by T A Williams
Lucy didn’t know what so say, so she kissed him. When they finally pulled apart, the smile was back on his face – this time a broad, genuine smile.
‘You’re amazing, Lucy. Being with you just makes me want to smile all the time. Shall we go and visit the island, the Scogli dello Sparviero? Know what a sparviero is?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s a sparrowhawk. There are nesting pairs high in the cliffs – at least there were last year.’
‘Not a bad place to live.’
She clung to his arm as he brought the boat closer to the daunting cliffs. The little stone tower was clearly visible, perched on the top, and her historical interest was whetted for a moment before her head returned to the far more interesting prospect of what might be going to happen between her and the handsome man alongside her. History could wait – at least for today. Millionaire he might be, but he had said he wasn’t an adulterer and she trusted him. She knew she couldn’t help herself now. She had fallen for him hook, line and sinker and she knew it wasn’t just for his body, but for his gentle kindness towards her and the way he had been able to voice his feelings so honestly.
He turned the wheel to the left and they rounded the side of the little island. As he did so, he throttled back until there was just a gentle bubbling noise from behind them and he cautiously nosed the RIB in towards the rough beach he had mentioned. There were three other boats already there and a few heads bobbing up and down in the water and Lucy felt almost disappointed she wasn’t going to have him all to herself. Still, considering it was the busiest holiday month of the year, it was remarkably quiet.
On his instructions, she took the kill cord off her wrist and stationed herself at the bow, staring down into the crystal clear water, pointing out any possible hazards as the water grew ever shallower until she heard the engine die and, simultaneously, the underside of the nose graze the beach. She lowered herself over the side into the warm water and, as she did so, a shadow flashed over her and she was drenched by a canine tsunami as a large black body belly-flopped into the water beside her like a bomb going off. She turned towards the impact zone and saw Boris come back up to the surface, snort, and then treat her to a broad canine grin of happiness. Grabbing the end of the mooring line, she waded ashore and tied it to a hefty rock a bit further up the beach. Once she was happy the boat was safely secured, she walked back into the water and sank down into it, relishing the refreshing feel on her skin.
She and David played an enjoyable game of catch with a piece of driftwood while Boris doggy-paddled hopefully from one to the other. Every now and then they would throw it further for him and he would swim after it, snuffling happily as he did so. She soon discovered that although he invariably retrieved the stick, he evidently hadn’t inherited the full retriever gene and he would refuse to hand it over, even allowing himself to be dragged bodily into the air by his master without giving it up. Needless to say, this necessitated constantly going back and forth to the beach to find ever more pieces of wood and by the time they came out of the water for a rest, she was feeling quite tired. She sat down on a boulder alongside David and reached up to kiss him again.
‘This is paradise.’ And she meant it. ‘I can’t think of any way this could be better.’ Well, maybe if the other people hadn’t been there, but she didn’t want to sound churlish.
At their feet, Boris the dog rolled around on his back in the damp gravel, grunting to himself. He looked almost as happy as she felt.
Chapter 23
The night that followed was amazing. Lucy felt as though she was living in a dream and she knew she couldn’t be any happier. She stayed with him at the villa in his lovely big bedroom. Early next morning she was there, resting on her elbows, gazing out through the lace curtains that fluttered gently in the breeze. The view was even better than from her cottage and she could clearly see Siena in the distance with the unmistakable bulk of the cathedral distinguishable among the red roofs of the old town. Beyond that, the hills continued until a vague dark strip on the horizon where the Apennines were virtually hidden by the haze. She sighed with real pleasure and couldn’t help comparing this view to the orange dust and sun-scorched scrub that extended for miles all around the Mabenta clinic with hardly a single house to be seen amid the trees.
‘A penny for your thoughts.’ She was roused from her daydream by the feel of his lips on her neck. ‘You looked miles away.’
She turned towards him and kissed him softly. ‘Just thinking.’
‘Let me guess: about Africa?’
‘Yes, but also about just how happy I am right now. You’d better keep your distance, I think I might explode.’
He grinned down at her. ‘We wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would we? If it helps, I haven’t been this happy for years and years, maybe never.’
As he settled back beside her, she decided the time was right to ask him a direct question.
‘So does that mean you’re feeling healthier mentally, as well as physically? I know about your knee, but what about inside your head?’
‘You mean my depression? I’m fine now. And it’s down to three things. First, less than two years ago, after Rosy had been gone for a few months, Armando and Fioretta persuaded me to get Boris.’ He glanced across at her and grinned. ‘To be honest, they didn’t give me much choice. Armando just turned up one day with a little black ball of fur in his hands and said I needed him. And I did. Labrador puppies should be available on prescription. He did wonders for me, just as a friend and a silent, non-judgemental companion who forced me to get off my ass and outside into the fresh air. Second, Franz Berlin. That man’s a miracle-worker. He has a knack of helping you get to the root of your problems all by yourself – or so it seems. He’s been invaluable to me.’
As Lucy leant against his shoulder, her eyes were drawn to the curve of the cypress trees alongside the drive leading down to the gate. A sudden movement revealed what had attracted her attention. This time no fewer than three red squirrels were chasing each other from branch to branch, tree to tree and she felt herself smiling as she watched their antics. ‘Franz helped me so much too. My experiences in the Congo – particularly those last really scary weeks – were weighing me down more than I was prepared to admit at first. I was still having awful nightmares even after weeks had gone by, but he sorted me out. Yes, Franz is a good guy.’ She reached over and kissed David softly on the lips. ‘And so are you. And the third thing? You said there were three.’
He smiled down at her. ‘Need you ask? The third, and most important was you, Lucy.’
‘But you and I have only just got together.’
‘I knew it from the first moment I saw you.’ He ran a finger gently across her cheek and she rubbed her face against his hand. ‘Honest, I mean it. Even as I was lying there bleeding from that stupid bullet wound, it registered with me that you were something very special.’
‘But you were so grumpy the first few times I saw you.’
‘You think that was grumpy? You should have seen me a few months earlier. Believe me, what you saw was sweetness and light compared to the bad-tempered wreck of a man I was before I met you.’
‘You really must have been in a bad place. And you must have been on your own for ages. So how did you spend your time here after your wife left?’
‘Walking the dog and reading history books, and doing a hell of a lot of nothing.’
‘Well, it worked out in the end and if I’ve helped in any way, then I’m pleased, and I’m sure Boris would like me to say the same on his behalf.’
‘You and Boris are great, but you’re even better than him. Apart from anything else, your breath smells a whole lot sweeter and you don’t pee on the plants.’
‘Erm, I might need to talk to you about that…’
The only bit of bad news that morning was that he told her he had to fly back to the States the next day for almost a week and she realised she would miss him tremendously. Still, they would have tonight, so she went off to work with
a smile on her face. It remained on her face even when Charles joined her at her table at lunchtime.
‘Hi, Lucy. You’re looking tanned. Been out in the sun?’
‘I had a trip to the seaside yesterday. What about you? Cheered up since we last spoke?’
He hung his head. ‘Not really. I still feel the same way and she hasn’t changed. I didn’t realise it could be so hard.’
Lucy choked back the urge to tell him it served him right after his behaviour towards her and no doubt countless other women, but she bit her tongue. Instead, she kept the smile firmly on her face. ‘Give it time. You’ll get over it. It worked for me.’ And she returned to her ginseng.
Mid-afternoon, just as she was coming out of theatre after a fairly routine appendectomy, she was met by Bruno with a request.
‘Hi, Lucy. I don’t suppose you could do a few nights for me this week, could you?’
She thought quickly. Tonight was a definite no, but then David would be away until the following Sunday or Monday. And if she did nights while he was away, she would be able to spend more nights with him when he got back. It was a no-brainer. ‘Yes, of course. Not tonight, but any other nights this week. The whole week if you like. What’s the emergency?’
‘Not really an emergency. Virginia wants me to take her away for a few days. There’s some stuff we need to sort out.’
Lucy wondered if this might be the occasion that he finally asked Virginia to marry him and she was happy for them – even more so now that she had David. ‘Well, why don’t I do Tuesday to Saturday? Come to think of it, I might need a day or two off next month as a friend’s getting married in Avignon, so if I scratch your back…’
‘It’s a deal. Thanks a lot, Lucy.’
That evening, she insisted that David come to her house and she prepared dinner for him. Although food was secondary to what she had in mind, she stopped off at a fish shop in Siena and bought some fresh crabmeat and served it, according to one of Daniela’s mum’s recipes, mixed with grated apple and avocado, accompanied by a tomato salad made with wonderful aromatic big tomatoes from Donatello’s shop. While she was there she also bought strawberries and ice cream. If the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, she felt sure that on a swelteringly hot night like tonight this cold spread would do the trick.
It was fortuitous that she chose to serve cold food, as the first thing she did when David appeared at her door was to give Boris a big bowl of dog biscuits, specially bought the other day when Boris and Barolo had come to dinner, while she dragged his far-from-unwilling master upstairs to her bedroom. They didn’t sit down to eat until after nine, but he didn’t complain, and neither did she. By this time Boris had made himself at home and they found him sprawled across the sofa, snoozing happily. As they came down the stairs, one eye opened and his tail started thumping lazily against the cushions.
‘Boris, dogs are meant to be on the floor, not the furniture. Shame on you.’ David wagged an admonitory finger at him but that only made the tail wag harder. Lucy was in such a good mood, she just went over and patted the Labrador’s head.
‘You stay there, Boris. It’s an old sofa anyway.’
But, needless to say, as she retrieved the food from the fridge and set it on the table, Boris conveniently forgot that he had eaten barely two hours earlier and jumped off the sofa to position himself under the table with an expectant look on his face.
As they ate, they chatted some more and she asked David something she had been thinking about for a week now.
‘David… just say no if you don’t want to, but… a good friend of mine called Nicole, one of the nurses I worked with in Mabenta, is getting married next month. She’s French and the wedding’s going to be in Avignon. The invitation is for me plus one. I don’t suppose you’d like to come with me, do you?’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘Absolutely. I’d love that. I love France and, the way I feel about you, I’d be happy just to be wherever you’re going to be. Count me in.’
‘You’re sure? I mean, people are going to recognise you.’ She had a sudden thought. ‘Come to think of it, what if somebody takes a photo of the two of us together? They might post it on the Internet. Shouldn’t we maybe wait until you’ve got your divorce settled?’
‘You sound like my attorney.’
‘You’ve spoken to your attorney about me?’ She didn’t know whether to be pleased or intimidated.
‘Indirectly. Meeting you has been the kick up the ass I needed to make me get on with my life. I spent an hour on the phone with him this afternoon. That’s the main reason I’m going back to the States. I want to get the divorce papers settled as soon as possible and, like I told you, the sooner the divorce settlement gets done, the sooner I’ll be able to think seriously about setting up some sort of charity. As long as you don’t mind, if people see you and me together before that, so what? As both you and my lawyer say, the break-up was technically Rosy’s fault every bit as much as it was mine – in his eyes a good deal more. Being seen with you isn’t going to hurt – and it means we’ll be together.’
‘Well, if you’re sure. I’m just happy to be where you are, too. Does this mean you’ll be seeing your wife this week?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll find out in the next few days.’
Lucy found herself wondering what the reaction of his wife was likely to be when she found her husband once more looking and sounding normal. Might this rekindle the love she presumably must once have felt for him? The thought that this might mean losing him so soon was unsettling, even though Lucy kept reminding herself that getting together with him, amazing as it was, would ultimately have to end anyway. She knew only too well that her conscience would never let her settle down in the lap of unashamed luxury when so many people were suffering in squalor. Once again, her thoughts were drawn to the people she had left behind in Africa and she found herself struggling, caught between these two so very different worlds.
Carpe diem, she told herself. Enjoy the moment, because sooner or later these wonderful days are bound to come to an end.
Chapter 24
The following day she had a long lie-in to help get her ready for night duty starting that evening. David had gone off at the crack of dawn for his early flight and she had been left with time to reflect on the whirlwind that had carried her away in the past forty-eight hours. Suddenly her whole life had changed for the better. She now had a wonderful man in her life – albeit maybe just temporarily – and a permanent smile on her face. Compared to those final days in Mabenta, this really was a dream come true. Her escape to Tuscany had turned into something far, far better than she could ever have imagined.
That afternoon she met up with Daniela for tea before going to the clinic to start her night shift. When she passed on her amazing news, Daniela beamed.
‘I’ve been feeling awful about the fact that it was my newspaper, and my colleague, who revealed your tennis player’s whereabouts. I’m just delighted it’s worked out so well for him and for you. Tommy’s been avoiding me since the article came out and he knows I’m going to give him a real telling-off. Even if we’re journalists, we need some sense of morality.’
Lucy patted her hand. ‘Don’t waste your breath, Danni. Even David says it needed to happen so he could get on with his life.’
‘Are you seeing him tonight?’
‘No, he’s on his way to Boston for a few days. He went off this morning. I’m going to be working nights until Saturday and then he’ll be back and I’ll see him again. And once he’s back, I’d really like to have you and Pietro round for dinner one night so you can meet him. Anyway, how are you? How’s the bump?’
‘I’m doing well. To be honest, I just want to get on with it now and have the baby.’
‘Still no idea if it’s a boy or a girl?’ Pietro and Daniela had decided they didn’t want to know.
‘No. Just so long as it’s healthy. That’s all that counts. By the way, you know that next week’s the Palio, don’t
you?’
‘How could I forget? The local news has been full of it for days. This one’s the Palio dell’Assunta, seeing as it’s August, isn’t it? In this heat I’m happy to give it a miss. Now that I’m going to be a permanent resident here, there’ll be other opportunities to see it again. Are you going?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m feeling less and less sociable, and the idea of standing up for several hours in a crowded room really doesn’t appeal at all. The paper organises a party every year and I could get invites for you and David if you’d like to go along. It’s in an apartment overlooking the square and the view’s great.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. I remember Tommy telling me about that. I’d rather not meet him again because I might feel tempted to tip him out of the window.’
That evening at work, she met up with her friend Ahmed again, but there was no smile on his face tonight. She was quick to ask why. It soon transpired that his new girlfriend, Rahel, had a big problem.
‘She’s sick and she needs medical help, but it’s not easy to get.’
‘Can’t she just go along to the hospital in Siena?’
Ahmed shook his head morosely. ‘The problem is she’s an undocumented migrant. She has no right of residence in Italy and the authorities have been clamping down. I would hope they’d treat her at the hospital, but she might then find herself in trouble with the authorities as a result.’
Lucy made a quick decision. ‘I’ll take a look at her, Ahmed. What about after we finish our shift tomorrow morning? We could go together in my car.’
Ahmed’s girlfriend was living in a squat in the less salubrious part of the outskirts of town, not the sort of area the multitude of visitors to Siena ever saw. While Lucy parked between a burnt-out van and an old car with no wheels, resting on bricks, Ahmed climbed out and went across to a couple of men squatting in the early morning sunshine and spoke to them for a minute before returning.