Husband By Necessity

she knew she wouldn’t sleep in the centre of this turbulence.

It took her an hour, but at last she dozed off and awoke to an eerie silence. For once there was no sound from the street outside. Making her way to the window that overlooked the valley, she found herself gazing out onto a scene from another world.

Snow stretched as far down as she could see, which wasn’t very far. Then it vanished into a thick mist. The mist had crept up during the night, cutting off the mountain peak from the valley below, so that it was as though Montedoro floated above the clouds. In one sense it was magical. In another it was desolating. This was what Bernardo had warned her about, but he’d never told her that he would leave her to face it alone. For the first time she began to understand the distance he was determined to set between them, and her heart almost failed her. The tide of hope and optimism that had carried her here began to look like foolishness: a spoilt young woman’s conviction that what she wanted was hers for the asking.

She got up and made herself breakfast. She would be alone today as she’d given Ginetta some time off. She made sure everything was ready in the surgery but when she looked out there was only an empty street, and untrodden snow in both directions.

She logged onto the net and spent most of the day accessing medical journals and chasing the latest news.

‘Stay up to date,’ her father had said. ‘If they discover it today, you learn about it tomorrow. Never fall behind. It’s the quickest way to get brain-dead.’

She’d always found this part of her work fascinating, but now she knew she was working from the top of her head, reading but not taking in. She downloaded several articles for later when her brain was functioning.

In the early afternoon she made herself a snack and poured a glass of Bernardo’s wine. Then she wished she hadn’t. It looked forlorn, standing by her plate in solitary festivity. The house was dreadfully quiet. When she looked out the snow in the street showed not a single footmark. Nobody had ventured out all day. They were all safely shut up in their homes, and already, as the winter light faded, she could see the windows start to glow.

A person could feel sorry for themselves in this situation, she reflected. She’d stayed here for their sakes, and not one of them had the decency to develop so much as a sore thumb.

She went around the house, drawing the curtains, trying not to hear the lonely sound of her footsteps on the flagstones. At her bedroom window she pushed open the casement for a last look down into the valley before darkness fell completely. Then she stopped and peered, trying to decide if she’d really spotted something or only imagined it.

It was almost impossible to see, but she thought she could discern a dark shadow emerging from the mist. She wasn’t mistaken. Somebody was down there, struggling up the steep, snow-covered road to Montedoro. But who would be mad enough to attempt that road on foot in this weather?

She screwed up her eyes, trying to hold the stumbling figure in view as the darkness grew more impenetrable, until he vanished altogether.

‘He hasn’t even got a torch,’ she muttered. ‘Idiot!’

But at least it meant there was someone who needed her, which was almost a relief. Pulling on some trousers, her thick boots and a coat, she seized up a heavy duty torch and went out into the street.

It was hard to keep her balance on the steep slope and she had to move at a snail’s pace, keeping hold of the wall until at last she reached the huge stone gate that marked the entrance to the town. She swung her torch in an arc down the mountain road, but there was no sign of anyone. She began to inch her way down, waving the beam and calling, although in the high wind she couldn’t be sure that her voice was carrying. She could hear nothing back, and she wondered if the traveller had collapsed.

Her alarm grew as she went further and further down, frantically straining her eyes and calling out. At last she saw him, sitting by the side of the road, his arms resting on his knees. He looked up just as she scrambled down beside him.

‘Are you hurt?’ she gasped, looking into his face. ‘Bernardo!’

He was equally astonished. ‘What are you doing here?’ he mumbled through lips that were almost numb with cold.

‘I saw you from my window. What do you mean walking up here without even a torch? Where’s your car?’

‘I had to leave it further down the road. It wasn’t safe to drive in that mist. I have a torch but the batteries failed.’ He was talking in a series of gasps as though his lungs were protesting after the long haul upwards.

‘Are you hurt?’ she demanded.

‘I turned my ankle some way back.’

‘Put your arm around my shoulder.’

‘I can manage without-’

‘Just do it,’ she interrupted him firmly. ‘I’ve got to get you home before you freeze to death.’

He grimaced but obeyed her. Clutching the low wall with one hand and her with the other, he managed to get upright and they began the slow journey up the rest of the way to Montedoro. Angie’s mind was full of questions. How far had he come on foot? And why was he here at all? But there would be time to think of that later. She could feel that he was at the end of his strength.

At last, to her vast relief, her door came in sight. But as she went to open it Bernardo said, ‘I’ll go to my own house.’

‘You’ll do as your doctor tells you,’ she said crossly. ‘I need to look at that ankle, and I prefer to do it in my surgery.’

He didn’t try to argue any further.

In fact, she didn’t take him into the surgery, but into her front room. After helping him off with his coat she pushed him gently down onto the sofa and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a tumbler half full of a golden brown liquid.

‘Brandy,’ she said. ‘Thaw you out. Heaven knows, you need it.’

While he drained the glass she went to find a thick, towelling robe that she’d purposely bought four sizes too large because she enjoyed snuggling into it.

‘Your clothes are sodden right through,’ she told him. ‘Take everything off and put this on. Go on, I won’t look. I’ll be getting you some more brandy.’

When she returned he was wearing the robe and she got to work on his foot, exclaiming as she touched his freezing flesh. ‘How long had you been walking?’

‘I don’t know. Hours.’

To her relief the ankle was neither broken nor sprained, but merely wrenched, although it was suffering from the burden he’d put on it.

‘How soon did you do this?’ she asked, testing the swelling.

‘Almost at once.’

‘You haven’t done it any good walking on it. What possessed you? Why didn’t you turn back, use your mobile to call someone to drive up and collect you?’

‘I wanted to reach Montedoro,’ he said irritably. ‘It seemed a good idea then but now I’m not sure why. Quit nagging!’

‘Your face is bruised and your head cut,’ she said. ‘How did that happen?’

‘When I fell I was on a very steep part of the road, and it was icy. I slipped back several feet.’ He showed her his hands, lacerated where he’d tried to grip the cobbles.

Alarmed, she checked him all over, but found to her relief that there were no broken or cracked bones. She bathed his cuts and put some sticking plaster on his head. By now he was leaning back with his eyes closed, as though the sudden warmth, lack of food and two hefty slugs of brandy had caught up with him all in a moment.

Quietly Angie went into the kitchen and began to prepare some food. As she worked she continually glanced up at the sight of him, out like a light. She felt happier than she’d been for a long time. He might say what he liked, but he’d returned because she was here, and he wouldn’t leave her alone. When the going got tough, he ought to have turned back. But he hadn’t.

He jumped when she touched him on the shoulder. ‘Hot soup,’ she said.

He rubbed his eyes. ‘I should go home.’

‘Soup,’ she said inexorably, handing him the bowl and the spoon.