The Italian’s Wife by Sunset Page 12

‘Good evening,’ Ruggiero declaimed tipsily.

  ‘Who’s that with you?’ Hope demanded, staring. ‘Good grief!’

  ‘It really is Carlo,’ Ruggiero said. ‘Although it doesn’t look like him.’

  ‘You didn’t drive home like this?’ Hope demanded, aghast.

  ‘No, we took a cab,’ he said, adding as an afterthought, ‘Both ways.’

  ‘So you went out knowing that you were going to get disgustingly drunk?’ Toni enquired with mild interest.

  ‘That was our intention,’ Ruggiero agreed.

  ‘Well, you might have taken me with you.’

  ‘Next time, Poppa, I promise.’

  ‘Stop talking nonsense,’ Hope said, trying to sound stern. ‘Sit down before you fall down.’

  They made it at far as the sofa before Carlo collapsed and lay sprawling, his shirt open at the throat, his head thrown back, dead to the world.

  Hope regarded him for a moment, trying to see the perfect picture of a happy playboy, as had happened so often before. But her mind went back to the night not so long ago when he’d slept on this very sofa after a party. That had been a man living life to the full. This was a man seeking oblivion.

  Looking up, she saw the same memory in Ruggiero’s eyes. A silent question passed between them, and he shook his head.

  In early December the weather became much colder, and sometimes Della could barely make out the river through the rain.

  She began to look forward to Christmas, when she would see Sol again and hear how his time at college was progressing.

  She had become good friends with Gina, accompanying her to the clinic whenever she could, and helping her become reconciled with her grandmother. Now she had gone to spend Christmas with the old lady, and Della was alone.

  She made a point of going out in the evenings. In this way she could tell herself that she was dating again, and had put Carlo behind her, but the truth was that her ‘dates’ were usually with men who were dealing with her professionally. Often there were four in the party.

  One night in December she came home to find a light on in the boat.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, as she boarded and Sol appeared. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been thrown out?’

  ‘No, no-it’s not as bad as that,’ he said, in a soothing tone that made her heart sink. ‘They just suggested that I come home for Christmas a few days early, to cool off.’

  ‘Off from what?’

  ‘Well, a group of us made merry. Only we had a bit too much and it turned into a fight, and-well, the police were called-’

  His shrug implied that it was all a storm in a teacup, and he topped it off with a sheepish smile, designed to charm her out of making a fuss. It had worked so often before, but now she saw him through different coloured lights. He was no longer a boy but a grown man, always seeking the easy way.

  ‘I think I’d better call the head of your college-’

  ‘But I’ve told you what happened-’

  ‘Yes, and he’ll tell me what really happened. Don’t take me for a fool, Sol.’

  His look of surprise said clearly enough that this hadn’t been a problem before. Her eyes warned him not speak.

  ‘You’d better go to bed now, and tomorrow I’ll let you know where you stand with me. Right now I’m not sure.’

  This time he actually gaped.

  When he’d gone to bed she sat up, brooding.

  She knew that since returning to college Sol had continued to be extravagant, despite his good resolutions, but she guessed that now things were even worse. He’d accepted it as normal when she’d taken responsibility for his child. She had spoiled him all his life, damaging him in the process.

  And only one person had seen it.

  Carlo had known how to deal with Sol. He hadn’t got heavy. He’d simply been quietly implacable, and the young man had backed down in the face of authority.

  I wish he was here now, she thought. I could do with his advice.

  Next day she made the call and learned the worst.

  ‘The principal says you’re a big disappointment,’ she told Sol later. ‘A lurid social life, and doing as little work as possible. That’s it! I’m cutting off your funding. You get a job, and from now on you support yourself.’

  ‘But I’m good for nothing,’ he said, trying to charm her again.

  ‘That’s the truest thing you ever said. But even good-for nothings can work. Get a job as a road-sweeper if you have to, but get a job.’

  ‘Hey, Mum, don’t give me orders. I’m not a kid.’

  ‘As long as you’re living off me, you are a kid. You want to be a man-earn a living.’

  He gulped.

  They entered into edgy negotiations. Now he had to take her seriously, as though something warned him that she’d really changed. His master stroke was to go out and get a job delivering parcels, then work himself into the ground.

  He returned home triumphantly one evening, with his first wage packet.

  ‘I haven’t even opened it,’ he told her virtuously.

  ‘Good,’ she said, whipping it out of his hand. ‘I had a phone call today from the bank behind your credit card. Your payments are overdue. This will come in very handy.’

  ‘But can’t you-?’

  ‘No,’ she said remorselessly. ‘I can’t.’

  Caution born of self-preservation kept him silent, and sent him back to work hard enough to make her reconsider. She relented up to a point, and when the New Year began he returned to college to ‘make a new start’.

  Della didn’t allow herself to hope for too much, but she felt a mild sense of triumph. Sol was treating her with a cautious respect that was new, and for that she knew she had Carlo to thank.

  She sent him a silent message of gratitude, wondering where he was and what he was doing. Did he ever think of her. And, if so, how?

  Evie’s twins had been born in late November. Carlo had entered the villa to find his mother on the phone, his father dancing a little jig of joy, and Ruggiero grinning.

  He’d mouthed, ‘Boy and a girl,’ to Carlo.

  ‘I’m so relieved,’ Hope said, hanging up. ‘The birth was a few days late and I was getting worried. And poor Justin was tearing his hair out.’

  ‘Justin?’ everyone cried sceptically.

  Justin Dane, Hope’s first son, parted from her at birth, had reappeared in their lives three years ago. In time he’d grown close to his family, but it had been hard at first, for he’d been marked by the harsh way life had treated him. He was a grim, taciturn man, who’d developed a protective shell designed to fend off human contact.

  Evie’s love had warmed him, so that these days he was more relaxed, and had learned how to be happy. Even so, the thought of him revealing strong emotion made the three men hoot with laughter.

  ‘Tearing his hair out?’ Ruggiero teased.

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ Hope said. ‘He says little, but I can tell.’

  She and Toni departed early next morning, stayed away three days, and returned with a hundred photographs.

  ‘Evie looks happy,’ Ruggiero observed, studying the pictures.

  He’d had a soft spot for Evie ever since her first visit. She was mad about motorbikes, and he’d been just about to buy a share in a bike factory, and they’d each recognised a kindred spirit in the other.

  ‘When do we get to meet them?’ Carlo asked, studying the pictures.

  ‘They’re coming for Christmas,’ Hope said.

  Christmas was the time the Rinuccis gathered in force. Primo and Luke returned with their wives, Francesco came over from America, Ruggiero produced a new girlfriend. And Justin and Evie came over from England with their baby twins, accompanied by Justin’s fifteen-year-old-son Mark, from his first marriage.

  It was he who’d brought Evie and Justin together, when she’d been a temporary language teacher at his school and he’d been her star pupil, with a propensity for playing truant. He was fascinated by languages
, especially Italian, which he’d learned from her, and he loved his visits to Italy, seizing the chance to brush up not only his Italian but also on the Neapolitan dialect.

  Carlo found him one day, deep in a newspaper article about Pompeii.

  ‘Can you understand it?’ Carlo asked, grinning.

  ‘Enough to know it’s about you,’ Mark said.

  But Carlo shook his head. ‘No, it’s about the site. I added a few opinions, but a good archaeologist never lets himself become the story.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to do a whole series?’

  ‘No, that fell through,’ Carlo said hastily.

  ‘But Evie said-’

  ‘What do you think about Pompeii?’ Carlo interrupted him with a touch of desperation. ‘Would you like to come and see it? I’m making my final visit tomorrow.’

  Next day they drove out to Pompeii together. Mark was an ideal pupil, wide-eyed, eager, drinking everything in, responding intelligently. Carlo began in much the same way as he’d done with the schoolchildren, the day he’d met Della, and Mark enjoyed the performance. But then he said, ‘But it’s much more than that, isn’t it?’

  ‘Much more,’ Carlo said, recognising a kindred spirit with pleasure.

  He showed the boy around the whole place, talking to him as to a fellow academic, and introducing him to the team, who were finally packing up to depart. Mark was enthralled by the museum, especially the plaster figures. He lingered over the mother sheltering her children.

  ‘How do you get on with Evie?’ Carlo asked curiously.

  ‘She’s great,’ Mark said at once. ‘Dad’s ever so much nicer now he’s got her.’ He giggled suddenly. ‘The night we were waiting in the hospital he said he wanted us to have a talk, “man to man”.’

  ‘Heaven help us!’ Carlo said with feeling.

  ‘Yes, I thought it would be awful, but he just wanted to talk about Evie. He said when my turn came I shouldn’t be in a hurry, because a man had to wait for the right person, even if he waited for years and years.’

  ‘Justin said a thing like that?’ Carlo queried, trying to imagine this from his taciturn half brother.

  ‘Well, the twins were being born,’ Mark said, as though this was a complete explanation. And Carlo thought perhaps it was.

  He left Mark talking to Antonio, one of his team, and moved quietly away, brooding on the unexpected words that he’d just heard.

  Even Justin had found the secret that had eluded himself.

  He walked, without looking where he was going, and came inevitably to the place where the lovers still clung together-as they had done on that far-off day when he and Della had seen them for the first time; as they had still been when they were together here for the last time, when everything had seemed most perfect between them.

  Nothing had changed. The lovers lay as they had done for nearly two thousand years, dead to the world but alive to each other for all eternity.

  For all eternity. That was what he’d wanted, what he’d been so sure of. And he’d been wrong. He hadn’t understood her for a moment.

  How do I love thee…?

  He could never have answered that. There were no words for how he had loved her.

  Let me count the ways.

  For him the ways were too many to count. For her they were too few to bother with. They had run out, leaving nothingness behind.

  ‘I’ll be going now,’ said a voice nearby.

  ‘What?’ He came back to himself with a start.

  ‘I’m on my way,’ Antonio said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine-fine.’ ‘The job’s done. There’s nothing to stay for.’ ‘No, there’s nothing to stay for.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS Hope who suggested to Evie that they might invite Carlo to accompany them back to England.

  ‘He’s a good influence on Mark,’ she said. ‘That boy’s getting really interested in all sorts of serious things.’

  ‘Yes, he’s a budding intellectual,’ Evie said, smiling. ‘We’d love to have Carlo.’

  If Carlo was suspicious of his mother’s motives he kept his thoughts to himself, and agreed to the visit with every sign of pleasure. Evie afterwards said that she didn’t know how she would have managed without him, as she was poorly on the flight home, and it was Carlo who took charge of the twins. This had a knock-on effect on Mark, who decided that, since his hero was happy looking after babies, it obviously wasn’t unmanly after all.

  On the second day of the visit Evie answered the phone briefly, then covered the receiver to say to Carlo, ‘Your fame has preceded you. Will you do a live TV show tonight? They’ve heard you’re here, and they need an expert to talk about some new discovery.’

  She named the discovery, a brilliant one by a fellow archaeologist, which had left Carlo full of envy. He accepted eagerly, and that night he arrived at the studio ready to talk. The discussion grew animated. One of the other speakers was jealous and dismissive. Carlo was up in arms, defending a man he admired. A good time was had by all.

  The producer was ecstatic.

  ‘It doesn’t often get so lively,’ he enthused. ‘Hey, weren’t you going to do that series for Della? What happened?’

  ‘We couldn’t dovetail our schedules,’ Carlo said, trying to calm the frisson that went through him at the sound of her name.

  ‘What a shame! Everything she touches now turns to gold. She’s up for yet another award in a week or two. The rumour is that she’ll get it.’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ Carlo replied, not quite knowing what he said. ‘Excuse me, I have to be going.’

  The visit passed pleasantly. Once Justin invited Carlo to lunch at a restaurant near his offices in London, and they talked about their mutual parent. It was the details of babyhood and childhood that seemed to fascinate him, as though he was trying to imagine a time with his mother that he’d never known. Carlo’s warm heart was touched, and he did his best to fulfil Justin’s hopes. By the time they reached the liqueurs they were good friends, and both inwardly groaned when there was an interruption.

  ‘Carlo, let me introduce Alan Forest,’ Justin said. ‘A valued business colleague.’

  Forest was a chunky middle-aged man, with a bluff, outgoing manner.

  ‘I saw you on television the other night,’ he said. ‘Great stuff.’

  He burbled on, impossible to interrupt. It became clear to Carlo that he had a great deal of money and, since his wife had left him the previous year, very little else. With too much time on his hands he indulged a variety of hobbies-one of which was archaeology, although his interest was amateur-and he spouted a good deal of nonsense. Carlo grinned and indulged him.

  ‘Now, I want you and your family to be my guests tomorrow night,’ Forest declared expansively. ‘I’ve got a table for a very glamorous occasion, but unexpectedly I find myself alone.’

  Since they were both too polite to say that this wasn’t surprising, they merely smiled, while seeking for a reply that would get them out of the unwanted invitation.

  ‘It’s a television awards ceremony,’ Forest burbled on. ‘And it’s taking place at a hotel that I own, so they have to give me a table. It’s the biggest “do” of the year. Not to be missed.’

  ‘You’re very kind, but we’re busy-’ Justin began.

  ‘I think not,’ Carlo interrupted him swiftly. ‘I’m sure we have no plans for tomorrow night.’

  Understanding what was expected of him, Justin hastily backtracked, and within a short time they were engaged for the next evening.

  ‘I think you’ve taken leave of your senses,’ Justin observed in the car afterwards.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Carlo said quietly. ‘That happened a long time ago.’

  Della didn’t recognise him at first. It was late at night and she was half asleep in front of the television. Through the sleepy haze she heard a man’s voice saying, ‘Far too much has been made of…sense of proportion-’

  Then another man began to talk, an
d she felt disorientated because the voice was Carlo’s but the appearance wasn’t. She blinked, forcing herself to focus, and realised that it really was him but, with his shaggy locks cut off, almost unrecognisable.

  His boyish looks had owed a lot to the neglect of his hair, she realised. With most of it gone, he seemed like someone else, serious, intense, and learned. She didn’t understand a word he was saying, beyond the fact that he was defending a recent discovery against those who would dismiss it. He was fierce and angry, almost contemptuous.

  It was strange to see him as never before, and yet to recognise him. This wasn’t the young man who’d loved her passionately through the long, hot nights, and laughed with her through the sunny days. This man was stern, controlled, radiating a conviction that the world must take him on his own terms or not at all. Her heart ached as she watched him.

  At any moment he would smile, and it would be the smile she loved, that had brightened the world. But suddenly the programme was over, and he hadn’t smiled once.

  She discovered that she was leaning forward, her whole body tense, shaking. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but he wasn’t there. He never really had been there. He would never be there again, and the tears were pouring down her face.

  She tried to put him out of her mind and concentrate on the coming award ceremony. She decided to wear the elegant black cocktail dress she’d bought in Italy, and when it was on she knew she looked her best. She’d lost weight in the last few weeks, and had the figure of a girl, which the tight black dress emphasised. Her make-up was skilled and professional. This was going to be her big night.

  And she would make the most of it, she decided. For professional triumph was the only satisfaction she would know for the rest of her life.

  Her ‘date’ was her assistant, George Franklin, who had earned tonight almost as much as she had.

  ‘The word on the grapevine is that you’ve won,’ he told her, as they reached their table and he pulled out a chair for her.

  ‘Go on with you,’ she chided, trying to not to hope for too much. ‘I’ll bet we’ve all been told that.’

  He grinned, and she thought how different he looked in a dinner jacket. Normally she saw him only in jeans and old sweaters, but now, shaved and almost elegant, he looked reasonably attractive, carrying his fifty years lightly.