Silence. This was the first time they’d been alone together since the split, and suddenly there was nothing to say. Francesco, taken totally by surprise, was full of confusion.
When he first arrived in Italy he’d been sure she would contact him, but as the silence had stretched out he’d begun to realise that she’d really meant their parting to be permanent.
But
Even then he hadn’t believed in the finality of what had happened. How could he when their love had been so total, so overwhelming? For him it had been unlike any other love. Transient affairs had come and gone. Women had spoken to him of love and he had repeated the words with, he now knew, only the vaguest understanding of their meaning.
Real love had caught him off-guard, with a young woman who was awkward, provocative, annoying, difficult for the sake of it-it had often seemed to him-unreasonable, stubborn and full of laughter.
Perhaps it was her laughter that had won him. He wasn’t a man who laughed often. He understood a good joke, but amusement hadn’t formed a major part of his life.
She, on the other hand, would never stop. With so much stacked against her she would collapse with delight at the slightest thing. Often her laughter was aimed at himself, for reasons he could not divine. At first it had been an aggravation, then a delight. Let her laugh at him if she pleased. He was her happy slave. Nothing would have made him admit that to anyone else, but within his heart he had known a flowering.
In her arms he’d become a different man, shedding the tough outer shell like unwanted armour and being passionately grateful to her for making it happen.
He’d known what had happened to him, and had assumed it was the same for her. He’d tried to take reassurance from this, reasoning that the sheer violence of her feelings meant that she was bound to change her mind about their parting. She would calm down, understand that their love was worth fighting for, forgive him whatever he’d done wrong-for he still wasn’t quite sure-even, perhaps, apologise.
But none of it had happened. She’d been there when he’d cleared out his things from the apartment, had made him a coffee and told him she was sorry it had ended this way. But that was all. The long, heartfelt discussion that should have marked the end of their relationship had simply never happened. Night after night he’d sat by the phone, waiting for her to call and say they must meet just once more, to clear the air. But the phone hadn’t rung. He’d sat there for hours, until the silence had eaten into him and he’d been close to despair.
He hadn’t called her after that. Not even when he was leaving for Naples. Why bother? It was over.
And now, when he’d just about taught himself to believe that they would never meet again, here she was, tearing up his preconceptions, stranding him in new territory, as awkward and unpredictable as ever. He wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel.
Sitting next to him in the car, Celia tuned in to his agitation and distress. That was easy-because she shared it. She had come to his home knowing she might meet him, thinking herself prepared. She had even congratulated herself on her well-laid plans, but they had all vanished the moment she’d heard his voice. In the surge of joy at being near him again she’d almost forgotten how carefully she had arranged everything, and for a wild moment had almost thrown herself into his arms.
But that would have been a disaster-as she’d recognised when she’d forced herself to calm down. In his arms, in his bed, she would forget the things that had driven them apart-but only for a little while. Soon it would all happen again, and the second parting would be final. At all costs she must prevent that.
She had come to Italy with a set purpose. She would reclaim him, and this time it would be for ever-or never.
‘We’re just entering Naples now,’ he said at last. ‘Have you been to the Three Bells before?’
‘Yes, several times. I’ve got a favourite table in the garden, under the trees.’
As he drew up she said, ‘Thank you for the lift. There’s no need for me to trouble you any further.’
‘Don’t speak to me as though I was a stranger,’ he growled. ‘Let me escort you to the table. I won’t try to take your arm. That’s a promise.’
He spoke roughly, but she knew him well enough to hear the pain that would have escaped anybody else.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, also speaking roughly, to cover the fact that his unhappiness wounded her. ‘I’d like you to escort me. Then,’ she added, hastily recovering her self-possession, ‘I can buy you a drink and show off my Italian.’
‘It’s a deal.’
He opened the door for her, and there followed an awkward moment when she reached out for his hand, but it wasn’t there. Swearing, he lunged forward, trying to put things right, and stumbled over Jacko, who’d got himself into position. Celia instinctively tightened her hand on his, almost saving him from falling.
He swore again, louder this time, and with real fury.
‘I’m sorry,’ he snapped. ‘The hell with everything. I’m sorry.’
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ she said hastily.
He went ahead, followed by Jacko, with Celia walking afterwards. When they were seated at the table under the trees she was as good as her word, speaking to the waiter in Italian and ordering drinks for them both.
‘You did that very well,’ he conceded when they’d been served.
‘You’re a good teacher. I took your lessons to heart.’
‘Some of them,’ he remembered. ‘Some you tossed back in my face.’
‘Not about Italian.’
‘No, just everything else. It got so that everything I said was wrong-’
‘Only because you started every sentence with, “I’ll do that for you,” or “You shouldn’t be doing that.”’
‘And you ended up wanting to kill me,’ he remembered. ‘I suppose I’m lucky to still be alive.’
‘Yes, we were going downhill fairly fast,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry about what happened at the car. I thought I knew what you wanted, so I didn’t reach out my hand to you-’
‘But why not? You’d have assisted a sighted woman as a matter of courtesy, wouldn’t you? So why not me?’
He drew a slow breath of frustration.
‘Excuse me while I bang my head on the tree,’ he said at last.
Celia gave a sudden chuckle. ‘It’s like old times to hear you take that long breath. It always meant that you were clenching and unclenching your hands.’
Goaded, he spoke without thinking. ‘I don’t know what you’d do with eyes if you had them. You see everything without them.’
She beamed. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’
‘Now you’re confusing me again.’
‘It’s the first time you’ve ever made a joke about my eyes,’ she explained.
‘It wasn’t exactly a joke.’
‘Pity. I thought you were improving. Anyway, don’t apologise about what happened at the car. If we’d both fallen it would have been my fault.’
‘Or your new friend’s, for moving when I wasn’t expecting him to.’
‘Don’t blame poor Jacko,’ Celia protested, instinctively reaching down to caress the dog’s head. ‘He was only doing his job.’
‘But who is he? Last time I saw you, you had Wicksy.’
‘Poor Wicksy was getting old, and it wouldn’t have been fair to bring him to a strange country. He’d earned a comfortable retirement, and that’s what he has. Remember how he liked children? There are three in his new home to make a fuss of him. I went to say goodbye before I came to Italy, and I could tell that he was happy.’
She stopped suddenly.
‘What is it?’ he asked gently.
‘As I left I could hear him playing with the children, barking with excitement, as though he’d forgotten me already. I’m glad of that, truly. I’d hate to think of him pining for me, but he was the best friend I had.’
‘And now you’re pining for him?’ Francesco supplied.
