The Italian's Wife By Sunset

‘It wasn’t all a performance,’ she said swiftly.

‘You know, I think I’d rather believe that it was. It makes things simpler. I was a fool, but at least I found out before any real harm was done.’

‘Carlo, please—if you’d just listen to me—’

‘I’ve done enough of that,’ he said, in a deceptively affable tone. ‘Let’s call it a day. You’d better text George back and tell him that you tracked me down and I said to hell with you. Goodbye.’

He was gone, closing the door behind him.

She wanted to scream with frustration and hurl the phone against the door. Instead she turned out the light and went onto the balcony. From there she could see Carlo’s car, parked in front of the hotel, then Carlo himself, hurtling out of the front door and leaping into the driver’s seat.

She drew back in case he looked up and saw her, but he only sat for a long moment, hunched behind the wheel, brooding. When at last he roused himself, it was to give the wheel a sharp thump that made the horn blast. After his ironic restraint the sudden spurt of temper was startling.

Then he fired the engine, swung out of the forecourt and vanished down the road. He hadn’t once looked up at Della’s window.

CHAPTER THREE

AT SEVENTEEN she might have wept into her pillow. At thirty-seven she lay staring into the darkness, sad but composed, before finally nodding off.

She even managed a prosaic, unromantic night’s sleep. But next morning Della awoke early and the memories came flooding back, bringing regretful thoughts.

It would have been nice, she thought. We could have been fond of each other for a while, before he found someone his own age. But, oh boy, did I ever make a mess of it! If there were a prize for handling things as badly as possible, I’d win the gold. I should have known better than to hide the truth, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

At this point she found herself smiling wistfully.

But had any woman ever thought straight in his company? She doubted it. Not guilty on the grounds of impaired judgment. She’d wanted to make the moment last, and she had never thought how it would seem to him.

What now? Return to Pompeii and try to find him? After all, he’s ideal for the programme.

Nuts to that! She just wanted an excuse to see him again. He was like a light coming on and then going out too soon. But what was done was done. She’d just chalk it up to experience and leave Naples today.

It was a relief to have made up her mind. Jumping out of bed, she stripped and headed for the shower, running it very cold to infuse herself with common sense. She was just drying off when there was a knock on the door.

‘Who is it?’

‘Room Service.’

She hadn’t ordered anything, but perhaps this was courtesy of the hotel. Huddling on a silk dressing gown, she opened the door.

Outside stood a tall man, dressed as a waiter. That was all she could tell, as he was holding the tray high, balanced on the fingers of one hand, at just the right angle to conceal his face.

‘Scusi, signora.’

He seemed to glide into the room, contriving to keep his features hidden as he headed for the little table by the window and set down the tray.

Della’s heart began to dance. He might hide his face, but his hair was unmistakable. Instinctively she pulled together the edges of her thin dressing gown, conscious of how inadequately the silk covered her.

‘Orange juice,’ he said, turning to her with a flourish. ‘Fruit? Cereal?’

‘So you’re not still angry with me?’ she asked, laughing.

‘No, I got over my sulk fairly quickly. Forgive me?’

It was so good to see Carlo standing there that she forgot everything else and opened her arms to him. He took two swift steps across the room, and the next moment she was enfolded in an embrace that threatened to crush the breath out of her.

‘I was afraid you’d have packed your bags and left last night,’ he said between kisses.

‘I was afraid I’d never see you again. I’m sorry. I never meant it to happen the way it did—it just sort of—’

‘It doesn’t matter. It was my fault for making a fuss about nothing.’

‘I always meant to tell you, but things just happened, and I lost track of what I was supposed to be thinking—’

‘Yes,’ he said with meaning. ‘Me too.’

He kissed her again before she could speak, moving his mouth hungrily over hers, pressing her body close against his own. Now she could feel everything she had suspected yesterday, the hard, lean length of him, muscular, sensuously graceful, thrilling.

But it was dangerous to hold him like this when she was nearly naked. The gossamer delicacy of her gown was no protection against the excitement she could sense in him, nor against her own excitement, rising equally fast. Nearly naked wasn’t enough. Only complete nakedness would do, for herself and him.

There was an increasingly urgent sense of purpose in the movements of his hands, and her answering desire threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted this. She wanted him.

It was the very power of that wanting that made her take fright. Twenty-four hours ago she hadn’t met this man. Now she was indulging fantasies of fierce passion, desire with no limits. She must stop this now. She forced herself to tense against him, drawing her head back a little so that he could see her shake it from side to side.

‘No—Carlo—please—’

‘Della—’ His voice was edgy, and it seemed as though he couldn’t stop.

‘Please—wait—’

She felt his body trembling against hers with the effort of his own restraint, and at last he was still. Now he would think her a tease. But when she looked into his eyes she saw only understanding.

‘You’re right,’ he whispered.

‘It’s just that—’

‘I know—I know—not—not yet.’

He spoke raggedly, but he was in command of himself. Della only wished she could say the same about her own body, which was raging out of control, defying her wise words. She pulled herself free, grabbed some clothes, and vanished into the bathroom.

When she emerged, safely dressed, he had discarded his waiter’s jacket and was sitting at the table by the window, pouring her coffee. He seemed calm, with no sign of his recent agitation—except that she thought his hand shook a little.

‘Here’s food,’ he said, indicating rolls and honey. ‘But if you need something more substantial I’ll buy you a big lunch after we’ve been to Pompeii.’

‘We’re going back there?’

‘Just for an hour, while I give my team their instructions. Then we’ll have the rest of the day free.’

His manner was demure while he served her, as if their moment of blazing physical awareness had never been. But then she glanced up to find him watching her, and it was there in his eyes, memory and, more than that, an anticipation amounting to certainty.

‘I’m sorry for what happened,’ she said again. ‘I was going to tell you last night, but—’ She made a helpless gesture.

‘It was mostly my fault,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I just talked about myself all the time, which is a fault of mine. Mamma always says if I’d shut up now and then I might learn something.’

‘But you’ve never taken her advice long enough to find out if she’s right,’ Della chuckled.

He grinned. ‘You really do sound just like her. Besides, I know now that she was right. Today you’re going to do all the talking, and I won’t say a single word.’

‘Hmm!’ she said sceptically.

He looked alarmed. ‘You understand me too well.’

‘In that case we have nothing left to say to each other.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, isn’t that every man’s nightmare? A woman who understands him?’

‘I’m getting more scared of you every minute.’

‘Then you’d better steer well clear of me. If I call the airport now there’s bound to be a plane back to London today.’

At once his hand closed over hers, imprisoning it gently but firmly.

‘I never run away from danger,’ he said lightly. ‘How about you?’

There was a moment’s hesitation, because something told her that never in her life had she met a danger like this. Then, ‘Me neither,’ she said.

‘Good. In that case…’ He paused significantly.

‘In that case—?’

‘In that case I suggest we hurry up and finish our breakfast.’

She choked into her coffee. She had always been a sucker for a man who could make her laugh.

At Pompeii, his team was waiting for him in the canteen. A brief time in his company had made her more sharply aware of things she had overlooked before, and now she saw at once how the young women in the group brightened as soon as he appeared, and flashed him their best smiles.

She couldn’t blame them. There was a life-enhancing quality to him that brought the sun out, and made it natural to smile.

Della lingered only a short while as he talked to them in Italian, which she couldn’t understand, then wandered away to the museum.

Here she found what she was looking for—the plaster casts of the bodies that had lain trapped in their last positions for nearly two thousand years. There was a man who’d fallen on the stairs and never risen again, and another man who’d known the end was coming and curled up in resignation, waiting for the ash to engulf him. Further on, a mother tried vainly to shelter her children.

But it was the lovers who held her the longest. After so many centuries it was still heartbreaking to see the man and woman, stretching out in a vain attempt to reach each other before death swamped them.

‘There’s such a little distance between their hands,’ she murmured.

‘Yes, they nearly managed it,’ said Carlo beside her.

She didn’t know how long he’d been there, and wondered if he’d been watching as she wandered among the ‘bodies’.

‘And now they’ll never reach each other,’ she said. ‘Trapped for ever with a might-have-been.’

‘There’s nothing sadder than what might have been,’ he agreed. ‘That’s why I prefer these.’

He led her to another glass case where there were two forms, a man and a woman, nestled against each other.

‘They knew death was coming,’ Carlo said, ‘but as long as they could meet it in each other’s arms they weren’t afraid.’

‘Maybe,’ she said slowly.

‘You don’t believe that?’

‘I wonder if you’re stretching imagination too far. You can’t really know that they weren’t afraid.’

‘Can’t I? Look at them.’

Della drew nearer and studied the two figures. Their faces were blurred, but she could see that all their attention was for each other, not the oncoming lava. And their bodies were mysteriously relaxed, almost contented.

‘You’re right,’ she said softly. ‘While they had each other there was nothing to fear—not even death.’

How would it feel to be like that? she wondered. Two marriages had left her ignorant of that all-or-nothing feeling. What she had known of men had left her cautious, and suddenly it occurred to her that she was deprived.

‘Are you ready to go?’ he asked.

He drove back to the little fishing village where they had eaten the day before. Now the tide was in, the boats were out, and the atmosphere was completely different. This was another world from that sleepy somnolence, as he proved by taking her to the market, where the stalls were brightly coloured and mostly sold an array of fresh meat and vegetables.

The ones that didn’t offered a dazzling variety of handmade silk.

‘The area is known for it,’ Carlo explained. ‘And it’s better than anything you’ll find in the fashionable shops in Milan.’

As he spoke he was holding up scarves and blouses against her.

‘Not these,’ he said, tossing a couple aside. ‘Not your colour.’

‘Isn’t it?’ she asked, slightly nettled. She had liked both of them.

‘No, this is better.’ He held up a blouse with a dark blue mottled pattern and considered it against her. ‘This one,’ he told the woman running the stall.

‘Hey, let me check the size,’ Della protested.

‘No need,’ the woman chuckled. ‘He always gets the size right.’

‘Thank you,’ Carlo said hastily, handing over cash and hurrying her away.

‘You’ve got a nerve, buying me clothes without so much as a by-your-leave,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to thank me.’

‘I wasn’t. I was saying you’re as cheeky as a load of monkeys.’

‘Slander. All slander.’

To Della’s mischievous delight he had definitely reddened.

‘So you always get the size right, just by looking?’ she mused. ‘I mean, always as in always?’

‘Let’s have something to eat,’ he said hastily, taking her arm and steering her into a side street where they found a small café.

There he settled her with coffee and a glass of prosecco, the white sparkling wine, so light as to be almost a cordial, that Italians loved to drink.

‘So now,’ he said, ‘do what I wouldn’t let you do yesterday, and tell me all about yourself. I know you’ve been married—’

‘I married when I was sixteen—and pregnant. Neither of us was old enough to know what we were doing, and when he fled in the first few months I guess I couldn’t blame him.’

‘I blame him,’ he said at once. ‘If you do something, you take responsibility for it.’

‘Oh, you sound so very old and wise, but how “responsible” were you at seventeen?’

‘Perhaps we’d better not go into that,’ he said, grinning. ‘But he shouldn’t have simply have walked out and left you with a baby.’

‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I wasn’t abandoned in a one-room hovel without a penny. We were living with my parents, so I had a comfortable home and someone to take care of me. In fact, I don’t think my parents were sorry to see the back of him.’

‘Did they give him a nudge?

‘He says they did. I’ll never really know, but I’m sure it would have happened anyway. It’s all for the best. I wouldn’t want to be married to the man he is now.’

‘Still irresponsible?’

‘Worse. Dull.’

‘Heaven help us! So you’re still in touch?’

‘He lives in Scotland. Sol—that’s Solomon, our son—visits him. He’s there now.’

Light dawned.

‘Was Sol the one you were talking to on the phone last night?’

‘That’s right.’

So there was no other man in her life, he thought, making urgent calculations: her son might be twelve, if she’d been so young at his birth. He was almost dizzy with relief.

‘What made you go into television?’ he asked, when he’d inwardly calmed down.

‘Through my second husband and his brother.’

‘Second—? You’re married?’ he demanded, descending into turmoil again.

‘No, it didn’t work out, and there was another divorce. I guess I’m just a rotten picker. Gerry ran off leaving a lot of debts, which I had to work to pay. The one good thing he did for me was to introduce me to his brother, Brian, who was a television producer. Brian offered me a job as his secretary, taught me everything he knew, and I loved it—the people I met, the things it was possible to do, the buzz of ideas going on all the time. Brian loaned me some money to start up for myself, and he recommended me everywhere.’

‘So now you’re a big-shot,’ he said lightly. ‘Dominating the schedules, winning all the awards—’

‘Shut up,’ she said, punching his arm playfully.

‘You’re not going to tell me you’ve never won an award, are you?’

His eyes warned her that he knew more than he was letting on.

‘The odd little gong here and there,’ she said vaguely.

‘You’re not the only one who knows how to use the internet, you know. You won the Golden World prize for the best documentary of the year—’

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