The Italian’s Wife by Sunset

CHAPTER FIVE

DELLA sometimes wondered if the dream would have gone on for ever if blunt reality hadn’t dumped itself on them.

‘That was my brother Ruggiero,’ Carlo said reluctantly, as he finished a call on his cellphone. ‘Reminding me that he and I have a birthday in a few days, and there’s going to be a family party. If I’m not there, I’m a dead man.’

Reluctantly they turned back, took the ferry across the Strait of Messina, and headed north. On the way Della called the Vallini and booked a room.

It was nearly eight in the evening before Carlo dropped her at the door.

‘I must look into my apartment,’ he said, ‘pick up any mail, call my mother, then shower and make myself presentable. On second thoughts, reverse those two. I’ll call her when I’m presentable.’

‘But on the phone she can’t tell if you’re clean and tidy or not.’

He grinned. ‘You don’t know my mother. I’ll be back in an hour.’

He kissed her briefly and departed. As the porter carried her bags upstairs she tried to be sensible. Their perfect time together was over. Now she would do as she had always assured herself, and return to the real world.

But not just now. It could wait another night.

Standing at her window, she could just make out the sight of his car vanishing down the road. So much for common sense, she told herself wryly. But she’d be strong tomorrow. Or perhaps the day after.

As they’d travelled she had purchased some extra garments to supplement the meagre supply she’d brought from England, but now she had nothing that was not rumpled. She unpacked, trying to find something for that evening, but it was useless.

A knock on the door interrupted her musings. Wondering if Carlo could have returned, she hurried to open it.

It wasn’t Carlo who stood there, but a heavily built young man, beefily handsome, with a winning smile.

‘Sol!’ she cried in delight, opening her arms to her beloved son.

‘Hallo!’ he said, enveloping her in a huge hug and swinging her around while he kicked the door shut behind him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked at last, standing back to survey him with pleasure.

‘I came to see you. You’ve been away much longer than you said.’

‘Yes, well-something came up-all sorts of new ideas that I thought I should investigate.’ She had an uneasy suspicion that she was floundering, and finished hastily, ‘But I explained all this to you on the phone.’

‘Yes, you talked about a few extra days, but you were supposed to return to Naples yesterday. In fact, you originally said you’d be back in London last week.’

‘How is your father these days?’ she asked quickly.

‘Making a fool of himself with a new girlfriend. I was definitely in the way, so I went home and called Sally.’

‘Sally?’ She frowned. ‘I thought she was called Gina?’

‘No, Gina was the one before.’

‘I can’t keep track. So Sally’s the latest?’

‘Was the latest. It was never going to last long and-’ he gave a casual shrug, ‘it didn’t. So, since I had a few days free, I thought I’d like to spend some time with my mother, and I came to Naples to find you.’ He sighed forlornly. ‘Only you weren’t here.’

‘Don’t you give me that abandoned orphan voice,’ she said, trying not to laugh.

‘Then don’t you try to change the subject.’ He stood back and eyed her mischievously. ‘Come on-tell me. What have you been up to?’

‘Oi, cheeky!’ she said, poking him gently in the ribs and hoping she didn’t sound too self-conscious. ‘I’ve spent a few days with Signor Rinucci, to assess him for the programme.’

‘You don’t usually have to go to these lengths to audition someone.’

‘This is different. He’s not just going to be the frontman. He’s an archaeologist and a historian, with a big reputation, and he’s been showing me several new sites.’

‘I can’t wait to meet him,’ Sol declared, with a touch of irony that she tried to ignore.

‘He’ll be here in an hour. We can all have dinner together-’

‘Ah, well-I’ve actually made a few plans…’

‘You’ve got a new girl already? That’s fast work, even for you.’

‘I met her on the plane-she’s scared of flying, so naturally I-’

‘Naturally,’ she agreed, chuckling.

He glanced at the open suitcase on her bed, and something seemed to strike him.

‘Did you bring enough clothes for your jaunt?’

‘I was just thinking that I need to buy something new in the boutique downstairs.’

‘Great idea,’ he said heartily. ‘Let’s go.’

She’d been his mother long enough to be cynical, and had the reward of seeing her darkest suspicions realised when the boutique turned out to be unisex, and he headed for an array of dazzling male Italian fashions.

Della smiled, and observed him with pride. After all, what were mothers for?

‘You should try this,’ he said, belatedly remembering her and indicating a black cocktail dress of heartbreaking elegance.

But the price tag made her blanch.

‘I don’t think-’

‘Aw, c’mon. So it’s a bit pricey? So what? This is Italy’s greatest designer, and you’ll look wonderful in it. I’ll boast to everyone we meet-hey, that’s my mum!’

‘And it’ll make your purchases look thrifty by comparison,’ she teased.

‘I’m shocked by your suspicions. You cut me to the heart.’

‘Hmm! All right-I’ll try it on.’

Rather annoyingly, the dress was perfect, and she longed to see Carlo’s eyes when he saw her in it.

‘Was I right, or was I right?’ Sol demanded as she paraded around the shop.

‘You were right, but-’

‘But it kills you to admit it,’ he said, giving her the grin she adored.

It was a constant surprise to her that this son of a boring, commonplace father could be so well endowed with charm. She knew his faults. He was selfish, cocky, and thought his looks and appeal meant the world was his. If the world didn’t offer, he would reach out and take, paying his debt in smiles.

But they had been companions in misfortune almost since the day of his birth. Whatever had happened, he’d been there, with his cheeky grin and his hopeful, ‘C’mon, Mum, it’s not so bad.’

There had been times when his resilience and his ability to make her laugh had been her chief strength. She’d clung to him-perhaps too much, she sometimes thought. But he’d always been there for her, and now nothing was too good for him.

‘Oh, come here!’ she said, flinging her arms wide. ‘Don’t ask me why I love you. I suppose there’s a reason.’

Carlo got through everything there was to do in his apartment in double-quick time, sorting through the mail and ruthlessly tossing most of it aside as junk. He called his mother to let her know he was back, and promised to be at the villa punctually the following evening.

‘I shall have a lady with me,’ he said cautiously.

‘Well, it’s about time,’ Hope Rinucci replied robustly.

That startled him. This wasn’t the first woman he’d taken home, so he could only assume that something in his tone had alerted Hope to the fact that this guest was different. She was the one.

He hung up, thinking affectionately that the man who could bottle a mother’s instinct and market it would be a millionaire in no time.

Having showered, he drove back to the Vallini, looking forward to the evening ahead. They had just spent over a week living closely together, but after little more than an hour away from her he found that the need to see her again was almost unbearable. At the hotel he parked the car and ran into the foyer, like a man seeking his only hope on earth.

The way to the elevators took him past the hotel boutique. He stopped, checked by a sight that sent a chill through him.

Della was there, wearing a stylish black cocktail dress that she was showing off to an extremely good-looking young man who looked to be in his early twenties. He was watching her with his head on one side, and they were laughing at each other. As Carlo stared, feeling as though something had turned him to stone, Della opened her arms wide. The young man did the same, and they embraced each other in a giant hug.

He heard her say, ‘Don’t ask me why I love you. I suppose there’s a reason.’

Carlo wanted to do a thousand things at once-to run away and hide, pretend that this had never happened, and then perhaps the clock would turn back to before he’d seen her in the arms of another man. But he also wanted to race up to them and pull them apart. He wanted to punch the man to the ground, then turn on Della and accuse her, with terrible bitterness, of breaking his heart. He wanted to do all the violent things that were not in his nature.

But he did none of them. Instead, almost without realising that he was moving, he went to stand in front of them. It was the young man who saw him first.

‘Hey, I think your friend’s here,’ he said cheerfully.

Della looked up, smiling, but making no effort to disentangle herself from the embrace.

‘Hallo, darling,’ she said. ‘You haven’t met my son, have you?’

Carlo clenched his hands. Her son! Who did she think she was kidding?

‘Very funny,’ he said coldly. ‘How old were you when you had him? Six?’

The young man roared with laughter, making Carlo dream of murder.

‘It’s your own fault for looking so young,’ he told her.

She chuckled and disengaged herself.

‘I was sixteen when Sol was born,’ she told Carlo. ‘I told you that once before.’

‘Yes, but-’ Carlo fell silent.

‘And he’s twenty-one now,’ she finished. ‘He looks older because he’s built like an ox.’

Sol grinned at this description and extended his hand. Dazed, Carlo shook it.

‘We had no idea you were coming,’ he said, appalled at how stupid the words sounded. But stupid was exactly how he felt.

‘No, I thought I’d drop in and pay my old lady an unexpected visit,’ Sol said cheerfully. ‘I thought she’d only be here for a couple of days. When she didn’t return I decided to come and see what mischief she was up to.’ His ribald glance made it clear that he’d already formed his own opinion.

Carlo decided that he could dislike Sol very much if he put his mind to it. But he forced himself to say politely, ‘I hope you’ll stay long enough to visit my family? We’re having dinner with them tomorrow night, and of course you must join us.’

‘Love to. Fine-I’ll be off now.’ He kissed Della’s cheek. ‘I’m in the room opposite yours. See ya! Oh-yes…’ He seemed to become aware that the staff were nervously eyeing his new shirt.

‘It’s all right,’ she told them. ‘You can put it on my bill.’

‘Bless you,’ Sol said fervently. ‘Actually, I found a few other-’

‘Put them all on my bill,’ she said, amused and resigned. ‘Now, be off-before I end up in the Poor House.’

‘Thanks!’

Halfway to the door, he stopped. ‘Um…’

‘What now?’

‘I hadn’t realised what an expensive place this is-’ He broke off significantly.

‘You’ve got a new credit card,’ she reminded him.

‘Ye-es, but-’

‘You can’t have hit the limit already. Even you.’

His response was a helpless shrug, topped off by his best winning smile. Carlo watched him closely.

‘Here,’ Della said, reaching into her bag and producing a handful of cash. ‘I’ll call the card company and underwrite a new limit.’

‘Thanks, Mum. Bye!’

He vanished.

‘I’ll be with you in a moment,’ Della said, and went into the changing room.

After a moment she emerged in her street clothes, paid her bill, and gave her room number for the dress to be delivered.

‘And the other things, for the young man?’ the assistant asked.

‘Oh, yes-deliver them to me, too.’

A brief glance at the paperwork showed Carlo that she had spent about ten times as much on Sol as on herself.

They left the boutique and headed for the coffee bar next door. Carlo seemed thoughtful, and she guessed that he now had a lot to think about.

‘Does that dress really suit me?’ she asked. ‘Or did Sol merely say so to get me to pay for his stuff?’

‘Why would he bother?’ Carlo asked wryly. ‘He knew you were a soft touch, whatever he said.’

‘Well, of course. Don’t be fooled by the fact that he looks grown-up. He’s only twenty-one, and has only just left college. Who’s going to pay his bills if I don’t?’

‘He could get a job and start paying his own way,’ Carlo suggested.

‘He will, but he had to visit his father first.’

‘Fair enough. But does it occur to him to curb his extravagance for your sake?’

‘Why should he? When he sees me book into one of the most expensive hotels in Naples he probably reckons I can afford a few shirts.’

He shrugged. It was a fair point, but he still didn’t like it.

‘Does his father help?’ he asked after a while.

‘His father has three other children by various mothers-the first one born barely a year after we broke up.’

‘So you’ve always worked to support Sol?’

‘I’m his mother.’

‘And some woman is always going to have to be,’ he pointed out, with a touch of grouchiness.

‘What a rotten thing to say!’ she flared. ‘It’s not like you.’

It was true, making him annoyed with himself.

‘Ignore me,’ he said, trying to laugh. ‘I just got a nasty shock when I first saw you together. I thought you had another guy. He looks older than he is.’

‘Twenty-one-I swear it. And I’m thirty-seven,’ she said lightly. ‘Thirty-seven!’

‘Why do you say it like that? As though you were announcing the crack of doom?’

‘We’ve never talked about my age before.’

‘Why should we? There were always more interesting things to do.’

‘But sooner or later you had to know that I was middle-aged-’

‘Middle-aged? Rubbish!’ he said, with a sharp, explosive annoyance that was rare with him. ‘Thirty-seven is nothing.’

‘I suppose it may seem so, if you’re only thirty.’

Suddenly his face softened.

‘You’re a remarkably silly woman-do you know that?’ he asked tenderly.

‘I’ve known it ever since I met you.’

‘And just what does that mean?’

‘A sensible woman would have taken one look at you and fled before you turned her whole life upside down.’

‘So why didn’t you?’ he asked curiously.

‘Maybe I didn’t mind having my life turned upside down? Maybe I wanted it? I might even have said to myself that it didn’t matter what happened later, because what we’d had would be worth it.’

He frowned. ‘But what do you think is going to happen later?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m not looking too far into the future. There’ll be some sadness there somewhere-’

‘You don’t know that-’

‘Yes, I do, because there’s always sadness.’

‘Then we’ll face it together.’

‘I mean after that,’ she said slowly. ‘When it’s over.’

He stared at her. ‘You’re talking about leaving me, aren’t you?’

‘Or you leaving me.’

‘Dio mio! You’re planning our break-up.’

‘I’m not planning it-just trying to be realistic. Seven years is quite a gap, and I know I should have told you before-’

‘Perhaps,’ he murmured. ‘But I wonder exactly when would have been the right moment.’

As he spoke he raised his head, looking at her directly, invoking a hundred memories.

When should she have told him? When they’d lain together in the closeness that was life and death in the same moment? When they’d walked in the dusk, arms entwined, their thoughts on the night ahead? When they’d awoken together in the mornings, sleepy and content?

He didn’t speak, but nor did he need to. The questions were there, unanswerable, like a knife twisting in her heart.

‘We didn’t have to talk about it,’ he said, more gently, ‘because it doesn’t matter. It can’t touch us.’

‘But it has to touch us.’

‘Why? I knew you were older-’

‘Just a little. Not that much older. And, darling, you can’t pretend it didn’t give you a shock. There was a moment back there when you were looking from Sol to me as if you were stunned.’

He stared at her, wondering how two people who loved each other so much could misunderstand each other so deeply. What she said was true. He had been totally stunned, reeling like a man who’d received a shattering blow.

But it wasn’t her age. It had been the moment when he’d seen her in Sol’s arms and thought she’d betrayed him. The extent of his pain had caught him off-guard, almost winding him. Nothing else had ever hurt so much. Nothing else would ever do so again.

It had confronted him with the full truth of his love, of the absolute necessity of his being with her and only her as long as they both lived. He’d thought himself already certain, but for a moment it had been as if she’d been snatched away from him, and he’d stared into a horrifying abyss.

And she thought he was worried about a trifle like her age.

‘It’s true,’ she urged. ‘You need to think about it.’

‘I’m not listening to this,’ he said impatiently. ‘You’re talking nonsense.’

‘All right.’ She made a placating gesture. ‘Let it go.’

His eyes flashed anger. ‘Don’t humour me.’

‘I just don’t want to waste time arguing.’

‘And I don’t want you brooding over it to yourself.’

‘But it’s not just going to vanish-not unless I suddenly lose seven years.’

‘Will you stop talking like that?’ he begged. ‘Thirty-seven is nothing these days. It doesn’t have to bother us unless we let it.’

‘Are you going to wish it away?’ she asked fondly.

He shook his head. ‘I’ll never wish you other than you are.’

‘But one day-you might.’

His response to that was to pull her close and kiss her. There were faint cheers from other customers in the little café, for lovers were always popular.

As they drew apart she smiled and sighed, letting it go at that. Now time must pass while he took in the full enormity of what he’d discovered. Already she guessed that he was beginning to understand, which was why he’d moved to silence her. Then he would realise that a permanent love was impossible, but together they would enjoy their time together while they worked on the series. It all made perfect sense, and one day perhaps it would no longer hurt so much.

The spent that evening, as they had spent others recently: dining in her room before going to bed. Over the food and wine he told her more about his family, preparing her for the next evening.

‘Justin and Evie won’t be there, because they live in England and Evie’s heavily pregnant with twins. But Primo and Olympia will be there, and so will Luke and Minnie, down from Rome for a couple of days.’

He tactfully forbore to mention that he’d had a call from Luke, his adopted brother, now living with Minnie ‘in a state of fatuous bliss’, according to his brother Primo. But since Primo himself had lowered his prickly defences for the sake of the divine Olympia, he was, as Ruggiero had tartly remarked, hardly in a position to talk.

‘The women are in cahoots,’ Luke had warned Carlo darkly. ‘So don’t say you haven’t been warned.’

Carlo had laughed. There was something about a family conspiracy to unite him with Della that filled him with pleasure. If only they knew how little need there was for them to nudge him into matrimony.

The thought of having Sol as a stepson made him pause, but only briefly. He would just have to put up with the young man whom he’d mentally stigmatised as ‘that selfish oaf’.

He found, though, that Della was stubbornly resistant to any suggestion that her darling might not be perfect.

‘What’s he going to do about getting a job?’ he asked mildly.

‘He’ll get one,’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘But I’m not going to hound him when he’s only just left college.’

‘Well, having a degree will help.’

‘Actually, he doesn’t have a degree,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘He failed his finals.’

Carlo bit back a tart remark about that not coming as any surprise, and merely said mildly, ‘But he can sit them again.’

‘He doesn’t think it’s worth it. He says it’ll be more use to look around and see a bit of the world, find out what really suits him.’

Carlo had heard this argument from lazy dead-beats too often to argue with it now. He merely observed, ‘I had a job even when I was in college. There was a dig just outside town and during the vacations I slaved for hours every day, grubbing away in the earth.’

‘But that’s different,’ she objected. ‘You were doing a job you loved, making a step in your career, making contacts-’

‘At the time it just felt like breaking my back so that the whole financial burden didn’t fall on my parents.’

‘Well, maybe that’s why he won’t go back to college-to save me another year’s fees.’

Her face had a mulish look he hadn’t seen before, and a sudden sense of danger made him pull back. Sol could lead them into discord, and he wouldn’t let that happen.

There was a new intensity in his lovemaking that night, as though he were reminding her of how good it could be between them. He had always been a patient lover, giving her all the time she needed to reach her moment. Now his consideration for her was endless, and the gentleness of his kisses as he lay with her, teasing her to fulfilment, almost made her weep.

‘My love…’ he murmured. ‘My love for ever…’

How could she refuse a man who could make her feel like this? How could she break his heart and her own?

‘Look at me,’ he urged.

He had said it before. He always wanted to meet her eyes when the pleasure overtook them. But tonight it was almost a command, as if he knew the dangerous path her thoughts were taking and wanted to summon her back to him.

‘Look at me,’ he said again.

She did so, and found her gaze held by his as the joy mounted unbearably until they were swept away together.

One of the many reasons she loved him was that when it was over he stayed with her in both body and spirit, not turning away, but resting his head against her until he slept. It was a habit that made her feel valued as nothing else had ever done.

Tonight was no different-except that first he propped himself up on one elbow, looking down on her with worshipful eyes, as though in this way he could hold her to him. In the dim light she could just see that he was smiling.

‘I guess this would be a good time to talk about getting married,’ he said softly.