‘OK. That’s cool.’
‘Oh, stop being nice!’ she growled. ‘It’s steak. I’ll start it now.’
From then on the job was easier and they had some light in the evenings, although they still relied on the range for warmth and cooking.
‘You could move in there,’ Rebecca said cautiously one day, when the room was finished. ‘To sleep, I mean. Better than the van.’
He considered for a moment. ‘OK,’ he said at last briefly.
He took the van into the village and returned with an iron bedstead, bought second-hand, as he explained to her with great pride.
‘It’s very narrow,’ she said doubtfully. ‘It can’t be more than two feet six.’
‘People live in small houses around these parts. The furniture has to be narrow.’
But the mattress was unusable, and he was forced to buy another. This time he splashed out on a brand-new mattress that was a foot wider than the bed.
‘You see, it won’t matter that the bed is narrow,’ he said triumphantly. ‘All I’ll feel is the mattress beneath me.’
‘But it’ll hang over six inches each side. Every time you turn over you’ll roll off.’
‘Nonsense. I’ve worked it out scientifically.’
He explained the science of it to her in detail, and Rebecca made a noise indicating scorn. That night he went scientifically to bed and fell out scientifically three times. After that he put the mattress on the floor and used the bed as a dumping ground for anything he couldn’t find a place for.
Humour was a lifeline, making the journey possible until they knew where the road led. But even while they were laughing over his mishaps they knew that the fragile atmosphere could not last forever.
The thing that shattered it crept up on them without warning. They were sitting in the kitchen, listening to a concert on Rebecca’s battery radio, and laughing over Luca’s attempts to repair the ‘trailer’.
‘Well, I’ve got it together,’ he said at last, ‘but is it worth it? Do you have a use for it?’
She shook her head.
‘Good.’ He tossed it into a corner, where a wheel fell off.
‘My father insisted on keeping that thing,’ he said after a moment, ‘just in case they had another child. But it never happened. Then Mama died when I was ten.’
‘Yes, I remember you telling me once,’ she said, thinking back. ‘It must have been lonely without brothers or sisters.’
‘I had my father to look after. He was lost without her.’ He gave a brief laugh. ‘Bernardo Montese, the local giant, big man, made everyone afraid of him. But he was a softie inside, so first she looked after him, then I did. It was like looking after a child.’
‘You loved him very much, didn’t you?’ she asked softly.
‘Yes, I did. We were on the same wavelength. I realise now that it was partly because he was like a child that never grew up. You wouldn’t have thought it to look at him shouting the odds, but under all that mountainous strength there was a hidden weakness, and if you touched it he crumbled.’
She watched him, holding her breath, knowing that something was happening. Beneath the calm of that little cottage things were whirling out of control. If she wanted to stop it happening she must do it now.
‘Go on,’ she whispered.
‘And he still wouldn’t get rid of the pram. He said my wife would be glad of it one day. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was only fit for the scrap heap. The thought seemed to mean a lot to him. Then he got drunk and fell into a stone quarry, and died the next day. I was sixteen.’
He had talked about his parents when they knew each other before, but never like this. She tried to find the right words to encourage him to say more, but before she could speak he said,
‘When we met in London…’ He stopped as though his courage had failed him.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘I never asked you about the birth. I kept meaning to, but-’
‘The time was never right.’
‘No, it wasn’t. But I’d like to know, if you can bear to speak of it. Was it very hard?’
‘It was over fairly quickly. She was small, being premature. It was what came after that was hard. I longed for you so much. I didn’t know that you were being kept from me by the police.’
‘Your father must have called them while I was calling the ambulance. They arrived fast and arrested me, on his say-so, for “violent behaviour”. I pleaded to be allowed to go with you, but they wouldn’t let me. I remember the ambulance doors shutting, and it driving away with you inside, while I was being pulled in the other direction by the police.
‘I went mad, and then I did become violent. It took four of them to haul me away, and I know I gave one of them a bloody nose, so then they had something to charge me with.
‘I was in the cells for days, unable to get any news of you. Then your father came to see me. He said the baby had been born dead, so I could “forget any ideas I had”.’
‘He said what?’ She was staring at him.
‘He said our child was born dead. Becky, what is it?’ She was staring at him with a livid look that alarmed him.
‘She wasn’t born dead,’ she whispered. ‘She lived just a few hours in an incubator. I saw her. She was so tiny, and attached to machines in all directions. It looked terrible, but I knew the doctors and nurses were fighting for her. They tried so hard, but it was no use. She just slipped away.’
‘But she was alive?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘She actually lived, even if just for a little while?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you able to hold her?’
‘Not while she was alive. She needed to be in the incubator. It was her only chance. But when she’d died they wrapped her in a shawl and put her in my arms. I kissed her, and told her that her mother and father loved her. And then I said goodbye.’
‘You can remember that?’
‘Yes, at that stage I was still functioning. The depression didn’t hit me until a few hours later.’
‘Didn’t you wonder where I was?’
‘Yes, I kept asking Dad, and he said, “They’re still trying to find him.”’
‘He said
‘He kept saying you’d gone. And then she was dead, and after that-’ she faltered ‘-after that things became dark. A black cloud enveloped me without warning. I felt crushed, suffocated, and absolutely terrified. The whole world seemed to be full of horror, and it went on and on without hope.’
She passed a hand over her eyes. ‘Maybe it would have happened anyway, with losing the baby. But maybe if we could have been together it wouldn’t have happened. Or I might have got over it sooner. I’ll never know.’
‘There was nothing your father wouldn’t do to separate us,’ Luca said. ‘No matter how wicked or deceitful, it didn’t matter as long as he got his own way.’
She nodded. ‘I think he believed it would be easy at the start. Only then things spiralled out of control, and he had to do worse and worse things so as not to have to admit he’d been wrong. He kept trying to rewrite the facts to prove he’d been right, and of course he couldn’t do it.’
He looked at her quickly. ‘You defend him?’
‘No, but I don’t think he started out as a bad man. He became one because he didn’t know how to say sorry. He destroyed us but he also destroyed himself. He knew what he’d done. He couldn’t admit it but he knew, and he couldn’t face it.’
‘Did you ever confront him with what he’d done?’
‘Yes, just once. We had a terrible fight and I told him that he’d killed my baby.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing. Just stared at me and turned white. Then he walked away. Later I found him staring into space. About a year after that he had a massive heart attack. He was only fifty-four, but he died almost instantly.’
‘I am not sorry for him,’ Luca said with bitter emphasis. ‘I do not forgive him, and I will not pretend that I
