Married Under the Italian Sun

CHAPTER EIGHT

FOR a while Angel had no time for anyone but Sam. She’d dreamt of the time when he would come here, she would show him his new home and they would be happy together, and now she would not accept that the dream could be spoiled.

She had been prepared for him to be sometimes confused, even not to know her, but this prolonged confusion and forgetfulness was a shock. Nonetheless, she argued it away. The long journey had been a strain, and he would soon return to some kind of normality. If only, she thought, it would happen soon.

It was strange to think that they had been apart for such a short time, because he seemed far more frail than she remembered, and she realised, with a sense of terror, that he was eighty-four.

He seemed happy enough. Each morning he greeted her pleasantly and waited while Frank or Roy introduced them all over again. He’d apparently decided that he was a guest in a pleasant country house and that she was his hostess. On this basis they had some cheerful talks. He asked her about her life and told her about his own early years, which he could recall with disconcerting clarity. It was only as he drew close to the present that the fog descended on his mind.

Sometimes he would chat about his beloved granddaughter, speaking of her with a love that made a lump come to Angel’s throat.

‘I haven’t seen her for a while,’ he said once, sounding puzzled and a little hurt. ‘She used to visit me a lot but now-do you think she might be angry with me?’

‘Of course not,’ Angel said, trying to speak brightly. ‘I’m sure she loves you very much.’

‘Then why doesn’t she call me any more?’ he asked sadly.

‘She’s probably on her way here to see you,’ Angel said desperately.

‘That’s what I keep thinking, but she never comes.’

She could hardly bear it when Sam said that. Later, when he was having his afternoon nap, Angel slipped out of the house and ran to the lemon terraces, where she knew Vittorio would be. It was a place she usually avoided after her fall, but today nothing mattered except to talk to him, and she climbed hurriedly down.

Taking one look at her face, Vittorio said not a word, but held her in his arms until she stopped shaking.

‘Was it very bad today?’ he asked.

‘He was telling me about his granddaughter, how much he loves her and-and how hurt he is that she doesn’t come to see him. And all the time he’s sitting looking at me-and he doesn’t know me.’

‘But he will,’ Vittorio said. ‘You told me yourself that this happens sometimes, but then his memory comes back. You have to hang on for those moments.’

‘I know, I know. It’s just-’

‘Why don’t you take a day off? We’ll drive, just have a few hours together.’

‘I couldn’t leave him alone.’

‘He’s not alone. He’s got the lads, and you know he’s fine with them.’

‘He’s better with them than he is with me,’ Angel sighed. ‘But still…’

What made her decide in the end was that Roy said much the same thing.

‘All the time you’re with him you’re tense,’ he told her. ‘He can sense it, and it makes him tense too. You should take a few hours off, go and do some shopping.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

When Sam greeted her next morning, still with no sign of recognition, she took a deep breath and announced that she was going out for a while. She almost ran to where Vittorio had told her he would be in the garden.

As soon as he saw her coming he understood. By the time she reached the place where he’d parked his shabby car, he was holding the door open for her as elegantly as a chauffeur with a limousine.

‘What is the padrona’s pleasure?’ he enquired, getting behind the wheel.

‘You can stop that padrona nonsense, and just take me to a coffee shop.’

‘As the padrona wishes.’

‘I’m warning you.’

He grinned and started up.

Amalfi stood at the foot of the cliffs, a little town that went back more than a thousand years. Once it had been an important trading centre, economically way ahead of the rest of Italy, and an independent republic until the twelfth century. Now, although its great trading days were past, it still flourished, attracting visitors who fell in love with the beauty of its picturesque streets and the pleasures to be found on its beach.

Vittorio found a little coffee shop and plied Angel with ice-cream sundaes, as though she were a child on a treat. While she was eating, he said, ‘Wait here,’ and went outside, returning a moment later with a glossy magazine.

‘The shop next door specialises in English publications for the tourists,’ he said, ‘and I thought it was worth a try. Your journalist friend didn’t waste any time.’

The magazine was the new edition of GlamChick, the cover sporting one of the pictures Mack had shown her of Joe with his bride on his arm. There were two tag lines, one announcing, Joe Clannan weds another beauty and the other saying, How I feel about Joe’s wedding: Angel reveals all.

‘Well, that’s a lie,’ she said indignantly. ‘I never said a thing about the wedding except the most boring platitudes.’

Vittorio was reading over her shoulder. ‘You didn’t utter boring platitudes about Gavin,’ he observed.

‘But I did.’

He began to read. “‘Angel is particularly incensed about the recent feature in which the lover she dumped-”’

‘Lover, my left foot!’ she seethed.

“‘The lover she dumped…”’ Vittorio continued, silencing her. ‘…“spoke for the first time of his heartbreak at losing her to wealthy Joe Clannan. According to Angel, Gavin is fantasising. In fact she can hardly remember him. ‘He was history before I met Joe,’ she said sweetly. ‘Not that he was ever anything much. Everything about Gavin was limited, starting with his conversation.’ Modesty prevented her enlarging on this subject, but clearly Gavin wasn’t impressive in any way.”’

Vittorio leaned back, regarding her with humorous appreciation. ‘You sure got your revenge.’

‘But I didn’t,’ she exploded. ‘I just said his conversation was limited, and they’ve dressed it up with all those suggestive hints.’

‘Never mind. Serves him right after what he said about you.’

‘Yes, I don’t feel very guilty about it either. It was clever of them to get both features in the one issue, wasn’t it? They must have moved fast.’

She studied her ‘tell-all’ piece, realising that the glossy creature in the pictures was a stranger. That was fine by her. Then she turned her attention to the wedding pictures, which she regarded with a wry smile.

‘You’re not upset?’ Vittorio asked, watching her.

‘Only by having my name associated with all that purple prose. Never mind. I got the cheque this morning. It’ll keep the wolves from the door.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have given him back the jewellery,’ Vittorio observed mildly. ‘You were too generous there.’

Angel regarded him with an amusement that had a touch of the hysterical.

‘Don’t you understand Joe better than that yet? I didn’t give him back anything. He took it all out of the bank and hid it before he ever mentioned divorce.’

‘Of course. I should have thought of that.’

‘Those jewels belong to Mrs Joe Clannan, whoever she happens to be at the time. In effect, on loan. When I no longer suited his requirements, he called the loan in. Now it’s Merry’s turn.’ She looked at the picture of the smirking, diamond-laden girl. ‘Poor thing.’

‘You can feel sorry for her?’

‘She thinks she’s got it all, but she doesn’t know what’s going to hit her.’

They wandered the streets aimlessly, not heading for any particular place but happy in each other’s company. Angel had been to Amalfi several times, but always alone. Seeing it with Vittorio was different. The great tenth-century cathedral was where his parents had married, the beach was where he had played as a child.

‘You could do with a day in the sun,’ he said as they strolled along the waterfront. ‘We’ll take a boat and sail to a little cove I know where we can picnic and bathe and…’ he shrugged expressively ‘…enjoy ourselves any way we like.’

His smile brought back memories of their night together. It had been more than a week ago, and with everything in her she longed to make love with him again. But now things had changed.

‘I can’t,’ she said sadly. ‘I have to be there for Sam.’

‘But he doesn’t know you.’

‘His head might suddenly clear at any moment. I took today off, but it’ll be ages before I can do it again.’ She met his eyes. ‘Don’t think I don’t want to, because I do, but…’ She sighed. ‘When I told you everything was for Sam, I really meant it.’

He gave her a rueful grin. ‘I know you did. I guess I’m just being selfish. I don’t like it when it’s me that’s called on to make a sacrifice.’

‘You’re not the only one who feels deprived,’ she murmured. Then a thought struck her. ‘Didn’t you tell me that you live in Amalfi? If your place is near here-’

‘It isn’t,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s too far-and it isn’t tidy.’

‘As though I’d care-’

‘It’s getting late. I’ll take you home,’ he said, in a voice that brooked no refusal.

At the villa Vittorio bid Angel a civil goodnight, but wouldn’t stay for supper. He had suddenly become tense in a way she didn’t understand.

She discovered the answer later, when she was talking to Berta in the kitchen as Berta put the final touches to the evening meal.

‘Do you know where Vittorio lives now?’ Angel asked. ‘I thought it was in Amalfi, but maybe I misheard.’

‘No, it’s Amalfi,’ Berta said. ‘He’s got a couple of rooms in…’ She named a street and shuddered. ‘Horrible.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘I helped him move his things, but most of them he had to leave behind, the place is so small. To think that he was once master here, and now he tries to survive in that mean little place. Ai, ai, ai!’

So that was it. Vittorio was too proud to let her see the depths to which he had fallen. She should have realised.

‘Don’t tell him I asked,’ Angel said.

‘Of course not, signora.’ Berta hadn’t intended to say a word. She was a wise woman who understood far more than she said.

Sam was tetchy over his meal, and had an early night. When he was safely asleep, Roy and Frank tackled her.

‘He’s bored,’ Frank explained. ‘In England he used to watch television a lot, but now he’s missing all his favourite programmes, especially the soaps.’

‘He missed the episode of Celebration Road where we find out if old Mrs Baxter really did put arsenic on her husband’s breakfast cereal,’ Roy said. ‘And he’s inconsolable.’

‘So are we,’ Frank added significantly.

Light dawned.

‘And you are also missing your favourite TV shows?’ Angel said.

They looked at each other and nodded.

‘She’s bright,’ they agreed.

‘Oh, heck, I should have thought of this,’ she said. ‘Since I can watch Italian programmes, it never occurred to me.’

‘Seriously,’ Roy said, ‘he’s used to spending hours in front of the set. Now that he can’t understand a word, he’s miserable.’

‘I’ll sort it tomorrow,’ she promised.

Next day she made a call to a firm that specialised in satellite installations, and the day after that a team arrived to set up a system that could pick up English television. Everyone was pleased, especially Sam, who was able to resume his comforting routine, and who finally discovered that old Mrs Baxter had played no part in her husband’s untimely end. This made him very happy. He had always liked that poor lady.

Now Angel could spend time with Vittorio with a clear conscience. As promised, he hired a boat and took her sailing. Watching her leaning back, her face upturned to the sun, he smiled but said nothing, concentrating on steering the boat. After a while he headed for the shore, where there was a small cove with a stretch of perfect sand.

‘Let’s stop here,’ he said. ‘Swim first, picnic afterwards.’

They pulled the boat far up the sand and stripped off their clothes. Beneath her cotton top and jeans she wore a black bikini, ready for bathing. It had been designed to be elegant and glamorous, and for the first time she was glad of the way it showed her off. The others had shamed her, but Vittorio’s eyes made her proud.

When Vittorio had discarded his own clothes, they ran, hand in hand, into the sea.

‘Oh, wonderful!’ she crowed as the cool water enveloped her. ‘Wonderful, wonderful!’

‘Mind the current,’ he called. ‘It’s strong here.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said, swimming away from him into deeper water.

He came after her at once, catching her and putting his hands on her waist.

‘You’re not all right,’ he said firmly. ‘You have to be careful here.’

‘You find it safe enough,’ she said, wriggling against his grip, less because she wanted to be free than because she enjoyed moving against him. It was even more pleasurable when his hands tightened.

‘I’m safe because I know this place, and I’m careful. You know nothing and you’re never careful.’ With a touch of humour he added, ‘It’s your way to plunge recklessly into unknown situations. I’ve told you about that before.’

‘Yes, you did. I seem to remember…’ she teased ‘…something to do with lemons, wasn’t it?’ She slipped her arms about his neck, pressing him close and moving more intimately.

‘Don’t do that in deep water,’ he protested. ‘Do you want us both to drown?’

‘We won’t drown,’ she said against his mouth. ‘You’ll keep us safe.’

‘You have too much faith in me,’ he said, speaking with difficulty.

‘Well, who wants to be safe anyway?’ she asked recklessly. ‘Let the current carry us out to sea, then, wherever it wants.’

He drew a long breath. ‘Wherever it wants,’ he repeated longingly.

‘Anywhere,’ she said. ‘We won’t plan anything, because if you don’t make plans you don’t have to worry about them going wrong. Do you know how much I hate plans, and calculations, and working out what to say so that someone will respond with the right words?’

‘Hush,’ he said, brushing her lips with his own. ‘That’s all behind you.’

‘Is it?’ she asked, almost pleading. ‘And them? All of them? Are they behind me?’

He didn’t have to ask who ‘they’ were: all the men who’d thronged around her, devouring her with their eyes and their thoughts, thinking they owned her or, at any rate the little bit of her that was all they cared about.

‘They’re in the past,’ he assured her. ‘For ever.’

‘They can’t get me again, can they?’

‘No, because I won’t let them.’

She was suddenly full of fear. ‘Don’t let them find me, ever again.’

‘I never will. Never. Never.’

He held her close, not kissing her but keeping her safe, while he trod water for both of them, until the force of the current made him say unsteadily, ‘Let’s go back while we still can. Being swept away together sounds fine, but I’m hungry.’

‘And we have that picnic basket Berta packed for us.’

‘I didn’t mean for food.’

Angel laughed, and they made their way back. As they ran up the beach Vittorio seized the towel and followed her into the cave, where they dried each other off and removed their clothes at the same time.

They made love urgently, as though they could make up for the days apart, and when it was over they were immediately ready again, but this time it was slower, gentler, with more time to explore and enjoy. The sand was soft against her back, and she could taste the sea on her own lips, and his.

Now it felt like the taste of freedom, something she hadn’t known for years-freedom to be herself, to choose her own lover, to respond to him with total liberty of heart. The physical pleasure he brought her was sweet, but almost as intense was the fact that she had chosen him. Every whisper, every movement, was like a gift that he gave her from his soul.

‘Again,’ she pleaded. ‘Again.’

He smiled. ‘Do I please you?’

Her answering smile told him all he needed to know. It was leisurely, contented, luxurious, and it brought his desire flooding back, so that he loved her now as though they had been apart for weeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, in a shaking voice. ‘I didn’t mean to lose control.’

‘I don’t know what you’re apologising for,’ she murmured, laughing up at him.

‘Siren,’ he said. ‘Witch-temptress-angel…’

He sat up, but when Angel tried to rise also Vittorio placed a hand on her breast and gently pushed her back.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Stay there and let me look at you.’

She lay back, stretching her arms above her head, gladly putting her beauty on show for him, and rejoicing at his adoring gaze. It was as though his eyes were touching her, giving soft caresses that thrilled her body as much as his fingertips had done.

She was perfect. She had always been perfect, but this was different. Now it was only for him, and that knowledge seemed to wash away the memories of the other times, when she had been put on display to satisfy Joe Clannan’s vanity.

Vittorio had promised to banish the past for her, and at that moment she truly believed that he could do it.

There was nothing to warn her of the pit that was about to open at her feet.

They put their swimsuits back on before going out into the sun, spread a blanket on the sand, and took out the basket full of wine, rolls and cakes. On this they dined like princes, content simply to be there with each other, asking no more.

When they had finished eating, Angel took a long, blissful breath and rolled over on her back, her head turned up to the sky, her eyes closed.

‘You look like a little kid discovering all this for the first time,’ Vittorio said, grinning. ‘Have you ever been sailing before?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, without opening her eyes. ‘Joe thought the summer was wasted if we didn’t spend it on some millionaire’s yacht.’ She chuckled. ‘Heavens, it was boring! I used to take ten swimsuits and none of them ever got wet. They were all for lounging by the pool “on show”.’

When Vittorio didn’t answer, Angel opened her eyes to find him looking at her with a dark expression.

‘Like the one you’re wearing now?’ he asked quietly.

‘This was one of them, yes. I haven’t bought any new clothes recently. I’m making the old ones last. In the old days I just threw them away.’

‘Be quiet,’ he said softly. ‘Never talk of those days to me. Do you think I want to hear how you paraded yourself in front of other men?’

Suddenly there was a hard, ugly note in his voice and it shocked her into sitting up, staring at him in dismay and disbelief.

‘I did not parade myself,’ she said firmly. ‘Joe paraded his trophy wife and I acted a part. I had no choice. That wasn’t really me-’

‘It was your body that they were looking at. How do you think that makes me feel?’

‘Probably the same way it made me feel,’ she said, trying to keep her temper. ‘I hated it.’

‘But you did it.’

Icy fingers were going up and down her spine, and suddenly the air was full of threat.

‘You know why I did it,’ she said. ‘Vittorio, how dare you start getting possessive about something that happened before we met? In those days I didn’t know you existed. I didn’t owe you anything, and I don’t owe you explanations now.’

His eyes were dark, unfathomable, but there was no doubting the cold bitterness in his voice.

‘I shouldn’t be possessive? What do you think I am? An Englishman, saying, “Yes, dear-no, dear-just as you please, dear”? If you belong to me, you belong to me. Do you understand?’

‘I understand that you’re starting to act like Joe,’ Angel said, her temper flaring. ‘And I don’t like it. I had eight years of being a piece of property, dancing to the tune of a man who thought he could own and control me, and it’s not going to happen again. I don’t belong to you, or any man, and I never will. That wasn’t me back then. I was a different person.’

‘You pretend it was-’

‘It’s the truth-’

‘In your mind, maybe, but there’s one part of you for which it can’t be true.’

His eyes travelled slowly over her body that the minute bikini left almost naked, his meaning unmistakable.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she choked.

‘I have loved looking at you. You body is more beautiful than I could have believed possible, and I guess the others thought so too, because it’s the same b-’

‘Don’t,’ she said swiftly, putting her hand over his mouth. ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Will not saying it make a difference?’

Angel stared at him, sickened by this sudden development that had happened without warning. They had made love in peace and joy, and then she had lain, innocently naked, before his adoring gaze. The aftermath should have been beautiful. Yet a moment had transformed him into an ugly, judgemental stranger.

‘You’re right,’ she said in a stony voice. ‘It’s thinking it that makes a difference, and I’ll never forgive you for that. My God, it’s only an hour or so ago that you said those men were in the past, that they couldn’t get me again because you’d protect me. But they will get me again, because they’ll come through you, and every man like you. They are you.’

Her voice cracked with anguish as the full horror of the truth burst on her. ‘Do you see what you’ve done? You’ve shown me that there’s no way out for me. I am what Joe Clannan made me. I thought I could escape, but I never can as long as men see me through that distorting prism. And you’re a man like any other. I thought you were different, but you’re not. The truth is that no man is ever different. It’s lucky we found out now, isn’t it?’

Vittorio could neither answer nor look at her. His face was dark, heavy with the thoughts he couldn’t bear to utter. She picked up her clothes and went into the little cave. Now she only wanted to hide her body from him. He made her feel ugly and ashamed.

When she came out he was dressed and putting things into the boat. In silence they pushed it into the sea, and got aboard.

Not a word was spoken as they sailed back to Amalfi. At any other time she would have rejoiced in the journey, with the sun turning the sea to fire. It was a scene to make lovers rejoice, but they were no longer lovers. A black shadow had fallen between them, and Angel had a terrible fear that it would stretch over the rest of her life.