emotions and finishing with their sensations, where it clamoured for release. Now it was having its way, driving them like one entity hurtling towards the same end.
She never knew if he moved over her or if she pulled him over. She knew only that she had to have this, to have him, inside her, filling her, encompassing her, offering her the last gift she would ever know. She returned everything with all her heart, seeking to give him even more than he gave her, but knowing it was impossible, because he gave everything from a generous heart. And she should always have known that this was the truth about him, but she hadn’t, until it was too late.
Then they lay together, arms entwined, basking in the warmth of each other’s bodies, but even more in the warmth of the heart.
‘Are you all right?’ Renzo whispered, but then gave a suppressed choke. ‘Listen to me. I’m going off my head. In a few hours-well, anyway, it was a stupid question.’
Mandy tightened her arms about him. ‘You’re not going off your head. Not while I’m here. And, if you are, we’ll go off together. Now I’m talking nonsense.’
She too began laughing wildly, clinging to him, feeling him holding on to her as though she was all that was left in the world. And it was true. There was nothing but this; no snow or danger lurking in wait. Just warmth and joy because he was there, and he was hers.
But then prosaic matters intruded and she muttered, ‘Let’s do something before we freeze to death.’
They scrambled back into their clothes before groping their way to the cupboard, yanking out every blanket they could find and tossing it all on the bed. Then they dived under the covers again and huddled together.
‘You know,’ she mused, ‘in the fantasies he seduces her on satin sheets. She’s wearing diaphanous lingerie and he draws it slowly away, piece by piece. Then she does the same for him, overwhelmed by his perfect taste in clothes.’
‘That’s true,’ he said gravely. ‘Yanking off three layers of flannel and a pair of long woollen underpants doesn’t quite do it.’
‘It did it for me,’ she said contentedly, snuggling against him.
Mandy nodded off almost at once and slept without nightmares, only peace.
In the morning they took some breakfast from the fast declining food stock and ate it the forbidden room where they could watch the falling snow. There was a little light, so that they didn’t have to waste the torch batteries.
‘The snow’s hypnotic, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It almost sends you back to sleep.’
Dreamily she began to recite a few lines from a poem about snow.
‘Did you write that?’ Renzo asked.
‘No, I learned it at school when I was ten.’
‘And you still know it? What a memory. I can’t get over you being an academic.’
‘Because I don’t look like one? Don’t you know by now not to judge by appearances?’
‘Are you going to throw “delicate” at me again?’ he asked warily.
‘No, I promise. Actually, at one time I wanted to be a dancer. I took lessons, but I wasn’t good enough to make a career of it, so I found something else.’
‘So that’s why you move as you do, like a pretty little cat?’
She smiled. ‘That’s what you say now, but the first time you called me a cat it wasn’t a compliment.’
‘Not entirely, but I’ve always been fascinated by your movements, and I don’t just mean when you were dancing. Everything you do is graceful, like an elegant feline, insinuating herself wherever she wants to be. You insinuated yourself into my mind. At first I didn’t want you there, but you wouldn’t go away.’
‘That’s me. Awkward. Never did what I was supposed to do.’
‘I’ll second that.’
‘Cheeky!’
He hugged her, resting his cheek on her head.
‘You’re so tiny,’ he complained. ‘I keep being afraid you’ll slip through my fingers.’
‘You’ll have to hold on to me tightly then, won’t you?’
‘Let’s get inside. There are easier ways to hold you tightly.’
Once under the covers, they went on talking.
‘Do you really not have any family?’ he asked.
‘Only the distant ones I told you about.’
‘Cat? Dog?’
‘Nope, just one very good friend. Her name’s Sue. We were at school together and we’ve stayed close, although we don’t meet much. She’s a nurse, working in the north. Sometimes she gets down to London and stays with me.’
‘And that’s all? It sounds lonely. Is it enough for you?’
‘In many ways, yes. I love my work, and sometimes it feels like all I need.’
‘But not always?’
‘Well, I’d like more eventually…one day…’
Mandy fell silent as she realized what she was saying. ‘One day’ would never come. With every passing moment that grew more certain.
‘What would you like-one day?’ he asked gently.
‘Someone of my own, who was just mine, who saw only me, thought of only me, wanted only me.’ She made a sound of impatience with herself. ‘That sounds so self-centred.’
‘No, it’s what we all want, if we’re honest. It’s just so hard to find, even impossible.’
‘Impossible? You really think that?’
‘I don’t know. I always used to, but that was then. Now it’s different. I don’t know what I believe any more, except that I believe in you.’
‘What about family? Is there anyone who’ll worry about you?’
‘Only my grandfather, but he’s very old and he’s mostly lost contact with the world.’
‘No parents?’
‘My mother left when I was about six. She and my father were a happy couple-so everyone thought. Then she fell in love with someone else and next thing, she was gone.’
‘Leaving you behind?’ she asked, aghast.
‘I came home from school one day and she wasn’t there.’
‘What? She didn’t explain or say goodbye-’
‘She wanted her freedom,’ Renzo said simply.
‘Did you ever see her again?’
‘Now and then. She eventually married her lover and they had three children.’
In her anger on his behalf she spoke without thinking. ‘So she didn’t want to be free of
It was a moment before Renzo said quietly, ‘No, just me.’
There was a lifetime of desolation and rejection in those three words.
Appalled, Mandy realized that she’d touched a nerve that still hurt after so many years.
‘Bitch!’ she exploded. ‘I could kill her.’
Renzo’s voice was shaky as he said, ‘Hey, it’s all right. It’s all in the past.’
‘Is it really in the past?’
‘No, I guess not. It stays with you, but at this moment it doesn’t seem important. Nothing that ever happened to me before counts beside you.’
She stroked his face. ‘If we get out of this-’
He kissed her. ‘You must stay with me, always.’
‘Always and for ever.’
She held him tight and, after a moment, said, ‘And your poor father. It must have broken his heart.’
‘At first. After that, he embarked on what he called “a new life”. I went to stay with Nonno as soon as I could.’
‘Nonno? That’s grandfather, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right. Every time I visited my father, he seemed to have a different woman. He said variety was the
