‘I’m not using that as an excuse to pry. I’m just interested in what you’ve done.’
There wasn’t much to see. Apart from the kitchen only the bedroom was habitable, and that only because the weather was dry. She had pulled the bed away from the hole in the roof and hung a blanket across a rope to make a kind of wall between herself and the exposed part of the room.
One corner of the bed had been badly burned, so that the wooden leg was weakened, and was now boosted by a wooden box. The bed itself sported a patchwork quilt that he remembered from his childhood, although not so bright.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I found it in a cupboard and when I’d washed the smoke out it looked good.’
‘No, I don’t mind. My mother made it. But it seems to be all you have on the bed.’
‘I’ve got a cushion for the pillow, and I just huddle up. It’s cosy, and I’m warm enough.’
‘You are now, but the weather’s turning.’
‘I like it,’ she said stubbornly.
He opened his mouth to protest, but then it struck him that she was right. The place was homely and snug, and although it wasn’t actually warm it gave the impression of warmth. He thought of the Allingham with its perfect temperature control, and he could remember only desolation.
‘Well, if you like it, that’s what counts,’ he said, and went back into the kitchen.
‘Is this all the food you have?’ he asked, opening a cupboard. ‘Instant coffee?’
His scandalised tone made her smile briefly.
‘Yes, I’m afraid it is instant,’ she said. ‘I realise that to an Italian that’s a kind of blasphemy.’
‘You’re a quarter-Italian,’ he said severely. ‘Your grandmother’s spirit should rise up and reproach you.’
‘She does, but she gets drowned out by the rest of me. I don’t keep all my food in here. Fresh vegetables are stored outside, where it’s cooler.’
He remembered that outside, attached to the wall, was a small cupboard, made of brick, except for the wooden door. This too had been scrubbed out, and fresh newspaper laid on the shelves, where there was an array of vegetables.
‘No meat?’ he asked.
‘I’d have to keep going into the village to buy it fresh.’
He grunted something, and went back inside.
She poured him another cup of tea, which he drank appreciatively.
‘This is good,’ he said. ‘And it doesn’t taste of soot. Whenever I’ve been here and made coffee, I’ve always ended up regretting it.’
‘Have you returned very often?’ she asked.
‘Now and then. I come back and cut the weeds, but they’ve always grown again by the next time.’
‘I wonder why you haven’t rebuilt it.’
He made a vague gesture. ‘I kept meaning to.’
‘Why did you come here today?’
He shrugged. ‘I was in the area. I didn’t know you were here, if that’s what you mean.’
It would have been natural, then, to ask her why she’d taken refuge in this spot, when there were so many more comfortable places, but for some reason he was overcome with awkwardness, and concentrated on his tea.
‘You’ve done wonders here,’ he said at last, ‘but it’s still very rough. If anything happened, who could help you?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m content.’
‘Just the same, I don’t like you being here alone. It’s better if you…’
He stopped. She was looking at him, and he had the dismaying sense that her face had closed against him. It was like moving through a nightmare. He had been here before.
‘I’m only concerned for you,’ he said abruptly.
‘Thank you, but there’s no need,’ she said politely. ‘Luca, do you want me to leave? I realise that it’s your house.’
He shot her a look of reproach.
‘You know you don’t have to ask me that,’ he said. ‘It’s yours for as long as you want.’
‘Thank you.’
He walked outside and strode around to where the bike and trailer were parked.
‘Is that thing of real use?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, yes, if I persevere.’ She smiled unexpectedly. ‘And I couldn’t bring the wood for the range up in a car.’
‘You’ll be needing some more soon,’ he observed, looking at the small pile by the wall. Then he said hastily, ‘I’ll be going now. Goodbye.’
He walked away and got into his car without another word. A brief gesture of farewell, and he was gone. Rebecca stood watching him until the car had vanished.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE tried to sort out her feelings. It had been a shock to see Luca, even though the sound of his voice, calling from outside the cottage, had half prepared her. He had looked nothing like she’d expected. He was thinner, and instead of anger there had been confusion in his eyes. It had been hard, at that moment, to remember that they were enemies.
And, after all, what was there to say? They were civilised people. She could not have said ‘You used me, deceived me, and tried to trick me into having your child’. And he could not have said ‘You made a fool of me with a pretence of love that was really a display of power’.
They could not have said these things, but the words had been there between them, in the stunned silence.
Their meeting had been less of a strain than it might have been. He had asked no awkward or intrusive questions, and, except for one moment, had not disturbed her tranquillity.
She told herself that she was glad to see him go, but the cottage looked lonely without him. It was his personality, of course, so big that it filled the place and left an emptiness when he departed. When he had been gone for a while the sensation would cease.
She shivered a little and pulled her jacket around her. The weather had cooled rapidly and the place was rather less snug than she had claimed. The last few evenings she had stayed up late because the kitchen, with the range, was the only warm room in the house. She had tried leaving the door to the bedroom open, but the heat went straight through the open roof.
She began to prepare some vegetables for her evening meal. When she’d finished she realised that she was running low on water, and took a jug out into the yard, to the pump. She hated this part because the pump was old and stiff, and needed all her strength. But the water it gave was sweet and pure.
She was just about to press down on the handle when she saw that a car was approaching in the distance. After a moment she realised that it was Luca, returning.
Setting down the jug, she watched as the car came up the track until it reached the cottage. Luca got out, nodded to her briefly, and began hauling something from the back seat that he then carried into the cottage. Following, Rebecca saw him go right through to the bedroom, and dump a load of parcels on the bed.
He seemed to have raided the village for sheets, blankets and pillows.
‘I shall only be here a moment and then I’m going,’ he said brusquely before she could speak.
He headed back to the car at once, delving inside again and emerging with a cardboard box, which he brought in and set on the table. This time the contents were food, fresh vegetables but also tins.
‘Luca-’
‘That’s it,’ he said, and hurried through the front door.
But instead of getting into the car he went to the pump and began to work it vigorously, making the water pour
