Accidentally Expecting!

CHAPTER TEN

AS IF to prove it, he turned away and began to pace the room, talking without looking at her.

‘What a laugh I must have given you!’

‘You don’t really think that?’ she said. ‘You can’t. I have never laughed at you.’

‘Pitied, then. That’s worse. Can’t you understand?’

Wearily, she understood only too well. Dante was staggering under the weight of humiliation as he realised how close he’d come to opening his heart to her. For years he’d held off, never risking deep emotion and trust, until he’d met her. Now he felt betrayed.

She’d known that he guarded his privacy, but it was worse than that. He shut himself away from the world’s eyes in a little cave where he dwelt alone, and even she wasn’t allowed to venture. She thought of his loneliness in that bare cave, and shivered.

‘I’ve always wanted to talk to you about it,’ she said. ‘I hated deceiving you. But I’d have hated it more if you’d died, and you might die if you don’t have it properly checked.’

‘What is there to check? I know the chances.’

‘I wonder if you know as much as you think you do!’ she said in a temper. ‘You’re a conceited man, Dante, proud, arrogant and stubborn, in a really stupid way. You think you know it all, but medical science moves on. If you’d let the doctors help you, something could be done. You could be fit and strong for years ahead.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said harshly. ‘Don’t tell me what happens with this, because I know more about it than you ever will. I’ve watched what it’s done to my family, the lives it’s ruined; not just the people who suffer from it, but those who have to watch them die. Or, worse, when they don’t die, swallowing up the lives of the people who have to care for them. Do you think I want that? Anything is better. Even dying.’

‘Do you think your death would be better for me?’ she whispered.

‘It could be, if it set you free, if I’d made the mistake of tying you to me so that you longed for my death as much as I did.’ A withered look came into his face. ‘Except that I wouldn’t long for it, because I wouldn’t understand what was happening to me, wouldn’t know. Everyone else would know, but I’d know nothing. I’d just carry on, thinking I was a normal man. And I would rather be dead.’

Then he stared at her in silence, as though his own words had shocked him as much as they had her. When the silence became unbearable, Ferne said bitterly, ‘What about what I want? Doesn’t that count?’

‘How can you judge when you don’t know the reality?’

‘I know what my reality would be like if you died. I know it because I love you.’

He stared at her with eyes full of shock, but she searched them in vain for any sign of pleasure or welcome. This man was dead to love.

‘I didn’t mean to, but it happened. Did you ever think of what you were doing to me?’ she pleaded.

‘You weren’t supposed to fall in love,’ he grated. ‘No complications. We were going to keep it light.’

‘And you think love is like that? You think it’s so easy to say “don’t” and for nothing to happen? It might be easy for you. You arrange things the way you want them, you tell yourself that you’ll get just so close to me and no further, and that’s how things work out, because you have no real heart. But I have a heart, and I can’t control it like you can.

‘Yes, I love you. Dante, do you understand that? I love you. I am deeply, totally in love with you. I didn’t want that to happen. I told myself the same silly fantasies that you did-how it could be controlled if I was sensible. And it crept up on me when I wasn’t looking, and, when I did look, it was too late.

‘Now I want all the things I swore I’d never let myself want: to live with you and make love with you, marry you and bear your children. I want to crack jokes with you, and hold you when you’re sleeping at night.

‘You never thought of that, did you? And you don’t think it matters. I wish I was as heartless as you.’

‘I’m not-’

‘Shut up and listen. I’ve listened to you, now it’s my turn. I wish I didn’t love you, because I’m beginning to think you don’t deserve to be loved, but I can’t help it. So there it is. What do I do now with this love that neither of us wants?’

‘Kill it,’ he snapped.

‘Tell me how.’

His face changed, became older, wearier, as though he had suddenly confronted a brick wall.

‘There is a way,’ he murmured. ‘And perhaps it’s the best way, if it will convince you as nothing else could.’

‘Dante, what are you talking about?’

‘I’m going to kill your love.’

‘Even you can’t do that,’ she said, trying to ignore the fear that was growing inside her.

‘Don’t be so sure. When I’m finished, you’ll recoil from me in horror and run from me as far and fast as you can. I promise you that will happen, because I’m going to make sure it does. When you look back on this time, you’ll wish we’d never met, and you’ll hate me. But one day you’ll thank me.’

The brutal words seemed to hang in the air between them. Ferne stared at him hopelessly, vainly looking for some softening in his face.

He checked his watch. ‘We have time to catch a flight if we hurry.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Milan.’ He gave a frightening smile. ‘I’m going to show you the future.’

‘I don’t understand. What is there in Milan?’

‘My Uncle Leo. Have they told you about him?’

‘Toni said he was a permanent invalid.’

‘Invalid doesn’t begin to describe it. They say that in his youth he was a fine man, a banker with a brain like a steel trap that could solve any problem. Women basked in his attention. Now he’s a man with the mind of a child.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. I don’t need to see him.’

‘I say that you do, and you’re going to.’

‘Dante, please listen-’

‘No, the time for that is passed. Now you listen. You wanted me to show you how to kill your love, and that’s what I’m going to do.’

She tried to twist away but his hands were hard on her shoulders.

‘We’re going,’ he said.

‘You can’t make me.’

‘Do you really think I can’t?’ he asked softly.

Who was this man who stared at her with cold eyes and delivered his orders in a brutal staccato that brooked no argument? Why did he have Dante’s face when he wasn’t Dante, could never be him?

Or was he the real Dante who had lived inside this man all the time?

‘Go and pack your things,’ he said in a voice of iron.

She did so, moving like an automaton. When she came out with her bag, he was waiting.

‘The taxi will be here in a minute,’ he said.

Neither spoke on the way to the airport; there was nothing to say. Ferne had the feeling of coming to a huge bridge stretching so far into the distance that she couldn’t see the other side. It led to an unknown place that she feared to visit, but to turn back now was impossible.

Worst of all was the sensation of travelling there alone, for there was no comfort to be found in the steely man beside her.

Then she caught a glimpse of his blank face, and remembered that he was the one in need of comfort. But he would accept none, especially from her.

On the flight to Milan, she ventured to say, ‘What kind of place is he in?’

‘A care home. It’s clean, comfortable, kind. They look after him well. Sometimes his family visit him, but they lose heart after a while, because he doesn’t know them.’

He added wryly, ‘One strange thing that you may find useful, he still speaks excellent English. With all the damage that was done to the rest of his brain, that part has remained untouched. The doctors can’t say why.’

At the airport he hailed a taxi to take them to the home, where a nurse greeted them with a smile.

‘I’ve told him you called to say you were coming. He was so pleased.’

That sounded cheerful, Ferne thought. Perhaps Uncle Leo was better than Dante imagined.

She followed them through the pleasant building until they came to a bedroom at the back where the sun shone through large windows. A man was there, kneeling on the floor, solemnly decorating a Christmas tree. He looked up and smiled at the sight of them.

He was in his late sixties, plump and grey-haired, with twinkling eyes and an air of friendly glee.

‘Hello, Leo,’ said the nurse. ‘Look who I’ve brought to see you.’

‘I promised to come,’ Dante said to him in English. ‘And I brought a friend to see you.’

The old man smiled politely.

‘How kind of you to visit me,’ he said, also in English. ‘But I can’t talk for long. My nephew is coming, and I must get this finished.’ He indicated the tree, immediately returning to work on it.

‘It’s his latest obsession,’ the nurse said. ‘He decorates it, takes it all down then starts again. Leo, it’s all right, you can leave it for the moment.’

‘No, no, I must finish it before Dante gets here,’ Leo said urgently. ‘I promised him.’

‘I’m here, Uncle,’ Dante said, going to him. ‘There’s no need to finish the tree. It’s fine as it is.’

‘Oh, but I must. Dante will be so disappointed otherwise. Do you know Dante, by any chance?’

Ferne held her breath, but Dante was unfazed. It seemed that he was used to this.

‘Yes, I’ve met him,’ he said. ‘He’s told me all about you.’

‘But why doesn’t he come?’ Leo was almost in tears. ‘He keeps saying he will, but he never does, and I so long to see him.’

‘Leo, look at me.’ Dante’s voice was very gentle. ‘Don’t you know me?’

‘No.’ Wide-eyed, Leo stared at him. ‘Should I?’

‘I’ve often visited you before. I hoped you’d remember me.’

Leo’s gaze became intense. ‘No,’ he said desperately. ‘I’ve never seen you before. I don’t know you-I don’t, I don’t!’

‘It’s all right, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Who are you?’ Leo wailed. ‘I don’t know you. You’re trying to confuse me. Go away! I want Dante. Where’s Dante? He promised!’

Before their horrified eyes, he burst into violent tears, burying his face in his hands and wailing. Dante tried to take the old man in his arms but was violently pushed away. Raising his voice to a scream, Leo barged his way out of the room, racing across the lawn towards the trees.

The nurse made to follow him, but Dante waved her back. ‘Leave this to me.’

He hurried out after Leo, catching up with him as they reached the trees.

‘Oh dear,’ Ferne sighed.

‘Yes, it’s very sad,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s a sweet old man, but he gets fixated on things, like that tree, and things just go round and round in his head.’

‘Is it normal for him not to recognise his family?’

‘We don’t see much of them here. Dante comes more often than anyone else. He’s so gentle and kind to Leo. I shouldn’t tell you this, but he pays the lion’s share of the expenses here, plus any special treats for the old man; he gets nothing back for it.’

‘And Leo has been like this for how long?’

‘Thirty years. It makes you wonder how life looks from inside his head.’

‘Yes,’ Ferne said sadly. ‘It does.’

‘I suppose he doesn’t really know, and that makes it bearable for him, poor thing. But then Dante visits him, and it brings him no pleasure because he never recognises him.’

Heavy-hearted, Ferne wandered out into the gardens, heading for the trees where she’d seen them go. She could understand the way Dante flinched from being reduced to this, being pitied by everyone. If only there was some way to convince him that her love was different. Inside her heart, hope was dying.

She heard them before she saw them. From somewhere beyond the trees came the sound of weeping. Following it, she came across the two men sitting on a fallen log. Dante had his arms around his uncle, who was sobbing against his shoulder.

He looked up as she approached. He said nothing, but his eyes met hers in a silent message: now you understand. Be warned, and escape quickly.

‘Stop crying,’ he said gently. ‘I want you to meet a friend of mine. You can’t cry when a lady is here-she’ll think you don’t like her.’

The gentle rallying in his voice had its effect. Leo blew his nose and tried to brighten up.

‘Buon giorno, signorina.’

‘No, no, my friend is English,’ Dante said. ‘We must speak English to her. She doesn’t understand foreign languages as we do.’ He emphasised ‘we’ very slightly, clearly trying to create a sense of closeness that would comfort Leo. ‘Her name is Ferne Edmunds.’

Leo pulled himself together. ‘Good evening, Miss Edmunds.’

‘Please, call me Ferne,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad to meet you.’ Floundering for something to say, she looked around at the trees. ‘This is a lovely place.’

‘Yes, I’ve always liked it. Of course,’ Leo added earnestly, ‘it’s a lot of work to keep it in good condition. But it’s been in my family for such a long time, I feel I must-I must-’ He broke off, looking around in bewilderment.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Dante said, taking his hand and speaking quietly. ‘It’s all being taken care of.’

‘I so much wanted everything to be right when he came,’ Leo said sadly. ‘But he isn’t coming, is he?’

‘Leo, it’s me,’ Dante said urgently. ‘Look at me. Don’t you recognise me?’

For a long moment Leo gazed into Dante’s face, his expression a mixture of eagerness and sadness. Ferne found herself holding her breath for both of them.

‘Do I know you?’ Leo asked sadly after a while. ‘Sometimes I think-but he never comes to see me. I wish he would. He said once that he was the only person who really understood me, and he’d always be my best friend. But he doesn’t visit me, and I’m so sad.’

‘But I do visit you,’ Dante said. ‘Don’t you remember me?’

‘Oh no,’ Leo sighed. ‘I’ve never seen you before. Do you know Dante?’

At first she thought Dante wouldn’t answer. His head was bowed as though some terrible struggle was taking place within him, consuming all his strength. At last he managed to say, ‘Yes, I know him.’

‘Please, please ask him to come to see me. I miss him so much.’

Dante’s face was full of tragedy, and Ferne’s heart ached for him. He’d been right; the reality was more terrible than anything she could have imagined.

‘Let’s go back inside,’ he said, helping Leo to his feet.

In silence they made their way back across the lawn. Leo had recovered his spirits, as if the last few minutes had never been, and was chatting happily about the grand estate he believed was his.

The nurse came out onto the step, smiling kindly at Leo, welcoming him inside.

‘We’ve got your favourite cakes,’ she said.

‘Oh, thank you. I’ve been trying to explain to my friend here about Dante. Look, let me show you his picture.’

From a chest of drawers behind the bed Leo took a photo album and opened it at a page containing one picture. It was Dante, taken recently. He was sitting with Leo, both of them smiling and seeming content with each other. Leo looked at it with pride.

‘That was taken-Well, you can see that he’s nothing like…’ He looked at Dante sorrowfully.

Ferne felt her throat constrict and knew that in another moment she would be weeping. The picture was clearly Dante, and the fact that Leo didn’t recognise him told a terrible story about his mental state.

‘You see what a nice boy he is,’ Leo said, running his fingers over the face on the page. ‘He was always my favourite. Look.’

He began turning the pages, revealing earlier pictures. Ferne gasped as she saw Leo as a young man before his tragedy, sitting with a little boy on his knee. Even at this distance of years she could recognise Dante in the child. His face was the one she knew, bright and vivid with intelligence, gleaming with humour.

But the greatest tragedy of all was the fact that the man’s face was exactly the same. Their features were different, but their expressions were identical. In his day, Leo had been the man Dante was now, dazzling, charmingly wicked, capable of anything.

And he had come to this.

Turning the pages, Leo revealed more pictures, including one of a beautiful young woman.

‘That was my wife,’ he said softly. ‘She died.’

But Dante shook his head, mouthing, ‘Left him.’

There was the child Dante again, with a man and a woman.

‘My sister Anna,’ Leo said proudly. ‘And her husband, Taddeo Rinucci. They died in a car accident years ago.’

He switched back to the modern picture of Dante and showed it to the real man.

‘You see? If you could remember what he looks like, and then-?’ Tears began to roll down his face.

Ferne’s heart broke for Dante, sitting there regarding this tragedy with calm eyes. When he spoke to Leo, it was with tender kindness, asking nothing, giving everything.

‘I’ll remember,’ he said. ‘Trust me for that. And I’ll try to find some way of making things nicer for you. You know you can rely on me.’

‘Oh yes,’ Leo said brightly. ‘You’re always so good to me-who are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dante said with an effort. ‘As long as we’re friends, names don’t matter.’

Leo beamed.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you. I want-I want-’

Suddenly he was breathing wildly and shuddering. His arms began to flail, and it took all Dante’s strength to hold him in his chair.

‘You’d better go,’ the nurse said tersely. ‘We know what to do when he’s like this.’

‘I’ll call later,’ Dante said.

‘By all means, but please go now.’

Reluctantly they did so.

‘What happened to him?’ Ferne asked as they left.

‘He had an epileptic seizure,’ Dante said bluntly. ‘That’s another thing that happens with his condition. He’ll lose consciousness, and when he awakens he won’t remember anything, even our visit. Once this happened and I insisted on staying, but my presence only distressed him. Possibly it’s my fault he had the seizure, because seeing me agitated him.’

‘That poor man,’ she said fervently.

‘Yes, he is. And, now you know, let’s go to the airport. You’ve seen all you need to.’

She agreed without argument, sensing that Dante was at the end of his tether.

They spoke little on the short flight back to Naples. Ferne felt as though she never wanted to speak another word again. Her mind seemed to be filled with darkness, and she could see only more darkness ahead. Perhaps things would be better when they got home and could talk about it. She tried hard to believe that.

But, when they reached home, he stopped at the front door.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back later.’

She knew better than to suggest coming with him. He wanted to get away from her; that was the truth.

And perhaps, she thought as she opened the front door, she too needed to be away from him for a while. That was the point they had reached.

The apartment was frighteningly quiet. She’d been alone there before, but the silence hadn’t had this menacing quality because Dante’s laughing spirit had always seemed to be with her, even when he was away. But now the laughter was dead, perhaps for ever, replaced by the hostility of a man who felt he’d found betrayal where he’d thought to find only trust.

It had all happened so fast. Only hours ago, she’d been basking in the conviction of his unspoken love, certain that the trouble between them could be resolved and the way made clear. Then the heavens had fallen on her.

No, on them both. Even when Dante had been at his most cruel, she had recognised the pain and disillusion that drove him. Her heart cried that he should trust her, but life had taught him that the traps were always waiting at his feet, ready to be sprung when he least expected it.

In desperation she’d told him that she loved him, but now it hit her with the force of a sledgehammer that he hadn’t said as much in return. He’d spoken only of killing her love, and had done his best to do it. With all her heart she longed to believe that he’d been forcing himself, denying his true feelings, but she was no longer sure what those feelings were. At times, she’d thought she detected real hatred in his eyes.

Perhaps that was the real Dante, a man whose need to keep the world at bay was greater than any love he could feel. Perhaps the cold hostility he’d turned on her was the strongest emotion he could truly feel.

She sat there in the darkness, shaking with misery and despair.

In the early hours she heard him arrive, moving quietly. When the door of the bedroom opened just a little, she said, ‘I’m awake.’

‘I’m sorry, did I wake you?’ His voice was quiet.

‘I can’t sleep.’

He didn’t come near the bed but went to stand by the window, looking out in the direction of Vesuvius, as they had once done together.

‘That was what you meant, wasn’t it?’ she asked, coming beside him. ‘Never knowing when it was going to send out a warning.’

‘Yes, that was what I meant.’

‘And, now that it has, we’re all supposed to make a run for it?’

‘If you have any sense.’

‘I never had any sense.’

‘I know.’ He gave a brief laugh. ‘Nobody who knew us would imagine I was the one with common sense, would they?’

‘Certainly not me,’ she said, trying to recapture their old bantering way of talking.

‘So I have to be wise for both of us. I should think what happened today would have opened your eyes. You saw what’s probably waiting for me at the end of the road.’

‘Not if you take medical help to avoid it,’ she pressed.

‘There is no avoiding it, or at least so little chance as not to justify the risk. To become like Leo is my nightmare. Maybe one day it’ll happen, and if we were married what would you do? Would you have the sense to leave me then?’

Ferne stared at him, unable to believe that he’d really spoken such words.

‘You’d want me to leave you-just abandon you?’

‘I’d want you to get as far away from me as possible. I’d want you to go where you’d never have to see me, or even think about me, again.’

Shattered, Ferne stepped back and looked at him. Then a blind rage swept over her and she drew back her hand, ready to aim at his face, but at the last minute she dropped it and turned away, almost running in her fear of what she had been about to do.

He came after her, also furious, pulling her around to face him.

‘If you want to hit me, do it,’ he snapped.

‘I ought to,’ she breathed.

‘Yes, you ought to. I’ve insulted you, haven’t I? Fine, I’ll insult you again. And again. Until you face reality.’

The rage in his voice frightened her. Part of her understood that his cruelty was a deliberate attempt to drive her off her for own sake. Yet still it stunned her in its intensity, warning her of depths to him that she had never understood because he had never wanted her to understand.

‘Reality means what you want it to mean,’ she said. ‘Maybe I see things differently.’

‘Marriage? Children? Holding hands as we wander into the sunset? Only I wouldn’t just be holding your hand, I’d be clinging to it for support.’

‘And I’d be glad to give you that support, because I love you.’

‘Don’t love me,’ he said savagely. ‘I have no love to give back.’

‘Is that really true?’ she whispered.

The look he gave her was terrible, full of despair and suffering that she could do nothing to ease. That was when she faced the truth: if she had no power to ease his pain, then everything was dead between them.

‘Try not to hate me,’ he said wearily.

‘I thought you wanted me to hate you as the quickest way of getting rid of me.’

‘I thought so too, but I guess I can’t manage it. Don’t hate me more than you have to, and I’ll try not to hate you.’

‘Hate me?’ she echoed. ‘After everything we’ve-Could you hate me?’

He was silent for a long moment before whispering, ‘Yes. If I must.’

He looked away again, out of the window, to where the dawn was breaking. The air was clear and fresh; the birds were beginning to sing. It was going to be a glorious day.

She came up close behind him, touching him gently and resting her cheek against his back. Her head was whirling with the words that she wanted to say, and yet no words would be enough.

She could feel him warm against her, as she’d known him so often before, and suddenly, irrationally, she was filled with hope. This was Dante, who loved her, no matter what he said. They would be together because it was fated. All she had to do was convince him of that.

‘Darling,’ she whispered.

His voice was hard, and he spoke without looking at her.

‘There’s a flight to England at eleven this morning. I’ve booked your seat.’

He came with her to the airport, helping her to check in and remaining with her as they waited for the first call. There was no more tenderness in his manner than there had been before. He was doing his polite duty.

She couldn’t bear it. Whatever might happen, there was no way she could go one way and leave him to go another, at the mercy of any wind that blew.

‘Dante, please.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Tell me to stay,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll make it work somehow.’

He shook his head, his eyes weary and defeated. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s me. I can’t change. I’ll always be a nightmare for any woman to live with. You were right. I shouldn’t have lived with you and not warned you. I made the terms but didn’t tell you what they were. Doesn’t that prove I’m a monster?’

‘You’re not a monster,’ she said fervently. ‘Just a man trapped in a vicious web. But you don’t have to live in it alone. Let me come inside, let me help you.’

His face was suddenly wild.

‘And see you trapped too? No, get out while you can. I’ve done you so much damage, I won’t do more. For pity’s sake, for my sake, go!’

He almost ran from her then, hurrying into the crowd without looking back even once. She watched as the distance between them grew wider, until he vanished.

But only from her sight. In her mind and heart where he would always live, she could still see him, making his way back to the empty apartment and the empty life, where he would be alone for ever in the doubly bitter loneliness of those who had chosen their isolation.