Bride By Choice

‘I was going anyway,’ he told the screen, with perfect truth.

His first day had to be spent closeted with Renato, talking business. But as soon as he could get away he drove up to Montedoro, arriving just as Dr Angie Wendham was finishing her evening surgery. She was beautiful in a blonde, almost fairy-like way, but he thought she looked tired and sad. She hailed him with pleasure and invited him to supper.

‘I want to hear all about America,’ she said.

He’d meant to speak about his travels, his triumphs, but all he could think of was Helen, and for the life of him he couldn’t stop an enormous grin taking over his face.

‘What’s her name?’ Angie demanded at once.

‘I don’t know why you women always jump to one conclusion. I spent some time with the daughter of family friends in New York. Her name’s Helen and, before you hear wedding bells, I’m the last man in the world she’d dream of marrying. She told me that in the first ten minutes.’

Angie’s eyes widened. ‘You proposed to her in ten minutes?’

‘She didn’t wait for a proposal. She just rushed to tell me not to bother.’

‘You don’t mean you’ve met a woman who’s immune to your charm?’

‘If you like to put it that way,’ he said, slightly piqued.

Angie chuckled. ‘I like the sound of her,’ she said, echoing Helen’s own words in a way that gave Lorenzo an eerie feeling.

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense,’ Angie went on. ‘Tell me-ouch!’

A fork had fallen to the floor and jabbed her foot. Lorenzo watched her bend down for it, then clutch the table. Alarmed, he made a dash and just caught her before she slid to the floor.

‘I’m fine,’ she said hastily.

‘You look a bit peaky.’

‘It’s been a long, hard day. I didn’t have time for lunch.’

He made her sit down while he prepared the supper. ‘How are you managing?’ he asked kindly.

She told him some of the story, but she still kept many secrets. Lorenzo could only guess what had happened the night of Baptista’s birthday, when Bernardo had followed her up here, and why he had fled the woman he loved so soon after. But remembering how Angie had nearly fainted, he was beginning to think it was time he took a hand.

The next day he went looking for Bernardo in a deserted farmhouse where he had often hidden away before. He found him there again, and brushed aside Bernardo’s protests. He had come to talk about Angie.

‘I’m still your brother and I’m not going to let you screw up the best thing that ever happened to you,’ he said, adding significantly, ‘Things have changed. If you’re going to add to the family, it’s about time you started being a member of it.’

He left without receiving any promises from Bernardo, but as he jolted over the rough track, wincing at what this was doing to the suspension of his new car, he felt that he’d done a good day’s work.

Suddenly he braked sharply, astounded by what he had seen under the trees. The next moment he was out of the car, staring across the track in a state of shock. For a searing moment he’d been certain he’d seen Helen.

There! Beneath the apple trees, standing in the orange dress she’d worn on the last day, laughing as she’d done then. He walked across and looked all around him.

There was nobody there.

He looked up and down the road, but he was quite alone.

Alone.

Suddenly he didn’t like the sound of the word.

He wondered what she was doing now. New York was six hours behind Sicily, so she would just have reached work. She would be sitting at her desk, probably talking to Erik. Perhaps they would be leaning over some paperwork together, his fair head close to her dark one.

It was the blossoms that had done it of course. They had brought back the memory of how they’d walked, hand in hand, under the blossoms in Central Park. He’d tried to describe the beauty of his homeland in spring, and the memory had made him almost hallucinate her presence now. Yes, that must be it.

But he wished she might really be here with him, so that they could walk together, as they had done in the last hours before they said goodbye.

That night he emailed her, talking about Bernardo and Angie, but he left out his suspicions of a pregnancy in case it made her even more critical of Bernardo.

In her reply she said, An odd thing happened yesterday. I went through Central Park on my way to work, and I could have sworn I saw you there. It wasn’t you, of course, just a trick of the light.

Lorenzo felt the hairs begin to stand up on the back of his neck, and tried to stay cool. Of course they were remembering each other. Nothing in that. And if, by sheer coincidence, her ‘trick of the light’ had come at about the same time as his own, that was no reason to start getting fanciful. He would tell her how he’d seen her under the blossoms, and they would share the joke.

But he didn’t. Somehow he couldn’t find the right words.

A week went by with no news from her. He felt aggrieved. They’d agreed to stay friends, after all. Besides, Elroys had made him her responsibility. It wouldn’t hurt to call and remind her that it was her duty to keep in touch. Having decided on the right jocular note, he dialled her apartment, only to be met by an answering machine. Of course, the time difference.

He could email, but he had a strange desire to hear her voice, so he continued to call and to be met with the answering machine, for the next few hours. In the end he had to sit up until five in the morning. And then the phone was answered by a voice that made him drop the receiver as though it was red-hot, without saying a word.

Erik!

Erik was in her apartment at nearly midnight.

She’d done it, then. She’d used their friendship as a springboard to her own independence. By now she and Erik were probably engaged.

Great! Wonderful! He couldn’t be happier!

Hell!

But the next day there was an email from her. It was a light-hearted account of going to the movies with Erik and taking him home for a meal afterwards.

The phone rang while I was busy in the kitchen, and as Dilys was out I asked him to answer it. The caller hung up right away, but I know who it was.

Lorenzo groaned.

It was Momma. I’m sure of that because she called again later and Erik answered again. Of course I got lectured next day because he was with me so late. Why do people have such suspicious minds?

‘Can’t think,’ he murmured.

He replied in similar light-hearted vein and for a few days they chatted about nothing in particular. If Erik’s name cropped up more than he thought strictly necessary, at least she never again mentioned taking him home.

They exchanged family news. Giorgio had been cross when Lorenzo went away without proposing, and growled at her until Mamma told him sharply to shut his face. Criticising her daughter was a privilege she reserved exclusively for herself.

I know our mothers have been thick as thieves about this, she wrote. I hope she isn’t giving you a hard time.

‘Just now I’m having a rest from being told I’m a disgrace to the family,’ he wrote back. ‘Bernardo has returned and he wants to marry Angie, but she’s saying no. She’s pregnant but she won’t have him. Says he asked her for the wrong reasons.’

Helen’s response was so like her that he could almost hear her indignant voice.

Good for her! If he only proposed because of the baby he ought to be boiled in oil!

He was incautious enough to respond, ‘Helen, this is Sicily!’

Her reply was a sulphurous, Exactly!