thinks and feels.’
‘The other side of him was always there,’ Teresa continued. ‘Angry, hard, wary of people and feelings, but in the beginning it was only now and then. It’s the side he used in the business.
‘He used his reputation as a winner to get started, then he built it up and made a fortune by being tough. His chief competitor was Enrico Tillani, but he was losing business to Renzo. Finally Renzo bought him out, and after that he was top of the heap.
‘Then he’d go out socializing and you’d see the other man, the one who could charm the birds off the trees.’
‘He used to drive me mad with the way he seemed to assume that life-and women-were all his for the taking,’ Mandy said. ‘But when we were trapped in the hut he was like another man, a man with a real heart. Now all that’s gone. I guess he’s still protecting himself.’
‘If you understand that, then you’re the one he needs.’
Mandy glanced through a few more pages of the book before closing it. Teresa immediately replaced it in the cupboard.
‘Don’t tell him you’ve seen that,’ she said. ‘He told me to destroy it, said he never wanted to see or think about it again.’
‘What about his mother? How did she react to his accident?’
‘She sent him a card,’ Teresa said contemptuously. ‘She said Australia was too far to come. A card! He just grunted and put it aside.’
Mandy said a rude word.
‘That’s how I feel about her,’ Teresa agreed. ‘Here, have a look at this.’
She brought another book from the cupboard. This one was full of family pictures.
‘That’s her,’ Teresa said scornfully, pointing to a photograph of a young woman of about twenty. She had a beautiful but willful face, and a hint of arrogance in the way she held her head.
Spoilt rotten, Mandy thought as she leafed through the rest of the book. Suddenly she stopped.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, pointing to a large picture.
It showed Gina with an older man. The toddler Renzo was there too, but not in his mother’s arms. It was the man who held him and watched him with eyes beaming with love and pride.
‘That’s Bruno, Gina’s father. He adored that little boy and he never forgave Gina for what she did to him.’
Receiving no answer, she peered curiously at Mandy. ‘Why, what is it?’
‘I was just…looking at him, the grandfather…’ Mandy said slowly.
‘He is a lovely man.’ Teresa sighed. ‘Generous and sweet-natured, and he really loved Renzo. He had him to stay over as often as he could, and I reckon he gave him all the love he ever knew, for years.
‘He never took to Gina’s new family. She tried to make him, because he’s rich and she had her eye on an inheritance. But it was always Renzo, with him.
‘He’s dying now, and cannot leave hospital. Renzo goes to see him and talk to him, although I’m not sure how much Bruno understands.’
Mandy looked more closely at the photograph, feeling a swell of joy and relief. For she had seen those happy, laughing features before, on the face of her little son.
Teresa had lent her a nightdress, a vast flannel creation in pink, covered in dancing mushrooms. She slept for a few hours, awaking in the dawn and creeping out into the corridor to listen at Renzo’s door, from behind which came muttered curses. She opened it a crack and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed, still dressed.
‘Is the Sleeping Beauty awake now?’ she asked.
‘Grr!’
She came inside and sat beside him, affording him a full view of her attire.
‘What-’ he demanded, aghast.
‘It’s Teresa’s. I didn’t have anything of my own.’
He began to undo his shirt buttons, then stopped, looked at her again and covered his eyes.
‘Oh, stop it,’ she said, laughing. ‘Here, let me help you.’
The last time she’d undressed him it had been in the dark, with love and passion, and he’d undressed her in the same way. Would this touch awaken any memory in the darkened places of his mind?
But the mood was wrong. Nobody could be passionate wearing dancing mushrooms.
And all thoughts of seduction were driven away by the sight of him when they had eased his shirt off together and she saw his scars. For a moment she had to look away to hide the tears.
‘It’s not too bad,’ he said. ‘The doctors did a good job and they’ve healed well. I just look a bit different. It’s no big deal.’
He began working on his trousers, and she pulled them off for him. When he was down to his underpants she helped him into bed, pulling the duvet up over him. He was still very sleepy.
‘Overdosing on medicine,’ she chided him. ‘You were supposed to be taking it easy, recovering.’
‘I’ve worked on that these last few days, trying to be in good shape for last night.’
‘Because you’d plotted with Eugenio that he would invite me? That’s where he got all that
‘Think what you will of me, the worst is probably all true. Ferrini is an old friend. When I asked him to help me, he agreed at once.’
‘But you didn’t have to arrange a “chance” meeting. Just call me. Why do it this way?’
Renzo hesitated before saying with difficulty, ‘When you first appeared the other day, I was confused. I asked you back the next day because I thought I could handle it, but I couldn’t. So I told you to go. I wanted to see you again, but from a distance, so that I could watch without being seen. Yes, that’s reprehensible and if you want to call me names, I won’t argue.’
‘No names, I promise. But wouldn’t it have been better for me to come here so that we could talk?’
‘I didn’t want to talk, just look at you and try to work out if you’re the same person who goes through my head in the night.’
‘And am I?’
‘I think so. Tonight I was almost on the edge of finding out, but I made a mess of everything.’
‘It’s not your fault you need painkillers. There’ll be other times. Do I go through your head often?’
‘You come and go, and I’m never sure-’ He floundered for a moment, then gave a helpless shrug. ‘I’m never sure of anything, these days; just that I can often see someone out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn she vanishes around the corner-if she really existed at all.’
‘She does,’ Mandy assured him. ‘She’s real-
‘But which you? You change all the time.’
‘Perhaps I’m waiting for you to say which one of me you prefer.’
‘Perhaps I’m waiting for you to be the same person twice, so that I can tell.’
‘Do I change so much in your mind?’ she asked.
‘All the time. But then you always did. When we were in the mountains, one moment you’d be sticking your claws into me, the next you’d say something that made me feel as if our minds were one. I’ve never had that feeling with anyone else. That ought to make it easier, but it doesn’t.’ He gave a grunt of mirthless laughter. ‘I’m a real headcase.’
‘It’s probably something to do with all those operations you had,’ she mused. ‘Too many anaesthetics, close together, scramble your brains.’
‘And they stay scrambled,’ he said wryly. ‘The odd thing is that the further back I go, the clearer my memory becomes. The night we met, that robe you were wearing-you were so beautiful I actually forgot about the woman I was supposed to be making love to.’
‘You mean, the one with the outraged husband? One of many, I’ll bet.’
He gave a faint smile. ‘Yes, I was a bit that way, in those days.’
He said ‘in those days’ as though describing another universe, and again she had to suppress her emotion. How often in the past had he maddened her? And what wouldn’t she give to have him like that again now?
‘We were three floors up, but you came leaping over those railings as though it was nothing,’ she reminded
