Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Miracle Family

‘Was he away then?’

‘He said he was. He said he was going to drive north and get pictures of some wild scenery, immerse himself in the landscape, talk to nobody, even me. I tried to call him once but his phone was switched off. Then someone mentioned seeing him near his home in London. I said they were mistaken, but I guess they weren’t. He must have spent the week at home-with her.’

‘She was more shrewd than him,’ Drago said. ‘She never turned her mobile phone off. She used to call me every day and talk as though all was well with us.’ He drew a sudden, sharp breath.

‘Just like the other time, when you eloped,’ Alysa said, reading his mind.

‘Yes, just like then. It’s so easy to see it now.’

‘Did you never suspect anything?’

‘No. I trusted her totally. I went on being blind right up until the moment when she told me she was in love with someone else, and was leaving me for him. And do you want to hear something really funny? I didn’t believe her. I thought it wasn’t possible. Not my Carlotta, who’d been so close to me that she was like a second self. Only I’d been deluding myself. There was no second self. I’d been alone all the time and never known it.’

‘You felt that too?’ she asked quickly. ‘That’s it exactly-as though you’d imagined everything. And suddenly the whole world seems full of ghosts.’

‘And you feel as though you’re going mad,’ he confirmed. ‘In a strange way, my other self is you. I can say things to you that I could say to nobody else, and know that you’ll understand them.’

‘And even the words don’t always have to be said,’ she mused. ‘It’s a bit scary. To me, anyway.’

‘You think I’m not scared?’ he asked with grim humour. ‘Do I do that good a job of hiding it?’

‘Not really. Not from me.’

‘Exactly,’ he said in a quiet voice.

She had a fatalistic sense that she was being drawn onwards by powers too strong for her. She’d neither wanted nor sought this alliance, but there was no escaping it.

‘HOW did you find out?’ he asked.

‘I suppose the first hint was at Christmas, although I didn’t see it. We were going to spend the time together, and I got everything ready-tree, decorations, new dress.’ She gave him a faint smile of complicity, as if to say, ‘I do wear them sometimes’. He nodded, understanding.

‘Then he rang to say he wouldn’t be coming. A friend had suffered a tragedy and was suicidal. James didn’t want to leave him. It sounds a weak story now, but it might have been true. At any rate, I trusted him. I suppose you think that sounds stupid.’

Drago shook his head. ‘My own credulity strikes me as stupid, not yours. There’s no limit to what we can believe when we want to believe.’

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘And I wanted so much to believe.’

She still couldn’t bear to speak of her dead child, but unconsciously she laid a hand over her stomach. Drago, watching her, frowned slightly, and a sudden question came into his eyes.

‘How long was he away?’ he asked.

‘Until the first week in January. I guess he came here and spent time with Carlotta, but she couldn’t have seen much of him at Christmas.’

‘She was with us on Christmas Day, but the rest of the time she did a lot of coming and going. In Italy we also have another big occasion-Epiphany, January sixth, when we celebrate the coming of the three wise men. Carlotta was there for Epiphany-loving mother, loving wife-’ He broke off.

After a moment he resumed. ‘She played her part beautifully. When it was over Tina left with her grandmother to visit Carlotta’s sister and her family. Elena wanted her to go too, but Carlotta said she wanted to stay with me, that we needed some time together. I think that was one of the happiest moments of my life. I’d seen so little of her, and I was overjoyed that she wanted to be with me.

‘But as soon as we were alone she said she was leaving me for another man, and there was no point in discussing it. I’d never heard her sound so much like a lawyer.

‘I reminded her that she was a mother, but it was like talking to a brick wall. She knew what she wanted, and nothing else counted. I said I wouldn’t let her take my daughter. I thought that would make her stop and think. But I discovered that she’d never meant to take Tina.’

‘Would you have taken her back?’ Alysa asked curiously. ‘Knowing that she’d been unfaithful?’

‘It would never have been the same between us,’ he said sombrely. ‘But, for Tina’s sake, I would have tried.’

After that there was silence for a while. Drago got up and poured a couple more glasses of wine, handed her one and sat down again.

‘I began to realise that I’d never really known her,’ he said. ‘She seemed not to understand what she was doing to other people, or care. She kept saying, “We’ve had a lovely Epiphany. Tina will have that to remember”.’

Alysa winced. ‘She really thought that would be enough?’

‘She seemed to. She said she’d come and see Tina sometimes, as though that settled it. Then she left. When Tina came home I told her that Mamma was away on business, because I still hoped she’d come back, and Tina need never know the truth. But then Carlotta died, and how could I tell her then?’

‘You couldn’t, of course. But can you keep it a secret for ever? Suppose she hears it from someone else?’

‘I know. Maybe one day, when she’s old enough to cope, but not yet.’

‘I can’t understand why she didn’t want her daughter.’

‘Neither can I. Carlotta kept saying we had to be realistic-Why, what’s the matter?’

Alysa had turned and stared at him. ‘She actually used that word-realistic?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Because James used it too,’ she said, beginning to laugh mirthlessly. ‘When he came home in January he called me to meet him at a restaurant. He kept it short, just said he’d met someone else. He said it hadn’t been working out for us, and we had to be “realistic”. Then he called for the bill, we said goodbye and I never saw him again.’

‘Like a guillotine descending,’ Drago said slowly.

‘Yes, that describes it perfectly,’ she said, much struck. ‘And when the blade had descended it stayed there, so that I couldn’t look back beyond it. I knew the past had happened, but suddenly I couldn’t see it any more. And when I finally did, it looked different.’

‘Oh yes,’ he murmured. ‘It’s exactly like that. And you never heard from him? Not a postcard or a phone call to see if you were all right?’

‘His lawyer called me to say James had left some things with me and wanted them back. I packed them up in a box and someone from the lawyer’s office collected them.’

Drago said something violent in a language she didn’t understand.

‘What does that mean?’ she asked. ‘It didn’t sound like Italian.’

‘It’s Tuscan dialect, and I won’t offend your ears by translating.’

‘Sounds like some of the things I said in those days.’

‘You told Tina that you’d learned a little Italian by researching online. Was that-?’

‘Yes. When I was trying to find out about Carlotta I discovered a lot of stuff in Italian newspapers. The computer translated it, but very badly, so I got an Italian dictionary. I worked on it night after night and I suppose I went a bit mad.’ She gave a short, harsh laugh, turning to the mirror on the wall. ‘Look at me.’

In the dim light the mirror made her eyes seem larger than ever in her delicate face. They were burning and haunted.

‘Those eyes belong behind bars,’ she murmured.

‘Stop that!’ His voice crashed into her brooding thoughts, making her jump. ‘Stop that right now!’ he commanded. ‘Don’t put yourself down. It’s the way to hell.’

‘It’s a bit late for that.’

‘All the more need to be strong.’

‘Why?’ she shouted. ‘Sometimes I’m tired of being strong. I’ve spent the last year working at that-hiding my feelings, never letting anyone suspect.’

‘And what’s inside you now?’

‘Nothing, but that’s fine. I can cope with “nothing”. Don’t dare to judge me. What do you think you know about me?’

‘I know you’re a steely accountant, but as a woman you’re settling for a narrow life because you think you’ll be safe. But you won’t. It’s just another kind of hell.’

‘Look, I came here to help you-’

‘But maybe you need my help too.’

‘I don’t.’

Instead of arguing, he shrugged and said, ‘Let’s get some coffee.’

He led her into the kitchen, a shining temple to the latest hi-tech cooking equipment, incongruous against the rest of the house. In a moment he had the coffee perking, and brought some spicy rolls out of the cupboard. He’d made the right move. Alysa felt herself growing calmer as she ate and drank.

‘Thank you,’ she said as he refilled her cup. ‘I don’t normally lose my temper.’

‘Tonight’s been hard on you,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t really have put you through it, but I’m clutching at straws.’

‘We all do what we must to survive. I was never going to let this get the better of me.’

‘But you’ve paid a price.’

‘Yes, all right, I have. There’s always a price to be paid, but anything’s better than giving in.’

‘You’re a very strong person. I admire that. I’ve often felt it was getting the better of me.’

‘Did you mean what you said about crying?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I meant it. What about you? You said you never cried.’

‘I can’t. And, if I could, I wouldn’t.’

‘How did you get to be so strong?’

‘Through my mother. When I was fifteen my father walked out on us, and it finished her. She never recovered. I can still hear her sobbing, night after night. Three years later she died of a heart attack. She had no strength to fight it.’