I looked at his face, saw the anguish of that remembered tragic encounter playing out over his features—the shadows in his eyes, the ghosts of lost patients who lingered to haunt him. ‘That must have been awful for them—and for you,’ I said. ‘And cowardly of the consultant to leave it up to you.’
He brushed a stray strand of hair away from my face. ‘It was a good lesson to learn. I make a point of dealing directly with relatives. Not to mention keeping a cool head under pressure. Things can go wrong. No one—no matter how skilled or how much experience they have—is exempt from that. But staying calm in the middle of a crisis can be the difference between life and death.’
Somehow we had shifted our bodies so we were lying side by side, one of his legs draped over one of mine, our hands loosely entwined.
‘Next question?’
I had to remind myself of the game. I was so taken aback by the quality of him, the strength and courage he exhibited under pressure. Was that why he hadn’t acted the way I’d expected when I’d accused him of using me five years ago? He had faced down my spitting tirade with what I’d thought was cool indifference. But what if that had been his way of keeping calm when the unexpected was thrown at him?
It was a sobering thought.
‘Did you have a pet as a child?’ I said.
A shadow passed over his features like a cloud crossing the path of the moon. ‘Yes. His name was Cico.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He died.’
‘When?’
‘That’s question number four,’ he said. ‘Now it’s my turn.’
‘Hang on a minute.’ I gave his chest a playful shove. ‘I want to know what happened to him.’
Alessandro captured my hand and came back over me, all but pinning me to the bed. ‘You’re the one who made the rules, ma petite. You can’t go changing them now.’
I gave up with good grace…well, good for me—if you overlook the quick tongue poke and the childish pout. ‘Okay, fire away,’ I said.
‘Do you want to have dinner or make love again?’
‘Make love.’
He smiled and brought his head down. I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled him away from his mission.
‘Hang on. Don’t you want to ask another two questions?’ I said.
‘I’m getting to that.’ He sent his mouth on a hot trail down to my breasts. ‘Does that feel good?’
‘Yes…’ It was part gasp, part groan.
He moved down my body and kissed the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. ‘How about that?’
Somehow I lost count of the questions, and suddenly I was incapable of answering. Anything.
CHAPTER TEN
MY FATHER MADE a spectacular recovery—which, as I’d predicted, my mother and to some degree my father took all the credit for. However, they did think to organise a thank-you card for Alessandro and a bottle of wine. It wasn’t a top-shelf one, but it was organic.
They came back to my place to collect their things, but they didn’t hang around.
I was awkward with my mother. Nothing new there, but now there was another layer of awkwardness. She obviously hadn’t said anything to my father about our discussion/argument, which showed at least she had some sensitivity, given he was still getting over heart surgery. But I had a feeling she might never tell him. She would do what she had always done when things got too confrontational or threatening for her. She would bury her head in the sand, or in her navel, or take up with yet another guru to distract herself from facing reality.
I stood on my front step and waved my parents off, feeling that mixture of guilt and relief that so perplexed and frustrated me.
They had not long gone when I heard the unmistakable roar of Alessandro’s car turning the corner.
I couldn’t wait to tell him how well Claudia was doing. The drama therapy was going gangbusters. Even the speech therapist was stunned by Claudia’s progress in such a short space of time. Although Claudia’s stutter was still present, the boost in her confidence from doing those drama exercises had helped her to be not so distressed about the words and sounds she couldn’t say, but to concentrate on what she could.
The only thing that still troubled me now was how she never mentioned her mother. It was unusual in a child so young. She didn’t show any signs of homesickness either. She had settled into the boarding house routine as if she’d been boarding for years. That sort of quiet self-reliance in an older child would have been laudable. However, in a child of Claudia’s age it was faintly disturbing.
But then I thought of my tricky relationship with my mother. Kids soon learn who they can rely on and make the necessary adjustments. I for one knew all about making adjustments. I swear I could moonlight as a spanner.
I watched as Alessandro’s powerful car growled into one of the few parking spaces at the front of my flat. He had spent the last few days working in London. I knew he was finding it tough, balancing his supervision of the renovations on his house here in Bath and his commitment to his niece, not to mention our ‘relationship’—which I automatically put in quotation marks because I didn’t know what else to call it.
It didn’t feel like a fling, but neither did it feel like a proper commitment. He had made it clear he wasn’t able to offer anything permanent, and I had made it equally clear I didn’t want to settle down. The trouble was I was having wayward thoughts that would catch me totally off guard.
Like when I went to my wardrobe to get dressed for school and my wedding dress, hidden in its silk bag, kind of stared at me. For all that it was covered in a sack—hidden, stashed away—it had an annoying habit of reminding me of the hopes and dreams I had once clung to. It was like I had shoved a part of myself into the dark recesses of my wardrobe but now that part was getting restless…agitated.
I decided I would give the damn dress away or stuff it in a charity bin the first chance I got.
As Alessandro walked towards me from his car, I could see he wasn’t having the best of days. His eyes had dark circles beneath them and his skin looked too tightly drawn over his face. And there I was thinking teaching was stressful. At least I had never had to tell a parent their kid had died under my care.
‘Tough day slaving over a hot pericardium?’ I said.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a half smile. ‘No surgery today—just a clinic that went on for ages.’
He bent down and pressed a kiss to my lips. I breathed in the tangy citrus scent of him and my senses spun as his mouth increased its pressure. He made a low, deep sound and put his arms around me, drawing me to him until our bodies were flush against each other. Somehow him hugging me or me hugging him wasn’t a problem for me. We fitted together like two pieces of one of those complicated Mensa puzzles.
I wondered what my neighbours would make of it. I normally lived such a boring, uneventful life that for them to see a handsome man drive up in a top-model Maserati and take me in his arms and kiss me soundly was probably much better viewing than what was currently on the television. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of curtains twitch, which more or less confirmed my suspicions. Honestly. Some people need to get a life.
Alessandro raised his mouth just high enough to speak. ‘It is just me, or do you get the feeling we’re being watched?’
‘Maybe we should go inside and let their imaginations take over?’ I said.
He brushed his lips across mine again. ‘Good plan.’
***
I must have fallen asleep after we made love, because I woke to find Alessandro sitting on the edge of my bed watching me. He was fully dressed, which wasn’t how I’d left him. He had even put some order to his hair—presumably with his fingers, for I could see the track marks in between those jet-black strands.
I pushed myself up on my elbows and shook my head so my hair went back behind my shoulders. ‘You’re leaving?’ I tried to strip my voice of any trace of disappointment, but I’m not sure I managed it.
He trailed an idle finger down the slope of my cheek. ‘What are you doing next weekend?’
A big fat nothing—just like I did every weekend. But I didn’t want to admit that. I didn’t want to sound too eager. I didn’t want to appear too available. A girl had her pride, after all.
‘I have a couple of things on,’ I said. ‘Why?’
A frown had formed a crease on his forehead. ‘The school is shut next weekend, and I still haven’t found a suitable nanny for Claudia.’
I could see where this was going and stayed silent. My sister is the opposite with silences. She hates them. She babbles whatever comes into her head if there’s one to fill. I am more for waiting to see how long it takes for the other person to get to the point.
Alessandro got to the point a whole lot faster than most.
‘Would you be able to do it? Look after her for the weekend? I should be back late on Saturday night. I have a commitment in London. I have to be there. It’s a research meeting I’ve had booked for months. If I pull out, the project could fall over.’
I looked at where his hand was resting on the bed, within touching distance of mine. I could feel the magnetic force of it. It was all I could do not to reach out and touch him.
I brought my gaze up to his. ‘Will she want to come and stay with me?’
His tense features visibly relaxed. ‘She’ll love it. She talks about you all the time.’
I lifted my eyebrows. ‘Talks?’
He smiled. ‘Yes. Talks. With the occasional stutter, but at least she’s talking.’
I dragged at my lower lip with my teeth and glanced at our hands, so close but still not touching. Was he feeling the same gravitational pull as I was?
‘Yes, she’s come ahead in leaps and bounds, but there’s one thing that troubles me…’ I looked into his eyes again. ‘She never mentions her mother. Never. It’s as if she’s forgotten she has a mother or is deliberately not thinking about her. Why is that?’
He let out a long sigh as he sent one of his hands through his hair. ‘I suspect Claudia has learnt from an early age that she can’t always rely on her mother,’ he said. ‘It’s as if she knows Bianca is incapable of being present emotionally, even if she’s able to be there physically—although of course just now that’s impossible.’
I slipped my hand over his and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘What’s wrong with Bianca? I mean apart from the drug problem?’
He looked at me—such a bleak look that I felt my chest tighten as if it was caught in a vice.
‘She’s had a mental breakdown,’ he said. ‘I think it’s been coming on for months—years, more like. I had to have her sectioned. In layman’s terms that means admitted to a mental health facility for her own safety.’
I swallowed and gripped his hand a little tighter. ‘I know what it means… I’m so sorry…’
His fingers somehow turned, so that it was his hand holding mine. ‘My priority is to keep Claudia safe, no matter what.’
‘Hence my school?’
His eyes met mine. ‘I knew you would be the one person I could rely on to make sure my niece got the care and attention she needed,’ he said. ‘I’m not an expert on small children. I’ve got my sister’s situation to prove that.’
I frowned at him. ‘Why are you blaming yourself? Your sister’s problems have nothing to do with you. Mental illness can be due to so many factors. Genetics or—’
He got up so abruptly from the bed that I stopped speaking. It was like a guillotine had come down on my sentence.
‘They have everything to do with me,’ he said as he paced the small area of floor available. ‘I blame myself. I should’ve seen the signs.’
I rolled my lips together, shocked at how dry they had suddenly become. I didn’t fill the silence. I have a feeling even Bertie the obsessive silence filler would have left this one open, for Alessandro to continue when he was good and ready.
He turned and looked at me with a harrowed look. ‘My father is responsible for Bianca’s problems. All of them. Every single one.’
I felt my throat move over another tight swallow. ‘Was he…violent towards her too?’
‘It depends what you mean by violence.’
He turned away from me, to inspect something on my dressing table. I knew it wasn’t that he was interested in my hairbrush or the perfume atomiser. He was gathering himself. Drawing on his inner reserve to contain the anger he felt against his father.
And then suddenly I got it.
The ugliness of it crept into the silence like a loathsome creature, reaching out with long, slithering tentacles to strangle every atom of oxygen out of the room.
‘He sexually abused her.’
I didn’t say it as a question. I didn’t need to. The ghastly truth was written on Alessandro’s face when I met his eyes in my dressing table mirror.
He turned and faced me. ‘I only found out a month ago. It explained everything. Her rebellion during her childhood and teens, the drugs, the drink, the promiscuous behaviour.’ He dragged a hand down his face, momentarily distorting his features. ‘I could have stopped it if I’d known earlier. I would have stopped it. I would’ve made sure he was sent to rot in prison. But she didn’t tell me.’
‘When did the abuse start?’
‘It started when we were sent to live with him, after our mother died. He groomed her for years. I can never forgive myself for not protecting her. Now he’s denying everything and he’s got himself a hot-shot defence lawyer who’ll pull apart my sister’s life until they take everything away from her—including Claudia.’
My heart ached for Alessandro’s sister. I was all too well aware of the silence of shame that could go on for decades. I thought of her as a motherless little girl, unable to protect herself. Alessandro was blaming himself, but he’d been a kid too. How could he have possibly known what was going on? Perpetrators made sure such dirty secrets remained secret. It was part of the power they had over their victims.
‘A lot of victims find it very difficult to speak of what’s happened to them—even to those closest to them,’ I said. ‘And when the abuse has been happening for a long time, and from a young age…well, there are other factors. Fear of not being believed. Fear of reprisal from the perpetrator. It’s terribly complex. The fact is you know now. So you can keep her and Claudia safe—which you’re doing to the best of your ability.’
One of his hands pushed through his hair. ‘I couldn’t even keep a dog safe from him. What hope did I have to keep my sister safe?’
My stomach clenched. Cico. The dog Alessandro had mentioned when we played Three Questions. Oh, dear God. What a ghastly childhood he’d had. I felt a sudden rush of shame for all the times I’d criticised my parents. There were far worse things than having hippie parents. Far, far worse.
Alessandro came over and sat beside me on the bed again. He put his hand over mine. ‘I want to help my sister move beyond this,’ he said. ‘I want her to be a proper mother to Claudia. I want justice for her. But she’s not strong enough to cope with the judicial system. I’m worried if I push too hard she’ll do something even more drastic than she’s already done.’
I turned my hand over and curled my fingers around his. ‘You’re doing all you can. If and when she feels ready to press charges then you’ll be by her side to help her through it. If she can’t face it then you have to accept that. It’s her choice. It has to be her choice.’
His thumb moved back and forth across my index finger tendon. ‘Did you ever consider pressing charges?’
I dropped my gaze to where our hands were joined.
‘For a long while I pretended it hadn’t happened. I blocked it out. I refused to think about it. I didn’t want it to define me. It’s too late now anyway. It would be his word against mine. We were both kids without the proper guidance of responsible parents. Why would I put myself through it? I have better things to do.’
He eased up my chin so our eyes could meet. ‘You must never blame yo
urself.’
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘Men like that boy and your father are pond scum. They’ll get what’s coming to them eventually—at least that’s what I hope.’
He let out another long breath and laid my hand back down on the bedcovers. ‘I have to get going. I have a couple of things to check at my house.’
Take me with you.
The words were on the tip of my tongue but I closed my lips over them. No point in imagining a romantic candlelit picnic in his gorgeous old house. No point in imagining he might want to spend the whole night with me instead of a couple of hours. No point imagining anything other than what we had here and now. Sex without strings. Without commitment. A day-by-day affair.
I waited a beat before saying, ‘I’ll bring Claudia home with me on Friday after school. There’ll be paperwork for you to sign, to give me authority. Can you drop by the school office in the next day or so?’
‘Sure.’
He leaned closer to press a soft kiss to my lips. I was so tempted to lengthen the contact with him but I needed to keep perspective. We had already crossed a few boundaries I had never crossed with anyone before. The deep and meaningful—and painful—conversations were a totally new thing for me.
I suspected they were a new thing for him too.
***
Claudia was clearly excited about coming home with me the following Friday, but was trying her best not to show it. Her big brown eyes followed me all day during class time with a distinctive gleam. Every time I caught her looking at me her little cheeks would blush as red as an apple. She would bury her chin into her neck, or hunch over her desk and pretend to be busy with whatever task I had set.
The thought of her being pleased about spending the weekend with me thrilled me in a way I had not expected to feel. Don’t get me wrong. I have the occasional child I warm to, in spite of all of my efforts to avoid playing favourites. But there was something about Claudia that awoke a dormant mothering instinct in me.
Ever since I had broken up with Alessandro I had put all thoughts of motherhood aside. I had drawn a line through it with a thick red pen like someone does on a mistake in a document. I had erased it. Deleted it. But like indelible ink it was seeping back into my focus.
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