The Unmarried Husband

by Cathy Williams

  Lucy showed her around the place, which was smaller though

  more comprehensive than Jessica had first thought, ending up at her bedroom—a small affair but with, at any rate, the virtue of being private—and then on to the art block, which Lucy had been saving for last.

  It was large and fairly meandering, and, with the guileless pride of the young, Lucy led Jessica, first stop, to the room where she took art classes.

  ‘I have no talent whatsoever,’ she announced honestly, gazing at the series of unidentifiable line drawings on one of the desks. ‘But it’s fun having a go.’

  Jessica picked up the thick paper and held it at different angles, bemused as to what it was supposed to represent. ‘Abstract,’ her daughter said helpfully. ‘We’re encouraged to let our feelings speak on paper.’

  ‘Right.’ Would it be offensive to ask what feelings these various lines represented? Jessica wondered.

  ‘But I seem to like drawing lines and angles. Hangover from being so good at maths,’ Lucy continued, reading her thoughts. Jessica smiled affectionately at the frowning, attractive, dark-haired teenager at her side. For the first time in ages she felt comfortable with her daughter, and it was a good feeling. When she next looked up, it was to see Mark and Anthony strolling towards them, and her heart did its usual thing— stopped beating for a couple of seconds—then restarted, but in overdrive. Or at least that was the way it seemed to feel. She could feel Lucy looking at her, and she casually smiled at the two approaching figures.

  ‘Where were you?’ Lucy asked Mark, who accepted the lack of pleasantries with a good-humoured grin. ‘We went back to the refectory, but you were gone. I still haven’t had my pudding.’

  ‘You ate three rolls an hour ago, Lucy. Aren’t you in danger of exploding?’ They grinned at one another, for all the world like two siblings who had no use for politeness. ‘Fancy something to eat, you two?’ She looked at Jessica and Anthony with a Mona Lisa type of smile. ‘Or does cafeteria food not meet with your high standards?’ This she addressed with raised eyebrows to Anthony, who tried to keep a straight face. ‘I think we’ll try something local in the nearest town,’ Anthony said, ignoring the question.

  ‘Will we?’ Jessica looked at him and cleared her throat. ‘We will. Mark tells me that you two have classes in an hour’s time. You might as well take yourselves off and—’ he glanced with amusement at Lucy ‘—eat to your heart’s content until then.’

  They sauntered off, and Jessica turned to Anthony and informed him that she wasn’t very hungry.

  ‘I lose my appetite when I’m feeling stressed,’ she said lamely. He had somehow worked his way into her life. Why bother denying it? These past few weeks had been hellishly difficult, and that was simply because she’d missed him. Now that circumstance had once more tossed them into the same boiling pot, it was useless to think that she could fight the attraction she had for him. The best she could hope to do was to minimise it. And that involved avoiding a quiet lunch with him at some local tavern.

  ‘Why should you still be feeling stressed?’ he asked her bluntly, and, without giving her much time to find an answer, he took her by the elbow and led her towards the front of the building.

  ‘You’ve tracked your daughter down and from the looks of it things haven’t gone too badly between you. So explain where these stress levels are coming from. I’m dying to know.’

  ‘Where are you taking me? I don’t like being frog-marched.’

  ‘In addition to which,’ he continued, exasperatingly ignoring her input, ‘you’re in a foreign country, and a particularly beautiful one at that. The weather is splendid and you must be starving.’

  ‘We don’t have a car. We can’t go anywhere.’ And you’re under no obligation to entertain me, she wanted to add. If you liked my company that much, how was it that you never tried to contact me? Not even a phone call? That thought stuck in her throat like a bitter stone, and it didn’t matter that she had expressly told him that she was not interested in what he had to offer. Did I even cross your busy mind once? she wanted to ask.

  ‘Taxis, exist, I believe. Contactable by telephone. Of which there most definitely are a few on this campus, including one at the reception area.’

  ‘In other words, you intend to get your own way.’

  ‘In other words.’ Their eyes met briefly and she felt faint. Where was her sharp tongue and independent spirit when she needed them? Just round the corner, she supposed, having a tea break.

  ‘Any objections?’ he persisted, and when she didn’t say anything he nodded with satisfaction.

  ‘Good.’

  She stifled all the petulant questions. What would have been the point of asking them? Apart from to reveal how vulnerable she was to him, how much, quite simply, he mattered. The moustached, middle-aged woman on the reception desk was obliging, Jessica noticed sourly, to the point of flirtatiousness. And Anthony, making the very most of his knowledge of Italian, was utterly charming in return. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ he said, turning around to her. ‘And she’s recommended a restaurant in the nearest village. Nothing fancy, of course. Simple home-cooked fare, and she ought to know. Her husband runs it.’ He grinned and she felt weakly, numbingly conscious of him.

  ‘Now that you’ve done your duty and accompanied me over, there’s really no need for you to remain, you know.’

  ‘Charming to the very last,’ he said coolly, and Jessica flushed in acknowledgement of the home truth. She didn’t trust herself to be open and friendly with him, though. In some part of her mind she felt that the only way to fight her attraction towards him was to outstretch both hands and keep him very firmly at a distance.

  ‘I’m only saying what’s on my mind.’

  ‘For which I’m deeply grateful.’ He didn’t look deeply grateful. He looked deeply turned off, and she had an insane desire to make excuses for her abruptness even though logic told her that she had nothing to apologise about. When it comes to love, she thought, any tactic in the world is acceptable, and that includes sidestepping courtesy. The thought, which flashed into her mind so quickly that she barely had time to capture it, made her freeze in sudden, breathless awareness.

  What did love have to do with anything? She felt faint as all the pieces of the puzzle began to fall neatly into place. Her reaction to him whenever he was around, the way he occupied her thoughts when he wasn’t, the way all her perspectives on herself and on her life had been changing ever since he’d appeared on the scene, the way his relationship with his son mattered to her. The thousand and one inconsistencies which she had blithely put down to unwanted sexual attraction. Sexual attraction was something she could handle, however difficult a beast it was for her. It was something she had not experienced for a lifetime, but she could at least acknowledge that she had finally fallen victim to it and that it was not incurable.

  Love, on the other hand, was a horse of a completely different colour.

  She closed her eyes and felt as though she was suffocating under the impact of the realisation.

  How on earth could this thing, this unwelcome emotion, creep up on her like this? It was hardly as though she was on the market, looking for romance. Just the opposite. She was terrified at the thought of it.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Anthony asked, which made her jump because her thoughts had been miles away. She made a big effort to gather herself together and present him with a smile that wasn’t a reflection of her chaotic mind. ‘Fine. Why shouldn’t I be?’ Had he seen anything on her face? Had he somehow short-circuited her brain and read what she had been thinking? She desperately hoped not. Loving him was bad enough, but for him to know would somehow be worse. He was staring at her, his eyes probing. When, she wondered, had sexual interest turned into that deeper, more hungry emotion? She thought of Fiona, poor Fiona. How many hearts had he unwittingly broken along the way? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? The very fact that he probably didn’t realise the devastating effect he could have on women made him far more l
ethal than any out-and-out cad. She met his stare blandly and smiled back. ‘I don’t recall passing through too many little villages on the way here,’ she said, snatching at the least perilous topic of conversation she could think of. ‘Where exactly is this restaurant?’

  He continued to look at her steadily and silently for a few seconds more, then he half nodded, as though mentally agreeing to let the matter of her sudden change of colour drop. ‘To the north of this place. We approached from the south. From what Caterina said...’

  ‘Caterina...?’

  ‘The Moustache. From what she said, this particular village is positively throbbing with activity, though I’m inclined to take that with a pinch of salt, considering the vested interest she has in sending us there.’

  ‘You mean her connection to this restaurant...?’ More than ever it was imperative to keep her voice light and the conversation innocuous. He was a master at reading invisible signals and body language. He could write a book on the subject.

  ‘And various other establishments. I gather she comes from a rather sprawling family.’

  Jessica smiled politely and thought of hundreds of lookalikes with moustaches and dark hair running all the businesses in the town. Spooky.

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t get the same taxi driver who brought us here,’ she said in a friendly enough voice, but not meeting his eyes.

  ‘He drove so slowly we’d be lucky if we made it there for breakfast tomorrow.’

  Anthony laughed, and when the taxi finally arrived he harked back to what she had said, making an appropriately amusing remark, but as soon as they were on their way he turned to face her, stretching his arm along the back of the seat so that his fingers could easily brush the nape of her neck. ‘What’s bugging you?’ he asked her averted profile.

  ‘Did I inadvertently overstep the off-limits sign?’ Jessica glanced quickly at him, unamused. ‘Why do you find it funny that I’m a private person?’

  ‘Did you hear me laughing?’

  ‘I didn’t need to. I could hear the amusement in your voice. I can’t help the way that I am.’

  ‘And perish the thought that I might ever want to change you,’ he said in a low voice which was neither serious nor jovial but somewhere disconcertingly in between.

  ‘I suppose,’ Jessica volunteered, simply because she wanted to edge away from the topic, ‘I feel a little silly at having rushed all the way out here like a protective mother hen, only to find Lucy well and fine and in control.’ A little truth, she thought, went a long way to successfully camouflaging the bigger, more worrying truth underneath.

  True, she did feel a little stupid over her decision to jump on the first plane and confront her daughter, but on the whole she was glad that she had done so. Glad that she had not remained in England, stewing and imagining the worst. This little episode, for what it was worth, had set her mind at rest, and had probably paved the way for a great deal more trust in what her daughter did.

  However, Anthony wasn’t to know that that wasn’t her main, consuming worry.

  ‘I’ve spent so long investing my life in Luce that it’s been a little difficult admitting to myself that it’s time to let go.’

  ‘Understandable.’

  ‘So there—my thoughts all laid out on the table.’

  ‘And very nicely arranged as well.’ Which made her glance sharply at him, but his expression was mild enough, and she decided that she was just imagining the scepticism in his voice. ‘What did you do with Mark when Lucy and I vanished?’ she asked.

  The taxi was making great headway. No dawdling on the road. This guy intended to make it to the village in record time, and Jessica couldn’t have thanked him enough. The sooner he got there, the sooner they ate, and the sooner they left. ‘Ah.’ He removed his arm and loosely linked his fingers together.

  ‘What kind of answer is ‘ah’?’ Freed from the discomfort of having her own motives queried, Jessica relaxed back in the seat and gave him her very fullest attention. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the countryside parting to accommodate the village, which was picturesque without trying. It was obvious that the place was no tourist stopover, and consequently there were no concessions to tourism. No fancy boutiques, no souvenir shops, no fast-food places. There were quite a few people around, though admittedly not many of them appeared to be doing anything of pressing urgency. In fact, most were enjoying the sun and doing absolutely nothing —small groups of weathered men and women, chatting about who knew what.

  ‘He seemed unreasonably pleased that I was taking an interest in what he was doing.’ He looked down, and Jessica noticed, with great tenderness, how his dark eye-lashes hid the expression in his eyes. ‘For which,’ he said, looking up and catching her by surprise so that she resumed her guarded, polite interest, ‘I have you to thank.’

  ‘I realise that it was none of my business’

  ‘I wasn’t being sarcastic,’ he interrupted, and a dull flush crept through his face. ‘Anyway, he showed me some of his work. It’s not what I can really understand, but it’s impressive. In its own way, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiled. The first smile of genuine warmth since she had seen him for the first time after all those weeks of silence.

  ‘I’m rather more comfortable with paintings that depict things that are recognisable, but I’m willing to admit that Mark’s work has a certain flair...’

  The taxi slowed in front of a restaurant which was doing a good job of trying to resemble a cafe, and Anthony edged away from the conversation with an expression of relief. She felt another wave of quite unnecessary tenderness sweep over her at this show of masculine vulnerability.

  She would have to watch herself, she knew. Now that she had admitted to herself what she felt for this man, it seemed as though her emotions were sabotaging her at every turn. Inside, the restaurant was busy and basic, and the proprietor flamboyantly friendly.

  ‘Perhaps we should have brought Lucy along here,’ Anthony whispered in her ear as they were led towards their table.

  ‘She might live to eat her words that the cafeteria at the campus wasn’t quite up to my standards.’

  ‘Lucy doesn’t mean...’

  ‘I know.’ He shot her a look of perfect comprehension. ‘She wants to shock.’

  ‘She doesn’t yet realise that maturity somehow makes it much harder to be shocked by anything.’

  ‘Maturity and an ability to read the newspapers.’

  They ordered from a limited menu, and then he leaned back and looked at her broodingly.

  ‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ he said finally.

  ‘What?’ She felt her stomach clench suddenly, and was keenly aware of how every small variation in the conversation, every tiny step into the unknown, could send her into a paroxysm of nerves.

  ‘Why don’t you take a few days off work and let me show you around Italy?’

  ‘You must be joking.’ She could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t, though. He meant every word of what he was saying.

  ‘I’m being perfectly serious. How long is it since you had a break? Somewhere abroad?’

  Jessica didn’t know quite what was going on, but every instinct in her body was telling her that she should be careful. The waiter brought them their plates of spit-barbecued chicken, pulses, bread and potatoes, along with a carafe of white wine, and she gave the food and drink a great deal of attention. ‘Well?’ He began eating, although his attention wasn’t on his food. It was focused entirely on her. He took a mouthful of wine and continued to search her face over the rim of the glass.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Jessica reached for her wineglass but found that her hand was trembling, so she quickly withdrew it and speared some food with her fork instead.

  ‘Why am I being ridiculous?’ No nerves there, she noticed. He plunged into his food with enthusiasm.

  ‘Because we hardly know one another...’

  ‘I’d say we know each other r
ather well...’

  ‘We’ve been through all this, Anthony. I thought I made it clear —I’m not interested in—’

  ‘I know what you’re not interested in,’ he cut in. ‘You might like to know that I’m not interested in a one-night-stand relationship with you either. Or a one-month stand, for that matter.’

  Jessica couldn’t help it. She felt her heart roll over inside her, and she had the dizzy sensation of being poised on the edge of a precipice. What was he saying? That he wanted a committed relationship with her? She could read nothing from his expression, but her mind somersaulted towards those meanings between the lines. Was he talking about love’? Was it possible that he felt the same way that she did? ‘We both have job commitments,’ she said weakly, gamely trying not to surrender to something she desperately wanted to hear.

  ‘I run the show. My commitments are ones that I lay down for myself. And I’m sure that your boss would oblige. After all, it’s not as though you’ve only been there for a few months.’

  ‘I know, but...’

  ‘But what?’ He closed his knife and fork and regarded her seriously.

  ‘I haven’t come prepared...’ She wasn’t refusing him. She knew that. She could hear the indecision in her voice, the wavering of someone who hoped to be persuaded. ‘We can sort that out.’

  ‘I don’t understand why you’re throwing this proposal at me,’ she said finally. Because you love me? It was what she wanted to hear. She yearned for the declaration. ‘Because I like you,’ Anthony said calmly, ‘I need a rest, and I suspect you do as well. We’re here; it seems almost too good an opportunity to pass up. What better way to see a bit of Italy than with a friend?’