by Lucy Gordon
‘Rinaldo? Listen, stop worrying, Alex is fine. It’s happening very fast, so we need an ambulance here quickly. Can you direct them?’
His voice reached her, tense and strained. ‘Yes, I know where you are now.’
‘Good, I’ll hold the fort until they get here.’
Her voice sounded brisker and more authoritative than she felt, but she had to keep everyone calm. That way she just might manage to stay calm herself.
‘The ambulance will be here soon,’ she told Alex when she’d hung up.
Alex’s face was contorted. ‘No time-any minute-’
‘Please Alex, try to-’
Try to what? Stop the baby being born? It was coming at any moment. They both knew that.
‘It’s all right,’ Alex murmured. ‘As long as you’re here-’
This was no time to be scared.
‘Fine,’ Laura said, sounding brisk again. ‘And I am here, so it’s going to be all right.’
She pulled off her light linen jacket, setting it aside for the baby. Carefully she assisted Alex to lie length-ways along the back seat. Inwardly she prayed for the ambulance to hurry. Outwardly she smiled.
‘You won’t forget?’ Alex murmured. ‘If anything happens-’
‘Now, that’s enough,’ Laura interrupted her robustly. ‘Nothing’s going to happen except that you’re going to have a healthy baby, and you’re going to have it a lot faster than most mothers do, I promise you. Ow!’
The yell was drawn from her by the sudden tightening of Alex’s hand on her own, almost crushing her with its power.
‘Go with it!’ she said, wincing. ‘And the next one. Come on-come on-Alex, everything’s fine. I can see the head. It’s lying the right way round. Not a breech birth.’
Even through the pain that swamped her Alex managed a smile of relief. Ten minutes later the child emerged easily into Laura’s hands.
‘It’s a girl,’ she said, wrapping the infant hastily in her linen jacket.
Alex was looking in her baby’s face with passionate fondness, but she glanced up at Laura.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Without you-’
Laura found that her eyes were suddenly blurred. She brushed the tears aside, and when she looked up again she could see another car through the rear window.
‘It’s Rinaldo and Gino,’ she said.
She got out and went towards them as Rinaldo slammed on his brakes and leapt out, his face distraught.
‘For God’s sake!’ he shouted.
‘No panic! The baby’s born safely. Go and see.’
He rushed past her into the car.
‘Are you all right?’ Gino asked, looking at her anxiously.
‘Yes, and Alex is going to be fine when she gets into hospital. It’s a girl, perfect as far as I could see.’ She gave a slightly hysterical laugh. ‘There was no breech birth. Alex was worrying about nothing. So was Rinaldo.’
‘Worrying about nothing?’ he asked. ‘When the birth happened so fast and without warning? Suppose she’d been alone out here when it happened? But for you there might have been a tragedy.’
That startled her.
‘Well-yes-I didn’t think. Anyway it’s all over now.’
He regarded her fondly. ‘Is that all you have to say about being a heroine?’
‘The most scared heroine in history. I shall be glad when that ambulance-oh, thank goodness, there it is!’
They went to the car, whose door was standing open. Rinaldo was in the back seat with his wife and daughter. His head was bowed over the infant, concealing his face, and it took Laura a moment to realise that he was sobbing violently.
Alex had one arm around her child. The other hand was stroking her husband’s head. For just a brief moment she glanced up and her eyes met Laura’s, and the two women exchanged a smile of total understanding.
CHAPTER TWELVE
T HAT night the family, minus Alex, celebrated with the supper Nikki had prepared. It was pronounced a triumph, and Nikki, fired with culinary genius, began making plans for the welcome home feast for when Alex returned with baby Laura.
There had never been any doubt about the name. The story of the birth had spread all over Belluna and now, wherever she went, she was greeted with cheers, and even applause.
She had become part of Belluna. If everyone’s reaction hadn’t told her, the naming of her new niece would have done. She had earned their respect, and was no longer an outsider, watching from the sidelines as her fate was decided.
As Alex had always known would happen, Rinaldo’s grouchiness vanished when he was no longer afraid for his wife’s safety. He doted on his new daughter, and openly treated his sister-in-law as a heroine.
‘The men of this family are so soft-hearted,’ Alex said to Laura, smiling, one evening when she had put the baby to bed. ‘When I was pregnant Rinaldo used to ask me a thousand questions to see if I was all right. You heard him. Now he asks a thousand questions to see if little Laura is all right. I’m really becoming sidelined.’
‘Oh, yeah!’ Laura said cynically, and Alex laughed. She glowed with the confidence of knowing where she belonged with her child, her man, her place in the world. It was the thing Laura most envied her.
One evening, as they were putting the baby to bed, Laura said, ‘Alex, do you realise that you don’t need us any more?’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘Everything’s going well for you. The harvest was a record, the danger’s over-’
It wasn’t entirely a surprise when Alex became a little vague and self-conscious.
‘Actually-’ she began.
Laura smiled. ‘Go on.’
‘There was a little more to it than that. Even without the baby, Rinaldo and I wanted Gino to come back and see us as we are now, married and loving each other, a true family. Otherwise in his mind we’d have stayed frozen in time, as we were on the day he left, and that would have been bad for him, for all of us.
‘Rinaldo needs his brother. Little Laura needs her uncle, and me-well, I suppose I need to know that I didn’t do him any permanent harm.
‘This last year Rinaldo and I have been so happy, but there’s always been a shadow spoiling it, the fear that he might never be happy again.’
She looked hopefully at Laura, who nodded but stayed silent.
‘Laura, we so much want you all to stay,’ Alex said on a note of pleading. ‘Belluna is Gino’s home, his birthright. I don’t think he can really settle anywhere else. But maybe I’m wrong. I can see he’s changed this last year. It’s not just that he’s older. He’s more thoughtful. He’s found another life with you, and maybe he doesn’t need this one any more.’
‘No,’ Laura said at once. ‘You’re not wrong. I’ve been thinking the same thing. Before your letter arrived I told him he should come back here. I was so afraid that he’d sell up, then discover too late that it had been a terrible mistake.’
‘Ah, you understand him. I thought you would. You wouldn’t let him make a really bad mistake.’
‘You’re very kind,’ Laura said wryly, ‘but our marriage isn’t-as you think. Did he tell you that I proposed to him?’
‘No,’ Alex said, looking at her strangely. ‘I know that Nikki was a part of your decision, but not that you actually made the proposal. But so what?’ She gave a very Italian shrug. ‘Non è importante.’
‘Of course it’s important,’ Laura said, astonished. ‘It’s the wrong way around.’
Alex shrugged again. ‘Marriages happen as they happen. My own marriage was delayed because Rinaldo wouldn’t say he loved me until the harvest was in, and he could pay off the mortgage. Have you ever heard anything so absurd? Then, of course, he got impatient and harvested the grapes too soon, so they weren’t worth so much. Honestly, the foolishness of men!’
‘But I asked Gino to marry me because Nikki wanted him to be her father.’
‘And that’s the only reason? You didn’t love him? Or have you only come to love h
im since? You’re not going to deny that you do love him, are you?’
‘No,’ Laura said, smiling and shaking her head. ‘Of course I love him. How could any woman help loving him? Oh, sorry-I shouldn’t have said that?’
Alex laughed. ‘It’s all right, I agree with you. I love him dearly. He’s very lovable. But it’s not the kind of love I share with Rinaldo. That comes from another world. Gino is like my younger brother. In fact, he is my younger brother now.’
‘That’s how I saw him,’ Laura mused. ‘Or thought I did. But for me it didn’t work. I think I was in love with him then, although I didn’t know it. By the time I admitted it to myself we were already married, and now I’ll never know how he really feels about me.’
‘You never talk about it?’
‘What is there to talk about?’ Laura asked simply. ‘If you marry without saying you love each other, the subject somehow never comes up again.’
‘And I suppose he didn’t tell you what he said in his letter to Rinaldo?’
‘No.’
‘I think perhaps you ought to know.’ Alex reached into a drawer and pulled out a sheet of blue paper, that Laura recognised as her own. But when she held it out Laura shook her head as soon as she saw the words.
‘I can’t read Italian. And besides-’ she struggled with temptation ‘-should I read Gino’s letter if he doesn’t want me to?’
‘Of course you should,’ Alex said robustly. ‘I’ve no patience with that way of thinking. How would the world ever get by if nobody ever did anything they shouldn’t? I’ll translate for you.’
Laura gave up. In truth she was longing to know what Gino had said about her.
“‘Now I have something to tell you,”’ Alex read, translating as she went. “‘The two of you always said that I would find someone of my own, who would be to me what you are to each other. I didn’t believe you, but it’s happened. Her name is Laura, and if she knew I’d described her in such a way she’d be surprised, and perhaps angry with me. We married a few weeks ago, and they’ve been the happiest weeks of my life, even though I know I’m only second-best to her. The fact is that Laura only married me for the sake of her daughter Nikki, a lovely child, who has adopted me as her father. Laura’s actually in love with another man, but he insulted Nikki so she turned her back on him, and made do with me instead.”’
Laura turned away to hide the emotion on her face. Even to Alex she could not reveal what it did to her to hear what she meant to Gino like this, at a distance.
Second-best? Made do with him? If only he knew!
Alex was still reading.
“‘Bit by bit we’re forming what I hope and believe is a happy marriage, although it may be some time before she accepts me completely. I can be patient, however long it takes, for she is worth waiting for. All my life, if necessary.”’
Alex lowered the letter and looked at Laura.
‘Is he right?’ she asked. ‘Are you in love with another man?’
‘No, of course not. Steve was just-’ Laura made a helpless gesture ‘-we went out for a while, and I would have married him for security. After he’d gone I found I didn’t mind.’
‘Did you ever tell Gino that you don’t mourn this man?’
‘No, we don’t talk about feelings. When I proposed I told him he could have all the freedom he wanted, even girlfriends, as long as he was a good father to Nikki.’
‘Good heavens!’ Alex began to laugh. ‘And you’re surprised that the poor man is confused? I don’t wonder he doesn’t discuss feelings with you. You’ve got him walking on hot coals. He still thinks you’re doing everything for your child.
‘Mind you,’ she added, turning fondly to the cradle, ‘I understand that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this little one. I think Gino would understand as well, because he has a father’s heart.’
She gave Laura a special smile. ‘Have you told him?’
‘I-no. I wasn’t sure myself until recently. I’m waiting for the right moment, but I’m not sure when that will ever be. I was hoping for some sign that he loved me-’
‘And you think you haven’t had it? What do you think that letter was all about?’
‘Yes, he implies it in a roundabout sort of way, but he never comes right out and mentions love.’
‘Perhaps that’s hard for him,’ Alex said shrewdly. ‘The last time he told a woman he loved her it was here, at Belluna, in front of a crowd. He went down on one knee and told her of his love. And when he’d done that, she rejected him and married his brother.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘I should think that declaring love to a woman is the most difficult thing in the world for him, even if he were sure of her feelings. And he isn’t sure about yours at all.’
‘I should have simply told him,’ Laura said, nodding as understanding came to her.
‘So, it’s time to put it right,’ Alex said firmly. ‘You’ll have to try to forgive me, but I’m going to interfere in your life again. I’m afraid I’m just one of nature’s “fixers”.’
Laura regarded her sister-in-law and a slow smile spread over her face.
‘What did you have in mind?’ she asked.
Gino spent the day in Florence attending a meeting of local grape growers. The light was dying as he returned home in the early evening.
‘Gino.’
As he entered the house he looked around for Laura, but it was Alex’s soft voice that reached him from halfway up the stairs.
‘Where’s Laura?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Will you do me a favour?’
‘Of course. Just let me see Laura first.’
‘I think she’s out.’
‘Think? Don’t you know? Is she driving around alone? It’s getting dark.’
‘Look for her later. I need you to go over there,’ she pointed to the house facing them on the far side of the valley. ‘I was there today and I left my bag. Please Gino.’
He was too good-natured to refuse her, but he would gladly have done without this.
‘Fine, I’ll go, but I wish I knew where Laura was. I need to talk to her.’
‘I can’t think why,’ Alex said with a touch of irony. ‘You never seem to say anything to the purpose.’
Something strange in her manner got through to him.
‘Alex, what’s going on?’
‘Something that should have been “going on” before. You ought to have told Laura long ago that you loved her, but since you lost your nerve I did it for you.’
‘You what?’
‘I told her how much you loved her. She didn’t believe me at first, so I read her your letter.’
‘Alex, you wouldn’t dare!’
‘My dear boy, I’d have done anything to stop you wandering around, treading on eggshells. Gino, it was all nonsense about that other man. She never loved him. She said so. She said a lot of other things too, but she’ll have to tell you herself. I’ve given you a start. The rest is up to you.’
Gino had come halfway up the stairs to her, his face a mixture of shock and wild hope. Now he turned to descend, then thought better of it and took the last few stairs in a leap.
‘Alex,’ he said, ‘Alex, my dear, dear sister!’
She kissed him. ‘Go on with you.’
‘But where can I find her?’
‘I meant go and get my bag.’
‘Yes, right.’
He went back down the stairs and out into the car. Rinaldo, who’d been watching from a doorway, mounted the stairs to his wife, his eyes warm as they rested on her.
‘What are you up to?’ he asked, suspicious and tender at the same time.
‘Up to? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean that I saw your bag ten minutes ago.’
‘Did you?’ she said vaguely. ‘You must have imagined that.’
‘No, I didn’t imagine it. And I repeat, amor mio, what are you up to?’
Alex smiled.
‘I just thou
ght that after what Laura did for us, it’s time we did something for her.’
Gino normally regarded himself as a man who was quick on the uptake, but he was within a couple of hundred yards of the house before it dawned on him that he’d been set up.
He stopped the car and sat there quietly, his eyes on the building, rearing up in the fast-gathering gloom. As he watched he saw a small light in one of the windows, as though someone had put on a lamp.
If you were superstitious, you might think that the ghost walked. Or, if you were a man in love, you might think that someone was waiting for you, impatient because you’d taken so long.
For a long time he hadn’t thought of himself as being in love with Laura, because their relationship had come about so strangely that they had missed out the romantic, mysterious stage.
Or perhaps he hadn’t wanted to admit the truth to himself.
But if you desired a woman so powerfully that her every movement was a delight and you woke up thinking of last night’s lovemaking, and spent the rest of the day looking forward to the next night-and if, in addition, you were moved by the longing to take all her troubles from her, so that the knowledge of her defencelessness could make your bones melt in your body-well, did you call that love?
And if, in your stubbornness and pride, and perhaps cowardice, you still refused to call it love, what else could you possibly find to call it?
Suddenly something came back to him: the night he’d returned home to the farm and found Alex in Rinaldo’s bed, both of them asleep. Rinaldo had rested against her breast, in the circle of her arms.
In the past Gino had flinched from that picture, but this time he looked at it head-on, and understood its true meaning for the first time.
Rinaldo had lain against her like a man seeking refuge, and there had been protectiveness in the way her arms curved about him, enfolding him in a circle of safety.
Rinaldo, the powerful, the harsh, the dominant, had turned to Alex because she was a strong woman, and offered him a refuge. Beneath the rough outer shell he was defenceless in ways only she had divined.
And he himself-Gino had only just understood-was precisely the opposite. His laughing, easy manner had always fooled people into thinking him boyish and unreliable. But, in truth, he was the stronger man.