‘This one’s my favourite.’ He handed me ‘The Tiger who Came to Tea’.
‘Mine too.’ I took it off him and for a second I felt a deep trill of pleasure go up my arm and into the pit of my stomach as it had done when I had given him Cheetah. It was as close as I could safely get to really touching him.
I was alone in the house a week or so later when John called round. I took him into the living room and we say next to each other in the muted afternoon light. It was very quiet, the house was a long way from a main road, and the occasional soft hoot of Wood Pigeons and the pitter-patter of the early spring rain were the only sounds to disturb the silence. John sighed and settled himself deeper into Dad’s favourite old leather armchair.
‘It’s very peaceful here, not like the station. You don’t realise how bloody noisy it is until you get away from it!’ He smiled ruefully and I felt a swell of empathy for him. I wanted to comfort him somehow, and wondered what it would feel like to hold him, whether I’d even be able to get my arms around the sheer bulk of him. He looked at me keenly and I surprised myself by blushing and raised my coffee cup in an attempt to hide it.
‘I wanted to let you know what’s been happening since I last saw you - and in particular, the information I’ve been able to get about the call you had from Dan. It must have been hard waiting around, I'm sorry. A lot of police work is like this. If it isn't solved in the first 48 hours the trail becomes cold. You're brother's penchant for unannounced holidays has made things a lot harder for him I'm afraid.'
'I know, it's OK, I've kept myself busy - nesting - getting ready for the move that kind of thing. What about you?'
'We've been investigating a spate of particularly nasty robberies. I won't laden you with the details. They're on Crimewatch this week if you really want to know.’ He winked, ‘I'm played by someone ten years older than me and several pounds heavier.'
'You had a starring role then?'
'We had a tip-off about one of the robberies - we ambushed them and I had the pleasure of chasing one of the suspects around the back-streets of Hollingbury.'
'Did you catch him?'
'Just about,' he mock-wheezed, holding his back, 'but I'm not as quick as I used to be!'
'Your wife must find it hard.' I ventured. 'Knowing that you’re in potential danger every time you go to work.'
He looked at me curiously. ‘What makes you think I’m married?’
‘Why would I think you weren’t?’
‘Any number of things; scruffiness, absent-mindedness, world-weariness, bad-temper.’
I laughed and shook my head at him. ‘So what did they say about the phone?’
'It was only a very short call so they can only track it to a ten mile radius. The area includes Terranima where you stayed last year. We checked his own mobile phone history too, but the calls appear to be innocuous things, calls from the UK to his agent, one to his bank, that kind of thing – rather than any Italian residential numbers. Also the calls stop when he leaves England.’
I sat forward, my mind whirring. ‘That surely proves that there is some kind of connection with the Amarenas?’
‘Roma police have informally questioned Mr Amarena, he says he knows nothing, and hasn’t seen your brother since 1990 when he came over to see visit your Mother when she was ill.’ He paused, had a gulp from his coffee, studying me through the steam. ‘It’s difficult, we don’t know exactly when your brother went missing or what has happened to him so it’s difficult to use alibis, or lack of them, to pin anyone down. They’ve put together a picture of Mr Amarena’s movements though, starting from the day Dan arrived in Italy. They’ve found nothing unusual. He seems to have carried on his personal and business life exactly as normal.’
‘So that’s it? We take his word against the overwhelming evidence?’
‘No Maddie, it’s just that we have no option but to take his word, because we have no concrete evidence to contradict it. The only thing we can prove is that Dan went to Italy, and that he made a call to you within a ten-mile radius of Amarena’s home town. It’s not much, not by anyone’s standards, and certainly not by a Lawyers standards; and you can bet your life that Amarena can afford a good one.’
‘So you’re giving up.’ I fought back the tears that had started to burn in my eyes.
‘No, I’m not giving up; I’ve put some pressure on the Rome police, and they’ve suggested to Fabrizio that he volunteer to come and talk to us. Apparently he’s got some business to attend to in England so he’s agreed to it.’
‘But surely he’ll just give you more bullshit? How will it help?’
‘You can find out some unexpected things simply by meeting someone face to face, but I don’t want to get your hopes up. At the end of the day – even if we do confirm the link between your brother and Mr Amarena, it proves nothing other than they may have known each other and that Dan had gone over there, maybe on holiday and that something, completely unrelated to Mr Amarena, may have gone wrong for him in Italy. You’ve said yourself that your family had been on holiday there before Dan was born, and Mr Amarena gave you a job when you needed it.’
I put down my cup, I was shaking. ‘But the call! What about that? It shows Dan’s in danger! More importantly it shows that someone pretended to be him, to fly to Serbia, to put us off the scent! You've got to help us! I don't know how much longer we can take this. Nicholas hasn't eaten properly in weeks.’
He leant over, bridging the gap between his chair and mine and enveloped my hand in one of his. It was like putting on one of those giant American base-ball gloves. ‘I know, and I believe that he’s in trouble, that someone’s covering up; but without a motive for Mr Amarena to hurt him, and no real evidence, there’s nothing more we can do for the present.’
His hand felt lovely on mine and my head and heart were struggling with two very difference waves of emotion. One part was all confusion and worry for Dan, the other an almost hungering need for John not to move his hand. I realised I was grateful for the physical contact. Involuntarily I felt my thumb move gently against the warm weight of his palm. He didn’t move his hand. I didn’t dare look at him. Quiet fell about us again, amplifying the soft, slightly uneven sound of our breath. Perhaps the rest of the world had disappeared, and we were the only people left, graven in the silent living room holding hands.
Eventually, almost involuntarily, like a puppet's head being lifted on a string, I looked up at him. His eyes were on fire; the greens in them swam and pulsed. My breathing quickened. He was really looking at me, in a way I’d never experienced before. It seemed at that moment, that everyone who had ever looked at me before had merely glanced – visual grazes – not this deep, skewering, intense look. Slowly, inevitably we began to lean together until his lips rested warm and electric against mine. We kissed softly and slowly, our bodies shivering with delicious sensation. Then he pulled me up to standing and the kiss deepened, tongues and bodies locked. I could feel the heat from my swollen breasts and hard round stomach radiating into him. I heard the rain start up again, a soothing hushing noise that emanated around the house and enveloped us. Eventually, mutually we peeled apart. John felt me sway a little and pulled me gently onto the sofa beside him. It felt wonderful to be held, and I snuggled gratefully up against him and he stroked my hair. I could hear his heart pounding in the great keg of his chest.
‘You are a unique man John Nickelby. Seemingly immovable, yet completely unpredictable.’
He laughed and kissed the top of my head. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time.’
‘Really?’
‘Pretty much since the first time I saw you. I’m not sure you realise how beautiful you are. And how brave.’
‘But I’m not either, I never have been.’
‘You don’t have the monopoly of opinion on that one. You’ll just have to take my word for it.’
I took his hand and kissed it and then held it against the side of my cheek. ‘And it doesn’t make you feel
strange – my pregnancy, all of that?’
‘Why should it? It’s who you are, it’s what’s happened to you. At least something good has come from all the heartache.’
I held his hand out before my face and traced down from his fingertips to his wrist, recording the lines and whorls in his skin. I felt him shiver, and then he took my arm and wrapped it around his neck and we kissed again, and I held him tightly and wondered at this wonderful turn of events; that only a few hours before we were mere acquaintances and now we were intimate, holding each other, stroking each other. I was scared too; scared because it was so different to anything I had felt before. I pulled away and cradled his huge face in my hands, leaning my forehead against his.
‘I really thought I’d lost my chance of happiness when Alan and Stephanie died. But here I am, with a child I never thought I could have…and now you.’
‘Who were Alan & Stephanie.’
‘My husband,’ I answered reluctantly, ‘he committed suicide about five years ago after Stephanie was killed in a car crash on her way home from school. She wasn’t my child but I’d lived with her for years…John?’ He was pulling away from me now, gently but firmly disentangling my arms and starting to stand up. ‘John, what is it?’
‘I can’t do this Maddie, I shouldn’t be doing this.’ He was already grabbing his coat and heading for the door. I stumbled after him and managed to get to the front door before him.
‘I know we shouldn’t – but no one needs to know do they? We can keep it low key until this is all over. We don’t have to rush, please John!’
He looked at me and his eyes were wild, but he opened the door regardless. ‘I’m sorry, you don’t know how sorry, but it’s not right. I’ll help you find Dan I promise, but I can’t do this.’ And he strode down the path without a backward glance. I shut the door behind me and leant against it. Every atom of me was alive with his touch and his kisses and yet I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life.
Over the next couple of weeks I sank very low. I was shocked, shocked that this, in the end, was how love was to come to me. I had loved Alan, but a good proportion of that love (I now realised) was to do with being seduced by the ‘rightness’ of it – nice home, instant family, someone to come home to. I didn’t even let myself admit this until over a year after his death. The guilt wouldn’t let me. And then Sergio, beautiful sweet Sergio, the father of my child; I had always held a bit back. He had wanted to be rescued from his life, the expectations, and I couldn’t help him. He had known he was living on borrowed time, was desperate to grab as much of life as he could, but without feeling able to tell people why. And here it was now, the love that had unknowingly evaded me all these years; it had come, finally, in the most unexpected and sudden of ways and left me desperate and confused. Perhaps I deserved it. I had been unable to truly give it where it had been wanted so far, so I clearly didn’t deserve to have it when I wanted it.
John was true to his word and was keeping me up to date with the investigation, but whereas before he would have found an excuse to come round to see me, he would now email or text. Mr Amarena was due to visit in two weeks he said. They had also been sent the interpreted transcript of his interview in Italy. I asked him for a copy – he said that wasn’t the done thing but he’d see what he could do. He never mentioned what happened between us that day – and I, seemingly incapacitated with grief and disappointment didn’t either. I felt the grey shroud of dreary indifference start to descend and it took a great and prolonged force of will to resist it. I focused on my pregnancy; or at least that is what I did on the outside. On the inside, however hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about John, about what could be between us – about how wonderful it had felt to kiss him - about why he had pulled away.
I felt myself teetering on the edge of depression and tried to fill my time. The weather had finally turned as we headed into March, and the fresh sunny days created a bright backdrop to my darkening mood. Getting on with day-to-day life took all of my strength, both physical and emotional. This morning was no exception, and it had taken a huge act of will to make myself leave the house and head into town for my anti-natal appointment. In the street outside the front door a couple of cherry trees had already blossomed, a veil of scent, pudding-sweet, around their trunks. I could physically feel a softening in the air, a new warmth. I undid my coat - I had over-dressed - and absent-mindedly stroked my tummy as I often did. Particularly, when like now, my baby was gently moving inside me, a hand or curve of back occasionally impressing itself against the firm wall of my stomach.
It was such a beautiful day, but I couldn’t feel it or appreciate it. I started briskly up the hill, I would walk myself better, that was all I could think of to do. As I progressed though, I felt my breath start to get shallower and shallower, my chest start to tighten. I leant against a wall, almost panting, feeling my throat constrict and go dry. I was there for a few minutes, capable of nothing but continuing to breath. The penny dropped, I’m having a panic attack. The realisation didn’t help, I felt my heart start to race. And then the baby did something extraordinary inside me. There wasn’t much room left now, and his movements had become more forceful, sometimes distending my stomach, the angle of knee or elbow visible through the skin. This felt like he was turning full circle, using his feet against my bladder to push himself up and over. It knocked the last of the breath out of me but it also focussed my attention away from my building panic.
Something inside me snapped, but it wasn’t a surrendering snap, it was like the snap of an elastic band, a small burst of pent-up energy. Not this time. I heard a cool voice inside me say. Not this time! with increasing persistence and clarity. With a burst of determination I pushed myself up from the wall and told myself to breathe deeply. I touched my stomach and felt it rise and fall with my slowing breaths. As I cradled my belly, I realised that whatever happened to me now, I would never be alone again. I had a child to look after. My child. If I was destined to be lonely in the romantic and sexual sense, if the men I had been with were the chances I had had, then so be it. I was sick and tired of living with fear; with my failures, a kind of succubus, heavy and malignant on my shoulder. I had had a breakdown. I had come to a point in my life where there was nothing left to give, but only to give in. That was behind me now. I was going to find my brother, and my little boy was going to be born a beautiful, healthy baby. And I was going to fight to get it. I was going to do whatever it took to get it.
The light suddenly changed, I looked up and saw that great tectonic plates of weather were now clashing silently in the sky above me. One minute deep grey clouds sucked all the light away, the next, startling sunshine and rents of vivid blue sky broke through and charged everything about me with white-gold brightness. I imagined the push and pull of the miles of air above me, the shifting densities and strata that the seagulls were now riding – tiny sunlit shapes against the rolling rain clouds. I couldn’t run, my belly was too big now, but I half jogged and half walked the rest of the way home, tears streaming down my face, lightened by a strange, embryonic kind of elation.
When I got home I could hear Dad in the kitchen. I shouted hello then dashed upstairs to attempt to straighten myself up. It didn’t fool him though; when I came into the kitchen he took hold of my arms and looked at me questioningly.
‘I’m all right Dad. Honestly, I’m all right.’
He sighed and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’ve got to go out love. The kettle’s just boiled.’
‘I mean it Dad. I’m OK, the baby is OK, you don’t need to worry about us.’
I had barely said goodbye to him and sat down with a cup of tea when the doorbell rang. My heart trembled, as it did involuntarily every time, on the off-chance it was John. It wasn’t John, it was Fabrizio Amarena, the last person I expected to see. John had reminded me that he was due to come to England, but I was still completely taken by surprise. I had pictured him being escorted straight to the police station on arrival, na�
�ve of me I suppose. Although, as John had pointed out, I had no reason to suspect Fabrizio of having anything to do with Dan’s disappearance, I still felt a strong instinct to be cautious. I had always felt a little uncomfortable around him and I’d never been able to put my finger on why. Even as a little girl he had made me feel a bit funny inside, somehow exposed. And when he’d visited me in Terranima I had automatically become defensive when he had talked about Sergio.
As ever he was meticulously dressed, though he looked a little haggard. His eyes took me in from head to toe, but lingered on my belly. He leant forward to kiss my cheek. The smell of his aftershave was strong, sweet and spicy; it triggered a memory; a previous visit, when he had left a trail of this perfume behind him in our hallway.
‘Madeleine. It is a long time since I last saw you. Six months I think.’
‘Something like that.’ I said abstractedly. ‘I’m so sorry about Sergio, he was a very special man and I miss him so much.’
'We were disappointed that you didn't come to the funeral.'
A sense of shame overwhelmed me, I struggled to answer him. 'It's been a very difficult time.'
‘Of course, a very difficult time.’ He smiled magnanimously and gestured towards the hall. ‘So are you going to invite me in? We have much to discuss, my grandchild for example.’
His use of the word grandchild made something quiver unpleasantly just below my ribs. ‘Of course, forgive me Fabrizio. Come in.’ I led him into the living room. ‘What can I get you? Tea, coffee, I think I even have a bottle or two left of Sonnetto.’
He laughed smoothly. ‘No grazie. What do you say here, it would be too much of a busman’s holiday? A coffee please if you have fresh – if not a glass of water.’ He settled comfortably into a chair and looked out into the garden.
I texted John as I waited for the kettle to boil and put coffee in the Cafetierre. I didn’t want to risk Fabrizio hearing me talk on the phone, but I wanted a defence, an out clause. I didn’t feel safe with this man, grandfather to my child or not. I took him the coffee and he accepted it graciously.
The Soul Room Page 12