I listened attentively, but Alexander gave away very little about himself outside his professional life and did not mention the gone-away wife. He didn’t say where he and Jamie had been for the past week or so either, nor did he elaborate on the ‘business’ to which he’d had to attend. The less he said, the more I wanted to know. I had ordered spaghetti alla Norma. The tomato and aubergine sauce was peppery and delicious, but it went cold on my plate because my attention was with Alexander. Waiting staff moved around us like ghosts, bringing food, pouring wine, clearing dishes. The other guests faded into the evening, the murmurs of their conversations dissolving into the night air. It felt as if we were on our own little island at the table. May dabbed her lips with her serviette and undid the button on her trousers. The top of her arm was wide, cream-coloured. I rested my face against her shoulder and felt safe in the talcum and vanilla scent of her. From that pure place I looked across the table to the darkness that was Alexander. He swallowed his wine and sliced his calf’s liver. He ate his meat before his vegetables, enjoying it like a true carnivore. He must have sensed me watching him, because he looked over.
‘What about you, Sarah? What brought you here?’ he asked as he wiped his plate with a piece of bread.
This time, when he said my name out loud, I jumped.
I’d been asked this question several times in Sicily and thought I’d become immune to it, only now my cheeks burned hot. May stepped in to explain, as she always did. ‘I invited Sarah to join us, to keep me company while Neil was busy working,’ she said. ‘I know how lucky I am to come to these lovely places with my husband, but it can get awfully lonely for me, being on my own all the time.’
Alexander nodded.
I was grateful to my sister, but felt compelled to put the record straight. I wanted to be honest with Alexander, even though the truth was awkward.
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘my partner has been having an affair with a friend of mine, and May and Neil went to a lot of trouble to arrange for me to come out here for a break, so I could get away from them both.’
My voice sounded strange, brittle and panicky. May tensed. Across the table I saw Neil’s smile fade into an expression of discomfort. Had I spoken too loudly? Had I said too much?
‘Sarah’ – May whispered so quietly that the word was really just a breath in my ear – ‘don’t …’
I pretended I hadn’t heard her and smiled brightly to show that I had not said those things because I wanted, or expected, sympathy. I took a good drink of wine and exhaled, a little shakily.
‘Oh.’ Alexander gave no indication of being either surprised or sympathetic. ‘So you’re here to decide whether to swallow your pride?’
He looked at me. I saw the waxing and waning flame of the candle reflected in his eyes.
‘Nothing’s decided yet,’ said May. ‘Sarah needs time to think.’
I wound my serviette round my fingers.
‘You can’t go back,’ Alexander said. He was looking directly into my eyes. ‘When something like that happens, you should never go back.’
The waiter came to take our plates and May turned the conversation to less controversial matters. I stayed silent. I sipped my wine. I thought about what Alexander had said.
Until that moment, there on the restaurant terrace of the little Sicilian seaside hotel, I had not seriously considered leaving Laurie for good. I hadn’t seen it as an option and I was certain he hadn’t either. I’d assumed, as everyone else assumed, that there would be an awkward few months of reconciliation culminating in some kind of reordering of our lives. Laurie would make some grand gesture. Perhaps we would marry or move house; perhaps we would do what everyone said we should do and try for another child to help us move on from the one we had lost. None of these alternatives cheered me. The future with Laurie was like a hill I was too exhausted to climb.
But now I realized there was another option. Alexander had shown me. Leaving was easy; I had already left. So long as I did not go back, I would not even have to endure a sad and painful breaking-up conversation with Laurie or another tearful scene with Rosita. If I stayed away, there would be no possibility of my succumbing to their entreaties or worrying about the years that were already behind us having been wasted time. My emotions tipped like a seesaw suddenly weighted on the other side, the heavy end hitting the ground with a thump.
I felt a rush of adrenaline, a shocking, pure thrill like the sensation of jumping into cold water. I had been liberated. There was no decision to be made. I was free.
I finished my wine and held my glass out to Neil. He half-filled it.
‘Steady on,’ said May. ‘Don’t forget we have to be up early to catch the bus.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Alexander.
‘Taormina. It’s a hotel excursion.’
‘I’ve heard the amphitheatre is incredible.’
‘It’s a must-see,’ said Neil. ‘They shot some daybreak scenes up there. It’s stunning.’
‘We have to make the most of our time,’ said May. ‘We won’t be here much longer. We’ve been so lazy, we’ve been here for weeks and haven’t done anything cultural, and now we’re having to pack everything we want to see into the last few days.’
‘It’s always the way,’ said Alexander.
He checked his watch. The backs of his hands and his forearms were covered in dark hair. His clothes were baggy on him. He must have lost weight recently. He looked down at his sleeping child. Jamie’s pale hair stuck up and his eyes flickered beneath their lids. I felt a pang of something deep and tender: he needed someone to keep him company when his father was doing business, somebody to make sure he ate regularly and slept when he needed to sleep. The maternal urge I felt towards the little boy made me deeply uncomfortable. I longed to touch him, to pick him up and hold him and comfort him, but he wasn’t mine to hold. I had no child to hold and there was no way, for me, to relieve the tug I felt towards Jamie. He had a mother of his own, even if she wasn’t there with him. He was none of my business. I drank my wine as if it were water, hoping it would anaesthetize me.
Alexander yawned. ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he said, ‘but it’s time I put my son to bed.’
‘Stay and have some more wine,’ I said, reaching across the table for the bottle. I didn’t want him to take Jamie away.
Neil said: ‘We normally finish with a Limoncello as a digestif. You’d be most welcome …’
Alexander shook his head. He took a number of notes out of his wallet and put them on the table. May and Neil made a token protest, but he waved it away.
‘Thank you, all,’ he said. ‘It was a very pleasant evening.’
He stood up, and as he did so he rested his hand on the bare skin of my upper arm and squeezed. He touched me for a moment; it was merely a ‘goodbye’ less formal than a handshake, less intimate than a kiss, and perhaps it was also a small gesture of solidarity. Either way, it moved something in me. It was only a tiny movement, like a leaf falling to the ground, but it was the first time in months that I felt myself relax a little. My body softened as if something hard and solid had been released from inside, and with the exorcism came a sense of relief. I wanted to sigh and lean forward and rest my head in my arms. I smiled up at Alexander.
‘Good night,’ I said softly.
Alexander took the child in his arms, a bundle of skinny limbs, cropped hair and shoes that seemed far too big for his ankles, and he said good night.
I watched him cross the garden and the hotel foyer, Jamie’s hand swinging like a flower in the wind beside his father’s thigh. The maître d’ opened the glass door into the hotel and Alexander passed through with a nod of thanks. I watched the light of the lift enclose them and the doors close behind them.
May topped up our glasses and then put the empty bottle upside down in the cooler. We were quiet for a few moments.
Then May said: ‘Poor little lad. He should’ve been tucked up hours ago.’
‘He’ll
be OK,’ Neil said. ‘He’ll be right as rain in the morning.’
He scraped some semi-molten wax from the base of the bottle that held the candle with his fingernail and moulded it between his fingers.
‘Alexander seems a decent sort,’ he said.
May picked up her cardigan and pulled it around her shoulders.
‘Didn’t you think it was a bit awkward when Jamie said those things about his mother leaving? I didn’t know what to say.’
‘I expect it was Grandma Whatever-her-name-was putting ideas into his head,’ said Neil. ‘Some people always have to find someone else to blame.’
May nodded. She glanced at me and glanced away again.
‘It’s a shame when families break up like that. Especially when there are little ones involved.’
‘Perhaps it’ll sort itself out in time,’ said Neil.
‘Perhaps. He didn’t want to talk about the wife though, did he?’
‘Maybe he’s been so hurt by her he doesn’t feel he can talk about her,’ I suggested.
‘Well, that’s a possibility, certainly,’ Neil said.
‘Definitely,’ said May.
There was silence again. It felt as if our little private table-island were adrift, miles from anywhere.
May pulled her cardigan tighter across her chest.
‘It’s a bit cooler tonight,’ she said. ‘Do you think the weather’s turning?’
‘Oh, I doubt it,’ said Neil.
We all watched the candle flicker and die in the slightest of breezes and, as it did so, a chill ran through me.
‘Ooh,’ said May, giving me a little hug. ‘I felt that. Did somebody just walk on your grave?’
CHAPTER SIX
I WAS UP early the next morning and in the pool by 7 a.m. Each time I reached the far end I promised myself that, when I turned, Alexander would be there, watching, but he wasn’t. There was no sign of either him or Jamie; only one of the gardeners was out, cleaning the paths. After thirty lengths I gave up and went back to my room to shower, and then May and I had a good breakfast of bread, cheese, fruit and coffee before queuing up in the foyer for the tour. Next to the volcanic Mount Etna, Taormina was the most famous attraction on that side of Sicily.
May was chatty; I was tired. I hadn’t slept well. My hair was still damp when we climbed aboard the minibus. Our driver, who was called Salvatore, took us in and then out of Siracusa on a long, straight road through some forgettable countryside, reclaimed marshland and then past massive factories and chemical works, with Etna gradually dominating more of the skyline ahead of us. I closed my eyes and drifted for a while. I had a dream I’d had ever since the baby was born. I was in the playground, at primary school. I was eight or nine years old and wearing a grey tunic and a polo shirt that was itchy under the armpits and short white socks with brown sandals and I was skipping, jumping over a long rope that was being turned by two of my friends. I loved skipping and I was happy. The other girls were turning the rope in time to the rhythm of the words they were chanting: Sarah and Laurie sitting in a tree, K–I–S–S–I–N–G. First comes love and then comes marriage, then along comes Sarah with a baby carriage. They chanted and turned the rope faster and faster and I jumped faster to keep up and I was laughing and breathless and flushed with joy. Then the singing faded and the playground and the children disappeared and there I was grown up, alone somewhere, standing with my hands on the handle of an old-fashioned hooded pram. The pram was well sprung; it rocked on its big wheels. I bent down and leaned forward and pulled the blanket gently back, a smile on my lips and a clutch of pleasure in my heart, anticipating seeing my sleeping child snug in his little blue sleep-suit.
But the pram was empty.
I’d had the same dream a hundred times and the pram was always empty and each time it shocked me.
I must have cried out, because May nudged me.
‘Hey,’ she whispered, shaking my arm. ‘Sarah, shhh.’
I struggled to fight off the dream and remember where I was.
‘Were you having a nightmare, love?’
‘Mmm.’
May pulled a sympathetic face, then took my head between her two hands, pulled me close to her and kissed my forehead.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘You’ve been through a lot. It takes a while to get over these things is all.’
‘Yes.’
‘Look,’ she said, nodding in the direction of the window. ‘There it is.’
I followed her gaze and, through the windscreen of the bus, beyond the cedar trees and the red-roofed villas, saw the town of Taormina, clinging precariously to the top of a high, impossibly steep-sided hill like icing on a very tall cake.
‘Spectacular, eh?’
‘Oh it is; it’s like something in a fairytale.’
May smiled. ‘We’re going to have a good day,’ she said.
The bus crawled steeply upwards along a winding road into the centre of the pretty little town, one-time home of D. H. Lawrence, according to May’s guidebook. It was obvious why he had chosen to live there. It was, despite the tourists and the cars, exquisite. May and I drank Orangina and ate slices of salty mozzarella and spinach pizza at a table outside a shaded café surrounded by trinket and postcard shops. We fed a little pregnant ginger cat that was about our legs. We strolled through the light and shadow of the gardens where Lawrence liked to walk and sat on a bench dedicated to him. The trees were full of starlings, the fountains splished and tinkled and painted railings gave way to precipitous views over the roofs of hotels and apartment blocks. We took some photographs and walked further uphill, along a narrow road lined with shops and canopied kiosks selling puppets and souvenirs, to the gate that led into the amphitheatre park.
We bought our tickets and followed the climbing path into the amphitheatre, walking up its slopes and sitting on the ranks of benches carved out of the hillside. Neither of us said much. The place was too beautiful for words.
We were a few rows down from the upper rim of the theatre. My clothes pinched my flesh and nipped at my sunburn. I eased my thumb along the length of my bikini strap. We gazed down at the stage and beyond, through a partly fallen back-wall, to the bright haze wrapped like a shawl around Etna’s shoulders, and closer, to the little villages tumbling down the slopes of other mountains, the windows of their buildings illuminated by the sun. Everything was apricot, sand-pink and gold.
May put her sunglasses on top of her head to keep her hair out of her eyes and took some more photographs.
‘People won’t believe this back home,’ she said. ‘They simply won’t believe it.’
We watched a group of children down on the stage many feet below us. They were wearing plastic gladiator helmets and carrying swords. A couple of young adults in blue T-shirts were organizing the children in an excitable and noisy fashion, with the help of a megaphone. I shaded my eyes with my hand. One of the children, a skinny, fair-haired boy with sticking-out ears who was hanging back, reminded me of Jamie. I squinted but I couldn’t be sure. I looked around, but there was no sign of Alexander. I told myself not to be ridiculous. If he’d been planning to come to Taormina, he’d have mentioned it.
‘I’m too hot,’ May said. She stretched out her legs. ‘I need a drink.’
‘I don’t think there is anywhere here.’
‘I’ll walk down into the town. They’ll let me back in again if I keep my ticket, won’t they?’
I supposed they would.
‘Are you coming?’
I shook my head. ‘Do you mind if I stay? It’s so lovely.’
‘Will you be all right?’
‘May …’
‘OK, sorry. I can’t help being a big sister.’
‘And I’m very glad you’re mine, but stop worrying.’
May gave me the guidebook. ‘I’ll meet you back here in an hour,’ she said. ‘Shall I bring you a Coke?’
‘Yes, please.’
&nbs
p; I watched her make her way back down to the bottom of the amphitheatre. There were few tourists around because of the time of day. After a while, the sun burning my arms and legs, I stood up and went the other way, climbing to the very top of the enormous bowl carved out of the hillside. My feet were dusty and my heart beat with the exertion. I wandered into the wooded area beyond, seeking shade.
It was deserted.
The area was rimmed by railings, marking the edge of the park. I stepped forward carefully, one foot at a time. I didn’t want to get too close in case the drop on the other side was sheer, but when I reached the metal barrier I was reassured. The ground did not fall away steeply but sloped downwards, and was interrupted by sprawling cacti with huge, plate-shaped leaves and red flowers, and scrubby trees. I leaned on the fence and when I looked over, way, way below was an idyllic little island surrounded by sea so clear and perfectly blue it made my heart ache. I stared out and was lost in the day.
It was pleasant to be alone. I drifted like a feather on the breeze, my mind full of blues and whites, and when he came, it was as if he had come from nowhere. I didn’t hear his footsteps but suddenly he was beside me; I jumped and dropped the guidebook. It spun as it fell on the other side of the fence and landed spread-eagled amongst the pebbles and dirt a little further down the hill.
‘Sorry,’ said Alexander. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘It was my fault,’ I said.
‘I could climb over and fetch it back.’
The Secrets Between Us Page 3