He ground his teeth. ‘Will you just get me some champagne, please?’
‘Yes,
‘To think I used to wish I had a sister! I didn’t know how lucky I was.’
She handed him the bottle and two champagne glasses. ‘Not all women are as bossy as me.’
‘Now there’s something to be thankful for. How much?’
She told him.
‘Don’t you have anything cheaper?’ he asked plaintively.
‘You skinflint. I’ve a good mind to warn her what you’re really like.’
‘She wouldn’t believe you,’ he assured her. ‘Nobody would.’
‘Oh, get out of here.’
Laughing, he offered her the money, then realised that he’d lost her attention. ‘Laura?’
She quickly looked away from the door, back to him. ‘Sorry. Oh yes, the money.’
Even as she took it her eyes were fixed on someone passing behind him.
‘Hi, Steve,’ she said, smiling. ‘Be with you in a minute.’
‘I can wait if it’s for you,’ he replied.
It was him, taking his seat at the bar and waiting for Laura with an easy assurance that Gino found obscurely offensive.
Tess eyed the champagne with glee. ‘If Perry could only see me now! He asked me out tonight. I said no thanks, I had other plans. He said, “What other plans?” and I said, “Never you mind.” I wonder if that was the right way to play it. What do you think, Gino?
‘Sorry,’ he said hastily.
‘Why are you staring at the barmaid?’
‘I was wondering if she gave me the right change. Never mind. You were saying about Perry.’
‘Did I do the right thing?’
‘Absolutely.’
He had no idea what she was talking about. The man Laura had called Steve was accepting his drink, indicating for her to have one too. They looked like people who knew each other well.
‘I want to make him jealous,’ Tess mused, ‘but not so jealous that I’ll lose him.’
‘It’s a difficult decision,’ Gino agreed mechanically.
They were laughing, heads together over the bar. Gino forced himself to look away.
‘Do you really want to keep him?’ he asked Tess for something to say. ‘If he isn’t faithful now, he isn’t going to improve.’
‘Well, all men fool around, don’t they?’ she said gloomily. ‘That bloke at the bar is trying to fool around with the barmaid.’
‘Is that what he’s trying to do?’ Gino murmured.
‘Yes, just watch him gazing into her eyes-’
‘I am.’
‘He’s probably got a wife somewhere.’
‘Well, it’s their business,’ Gino said in a voice that was slightly tense. ‘I’m sure she can take care of herself. Let’s not watch them.’
As she had promised Gino, Laura hadn’t spoken to Nikki about her father, and the child’s insistence that he was dead. Nor had Nikki mentioned it again, and the subject seemed to be safely over.
They were coming up to the little girl’s ninth birthday.
‘It’s a big milestone,’ Gino told her gravely.
‘No, ten is a big milestone,’ she said, ‘because it’s double figures.’
‘But nine is the last one before that,’ Gino explained. ‘You’ll be in double figures the rest of your life-unless you live to be a hundred, when you’ll go into triple figures.’
Nikki giggled.
‘So, this is your last year in single figures, and we must mark the occasion properly.’
Satisfied with this explanation Nikki went off to tell Bert and Fred all about it. Laura shook her head and said admiringly, ‘How do you always manage to say the right thing to her?’
He gave a comical shrug. ‘My brother Rinaldo would say it came from having the mind of a child myself. He’s probably right.’
His own gift to Nikki was a lavishly illustrated book about Italy, with text in both Italian and English.
‘She’ll love this,’ Laura said, looking through it with delight. They were talking late at night, as they often did.
‘What are you giving her?’
‘A new dress, and some shoes I know she wants. And look at this.’
Laura darted into the next room and returned with a bag from which she took a book about horses, and a birthday card.
‘I’m going to give her this,’ she said, ‘from Jack.’
‘I’ll sign it “from Daddy”. Then she’ll feel that he still remembers her, and she’ll be able to let go of this fantasy about him being dead.’
Gino clutched his head. ‘No, Laura, please no, you mustn’t do this.’
‘But it’s what she needs.’
‘It’s the last thing she needs,’ he said, horrified. ‘She won’t believe it, and that will make things worse.’
‘Of course she’ll believe it. Why shouldn’t she?’
‘Because she’s very bright and not easily fooled. And even if she does believe it, think what’ll happen. She’ll ask you a lot of questions that you won’t know how to answer. It’s a mad idea.’
‘Gino, please, I’m only trying to give her a little happiness. I’m just so glad you told me the way her mind was working.’
‘I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t.’ In his urgency Gino took hold of her shoulders. ‘Laura, listen to me. Nikki isn’t just intelligent, she’s strong and brave, and she’s worked out a way of coping.’
‘Coping? Telling herself stories-’
‘She’s invented that fantasy because she needs it. It keeps her going. When she doesn’t need it any more she’ll abandon it, but she has to pick the moment. Don’t try to force her.’
Suddenly she was angry.
‘Gino, I know what I’m doing. She’s my daughter, and I think I know what’s best for her.’
He made a wry grimace and dropped his hands, turning away as he did so. At once Laura was horrified at herself.
‘Oh, no, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean that. You’ve been so good to both of us-’
‘Well, I suppose you’re right,’ he sighed. ‘She’s your child and you know her better than I do. I’m sorry, Laura. Please forget I said anything.’
‘If only I knew what was the right thing to do! I never do know, you see. It’s always a choice of two wrongs.’
‘I know,’ he said gently. ‘And I just worry and confuse you. You’re her mother, and I have no right to interfere.’
When the day came, everyone in the boarding house brought Nikki gifts and cards, and left them stacked by her place at breakfast. It was a Saturday so she didn’t have to rush.
‘All for me?’ she asked, eyes shining.
‘Every single one, my darling,’ Laura told her.
One by one the child opened her cards and gifts, exclaiming with delight over everything.
Finally there was one left. Laura had kept it back on purpose. Nikki opened the card, a big, lavish one with the words, ‘Happy Birthday to my daughter’ emblazoned in gilt letters.
She frowned, reading the verse, looking at where it read,
‘Why, it’s from Daddy,’ Laura said brightly. ‘Isn’t that nice?’
But Nikki dropped the card as though it had stung her. ‘It’s not from Daddy,’ she said in a deadly quiet
