He groaned. She would think he had been deliberately spying on her.
She turned away, contemptuously it seemed to Luke. He stood watching as the family disappeared into the church, then he hurried away, seeking to get back to the Residenza as fast as possible.
He needed time alone to think. Before his eyes she had changed into someone else. He’d known her, or thought he had, as sharp, funny, cool, in control. The other night he’d watched as she’d talked to Gianni’s picture, but she’d done so with a gentle melancholy. The grieving, devastated woman of today was different, terrible.
Inside the flat he waited, listening, until night fell and the building was quiet. At last he descended the stairs to her apartment. The lights were on, but the curtains were closed. What was happening behind them? Had she taken shelter in her private world with Gianni, the world that excluded everyone else, especially him?
After a long time the curtains parted, revealing her face, but at once she let them fall.
‘Minnie,’ he cried, knocking on the door. ‘Minnie, please open up. I must see you.’
There was no sound or movement, and he thought she was going to ignore him. But then the door opened a few inches.
‘Go away,’ she said.
‘I’ll go when we’ve talked. Please let me in.’
Reluctantly she stepped back from the door. When he’d closed it behind him Luke stood looking at her. Their brief friendly intimacy of the other night might never have been. Now she was really his enemy, and for reasons that had nothing to do with the Residenza.
‘I came to say I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘You were spying on me, and you think “sorry” covers it?’ She spoke with her back to him.
‘I wasn’t spying. I’d been to a shop and happened to walk back that way. It was pure chance; please believe me.’
When she turned he was shocked by her face, which was pale and dreadful, as though she were living on the edge of endurance. ‘All right, I believe you,’ she said tiredly. ‘But it’s none of your business, and I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Do you ever talk about it, with anyone?’
She shrugged. ‘Netta sometimes-no, not really.’
‘Don’t you think you should?’ he asked gently.
‘Why?’ she asked wildly. ‘Why can’t I have some privacy? Gianni and I-this is mine. It’s
‘Except that there is no Gianni,’ he said, suddenly harsh. ‘He’s just a memory now. Or maybe no more than a fantasy.’
‘What does that matter? He made me happy then and he makes me happy now. Not many people ever have that kind of happiness. I want to keep it.’
‘But you can’t keep it. It’s gone, but you’ll turn your back on life rather than admit it.’
‘Who cares about life if I’ve got something better?’
‘There
‘People who say that don’t know. They don’t know what it’s like to be so close to someone that it’s as though you were one person. Once you’ve had it, you always have it. You
He’d been asking himself that, and the answer scared him.
‘Can’t you see that you’re too young to live with a ghost?’ he said, almost imploring.
‘The only thing I can see is that you have no right to interfere in my life. What I do or don’t do has nothing to do with you.’
‘You can’t prevent me wanting to stop you throwing your life away.’
‘It’s mine, to do with as I please,’ she said, angry and frustrated that he wouldn’t understand. She paused, took a deep breath and spoke with an effort. ‘Look, I’m sure you’re a nice man-’
‘Be honest. That’s not what you really think of me.’
‘All right, No! I think you’re a smug, patronising, interfering, arrogant so-and-so, who’s playing games with my mind for the fun of it. I don’t like you. You’re too damned sure of yourself. Is that honest enough for you?’
‘It’ll do for starters.’
‘Then please go and leave me alone.’
‘Why? So that you can have another chat with a man who isn’t there?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Which of you dislikes me most? Him or you?’
‘Both of us.’
‘Do you do everything he tells you?’ he shouted.
He hadn’t meant to say his last words but her stubbornness was causing something cruel and dangerous to rise in him, and it made him leave, fast, shutting the door sharply behind him. Outside, he stood on the staircase for a moment before going slowly down to the ground and out of the courtyard, to spend the rest of the night wandering the streets of Trastevere in a black mood.
CHAPTER SIX
THE next day he received a call from her secretary, making a formal appointment in her office. He wore a respectable suit in dark grey, with a snowy white shirt and a dark red tie, and was glad of it when he saw her office, a large, impressive room, the walls lined with legal books.
Almost as if inspired by the same thought, Minnie too wore a grey suit with a white blouse. He briefly considered making a mild joke about their similarity, but a glance at her face changed his mind. She was pale, with very little make-up. Her hair was drawn back against her skull in a way that seemed designed to deny life-or, perhaps, to send him a message.
‘There was no need for that, you know,’ he said gently.
‘I’m not sure of your meaning.’
‘Aren’t you? I thought you might understand. Oh, well, never mind.’
‘Signor Cayman, if we keep to the matter in hand I think we’ll make more progress.’
Her voice was cool, self-possessed, the voice of a woman in control of the situation. But he heard in it something else, a tension that made him look at her more closely, and realise that her eyes were dark and haunted.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said suddenly.
He hadn’t meant to speak the words, but they burst out.
‘There’s no need for apologies,’ she replied coolly, ‘if we can just stick to business.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I meant I’m sorry for the things I said the other night. I had no right-it was none of my business-’
‘Excuse me,’ she said swiftly, and left the room before he could realise what she meant to do.
He frowned, hardly able to believe that she’d fled him, unable to cope with what he was saying. How deep a nerve had he touched with his rash words?
The secretary brought him coffee. He drank it, then passed the next few minutes standing at the huge window, looking out over Rome. From here the view was breathtaking, with its distant view of the dome of St Peter’s, glowing under the sun. If he hadn’t known it before he would have known now that Signora Pepino was a supremely successful lawyer who could afford everything of the best. It gave a new poignancy to her refusal to leave her shabby old home.
Minnie appeared ten minutes later, her composure restored.
‘I apologise for that,’ she said. ‘I remembered a phone call I had to make.’
She seated herself, indicating for him to take the chair facing her desk. ‘I gather you’ve now been over the building extensively and seen for yourself what needs to be done.’
‘I have,’ he said, sitting down and opening his briefcase, ‘although we may not have the same ideas as to what needs to be done.’
