Gino’s Arranged Bride

CHAPTER TWO

SOMETIMES the dreams were worse than the waking memories. If you were awake you could decide not to think about it, but dreams were remorseless.

In dreams he had no choice but to live again the moment at the Belluna harvest party where he’d told Alex of his love in front of all their neighbours.

Even now his own words and actions could give him a shiver of shame.

‘You’ve always known how I felt about you,’ he’d said with all the force of his love. ‘Even when I was playing the fool, my heart was all yours.’

Then he’d gone down on one knee, in the sight of them all, and begged her to be his wife.

Even when she’d looked at him in dismay he hadn’t understood, so deeply submerged was he in his own illusion.

He’d thought she was just embarrassed at receiving a proposal in public, and when they were alone a few minutes later he’d been sure that all would be well. Driven by his overwhelming feelings, he’d told her passionately that she was the one.

‘The only one, different from every other woman I’ve fooled around with and loved for five minutes. It’s not five minutes this time, but all my life and beyond-’

She’d stopped him there, telling him kindly but plainly that she did not love him. Still he couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it, because it was too monstrous to be true. So he’d left, telling himself that he would be back later, and make her understand.

Fool! Fool!

He awoke with a start, sitting up in bed, shaking.

It was dark, and from down below he could hear the murmur of voices. He got out of bed and went to the window, where the turn of the house showed him the lit window of the kitchen, and moving shadows beyond.

The others must have returned, but he couldn’t go down and meet them now. He knew, from experience, that what was happening inside his head couldn’t be stopped. Once he’d started down this bitter path it must be walked to the end. But he would have avoided the next stage if he could.

He’d fled the party, staying away into the early hours, then returning home. There he would seek out Rinaldo, the brother who’d been like a second father to him. Rinaldo, the man he trusted above all others, would know how to advise him.

Dawn was breaking when he went to Rinaldo’s room and walked in without knocking.

What he saw stopped him like a blow. Alex was in the bed, lying on her back, her eyes closed, breathing evenly. And there with her was Rinaldo, sleeping against her chest, wrapped in the protective curve of her arms. The sheet was thrown right back, revealing that they were both completely naked.

He had dreamed of seeing her naked body, but not like this, embracing his brother in the peace that follows passion.

She had awoken first, her face full of horror as she saw him there in the faint light of dawn. Her lips framed his name, she reached out a hand to him, but he backed away as though her touch would kill him.

From the scene that had followed he recalled only the cruel discovery that these two had escaped into another world, one from which he was excluded. Rinaldo had said sadly but firmly, ‘I didn’t take her from you. The choice was hers.’

It was true. Alex hadn’t deceived him. He’d deceived himself. She was not to blame. He kept telling himself that because he needed to keep her on her pedestal. However painful it was, it hurt less than blaming her.

He knew they didn’t understand how the world had shattered around him. Because he had laughed his way through life they’d thought he would laugh this off too. He’d had so many girls. What did it matter if he lost one?

Only he knew that she had been ‘the one’, and always would be, as long as he lived. Her loss was a catastrophe that shook him to the soul, driving him away so that he would not have to see them together.

In losing Alex he had also lost his home. For six months he had travelled, anywhere, as long as it was away from Belluna. As part owner he was entitled to draw an income from the farm, but he drew as little as possible, conscious that he was not there to help with the work.

He took any job he could get, preferably hard manual labour so that he could tire himself out. In this way he earned just enough to get by, until he could decide what he wanted to do. But he could not settle, and he travelled on, always trying to avoid her face, always seeing it dance before him. In the end he had come to England, Alex’s country, where he was always bound to finish.

Now he seemed to have reached a place that was largely featureless. Despite what Laura had told him he had no real idea where the town was in relation to the rest of England and the rest of the world. And in an odd way that suited him.

He had come to nowhere, and he had nothing. When he’d been to the bank he would possess a little money, but he would still, in all important senses, have nothing.

He was cut adrift from his family and everything he knew, and he had no way of going home, because home no longer existed.

Gino opened his eyes to darkness. He must have slept again after all, so deeply that evening had passed into night. His watch told him it was nearly midnight.

He rose, feeling strangely well rested after his turbulent sleep. Looking into the corridor he saw that the rest of the house was dark and quiet.

The other guests must have returned, eaten and gone to bed, shutting their doors. He could see some of those doors in the gloom, all alike.

Which one was the bathroom? How did a stranger find out? Try each one? Hell!

To his relief he heard the front door open and looked over the stair rail to see Laura coming in.

‘Psst!’ he said urgently. ‘Aiuto!’

‘Pardon?’

‘Help. T’imploro!’

‘Why, what’s the matter?’

‘I need-’ in his panic his English deserted him. ‘Un gabinetto,’ he said. ‘Ti prego-ti prego, un gabinetto.’

Laura knew no Italian but she guessed the frantic note in his voice was the same in every language.

‘Here,’ she said, opening a door under the stairs.

‘Grazie, grazie!’

He leapt down the stairs three at a time, shot into the tiny bathroom, and she heard the lock. Grinning in sympathy she slipped upstairs to check Nikki, who was asleep. As she returned to the kitchen and put on the kettle, Gino emerged looking a lot happier.

‘Thank you,’ he said fervently. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you in Italian. Gabinetto means-’

‘I think I have a pretty good idea of what it means by now,’ she said, and they both laughed.

The kettle boiled, but when she turned to it he stopped her.

‘You sit down,’ he said. ‘I make the tea. You must be very tired.’

‘Thanks.’ She flopped gratefully into a chair. ‘Do you know how to make English tea?’

‘I watched you this afternoon. There, did I do it right?’

The tea was delicious.

‘How many evenings do you work behind a bar?’ he wanted to know.

‘Three, usually.’

‘On top of running this place? When do you have a life?’

‘Nikki is my life. Nothing else matters.’

‘And you are alone?’ he asked delicately.

‘You mean, do I have a husband? I did have. We were very happy, until Nikki was four years old. She adored Jack and he seemed to adore her. Anyone seeing them together would have said he was the perfect father.

‘Then something happened to her face. It began to grow too much, and in ways that it shouldn’t. You can see that her forehead is too large. And Jack left. He just upped and left.’

‘Maria Vergine!’ he exclaimed softly. ‘Un criminale!’

‘If that means what I think it does, yes.’

‘And the piccina, how much does she know?’

‘She knows that her father rejected her. She pretends not to, for my sake. But she knows.’

‘But is there no cure?’

‘Eventually they might be able to do some surgery that puts things right. But not now, while her bones are still growing. In the meantime, she has to wait and suffer. People can be so cruel. They think because she looks different she must be stupid.’

‘No, no, she’s a very bright little girl.’

‘I know, but they tell their children not to play with her. Sometimes they try to be “nice”, but there’s something self-conscious about it, as though they’re congratulating themselves on how nice they’re being.’

‘How does she manage at school?’

‘She’s got a few good friends, and most of the teachers are decent. But some of the other kids bully and tease her, and one teacher actually dared to tell me I should take her out of school because she “couldn’t fit in”. She said Nikki needed a place for children with special needs.’

Gino swore softly.

‘I told her the only special need Nikki had was to be treated with intelligence and understanding. Then I complained to the headmistress, who, luckily, is one of the good guys, and I didn’t have any more trouble from that teacher. But there are always plenty more where she came from.

‘With luck, Nikki will be all right one day. But by that time she’ll have been through all these experiences.’

‘And what happens to her now will mark her for life,’ he said, nodding.

‘You made her so happy in the park today, because you didn’t seem to notice. You looked straight at her and didn’t register anything-not shock, or surprise, nothing. It was-oh, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was, and what it meant to her.’

Gino concentrated on his tea, hoping that his unease didn’t show in his face. He was guiltily aware that he did not deserve her praise. The fact was that he’d been too wrapped up in himself and his own troubles that morning to be aware of anything else.

Laura was still talking eagerly.

‘She’s got this theory that someone must have cast a magic spell, so that you didn’t really see her face.’

‘In a way she’s right,’ he said. ‘But the spell was my own self-absorption. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I actually didn’t see her for several moments, even though I was looking at her. So I haven’t earned your kindness.’

‘But don’t you see, that doesn’t matter? You made her happy without even knowing. So maybe she’s right, and it really was a magic spell.’

He nodded. ‘Who cares about the reason if it gave her what she needed? Her face doesn’t matter. She’s a lovely child.’

‘Yes, she is,’ Laura said eagerly. ‘But all she sees is what she reads in the eyes of other people.’

‘I promise you, she’ll never suffer from what she sees in my eyes,’ Gino said seriously.

‘Thank you. You have no idea how important that is.’

Next day at breakfast he met some of the other boarders. Sadie and Claudia, the sisters, were quiet, thin and middle-aged. Their lives revolved around computers, and they could launch into a discussion of the latest technology at the drop of a hat. They worked in Compulor, a nearby computer factory, where they both held positions of responsibility.

Mrs Baxter was the eldest, a bright-eyed little bird of a woman, who looked Gino up and down, and gave a grunt which seemed to imply approval.

Sadie and Claudia were also friendly.

‘We’ve been to Italy,’ Sadie confided.

‘There was a very interesting computer fair in Milan,’ Claudia added. ‘Do you know Milan, Signor Farnese?’

‘Gino, please,’ he said at once. ‘No, I’ve never been to Milan. Tuscany is my part of the world.’

They were full of intelligent questions about Tuscany which Gino answered courteously but reluctantly. He didn’t want to dwell on his home just now.

‘We don’t usually see Bert and Fred at breakfast,’ Laura explained. ‘Fred doesn’t come home until the nightclub has closed in the early hours. Bert is a night-watchman, so he got in five minutes ago and went straight to bed.’

Nikki set off for school accompanied by Mrs Baxter who, although retired, occasionally worked there part-time. Before she left, Nikki addressed Gino like a perfect hostess, ‘I’m afraid I have to go now, but I’ll be back later.’

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ he told her solemnly.

He helped Laura with the washing up, surprising her with his efficiency.

‘I thought Italian men were old-fashioned and macho,’ she said. ‘Working in the kitchen is for women, that kind of thing.’

‘You do us wrong, we’re very domesticated. When I was a little boy my mother taught me how to do these things, “just in case you ever have to”, was how she put it. She showed me how to wash a cup, and when I’d finished she said, “All right, now you know how to do it, go and play”.’

‘And that was it?’

‘That was my domestic education. But I must say this for myself-I wash a mean cup.’

They laughed together and finished putting things away.

She drove him into town in her little car, and they managed to get to see the bank manager after only a short wait.

‘It’ll take a few days for funds to arrive from your Italian account to your new one with us,’ the manager said. ‘But in the meantime there’ll be no problem if you overdraw a little.’

Gino’s first action was to pay Laura two weeks’ rent.

‘For this week and next,’ he said.

‘But this week’s almost over,’ she protested.

‘Business is business. Half a week counts as a full week.’

‘I’m the landlady. Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?’

‘You should, but you’re a terrible businesswoman, so I’m saying it for you.’ He looked at her kindly. ‘Someone needs to look out for you.’

It was so long since anyone had looked out for her that at first the words were almost startling.

‘I still feel guilty taking this,’ she said.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll earn it. I’ll be the most troublesome tenant you’ve ever had.’

By way of demonstrating just how awkward he could be he came round the shops with her, carrying things and generally making himself useful, explaining that he was improving his English.

Sometimes he clowned, claiming not to know words that she was sure he did know. He would throw himself on her mercy with a piteous air that made her laugh.

Gradually she absorbed the message that he was sending out. She could relax. He was harmless. All he asked was to be left in peace to wrestle with whatever demons were driving him.

Laura was happy to give him the space he needed, but she was curious about him. Although he talked a lot, most of his words were the equivalent of blowing bubbles in the air. The amount of real information he disclosed about himself was almost nil.

She, on the other hand, found herself revealing more than she could remember ever doing.

‘I was born around here,’ she told him as they sat over tea and toast when they stopped for a break. ‘And I thought this was the dullest place on earth. I wanted London and the bright lights.’

‘Did you ever manage it?’

‘Yes, I enrolled in a London dance academy. I was in the chorus of a few shows. Then six of us got together and formed a little dance troupe. Jack was our agent.’

‘Sounds like a match made in heaven. Did he try to make you a star?’

She laughed ruefully. ‘No. I did hope about that for a while, but once we were married he wanted me to give it all up and be domestic.

‘We argued about it for a while, but then I found I was pregnant. And when Nikki came along I just wanted to be with her. Besides, I’d put on a few pounds that I’ve never managed to shift since.’

He surveyed her critically. ‘I can’t see them.’

‘They’re still there, and they’re just too much for me to be a dancer. Anyway, I’m too old now.’

‘Eighty?’ he hazarded. ‘Ninety?’

‘Thirty-two.’

‘You’re kidding. You don’t look a day over fifty.’

She laughed, but there was a shadow in her manner, and he was immediately contrite.

‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny.’

‘No, I’m just being over-sensitive. It was a mistake for me to start talking about the past. It reminded me that I promised myself that by the time I was thirty my name would be in lights.’

‘Don’t you talk about the past normally?’

‘Who with? Not Nikki, it would be too painful for her. And why would the tenants be interested? They come and go.’

He had a sudden vivid picture of her isolation, the burdens she was carrying alone.

‘Did you come back to live here after you broke up with your husband?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I couldn’t have stayed in London. For one thing it was too expensive, and for another he-well, I suppose he bribed me to go away. He was becoming fairly well known in showbiz. He didn’t want to risk the “beautiful people” learning that he had a daughter who wasn’t perfect. He said it would hurt him professionally.

‘So he offered me a better settlement to get out, and I accepted it because that was best for Nikki anyway. I came back here and used the money to buy the house. It’s a living.’

‘Not much of one if you have to work in the evenings too. When do you sleep?’

‘Ah, but look on the bright side. I never have to pay for babysitting. There’s always someone at home with Nikki, and she likes them all.’

‘So none of them reacted hurtfully to her face?’

‘No, but I warned them all before they saw her. I never leave it to chance, if I can help it, and of course she guesses that. It’s people like you she values, the ones who had no warning.’

‘I just hope I don’t let her down.’

Laura frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s possible,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It’s the spell, you see. It’s cast over you too, and whatever you do, she’ll see it in the best way, in the light of that spell.’

‘You talk as though you believe in magic,’ he said curiously.

‘If someone is determined to think the best of you, no matter what you do, I think that a kind of magic spell.’

The words gave him a strange feeling, as if she’d looked into his mind. Only last night he’d known that he had to think the best of Alex, no matter what.

‘Yes, it is,’ he said heavily. ‘The strongest kind there is.’

They returned to the boarding house to find Bert and Fred pottering about in the kitchen.

Fred was the nightclub bouncer, a vast mountain of a man with a sleepy, contented manner. Little Bert was an amiable ferret.

Gino was instantly at ease with them, chiefly because he wanted to know all about English sport. Soon the three of them were friends for life.

Mrs Baxter returned from school, with Nikki, who gave her mother a brief greeting before claiming her new friend’s full attention.

‘Let the poor man have a cup of tea before you jump on him,’ Laura begged.

‘But Mummy I did a picture at school and Gino wants to see it. Don’t you?’

‘Absolutely,’ he responded at once. ‘I’m longing to see it.’

‘Just don’t let her be a pest?’ Laura said, smiling.

‘How can she be a pest?’ Gino demanded at once. ‘We are friends.’

For half an hour he sat listening, with every sign of interest, as Nikki showed him her picture and explained what it was about. Only when Laura wanted to lay the table did they move.

Sadie and Claudia came in from the factory and Gino immediately asked if there were any jobs available.

‘Only in the warehouse, lifting heavy boxes,’ Sadie said. ‘I expect you want something more exciting.’

‘I’ll take what I can get,’ Gino said. ‘I can lift things.’

‘In that case, report to the chief packer first thing tomorrow.’

He did so and secured a job that brought him enough to pay his rent and a little to spare. With that he tried to slip back into the life that had been his for the last few months, living from moment to moment.

But he found that refuge was now denied him. Nikki saw to that. She loved nothing better than to talk to him and would pounce, bombarding him with questions.

She was endlessly fascinated by his foreignness, especially his use of Italian words and expressions. The day she first heard ‘Assolutamente niente’ she was in seventh heaven.

‘It means “absolutely nothing”,’ she explained to Laura, for perhaps the tenth time.

‘Yes, darling, I know what it means.’

‘Doesn’t it sound lovely? Assolutamente niente. Assolutamente niente.’

‘If I hear that expression once more,’ she seethed to Gino, ‘I shall commit murder.’

‘Poor Nikki,’ he grinned.

‘Not her. You! This is all your fault.’

At school Nikki boasted of her Italian friend, to such good effect that the geography teacher enquired, via Mrs Baxter, whether Gino would give a talk one afternoon.

‘Me?’ he demanded hilariously. ‘A teacher?’

‘You don’t have to teach anything,’ Nikki hastened to reassure him. ‘Just talk about Italy, and how everything’s got music and colour, and there are lots of bandits-’

‘Bandits?’

‘Aren’t there bandits?’ she asked, crestfallen.

‘Assolutamente niente!’ he said firmly, and she giggled.

‘Not just one little bandit?’ she pleaded.

‘Not even half a bandit, you little devil.’

‘Oh, please.’

It ended, as it was bound to, with him giving his good-natured shrug and agreeing to do what she wanted. He got the afternoon off, and he turned up at the school soon after lunch. He had no idea what he was going to talk about, except that he drew the line at bandits.

Inspiration came when he discovered the pupils were studying Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. After that he talked about Verona, and the house that purported to be where the Capulets had lived, complete with a real balcony.

The pupils were impressed, especially the older girls who sighed over his good looks. Nikki, who could claim him as a real friend, became the heroine of the hour. It was her proudest moment.