‘For a while? Are you coming back?’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I need to be away from here, and you need to be alone with Matti. I’m starting to be in the way.’
‘That’s nonsense. I couldn’t have got this far without you.’
‘But you have reached this far, and you’ll manage the next stage better if you let go of your nurse’s hand.’ She smiled. ‘If you should need a hand to hold onto, take Matti’s. You’re both going in the same direction.’
‘Matti needs you,’ he insisted.
She waited, daring to hope. But Ruggiero didn’t say that he needed her, and her heart sank again.
‘I think Matti will be fine without me. This is his home now, and he loves it. He loves Hope and Toni and you.’
‘He’s getting used to me-’
‘No, you’re winning his heart. He’s as bright as a button, and he’s just like his poppa. Everyone can see that. That’s the bond. All you have to do is use it. You managed the big first step today.’
He didn’t look at her as he said, in a strange voice, ‘You’re not doing this very well, Polly.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked in alarm.
‘You’re doing what you once accused me of-just reciting the words. Why don’t you tell me the real reason?’
For a moment she thought he’d guessed her feelings and was challenging her to speak them. And, if so, would it be so terrible to say that she loved him?
But then he added, ‘I suppose Brian’s cutting up rough, and you feel you have to get back to him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, letting out her breath slowly. ‘It’s Brian.’
‘I wish I knew what you see in him. Isn’t he worried about you?’
‘I told you, he’s a doctor.’
‘Ah, yes-a man so busy serving humanity that he has no time for you. To hell with him! If he loved you, he’d be hammering on your door.’
‘Not every man shows his feelings by tearing the walls down.’
‘Just Neanderthals like me, huh?’
‘I didn’t-’
‘Well, you’re right. I told you how I went crazy in London when Sapphire vanished-roaming the streets, starving, half mad, knocking at doors. Why isn’t he pounding doors for you?’
‘Because for one thing he knows exactly where I am,’ she replied in her most common sense voice.
‘But does he know who you’re with?’
‘He knows I’m with a patient.’
‘Does he know about this patient? How close we are? Does he know how I depend on you? That I’ve kissed you. Does he know that you’ve kissed me?’
‘I didn’t,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t push you away because your ribs-’
‘So that was a nurse’s concern, was it? What about your other patients? Do you-?’
‘Stop it,’ she flashed, her eyes daring him to say any more. ‘Stop right there.’
He flushed.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t mean to say that.’
‘Never speak of this again. The sooner I go the better.’
She left quickly, before he could answer. Her breath was coming sharply, and every nerve in her seemed alive with conflicting emotions-anguish, temptation and desire contending with fear.
The fear was because she knew how close she’d come to yielding to what she must resist. Ruggiero wanted her to stay for Matti’s sake, but also because his own nature needed her. It wasn’t love, but for a woman who was passionately in love with him it might have been a bearable substitute.
Except for Sapphire.
He could say what he liked about being over her. It wasn’t that simple. Her body might be dead, but still she would always be alive in the son they shared, in the memories that would live as long as his heart and soul lived.
And while that was true he could never really be hers.
What tormented her most was the knowledge that if she’d pushed matters, said the right words, she could probably have manoeuvred him into a proposal. But hell would freeze over before she did so. No half measures. He must be hers completely or not at all. Anything else would mean years of misery.
So the answer was not at all. And now she would flee this place, while she could still bear it.
Hope took the news of her impending departure calmly.
‘Yes, you need to return for a while,’ she said. ‘Everything will still be here when you get back.’
‘I’m not sure if I-I don’t know how things will work out.’
Hope kissed her.
‘We’ll meet again,’ she said placidly.
Her goodbye to Matti was tearful on her side but not on his. He’d perfected the art of putting shapes into the right holes and was eager to demonstrate.
‘And he knows you’ll be back soon,’ Ruggiero said quietly.
‘Perhaps. Are my things in the car?’
‘Yes, I’m all ready to drive you to the airport, if you still want to go.’
I don’t want to go, she told him silently. I want to stay with you always. I want to love you and have you love me. But you don’t love me, and perhaps you never will. Maybe this is the only way I can find out.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I still want to go.’
At the airport he carried her bags to Check-In, and walked with her towards the departure lounge.
‘Stay,’ he said suddenly. ‘Don’t go. You belong here.’
If he’d said, Stay with me, she would have done so, even then. But ‘Stay’ wasn’t enough.
‘I’m not sure where I belong,’ she told him. ‘I have to find out.’
‘Will he meet you at the other end?’
‘No, he’s-’
‘I know-he’s busy,’ Ruggiero interrupted her, exasperated. ‘Then he has only himself to blame for anything that happens.’
He pulled her close and laid his lips on hers. Polly closed her eyes and gave herself up to the feeling for perhaps the last time. In this public place she couldn’t embrace him as she wanted to, but she tried to let him know silently that her heart would remain here, although the rest of her might never return.
‘Polly…’ he said softly.
‘I must go now. Goodbye.’
‘We’ll see each other again soon.’ He was still holding her hand.
‘Goodbye-goodbye-’
The little flat seemed to echo around her. The year spent there with her cousin and Matti had been terrible in many ways, but now that they were gone it was somehow worse. The emptiness struck her more fiercely for its contrast with the last few weeks in the cheerful villa, with members of the huge Rinucci clan wandering in and out.
She had nobody, she realised. Her only relative was Matti, and she’d parted with him for his own sake. She would visit him in Naples, and know herself to be welcome, but then she would come back here and the family doors would close behind her.
Why, that’s it! she told herself. It’s all of them I’m missing. Not only Ruggiero. I just loved being part of a big jolly family. I’m not in love with him. Not really.
With that settled it was easier to concentrate on settling in. She whisked around with a duster, bought herself some fish and chips from across the road, made a huge pot of tea and settled down to read the post that had arrived while she was away.
It was very silent. The scream of the phone was a relief.
‘Did you have a safe journey?’ Ruggiero asked from the other end.
‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Matti has been waiting for you to call and say you’d arrived. When you didn’t, I told him I’d call you.’
