‘I didn’t feel like a child. I felt like a man. Whenever he left us, my father would say, “Remember to care for your mother. That is a man’s duty.” But instead of caring for her I-’ A shudder racked him.
Her instinct had been right, she thought. This was the thing that drove him, but now he’d trusted her enough to reveal it they could cope with it together, and all would be well. She put her arms about his shaking body, holding him close in a passion of tenderness and love.
‘It’s all right, my darling,’ she murmured. ‘Hold onto me. I’m here. We can make everything right.’
‘It’ll never be right,’ he groaned.
‘It will, it will-if we love each other-’
As she spoke she was seducing him with her hands, touching and caressing him everywhere, trying to draw him back to her. Little by little she felt his physical resistance to her slacken, until he yielded, with a groan, to their mutual desire.
His lovemaking was different now, less tender, more driven, as though there was something that he desperately wanted from her. She gave him everything she had to give, revelling in his need of her. She felt strong and triumphant that night, and when she looked into his face, and saw its tenderness replaced by a look of haunting fear, it was easy to tell herself that she was mistaken.
She was awoken by the sound of Ginetta moving about in the kitchen. The room was filled with light and she guessed the sun must be high. It wasn’t like her to oversleep, but the night had been so full-she smiled at the memory-that she’d needed an extra sleep.
The other side of the bed was empty, and after the first disappointment she realised that Bernardo’s sense of propriety had made him slip away before Ginetta could find him there.
Never mind, she thought happily. Soon they would be ready to tell the world. She knew now that he loved her as much as she loved him.
Once Baptista had said to her, ‘When he trusts you with his deepest secret, you will know he truly loves you.’
Last night he’d trusted her like that, enough to tell of the one fury above all others that tortured him, his feelings of guilt that he had inadvertently caused the death of his parents. And from that everything followed, including his refusal to be part of the family, or to accept more from them than the bare minimum. He felt he had no right.
But now they could confront the horrors together. She might even manage to show him that a child’s feeling of guilt should be put in the past, and not allowed to haunt the man.
She stretched luxuriously, feeling every inch of her body enjoy the sensation of being newly alive. Such love! And it was hers to enjoy for the rest of her life in ever deepening happiness.
She checked quickly to see if he’d left her a note on the pillow, but he hadn’t. It wouldn’t have been like him, she thought. No frills, just an honest man.
She bounded out of bed and got quickly under the shower, emerging bright eyed and refreshed, and hurried into the kitchen. And it was there that she saw the note, leaning against the kettle.
It said simply,
She had to read it again and again to take it in. The sheer brutal simplicity of the short message was like being pounded by hammers. The man who’d loved her with such passion and tenderness in the night had fled her in the dawn, like an evil thing that he must escape to survive.
And now she heard what she’d blotted out before, Bernardo’s anguished voice begging her not to force the unbearable truth from him.
‘It was my own fault,’ she whispered. ‘I made him tell me. He wasn’t ready, but I forced it out of him. I had everything, and I threw it away. Oh God, how could I be so stupid?’
Suddenly the pride that had sustained her broke. Until this moment she’d won every round, and done so with such deceptive ease that she’d thought that was all there was to it. Now she saw how she’d thrown it all away, and she must stop that happening, no matter what she had to do.
She huddled on some clothes and ran out into the street. Stumbling, slipping, grasping the wall, she made her way blindly up the street to Bernardo’s house near the top. There was the little alley between the shops that led to his door. Gasping, she made her way along it, blinking in the poor light and finding the door by feel.
‘Bernardo!’ she screamed.
The door was opened at once. Stella stood there in tears.
‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘An hour ago.’ She looked at Angie with sympathy. She had always understood the position, and been rooting for them.
‘Didn’t he say where?’ Angie begged.
‘Sometimes he goes away like this. He never says where.’
‘But when will he come back?’
Stella’s shrug was eloquent. ‘He’ll come back when he comes back.’
‘No, wait-’ Angie was trying to pull herself together, inwardly saying keep calm, don’t panic. ‘This place is snowed in.’
‘He spoke of his car,’ Stella said unhappily.
Angie counted every step down to the great gate that led out of Montedoro. Once there she could see the marks left in the snow. There were her own footsteps from when she’d gone down to fetch Bernardo, then two sets of steps overlapping, when they’d climbed back up together.
And there was another set, firmly heading down the hill, leaving sharp, emphatic imprints in the brilliant morning light. Angie strained her eyes against that cruel light, looking for any sign of the steps turning to come back.
But they went on down until they vanished into the mist.
CHAPTER TEN
SOON the news of Heather’s pregnancy had spread through the whole family, to general rejoicing. When the snow cleared Angie drove down to Palermo and was received with open arms by Heather and Baptista. The three women settled down to a pleasant afternoon together.
It was almost incredible how different everything felt on the coast. Here there was rain but no snow, the air was almost warm enough for spring, and there was even a glimmer of sunshine. But she had chosen a man from the mountains, and despite the harshness, even, it seemed, the cruelty of that life, she wasn’t ready yet to give up on her choice.
As she had cakes and coffee with Heather and Baptista she was uncomfortably conscious of the question they were both refusing to ask. They knew Bernardo had battled through atrocious weather to return to her, and they were surprised that he hadn’t come down with her now. But she had her defence mechanisms in place, carefully rehearsed to sound natural.
‘If you two could see yourselves,’ she chuckled. ‘Your ears are flapping.’
‘So tell us,’ Heather demanded, ‘then they won’t need to flap.’
‘So nothing. He came back. We had a meal together. It’s all very friendly and civilised. Now he’s away for a few days. Baptista, that cake is delicious. Can I have some more?’
‘It’s crawling with calories,’ Heather said darkly. ‘You’ll get fat-I wish.’
‘Not as fast as you will,’ Angie teased, skilfully turning the conversation back to Heather’s pregnancy.
Luckily they both accepted this and asked no more questions. Angie didn’t feel up to telling them how Bernardo had vanished while she was still ecstatic from his loving, and driven off, apparently into oblivion.
She’d had hours since then to ponder what he’d told her about the feeling of guilt that still tormented him from
