Husband By Necessity

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘NOTHING’S changed,’ she repeated when he didn’t answer.

‘You can’t say that,’ he said flatly. ‘Everything has changed.’

She tried to turn away but he took hold of her shoulders and kept her facing him. Even with such slight contact, the remembered feel of her body unnerved him, and he kept his hands there, sensing her warmth through her shirt. If she’d shown the slightest sign of softening he would have drawn her into his arms and kissed her ardently. And then, even he, who was uneasy with words, would have tried to tell her of the bittersweet happiness that had possessed him ever since he’d suspected that she was to bear his child. He was an old-fashioned man and, above all, a Sicilian. To create a child with the beloved woman was a joy that wiped out all else, making old fears and torments at least manageable. He couldn’t have expressed these things, but he would have done his awkward best if he’d seen anything in her face to encourage him. But there was nothing, and his heart sank.

‘Everything has changed,’ he repeated, like a man trying to convince himself.

The buzzer on the microwave sounded, and she drew away from him. ‘Well, one thing has altered,’ she conceded. ‘The people here don’t know what to make of me any more. They got used to my foreign tongue and my new-fangled ways and they closed their eyes to my reprehensible trousers. But now,’ she added lightly, ‘I think a few of them feel I may have gone just a little too far.’

It was when she talked like this that he felt all at sea. Colourful dramatics he could have coped with, but ironic English understatement left him floundering. Only one thing got through to him with the force of a punch in the stomach. She, not he, was master of this situation.

‘Are they treating you badly?’ he asked, recalling the curious looks she’d received that afternoon.

‘Not really. I’m not showing yet and they’re not certain. But they look at me and wonder.’

‘But how did the rumour start at all, so soon?’

‘Mother Francesca knows, and Sister Elvira came in suddenly last week, while we were talking. I remembered afterwards that Sister Elvira is a cousin of Nico Sartone.’

‘That explains everything.’

‘Yes, he must be thrilled to have a weapon against me at last. I could strangle that man. He doesn’t care whom he hurts as long as he can get back at me. People who need my help are slowly becoming nervous of asking for it in case their neighbours disapprove. Not all of them, though. He thought he could turn the whole town against me, and he was wrong.’

‘Yes, it’ll be a pleasure to wipe the smile off his face,’ Bernardo growled.

‘How are you going to do that?’

He frowned. ‘We are going to do it.’

‘How?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘Not to me,’ Angie said stubbornly.

He stared at her. ‘The sooner our marriage takes place the better.’

There. It had happened. He wanted to marry her. But there was no surge of gladness such as should have blessed this moment. Instead, the other self-the awkward one who had to make everything difficult, and whom Bernardo could evoke in her with fatal ease-became not merely indignant but stubborn. Just who did he think he was?

‘Us? Get married?’ she echoed, as though experimenting with a new language. ‘Why would we do that?’

He was floundering again. Angie’s eyes were full of a cool, faintly hostile, appraisal that baffled him. ‘Because we are having a baby,’ he said.

‘We’re not doing anything. I’m having a baby. Oh, you fathered it biologically, but no part of it has been yours since you upped and left the next morning, without a word.’

‘I was wrong to do that, and I’m sorry. I should have thought of this-I suppose I just assumed that, since you were a doctor-’

‘Stop! Don’t say any more. You’re making it worse with every word. You blame yourself for not thinking I might get pregnant, but not for the way you hurt me. Have you any idea what it did to me to wake and find you gone? And that charming little note-“little” being the operative word. Was that really all I deserved?’

He reddened. ‘I’m not good with words-’

‘You’re all right with words, Bernardo. It’s feelings you’re no good at. You wouldn’t marry me for love, but now I’m a brood mare, that’s different, isn’t it?’

He tore his hair. ‘All I meant was-your pregnancy seems to solve the problems.’

She regarded him in pity. ‘I said you were no good with feelings and you’ve just proved it. If I married you for such a reason our problems would just be beginning. I would gladly have married you for love, but I don’t want a man who feels I contrived a child to trap him. Without love, the deal’s off.’

The bitter words seemed to be coming out of their own accord. Part of her longed to bite them back and fall into his arms. He wanted to marry her. No matter how it had come about, wouldn’t a sensible woman take what she could and build on it?

But the ‘other’ Angie wasn’t a sensible woman. She was an awkward, prickly, troublesome creature who reacted like a hedgehog when her pride was affronted. She was the one who’d jumped at Baptista’s suggestion of coming out here, and she wouldn’t be banished back into her box now she’d served her purpose.

So now she was the one who regarded Bernardo out of furious eyes and said, ‘Marry you? What do you think I am?’

‘I don’t understand anything you say. You’ve won, isn’t that enough?’

‘No, it’s not enough. We’re further apart now than before you mentioned marriage because if you think I’ve “won” then you believe you’ve lost. I didn’t even realise we were fighting. I thought we were trying to find the way to each other. And that night-’ her voice shook as memories came back to her, but she controlled it and kept her distance ‘-after that night, it almost seemed as if we’d found the way. You told me what was troubling you. All right, maybe I pushed too hard, but you might have trusted my love.

‘But I forgot, you can’t cope with someone who loves you because it means coming close.’ Tears were sliding down her cheeks, but she ignored them, speaking softly and with heartbreak. ‘You’ve spent the last twenty years rejecting anyone who tried to get near you, and now you can’t see a pair of open arms without turning your back. So go ahead, turn it again. My arms aren’t even open any more, because there’s no point.’

‘You don’t really mean that,’ he said quietly.

‘You think not? Why shouldn’t I? Remember what you said in your note? “I only know how to give pain.” It was true, but I was too stupid to realise it. We should have stayed strangers.’

‘We can never be strangers again,’ he said quietly.

‘Why, because I’m having your child?’

‘Not only that. Because of things we can’t forget. I’ve tried to forget them, tried night after night to blot out everything you are to me, but I can’t do it. If this hadn’t happened I was coming back anyway to beg your forgiveness and ask to start again.’

‘Words,’ she said with a sigh.

‘Meaning that you don’t believe me?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said huskily. ‘I only know that it’s too late for words. I once wanted to marry you so much. Now I know that marrying you would be fatal. Please Bernardo, just go away.’

‘I’ll go, but it isn’t final. Nothing has been settled tonight. I won’t give you up so easily.’

She watched as he went to the door and gave her one look before departing. She dried her tears and found that she was simply too tired to feel anything. The emotions they’d shared that night should have wrung her out, but they didn’t because she was already wrung out. All she could think of was getting to bed, going to sleep, and not having to think or feel anything, ever again.

She knew now that the problems she faced with the town would get worse, and they did. There wasn’t a soul in Montedoro who didn’t know that Bernardo was the father of her child, but they’d suspended judgement until he returned.

‘They were so sure he was going to “make an honest woman” of me,’ Angie said bitterly to Heather, who came to call, full of concern.

‘You mean he isn’t?’

‘Oh, he wants to. It’s me that won’t make an honest man of him.’

‘You two have got yourself in a pickle, haven’t you? It’s the sort of situation that needs Baptista to sort it out, like she did for me.’ Heather patted her own pregnancy bump. She was three months ahead of Angie, who didn’t show at all as yet.

‘I don’t think even Baptista could do much with this situation,’ Angie said wryly.

‘Not unless Bernardo asked her,’ Heather agreed. ‘And he won’t do that. You know what he’s like.’

As the town realised that Bernardo’s return didn’t herald an immediate marriage they began to look uneasily at Angie. She was too popular to be totally condemned, but now nobody knew what to make of her. Bernardo had said he wasn’t giving up, but he too seemed to keep his distance, until the night she returned late from being called out, and found him leaning against her front door. Too tired to argue, she let him in.

‘Where is Ginetta?’ he asked, looking around at the empty house.

‘Her mother forced her to stop working for me.’

He remembered suddenly how his mother’s servants had all been middle-aged. No mother would let her daughter work for the town prostituta.

‘Then you should have got a replacement,’ he said. ‘It’s too much for you to do all on your own.’

‘I’m not alone. One or two of the nuns drop in to help me. They’ve been wonderful. But some of the others-’ he thought she sighed a little ‘-won’t come near me now.’

‘We are not like other people,’ Marta had said to her son. ‘We are set apart because of your father. There are those in this town who will never come near me. You-yes. Me-no.’

Now he tried to remember if anyone had shunned him as an unmarried father, and he couldn’t. It was she who was shunned, even if not wholly, because these people knew that they needed her. They would take from her, but not give to her. Rage consumed him, and it made him cruel.

‘Why should that worry you?’ he asked coldly. ‘You don’t depend on this for your bread.’

He was ashamed before the words were out of his mouth. A sick, weary look washed over her face as she said, ‘That’s true.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said gently. When she didn’t answer he went on his knees beside her and took her hands. ‘Forgive me. I should never have spoken to you like that.’

She smiled, but he knew she was still withdrawn from him. ‘I’ll make you something to eat,’ he said.

‘I don’t really-’

‘You will eat it,’ he said firmly. ‘You must keep up your strength. And perhaps-’ he laid his hand briefly on her shoulder ‘-perhaps you will also do it to please me.’

In another moment she would have rested her cheek on his hand, but it was gone before she could move.

She heard dishes clattering in her little kitchen and soon delicious smells began to waft towards her. Of course Bernardo could cook, she thought. It was all part of his determination to need nobody else. Right now she was glad of it.

She began to remove her outdoor clothes, and he was there at once, taking them from her and hanging them up. He neither smiled nor uttered pleasant words, but his hands were as gentle as they were firm. When they were finished he said, ‘Sit down.’

‘Let me lay the table.’

‘I will lay the table. You will do as you are told.’

It was blissful to be waited on. She sat in sleepy content while he spread the checked cloth on the little table, set out knives and forks, salt, pepper, plates and wine glasses.

‘No wine for me,’ Angie said. ‘Not while I’m pregnant.’

‘What do you drink?’

‘Tea. You’ll find it in the container over there.’

He served up pasta with sardines, which she found delicious. He ate with her but actually consumed very little as his eyes were mostly on her, to ensure that she ate every mouthful. When he wasn’t watching her he was darting to the stove to oversee the cooking of the meat-balls for the next dish. And he made the tea.

It was horrible. Bernardo had never made tea before and it showed.

‘What did I do wrong?’ he asked, seeing her face.

‘I don’t think the water boiled.’

‘I’ll make it again.’

Despite her protests he insisted on doing so, scowling until he got it right. She surveyed him tenderly, feeling a little ache in her heart. He was so inexpressibly dear, so close, so distant.

‘That’s good,’ she said at last, smiling as she sipped the tea.

‘Like the English make it?’ he demanded suspiciously.

‘Like I make it. Well-almost.’

They both smiled. For a brief instant the barriers were down.

‘Angie-’

The scream of the doorbell made him drop the hand he’d reached out to her. Cursing under his breath he strode to the door.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded of Nico Sartone.

‘A small matter of a prescription the doctor promised me,’ Sartone said, smiling horribly and oiling his way into the room. ‘Signore Farani needs his ointment tonight, doctor, and you were going to send the prescription down to me-’

‘Oh, yes, I’m sorry, it slipped my mind,’ Angie said tiredly. ‘Just a moment.’

‘Couldn’t you have reminded her tomorrow?’ Bernardo snapped.

‘But the ointment is needed tonight,’ Sartone said with the same smile. His eyes, like lizard’s, darted around the room.

‘Then you could have given it to him tonight and sorted the paperwork tomorrow,’ Bernardo pointed out, keeping his temper with difficulty.

‘Give a controlled drug without a prescription?’ Sartone echoed in horror.

‘It’s an eczema ointment for a man you’ve known for years,’ Bernardo said with suppressed rage. ‘A few hours wouldn’t have hurt, and don’t tell me you haven’t done this a hundred times before because I know you have.’

‘Only with Dr Fortuno,’ Sartone said, still smiling. ‘Alas, we all got into some very unfortunate habits with him, but the new doctor, as we all know, has much higher standards, to which we all aspire.’

‘Here’s the prescription,’ Angie said, coming back quickly. ‘And please give my apologies to Signor Farani.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid he isn’t too pleased with you,’ Sartone said with poisonous sweetness.

‘Get out,’ Bernardo told him softly. ‘Get out now, while you’re safe.’

Sartone’s reptile eyes flickered between them and his smile grew more sickly. ‘Ah, then perhaps we can soon expect an interesting announce-’

‘Goodnight, signore,’ Angie said firmly before Bernardo could speak.

He knew when he’d pushed his luck to the limit, and slithered out hastily.

‘Perhaps you should go too,’ Angie said.

‘Must I? I thought-’

‘It was nice of you to cook for me, but I’d like to go to bed now.’

He thought of the moment of warmth and laughter when they’d been interrupted, and knew, with a sigh, that it was too late to go back to that. Whatever might have sprung from that moment wouldn’t happen now.

‘Yes, of course, you need your rest.’ He hesitated, then dropped a brief kiss on her cheek. She gave him a half smile, but no other sign of encouragement, and he picked up his coat and left.

As soon as Bernardo entered his shop Sartone became occupied with something that took his whole attention. But nothing budged Bernardo who stood there, silent and implacable, waiting until the shop was empty.

‘Now, look,’ Sartone said at last, ‘I don’t want any trouble.’

‘And I don’t want to see any more exhibitions of your spite to an excellent doctor who’s doing wonders for this community. Don’t pretend that last night was an accident.’

‘Whatever it was, it’s surely between the doctor and myself?’

‘Do you think I’ll stand by and see you persecute her? Are you hoping to run her out? Think again.’

Sartone gave a titter that made Bernardo clench and unclench his hands. ‘I don’t think it’ll be necessary for me to do anything. Unless you do your duty, time is hardly on the lady’s side, is it?’

Bernardo got out of the shop as fast as he could before he committed murder. In the street outside he almost collided with Father Franco and Mayor Donati. He straightened himself, and them, and stood there muttering fiercely.

‘I know better curses than that,’ Father Marco said wisely.

‘True Sicilian curses for all situations,’ the mayor confirmed.

‘There are no Sicilian curses for this situation,’ Bernardo growled.

‘Why?’ they demanded with one voice.

Before he could answer Sartone came out of the shop, driven by hate, and moving too fast to check himself at the last minute.

‘You ought to think of my words,’ he shrilled. ‘She can’t afford to drive customers away, because soon she won’t have any. Prostituta.’

There was a scream from a woman nearby. The next moment Sartone was lying on the cobbles with three men standing over him.

Nobody had seen which one of them had knocked him down.

Baptista was enjoying a late night cup of tea with Heather and Renato when her unexpected visitor was announced, but one glance at Bernardo’s face was enough to make her shoo the other two kindly away. He looked, as she afterwards told the others, like a man ascending the scaffold.

But when they were alone he seemed unable to come to the point. After refusing offers of refreshment he paced the room uneasily, making polite enquiries after her health. At last he said abruptly,

‘I’d better go. I shouldn’t have intruded on you at this hour. I came too late.’

‘You certainly left it very late to come to me,’ Baptista said, subtly altering his words, ‘but as for whether you came too late-why don’t we find out? It may not really be too late at all.’

He paced some more.

‘I had a visitor yesterday,’ he said at last. ‘A young girl called Ginetta. She used to work for Angie, but her mother forced her to leave when the “scandal” developed. She admires Angie, wants to be like her, maybe even be a doctor. She’s hoping for our marriage, to change her mother’s mind. I had to tell her it was unlikely. When I told her why, she couldn’t believe me. She says no woman would refuse to marry the father of her child.

‘She made it very clear that it was my duty to persuade Angie into marriage, “for everyone’s sake”.’ He gave a grunt of laughter. ‘They love her. They disapprove of her, but they admire her and they want her to stay.’

‘You’re reading a lot into the words of one young girl.’

‘That was just yesterday. Today I had a full scale deputation, the priest, the mayor, the Reverend Mother, all wanting to tell me my duty. When I pointed out that the refusal came from her, Olivero Donati had the nerve to tell me to look into my heart and ask what I’d done to make “this fine woman” refuse me. Father Franco backed him up, which I’ll swear is the only time in history those two have agreed on anything.

‘The whole town is looking to me to put matters right, and I can’t convince them that it doesn’t lie with me.’

‘Perhaps it does,’ Baptista said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you just haven’t found the right way.’

‘There isn’t a right way,’ Bernardo said at once. ‘I know I was wrong to leave like that, but I thought she’d be better off without me.’

‘Well, now she seems to agree with you,’ Baptista observed dryly.

Bernardo checked himself in his pacing.

‘I’m lying,’ he said with an effort. ‘I was thinking of myself when I left. I told her such things-I let her come so close-I was afraid-’

Baptista nodded. ‘The closeness of love can be terrifying,’ she said. ‘That’s why it takes so much courage. Some people feel safer at a distance, but Angie will never let you keep that distance. She’s warm and open-hearted, and very brave. She’ll give everything and want everything in return, and if you can’t give it-well, perhaps it’s best to discover these things now.’

Bernardo looked at her, aghast. ‘What are you saying?’ he demanded hoarsely.

‘That perhaps she really would be better off without you.’

‘Even if I love her-if she loves me-?’

Baptista spoke thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes love-even great love-isn’t enough.’

‘I don’t-believe that,’ he said with difficulty. He looked at Baptista with desperate eyes. ‘I don’t know what to do. For pity’s sake, help me.’