with each other in both directions at once.
Polly loved it at first sight. It was dazzling, colourful and vivid, the narrow streets blazing with light even as darkness fell, because the little shops and restaurants stayed open very late.
‘This part of Naples is like a world apart,’ he told her.
‘I like it better than the conventional world,’ she said.
‘So do I. People seem more at ease here. Let’s have some coffee.’
They dived into a tiny coffee bar, where the owner hailed him as a friend and seated them at window table.
‘If I’d known we were coming here I’d have worn something more restrained,’ Polly said. She was wearing the elegant green gown given to her by Hope. ‘I feel overdressed.’
‘Don’t worry-you’ll be fine in the place we’re going,’ he assured her.
‘That’s a relief. I never did master the trick of getting these things right. I was always too dull or too bright for the occasion.’
‘Why must you always criticise yourself?’
‘It comes from having lived a life full of comparisons.’
‘Comparisons with her?’
‘Yes, I just got used to thinking of myself as the plain one in the pack.’ She chuckled suddenly.
‘What?’
‘I was remembering a lad who said he was madly in love with me and he wanted to shower me with flowers. I thought that was so charming-until they turned out to be buttercups he’d picked in the park. Poor fellow. I was very hard on him, but I wanted roses. Someone had given Sapphire roses the day before, and she was actually offended because they were the wrong kind. I thought that was so cool.’
‘The wrong kind?’ he asked, askance.
‘They were tea roses. He was a bit of an academic, and he explained that flowers had their own meanings, and tea roses were a way of saying that he would always remember her.’
‘Tea roses for remembrance?’ he echoed, beginning to laugh. ‘I thought that was red roses?’
‘No, red roses are for passionate love lasting to eternity,’ she said in a reciting voice. ‘Tea roses are for peaceful remembrance.’
‘I’ve never heard that before.’
‘Neither had she, and when he produced a learned tome to prove it I thought she was going to explode. He only lasted one day, but I was so envious. Roses were romantic. Buttercups were prosaic.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘How can such rich gold be prosaic?’
‘But they’re so common,’ she objected, surprised and charmed by this hint of a poetic streak. ‘You can pick buttercups anywhere.’
His next answer startled her even more.
‘Is that what makes things beautiful? Rarity? Does something stop being lovely because there are plenty? You’re rather like a buttercup yourself.’
‘You mean commonplace?’
‘I mean made of gold.’
For once she was lost for words. He was looking at her with a question in his eyes.
‘I wish I could see into your thoughts at this minute,’ he said softly.
‘There’s never any secret about my thoughts,’ she said, trying not to be aware of her heart thumping.
‘You know that’s not true,’ he said, still watching her but speaking quietly, like a man trying to lure a wild bird to come to him without frightening it.
‘It’s a pretence,’ he went on when she didn’t reply. ‘You accused me of playing the role of father, saying the right words for the wrong reasons. But you’re doing the same thing-playing the role of sensible nurse, steady and reliable, with no inner life of her own.’
‘Which is how I’m supposed to be-’
‘But now I know better. Don’t forget that. You’ve let me see that inner life and you can’t drive me out again.’
It was true that she couldn’t drive him out, but not in the way he thought.
‘All right, you saw inside me,’ she said at last. ‘So keep my secrets.’
‘Against anyone else,’ he said at once. ‘As long as you don’t keep them against me.’
She shook her head, and her long fair hair fell about her face. He reached out to brush it back and was struck by something in her look. It was vulnerable and nervous, and it startled him into drawing a sharp breath.
She heard the sound, and misunderstood it as one of dismay.
Sapphire, she thought. Say what he might, that ghost was still with them. He’d brushed back the hair and seen the wrong face.
‘You’re fooling yourself,’ she told him bitterly. ‘She’s not dead. She never will be.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of her-’
‘You were doing more than thinking. You were looking for her-here.’ She pointed to her face.
‘Polly, I-where are you going?’
To his disbelief she leapt to her feet and rushed out of the little coffee bar, leaving him staring after her, too surprised to move.
‘Get after her,’ the man at the counter said. ‘Pay me later.’
‘Thanks, Tino,’ he yelled, dashing out into the street and looking this way and that.
But she’d gone. In five seconds flat she’d managed to disappear.
Ruggiero ran, looking into the shops that were still open, but she wasn’t there. He turned and ran to the other end of the street, but again he was unlucky.
It was impossible, but she’d completely vanished.
He began to walk, twisting this way and that, exploring side streets, all of them full of song and laughter that seemed to mock his confusion. Then he remembered her cellphone and drew out his own, ready to dial her number.
But he didn’t know it. He nearly threw the phone away in disgust.
It was an hour before he walked despondently back to the coffee bar. She had probably returned home, and he would have to call and see if she was there, but there was just one last chance that she might have returned to the place where they’d started.
Even as he went in he knew it was a fruitless search. The bar was almost empty.
‘Here’s what I owe you,’ he said, giving some money to Tino.
Then he realised that Tino was winking, and jerking his head at the corner. Ruggiero looked and saw a young woman with fair hair cropped close, a sleek, elegant head. She turned and gave him an appraising look.
‘You-you-’ He despised himself for stammering, but he couldn’t help it.
She was an elfin creature-pretty, pert, with high cheekbones that he’d never noticed before and a neck that was almost swan-like. As he stood watching, struck to silence, she rose and sauntered past him to the door. One challenging glance over her shoulder, then she was gone.
A moment to get his breath and he was after her, catching her up in the street.
‘Where were you?’ he demanded, grasping her arm firmly. ‘No, don’t walk away.’
‘Let go of me.’
‘And risk you vanishing again? I don’t think so. How did you manage to vanish into thin air?’
‘I just went in there,’ she said, indicating a barber shop right next to the coffee bar. ‘It was the one place you never thought to look.’
‘But that’s a male barber’s.’
‘I know. They thought I was nuts, but I just said I wanted it off-all of it. Nothing fancy.’
‘But-is it you?’ he was peering at her.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said, emphasising the last word.
‘Do you mean,’ he asked in mounting outrage, ‘that I’ve been worried out of my mind about you and you’ve been having a haircut? Of all the crazy times to pick-’
‘It was the perfect time. I should have done it long ago. You as good as told me that tonight.’
‘I? I never said a word. Polly, have you been taking something? Because you’re talking gibberish.’
