picture here-’ she flipped back to the beginning ‘-that’s my parents, that’s Sapphire’s parents, and the two little girls are us. It was a sort of joint birthday party. She was seven and I was eight. My mother died two weeks later in a car accident. ‘My dad couldn’t cope, so they took me in. It was meant to be temporary, but Dad died a couple of years later, so I stayed on.’
‘What did he die of?’ Ruggiero asked.
‘Pneumonia.’
‘I thought doctors could cure that?’
‘Mostly, yes. But people still die if they’re weak enough to start with. He’d been fading away for a while. He never got over losing Mum.’
After a short silence he said, ‘Go on.’
‘It was a happy sort of life. There was no money, but we were all fond of each other. People used to say that she was the pretty one and I was the brainy one. Well, she wasn’t academic, but she was sharp. All the other kids wanted to be her friend, and I was so proud because she chose me.’
Polly gave a reminiscent chuckle.
‘It was a while before it dawned on me that she’d hit on the perfect way of getting me to do her homework.’
His grin lightened the sadness in his face and gave her a moment of happiness.
‘I was flattered. I became her willing slave. But she gave full value in return. The others in the gang would have left me out of things. Children don’t give you any points for being brainy. But she saw that I was included.’
‘How old were you there?’ he asked, pointing at the two of them in sequined dresses.
‘I was sixteen, she was fifteen, and we’re dressed alike because it was the school concert and we did a singing act. I remember that while the rest of us were struggling with teenage acne she was already beautiful. Lord, but we all hated her!’
He frowned. ‘You mean the other girls bullied her?’
‘Don’t make me laugh! We didn’t bully her. We just seethed helplessly in the background. Mostly she didn’t notice, but when she did she loved it. It was a kind of tribute. She knew her own power even then.’
‘Her power,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, I remember that.’
‘She had only to snap her fingers and fellers would fall at her feet. It was like a spell she cast-over women, too. You couldn’t even hate her when she pinched your boyfriends.’
‘Plural?’
‘Oh, yes. I used to refuse to take them home because they’d take one look at her and collapse. Then I realised that they’d only tagged along with me hoping to get close to her.’
‘But you couldn’t blame her for that?’
‘Of course not. It was natural to her-like breathing. And in a way I enjoyed it too. She was like a queen, and everyone who knew her was in the magic circle.’
He turned the page and stopped at a picture of the two girls and an awkward-looking young man. He had his arm about Polly’s shoulder, but his eyes were on Sapphire. Polly was regarding him with almost a glare.
‘Who’s that?’
‘That was my fiance,’ Polly declared with a touch of tartness. ‘And this picture must have been taken at the exact moment he started to have doubts. I was madly in love with him-at least I thought I was. She just-I don’t know-smiled at him. And suddenly he was hers.’
‘She probably didn’t even know she was doing it,’ he remarked.
Oh, she knew all right, Polly thought. She didn’t even want him. He was too poor to really interest her, but she couldn’t bear the sight of a man who hadn’t fallen under her spell.
But she and Sapphire had declared a truce for tonight so she only said, ‘You’re probably right. It hurt a lot at the time, but I don’t think she realised.’
‘And yet you cared for her when she was ill?’
‘I’m a nurse. Looking after people is something you learn to separate from your feelings or opinions.’
‘I should have realised that. So what happened to this man? Did you get him back? Is he the one you’re engaged to now?’
Polly gave a soft chuckle. ‘Heavens, no! Why would I want him after that?’
‘You couldn’t forgive?’
‘It wasn’t a question of forgiveness. I just couldn’t take him seriously again.’
‘You thought, How can I be interested in a man who’s shown himself such an idiot?’ Ruggiero said lightly.
‘Well, I think my so-called “love” was only a juvenile crush, so it died very easily when he fell off his pedestal.’
‘How lucky that you found Brian, a man of good sense. How did you meet him, by the way? In the hospital?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it love at first sight?’
‘No, of course not,’ she said sharply.
‘Why do you say it like that?’
‘I don’t believe in love at first sight. It’s just a sentimental myth.’
‘Maybe it is,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Or maybe not.’
He met her eyes, and for a moment the air was full of the things she couldn’t say.
Don’t you know by now that it’s just a myth? If any man should have learned that, it’s you.
But the words were too cruel to speak.
And in that moment she knew what she was going to do. If a kind lie was needed to make him happy, then she would tell that lie. It might not be the path of virtue, but that mattered less than nothing beside the need to bring him some inner peace.
‘The thing was,’ Polly said carefully, ‘that she attracted so much love that it was easy to envy her without seeing what she didn’t have. She knew something was missing-or at least she’d begun to suspect-and I think inside her she was looking for that something. Maybe she found it with you. I hope so.’
‘Did I make her happy?’ he asked quickly. ‘Did she say so?’
‘Yes. She said you were different to the others-kinder.’
What she’d actually said was, ‘Honestly, Polly, it was so easy it was boring. I mean, he was a hot-blooded Italian. I thought at least he’d give me a run for my money. But he just collapsed at my feet like the others.’
‘Kinder,’ he murmured. ‘I’m glad. She needed kindness so much.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘On the surface she had everything. But there was a vulnerability about her that I’ll swear nobody else had seen, and that drew me to her almost more than her beauty.’
‘Men love to think a woman is frail. Just let your voice break a bit, and they fall for it every time. It makes them feel good.’
‘But is it kind to delude them?’ Polly had asked.
‘Kind? Is the world kind? Look at what’s happening to me. My looks have gone and I’m dying. Is that kind? You have to use anything that works.’
Kind. Was it that echo that had made her use that word now? It had been chance, but the way he’d seized on it had revealed a new vista.
‘You said she might have found what she was looking for with me,’ Ruggiero said after a while. ‘Did she ever say anything to make you think so?’
‘She kept her secrets,’ Polly said gently. ‘There were things she didn’t know how to say. But when she talked about you there was a special note in her voice.’
It had been derision, but he needn’t know that.
‘Are there any other pictures? From the last year?’
‘No, she wouldn’t allow that. She wanted to be remembered at her best. This one here is the very last.’
It showed Sapphire holding her child, her cheek resting caressingly against the baby’s. The illness had made her thinner, but not yet ravaged her, and she was as beautiful as she had ever been in her life. Ruggiero looked at it for a long time.
‘It’s late,’ Polly said. ‘I have to go.’
