by Liz Fielding
‘Cleve?’ He felt her hand on his arm, heard the concern in her voice. ‘It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.’
He shook his head, unable to look at her, to speak. It hadn’t happened to anyone. It had happened to her and he was responsible.
‘I saw you put the kettle on. We both forgot about it—’
‘It was my responsibility.’
‘You were a little distracted.’ She was by his side and lifted a hand to his face, forced him to look at her. ‘No harm, no foul.’ Her smile was tender, she was doing her best to reassure him but she had no idea.
‘Anything could have happened in that wreck of a house. The ceiling could have collapsed, you could have been trapped—’
They both turned at the sound of an approaching fire engine and Matt shrugged apologetically. ‘I shouted to Mum to call them.’
A second later the big gates burst open, four firefighters rushed in and for a moment there was total confusion until Matt—who seemed to be passably fluent in the local patois—managed to convince them that the emergency was over. That signora Marlowe had put out the fire.
They checked to make sure that it was properly extinguished, that everything was safe, then they all kissed Miranda extravagantly on both cheeks, declared her ‘bella e coraggiosa’ and then, with a little encouragement, finally departed, closing the big gates behind them.
‘I’ll, um, go and fetch your stuff,’ Matt said, wasting no time in following them.
‘Stuff?’ Miranda asked, when he’d gone.
‘I dropped the shopping at Matt’s. When we saw the smoke. The marmalade may not have survived,’ he said, remembering the crunch as the bag hit the path.
‘You were at Matt’s?’
‘I saw his name on the gate and I stopped to ask about Elena and Alberto. I thought you’d like to visit.’
A smile lit up her face. ‘I would. Thank you.’
There was a black smudge on her cheek and he took a step back before he lost all grip on reality, reached out to wipe it away, kiss her, hold her, keep her safe. He could keep no one safe…
‘I bought a load of cleaning stuff.’
Andie had seen the colour drain from Cleve’s face as he realised what he’d done, the lines bitten deep into his cheeks.
‘That’s handy,’ she said, hoping to tease him out of it. ‘The kitchen was a mess. Now it’s a disaster area.’
‘I’ll clean up,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘Then I’ll get out of your hair.’
Well, that had fallen flat. About to tell him that she’d been kidding, that they’d do it together, she realised what he’d just said. Out of her hair meant—‘Are you telling me that once you’ve washed the smoke from the walls you’re going to leave?’
His face was pale but his eyes were no longer empty. They were haunted.
She’d taken part in regular fire safety drills, done all the right things. Switched off the power, thrown the damp tea towel he’d been using over the kettle and then doused it thoroughly with the extinguisher, but he was reliving what had happened to Rachel. Their baby.
‘Cleve—’
‘You’re right, Miranda,’ he said. ‘Your family will be there for you and your baby.’
‘My baby?’
‘The last thing you need is me messing up your life any more than I have done. I’ll sort out financial support when I get back.’
Financial…?
An hour ago she would have sworn that nothing would have shifted him. Now, because of a stupid accident, he was staring into the past, reliving the horror. He wasn’t just pale, he was grey, but she didn’t need a degree in psychology to know that leaving now would be the very worst thing he could do.
Behaving like a pathetic little diva was totally alien to her nature but needs must; she had to stop him any way she could and she grabbed at the first excuse that came to mind.
‘What will I do if there’s another of those horrible spiders?’
‘I’ve brought you something to deter the spiders.’
He had? ‘I’m not using some dangerous poisonous spray.’
‘It’s peppermint oil. I asked the woman in the grocery store and she recommended it.’
‘Peppermint oil?’
‘Apparently vinegar is just as good but I thought the smell of peppermint would be easier to live with. You add a few drops to water and spray in the cracks.’
‘Oh…’ Without warning her throat filled up and her eyes began to sting.
He frowned, took a step towards her. ‘Are you crying?’
If that was what it took…
‘It happens all the time,’ she said, flapping a hand in front of her face. ‘It’s the hormones.’
He was wearing that helpless look of a man faced with a woman having emotional collywobbles and she took pitiless advantage. ‘It’s not just the spiders. There are storms at this time of year. Or a tremor might bring the rest of the roof down and there’ll be no one to dig me out,’ she said, piling on the drama.
His jaw tightened and the forward momentum stopped.
‘I have no doubt that Matt Stark will leap on his scooter and come racing to your rescue.’
Without warning she lost it. ‘I’m not having Matthew Stark’s baby!’ she yelled. ‘I’m having yours!’
Andie heard the words leaving her mouth but it was like listening to a stranger. Not her but some mouthy, out-of-control character in a television soap opera.
She’d poked the hormone genie and, let loose, it was having the time of its life. Unfortunately, it had overdone the drama because Cleve’s response was to retreat, not physically but mentally. The flash of concern that had momentarily lit up his eyes had gone. There was nothing coming back from him and in the silence that followed her outburst there was only the sound of a throat being cleared.
‘I’ll, um, just leave this here.’
Matt very carefully placed two carriers and a petrol can just inside the side gate before backing out and closing it behind him.
CHAPTER SIX
CLEVE LOOKED AT the bags then, as if nothing had happened, he looked back at her.
‘You don’t have to stay here,’ he said. ‘You can come back with me in the Lear.’
Andie shook her head. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
All that waited for her at home was an ending. Putting her flat on the market, saying goodbye to the people she’d worked with, to the job she loved. Saying hello to a direct-debit relationship with Cleve.
‘Have you any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a holiday?’ she demanded. ‘More to the point, how long is it since you’ve had a holiday?’
He glanced up at the roof with its missing tiles. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure that the last time I booked a holiday there wasn’t a hole in the roof.
‘It was thatch, as I recall.’
Rachel had been full of the exotic spa resort in the Far East but at the last minute some crisis had blown up that only Cleve could handle. Rather than cancel and rebook, she’d gone on her own.
How he must regret that now.
‘I wasn’t looking forward to the mud baths, steam wraps and heaven knows what other tortures were lined up for me,’ he said, his face devoid of expression. ‘Rachel had a much better time without me.’
She’d certainly come back glowing and then, just weeks later, she was dead.
‘Yes, well, all that lounging about in the sun and swilling cocktails is so yesterday,’ she said, as whatever demon had been driving her disappeared like early morning mist rising from a valley, leaving nothing but embarrassment. ‘These days smart people go to Cumbria and pay for the privilege of repairing footpaths and building dry stone walls in the pouring rain.’
‘No risk of fire, then.’
‘Forget the stupid fire. What happened was nothing more than a minor drama.’ Okay, if she hadn’t smelt the smoke the house could have burned down, but she had and it didn’t. ‘The roof didn’t collap
se, no one was hurt. It will be one of those “Do you remember when…?” stories that we’ll all be laughing about years from now.’
‘Laughing?’
‘Yes.’ Laughing as they embroidered the story for a little boy who was the image of Cleve. ‘Idiot Daddy, brave Mama, comic-opera firefighters…’
For a moment she saw them all at some family gathering: her parents and her sisters, sitting around a table, the children wide-eyed, the adults laughing at stories that had grown with the telling. The image was so real that a chill whispered through her, the realisation that unless she did something, something truly brave, it was about to slip away from them, be lost for ever.
Cleve would eventually get past his grief, marry someone else, have a family…while the bundle of cells, the promise of life within her, would become an awkward adjunct to his real life. Someone they would make an effort to include but who would always be on the outside looking in.
‘Laughing?’ he repeated furiously, bringing her back to reality. ‘You could have died!’
His angry words echoed around the courtyard.
She could have died. Like Rachel.
As if a switch had tripped in her brain she was no longer playing the role. Rachel was dead but she was alive and this was for real. Her own feelings didn’t matter; this wasn’t just about her. This was for Cleve and their baby, and she’d fight tooth and nail, make a complete fool of herself if that was what it took to make him let go of the past, look to the future.
‘Could have but didn’t. I’m right here and so is our baby. What happened to your offer to be there for our child, Cleve? To make a home? A family?’
He seemed shocked by her sudden switch, her attack, and his blank expression was replaced by confusion; hardly surprising since she’d made it clear that she didn’t need his sacrifice on the altar of marriage. She had been so focused on convincing him that she could and would cope perfectly well on her own, it hadn’t occurred to her that Cleve might not.
‘Did I say that?’
‘An hour ago you asked me to marry you. Or were you just going through the motions? You must have known that I’d turn you down.’
She hadn’t known how he’d react to the news that he was about to become a father but she had anticipated his proposal, been prepared to turn him down. It had been a hundred times harder than she’d ever imagined but she’d told herself that she was doing the Right Thing.
Now she wondered if she’d just been thinking of herself, unable to cope with the fact that Rachel would always be there, between them.
Selfish…
Cleve had already lost the baby that was to be his future and she’d as good as told him the baby she was carrying didn’t need him. Of course it would need him and making a home for their baby, being a father, would give him something to get up for each morning. To live for.
‘Isn’t that what marriage is?’ she asked.
Marriage…
Cleve watched a lazy bee, drawn by the scent of the fruit he’d bought, or more likely the marmalade leaking from the broken jar, head for the bags that Matt had left by the gate.
‘Maybe we should have breakfast,’ he said.
‘Breakfast?’ He heard the catch in her throat.
‘I think better when I’m not hungry. We’d better eat in the garden. I don’t think smoke is going to improve the flavour of your banana.’ He looked up at the door behind them. ‘I’ll open this door so that the air can blow through.’
‘It’s blocked. The ceiling sagged when rain got in.’
‘I’ll take a look at it.’
‘Do you have time?’ she asked, challenging him.
Having done his duty and proposed, been given a clear pass, would he really opt out and become a chequebook father?
An hour ago, with the scent of rosemary clearing his head, he’d been full of plans for the future. Realising how close he’d come to tragedy had been the kind of reality check he would wish on no one. One that had sent him reeling back into the darkness of guilt. To stay and wallow in it would be an act of gross self-indulgence.
Miranda had reached out to him at his lowest ebb. He owed her his life; what poor specimen of mankind would walk away when she needed him? If only to save her from a spider in the bath.
‘I take it you’re not planning to include the word obey in your vows?’ he asked.
‘Vows?’
‘Love, honour…?’ There was a moment of confusion as she absorbed his meaning followed by an emotion less easy to read. Relief, no doubt, and regret that unlike her twin she hadn’t been swept off her feet by the man of her dreams.
‘And obey?’ she finished. ‘What do you think?’
Then the green-gold of her eyes softened in a smile that reached out to warm him, a smile that had always made the sun shine a little brighter, and he knew he was looking at his redemption.
He might not be the man of her dreams but he would do everything in his power to make Miranda happy. To give her, and their baby, a good life.
‘I think I’ll get the plates,’ he said, picking up the bags. He opened one to check its contents and handed it to her.
‘I’d better wash my hands.’
‘And your face,’ he said, brushing the backs of his fingers lightly over her cheek before heading for the door.
‘I’ll be out by the conservatory,’ she called into the kitchen.
‘I’ll be right there.’
Andie stood there for a moment, the bag of groceries clutched against her chest, a lump the size of a tennis ball in her throat, before following him.
She put the groceries on the hall table beside an exquisite bowl filled with little shells and pieces of sea glass that they’d found on the beach.
Above it, in a gilded rococo frame, was a drawing that Posy had made of the house. It must have been on one of their earliest visits because it was too naïve, unconscious, to have been drawn by a teenager and she took a tissue from her pocket and wiped away the dust.
If she’d thought about it, she’d have imagined that having a house full of noisy children, teens, was the price Sofia’d paid for having her oldest friend stay for a couple of weeks twice a year. But maybe the childless woman had longed for a family and they had given her that, if only briefly, and for a moment Andie lay her hand over it.
‘What’s that?’ Cleve asked.
She let her hand drop. ‘A picture Posy drew for Sofia. She couldn’t have been more than six.’
‘And this, presumably, is Sofia.’
He was looking at the black and white portrait, a head shot dominated by her huge eyes…
‘She was older than that when we knew her but her skin, her bone structure… Well, you can see. She had the kind of looks that would have still been turning heads when she was eighty, ninety. If she’d lived that long.’
‘No doubt. Put the bag on the tray.’
He was carrying a tray loaded with plates, glasses, cutlery. She picked up the groceries and added them to the tray, which he then handed to her. ‘I’ll be right with you. I just want to take a look at that door.’
‘So long as you’re not going up on the roof.’
‘Not today.’
She put the tray down in the snug, carefully checked the bathroom for any signs of eight-footed livestock, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her cheek was smeared with sooty smoke and her hair had dried in ginger corkscrews. It was no wonder that Cleve had been ready to run.
She washed her face and hands then damped down her hair and quickly plaited it.
‘I’ll be outside the conservatory,’ she called from the hall. The only response was a curse from deep within the scullery. She definitely wasn’t getting involved in whatever he was doing out there, and instead opened the door to the painted drawing room. The furniture was covered in dust sheets but there was a crack across the beautiful arched ceiling, no doubt caused in the same tremor that had brought down the roof tiles. The patchwork of stained glass in the roof of the conse
rvatory had suffered too.
She wondered if the house was listed. Did they even have a system of listing buildings of special importance in L’Isola dei Fiori or would whoever eventually bought it simply pull it down and start again?
She opened the doors and stepped out onto a terrace where they’d sat out in evenings watching the fishing boats return to the safety of the village harbour, the lights coming on along the coast.
Last year’s weeds that had grown through the cracks were tall and dry, but bright new leaves were pushing through and if nothing was done they would soon dislodge the stones.
She put the tray on the long wooden table where they’d so often had breakfast and crossed to the wall built along the edge of the cliff. The villa might be a bit of a mess but the location was spectacular. Below them, the beach was only accessible from the villa or the sea—and even from the sea you had to know it was there to find your way in—but from here the entire Baia di Rose and the village climbing up from the harbour into the hill behind was laid out in front of her.
She didn’t turn as Cleve joined her.
‘I saw a promising café when I was down in the village,’ he said after a moment. ‘Right on the harbour.’
‘Was it painted blue, with lobster pots outside?’ She sensed rather than saw him nod. ‘We used to walk down there for lunch sometimes. Just us girls. Sofia would give us some money and tell us not to spend it all on wine…’ No doubt when she was expecting a visit from the King.
‘What did you eat?’
‘Whatever the cook had bought in the market. Deep-fried squid if we were lucky. Swordfish steaks. Pasta alla vongole.’ Sweet, sweet memories. ‘Was that my stomach rumbling or yours?’
‘I think it was a duet. So? Shall we try it later?’ he suggested. ‘Only I’m not sure if the cooker survived the double whammy of the kettle and the fire extinguisher.’
‘I don’t know about the food but I’d enjoy the walk.’
He leaned forward to look at her face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine.’ She dashed away a tear that had spilled down her cheek. ‘I was just remembering…’
‘So long as it’s not the thought of marrying me.’
‘No.’ She put out a hand and he took it, held it and for a moment they just stood there, staring at the view, neither of them knowing what to say. ‘As you said, we’ve known one another a long time.’ Reclaiming her hand, she tucked away a strand of hair that had escaped her plait. ‘We’ll be fine.’