’ve made me smell of lemon?’

  ‘Well, I had to use something before your hair set solid, and the only shampoo I have smells of perfume.’

  ‘Lemon’s just fine,’ he said hastily.

  Now that the ice had been broken they bickered amiably over the meal, inching their way carefully towards a place where this new relationship would be possible.

  After lunch he went around the house, testing locks, and was shocked by what he found.

  ‘The front door doesn’t lock properly, and the back door doesn’t lock at all. Lucky I brought some more.’

  As he fixed the new locks into place he said crossly, ‘You’ve been sleeping here like this? No locks? Anyone could have walked in.’

  ‘Since nobody comes here, it didn’t seem important. Still, I’m glad you’ve done that.’

  He went back to work on the roof, hauling wood up and hammering mightily, until he had put in place a rough frame.

  ‘With any luck, this will be your last night under that hole,’ he said, looking up from directly beneath it. ‘By tomorrow night I should have rigged up some covering.’

  ‘It’s going to be very cosy in here,’ she said appreciatively. ‘Thank you, Luca.’

  But he was yawning and didn’t seem to hear her.

  ‘I feel as though I’m falling apart,’ he said, rubbing his shoulders as he wandered out into the kitchen.

  ‘Let’s eat.’

  He collected logs to refill the range while she lit candles, for the light was fading fast.

  A candlelit meal might have been romantic, but he seemed determined to rob the atmosphere of any semblance of romance, watching her cooking like a hawk and making a stream of interfering suggestions until at last she said crossly, ‘All right, do it yourself.’

  ‘I will. I will.’

  ‘Fine!’

  ‘Fine!’

  She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed, in a huff, for about ten minutes. Then she returned to the kitchen, having recovered her sense of humour.

  ‘You’ll turn the food sour,’ he objected.

  ‘No, I’m all right now. Shall I take over?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said with more haste than politeness. ‘I have everything under control. This will take a while, so why don’t we have mushrooms and rice first? You can prepare the mushrooms and I’ll put the water on for the rice.’

  She worked on the mushrooms for the next few minutes, until forced to stop by a queasy stomach.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Luca asked.

  ‘There’s just something about the smell of raw mushrooms,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve never said that before.’

  ‘I’m saying it now,’ she said fretfully.

  ‘It’ll be all right when they’re cooked.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  She went out for some fresh air, wanting to escape his notice. The nausea was there again but a few deep breaths took care of it. If last time was anything to go by, she should be coming to the end of her sickness. If only Luca did not suspect the truth before then.

  As for what she would tell him, she was so confused that even thinking about it would be a waste of time. Before he came here she’d had no intention of informing Luca that she was carrying his child. Now? She didn’t know. But, for the moment, she intended to keep the decision in her own hands.

  She knew, though, that time was running out. If she did not tell him, she would have to leave soon and decide where to have her baby.

  When she went back inside she was smiling. He was busy cooking the mushrooms and rice, and somehow after that he ended up cooking the whole meal.

  ‘You’re a great cook,’ she said as they ate.

  ‘That’s not what you used to say. You used to criticise my cooking.’

  ‘Only because I was jealous. You were better than me. It made me so mad.’

  He stared. ‘And I thought I’d never get you to admit that.’

  ‘You knew all the time, huh?’

  ‘Of course. There was never anything wrong with my cooking.’

  ‘You arrogant so-and-so.’

  ‘Well, there wasn’t. I’m a great cook. Why not be honest about it?’

  ‘Not only arrogant, but conceited.’

  ‘Always was,’ he said briefly. ‘Do you want those extra mushrooms?’

  She gave him her last mushroom, and the subject was allowed to die.

  The candles were burning down as he helped her with the washing-up. Then he said, ‘That’s it for today. I’m ready to turn in. Goodnight, Becky.’

  He gave her a brief nod and walked outside. She went to the door, expecting to see him get into the cab and drive away, but instead he went to the back and climbed in. When he did not reappear she went to look for him, and found him unwrapping a bed roll by the light of a torch.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Going to bed.’

  ‘Out here?’

  ‘Where else?’

  ‘Haven’t you got a nice, comfortable hotel room?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s several miles away, and I’m not leaving you here alone. It’s too isolated.’

  ‘Luca-’

  ‘Goodnight. And, Becky-’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Lock the front door.’

  ‘I thought you were going to fend off invaders for me.’

  ‘I meant, lock it against me.’

  ‘Do you plan to come into the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I don’t need to lock it. Anyway, there’s a big hole in the roof, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Becky, will you quit arguing and just lock the door?’

  ‘All right, all right.’ She went away, muttering, ‘But it seems silly to me.’

  As she snuggled down in her own bed she reflected how odd it was that she should feel so able to trust his word. He had said he would not intrude on her, and she knew that he would not.

  She was up early next morning, but he was already moving about outside. She opened the door, calling, ‘Coffee!’ and he hurried in, moving stiffly, like a man who’d spent a cold night on a hard floor.

  As he drank his coffee she heated up some washing water for him, then cooked bacon and eggs while he washed. He said little over breakfast, being absorbed in the food, and as soon as he’d finished he went straight to work.

  Halfway through the morning she took him a snack, and they drank tea together.

  ‘You’re doing a lovely job,’ she said, indicating the roof, which was taking shape.

  ‘I got my start this way: hammering my own nails in and hiring as little help as I could manage with. I could turn my hand to anything in those days, but it’s years since I did any honest work.’

  He grinned suddenly. ‘It’s also years since I got as filthy as this.’ He spread out his hands with their finely manicured nails, looking incongruous with the grazes they had acquired in the last two days.

  ‘I bet you weren’t hammering your own nails in for long,’ she said.

  ‘I employed a few men and it went to my head; I took on more than we could cope with and ended up having to work my head off at night, on my own. I snatched one job right out from under the nose of the biggest builder in the district. He thought the really profitable jobs were his by rights, and he didn’t like it. That’s how I got this.’ He rubbed his scar.

/>   ‘You had a fight?’

  ‘No, but for a while I was pretty sure he was going to send his gang for me. I took to spending my nights in the yard, staying awake, waiting for them.’

  ‘And they came for you?’

  ‘No, they never did. But I got so tired that I fell off a ladder.’ He grinned in rueful self-mockery.

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘No, really. Mind you, I always let people believe it was done in a fight. My stock went up no end.’

  ‘How did you get from being a builder to being where you are now?’

  ‘I bought some land to build on. It increased in value and suddenly I was a speculator. It’s more profitable to buy and sell houses than to build them, so I concentrated on that. Once I started making money I couldn’t stop. In fact, it’s not difficult to make more money than you could ever need if you devote yourself to it twenty-four hours a day, and never think of anything else.’

  ‘You must have thought about something else at some time,’ she said. ‘What about your wife?’

  ‘Drusilla married me for my money.’

  ‘What did you marry for?’

  He was silent awhile before he said, ‘She was a status symbol. Her family have a very old title, and only a few years earlier she wouldn’t have looked at me. That made me feel good.’

  He grimaced. ‘Not nice, is it? But I’m not a nice man, Becky. I never really was. You made me better, but without your influence I reverted to being what I am.’

  ‘No!’ she said violently. ‘That’s too easy, too glib.’

  ‘It’s the truth about me. And it’s not so long ago that you’d have been the first to say so. If I can face it now, why can’t you?’

  ‘Because I don’t believe it is the truth. Nobody can be explained that simply. Luca, are you trying to make me feel that it’s my fault, that I let you down in some way?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m saying that you can’t buck nature.’

  ‘What nature? Who knows what anybody’s nature is? It isn’t fixed, it develops through what happens to you.’

  ‘It’s sweet of you to defend me-’

  ‘I’m not defending you,’ she said crossly, ‘I’m calling you a lame-brained idiot.’

  ‘I’m just saying that I know myself-’

  ‘Rubbish. Nobody knows themselves that well.’

  ‘That time in Carenna, when all I could think of was taking care of you-I never acted meek and mild with anyone else before, and I’ve never done it since.’

  ‘You never had a baby with anyone else.’

  ‘That’s true,’ he said quietly.

  Carried away by her arguments, she’d failed to see the pit opening at her feet until she fell into it. She had forgotten about the cause of their quarrel. Now it came back to her, and she fell silent.

  ‘Do you want to talk about that?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really,’ she said hastily. ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  ‘No.’ He seemed deflated. ‘No, I guess there isn’t.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  S HE was gathering up the remains of the snack and preparing to go indoors when she heard the faint sound of a voice behind her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Becky, for everything.’

  ‘What?’

  She turned sharply, not sure if she’d really heard the words, but Luca was already rising.

  ‘Time I was getting back to work,’ he said, stretching his limbs. ‘Let’s see how far we can get with this roof today.’

  He fixed several beams, but then the light was too poor for him to go any further, so he fetched some roofing felt from the van.

  ‘I’ll just nail this over the gap for tonight, so that you’ll have some cover,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, with any luck, the roof should be finished.’

  When he’d fixed the felt into place he ate the meal she’d prepared as quickly as possible. She had hoped they might talk some more, but he said goodnight and left.

  He had made the repairs just in time. That night the heavens opened. Summer was finally over and the first storm of autumn was impressive, especially to the woman looking up at the felt, and wondering how strong it was. But no water was dripping down into the bedroom. As a builder, Luca knew his stuff.

  Just as she was beginning to relax she heard a crash from outside, and sat up sharply, listening for any further worrying noises. But the pounding of the rain blotted out all else.

  At last she got out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and made her way outside. The wind hit her like a hammer, hard enough to blow her back inside if she hadn’t clung to the doorpost. Breathing hard, she steadied herself and tried to look around through the rain that was coming down in sheets.

  She could see no sign of trouble, but another noise came from around the corner of the cottage and she headed that way, arriving just as a fork of lightning illuminated the lean-to where the logs were stored, revealing that the roof had come down.

  ‘Oh, great!’ she muttered. ‘Now the wood will get wet and it won’t burn, and the kitchen will fill with smoke, and probably fifty other things will happen. Great! Great! Great!’

  There was only one thing to do. Gathering up a pile of logs, she began to stagger back to the front door. On the way the dressing gown fell open and she tripped over the belt, falling into the mud and taking the logs with her.

  Cursing furiously, she got to her feet and surveyed the soaking logs, aided by the lightning that obligingly flashed at that moment.

  ‘Damn!’ she told the heavens. A blast of thunder drowned her out. ‘And the same to you!’

  Suddenly Luca’s voice came from near by. ‘Becky, what are you doing out here?’

  ‘What does it look as if I’m doing?’ she demanded at the top of her voice. ‘Dancing the fandango? The lean-to came down and the wood’s getting even wetter than I am, which is saying a good deal.’

  ‘OK, I’ll fetch it in,’ he yelled back. ‘Go inside and get dry.’

  ‘Not while there’s wood to be moved.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘It’ll take too long for one person. It’ll be drenched.’

  ‘I said I’ll do it.’

  ‘Luca, I swear if you say that once more I’ll brain you.’

  He ground his teeth. ‘I am only trying to take care of you.’

  ‘Then don’t! I haven’t asked you to. I’ll do the wood on my own.’

  ‘You will not do it on your own!’ He tore his hair. ‘While we’re arguing, it’s getting wet.’

  ‘Then let’s get on,’ she said through gritted teeth, and went back to the pile of logs before he could argue again.

  They got about a quarter of the wood inside before he said, ‘That’s it. There’s enough there for a few days, and during that time we can bring some of the rest in and dry it out.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, glad to leave off now her point was made. ‘Come in and get yourself dry.’

  They squelched back indoors, Luca slamming the van’s open door in passing with a force that showed his feelings.

  Once inside, Rebecca lit some candles, then rooted inside a cupboard, glad that the one luxury she had allowed herself was a set of top-quality towels and two vast bathrobes. They were chosen to be too big, so that the occupant could snuggle deep inside, which was fortunate, or Luca could never have got into one.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ he asked, sitting down and pulling the robe as far around him as he could.

  ‘Because I’m not a helpless little woman.’

  ‘Just a thoroughly awkward one,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Oh, hush up!’ She silenced him by tossing a hand towel over his head and beginning to rub, ignoring the noises that came from underneath.

  ‘What was that?’

  He emerged from the towel, tousled and damp, and looking oddly young.

  ‘I said you should have knocked on the van door and woken me.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t hear the lean-to go down, the noise it made.’


  But then she remembered that he had always slept heavily, sometimes with his head on her breast.

  ‘Well, I didn’t. It was mere chance that I woke up when I did. Otherwise, I suppose you’d have taken the whole lot indoors.’

  ‘No, I’d have been sensible and stopped after a few, like we did.’

  He grunted.

  ‘And don’t grunt like that as though you couldn’t believe a word I say.’

  ‘I know you. You’d say anything to win an argument.’

  She grinned. ‘Yes, I would. So don’t take me on.’

  ‘No, I’ve got the bruises from that, haven’t I?’ he asked wryly.

  ‘We’ve both got bruises,’ she reminded him. ‘Old and recent.’

  He looked at her cautiously. ‘But you’re still speaking to me?’

  ‘No, I’m speaking to this man who turned up to mend the roof,’ she said lightly. ‘Good builders are hard to find.’

  He gave a brief laugh. ‘My only honest skill.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ she said quietly.

  She thought he might say something, but he only grabbed the towel and began rubbing his head again.

  She made some tea and sandwiches and they ate in near silence. He seemed tired and abstracted, and she wondered if he was regretting that he had ever started this.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked suddenly, while he was drying his feet.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Where did you vanish to?’

  ‘Didn’t your enquiry agents tell you that?’

  He grimaced an acknowledgement. ‘They traced you to Switzerland, then the trail went cold. I guess you meant it to.’

  ‘Sure. I knew you’d hire the best, and they’d check the airlines and the ferries, and anywhere where there was passport control. So I slipped across the Swiss-Italian border “unofficially”.’

  He stared. ‘How?’

  She smiled. ‘Never mind.’

  ‘As simple as that?’

  ‘As simple as that. Then I made all my journeys by train or bus, because if I’d hired a car I’d have left a trail.’

  ‘Is that why you have that incredible bike around the back?’

  ‘That’s right. I bought it for cash. No questions asked.’

  ‘I should think so. They must have been glad to get rid of it before it fell apart. What’s that thing at the back made of?’