Married Under the Italian Sun

She discovered the answer later, when she was talking to Berta in the kitchen as Berta put the final touches to the evening meal.

‘Do you know where Vittorio lives now?’ Angel asked. ‘I thought it was in Amalfi, but maybe I misheard.’

‘No, it’s Amalfi,’ Berta said. ‘He’s got a couple of rooms in…’ She named a street and shuddered. ‘Horrible.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘I helped him move his things, but most of them he had to leave behind, the place is so small. To think that he was once master here, and now he tries to survive in that mean little place. Ai, ai, ai!’

So that was it. Vittorio was too proud to let her see the depths to which he had fallen. She should have realised.

‘Don’t tell him I asked,’ Angel said.

‘Of course not, signora.’ Berta hadn’t intended to say a word. She was a wise woman who understood far more than she said.

Sam was tetchy over his meal, and had an early night. When he was safely asleep, Roy and Frank tackled her.

‘He’s bored,’ Frank explained. ‘In England he used to watch television a lot, but now he’s missing all his favourite programmes, especially the soaps.’

‘He missed the episode of Celebration Road where we find out if old Mrs Baxter really did put arsenic on her husband’s breakfast cereal,’ Roy said. ‘And he’s inconsolable.’

‘So are we,’ Frank added significantly.

Light dawned.

‘And you are also missing your favourite TV shows?’ Angel said.

They looked at each other and nodded.

‘She’s bright,’ they agreed.

‘Oh, heck, I should have thought of this,’ she said. ‘Since I can watch Italian programmes, it never occurred to me.’

‘Seriously,’ Roy said, ‘he’s used to spending hours in front of the set. Now that he can’t understand a word, he’s miserable.’

‘I’ll sort it tomorrow,’ she promised.

Next day she made a call to a firm that specialised in satellite installations, and the day after that a team arrived to set up a system that could pick up English television. Everyone was pleased, especially Sam, who was able to resume his comforting routine, and who finally discovered that old Mrs Baxter had played no part in her husband’s untimely end. This made him very happy. He had always liked that poor lady.

Now Angel could spend time with Vittorio with a clear conscience. As promised, he hired a boat and took her sailing. Watching her leaning back, her face upturned to the sun, he smiled but said nothing, concentrating on steering the boat. After a while he headed for the shore, where there was a small cove with a stretch of perfect sand.

‘Let’s stop here,’ he said. ‘Swim first, picnic afterwards.’

They pulled the boat far up the sand and stripped off their clothes. Beneath her cotton top and jeans she wore a black bikini, ready for bathing. It had been designed to be elegant and glamorous, and for the first time she was glad of the way it showed her off. The others had shamed her, but Vittorio’s eyes made her proud.

When Vittorio had discarded his own clothes, they ran, hand in hand, into the sea.

‘Oh, wonderful!’ she crowed as the cool water enveloped her. ‘Wonderful, wonderful!’

‘Mind the current,’ he called. ‘It’s strong here.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said, swimming away from him into deeper water.

He came after her at once, catching her and putting his hands on her waist.

‘You’re not all right,’ he said firmly. ‘You have to be careful here.’

‘You find it safe enough,’ she said, wriggling against his grip, less because she wanted to be free than because she enjoyed moving against him. It was even more pleasurable when his hands tightened.

‘I’m safe because I know this place, and I’m careful. You know nothing and you’re never careful.’ With a touch of humour he added, ‘It’s your way to plunge recklessly into unknown situations. I’ve told you about that before.’

‘Yes, you did. I seem to remember…’ she teased ‘…something to do with lemons, wasn’t it?’ She slipped her arms about his neck, pressing him close and moving more intimately.

‘Don’t do that in deep water,’ he protested. ‘Do you want us both to drown?’

‘We won’t drown,’ she said against his mouth. ‘You’ll keep us safe.’

‘You have too much faith in me,’ he said, speaking with difficulty.

‘Well, who wants to be safe anyway?’ she asked recklessly. ‘Let the current carry us out to sea, then, wherever it wants.’

He drew a long breath. ‘Wherever it wants,’ he repeated longingly.

‘Anywhere,’ she said. ‘We won’t plan anything, because if you don’t make plans you don’t have to worry about them going wrong. Do you know how much I hate plans, and calculations, and working out what to say so that someone will respond with the right words?’

‘Hush,’ he said, brushing her lips with his own. ‘That’s all behind you.’

‘Is it?’ she asked, almost pleading. ‘And them? All of them? Are they behind me?’

He didn’t have to ask who ‘they’ were: all the men who’d thronged around her, devouring her with their eyes and their thoughts, thinking they owned her or, at any rate the little bit of her that was all they cared about.

‘They’re in the past,’ he assured her. ‘For ever.’

‘They can’t get me again, can they?’

‘No, because I won’t let them.’

She was suddenly full of fear. ‘Don’t let them find me, ever again.’

‘I never will. Never. Never.’

He held her close, not kissing her but keeping her safe, while he trod water for both of them, until the force of the current made him say unsteadily, ‘Let’s go back while we still can. Being swept away together sounds fine, but I’m hungry.’

‘And we have that picnic basket Berta packed for us.’

‘I didn’t mean for food.’

Angel laughed, and they made their way back. As they ran up the beach Vittorio seized the towel and followed her into the cave, where they dried each other off and removed their clothes at the same time.

They made love urgently, as though they could make up for the days apart, and when it was over they were immediately ready again, but this time it was slower, gentler, with more time to explore and enjoy. The sand was soft against her back, and she could taste the sea on her own lips, and his.

Now it felt like the taste of freedom, something she hadn’t known for years-freedom to be herself, to choose her own lover, to respond to him with total liberty of heart. The physical pleasure he brought her was sweet, but almost as intense was the fact that she had chosen him. Every whisper, every movement, was like a gift that he gave her from his soul.

‘Again,’ she pleaded. ‘Again.’

He smiled. ‘Do I please you?’

Her answering smile told him all he needed to know. It was leisurely, contented, luxurious, and it brought his desire flooding back, so that he loved her now as though they had been apart for weeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last, in a shaking voice. ‘I didn’t mean to lose control.’

‘I don’t know what you’re apologising for,’ she murmured, laughing up at him.

‘Siren,’ he said. ‘Witch-temptress-angel…’

He sat up, but when Angel tried to rise also Vittorio placed a hand on her breast and gently pushed her back.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Stay there and let me look at you.’

She lay back, stretching her arms above her head, gladly putting her beauty on show for him, and rejoicing at