out of the window to air. Teresa protested that a guest should not be working, but Alex enjoyed the job.
She particularly relished the moment when she’d lost her grip, and the duvet fell from the window, landing on Rinaldo who happened to be underneath. His yell and the infuriated look he cast up at her were among her happiest memories. In fact, much the pleasure of her stay lay in the knowledge that she was infuriating him.
‘Teresa is upset with you,’ he observed one morning at breakfast.
‘Yes, I know. She thinks it’s shocking that I do my own room and help her in the kitchen.’
‘Then why hurt her feelings?’
‘Because I don’t want to put any more burdens onto her aching bones. Have either of you any idea how old Teresa is?’
‘Older than I can count, I know that,’ Gino said.
‘Do you really think she can manage this great house with no help?’
‘I’ve offered to get someone else in,’ Rinaldo informed her. ‘She won’t have it.’
Alex made a sound of exasperation intended to cover all men.
‘And you left matters there because it was convenient,’ she snorted. ‘Great!’
‘May I remind you that my father was alive until recently?’ Rinaldo said coldly. ‘It was his decision.’
‘Then it was the wrong decision and you should have overruled him. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have done that. Teresa is an old woman and it’s too much for her. She won’t admit it because she’s proud, and she’s afraid you’ll send her away.’
‘What nonsense! Of course I wouldn’t!’
‘Don’t tell me, tell her. Say she’s got to have someone else in to do the heavy work, whether she likes it or not. Be firm. Are you a man or a mouse?’
‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said, eyeing her grimly.
‘Oh, stop that! You know I’m right.’
‘Heaven preserve me from women who say, “You know I’m right”.’
‘Yes, because you know they are.’
‘Can’t you two talk without fighting?’ Gino asked plaintively.
Alex shrugged. ‘It’s as good a way of communicating as any other,’ she said, her eyes on Rinaldo. ‘At least it’s honest. People are never so sincere as when they’re abusing each other.’
‘I don’t understand that,’ Gino said.
But Rinaldo understood perfectly. She could see that. He was giving her the same look of ironic complicity that she’d seen after Enrico’s funeral. It said that they saw the world through the same eyes, and to hell with the others.
‘I’m merely astonished at your extravagance,’ he said. ‘The more wages I have to pay the longer you have to wait for your money.’
Alex rolled her eyes to heaven.
‘Give me patience!’ she implored some unseen deity. ‘This house is full of empty rooms. The new maid will live in one of them, which will be part of her wages that will cost you nothing. You see? All problems solved.’
‘When I consider how anxious I was to bring you here,’ Rinaldo observed, ‘I can only wonder at my own foolishness.’
‘For pity’s sake stop arguing,’ she told him. ‘Just do it. Soften it by telling Teresa she can choose the person herself. She’s probably got a relative who’d be ideal. Go on. Do it.’
‘You’re taking a risk,’ Gino muttered, his eyes on his brother as if he was a lion about to spring. ‘He doesn’t like being ordered about. Never fear. I’ll protect you.’
‘I can protect myself against Rinaldo perfectly, thank you,’ Alex said, although she too was watching him carefully. ‘After all, what can he do to me?’
‘Throw you out,’ Rinaldo growled.
‘Not you,’ she jeered. ‘You might think you want to, but then you wouldn’t have me under your eye. Think of the sleep you’d lose, wondering what I was doing, who I was seeing. No, I’m safe enough.’
‘Alex,’ Gino begged, ‘please be careful.’
‘Who wants to be careful? That’s boring.’ She was enjoying herself.
‘I understood,’ Rinaldo said frostily, ‘that we were to have first refusal.’
‘Certainly. That’s what I’ll tell Montelli and all the others, but who’s to say I can’t tell them over a candlelit supper?’
‘Hey,’ Gino said at once, ‘if there are any candlelit suppers to be bought, I’ll buy them.’
‘With champagne?’
‘With anything you want,
Rinaldo rose sharply and went into the kitchen. A little later they heard the sound of argument and weeping, interspersed with Rinaldo’s voice, speaking more gently than Alex had ever heard before.
The next day he drove Teresa to the village where she had been born, about fifty miles away. When they returned in the evening they were accompanied by two hefty young women whom Teresa introduced as her great- nieces, Celia and Franca.
When she had shepherded them into the house Rinaldo detained Alex with a touch on her arm.
‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I never thought of it but-you were right.’
Alex smiled. ‘She’ll be happier with their company, too.’
‘I never thought of that either. She and Poppa used to chat in the evenings sometimes, when he wasn’t out with Enrico. Since he died she sits in the kitchen alone. Why did you see it and not me?’
‘I’m a stranger. Our eyes always see the most clearly.’
‘You are no stranger,’ he said abruptly, and walked away.
Within a couple of days Celia and Franca had brought the heavy work under their expert control, leaving only the cooking to Teresa. This she guarded jealously.
Whether Rinaldo had told her or whether she had guessed the truth Alex couldn’t say. But it was clear that she now regarded Alex as a friend. She would take special care in serving her food, and her eyes would meet hers in a silent question.
On those occasions Alex would look up to find Rinaldo regarding her, and remember the odd note in his voice when he said, ‘You are no stranger.’
She rented another car and, with the knowledge that she now had independence of movement, she no longer felt any need to leave the farm.
Evenings that had once been spent going to parties and first nights were now spent contentedly combing grass seeds out of Brutus’s long fur. He came to expect it and would present himself, rolling over on his back to make it easy.
‘I used to do that,’ Rinaldo observed, ‘but these days he tends to stay in the house, so he doesn’t wander among the long grass so much, and it stopped being necessary. Until now.’
‘He joins me when I run in the morning,’ she said. ‘At least, he starts out with me, then drops out when he gets tired, and goes and waits for me in the barn. When I swing from the rings he watches in a puzzled sort of way, and you can almost hear him thinking, ‘What on earth is she
‘We’re the best of friends now, aren’t we, old boy?’ she asked Brutus tenderly. ‘And if I don’t get these seeds out, you’re going to grow a lawn.’
Rinaldo no longer seemed to object to her petting Brutus, and when she looked up a moment later she found him looking at her with a faint smile on his face.
One day he said to her, ‘It would be doing me a favour if you’d wait in the house this morning. The vet is coming to give Brutus his injection, and if I’m not back in time at least you’ll be with him.’
‘Of course. The vet comes all the way out here?’
‘You mean, why don’t I take Brutus to the surgery? Because he hates cars and goes mad in them, climbing all over the place. That’s bad for his arthritis.’ After a moment he added uneasily, ‘Of course, it costs a lot more-’
‘So I’ll have to wait an extra five minutes for the money? I wish you’d stop saying things like that.’
‘I’m merely trying to assure you that I’m not being wilfully extravagant-’
‘No, you’re not,’ she said indignantly. ‘You’re rubbing my nose in it. It’s worth the expenditure to save Brutus pain,
He nodded, and left.
