She dragged her attention back to the matter at hand and after an hour they both had everything they needed. Natalia wished her luck as she showed them to the door.
‘I’m here for anything you need, anything at all,’ she said. ‘You have my number. Please do use it. And Charlie, I can’t thank you enough. A couple of those girls are really talented and there is one boy for whom I have very high hopes. For them to have an experience like this, to dance with an artist like Violeta, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It would have broken my heart if the gala hadn’t gone ahead. I’m so glad that they are in your hands, with someone who isn’t just a teacher but someone who knows what it is to dream.’
Matteo was quiet as they made their way down the steep stone staircase, through the foyer and out into the busy street below. He’d sent the car away, suggesting to Charlie that they walk back to the hotel, picking up dinner on the way. ‘Rome is very walkable,’ he’d said. ‘And, of course, there is the Metro if you do get tired.’
After an afternoon of travelling, Charlie had relished the thought of a walk. Besides, her parents always said that you only ever got to know a city by walking through it. But the silence was so charged she almost wished for a car and the presence of a driver to dispel it.
‘We need to cross the Tiber,’ Matteo said after they’d walked a block in silence. ‘We’re heading towards the Piazza Navona. It’s tourist central but the place we’re looking for is around there.’
‘Great!’ she said brightly. He half smiled but said nothing else, his expression hidden by his sunglasses.
‘Natalia seems nice,’ she said after a while.
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to be a ballet dancer.’
‘It’s all such a long time ago now,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I only really auditioned because I felt like I should. I knew even then that it’s one thing to be the very best in your own dance school, one thing to be good enough to go to elite weekend classes in London, but it’s quite another to get a place to train. It’s not easy to be so very close but in the end just not good enough. It’s not something I like to dwell on so I put it behind me. And I love teaching. I wouldn’t change how things worked out if I could.’
‘But you’re not teaching now?’
She looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. ‘It’s still term time in the UK, isn’t it? And you haven’t mentioned having to contact your job so I assume you’re not working.’
‘No,’ she said slowly, trying to figure out how to answer his question without volunteering any extra information about their life together as she had promised ‘I meant to, but things were so hectic when we got back from our honeymoon I put it off and ended up volunteering at the local community centre as a stopgap. Soon the centre seemed to take up all my time and of course money wasn’t actually an issue. You had more than enough for both of us and didn’t mind if I worked for a salary or not.’ She paused, trying to find the courage to say the words she’d never actually said to him before. ‘What I didn’t expect was how much I disliked being dependent on anyone, even someone as generous as you. I think maybe not working was a mistake.’ She bit her lip as she realised she was speaking in the past tense, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Do you resent me for it?’
‘No, of course not.’ It was true that financially at least, Matteo was generous to a fault. He’d presented her with a credit card and her bank account was topped up weekly; she’d had more money than she knew what to do with. But it wasn’t hers. And so when she had rushed home triumphantly brandishing a dress from a new designer she’d found in Dalston and he’d suggested she choose something less eccentric for the ball she’d bought it for she’d felt obliged to. After all, he’d paid for it. Just as he’d paid for her hairdressing appointments, the food they ate, her activities. It had become harder and harder to assert her independence when their tastes were so different. But when she had casually suggested looking for a teaching position Matteo had tried to put her off. It was such a demanding, time-consuming job, he had said. It would make it even harder for them to spend time together, he needed her to help him entertain business contacts too.
And, blinded by love and wanting their marriage to be a success, she had agreed. She should have known better than to go against her instincts like that. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘But it was the wrong choice for me, for now at least. I love my job; it’s part of who I am.’
‘Then,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘when we get home let’s find you the perfect job.’
‘When we get home. Yes.’ But where was her home? Not in London and she couldn’t stay with her grandmother for ever. She’d planned to visit her parents in Malaysia as part of her trip but, much as they would welcome her, she wouldn’t want to stay with them for more than a few weeks. She’d lived all over the globe and yet still didn’t have a home of her own. She’d thought it would be wherever Matteo was. How she wished that was true.
* * *
Matteo was unsure why Charlie’s confession of her youthful wish to be a dancer had struck him so hard. Of course it was impossible to know everything about a person, especially after just a year of actually knowing each other, but
