She’d eaten nothing all day, and after turning on the heating she began to prepare a meal, but suddenly she stopped and simply went to bed. She had no energy to be sensible.
She slept for a little while, awoke, slept again. Sleeping or waking, there were only shadows in all directions. At last she was forced to admit that a new day had dawned, and slowly got out of bed.
Her first action was to call Hope. She’d managed to keep her up to date about the disaster, Dante’s discovery of her files, their trip to Milan and her return to England, and Hope had asked for a call to say she’d arrived safely.
‘I meant to call last night, but I got in so late,’ she apologised.
‘Never mind. How are you? You sound terrible.’
‘I’ll be fine when I’ve had a cup of tea,’ she said, trying to sound relaxed.
‘How are you really?’ Hope persisted with motherly concern.
‘I’ll need a little time,’ she admitted. ‘How’s Dante?’
‘He’ll need time too. Carlo and Ruggiero went round to see him last night. He wasn’t at home, so they trawled the local bars until they found him sitting in a corner, drinking whisky. They took him home, put him to bed and stayed with him until morning. Carlo just called me to say he’s awake, with an almighty hangover, but otherwise all right.’
They parted with mutual expressions of affection. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Mike.
‘I’ve been hearing rumours,’ he said. ‘They say you might be back in the land of the living.’
She almost laughed. ‘That’s one way of putting it. I’m back in England.’
‘Great! I have work piling up for you.’
‘I thought you dumped me.’
‘I don’t dump people with your earning potential. That job you turned down is still open. They tried someone else, didn’t like the result and told me to get you at any price. It’s fantastic money.’
The money was awesome. If the Sandor episode had propelled her into the big time, her refusal of an even better offer had given her rarity value.
‘All right,’ she interrupted Mike at last. ‘Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.’
Later that day she went to the theatre, where the major star and his equally famous fiancee were rehearsing. From the first moment everything went well. They liked her, she liked them. Their genuine love for each other made them, at least for the moment, really nice people. They praised her pictures and insisted that she must take some more at their wedding.
The tale of her meeting with Sandor in Italy had got out. She began to receive offers to ‘tell all’ to the press. She refused them, but Sandor had heard rumours and become nervous, having given a self-serving interview to a newspaper, illustrated with several of Ferne’s notorious pictures. Her fame had increased. So had her price.
All around her, life was blossoming.
No, she thought, not life. Just her career. Life no longer existed.
She talked regularly with Hope and gained the impression that Dante’s existence was much like her own, outwardly successful but inwardly bleak.
But there was no direct word from him until she’d been home for a month, and then she received a text:
Your success is in all the papers. I’m glad you didn’t lose out. Dante.
She texted back:
I lost more than you’ll ever know.
After that there was silence. Desperately she struggled to reconcile herself to the fact that she would never hear from him again, but then she received a letter.
I know how generous you are, and so I dare to hope that in time you will forgive me for the things I said and did. Yes, I love you; I know that I shall always love you. But for both our sakes I can never tell you again.
Night after night she wept with the letter pressed against her heart. At last she replied:
You don’t need to tell me again. It’s enough that you said it once. Goodbye, my dearest.
He didn’t reply. She had not expected him to.
Her sleep was haunted by wretched dreams. In one she found that time had passed and suddenly there he was, older but still Dante. She reached out eagerly to him but he only gazed at her without recognition. Someone took him by the arm to lead him away.
Then she knew that the worst had happened, and he’d become the brain-damaged man he’d always feared. She longed for him to look back at her just for a moment, but he never did. She’d been blotted from his mind as if she had never been.
She woke from that dream to find herself screaming.
Struggling up in bed, she sat fighting back her sobs until suddenly her whole body seemed to become one gigantic heave. She flung herself out of bed and just managed to dash to the bathroom in time.
When it was over, she sat shivering and considering the implications.
But it did. And she knew it. A hurried visit to the chemist, and a test confirmed it.
The discovery that she was to have Dante’s child came like a thunderclap. She’d thought herself modern, careful, sensible, but in the dizzying delight of loving him she’d forgotten everything else. In a moment her life had been turned upside down. Everything she’d considered settled was in chaos.
A child of Dante’s, born from their love, but also born with chance of the hereditary illness that had distorted his life: a constant reminder of what she might have had and had lost.
The sensible answer was a termination, but she dismissed the thought at once. If she couldn’t have Dante, she could still have a little part of him, and nothing on earth would persuade her to destroy that. Fiercely she laid her hands over her stomach, still perfectly flat.
‘I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you,’ she vowed. ‘No matter what the future holds, you’re mine, and I’ll keep you safe.’
Then she realised that she’d spoken the words aloud, and looked around the apartment, wondering who she’d really been addressing. One thing was for sure: Dante had a right to know, and then, perhaps…
‘No, no!’ she cried. ‘No false hopes. No fantastic dreams. Just tell him and then-and then?’
Once her mind was made up, she acted quickly, calling Mike and clearing the decks at work. Then she got on a plane to Naples, and booked into a hotel. She told nobody that she was coming, not even Hope. This was between Dante and herself.
It was still light when she walked the short distance to the apartment block and stood looking up at his windows, trying to discern any sign of life. But it was too soon for lamps to be on.
She took the lift to the fifth floor and hesitated. It was unlike her to lack confidence, but this was so vital, and the next few minutes so important. She listened, but could hear nothing from inside. The silence seemed a bleak forecast of what was to come. Suddenly her courage drained away and she stepped back.
But her spirit rebelled at the thought of giving up without trying, and she raised her hand to ring the bell. Then she dropped it again. What was the point? Dante himself had believed that you couldn’t buck fate, and now she saw that he was right. Fate was against them. Defeated, she headed for the elevator.
The words were almost a scream. Turning, she saw Dante standing there in his doorway. His hair was dishevelled, his shirt torn open, his face was haggard and his eyes looked as though he hadn’t slept for a month. But the only thing she noticed was that his arms were outstretched to her, and the next moment she was enfolded in them.
They held each other in silence, clasped tight, not kissing, but clinging to each other as if for refuge.
‘I thought you were never going to knock,’ he said frantically. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
‘You knew I was coming?’
‘I saw you standing down there. I didn’t believe it at first. I’ve seen you so often and you always vanished. Then I heard the lift coming up, and your footsteps-but you didn’t ring the bell, and I was afraid it was just another hallucination. I’ve had so many; I couldn’t bear another. So many times you’ve come to me and vanished before I
