Married Under the Italian Sun

and Angel suddenly jerked awake.

‘Sam!’

‘He’s all right,’ Vittorio said. ‘I’ve been watching him. I’d have awoken you if there’d been any change.’

‘Thank you.’ Seeing him rise to his feet, she added, ‘Yes, you go home now and get some sleep.’

‘I’m just going to get you a coffee,’ he said.

He returned with refreshments for two, and she devoured hers, famished.

‘Can you remember when you last ate?’ he asked tenderly.

She shook her head, before draining her coffee.

He immediately went to the machine to replace it, returning also with a bottle of mineral water and some fruit, which he set beside her.

‘For later.’

‘Even Berta doesn’t look after me as well as this,’ she said gratefully. ‘But you must be tired. You don’t have to stay.’

‘No, I don’t have to,’ he said quietly, and sat down.

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

After a while she said, ‘I didn’t get the chance to ask you what happened when he collapsed. How did you come to be alone with him in the garden?’

‘He came out to see me.’

‘Without Frank or Roy?’

‘I think he enjoyed giving them the slip. He was like a kid let out of school.’

‘Yes, he’s sweet when he’s in that mood. I remember playing truant once, and he caught me, and instead of being angry he was full of plans about running away and never having to go to school again. Then, of course, I began to see how impractical it was, and decided to go back.’

‘Which was what he’d meant all the time?’

‘Of course. He’s always so clever about things like that. Go on telling me what happened.’

‘We had a chat, then he started gasping, so I brought him in.’

‘What were you talking about?’

‘Oh, this and that, silly things, nothing much.’

Inwardly Vittorio cursed himself for his own clumsiness. He could hardly tell her that Sam had been planning to make him his heir, even though it had been no more than a fantasy. Yet when he tried to think of something else his mind seized up, no ideas would come, and he was reduced to ‘this and that’.

But, to his relief, Angel didn’t seem to notice anything unsatisfactory about his answer, and soon she nodded off again.

She’d moved her chair further up the bed, so that she could rest her head against a chest of drawers, giving him a better look at her face. Angel had largely disappeared, leaving behind a woman who was a stranger to glamour. Her figure slumped inelegantly, her face was exhausted and ravaged by fear and grief. She was closer to plain than he had ever seen before, and his heart was wrung for her. He had to fight an impulse to take her into his arms, and draw her head onto his shoulder so that she might find rest with him.

He didn’t yield, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to kiss her, doing it so gently that her sleep was not disturbed.

They lived like that for two days. For all that time he acted as her servant, fetching and carrying for her, returning to the villa and bringing her back meals from Berta. Because Vittorio stood watch she was able to snatch precious hours of sleep.

As the time passed without Sam regaining consciousness Vittorio could see in Angel’s face that she knew what was to happen.

‘It’s been so long,’ she said sadly. ‘I think I could just about bear losing him if only he would wake and speak to me, just once.’

‘Will that really make so much difference?’ he asked, for he was afraid for her. ‘He knew how much you loved him. Isn’t that what really matters?’

‘I know that’s the sensible way to see it, but I long so much for a few more minutes, just to look into his eyes and know it’s really him.’

‘Have you tried talking to him?’

‘I did at first, but what’s the use? He can’t hear me.’

‘How do you know? They say hearing is the last sensation to go. He might be able to hear everything. Talk about your childhood, remind him of that time you played truant. Say anything, so that he can hear your voice.’

For hour after hour Angel leaned close, calling back moments from her childhood that she hadn’t remembered for years. As she did so it seemed to her that the whole of their time together was being relived there in that quiet room.

Sometimes Vittorio slipped away to give her privacy, but sometimes he stayed because he couldn’t bear to leave. In those hours he felt he learned more of her than ever before, and gradually a picture built up in his mind of the lonely, hurt child she had once been, and the old man who had overturned his life to make her happy. He began to see Sam as he had once been, a trickster, a wit, a loveable idiot, and the most generous, great-hearted man who had ever lived. He understood now why she had repaid the debt, overturning her own life to make his last years happy. And he knew that if Sam died without speaking to her, he would feel her pain as his own.

She was asleep when the moment came. It was Vittorio who, watching closely, saw the first flutter of Sam’s eyelids and nudged her.

‘Wake up,’ he said urgently. ‘Angel, wake up!’

‘What-?’

‘Look at his face,’ he said, full of joy for her.

There was a long moment when the two of them held their breath, then Sam’s eyes opened. He was looking straight at Angel.

‘Sam,’ she breathed. ‘Darling Sam. Thank goodness you’ve woken up.’

Vittorio slipped out to call the doctor.

‘Woken-up?’ Sam murmured.

‘You’ve been unconscious for days, I thought you’d never wake.’

‘Where am I?’

‘In the hospital, in Amalfi.’

A long silence. ‘Where?’

‘Amalfi-you know, where we live now.’

In the long silence she thought she understood the worst. Even so she wasn’t prepared for the blankness in his eyes as he said, ‘What are you talking about? Who are you?’

‘But you know me,’ she said frantically. ‘I’m Angela. Please, please say you know me.’

‘But I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before. Who are you?’

Vittorio, returning with the doctor, heard her desperate cry of ‘Sam!’ and came in to find her lying with her arms around him. But Sam didn’t return her embrace. His eyes were closed again and his hands lay still on the bed.

Roy and Frank returned for the funeral of the old man for whom they’d had a genuine affection. Everyone in the house turned out to say goodbye. In the short time he’d been there, Sam had become a favourite.

Next day Angel drove the lads down into Amalfi and dropped them at the bus stop.

‘I’m so grateful to both of you,’ she said. ‘I always knew he was safe in your hands, and that meant the world to me.’

She handed them each an envelope. ‘A little bonus to show my appreciation.’

They exclaimed over the amount, but Frank said, ‘Are you sure? It’s a lot.’

‘It’s worth it to me. Goodbye both of you.’

Vittorio was waiting for her outside the villa.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked at once. ‘You should have let me do it.’

‘No, I owed them that.’

‘Come inside,’ he said, taking her hand.

She was glad. It meant she wasn’t alone as she entered the house.