Husband By Necessity

CHAPTER SEVEN

FROM this beginning other good things flowed. On the Friday morning Antonio was waiting for her, as promised, with Nesta, and as she approached the farm house she saw the crowd gathered outside. He had spread the word enthusiastically.

Holding a local clinic had been an inspired idea. Many of her patients lived lives so isolated that coming into town was hard for them, even Montedoro in the low season. She hired Nesta and, as January passed into February, she began to go among them, sometimes travelling considerable distances, and improving her Sicilian all the time.

Bernardo tore his hair at these trips, but she refused his attempts to accompany her. She now had her own heavy-duty car, and pride made her do as much as possible without his help. Besides which, she wasn’t short of assistance. Mayor Donati, determined to be seen ‘taking a lead’, was permanently at her disposal, plus there was a standing offer of help from Father Marco who had been her fan since discovering that she’d once tended a famous boxer for a minor injury.

Having investigated Dr Fortuno’s not very well-kept lists, she went onto the offensive, travelling the district, meeting her patients, taking blood samples which she then sent off to the laboratory in Palermo. In this way she achieved one of her most dramatic early triumphs, demonstrating that Salvatore Vitello’s violent thirst, which had made him the most notorious drunk in the area, was actually caused by diabetes.

His wife was in tears of relief but Vitello himself was sulkily ungrateful. His one claim to fame had been stripped from him. Instead of the admiration of young men as he quaffed the night away, his life was now governed by a diet sheet and pills, with the threat of daily injections if he didn’t behave himself. When he met the dottore on the street he would, with his wife’s eyes on him, bow and greet her with respect. But virtue had gone out of him, and he was a sadder, if healthier, man.

When Angie rose in the mornings there was an increasing sense of satisfaction that she was really achieving something. There was pleasure too in the way Ginetta was asking her questions-about how hard was it for a woman to become a doctor? And if she returned to school and studied, perhaps-? Angie trod a fine line between gently encouraging her and giving her unrealistic dreams. But Ginetta’s grandmother, the woman she’d first met in the convent infirmary, was beginning to give her strange looks that had nothing to do with her trousers.

One morning something happened that really had nothing to do with anything. You had to see it in the right light to understand it. Pushing open her window and looking out onto the valley she saw a huge bird wheeling and circling, close enough for her to see that it was a golden eagle.

Angie held her breath as the beautiful creature swooped with the early morning sun on its huge wings, knowing she’d been given the sign of hope she longed for.

‘I am an eagle,’ she murmured to the unseen presence that was always in her heart. ‘You’ll see.’

It didn’t all go smoothly. Nico Sartone, the local chemist, was Angie’s enemy from the first day. In youth he’d dreamed of being a doctor but lack of money had forced him to abandon his studies. He was a competent chemist and might have done much good, but he had delusions of medical grandeur that had flowered unchecked during Dr Fortuno’s time. Patients with a well-founded distrust of the old doctor had turned to Sortone for advice. Over the years his business had flourished and so had his ego. Dr Wendham, bright, young and brilliantly qualified, put his nose severely out of joint.

Like any small community Montedoro had a good deal of intermarriage, and the Sortone family tentacles stretched far. There was soon a faction that didn’t bother to hide its disapproval of Angie, her foreign tongue, her trousers, her insistence on living alone, her ‘new-fangled’ ideas. But she fought back with medical care that even Sortone couldn’t fault, and some of his adherents wavered. When he learned that his own sister-in-law had brought her children to Angie for vaccination the result was a sulphurous family row that reverberated through the whole town. Thereafter Sortone was more careful, his attitude to her one of exaggerated respect, but she had no illusions about his true feelings.

She experienced practical difficulties too. Once, while she was out making visits on the mule, she got lost on the way home, wandered for hours in the darkness and was found by Antonio who’d called out a search party. By that time she was drenched from a thunderstorm and was laid low for three days with a heavy cold. But the incident helped to consolidate her growing reputation. Bernardo didn’t come to call, but Stella visited every day, bearing gifts.

‘He told me to bring you this,’ she said on the first day, producing a bottle of wine. ‘It’s the best in his cellar.’ In a voice that mingled awe and admiration she added, ‘He’s very, very angry with you.’

‘Tell him thank you,’ Angie snuffled miserably.

‘I will, when he telephones tonight.’

‘Isn’t he here?’

‘No, he’s spending a few days in Palermo, helping with preparations for Signora Martelli’s birthday. But he’ll call me to ask how you are.’

‘He probably won’t bother,’ Angie said gloomily.

‘He’ll bother,’ Stella said knowingly, and departed, leaving Angie to indulge in a coughing fit.

He could call me, she thought crossly. He won’t, but he could.

He won’t, though.

Even though he could.

But he won’t.

And he didn’t.

There were other gifts, a cake from the nuns, freshly baked bread from Father Marco’s housekeeper, a ginger cake from Mayor Donati’s wife, and enough bottles of wine to stock a tavern, much of it home-made. By most of the region she had been accepted.

She’d known about Baptista’s birthday. Always a big event, this year it would mean more than ever, as Renato’s wife was now part of the family. Heather had visited Angie once, and they had talked several times on the telephone, but much of her time was now taken up working for the Martelli firm, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler. She made several working trips abroad, and Britain was now considered ‘her’ terrain.

‘Won’t that put Lorenzo’s nose out of joint?’ Angie asked as the two of them sat cosily in her front room. ‘It’s always been his territory.’

Heather chuckled wickedly. ‘Lorenzo doesn’t want to go back to London-not for a while, anyway. On his last trip he spent the night in a police cell.’

‘For heaven’s sake! Why?’

‘He was arrested for driving over the limit. Plus he took a swipe at a policeman. I had to make a “mercy dash” over there to get him out. He’s very happy to leave Britain to me in future.’

Thanks to Angie’s precautions Montedoro had only three flu cases, who all recovered, but as soon as she was back to work two children went down with measles. Luckily they were both in the town, making visiting easy. She soon had the relief of knowing that the worst was probably over for both of them, but she continued to call twice a day, and as the date of the big party drew near she knew her chances of being there were slim.

Down below, Palermo was enjoying a typical mild Sicilian winter, albeit a rainy one. But up here in the mountains the weather was fast getting worse. Once it had been merely cold. Now the sky threatened snow. Reluctantly she called Baptista and explained that she dared not leave.

‘Of course your patients come first, my dear,’ said the old woman immediately. ‘When the weather improves, you must come down and we’ll have a long lunch together.’

Bernardo had returned from Palermo and paid her a brief call to enquire after her health. He remained for only a short time, as if this was a duty he wanted to get over quickly, but he did offer to take her to Palermo for the party, ‘since I know you dislike driving over mountain roads.’

She’d accepted the offer, and enjoyed a few fantasies about the time they would spend together, the brilliantly lit Residenza, the music, the dancing, the journey home, warmed by the glow of the previous evening…

But on the morning of the party, when Bernardo called to collect her, he found her waiting for him despondently.

‘I can’t go,’ she said. ‘Can you take my gift to Baptista for me?’

‘But it’s her birthday. She’s only happy if she has everyone around her.’

‘I daren’t leave Montedoro. There have already been a few flakes of snow. Suppose the weather closes in and I can’t get back for days? What are the people here supposed to do for a doctor? I’ve talked to Baptista, and she agrees with me. But you should go quickly.’

‘This is madness. Dr Fortuno took a few days off whenever he wanted.’

‘Well, I doubt anyone noticed the difference,’ Angie said wryly. ‘He may have been a dear old man, but he was a rotten doctor. He left me all his books and medical journals, and I found nothing less than thirty years old. I’d love to know what sort of qualifications he had. A certificate in First Aid, probably. And I’ll bet the only reason he was here was that nobody else wanted the job.’

‘My father helped him get it,’ Bernardo said. ‘I recall him saying that Fortuno hadn’t exactly passed top of the class.’

‘So why didn’t you get your people a proper doctor?’

‘Because I didn’t know what you’ve just told me. Not passing well didn’t mean he was no good for a practice where not much happens.’

‘But why didn’t things happen? Because they gave up on him. My waiting room is full every day with people who never bothered to come before, because they knew there was no point.’

‘And how would I have got anyone else?’ he demanded. ‘You said yourself, people aren’t falling over themselves to work here.’

‘You should have gone out and found someone. There are loads of bright, starry-eyed young doctors who wouldn’t mind starting here if someone gave them financial help. You could have offered that. Anyway, they’ve got me now, and I’m going to be here when they need me.’

‘Does that mean you can never enjoy yourself?’

She shrugged. ‘You warned me that it would be tough.’

At the doorway he paused. ‘What happens when you get fed up and decide to leave for good? What do they do then?’

‘Maybe I won’t leave.’

‘You will-in the end. And how can anyone afford to buy this place with all the new equipment you’ve put in?’

‘They probably couldn’t. So I’ll have to stay. Now get going. And give my love to Baptista.’

That night it began to snow. Angie watched the white flakes through her bedroom window, and realised that by morning the road up here would be impassable. She had done the right thing in remaining. She tried to make herself feel better with that thought, but it was hard when the wind was howling around the little village in its exposed position.

And of course, her good intentions would all be wasted. Nobody would fall ill. Nothing would happen. She would spend several days snowed in alone, when she could have been in Palermo enjoying a convivial time at the Residenza.

If only the wind would die down, she thought, moving restlessly about the room. She ought to go to bed, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep in the centre of this turbulence.

It took her an hour, but at last she dozed off and awoke to an eerie silence. For once there was no sound from the street outside. Making her way to the window that overlooked the valley, she found herself gazing out onto a scene from another world.

Snow stretched as far down as she could see, which wasn’t very far. Then it vanished into a thick mist. The mist had crept up during the night, cutting off the mountain peak from the valley below, so that it was as though Montedoro floated above the clouds. In one sense it was magical. In another it was desolating. This was what Bernardo had warned her about, but he’d never told her that he would leave her to face it alone. For the first time she began to understand the distance he was determined to set between them, and her heart almost failed her. The tide of hope and optimism that had carried her here began to look like foolishness: a spoilt young woman’s conviction that what she wanted was hers for the asking.

She got up and made herself breakfast. She would be alone today as she’d given Ginetta some time off. She made sure everything was ready in the surgery but when she looked out there was only an empty street, and untrodden snow in both directions.

She logged onto the net and spent most of the day accessing medical journals and chasing the latest news.

‘Stay up to date,’ her father had said. ‘If they discover it today, you learn about it tomorrow. Never fall behind. It’s the quickest way to get brain-dead.’

She’d always found this part of her work fascinating, but now she knew she was working from the top of her head, reading but not taking in. She downloaded several articles for later when her brain was functioning.

In the early afternoon she made herself a snack and poured a glass of Bernardo’s wine. Then she wished she hadn’t. It looked forlorn, standing by her plate in solitary festivity. The house was dreadfully quiet. When she looked out the snow in the street showed not a single footmark. Nobody had ventured out all day. They were all safely shut up in their homes, and already, as the winter light faded, she could see the windows start to glow.

A person could feel sorry for themselves in this situation, she reflected. She’d stayed here for their sakes, and not one of them had the decency to develop so much as a sore thumb.

She went around the house, drawing the curtains, trying not to hear the lonely sound of her footsteps on the flagstones. At her bedroom window she pushed open the casement for a last look down into the valley before darkness fell completely. Then she stopped and peered, trying to decide if she’d really spotted something or only imagined it.

It was almost impossible to see, but she thought she could discern a dark shadow emerging from the mist. She wasn’t mistaken. Somebody was down there, struggling up the steep, snow-covered road to Montedoro. But who would be mad enough to attempt that road on foot in this weather?

She screwed up her eyes, trying to hold the stumbling figure in view as the darkness grew more impenetrable, until he vanished altogether.

‘He hasn’t even got a torch,’ she muttered. ‘Idiot!’

But at least it meant there was someone who needed her, which was almost a relief. Pulling on some trousers, her thick boots and a coat, she seized up a heavy duty torch and went out into the street.

It was hard to keep her balance on the steep slope and she had to move at a snail’s pace, keeping hold of the wall until at last she reached the huge stone gate that marked the entrance to the town. She swung her torch in an arc down the mountain road, but there was no sign of anyone. She began to inch her way down, waving the beam and calling, although in the high wind she couldn’t be sure that her voice was carrying. She could hear nothing back, and she wondered if the traveller had collapsed.

Her alarm grew as she went further and further down, frantically straining her eyes and calling out. At last she saw him, sitting by the side of the road, his arms resting on his knees. He looked up just as she scrambled down beside him.

‘Are you hurt?’ she gasped, looking into his face. ‘Bernardo!’

He was equally astonished. ‘What are you doing here?’ he mumbled through lips that were almost numb with cold.

‘I saw you from my window. What do you mean walking up here without even a torch? Where’s your car?’

‘I had to leave it further down the road. It wasn’t safe to drive in that mist. I have a torch but the batteries failed.’ He was talking in a series of gasps as though his lungs were protesting after the long haul upwards.

‘Are you hurt?’ she demanded.

‘I turned my ankle some way back.’

‘Put your arm around my shoulder.’

‘I can manage without-’

‘Just do it,’ she interrupted him firmly. ‘I’ve got to get you home before you freeze to death.’

He grimaced but obeyed her. Clutching the low wall with one hand and her with the other, he managed to get upright and they began the slow journey up the rest of the way to Montedoro. Angie’s mind was full of questions. How far had he come on foot? And why was he here at all? But there would be time to think of that later. She could feel that he was at the end of his strength.

At last, to her vast relief, her door came in sight. But as she went to open it Bernardo said, ‘I’ll go to my own house.’

‘You’ll do as your doctor tells you,’ she said crossly. ‘I need to look at that ankle, and I prefer to do it in my surgery.’

He didn’t try to argue any further.

In fact, she didn’t take him into the surgery, but into her front room. After helping him off with his coat she pushed him gently down onto the sofa and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a tumbler half full of a golden brown liquid.

‘Brandy,’ she said. ‘Thaw you out. Heaven knows, you need it.’

While he drained the glass she went to find a thick, towelling robe that she’d purposely bought four sizes too large because she enjoyed snuggling into it.

‘Your clothes are sodden right through,’ she told him. ‘Take everything off and put this on. Go on, I won’t look. I’ll be getting you some more brandy.’

When she returned he was wearing the robe and she got to work on his foot, exclaiming as she touched his freezing flesh. ‘How long had you been walking?’

‘I don’t know. Hours.’

To her relief the ankle was neither broken nor sprained, but merely wrenched, although it was suffering from the burden he’d put on it.

‘How soon did you do this?’ she asked, testing the swelling.

‘Almost at once.’

‘You haven’t done it any good walking on it. What possessed you? Why didn’t you turn back, use your mobile to call someone to drive up and collect you?’

‘I wanted to reach Montedoro,’ he said irritably. ‘It seemed a good idea then but now I’m not sure why. Quit nagging!’

‘Your face is bruised and your head cut,’ she said. ‘How did that happen?’

‘When I fell I was on a very steep part of the road, and it was icy. I slipped back several feet.’ He showed her his hands, lacerated where he’d tried to grip the cobbles.

Alarmed, she checked him all over, but found to her relief that there were no broken or cracked bones. She bathed his cuts and put some sticking plaster on his head. By now he was leaning back with his eyes closed, as though the sudden warmth, lack of food and two hefty slugs of brandy had caught up with him all in a moment.

Quietly Angie went into the kitchen and began to prepare some food. As she worked she continually glanced up at the sight of him, out like a light. She felt happier than she’d been for a long time. He might say what he liked, but he’d returned because she was here, and he wouldn’t leave her alone. When the going got tough, he ought to have turned back. But he hadn’t.

He jumped when she touched him on the shoulder. ‘Hot soup,’ she said.

He rubbed his eyes. ‘I should go home.’

‘Soup,’ she said inexorably, handing him the bowl and the spoon.

When she saw him eating she fetched her own soup and sat down facing him over the low table. After the soup came something hot and filling that she’d microwaved straight from the freezer. It wasn’t exactly cuisine, but he ate as though he was too tired to know what he was doing.

Just as he finished eating the telephone in the kitchen rang. It was Baptista, sounding concerned.

‘Do you know if Bernardo got home safely?’ she asked. ‘He would insist on leaving just when the weather was closing in.’

‘He’s here,’ Angie said. ‘He arrived an hour ago.’

‘An hour? But he left this morning.’

‘He had to do the last part on foot.’

‘Then he is lucky to be alive. There was no talking him out of it. I’ll stop worrying now. I know he’s safe with you. Goodbye, my dear. May this year be a happy one for you.’

‘Goodbye Baptista. And-thank you.’

She was smiling to herself as she replaced the receiver and returned to Bernardo. He was lying full length on the sofa, dead to the world. Quietly she removed the dishes and draped a blanket over him.

She went to bed but left the door open between the bedroom and the main room. In the thick blackness she couldn’t see him, but she could just make out the sound of his breathing. She lay listening until she fell asleep.

She awoke with a start. The dark was still impenetrable but she could hear the sound of someone stumbling around, muttering. Quickly she slipped out of bed and made her way towards the noises. She was about to put on a light when an arm came out of nowhere, curling about her neck, and the next moment she was holding most of Bernardo’s weight, slumped against her. Instinctively she closed her arms about him.

‘What are you doing in my house?’ he muttered. ‘Oh, lord, my head!’

‘Probably all that brandy,’ she said softly.

‘I never drink brandy.’

‘You did last night. You needed it.’

‘I need my bed. I can’t find the bedroom.’

‘Come with me,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll take you.’

Inch by inch she moved back towards the bedroom. He came with her unresisting, only half awake, seeming now to accept her presence as normal. She supported him as far as her bed, then let him fall gently on it, and drew her thick duvet over him. He was deeply asleep in a moment.

The duvet was huge, to match the bed, and there was room for her to slip beneath it without touching him. She longed to put her arms about him, but she didn’t dare yield to the temptation. They had a long way to go yet.

But her heart sang because she knew he had come back for her.

She was awoken by the feel of an unaccustomed weight on her breast. Opening her eyes she saw that it was Bernardo’s head, which had found its place by instinct. He was holding her tightly with one arm thrown over her as though he found in her something that he needed.

She realised that he was no longer wearing the robe. He’d had it on when he came to bed, so she guessed his movements must have dislodged it.

Very, very gently she dared to touch his hair, and felt it springy against her fingers. At once she snatched her hand away, fearful of waking him. But the next moment she reached out again, relishing the pleasure of touching him.

She had missed him so much. It had been bad enough during the long weeks in England but since she’d returned to Sicily, living within a stone’s throw of him, the ache of longing had been worse.

On the surface things were going well. Despite his warnings she’d been a big success with her patients. There were still some prejudices to overcome but they weren’t fools. They knew they stood to benefit from her up-to-date equipment and even more up-to-date attitude, and they had given her a chance. Even Bernardo had been forced to accord her respect.

Plus there was the satisfaction of knowing that she’d surprised him. She’d challenged him, laughed at him, turned all his expectations on their heads. He no longer knew how to cope with her, and serve him right!

But in the essentials nothing had changed. Behind the civility, even the occasional smile, they were almost as far apart as ever. And there was the added torment of seeing him every day, wondering about his thoughts and feelings.

For she could overcome his doubts about her commitment, but the true barrier was something more elusive. If he had been merely too proud to take money from a woman, that she could have understood. But his revulsion at her wealth came from a darkness deep inside the man that she couldn’t confront because he wouldn’t let her.

So now she would make the most of the few precious minutes when he was hers, for she didn’t know how long they would last. His skin felt so good beneath her hands, and his head so right nestling against her. He stirred and burrowed more closely, and she risked tangling her fingers in his hair.

She felt the first movement of his lips against the swell of one breast and drew a long breath. She must stop this now, quickly, before he awoke. But-just one more moment-and one more-

The sound of his voice reached her so faintly that she had to strain to listen. He’d murmured something-her name? After holding her breath for a long time she realised that the moment had passed, and she would never know.

This was how it should have been. This was the life they should have had, being together, loving in peace, facing their problems as a team instead of being driven apart by shadows that couldn’t be fought.

She set her chin. There must be no talking like that. Anything could be fought, and she was here to fight it. He was hers and she wouldn’t let him go.

He whispered something again and she felt the heat of his breath against her skin.

‘Yes, my dear,’ she murmured, enveloping him in strong, protective arms. ‘We’re going to win, do you hear? Whatever I have to do, we’re going to win.’