‘Tea. You’ll find it in the container over there.’
He served up pasta with sardines, which she found delicious. He ate with her but actually consumed very little as his eyes were mostly on her, to ensure that she ate every mouthful. When he wasn’t watching her he was darting to the stove to oversee the cooking of the meat-balls for the next dish. And he made the tea.
It was horrible. Bernardo had never made tea before and it showed.
‘What did I do wrong?’ he asked, seeing her face.
‘I don’t think the water boiled.’
‘I’ll make it again.’
Despite her protests he insisted on doing so, scowling until he got it right. She surveyed him tenderly, feeling a little ache in her heart. He was so inexpressibly dear, so close, so distant.
‘That’s good,’ she said at last, smiling as she sipped the tea.
‘Like the English make it?’ he demanded suspiciously.
‘Like I make it. Well-almost.’
They both smiled. For a brief instant the barriers were down.
‘Angie-’
The scream of the doorbell made him drop the hand he’d reached out to her. Cursing under his breath he strode to the door.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded of Nico Sartone.
‘A small matter of a prescription the doctor promised me,’ Sartone said, smiling horribly and oiling his way into the room. ‘Signore Farani needs his ointment tonight, doctor, and you were going to send the prescription down to me-’
‘Oh, yes, I’m sorry, it slipped my mind,’ Angie said tiredly. ‘Just a moment.’
‘Couldn’t you have reminded her tomorrow?’ Bernardo snapped.
‘But the ointment is needed tonight,’ Sartone said with the same smile. His eyes, like lizard’s, darted around the room.
‘Then you could have given it to him tonight and sorted the paperwork tomorrow,’ Bernardo pointed out, keeping his temper with difficulty.
‘Give a controlled drug without a prescription?’ Sartone echoed in horror.
‘It’s an eczema ointment for a man you’ve known for years,’ Bernardo said with suppressed rage. ‘A few hours wouldn’t have hurt, and don’t tell me you haven’t done this a hundred times before because I know you have.’
‘Only with Dr Fortuno,’ Sartone said, still smiling. ‘Alas, we all got into some very unfortunate habits with him, but the new doctor, as we all know, has much higher standards, to which we all aspire.’
‘Here’s the prescription,’ Angie said, coming back quickly. ‘And please give my apologies to Signor Farani.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid he isn’t too pleased with you,’ Sartone said with poisonous sweetness.
‘Get out,’ Bernardo told him softly. ‘Get out now, while you’re safe.’
Sartone’s reptile eyes flickered between them and his smile grew more sickly. ‘Ah, then perhaps we can soon expect an interesting announce-’
‘Goodnight,
He knew when he’d pushed his luck to the limit, and slithered out hastily.
‘Perhaps you should go too,’ Angie said.
‘Must I? I thought-’
‘It was nice of you to cook for me, but I’d like to go to bed now.’
He thought of the moment of warmth and laughter when they’d been interrupted, and knew, with a sigh, that it was too late to go back to that. Whatever might have sprung from that moment wouldn’t happen now.
‘Yes, of course, you need your rest.’ He hesitated, then dropped a brief kiss on her cheek. She gave him a half smile, but no other sign of encouragement, and he picked up his coat and left.
As soon as Bernardo entered his shop Sartone became occupied with something that took his whole attention. But nothing budged Bernardo who stood there, silent and implacable, waiting until the shop was empty.
‘Now, look,’ Sartone said at last, ‘I don’t want any trouble.’
‘And I don’t want to see any more exhibitions of your spite to an excellent doctor who’s doing wonders for this community. Don’t pretend that last night was an accident.’
‘Whatever it was, it’s surely between the doctor and myself?’
‘Do you think I’ll stand by and see you persecute her? Are you hoping to run her out? Think again.’
Sartone gave a titter that made Bernardo clench and unclench his hands. ‘I don’t think it’ll be necessary for me to do anything. Unless you do your duty, time is hardly on the lady’s side, is it?’
Bernardo got out of the shop as fast as he could before he committed murder. In the street outside he almost collided with Father Franco and Mayor Donati. He straightened himself, and them, and stood there muttering fiercely.
‘I know better curses than that,’ Father Marco said wisely.
‘True Sicilian curses for all situations,’ the mayor confirmed.
‘There are no Sicilian curses for this situation,’ Bernardo growled.
‘Why?’ they demanded with one voice.
Before he could answer Sartone came out of the shop, driven by hate, and moving too fast to check himself at the last minute.
‘You ought to think of my words,’ he shrilled. ‘She can’t afford to drive customers away, because soon she won’t have any.
There was a scream from a woman nearby. The next moment Sartone was lying on the cobbles with three men standing over him.
Nobody had seen which one of them had knocked him down.
Baptista was enjoying a late night cup of tea with Heather and Renato when her unexpected visitor was announced, but one glance at Bernardo’s face was enough to make her shoo the other two kindly away. He looked, as she afterwards told the others, like a man ascending the scaffold.
But when they were alone he seemed unable to come to the point. After refusing offers of refreshment he paced the room uneasily, making polite enquiries after her health. At last he said abruptly,
‘I’d better go. I shouldn’t have intruded on you at this hour. I came too late.’
‘You certainly left it very late to come to me,’ Baptista said, subtly altering his words, ‘but as for whether you came
He paced some more.
‘I had a visitor yesterday,’ he said at last. ‘A young girl called Ginetta. She used to work for Angie, but her mother forced her to leave when the “scandal” developed. She admires Angie, wants to be like her, maybe even be a doctor. She’s hoping for our marriage, to change her mother’s mind. I had to tell her it was unlikely. When I told her why, she couldn’t believe me. She says no woman would refuse to marry the father of her child.
‘She made it very clear that it was my duty to persuade Angie into marriage, “for everyone’s sake”.’ He gave a grunt of laughter. ‘They love her. They disapprove of her, but they admire her and they want her to stay.’
‘You’re reading a lot into the words of one young girl.’
‘That was just yesterday. Today I had a full scale deputation, the priest, the mayor, the Reverend Mother, all wanting to tell me my duty. When I pointed out that the refusal came from her, Olivero Donati had the nerve to tell me to look into my heart and ask what I’d done to make “this fine woman” refuse me. Father Franco backed him up, which I’ll swear is the only time in history those two have agreed on anything.
‘The whole town is looking to me to put matters right, and I can’t convince them that it doesn’t lie with me.’
‘Perhaps it does,’ Baptista said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you just haven’t found the right way.’
‘There isn’t a right way,’ Bernardo said at once. ‘I know I was wrong to leave like that, but I thought she’d be better off without me.’
‘Well, now she seems to agree with you,’ Baptista observed dryly.
Bernardo checked himself in his pacing.
‘I’m lying,’ he said with an effort. ‘I was thinking of myself when I left. I told her such things-I let her come so close-I was afraid-’
Baptista nodded. ‘The closeness of love can be terrifying,’ she said. ‘That’s why it takes so much courage.
