by Lucy Gordon
‘Look,’ he said hastily, ‘take no notice-’
But before he could finish there was a sound from outside, and a man’s voice called, ‘Angel, where are you?’
Instantly Vittorio saw something come over her. She straightened up, adjusted her shoulders, and took a deep breath. Then, right there in front of him, she turned into someone else. Her eyes grew brighter, her mouth stretched into a calculated, dazzling smile. She was Angel again.
Then she was hurrying towards the front door, arms outstretched to meet the three men descending from the car. The first one, a great bear of a man, enveloped her in a hug, bawling, ‘Angel, my sweet!’
‘Mack, darling!’
Vittorio watched her embrace each of the three men one by one, laughing, teasing them, apparently overwhelmed with delight. If he hadn’t seen the transformation a moment ago, he would have believed every word of it. Now he could only see the strain behind each word and gesture.
He heard the beefy man say, ‘You really made them pay over the odds for this, so let’s make it a good one.’
Then Angel’s tinkling laugh, and the provocative words, ‘Well, a man ought to pay over the odds, and I always give good value.’
Mack gave a lecherous guffaw that made Vittorio want to knock him to the floor.
He wondered what she would say if she knew that he had volunteered to help out today, not to spy on her, but simply to be there if she needed him. She would probably laugh, he thought, exasperated with himself. It drove him wild that his hostility was constantly undermined by a mysterious urge to protect her.
When everyone had been installed in their rooms, there was wine and cakes. Then Angel began to show them around while the photographers inspected the house, seeking angles, setting up lights. Vittorio kept severely away from them.
Then the pictures began: Angel in the garden, flooded with bright sunlight, walking through the roses by the fountain, Angel the expert lemon-grower, indicating the terraces. From a high-up window in the house, Vittorio watched this at a distance.
When they returned they were still discussing lemons, and Mack was saying admiringly, ‘You’ve really become an expert in a short time.’
‘It’s not down to me,’ Angel disclaimed quickly. Seeing Vittorio crossing the hall, she said, ‘This is the real expert. I only know what Vittorio teaches me.’
‘Is that so?’ Mack said, advancing on Vittorio in a friendly spirit. ‘So, you’re the guy that Angel relies on?’
Vittorio gazed at him blankly. ‘Scusi?’
‘Angel says you know all about lemons.’
Mack spoke slowly, but it didn’t seem to help. Vittorio simply stared. After a moment he said in a carefully stupid voice, ‘Me no spikka da English.’
‘Cut that out,’ Angel muttered, half annoyed, half amused. ‘You “spikka da English” perfectly well when it suits you.’
Vittorio reverted to Italian to say, ‘But in the presence of your eminent friends my wits desert me. I am overwhelmed to meet such great people-’
‘Shut up!’ she said, trying to fight back her laughter. ‘Don’t play games with me or I’ll stamp on your foot.’
He grinned. ‘Scusi, signora. Me no spikka da English.’
‘Get lost.’
‘Si, signora.’ He gave her the grin of a conspirator and glided away before she could reply.
‘Angel, honey, can we have you over here?’
Angel sashayed back, giving Mack a wink and twisting her hips in a way that had the photographers begging for more. She felt strong and ready for anything. It made no sense that Vittorio could do this merely by grinning and sharing a joke with her, but then a lot about her response to this man didn’t make sense.
For dinner she changed into a black, figure-hugging evening gown, and descended slowly, stopping to pose every few steps. When Mack gallantly offered her his arm, she caught a look of faint surprise on his face.
‘I forgot, you’ve seen this one before, haven’t you?’
‘I admit I thought you’d have raided the couture establishments in Milan and Rome by now.’
‘At one time I would have done, but these days I’m just a simple country girl.’
‘That’s going to come as a great disappointment to your male admirers.’
‘There, and I thought it was me they loved, and not the trappings.’
Laughing, they went into the dining room, where Angel posed for more pictures as the perfect hostess of a sumptuous feast. Mack sat next to her, mentally taking notes, she was sure. He’d been interviewing her on and off all day, but she knew that the serious business was still to come. For what the magazine was paying, he’d made it clear he would expect more than platitudes.
Somewhere in the background she heard the house phone ring. After a moment, Vittorio came to find her.
‘There’s a man on the phone for you, padrona.’
‘Did you ask his name?’
‘No, padrona,’ he said quietly.
Puzzled, Angel went into the hall and took up the receiver. The called turned out to be Roy, one of Sam’s carers.
‘Sam asked me to call you right now,’ he said. ‘He’s feeling bright and on top of things.’
‘Wonderful!’
Then Sam’s voice, saying, ‘Hello, darling. How’s my girl?’
‘Sam,’ she said eagerly. ‘Oh, it’s wonderful to hear you. I miss you so much.’
‘I miss you too, darling. How do you like Italy?’
He even remembered that she was in Italy. The pleasure of finding his mind so clear made Angel laugh aloud.
‘It’s lovely here,’ she said. ‘But it’ll be even nicer when you’re here too.’
‘When am I coming?’
‘Not long now, darling, we’ll soon be together again.’
Vittorio, carrying things from the kitchen to the dining room, tried not to overhear, but the words seemed to stab him.
Mack was buzzing with eagerness when she returned.
‘Come on, tell. Who’s the man phoning you? A new lover? I thought you’d have been followed by hordes of lustful Italians by now. Can I tell my readers how you like Italian men?’
She gave a teasing laugh. ‘Mack, I promise you, Italian men are just like men the world over.’ She leaned close and whispered, ‘Very, very annoying.’
He chuckled, and the dangerous moment passed, but soon she knew she would have to confront the question of exactly how much she would tell him. How much could she bear to tell him?
Then she thought of the estate, peaceful and beautiful beneath the noonday sun. She thought of the lemons, gently ripening, ready for their moment of splendour when they would rescue the whole estate. She thought of the people who depended on her: Berta, the maids, the gardeners. She thought of Vittorio, bitter and awkward, but working selflessly to save the place he loved.
And she knew what she was going to say.
After dinner Angel took Mack into a small side room, which had once been used as a library, although most of the books had gone.
‘Let’s talk about Joe,’ he said. ‘How did you feel when he told you he’d found someone else?’
Angel managed a shrug. ‘Not really surprised. We’d been drifting apart for some time.’
‘Had you found another man?’
‘No, I never played around, so stop looking hopeful,’ she said with a hint of teasing.
‘Not one lover, hovering in the background?’
‘Not one. Give up.’
He gave a resigned sigh, and she thought she’d won this round, but he was preparing his bombshell.
‘Have you heard anything about Joe and Merry’s wedding?’ he asked with a casual air.
‘No, but our divorce became final last week, so I guess it’ll be soon.’
Mack grinned, reaching into a leather bag he was carrying, and whipping out a bunch of photos that he spread over the table in front of her. They showed a wedding. Joe Clannan grinned fatuously at his young bride, who resembled a
n overgrown meringue adorned with too much satin, too much lace, and too many diamonds.
‘They married two days ago,’ Mack said, watching her face closely. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘Why should I know? I don’t think they planned to invite me. Good luck to them.’
‘You can say that, even now you’ve seen what she’s wearing around her neck?’
Angel shrugged, trying to seem light-hearted. She’d been hoping Mack wouldn’t make the connection.
‘Angel, c’mon, this is me, Mack. I did the first ever interview you gave after you married this man eight years ago, and you showed me the necklace he’d just given you. You told me what a pretty speech he made about “his special lady”, how he’d dreamed of seeing it about your neck.’
Tell them a good tale, darling, Joe had said. I must have said something charming and romantic, but you fill in the details.
‘Now it’s around another woman’s neck,’ Mack continued remorselessly. ‘Don’t try to pretend it isn’t the same one.’
‘OK, it’s the same one. Joe wanted it back and I agreed as part of our divorce settlement.’
‘Did he leave you with any jewellery at all?’ Mack asked shrewdly.
‘You don’t understand. This is my new life. I don’t need all those baubles. He’s welcome to them.’ She gave a faint, bored yawn. ‘To be honest, I was getting rather tired of that life. It looks fun from the outside-clothes, money, jewels, parties-but then you start to realise you’re on a treadmill. The same party seems to come round again and again.
‘I can remember one night when I got confused and thanked someone for a wonderful evening, thinking she was the hostess. Actually I’d been to a party at her house the previous week. The real hostess was someone I’d been talking to several minutes before, and I have a horrible feeling that I said it was a dull evening.’
Mack laughed and urged her on. ‘So the whole life was beginning to pall?’
‘Yes, it was. I found I wanted something more, something I was never going to find under the glittering lights.’
‘Can you remember when this feeling started?’
Angel took a deep breath. She’d known this moment would come, and now there was no turning back.
‘Yes, it started when I lost my baby,’ she said simply.
Mack’s face showed his amazement. This was one story that had never got out. Mercifully, he had the tact to keep silent while she went on,
‘It happened in the third month. I wanted a baby with all my heart, and, when I lost it, I was devastated. Nothing was the same after that. I was a different person and Joe-well, as I say, we began to drift apart.’
Once she’d sworn never to give such an interview, and now it hurt as much as she’d known it would. But it was the only way to earn enough to protect those who relied on her. And, as she went on talking, she had the comforting feeling that she was fighting off enemies, watching them retreat.
Mack pressed for more. He would have liked her to bad-mouth Joe, but she saw what he was up to and shook her head.
‘I’ve already given you a real exclusive,’ she said. ‘I’ve filled my part of the bargain.’
‘Sure, you’ve really earned your money, I’ll give you that. But Joe doesn’t come out of it well-’
‘Not through anything I’ve said,’ she interrupted him firmly. ‘Now, hush up, Mack, and I’ll tell you something else. I didn’t want anyone to know that I’d miscarried, so three days later I did a TV show.’
His eyes lit up. ‘The show must go on, huh? That was very brave.’
‘Not really, because I was living in a trance, and between doing a show, or telling people the reason why not, it was easier to do the show.’
‘But didn’t your husband-?’
‘Mack, it was my decision, nothing to do with Joe. I’m my own woman, you know. Always was, always will be.’
‘I reckon there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye-oh, thanks, yes, I will have another whisky.’
This last was addressed to Vittorio, hovering like a shadow with the decanter. Angel was startled. She hadn’t known he was there.
He refilled Mack’s glass before asking,
‘Something for you, signora?’ He leaned closer to her to ask, ‘A cup of tea?’
‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ she said at once, wondering what instinct had led him to the perfect conclusion. It was almost as though he were inside her head.
And as he turned to leave Angel almost thought she felt a comforting hand on her shoulder. But it was so light that she might have imagined it.
When the tea arrived it was just how she liked it, and it gave her the energy to carry on. In the end it was Mack who yawned.
‘I was up at four this morning,’ he said. ‘Can we finish this tomorrow?’
‘Sure.’
In the hall she said goodnight to him and the photographers, then returned to the kitchen to thank Berta for the meal.
‘And for the tea,’ she said. ‘It was perfect.’
‘As good as the English?’ Berta asked slyly.
‘Better than the English.’ They laughed and Angel looked around. ‘Where’s Vittorio?’
‘He left, padrona. But he will be here tomorrow. He said so.’
‘That’s lovely.’
It was absurd to feel disappointed, but she’d been sure he would wait and talk to her. There was nothing to do but go to bed and lie there in the darkness, feeling lonely, until she fell asleep and her dreams were haunted by the sound of fading footsteps.
CHAPTER SIX
I N THE morning Angel rose, telling herself that this would be over soon. Not long to go now, just a few more hours.
More pictures, outside, by the railings, looking down onto the long drop. She was co-operative, suggesting new poses, making the photo session last as long as possible. As she posed she glanced around for Vittorio, but there was no sign of him. He would be at the house, she told herself.
But, when they returned indoors, he wasn’t there.
The cameramen were packing up and there was no way of putting Mack off any longer.
‘Let’s talk about Gavin Alford.’
‘Gavin who?’
‘The lad who wrote that tell-all piece about you. Or perhaps you didn’t see it?’
‘Yes, I saw it, but I promise you there was very little “all” to tell. We were young, we dated, we broke up.’
‘Because of Joe’s money?’
Angel managed a tinkling laugh. ‘Good heavens, no. Gavin was history by then. Not that he was ever anything much. He meant well, but his conversation was rather limited.’
Remembering Gavin’s well-paid lies, she reckoned she could allow herself that little bit of revenge.
It was nearly over. Soon she would be free of them.
But Mack had one final shot.
‘Your baby-what sort of plans did you have? Had you chosen any names yet?’
Out of sight Angel clenched her hands, but there was no sign of strain in her voice as she spoke. ‘I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl and it was too soon to think of names…’
That wasn’t true. She’d made lists of names, both male and female, but Joe hadn’t been interested. He’d simply refused to discuss their child, either when she had been carrying it or after she’d lost it.
But she wouldn’t say that. Instead, she talked around the subject for ten minutes, and Mack seemed satisfied.
At last it was over. They were making moves toward the front door.
But then someone said, ‘Hey, did you hear…?’ and they stopped again, prolonging the farewell by a few more excruciating minutes.
‘Yes,’ Angel heard herself saying. ‘Isn’t that fascinating? Yes-yes-’
If they didn’t go soon she thought she would start to scream.
Then she heard Vittorio’s voice, breaking into the inanities.
‘Let me help you with your bags, signore.’
She hadn’t known he was there. It was as though
he’d materialised by a miracle. Before anyone could speak, he had picked up two heavy bags and strode out of the front door to place them beside the van. He came back, seized two more and strode out with them. The message was unmistakable: go!
Such was the intimidating power of his presence that everyone obeyed him, almost slinking out, as though awed by his authority. Angel followed them out to say more polite farewells, and felt Vittorio’s hand under her elbow.
As the door of the van slammed and the crew leaned out of windows, waving, calling, Vittorio murmured in her ear, ‘Don’t give in now. Just a few more moments, and they’ll be gone.’
So he understood. She’d thought he was enraged by their presence, to the point of throwing them out. But now she knew he’d done it for her. The hand under her elbow grew firmer, steadying her, offering strength.
The engine started, the van turned, and then it was moving away from them. It was mercifully over.
‘All right?’ Vittorio asked quietly.
‘I am now.’
He turned her gently and led her back into the house, his arm about her waist. He didn’t move it until she was sitting on the sofa, and then he took her hands in his.
‘Why do you do this to yourself?’ he demanded. ‘Why did you tell him all that?’
‘You heard?’
‘Yes, I was listening. Perhaps it was wrong of me, but now I understand many things about you, so I can’t be sorry I did it. But you didn’t have to tell him.’
‘I did,’ she said, turning her hands slightly so that she could clasp his in return. ‘You don’t know-you don’t know-’
‘No, I don’t know anything about you, do I? I keep thinking I do, but there’s always another mystery. Don’t keep things to yourself.’
She tried to pull herself together. ‘I’m all right-honestly, I’m all right.’
‘That is a lie,’ he said simply. ‘You’re breaking apart. You need to talk to a friend. If not me then-someone else.’
‘If not you then nobody,’ she said huskily. ‘Funny isn’t it-that you should be the best friend I have?’