by Lucy Gordon
‘To love?’ she challenged him. ‘Say it.’
But he shook his head.
‘At any other time I’d reach out to you,’ he growled, ‘and stop at nothing until I’d made you mine. I’d fight anyone, even you, to make you love me. I’d take you to bed and love you until you forgot the whole world, and I’d enclose your heart in mine so that we were one-if only-’
He sighed heavily.
‘If only…’
She tried to answer but something was making her throat ache.
‘But what right do I have to try to win your love when I probably won’t be here much longer? We have to be realistic. Fortese specialises in murder. He’s practically a genius, and he’ll probably get to me.’
‘Don’t-’ she whispered in agony.
‘I must. One day-when this is over-if we get through it-’
‘We will. You’re not going to die,’ she said frantically.
‘I pray to God I won’t, now that I have so much to live for. But I won’t risk leaving you when our love has only just started-’
‘You fool!’ she said violently. ‘Don’t you know it’s already too late for that? Do you think our love hasn’t started just because we haven’t been to bed? Do you think the love of the heart somehow doesn’t count if the body hasn’t loved too?’
‘How do you come to know so much about love,’ he whispered, ‘when I know so little?’
‘Enough,’ she said, laying her lips against his. ‘No more. Basta!’
She had made her decision and now there must be an end to this. She only wanted him.
It was her kiss rather than his, but he gave himself to it with a whole heart, like a man who had suddenly discovered the elusive answer. He moved gently at first, exploring her lips with his own, then claiming her more deeply.
Slowly he rose, drawing her to her feet so that he could more easily remove her nightgown. His own clothes followed quickly, and she knew her own cautious moment. She was being asked to give so much trust, and for her, as for him, total trust was the last great barrier. But he seemed to understand that, drawing her gently down onto the bed with him.
‘You’re right,’ he growled. ‘It’s too late to back away.’
‘I don’t want to back away. Haven’t you understood anything?’
Once she’d said that, it really was too late. At first he made love to her slowly, with a restraint through which she could still sense a thrilling urgency. And when he saw her smiling at him in dreamy delight he made love to her again, but without restraint now, so that she too could throw off the world and exist only for him.
When they lay in each other’s arms later she gave a slight shiver as the world returned.
‘Summer’s over,’ he said. ‘Now it’s getting cold at night. We should get warm again before you catch pneumonia. Let’s go back to your room. The bed’s bigger.’
‘No,’ she pleaded, holding on to him. ‘I don’t want it to be over yet.’
He nodded, catching her meaning at once. This narrow, uncomfortable little bed was the place where love had reached its first fulfilment, and they were reluctant to leave it. The grandest bed in the world could not compare.
‘Let’s put something on and go under the covers, then,’ he said, rescuing their clothes from the floor. Safely back in bed, they drew up sheets and blankets. There was so little room that they had to huddle together, lest one of them fall out, but they didn’t mind that.
‘I can never be sorry,’ he whispered after a while. ‘But-’
‘No,’ she said, laying her fingers over his mouth. ‘No buts. I forbid it.’
‘Going to be a bullying wife, huh?’
‘If you force me.’
‘You’re so reckless that I admire you for it, even while it scares me. Suppose I die and leave you with a child? Have you thought of that?’
‘You talk of me having a baby as though it were the worst thing that could happen, but it wouldn’t be. At least I’d have part of you left.’
‘Where do you get your courage from?’ he asked tenderly.
‘From you.’
‘And if I’m no longer there?’
‘The same answer. I’ll still get my courage from you. You’ll always be there, with me. But don’t talk of that. I’m not going to be gloomy tonight. There’s too much to be happy about. You’re not going to die.’
‘My darling-’
‘You’re not. I won’t allow it. Do you think he is stronger than me?’
‘Nobody is stronger than you,’ he said fervently.
Dreams. Fantasies. The real world was still out there, still deadly. But she would fight it. She let her thoughts range free, seeking something light to bear her up, and at last a soft choke of laughter broke from her.
‘What is it?’ he asked, almost alarmed. ‘What the devil is funny about this?’
‘To think I accused you of always shouting. It was me doing the shouting this time. I had to or you wouldn’t have listened. I’ll remember that in future. Shout your husband down. If he won’t shut up, at least you’ll make a great noise together.’
Laughter welled up inside him, threatening to break out in a roar that would wake the house. Instead he buried his face against her in an agony of bittersweet joy, and laughed and laughed until he wept.
As the morning light grew, Liza came along the corridor and slipped noiselessly into Holly’s room. Finding nobody there, she went to the inner door and opened it cautiously.
Looking around the edge, she saw the narrow bed, and the two who lay there sleeping, arms wrapped about each other in perfect contentment.
She crept away, smiling to herself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NOTHING in Holly’s life recently had been what she would have once called normal, so the strangeness of the next few weeks was merely another kind of unreality.
It had its own intense sweetness. The closeness she shared with Matteo was past naming. It might have been love, but they never spoke the word, by night or day. When there were others around they maintained a friendly demeanour, full of propriety but no passion. At night they would go wordlessly into each other’s arms, sharing the joy of mutual need and fulfilment. Afterwards they would sink into the sleep of the blessed.
But hanging over this was the ever-present danger. Time passed without the police tracking down their quarry. He was nowhere. He was everywhere.
She would see Matteo off in the morning knowing that she might never see him again, and welcome him home in the evening, knowing that it might be for the last time.
The house was under permanent guard, although for Liza’s sake the men didn’t wear uniforms, and could have been gardeners. When the time came for her to go to school Matteo hired tutors so that she needed not leave the house. Between her lessons, visits from the physiotherapist and her time with Holly, she was content.
Her condition was improving, although she still had to take a nap in the afternoons. Often she argued, but Holly would hold firm, except for once when she allowed the child to stay up and finish a book that had seized her imagination. But the next day Liza seemed sleepy, and made no protest about going to bed for an hour.
Holly took the chance of a nap herself. She had had almost no sleep the night before.
She awoke to find Anna shaking her.
‘The little girl isn’t well,’ she said anxiously. ‘She’s just been sick.’
She raced into Liza’s room and found her sitting up, being comforted by a maid, who’d removed the soiled dress. The child was weeping.
‘Hello, darling,’ Holly said as cheerfully as possible. ‘Let’s see what’s wrong with you.’
‘My head aches,’ Liza complained.
Gently Holly laid her hand on her forehead, startled by what she found there. Liza’s temperature had climbed to an alarming height, and she was trying to cover her eyes.
‘Piccina, look at me,’ Holly urged.
‘No, my eyes hurt,’ Liza choked.
‘
All right, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
Outside the door she spoke urgently to Anna. ‘I need the family doctor. Please call him and tell him to come quickly.’
The doctor, an elderly man who had treated the family for years, was there in half an hour. He looked grave as he took Liza’s temperature and looked at her flushed, tearful face.
When they’d left the room Holly said, ‘A friend of my mother had a child who suffered like this. It was meningitis.’
‘That’s what I think, too. She must go to hospital at once. I’ll arrange the ambulance to take her to San Piero.’
He made the call while Holly went out to find one of the police guards and explain the situation. The man looked worried.
‘Is it really necessary to move her?’ he asked.
‘It wouldn’t be safe not to,’ Holly told him tensely.
Matteo had left her with a special phone number for the court, to be used only in emergencies. There was still an hour left before the sitting ended for the day. She dialled the number and spoke to Matteo’s clerk.
‘Please tell him that his daughter is seriously ill with possible meningitis, and has been taken to San Piero,’ she said tersely.
The ambulance was there fast, and within a few minutes they were on the road, streaming along the Appian Way to Rome. Holly stayed beside Liza, trying to hold her attention, but not succeeding. The little girl’s eyes were glazed, her breath came in gasps, and although she seemed to look directly at Holly it was plain that she didn’t know she was there.
‘Hold on, darling,’ Holly urged. ‘Just a little further. And Poppa…’
She was going to say that Poppa would be with them soon, but suddenly the words wouldn’t come. Would he really stop work for this child who had lost her place in his heart? The answer should be, Of course he would, but, to her horror, she realised that she wasn’t sure.
It made no difference, she realised. Liza was beyond hearing. If her father was to let her down now, she might never even know.
‘No,’ Holly said frantically. ‘Darling, wake up. It’s going to be all right.’
But the only answer was Liza’s harsh breathing.
‘He’ll be at the hospital,’ Holly assured herself. ‘He hasn’t so far to travel. He’ll get there before us.’
To her relief they were turning through the main gates of the hospital. The ambulance rear doors swung open and she hastened to move out of the way of the nurses. In moments Liza was on a trolley being wheeled inside.
There was no sign of Matteo in Reception and when she asked at the desk, nobody had seen him.
Then she had no time to think of anything but Liza as she was whisked away for tests by grave-faced medical staff. A nurse asked for details.
‘She was fine this morning,’ Holly said wretchedly. ‘A little less lively than usual but I thought she’d missed out on sleep. If only-’
‘It comes on very swiftly,’ the nurse said. ‘Often there’s nothing to warn anyone until the last moment.’
‘She had a nap and when she woke up she was sick…her head hurt.’
‘Her father-’
‘I’ve left a message for him.’
But why isn’t he here? she thought. It doesn’t take so long to get here from the court, if he left at once.
If he left at once.
But did he? Did he remember that she was not his child, and so bring the blank down over his feelings? Did he wait until the last minute, calling it his duty?
At the thought, a desolate wind seemed to sweep over her heart. In the short, precious time allowed them they had discovered so much happiness that it was painful to think of the little girl kept on the outside. Sometimes she had a wretched feeling that if Matteo couldn’t learn to accept Liza completely, then her own love for him would always remain incomplete, and perhaps would not last.
But he would be here any moment. She was sure of it.
Things began to move quickly. The doctor, who knew Liza from her last time in the hospital, confronted Holly with the final diagnosis.
‘Bacterial meningitis,’ he said with quiet gravity. ‘Which, I’m afraid, means that it’s very bad. I’m going to put her on intravenous injections of antibiotics to combat the infection. You too will need antibiotics in case you have contracted it from her, also her father.’
There was a question in his voice and Holly was forced to say, ‘He will be here soon. I sent a message.’
‘I hope you stressed the urgency because…’ he hesitated before saying slowly, ‘things could turn very bleak indeed, very soon.’
She nodded, sick at heart.
Matteo would not be here-at least, not in time. Liza would die without the comfort of his love, and her own love for him would wither away.
But she couldn’t think too much about that now. Whatever misery might wait in the future, only Liza mattered at this moment.
When she was allowed to see her again she found the little girl lying still, attached to machines, her face dangerously flushed. Holly touched her hand lightly, but there was no response.
Would there ever be one? Holly wondered. Or would she die without knowing that her father had finally turned his back on her?
She settled beside the bed, the child’s hand in hers, and waited in patient silence, while her heart began to harden.
The nurse stayed in the room, checking machines regularly, but Holly was aware of nothing but herself and Liza. It was as though they were both travelling down a dark tunnel that led to the unknown, with only each other for comfort. And there was nobody else with them.
Once she felt Liza’s hand move gently in hers, and her lips framed a word that might have been ‘Poppa’. But Holly couldn’t be sure.
Lost in this unhappy dream, she barely heard the footsteps outside. But as they grew closer she became aware of a commotion, voices raised in protest. As she looked up the door was flung open and Matteo burst in. His eyes were wild and he blurted out fierce questions as though they terrified him.
‘How is she? What’s happened?’
‘She has bacterial meningitis, and she’s very bad. Why didn’t you come before? I called hours ago.’
‘I know that now, but I didn’t get the message at the time. I’ll tell you all about it later. Tell me she isn’t dying.’
‘I can’t,’ Holly said softly, moving back to let him come to the bed.
It was too much to take in quickly, but one thing reached her: he hadn’t ignored her message. He was still the man she believed in.
He sat down, taking Liza’s hand, speaking to her urgently.
‘She can’t hear you, I’m afraid,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s deeply unconscious.’
‘She’s so hot,’ Matteo murmured. ‘How did it all happen?’
Holly told him the day’s events, but she could tell that he barely heard. All his attention was for the little girl on the bed, her hand resting unresponsively in his.
‘Piccina,’ he said urgently, ‘wake up, please. I’m here. Poppa’s here.’
‘No,’ came a faint whisper from the bed. ‘He won’t come.’
Matteo and Holly looked quickly at each other.
‘What did she say?’ he demanded breathlessly. ‘I didn’t catch it.’
‘She said her father won’t come,’ Holly told him reluctantly.
‘But I’m here,’ he said frantically. ‘Piccina, Poppa is here.’
‘No-won’t come-he didn’t come-for ages and ages-I cried for him but he didn’t come.’
‘What does she mean by that?’ he demanded.
She could only shake her head, desperate at her failure to help him. Her mind seemed to have seized up. He was looking at her out of anguished eyes.
‘He didn’t come,’ Liza murmured again.
‘What can I do?’ he begged. ‘Holly, for pity’s sake, help me.’
‘I can’t, I-’
‘He didn’t come,’ came the feeble croak, ‘he didn’t
even come to see us off…’
Holly’s head shot up as the answer came to her with the dazzling clarity of light. She could see them, a woman and a child sitting in a garden, beside a monument, the child pouring out things she’d never told before, because there was nobody to tell.
‘She’s talking about that other time,’ she breathed, ‘just before last Christmas, when she went away with her mother and you didn’t go to the station to see them off. She knew something was wrong because that had never happened before. She’s living back then.’
‘But can’t she tell that I’m here now?’
In her agitation Holly shook her head violently.
‘Nothing’s happening now, don’t you see? Now doesn’t exist. She’s gone back to the time life stopped for her. When the train turned over she was caught in her mother’s arms. Carol became unconscious but Liza stayed awake. She was alone and frightened and she wanted you, but you didn’t come.’
‘I knew nothing about it. Dear God!’ Matteo dropped his head down onto the bed. After a moment he raised it. ‘What can I say to her?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ Holly said. ‘But it must come from your heart, or she’ll know.’
‘Poppa-Poppa…’ Liza’s voice had risen onto a note of anguish. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m here, piccina.’ He took both her hands in his, searching her face, trying to will her to open her eyes.
‘No-no-you never came-Mamma said-I didn’t belong to you…’
He grew very still then, his eyes fixed on the little girl in a kind of dread.
‘Carol couldn’t have told her that,’ he murmured. ‘She couldn’t-’
‘I’m afraid she must have,’ Holly said.
‘But how could she do anything so cruel? How could anyone…? Then she knows everything. Oh, God!’
‘No, I don’t think she does,’ Holly said suddenly. ‘Children put their own meanings on things. She won’t understand that phrase as we understand it.’